against the window loud enough that you'd hear me! Were you asleep?"
Hoom shook his head. "I was writing. As Stipock said to do."
"Writing'll never do any damn good," Wix said.
"I think Stipock's right," Hoom said. "Why should the Wardens be the only ones to write the History? Then it's all written down the way they think it happened.
"Well, it's your grandfather," Wix said.
"Why did you come here? I've been beaten too much already!"
"I came because you'd've killed me if I hadn't. We finished the new boat today, and Stipock says we're to try it out tonight."
"Tonight? In the dark?"
"There's a moon. And Stipock says that the night wind is from the southwest and will help us fight the current. We're going to cross the river."
Hoom immediately began pulling trousers over his naked legs. "Cross the river, and doing it tonight!"
"Coming then?" Wix asked, laughing silently again.
"Think I'd miss it?"
"What about your father?" Wix's eyes taunted him.
"This one's worth another beating," Hoom said. "And maybe he won't know." Hoom opened the window and Wix climbed out, falling lightly on his feet in the soft earth below. Hoom paused a moment in the window, dreading another huge quarrel with his father, wondering if taking this jump was worth it. But the thought of taking the big boat out into the river - across the river - ended his inward debate, and he jumped, landing on all fours and rolling.
Wix scrambled back up the wall enough to close the window, so that discovery wouldn't be easy, while Hoom smoothed the dirt where they had landed. A few meters out from the house the dirt was covered by a thick mat of grass - no tracks there. And the dew was cold on their feet as they ran. A cow lowed as they sped through the pasture, almost three kilometers before they reached the forest's edge. There they rested, panting, out of breath, until their eyes got used to the denser darkness under the thick leaves. They followed a path known only to children's feet, a narrow winding that seemed deliberately to take the most dangerous descents, the steepest slopes, and it took almost a half hour for them to reach the edge of the river, in a little bay protected by a finger of rock that protruded into the river, blocking the current. There the boat lay rocking on the water; there a half - dozen shadowy people were busy at a half - dozen nameless, invisible tasks in the darkness.
"Who's that?" hissed a voice, and Wix answered, aloud, "Me, of course."
"Hurry, then, we're nearly done. Did you get Hoom?"
"I'm here," Hoom said, clambering down the slope after Wix. Closer, he could distinguish the features of the people there, and he immediately sought out Dilna, who smiled at him and let him help her with her task, which was folding and loading on the extra sail.
A few minutes later, Wix and Stipock pushed the boat out of the tiny cove and then were helped aboard as Hoom held the tiller. He had been tillerman on the last two boats, too, and as the boat hit the first currents (still not as strong as the main current a kilometer farther out - they had never tried to cross that before) he laughed with pleasure at how lightly and easily the boat responded to his touch.
Wix, in the meantime, with Dilna and Cirith, was putting up the sail, and the wind from the southwest caught it, pulling the boat forward, making it dance across the water.
There were four oars on the boat, just in case the sail didn't work, but Hoom laughed and said, "Won't be needing to row, now, will we?" and Wix laughed and said, "We could sleep our way across in this boat," and Stipock said, "Shut up and mind the tiller and the sail. The real current's still ahead."
When they reached the main stream, the bow of the boat yawed widely to the left, and for a moment there was a flurry of activity until the sail was turned to take the boat virtually into the current. Hoom plied the tiller vigorously, and kept the boat on course, and when they finally passed out of the main current and into the gentle eddies of the opposite side of the river, they gave a quiet cheer. Quiet, because Stipock had warned them that sound flew across water better than through forest.
Ahead loomed the highest