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Mending the Green PitcherSails long and white as swan's wings carried the
ship Farflyer through summer air down the bay from the Armed Cliffs toward Gont Port. She
glided into the still water landward of the jetty, so sure and graceful a creature of the
wind that a couple of townsmen fishing off the old quay cheered her in, waving to the
crewmen and the one passenger standing in the prow.
He was a thin man with a thin pack and an old black cloak, probably a sorcerer or small
tradesman, nobody important. The two fishermen watched the bustle on the dock and the
ship's deck as she made ready to unload her cargo, and only glanced at the passenger with
a bit of curiosity when as he left the ship one of the sailors made a gesture behind his
back, thumb and first and last finger of the left hand all pointed at him: May you never
come back!
He hesitated on the pier, shouldered his pack, and set off into the streets of Gont Port.
They were busy streets, and he got at once into the Fish Market, abrawl with hawkers and
hagglers, paving stones glittering with fish scales and brine. If he had a way, he soon
lost it among the carts and stalls and crowds and the cold stares of dead fish.
A tall old woman turned from the stall where she had been insulting the freshness of the
herring and the veracity of the fishwife. Seeing her glaring at him, the stranger said
unwisely, "Would you have the kindness to tell me the way I should go for Re
Albi?"
"Why, go drown yourself in pig slop for a start," said the tall woman and strode
off, leaving the stranger wilted and dismayed. But the fishwife, seeing a chance to seize
the high moral ground, blared out, "Re Albi is it? Re Albi you want, man? Speak up
then! The Old Mage's house, that would be what you'd want at Re Albi. Yes it would. So you
go out by the corner there, and up Elvers Lane there, see, till you reach the
tower..."
Once he was out of the market, broad streets led him uphill and past the massive
watchtower to a town gate. Two stone dragons large as life guarded it, teeth the length of
his forearm, stone eyes glaring blindly out over the town and the bay. A lounging guard
told him just turn left at the top of the road and he'd be in Re Albi. "And keep on
through the village for the Old Mage's house," the guard said.
So he went trudging up the road, which was pretty steep, looking up as he went to the
steeper slopes and far peak of Gont Mountain that overhung its island like a cloud.
It was a long road and a hot day. He soon had his black cloak off and went on bareheaded
in his shirtsleeves, but he had not thought to find water or buy food in the town, or had
been too shy to, maybe, for he was not a man familiar with cities or at ease with
strangers.
After several long miles he caught up to a cart which he had seen far up the dusty way for
a long time as a dark blot in a white blot of dust. It creaked and screaked along at the
pace of a pair of small oxen that looked as old, wrinkled, and unhopeful as tortoises. He
greeted the carter, who resembled the oxen. The carter said nothing, but blinked.
"Might there be a spring of water up the road?" the stranger asked.
The carter slowly shook his head. After a long time he said, "No." A while later
he said, "There ain't."
They all plodded along. Discouraged, the stranger found it hard to go any faster than the
oxen, about a mile an hour, maybe.
He became aware that the carter was wordlessly reaching something out to him: a big clay
jug wrapped round with wicker. He took it, and finding it very heavy, drank his fill of
the water, leaving it scarcely lighter when he passed it back with his thanks.
"Climb on," said the carter after a while.
"Thanks. I'll walk. How far might it be to Re Albi?"
The wheels creaked. The oxen heaved deep sighs, first one, then the other. Their dusty
hides smelled sweet in the hot sunlight.
"Ten mile," the carter said. He thought, and said, "Or twelve." After
a while he said, "No less."
"I'd better walk on, then," said the stranger.
Refreshed by the water, he was able to get ahead of the oxen, and they and the cart and
the carter were a good way behind him when he heard the carter speak again. "Going to
the Old Mage's house," he said. If it was a question, it seemed to need no answer.
The traveler walked on.
When he started up the road it had still lain in the vast shadow of the mountain, but when
he turned left to the little village he took to be Re Albi, the sun was blazing in the
western sky and under it the sea lay white as steel.
There were scattered small houses, a small dusty square, a fountain with one thin stream
of water falling. He made for that, drank from his hands again and again, put his head
under the stream, rubbed cool water through his hair and let it run down his arms, and sat
for a while on the stone rim of the fountain, observed in attentive silence by two dirty
little boys and a dirty little girl.
Excerpted from THE OTHER WIND © Copyright 2001 by Ursula K. Le Guin. Reprinted with permission by Harcourt. All rights reserved.
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