In the end, one of her cousins —a sneak worse than Cholkwa in the children’s play—found out what she was doing and told her senior female relatives. “Clearly you have too much free time,” they said, and assigned her work in the house’s big weaving room. The sword was destroyed, along with the bits of armor she’d made. But her relatives decided the  tli mask, constructed of bark paper over a frame of twigs, was good enough to keep. It was hung on the weaving room wall, where it stared down at her. Gradually, the straw whiskers disappeared, and large eyes —drawn in ink —faded.

Don’t think that Ahl was too unhappy, or that her relatives had been unjust. Every child has to learn duty; and she’d gotten bored with her solitary play, as well as increasingly uncomfortable with hiding her props. Better to work at a loom and have ideas in her mind. No sneaking cousin could discover  these, and everything she imagined was large and bright and well-made, the swords of real steel, sharp and polished, as bright as the best glass.

Two years passed. She became an adequate plain weaver, but nothing more. “We thought you might have a gift for beauty,” said her mother. “The mask suggested this. But it’s obvious that you lack the ability to concentrate, which is absolutely necessary in any kind of art. Anything worth doing is likely to be slow, difficult, and boring. This is not an invariable rule, but it works in most situations.”

“Give her to me,” said Ki. “Maybe she’d be happier in a more active life.”

Ahl went to sea. At first, it was not an enjoyable experience, though she had little problem with motion sickness. Her difficulty lay in the same region as always: she spent too much time thinking about her stories. As a result, she was forgetful and careless. These are not good traits in an apprentice sailor; and Ki, who had always seemed pleasant and friendly at home in Helwar, turned out to be a harsh captain.

At first the punishment she gave to Ahl was work. Every ship is full of nasty jobs. Ahl did most of them and did them more than once. This didn’t bother her. She wasn’t lazy, and jobs—though nasty—required little thought. She could make up stories while she did them.

Her habit of inattention continued. Growing angry, Ki turned to violence. On several occasions, she stuck Ahl: hard slaps across the face. This also had no effect. The girl simply did not want to give up her stories. Finally, Ki beat her, using a knotted rope.

Most likely this shocks you. Nowadays we like to believe that our female ancestors never did harm to one another. It’s men who are violent. Women have always used reason.

Remember this was a sailing ship in the days before radio and engines. Weather satellites did not warn sailors of approaching storms. Computers did not monitor the ship’s condition and send automatic signals to the Navigation Service. Sailors had to rely on their own skill and discipline.

It was one thing to be forgetful in a weaving room. If you fail to tie off a piece of yarn, what can happen? At most, a length of cloth will be damaged. Now, imagine what happens if the same person fails to tie a rope on board a ship. Or forgets to fasten a hatch in stormy weather.

So, after several warnings and a final mistake, Ahl received her beating. By this time she was fourteen or fifteen, with a coat of fur made thick by cold weather. The fur protected her, though not entirely; and later, when she remembered the experience, it seemed that shame was the worst part: to stand naked on the ship’s deck, trying to remain impassive, while Ki used the rope she had failed to tie across her back.

Around her, the other sailors did their work. They didn’t watch directly, of course, but there were sideways glances, some embarrassed and others approving. Overhead the sky was cloudless. The ship moved smoothly through a bright blue ocean.

The next day she felt every bruise. Ki gave her another unpleasant cleaning job. All day she scraped, keeping her lips pressed together. In the evening she went on deck, less stiff than she’d been earlier, but tired and still sore. Ahl leaned on the rail and looked out at the ocean. In the distance, rays of sunlight slanted between grey clouds. Life was not entirely easy, she thought.

After a while, Ki’s lover Hasu Ahl came next to her. Ahl had been named after the woman, for reasons that don’t come into this story, and they were alike in several ways, being both tall and thin, with small breasts and large strong, capable hands. The main difference between them was their fur. Hasu Ahl’s was dark grey, like the clouds which filled the sky, and her coloring was solid. Our Ahl was pale as fog. In addition, she had kept her baby spots. Dim and blurry, they dotted her shoulders and upper arms. Because of these, her childhood name had been Dapple.

Hasu Ahl asked how she felt.

“I’ve been better.”

They became silent, both leaning on the rail. Finally Hasu Ahl said, “There’s a story about your childhood that no one has told you. When you were a baby, a witch predicted that you would be important when you grew up. She didn’t know in what way. I know this story, as do your mother and Ki and a few other people. But we didn’t want your entire family peering at you and wondering, and we didn’t want you to become vain or worried; so we kept quiet.

“It’s possible that Ki’s anger is due in part to this. She looks at you and thinks, ‘Where is the gift that was promised us?’ All we can see —aside from intelligence, which you obviously have — is carelessness and lack of attention.”

What could she say? She was inattentive because her mind was full of stories, though the character who’d been like Ki had vanished. Now there was an orphan girl with no close relatives, ignored by everyone, except her three companions: the hero, the  tli, and the stone. They cared for her in their different ways: the hero with nobility, the  tli with jokes, and the stone with solid friendliness. But she’d never told anyone about her ideas. “I’m not yet fifteen,” Ahl said.

“There’s time for you to change,” Hasu Ahl admitted. “But not if you keep doing things that endanger the ship and yourself. Ki has promised that if you’re careless again, she’ll beat you a second time, and the beating will be worse.”

After that, Hasu Ahl left. Well, thought our heroine, this was certainly a confusing conversation. Ki’s lover had threatened her with something like fame and with another beating. Adults were beyond comprehension.

Her concentration improved, and she became an adequate sailor, though Ki said she would never be a captain. “Or a second-in-command, like your namesake, my Ahl. Whatever your gift may be, it isn’t sailing.”

Her time on board was mostly happy. She made friends with the younger members of the crew, and she learned to love the ocean as a sailor does, knowing how dangerous it can be. The coast of the Great Southern Continent was dotted with harbor towns. Ahl visited many of these, exploring the steep narrow streets and multi-leveled marketplaces. One night at a festival, she made love for the first time. Her lover was a girl with black fur and pale yellow eyes. In the torchlight, the girl’s pupils expanded, till they lay across her irises like bars of iron or narrow windows that opened into a starless night.