Water by Peter Dickinson, Robin McKinley Page B

mass of
    water to go. It came silently, foaming only where it rummaged along the shoreline. At one point
    the water surface was at this level, at the next it was at that. The difference was the wave.
    When it reached the raft, it pushed it ahead while the sweepmen paddled gently to keep the
    carefully shaped stern-board at the exact angle to spill the propelling water away on the near side
    and so nudge the raft sideways along the wave. The raft was picked up and swept towards the
    southern shore in a sweet easy movement, like that of a skinning knife lifting the hide from the
    flesh beneath. For a while it followed the course of the main channel, but the underlying current
    made little difference. Only the wave mattered, as it carried the raft across the estuary on an
    almost straight diagonal that re-crossed the main channel at the end of its long curve and finished
    up a little below Mi’s village. There the raft would be beached to let the wave go by, wait for the
    still-rising tide to refloat it and be poled up to the landing stage on the last of the inflow. When it
    was well set on its course, Iril’s middle son came up the hill and helped him down to the huts,
    but Mel stayed where he was, gazing south. Sometimes he was watching the dwindling raft.
    Sometimes he was elsewhere.
    They made a litter for Iril and carried him inland, leaving his sons to manage the regular
    crossings. Mel led them not by the pilgrim’s road, but along minor tracks and across bare
    hillsides, always making good speed. At evening he brought deer to the camp, which stood
    blank-eyed, trance-held, waiting for the knife. On the third morning they crossed a ridge and
    came down through dense autumnal woods to the valley and river that Mel had shown Iril when
    they had first met. With a pole Iril measured the depth of the clear, brownish water, repeating the
    process as they travelled along the bank until they reached a waterfall with a pool below it.
    Feeder streams tumbled down from either side above the fall, and beyond them the river was
    much less.
    “Overland to this pool,” said Iril.
    “Good,” said Mel. “The first stones will be here in three noons, the last stone not for four more.
    You may stay and make ready.”
    “My people will fell timber,” said Iril. “I will come with you and see Silverspring while its
    stones still stand.”
    “You are not afraid?”
    “No man has seen Silverspring. I have lived more than a life.”
    “Come, then.”
    Above the fall the forest closed right down to the stream. The track along which they had
    travelled ended in a wall of brambles. Mel considered the barrier for some while, until part of it
    became shadowy and vanished, and the trees beyond wavered and vanished also, leaving a clear
    path that ran on a ledge above the stream. In places boulders had been rolled aside, or piled to
    level the way. The slopes on either side became steadily steeper until track and stream ran
    through a defile which ended in a sheer cliff with the river welling out into a pool at its foot. Mel
    considered the cliff, again for some while, until it opened a crack in itself, a crevice not four
    paces wide, with cloudy sky beyond.
    Iril was surprised by none of this. It was known that no man could find the way through to
    Silverspring. But he had also heard of Mel.
    Beyond the crevice the valley widened into a huge volcanic crater in the heart of the hills. Its
    bowl was rimmed by bare black cliffs, with steep woods below them, but the bottom was a wide
    clearing of sheep-nibbled grass and strips of ploughland. At the centre rose a gentle mound,
    ringed half way up by a circle of standing stones. Below this circle, directly facing the crevice,
    was a dark opening from which the stream flowed.
    Beside the woods on the left were a dozen huts, in front of which a group of women waited,
    some with babies in their arms. There were no older children and no men. They watched Mel and
    his party emerge from the crevice