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a desperate curse, she hauled back on the rope, dragging the boat back to land, higher and higher, legs mudstreaked and scratched and her skirts a sodden weight about them. She reached a level place, sprawled backward with the rain driving down into her face, the blaze of lightnings blinding her. The boat was saved: that, at the moment, was more than gold.
     
    And driven at last by misery, she gathered herself and began to seek relief from the cold. There was a short paddle and an oiled-leather cover in the skiff. She wrestled the little boat completely over, heaved the bow up with her shoulder and wedged the paddle under, making a shelter, however slight She crawled within and wrapped her shivering limbs in the leather, much regretting now the meal she had not finished, the jars the flood had already claimed.
     
    The rain beat down on the upturned bottom of the boat with great violence, and Jhirun clenched her chattering teeth, enduring, while water crept higher up the banks of the hills, flooded the access of the tomb, covered the treasure she had been forced to abandon on that other hill.
     
    Of a sudden, a blink of her eyes in the gray-green light of storm, and the fore part of the Barrow began to slide into the channel, washed through, the bones and dust of the king gone sluicing down the flood to a watery rest. She clutched her amulets and muttered frantic prayers to the six favorable powers, watching the rum widen, remembering the stern, sleeping face of the mask. Tales were told how ghosts went abroad on Hnoth and Midyear's Eve, how the kings of the sunken plain hosted drowned souls of Barrow-folk and villagers in the ghostly courts, and lights could be seen above the marsh—lights that marked their passage. She reckoned that she had killed some few ghosts by breaking the spells that held them to earth. They might go where they were doomed to go hereafter, no longer bound to their king, with storm to bear them hence.
     
    But about her neck she wore the joined brass links of Bajen and Sojan the twin kings, that were for prosperity; and Anla's silver ring, for piety; the bit of shell that was for Sith the sea lord, a charm against drowning; the Dir-stone for warding off fevers; the Barrow-king's cross, that was for safety; and the iron ring of Arzad, favorable mate to the unfavorable seventh power... to Morgen-Angharan of the white gull feather, a charm that Barrowers wore, though marshlanders used it only to defend their windows and doorways. By these things Jhirun knew herself protected against the evils that might be abroad on the winds; she clung to them and tried to take her mind from her situation.
     
    She waited while the day waned from murky twilight to starless night, when it became easier to take any fears to heart. The rain beat down ceaselessly, and she was still stranded, the waters too violent for the light boat.
     
    Somewhere across the hills, she knew, her cousins and uncles would be doing the same, sheltering on some high place, probably in greater comfort. They had gone to gather wood at the forest's edge, and likely sat by a warm fire at the ruins on Nia's Hill, not stirring until the rain should cease. No one would come searching for her; she was a Barrower, and should have sense enough to do precisely what she had done. They would reckon correctly that if she had drowned she was beyond help, and that if she had taken proper precautions she would not drown.
     
    But it was lonely, and she was afraid, with the thunder rolling overhead from pole to pole. Finally she collapsed the shelter entirely, to keep out the prying wind, wrapped in her leather covering and with the rain beating down above her with a sound to drive one mad.
     
    CHAPTER Two
     
    At last the rain ceased, and there was only the rush of water. Jhirun wakened from a brief sleep, numb in her feet, like to smother in the dark. She sneezed violently and heaved up the shelter of her boat and looked about, finding that the clouds had