It was a long walk down the full length of Low Fish Road to Little Laque Quay and the three priestesses from Wheat Street set off well before noon. If it had just been Hella and Gemulae they might have left later but Jodyth could only manage a sedate pace and they couldn't be sure to get any transport. Also, they were all carrying their musical instruments and needed to take care of them.

As they got closer to the heart of the city, the crowds picked up, jostling the increasingly footsore musicians. Hella grappled with the unfamiliar weight of the harp she was carrying. It hadn't seemed so heavy when they set out, but now it was starting to become a burden. It wasn't just the weight, the shape was awkward too. She had to keep shifting it from arm to arm to relieve the strain on her muscles. It had been quite a morning, she reflected. To begin with, she'd found herself interceding in the inevitable altercation when the widow asked if she could stay in the temple.

"I have nowhere else to go," she began humbly enough. "Can I rest in the cool, at least until you all come back?"

Jodyth was not best pleased but when the widow suggested that she could look after the temple so it was not left empty whilst the priestesses were away, something in the appeal must have touched her for she reluctantly agreed. There were more important concerns this morning and it wasn't as if they'd be leaving much of value behind. They were taking the temple's finest instruments and what was left was little more than stone and sunshine.

"You can sleep in my room whilst we're out," Hella whispered when Gemulae and Jodyth had stomped ahead into the rehearsal room to argue about harmonies and musical arrangements. "It's the first one on the left at the top of the refectory stairs."

Then came the practice for the special music needed for the Harmonic Order 's spell. It was difficult and unfamiliar and it needed to be played with instruments none of them specialised in. Tempers frayed as wrong notes and crazy rhythms broke the pattern of the syncopated music in ways that weren't in the score. Hella would much rather have been playing her own beloved flute. She could get by with the harp but it was always a struggle for her. Gemulae was even worse with the violin and Jodyth was far from the best on an acoustic guitar. The less said about the singing the better. They were all despondent after their fifth run through and there was no time to refine the performance.

"If we mess it up, it will be worse than not playing at all," Gemulae pointed out unnecessarily, as if they didn't know as much already. "The City Harmoniser won't be pleased. We'll probably all get thrown out of the temple."

"We shall just have to trust in the divine intervention of Lynodyth," Hella offered, hardly sure she could trust any such thing herself, but there was no point in undermining their collective confidence further.

There was only one satisfying aspect to the disruption to their daily routine and that was shutting the door on the surprised face of Zane Pilder when he came for the tenth bell service.

"No services today," Hella told him with a certain degree of enjoyment. "We have more important work to do, enhancing the greater harmonic themes of the spirit of the world. We can't always be here to play for the neighbourhood you know."

"Well if that's anything like the racket I just heard," the fat baker quipped maliciously, "let's hope the spirit of the world has good ear plugs!" Hella had to admit to herself that he had a point.

There was one more troublesome moment that marred their departure. Hella had gone ahead with Gemulae whilst Jodyth was showing the widow how to bar the door and giving her some last minute instructions about not letting anyone else in the temple until they returned. Just on the edge of hearing, Hella caught the end of some heated altercation. The widow had been showing Jodyth something and the senior priestess was clearly angry and dismissive. It was weird.

"What was all that about at the door?" Hella finally asked Jodyth now that they were well on their way.

"Oh it was some complete nonsense!" Jodyth said. "Can you believe she was asking for some of my hair? She said the silver threads would repair some heirloom she'd broken. Or something. I couldn't make sense of it and it wasn't the right time and place to discuss it. I told her to be grateful we were letting her stay and that we had important business to attend to!"

The recollection of this argument seemed to be making Jodyth angry all over again, and since they were all getting tired and cross, Hella let it go. The press of people was getting thicker as they got closer to the centre of the city. It was so hot!

"We're never going to make it at this rate, Gem," Hella said a short time later when they rounded the bend by the sprawling Blue Flag Inn and could see the length of the river frontage which still stretched away to their destination.

"We need a ride," her friend answered, which was a fine idea but how were they going to get one? "Leave it with me," the blonde continued as if reading Hella's mind. Glancing quickly round she adjusted her cloak and bodice in a somewhat provocative manner that Hella hadn't even known was possible. Then with no further warning she stumbled into the central lane of Low Fish Road, as if by accident, and staged a fall in front of a horse and cart that was realistic enough to make a startled Hella cry out in surprise before the horse pulled up short.

"Oh I'm so sorry!" Gemulae exclaimed, blinking up at the handsome fisherman who had been guiding the cart down the left lane in the middle of the street. In two beats he'd jumped down into the road to assist the sprawling priestess.

"Unorthodox but effective," the fisherman remarked to Hella, when a short while later she found herself sitting upfront with him, whilst Jodyth, Gemulae and their musical instruments all rode behind in the cart with the buoys, fishing nets and crab cages. "Your friend can be very persuasive, but I'm not entirely sure that was an accident." He seemed more amused than angry though, so although Hella blushed slightly she neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. His name was Maris and as his stolid horse laboured on all their behalf, he explained that he was the skipper of a fishing boat called the 'Pride of Laque'.

"Is it really that bad?" Hella ventured, for there was an unspoken reason behind this whole magical ceremony which had unsettled all the priestesses, since the City Harmoniser had explained to Jodyth why they were being called upon and she had shared it with her juniors.

Maris frowned.

"We've been told not to talk about it. Mustn't start a panic, they say. Rumours get out anyway though, and people can see what's happening at the markets with their own eyes. Now that the Harmonic Order has been brought in, it's going to be open knowledge soon enough, I expect, so yes, it is that bad. We're not catching the same quantity of fish we always used to - nothing like it."

"So many hungry people in town," Hella couldn't help but respond.

"Still not to worry, miss," Maris said. "We've got the three priestesses from Wheat Street on our side now, so I'm sure we'll be fine!"

He laughed and Hella blushed again. It might have been a form of mockery but the fisherman spoke without malice and with a twinkle in his eye that told of a natural good humour. Hella decided she rather liked him.

The Laque district of the city occupied the last part of the northern bank of the Nepha where there was still a clearly defined central channel before the river sprawled out into a muddy estuary, and Little Laque Quay, which offered decent docking facilities, was the mooring site for most of the fishing fleet based in the city. When their cart turned into the quayside approach, Maris suggested that this was a good place for the priestesses to leave him and report to the City Harmoniser.

There was an atmosphere of barely organised chaos as sailors prepared to board their vessels and members of the Harmonic Order milled around in some confusion, waiting for instructions. The tide was not yet at the full but it had risen far enough to lift all the boats. An ensemble from the Prime Temple had taken up one of the few open spaces at the water's edge, just a few musicians and singers, and they were already engaged in some shoreside fish charming.

Nephatar : Fish Charming at Little Laque Quay

A small school of the shiny white and iridescent flying fish they call skyfinners  were flittering round their heads, occasionally diving into the waves and then emerging from the foam to hover and dart like dragonflies of the sea, captivated by the music. The skyfinners were tasty morsels and at some point they'd be netted, in the air or in the water; an excitable end to a successful charming, but it wasn't going to feed the city.

"Very pretty," Maris mumbled under his breath, as he helped Jodyth down from the cart and passed the heavy temple harp back into Hella's care. The priestess wasn't sure if he was referring to the sparkling flying fish, the beautiful fish charmers, the harp, or even, she speculated for a mad instant, herself. Then he was gone and the three priestesses went to join the other members of their order, waiting for confirmation of the details of the forthcoming arcane choreography.

Jodyth caught sight on an old friend who worked at the south bank Dakday Mission House and rarely came over the river and they were soon deep in conversation. They had much to talk about, with city politics, the famine, the music and the arcane plans in which they were all due to participate now. Gemulae, however, had no interest in any of that.

"I don't know how you do it," she said to Hella. "Here, I am going to all that trouble, literally throwing myself in the road to hook a fisherman and you ride away with my catch, leaving me stuck in the cart with Jodyth. Not bad, though, wouldn't you say? I think he likes you. Zane Pilder might have missed his chance and I must admit the skipper of a fishing boat is better than a baker."

"Better than a blacksmith's son, too?" was Hella's mildly barbed response, but Gemulae just laughed. "Maybe," she said. "We are running out of temple ironwork that needs fixing. So if you want him, you'd better say so, or next time we meet I might try and steal him from you!"

Fortunately for Hella there wasn't much time to continue this line of conversation, as amusing as Gemulae thought it was to tease her younger colleague. A shout from the top of a pair of crates called all the chattering priestesses to attention. They'd expected to see the City Harmoniser but he was also flanked by two mages from the palace and the Fisher King  himself, who gave them all a very short speech on the importance of their task before they were taken through the plans in detail.

The teams from each local city temple would ride out as passengers with the fleet, which was bound for the fishing grounds beyond the black sands light. The precise location of each ship and the timing of the ceremony were critically important for the spell the mages and the City Harmoniser had devised. They assured all their listeners that it was fine-tuned to fishes from the shallows and the continental waters and definitely wouldn't attract any of the monsters of the deep. So emphatic were they on this last point, that Hella, who had never even considered the possibility before, now felt more than a little anxious. The lead priestess in each boat would be given a signal light that would turn from red to green, so that at the most propitious moment everyone should start their musical contribution, building a divine route in the spirit of the Way of the Harmonic Path , reinforced by a flux of magical incantation and guiding wayward fish into the nets of the trawlers. It was, in short, like a very large scale version of the fish charming ceremony they'd just witnessed on the quayside, but over an area and at a magnitude never attempted before.

At last the final questions from the excited and nervous musicians had been answered and all that remained was assignment to their ships. One by one, the leaders of each little group queued to be given their embarkation orders.

"Wheat Street. Let's see... The 'Pride of Laque' moored on Bollard ten," the City Harmoniser told Jodyth, pointing out the place where Maris and his crew were preparing to sail.