"The innkeeper knows there are only two men in the acting company."

"Maybe two of their companions came back. Maybe they found new companions." The witch stirred her potion, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I should talk to the innkeeper. She knows I met with the actors; and your mother knows that you have been visiting me. I'm a closer neighbor than your mother or any of the matriarchs. She won't talk, if I tell her not to. But I have to say this

business of weaving plots isn't easy. I'm going back to ordinary magic as soon as you and Leweli are gone."

When the potion was cooked through and cooled, she fed a spoonful to the baby.

"Why are you doing this now?" asked Leweli.

"To make sure the dose is fight. People vary in how they respond to magic, and it's always hard to judge how much to give a baby."

Soon Dapple was asleep, lying in the green shade of the witch's arbor. She looked, Ahl thought, like a sul cub: newborn, soft and round, still covered with down. All too soon the down is lost, giving way to rough fur and scales. But for

a while such cubs have an unequaled charm.

Merhit poured the rest of the potion into jars and sealed them, pausing now and then to examine the baby. "The dose is right," she said at last. "This is a healthy sleep, neither light nor heavy. She held out a spoon made of horn, yellow and translucent. "Take this. Always use it. Give the child a spoonful when you want her to be quiet, but never more than five times a day."

"Is the potion dangerous?" Leweli asked.

"All magic is dangerous," Merhit said.

A little after noon the women set of. Leweli and Ahl rode double. Merhit, on her marsh tsin, carried Dapple in the wicker chest.

When they reached the rendezvous, the men were there with their one healthy animal, loaded with baggage now.

"Take your costumes and go down the road," Perig said. "We'll load your bags while you change."

"Not the baby," Leweli said. "It's hot already and will get hotter, l don't want her in that box."

"What are you going to do with herr" Cholkwa asked.

"Carry her till the sun goes down."

The two men looked at each other. "Very well," said Perig. "But if anyone comes, you'll have to hide in the marsh."

Leweli agreed. The two women changed clothing, Ahl binding all four of her breasts. Leweli, however, left her upper pair free and used the binding strip to make a sling for Dapple. "If she wakes, I can feed her."

They rejoined the men, and Perig said, "Another thing has occurred to me. By the time we reach Sorg Harbor, you are going to smell of milk and the baby."

"This is true," said Merhit, who was still on her tsin, watching everything.

"I also have a solution to this problem," Perig said. "Or rather, Cholkwa does."

The young man looked puzzled.

The older man smiled. "He likes perfume and always has a jar. We'll pour it over Leweli -- "

"What?" cried Cholkwa.

"When we reach the south, dear one, I'll buy you more."

Cholkwa opened his mouth.

"You can argue on the way," said Merhit. "Be careful! And be lucky!" She turned her tsin and rode off, leading Ahl's animal.

The journey to Sorg Harbor was uneventful. They met no one. Only a fool would travel through weather like this, Perig remarked. Late in the afternoon they took shelter against the heat, resting in the shadow of a half-grown atchul tree. Sister trees stood in the distance, but Ahl couldn't find the mother. Had

it fallen? Was this an omen? Would she ever see her mother again? Imagining the matriarch's fury, Ahl decided she might not want to.

At sunset the four continued on their way, trudging through the long summer dusk into a starry night. By the time they reached Sorg Harbor the buildings were dark.

They stopped. Leweli put her baby in the wicker chest and, with Ahl's help,strapped her upper breasts. The two men went off to relieve themselves. When they returned, Perig got out the perfume and dowsed Leweli.

"Too much," said Cholkwa. "You know what she smells like now."

"Like a man who sells the use of his body to other men," said Perig cheerfully.

"Better that than a mother. In the future, please remember to use the male pronoun when speaking of Leweli or Ahl. They are men now."

"With a baby in a box," said Cholkwa.

"As you say," Perig agreed in the same cheerful tone. He looked toward the women. Ahl could see starlight shining on his eyes. "You need new names. How does Lewekh sound? And Ahlin?"

"Good enough," said Ahl.

Perig led them through dark streets. A few dim lanterns shone in the harbor, aboard docked ships. One was the Taig Far Traveler. A sleepy male voice asked,

"Who?"

"The actors," said Perig.

"Come on board."

Tired and half-asleep, Ahl helped unfasten the chest. She and Leweli carried it into a cabin. A lamp hung from the ceiling; the still air stank of burning fish oil. Ahl forced open the cabin window. "It'll be better once we're under way."

"Good," said Leweli.

The men followed with bags, then left again. The tsin had to be delivered to its new owner. Ahl searched the cabin. A row of cabinets went along one wall. Inside were five hammocks, neatly rolled, and five pots of fired clay, good-sized and glazed inside. The lids fit tightly. One was clearly for urination. She could tell by the shape and the emblem drawn on the outside. She didn't know the purpose of the others.

Leweli spread her bedroll on the floor, but Ahl -- a sailor -- hung up one of the hammocks, fastening it to iron hooks in the cabin walls. Along with the lamp and the cabinets, these were the cabin's only furniture. A spare folk, the Taig.

Lying in her hammock, she regarded the lamp, which was iron and shaped like a fish with bulbous glass eyes. Light shone out the eyes and through a hole in the fish's back. Taig art. The Sorg would never make anything so grotesque. Thinking this, Ahl went to sleep.

Waking, she felt the ship in motion. The fish was dark. Daylight came through the window. She could make out Leweli, sleeping next to the wicker chest, one hand on it. The men were not present. Had they slipped off in the night? Were she and Leweli alone among male strangers? A disturbing idea! She rose and used

the pot-for-urination, then went on deck. Perig and Cholkwa were there, leaning on the ship's aide, watching blue waves go past.

"Good morning, Ahlin," Perig said. "Cholkwa is a little queasy. I thought he'd be better up here."

"And you?" asked Ahl.

"No kind of travel bothers me."

She stayed a while with the men. For better or worse the journey had begun.

There was a kind of relief in simply beginning. As to the end, who could say?

With luck, she'd find Ki.

The first two days of the voyage were bright, with a strong wind blowing out of the north. Nothing could be better! They sped toward Helwar over foaming water.

Leweli stayed in their cabin, afraid that the Taig sailors would see through her disguise, afraid as well to leave the baby alone.

"A good actor and a bad traveler," Perig said in explanation. "Poor Lewekh is often queasy, but if you could see him play a matron mourning the death of her male relations! A stone would groan and grieve!"