“We come down to it, then,” Reatur said, still trying to provoke a reaction from him. “Why should I not?”

“Because I aim to inherit this domain from you,” Fralk said.

“That is why I treated it as my home to be.”

The chamber with the strange thing had no weapons in it. Reatur knew that. His encircling eyes glanced around it anyway, just in case. One of the things he saw was Ternat’s eyestalks twisting in a similar search. Another was that Fralk had turned blue. He was afraid now.

If he had been standing on Fralk’s claws, Reatur would have been more than afraid. “Shall I think you have gone mad, and set you free on that account?” he said. “I could almost believe it. Why else would you speak so, in the presence of a domain master and his eldest?”

Fralk slowly regained his greenish tint. “Because, the domains that come from the first bud of Skarmer grow straitened in their lands. Just as mates must bud, Skarmer must grow.”

“How?” Reatur thought about what he knew of the lay of the land west of the Ervis Gorge: not much. But one piece of knowledge came to him. “Are not all the domains in the west Skarmer, all the way to the next Great Gorge?”

“They are,” Fralk said. “We will be coming to the east, across the Ervis Gorge.”

“He lies!” Ternat exclaimed. “What will the Skarmer domains do, send one male at a time across the rope bridge? Let them. After we have slain the first warrior, and the second, and if need be the third, they will grow bored with dying and all will be as it has been before.”

“We will be coming,” Fralk said. “We will be coming in force. I do not think you will stop us. You may reckon me witstruck, but a year from now the mastery of these lands will be walking on its eyestalks, of that I assure you.”