Water had risen up, and covered the road and the land around it. When did that happen? The boatman said, a long time ago. He was tried with hundreds of years? Thousands? — but these words meant nothing to him. He said that his grandfather had told him there was a family tradition that all this, where water was now, had been frozen down to a depth nobody had been able to measure, but then the ice became water.

This was slow going, finding their way through marsh, then deep water, then marsh again. Sometimes the bottom was so close to the surface the boatman used a pole to push the boat along. Flowers floated on long, swaying stems. Birds ran over pads of leaves, and from a distance it looked as if they were running on the water. Big white birds sat on islands that were of massed weed, which dipped and swung with the ripples from the boat. There were no shores in sight but at evening they came to rest on a little promontory; and the boatman went off to his shelter, and they to an inn of the serviceable kind, and they ate food designed to satisfy hunger, and no more, and they sat about on their pallets talking, while the sunset died over the water. They lay down for the night covered with many blankets, and then there was another day of slow travelling. Mara felt that her thoughts had slowed, and all her life had become just this: sitting in a shallow boat just above water that smelled of weed, looking at Dann's face, at Leta's, at Daulis's, and thinking that she was so much part of them, and they of her, that she could not bear to think they could ever separate.

Days passed. It grew steadily colder and often cold mists crept about on the water and clung to their faces and hair. They sat wrapped in their grey blankets, even their heads covered. Mara sat dreaming in the water, that was what it felt like, as if she was in the water, in a shell; but what a difference from that other journey, down south, so hot, the water surfaces dazzling and flashing in her eyes, feeling sick, or not, but always the wet heat, the dangers from the water, where the dragons watched and waited and, always, the reminders along the banks of drought.

Mara saw beneath her a roof of red tiles, where bunches of weed swayed, and then another roof. The travellers were floating over a drowned town, and stretched down their arms to see if they could touch these roofs. The boatman said there had been many towns round about that had sunk down. Big towns. When the ice melted the earth grew soggy and could not hold the weight of the buildings, and they sank, and the water came up. He jested that if they were fishes they could swim for many days through drowned cities. And they certainly knew how to live, in those days, he said, look down there. Beneath them the water was deep and clear, with a white sand bottom, and there was a building grander than anything in the towns they had travelled through. Steps rose into a great arch of an entrance, which was set among white pillars, and there were stairs up to higher levels where terraces held figures of carved stone so lifelike it was easy to believe these were people they had known, or knew now; and the fine roofs, of many different coloured tiles, green and blue and red, had windows in them, and porches, and it seemed the easiest thing in the world to slide over the edge of the boat and land on a terrace and begin walking about there, live there, with friends; and then there will be children, Mara was muttering, there'll be big rivers of fast, fresh water and fountains full of water and little streams running into the house into basins of clear water. Dann was shaking her by the arm, "Mara, Mara." The boatman had stilled the boat, an oar pushing at a tussock of muddy weed to hold them steady. He was looking carefully at Mara, then bent to feel the pulse in her throat. Then he did the same for Leta, who was staring at nothing and breathing badly. Then Daulis, whose eyes were shut, and grimacing as if in pain.

The boatman and Dann whispered together. Mara was aware of a slow rocking, through her whole body — yet the boat was still. And then knew they were moving again, towards a shore where there was a long building, low-built, roofed with reeds.

"The marsh sickness," said the boatman, and tied the boat up to a stump. He lifted Leta and carried her to the building and inside it. He came back and tried to prod Daulis into movement, but he was lying sprawled on his back, eyes shut. Dann and the boatman between them carried him up to the building, which was an inn. Mara must have slept, for the next thing was, she lay in the boatman's arms, being taken to the building; and then she glimpsed a tall, thin, worried woman, arguing with the boatman, saying she couldn't be responsible for three ill people. And then Mara was lying on a bed, a floor bed, in a big room, but it was a poor one, where the reeds above them were broken and needed repair, and on the edges of the gap in the roof hung water drops, which splashed down into a basin set under them. Across the room Leta lay on her pallet, very still, her arms flung out. Daulis was doubled up on his pallet, clutching his stomach and groaning. There was a horrible smell. Mara thought, Oh, I hope I haven't fouled myself; and that was the last she knew until she came to herself again and saw Dann's face just above her, wrenched with anxiety. He was wiping her face. Beyond Dann, the tall woman was kneeling by Leta, who was pointing at her bag where she kept her dried herbs. The woman spread out the herbs on a cloth and Leta pointed at one, saying "Boil it. Give it to us in water." And then she fell back into unconsciousness. Daulis was lying propped up, a rug pulled tight around him. He looked very bad. He's dying, Mara thought. And then, Perhaps I am dying. And Leta? But Dann, poor Dann, what will he do, all alone? Mara sank back into the dark but kept coming to herself, seeing little bright scenes she would remember. Leta, lying with arms flung out, that bright hair dull and soaked with sweat. Daulis, so very ill. The tall woman, taking pails out, but another time she was carrying them in. Dann, always Dann, bending over her, over Daulis, over Leta, and she heard his, "Mara, Mara, you mustn't die, please come back." She heard groaning, which she at first thought was hers, but it was Daulis. Sometimes it was full day, when she came drifting up, and the pale sun was shining down through the hole in the reeds, and there was sweat on Leta's face and on Daulis's; and sometimes it was dark and a lamp stood on the floor in a corner. Once she felt a weight and saw that Dann had fallen asleep where he sat by her, and his upper body was lying across hers. She was dreaming, oh, what dreams: she was running, running with enemies after her, always on the point of catching her; she was choking in dust storms; she was so hungry her stomach was like knives; and then she was conscious of the sweetest warmth, and her arms were full of a little boy, her little brother, Dann, who stroked her face and loved her; but then what was in her arms was not Dann but a baby, hers, and in her sleep she muttered and cried out that she had to go to her baby; and she held Crethis, the lovely girl who was a little child; and how sad Mara was, how sorrowful, when she momentarily came back to herself and saw that Dann was kneeling by Leta, holding a cup of something to her mouth, or that the tall woman knelt by Daulis, calling his name, to bring him back.

Sometimes when she woke she did not know whether she was in this wretched marsh-side inn, in a room where you could see the sky, or back in the Rock Village. And now she saw Daima across the room, sitting with her hands folded, smiling at Mara, and then holding out her arms so that Mara could run into them. "Daima," wept Mara, "I never thanked you, I never told you how I loved you, and yet without you I would have died a hundred times over." But it was Dann's face she saw, when she opened her eyes, "Don't cry Mara, don't, you've been having bad dreams, but it's all right. You are getting better. Look, drink this." Mara swallowed down a bitter liquid that made her stomach churn and rebel.