Her joints began to stiffen, and she recalled Fowler's sto- ries of pulling his sailors aboard, blue and dead after only minutes in the water. But that had been in northern seas, and the Dragonmere was in the south. The temper- ature here could not be so dangerous-or so the witch hoped.

Ruha fought back her growing panic, reminding her- self that the sea was not so different from the desert: it was vast and empty and lonely, with most of the life lying hidden beneath the surface. True, the dunes moved faster and they were made of water, but not water that one could drink. That was as precious here as it was in the sandy wastes. And there was one other similarity, one the witch did not want to consider: the sea, like

Anauroch, was hospitable to those who knew its ways-and merciless to those who did not.

Ruha contemplated her growing chill and decided it probably would not kill her. She was not shivering, she still felt her toes and fingers, and her teeth were not chattering. All in all, the witch had spent more frigid nights in the desert, and she suspected that the cool water was keeping her from bleeding to death. There were dozens of cuts on her body, some both long and deep, but all stinging bitterly from the salt. The witch could feel her blood swirling about her, warm and viscous against her skin, but she could not tell how much she had lost. Had she been on dry land, she would have examined her cuts and bandaged them all, starting with the worst one first. But in the dark, heaving sea, she had to content herself with running her fingers over each wound in turn, feeling for a heavy flow that suggested a severed vein or artery.

Ruha found no rushing streams or pulsing tides, but

she could count her inspection only a partial success.