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would have had to consult the sutras.
    “Right!” he said. “It has three neighbors, instead of two, like all the other cities.”
    “And therefore it may just be the sorcerers’ next target?”
    Nnanji nodded. The sorcerers had been seizing another city every two years or so. Now they had control of all the left bank, the inside of the loop. River travel was difficult or impossible through the Black Lands, so the RegiVul loop was closed. Their next move must to be to cross the River.
    “Casr is very old,” Nnanji added. “It’s mentioned in some of the most ancient sagas. Been burned and sacked and rebuilt dozens of times, I expect.”
    “And it has a swordsman lodge,” Wallie said.
    Nnanji grinned and put his arm around Thana for a firm hug.
    Wallie returned to watching the docks as they dwindled astern, masked now by a picket fence of masts and rigging. As the details became less visible, Tau seemed to become ever more like a scene from Tudor England.
    Nnanji sniggered. “Still want to be reeve, brother?”
    “Me?” Wallie said with astonishment, turning to stare at him.
    Nnanji flashed his huge grin. “Forgotten? Last time we were here you said...” His eyes went slightly out of focus, and his
     
    voice deepened to mimic Shonsu’s bass. “’Eventually, I suppose, I’ll settle down in some quiet little town like this and be a reeve. And raise seven sons, like old Kioniarru. And seven daughters, also, if Jja wants them!’ And I said, ‘Reeve? Why not king?’ And you said, ‘Too much bloodshed to get it, and too much work when you do. But I like Tau, I mink.’”
    His eyes came back into focus and his grin returned. Neither commented on the feat of memory—they both knew it was child’s play for Nnanji—but Thana was disgusted. “You weren’t serious, my lord? Reeve? In a place like that?” She turned to stare at the thatched roofs of vanishing Tau.
    “It’s a nice little town,” Wallie protested feebly.
    “You can have it, brother,” Nnanji said generously.
    tttt
    The next day the wind god deserted them. A strange golden haze settled over the River, smelling faintly of burning stubble, while the water lay dead as white oil. Directly overhead the sky was a pallid, sickly blue, and all around mere was only blank nothing. Tbmiyano did not even hoist sail, and Sapphire drooped at anchor. Other becalmed vessels showed faintly at times in the distance, like flags planted to mark the edge of the World, but for most of me day Sapphire seemed to be abandoned by both men and gods.
    This ominous change made the crew uneasy. Lord Shonsu was needed at Casr, they believed, to take command of Her tryst. Why was She not speeding him there? Had they offended Her in some way? Not putting their worry into words, the sailors performed the usual chores in nervous silence. They cleaned and polished and varnished; they made clothes for the coming whiter; they instructed youngsters in the age,old ways of the River and the sutras of the sailors; they waited for wind.
    Honakura was as distressed as any. He liked to think that he had been sent along on Shonsu’s mission as pilot, a guide to interpret the will of the gods as it might be revealed from time to time, and he did not know what to make of this sudden
     
    change of pace. It was strange that She had not taken Shonsu directly to Her tryst from Ov after the battle with the sorcereis, but likely the swordsman was just being given time to think. There seemed to be many things worrying the big man, things he had trouble discussing, or preferred not to discuss, and he brooded relentlessly, quite unlike his normal self. And the wind god had buffeted them along in spanking fashion—until today.
    This was not the first tame Sapphire’s progress had been stayed, and each time there had been a reason for it. Either the gods had been waiting for something else to happen, or the mortals had overlooked something they were supposed to do. Honakura had no way of