She blinked owlishly when she suddenly realized that Ghan was standing over her. Was it time already? She had scarcely noticed.

Ghan regarded her attempts at writing without comment, while Hezhi sat nervously, fingering the hem of her skirt. She knew he wouldn't be pleased—Ghan was never pleased with anything she did—but she hoped he would not be too displeased.

Finally he nodded and sat down across the table from her.

"Draw me sungulh," he said. Her heart sank. She could draw it—it was one of the easiest. But she was not so certain she could do them all. She had hoped he would point to them in the book and she would name them—but that was stupid, because they had their names written, right there, in the syllabary. Carefully, she traced out the open oval that meant "pot"; sungulh in the ancient tongue, shengun in the modern. He continued asking her the glyphs, and with each one she drew she became more and more uncertain. Her earlier happiness was beginning to evaporate; she suspected that for Ghan, this was merely another chance to humiliate her into quitting the library altogether. Yet she couldn't, especially now, when she had so many questions. Her quest had begun as one of several ways of finding D'en, but without ever finding the answer to that first question, she had inexorably been drawn into more and more questions. And she felt the answers were there, if she only knew how and where to look.

"Now draw jwegh," Ghan demanded. She merely stared at her paper, unable to remember that one at all.

"Well?" Ghan asked, after what seemed an eternity.

"May I speak?" she whispered.

"Go on."

"I'm sorry, Ghan. I tried—I really tried—but I couldn't remember them all." She kept her eyes averted; she knew Ghan hated for her to look at him.

Ghan sighed, gazed slowly around the library. Save for themselves it was empty. Hezhi silently braced herself.

"Nobody could," he said.

She gaped at him.

"Close your mouth and listen," Ghan admonished as he leaned across the table toward her. "What I meant to say is that no one could learn this script the way you have been doing it. Frankly, I'm astonished that you read as well as you do." He shook his head. "Digression after digression," he complained. "To teach you to index I must teach you to read. To teach you to read, I must teach you to learn." He straightened. "But you will not slip out of our bargain by being ignorant," he snapped. He took up the pen and handed it to her.

"Write sungulh again," he commanded.

Hezhi complied, more confused than ever. Sungulh was easy because it was the old word for shengun, or "pot." It looked like a pot, almost—oval, not closed at the top.

"Fine," said Ghan. "Now write qwen."

Hezhi knew that one, too. It meant "fire" and was also very simple: a curvy line going up and down, two other lines sprouting from its base and going off to the sides, at angles. Like the glyph for "pot," it looked something like what it meant.

"Now wad," Ghan continued. Hezhi marveled at how uncharacteristically patient he seemed to be, yet still felt fortunate that she knew this one, too. It meant "cook"; she had scribbled it on the doorway to the kitchen one day. Halfway through drawing it, she stopped, amazed.

"I… I never noticed that," she breathed.

"Noticed what?" Ghan demanded.

"Wad is made out of qwen and sungulh." It was, though the simpler characters were distorted; the oval of the "pot" was quashed way down, but now she could see that it was indeed sungulh. Qwen—the three wavy lines joined at the base—was quashed, too, and the center, straight line stuck right up through the middle of the pot. "Fire and a pot. Cooking!"

Ghan cleared his throat. "Ngess'e'," he demanded.

"I… I don't remember that one," Hezhi confessed.

"Look it up."

Hezhi did; this time, she understood from the start what she was copying; the glyph was made of "pot" again, this time combined with the symbol for "person." It took her a moment to understand.

"Ngess'e' is the old word for 'body,'" she mused. "Does this mean that a person's body is like a pot?"

Ghan nodded. "Sungulh really means 'vessel,'" he explained. "Anything that holds something."

"I see, I see!" she said, nearly forgetting herself and giggling. How could she have been so stupid? "'Ship' is made from that, too, isn't it? And so is 'house'! A vessel with someone in it!" She doodled the two glyphs quickly, imperfectly—but legibly. Now that she could see that the lines weren't just random squiggles but other, simpler glyphs, they were easier to write.

Ghan watched her do that for a while, impassive. Then he reached over and stopped her with a touch on the wrist.

"Now," he said. "Now draw su'."

Su' was water, a little swirly coil. Hezhi put it down, but her mind was slipping ahead. Of course; ice had this in it, and so did weep—that was "water" and "face." She waited eagerly for Ghan's next command.

"Do the glyph for road," he said, using the modern—not the ancient—word for "road." That puzzled her but did not give her pause. She etched out the complex symbol. Then she stared at it, surprised. It looked like "water" and "land" mixed together.

"That should mean marsh, or island, or something, shouldn't it?"

"Why is that?"

"These are the glyphs for 'water' and 'land.' "

"Say what you just said slowly," he said, eyes intent on her face, watching as if he could see how she thought.

Hezhi complied. "These—are—the—glyphs—for—'water'— and—'land.' "

"Just the two words now."

"She', nyun," she said. "Water, land."

"Doesn't that sound like shengu, 'road'?"

Hezhi wrinkled her brow. "A little, but not very much."

"But what if you name those glyphs like that in the Old Language, with the old pronunciation?"

"Su'-ngan," she said carefully, then smiled. "I see! Su'ngan sounds like sungu, the old word for 'road.' "

"Indeed," Ghan said. "In those two ways, all complex glyphs are constructed." He smirked. "Rather than having to learn thousands of glyphs, you need only learn the hundred basic symbols."

Hezhi nodded, lost in the wonder of it. "How beautiful," she breathed.

"Now," Ghan asked softly, "do you think you can take these with you and know them by tomorrow?"

"I can take the book and the paper?"

"I want you to learn this quickly," Ghan explained. "I have no time to indulge you every day. You must work at home, as well."

"I'll know them tomorrow," she promised.

That afternoon, she had to restrain herself from dancing out into the hall where Tsem waited. He seemed puzzled by the happy look on her face.

"You seem to be feeling better, Princess," he observed.

"Yes, Tsem, I do feel better. Ghan is teaching me to read."

"Ah. I can think of nothing that would make me feel better."

Hezhi noticed that, as he spoke, he kept glancing distractedly up and down the hall.

"Something wrong, Tsem?" she asked.

"No, Princess, nothing you need worry about."

"I don't like the sound of that," Hezhi remarked. "Whenever someone tells me that, it is almost certainly something I should worry about."

"No, not this time," Tsem said. "This is my own problem."

"Can I help?"

Tsem looked sharply at her, as if he thought she were joking. When he saw how earnest she was, though, he chuckled and tousled her hair. "No, Princess, but thank you for the offer. Shall we go on home now? Qey was making crescent-moons with cheese, I think."

"Fine," Hezhi said. "I have a lot to do, anyway. Come on, race me."