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didn't know. But he would. He would make it his business to find out, before his father returned.
Atrus hurried across the bridge, conscious of the gathering clouds overhead, then ran up the slope
toward his father's tent.
Surprised by his sudden entrance, Koena got up hurriedly, making a little bowing motion, still
uncertain quite how to behave toward Gehn's son. "Young Master? Is everything all right?"
The girl was sitting on the ground nearby, staring up at Atrus.
"No," Atrus answered, walking past Koena and sitting in his father's chair.
"Master?" Koena came across and stood before him. "Are there more cracks?"
"No. But there is something I want an explanation for."
"Master?"
Atrus hesitated, then. "Something happened."
"Something?"
"Yes, when I was out on the boat. The old man said something about cheating the Whiteness."
Koena gasped. "You have been out there."
"Out where?' Atrus said, knowing where he meant, but wanting to hear it from his lips.
"To the Mist Wall."
Atrus nodded. "We sailed the dark current. And then we rowed back."
Koena's mouth had fallen open. "No," he said quietly.
"What is it?" Atrus asked. "What am I missing? What don't I understand?"
Koena hesitated, his eyes pleading with Atrus now.
"Tell me," Atrus insisted, "or I shall have my father wring it from you!"
The man sighed, then answered him, speaking reluctantly. "The Whiteness ... it was our Master.
Before your father came."
He fell silent. There was the rumble of distant thunder.
Atrus, too, was silent for a time, taking in this new piece of information, then he looked to
Koena again. "And my rather knows nothing of this?"
"Nothing."
"The old man and his son ... what will happen to them?"
Koena looked down. It was clear he did not want to say another word, but Atrus needed to know.
"Please. You have to tell me. It's very important."
The man shrugged, then: "They will die. Just as surely as if you had left them out there."
Atrus shook his head. Now that he understood it he felt a kind of dull anger at the superstitious
nonsense that could dream up such a thing. He stood, his anger giving him strength, making him see
clearly what he had to do.
"Listen," he said, assuming the manner of his father. "Go and fetch the villagers. Tell them to
gather outside my fathers hut. It is time I talked to them."
The sky was darkening as Atrus mounted the steps of the meeting hut and turned to face the waiting
crowd. A light rain fell. Everyone was there; every last man, woman, and child on the island,
Tarkuk and Birili excepted. Atrus swallowed nervously, then, raising his hands the way he'd seen
his father do, began to speak, trying to make his voice-not so powerful or deep as his father's-
boom in the same sonorous way.
"This afternoon we went out to the Mist Wall. We sailed the dark current and came back ..."
There was a strong murmur of discontent at that. People looked to each other, deeply troubled.
"I have heard talk that we have somehow cheated the Whiteness, and it is for that reason that I
have summoned you here."
He paused, looking about him, hoping that what he was about to say next would not prove too
difficult for his father.
"I understand your fears," he went on, "but I am proof that the Power of the Whiteness is waning.
For did I not sail to the Mist Wall and return? Did the Whiteness take me? No. Nor shall it. In
fact, when my father, the Lord Gehn, returns, he and I shall go out beyond the Mist Wall."
There was a gasp at that-a great gasp of disbelief and shock.
"It cannot be done," Koena said, speaking for all gathered there.
"You disbelieve?" Atrus asked, stepping down and confronting his father's man.
Koena fell silent, his head bowed. Overhead there was the faintest rumble of thunder. Great clouds
had gathered, throwing the bowl of hills into an intense shadow.
Atrus glanced up at the ominous sky, then spoke again. "All will be well," he said.
There was a great thunderclap. Lightning leapt between the clouds overhead, discharging itself in
a vivid blue-white bolt on the crest of the hill facing them. Atrus stared at its afterimage in
wonder, then looked about him, seeing how everyone else had fallen to the ground in terror.
"It's nothing," Arms said, lifting his voice above the now-persistent grumble. "Only a
thunderstorm!!"
There was a second, blinding flash and one of the trees on the far side of the lake was struck,
blossoming in a great sheet of sudden flame.
"The Whiteness is angry," someone cried from just below him. "See how it searches for you!"
Atrus turned, angry now, knowing he must squash this at once. "Nonsense!" he cried. "It's only the
storm!"
But no one was listening. The islanders were pulling at their hair and wailing, as if
something horrible was about to descend among them.
Then, as a third lightning bolt ionized the air, sending its tendrils of static hissing through
the rain-filled darkness as it sought the earth, Atrus saw, in the brilliant flash, the figure of
his father, striding down the path between the huts, heading for the bridge.
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