There was a warm mass at his side — Jaen, standing quietly with him. He took her hand, squeezing it gently, and his thoughts began to run along new, unexplored tracks. Now that the adventure was over perhaps he and Jaen might think about a new kind of life, of a home of their own—
Jaen gasped. She pointed. 'My god… look.'
Something came lunging out of the sky. It was a compact, pale green wheel of wood, like a tree six feet wide. It snapped to a halt mere yards from Rees's face and hovered there, maintaining its position with rapid flicks of rotation. Short, fat limbs snaked out of the trunk, and what looked like tools of wood and iron were fixed at various points to the rim. Rees searched in vain for the tree's tiny pilots.
'By the Bones, Rees,' Jaen snapped, 'what the hell is it?'
Four eyes, blue and shockingly human, snapped open in the upper surface of the trunk and fixed them with a stern gaze.
Rees grinned. The adventure, he realized, was far from over.
In fact, it might barely have begun.
