"You don't seem very happy to see them. These are your friends, remember? The people you've come to see."

Scriber cocked his heads sarcastically. "Yeah, yeah. Don't rub it in. I think you've known from the beginning that I'm not all for Flenser."

"I guessed."

"Well, the game is over now. Whatever came down this afternoon is worth more to… uh, my friends than anything I could have learned on Hidden Island."

"What about Tyrathect?"

"Heh, heh. Our esteemed companion is more than genuine, I fear. I'd bet she's a Flenser Lord, not the low-rank Servant she seems at first glance. I expect that many of her kind are leaking back over the mountains these days, happy to get out of the Long Lakes Republic. Hide your behinds, fellow. If she spots us, those troopers will get us sure."

Peregrine moved deeper into the hollows and burrows that pocked the heather. He had an excellent view back along the valley. If Tyrathect were not already on the scene, he'd see her long before she would him.

"Peregrine?"

"Yes?"

"You're a pilgrim. You've traveled the world… since the beginning of time, you'd have us believe. How far do your memories really go back?"

Given the situation, Wickwrackrum was inclined to honesty. "Like you'd expect: a few hundred years. Then we're talking about legends, recollections of things that probably happened, but with the details all mixed and muddled."

"Well, I haven't traveled much, and I'm fairly new. But I do read. A lot. There's never been anything like this before. That is a made thing down there. It came from higher than I can measure. You've read Aramstriquesa or Astrologer Belelele? You know what this could be?"

Wickwrackrum didn't recognize the names. But he was a pilgrim. There were lands so far away that no one spoke any language he knew. In the Southseas he met folk who thought there was no world beyond their islands and who ran from his boats when he came ashore. Even more, one part of him had been an islander and had watched that coming ashore.