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tongue; you allow it a dangerous freedom. " He signaled Etzwane. "Sail on."
    Etzwane worked the tiller and waved his hand toward the sail, while Ifness moved his dials. The boat lifted into the night sky, showing its keel to the firelight. The Ripchiks watched silently from below.
    During the night the boat drifted slowly south. Etzwane slept on one of the narrow berths; he was not aware whether or not Ifness did the same. In the morning, cold and cramped, he went out into the cockpit to find Ifness looking out over the gunwale. A mist concealed the land below, the boat floated alone between "gray mist and lavender sky.
    For an hour the two sat in dour silence, drinking tea. At last the three suns rolled high and the mist began to dissipate, swirling and drifting, revealing irregular districts of land and river. Below them, the Keba made a mighty swing to the west, where it was joined from the east by a tributary, the Shill. On the west bank three docks thrust out into the Keba, marking a settlement of fifty or sixty huts and a half-dozen larger structures. Ifness exclaimed in satisfaction. "Shillinsk at last! It exists in spite of Kreposkin! " He lowered the boat to the face of the water. Etzwane stepped the mast and hoisted the sail; the boat proceeded across the water to the docks. Ifness brought the boat up the water-steps; Etzwane jumped ashore with a line; Ifness followed more deliberately. Etzwane payed out the line; the boat drifted downstream and took a place among a dozen fishing smacks, not notably different from itself. Ifness and Etzwane turned toward Shillinsk Town,

CHAPTER 4
    The cabins and sheds of Shillinsk were built from gray stone quarried from a nearby ledge and rough-laid between balks of driftwood. Directly behind the docks stood the Shillinsk Inn, a relatively imposing structure of three stories. Lavender suns' light glared on gray stone and black timber; the shadows, by some ocular accommodation, appeared green, the color of old water in a barrel.
    Shillinsk Town seemed quiet, only half alive. No sound could be heard except the lap of waves along the shore. Two women walked slowly along the riverside trail; they wore baggy black breeches, blouses of dark purple, head-kerchiefs of rich rust-orange. Three barges lay alongside the docks, one empty and two partially laden. Several barge-tenders were bound for the tavern; Ifness and Etzwane followed a few paces to the rear.
    The barge-tenders pushed through the driftwood doors, with Ifness and Etzwane behind them, into a common room considerably more comfortable than the rude exterior suggested. A fire of sea-coal blazed in a huge fireplace; the walls had been plastered, whitewashed, and decorated with festoons and rosettes of carved wood. A group of barge-tenders sat before the fire eating a stew of fish and reed root. To the side, half in the shadows, two men of the district sat hunched over their wooden mugs. Firelight molded their slab-sided faces; they spoke little and peered distrustfully sidewise, watching the barge-tenders. One displayed a black mustache bushy as a dust brush, the other wore both a chin beard and a two-inch copper nose ring. With fascination Etzwane saw him knock up the ring with the rim of his mug and drink. They wore the Sorukh costume: black breeches, loose shirts embroidered with fetish signs, and from their waists hung scimitars of the white metal ghisim, an alloy of silver, platinum, tin, and copper, forged and hardened by a secret process.
    Ifness and Etzwane settled at a table near the fire. The innkeeper, a man bald and flat-faced, with a deformed leg and a hard stare, hobbled over to learn their wants. Ifness spoke for lodging and the best meal available. The innkeeper announced that he could serve clam soup, herbs, and sweet beetles; grilled meat with water-greens, bread, blue-flower marmalade, and vervain tea: a meal which Ifness had not expected and which he pronounced satisfactory.
    "I must discuss my recompense,"