The music in his voice was so bright and whole, she believed him. But then Malick was no simple Singer. When he spoke, words had weight. When he sang, sounds had substance. At long last the Guildkin had heard the same in Malick; his days as an impoverished apprentice were at an end. They had given him a site of his own to study. A First Age find, old beyond imagining, the Rim was a thesis beyond measure. And so he told his wife.

"The Rim?" she asked.

"World's End, luv. East of all."

World's End seemed a far distant place; Sethe was not pleased at the promise of another season without her husband. Season after season, the man was always gone leaving her to scrimp and scratch alone. "How long will you be away this time?" she asked.

Malick grinned and then he laughed. "We will be away," he said, "a full season."

"We? But we can't afford it."

"We can," he insisted. "Payid prodded a bit, himself and Sorhen. Fathom that, luv. I can't. Come down from her eerie just to sing and spin for my sake. She can be sweet and subtle when she wishes. The Guildkin couldn't resist. It's their wherewithal we'll be spending. Oh, it's a shining place, Sethe. Imagine, just imagine, all of us together at the edge of the world." She did, and in her mind's eye, saw the shimmering border and the great void beyond it. "You'll love it. I promise you, and Jehm will love it, too. It's old, very old."

"Older than Ware?" She asked.

"Older than Kerhune Tor, and with a fine prospect. There's a grand view of the River of Dust. Imagine."

Again Sethe did and saw their lives unfolding in a magnificent Rhune relic overlooking the banks of a fabled river. There was Jehm running through grand galleries and halls, all carved with intricate glyphs and glamors. A season in splendor -- that was Malick's promise and the foundation of her imaginings. Wondrous!

Within a nineday they set sail across the Dry Sea. Weighed down with a season's supplies, their heavy cog ground up the gray shale, raising plumes of gritty dust glittering with Ghostfire. Sitting in the high shouldered bow, Sethe held her daughter tight and pointed at the broad outriggers, trim skiffs and light gigs sailing ahead of them with easy grace.

"Look," she cried, "All of the Guildkin of the Wysrund off for the season. By the Nine! I've never seen so many craft running free."

Jehm gave her mother a sidelong glance. "Never?" she asked doubtfully. "Never," Sethe admitted. "But you're a Mouther, Mama, boat born and bred"

"True, but the Mouth of the World is no small place. It's as wide as the Wysrund and with thrice as many people, most of them stick-in-the-muds. Only the Tongue folk run free, but they're a loose lot, so said my father who ran with them in his youth. In the Throat thousands have lashed their boats together so tightly you can near walk the width of the river without getting your feet wet. Almost a city it is, though none would call it that. 'Just here for the season,' they say. 'Just waitin' for the urge and itch. Waiting, just waiting.' " Sethe shrugged and smiled and scratched absently at her brow. "Seasons come and go, luv, but with every change of season, there's newer potions for the urge, better lotions for the itch, so folk just wait."

"For what?"

"The call to Ware, of course."

"Of course." Jehm nodded as if she were that wise, as if she knew what it was to be a pilgrim and seeker. "It came for you, Mama," she said.

She thought it had, but in truth it was the urge and itch that drove her east, that and a little gray man who drove her farther east beyond the plains, beyond the mountains, far beyond Ware. Such black eyes he had. Such a wise and wizened face.'Are you come from the One City?' She asked him. 'Are you come for me?'

'Yes', he told her, and again, 'Yes.' He raised a knotty, brown hand with twiggy fingers and pointed towards the rising eye. 'That way. You'll find what you seek that way.' That way, indeed!

Jehm settled back in her mother's arms. "Was it hard, Mama?"

"Was what hard, luv?"

"The Pilgrim Road."

"I don't remember. One foot in front of the other, that's all."

Jehm heard her mother's voice change to a minor key. "Don't be sad, mama."

"I'm not," she said. "Hush now. Watch, just watch. Isn't the sea beautiful?"

In the brilliance of midday, the dark shale of the ancient sea bed shone like water, its surface rippling as rays of light bent in the thermal gradients. "The true sea looks like that," she told her daughter, "sometimes blue, sometimes green and with that same milky mist in the distance, just like that."

"Hold tight," Malick shouted. "Rough rock ahead." He paid off and luffed the sail, slowing to skirt Scoria's Teeth and then heeling east by northeast across the lava flows. Ahead of them lay four days of hard sailing on jagged ground.

Not that Sethe noticed roughness of the clinker strewn terrain. Buoyed by the music of Malick's voice, she focused on the future and the change it would bring to their lives. Wondrous!

The wonder wore thin the moment they arrived, the moment Sethe realized the relic was a ruin. The shimmer was dust, and all of it was haunted.

"This is the Rim?" She asked, her voice dropping a full third. "This?"

Malick shrugged and pointed east. "World's End is that way."

"But this is where we'll live, yes?"

He nodded.

"In the company of Ghosts?" Her voice had dropped another third. The notes soured.

Again, Malick nodded. "It's a Rhune site, Sethe."

"But so many," she said warily. "So hard by."

Again, he reminded her, "It's a Rhune site."

The creatures were everywhere. Iridescent, immaterial beings, they soared over head and danced through the ruins. Compressing wave forms, creating particles, gathering dust, one took a form somewhat human and danced toward them. With fiery fingers, it reached out. With a voice like the rustling of dry leaves, it called her name and Jehm's name. Sethe trembled and pulled her daughter close. She hissed and the ghost danced away, leaving a trail of Ghostfire in its wake. There and then, Sethe determined the Rim was no place for a child. "It's too wild, too remote, and Jehm's altogether too curious. You don't know," she told her husband. "You're always gone. You're never there to empty her pockets at night. She's forever finding things and losing herself."

He smiled. "Like you?"

Sethe frowned. "Like both of us."

Looking down at his daughter, he said, "You will always stay hard by, Jehm. Always and ever."

There it was again, that perfect pitch, that remarkable range. Sethe marveled at its purity and color, unwavering from register to register. His voice was oh, so compelling when he prodded Jehm. Still, she knew it was not that simple, not with Jehm. A sweet song for their sweet daughter did not settle the matter in this unsettling place. "You don't know." she whispered hoarsely. "She's extraordinary. One prod is never enough."

"Never?"

"Not from me."

As her parents discussed her extraordinary nature, Jehm began exploring. Mindful of her father's prod, she scrambled over low shrubs, whirled within the stone circles, and poked about the streams of dust, but she was never out of sight and always hard by. Within minutes she had trimmed her coppery hair with pink cockle burrs, blue prickly buds and gray sage. Her pockets bulged with brightly banded pebbles, emerald eyed beetles, a gray feather and the tiny, white skull of a dune herring. In one hand she held a horned leper and in the other a spotted whiptail. When her pale eyes caught sight of something pearly half buried in the dust, Jehm squealed with delight. She dropped the leaper and the lizard, and then tugged hard at the pearly thing. Another squeal, another tug, and she held in her hands a reptile skin as large as herself.

Sethe glared at her husband and swore. The Rim was daimon country.

"The ghosts," Malick said firmly, "will watch over us."

"Myth! Stuff and nonsense! You don't really believe that."

"Ah, luv," he said gently, "all these years and you still don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"It's the Wysrund." As if she understood everything that meant, every different thing. A decade in the desert, and she was still lost, still a stranger to Wysrundi ways. A headstrong, headlands girl from the Mouth of the World, Sethe had set out on the Pilgrim Road. Seeking the City of God she discovered the legendary Country of the Dead, instead. That it existed was a revelation. That its people lived without sacraments, without grace was another. That they kept company with ghosts had stunned her most of all.

"The Wysrund," Malick said, "where myth was the truth that has survived. Because of them," he added. "Because of the ghosts." Ah, she almost believed him, but for this place, this hard and haunted, daimon riddled place. Almost.

"What did you expect?"

"I thought--." She sighed and shook her head. "I thought, too, it would be grand," she said. "Grand as Kerhune Tor."

"Ah."

"And beautiful," she added, "as the Silnoon Spire."

"Ah."

The two Rhune sites were famed for their many vaulted chambers and their remarkable reliefs. Sethe had lived in the shadows of both and so knew them well. Save for a plain and solitary wall ringing the site, there was nothing grand nor beautiful. The wall itself bore no glyphs, no glamors, none of the elaborate stonework so characteristic of the Rhune. Too, the wall was crumbling. That was the first oddity. She counted nine crude circles of partially dressed stone, the stone blackened by a thick crust of desert varnish. She counted as many arches of curiously twisted metal spanning a broad and broken road of Dry Sea shale. All of it had the look of a work unfinished or a work destroyed. That was the second oddity. She looked to the east, her dark eyes following the broken road up a gentle rise. Beyond the rise, she nothing but a bright, white wall of light. Covering all, most curious of all, was the fine dust that flowed like water through the site. Wind blown runnels formed pools or small dunes that crested like waves and then broke into a rippling film of glittering, white powder. "There's nothing here," Sethe said softly, "nothing but oddities and dust and them." She jerked a thumb at the sky, at the ghosts dancing there. "I can't shift in their presence. It's too much for me, and I won't live out of Phase and out of touch. A shiftless life--."

Malick touched a finger to her lips. "Shiftless moments," he said, "have their advantages."

Not for her. Never for her. She did not have his advantages, his strength. Malick was Wysrundi born and Mindsinger bred. The motes and mites were in his blood, in his marrow. Fimbria, fine as antlers, crowned his brow. External axons studded with receptors, the array of neuron rich tissue gleamed like rubies. Synaptic links formed readily. Phase Shift came easily, even the rigors and rewards of Anaphase. Malick was that strong.

A simple Singer of limited skills, Sethe's fimbria were dull and delicate. Little more than fleshy tendrils, her array fluttered like so many feathers in the gentlest of breezes. She shifted into and out of Phase erratically, and only through the grace of the Singermind, never into Anaphase and never in the presence of ghosts. As it was, when she shifted, the white noise of Ghostsong overpowered her. She heard too many voices, all the wrong voices. She was that weak.

"You will learn, luv. You will change."

She closed her leafy ears so tightly they resembled small buds. Her dark, deeply faceted eyes brimmed with tears. Her fimbria quivered for a moment and then laid to rest. How they had itched of late! She scratched her brow and sighed, then unfurled her ears and laughed. Harsh and humorless, the joyless string of notes had no music in them. "When?" she asked. "It's been ten years. When?"

"Soon."

Gods! The power of his voice. Yet again she believed him. Without question or doubt, she found her faith in his music. She turned away, drew in a deep breath and then another. With a soft sigh she reigned in her anger and frustration and disappointment. "Why so many ghosts?"

"You'll see." With his boot he nudged the pool of shimmering plasma left by the ghost. It glowed brightly for a moment, flashing with color. "At least we won't be powerless. Enough to drive the stove and the still for a nineday. All the comforts."

"What comforts? There's no roof, no floor, and one wall. Only the Nine know what there is or isn't in this daimon riddled, picked over place." Pleased with herself, she folded her arms and smiled grimly. "Yes, I noticed. I'm not a complete sod. I'm not that unfocused or forgetful. I know when a site's been studied. I know how to look, and when I do, I see pick and chisel marks, resurfaced barrows and bore holes. It's been done thoroughly and well."

Malick shrugged and then admitted that Dahlglenn had worked the Rim in seasons past. "Ah, him." The great Rhute Dahlglenn, she knew him by reputation. Picked it over and picked it clean, that's what he'd done, and with Sorhen Sloe at his side, no doubt. Quite possibly the Vile Payid himself had a part in it. Oh, yes, she could imagine the Prime prodder prodding the prime nulls, collecting and collating every bit and bite of data. Such a look she gave Malick!

"It's been years, Sethe. No one's been here since."

"Why you?"

He smiled and set Jehm on his shoulders. "Why don't we find out." He held out a hand to his wife. "Come, luv. Come see the great wonder of the Wysrund and the world."

Such music he had in him! "Are you prodding me?"

"I promised you a season in splendor."

Again, "Are you prodding me?"

"Never."

And so she followed him. Reluctantly, cautiously she made her way up the gentle rise toward the bright, blue-white light at World's End. Malick gave the curious arches a wide berth, telling her they still held a charge and prodding Jehm that she must always do the same. Long before they reached the Rim, Sethe heard and felt a low, rumbling hum that grew to a deafening roar. She furled her ears. "What's that sound?"

"The falls," he shouted.

As they drew closer, Sethe realized the light was a low cloud of spray thrown up by the churning falls, yet the air was impossibly dry. He led her onto a broad shelf of rock, a high railed balcony cut into the cliff face. Here, at last, Sethe saw the complex carving she had expected and imagined, proof of the forerunner Rhune. She bent down and ran her fingers over the delicate filigree of spirals interlaced with zoomorphic forms cut into the rock. "It's marvelous."

Malick tapped her shoulder. "Just a little farther," he said, drawing her up and toward the railing. He pointed. "There."

Tens of miles wide and hundreds of miles long, the River of Dust left her breathless and speechless. Far below her the river coursed through canyons and deep gorges cut into age old sediments thousands of feet thick. Each of the rock layers within the canyons wore away in its own fashion. Shales eroded to slopes; softer sandstones and limestones formed cliffs; resistant basalts produced steep-walled palisades. Within the inner gorges, vertical fractures forged tall pillars and island remnants that seemed to float in the brilliant wind swept currents of chalk white dust.

Deposits of iron, traces of magnesium and copper had stained the surface of the rock walls creating stunning bands of color. Each band represented an interval of time during which a particular environment of deposition prevailed, but many of the layers were separated by gaps of unrecorded time. Underlying all, were the oldest igneous and metamorphic rocks, each very different from the sedimentary layers above them. The ancient schists and gneisses, billions of years old, formed the very basement rock of the plateau, if not the world.

Tens of thousands of ghosts danced along the canyon walls and drifted in the currents. On wings of white fire they soared over head and then dipped low, skimming over the river. Bolts of energy leapt from their shimmering bodies into the dust, charging it.

Finding her voice, Sethe cried out that it was, "Beautiful!" And again, "Beautiful!"

"It flows," shouted Malick, "with currents and eddies, cataracts and pools. No one's ever been able to trace its route, no one. Like Ware, it is obscured by its own existence." Malick grinned suddenly and spread his arms wide. "This is my work, this river."

A puzzled Sethe shook her head. "No. The 'Riddle of Ourselves', that's your work. That's always been your work. Not this."

Malick set Jehm down and with a gesture prodded her not to move. He gathered a handful of dust and poured it into Sethe's hand. "Like water," he said, "and as needful. This is the 'Riddle of Ourselves'."

Still puzzled, "I don't understand."

Malick shifted into Phase. He released a strand of volatile molecules bound within a golden breath, neurotransmitters coded to interact with the biota of Kerhune. Those infinitesimal motes and mites that lived in its crust, swam in its rivers and seas, rode on its winds flourished within the Wysrundi Singers. Feeding on Phase gases, attracted to ion flow, the nanosymbiotes replicated the strand, creating a synaptic link joining Malick to Sethe. This is who we are.

"How are you doing this?" she cried. "In presence of so many ghosts, how? Why can I hear, feel, you and only you?"

Another handful of dust. It formed a ring of ripples in her palm. This is who we are, the source. These are motes and mites, Sethe, not dust. And then: Forgive me, luv. It's time. Past time, and you are ready.

Another breath, another strand, particles aligned within a plane of itemized atoms, the motes gathered them together and spun a thread of thought that drew Sethe into Entry Phase and then into Deep Phase. In that heavy state, the world swallowed her whole. Acuity increased five fold. A wealth of sights, sounds and scents embraced her more thoroughly, more intimately than the Singermind. Enveloped in the fullness of now she was aware of an intensity of colors, hues saturation with light. Fully cognizant of the electric desert air, she heard the faint crackle it made, smelled the aroma of ozone, and saw the remnans of oxidation coloring the world blue. That was the least of sensations and the most remarkable.

Acquisition begins here, in the Rush of Deep Phase. Armed with Null Input, we collate data, explore possibilities and generate probabilities. Your life is your input. It has a shape, but no purpose. Give it purpose.

How, Malick?"

You stand at Lugh's Gate. Step through, Sethe. Shift into Anaphase. If you don't, you will always and ever be a sod, bound to the Singermind, subject to the whims of others. Shift. Into Anaphase now, shift.

I won't. I can't! She struggled to pull away, but Malick held her firmly in his arms.

You can. You will. We'll take you. "Take her hand, Jehm. Hold her tight and don't let go."

The shift into Anaphase came swiftly. The pain of Phase withdrawal hit hard. In that deprived state, the gap between synapses, the realm between realities, the heart did not beat and the lungs did not breath. Sethe was aware of nothing save fear and profound loss. Terrified and wracked with grief, she cried out, but made no sound. The world was silent, gray, without dimension or meaning. She looked up and saw Malick's face, colorless and lifeless, his features flattened like an old relief, eroded and devoid of detail. Beside him she saw a bright and gaseous glow. "Jehm," she cried, "is that you? I want. I want." Oh! to touch that light, to feel that warmth, to feel something, but Jehm was far away. Too far. Gone. . .

The first thing Sethe saw was the river and the canyons it had carved, beautiful and powerful beyond imagining. The first thing she felt was Malick's hand gripping her own. Warm and moist, it pulsed with life. She kissed it, savoring the salty, sweet taste that was her husband. The first thing she heard was Jehm saying, "We never let go, Mama. They held onto me and I held onto you."

"They?"

"The ghosts, Mama."

She knew that. Yes, she knew that. Without Jehm, without the ghosts, she could not have shifted into Anaphase so readily; that was Jehm's doing. Jehm, her null daughter. Jehm, who would never shift for herself. The ghosts were the driving force, but Jehm the conduit, the connection between one state and another. Joined together they could send Phase bound Singers into Anaphase and draw them out again. The ghosts offered up a different kind of grace than the Singermind and Acquisition was different sacrament. She was Wysrundi, now. With each shift into Phase and Anaphase, each exchange of motes and mites, it would soon be in her marrow. Wysrundi down to the bones. Looking into Malick's black eyes, she said. "Your people keep too many secrets."

"Are you angry, luv?"

"Oh, yes," she said, only that, but she was grinning when she said it.

It took all of her strength to turn away from the river and ghosts. Reluctantly, she took Jehm's hand and headed back to their cog anchored in the cool shadow of the Rim wall. Malick followed her. Together, they set to work unpacking, but Sethe's thoughts were of the River of Dust. She had thought it was a metaphor, and said as much. "You people," she told her husband, "are so fond of them." Gleaners harvested words, not crops. Spinners twisted meanings, not yarn. Weavers crafted tales, not cloth. "Still, I should have known," she said. "I should have realized. If the Dry Sea is exactly that, why should the River of Dust be any different?"

"It's the Wysrund," he said.

Sethe laughed. How she laughed!

Carved from a mountain of columnar basalt, Kerhune Tor dominated the Wysrund Plateau. When the mountains were craggy peaks, the high desert green country and the Dry Sea a sheltered lagoon, it had been a city unto itself and home to thousands. Now, it was home to one, the Mindsinger Sorhen Sloe. From her vantage point, a wind whipped chamber high up in the tower, she could see and hear all of the comings and goings of Toth Camp. The winter home of those Guildkin whose work did not take them into the field was a quiet place most days. Very few came and went. Very little was sung or said. But this day the old Mindsinger heard whoops of delight and saw many a Wysrundi dancing. So, she thought, the Mouther has done it. Well and good. Well and good. She turned to the ghost who had shared her chamber of late and asked, "What are you grinning at, Ghost?"