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presence for the first time. "Trade? Fer that?" He inclined his head toward
the cloak, and tangled white hair fell, obscuring his face. But Jaric thought
for a second that the clear old eyes showed a glaze of tears. He started to
move away.
"Well, then," said Mathieson Keldric gruffly. "Ye'll have to come to the
docks. MyCallinde's a lady, straight down to her keel, an' I'd not let her go
to a man who never set eyes on her. Fair?"
Jaric struggled to suppress the tremor which arose in his knees and traveled
the length of his spine. "Fair," he said softly.
An ugly murmur arose at his back, threaded through by the louder voice of the
trader and sibilant whispers of sorcery. Jaric heard; he realized old
Keldric's attachment to his boat was legend in Mearren Ard. The fact the man
had considered parting with her earned the boy nothing but suspicion from the
vil-lagers.
Forced to move before their muttering metamorphosed into threats, Jaric
extended his hand toward the old man. He spoke without urgency, his phrases
shaped with the courtesy learned at Morbrith's great hall. "Come, then, and
perhaps the lady will approve."
The voices grew louder. As the old man pushed himself to his feet, Jaric felt
the villagers' resentment rise against him, menacing as the rush of breakers
over rock. But Mathieson Keldric's lame old body could not be hurried. He
walked with painful, halting steps, steadied by Jaric's arm. Bystanders moved
grudgingly aside, leaving a wide berth as the pair made their way through the
door.
Jaric drew a deep breath of relief. The night was damp and chill after the
close heat of the tavern, braced by the tang of salt. But the cold calmed the
boy's nerves. He shortened stride to match old Keldric's limp, grateful for
the fog which smoth-ered the lane leading down to the harbor; murky weather at
least spared him the accusing observation of the villagers. Soon the last
cottage passed behind, lighted windows eclipsed by the black hulk of a
warehouse.
Surf boomed distantly off the barrier point and the air smelted sourly of
tide wrack and fish. Mathieson Keldric lifted a lantern from a hook on a
piling driven deep into the sand of the strand. He fumbled with crooked
fingers to manage the striker, but something about the resistant set of his
back warned Jaric not to offer help. Although Keldric was ruinously crippled,
he was not incapable; Jaric sensed that the boat he needed so desper-ately to
buy was inextricably interconnected with the old man's pride. To interfere
even in kindness would offend.
The spark spat against the dampened wick and hesitantly caught. Flame
quivered behind panes patterned with crystalline whorls of salt as Keldric
raised the lantern. The boy stepped behind the old man onto the wet planks of
the east dock. Mist rolled past, breaking like ghostly surf over his feet; it
seethed through the black teeth of the pilings, stringing droplets on Jaric's
hair and clothing. Keldric moved forward, silhouetted against the fuzzy globe
of lanternlight. Through the formless darkness ahead, Jaric saw the gleam of a
braided painter, then a high curving prow and the angled line of a headstay.
But the rank smell of decayed wood warned him, long before the an-tique shear
of the thwart stood exposed in the lanternlight;Callinde was ancient and
rotten, and nothing close to sea-worthy.
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Painfully aware the derelict hull was Keldric's sole treasure, a shrine
preserved in memory of the brighter days of youth, Jaric's first thought was
not for himself. For one stunned mo-ment he ignored the inhuman wrench of the
geas" directive and stared at the elder who waited at his side, gnarled
fingers gripping the ring of the lantern with an air of desperate
self-sacrifice.
"Why?" The boy searched for an answer in the clear pale eyes. "Why would you
give her up, after all these years?"
Mathieson Keldric shrugged. "You've the need in you." He glanced at his hands
and spat. "I can't so much as plane a timber any more, andCallinde looks
sloppy as a whore."
But Jaric knew there was more. Silently smothering an anger he could ill
afford to express, he waited to hear the rest.
Old Mathieson shrugged again, then glared defiantly at the young man's face.
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