After two days of practice, the tourists thought they were seasoned riders. They bounded onto their donkeys, and had little trouble guiding them out of their stalls. Peggol vez Menk looked almost as apprehensive as his henchman who’d gone to search the stable. He drew in his white robe all around him, as if fearing to have it soiled. “You expect me to ride one of these creatures?” he said.

“You were the one who wanted to come along,” Radnal answered. “You don’t have to ride; you could always hike along beside us.”

Peggol glared. “Thank you, no, freeman vez Krobir.” He pointedly did not say Radnal vez. “Will you be good enough to show me how to ascend one of these perambulating peaks?”

“Certainly, freeman vez Menk.” Radnal mounted a donkey, dismounted, got on again. The donkey gave him a jaundiced stare, as if asking him to make up his mind. He dismounted once more, and took the snort that followed as the asinine equivalent of a resigned shrug. To Peggol, he said, “Now you try, freeman.”

Unlike Evillia or Lofosa, the Eye and Ear managed to imitate Radnal’s movements without requiring the tour guide to take him by the waist (just as well, Radnal thought — Peggol wasn’t smooth and supple like the Highhead girls). He said, “When back in Tarteshem, freeman vez Krobir, I shall stick exclusively to motors.”

“When I’m in Tarteshem, freeman vez Menk, I do the same,” Radnal answered.

The party set out a daytenth after sunrise: not as early as Radnal would have liked but, given the previous day’s distractions, the best he could expect. He led them south, toward the lowlands at the core of Trench Park. Under his straw hat, Moblay Sopsirk’s son was already sweating hard.

Something skittered into hiding under the fleshy leaves of a desert spurge. “What did we just nearly see there, freeman?” Golobol asked.