“Are you now, my father?” said a crisp voice from the doorway. “And here you sit with the very demon I did summon.”

It was Hwenit in person, who came in to tend extravagantly the copper pot on the brazier, that all this while had placidly seen to itself.

5

“I will require the warriors to leave my hearth,” said Hwenit-Uasti. “There is a baby with a fever I must have here to care for.”

“My thanks for the night’s lodging,” I said, “and the demon must, in any case, be on his road again.”

“Oh, but you must not!” cried Hwenit, leaving off splashing and stirring the mixture to pounce around on me. Today she did not wear her cat but a necklet of white bones and amber beads.

“My daughter,” said Peyuan, “our guest has spent too much time already listening to the chief’s prattle. He is in haste.” He touched my arm as we rose. “I have gone over in my mind what you have said to me. I will suggest to you that we should visit Qwef, who has a seaworthy boat.”

At this, Hwenit flung the iron spoon into the copper pot.

“Qwef!” she yapped. “Qwef! Qwef! Is this the only name I am to hear?”

“We shall presently be gone and you shall hear it no more,” said Peyuan.

“I will not have you go!” Hwenit shouted after me. “Go, and I curse you.”

“Curse on, maiden,” I said. “I will bear it as best I may.” And I ducked out quickly to avoid the wet spoon she threw after me.

It was a serene day, between the winds of early spring. Daylight showed the krarl village engaged in quiet activity. Trees and garden patches grew at the backs of many huts; a well had been dug in the shadow of a sea-blown acacia, and two women were standing in its lacy, winter-bared shade, drawing water.

Hwenit-Uasti’s cat lay sunning itself along the painted lintel, and spit at me for old time’s sake.

I said to Peyuan that his daughter had taken exception to the name of Qwef before. Had he done her some wrong?

“Yes,” said Peyuan, “a single wrong. He has not offered to court her. For that reason she conjures demons to flirt with, to make the young man mend his ways, and instead of a demon, you appear, and she will use you as readily if you let her.”

The village, the ocean’s murmur below, less complaining than in the night, the enterprising trees and tranquil people, had got me to the stage again of not actually believing myself in danger. Had I really killed a gold-mask in Eshkorek? Had I really escaped Erran’s palace by way of the great tunnel of the magician men, the same magicians, I hazarded, who left Golden Books in towers? And had I, Black Wolf, son of a black wolf, been hunted to the sea’s blue-as-the-eyes-of Hwenit edge?

But Peyuan, good and excellent man that he was, had adopted my plight like his own. He pointed out to sea, into the mauve haze that rimmed the water’s horizon.