Sabin felt the rampaging buck of the surf toss the dory a swell. The alternative terrified her, that her cousin had ri~ drowned, and that this stranger who lured the people laughir their boats to follow his blindfolded quest was a sorcerer who c swim in iron chains. They might rescue Juard, or else join leaving more bereaved families to weep and to curse at the s

Sabin rubbed the stinging cheek her uncle had smacked whe found her, and smacked again when she told what the Wayfi had said of her lost cousin. While the wind shifted fitf slapping sails and stays in contrary gusts, and moonlight silv the wavelets, she braced against the windward rail, away fron men by the binnacle. Their talk grew ever more sullen as Juard's was uneasily discussed, and shoreline and lights shrank aster

    'Nothing lives on the Barraken Rock but fishing birds that d seawater!' cried Tebald over the wear of patched canvas. Yo and a friend of Juard's, his jutted chin and narrowed eyes ' wasted.

    Blind behind swathes of black rag, the Wayfinder stood se before aggression, his thin hands draped on the tiller as if the ~a underneath were alive.

    Darru argued further. 'Without a fresh spring, a castaway w perish.'

    'It has rained twice in the past week,' the stranger rebu 'Oilskins can be rigged to trap water, and the seabirds are plen enough to snare.' Ciondo's spare smock flapped off his shoul like an ill-fitting sail, the cuffs tied back to keep from troublin. sores. The linen bindings covering his wrists emphasized promi bones; a man so gaunt should not have been able to stand up less command the muscle to mind the helm. But Sabin coul~ from where she stood that the sloop held flawless course. wake carved an arrow's track astern.

    Ciondo glowered and said nothing, but his hand strayed ~ to the rigging knife at his belt.

'We should put about and sail back,' Tebald said.

    Darru was more adamant. 'We should let you swim b stranger, for your lies.'

    The Wayfinder answered in the absent way of a man w thoughts are interrupted. 'If I prove wrong, you may kill me

26