Two days’ easy walking took them to the place where the river emptied into a broad bend of the Shiver that formed Calla’s northeastern coast. From there, across several miles of open water, they could see a solitary mountain guarded by ranges of foothills. It was not evident from here, but Prim knew from maps that this was a separate Bit unto itself, with another Shiver cutting around its backside and separating it from the much larger Bit that lay off to its east. Formerly all three landmasses had been one huge Bit, but the solitary mountain had drawn to itself all the wildest and most fractious old souls that still dwelled in the Land, and the place had become so unmanageable that, like a nail driven into a block of brittle old wood, it had snapped the big island in half and found itself standing alone in the midst of a newly formed Shiver. The waters girding it and the air above were infamously fickle and hazardous. Reaching this harbor, as beautiful and placid as it seemed, was therefore considered too dangerous to be attempted by sea. This did much to explain why Edda had been able to enjoy such isolation in her valley, for one end could only be entered by going over the pass, and the other was, to all intents and purposes, barred to mariners by the wild souls on the Bit opposite. But there was a village at the river’s mouth where a few doughty souls lived from fish that they caught along the nearer shore. This was notched with little coves where they could take refuge when air and water were raging. One of these, a man named Robst, agreed to take the party as passengers on his boat, Firkin, if they would pull on oars, and perform other tasks, when needed.

It took no time at all to agree on this plan, but Prim was surprised by how long it took to embark and get under way. She was not accustomed to boats and watery doings; she was taken aback by how many lines and knots were involved. Robst had a lot to say on the subject of ballast.

“We traveled too light,” Mard explained to her.

“First I’ve heard of it,” Prim replied. “My pack felt heavy to me!”

Mard nodded. “Yes, we all carried as much as we could. But Brindle, you’ll recall, said from the very beginning that we mustn’t use mounts  . . .”

“Because we would only have to abandon them when we reached the water and boarded ship,” Prim recalled. “Of course, it’s a different story with Edda’s.”