"We accept your greetings, Talandil, first among your crew," said Lirenna, "and offer you our own, as well as our thanks for saving our lives. You appeared at a very opportune moment."

     "It was no coincidence." replied the shae. His eyes went to the bloodstained, unbuttoned shirt Lirenna was holding closed with one hand, and the stump of an arrow protruding from her shoulder, but politeness prohibited him from commenting. "We heard reports that a red dragon was in this area, and came to investigate. We have been pursuing it for some days now. Evil dragons are not permitted this close to our homelands. Even so, however, it is fortunate for you that it ran afoul of this castle's ancient defences, or we would have arrived too late."

     "What defences?" asked Thomas, aware that he was breaking etiquette by interrupting but unable to contain his curiosity.

     Lauros stared at him, his slanted eyes widening in shocked surprise, but fortunately the First Crewman seemed willing to make allowances for human bad manners and took no offence. "I am, of course, referring to the dragonwires," he said. "Only they could have sliced a dragon's wing clean off as, no doubt, such wise and learned men as yourselves would have realised with a little further thought."

     "Wires?" said Lirenna in surprise. She looked up at the tall dragonpoles and squinted her eyes, and now she could see them. Unbelievably fine threads, as thin a strands of silk, strung between the poles and down to the top of the castle walls. So thin that they were totally invisible to the humans and the nome, but clearly visible to a pureblooded shae's eyesight as they caught the sunlight and shone like strands of gold. "But surely wires that thin couldn't possibly be strong enough for that! A bird blundering through them would snap them."

     "Not if they're kazmin crystal wires," said Thomas excitedly. "Of course, that must be it! Kazmin crystal wire was invented by a trog alchemist in the days of the Agglemonian Empire, but he kept the secret of its manufacture to himself so that he and his descendants would have a monopoly on it. He died suddenly, though, before he had any children, and the secret died with him. Very little of it was ever made."

     "I am sorry," said the First Crewman apologetically. "We shae folk tend to forget the inadequacies of human eyesight. We meant no offence."

     "None taken," said Thomas magnanimously.

     "Now that that has been cleared up," continued the shae, "I see that you are all from the north, with the possible exception of you, sir." He nodded to Jerry. "I would be fascinated to learn what you are doing so far from your homelands, and why this dragon was so single mindedly concerned with killing you that it also failed to notice the wires, despite the fact that it had better eyesight than any of us."

     This was the crux. How much should they tell him? One the one hand, if they could persuade the shae folk to give them a lift back to Ilandia aboard their flying ship, they could get the Orb back to Fort Battleaxe months earlier than they possibly could otherwise, and considering the fragility of the Orb and the nature of the terrain between there and Ilandia, it was possible that they might never be able to get it back there intact on their own.

     On the other hand, though, what if the shae folk decided to keep the Orb for themselves? At the moment, it was still safely hidden in the storeroom, and they might just possibly be able to keep it secret from them if they could think of some other plausible reason for being there, but once the shae folk knew of its existence, the questers would be totally dependent on their generosity and goodwill. There could well be twenty shae folk aboard that ship, and such a magical vessel would be sure to have at least one or two high level wizards, as well as a possible priest or two. If they decided to just take the Orb and fly off with it, there wasn't a great deal they'd be able to do to stop them.

     What would Resalintas do? wondered Drake in indecision, and the answer came to him in a flash. He could almost hear the old priest's voice as clearly as though he were standing right next to him, quoting the motto of the priesthood of Samnos. Have faith and fear not. Yes, that's right, he thought. The shae folk are good people. They can usually be trusted, and if the Prince Fennerel succeeded in its diplomatic mission, they should have formed an alliance with the Beltharan Empire and so be obliged to help us anyway. The time has come for total truth and honesty.

     After a brief glance at each of the others to make sure they agreed, therefore, and seeing each of them give the very slightest nod of agreement, he began to tell the story of their quest. In an attempt to gain their approval and support, he told the tale in the shayen fashion. He began at the beginning and told every tiniest detail of their journey in sequence, without the quick summary at the start that he would have given if he'd been talking to humans. The shae folk therefore had no warning of what lay ahead in the tale, except for the obvious fact that the questers had survived to reach this castle.

     The time it took meant nothing to the long lived shae folk, for whom days could pass while they stood in admiration of a small flower. As Drake began to speak, therefore, Lirenna urged Diana to take her back inside the keep to remove the arrowhead, and Drake was still speaking two hours later when the two women returned, the demi shae now fully healed and recovered.

     The Shayen way of storytelling could be a little trying for the shorter lived races, though, so that, although Drake did his best to string it out as much as he could, he still told it much quicker than a shae would have. The shae folk listened in fascination nonetheless as he told of their perilous crossing of the Ghost Ocean, their encounter with the plague priests in Kenestra, their journey through Fengalla Forest to the ruined city of Connistantol and their capture by the arachnaurs, ending with their arrival at the abandoned fortress and their final confrontation with the Shadowsoldiers.

     When he finally finished, the First Crewman asked "And was your quest successful? Did you find the Orb?"

     "We did," replied Drake. "We were about to make arrangements for the journey home when the dragon turned up."

     "I would very much like to see it," said the shae. "If I passed up the chance to gaze upon such a wonderful artifact, I would regret it for the rest of my life."

     "By all means," replied the priest. "Please come this way."

     They took the shae folk inside the keep and to the storeroom, where Drake uncovered the Orb and wiped most of the thick layer of dust away with a soft rag. The shae folk stared at the Orb, still lit from within by a dull red glow, and whispered to each other in their own language, a beautiful, fluid language that sounded like soft music. The Captain stroked it gently with his hand in a way that profoundly disturbed Petronax. "Are you sure it was wise to tell them about it?" he asked the priest.

     "We'll soon find out," replied Drake. He raised his voice to speak to the shae folk. "You have already done much for us, and we are deeply in your debt for killing the dragon and saving our lives, but the situation in the north is desperate and we must ask another great favour of you. Will you carry us and the Orb back to Ilandia aboard your sky ship? You could make the journey in a few days, and the time saved could be crucial."

     "I would like to help," replied the shae, "but I regret that that decision is not mine to make. We must take it back to Estalintel, where the Ta-la-lendrae will decide what is to be done with it. I am very sorry, but it is very likely that they will decide to keep it."

     "What!" roared Petronax, lunging forward. Drake stepped forward and held him back, preventing him from grabbing the shae and shaking him. "You can't do that! It belongs to us! We've struggled and fought every evil creature between here and Ilandia to get it, and we've earned the right to keep it! The Empire needs it! You've got no right to just take it away from us!"

     "I am very sorry," repeated the First Crewman, "but we all have problems. We have been at war with the fell men for two hundred years and it is not going well for us. We need the power of the Orb as much as you do, perhaps more, and as you said yourselves, you do owe us for saving your lives. We will send a party over to collect it and take it aboard the Muellin."

     "No!" cried Petronax again, and Drake had to hold onto him more tightly. "Calm down, you idiot!" he hissed into his ear as the shae folk left. "That won't get us anywhere."

     "We can't just let them take it!" repeated the soldier. He twisted away from the priest and drew his sword. "Maybe they won't be quite so ready to take it if they have to walk over our dead bodies!"

     "Don't be a fool!" snapped the priest. "Leave it to me. I'm confident I'll be able to talk them around."

     "How?" exclaimed Petronax incredulously. "By asking them to join you in prayer?"

     "Exactly," replied Drake. "Despite appearances, that bird of paradise is a warship, a very formidable one, and it's likely there's a priest of Samnos aboard. I'll explain the situation to him and ask him to go into communion with me, to determine our Lord's will in this matter. If it's His will that the Orb goes to Fort Battleaxe, then I'm sure that he'll be able to persuade the First Crewman to cooperate with us. He dare not risk alienating his own priest."

     "And what if Samnos wants the shae folk to have it?"

     "Then they shall have it. Our Lord's will be done."

     Petronax stared at the priest as if seeing him for the first time. "You mean it, don't you? You'd really let them just walk off with it. Your God's will is the only thing that matters to you! Nothing else, not even our lives, means anything at all! You'd kill us all if Samnos told you to!"

     "Please try to calm down, you're getting hysterical," said Drake calmly. "You must understand that Samnos has to consider the welfare of the whole world, and that the fate of any individual nation, even that of a mighty empire, is relatively unimportant in the overall scheme of things. The Beltharan Empire will one day pass away, so it would be wasteful to ensure its short term welfare at the expense of the long term welfare of the rest of the world."

     Petronax turned away in disgust, and an awkward silence fell over the group. Thomas, however, who had followed the exchange with interest, noted that the priest hadn't denied any of the soldier's accusations, and had even seemed to agree with him and try to justify his standpoint.

     The wizard looked at the priest and, like Petronax, seemed to see him for the first time. Would he really kill us if Samnos told him to? he wondered. He saw the hard, emotionless look on his face and the cold gleam in his eyes and realised that, yes, he probably would. He wouldn't like it, and he would agonise over it for weeks, months, maybe years afterwards, but it wouldn't stop him doing it.

     Thomas shivered and turned away as Drake went to speak to the shae folk again. Behind him, Diana began to attend to Matthew's injured arm.