The pale-flanked young Marcher was trying to turn over an island.
That was Iven’s first impression. A dark bank rose from the water ahead, reeds leaning away from a broad crown pressed beneath its edge. Mud broke loose in long black ribbons. Then the whole mass rolled, exposing a tangle of roots and the white undersides of small clinging shells.
“A floating mat,” Orret said.
“I see that now.”
“Good. I’d hate to charge you for looking at an island wrong.”
Pera laughed from the bow.
They had left Sedge Ladder the previous morning, slept on a permitted dry bank and followed the young group’s slow movement thirty kilometers north by channel. Reed-of-Glass had agreed to a meeting outside the resting grounds. The invitation named Pera and Kesh; Iven had been included after they asked whether the restorer who held the moving light could come.
He had brought the lamp, feeling faintly ridiculous about it.
