“The fire mountains at the head of the ravine seem to have blocked off the river,” Longbow replied, “and without that river, Lattash isn’t a good place for Chief White-Braid’s tribe to live anymore. The notion of leaving Lattash disturbs White-Braid so much that he can’t seem to make decisions anymore. Our shaman, One-Who-Heals, tells us that things like that aren’t uncommon in older men. Red-Beard here has been taking care of things, and he hasn’t made too many mistakes yet.”

“Thanks, Longbow,” Red-Beard said in a flat, unfriendly tone.

“Don’t mention it,” Longbow replied blandly. “Anyway,” he continued, “Red-Beard and I found a suitable place for the tribe to live on down the north side of the bay, and Sorgan’s fleet’s been moving the members of the tribe there.”

“That was nice of him,” Zelana observed, “and ‘nice’ is something I wouldn’t really have expected from somebody like Sorgan.”

“He’s not really all that bad, Zelana,” Red-Beard disagreed. “It seems that sometimes wars bring out the best in people. We helped him quite a bit up there in the ravine, so now he’s helping us. He’ll be going south with Narasan to help out during the war in your brother’s Domain, too.”

“Isn’t that sweet, Beloved?” Eleria said.

“Maybe I underestimated him,” Zelana confessed. “He hides it very well, but there might just be a certain amount of decency lurking behind that rough exterior. Are those fire mountains still belching smoke?”

“They were when we left,” Red-Beard replied. “We were hoping that they’d just roll over and go back to sleep, but they’re still grumbling up there.”

“It was probably a wise decision to move your tribe, Red-Beard,” she said gravely. “Once a mountain starts spitting fire, it can go on for years and years, and you don’t really want to be downhill from one of them while that’s happening.” She turned. “I think we’d better hurry, little brother. Let’s get all of our friends away from that ravine. That might be a very dangerous place for the next several years.”

“I sort of thought so myself, dear sister,” Veltan agreed.

Red-Beard braced himself. “There’s something you should probably know about, Zelana,” he said. “My uncle’s always been very attached to the village at the bottom of the ravine, but the fire mountains stopped our river, and if they don’t go back to sleep, there’s a good chance that Lattash will be buried in melted rock. Longbow and I found a place to set up a new village, but I didn’t want to just jam the notion down uncle White-Braid’s throat.”

“Get to the point, Red-Beard,” Zelana told him.

“This isn’t too easy,” he replied. “When Longbow and I went back to Lattash, my uncle seemed to have realized that he couldn’t really make decisions for the tribe anymore, so he told the elders that he wanted to step aside, and he suggested that I might be the best one to replace him. It wasn’t my idea, and I don’t really like it very much, but I guess I’m the chief of the tribe now.”

“Your uncle’s very wise, Red-Beard,” Zelana assured him. “You were the proper choice. Sometimes old ones become confused when things start moving too fast for them.” She smiled faintly at Eleria. “That’s when younger ones have to step over them.”

“Would I do something like that, Beloved?” Eleria asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“Why don’t we talk about that some other time, little one?” Zelana replied. “Right now, I’ve got more important things to consider.”

Red-Beard’s heart sank when Veltan’s sloop reached the inlet that led back into the bay of Lattash. The fire mountains were spouting red-hot liquid miles up into the air again. He’d been hoping against hope that somehow his boyhood home might still be there to look at, but now that was obviously out of the question.

“I’m sorry, friend Red-Beard,” Longbow said.

“It wasn’t your fault, friend Longbow,” Red-Beard replied. “Nothing we hope for comes to us without a cost, I guess. We won this war, but the winning cost us our home. It used to be a nice place, but nothing lasts forever, I suppose.”

Sorgan Hook-Beak appeared to be in a state of near-panic when Veltan pulled his sloop up alongside the Seagull a bit later. “Where have you been?” he demanded of Zelana in a shrill voice. “That molten rock’s coming down the ravine faster than any man could run. It’ll probably swallow up the village before the sun goes down, and we’ll never be able to save all the gold in that blasted cave.”

“Calm yourself, Hook-Beak,” she told him. “Rabbit, why don’t you hop into that skiff of yours and go fetch Sorgan’s cousins—Skell, Torl, and the rest of them? If we try to load all the gold in the cave on the Seagull, we’ll sink her.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rabbit agreed, hurrying forward toward the bow of the Seagull.

“We’ll go on ahead, Sorgan,” Zelana continued. “I’ll need to remove the barriers I set up earlier before your men can start carrying the gold out.”

“Do you think maybe you could widen that tunnel where the gold is just a bit, Lady Zelana?” Hook-Beak asked her. “It’s awfully narrow, and things would go a lot faster if I could put more than two lines of men to work in there.”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea, Sorgan,” she told him. “The walls of that tunnel support the roof, and if I push them out much farther, the ceiling could collapse. Just tell your men not to spend so much time fondling the gold bricks and move faster. Let’s clear out the cave before the lava hits the bay.”

“It can slop down into the bay all it wants to,” Sorgan said. “I want to keep it out of the cave, is all.”

“Once it hits the water, you and your men won’t be able to see what you’re doing, Sorgan. The clouds of steam will be thicker than any fog you’ve ever encountered.”

“I guess I hadn’t thought of that, Lady Zelana,” he conceded.

The Maags followed the procedure that had been so successful when they’d dismantled the top of the stairway at the head of the ravine during the recent war, passing the gold bricks from man to man along twin lines of sailors. The rocky passageway that led back to the gold from the large chamber near the mouth of the cave was narrow, so there wasn’t really enough room for more than two lines, but the sailors moved rapidly, so things seemed to be going quite well.