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.“The story will go better if you eat some ofthem first.This is one thing at least, where I agree with your San.You’ll need the energy later.”Ulanda stiffened.“I’m a little old to be treated like one of your children.”Garm’s hair rose at the sudden power surge, her braid ends were dripping blacksparks.“My children are better behaved.”Then the fight in Ulanda died.“I sorry.”Quin’tat took his wife’s hand.“There’s nothing to be sorry about.They’re along ways off and safe.”But En’talac shook her head.“Just on their way to a C’vann world where wethought they might have a chance to survive if what we thought was happeningreally was.If overpattern destroyed the Unity.”“Does chance exist here?” Quin’tat asked.He glanced towards Sarkalt, but theOverpriest was back to sipping his tea, with Pida next to him preparing a freshpot, acting out a private ritual as though he had to coax each leaf to perform.Niv still hadn’t come out.“Of course chance exists,” Garm said softly as he sat again, allowing only amild note of protest to cover his reaction.A protest at the loss he heard inEn’talac and Quin’tat’s voices.Loss for each, just different ways of telling it.He had watched his only child walk into the spiral and had spoken comfort to his wife with much the same tone of voice.And that Ena was pregnant with Rolf’s child?Had he known? His memory played tricks on him, he thought he had, then knewhe hadn’t.or he had been of the same mind then, knowing and not knowing, notwanting to believe what his sight told him, what the feel of her skin while he lie with her told him.Her turning away from him never penetrating his blindness.He hadn’t let himself know until Ena cried out and Li-Fu had woken from theceremony to look.He had the answer in his daughter’s eyes, then in his hands as his wife struggled against his grip.And in the blood, Rolf’s blood, the only thing he must have felt he had to offer her: her daughter’s life.A last gift.A pond, a skim of ice and sunrise.And this time Li-Fu had gone into the spiral? He’d had no one to speak comfortto except for her.And he’d had no more words for her until it was too late.“The major shape of the patterns can be determined,” he said, concentratingon the sounds, “but most of the details, the things we see, fall by chance moreoften than not.What may be pivotal to the end result can’t be seen whenexamined solely on its own by someone involved in it.Only from the largerpattern, and then in hindsight and most often, not the events you would thinkwere important.” The words helped.That stupid, stupid man.“Or if somethingsmall is deliberately controlled, what results from that control is less predictable than you might.”Laurel Hickeywww.2morrow.bc.caEye of the Ocean – Book 1: Ri“Spare us,” Bolda growled.“Next thing you know, you’ll take up weaving.”Standing, he had a bun in one hand and was stuffing it with cheese.Taking thebun with him, he wandered off a little ways to stand at the edge of the terrace, facing the world-altar.“Beans?” Ulanda said, a giggle in the shape of her voice where the pain hadshowed a moment before.Smoothing her hair back on the side closest to him, he used the distraction tocheck her points.The distraction turned into nothing more than a chance toarrange her hair.A long night to go and the fog was going to cause the shorterends to frizz and bother her, the sides should have been braided.He wouldsuggest it, but knew she would twist his kindness into another excuse for beingangry with him.Garm took a deep breath and continued.“As the loom-master pointed outabout any of the possible Opening point on the Altasimic world we end up on, that there wouldn’t be people settled near there.even if that is a high probability result, how it came about is open to chance.”In the placement image Ulanda had pulled, the seams in the land looked asthough the area had been taken in a giant’s hand and squeezed.Anga had saidthat people found such places ‘uncomfortable’ and the round man had chuckled.Haunted might be a better word, Garm thought.A sifting through of possibilities, becoming more and more certain, all working to a single end at a single time.Other things -- entire lives or something as small as the germination of a single seed of grass -- taken out of the flow of chance around them and twisted toaccommodate.As he had taken the story of the Phoenix and twisted it to fit.what else would turn to match? His understanding? He sighed.“You could think of it as a medleyof chances, an end pattern that is predetermined but derived from small chances, quite random at any one point, but.”“You were telling us about beans,” Ulanda interrupted, leaning against hisshoulder and looking up.“Beans?” he asked, looking into her face and only seeing somebody askingabout beans.Then he blinked and almost saw the images, the river and twinroads.Nothing in Temple Net, domestic or otherwise, he checked and felt Quin’tat follow his lead and shrug when he found nothing either.Might as well be beans as anything else.And tea.He put a reminder into thedomestic Net for Apallim.Both he and Ulim had vanished.He thought back to where he had left off.“We used to play double-dare on theleaves.We’d get on them just as they started to roll during the heat of the day
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