The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin Page A

strong grip was on his arm, and with that help he crawled up out of the cargo-hold and huddled on the deck.
    The Archmage strode away from him, and the misty splendor glowed on the unmoving faces of the oarsmen. He halted by the man who had crouched down by the port rail.
    “I do not punish,” said the hard, clear voice, cold as the cold magelight in the fog. “But in the cause of justice, Egre, I take this much upon myself: I bid your voice be dumb until the day you find a word worth speaking.”
    He came back to Arren and helped him to get to his feet. “Come on now, lad,” he said, and with his help Arren managed to hobble forward, and half-scramble, half-fall down into the boatthat rocked there below the ship’s side: Lookfar , her sail like a moth’s wing in the fog.
    In the same silence and dead calm the light died away, and the boat turned and slipped from the ship’s side. Almost at once the galley, the dim mast-lantern, the immobile oarsmen, the hulking black side, were gone. Arren thought he heard voices break out in cries, but the sound was thin and soon lost. A little longer, and the fog began to thin and tatter, blowing by in the dark. They came out under the stars, and silent as a moth Lookfar fled through the clear night over the sea.
    Sparrowhawk had covered Arren with blankets and given him water; he sat with his hand on the boy’s shoulder when Arren fell suddenly to weeping. Sparrowhawk said nothing, but there was a gentleness, a steadiness, in the touch of his hand. Comfort came slowly into Arren: warmth, the soft motion of the boat, heart’s ease.
    He looked up at his companion. No unearthly radiance clung to the dark face. He could barely see him against the stars.
    The boat fled on, charm-guided. Waves whispered as if in surprise along her sides.
    “Who is the man with the collar?”
    “Lie still. A sea-robber, Egre. He wears that collar to hide a scar where his throat was slit once. It seems his trade has sunk from piracy to slaving. But he took the bear’s cub this time.” There was a slight ring of satisfaction in the dry, quiet voice.
    “How did you find me?”
    “Wizardry, bribery. . . . I wasted time. I did not like to let it be known that the Archmage and Warden of Roke was ferreting about the slums of Hort Town. I wish still I could have kept up my disguise. But I had to track down this man and that man, and when at last I found that the slaver had sailed before daybreak, I lost my temper. I took Lookfar and spoke the wind into her sail in the dead calm of the day and glued the oars of every ship in that bay fast into the oarlocks—for a while. How they’ll explain that, if wizardry’s all lies and air, is their problem. But in my haste and anger I missed and overpassed Egre’s ship, which had gone east of south to miss the shoals. Ill done was all I did this day. There is no luck in Hort Town. . . . Well, I made a spell of finding at last, and so came on the ship in the darkness. Should you not sleep now?”
    “I’m all right. I feel much better.” A light fever had replaced Arren’s chill, and he did indeed feel well, his body languid but his mind racing lightly from one thing to another. “How soon did you wake up? What happened to Hare?”
    “I woke with daylight; and lucky I have a hard head; there’s a lump and a cut like a split cucumber behind my ear. I left Hare in the drug-sleep.”
    “I failed my guard—”
    “But not by falling asleep.”
    “No.” Arren hesitated. “It was—I was—”
    “You were ahead of me; I saw you,” Sparrowhawk said strangely.“And so they crept in and tapped us on the head like lambs at the shambles, took gold, good clothes, and the salable slave, and left. It was you they were after, lad. You’d fetch the price of a farm in Amrun Market.”
    “They didn’t tap me hard enough. I woke up. I did give them a run. I spilt their loot all over the street, too, before they cornered me.” Arren’s eyes glittered.
    “You