“Your face was a picture!” Gesalla paused in her eating to parody an expression of fear.

“I’ve just thought of something,” Toller said. “Have we any writing materials?”

“No. Why?”

“You and I are the only two people on the whole of Overland who know what Lain wrote about the ptertha. I wish I had thought of telling Chakkell. All those hours together on the ship — and I didn’t even mention it!”

“You weren’t to know there would be brakka trees and ptertha here. You thought you were leaving all that behind.”

Toller was gripped by a new and greater urgency which had nothing to do with his personal aspirations. “Listen, Gesalla, this is the most important thing either of us will ever have the chance to do. You have got to make sure that Pouche and Chakkell hear and understand Lain’s ideas.

“If we leave the brakka trees alone, to live out their time and die naturally, the ptertha here will never become our enemies. Even a modest amount of culling — the way they did it in Chamteth — is probably too much because the ptertha there had turned pink and that’s a sign that.…” He stopped speaking as he saw that Gesalla was staring at him, her expression of odd blend of concern and accusation.

“Is there anything the matter?”

“You said/had to make sure that Pouche and.…“Gesalla set her dish down and came to kneel beside him. “What’s going to happen to us, Toller?”

He forced himself to laugh then exaggerated the effects of the pain it caused, playing for time in which to cover up his blunder. “We’re going to found our own dynasty, that’s what is going to happen to us. Do you think I would let any harm come to you?”

“I know you wouldn’t — and that’s why you frightened me.”

“Gesalla, all I meant was that we must leave a message here… or somewhere else where it will be found and taken to the King. I’m not able to move around much, so I have to turn the responsibility over to you. I’ll show you how to make charcoal, and then we’ll find something to.…”

Gesalla was slowly shaking her head and her eyes were magnified by the first tears he had ever seen there. “It’s all unreal, isn’t it? It’s all just a dream.”

“Flying to Overland was just a dream — once — but now we’re here, and in spite of everything we’re still alive.” He drew her down to lie beside him, her head cushioned on his shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, Gesalla. All I can promise is that…how did you put it?… that we are not going to surrender life to the butchers. That has to be enough for us. Now, why don’t you rest and let me watch over you, just for a change?”

“All right, Toller.” Gesalla made herself comfortable, fitting her body to his whilst being careful of his injuries, and in an amazingly short time she was asleep. Her transition from anxious wakefulness to the tranquillity of sleep was announced by the faintest of snores, and Toller smiled as he stored the event in his memory for use in future bantering. The only home they were likely to know on Overland would be built of such insubstantial timbers.

He tried to stay awake, to watch over her, but the vapours of an insidious weariness were coiling in his head — and the last Overlander’s lantern was again glowing in the rock pile.

The only way to escape from it was to close his eyes.… The soldier standing over him was holding a sword.

Toller tried to moves to take some defensive action in spite of his weakness and the encumbrance of Gesalla’s body draped across his own, then he saw that the sword in the soldier’s hand was Leddravohr’s, and even in his befuddled state he was able to assess the situation correctly.

It was too late to do anything, anything at all — because his little domain had already been surrounded, conquered and overrun.

Further evidence came from the shifting of the light as other soldiers moved around beyond the immediate area of the cave mouth. There were the sounds of men beginning to talk as they realised that silence was no longer required, and from somewhere nearby came the snorting and slithering of a bluehorn as it made its way down the bill. Toller squeezed Gesalla’s shoulder to bring her awake, and although she remained immobile he felt her spasm of alarm.

The soldier with the sword moved away and his place was taken by a slit-eyed major, whose head was in near-silhouette against the sky as he looked down at Toller. “Can you stand up?”

“No — he’s too ill,” Gesalla said, rising to a kneeling position.

“I can stand.” Toller caught her arm. “Help me, Gesalla — I prefer to be on my feet at this time.” With her assistance he achieved a standing position and faced the major. He was dully surprised to find that, when he should have been oppressed by failure and prospects of death, he was discomfited by the trivial fact that he was naked.

“Well, major,” he said, “what is it you want of me?”

The major’s face was professionally impassive. “The King will speak to you now.”

He moved aside and Toller saw the paunchy figure of Chakkell approaching. His dress was subdued and plain, suitable for cross-country riding, but suspended from his neck was a huge blue jewel which Toller had seen only once before, when it had been worn by Prad. Chakkell had retrieved Leddravohr’s sword from the first soldier and was carrying it with the blade leaning on his right shoulder, a neutral position which could quickly become one of attack. His swarthy well-padded face and brown scalp were gleaming in the equatorial heat.

He came within two paces of Toller and surveyed him from head to toe. “Well, Maraquine, I promised I would remember you.”

“Majesty, I daresay I have given you and your loved ones good cause to remember me.” Toller was aware of Gesalla drawing closer to him, and for her sake he went on to rid his words of any possible ambiguity. “A fall of a thousand miles would have.…”

“Don’t start rhyming at me again,” Chakkell cut in. “And lie down, man, before you fall down!”

He nodded to Gesalla, ordering her to ease Toller down on to the quilts, and signalled for the major and the rest of his escort to withdraw. When they had retreated out of earshot he squatted in the dirt and, unexpectedly, lobbed the black sword over Toller and into the dimness of the cave.

“We are going to have a brief conversation,” he said, “and not a word of it is to be repeated. Is that clear?”

Toller nodded uncertainly, wondering if he dared introduce hope to the confusion of his thoughts and emotions.

“There is a certain amount of ill-feeling towards you among the nobility and among the military who completed the crossing,” Chakkell said comfortably. “After all, not many men have committed regicide twice in the space of three days. It can be dealt with, however. There is a great air of practicality in our new statelet — and the settlers appreciate that loyalty to one living king is more beneficial to the health than a similar regard for two dead kings. Are you wondering about Pouche?”

“Does he live?”

“He lives, but he was quick to see that the subtleties of his kind of statesmanship would be inappropriate to the situation we have here. He is more than happy to relinquish his claims to the throne — if a chair made from old gondola parts can be dignified with that name.”

It came to Toller that he was seeing Chakkell as he had never seen him before — cheerful, loquacious, at ease with his environment. Was it simply that he preferred supremacy for himself and his offspring in a seedling society to preordained secondary role in the long-established and static Kolcorron? Or was it that he possessed an adventurous spirit which had been liberated by the unique circumstances of the great migration? Looking closely at Chakkell, encouraged by his instincts, Toller experienced a sudden upwelling of relief and the purest kind of joy.

Gesalla and I are going to have children, he thought. And it doesn’t matter that she and I will have to die some day, because our children will have children, and the future stretches out before us… on and on… on and on, except that…