Wirrin lay on her back on the boat and did her best not to move. They ran out of water within the day. With Haerst present, it was really quite easy to clean the salt out of the ocean and make it drinkable. It took three days to run out of food. A fish burst out of the water, landed on the deck, and dried solid in the sunlight.

  On the fifth day, with still no sign of the Church or any other ships, Yern sat by the tiller and Wirrin pulled wind into the sail. She had no idea where they were, except that it was somewhere off the northern coast. Wirrin had very little notion how to navigate on the ocean, but she knew enough to sail south.

  Wirrin still almost hurt too much to get up and go to the toilet, but she was also getting sunburned and distinctly bored of eating dried fish. And it wasn’t like she had to move to bring the wind.

  Yern kept her updated about the featureless ocean as they sailed. Wirrin could feel the distant sea floor. It was nearly two more days before the ground started to rise below them. It was the mid-morning of the eighth day before Wirrin felt the coastline ahead. It was closer to noon when Yern spotted land.

  Wirrin had sailed and trekked from Ahepvalt to Keredin more than once in her life. She had not made the trip enough times to recognise where they were from the feeling of the beach or Yern’s description of the grasslands.

  ‘We could go back to the hetavatok,’ Yern said. ‘Taug could check on you?’

  Wirrin had developed no infections and, despite the unceasing pain, she was slowly improving since Yern’s ministrations. She was, of course, far worse off than Yern had expected her to be.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Wirrin said. ‘I need time. I have a good medic already.’

  Yern pressed her lips together. ‘You would be safe at the hetavatok.’

  ‘I might be safe at Ulvaer’s statue,’ Wirrin said. ‘If the Church doesn’t want to expend that much force.’

  ‘I have over a thousand mages already,’ Ulvaer rattled. ‘Is the Church capable of so much force?’

  ‘There must have been three hundred at Ahepvalt,’ Wirrin said. ‘I don’t know, but I expect there are more at Keredin. And through the West as a whole.’

  ‘Still fewer than me,’ Ulvaer rattled.

  ‘I don’t wish to doubt you, Desert,’ Haerst bubbled. ‘You are one. One was insufficient, last time.’

  ‘We weren’t outnumbered, at Tertic,’ Naertral burbled.

  ‘If they haven’t come, I don’t want them to follow me,’ Wirrin said. ‘More people will come, after the hetavatok.’

  Yern nodded. ‘It was very rude for so many people to leave,’ she said. ‘Everyone understood, of course. But a lot of people were too polite.’

  ‘Will you live on this boat for two more weeks, Wirrin?’ Mkaer rumbled.

  ‘I have a much worse idea,’ Wirrin said.

  ‘You want to sail through Keredin, on the way to Tertic?’ Mkaer rumbled.

  ‘Oh, not that bad,’ Wirrin said.

  ‘Worse than what, not as bad as what?’ Yern demanded, almost crossing her arms, but remembering that she was steering.

  ‘Worse that living on the boat until the hetavatok has ended, not as bad as sailing through Keredin on the way to Tertic,’ Wirrin said. ‘Somewhere in the middle.’ She smiled.

  ‘You think you’re cryptic.’ Yern crossed her arms this time, the boat started to veer off course. ‘You want to go to Fauvaushok.’

  ‘Tell Yern she’s very smart,’ Ulvaer cackled. ‘And that you’re not.’

  ‘Ulvaer says you’re very smart,’ Wirrin said.

  ‘And you’re certainly not, Wirrin,’ Ulvaer rattled. ‘There’s no use. You want to break your body in search of nothing?’

  ‘What am I doing right now?’ Wirrin said.

  ‘You’re healing from ignoring my advice,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Did you achieve anything, by staying?’

  ‘It was a learning opportunity,’ Wirrin said. ‘Think how much practice Yern got stitching someone back together.’

  Yern choked and finally put a hand back on the tiller. ‘I didn’t need that much practice.’

  ‘What use is it?’ Ulvaer rattled. ‘What could you gain?’

  ‘You think I’m right,’ Wirrin said.

  Yern groaned and put her head in her hands, the boat drifted back off course. ‘Why would you want… what’s… vos tholgek. Vos tholget. Vos volgektok. Og ekt vos volgek. Og ekt eshk aut eshtoll vik volgek.’

  ‘Iseg shyavt?’ Wirrin suggested.

  Yern rubbed her face. ‘Vosht tholget.’

  ‘No one knows where Fauvaushok is anyway,’ Wirrin said. ‘We could just stay there until the hetavatok ends.’

  ‘Iseg shyavt Tegalk Tesholg?’ Yern pulled on the tiller, turning them southwest. ‘Faulek iseg shyavt Tegalk Tesholg? Aup ekhok koll? Vos tholget.’

  ‘Iseg holl shyavt?’ Wirrin suggested again. ‘Vos vash holgok kokoll volgek?’

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  Yern made a half-hearted attempt to kick Wirrin, who was too far away. ‘Vash vosktok. Vash vaupolltok. Vash helgetok.’

  ‘Aut helgetok?’ Wirrin wondered.

  ‘Ovt,’ Yern asserted. ‘Vos thoget.’

  ‘Good to have someone sensible around,’ Mkaer rumbled.

  ‘You wait,’ Wirrin thought.

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘You wouldn’t be here if you were sensible, after all.’

  It took most of the rest of the day to reach the coast, where they turned all the way west to follow the beach. Neither Wirrin or Yern knew for sure that they hadn’t already passed the stream that would take them to Fauvaushok, but they would find out much quicker going west than they would going east.

  The few other ships and boats around were much more spread out than they were in the strait, with very little current along the coast to propel them, they were just not catching the wind that propelled Wirrin and Yern.

  Unless they were spectacularly unlucky, which Wirrin couldn’t rule out, there was no chance of them getting back to the Church until one of these boats reached Keredin. By then, they should have reached Fauvaushok and it would hardly matter.

  Technically, Wirrin had been exaggerating when she said that no one knew where Fauvaushok was. She’d learned about it last time she was in the desert, and it wasn’t a surprise that Yern knew where it was. But the stream that fed it was essentially invisible from the ocean and not much easier to find if you were walking along the coast.

  Early the next day, the little boat rounded the outcropping that several people Wirrin had met insisted on calling Green Horn. It was an accurate enough name, given that it was the last bit of proper greenery a sailor would see until they reached the Estelen Delta near Keredin, and it was arguably shaped a bit like a horn.

  Now that there were other vessels around, the wind wasn’t quite as overtly helpful. It eddied and changed directions, though bore largely east. Wirrin and Yern kept relatively close to the beach, where the current was a little stronger, and Wirrin took the opportunity to teach Yern about sail control and how to catch the wind when it wasn’t exactly where you wanted it.

  Yern hadn’t been particularly talkative since their escape from Haerst, but she took in the lessons easily. She hadn’t been as cuddly, either, and Wirrin felt a little bad about it.

  They hadn’t really talked about what had happened, except for Yern’s frequent repetition of ‘vos tholgek’. Wirrin didn’t really want to talk about it, Yern didn’t really want to talk about it. But it probably needed talking about.

  Around mid-afternoon two days later, the little boat ran aground on the beach. Yern furled the sail as Wirrin climbed slowly onto the sand and immediately lay back down.

  She doubted the couple of days, at most, it would take them to reach Fauvaushok would be enough for her to be strong enough to travel overland again. She would deal with that when she needed to.

  Wirrin watched fluffy clouds skid across the sky, those dark spots still sitting in the centre of her vision barely distinct from the bright blue. Yern went to explore up the beach, looking for the entrance to Fauvaushok. Wirrin let those little footsteps in the sand resonate through her senses. There was no one around, and no large animals, for Wirrin to worry about.

  In the water, Wirrin felt the other boats and ships drifting past, still riding the westerly wind that Wirrin was pushing across the coast.

  ‘What happens when I let go of the wind?’ she wondered. ‘Is there some natural order that takes hold?’

  ‘Did my island rise out of the water, after the Church left?’ Haerst bubbled.

  ‘The weather changes all the time,’ Wirrin said.

  ‘So does the dirt and stone,’ Mkaer rumbled.

  ‘If I turned the current east, would it stay that way when I let go?’ Wirrin said.

  ‘If you turned the current, it would be turned,’ Haerst rumbled like distant thunder. ‘If you push the water, it will flow back.’

  ‘Am I just pushing the air, then?’ Wirrin asked.

  ‘I experience only through your senses,’ Haerst bubbled.

  Wirrin sighed. ‘I build no dams.’

  ‘Dig no trenches,’ Haerst splashed.

  ‘If I carry a bucket from one puddle to another, it does not flow back,’ Wirrin said. ‘If I dig a hole, the pile of dirt stays where I leave it.’

  ‘Dig us a pile of air,’ Haerst crashed.

  Wirrin sighed again, heavily enough that it hurt. ‘Fine.’

  Behind her, Yern wandered off the beach and onto the higher ground away from the water. She still hadn’t found the stream that would take them to Fauvaushok, and she wasn’t going the right way to find it. Wirrin expected Yern would manage.

  It was night when Yern woke Wirrin. The waxing moon was bright overhead, only a few days from full. The water was lustrous and grey, sparkling and empty. They were in luck.

  Groaning, Wirrin pushed herself out of the sand and clambered back onto the little boat. Yern hopped up after her, positioning herself at the tiller once again. Wirrin lay back down on the pile of blankets and rugs that was her current home.

  The waves down the sand made a couple of lunges at the boat before Wirrin decided to be more direct. A river broke from the ocean and grabbed the sunken hull of the boat, dragging it up the beach and into the ragged brown and yellow plains waiting for spring rain.

  If Yern had found the stream, Wirrin had slept through it.

  The little boat crashed through the dry ground and hard roots, into a sickly trickle of water about as deep as Wirrin’s smallest toe. The prow of the little boat sliced through the dirt and grass of the tunnel this little stream had bored over the millennia until they finally emerged back into the bright moonlight at a small pond.

  ‘Gol eshk paulgek,’ Yern muttered.

  The stream that fed this little pond was wider than that underground trickle, and about half as deep. The ocean water carried them over the dry ground, pounding at the inside of Wirrin’s head, as the moon crawled overhead.

  Finally, haloes dimmed by those dark spots in Wirrin’s vision, the little boat lurched into what could charitably be described as a river. It flowed determinedly against the prow of the boat, only just deep enough that the hull didn’t scrape the stones along the streambed.

  Wirrin sat up, reached back to grab a dried fish longer than her forearm, and jammed it into her mouth. It didn’t help.

  The little boat hurtled the wrong way up the creek, sail furled, bouncing in the water where it was too shallow to pass without damage. The stitches in Wirrin’s gut burned. The stitches around her mouth pulled at her flesh. There was no more food.

  Haloes beating out her vision, heartbeat drowning out her hearing, Wirrin dragged the little boat across the desert with as much force as she could muster.

  Wirrin had walked from Ahepvalt to Keredin twice, she had walked back once. One of the things she remembered from that walk was how bad the hunting was in the flat, treeless expanse of the coast.

  She was so hungry. There was…

  No. Yern was too small. Too bony.

  There would be something better at the burning spring.

  Wirrin had no idea how much time had passed when the little boat finally crashed down into the stinking water of Fauvaushok. She didn’t much care, either.

  She let the ship’s drop bring her to her feet and, against any sense she might typically have had, jumped from over the port rail of the ship into the crackling dry grass.

  Her body dragged against her stitches, the haloes in her eyes blotted out those dark spots. She didn’t much care. She was so hungry and this time, she could feel something worth eating.

  People don’t hunt hippopotamus for a variety of reasons. Most of this variety of reasons can be immediately discerned upon seeing a hippopotamus, and the rest can be reasoned when seeing it open its mouth or run.

  Wirrin had never eaten a hippopotamus before. What she knew about this one was that it was very big and very close by.

  What the hippopotamus knew about Wirrin is a matter for idle speculation.