9

Sunrise next day came with a fine itching mist of rain. I was woken by miserable wet cats trying to get under my blankets. My clothes, which I had hung on the boat to dry, were wet as ever, and Robin, while she was no worse, was not better. And in spite of the rain, the One’s fire was by no means out. It had fallen inward to a flat heap of charcoal, in which blackness and redness came and went as the rain met it, but it was as hot as it was the night before.

This was a serious difficulty. When the One is newly out of his fire, he is at his strongest, and I knew we should take him with us to meet Kankredin. The One signifies that he is ready to come out by putting the fire out and appearing among the ashes. He was not ready. We argued about what we should do. The argument was made more urgent by the sound of the tide racing seaward on three sides of us.

Hern said, “There’s no need for anyone to go but me. You two aren’t reasonable enough, anyway.”

Duck and I refused to stay behind. Duck said he had bound himself to go, too. I wanted to confront Tanamil. “And suppose you’re not back when the One is ready to come out?” I said. It had to be Hern, as head of the family, who took the One from the fire.

Then Hern suggested pouring water on the fire and taking the One out at once. That is Hern all over. I would not hear of it. Neither would Robin. By this time Robin had realized what we were intending to do. She started croaking—her voice had become like a raven’s, as ugly as her face—on and on at us that we were not to go out to sea, that Mother would not like it, that we were not to go without her, and a dozen other objections beside.

She annoyed me. I am sure the reason we are stuck in this old mill, having failed at everything, is that I got so annoyed with Robin that morning. We should have waited until the One was ready to go with us. The Lady and the Young One were not strong enough alone. But I still think we were right not to take Robin. I do not think her soul would have been safe.

I jumped up. “Let’s go,” I said to Hern. “If the One doesn’t want to come, it’s his bad luck. He can stay with Robin.” Robin sat up, with blankets sliding off her shoulders. “Lie down,” I said to her. “You can’t come. I’m wearing your skirt.”

Robin was too ill to stand up to me. Normally she has a long, weak persistence, so that I end up losing. But she just lay down and cried.

“Now she’s crying!” I said. “She cries like a weapon. Lie down, Robin.” I was really horrible. Duck and Hern looked on, subdued. They wanted to see Kankredin too much to interfere. “Let’s build her a shelter to keep the rain off,” I said to them, “and then go.”

The cats got into the shelter gladly. We put food and water in it, and Gull. Nobody argued about Gull. We knew he must stay. Robin was still tearful, but I am almost sure she was glad to be staying, too. We tucked her up where she could see the One’s fire before we ran the boat down to the brown racing tide.

Though we put the sail up, it was the tide which took us and snatched us toward the sandbanks at the Rivermouth. It snatched so fiercely that I took up the Young One. I was afraid already. Duck had the Lady in his hands the moment the boat was in the water. Hern smiled scornfully, but he was shaking whenever I looked at him.

It was impossible to see far in the whiteness and grayness of the rain, but I think the River goes into the sea through many channels, among banks of sand and marsh. The place is miles wide, and low and wet. It was lucky Kars Adon had mentioned the tide because the place where our boat went through was shallow enough as it was. Without the race of the water, we would have run aground. We could not see any distance. Our boat drew on swiftly, drawing with it, as it were, the circle of what we could see. At first we saw water; then, on both sides, there was sticky, shiny marsh, sometimes like wet sand, sometimes covered with brown plants. Even in our small circle, there were more birds than I could count. I saw herons wading, River birds swimming and diving, geese, ducks, grebes, coots, and more gulls than I thought possible, glimmering white through the white rain. Everywhere came cries and squawks, splashings, and the beating of wings. And with every yard, our fear grew.

“I bet the fishing’s good here,” Duck said. His teeth chattered. Yet it felt hot and airless among the beating wings. The rain dewed our rugcoats and filled our hair, and we did not feel cold.

Then we saw something dark through the rain ahead. It was not a ship. We could see the darkness crossed our channel and ran off on either side. Black fear grew in us. We leaned forward, trying to see through the veils of rain. We saw what seemed to be a small boat being poled across in front of the obstruction, just at the limit of what we could see. It went slowly, but we could barely see it all the same. We saw the fair heads of Heathens in it. One was poling, the other stooping and flinging things from the water into the boat. They had gone, slowly to the right, before we could see more.

We knew—though I do not know how—that we had seen something terrible.

“Mother!” whispered Duck. “What were they doing?”

“Fishing, I should think,” said Hern. But from the way he shivered in the heat and wet, he did not believe it.

“Let’s go back!” I said. But the tide was taking us on all the time, and we could not. “Oh,” I said, “why is the One in his fire just when we need him most?” We were slipping forward between the banks of croaking, splashing birds, and I still could not see what the black thing was across our way. I hugged the Young One to my chest and prayed to him to help us.

“Mother!” whimpered Duck again.

“Shut up! She’s dead,” said Hern.

We slid on. The white rain veiled us. Everywhere was white. We slid in a white circle on gray water, and even the marsh was hidden. I heard a duck croak and a gull cry overhead. My fear of gulls made me look up, but I could not see the bird. The rain seemed to have stopped. Not so fearsome, you think? Next moment our boat drifted upon two ducks, which flew off from almost beneath it, with a great outcry. And we could not see the ducks. You know how ducks run through the water, flapping, until at last they have speed enough to fly. We saw the splash and scuffle in two lines on the water, the spray and drips as the wings beat the surface on either side, and we saw the last splash as they rose on the wing. We heard their quacking. We felt the whir of the wings on our faces. But there were no ducks.

“What’s happened?” whispered Duck.

“We’ve not gone blind,” said Hern. His voice cracked. “We can see the water,” he said. He was not steering anymore. He was crouched with one arm on the tiller, gazing as if he could force his eyes to see again.

The boat turned sideways and drifted on. I saw the deep V of a swimming grebe, and many scutterings upon the water. I heard birds overhead. But not a single one did I see until, without break or warning, we were out at sea and I could see the birds again.

The obstruction stood behind us. It was a great net, as high as a house, black as midnight and made in large squares. It was hung on posts as far as we could see in both directions, across the marshes and across the many trickling mouths of the River, from one shore to the other. The birds were in the mud behind the net, feeding and flapping as before. We could see them perfectly. In the distance, also behind the net, we saw the boat with the two Heathens in it, still at their strange business.

On the other side of us was wide blueness. The sea is a great field of water. Where it meets the sky, it is a darker blue. It is immense, too big for me. I was glad to fix my eyes on the long black ship moored to lines not far away. It swung on its ropes as I looked. There were two big eyes painted one on either side of its sharp black prow, with which it seemed to stare at us.

“Look, look! In the net!” said Duck.

There were things struggling against the net, on the River side of it. They were not clearly to be seen. They were large, for the most part, the size of geese or swans, and I think they were winged and of a pinkish color. Each one, as it came against the black net, struggled furiously to get through. We could see the struggle more easily than the thing which fought. Some were able to force themselves through the wide mesh. These flew off to the sea over our heads and were lost in the blue. Many, many more gave up the struggle and slithered down the net inside. The water there was full of their strugglings and floppings. It was these that the Heathens in the boat were collecting.

“People’s souls,” said Duck.

“I don’t believe it!” said Hern, staring. “I don’t believe it!”

Just then the Heathens in the small boat saw us. They shouted angrily and came poling back along the net. Hern quickly swung the tiller and let the wind to our sail. It was a fine breezy day out there. I think the rain and the mist were made by the net. In the breeze and the tide we raced toward the black ship and came in under one of its great eyes. I wanted to hide. It stared so.

“It’s only paint,” said Duck as he moored our boat to the great chain that held the black ship to the bottom of the sea. Hern hoisted himself up it, onto the deck. Duck looked at me and put the Lady into his shirt, under his rugcoat. I did the same with the Young One before we followed Hern.

The floor of the ship was black and smelled of tar. Overhead it was like a winter forest—ropes upon ropes hanging from masts that were trees braced with iron hoops. There was no one to be seen. But a number of large wicker baskets stood along the sides. Duck opened one. He sprang back, and so did Hern and I, when a host of the almost unseen winged things whirled up out of it, with a noise like roaring flames. They did not hurt us. They flew in a stream over the side of the ship and vanished seaward.

Before we had recovered from the shock of that, a door in the high black stern flew open. Heathens dashed out of it, shouting, “Who are you? What do you think you’re doing?”

These were mages. I knew it. When Uncle Kestrel first told us of the Heathen enchanters and their battle spells, I had imagined ugly yellow-haired men with large mauve noses, creased cheeks, and crooked mouths. It surprised me that Tanamil and, later, Kars Adon were not like that. But these men were just like my imaginings. It makes me think a man does not become a Heathen mage unless he is too unpleasant to find friends any other way. They wore gowns that trailed, which they had to hold up as they ran shouting toward us. I was very frightened and clutched the Young One under my rugcoat.

I think Hern had learned from Kars Adon. He stood there calmly and bowed to them a little as they rushed toward us. This made them pause. They did not lay hold of us—as they had meant to when they first saw us—but they crowded threateningly round. With all those ugly faces so close, I do not think Hern was as calm as he looked.

“What do you brats want?” they demanded.

“We are mages with a message from Kars Adon,” Hern said. “May we speak to Kankredin if you please?”

The ugly faces circled round us, arguing. “These aren’t mages.” “Yes, they are. They came through the net.” “He won’t want to be bothered with brats!” “Put a weight spell on them and tip them overboard.” I was very confused. While they milled around us, I kept seeing words and scraps of sentences. Each of them had sayings woven in his gown. It seems they had this art, too. They were large words, and boastful. I tortured the beast in—I read. I took the eyes off Sandar. Then again:—made jewels where none were in—and—three dead in one spell and I sent the hidden death. It was enough to make one ill.

“Silence!” someone boomed at the other end of the ship. “What is this?”

“Three brats saying they’re mages, sir,” someone called.

“Did they pass through the net?” the voice boomed.

“Yes, sir. Ladri’s shouting about it from the soulboat, sir.”

“Then I suppose I’d better see them,” roared the voice. “Bring them in.”

We were hustled along the deck and through the door at the end. There was a room there with hammocks slung from big beams, but we went straight through that into another room right in the stern. This room had a big window looking on the sea, and one empty chair—a good chair, much better than Kars Adon’s. They pushed us in front of it and stood milling behind.

“Some of you get out!” boomed Kankredin. He was sitting in the chair. It was empty till then.

I had thought, after seeing that net of souls, that nothing could frighten me anymore, but I was wrong. Kankredin was not Tanamil. He was not young. He was old—old in the way a stone is old, hard and lasting and as if he had never been otherwise. And like a stone when you turn it over in the earth, a coldness breathed off him. He froze my skin and lifted the hairs on my arms even before I looked at him properly.

It was not easy to look at him. The coldness of him numbed my eyes. I think he had a wriggly gray sheet of hair on either side of his face, and that the top of his head was bald and gray with dirt, with one or two big pink lumps on it. That is what you notice first when a person is sitting down. Then he lifted his face, numbingly, and it seemed to be a plump face, with the eyes thick-lidded, in folds. But as soon as I met his eyes, the face grew and removed itself, to seem large and faint and far away. Hern says he can still see it like that when he closes his eyes, but he cannot tell what he sees. It is the same for me. I remember his voice better, telling the mages to get out. It sounded out of his great chest and belly like the clapper in a bell. But it was a bell in the distance. The voice did not seem to come from Kankredin’s mouth. It came clanging from a way off, sounding of fear and horror, defeat and death. As soon as I heard it, I knew we were standing in front of a great evil, and I saw we were mad to have come without the One.

The thing I saw most clearly was the gown Kankredin was swathed in. It was long and voluminous. Unlike the gowns of the other mages, his was woven all over with words, from collar to hem, and the words were much larger and looser than I would weave them. At first I could not look at those words. They leaped from the cloth, close and violent, as if they would do damage to anyone who read them. I had to turn my eyes aside. It was too hard to see Kankredin and too easy to see his gown.

I know Kankredin was not Tanamil. Yet I had, all through, a strong feeling that Tanamil was close by. I looked round for him among the other mages, but these had all left the room by then, except for I tortured the beast and hidden death.

“Well?” Kankredin clanged out, looking up at us. “You passed through the net without losing your souls, and I daresay you think yourselves mighty clever. What way did you do it?”

It came to me then that we had, most oddly, arrived on the far side of the net, but I could not say how this was. Duck said airily, “I think it may be a spell you don’t know.”

“There are no spells that I don’t know,” Kankredin thundered out of the distance. “Have you any means of stopping me taking your soul now you’re here? Eh?”

“I don’t know until you try,” Duck said.

“Then we shall see,” said Kankredin. “I see you fancy yourself as a mage, boy. Not much of a one, by the looks of it. What’s that spell on the edge of that extraordinary native garment you’re wearing?”

Duck lifted the sleeve of his rugcoat. Hern’s and mine are plain, but Duck, because he was the youngest, has bands at the wrist, very faded now, which say Duck many times, in all the duck colors. Duck was annoyed to have such a babyish thing noticed. “Just my name,” he said crossly.

“Pretty poor stuff, eh?” said Kankredin. “And a silly name. And you, girl—turn round and let me see it—what on earth is that on your skirt? Eh?”

I was very much ashamed, and angry, too. That skirt of Robin’s is my worst piece of weaving ever. It says A man came over the hill muddle muddle lady in the mill muddle muddle. Then it takes a step down and goes, muddle from the river muddle lived forever. Terrible. In two broad bands round the bottom. The ugly mages both sniggered as they read it, and Kankredin chuckled. His laughter was as bad as his voice. It had such echoes of cruelty that it made me think someone was being tortured behind his chair.

“What kind of spell do you call that?” he boomed.

“It’s a nursery rhyme!” I said angrily.

“In baby talk,” said Kankredin. He turned, laughing and torturing, to Hern. “At least you have the sense to go plain,” he said.

“I have a message for you,” said Hern. It was an odd thing. Duck and I were never as troubled by Kankredin as Hern was. He was pale from the beginning, and before long, he was sweating and breathing heavily. Duck and I each had our Undying, of course, but I think Hern’s trouble was more than that. Hern still thought he could fight Kankredin with reason. Reason was overthrown when we saw the souls struggle in the net, but Hern would not admit it. “I’ve come from Kars Adon—” he began.

“What does that stupid boy want now? Eh?” said Kankredin. He had a terrible way of saying “Eh?” It dragged at you for an answer and bullied you even if you meant to answer. If you resolved to say nothing, you still found you were replying to that “Eh?”

“I am to tell you,” Hern said, as if he were struggling, “that Kars Adon is going inland today. He says—”

“He can go, and be eaten by the natives, then,” said Kankredin. “I can’t be bothered with him. If he had stayed, I’d have let him share my victory, but as it is, I’ll make do with the natives. Was that all? Eh?”

“No,” said Hern, struggling still. “I want to know what you think you’re doing to the River.”

“What impertinence is this?” Kankredin boomed, rising to his feet. “Eh?” The cold that came off him made us step back.

Now I must explain that I do not remember well what was said after this point because it was then that I started to read Kankredin’s gown. I have to rely on Duck’s memory, which is good, but not as good as mine. Hern confesses that from then on his mind felt as if he had his head underwater. His ears were roaring. He remembers little except a struggle with Kankredin to keep his soul.

My reading started first, idly, as Kankredin stood up. As I stepped back, I saw at his left shoulder I, Kankredin, mage of mages, have set these spells to conquer and confound this land. It was just level with my eyes. After that, I had to read on. First I studied deeply, I read, to find where the soul and substance of the land lay, for there only may a land be truly conquered. And soon I came to conclude that the soul of the land lies in the one mighty river, which, with his tributary, waters all the country. This river—this is correct, for he used all through the common weaving for river, not the one Tanamil taught me—this river lies at his source, coiled, I conceive, like a snake or a dragon. Him I catch with this net of words, between sleeping and waking, and bind him fast. But his strength is not yet—

Here Kankredin sat down, and the next lines were lost in the fold between his belly and his legs. I had to move on to his left thigh.

Meanwhile, Duck tells me, Kankredin was abusing Hern for daring to ask what he was doing to the River. “I am working night and day with the River, bringing his waters down to drown the natives, cleansing the land for us, and you have the gall to stand there asking what I think I’m doing!”

Duck answered, seeing Hern struggling and panting, that it was generally thought the River was angry.

“Angry? Of course he’s angry!” Kankredin thundered. “He’s fighting me tooth and nail. But I’m winning. I have him in a stranglehold, and he won’t escape.” Duck says Kankredin roared on in this way for some time. Duck listened scornfully because he was sure Kankredin had no idea of the truth about the River. This was just how I felt, reading Kankredin’s gown, though Kankredin was saying one thing to Duck and another on his gown.

—come to my terms, was the next thing I read. Thus I keep him tame and pull from him the vital strength of the land. But he has been cunning and fixed his strength in certain of the souls of his people. When I knew this, I sent forth my mages to battle to seek these souls.

The weaving was large and loose. The next part was on Kankredin’s right shoulder. Then I put my first command on this river that he yield up to me these souls, which he was not willing to do. We strive, and he turns rotten with the effort, bringing sickness, for which I curse him—Kankredin had pulled the gown up into folds here, at the top of his right leg. I stared and stared, but I could only pick out disjointed fragments at the surfaces of the folds—refuses the land his waters … hides his souls from me … send forth greater strength … by this I invoke total power—

“Why do you think I put up the soulnet?” Kankredin roared, as Duck tells me.

“To catch the natives’ souls, I suppose,” Duck said. “Did you know that quite a lot of the souls were getting through?”

This made Kankredin very annoyed, though he tried not to show it. “So you have mage sight,” he said scornfully. “Quite a lot of people can see souls without being mages. Are you telling me to use a smaller mesh? Eh?”

“You’d catch more if you did,” said Duck. “What do you do with them?”

“Never you mind,” said Kankredin. “That net is a charm on the River, not a soul trap in any strict sense.”

“I see,” said Duck. Not that he did, he says. But he was enjoying himself, I could tell. I remember thinking, as I stared at Kankredin’s gown, that I had seldom seen Duck more confident.

Then, pulled up on to Kankredin’s thigh, I read: and thus we took one with such a soul, outwitting the river by accident, I confess, since his captors had thought he was a clansman like themselves. I knew he was talking about Gull. I read furiously. The river would not yield me the soul of the lad, though we strove for three days. But I am cunning. I examined the lad and turned his soul about in my mind. I find his soul is more than the river. It is part of the ancient life behind the river.

Here came the hem, drawn up above Kankredin’s fat vague foot in a dirty sandal. The rest was on the back of the gown. I could have screamed.

I had to get Kankredin to stand up and turn round. I have never been so determined about anything. I looked at Duck and turned my hand round inside my sleeve, hoping that Kankredin would not notice. Duck understood. He had been trying to read Kankredin’s gown, too, but he is slower than me, and he could see I was devouring it. So he gave me his daft look, which is his private way of saying, Yes, but it’s not easy, and turned to Kankredin’s two mages.

“Do you do illusions? Can you make yourselves look like somebody else?” I knew he was trying to find out if any of them had been disguised as Tanamil, and I wondered if I dared to shake my head at him. I was sure the back of Kankredin’s robe would tell me.

Kankredin and his two mages gave out sounds of disgust. But this is exactly what they would do if they did not want us to know. Duck did not see it that way.

“Yes, but can you?” he said. “Can you stand up and show me?”

Kankredin saw there was some trick in this. He was terrifying clever. For a moment the fat shape of his face became near and clear to see. His thick lids folded down over his eyes, and he stared at Duck. Duck, for the first time, was troubled by his power. The front of his coat heaved as he grasped the Lady, and he gasped. “That’ll teach you to bother me with silly questions,” said Kankredin. “Won’t it? Eh?”

At this, I thought suddenly: Why is he bothering to talk to us at all? He thinks we’re just silly children. I looked at Hern, and Hern was beginning to look the way Gull had looked.

“Stop it!” I said. “Leave my brother’s soul alone!”

“Not I,” said Kankredin. “There’s some strangeness in this soul.” He looked full at Hern. Hern put his hands to his face as if he felt giddy.

Duck and I were both terrified. Duck took Hern’s arm and pulled him away across the room. And Kankredin sprang out of his chair in a wave of cold air, roaring that Duck was not to meddle.

The next part was very horrible. I had a perfect opportunity to read Kankredin’s back, but it was at Hern’s expense. And it came to me then that if Kankredin’s gown told the truth—and I think it did, as far as Kankredin knew the truth—Hern’s soul, and mine, and Duck’s were all like Gull’s and could be used the same way. Kankredin stared under his fat lids at Hern, and Hern leaned against Duck, shaking. Duck put both arms round Hern and pressed the Lady against him so that they both had a bruise for days. At the same time, he says, he was willing Hern’s soul with all his might to look normal—like Korib the miller’s son’s, like Aunt Zara’s, even like Zwitt’s. And I read Kankredin’s broad back for dear life.

Thus I, Kankredin, mage of mages, know how to rule the very soul of this land’s soul. The river tries to keep the lad’s soul from me, but I have bound the lad to come to me. I feel him approaching. He is near. By the power of these words and the hands of my mages, I now erect a soulnet across the mouths of the river wherein shall lodge the souls of all those dead in the land. These my mages collect daily. They shall be captive to me and learn to do my bidding, and I shall not suffer them to go out over the sea to their last home. But the lad who is coming to me will lodge in the net in his own body. Then through him I shall draw forth the soul behind the river’s soul. When I have it, I shall come up the river, rolling it before me like a wave of the sea, and the land will lie captive at my feet. I, Kankredin, have spoken.

I did not read his sleeves. They seemed to be spells from much longer ago. “Duck! Let’s go!” I shrieked.

Kankredin turned and looked under his fat lids at me. I did not think we would be able to go.

“There’s no mystery about us,” I said. “We—we have to catch up with Kars Adon.”

“That’s right,” Duck said quickly. “Take a look at our souls. Can’t you see we’re quite open and honest?”

“I’ve looked at your souls,” said Kankredin. “Empty things they are. Suspiciously empty. His is not.” He pointed to Hern.

“He’s older than us,” I said. “And I admit you’re doing quite right to wrestle with the River. I think you’re very clever. I think—” I would have said anything, anything.

Kankredin laughed at me, with his cruel chuckle, and looked at his two mages. “What shall we do?”

“They’re absolute idiots,” hidden death said, but he said it with a sour kind of slyness, meaning something else.

“Exactly,” said Kankredin, agreeing to this something else. “All right,” he said to us. “If you can get back through the net again, you’re free to go. Go and try. I shall enjoy watching you.”

I do not remember going out through the room with the hammocks. I think Kankredin hurled us out on deck, where Hern staggered about.

“You get the boat cast off,” I said to Duck. “I’ll bring Hern.” I thought it would be like Gull all over again.

But Hern is tougher than Gull. As Duck raced down the black decking, Hern pushed me away and dived at the baskets ranged against the side. “You do the other side!” he shouted. He went staggering up the whole row, throwing up the lids. I am still amazed at Hern thinking of the trapped souls. But he must have known what they felt like. I threw back wicker lids on the other side of the ship. The roaring wings of the escaping souls mixed with the angry yells of the mages.

Kankredin’s voice boomed through it all. “Let them be. We shall take vengeance for that.”

The mages left us alone and stood watching as we went down into our boat. I took the tiller. We moved away from the staring eyes of the ship, before all the staring faces of the mages lining the side of it, and two more sitting staring in the soulboat nearby. We felt the jeers in the staring, but there seemed nothing we could do except sail for the net.

I was too shaken to manage the boat well, and the tide was against us. Duck took out an oar to help, but we still drifted crankily sideways. We could see mouth after mouth of the River passing behind the great black net, until the black ship looked small behind us. Then at last we drifted up against the net. A soul or two struggled in it above our heads, and we were just the same, going the opposite way.

Kankredin’s voice boomed across the water. “Go on! Go through the net!” We knew he was playing cat and mouse with us.

“He’ll fetch us back in a minute,” said Hern. “We can’t get through.”

“We can try this,” said Duck. He put the oar away and carefully took out of his shirt the pipes Tanamil had made for him. He saw the way I looked at him. He said, “I’m almost sure Tanamil isn’t one of them. And it’s worth a try even if it’s using their own enchantment against them. Keep us going for the net.”

Duck put the pipes to his mouth and played. His music was nothing like Tanamil’s. It was bold and jerky and full of breath. But he had scarcely played half a tune when I looked up at the net and found its blackness misted over, with mist beyond.

Kankredin’s voice boomed out. “Duck! Stop that silly piping. Stop it!”

Duck faltered and lost the tune. The net swung before me, black and clear. “Go on,” I said. “It works!”

“I can’t,” said Duck. “Not with him shouting at me.”

“Duck! Come here to me!” Kankredin boomed.

Hern looked up. “He’s not shouting at you. Your name’s Mallard. Keep playing, and don’t be a fool. He’s worried stiff we’re getting away.” Hern was right. The two mages in the soulboat were poling toward us as fast as they could go.

Duck played again, fierce and squeaky with haste. His face was red with it. The net turned from black to gray, and then it was not there. We were moving forward in whiteness. In a moment, as before, there were birds all round us that we could not see. This time we were heartily glad of it. Duck played and played us forward into whiteness, until at last he had to leave off and lean over, panting. By then the net was behind us some way and the wide sands of the Rivermouth in front.

“You did it!” I said. “How did you know?”

Duck wiped the pipes and put them carefully away. “Everything goes away like that quite often when I play,” he said. “I thought I was out of breath the first time. You know, I think I shall be a magician when I grow up. I shall be a better one than Kankredin.”

“Hey! Tanaqui! Look where you’re sailing!” said Hern.

He was a little late saying it. I was looking at Duck. We ran deep aground in a reed flat with our keel down, and we stuck. This was how we came to be captured by our own people. Maybe it was Kankredin’s malice. I am sure it was my fault for leaving the One in his fire.

I am now at the back hem of my rugcoat. All I have space to say is that we are at a stand. Gull is still a clay figure. Robin is ill. I am afraid she will die. I sit with her in the old mill across from Shelling, with no help from my gloomy brothers. Even if Robin were well enough for us to run away, Zwitt would have us killed if he found us on our own. It is a bad thing to wish to run away from our own King, but I wish I could. Instead all I can do is weave and hope for understanding. The meaning of our journey is now in this rugcoat. I am Tanaqui, and I end my weaving.