The Morgaffo glowered. “If you have finished examining my work, freeman, perhaps you will give someone else a breakfast.”

“Certainly,” Radnal answered in a voice as icy as he could make it. Dokhnor certainly had the proverbial Morgaffo arrogance. Maybe that proved he wasn’t a spy — a real spy would have been smoother. Or maybe a real spy would think no one would expect him to act like a spy, and act like one as a disguise. Radnal realized he could extend the chain to as many links as his imagination could forge. He gave up.

When all the breakfast packs were eaten, all the sleepsacks deflated and stowed, the group headed over to remount their donkeys for the trip into Trench Park itself. As he had the night before, Radnal warned, “The trail will be much steeper today. As long as we take it slow and careful, we’ll be fine.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the ground quivered beneath his feet. Everyone stood stock — still; a couple of people exclaimed in dismay. The birds, on the other hand, all fell silent. Radnal had lived in earthquake country his whole life. He waited for the shaking to stop, and after a few heartbeats it did.

“Nothing to get alarmed at,” he said when the quake was over. “This part of Tartesh is seismically active, probably because of the inland sea that dried up so long ago. The crust of the earth is still adjusting to the weight of so much water being gone. There are a lot of fault lines in the area, some quite close to the surface.”

Dokhnor of Kellef stuck up a hand. “What if an earthquake should — how do you say it? — make the Barrier Mountains fall?”

“Then the Bottomlands would flood.” Radnal laughed. “Freeman, if it hasn’t happened in the last five and a half million years, I won’t lose sleep worrying that it’ll happen tomorrow, or any time I’m down in Trench Park.”