Maia

but no need to find out about that. One fluke of the anchor neatly under it, snug as fingers round the handle of a basket. Hadn't even pierced the wood. O Cran, I can't hold my breath any longer! I can't! Push it down by the shank, turn it away from you-I'm drowning, drowning, I can't hold my breath: let it out then, girl, but once you do there's no more-it's clear, it'sfree!

She almost lost hold of the rope as the anchor leapt upward, jerked by the buoyancy of the released boat above. With the last remnant of her consciousness she got both hands to it and felt them pulling her up. Give me air, O Cran, just give me some air and I'll never ask for any least thing else, ever again!

Her head and shoulders came clear of the surface and she drew in her breath. It was over. She could breathe.

They gripped her under the arms and dragged her aboard. For a good half minute she lay prone on the planking, vomiting water and drawing one breath after another.

At length she stood up.

"What's happening? Who's got the tiller?"

"I have," answered Bayub-Otal from the stern. "I've turned us downstream and I'm keeping as near in to the bank as I can."

"You're too brave for your own good, Maia," said Zen-Kurel. "Please don't try anything else like that."

She was about to answer when she became unthinkingly aware that something was still amiss. The boat, though now free, was lower in the water and moving very sluggishly. She made her way aft. She could hear the bilge slopping in the dark. Gods! she thought. No wonder the damned mattress was sodden to pulp!

The well of the boat, astern of the cubby-hole, was awash with the rain. She put one foot into it. It was over her ankle and half-way up her shin.

"Zenka!" she called. "Come and help me bail!"

He was beside her in moments. She felt so angry and harassed by all that had been allowed to go wrong that she simply put one of the wooden bailers into his hand and herself took up the other without a word.

Can't take your eye off them for a minute. Silly bastards sit there for hours in this rain and never even think of bailing! Why the hell did I ever come? They deserve to drown.

The rain was falling yet more heavily now, pouring over

them, rattling on the boat and hissing on the water. Every time she turned to empty the bailer overside it stung her ear and cheek, so that at length she could stand it no longer and asked Zen-Kurel to change places: but soon it felt as bad on the other cheek.

There seemed no end to the bailing. In all seriousness- for there was still very little to be seen-she began to wonder whether the rain could actually be gaining on them and filling the boat. Her right arm grew so tired that she had to change the bailer to her left hand and work that much more clumsily. She knew her pace was slackening, but there was no pause in the steady rhythm with which Zen-Kurel bent and flung. '

"Here, let me take over, Maia," said Bayub-Otal from behind her. "You go and steer for a bit."

At that moment the bow struck full tilt against something hard and unyielding. There was a shuddering thump of wood against wood,.

Zen-Kurel, first to collect himself, stood up and went forward.

"We've hit the bank!"

"But that's impossible! The bank's here on my left," called back Bayub-Otal.

"I can't help it. It can only be the bank. It's revetted with wooden stakes."

Maia felt herself giving way to bewilderment and near-desperation. The darkness and rain were like a curse, destroying whatever they tried to do. The bilge water was inexhaustible. She was aching in every muscle. Now, to crown it all, the bank had apparently become bewitched and altered its position in the dark. Another knock like that would probably stave in the bow. I must keep my head and think straight, else we're going to drown and that bitch Terebinthia'U have been proved right.

"Zenka!" she called. "Is there soft ground behind the stakes?"

"Too soft! It's all mud."

"Hook the anchor in behind the stakes, then, and hitch the rope as short as you can. We'll just have to wait for daylight. We can't risk another bang like that."

Zen-Kurel did as she had said. Once more the boat pivoted, the stern swung over to fetch up against the bank and sure enough Maia found at her left hand a line of thick, wooden stakes, driven side by side into the bed of

the river. Their tops were only an inch or two clear of the surface. She plumbed again with the oar, but this time could find no bottom. So the stakes-which were stout and firm-must be something like ten or twelve feet long at least. Each one was nearly as broad across the top as the width of her hand: a stout structure, whatever it might be.

This was something altogether outside Maia's experience. She could only suppose that they must have run into some sort of mole or jetty projecting into the stream. But why would there be such a thing in this solitude, with no lights, no voices, no signs of a village or even a house? At a loss, she felt afraid. Yet she was still more' afraid of her own fear. Once I lose my head we're finished! Having dug in the stern anchor in the same way that she had told Zenka to secure the other, she went back to bailing, helped by Bayub-Otal.

"Maia," said Zen-Kurel, "I'm going to find out what sort of place this is."

"No, don't, Zenka!" she cried. "You'll never find your way back and anyway, what good can it do when all we want's to get away as soon as we can?"

But as usual there was no stopping Zen-Kurel. Clambering over the side, he vanished into the dark. After a few minutes she shouted, "Zenka! Can you hear me?"

"I'm here," he replied, so close that she jumped. The beating of the rain had prevented them from hearing him returning. A moment later he was back on board and had taken the bailer from her.

"This is an island," he said, "and as far as I can make out, it's no more than eight or nine yards across. There's nothing on it at all, and yet it's revetted right the way round with these stakes."

"I can't believe it!" she said. "We'll wake up in a minute and find ourselves back in-Anda-Nokomis, where would you like to find yourself back in?"

"Melvda-Rain," he answered, still bailing.

He'd never had any basting tact, she thought. Not that this was much of a time or place for it. She said no more.

Little by little, half-light began to creep into the cloud-thick eastern sky, disclosing as dreary a prospect as could well have been found in all the world, and immediate surroundings as strange as any to be imagined.

101: DOWN THE ZHAIRGEN

At this relatively early period in its history, there were throughout the empire very few bridges; none of wide span and only one of any real solidity-that eighteen miles south of Bekla, which carried the Ikat highway. (This was the bridge which the seceding Ta-Kominion had found too strongly held against him.) To transport the stone from Crandor and construct it, some seventy years before, had been an immense labor in which, needless to say, the great Fleitil had been instrumental. There were two wooden bridges across the Serrelind, a relatively small river; one south of Kabin and one north of Thettit; and a similar bridge across a narrow reach of the upper Here, between Ikat and Herl. The Herl-Dari highway, however (where Meris had been so active), was dependent upon a ferry across the Zhairgen.

Had it not been for a most singular exception to this primitive absence of bridges, Belishba could not have formed part of the empire at all, for it could have had neither direct trade communication with Bekla nor any reliance on Beklan military protection against Terekenalt and Ka-tria. At the point equidistant between Bekla and Herl-Belishba, the River Zhairgen was a good hundred and fifty yards wide and all of twelve to fourteen feet deep, with a fairly strong midstream current even in summer. Here, however, lay the phenomenon known as the Narboi, a scattering of islets varying in diameter from a few feet to about ten yards, between which the river ran in cha