The novelty quickly wore off for Kerrick since there was little to see and nothing at all to do. Most of the interior was taken up by the dead-alive bodies of deer and stalakel. The stalakel lay heaped in piles, small forelimbs limp, horn-beaked jaws gaping open. Some of the deer, though unmoving, had their eyes wide open, and this was clearly visible in the light from the luminescent patches. He had the uneasy feeling that they could see him, that they were crying out at their paralyzed state. They couldn’t be, he was putting his own feelings into theirs. The sealed interior closed in on him and he clenched his fists with unknown terror, made worse by what seemed to be an endless storm. The uruketo’s fin stayed sealed and the air grew musty and foul.
In the darkness the Yilanè grew torpid and slept. There were only one or two on watch at any time. Once he tried to talk to the Yilanè at the helm, but she would not answer; all of her attention was focused on the compass.
Kerrick was asleep when the storm ended and the heavy seas died down. He jerked awake as the chill, salty air washed over him. The Yilanè stirred and reached for the cloaks—but the air and the shaft of light were pure pleasure to him. He tugged at his lead until the sluggish Inlènu* woke up and had wrapped herself in a cloak, then pulled her after him towards the opening in the fin. He scrambled quickly up the corrugations and pulled himself up beside Erafnais who stood there, wrapped tightly in a large cloak. Inlènu* stayed below, as far as the lead would permit her. He held tight to the edge and looked out at the green waves rolling towards them and frothing over the uruketo’s back, laughing when salt spray splashed his face. It was different, wonderful, exciting. Rays of sunlight cut through the clouds lighting up the vastness of the sea that stretched to the horizon in all directions. He shivered with the chill and wrapped his arms about him, but would not leave. Erafnais turned and saw him, and wondered at his emotions.
“You are cold. Go below. Take a cloak.”
“No—I like it like this. I can understand now why you cross the sea in the uruketo. There is nothing else like it.”
Erafnais was very pleased. “Few others feel this way. Were the sea to be taken from me now I would feel very strange.” Strange had overtones of unhappiness and despair, with just the slightest suggestion of death. The scar on her back made it difficult to express this with exactitude, but so powerful were her feelings that the meaning was clear.
A flight of seabirds floated by overhead and Erafnais pointed in their direction.
“We are not far from the land now. In fact there, low on the horizon, that dark line. The coast of Entoban*.”
“I have heard the name spoken, but never understood its meaning.”
“It is a great land mass, so large that it has never been sailed around for the sea gets cold to the south. It is the home of the Yilanè where one city stretches to the fields of another city.”
“That is our destination?”
Erafnais agreed. “On the northern coast. First through the passage known as Genagle into the warm waters of Ankanaal on whose shores is Inegban*.”
When she spoke the word, there were mixed overtones of pleasure and pain. “Be pleased it is now midsummer, for the past winter was the worst in the city’s history. Crops died. Animals died. Beasts from the north raided the herds. And once, briefly, hard water fell from the clouds and was white on the ground before it melted.”
Hard water? The meaning was clear—but what was it? Before he could ask for an explanation Kerrick had a vision, clear and sharp, of snow-covered mountains. But accompanying it was a terrible pang of apprehension and fear. He rubbed at his eyes—then looked out at the sea and thrust the memory from him. Whatever it was it did not bear considering.
“I am cold,” he said, half-lie, half-truth, “so return to the warmth inside.”