Ki and Ahl stayed on board, Ahl because she was not kin to anyone in the town, Ki out of courtesy and affection. The storm had blown out to sea, and the sky in the east was black; but where their ship rested, the sun shone, and the clouds were mostly white. Farther west, above low hills covered by a semitropical forest, the sky was clear. Hah! It was pleasant tolie on the Foam Bird's deck, sharing sunlight and a jug of halin. Ahl had unfastened her vest. Her four breasts were visible: rather flat, especially the lower pair, but with prominent nipples and large oval areolae so dark that they seemed black. Ki felt desire, stronger than before. Something about the day-- the stillness, the brightness, their fatigue, the jug of halin -- made it possible for her to speak. Voice

halting, she confessed her love.

Ahl listened courteously, head tilted, blue eyes half closed. When Ki finished, she said, "If that's so, why don't we have sex?"

Ki could think of no reason.

An awning had been raised in the middle of the ship and thick rugs laid under it, so crew members could sleep in open air. They went there and, in the dim light coming through the canvas, gave each other pleasure and release. When they were done, Ahl rolled onto her back and sighed. "It's been a long time."

"Do you have a lover at home?" asked Ki.

"I did, a woman whose family is closely tied to mine. Most likely, she has found someone else by now."

Ki repeated that she was in love.

Ahl raised herself on one elbow and looked at the little southerner. "More likely you find me interesting because I'm foreign."

No, said Ki. It was the true emotion. To prove this she listed the qualities she loved: Ahl's hardworkingness, her courage, her even temper, her sense of justice. "There ought to be a fifth quality, but it doesn't come into my mind."

"This sounds like respect to me," said Ahl.

"Well, then, I love your thin body, your small breasts, your silver fur, your laugh and the place between your legs, which bas a taste faintly reminiscent of fish."

Ki loved fish, especially when just pulled from the ocean and lightly cooked in the grill on deck, so this was not an insult.

Ahl laughed. "Maybe you're in love. Let's continue and see what happens next."

At first they tried to be secret. But it's difficult to keep anything hidden on a ship full of women. Soon Ki's cousins took her aside. "Stop this acting and sneaking back and forth between cabins. Everyone knows what's going on. Be open and honest!"

The two women became acknowledged lovers, holding hands in public, kissing and using the personal form of "you" and "she." This continued until Ahl's training ended, and she was ready to go home.

"I'm going to ask my mother to send me back here as soon as possible," she told Ki. "I don't know if I'm in love; it's not a word that comes easily to me; but I know I'll miss you and the Foam Bird."

Ki could say nothing. All her words had become stuck together in a lump at the back of her mouth. Sorrow lay in her mind like a heavy stone.

They parted, Ahl going up a gangway onto one of the ocean-flyers that Helwar had built for Sorg. The flyer spread its sails like great white wings and carried her away across the ocean. Little Ki went back to her own ship to grieve.

THE TRIP NORTH was easy, except for the jokes that everyone made about Ahl's long fur. She ignored her relatives, remaining quiet and aloof.

"Is anything wrong?" they asked finally.

"I'm thinking."

"Don't make yourself ill with ideas."

At home it was the dry season. The marshes of Sorg baked under a cloudless sky, their vegetation turning yellow. The great house where Ahl's mother lived was surrounded by gardens, kept watered except in times of severe drought. Ahl carried her journey bag past brightly colored ornamental plants. She dropped the bag in the entrance room and went looking for her mother.

The matron's favorite place was a porch at one end of the house. The walls were carved wood screens, pierced by many holes. White gauze curtains hung inside the screens, keeping out most bugs, but admitting whatever light and air came though the holes.

This is how you should imagine the room: mostly shadow, but flecked with sunlight which has been slightly dimmed by its passage through gauze. In the middle is a large square table, where Ahl's mother does her accounts, arranging colored stones in rows. Now and then a gust of wind stirs the curtains. When

this happens, the room's pattern of light and shadow flickers and shifts.

"Well," the matron said, looking at her daughter. "You need a haircut."

"It's cold in Helwar; I'm planning to return there."

Her mother frowned, then moved a stone from one row to another.

"I'm not certain the alliance will hold."

"Why not?"

"They are a small lineage and far away. Aside from their ships, they aren't

important. Allies should be neighbors or lineages so powerful they can't be avoided. That's the rule. Everyone knows it." Ahl's mother lifted her head, giving her daughter another look. "None of the children fathered by Helwar is alive."

"What happened?" Ahl asked sharply.

"One woman was not pregnant, though she seemed to be; or possibly she miscarried almost at once. Another woman miscarried at midterm. Two women remained pregnant, but their children died at birth." Her mother's tone permitted no questions. Maybe the children had been deformed or too weak to survive. If so, the midwives would have killed them, rather than let them die slowly or live in pain.

"There's one you haven't accounted for," Ahl said.

"Your cousin Leweli." Her mother looked down again, pondering an arrangement of red and reddish-purple stones. "She went hunting in the marshes. Her boat was found later, floating upside-down. She was not found. She and the child she carried have gone to the same place."

The land of death, Ahl thought. Leweli was dead. "You think this is a sign. The agreement with Helwar is unlucky."

"Maybe. They are a long way off." Her mother paused, white-furred hand hovering over a red stone. "And not important."

Ahl went to her room and unpacked, feeling grief for Leweli, who had been a distant cousin but a close friend, also for the other women who'd lost their children. Lastly, she grieved for herself and Ki.

In time -- not her first day at home, nor the second -- it occurred to Ahl that Leweli's death was strange. Her cousin had been a fine hunter, not in the least bit careless. Yet she had gone into the marshes alone while pregnant and done something so stupid that it killed her and her child.

Was this likely?

No.

She would go into the marshes and speak with a cousin who lived there. This woman, closer to Leweli than anyone, might know what had happened.

The next morning Ahl saddled a tsin, riding past fields and orchards. The sky, as usual, was cloudless and brilliant. The road was dusty, even when it reached the marshes and wound among waterspears. The plants were in blossom, their tall stalks topped with bladelike/lowers as blue as the sky.

The woman Ahl went to visit was named Merhit. A witch, she lived by herself in a thatched hut by one of the marsh's many slow-moving channels. This kind of behavior would not have been tolerated in any other kind of woman. But holy people make their own rules. If they want to live alone, they can.