Free Singer from the Sea by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

edge serving as a nursery for all kinds of water creatures, native and introduced.
    Havenpool was ringed about with mountain ranges. A man on the northwesternmost of the Seawall Mountains could stare northeastward across the Great Fall, where Havenpool fell into the sea, to the heights of the Northern Knot and, if he turned clockwise, he would see mountains on every horizon, all of them formed by that ancient mother-of-all-volcanoes that had become the continent itself.
    Haven’s provinces were Upland, northernmost, atop the high cliffs; south of that was High Haven, the Royal holding that included the seat of the Lord Paramount at Ha-venor, Dania like a fat “J” hung below High Haven, with Langmarsh to the west along the shore of Havenpool, and Merdune to the east. Sealand stretched along the west shore of Havenpool to the cliffs above the world-ocean; Barfezi ran along the south of the continent, with the province of Frangía sticking out below like a rude tongue. Merdune was on the eastern side of Haven, where the land sloped downward from the Eastrange Mountains to the very edge of the sea, as though an enormous tooth-grooved bite had been taken out of the continent. Merdune boasted the only real seashore on Haven, one that stretched the length of shimmering Merdune Lagoon, a saltwater bay almost as large as Havenpool.
    Very early after settlement, a dispute had arisen between a particular nobleman and the Covenant Tribunal, the ultimate religious authority of Haven. Though many considered this a minor matter, a question of interpretation, the nobleman had subsequently marched with all his followers down the land bridge to the smaller landmass, which he named Mahahm. As the polar ice continued melting, a process that had been going on at least since the planet was discovered, the isthmus became a widely separated string of rocky islands, the Stone Trail, and regular contact between the two landmasses was lost. Though the Lord Paramount at Havenor was still titled “Ruler of Mahahm,” the Mahahmbi were known to refer to him less cordially.
    The thousands of islands scattered singly and in clustersall around the globe were entirely unexplored by the Ha-venites. The seas were dangerous and there was little reason to go seeking out relatively small specks of dry land, many of which had been covered by the sea since colonization. According to the surveyors, the Inundation should have finished long ago, but seemingly there was still ice to melt, as the rising shorelines of the Stone Trail and the Merdune Lagoon well certified.
    All native animals were amphibious. There were no native birds, though the so-called siren-lizard soared and sang, filling a bird’s ecological niche. The only purely land-dwelling creatures—as well as real birds—were exotics brought in by the settlers, everything from cattle to lap dogs to butterflies and peacocks.
    The men who purchased Haven desired a world of privilege, culture, and peace. Technology had facilitated the total urbanization of Old Earth, an event which had only briefly preceded its strange demise as a viable world, and technology, the settlers felt, should be eschewed in the interest of tranquility. In tranquil societies, nothing changes very much or moves very fast, if at all, and the buyers yearned for this leisurely pace. They deified tradition. They forbade invention. They adopted an hereditary monarchy and, for the nobility, a state religion: pseudo-Judaeo-Muslim-Christian-monotheism with accretions. The wealthiest man among the settlers became the first Lord Paramount, his colleagues became the lesser lords, the dukes of the seven provinces. Their children became the earls and viscounts of the counties within those provinces, and their children became the barons of the estates within those counties. Each county—some forty of them—was allowed an assembly of citizens, variously constituted, who elected or selected a minister to the provincial council, and the