Heated arguments will result from this episode, which focuses upon Benadek, Sylfie, and the temple. The origin of the temples has become a popular topic among mythographers. Do they represent the Pit of Ashemon, or the House of Healing from the Ksentos Venimentum text? Do they derive from the Death Chambers in the Rift Worlds legends?
It is an amusing conceit to reverse the literary scholars' questions, to ask instead, "Did those myths derive from such ancient installations as the temples?" Such speculations have been gaining a following, but this editor cautions the reader against taking them seriously.
(Kaledrin, Senior Editor)
"Why aren't we heading directly north?" Benadek asked. "Your old maps show the way to be clear all the way to this Sigh-oh-icks Fawlz place . . ."
"Soo!" Achibol corrected him. "That's Sioux Falls, boy. Sioux Falls, South Dakota."
"Sufalsidak?"
"Yes. Sioux Falls, Ess dot Dak dot. An abbreviation."
"The ancients had funny ideas about names. Like `DNA' for `deoxyribonucleic acid.' "
Achibol snorted, amused. Three days earlier, he had recommenced Benadek's lessons without discussing the boy's blunders. After all, what could he possibly say that Benadek had not punished himself with a hundred times. Sylfie was miserable, and that plagued him, as did Teress's scornful silence. The magician chose not to inform him that Sylfie's depression was less the result of his behavior than of chemical deprivation only a temple visit could cure. He suspected that once they reached a town and a temple, Sylfie would no longer continue with them.
Lacedomon is a pleasant place, he told himself, thinking of the next settlement on their route. The boy won't be happy about her departure, but there's no path to wisdom except through regret.
"Their world was complex, boy. There were discoveries every day, new things calling for names. No one stopped to establish a rational system. They would never have caught up. Ridiculous abbreviations were the least of their worries."
"I see, I think. But my earlier question concerned our route . . ."
"In the two thousand years since the mapmakers died, forests have grown where none were before; acidic bogs cover fertile farmland; the winds have shifted, bringing life to old deserts and creating new ones no less harsh. Roads have vanished more completely than cities, so I've chosen only to avoid the worst bogs, deserts, and swamps. Only one morass can't be avoided. There, I hope to trade our mules for a boat. Here, I'll mark the location on the map."
Lacedomon was a refreshing surprise. Their trail led out of eroded loess hills and bleak rocks to the shore of a lake garlanded with crisp aspen woods. Its waters were turquoise. A hundred years earlier there had been only a rushing stream fed by springs and mountain snow, but a landslide had dammed the river and created a fifty-mile impoundment. The lake's color was fine suspended sediment. It was nonetheless cool and palatable.
The lake and the town near its downstream end had the same name. The town had been only a temple and scattered huts before the lake had filled. Now it was a sparkling array of whitewashed edifices climbing the steep slopes
"The town is new enough to be clean," Achibol said, "and rich enough to remain so. It's the eastern terminus of the mineral trade, and supplies sun-dried fish to the interior. Caravans stop here, so we'll surely find a cool, comfortable suite, and good meals."
They traversed the narrow, stony beach until their way was blocked by fishing boats drawn up on shore. Numerous channels led to fine stone boathouses. A fisherman working the seams of his overturned craft with blunt iron and cotton twine gave them direction to a boat broker.
"Do honches still watch the roads?" the fisherman asked.
"We saw none," Achibol replied cautiously. "What business have they here?"
"They haven't explained," their informant said, "but it's no good for trade. Caravan-masters get no joy from detainment and delay. How'd you come here?"
"Overland," Achibol answered with a vague wave.
"That's why you missed them. They've a watch on the waterfront and the town gates, but a hundred foreign thugs couldn't block every forest trail. You'll have your fill of them 'fore leaving, thoughsure as the sun rises."
"This changes our plans," the sorcerer said when they were again alone. "I have no doubt what these `foreign thugs' want. We must rid ourselves of these telltale mules."
<Ingrate! Callous fellow!> the lead mule muttered.
"What?" Achibol exclaimed, looking not at the mules, but all around him, genuinely puzzled. He had not thrown his voice.
<All those miles, and his boxes harder than his bony arse, giving me bruises . . . > grumbled the second.
The mage's eyes fixed on Benadek. "I taught you more than I was aware of. When did you first catch on, lad?"
"In Vilbursiton, delivering your coin to the temple, I heard priests' voices rebound from a wall. Since then I watched, and listened."
"I'm pleased. Perhaps you'll amount to something, in spite of your undesirable habits and . . ."
"I hope so, Master," Benadek interrupted, forestalling embarrassing elaborations. "But only if we get out of here. What must we do?"
The mage pondered. "Teress and I will seek out the marine agent. You purchase supplies for a week's passage of the swamp thither." He gestured toward the lake's end where, beyond brush and low trees, the waters dropped through great stone sluices into a forty-mile-wide depression laced with countless small channels, expanses of open water, and braided remnants of earlier channels now overgrown with trees, surfaced with duckweed and lilies. The glimpse afforded by the present lake's higher elevation was threatening. Achibol's maps showed only wide valleys traced with right-angled roads, but the morass looked all trees, with patches of algae-skinned open water.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Achibol reassured him. "There are locks to let boats down, and the water below is clean, for all its greenery. Shallow-drafted smacks traverse it easily, and the river beyond the swamp is swift and stone-free. Our difficulty will be attaining its shelter undiscovered . . ."
"Master Achibol?" Sylfie seldom interrupted like that.
"Yes?"
"With these honches about, may I still go to the temple?"
"You must, girl. They'll not look closely. A poot visiting the templewhat could be more innocent? And we've outdistanced any who might know you."
He turned to Benadek. "Take her there, boy, then shop for our own needs. Buy no sweets or frivolities, be quick, and meet me on this spot before sundown." He waved them away.
In the shadows of a fish-house Teress helped Achibol remove his robe. He turned it inside out. The plain lining was something an ordinary scribe might wear. He withdrew a vial from a pocket and spread pale cream over his face and the backs of his hands. His lightened skin was blotchy, but would have to do. They left the mules outside a well-lit alehouse patronized by fishermen and caravaners. Anyone with designs upon their baggage would think twice, believing them inside. Caravaners always left a watch upon their beasts, but never an obvious one.
The first person they saw as they made their way back among the boats was a sailor, barefoot and in knee pants; the second was a honch in black leather, and so were the third and the fourth. Achibol saw the telltale gleam of wire mesh in each honch's hair. "So many!" He slipped into a long-extinct vernacular: "This town's wors'n Chicago. If there was a Chicago. No place for a black man. Good thing honches ain't no smarter'n dumb Irish cops."
The floating boats were guarded by honches. He walked further. None of the honches seemed to be patrolling set routes. That made it hard to plan, but increased the chance for gaps in the surveillance.
The boat agent proved avaricious and unscrupulous. There was a boat that would serve, but he named a price well over what they could get for the mules. "Draw up the papers," Achibol said.
"We have no sale yet," the broker protested. "I'll look your beasts over and determine what must be put with them."
Achibol shrugged. "Our goods, for what they are worth, are with the mules. Show us the boat."
The lake constrained city growth to the south. The temple, the center of an erstwhile village, now stood among stone warehouses a mile from the great sluices and boat-locks that gave access to the morass and river downstream. It seemed to Benadek that every third or fourth person was a honch. There in the town proper few wore black, being warehouse guards and city militia, not soldiers of their mysterious enemy.
"I'll only go in for a little while," Sylfie reassured him. "Everything will be better then, you'll see." Benadek was not comforted. He could not go with her. The coin and talisman were no protection any more. They slunk up side streets until they were in sight of the temple gateand two black-clad honches. His grip on Sylfie's arm tightened. "You can't go in there! Not past them."
"Master Achibol said they won't know meand they wouldn't dare deny townspeople their temple." She tugged against his restraint.
"No! Wait. Let me think."
"There's nothing to think about. Let me go!" She jerked loose and began to run. Benadek snatched at her blouse. It tore, but held long enough to spin her around facing him.
A small object clattered on the cobbles of the temple squarethe magical writing tablet that Sylfie loved.
Benadek gaped, understanding. "You weren't going to come back! You were going to leave us."
"I can't stay. I love you, but if I go with you, I'll die a little each day. Let me go."
His eyes caught movement across the squarehe and Sylfie were no longer in the shadows. The honches had seen her run and him give chase, and were coming to investigate.
"It's too late! They've seen us." He tugged on her arm.
"You go. They don't want me.
"They'll guess where the tablet came from, and make you talk." The honches stepped up their pace. "We have to run now!" He pulled. She stumbled and began to cry. The honches, convinced that something was indeed amiss, gave chase. Benadek dragged Sylfie around a corner and out of sight.
It was too late for her to go back, almost too late to escape. They darted into one narrow alley, then another, avoiding airy courtyards and squares, sticking close to the sides of buildings. They worked their way from the temple into a hillside district, until they were satisfied there was no pursuit.
"I can go back later," Sylfie said with downcast eyes, her face still wet with tears that had not stopped flowing as they ran. "Tonight there'll be new guards."
Benadek shook his head regretfully. "They'll have found the tablet by now. You'll have to wait until the next town."
"I'll hide for a day, or two. I'll dye my hair."
"Can't you wait another week? We'll be through the swamp, and you'll be safe. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stopped you. I know what you have to do."
"I understand. It took you by surprisewhen you saw the tablet. I shouldn't have taken it. It's no good to me. I'm no more skilled than I ever was, but I wanted it to remember . . . to remember you and Master Achibol by." She blinked away still more tears. Benadek's own vision blurred. He reached for her, and she came into his arms.
"We'll have a little more time," she murmured into his shoulder. "But I hope you won't wish I'd already gone."
He assured her he'd never wish that. Neither could have known how wrong he was, nor that only a few days later he would wish he'd died rather than stopped her from entering the temple. But right then, they were reprieved from the loneliness that neither could deny would follow their parting.
They sought out a neighborhood market where merchants still braved the late-afternoon sun, and bought foods that would keep well on a boat. They walked slowly, shouldering their purchases and other, less visible burdens.
Achibol was surprised to see Sylfie. "What happened?"
Benadek made it sound as if the fallen tablet had been the start of their problems, not a result of his actions. Sylfie did not contradict him, but the mage drew her aside "You can hide until we're safely away," he said. "Then even if they force you to tell them everything . . ."
"I don't feel sick yet, Master Achibol. How long before you next expect to pass a temple?"
"A week. Two. I won't risk you, girl."
"Let me decide. I'm coming with you."
The mage, hearing something, stood with his head cocked. Sylfie welcomed the distraction. She allowed herself to wince at the sharp pain that spread from her gut to her chest. "My pain. My choice," she murmured. She had to make sure Benadek was on the right track. If she stayed behind, she would never know. Besides, maybe they would really make it to a temple in time.
"Listen!" Achibol commanded. They heard shouts and angry cries, the brays and snorts of mules, and the clatter of iron-shod hooves. "The honches gather at the gates, and at the locks to the lower waterways," he said, gesturing in the directions of the commotion. "There, the boat-seller is attempting to control his new mules. Soon he'll discover the sandburrs I tucked under their harnesses, and he'll find his purse a bit light besides." The sorcerer grinned and tossed a gold tenday piece from hand to hand. "I'd not give this wayward coin to an honest merchant, but he planned to inform the honches. Teress is at our new boat. Let's hurry."
"But Master, if they're watching the locks, how will we get through? We can't sail up and down the lake waiting for them to forget about us."
"We'll portage around the locks," Achibol told him, "and slip away into the swamps." He gave Benadek no opportunity to question him further.
When Teress saw that Sylfie was still with them, she scowled and turned to Benadek. "You stupid, selfish little bug . . ." but Achibol waved her to silence. "Later," he said, "when we're well away."
By dusk, a light fog gathered on the water. "The honches must be emplaced now, awaiting us," Achibol remarked, "and the broker will have visited them. He'll lead them here. We must get out on the lake."
"It's not dark," Teress said, peering through the crack in a slatted shutter.
"Once we're a hundred yards out, we'll be in the fog and safe, for the night. As Benadek pointed out earlier, there's nowhere for us to go, except back and forth in the water. They hold the locks."
"Then what's the point? Maybe we should just sneak back into the woods again, mules or no mules."
"No, there's another way, but we must navigate that first hundred yards to safety."
Benadek got no small satisfaction from his observation that Teress was less inured to Achibol's roundabout ways than he was. He, though unfamiliar with boats, carefully followed his master's soft instructions on readying the craft. Teress, in her anxious frustration, bruised her hand readying the mast to be raised, then bumped her head on the companion top.
The boathouse doors opened outward onto the short channel. It was easy for Benadek and Teress to swing them apart and guide the craft out. Achibol and Sylfie strained to raise the short mast on its pivot. Benadek swore softly when the hull's heavy rub-rail caught his knee, then regretted it when he heard Teress's snicker. Sylfie slid the mast-pin home and tapped the wedges tight just as the bow cleared the channel end. Benadek and Teress pushed hard, and jumped aboard just as they ran out of paving at the lake's edge. They were so far unnoticed.
"Up sail," Achibol whispered. He and Sylfie pulled the halyard, and the tan sail rose with the faintest chuckle of wooden sheaves, the smallest scraping of sail hoops on the mast. "A good boat," the mage commented, "and well-maintained. I almost regret foisting my rambling coin upon its seller. But then," he reconsidered, "he no more intended us to keep the boat than I did him the coin."
There was the barest ghost of a breeze, not enough to fill the sail, but because it moved them outward from Lacedomon, in a direction that suited the mage's unspoken plan, he did not order them to break out the long sweeps strapped to the coamings. The town was soon lost in the fog.
"Climb the mast, boy," Achibol said mildly, "and tell me if you can see over this soup." Benadek scrambled to obey. "Quietly, quietly. Sound carries over water." Benadek nodded, and removed his boots, the better to use the sail hoops as a ladder.
At first uneasy, he was enthralled with the view from on high. At the height of the spreaders the fog attenuated, and with his feet firmly upon them his head was in clear night air. The moon cast a white glow across the puffy white blanket. There were clear patches of dark water near its middle.
"What do you see?" His master's words came muffled from below.
"I can see the upper town behind us, and something dark ahead on the left."
"Can you make out the sluices? Our destination lies on their far side. Face forward, and guide me with your words."
Benadek complied. The low point where the shore disappeared was only a few degrees off the boat's present course. Achibol allowed for the leeway the shallow craft would make, and headed not quite directly for the presumed sluices. With the boom full out on the port side, the wake was reassuringly straight. Benadek remained above, whispering occasional corrections. They headed for a wooded strand. Shortly, they felt the keel grind on a shallow bottom.
"What now?" the lad asked when he descended. "We can't drag this heavy thing through that thicket."
"There's an old portage trail, paved before there were locks. Only brush will impede us." He sent Teress ashore to seek the trail. Benadek would have preferred his master to send him. The pure-human (as he often caught himself thinking of her, momentarily forgetting that he shared her distinction) would miss the trail, and they'd still be floating here like a fat balloon-toad when the sun drove off the fog.
Teress came splashing back with good news. She'd found the old trail, and would warp the boat thither if Master Achibol's otherwise useless servant-boy could be ordered to assist her.
Achibol gave him a conspiratorial grin. "Humor her." He jerked his head toward the bow. Rather than taking the painter and pulling with Teress, Benadek tied on a second line before descending into the water. The boat rose as his weight left it, and drifted free of the bottom. They spread out in a "Y" with the boat as its trailing leg. "This way I can tell if that lazy wood-runner is pulling her share of the load," he whispered in Achibol's direction. Though the mage gave no indication he'd heard, Teress's flush, and the way she bit her lower lip, were reward enough for Benadek.
The boy was appalled by what he saw when they grounded at the portage. For the first fifty feet, there were old wooden rollers, rotted and imbedded half their diameters in the sod. Beyond that were stepped ramps separated by short stretches of flat, stone-paved path. Though only a few woody shrubs had grown through the cobbles, he saw no way they'd get the heavy boat out of the water, let alone down those slopes. Far below, hundreds of feet ahead, he heard the roar of the lake dashing through the sluices into the lower channel.
Achibol was undaunted. "Tie this ring securely to that far tree," he said, handing Benadek one end of a complicated arrangement of ropes and pulleys, "and this other to the painterthe rope you were pulling," he explained to Teress. "Sylfie, push at the stern, at my command." The three young people did as they were bade. Teress and Benadek had to pull back toward the lake, the way the ropes ran through the pulleys. Achibol climbed aboard and groped in the cockpit, retrieving his staff. "I'll lift the boat."
Lift it? Benadek raised a skeptical eyebrow at Teress, who gave an exaggerated shrug. It was the first communication between them that did not arise from mutual hostility.
Achibol affected not to notice. He fiddled with the staff, muttering. Benadek strained to catch his words, but they were in an odd singsong and made no sense. The boat, however, seemed to understand, for it rose until its chines were barely wetted. "That's all I dare for now," the sorcerer said. "I don't have the power to keep it all the way up. Pull now. Sylfie, push as hard as you can."
Slowly, the massive craft began to move ashore. Benadek expected it to grind to a halt on the first punky log rollers, but instead of digging in, its stem glided over, squeezing stinking water out as it pressed on them. The boat moved as though through thin mudbut it moved.
"Shouldn't we remove the spars, Master?" Benadek queried. "If we emptied the boat, it would be easier, too."
"It wouldand less strain on the limited resources I can bring to bear as well. Under less pressing circumstances I'd let your strong young back bear the burden of carrying the mast, my trunks, and the rest of our impedimenta to the far end of the portage, but tonight . . . when we reach the bottom of the slope, and are no longer concealed by trees, wouldn't you prefer to float away with baggage, mast, and sails all aboard?" Teress snickered again.
Why did his master have to "educate" him when she was within hearing? Should he keep silent always, for fear the wood-louse would overhear his "lessons?"
The rope they pulled on had grown longer, or so it seemed. For every three steps they pulled backward, the boat advanced only one.
Achibol directed them to reattach the double pulley to a new tie-up further ahead, and to run the rope back through until the pulling-end was again short and the turns around the pulleys were snug. Again they labored. Benadek's muscles burned. He eyed Teress suspiciously. Her brow was beaded with sweat. She had done some work, at least.
"Until now," Achibol told them, "I've lifted the boat enough for you to pull it. The rest of the way will not be so easy."
Benadek opened his mouth to contest the mage. The rest of the way was downhill. It should be easier. Then he thought it through. He pictured several tons of wooden boat on one end of a rope, and he on the other. He glanced at steep ramps broken by short level stretches, and imagined the boat careering down, with him running and bouncing behind. It would be harder to keep the boat from moving down the ramps than it had been to move it across level ground. Further, there would be a time at the head of each ramp when the tackle was fixed to the stern to descend, but the boat still had to be dragged or pushed forward. Could they move it without the advantage the gear gave them?
Achibol sensed his unspoken question. "When the vessel is poised at the brink, I'll expend extra energy to hold it up while you push the stern, then run to your rope. If we're lucky, my staff won't be exhausted before we're all the way down."
"What if it fails before that?" Teress asked.
"Then the vessel will remain on land either whole or in splinters, depending on what moment the energies choose to fade."
Why, Benadek wondered peevishly, does he give her straightforward answers, yet mock me? He consoled himself that he was the magician's apprentice, and she only a hanger-on who could not be expected to understand his master's subtleties, and that Achibol had no commitment to her learning anything. His master's acid remarks, reserved for Benadek alone, were proof of the old man's concern that he learn well what he was taught, proof of his importance. Lightening his burden with that clever rationalization, Benadek pulled his share of the load, or a bit more.
The "steps" down the slope passed swiftly. When Achibol signalled a rest they left the boat poised with its bow over the next brink. Benadek compared the distance up-slope and down, and estimated they were more than halfway, but they would have to hurry, to be in the water before dawn.
He cut his break short. "I'm going back up to brush out the marks of our passage. The rut we left will be like a waving flag." Achibol nodded approval. "Ten minutes," he said.
Benadek was amazed how quickly he reached the top, scraped and brushed over the disturbed beach, and returned. Alone, it was only a short dash; straining at the end of a rope, it had seemed miles.
When the boy returned, the others were ready to resume their toil. Benadek's muscles screamed protest as they pulled against even the magically reduced weight of the hull. Teress's grunts told him she also suffered. Sylfie labored between them in utter silence.
Dawn caught them short of their goal. They would be in shadow a while longer, but ahead the trees thinned, and they would have to cross the final slope to the water in daylight, exposed to view from the far end of the natural dam. Luckily, the roar of water rushing down stone-faced channels would mask any sound they made.
They reversed the tackle and tugged the boat ahead, repositioned the ropes and lowered once more. And so it went. They reached the final level and the edge of the trees. Beyond was a bare cobble path to the water, still sixty feet away and twenty down.
Benadek's eyes strayed to the far side of the rushing water, expecting at any minute to see black-clad figures scurrying toward them.
"Be ready!" Achibol admonished. "This is the last pull, and we must move fast. Once they see us, we'll have two minutes to reach the water." Two minutes? It would take the old man that to walk to the water's edge. The sixty feet seemed an uncrossable distance, but the rope was ready, and Benadek took his place at it. The boat began to move. He continued to watch the far side.
Finally, less than two boat-lengths below, the water seethed and boiled, drowning their voices, sending spray and fine mist into the air, where it clung to rope-hairs, eyelashes, and hair. Achibol gesticulated wildly, and Benadek followed the motion of his arm.
Upslope were honches. Four, no five of them. Six. Ten. They swarmed like black beetles, bristling with glittering armaments. A puff of steam gushed from their vessel's planking. Paintwork blistered and whitened, but the steam released from the well-soaked planks diffused it. That deadly light would blister skin, char flesh, and boil body fluids.
They were out of time. The rope lay slack in his hands. His eyes met Achibol's. He made a pushing motion with his hands, palms out, and the mage nodded vigorously, his words lost in the tumult.
Benadek grabbed Teress and Sylfie each by an arm, and rapidly pantomimed what he wanted them to do. Both nodded, and begun to pull again. The boat teetered forward, bow-down, and Teress pulled herself over the stern, which settled back again. She reached a hand down to Sylfie, who with Benadek gave one last tug. Sylfie jumped, and was pulled aboard. Achibol, amidships, gripped the mast and his staff. Benadek pulled, but the boat did not move. Sweating, swearing, dripping with spray that nearly blinded him, he thrust himself under the hull next to the rudder and heaved upward.
Grinding cobbles beneath it, the flat keel began to slide down-slope. He got behind, and pushed on the transom, felt it first resist and then pull away from him. He pulled his belly over the stern. Half-aboard, he saw Teress and Sylfie sprawled in the cockpit, and Achibol clinging to the mast, his staff still upright.
The transom-rail pounded his chest and arms as the heavy craft plunged downward, and he almost lost his grip. Then, still half over the stern, his feet dragging in water that tugged and pulled, he grimaced in pain as he slid into the cockpit, sure his ribs were broken.
With a groan, he lurched to his duty post as Achibol had taught him on the lake. In spite of knife pains in his chest, he pulled in the sheet, stabilizing the wildly swinging boom as Teress and Sylfie raised sail. Achibol, his staff forgotten, took the tiller. The ramp receded behind. Honches gathered ankle-deep in the foaming water. The sail filled with a dull snap.
He saw boats on the far shore, hitherto concealed in spray, but none had sails up. Honches swarmed on the short piers, but none attempted to pursue, not knowing how to sail. Neither did Benadek, but Achibol did. With cursive hand-motions the mage signalled what he wanted done and, clumsily, his crew obeyed.
The roaring sluices were lost to sight as the channel curved, their sounds diminishing until Benadek could hear the chuckle of ripples breaking on their craft's chines, the murmur of bubbles beneath their feet. Their path opened onto a wide stream where the current slowed, and Achibol steered them toward one of many channels that emptied it. Soon, they glided silently in water little wider than the boat. Great-boled trees lined both sides, higher than the mast. A faint breeze kept the sail distended. A leaf floating on the glassy surface moved alongside, and then was left behind.
Saphooth, Kaledrin observed, had become more withdrawn than ever after the output of Chapter Eight. Following the release of Chapter Nine, the Director sequestered himself in his cubicle with no company except his AI research assistant, and refused contact with MYTHIC staff-beings, visitors, even potential benefactors. Saphooth had never before missed an opportunity to garner funds.
Days went by. The biocybes silently mulled over their next contribution. Kaledrin became more and more interested in his superior's mysterious line of research. All he could tell was that Saphooth was incurring heavy communication and library database charges. Some were offworld calls.
"It shouldn't be hard to break into his files," Abrovid said thoughtfully.
"I didn't know you had such dark talents."
"I'm a programmer, that's all. And what of your criminal tendencies? I don't hear you refusing my offer. But I have a price."
"Oh? What?"
"Only that you explain to me what you think Saphooth's doing that concerns you so."
"Of course. But not until I see if I'm right. It wouldn't be the first time the old monkey has made me look foolish."