“Into the sea? She made some big fish his breakfast, then? More likely she stepped through the shallow water, and came ashore again at some other bay.”

Peyuan nodded.

“Yes. But there were lights seen in the sky, the night of the lizard, and other nights. Like great stars falling to earth and departing again.”

“Thus. She is a goddess. It is a pity she didn’t want her son. He might have had some rare times with her in her palace of jade and crystal up in the air.”

He regarded me gravely, and he said, “Now I see one scar, after all.”

“You have the scars,” I said, “not I. One on your skull, one on your memory.”

“I am rebuked, and justly. I did not mean to anger the guest of my krarl.”

I was at once uncomfortable for having spoken roughly; he had been courteous enough to me, if too quick for my liking.

“No, it is I who am to blame, my chief,” I said. “Let us forget the woman.” Then, for courtesy’s sake only—I had begun to remember the hunt again at my back, and the need to be off—I added, “But tell me why your people settled here, for you were travelers formerly?”

“Oh, that is a small thing. I met the woman I spoke of, a fair-haired girl of the yellow Moi tribes, one day when we had gone to barter with them. I was younger then, and I won her liking and wed her. On the marriage night she found the scar for me, the lizard’s token. She journeyed that year with us to the sea. She had never looked on the ocean before. It drew her, as some it draws, like a charm or spell. When the time came for going inland, at the year’s turning, she was sorry, though she tried to make light of it. I had already taken her from her own folk, now I did not wish to take from her the sea. Besides, she was already quickened with our daughter. And I had been considering, too, I will admit, that my life had almost ended once in the dark sea bay, when the dragon struck me down; it seemed in some manner fitting that I live out my restoration near that place. So we chose this spot, on the route of the old Summer Dance. The land was not bad, and would grow vegetables; there were wild fruit trees and grazing for the goats—I had but five then. The ancient cities lie almost a night’s journey away to the south; we do not like to dwell too near them. Having said I would remain, become herdsman and gardener of the soil, two others elected to remain with me. Not my earlier companions. Wexl had married and gone elsewhere. Fethlin, too, was gone northward to seek the wandering priests, or the priest-hermits who live in the mountains there. Some say there are priests of the Book, healers and nomads, who live beyond these mountains and beyond other mountains also, unaccountable distances north and west. Maybe Fethlin sought even this far, for he was unquiet after Morda left us, saying his own gods had laid it on him to guard her, that he had failed, and that the work was forever unfinished.