Just as I did on the sloop with the bluebilly Seawrack chivvied until it jumped aboard.

We have passed beyond the tilled fields of Gaon, which means that I can stop worrying about being recognized; I saw the last cart drawn by the last carabao some time back. Nadi is gentler here, although not yet stagnant or sullen. She is like a woman who sings at her work.

Evensong keeps us to the middle, or wherever the current is strongest, leaning her slight weight this way or that against the steering oar. "Good boat," Oreb repeats; and then "Fish heads?" The banks are lined with trees so tall that I cannot catch sight of the summits of the mountains, trees that might almost be the savage trees of Green, although it may be only that the summits are lost in mist. Just before the fish bit, I saw something better, a felwolf that had come to the river to drink.

This is such a beautiful whorl that my poor gray quill falls silent from shame when I try to write about it.

This quill is exactly like the ones I used to tie in bundles of thirteen for my father, binding each bundle tightly but not too tightly and knotting the soft blue twine. I wish I had seen the bundle before Evensong cut it for me and put the quills into the old pen case I brought here.

We sold pen cases like this one, too, of course. I remember going into the little shed of a manufactory where they were made with my father and watching two women there smearing the leather and the pressboard cases with glue, and the waxed wooden forms they were put into until the glue dried. We could have brown or black, the man who employed those women told us, or any other color that we wanted, even white. But we had better keep in mind that the pen case would soon be stained with ink. It was best, he said, to choose a dark color, so that the ink stains would not show.

My father ordered black (like the one I am writing on), yellow, and pink. I thought he was being very foolish, but the yellow and pink ones sold first, bought by the mothers of little girls at our palaestra.

Why do we wage war, when this whorl is so wide? I believe it is because rulers such as I was in Gaon live in towns. There are so many people: a great number. So many farms: a smaller number, but still very great. People and houses, and animals that are in fact slaves, although we do not call them slaves.

(Marrow did not call his clerk a slave either; nor were the men who carried his apples and flour to my sloop called slaves.) Buying and selling. Selling and buying, and never looking at the trees of the forest, or the side of the mountains. If we were wise, we would give the rulers of all the towns a stick and a knife apiece, and tell them we will be happy to take them back when they have traveled around this whorl, as Oreb did.

I can describe a tree or a felwolf, but not Blue. A poet might describe it perhaps. I cannot.

With nothing better to do than fish and catalogue the slow changes of the river, I have been thinking about my sons-about Krait on the lander, particularly. They caught him and forced open his mouth. I saved him, and thought that I had lost him forever when he joined the other inhumi barricaded in the cockpit. I wish that he were here now, here in this little boat with Evensong and me.

Evensong asks if it will be all right to stop when she sees a clearing. She wants to prepare my fish for us and cook some rice, she says. If I am any judge of women, she really wants to try the pots and pans she bought for us, enough to cook for all the men on Strik's big boat. In any case, I said she might; it will be hours before she sights the perfect spot, I feel sure, and we will both be hungry.

Babbie was my slave, no doubt. I could have led him to the market and sold him. But he did not object in the least to his slavery, and in that way freed himself by freeing his spirit. He was my slave, but he could have escaped any time when we were on the river, simply by jumping into the water and swimming to shore. For that matter he could have escaped even more easily on any of the many occasions when I left him to guard the sloop. He never liked being left alone, but he protected the sloop as instructed just the same.

He was my slave, but in his heart we were companions who shared our food and helped each other when we could. I could see farther and better, although he may not have realized that; he could run and swim much faster, and hear better, too. He possessed a more acute nose. I could talk; and despite what Seawrack said, Babbie could only communicate. It did not matter. He was stronger than I, and a great deal braver; and we were there to support each other, not to boast of our superiorities. What would he think of Oreb, I wonder?

And what would Oreb think of him? Good thing? Good hus?

Is this, my Oreb whom I love, my Oreb who has returned to me after more than a year, the true Oreb? Is this really the tame night chough I played with as a boy, waiting in Silk's sellaria for well-deserved punishment that never came?

"Oreb, why did you come back to me?" I asked him.

"Find Silk."

"I'm not Patera Silk, Oreb. I've told you-and everybody-that over and over." I ought to have asked him to find Silk for me, but I feel sure he could not unless he discovered some way to return to the Whorl Whorl, and I do not want to lose him again. "Where did you go, Oreb?"

"Find god."

"I see. Passilk? I think that's what the surgeon called him. Did you find him, and is that why you returned to me?"

"Find Silk."

"You are free, you know. Patera Silk wouldn't cage you, and I won't either. All you have to do is fly off into these trees."

"Fly good!" He flew from my shoulder to Evensong's and back, a graphic demonstration.

"That's right," I told him, "you can fly, and it's a wonderful accomplishment. You can soar above the clouds on your own, exactly like we did on the Trivigaunti airship. I envy you."

"Good boat!"

I offered to take over the steering and give Evensong a chance to rest, if she would tend my pole; but she refused. "You won't stop no matter how pretty the place is, and I'm hungry."

"You're never hungry," I told her. She must be hungry at times, surely, and she was very hungry the first time we spoke with Hari Mau's Hannese prisoners; but she never talks about how hungry she is, or admits it when I ask. Set a roast fowl before her, and she will accept a wing, clean the bones until they shine, and announce herself satisfied.

How green everything is after the rains!

We have stopped here to cook our fish and rice, and have decided to travel no farther today. We left Gaon before shadeup, and are not likely to find another place as pleasant as this if we travel on. It is a tiny island now, an isle I will call it, although I feel sure it must have been part of the riverbank before the rains. The river must cover it from time to time and drown any trees that try to take root on it; there is only this soft green grass, spangled with little flowers of every imaginable color that bloom the moment the rainy season ends and set seed in a wink.

I have been studying them, my nose four fingers from the soft, rich soil that nourishes them. To say that they are simply purple and blue would be quite false; they are every shade of both and more besides, some as blue as the sky, and some as purple as evening flowing over the sea. And red as well (various tinctures of red, I ought to say), yellow, orange, white, off-white, and even a dusky russet. Pink and yellow are the most attractive of all colors; the women who bought those pen cases were right.

I look at Evensong sleeping, and think again: yellow and pink are the most beautiful of colors. We cooked and ate, and made love among the flowers. I will catch another fish or two for her while she sleeps. We will eat a second time under the stars, and sleep. Rise early and travel on. I wish I could be certain that New Viron is on the coast of the sea to which this Nadi of ours runs. I believe it must be, but I cannot be sure.

-16-

NORTHWEST.

Oreb has rejoined me. Somehow that has made it possible for me to sit down here and rub my feet, and write as long as these few sheets last. I will not begin this entry by telling you where I am or how things stand with me. I do not know where I am-or how anything stands with me.

The sun had scarcely set when I felt their wings. I write "felt" because one cannot really hear them. They make no more noise when they fly than owls. Looking up, I saw two, so high that they were in sunlight although the Short Sun's light had vanished from our isle. "Bad things," Oreb solemnly declared them. "Things fly."

"You're right," I told him, "they are indeed evil beings. But they're bringing good news. Hari Mau has fallen upon the enemy." The inhumi came looking for me, pretty clearly, as soon as the Hannese broke.

"This is very bad." Evensong shook her head; she may have been frightened-no doubt she was-but her impassive face showed nothing.

"This is very good," I told her. "It means you can go back home to your parents in Han."

"No!"

Trying to sound gentle I said, "I married Nettle before you were born, and married half a dozen other women before you were given to me by the Man. You owe me nothing at all. In fact, it is I who owe you, and I owe you a great deal." I began pulling off my rings.

"I am your only wife!" She shook her little fist.

"You know that isn't true."

"Where are the others, Rajan? You cannot show them to me!"

I dropped my rings into her lap, and refused them when she tried to give them back.

After a great deal of shouting, she put them into a pocket in the sleeve of her gown, saying, "Maybe it's a long way to New Viron and we will need these."

I agreed, but thought to myself that it was an even longer way from New Viron to her family in Han. When she decided to go back there, as I felt certain she would before long, she might have to buy passage on a dozen boats.

Aloud I said, "Good. Thank you for accepting them. I want you to take these too." I gave her Choora and my short sword. "We may have to fight before the night is over, and you can fight better than I with those. I have my azoth." I may have tapped its jewel-studded hilt confidently-the Outsider, at least, knows how hard I tried to-but I felt very weak and ill at that moment.

"I have seen that sword. It has no blade."

I told her she might see its blade, too, before shadeup; and that she would not enjoy the sight.

"Bad fight," Oreb croaked.

I knew that he was right; they would wait until they were so many they felt confident of victory and rush us when we least expected it. Since it was not blood but my death they wanted, some might well have needlers and other weapons.

As we embraced beside the fire, Evensong whispered, "You know their secret. You could destroy them."

"Yes. I couldn't kill them here and now, if that's what you mean; but I know how they might be returned to the mere vermin that they once were-mindless, hideous, blood-drinking animals seeking their prey in Green's jungles."

I stared into the embers of the fire that we felt we could not let die, remembering the time that Krait had crept out of the nose, how we had embraced and wept (his tears of pale green slime that stained my tunic) while the other passengers slept.

"Father...? Horn...?" His breath still smelled of blood, Tuz's, as I learned a few minutes later.

I sat up, thinking in confused way that Sinew had become Krait, or Krait Sinew.

"They sleep. I wanted to warn you."

"Krait? Is that you?"

"Your sentries. I bit one." Krait's voice betrayed his uncertainty.

"I understand, and if it was one of the sentries, he deserved it, and worse. But Krait -"

"Ours too. We - we can't do it, Father. We don't have the discipline."

"And you're ashamed of that, as you should be. Well, neither do we, apparently."

"He-hold-fire, He-take-bow, and He-sing-spell stand guard for us because we make them. But when it's quiet and everyone else sleeps-"

One of my sleeping men had stirred. For a while neither Krait nor I dared speak.

"If you could break in suddenly..."

"We'll try - but Krait, you're risking your life just to tell me. I'm not sure I could get them to turn you loose again."

I believe he shrugged; the Short Sun was nearly dead ahead then, and in the near darkness of Number One Freight Bay it was difficult to be sure. "There are only two needlers, and I've bent some needles in one."

Evensong shook my shoulder. "You must tell me."

"I won't break my oath. My son confided it to me as he lay dying. If I were to betray him now, I would have to die, too, because I couldn't live with myself."

"Then say as much as you can." She had never asked that before.

"About him? He was an inhumu. We called him Krait, and Seawrack and I called-"

"That is the woman who sings?"

"Yes, though she is not singing now." I tried to collect my thoughts.

"It was a mere lie at first, Evensong. Something to tell people in Wichote and Pajarocu who wanted to know why Krait was with us. It remained a lie as long as there was no danger to Krait but me, and none to me but Krait. Once the lander took off everything changed, and Krait and I discovered that we merely supposed we had been lying."

"Hold me."

I was already, but I held her more tightly. "We were in the freight compartments. They had never been intended for passengers; but they could be pressurized, I suppose because the Crew might have to transport animals at times, and of course the inhumi had to keep us alive or we were of no value. They controlled the forward part of the lander, with three human slaves from Pajarocu who were supposed to be operating it. The slaves had slug guns, and the inhumus had needlers, some of them."

I waited for her to ask me about Pajarocu, but she did not.

"Krait tried to divert the lander to the Whorl Whorl, but he couldn't-it was already too late. He promised me that Sinew and I would not be drained. On Green they have thousands of human slaves whose blood they take only rarely, as long as the slaves can work and fight for them."

Evensong trembled in my arms.

"Krait told me why they have to have it as he lay dying. He didn't intend to give me power over them, you understand. I'm certain he wasn't thinking of that in his final moments. He was thinking of the thing that linked him to me, and me to him-of the bond of blood between us."

She said nothing.

"For a long, long time I didn't realize what he had done either. If I'd understood the power of Krait's secret while Sinew and I were on Green, things might have gone differently."

"No cry," Oreb urged me from my knee.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it. Perhaps... Perhaps I did realize it. But Krait's death was so recent then, and I felt that I'd be betraying him. Before I knew it, it was too late." Under my breath I added, "I still feel I'm betraying him, in a way."

Evensong murmured, "Tell me. You must tell me, my husband. My only ever lover. You must tell me tonight."

"Once I watched some men who had a wicker figure of the wallowers they were hunting. Two walked inside it, while two others hid behind it. That's the kind of thing the inhumi must have done before the Vanished People reached Green-reshaped themselves to look like the animals they hunted, disguised their odor by smearing themselves with the excrement of their prey, and uttered the same cries, moving as their prey did until they were close enough to strike."

They were uttering our own human cries at that moment, or something like them, talking among themselves in the air, their voices faint, pitched high, and floating. I wondered whether they could hear me.

"If only we cared about each other sufficiently. If only all of us loved all the others enough, they would go back to that. We would still think them horrible creatures, and they would still be dangerous, as the crocodiles in this lower river water are. But they would be no worse."

"That is the secret, what you said?"

"No. Of course not."

They were circling above us, I knew, and sometimes they flew so low that I could actually feel the wind from their wings upon my face. I decided that they might well overhear anything we said, and I counseled myself to keep that in mind each time I spoke.

"You must tell me!" Evensong demanded.

"I must not-that is the truth, the fact of our situation. They know that I know; I've proved it to them. They also know that you don't, that you know where the others are buried but do not know the secret they would die to protect. They have to kill me, or feel that they do, even though I've sworn never to reveal it."

She started to protest and I silenced her with a kiss.

When we parted, I said, "They don't have to kill you, not as things stand. In fact, if they killed you like that, without reason, I would consider myself free to speak out about them." It was a lie, and may have been the last that I will ever tell, the final lie of so many thousands. I hope so.