But in these my recent dealings with Havilfar I must have been successful. Failure would have flung me back four hundred light-years across space to the world of my birth. Ahead lay the long-delayed investigation into the Savanti nal Aphrasoe, and my possible return to the Swinging City. Much of my interest in them had waned in the swift rush of events in Kregen after I had been thrown out of Paradise. Was even Aphrasoe so much of a paradise beside my island of Valka, beside Strombor, beside Djanduin?
As for the Eye of the World and Nath and Zolta! Ah! There was a thought to set the pulses thumping!
In our swift passage across the face of Kregen beneath Antares, my old scarlet and yellow flag, Old Superb, fluttered and rustled in the wind.
With my friends about me — hard-won, enduring, precious friends — I stepped from the voller on that high landing platform of Esser Rarioch. The day beamed superbly about us. I had to speak to Delia about the plans I had for young Drak. She had her own plans for Lela, that I knew. And there was — or were — the new arrival — or arrivals — to cherish. There was as much to be done at home as ever there was in adventuring with a flaring cloak and a glittering longsword beneath the Moons of Kregen, across the broad and dangerous lands of Havilfar. She ran out to greet me, radiant, gorgeous, that brown hair with those outrageous chestnut tints lighting up in the mingled opaz radiance of the Suns of Scorpio. Her brown eyes met mine with the look of homecoming. She held out her arms to me.
“Delia,” I whispered, holding her close. “My Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains!”
“Dray. .” She would not let me go. “Oh, Dray, my Krozair!”