“I’m relieved to see that,” said Hern. “Get in. Let’s eat as we go.”
“Why the hurry?” I said.
“Who’s bossy?” said Duck.
“I’m head of the family!” Hern shrieked, turning on him. “Do as I say!”
Duck and I both turned to Robin. She looked at the clay image between her hands and shrugged. “I suppose that’s the truth of it,” she said.
“Then he’d better be polite about it,” Duck said. We glowered at Hern, Duck and I.
“I can’t be polite until I’ve had some breakfast,” said Hern. “I’m frantic for it. We’ve eaten nothing but illusions since we landed. Isn’t that so, Robin?”
“I don’t think so. How should I know?” Robin said as she climbed into the boat.
We poled out from among the reeds into the current of the two rivers and went drifting down a reddish, lazy flood between two lines of trees that ought to have marked the banks. The bread was horribly stale. The cabbages smelled. We chewed carrots, tough cheese, and dried fruit. Duck was so hungry he ate an onion. His eyes streamed. We all felt soggy, irritable, and frightened in a gloomy sort of way. We knew we were back in real life, and we wished we knew the reasons for it: why Tanamil had kept us and why he had turned us out.
“You said we ate illusions,” I said to Hern as we finished eating. “But you don’t believe in enchantments.”
“I believe in what I can see,” said Hern. “I saw what happened to Gull. I damn near broke the spell, too. I wish I had. And that food was too good to be real. I can’t accept it wasn’t real, but I suppose I’ve got to. It’s—it’s offensive.”
“Bad luck,” Duck said politely.
Hern was too gloomy to hit him. He said, “It’s the way it’s all mixed up in my head that annoys me. I can’t remember properly.” I saw Hern was having the same trouble as me. “It’s maddening!” he said. “Robin, what happened to us?”
“How should I know?” said Robin. She was gloomiest of the lot.
We put the sail up. There were worms, earwigs, and beetles in the folds of the sail, and wood lice and things with many legs making their home under the mast. Hern scowled at them. He scowled at the trees as we beat slowly from line to line of them, tacking against the wind. We did not sail beyond the trees, although there were acres of white water, glittering into the distance beyond, because we did not know how deep it was. There were no people, only trees sticking up from sheets of water.
Hern said, “Does anything strike you about these trees?”
Nothing did. Duck said, as we sailed under spreading branches, “Oaks, elms, willows.”
“Go back to sleep!” said Hern. “Tanaqui, you’re supposed to notice things. What about these trees?”
I looked up. The oak we were under was large, but quite ordinary. It was just beginning to get leaves, like bundles of yellow rags. The elm and the willows beyond it were just as ordinary, because they were already bright new green. “Everyone knows oaks are late,” I said. “Trees always look like this in Spring.”
“That’s it!” Hern shouted. “Exactly! When we came to the watersmeet, all the trees were bare!” We stared up at the new leaves, astonished. Hern was right. I remembered I had said it was like sailing back to winter, this far down the River. “Now think back to last night,” Hern said. “There was a moon. But there was no moon when we set out, was there?”
That was true again. “What do you think has happened?” I said, shivering.
Hern scowled. “A lot of days have passed. I wish I knew how many. I wish I knew why. What was Tanamil up to?”
“Do you think he’s made us … too late for—for the One’s fire?” I said.
If any read my weaving and do not know the One, I must tell you that once a year, as soon as the floods go down in Spring, the One requires to be put in a fire, from which he emerges renewed. It is a peculiar habit, but he is the One and not like the other Undying. I do not know what would happen if the One went into his fire at the wrong time. No one has dared try it.
Hern hunched up and brooded. There was the chalky bleakness in his eyes that always frightens me. My brother Hern is going to be a frightening man if he grows up as angry as he is now. The stoop of his shoulders and the jut of his nose put me in mind of the shadow Uncle Kestrel cast on our wall. Hern stared out chalk-eyed over the white water and said, “We have been taught that the One is our ancestor. We have also been told that Gull’s soul could be used to pour out the virtue of our ancestor. We hear that Heathens have skill in this. We meet a Heathen, and strange things happen. It has always seemed to me that the One’s habits are insane, until now. But if I believe what I saw happen to Gull, why should I not believe that the One himself is under attack now? The question is—”
“Do stop going on about it, Hern,” Robin said. “You must have noticed the days were going by.”
“—are the floods going down?” said Hern.
“We didn’t notice,” I said. “Do you know how long we were there?”
“I didn’t count,” Robin said. “It felt about ten days.”
“Ten days!” I exclaimed. “No wonder the cabbages were bad!”