The amount of traffic increased as they went. Carriages like theirs, most occupied only by a single man or woman sitting with their gaze fixed straight ahead. Smaller rigs that looked as though they were privately owned. Men on horseback and, here and there, larger coaches capable of holding a dozen people that stopped at intervals to let people off and take people on. The buildings were larger and taller here, with a self important look to them, and Thomas was reminded that, although Arnor was the political capital of the Empire, Mala was the financial capital. Inhabited by the kind of people who routinely handled sums of money enough to buy cities, handing it from one to another with no more than a simple handshake. Wealth, and an attitude to wealth, that staggered the imagination. He looked out at the pedestrians again, trying to guess by their appearance alone which of them were the bankers. The lifeblood of the Empire.

     Thomas could sense the power of this place. There was a feeling of strength and solidity here that came from the people rather than the sturdy stone buildings. It was a sense of permanence. The certainty that this place, this lifestyle, would last forever. He tried to imagine it from the point of view of the Agglemonians. Their history was one of almost uninterrupted rise, from a loose federation of cattle ranchers and traders lost in the middle of the Endless Plains, surrounded by ancient and powerful enemies, to the continent spanning behemoth it was today. Surely it was obvious that this was a fundamental evolutionary trend, that the seeds of greatness had been present right from the beginning. They had reached a plateau of world domination that had endured for a thousand years, and if it could endure that long, surely it would endure forever. And this was only the beginning! There were two more continents right here on Tharia, both substantially larger than Amafryka, and when they had been colonised there were other worlds out there. Worlds without end! The manifest destiny of Agglemon would continue to express itself for ever and ever and ever...

     "Are you all right?" asked Matthew, looking at him with concern.

     Thomas realised with surprise that there were tears in his eyes. "Fine," he replied, rubbing them away in embarrassment. "Just thinking, you know. About all that, out there."

     "I know what you mean," said the soldier soberly. "All those people. They've got no idea..." He broke off, remembering the driver. They had to be careful what they said so long as there was anyone close enough to overhear. He could already imagine that he felt a draught caused by his flapping ears.

     A salty smell began to drift in through the windows and Thomas looked up to see gulls circling lazily overhead. They must be getting close to the river. The estuary that was wide enough here to be considered part of the sea. He squinted his eyes against the glare of the yellow sun and saw the masts of tall ships rising above the slate tiled rooves of warehouses and fishmarkets ahead of them. They were going east, directly towards the nearest bridge. Looking ahead, though, he was depressed to see that it was choked with almost stationary traffic.

     "What's going on?" he asked the driver. "Has there been an accident?"

     "No, the tolls always cause a bit of a hold up at this time of day," he replied. "Everyone going home at the end of a busy day, you see. Don't worry, we'll get you to the tower well before sundown."

     "Toll?" said the wizard apprehensively. "Erm, how much is this toll exactly?"

     "For the carriages, five silver crowns, plus one for every passenger. That's ten crowns all in all."

     "And I suppose the passenger has to pay?" said Thomas, thinking of his solitary trog coin. How many Agglemonian crowns did it convert into?

     "Of course. You're the one who wants to cross the bridge, not me. Why? Don't tell me you're short of cash! I've never heard of a poor wizard!" He laughed out loud at his own joke.

     Thomas beckoned to the soldiers and they leaned forward to huddle together. "Have you got any money?" he whispered.

     "Only Beltharan, and just a few coins of that."

     "Me too."

     "Same here."

     Thomas cursed. He himself wasn't carrying any money at all, except the one coin Seskip had given him. He leaned back straight to speak to the driver again. "Er, how big a toll do pedestrians pay?"

     "Nothing. They can go across for free."

     "Okay, look. We're going to have to get out here, walk across the bridge and get another carriage on the other side. Sorry to mess you about like this, but..."

     "You mean you really are hard up for cash? But you're a wizard, aren't you? Why don't you just magic up a potful of gold?"

     "I wish it were that simple," said Thomas, grinning ruefully as he opened the door. He handed him the trog coin. "Here, take it out of this."

     The driver stared doubtfully at the diclannet, then popped it into a pouch and handed the wizard a small quantity of change consisting mainly of copper. Then he slapped the reins for his two horses to pull him out of the traffic and into the almost empty opposite carriageway. They watched him for a while as he clattered off down the road, then turned to face the bridge.

     It was a sturdy stone structure two hundred yards long that looked as though it had been built to outlast the pyramids, and indeed it was still standing in their own day. It arched high over the river, supported by thick stone pillars close to the shore, but a central span of fifty yards was unsupported, providing a route for boats and barges to pass by underneath. Traffic rumbled across it in both directions; carts and carriages in the middle and pedestrians on raised walkways on either side. Thomas was amused to see people sitting on wooden benches at the highest point. Must be quite a view from up there, he thought.

     They strolled along the road until they came to the tollbooths, where bored men in smart uniforms were collecting payment from the carriage drivers as they passed by. One of them looked up suspiciously as Thomas and his companions went by, but he made no move to stop them and the wizard breathed a sigh of relief as they left him behind. Then they were on the bridge itself, with six feet of solid stone between them and a steadily widening gap below.

     Thomas kept close to the painted metal railing that ran along the edge of the bridge, protecting pedestrians from the dangerous drop, his fear of heights momentarily overwhelmed by the spectacular view that slowly opened up before him. He could see two more bridges from here, one on either side of him. Similar in design to the one they were on even down to the built up islands close to the western shore that they used as stepping stones.

     Small sailing craft of every description bobbed up and down in the muddy brown water, most of them shallow hulled barges carrying food and trade goods to and from other towns and cities further along the river. He could also see a pair of military boats, painted grey and sporting heavy ballistae similar in design to the one they'd had on the Hummingbird. One of the boats of the river patrol had pulled up alongside a cargo barge and the navy men were searching the boat and questioning the crew. Thomas watched curiously in case they made arrests and confiscated the barge, but after a couple of minutes the navy men returned to their own boat, waving goodbye to the traders as they left.

     They paused at the highest point of the bridge's span. From here, they could see the Tew itself, a thin ribbon of murky green between the horizon and the sky. They could also see the tall masts of ocean ships, vessels that plied their way along the coast of the Western Sea, some of them coming from as far away as Nyundo and the cities of the Bleak Coast. Thousands of miles they had come, and the ultimate destinations of their cargoes lay thousands of miles inland, along the Tew and its myriad tributaries, but those deep hulled ocean vessels could go no further than this. Only the huge fleet of shallow hulled barges could navigate the river, and Mala made its living as the place where the cargo was transferred from ship to barge and vice versa. The city charged a percentage of the worth of the cargo for this service, and that was the city's principal source of income. So great was the trade passing through the city that Mala had grown fat on the proceeds, and would grow fatter still before the fall of Agglemon cut off its source of revenue, several centuries in the future.

     Looking at the bustling, prosperous city now, Thomas found it hard to imagine the nightmare that lay ahead. The terrible time of poverty and anarchy that would last for several generations, in which a dwindling population would split into several warring factions, opening the way for the incursion of savage humanoid tribes. Every attempt to evict the shologs and goblins had failed, and over the years they'd steadily claimed more and more territory for themselves, eventually driving out the last ragged human survivors to claim the once mighty city for their own. They would inhabit the crumbling ruins for ever after, having dug themselves in so deeply that they continued to hold the city even after the recovery of human civilisation. As new nations had sprung up along the river, a new city bearing the same name as the old had been reborn on the river's north bank, therefore, where many miles of muddy water protected them from the humanoid menace. That was the city that Matthew and Thomas had visited once, during their quest for the Sceptre of Samnos.

     "It's huge!" gasped Stone in amazement. "It goes on for ever! I've never seen a city so big!"

     "It's the second largest city in the Empire," agreed Thomas. "Only Arnor itself is larger. They say that, at the height of its glory and splendour, Mala had a population of nearly five million."

     The two junior soldiers gasped, and Matthew nodded thoughtfully. Five million was more or less the population of Ilandia. Agglemonian cities were the size of whole countries.

     "Come on, we'd better go," said Thomas, eying the setting yellow sun with concern. "We can't afford another coach, we'll have to walk the whole way. Doesn't look like more than another mile or so, but I don't want to be still out on the streets after dark."

     The others nodded, and they started down the other side of the great bridge.