most of our first round of swordplay. Although he finally cut through my defenses, it seemed that he was having to work ever harder to do so.
We sailed all that day and next night into the west beneath fair skies. A hundred miles we made from sunset to sunset, Captain Kharald told us. By the second morning of our voyage, we had reached a point just south of Orun off Nedu. There some clouds came up upon a rising wind as the sea grew rougher. The ship rocked and heaved to the swelling of ten-foot waves, and so did our bellies. A strange malady called sea-sickness stole upon us like a fever that comes from eating rotten meat. It grabbed hold of Maram and me the most tightly, while Atara, Alphanderry and Liljana were less troubled. Master Juwain, who had grown up around boats, said that he hardly felt sick at all. As for Kane, the ship might have rolled over on its side and cast us all into the ocean before he complained of any distress.
'Ah, oh, ohhhh!' Maram gasped. We knelt side by side and hung our heads over the ship's stern as we gave up our dinners to the sea. 'Oh, this is too much! This is the worst yet – I'll never get on a ship again.'
All about us, the wind howled like a stricken beast and the water churned a blackish-green. The ship's masts, trimmed back of much sail, groaned even more loudly than did Maram.
'I want to go back, Val,' Maram said as a wave slapped the side of the ship. 'I don't care if we ever find the Lightstone.'
Even though I knew we were dose to laying our hands upon this long-sought cup, I pressed my fist into the pit of my belly and said 'All right then – we'll go back.'
Maram looked at me through the spray that the ship cast up. 'Do you really mean that, my friend?'
'Yes, why not? We'll return to Mesh as soon as we can. We're sure to have a warm homecoming, even if we fail in our quest.'
'All your family would turn out to greet us, wouldn't they?'
'Of course they would,' I said. 'Lord Harsha, too.'
At the mention of this name, Maram moaned even louder and cried out, 'Oh, Lord Harsha – I'd almost forgotten about him!'
His belly heaved as he leaned even farther over the side of the ship – so far in fact that I had to grasp hold of his belt for fear that he would fall into the sea. He might have been grateful that I had saved his life. But instead he groaned, 'Oh, just me let go and be done with it! Oh, I want to die, I want to die!'
It gave us little courage when Kane later told us that we would soon find our sea-legs, as with Captain Kharald and the others of his crew. After sipping some tea that Master Juwain brewed to ease our suffering I cast my wretched, empty body down upon my furs and lay as still as I could upon the ship's rolling deck. I fell asleep and had dark dreams, dreams of death. Whether these nightmares came from Morjin or my own misery was hard to say. But it seemed that the ally Master Juwain had bade me summon to watch over my sleep was a poor guard that night.
By the next morning, however, the sea had quieted somewhat and so had my belly. I found myself able to stand and fix my gaze upon the wavering blueness of the horizon. One of Captain Kharald's men, another redbeard named Jonald, pointed out a hazy bit of land to the starboard and said that it was one of the Windy Isles. This was a long chain of rocky outcroppings that ran for more than three hundred miles between Nedu and the coast of Eanna to the south. We had made good speed, he said, coming some two hundred and fifty miles since setting sail from King Vakurun's little city. Another hundred and fifty should find us pulling in to the great harbor at Ivalo.
We took this opportunity to hold a brief council and decide the best course for reaching the Island of the Swans. Kane spoke for us all when he said, 'This Captain Kharald is a greedy man, but he knows his business. He has a good ship and good crew, I think. Why not let them take us to the island?'
Atara brought out her purse and hefted it so that the coins jingled. She said, 'Greedy, hmmph, I suppose he is. Well, we have gold for him then. But will it be enough?'
That question seemed settled an hour later when we took Captain Kharald aside and put our proposal to him. When he learned of where we truly hoped to journey, he looked aghast and said, 'The Island of the Swans, you say? Why would you want to go there? It's cursed.'
'Cursed how?' I asked him.
'No one knows for certain. But it's said there are dragons there. No one ever sails to that place.'
I told him that we must reach this island, and soon. I told him about the vows we had made in King Kiritan's palace and our hopes of regaining the Lightstone.
'The Lightstone, the Lightstone,' Captain Kharald sighed out. 'I've heard talk of little else in all the ports from Ivalo to the Elyssu. But surely your golden cup no longer exists. It must have been melted down into coinage or jewelry long ago.'
'Melted, ha!' Kane called out. 'Can the sun itself be melted? The Lightstone is no ordinary gold.'
'Perhaps it's not,' Captain Kharald said reasonably. 'But I've only ever known gold of one kind.'
Here he smiled significantly at Atara as if he could see beneath her cloak.
Understanding only too well the meaning of this avaricious look, she brought out her purse and handed it to him.
'Aha, you do have gold, don't you?' he said. He took Atara's purse in one hand and weighed it carefully while he stroked his red beard with the other. Then he opened it, and his green eyes lit up like emeralds as he looked inside. 'Beautiful, beautiful – but where is the rest of it, then?'
Atara cast me a quick, sharp look, then said, 'That's all we have.'
'Well, if that's all you have, that's all you have,' he said as if consoling a poor widow who has to live on a meager inheritance. 'But the Island of the Swans lies more than three hundred miles from Ivalo. Across the Dragon Channel at that.'
'That's all the money we have,' Atara said again.
'I believe you,' he said. 'But gold's gold, and not all of it is pressed into coins.'
Here he pointed at the gold medallion that King Kiritan had slipped around Atara's neck. His eyes fixed on this brilliant sunburst and the golden cup standing out in relief at its center. Then he looked at Kane and Liljana and all the rest of us as well.
'Do you expect us to give you these?' she said, touching her medal-lion.
'My dear young woman, I expect nothing,' he said. 'But it is a very long way to this island you seek.'
Now Atara's fingers were twitching as if at any moment she might reach for her sword. I had never seen her so angry. 'The King gave us these with his blessing, that we might be known and honored in all lands.'
'A great man, is King Kiritan,' Captain Kharald said. 'And you are honored gready.
Who could bring more honor upon themselves than they who were willing to give the gold that all men desire for that finer metal of the Lightstone which so few have the courage to seek?'
His clever words shamed us, and we all looked at each other in silent understanding of what we would have to pay for our passage to the Island of the Swans.
'Very well,' I said, touching the words written around my medallion's rim. 'If that is what it takes.'
'Oh, I'm afraid it would take much more than that to cross the Dragon Channel,' he told us. 'That is a dangerous water. There are bad currents, many storms. And it's grown more dangerous of late, now that Hesperu has sent its ships to blockade Surra pa m's ports.'
He spoke sadly about the war that had riven his homeland; he gave us to understand that he had lost a great fortune in fleeing his warehouses and ships to re-establish himself in Ivalo.
'So you see, this is a time for prudence,' he said. 'And prudence demands that great risks be undertaken only at the prospect of great gain.'
1 nodded at the purse he still clutched in his hand. I said, 'The coins you may have.
Our medallions as well. What more do you ask of us?'
'My good Prince,' he said, 'I ask nothing. At least nothing more than fair compensation for such dreadful risks.'
Now his gaze fell upon the ring that my father had given me. Its two diamonds sparkled brilliantly in the morning light.
'You want me to give you this?' I said, holding up my knight's ring. Would I give up my hand to gain the Lightstone? Would I give up my arm?
'Well,' he told me, 'diamonds are dearer than gold.'
Now it was my turn to be angry. I shook my ring at him as I said, 'Am I a diamond-seller, then?'
