up after a while and just sat in the boat, drifting. All around me was the silken blue water, and in the distance a few reed islands, and beyond them the low green shore, and far in the distance a blue hill...
So I had come round to the earliest and oldest of all my rememberings or visions, and was in the memory, the vision itself.
Remembering that, I began all at once to remember other things.
I remembered the streets of cities, the lights of houses crowded over a canal, the dark cobblestones of a steep street in the winter wind—there was the fountain in front of Arcamand and there was a tower over a harbor full of ships and there was a tall house with red rain-beaten walls—all in a rush and tumult of images, dozens of visions all crowded into one another and then sliding away, ungraspable, gone, leaving nothing but the blue sky and water, the low green shore and the distant hill, where I had been, where I had been all my life and was now again, this once, in this one moment.
The visions lessened, faded. Minki looked round, towards home. I sailed slowly back to the village. People were already gathering for the fish-mat. I had only a couple of little ritta to offer, but Tisso and her mother always had something cooked for me. I took my portion and Peroc's and went back to the men's village, to Peroc's house, where he sat mending a fine net. I set his portion down and said, "From Lali Betu. May I ask you a question, Uncle?"
"Anh."
"All my life I've seen through the world. I've remembered what I had never yet seen, and been where I've never yet been." He had raised his face and was looking at me gravely. I went on, "Is this a power of our people—of the Rassiu? Is it a gift or a curse? Are there any people here who will tell me what my visions are?"
"Yes," he said. "In South Shore. I think you should go there."
He got up laboriously and stepped down off his deck. He came with me to Metter's cabin. My uncle was sitting eating his dinner, with Minki on one side thumping her tail on the deck and Prut on the other with his tail wrapped round his paws. My uncle greeted Peroc and offered him his dinner to share.
"Gavir Aytana in kindness brought me food from the fish-mat," the old man said. He spoke very formally. "It is well known that there have been great seers in your clan, Metter Aytana. Is this not so?"
"Ao," my uncle said, staring.
"It may be that Gavir Aytana has the power. It would be well that the keepers of the sacred things be told this."
"Anh," my uncle said, staring at me now.
"Your net will be ready tomorrow," the old man said in a different tone of voice, and turned to limp back to his cabin.
I sat down near my uncle and began to eat my own dinner. Tisso's mother had made excellent fish cakes rolled up in lettuce leaves with a drop of hot pepper sauce.
"I suppose I'd better go to South Shore," my uncle said. "Or should I talk to Gegemer first, I wonder. But she's ... I suppose I should just go. I don't know."
"May I go with you?"
Minki thumped her tail.
"That might be good," my uncle said, with relief.
So next day we sailed to South Shore Village, where I'd been initiated. Metter seemed to have no idea what to do once we got there, so I led off to the Big House, where the sacred things were stored and initiations were held. It was the biggest house I'd seen in the Marshes, with walls of rigid lacquered reed such as they built the war canoes of, and a high reed-bundle roof. The fenced court in front of it was bare earth, with a small pool and a great old weeping willow tree beside it. The building was very dark inside, and awesome with the memories of the initiation rites; we did not dare enter, or even speak. We waited by the pool until a man came into the court. I had been about to suggest that we find some members of our clan, the Aytanu, and ask them for advice or assistance, but my uncle went over to the man and began at once to tell him that he was here with his nephew who had the power of