packs. Here too the instructors were forced to rely on a lot of myth and supposition, on account of the taboo against the Returned Ones' revealing their experiences on the Wall. But there is no taboo against climbing the lower reaches of the Wall, at least as far as the Hithiat milepost, and so we were allowed to get some small taste of what might be waiting for us.
I had been as high as Hithiat already, of course. Everyone has: we all sneak up the Wall when we are young. Most of us stay up there only a few hours, but the boldest will risk remaining overnight. That was what I had done when I was fourteen. Galli went with me then. She and I had just become lovers, and we enjoyed daring each other to do all sorts of outrageous things: we slipped into the place where the sacred things were kept and handled some of them, we stole a bottle of dream-wine from the Wallclan treasury, we went swimming in the Pool of the Housemothers one moonless night. And then I said, "I want to climb the Wall. Do you?"
She laughed. "Kreshe! You think I'm afraid of that?"
Galli was big and hearty, as strong as any man, with a loud deep voice and a laugh that could be heard three Houses away. We set out early one morning, getting past the gate-guards with the usual line about going to make a sacrifice at Roshten Shrine, and then of course as we approached Roshten we darted into the thick jungle behind it and went scrambling up the back way on the forest road that parallels the main one. It was a clear day and by the time we reached the Glay milepost we were astounded at how much of the village we could see below us, and when we got to Hespen we stopped a long while at the parapet, struck silent by wonder. Everything lay spread out below us in miniature. It was like a toy model of the village. I felt as if I could reach out with my hand and gather it all up in a single swoop. We could see the House of the Wall right below us with the scarlet szambar tree at its center, looking no bigger than a matchstick, and the House of Holies next to it, and Singers on the other side, and then any number of other Houses, Healers and Carpenters and Musicians and Clowns and Butchers, spreading away and away and away to east and west like little dark circles in the green of the forest, until finally the Houses came to their end and there was only green, with perhaps the barest hint on the horizon of the foreign villages that lie beyond the boundaries of our own.
We went on that day, Galli and I, to Hithiat milepost, where the road got very rough and we began to lose our nerve. Here the face of the Wall was soft and pitted, and pebbles kept tumbling down from above us with little slithering sounds. Sometimes larger rocks fell; a few huge boulders too, which hit uncomfortably close to us and went bounding away. The boulders made us very uneasy. It was getting dark, besides. And everyone knew that it was crazy to go beyond Hithiat. I was aware that Galli feared hardly anything, and she knew that I was like that too, and so it occurred to me that one of us might try to bluff the other into going beyond Hithiat, and that if we began to talk about it we probably would actually do it, since neither of us had the courage to confess any sort of fear or weakness to the other. But that was not what happened. We had that much common sense, at least. Instead we went off the gravelly road into a flat mossy place, where we watched Ekmelios set and then ate the little bit of meat and cheese and wine that we had carried with us. After that we took off our clothes and sang the Change-songs to each other and brought ourselves out of neuter, and I lay down on top of Galli's great firm resilient body as though it were a bed; and she embraced me and took me inside her, and we ran through some very wonderful Changes indeed.
"Do you feel the change-fires?" she asked me.
"No. Do you?"
"I don't think they're very strong, this close to the village. But it frightens me, to think that we
I had been as high as Hithiat already, of course. Everyone has: we all sneak up the Wall when we are young. Most of us stay up there only a few hours, but the boldest will risk remaining overnight. That was what I had done when I was fourteen. Galli went with me then. She and I had just become lovers, and we enjoyed daring each other to do all sorts of outrageous things: we slipped into the place where the sacred things were kept and handled some of them, we stole a bottle of dream-wine from the Wallclan treasury, we went swimming in the Pool of the Housemothers one moonless night. And then I said, "I want to climb the Wall. Do you?"
She laughed. "Kreshe! You think I'm afraid of that?"
Galli was big and hearty, as strong as any man, with a loud deep voice and a laugh that could be heard three Houses away. We set out early one morning, getting past the gate-guards with the usual line about going to make a sacrifice at Roshten Shrine, and then of course as we approached Roshten we darted into the thick jungle behind it and went scrambling up the back way on the forest road that parallels the main one. It was a clear day and by the time we reached the Glay milepost we were astounded at how much of the village we could see below us, and when we got to Hespen we stopped a long while at the parapet, struck silent by wonder. Everything lay spread out below us in miniature. It was like a toy model of the village. I felt as if I could reach out with my hand and gather it all up in a single swoop. We could see the House of the Wall right below us with the scarlet szambar tree at its center, looking no bigger than a matchstick, and the House of Holies next to it, and Singers on the other side, and then any number of other Houses, Healers and Carpenters and Musicians and Clowns and Butchers, spreading away and away and away to east and west like little dark circles in the green of the forest, until finally the Houses came to their end and there was only green, with perhaps the barest hint on the horizon of the foreign villages that lie beyond the boundaries of our own.
We went on that day, Galli and I, to Hithiat milepost, where the road got very rough and we began to lose our nerve. Here the face of the Wall was soft and pitted, and pebbles kept tumbling down from above us with little slithering sounds. Sometimes larger rocks fell; a few huge boulders too, which hit uncomfortably close to us and went bounding away. The boulders made us very uneasy. It was getting dark, besides. And everyone knew that it was crazy to go beyond Hithiat. I was aware that Galli feared hardly anything, and she knew that I was like that too, and so it occurred to me that one of us might try to bluff the other into going beyond Hithiat, and that if we began to talk about it we probably would actually do it, since neither of us had the courage to confess any sort of fear or weakness to the other. But that was not what happened. We had that much common sense, at least. Instead we went off the gravelly road into a flat mossy place, where we watched Ekmelios set and then ate the little bit of meat and cheese and wine that we had carried with us. After that we took off our clothes and sang the Change-songs to each other and brought ourselves out of neuter, and I lay down on top of Galli's great firm resilient body as though it were a bed; and she embraced me and took me inside her, and we ran through some very wonderful Changes indeed.
"Do you feel the change-fires?" she asked me.
"No. Do you?"
"I don't think they're very strong, this close to the village. But it frightens me, to think that we
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