To carry out nefarious undertakings in Hamal was a mite trickier than in most of the lands of Paz, the grouping of continents and islands on our side of Kregen.  The iron-hard laws of the Empire of Hamal saw to that.

Flying due north and resting the fluttrells from time to time, feasting from the food in the saddlebags, I headed for Paline Valley.  This place, if any in Hamal, I could consider home.  The possession of a cover name that was perfectly genuine had proved of inestimable value.  The way of it had been simple and touching, for when the wild men from over the mountains slew the old Lord, Naghan, and his son Hamun, I had fought for them and Naghan, dreadfully wounded, had with his dying breath commended Paline Valley to me.  He implored me, he demanded from me, he exulted in his plan to make me his son, and faced with this barrage I had accepted the rank of Amak and the name of Hamun ham Farthyto.

I was Hamun ham Farthytu, Amak of Paline Valley.

Palines, the lusciously delectable berries that grow just about everywhere on Kregen, it seems, were certainly not growing on the parched land beneath.  The ground looked like a rhinoceros's hide before his daily dip.  Dust devils whirled.  Not a sight of humanity, not a single solitary sight, greeted the eyes of the wayfarer on this route.  So it was that the importance of the valleys folded into the foothills would be difficult to overestimate.  Here cultivation thrived.  Paline Valley was, in my biased opinion, the most beautiful and delightful of them all.

Up here, in the far northwest of Hamal, squeezed in between the Mountains of the West and Skull Bay to the north, Paline Valley was remote and cut off from the rest of the empire.  All the same, signs of activity grew as I slanted in.

Lest the sight of four fluttrells winging should be mistaken for a prowling flutsman outflyer force, I was circumspect in landing.  Palines grew in riotous profusion about me as I jumped off the lead fluttrell, and quietened the others down.  They had accepted me readily enough.  Their beaks gaped and they twisted those silly head vanes about; they were thirsty.

The people who congregated gaped at me.  They were slaves.

I felt a furious anger.  I felt dismay.  As the Amak here I had given my comrade Nulty strict instructions; no slaves were to be handled in the valley.  Nulty knew my name was Dray Prescot.  He had served the old Amak loyally, and now he served the new.  I'd paid a few quick visits here, from time to time; but the last, because of all the unpleasant happenings in Vallia at the Time of Troubles and what followed, had been some time in the past.  Even so, I couldn't believe barrel-body, husky, cheerful Nulty would have taken on slaves.  Perhaps he was dead?  I sincerely hoped not, for he still had a goodly span of his better than two hundred years of life left yet.

The slaves took care of the fluttrells.  Clad in flying leathers, yet left loose and open for the heat, and wearing the best of the captured swords strapped to my belt, I walked along toward the gated entrance of the compound.  Paline Valley's main village had been burned to the ground in that dread encounter, and Nulty had rebuilt.  Now the oval-shaped area with all the houses facing inward so their backs formed a protective wall was of a greater size than it had been, and there were two protected ovals, joined like an hourglass.  The shade trees, the well, the people and dogs and calsanys and all the scuttle and bustle of a busy estate brought back the memories.

Two hefty fellows carrying exceedingly knobby sticks walked down and accosted me.  Their hairlines and their eyebrows were on nodding acquaintance.  They were apim, like me.

"Haiu, dom, and what do you want?"