Red-Beard drifted on back into the side chamber to take one last look at the imitation ravine he’d constructed before the war in the real ravine had started, and for some reason Eleria followed along behind him. “Oops,” she said. “We forgot something, didn’t we?”

“I didn’t quite follow that,” Red-Beard admitted.

“There are quite a few of those yellow blocks buried under the clay, remember?”

Red-Beard suddenly burst out laughing. “I’d forgotten about that,” he admitted. “Maybe we should remind Sorgan that there’s gold here as well as in the back of the cave.” He squinted at the model of the ravine. “It might take a while to dig it out, though. The clay we piled on top of those blocks has had enough time to dry by now, so the Maags are going to have to dig if they want this gold, too.”

“It’ll be good for them. I’ve noticed that sailors are sort of lazy when there’s nothing exciting going on.”

Red-Beard left the cave to the sweating Maags and began to climb up the steep slope behind the village, but he met Longbow coming down. “How much time do we have left?” he asked his friend.

“A few hours at least,” Longbow replied. “The flow isn’t moving quite as fast as it was before. That narrow place in the ravine where Skell built his fort seems to have slowed it somewhat. I think we’d still better get Sorgan’s people off the beach as quickly as possible, though. In a peculiar sort of way the lava flow’s behaving very much like Eleria’s flood did.”

“Do you think the berm might hold it back?”

“I doubt it. It kept the water from flooding the village, but water isn’t as heavy as molten rock, and it follows the course of least resistance. The berm was built to hold back water, not liquid rock.”

Red-Beard sighed. “Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “If even a little bit of the village was still here, just the sight of it would keep bringing back memories—particularly in the minds of the old men of the tribe. I think it’ll be better if there’s no trace of Lattash left here. The tribe needs to move on, and memories of the past would only be a burden.”

“You’re getting better, Chief Red-Beard,” Longbow noted. “You seem to be able to think past tomorrow now.”

“I didn’t ask for this, Longbow,” Red-Beard complained.

“I know, my friend,” Longbow said, “and that’s what’s going to make you a very good chief. Your tribe’s lucky, you know. You just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I’d still much prefer to spend my time fishing or hunting.”

“Wouldn’t we all?”

“If it hadn’t been for those cursed fire mountains, I’d have left that gold right where it was,” Sorgan told Commander Narasan the following morning in the cabin at the stern of the Seagull. “If I pay the other ship captains now, they’ll sail for home on the afternoon tide. I think we’re going to need them when we fight your war off to the south, but I don’t think they’ll be very interested after they’ve got their hands on all that gold.”

“You’re probably right, Sorgan,” the Trogite commander agreed. He smiled faintly. “Sometimes gold can be an enormous inconvenience, can’t it?”

“Bite your tongue,” Sorgan suggested. “The real problem’s going to be that there’s no possible way for me to keep the fact that the Seagull and the ships of several of my relatives are loaded with gold a secret. Ordinary sailors talk too much—particularly after they’ve had a gallon or so of beer to loosen their tongues. Sooner or later I’ll be looking another one of those ‘Kajak affairs’ right in the face.” He looked at Longbow. “How are your arrows holding out?” he asked wryly.

“There aren’t quite that many, Hook-Beak,” Longbow replied.

“What it all boils down to is that I need a safe place to hide all this gold, but no matter where I try to hide it, sooner or later somebody on one of these ships will get drunk and start bragging.”

“Why don’t you let me take care of it, Sorgan?” Zelana suggested.

“Shouldn’t you give the various sea captains in your fleet a part of the gold you promised them, Captain Hook-Beak?” the young Trogite, Keselo, suggested. “If you don’t pay them anything at all, they’re likely to be very unhappy. If you give each one a quarter of what you promised him and tell him that the war isn’t over yet, he may not be wildly happy, but at least he won’t try to set fire to the Seagull.”

“That’s something you might want to consider, Sorgan,” Narasan agreed with the young Trogite. “The war you hired the Maags to fight isn’t really over yet. Our campaign up in the ravine was really only the first battle in a war that’s still going on, wasn’t it? We won that battle, but I’m fairly certain that there’ll be three more. So far, they’ve only earned a quarter of what you promised to pay them. Give them quarter payment, and tell them that they still have to earn the rest.”

“That might just work, Cap’n,” the small Maag, Rabbit, agreed. “Part pay’s better than no pay, and they’ll probably decide to stay here so they can earn the other three parts.”

“It might work,” Sorgan conceded a bit dubiously. “Some of them might think that I tricked them, though, and they’ll just take their quarter pay and set sail for home.”

“Let them,” Zelana suggested. “The ones who turn and run won’t be of much use anyway, will they? The good ones will probably stay, and those are the ones we want anyway.”

“Where are you going to hide the rest of my gold, Lady Zelana?” Sorgan asked.

“You don’t really need to know that right now, dear Sorgan,” Zelana replied sweetly. “I might consider telling you, but only if you give me a firm promise that you won’t touch a single drop of beer until this is all over.”

“That’s not fair at all!” Sorgan objected.

“You didn’t really expect life to be fair, did you, dear Sorgan?” she replied with a sly smile.

Red-Beard carefully covered his mouth until he managed to get his broad grin under control. Zelana was still as sharp as any knife when she put her mind to it. He’d been very worried when she’d fled back to her hiding place on the Isle of Thurn, but now that she’d regained her senses, things were looking better and better.