“I don’t know, Maksi. There’s no point to anything. Nothing I try… works. I tried potting, you know that, you shaped my kiln for me. It was horrible. Everything I did… mediocre… bleah! At Shaynamoshu I was content a hundred years. Happy. Here…? I paint a pretty flower, don’t I. Dew on the petals, pollen on the stamens, you can see every grain. Lovely, right? Horrible. A dead slug has more soul. Useless, Maksi. Out to pasture like a broke-down mare. Even the damn gods don’t need me anymore. Maybe I should go to Silili with you and give Old Tungjii a boot in the behind. Maybe something would come of that.”

“It probably would. I doubt you’d be pleased with whatever it was.”

“Pleased? That doesn’t matter. It’d be something to do. Some reason to get out of bed in the morning. To keep on living. You know what I’m talking about; you’re restless too, magicman.”

“Brann, I…”

“No. You don’t need to say it. I know what’s going to happen. You’ll go to Silili to see your protege through her Passage Rite and you won’t come back. Why should you?”

“Thornlet, come with me.” He lay back in his chair and laughed at her and let his voice boom out, dark velvet rubbing her bones. “Come wandering with me and see the world. Sure somewhere there’s a prince who needs his bottom whacked, a lord to be taught his manners, a bully who needs his pride punctured. Let us go out and do good, no matter how much chaos we leave behind us.”

“Ah Maksi m’luv, you’re such a fraud, you evil old sorceror, you bleed at a touch and put yourself to endless inconvenience. I don’t know. Maybe we just need some hard living for a while so we can appreciate peace again.

Anyway, let’s scratch our ordinary itches and see what comes of that.”

4

Kukurul. The place where seapaths cross. The pivot of the four winds. If you sit long enough at one of the plaza tables of the cafй Sidday Lir, it’s said you’ll see the whole world file past you.