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Avec could grab on to anything that was fastened, off he spun, up into the air, head over heels, and down
on the flat of his broad back.
He yelled.
I was no longer amused. I had seen his back.
I quieted my mirvol and kicked him to close his wings, then hopped off to get to Avec, who lay winded,
Ilter s mirvol had responded faster, and when I reached Avec his nephew was already there, bending
over him, lifting his head. I saw Ilter s face.
I m all right, Ilter, lad. The beasts aren t trained like they used to be.
I know, Uncle. Lie still for a moment while I and Ilter stopped talking and began to feel his uncle s
body. He looked up. Nothing broken.
Help me up, lad, for it fair thwacked me, like the kick of a calsany.
Avec had made no outcry. I did not wish to shame him by inquiring about his back, for a man of Kregen
is touchy about pain and punishment stupidly so, sometimes.
We took to the air once again and flew steadily on downstream along the course of the Black River.
Dovad turned out to be a sizable town, located where the river broadened into a lake before plunging on
and through a low range of hills, scantily clad with brush and gorse, for they were rocky and looked of
fairly recent origin, being sharp-peaked. I saw the way the river plunged over a smooth bulbous edge of
land to fall beyond, the white smother of the foot of the falls out of view as we landed.
It seemed sensible to us to remove all signs that these mirvols were military beasts, although the brands
on their leathery skins would not easily come out, for obvious reasons. In the end Avec said, The
trouble they will bring is not worth their sale price.
I agree, said Ilter.
So we took the silks and furs and Avec was about to give his mount a blow to send him into the air
when I stopped him.
Let us take the saddles, if they are not marked, and sell them, and say our flyers perished of a disease.
Ilter said, The saddles are marked.
Everything is marked in Hamal, it seems.
We drove the mirvols into the air and soon lost them under the declining rays of She of the Veils as they
flew back to Strom Nopac s aerial stables.
Although I had clothes, of a sort, and flying silks and furs to sling over my shoulder, I was still
weaponless. It seemed most strange to me that I should walk the face of Kregen without a sword
strapped to my side, and yet the very law of this country of Hamal offered a kind of surrogate guarantee
of safety. I would find a weapon soon, that I knew.
We have not come far from Orlush, said Ilter as we waited for the dawn. They will think to look
farther afield than this. And Dovad is a fine large town almost a smot. I think we would do well to
think of new names for ourselves, and after a few days they will forget about us, and we can move on.
Will they forget, them and their laws? I said.
Ilter laughed. Hamal is a large empire. There are many kingdoms and Kovnates. Why, I am told it is
four hundred twenty dwaburs from the north coast to He of the Commendable Countenance. If such a
distance can be imagined.
Avec scoffed at his nephew. You know a great deal for a village smith, nephew! Did Nelda the Cane
then thwack some learning into your thick skull?
Into the other end, Avec, which is more than she ever did for you! And, further, to display my
knowledge, earned by much standing up when I could not sit, the empire is three hundred or more
dwaburs from the east coast to the Mountains of the West, which have too many names for any one man
to remember.
Aye and very few men have seen them, by Krun!
I knew from what Queen Fahia of Hyrklana had told me that the Emperor of Hamal was extending his
powers over these distant mountains, and south of the River Os, and, also, that the maniac was trying to
invade South Pandahem all at the same time. With the scale of these operations demanding such
enormous resources and manpower, I fancied that Ilter had the right of it. In the event he was proved
right. We spent a few days in Dovad using the money from one of the saddlebags, and bought ourselves
new outfits, very tasteful, too. When we took the boat down the Black River we felt in our bones we
were as free as fluttcleppers.
As Avec said, The guard who shouted had his money in his saddlebag so he could keep an eye on it
during watch. He did us a good turn, after all.
I doubted this, knowing, probably, a little more about soldiers than Avec, despite that they were his
countrymen. The money was neatly pouched in mashcera and I felt it would more likely be true to say it
was Strom Nopac s, under guard.
We took a boat below the falls and the captain, a cheerful Amith, delighted in keeping his crew hard at it
to beat the record for downstream journeys set up only a season ago by a great rival. The boats on the
Black River are usually flat-bottomed, wide, with puntlike bows, and three decks. They are brightly
painted and kept in tip-top condition. Downstream the Amiths swear they are faster than a hack flyer,
although this is generally conceded as just another of the Amith s genial boasts.
Strange folk, the Amith, with the hindquarters and rear body of a totrix, and with an apim s torso and
arms rising from the junction of what appear to be two entirely different bodies. What was originally the
center pair of legs of the totrix have become what appear to be the lower limbs of an apim. The males
are usually black-bearded, and they look undeniably impressive. Many of the females have masses of
curly golden hair, which gives them an oddly coquettish air, most strange, as I have said. And when I say
strange, I have in mind that Kregen is peopled by many strange races, of which the diffs called Amith are
a proud and delightful example. There is a legend which has received wide credence that the Amiths
were the original inhabitants of Hamal.
What with the money and what with my two companions, I spent a most agreeable time roaming around
central Hamal. The country is undeniably big. It has a larger population per area than many other places
by contrast Segesthes is practically deserted and I believe all three of us found in this wandering a
kind of release from normal cares. For we all knew we would have to get back to work one day.
The year to which I had been sentenced by the Star Lords slowly crept by. Ilter would find himself a job
as a smith and do very well. Avec would go back to being a Niltch.
He said to me one day as we waited to board one of the wheeled vehicles plying for public hire in the
main street of Hemlad, a fair-sized town out toward the east of Dovad, You and Ilter should come with
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