asked Perig this question.
"Everything is a matter of timing," Perig said. "When the witch came with her offer, I thought, 'What fine timing! What excellent luck!'" He gave Ahl a sideways glance. "If you keep quiet about our story, this may still be true.
Cholkwa and I can still recover."
"I have already promised to cause you no harm," Ahl said. "I want this journey to end. Too many bad things have happened since I left Helwar. I've learned too many things I didn't want to know."
"You would ask questions," Perig said.
"I'll stop. All I want now is Ki and a safe place to stay."
Perig turned, looking at the cloudy island. "You have almost reached safety.
With luck Helwar Ki will be waiting."
As the fishers had promised, they were in harbor by sundown. The two women hurried onshore, Dapple in Leweli's arms. By nightfall they were in a great house, surrounded by matriarchs, telling the story of Sorg's betrayal. Ki was there, leaning over the back of her mother's chair, looking both grim and happy.
Even in the midst of her dark narration, Ahl felt happy as well.
When the story was done, a matriarch spoke. Large and solid, well into middle age, she still had her baby spots. Her son had fathered Dapple, though the women from Sorg didn't know this. "If Sorg wants to escape our alliance so badly, let them go! It's no loss, since they have shown themselves to be cheats of the worst variety. What kind of people enter into a contract, intending to break it?
What kind of people breed children, knowing the children have no future?
"We need to tell everyone in the narrow ocean about this behavior. No one should trust the Sorg, and no one will, once this story has traveled. As for the child, it's my advice that we adopt her and her mother."
Gray eyes met blue-gray eyes. One by one, the women of Helwar tilted their heads. A quick decision, you may say. Remember how angry the Helwar must have been, and remember that every child must have a family.
Leweli was invited to stay in the great house, along with Dapple, but Ahl went back to the Foam Bird with Ki. A fine rain was falling, dimming the lights of Helwar Town. The ships in harbor seemed ghost-like, though the Bird's deck was solid enough, once they set foot on it.
Ki's cabin was exactly as Ahl remembered. Hard to imagine anyone moving Ki's large bed. Made of carved wood, it was fastened to the wall and floor for safety in turbulent weather. The hanging lantern was too fine to change. Five luatin curled around a bronze bowl. Their eyes and teeth were gilded. One held a silver
fish in its mouth. Another held a bronze harpoon no longer than Ahl's smallest finger. The weapon was broken; a torn rope -- made of twisted gold wire – flew out from it. Who could say what had happened to the luat hunter?
In the lantern's bowl a seed oil burned, aromatic and bright.
"Nothing is missing, except your belongings," said Ki to Ahl. "You can bring them tomorrow."
They drank halin. Ahl spoke of her journey: the storm, the pirates, the actors' cleverness.
"And courage, I should think," said Ki. "It must have been frightening to act in front of criminals. As for deliberately seducing men like that -Surely every instinct and every idea of morality would push one back."
"Maybe," said Ahl in a tone that lacked conviction. According to Perig, his motivation had been fear of death, rather than courage; and she doubted that ideas about morality had much effect on either man.
"You owe them a lot," said Ki firmly. "As do I and all the Helwar."
This was true. Ahl tilted her head in agreement.
They moved on to other topics, then into Ki's large bed. Tangled with her lover, smelling and tasting Ki, Ahl forgot -- for a while -- her uncertainty; though the person she had been, the always confident daughter of Sorg, was gone; and never, in a long life, did she regain her family's absolute, unquestioning
self-assurance.
THE REST OF THE STORY can be told quickly. Ahl refused adoption, since it would end her romance with Ki. Instead she remained Sorg until her kin disowned her.
Then the Hasu, who were neighbors of the Helwar, adopted her as a courtesy. For the rest of her life, she was Hasu Ahl, though she visited her new family only rarely, preferring to stay with her lover and Leweli.
Perig and Cholkwa formed a new company and brought northern theater to the Great Southern Continent. Previous to this, the southerners had told stories through a combination of narration and dance. The new style was recognized everywhere as an improvement. To actually see heroes, as they struggled! To hear their voices!
To have their anguish made so vivid that it could be felt! This was something!
The two men remained lovers, though their relationship was difficult. At times they quarreled so badly that one or the other left the company. During one such period, Perig came to Helwar. Cholkwa was on the continent, in a far southern area where the people were barely civilized, but great lovers of drama, especially the comedies for which (it turned out) Cholkwa had a gift.
"A surprise to me," said Perig to Ahl. "I never thought Cholkwa would do so well dressed up as an animal with an erect penis. As we age, we learn who we really are. But," he added, while turning a cup of halin between his hands, "the plays are really clever. Cholkwa can write comedy. Who can say, maybe it's more
difficult than the kind of writing I do."
After he drank some more, he said, "The problem is the secret we share. One should never base love on something which must be hidden. It's like building a tower in a bog. Nothing is solid. Cracks run everywhere."
"You could live apart," said Ahl.
"And you could leave Helwar Ki."
In the end, the actors formed two companies, but remained acknowledged lovers.
They organized their tours so they met often. Towns vied to be their meeting place. Even in later years, when there were many companies in the south, no one could equal Perig as a tragic hero or Cholkwa for humor.
As for Dapple, she was given the name of Helwar Ahl and used it while growing up. But after she was an adult, she became interested in acting and formed the first women's company anywhere. Even now women in theater, actors and playwrights, call her "mother" or "the originator."
Because acting was a dubious activity in those days, especially for women, she went back to her baby name. In this way, the Helwar were not embarrassed. Nor was her aunt Ki's lover.
Nothing remains of the plays written by Perig and Cholkwa, but we have fragments of Dapple's work. No one has ever written more beautifully in her native language; and much of the beauty remains in the various translations. There are many of these. As the witch predicted, Dapple became famous. Even now, after centuries, her words are like diamonds: pure, hard, angular, transparent, full of light.