sandy shores glowing by moonlight. Low trees reared up beyond the dunes.
The boat struck sand; the Flikkers leaped out and pulled it ashore. There were other craft beached around them, and Flikker voices nearby. They pulled Pazel to his feet and nudged him onto the sand.
The voices came from a crowd at the edge of the trees: at least a dozen Flikkermen, with eight or ten captured boys. Pazel looked them over: most of these boys were tall and strong. They would sell fast enough. But one figure at the back of the crowd was very small. His captors were poking at him, grumbling: No profit, wait and see, we'll be stuck with him at night's end.
One yanked maliciously at the small boy's rope. The boy shouted back: 'Leave off, you toad! That blary hurts!'
Pazel was thunderstruck. The high-pitched voice was unmistakable.
'Neeps!'
The small boy pushed forward through the crowd, and there he was, gaping.
'Pazel Pathkendle! I'll be blowed!'
'Neeps, you mad cat! How did they get hold of you?'
'Dismissed for fighting!' said Neeps.
'Not again!'
'It was that lout Jervik's fault! Him and that crook Swellows, I should have-'
'No talking!' snapped the lead Flikkerman, his body sparking with anger. 'Form one line! We go to auction!'
Up the dune they marched the captive boys. Pazel felt a strange clash of emotions: joy at seeing his friend, astonishment that he should be here, dread at the thought of what lay in store for them both. Worst of all, he felt a nagging suspicion that Neeps' dismissal had something to do with him.
At the top of the dune Pazel turned and looked back the way they had come. A broad river delta spread below them in the moonlight, a fan of rippling silver and black shadow-islands. Beyond lay the open sea. Hidden among the islands, however, was a cluster of ocean ships: fifteen or sixteen little brigs and schooners bobbing at anchor.
Neeps saw them, too. 'Something tells me we won't be here long,' he whispered. 'Belching devils, mate, I've been such a blary fool.'
Pazel thought that Neeps couldn't possibly have outdone him in foolishness. 'But how did you get here?' he demanded.
'Later,' said Neeps. 'They're watching.'
After the dunes came a muddy slog through the island's brush forest, where every nightbird that ever lived whooped and whistled and trilled and honked. Now and then Pazel caught glimmers of firelight through the trees ahead. When the wind turned he caught a smell of woodsmoke and frying fish.
Harsh laughter reached his ears. The path opened suddenly into a great clearing where bonfires roared. A crowd of hundreds had gathered here-eating, wrestling, guzzling liquor, trading jibes and insults. Except for some twenty Flikkers they were all humans, but none inspired Pazel with hopes of rescue. There were many sailors-one could always spot them by their leathery skin-but when they looked at him they showed no brotherly warmth. All carried blades. Some had bones or other murth-charms knotted up in their beards. Quite a few were missing teeth or eyes or fingers. Rin save us, Pazel thought, they're pirates.
The head Flikkerman drew a line in the dirt with his boot-heel, and the others arranged the boys along it by size. Was this a slave-market? Pazel wondered. Certainly it resembled what he'd seen during the rape of Ormael- except that no ownership papers were involved here, and no branding iron. And of course, the Flikkers were in charge.
They worked in pairs. One stood with his hand on the head of a captive. The other jumped onto a crate, raised his long-fingered hands over his head and sang the prisoner's qualities in a weird, half-rhyming chant: 'Strong-strong-boy, hop-a-long-boy! Clean-never-never-sick-head-thick-boy! See-how-tall-he'll-carry-all!'
And so on. When a customer shouted out a price, the lower Flikkerman pointed in his direction and began to glow softly. Then a higher bid would come, and the Flikkerman turned and pointed to the new customer, and glowed a little brighter, and his partner above would sing with more excitement and exaggeration: 'A perfect child! So-good-mannered-mild! Tough as a lion, wilt thou not buy 'im?'
When someone did buy a boy, the two Flikkers cried, 'Eeech!' in unison, and the glowing one went out like a snuffed candle. The whole display appeared to have a kind of hypnotic effect on the pirates, who were spending money rather freely for people who went to such lengths to obtain it.
As his captors waited their turn, however, Pazel saw that the cleverer pirates knew better than to listen to the song. They poked and prodded the boys, examined their teeth and eyes.
'Too many sellers,' grumbled one of their captors. 'We'll make nothing on these runts.'
'These brutes don't want quality goods,' whined another Flikkerman. 'Any boy will do, when he's sure to be drowned or stabbed or cannon-blasted in a few months.'
'So inefficient! I don't understand why humans kill one another.'
'Neither do they.'
Then the first speaker gave a chirp of surprise. 'Ehiji, look! It's Druffle, Dollywilliams Druffle! What's he doing out here?'
The Mr. Druffle in question was a most unusual-looking man. He had greasy black hair that hung limply to his shoulders, a long nose and a filthy coat from which his bony hands emerged like implements for poking a fire. Over one shoulder hung something slick and rubbery. As he drew closer Pazel saw that it was an enormous eel.
Just behind Druffle came four huge men-at-arms. They had black beards trimmed to paintbrush points; their muscles bulged against iron bands around their forearms. Each carried a spear filed to razor sharpness and thick with dried gore where spearhead met shaft. As their eyes scanned the crowd, even the fiercest pirates stepped out of their way. 'Volpeks,' men whispered. And so they were: Pazel knew them from drawings in his father's books. Now here they stood in the flesh: the dreaded mercenaries of the Narrow Sea, who would fight and kill for anyone who paid.
Behind the Volpeks shuffled a line of eight boys, chained at the wrists. Their faces and skin spoke of many homelands. One trait they had in common, however: they were all rather small.
'… most certainly experienced!' Druffle was saying to the Flikkerman. 'They won't have time to learn between here and Chereste!'
Pazel's heart skipped a beat. Chereste was home! It was the peninsula on whose tip stood Ormael City.
'But why dost thou another's bidding?' demanded the Flikkerman.
'Call it that if you will,' said Druffle. 'I call it gold for easy service. And gold he has, a-plenty.'
'A merchant, sayest thou?'
'Aye, Froggy,' said Druffle. 'A gentleman bound for Ormael himself. We're to meet there in a week's time. So you see I must depart with the dawn-absolutely no later. Two more divers, just two, and I'll chance it. You!' He stopped before a skinny boy on Pazel's left. 'Ever dived for pearls?'
Flabbergasted, the boy sputtered: 'Yes! Oh yes, sir! Lots of times!'
'Where?'
'Where… where them pearls is found, sir.'
'You lie. Bah, hold your breath anyway. Go ahead.'
A silver pocket watch appeared in Druffle's hand. The boy took a deep breath. Druffle put his ear close to the other's face, listening for any cheating breath. Soon the boy's face began to purple.
At the end of the row, Pazel saw Neeps lean forward to look at him. Quite out loud, but in Sollochi, he said: 'Start breathing now, mate. Breathe as deep as you can-augh!'
A Flikker cuffed him into silence. But Pazel had understood. Neeps was a diver-a pearl diver, in fact. Druffle would certainly buy him. And if there was any chance of them staying together, Pazel would have to pass the test as well.
The skinny boy was looking ill. Druffle slid the huge eel off his shoulder. With a wink he brought the gray- green head close to the boy's face-and then suddenly clamped its jaws tight on his nose.
'You're underwater, lad! Don't breathe, don't breathe!'
'Taauugh!'
The boy breathed. Druffle gave a snort of disgust.
