"And your Council is corrupt."

"Yes, some of us are corrupt."

"And there must be a lot of poor people in Bilma, otherwise you'd not have all these youths that look as if they need a square meal to push your coaches."

"Yes, there are poor people, and it is getting worse."

"Why worse?" asked Leta. She sounded threatened.

"It seems fairly clear that we are having another change of climate. They are saying up North that the Ice is retreating again."

"But there's always ice and snow up North," said Leta.

"Sometimes yes and sometimes no," said Mara. "Thousands of years of one, and then thousands of years of the other. Once, in a warm time, the sands stretched here from sea to sea. I have never seen the sea."

"Well, who has?" said Leta. "The traders talk about it, but that's all."

"I have," said Daulis. "When I was a child. But I can hardly remember it. It was rough water, crashing on rocks."

"Salt," said Mara. "Salt water."

"Why salt?" asked Leta "The traders say it is salt, but they tell us all kinds of tall stories, to see how much we will swallow."

Now the coachmen came down from their hostel, and soon the coach was off again. The shaking and rattling went on. They had to stop so the coachmen could change places, and once there was another break in the line. Because of the delay they did not reach the outskirts of Kanaz until it was nearly dark. They decided to stop at the last inn of the coach run for the night. Daulis was known there, as a member of the Council, and he dared to claim the privilege of a suite of rooms. Mara asked if any message had been left for her by one Dann, though Leta told her to be careful. "You'll be safe when you are in Tundra, and not till then."

"And you? What will you do?"

"I will get employment as a maid in one of the inns in the Centre. And if I fail, I'll go to Mother Dalide's house here." "But you ran away from her," said Daulis.

"She was my mother. At least, I don't remember another one. She'll forgive me. And besides, my colour makes me a prize."

"Once everyone was your colour — where the Ice is now," said Mara. Leta was astonished. "Everyone? When?"

"Oh, thousands of years ago," said Mara, laughing and thinking that soon she would be like Shabis, who, when teaching her, used thousands of years as one might say, last summer. "And then, later, there were colonies of refugees from the Ice in north Ifrik."

"There is still a colony," said Daulis.

"Perhaps I should go there?" said Leta.

"Then you'll lose your rarity value," said Mara. "Better stay with us."

"If you want to travel with us north, please do," said Daulis. His voice was much more than kind; and he put his hand on her shoulder, smiling. "Come on, take your chances with us."

Mara said, "I'd miss you, Leta."

And now Leta looked at them both, serious, grateful, her usually hard face soft, and said, "I'll think about it."

"At least if you fail in Kanaz, come up after us."

"Fail at being a housemaid? But I don't intend to stay a housemaid. I'm ambitious. But I'll remember what you said. But where could I find you up North?"

"People find each other," said Mara. "I'm waiting for Dann to find me."

Next day they moved into a caravanserai in the heart of Kanaz, to wait for Dann. This city was different from Bilma, that trading town so full of people from everywhere. Kanaz was not polyglot and busy. It was populated by a people with lean, flat bodies, and sharp features. Mara had seen them before, on the walls of the ruins near the Rock Village. And here they were, just as if thousands of years and many migrations had not come and gone. They were phlegmatic, slow moving, and all over the town were buildings with turrets and towers that were, Daulis said, places of worship.

"Of what?" Leta and Mara asked, at the same time.

And he told them they believed in a powerful, invisible Being who could be put into a good temper, a mood to help favour, by these fanciful, brightly coloured buildings, inhabited by men and women who wore special clothes, walked about the streets chanting and shouting the name of this Being, and were the rulers of the town.

"And Kanaz is not under the jurisdiction of Bilma?" asked Mara.

In theory yes, but in practice no. This was one of the reasons the more intelligent of the Council of Bilma believed in the imminent end of their rule. Bilma did not have the strength to bring insubordinate provinces to heel, and while harmony prevailed on the surface, the two cities watched each other, waited. So Daulis explained, and went into details of the situation which interested Mara, but Leta, not much.

But then Daulis said to Leta, "If you stay here you will have two disadvantages."

"One I already know. I shall not be such a novelty here as I am farther south. I am only a little paler than some of the people here. And the other?"

"You will have to learn the special language and customs of the priests and pretend to believe in them, because they are cruel to anyone who does not at least pay lip-service to their rule."

"And how does Mother Dalide manage to prosper here, with her brothel, in such a town?"

"She pays the priests here just as she pays us in Bilma."

Meanwhile they were all nervous. This was the biggest travellers' inn, and there were bound to be spies, both from Bilma and the rulers here. But this was where Dann was bound to look for them. The decided to stay that night, not move to a less well known place but eat their food in their room, well away from the enormous room that took up most of the ground floor, where food and drink was served.

Or perhaps they themselves should go from inn to inn around the town, asking for Dann? Mara had never told anyone about the coins hidden under Dann's scar, but she told these friends now, to explain why she did not know if he would be working in some low place, in order to eat, or if he would be decently lodged somewhere. Or — but she did not say this aloud, kept it to herself — perhaps in some place where he is smoking poppy again. For she feared this for him more than anything.

Late that night, when they had decided to sleep, and not wait any longer, there was a commotion outside the door. Mara rose straight to her feet — she recognised Dann's voice. Then he was standing there, in the doorway, and behind him the servant who had tried to bar the way of this poor coachman in his torn tunic, with his bare dusty feet. Which Dann was this? — Mara wondered, but saw in his eyes the responsible Dann, the grown up man, though his whole body seemed wrung with apology and with supplication. And the two were in each other's arms, hugging and weeping, "Oh Mara, forgive me," and Mara, "Oh Dann, you are here." The other two sat on their floor cushions and watched, silent, until brother and sister at last were able to let each other go and stand back, and look. Then Dann said, "Mara, it was the other me, not me." "I know," said Mara and thought that Dann had never before acknowledged his division. Now Dann took Mara's hands, and said, "Mara, it is easy for me to say now that it will never happen again — but you've got to help me."

"And what could I have said that would have stopped you going to the gambling room that night?"

His face seemed to crumple, and it was hard for him to look at her; and then he rallied and said, "Mara, all you have to do is to remind me that I gambled you away, and you are the most precious thing, the most..." And they embraced again.

This scene might have gone on, but there was another loud exchange of voices outside, the door opened, and Dalide came in, her hands full of travelling bundles and bags. These she set down, and then looked around the room, not the inn's best, with the supper trays still on the floor in a corner, the faded floor cushions, and in a corner a pile of shabby sleeping pallets.