He and his companion had two children. Shastin was so strong that she could lift a pace stone with one hand. Arinka was a usually solemn little boy, though when he laughed he really laughed. Though so different, they were fond of each other, and sometimes her brother was the only person that the mighty girl would obey. Yet, when he chose to go with his father, she stayed with her mother, disdaining to leave the work of the road.
     Father and small son set off on their footwheels, taking food in their wheeled baskets. In a day they could travel lengths that had taken seasons to build. But Kunour now, like the messengers, had reason to notice places that the roadbuilders had not ground as smoothly as they should.
     He recognized the countries of the various Frantagon who had been destroyed, the mountain pass, the woodlands. They camped one night beside the bit of old reddish wall, where he had found his Lizard girl.
     Only just beyond this, to his surprise, was the first fort of the roppeoc, the empire. The place where he had been born was now inside the empire. The empire had been growing, as he knew, sending a feeler along the road, but still it was a surprise.
     They came to a village, and found hospitality and friends. Kunour had learned some friendliness from his mate, and his child Arinka, though shy, was liked by people at once. The village was only a new frontier village, but they rested in it, doing their best to sleep in houses, and learned a lot. People remarked kindly about the old forms of the language that Kunour used, though children teased Arinka, imitating his words.
     The empire, yes, had been growing in the direction found for it by the road. The latest news — there was much news, people within the empire seemed to have much to talk about every day — was that the capital had moved.
     Kunour wanted to go on to the middle. They set off again. The country inhabited by people spread on either side, and there were not only paths but lanes and other roads leading off to villages, but the roads, lanes, and paths were all tributaries to the cardinal road.