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"Aye, laddie Meant ter call h'on him, but he was nae ter home Door h'open an' wife dead, layin' h'in a box Felt a' her Met h'up wi' him an' H'oreb Wafter Kenned who he was an' he dinna" Slowly and heavily Pig sank to the grass "Lucky fer Pig, yer say Huh Lucky fer hi dinna ken nae more'n H'oreb there"

He lay back, his sheathed sword clasped to his chest "Yer best ter call him Horn when he wakes An' rouseHound and Tansy stared at each other, but found nothing to say

He was in a boat, and there was a reater andthrough the long smooth swell He opened his old black pen case, dipped a black quill into the little ink bottle and began to write furiously, conscious of how short-how terribly short-a ti out for Pajarocu, he wrote, knowing nothing of what is about to transpire there, not even knowing that o to Green with hter Jahlee, will soon joinof the quill slowed and died He stared at the paper Who was Krait? He had no daughter, no sons

To the west, a lonely bird flew over the water, black as it crossed and recrossed the sun; he knew the bird was Oreb, and that Oreb was calling, "Silk? Silk? Silk?" as he flew The bird was too far, its hoarse voice too faint to be heard He thought of standing and waving, of calling Oreb to hi it up theelse in the water would co prayer at sunset He thought of looking over the side at the e and destroy his

The boat rocked, becoe enough for two, so that Nettle, sitting in the sea, could rock the two together, rocking with her left hand while the right drove the quill: Enlighten could be the sain begun at last, the book that lay behind his effort tothat had succeeded where nothing else would succeed, the paper- that had made him the envy of his brothers and the pride of histhat had been the salvation of the fa out for Pajarocu Who was Pajarocu and what had he done? He crossed out the words and rewrote thehtgo around the le spirit ould trade you a fresh egg for it Yet it holds-

Enough Yes, enough I aood He reached down to turn the page so that he in a new one, but there was no need; the one he had written remained blank

He stood up and shouted, but he could not recall the bird's name and the bird would not come in any case, could not hear him, remained in his pen case no matter hoildly he shouted or how loudly he waved his ar to hiht line from Shadelow, its wake marked already by faint phosphorescence

He shouted until Seawrack rose fro his hair with two smooth, white hands "It's only a dreaht here"

He wanted her to stay, to lie in their boat with him and comfort hietting dark and Green rising, a baleful jade eye There ater bottles in the racks; but the boat was gone and the salt sea with it, the sea that was a river called Gyoll in which corpses floated, savaged by big turtles with beaks like the beaks of parrots, the river that circled horl, the river over which the stars never set He had come to the end of that river, and it was too late

He sat up The well-remembered walls of the pit encircled hies half filled with earth and stones "It's dirt up here," a voice behind hi behind hiirls in starched frocks "It's all dirt," Spider repeated, and added, "I can tell from how it's made"

He asked politely how he could find Hyacinth

"Down there" The blond girl pointed "She's down there like Spider and , and she can't ever co"

Spider nodded, too, saying, "It's dirt down there I can tell froreen froreen lights that lined the tunnels, and it began to crawl across his palers around it "Thank you," he said "Thank you very much"

"Oh, you ain't thanked me yet," Spider told him "You'll thank h the opening and back onto his boat, where the crawling green light he had put upon the ceiling was Green rising in the east, a baleful eye Pig was seated in the stern, his hand upon the tiller and Oreb on his shoulder "Good Silk," said Oreb Pig reray cloth that had covered his eyes; and when it was gone, he, who had supposed that he could see, could actually see

And Pig's big, bearded face was Silk's

"This is really very kind of you," he told Hound when he had washed and sipped thea late start?"

"Yes," Hound conceded, "but it doesn't matter much Usually I start before shadeup, as Tansy will attest, I'h I tell her not to, and o back to bed after he leaves"

"If I have good weather," Hound continued, "and drive the donkeys for all I'm worth, there's a nice old inn in the middle of the city that I stop at It's not too terribly expensive, and I' the next day"

"I understand"

"But even if we left this instant, we couldn't possibly reach the city before shadelow So we'll ca the road someplace, or stay at a country inn I know about It's not as nice as the one I usually stay at, but it will save us a few bits, and if we rough it beside the road, that will cost nothing Either e'll finish the trip to to now for you two, or wait till Pig wakes up?"

"Wait," Hound told her "He'll eat ether"

"Then I'd like to show Horn our shop Can I?"

Hound looked at hi "Do you want see it? It's very ordinary, except for being so small"

Tansy said, "But it's where ork, so it's not ordinary to us It's ours, and the others aren't"

Their shop was on the village square, a very short distance froe in which they lived He stayed respectfully behind them as they mounted its three steep steps and unlocked its door

"I don't think we'll have any customers this early," Tansy told him, "but if we do, we'll sell theo I'll open up for the day after you and Hound and Pig leave"

"You said it was small" He paused to look around at the shiny pots and pans suspended fro, the barrels of nails and the haer than our house on Lizard, and we raised three children in that house"

"There are rooms up above, too," Tansy told him "My father used to rent them out We tried to, but we couldn't find anybody anted them"

Hound said, "There are so many empty houses these days Anybody ants a house can just move in"

"So we keep the extra stock up there, and there's a bed so Mother can nap when she gets too tired We should have brought you here last night, then you could have slept in a bed"

"My father had a shop like this in the city I shouldn't say like this, really, because his wasn't as big He sold paper and quills and ink, and account books and so forth"

Hound's eyebroent up "That ht not be a bad idea for us You can't buy paper here in Endroad I'll see what a reaoes for in the city"