The smuggler shrugged, a strangely expressive gesture in a high-shouldered bony body.

'How far are we from the Tower?'

'I found you forty kilometres from the Sky Pillar. We have travelled maybe two kilometres ssince.'

'Forty! But someone shot at me at the Tower.'

'Maybe you swim well for a drowned man.'

Dom lifted himself gradually to his feet, his eyes on the twisting knife.

'Do you gather much pilac?'

'Eighteen kilos in the last twenty-eight years,' said the phnobe, watching the sky absently. Despite himself, Dom did a quick calculation.

'You must be very skilful.'

'Many times I die. On other time lines. Maybe this universe is my chance in a million and the other thousands of selves are dead. What is skill then?'

The knife continued its brief flights from hand to hand. Overhead the sun shone like a gong. Dom felt dizzy and was briefly sick but managed to stay upright, waiting for his chance.

The phnobe blinked.

'I seek an omen,' he said.

'What for?'

'To see, you understand, if I am to kill you.'

A flock of blue flamingoes flapped slowly overhead. Dom gasped for air and readied himself.

The knife was thrown faster than he could follow it. It flashed once, high in the air. A flamingo dipped out of the flock as if coming into land, and crashed heavily among the reeds. The tension in the air snapped like a finely-drawn wire.

Ignoring Dom, the smuggler loped across to it, drew his knife from its breast and began to pluck it. He paused after a minute and glanced up sharply, pointing with the knife.

'A word of advice. Do not ever again even think of a heroic leap at any person holding a tshuri knife. You have about you the air of one with many lives to wasste. Maybe therefore you rissk your life easily. But foolish gestures towards a knife end sadly.'

Dom let the tension flow out of him, aware that a fraught moment had passed and gone.