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con-centrated in the pika-pina and pedan are moved land-ward and help to revive the dormant
grasslands."
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Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
"But what are these?" The elderly wizard indicated a profusion of small carvings, each different from the
next. Remnants of ancient dyes still clung to the bare stone.
"Do you not remember them from the land of the Saia?" said Elfa. She turned to Ethan. "What did you
call them?"
"Flowers." He walked over, avoiding rocks and broken stone which littered the floor. "So the pika-pina
flowers before it gives way to the grasses. Milliken, maybe every creature that flies, swims or chivans on
Tran-ky-ky has both cold-and hot-climate varieties. That creature on the wall over there, isn't that a
stavanzer?"
"No," Hunnar insisted from nearby. "Those strange things on its front "
"Gills!" Ethan shouted it. "The stavanzer does look vaguely like a beached whale. Dormant gills don't
show themselves until the oceans turn to water. A stavanzer could never support its own weight on land."
"I'm sure," added Williams, "that the creature could exist as an amphibian for as long as was necessary to
complete the transition to a watery existence."
"I would much like to see these things you call 'ghuls'." Hunnar took a knife from his belt, handed it
handle-first to Williams. "Go and kill a stavanzer and I will help you do the looking inside." Laughter
hu-man and Trannish resounded in the chamber, produc-ing echoes that were anything but eerie.
A week later the Slanderscree was filled with a cargo as unusual as it was diverse. There were hun-dreds
of kilos of carvings, artifacts, sections of mosaic and wall. Enough proof of Tran-ky-ky's erratic history
both sociological and climatological to convince the stubbornest bureaucrat or Landgrave of The Truth.
September and Ethan were once again discussing the Tran's future and history as the last of the cargo was
secured in the spaces within the deck.
"Likely in the Saia mode all the Tran lived together on a few continents, lad," the giant said. "Raisin' a
new civilization until the cold wiped it out, forcing 'em to disperse to the islands to survive. The harsher
the climate, the more territory it generally takes to support folks.
"Now that we can prove they all used to live to-gether and cooperate, it ought to be easier to get 'em to do
it again." He punctuated the comment with a reverberant grunt.
When they produced the evidence many days later, back in the steaming lands, the Golden Saia accepted
the unarguable with typical lack of visible emotion. Their words betrayed their true excitement. Here was
proof of most of their legends, solidified with a knowl-edge hitherto unsuspected. Listening to the legend-
spinners, Williams and Eer-Meesach were able to fill in portions of the history that silent stone and walls
had been unable to tell.
In contrast to their difficult ascent of the canyon, returning was mostly a matter of keeping the ship on a
single heading. Motive power was no longer a prob-lem, not with the wind off the plateau shoving
in-sistently at their stern.
On reaching the edge of the ice, the captain brought the ship to a halt, whereupon Hunnar and a small
group of sailors chivaned off toward Moulokin. They were expected to return with shipwrights, cranes
and tools to aid in removing the wheels and axles and to help speed the installation of the five massive
duralloy skates.
Their arrival in that busy shipbuilding city pro-voked a good deal of surprise. Neither the Landgrave Lady
K'ferr, minister Mirmib, nor any of the others who knew where the Slanderscree had gone ever ex-pected
to see her crew again. They were certain the spirits of the dead who lived in the great high desert would
claim the healthy bodies of the sailors for their own, to enable them to wander the spirit lands in more
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Alan Dean Foster - Mission to Moulokin
corporeal form.
Sir Hunnar's hurried, none-too-precise explanations of what they'd uncovered created more confusion
than enlightenment. He finally gave up trying to explain something he didn't fully comprehend himself.
The following day he returned to the landlocked Slanderscree, accompanied by a large party of
crafts-men from the city's yards. Eer-Meesach provided a better explanation of their discoveries. Thus
assured of old friends and a new heritage, they set to work mak-ing the great raft iceworthy again.
"What of the fleet from Poyolavomaar?" Ethan hesitantly interrupted the chief of the Moulokinese work
crews.
The burly Tran left the final installation of a duralloy runner to his colleagues. "They remained a ten-day
after your departure to the land of the Golden Saia, Sir Ethan, thence departed themselves. There have
been but few ships put in to Moulokin since. None report sighting them, though two mentioned a large
number of runner tracks extending northeast-ward."
"Toward Poyolavomaar." Ethan couldn't quite convince himself that mad Rakossa and Ro-Vijar of
Arsudun had conceded so quickly, despite this evi-dence to the contrary.
"
"Pis so. Nor have any of our own vessels seen signs of them, though two still search further out to make
certain they have truly taken their leave. Tis safe I think to say that, finding you not here, they betook
themselves elsewhere."
"I doubt that." Ethan looked around to see who agreed with his own private opinion. Teeliam Hoh
watched the repositioning of the fore portside runner, while the crew leader watched Teeliam. Her
thoughts, though, were not on the delicate operation taking place over the side.
"Tonx Rakossa would not leave me alive while he remains so. While I live free, his thoughts will be on
naught else."
"Maybe he and Ro-Vijar had an argument," Ethan half-joked, "and he lost."
"I hope not."
"What? But you've said& "
She stared at him, cold cat-eyes dark as the waters beneath the ice sea. "If he should be slain by someone
unknown, far from here, if he should perish before we again meet, then I will be barred the delicious
op-portunity of killing him myself." She spoke calmly, as if discussing the most ordinary, obvious thing
in the world.
"Of course. I should've thought of that."
She continued to stare at him, her head cocked slightly to one side. "You fancy you know us, do you not,
Sir Ethan?"
"Know you?" Ethan felt glad of the expression-distorting face mask and the goggles behind. "Teeliam,
I've lived among you for more than a year now."
" 'Tis true then, you indeed believe you know us. I've seen it in your gestures, in the way you converse
with your companions from this distant land of Sofold. But you do not understand us. When I spoke of
killing the Thing, it showed in your body and your way of forming words.
"You are& " she paused, half-smiled, "much too civilized, in the sense I believe you use that term. For all
that you have shared with such as the magnificent Sir Hunnar and my good friend Elfa, they are still not
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