Richard Adams - Maia

"You can take it from me, Maia, that nothing smaller than that boat is going to be any good to you on the lower Zhair-gen. It's either that or drown. Once the rains have set in you'll probably drown anyway, but that's your affair."

Maia was looking into the well of the boat. There was almost no bilge. She was evidently sound enough. She was jammed up against the other boats, of course, but as far as Maia could tell she had no noticeable list. How well she would answer and steer was another matter.

"You needn't stand there poking it about," said Terebinthia. "You can take it out for a few minutes if you want: there's very little current inshore on this side. I'll call the Deelguy to go with you. You'll find there's nothing

wrong with it. If you want it, you can have it for sixteen thousand meld."

Maia looked at her in amazement. "But-but a brand-new boat like that wouldn't cost eight thousand on Ser-relind! Anyway, I haven't got sixteen thousand-"

"Take it or leave it," said Terebinthia sharply. "It strikes me you're in no position to bargain, Maia. The rains are coming. It might cost you more to spend Melekril in Ny-bril, the three of you."

"But I haven't got it, saiyett."

Terebinthia walked out of the boat-house and called to the gardener to come and lock it. As Maia came out, the man threaded in the chain and began putting the bow of the heavy Gelt lock through the links.

"All right, Terebinthia," said Maia. "I'll take it out and try it."

The mist lay everywhere, far and near; filling the savage, desolate miles of the forest of Purn; obliterating the wasteland where Elleroth's camp now stood empty; lying thick upon the two rivers, blotting out rocks and rapids, reed-beds and the silent backwaters where flotsam circled for hour after hour in the rotating eddies. It covered the Nybril confluence, changing it to a seemingly illimitable expanse of featureless, deserted water, whence even the fowl had stolen away to shelter (for water will not run off a duck's back for ever and saturated feathers are fatal).

Nybril lay beneath the mist as though submerged. The whole promontory had disappeared under the silent, gray mass rolling over walls and housetops, creeping down the steep streets until each corner and crevice of the town had been penetrated, as a cavity is filled with putty pressed home. By nightfall those few still on the streets were hurrying either to their own houses or else to some equally welcome destination-for the taverns were doing brisk business as people drank and made merry over the commencement of Melekril and the coming of the rains.

The mist penetrated every room where a fire was not burning, hanging in the air, surrounding each lamp-flame with a dull, foggy nimbus. By its very nature it seemed to

cast a blight, so that honest warmth became thick and close, and shelter constrictive: yet to this the merry-makers paid no heed.

Out of the mist, slowly, grew the rain: at first no more than a moisture suspended in the air, sinking onto roofs, copings and leaves until everything was damp to the touch; then droplets, minute particles like a powder of water, felt by the hurrying home-goers on foreheads, ears and the backs of hands; and at last as a fine mizzle, drifting out of the east on the gentle but ceaseless wind rolling the mist onward into Belishba and beyond to Katria and Tere-kenalt. '

In Maia's upstairs room at "The White Roses," where Anda-Nokomis, Zen-Kurel and she were preparing to leave, the rain, as darkness fell, had become just heavy enough to be heard on the roof above. They had eaten a meal, paid their score and bought from the landlord enough food-mainly bread, cheese and dried fruit-to last for about two days.

"That's going to be enough, you reckon?" asked Maia when Anda-Nokomis brought it upstairs and divided it to be stowed in the packs which Zen-Kurel had persuaded Tolis to leave with them upon his departure.

"I don't know," he replied. "I can only tell you what the landlord said. By the way, here are the seven hundred meld you left with him: I have counted them. According to him, it's about seventy miles down the Zhairgen to the southern border of Katria. During summer the rafts usually take three days over it, stopping off at night. But he says that now the rains have begun we ought not to attempt it at all. He tried to dissuade me, but when he saw that was no good, he said our only hope was to keep going night and day. He said if we didn't do it in a day and a half at the most we'd have no chance, because after only a few hours the river floods and becomes completely unnaviga-ble. No boat can live in it, he said."

He paused, listening as the light rain pattered overhead and dripped down outside the windows. "The eastern provinces have already had this for hours, of course: their rain's coming down both rivers now."

"Why don't you stay here in Nybril, Maia?" asked Zen-Kurel. "I think both Anda-Nokomis and I would rather feel you were safe."

She smiled, and he half-returned it, as though despite

himself. "If that boat's to get to Katria I reckon you're going to need me."

Zen-Kurel seemed about to reply, but she cut him short. "Anda-Nokomis, we ought to be going. The man downstairs is right; sooner the better, else we'll have no chance."

"You want actually to take the boat out tonight?"

"Once the rain's really settled in the mist lifts; you know that. There'll be a bit of a moon most of the night. Even behind clouds that'll give enough light for us to drift a fair old way by morning, long 's we keep a good look-out and stay offshore. We'll have to take it steady, of course, but it might make all the difference."

"Mightn't we run aground or hit something in the dark?"

"Well, that'll be all according," she answered, "but if that landlord was right about one thing, it's that every hour's one less and there aren't all that many."

Bayub-Otal was silent, considering. Standing thus, gawky and pondering, in the middle of the room, he looked so characteristic, so comically typical of the Anda-Nokomis she had come to know and feel affection for, that she burst out laughing, jumped up and took his hands.

"You afraid, Anda-Nokomis? 'Cos I am, tell you that! Come on, let's be going."

He glanced at Zen-Kurel, who shrugged and picked up his pack.

The big room downstairs was crowded and full of babble and laughter. Two groups of drinkers were bellowing different songs, taunting their rivals and trying to drown each other. Maia and her companions edged their way through the crush, reaching the door unhindered. Anda-Nokomis already had his hand on the latch when a big, fair-bearded man with a broken nose caught Maia by the shoulder.

"Don' want to be going out there, lass! Pissing down! Whyn't stay here 'n have nice drink with me?"

"All right," she smiled. "Tomorrow night I will."

"No good t'morrow night: place'll be drunk dry!"

"Then here's your health!" she answered; took his half-empty wine-cup out of his hand, quickly drained it and tossed it into the air above his head. Then, as he made a clumsy grab to catch it, she slipped past him, through the opened door and out into the misty darkness.

The rain was falling more heavily now and the mist, as she had foreseen, was growing gradually less dense. Drawing their cloaks round them and raising the hoods, they

climbed the rocky lane, crossed the market-place and came to the town gates. When Bayub-Otal put his head round the door of their lodge the watchmen were sitting snug by the fire with a jug of mulled wine, playing some game on a board marked out in charcoal on the table. One of them, grumbling, got up and reached for the keys hanging on the wall.

"Off to Almynis, I suppose, are yer, like the rest of 'em? Won't be home till morning if I know anything about it. All right for them as can afford it, eh? Stuffin' good money up some painted shearna's tairth."