Maia

She had not been expecting the trees. Although when she first saw them approaching she did not suppose she was imagining them, yet at the same time they did not seem entirely real. As a matter of fact, in her situation and her slightly delirious condition this was a perfectly reasonable-or at any rate understandable-reaction, for the trees-acres of them-seemed growing up through two lakes of brown water extending one on each side of the river. As they drew nearer, she could see this water actually winding among them, through and over the undergrowth, curling round the thicker trunks like streamers of fog round the towers of the Barons' Palace. She'd no sense of danger, though-not yet. It was like an illusion, a kind of cosmic dance of the trees and water; like the Thlela's dance of the Telthearna which had so much delighted her at the Rains banquet.

She caught his arm, pointing, "Look, Zenka, look! The trees-the trees are dancing!"

He stared at them and seemed to be turning it over in his mind, as though she had said something requiring serious consideration. It was she, not he, who first grasped that she had spoken foolishly. With a sense half of pride and half of shame, she understood that he had become so much accustomed to her talking sense-or at any rate not talking nonsense-that he had been wondering what she might have meant by her metaphor.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Silly fancy. Afraid I'm feeling a bit light-headed. Only the trees-they just don't look real, somehow."

"They're real enough," he answered. "I only hope we can get through them, that's all. Well, in one way it's all to the good, I suppose."

"What is?"

"The forest."

"Forest?" Muzzily, she was trying to remember what a forest was. "Is it the Blue Forest?"

"No: that's up north of Keril. This can only be what they call the Border Forest, between Katria and Belishba. We got quite near the other side of it once, about three years ago, when I was first with the king. At the time he was thinking of attacking Belishba, but nothing came of that."

"Are we in Katria, then, once we're in the forest?"

" 'Fraid not. Katria's not far to the north of the forest, though."

"Then why did you-" She screwed up her eyes, blinking in the rain. Whatever had she been going to say? "Why did you-oh, yes: why did you say it was good, then?"

"Well, we've come so fast-faster than ever I thought we would. It can't be all that much further to Katria now. We must make quite certain we're across the border, though, before we take the boat in to shore."

"How can we?"

"I don't know. But most Belishbans hate Katrians, naturally, and the frontier's guarded even in the rains-or it always used to be."

"You'd better go and tell Anda-Nokomis: I'll take the helm back."

A minute later they were among the trees: but this was as different from their water-journey through Purn as a leopard from a cat. That, for Maia at all events, had been- or so it seemed now-a straightforward affair, in slack water and high summer heat. She had felt so strong and capable then, and the water, just as in old days on Ser-relind, had been her friend. This flooded forest, with the river swirling among the trees, and the bushes struggling like drowning animals-oh, gods! and there was a real drowned animal, look, a wretched fox floating on the current-seemed not only malevolent but unnatural, too. Many a rainy season had she seen, yet never a land grotesquely awash as a courtyard where a fountain-basin has given way.

Still concentrating the shreds of her energy and vigilance on keeping the boat in midstream, she saw, as they were swept further into the forest, the water thick with debris-

leaves, sticks, branches, lengths of creeper, fragments of roots and sodden tangles of grass. They were approaching a bend: on its edge, just where the point must once have been before the flood submerged it, the trunk of an ash-tree rose out of the river. It was like her own dear ash-tree on the shore of Serrelind, where she used to go to escape from Morca and the housework; from whose branches she had so often dropped down into the lake. Looking at it, she felt for a moment cheered and encouraged.

Ah! she thought, but her fever must be coming on worse, for before her rain-blurred eyes the tree seemed slowly moving. Now be sensible! It's just another stupid fancy; you're frightened and tired out! Just keep the boat pointing downstream.