Aarisiim returned, approaching timidly.

"There is news, O King That Is."

"From which front?"

"Both, O King."

Faraataa stared. "Well, how bad is it?"

Aarisiim hesitated. "In the west they are destroying the pilligrigorms. They have a kind of fire that they throw from metal tubes, which melts their shells. And the enemy is advancing rapidly through the zone where we have let the pilligrigorms loose."

"And in the east?" said Faraataa stonily.

"They have broken through the forest, and we were not able to erect the birdnet vines in time. They are searching for Ilirivoyne, so the scouts report."

"To find the Danipiur. To make an alliance with her against us." Faraataa's eyes blazed. "It is bad, Aarisiim, but we are far from finished! Call Benuuiab here, and Siimii, and some of the others. We will go to Ilirivoyne ourselves, and seize the Danipiur before they can reach her. And we will put her to death, if need be, and then who will they make their alliance with? If they seek a Piurivar with the authority to govern, there will be only Faraataa, and Faraataa will not sign treaties with Unchanging Ones."

"Seize the Danipiur?" said Aarisiim doubtfully. "Put the Danipiur to death?"

"If I must," Faraataa said, "I will put all this world to death, before I give it back to them!"

5

In early afternoon they halted at a place in the eastern Rift called Prestimion Vale, which Valentine understood had once been an important farming center. His journey across tormented Zimroel had taken him through scenes of almost unrelieved grimness—abandoned farms, depopulated cities, signs of the most terrifying struggles for survival—but this Prestimion Vale was surely one of the most disheartening places of all.

Its fields were charred and blackened, its people silent, stoic, stunned. "We were growers of lusavender and rice," said Valentine's host, a planter named Nitikkimal, who seemed to be the district mayor. "Then came the lusavender smut, and everything died, and we had to burn the fields. And it will be two years more, at least, before it is safe to plant again. But we have remained. Not one of us from Prestimion Vale has fled, your majesty. We have little to eat—and we Ghayrogs need very little, you understand, but even we do not have enough—and there is no work for us to do, which makes us restless, and it is sad to look at the land with these ashes upon it. But it is our land, and so we stay. Will we ever plant here again, your majesty?"

"I know that you will," said Valentine. And wondered if he were giving these people false comfort.

Nitikkimal's house was a great manor at the head of the valley, with lofty beams of black ghannimor wood, and a roof of green slate. But it was damp and drafty within, as though the planter no longer had the heart to make repairs as they became necessary in Prestimion Vale's rainy and humid climate.