'Excuse me if I insulted you,' Captain Kharald said as he held out his hands. 'I don't like to argue.'
I took ten deep breaths as I died to quiet the drumming of my heart. And then I said,
'All right, if it's diamonds you want then you may have these two. But not the ring itself, do you understand?'
'Very well,' he said in a voice as cool as the sea. 'But you must understand that I could never risk my ship for even two such splendid diamonds as these.'
'How many would it take then?' I asked, clenching my teeth. If I had been wearing the diamond armor of a Valari warrior, I might have given him a whole fistful of diamonds – across the face.
'How many do you have?' he asked me.
'Only these two,' I said, nodding at my ring.
'Two only?' he said, shaking his head. 'And you a prince of Mesh?'
'In Mesh,' I told him, 'we set our diamonds into armor and such rings as you see.
But we would never carry any outside our land.'
'Well, I've no liking to call any man a liar,' he said as he pulled on his red mustache.
'Neither do I like to haggle.'
I looked at Kane and the others, then told him, 'All that we have to give you for our passage, we have offered.'
Now Captain Kharald cocked his head as he looked at Atara's golden torque then turned to regard the rings that encircled each of Maram's fingers.
'You want my rings, too?' Maram said.
'Perhaps not,' Captain Kharald said, shaking his head again. 'Perhaps this journey of yours is just too dangerous. You must understand.'
At the coldness of his voice, Kane finally lost his patience. As quick as a flash, he whipped out his sword and held it refecting the sun.
'So, I don't like to haggle either,' Kane said. 'We've offered you more than fair. Do you understand.'
'Do you draw your sword,'Captain Kharald said in an icy voice, 'against a ship's captain?'
Just then, Jonald and ten other of Captain Kharald's men came running toward us with their cutlasses drawn. All of them, however, had seen Kane's sword work, and they held back forming a circle around us.
'No, not against you, Captain,' Kane said. 'I've no liking for mutiny, only exercise, eh?'
So saying, he slowly stretched his sword back behind him as if going through the first motion of the killing art that he had taught me. 'My men will never take you to the Island of the Swans without me,' Captain Kharald said. 'If you run me through, you gain nothing.'
'Nothing but satisfaction,' Kane growled at him,
'Kane!' I called out suddenly. I didn't like the look in his dark eyes just then.
Captain Kharald looked straight at Kane and said, 'You must do what you must. And I must do the same.'
Whatever Captain Kharaid's failings, I thought, lack of courage wasn't one of them. I stepped forward then, and bade Kane put away his sword. I watched with relief as Captain Kharaid's men sheathed theirs as well. To Captain Kharald, I said, 'You are certainly the captain of this ship -and the master of your own will as well. So long as the Red Dragon is kept at bay, you always will be.'
I went on to speak of the necessity of opposing Morjin so that he didn't make all men slaves. Recovering the Lightstone, I told him was the key to everything. I tried to find clever words to persuade him. Without consciously wielding the sword of valarda that Morjin had told of, I opened my heart to him. But it seemed that it wasn't enough.
'There are other ships in Ivalo.' he informed us coldly. 'Perhaps one of them will take you where you wish to go.' And with that he stormed off towards his cabin. After his men had gone back to their duties, Maram said, 'Well, he's right that we'll find other ships and captains in Ivalo, isn't he?'
'So, we will,' Kane muttered. 'Pirates and war galleys and other merchantmen less principled than he.'
'Principled?' I said, looking at Kane.
'Just, so,' he said. 'Captain Kharald has a keen sense of what he requires for our passage. He won't be swayed by any argument of threat.'
'Well,' Master Juwain observed, 'it's all very good to have principles, of course. But there are higher ones to live by.'
Maram nodded his head at thin. 'Perhaps we weren't prepared to give everything, then. Perhaps we should have offered him one of our gelstei.'
Kane nodded toward the inner pocket of Maram's red tunic where he usually secreted his firestone. And then he said, 'Ha, I suppose you're willing to be the first to give up yours?'
Beneath the heat of Kane's blistering gaze, Maram flushed with shame as he slowly shook his head.
'I can't believe,' Liljana said, 'that we gained the gelstei only to use them to buy passage on a ship.'
We all agreed. But none of us could think of a way to persuade Captain Kharald to take us to the Island of the Swans.
'What are we to do then?' Maram asked.
And Kane said, 'So, we'll wait. Tomorrow we'll reach Ivalo. And there we'll have to find another ship.'
But this prospect discouraged us all, for we had come to have a strange trust in Captain Kharald and the Snowy Owl. That night, after dinner, we sat on her deck looking out on the stars in a deep melancholy. The cool, groaning wind off the lapping waves carried murmurs of lamentation from distant comers of the world.
Even the waning moon seemed saddened to lose slivers of itself night after night.
Alphanderry, pulled by the great weight of this pale orb, took out his mandolet and began to sing. At first his words were of that impossible language it seemed no man could ever understand. There was a great pain in the sounds that poured from his throat but a great beauty, too. I had never heard him sing so well. Perhaps, I thought, his song had been made purer and clearer by listening to that of the whales. Even Flick seemed to apprehend this new quality of Alphanderry's music for he hovered just above him and flared up like a cluster of shooting stars with every note.
Captain Kharald's men gathered around us then to listen to Alphanderry play his mandolet. I knew that they had never heard anything like it before. Then Captain Kharald came out of his cabin and stood staring at Alphanderry as if seeing him for the first time.
After Alphandeny had finally finished his song, he looked up and realized that he had an audience. 'Hoy,' he said, 'I'm getting closer, I think. Maybe someday, maybe someday.'
'What was that song?' Jonald asked in a rough voice. 'I couldn't understand a word of it.'
'I'm not sure I could either,' Alphanderry said, laughing along with lonald and the other sailors.
'Well, do you know any songs we can understand?' Jonald asked.
'I don't know – what would you like to hear?'
It startled me when Captain Kharald suddenly stepped forward and said, 'What about The Pilot King? That's a good song for a night such as this.'
Alphanderry nodded his head agreeably and began tuning his mandolet. Then he smiled at Captain Kharald as he began to play:
A king there was in Thaluvale,
His name was Koru-Ki,
He built a silver ship to sail
The heavens' starry sea.
It was a sad song, full of wild longing and great deeds; it told of how King Koru-Ki, in the Age of Law, had sailed out from Thalu in search of the streaming lights of the Northern Passage, which was said to lead off the edge of the world up to the stars. It was a long song, too, and Alphanderry played for a long time. The moon was high in the sky by the time he finished.
'Thank you,' Captain Kharald told him politely. His men began drifting off, to their duties or beds. But he stood there a long while staring at Alphanderry strangely.
'Thank you, minstrel. If I had known you had such a voice, I wouldn't have let King Vakurun pay your passage.'
Then he, too, went off to bed and so did we.
