Waterborn

very well. You may have set something exceptionally deep in motion.' He knitted his fingers tight, squeezed his palms together, nodded fretfully. 'But what you get is not likely to be what you wished for.'

'Why would the River help me at all? Why would it help me escape?'

Ghan quirked his mouth in a shallow grin. 'The River is not a thoughtful or wakeful god. He is a very literal one, and it has been said that none can know his will. Not because he is mysterious, or even capricious, in the usual sense. But because he does not know his own will.'

'Leave Nhol,' Hezhi considered wonderingly. 'I can't imagine it.'

'But you can imagine the alternatives all too well,' Ghan pointed out.

'I don't even know how to begin.'

'Your Giant. He is loyal?'

'Tsem loves me,' Hezhi said. 'He has always been with me.'

'In the palace, that means nothing. Do you trust him?'

'Yes,' Hezhi said, 'I do.'

'Then leave and send him in to see me. He and I will make your plans.'

'What of me? Am I to have no part in my own rescue?'

'Tsem and I can move outside of the city. You cannot.'

Hezhi saw sense in that, reluctantly nodded acquiescence.

Ghan narrowed his eyes. 'This man in your dreams. Describe him again.'

Hezhi closed her eyes, concentrating. 'He has very pale skin,' she said. 'Gray eyes, light brown hair. He wears armor sometimes. He has a sword. I think he is very far away; I have never dreamed about him here, in Nhol.'

Ghan nodded. 'These dreams of yours may mean something or they may not. Nhol is a large city, and even if this dream-man is here, he may be difficult to find. Though there must be precious few men in the city who match his description.' He smiled and stretched out his hand to give hers a squeeze. 'Well, it's been long enough since I've been out of the palace anyway. This will be good for me.'

He motioned for her to go on, his eyes thoughtful. Already seeing the city outside, perhaps, and the paths by which one might leave it.

'Ghan?' Hezhi murmured. 'Ghan, why have you helped me?'

Ghan regarded her, his old face solemn. 'I wish you wouldn't ask me questions I don't know the answers to,' he sighed. 'Not when I have a reputation for knowing everything.'

VII

Paths of Stone, Mountains of Light

Perkar spooned the soup greedily; he believed it to be the best thing he had ever eaten. Nearby, a scruffy brown dog watched him with more than passing interest.

'Otter Boy wants some,' Win explained. Win was a little boy of perhaps seven years with a broad, happy face. Nearby, his mother, Ghaj, watched with evident amusement as she spun cotton onto a wooden spool. Hearing his name, Otter Boy stood, wagging and panting hopefully.

'Reminds me of my old dog, Kume,' Perkar remarked. 'When I was this hungry, I wouldn't give him any, either.'

'They have dogs where you come from?' Win asked.

Ghaj snorted, glanced up from her work to show them her thick-featured face. 'They have dogs everywhere,' she opined.

'She's right, they do,' Perkar agreed.

'Tell me more about where you're from,' Win exclaimed.

'Don't be rude,' Ghaj chided her son.

'It's all right,' Perkar said.

Ghaj puckered her face in consternation. 'He's my boy,' she informed him. 'I'll decide what is and is not acceptable.'

'Oh,' he said sheepishly, 'sorry.'

She nodded her forgiveness, but it was clear she had more on her mind. 'I can't invite you to stay with us tonight,' she told him. 'Me a widow and you a foreigner—I don't need that sort of talk. There is an inn in town—sort of—L'uh, the stable master, rents a few rooms. You understand, I hope.'

'I understand,' he assured her. He also understood the suspicious way she kept eyeing his sword and the faded brown stains on his clothes.

'You do have some money?' she inquired.

He stopped with his spoon halfway to his mouth.

'What is money?' he asked.

Ghaj rolled her eyes. 'A foreigner who doesn't even know what money is,' she muttered. 'Strange things the River sends me.'

'Why can't he stay with us?' Win complained. 'He can show me his sword.'

'A sword isn't something to play with or to unsheath lightly,' Perkar told the boy.

'How long will you stay in Nyel?' Ghaj asked.

Perkar considered. 'Not long. I'll leave in the morning, I think.'

Ghaj clucked her disapproval. 'You must be in a big hurry to leave that soon. You're in no shape to travel.'

'I have something to do,' he told her. 'Something I want to get finished as soon as I can, so I can go on with other things.'

'I didn't ask for your life story,' Ghaj chastened sourly. 'I only wanted to know how long I have to put you up for.'

Perkar finished off the soup and set the bowl down. Without hesitation, Otter Boy nosed down into it, tongue slurping. 'I thought you just said…'

'Let them talk,' Ghaj decided. 'It'll only be out of jealousy anyway. Strangers don't stop here—they either stop in Wun or go on to Nhol, and the overland routes are nowhere near here.'

'There is a path to Nhol, though?'

'A path, not much more. Most people go by boat.'

'I lost my boat,' he explained.

Ghaj grinned broadly, with genuine amusement. 'So I guessed,' she said, gesturing with the back of her hand at his still-damp and muddy clothing. 'You know,' she mused, 'some of my husband's old clothes might fit you.'

As it turned out, the shirt fit loosely and the kilt needed taking in. He accepted them gratefully, though he didn't much care for the kilt. How could one ride a horse in such a garment?

Ghaj was quick to suggest ways he could repay her kindness. She was low on firewood for cooking; two of her crawfish traps needed repair, and a new trash pit needed digging. He saw to all of these things, with the often dubious aid of Win. These chores he completed by evening, and when Ghaj served the late meal— River rice and steamed crawfish—he ate it with gusto. His muscles were beginning to ache, but to Perkar it was a delicious soreness, earned by doing something real and worthwhile. It reminded him of long days in his father's pasture, cutting hay and thatching it together for the winter, of hard work on a neighbor's damakuta and then a heavy meal and woti afterward. He had experienced pain enough, aching muscles to last a lifetime in the past few months—but that soreness had never brought him satisfaction.

'Tell me,' Win begged. 'Tell me more about your adventures.'

'There isn't so much to tell about me,' he told the boy. 'But I can tell you some of the things I saw, coming down the River. I can tell you about the old Mang man I met.'

'Tell me!' Win exclaimed delightedly. 'Did you have to kill him with your sword?'

'No, he was very nice to me. He had a dog, too…'

He went on for a while, speaking of the vast open plains, gradually becoming desert, the occasional distant mountains, the night that lightning had raged silently on every horizon without ever a thunderclap or a raindrop. As he did so, a peculiar thing happened. Remembering these things with his voice, he suddenly marveled at them. When those sights had been laid out, actually there for him to see, he had absorbed them with the eyes of a corpse, indifferent. Wonder, long dormant, now quickened, and he felt like