The Field-hand scrambled back up the bank, to the point where he had pulled the bushes aside. Tahlia scowled at his retreating back, then followed him. When she reached the base of the island's sloping side, the boy was already clambering upwards.

"Come on!" he called down.

Tahlia was utterly exhausted, and frozen from the river and the rain. The slope above seemed too high and rain soaked to climb, but the sight of Maddock, a mere Field-hand, and a farmer's son at that, climbing with seemingly no effort, gave her a new resolve which bypassed the weariness in her body. She started to climb, following the trail where the sprawling bushes were not so thick. She found, to her surprise, that there were steps leading up the island's sloping side. They were steep and thick with moss and plant debris, but they seemed solid and led upwards in a straight line.

She climbed with legs that were two dead weights, and arms that would not stop shaking. The hill was a rounded curve, so as she climbed higher, the steps were not so steep and she soon found herself at the hill's summit. She was standing on a narrow plateau, barely two metres wide, which fell gradually to her right before dropping out of sight. To her left the hill sloped upwards and then it disappeared in a sharp curve towards the raging river. The plateau was covered in dense bushes with large cup-like leaves that reached up towards the falling rain.

Maddock was pulling away the grass and weeds from around the base of the nearest bush, and as he pulled, the large leaves swayed back and forth, spilling more water over his back and neck.

Tahlia had no energy to ask what he was doing, so she simply sank onto her knees and knelt, her arms clasped about her shaking shoulders. The image of her warm bedchamber back at the fortress suddenly dropped into her head. The thought of her freshly made bed, and the table next to it heaped with food, fresh from the kitchens, was as clear as if she were there.

Maddock had pulled the tangled weeds away from the bushes and begun to push his way among their straight vertical branches.

"Come on," he said again.

"We will never get dry in there," said Tahlia, not moving.

She could just see Maddock's face as a pale oval in the darkness of the bushes, looking over his shoulder at her.

"So stay out there in the rain," he said and began to push himself further into the bushes' darkness.

Tahlia immediately pulled herself up and crawled after him.

"You cannot talk to me like that! I told you who my father is, and may I remind you that he will not take kindly to..."

Her voice died as she reached Maddock's side.

He was crouched in the middle of the bushes, where the branches were tall and thick, and their cup-like foliage formed a compact domed space. Water still dripped from the green roof above, channelled by the leaves into thick heavy drops, but the ground seemed quite dry. The chamber was lit by a strange blue light, coming from the ground; from a square hole in the top of the hill where Maddock was kneeling.

She crawled forward to get a better look. A set of steps led down into the hill, to an open space below.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's a temple, I think."

"Is it one of the old places?" asked Tahlia. "Like the Sanctuary?"

"Don't know. Could be I suppose."

Maddock began climbing down the steps. Tahlia immediately went to follow him, then stopped.

"Do the Communicants know about this place?"

"Don't think so."

"Chief-communicant Vennar says the old places are sacred to Fortak."

"I'm sure Fortak won't mind."

Maddock looked up at her from the bottom of the steps, silhouetted by the blue light.

"You're not scared are you?"

"No!" replied Tahlia, swinging her legs round to climb down the steep steps. They were thick with red moss under her toes, and when she held her hand out to the wall to steady herself, she found that it too was covered in the stuff.

The area below was packed with earth and rotting plant debris, where more of the tall plants with the cup shaped leaves had taken root on either side of the steps, their straight stems reaching upwards to catch the moisture from above. As she brushed past them, they cascaded water onto her already soaked dress.

She barely noted that the water was warm; she was more concerned with the space beyond. They had entered at the back of a long low room, the roof curved like the hill above, and along each wall were a series of wide, high backed benches, all facing the room's far end.

"Have you seen any wisps?" she asked Maddock. "There are always wisps around the old places."

Maddock was already halfway up the aisle between the two sets of seats.

"No," he said over his shoulder.

As Tahlia reached the bottom of the steps, her feet disappeared to the ankles in warm water, and she realised that the floor of the room sloped gently upwards, the water gathering at this bottom end where it had pooled and was thick with growth. The usual red moss carpeted the floor and walls, and more tall plants, like those around the entranceway, were growing here and there, but covering most of the space around the steps was a plant made of thick interlaced green disks. The odd disks grew from one another and formed intricate towers which bowed and nodded in some unfelt breeze.

Everything in the room seemed clear, but when Tahlia looked around the chamber she could not see any source for the blue light. It seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Even the water was lit where it touched the walls, and in its illumination she could see the roots of the strange plants waving clearly beneath its surface, as well as the small wriggling creatures that lived among them.

Even though the room felt warm, Tahlia was still suddenly beset by another violent bout of shivering, so she stepped quickly out of the water and followed Maddock up the central aisle. Above her, the curved ceiling was also covered in thick vegetation, hanging down in long fine fronds that brushed at her face as she passed. Within the vegetation, Tahlia glimpsed other, more regular, shapes, and she heard things scurrying and moving about above her head.

At the far end of the room, in front of the rows of seats, was an open area with a low round plinth standing at its centre. Behind the plinth was a doorway, and on either side of the door the wall was divided into square niches of differing sizes. If this were some kind of temple, Tahlia surmised, the plinth would be where the Communicant would stand to deliver the word of Fortak, though the alcoves in the wall were a bit of a mystery. She had never seen anything like them before.

Maddock was rummaging round in one of the larger niches when Tahlia reached him, and she saw that many of them were filled with jumbles of things. Ordinarily she would have taken time to have a closer look, but she was so cold and tired she simply collapsed onto one of the temple's benches, which was soft with red moss. She rested her heels on the front of the seat, her arms clutched around her knees as she tried to stop herself from shivering.

Maddock finished his search of the alcove, and came back to the plinth holding a long metal bowl stacked with two glass jars and a skin pouch. He set the bowl on the plinth, propping it up with a wedge of wood so that it sat level against the tilt of the room. Tahlia watched him curiously as he took the lid from the larger of the two jars and tipped it out over the bowl. A thick white mass flopped out. Tahlia wrinkled her nose.

"What is that?"

"Borak fat," replied Maddock, without looking up from his work.

He took the bowl in both hands and tapped it carefully on the top of the plinth until the fat settled evenly, then he opened the second jar. Tahlia caught a sharp oily smell as Maddock pulled out a long, tightly wound, length of material from the clear liquid inside the jar. He laid it lengthways on the surface of the fat in the bowl.

"What were you doing playing in the river anyway?" he asked as he carefully placed the lid back on the jar.

He looked up at Tahlia. She had lost the fight with her body and sat there shivering, her teeth making a loud clicking.

"I was not playing," she said between shivers. "Dak fired one of my arrows onto the island. I was merely retrieving it."

Maddock turned and put the two jars back into the niche in the wall behind him.

"That was very stupid. Have you never seen the river during the rains? You're lucky I came by."

Maddock turned back to the plinth and took something small and metal out of the skin pouch. Tahlia could not see clearly what he did next. He leant over the bowl with the metal thing in his hand and suddenly there was a flame. It flared quickly along the length of the wick, casting a new light across the room. Shadows leapt up the walls, where before there had been flat light. The corners of the room grew dim and the long shadows of the plants flickered about above them.

"I was doing perfectly well on my own, thank you," said Tahlia as she left her position on the bench and went to kneel by the plinth, her hands outstretched to the lamp.

"Didn't look like it."

Maddock put the metal object into its pouch and then put it back away with the two jars.

Tahlia shifted closer to the plinth and its welcoming flame.

"I would have been alright if that wave hadn't come along. It was the strangest thing. Maybe it was sent by Fortak."

"The farmers probably opened the sluice gates on the orchard to stop the farm from flooding."

"Well really! How inconsiderate."

"I'll tell Superintendent Feldor to be more careful next time," replied Maddock. "Make sure he checks the river for girls looking for lost arrows."

"You're making fun of me," said Tahlia, deliberately narrowing her eyes.

Maddock just shrugged, turned to another of the square niches behind him and rummaged around inside, before pulling out a bundle of material. He separated some items and threw something to her. She picked it up carefully from the floor where it had landed. It was a rough towel made of ghat's wool, and Tahlia wrinkled her nose at its stench of musk and dirt. She looked up at Maddock with an expression of distaste. The look was met with one of blank indifference.

"What are all these things doing here anyway?" she asked.

Maddock went back to sorting through the bundle of things in his arms.

"I used to play here with the other farm kids. It was our secret hideout."

"Does no one else know about it then?"

"Well, every kid on the farm, I suppose. Here." Maddock threw something else at her. "I think it was one of Larrad's."

Tahlia looked at the article, which was a long tunic made of some rough material. It smelt as dirty as the towel, but at least it felt dry.

Maddock pulled out some more clothes from the pile, then turned back to her where she still shivered beside the plinth, the tunic and blanket bundled up in her lap.

"That's all there is," he said angrily. "We don't much take to wearing anything fine, I'm afraid."

"You do not expect me to get changed in front of you, do you?" replied Tahlia.

Colour spread rapidly over Maddock's face, all the way up to his ears.

"Oh, er, well. I suppose not," he muttered. "You stay here. I'll go, er..." He pointed to the doorway in the wall behind the plinth. Without another word, he left, clutching his items of dry clothes.

As soon as he was out of sight, Tahlia pulled off her cold soaking dress and dropped it onto the floor. She took another sniff at the towel and gave it a shake, causing a cloud of dirt and dust to billow out, glinting in the strange light. She dropped the towel on the floor alongside her dress. Her arms and legs were mainly dry now anyway. She gave her hair a quick rub with the tunic, which seemed to be far cleaner than the towel, before pulling it over her head. It felt scratchy on her skin, but at least it was warm after the cold clinginess of her dress.

She settled herself back down in front of the lamp. Despite the warmth and the dry clothes, her skin still felt tight and cold, and her body trembled in random spasms.

"Are you done?" came Maddock's voice.

Tahlia remembered the numerous discourtesies the boy had shown her that afternoon, and in all their previous meetings, and she smiled to herself.

"Not yet," she called back.

She rubbed her hands together and held them out to the warmth of the lamp, which spluttered away merrily in its dish of borak fat. She took her time looking about the room, but still didn't move from the warm circle of lamplight. Everything beyond the glow suddenly seemed dark, but the area around the plinth was clearly lit. She looked at the collection of things that were gathered in the open cupboards. There were various sticks and stones, a saggy cloth ball made of rags, a bag of work knives, and two crudely made wooden practice swords. A coarse knight's banner had been strung above the wall of cupboards, but the flag was so faded and the corner of the room so dark that she could not make out the heraldry of it.

Tahlia heard the shuffling of feet out through the darkened doorway that Maddock had left by. Maybe, she thought, it would be seemly to show a little leniency for the boy's bad behaviour. He had, after all, pulled her out of the river.

She called into the darkness.

"You can come back now."

Maddock reappeared, dressed in dry clothes.

He sat down opposite her on a calcified log, and held his hands out to the lamp.

"So," said Tahlia. "Have you got any food hidden anywhere in here? I have not eaten since lunch."

Maddock shook his head.

"Nothing at all?"

"Well..."

Maddock looked up into the depth of undergrowth covering the ceiling. He stood up and clambered onto one of the high backed benches, then reached up into the plants. Tahlia craned her head around to see what he was doing. She heard a sharp snap and then another, and when Maddock climbed back down he was holding two long white sticks. He handed one to her and sat back down.

"What is it?" she asked, examining it closely. The thing was about the length of her forearm from fingertip to elbow, thick and flat at one end where it had been snapped, and it tapered to a point at the other. It felt sticky where she held it in her fingers.

"Matriarch rachnid spike," replied Maddock. He examined his own closely, before pulling off a long winged fly that was stuck to it, and then he bit the end off and began chewing.

Tahlia gave him a look of utter distaste.

"Eat it or don't," said Maddock around another mouthful.

Tahlia gave her own spike a close inspection and then took a small nibble from the end. It broke off with a snap, but she was surprised to find that it soon melted into something chewy and smooth, with a taste reminiscent of hive syrup.

She took another bite.

"So," she said, making the decision to at least start out by being friendly. "How is your little life progressing?"

"'It's all right," replied Maddock. He was examining his rachnid spike again. He pulled something else from the sticky surface and took another bite.

"Still cleaning up dung all day, then?"

"No!"

"Karabok bones?"

"No! I've started training my madriel if you must know."

"Really! And how is that going?"

Maddock eyed her distrustfully before answering.

"Well I've only had one lesson an' that was cut short by all this business with the Prides."

"What business?"

"They're all penned up, waiting to go somewhere."

"Oh, that business," said Tahlia.

"Do you know what's happening?"

"Something important," she said airily. "I am sure that if it concerned you, you would have been told."

"My brothers are in the north with Sir Galder's army, so it does concern me."

"Hmm."

Tahlia tried to put as much disinterest into the sound as she could.

"So you won't tell me what's going on?"

"I cannot," she replied.

She took a careless bite from her own spike and chewed away as though deep in thought.

"I have already been training my madriel for weeks," she said after a while. "I've got a good one too. She's very clever."

Maddock watched her for a few seconds, maybe wondering if he could get anything else out of her, but then he seemed to decide that it was unlikely.

"Mine's a vicious little swine," he said.

"Did you get to choose yours? My brother and I got to choose ours."

"No. Master Sprak chooses the madriel of new Field-hands. I don't think he likes me very much, though."

"Master Sprak? He does not like anyone."

"He's a foul temper on him."

"He just shouts a lot. He does not scare me though," replied Tahlia. "I do not know why everyone is so terrified of him anyway. He cannot be that good a Madriel-master. I mean, look at all those scars. That just looks like gross incompetence to me."

"All Madriel-masters get scars. Master Dramut says that most of them are from the juveniles. They're the worst, he says, because they don't know better."

"A little bit like you," said Tahlia, giving him a mischievous grin.

Maddock scowled in reply.

"Which reminds me," she went on, ignoring his temper. "I have been doing some reading, and I think I have found a way for you to become a knight."

Maddock's scowl dissolved into a suspicious frown.

"Why would you do that?"

"I was not looking on purpose. I just came across something while I was reading about the history of the old Houses. Apparently, not all the noble Houses were abolished when the Orders were formed. I also found out that, in the old days before the Order, the head of any of the noble Houses had the power to make someone a knight. They would have to have performed a feat of outstanding heroism, or done some other great service, but it was still possible. Even a commoner like you could be made into a knight."

The Field-hand seemed lost for words. He just sat there with the rachnid spike hanging from his fingers.

"When you say, 'a great service', what do you..?"

"I told you, it has to be something heroic..."

"Like rescuing the man's daughter from drowning?"

Tahlia raised her eyebrows, in imitation of an expression that Mistress D'almeria would often reward her with when she had asked a particularly pertinent question in class, usually when her tutor in etiquette and decorum didn't want to acknowledge the question's cleverness.

It gave her a few seconds to formulate her answer.

"I have told you that the old laws no longer apply to the Order. Even if my father discovered what you have done, he would be in no position to reward you in the way that your tiny brain is thinking."

"You mean, you're not going to tell him about..?"

Tahlia rolled her eyes.

"What do you think?"

"But..."

"No buts, Field-hand," said Tahlia, holding up her hand to silence him. "You are straying horribly from the point I am trying to make. You will have to find one of the remaining noble Houses to perform your act of stupid heroism for."

Maddock stood up angrily.

"Right, I've just about had enough of this!"

"Of course," Tahlia went on, deliberately ignoring his indignant display. "The remaining Houses are all far away, on the very fringes of the Provinces. They are also pretty poor. They live in castles, which are not much better than farm houses, with walls made of dung, but that would be very appropriate for you."

"Very funny," said Maddock.

"You could become a dung knight."

Tahlia laughed at the new look of fury on Maddock's face, but the laughter quickly caught at her throat and turned into a hard coughing, which set her whole body shivering again.

Maddock dropped the remains of his rachnid spike onto the surface of the plinth in front of him. He turned and rummaged once more in the cupboards behind him, before pulling out a tattered tragasaur tarp. Tahlia looked at it gratefully, but without another word, Maddock stalked past her and down the aisle.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, still shivering.

"I'm going to keep a lookout to see if anyone's come looking for you yet. Better to be out in the wet than be sat here talking to you in the dry."

Tahlia sprang to her feet.

"Well the same goes for me! I don't think I have ever met anyone quite as rude and ignorant as you!"

"Same here!" replied Maddock.

He reached the steps at the end of the room, threw the tarp around his shoulders, and stomped up the stairs and out into the rain.

Tahlia watched him go with her shoulders raised and her fists clenched.

"Ignorant borak!" she shouted at his retreating back, but Maddock gave no reply.

Tahlia dropped onto the dead tree where Maddock had been sitting, and sat there glaring at the stairs and the bushes surrounding them.

How dare he talk to her like that! And after she had been so helpful! Did he want to be a knight or didn't he?

She watched the stairs again, expecting that, after he'd had a few minutes to cool off in the rain, Maddock would come back down to give her due apology.

The minutes passed.

Maddock did not reappear.

Tahlia gave an angry hiss of a breath and purposefully turned her back on the stairs.

* * * * *

Maddock crawled through the bushes, his brain seething with anger. What a stuck-up, know it all, little shit of a girl! He should have left her in the river!

That thought calmed him a little. It was too nasty a thing to think of.

He reached the edge of the bushes, lay the tragasaur tarp down on the wet earth, crawled on top of it, and pulled the rest over to protect himself from the occasional heavy drops of water that overflowed and fell from the bushes' leaves above him. The rains still hissed down, and the clouds had now sealed the earth completely around the horizon. The afternoon could not be more than half gone, but the storm had given the landscape the gloom of twilight.

As he lay there, gazing at the dark silhouette of the fortress in the distance, he replayed his conversation with Tahlia over in his head. Why had he ever told her he wanted to be a knight? Now he would have to bear her constant jokes and sarky comments whenever they met. Though hopefully, once someone came from the fortress to retrieve her, he would never have to see her again.

* * * * *

Tahlia's curiosity soon overcame her tiredness from the events of the day and her anger at the coarse Field-hand, and she decided to investigate the strange temple. There was nothing of interest amongst the rubbish in the wall niches, apart from the broken paraphernalia of childish games that she had already noted, so she turned her attention to the rest of the room. She found that the benches, when she clawed away a patch of moss, were simple frames of metal, and she wondered if at one time they might have had cushions, otherwise they would have been very uncomfortable to sit on.

She looked up at the undergrowth covering the ceiling, and listened to the scurrying sounds within it. They were probably being caused by archapids and rachnids and she quickly decided that the vegetation was best left undisturbed.

Instead, she went through the doorway that was set in the center of the wall of niches, and found a dark room beyond, its walls, floor and ceiling covered in thick cascading vaultweed. It was warmer than the other room, and when she sat down in its center, she found that the vegetation was soft and comfortable. Not as nice as her own bed back at the fortress, but it was better than sitting on a lump of calcified tree.

"Much better," she sighed, and settled herself further into the thick weed.

The boy could at least have told her about the existence of such a comfortable place, but she was not surprised that he hadn't. He was clearly quite uncivilized. What an absurd notion that such a boy could ever become a knight, let alone a knight of Klinberg. Where on earth had the boy got such a balmy notion?

She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the comfortable, cozy warmth of the room.

After she had been still for ten minutes, something began a repetitive clicking up above her in the sprawling vaultweed. Then a green radiance descended, casting the room's corners into deeper shadow, and enveloped Tahlia in a cocoon of light. It hung over her for a moment before it began to slowly shrink, drawing in on itself until it became a bright dot floating on the bridge of her nose.

Tahlia grimaced, then lifted her hand to her face as though to wipe away something that tickled her in her sleep.

The light dimmed to nothing, and the clicking in the weed above her head stopped.

Tahlia gave an unladylike snort, rolled over, and continued sleeping.

* * * * *

Maddock reckoned he had been lying wrapped in the tarp for over an hour, before a dark shape slowly loomed out of the murkiness of the plains across the river. Even over the rain, Maddock recognized the heavy tramp of a juddra.

He crawled quickly back through the bushes, dragging the tarp along with him. When he reached the stairs, he jumped down them into the warmth of the chamber below and ran up the aisle between the seats, but the girl was nowhere in sight.

"Hey!" he shouted.

He got no answer.

"For the sake of Terra where is she! Hey!"

He shouted louder the second time, and was rewarded with a muffled reply from the temple's other room. Then Tahlia emerged, rubbing her eyes.

"What were you doing in there?" asked Maddock, more harshly than he had intended.

"Sleeping," Tahlia yawned. "Why?"

"Because Dak's father is here," he said.

"Dak's father?"

"Yes, of course it's Dak's father. Who else did you expect her to get help from?"

"Hmm, I suppose..." Tahlia yawned again. "Well it is about time anyway. I thought I would be here all night!"

Maddock took a corner of the soaking tragasaur tarp and dropped it over the lamp, extinguishing it with a savage hiss. The room seemed to grow lighter as the shadows disappeared and the flat blue light returned.

He hurried back towards the stairs.

"Come on," he said. "We shouldn't keep him waiting."

"Hmm?" said Tahlia absently, as she took a final look around the room.

"I said we shouldn't make him wait!"

"Oh, he won't mind."

Tahlia bent to retrieve her dress. She held it in her fingers, grimaced, then dropped it back to the floor.

Maddock shook his head and climbed back up the stairs.

As he crawled through the bushes, he heard the familiar voice of Engineer Tomova calling from close by.

He did not sound happy.

"Maddock! Where are you, boy?"

Maddock scrambled to his feet and ran to the edge of the narrow island plateau. He could see down to the river, where the massive bulk of a juddra stood in the shallows upstream. The water churned about its thick legs, but the animal paid it no heed, apart from to lower its broad horny face to the boiling spray and give a loud wet snort of derision. Sitting in the saddle above the animal's wide neck and shoulders sat an equally bulky figure, draped in a tragasaur skin cape, the hood pulled forward so that his features were in shadow.

"Engineer Tomova!" Maddock shouted down.

"Is that you, boy?" came Tomova's voice, with not a hint of its normal joviality.

"It's me."

"Is the girl with you?"

Maddock heard a scuffling sound behind him and Tahlia appeared at his shoulder.

"I am here, Engineer Tomova," she called down.

Engineer Tomova merely grunted in response. He took up the heavy reins that were attached to the juddra's short stubby horns.

"Hal!" he shouted, and the beast began to stride effortlessly through the rushing water. It headed towards the strip of beach along the island's edge, which had been made much narrower by the river's rising waters.

Tahlia and Maddock clambered down the hidden steps, pushing through the wet tangle of bushes on either side, so that soon they were so soaked it was as though they had both just crawled out of the river for a second time.

When they reached the beach, Engineer Tomova's juddra had already left the river, and was now kneeling to bring its wide saddle closer to the ground.

"Have you ridden a juddra before?" asked Maddock.

"Of course not!" replied Tahlia scornfully. "I am a..."

"Lady of the Order," finished Maddock. "Yes, you said."

Tahlia's glare hardened on him, but then her lips twitched and a coarse laugh escaped her throat. Then she began to giggle.

Maddock put her uncontrolled mirth down to the relief of finally being rescued.

"I do not understand what it is that you are finding so amusing down there," came Engineer Tomova's dour voice from above. "I do not find being dragged from the dryness of my house in the middle of the rains to be of the vaguest amusement."

"Sorry, Engineer Tomova," said Maddock, quite honestly.

Tahlia still stood by the side of the patiently waiting juddra, one hand clasped over her mouth to stifle the laughter.

"I think that I may have to be telling your father of your unintelligence, girl. You have been warned enough times about being in places where you were not being meant to be."

That seemed to sober Tahlia up, and she looked up at the Engineer. Then she said the last thing that Maddock expected her to say.

"Sorry, Engineer Tomova."

Tomova just grunted once more in response. Maddock could still not see the features underneath his hood, as the rain dripped from its rigid brim.

Tahlia was looking up at the collection of loops and straps hanging down from the saddle.

"Can you do it?" asked Maddock.

She simply gave his a condescending look from beneath her fringe of soaking hair and scrambled up the side of the waiting animal, like a mowmok climbing to its den, and pulled herself into the double seat behind the Engineer.

For some reason, one that Terra only knew, Maddock couldn't help but smile, but he soon straightened his face and climbed up after her.

"You had better cover yourselves in this," said Engineer Tomova, when Maddock had pulled himself into the seat next to Tahlia.

He handed him a second tragasaur skin cloak. Maddock quickly draped it over them both.

"Bek bek!" shouted Tomova, and the juddra rose slowly to its feet and turned to enter the river once more.

"Home for you two," said the Engineer.

And those were the final words that passed between them. Maddock was overcome by sudden tiredness, and felt sleepy from the cozy warmth as he huddled together with Tahlia beneath the cloak. Tahlia apparently thought it wisest for her to remain deliberately quiet. Maddock was thankful for her discretion.

The rain continued to pummel the plains, marking the end of first summer, as Engineer Tomova guided the children back home to Klinberg.

END OF PART 1