Thomas spent many long hours after that thinking, puzzling out the situation they'd found themselves in, and one afternoon he found himself alone in the sitting room with Matthew. Jop Sonno and Roj Villa were out exploring the city, and Drenn was in another room practising with a length of wood he was using as a makeshift quarterstaff; a weapon that was looked down upon by most professional soldiers of their world but which priests of Samnos respected greatly. It was a worthy substitute for a sword, and as such the priest only practised with it when their hosts were away, not wanting to alert them to the fact that he wasn't as unarmed and helpless as they thought he was.

     The wizard and the Flight Leader listened to the priest grunting and cursing in the next room, but Matthew could see that Thomas had something else on his mind and he asked him what it was.

     "Oh, just thinking," the wizard replied. "Nothing relevant, nothing that'll help us. Just stuff that I can't get out of my head."

     "What kind of stuff?" asked Matthew. "Come on, maybe I need something to take my mind off things as well."

     Thomas smiled, then nodded. "You remember I told you about the mighty civilisation that existed on Tharia, thousands of years in the past? The images Tak saw of it in those artifacts Gannlow discovered, that Tak thought might be some kind of diaries? Cities with tall towers of glass. Flying carriages, living metal servants.” Matthew nodded. “It means we now know of three worlds linked by the portal, three worlds of the Sheaf, that had mighty civilisations in the distant past. Three very similar civilisations. The Tharian civilisation, the Veglian Citybuilders and the people who built the ring and the skyscrapers of this world. Three civilisations that grew mighty through the use of natural philosophy.”

     “You think these three civilisations may have been part on one civilisation?" said Matthew. "One civilisation that spanned many worlds across many dimensions? It’s possible, I suppose, but they may only look similar to us. The way all Fu Nangians look alike to Beltharans, because we’re unfamiliar with them. No doubt all Beltharans look alike to Fu Nangians, and maybe these three civilisations would have looked completely different to an inhabitant of one of them.

     "And it’s no coincidence that the three worlds we’ve walked on have all had ancient civilisations," the Flight Leader continued. "It was because this world had the ruins of an ancient civilisation that we came here, remember? We came looking for the Rossem Shipbuilders. And the felisians only came to Tharia because they were scared we might invade their world, like the Masters did, while the Masters only went to Veglia in the first place to plunder the ruins of the Citybuilder civilisation. So you see? There's no great mystery here. Events have directed us to visit worlds with lost civilisations. Don’t forget that most of the worlds accessible through the portal are barren and lifeless, according to the felisians. They say that only about one sun in a hundred has a living world circling it.”

     Thomas nodded. "I thought of that," he said, "and you're probably right, but I’m more worried by the possibility that these three civilisations may have been entirely unconnected to each other. I'd be a lot happier if we could get a clearer idea of exactly when these three civilisations fell."

     "Why?" asked Matthew, puzzled.

     Thomas shook his head, aware that what he was about to say would sound silly. It was silly, he knew that, but the thought just wouldn't go away nevertheless. "I'd feel a lot better if we knew for sure that these three civilisations fell centuries before or after each other, preferably thousands of years. That way, we'd know for sure that all three planets fell individually, that they weren't all stricken by the same disaster, at the same time..."

☆☆☆

     As time passed the Tharians became celebrities in Shonnla and crowds gathered around them whenever they ventured out into the street. They each faced an endless barrage of questions, which they struggled to translate and answer, but their limited comprehension of the language meant that they couldn't really hold a conversation unless it was with one person in peaceful surroundings with enough time to search their brains for the right words.

     The difficulties they faced talking to the gathered crowds only made them appear more foreign and exotic, though, particularly when some of the townswomen offered to make Beltharan style clothes for them, to make them feel more at home. The sight of them wearing the latest Taran fashions a few days later finished the job of popularising them, and they were soon surprised to learn that they were all princes of the Beltharan royal house. Aristocrats and noblemen. Soon after, the Shonnlans themselves began copying their style of dress, and a new fashion swept the city.

     "We, we, er noblemen are, er, not," Matthew told Brega in faltering Fechlonese. "We, we..." He cursed in Tharian as the word refused to come.

     "Ordinary?" whispered Thomas.

     "Yes, that's it. We ordinary people are. Farmers and, and, makers of things. We ordinary, we, we..." He shook his head angrily as he searched for the word."

     "Commoners?" suggested Thomas, whose wizard's memory meant that he was racing ahead in his command of the language. "Peasants? Labourers?"

     "Poor," said Matthew, the word popping into his head at last. "We poor, we no money have."

     "This we know," replied their host with a smile. "We guessed from the clothes you were wearing when we found you."

     "Cannot pay you for, for this," said Matthew, fingering his fine cotton clothes. "Your debt we, er, we are in?"

     "It is our pleasure to help our friends from across the sea."

     Thomas had been relieved to learn that they were, after all, close to an ocean, and that whatever lands there might be on its other side were unknown to the Shonnlans. He'd asked for and been given a map of the known world, and had found that these people were only familiar with the lands for about a thousand miles around. Whatever might be beyond, deserts or icy wastes or mighty civilisations greater than the Agglemonian Empire, was totally unknown. He'd experienced a moment of near panic when Brega had asked him for a map of Belthar, but had covered it well and had complied with a rough sketch of Ilandia with some of the names changed. The real Belthar, he'd found, was too vast and powerful for belief, and Ilandia was still big and impressive enough to overawe these people, as well as having a coastline and a naval industry, which Belthar did not.

     Mayor Drono's residence occupied an entire stump of a skyscraper near the centre of the city. A magnificent five storey structure that towered over the rest of the city, as was proper for the residence and offices of the civic leader. One day, two weeks after their arrival, the Tharians were invited to dine with the Mayor, and yet another suit of clothes was made up for them. Outfits fit for a state function. As he dressed in his finery, designed according to Shonnlan standards of ceremonial garb while still incorporating the Beltharan style as the Tharians had described it, Thomas began to really feel like an ambassador for the first time. Someone with important duties and responsibilities. Someone entrusted to represent his whole civilisation.

     He tried to communicate his feelings to Matthew, but his grasp of his own native tongue wasn't enough to describe the subtle and complex ideas and Matthew was left thinking that he was afraid the younger soldiers would show them up. "They're Beltharan soldiers," the Flight Leader had replied confidently. "They know how to behave."

     Thomas cursed his lack of communication skills and decided it wasn't worth another attempt. He simply accepted his friend's reassurances with a sense of frustration that he couldn't say what he meant. Couldn't put his simplest feelings in words that his oldest friend would understand. And if he couldn't communicate in Tharian common, what hope did he have in Fechlonian? Oh he was learning the vocabulary and the grammar easily enough, but when it came to actually saying something...

     Fortunately, it wasn't a problem during the Mayor's banquet. The conversation over the five course meal was confined to simple topics, easily translated and understood, but all five of the Tharians noticed that the other guests seated around the table asked again and again about things that touched on Belthar's military strength and foreign policy without quite asking outright. Was your ship a naval vessel or a freighter? Do you have the same problem with outlaws and bandits that we have? You do? Then how do you deal with them? I expect your cities have even higher and stronger walls than ours, don't they?

     It seemed that the Mayor wanted to pump them for information in circumstances in which they might let their guards down, perhaps under the influence of a little too much alcohol, but Thomas was thinking clearly enough to note that it was the other guests who asked most of the questions while Hilth Drono watched and listened, probably learning much more about Belthar than the Tharians realised. The wizard didn't mind, though. The more he figured out for himself, the more he would believe that they were telling the truth.