text: "Do you have any particular part in this conquest for Boruu and myself?" asked Psilia.
  
  "I have a part for you to consider, and tell me whether you can put up with it," I said. "If you can't, I'm sure there are plenty of other choices."
  
  "I'm worried already," she said.
  
  "Chevethna said you're a good healer. I would like you two to go Zheribac and set up a medical practice," I said.
  
  She looked at her flank regretfully, where dozens of scales were loose. She put some small and elegantly-scented healing spells into a couple of them. "I am a good healer. Not because I enjoy it, though. With my weak scales, I get hurt far too much, and somebody has to take care of it. Which usually means me, but sometimes Boruu. So we've got the power to do that."
  
  "She is unenthusiastic, not being much of an Uplifter at all," said Boruu. "I am an Uplifter, though like most of us I prefer to uplift my own small people intead of some that I've never met in a country that I've never been to. Perhaps you could explain your intent here? In your most inspiring words?"
  
  "I am not an Uplifter at all. I am a Downcrusher. You would be too, if you visited the war-pits of Logresh," said Psilia.
  
  "I never have," I said. "But we're on Hove now, and I hope I don't need to explain again why we're taking a slow and subtle approach." Two-thirds of an hour of repeated explanations later, plus an incomprehensible but rather upset polemic from Llredh, we got back to the point. "I want to start the process of getting hovens to regard dragons as powerful, benevolent beings who will, for suitable consideration, bring them good things that hovens cannot procure for themselves. So I want you to heal them — especially diseases that they don't know how to cure — for money."
  
  Boruu nodded. "How much money?"
  
  "Lots of money," I said. "But not lots and lots of money. Ythac, could you please use your considerable hoven spy network to find out how much a doctor charges for treating, oh, Moray-Lagrozo Syndrome for a year? In Trest, if not in Zheribac. That should be what you charge for a full heal, Psilia. We want to be Hove's best and most expensive doctors."
  
  Chevethna laughed. "You have done your homework, if you know the uncurable local diseases already! If anyone doubts my wisdom in putting Jyothky in charge, let them listen to this!"
  
  "Well, if you were in charge, I'd be just as helpful," I told her, because I am the worst dragon for dominance that ever was. So she bit my wing as punishment for defying her in her support of me, which is very confusing. Psilia is very good at healing spells though. She used a small one like a silver ball full of plainsongs, that worked more nicely than the Rose Rescaler and with a twelfth the effort.
  
  Tultamaan shook his head. "You are being Unwise. You may think you're working in support of your scheme, but you're really not."
  
  I hissed at him, "And you may think that you're keeping your promise not to complain, but you're really not."
  
  Tultamaan shrugged his wings. "I'm not coming here to be Useless, you know. I'm not just on this trip because I Know The Way. I have Many Excellent Ideas."
  
  "You're just on this trip because the king of Mhel finally got sick of you, plus you were poaching from Rankotherium, and you got exiled," I shrilled.
  
  "That's one Way of Looking At It. A Wrong Way, but it is one Way," he said. Infuriating beast. "Are you ready to hear the Devastating Flaw in your Current Scheme? Together with the readily-available Means for Fixing It? Or would your Royal Queeniness prefer a bit more Libel first? I don't mind. I'm quite used to it."
  
  "Just say it, Tultamaan. If it's your usual whining nonsense we're going to fight another Duello Prolongato, though," I said.
  
  "I imagine we'll end up fighting, because you don't seem to Understand Things Very Well sometimes. But here it is, None The Less. You said we were to become Hove's best and most expensive doctors," he said in a mockingly gutteral version of my voice. I nodded sharply. "And you also said that we're trying to become well-loved by hovens," he continued. I nodded to that.
  
  "Now, your Brilliant and Insightful Investigation into the depths of the hoven mind — which involves shapeshifting, does it not? And has something to do with that whore who follows you around constantly? — In any case, you might not know this, but the most expensive doctors are Not the best-loved. They are, I would suspect, rather Unpopular."
  
  I hissed annoyedly. "The price isn't to be well-loved, Tultamaan. You're missing the point. We also need to become rich. We want to live well while we're conquering the place. And, for that matter, wealth will let us conquer more easily: if a country has a famine, we could buy them food, and earn that much extra gratitude."
  
  "Yes, yes, I had gotten that far, and Quite a Few Steps Further. But y'don't want one part of your plan to Counteract the other. That's casting spells into your vô. You don't want the doctoring to make us Unpopular. And if there is any dragon who understands Unpopularity in all its varigated Splendor, that dragon is Myself."
  
  I flicked my tail. "For some very good reasons. Go on."
  
  "So Psilia and Boruu ought to charge a lot sometimes. But they ought to do half their healing for free. Hire a hoven secretary to hold a lottery, perhaps. Show everyone that they are Benevolent and Hoven-Loving Creatures, who mean nothing but Good Will to the Whole World. Unlike the wicked tan personage who showed up at the Kyongsy Temple first, who might have given them the Wrong Impression. What was her name again? I seem to recall that she was the Less Inferior of my last pack of fiancées, back when I still thought such things mattered."
  
  "Um... Arilash?" guessed Arthane, while I spluttered sparks and other sparks.
  
  "Arilash! I remember now, yes, Arilash. What has become of Dear Little Arilash? I haven't seen her or heard of her since the war." Which surely was a lie; I can't imagine Tultamaan not keeping up with the gossip. "In any case, if this honored and surely entirely proper Couple." He swept a wing at Boruu and Psilia. Everyone but Nrararn and Csirnis and I laughed. "This Couple who Surely are Uninvolved in any Indecencies with Arilash or Anyone Else. If they charge high fees sometimes, and free sometimes, they will get both the Wealth and the Good Regard that fit in your plan. They won't be working against themselves."
  
  Boruu grinned. "The real reason Tultamaan came to Hove: Psilia is the one dragoness anywhere who will have him."
  
  Psilia smirked. "He's not that bad a lover. If you wrap your tail around his muzzle to shut him up, of course."
  
  I snarled at them. "Please keep that private. Hove isn't all libertines."
  
  She slithered over and bonked her muzzle against the underside of my chin, which is a sort of lightly grovelly apology. "I'm sorry. I'm not used to having any other libertines around, or dragons who tolerate us."
  
  I licked her between the eyes, which is the polite acceptance of that apology. "I'm getting used to the libertine part. I did share a cave with Arilash for a long while. But the last breaking of my mating flight is still poison-bitter on my tongue."
  
  Boruu had been chatting with Tultamaan. When I finished mutually apologizing on his wife, he spread his wings. "I think I like Tultamaan's plan, to get both money and respect of hovens. We'll present it as compensation for Arilash's fight at the Kyongsy Temple, even."
  
  "Which was also My Idea. A Codicil on my Previous Point," said Tultamaan.
  
  I bit my left wing. "Right. It does sound like a good plan, Tultamaan."
  
  "Heartfelt Thanks are not necessary, Jyothky. An Angry Expression of Adequacy will suffice. It's not as if your plans would be Completely and Inevitably Thwarted by your own incompetence without me. They might simply be Greatly Delayed."
  
  "Tultamaan, thank you for contributing to our plans, and if you ever have any other improvements to them, please don't hesitate to say them. Though with fewer insults, if you can manage it." Getting the words out was not so easy, and I don't think they sounded quite sincere, because they weren't. He's bad enough when he's wrong, but he's utterly horrid when he's right.