By this time, she had developed a distinctive style: solid, squat pots with strange creatures drawn on them. Sometimes, the handles were strange creatures made in molds: clawed birds or animals like flowers with thick, segmented stalks. Haik had found fossils of the animals still grasping prey. In most cases, the prey was small fish, so the creatures had been marine predators. But her customers thought they were flowers–granted, strange ones, with petals like worms. "What an imagination you have!"
The pots with molded handles were fine work, intended for small expensive plants. Most of her work was large and sturdy, without handles that could break off. Her glazes remained plain: colorless or black.
Though she was a master potter, her work known up and down the coast, she continued hunting fossils. Her old teacher’s house became filled with shelves; and the shelves became filled with pieces of stone. Taking a pen, Haik wrote her name for each creature on the shelf’s edge, along with the place where she’d found this particular example. Prowling through the rooms by lantern light, she saw eons of evolution and recognized what she saw. How could she fail to, once the stones were organized?
The first shelves held shells and faint impressions of things that might be seaweed. Then came animals with many limbs, then fish that looked nothing like any fish she’d ever seen. Finally came animals with four limbs, also strange. Most likely, they had lived on land.
She had a theory now. She knew that sand and clay could become solid in the right circumstances. The animals had been caught in muck at the ocean’s bottom or in a sand dune on land. Through a process she did not understand, though it must be like the firing of clay in a kiln, the trapping material turned to stone. The animal vanished, most likely burnt up, though it might also have decayed. If nothing else happened, the result was an impression. If the hollow space in the stone became filled, by some liquid seeping in and leaving a deposit, the result was a solid object. Her clawed bird was an impression. Most of her shells were solid.
Was she too clever? Could no one in her age imagine such a theory?
Well, she knew about clay, about molds, about minerals suspended in water. What else is a glaze? There were people in her village who worked with mortar, which is sand that hardens. There were people in nearby villages who used the lost wax process to cast.
All the necessary information was present. But no one except Haik used it to explain the objects in the Tulwar cliffs. Why? Because her kin had barely noticed the fossils and were not curious about them, did not collect them and label them and prowl around at night, looking at the pieces of stone and thinking.
Life had changed through time. It went from the very odd to the less odd to the almost familiar. In a few places on the cliff tops were animals that still lived. So, the process that led to the creation of fossils was still happening or had stopped happening recently.
How much time had this taken? Well, the old people in her town said that species did not change; and as far as she knew, there were no traditions that said animals used to be different. Oh, a few stories about monsters that no one had seen recently. But nothing about strange shells or fish. So the time required for change was longer than the memories of people.
Think of what she had learned and imagined! A world of vast periods of time, of animals that changed, of extinction. Hah! It frightened her! Was there any reason why her people might not vanish, along with the fish and plants they knew? Their lineage was small, its existence precarious. Maybe all life was precarious.
One night she had a dream. She was standing atop the cliffs above Tulwar Town. The houses below her looked very distant, unreachable. There was nothing around her except space, stretching up and down and east over the ocean. (The forest was behind her, and she did not turn around.) Next to her stood an old woman with white fur and dirty feet. "You’ve come a long way," she said. "Maybe you ought to consider turning back."
"Why?" asked Haik.
"There is no point in your journey. No one is going to believe you."
"About what?"
"My creatures."
"Are you the Goddess?" asked Haik.
The woman inclined her head slightly.
"Shouldn’t you look more splendid?"
"Did Rakai look splendid? She worked in clay. I work in the stuff-of-existence. I wouldn’t call it clean work, and who do I need to impress?"
"Have things really died out? Or do they exist somewhere in the world?"
"I’m not going to answer your questions," the old woman said. "Figure existence out for yourself."
"Do you advise me to turn back?"
"I never give advice," the Goddess said. "I’m simply telling you that no one will believe you about time and change. Oh, one or two people. You can get some people to believe anything, but sensible people will laugh."
"Should I care?" Haik asked.
"That’s the question, isn’t it?" the Goddess said. "But as I’ve said already, I don’t give advice."
Then she was gone, and Haik was falling. She woke in bed in Rakai’s house. Outside her window, stars blazed and gave her no comfort.
She thought about her dream for some time, then decided to go on a voyage. Maybe her problem was lack of sex. Her best pots went into wicker baskets, wrapped in straw, along with large plates, some plain, but most with strange creatures painted on them: her lovely bird with claws, the many-legged bugs, fish that wore plate armor instead of scales, and quadrupeds with peculiar horny heads.
When a ship arrived, going north, she took passage. It was crewed by Batanin women, so she had plenty of sex before she reached their destination. But the feeling of loneliness and fear remained. It seemed as if she stood on the edge of an abyss, with nothing around her or below her.
She got off in a harbor town inhabited by the Meskh, a good-sized family. Although they had a port, they were farmers mostly, producing grain and dried fruit for export, along with excellent halin.
Her pottery brought good prices in Meskh Market. By this time, she was famous as the Strange Animal Potter or The Potter of Shells and Bones.
"You are here in person," her customers said. "This is wonderful! Two famous women in town at once!"
"Who is the other?" Haik asked.
"The actor Dapple. Her troop has just given a series of plays. Now, they’re resting, before continuing their tour. You must meet her."
They met that night in a tavern. Haik arrived escorted by several customers, middle-aged women with dark fur. At a table in the middle of the room, surrounded by dark Meskh women, was someone tall and slender, broad shouldered, her fur pale silver. Introductions were made. The actor stood. In lantern light, Haik could see the silver fur was dappled with small, dim spots. It was rare for people to keep their baby markings, but a few did.
"Hah! You’re a lovely one," the actor said. "Red fur is unusual in this part of the world."
Haik sat down and told the story of her father, then how her mother died and how she had grown up in Tulwar Town. When she finally stopped, she saw the Meskh women were gone. She and Dapple sat alone at the table under the flaring lamp.
"What happened?" Haik asked.
"To the others? Most had the good sense to leave. Those who did not were removed by members of my company."
"And I didn’t notice?"
"I don’t believe," said Dapple, stretching, "that you are a person who notices much outside your interests. The Meskh have loaned us a house. Why don’t you come there with me? We can drink more halinand talk more, if you wish. Though I have spent the past half an ikunimagining what you look like without clothing."