I heard the door of his tiny cabin in the stern shut quietly. Joss's bitterness stung my heart. I knew that note of helpless anger, I had sung it often enough myself—but there was nothing I could do save commit his anger to the Lady. Surely, as the laughing Girl of the Waters, she would know and move to ease the sorrow of the brother she bore on her back .

As for my own heart, it was full of his other words. The Dragons are real, whatever anyone may say. Those words had my soul singing so I could hardly breathe. They are real! I repeated to myself, over and over as the boat slid rapidly towards Corli. I am going to the Dragon Isle at last, and they are real!

I fell asleep with Dragons dancing in my heart.

It started sprinkling just after dawn—and kept raining on and off all morning. We came into Corli in the middle of a shower. There was just enough wind and rain to make the little riverboat horribly uncomfortable for the last half hour. All the other passengers were huddled under the oiled cloth. The young ones were sick, the elders well on the way.

I am almost ashamed to admit that I recall feeling wonderful. I was out on the deck, at the bow railing, wrapped in my cloak and an oiled cloth, breathing in Corli with the rain, riding the surge of the water like a galloping horse. For the last few days we had passed more and more villages along the riverbank, and for the last half hour there had been a solid rank of houses beside the water on either side. Now we were passing a crowd of small boats, and came shooting down on the current of the Kai into the true harbor of Corli.

I took one look and gasped, turned away, overwhelmed.

Before me stretched a vast great plain of water.

I taunted myself into some semblance of courage and turned my face again to the sea to learn what lay before me.

Water. As far as the eye could see, water. There were what looked like tiny spurs of land to the left and to the right, but before me the water seemed to stretch into infinity. I fell back from the rail, shrinking into myself. I was terrified, I wanted to hide below the deck in the face of this immensity. It seemed alive, as if some great being dwelt beyond sight under those dark waters and breathed out its essence in words no one could understand.

I firmly believe that forcing myself to look again at the sea, just that small arm of the sea in Corli Harbour, was the hardest thing I had done in my life up to that time. All the tales true and false—that have attached to my name since never mention the fact that my first glimpse of the sea reduced me to a terrified, shivering wretch, huddled against the rail of Joss's little riverboat for protection, turning my head away from the deep, the vast, infinite unknown.

We came to rest with a bump at a small pier, like twenty' other small piers around it. It was still raining.

Joss leaned down and shouted to the others below that we had arrived. My five fellow travellers climbed out of the dark and into the rain, and were not pleased about it. They grumbled as they assembled their bags, they grumbled as they left the little boat that had been our home for three weeks. Joss managed a civil farewell to them all.

I waited until the others had gone, tiling my time to collect my few belongings and pack them carefully. I dragged my pack up the few rungs of the ladder, shouldered it with a grunt and went over to Joss, who stood with his back to me.

I took a deep breath for courage, then went to him and put my hand on his arm. I spoke quietly, the light rain making a small silence around us as I spoke.

"Joss, I have wanted to leave my home and travel all my life and never had the chance before now. I thank you for bringing me here, even if you are right and I go to my doom. You cannot bear the burden for every soul that joins the Harvest.

He shook my hand off his arm but did not turn round.

"I am not your father or your brother, Joss. I do not seek wealth from the lansip trees. I am going to talk with the Dragons, if I can, and find out why they do not live with us, and see if I can change their minds."

"You go on a fool's errand, Lanen," said Joss to the sea.

"Then my errand and I are well suited," I said with a laugh. "At least wish me good fortune."

"You will make your own fortune, good or ill, whatever I may say."

I sighed. "Farewell then, Joss Riverman," I said sadly. "The Lady bless thee.'"

"And may she lead thee to safe harbor in the end, Lanen Maransdatter," replied Joss. His face was still to the sea, his rain-soaked back to me. "I will not curse the sailing of this ship, for it will bear thee and thy dreams. Fare well, Lanen, and may the wind and waves be kind to thee."

I stepped onto the pier, surprised at the weight of my pack, surprised to find that the land seemed to rock as the water had. I laughed at myself, threw the long wet braid of my hair over my shoulder and set out for the center of the harbor.

I learned later that it is the custom of seafaring men never to watch a friend out of sight, as that would mean a long separation. Years after he told me that he had been on the verge of begging me to stay, for I was the first soul he had trusted in many years—but he knew I followed a dream and would not stay for a chance—met friend.

Lighthearted in my ignorance, I all but danced my way down the quayside as I sought out the Harvest ship.

VI

CORLI AND AWAY

Corli Harbour sits near the mouth of the great river Kai, where waters collect from every corner of Kalmar to mingle in a glorious rush and flow in a torrent into the bay. The warm swift southern current, brushing up the coast, then sweeps away the silt, leaving a natural harbour and meeting place for trade and shipping. The old saying "If you want to know anything, go to Corli" comes from the Merchants and traders who fill the wharves year—round with the sights and smells of Far away. (The rest of the saying is "If you want to know everything, go to Sorun." It refers to the Silent Service, based in Sorun but found everywhere in Kolmar—when they fail. It is said that enough silver will buy any information you might want, but that is another story.)

In Corli you will find goods from all the kingdoms in their wondrous variety, like the fair at Illara in large; but that is not the only reason Corli is renowned. It is from Corli that the great Merchant ships set out west and north over the sea to the Dragon Isle. Lansip grows there wild, it is said there are endless forests of the stuff, but it will grow nowhere else. The seedlings and young trees brought back in the past always withered and died, the seeds failed to sprout.

If lansip were not so powerful; none would even consider the deadly journey. But even weak lansip tea is a sovereign remedy for many ailments, from headache to heart's sorrow, and when it is concentrated into a liquor it has the power to give back lost years. They tell the tale of a fabulously wealthy Merchant in his seventh decade who bought a full Harvest, every leaf, and drank all the liquor that was distilled from it. He passed through middle age and into youth, until the day he drank the last of his lansip. He was found dead of shock, with the look and the body of a youth in his early twenties.

When, rarely, the Harvesters find late fruit on the trees, it is brought back with care, most valuable of all—for that fruit, eaten without its bitter skin, can heal all wounds save death alone. The Harvest journeys are said to have been the founding of several of the Merchant Houses, and certainly kept the older ones wealthy.

However, despite the enticements of the Merchants—Harvesters are paid the weight of the leaves they bring back in silver—Harvest ships had always set out shorthanded. Few in those days feared the True Dragons, for most considered them no more than legend, but the Storms were real and known deadly, and in a hundred and thirty years before we set out none had returned of all the ships that had essayed the passage.