"I lived on the southern hemisphere, and I have never heard of that constellation," Dolanna told her.

"Then you must have a different name for it," she told her. She rushed into the tent and brought out a piece of parchment and one of those curious Tellurian pens, then jotted a series of dots on the paper. "This constellation," she said, holding it up. It did vaguely resemble a crown, and after counting the dots, he realized that there were twenty of them.

"That one we call Diamades," Dolanna replied.

"But it is this constellation!" Keritanima told her. "The Wikuni call it the Diamond Crown. Any Wikuni ship captain worth his salt would have recognized that description immediately! It's the only crown-shaped constellation, and it's made up of twenty stars!"

"Calm down, sister," Allia said evenly. "Your shouting is hurting my ears."

"Sorry, sister," she said contritely. "So, according to this, we travel towards the Diamond Crown, and we do it for forty days."

"Yes, those are directions, but from where do we begin, Keritanima?" Dolanna asked pointedly. "And remember that the stars turn with the seasons. What time of year should we depart? If we are wrong, we are going to miss what we seek."

Keritanima gave her a blank look, then blew out her breath. "Alright, so this isn't everything. But it's a big piece of it," she asserted. "These are the directions. We know that it's overseas, and this confirms that. We know which direction to go and how long to go that way. All we need to know is where to start from and what time of year to do it, and we have it."

"There's more here to it than just that," Miranda said, reading it. "One of these stanzas is about Tarrin, or I'm bald. And you have a crown, Kerri. Twenty beyond the first in blood. Well, that one doesn't make perfect sense, but since it mentions blood, I think it wouldn't be a stretch to assume it talks about Allia."

"Some of these don't make any sense," Dar complained. "Twenty of everything?"

"I think that is a tool for giving the poem a unifying feel," Dolanna said. "Sometimes, the twenty is necessary, but elsewhere it is but a way to start the line. Probably done that way to throw off readers. It is the words after that are important."

"Alright, so, we have hearts, souls, and golden crowns. That still doesn't make any sense."

"I don't think the lines are related like that, Dar," Miranda told him, reading it again. "Some of them are definitely related, but only the last two lines in each stanza. The first two lines stand alone."

"Alright, so, what does hearts and souls mean?"

"I have no idea," she shrugged. "I only understand about half of the lines."

"So. We now have directions," Dolanna reasoned, reading it. "Or at least I hope so. This may be but a ruse, or a false lead. But so far, it is just about all we have found. Now we only need discover where to start from and what time of year to begin in order to follow these directions."

"It can't be from Suld. You can't even see the Diamond Crown from here. We'd at least have to be on the equator."

"Hold on," Allia said, getting up and rushing back into the tent. She returned a moment later with the book Dar had read, the book with the other information they'd found. Keritanima had marked the page with the passage, and she opened the book to that page and quickly read what was there. "It says in this book that they took the Firestaff beyond the Stormhavens, and then beyond the Dark Continent. If they passed over the Stormhavens, they have to have left from Suld."

"Very good, dear one," Dolanna said with an approving nod. "And if they then passed beyond Wikuna-Keritanima, can you see the Diamond Crown from anywhere in Wikuna?" she asked quickly.

"From Vendaka," she replied. "It's on the equator. The constellation sits right on the horizon." Keritanima blinked. "Could that be the starting point?" she asked.

Miranda was studying the poem again. "Hold on. It mentions seas and stars twice. Twenty seas and twenty stars, then twenty stars over twenty seas. Those may sound the same, but they're different. That first stanza had the directions in it, so maybe the key of where to start or what time of year to start are tied up in that first line. Can anyone think of anything that may relate to a season or time of year in that?"

"I-no, wait a minute. Wait a minute," Keritanima said suddenly, her eyes brightening. "The time of year to start is in the second line! If you really do start from Vendaka, then the key is twenty stars over twenty seas!" She looked at all them excitedly. "The Diamond Crown sits right on the horizon from Vendaka, but not the entire constellation. A little piece of it is always under the horizon! But I remember reading or hearing from someone somewhere that the entire constellation comes over the horizon at the summer solstice!"

"Then, if we do start from Vendaka, we'd have to start in a month!" Miranda said in surprise.

"Only if that is the true starting point," Dolanna cautioned. "All we have at the moment is an obscurely worded poem and a single passage from a very old book of history. Before we commit to this idea, I would like to know that we are looking in the right place."

"What do you want, Dolanna? A book to say 'here is where the Firestaff is, and oh, by the way, here's a map'?" Keritanima asked acidly.

"That would help," she said with a slight smile. "I just worry about if we are wrong, Keritanima. If we are wrong, then we will waste a tremendous amount of time, and someone else may very well discover its location while we are off chasing wild ducks."

"If this is right, then we'd have to literally race back to Wikuna in time to start," Miranda said absently. "The summer solstice is at the end of next month, and it'd take a month to get back to Wikuna."

"I don't think just any ship can do it," Dar said, looking at the poem. "It says here that twenty stone of coal and wood will let you reach behind the wind. I think the reach there means it's the only way to get to that place. Not literally getting behind it, because it says in this stanza here that it'll take the one among twenty to pass behind the wind. We need coal and wood to get out there to where this wind is, we need this twenty beyond the first to find the wind, then we need the one in twenty to get past the wind."

"What bloody good would coal and wood do in getting out there?" Keritanima said in annoyance. "They have nothing to do with ships, outside the fact that ships are made of wood."

"They must have some kind of special significance, or else they wouldn't show up in the poem," Miranda said.

"If you're tyring to get behind the wind, a Wikuni ship couldn't do it," Jesmind suddenly said, then she bowed her head when she realized she'd done so. "You'd need an Ungardt ship."

"Why do you say that, Mistress Jesmind?" Dolanna asked politely.

"They have sails," she said. "It only seems obvious to me that if you're trying to sail a ship behind the wind, you'd need an Ungardt longship. They don't rely on sails. They row the boat."

"Ungardt ships weren't meant to travel so far out into open sea," Keritanima told her. "And we really couldn't do it here. A forty day trip in a Wikuni clipper would be a four month trip in an Ungardt longship. Longships don't have very much cargo room. It would take so many men to man the ship, you'd have to fill the boat so full of supplies to feed them, the ship would sink like a stone in a stiff breeze."

"So, we can't sail the ship, and we can't row the ship. So how are we going to get there?"

"We need twenty stone of coal and wood," Miranda said with a cheeky grin.

Dar glared at her, then actually stuck out his tongue, which made the cute mink Wikuni laugh.

They sat back as Dolanna retreated into the tent for something, each of them quietly mulling it over. Tarrin felt that they were on the right track, but they were stuck. He was positive that this was what they were looking for, that this was the information they needed. They knew from where to start, when to start, and in which direction to go. All they needed now is how to get there, and the twenty stone of coal and wood was the only clue. Jesmind was right. They couldn't sail behind the wind, since the wind would just push them right back out. Keritanima told him that you could quarter the wind, but no sailing ship could sail against the wind. And they couldn't use an Ungardt longship, since it was slow, wasn't built for open seas, and wouldn't have enough cargo space to hold the food they'd need for such a long journey.