The rafts had masts, though the mast of the one they were on was not stepped. On these, sails could be run up, small compared to the breadth of the raft. The sails were of a brown material, not canvas or linen, but a fibrous stuff that looked not woven but beaten together, as felt is made. A raft some quarter mile away let the brown sail down from the crosstree by ropes and slowly worked its way, gaffing and poling off the other rafts between, till it came alongside the one Arren was on. When there was only three feet of water between, the man beside Arren got up and nonchalantly hopped across. Arren did the same and landed awkwardly on all fours; there was no spring left in his knees. He picked himself up and found the little man looking at him, not with amusement, but with approvaclass="underline" Arren's composure had evidently won his respect.
This raft was larger and higher out of the water than any other, made of logs forty feet in length and four or five feet wide, blackened and smooth with use and weather. Strangely carven statues of wood stood about the several shelters or enclosures on it, and tall poles bearing tufts of sea birds' feathers stood at the four corners. His guide took him to the smallest of the shelters, and there he saw Sparrowhawk lying asleep.
Arren sat down inside the shelter. His guide went back to the other raft, and nobody bothered him. After an hour or so a woman brought him food: a kind of cold fish stew with bits of some transparent green stuff in it, salty but good; and a small cup of water, stale, tasting pitchy from the caulking of the barrel. He saw by the way she gave him the water that it was a treasure that she gave him, a thing to be honored. He drank it respectfully and asked for no more, though he could have drunk ten times the cupful.
Sparrowhawk's shoulder had been skillfully bandaged; he slept deeply and easily. When he woke up, his eyes were clear. He looked at Arren and smiled the sweet, joyous smile that was always startling on his hard face. Arren felt suddenly like weeping again. He put his hand on Sparrowhawk's hand and said nothing.
One of the raft-folk approached and squatted down in the shade of the large shelter nearby: a kind of temple, it appeared to be, with a square design of great complexity above the doorway, and the doorjambs made of logs carved in the shape of grey whales sounding. This man was short and thin like the others, boy-like in frame, but his face was strong-featured and weathered by the years. He wore nothing but a loincloth, but dignity clothed him amply. He must sleep, he said, and Arren left Sparrowhawk and came to him.
You are the chief of this folk, Arren said, knowing a prince when he saw one.
I am, the man said, with a short nod. Arren stood before him, erect and unmoving. Presently the man's dark eyes met his briefly: You are a chief also, he observed.
I am, Arren answered. He would have liked very much to know how the raftman knew it, but remained impassive. But I serve my lord, there.
The chief of the raft-folk said something Arren did not understand at alclass="underline" certain words changed out of recognition or names he did not know; then he said, Why came you into Balatran?
Seeking-
But Arren did not know how much to say, nor indeed what to say. All that had happened, and the matter of their quest, seemed very long ago and was confused in his mind. At last he said, We came to Obehol. They attacked us when we came to land. My lord was hurt.
And you?
I was not hurt, Arren said, and the cold self-possession he had learnt in his courtly childhood served him well. But there was there was something like a madness. One who was with us drowned himself. There was a fear- He stopped, and stood silent.
The chief watched him with black, opaque eyes. At last he said, You come by chance here, then.
Yes. Are we still in the South Reach?
Reach? No. The islands- The chief moved his slender, black hand in an arc, no more than a quarter of the compass, north to east. The islands are there, he said. All the islands. Then showing all the evening sea before them, from north through west to south, he said, The sea.
What land are you from, lord?
No land. We are the Children of the Open Sea.
Arren looked at his keen face. He looked about him at the great raft with its temple and its tall idols, each carved from a single tree, great god-figures mixed of dolphin, fish, man, and sea bird; at the people busy at their work, weaving, carving, fishing, cooking on raised platforms, tending babies; at the other rafts, seventy at least, scattered out over the water in a great circle perhaps a mile across. It was a town: smoke rising in thin wisps from distant houses, the voices of children high on the wind. It was a town, and under its floors was the abyss.
Do you never come to land? the boy asked in a low voice.
Once each year. We go to the Long Dune. We cut wood there and refit the rafts. That is in autumn, and after that we follow the gray whales north. In winter we go apart, each raft alone. In the spring we come to Balatran and meet. There is going from raft to raft then, there are marriages, and the Long Dance is held. These are the Roads of Balatran; from here the great current bears south. In summer we drift south upon the great current until we see the Great Ones, the grey whales, turning northward. Then we follow them, returning at last to the beaches of Emah on the Long Dune, for a little while.
This is most wonderful, my lord, said Arren. Never did I hear of such a people as yours. My home is very far from here. Yet there too, in the island of Enlad, we dance the Long Dance on midsummer eve.
You stamp the earth down and make it safe, the chief said dryly. We dance on the deep sea.
After a time he asked, How is he called, your lord?
Sparrowhawk, Arren said. The chief repeated the syllables, but they clearly had no meaning for him. And that more than any other thing made Arren understand that the tale was true, that these people lived on the sea year in, year out, on the open sea past any land or scent of land, beyond the flight of the land birds, outside the knowledge of men.
There was death in him, the chief said. He must sleep. You go back to Star's raft; I will send for you. He stood up. Though perfectly sure of himself, he was apparently not quite sure what Arren was; whether he should treat him as an equal or as a boy. Arren preferred the latter, in this situation, and accepted his dismissal, but then faced a problem of his own. The rafts had drifted apart again, and a hundred yards of satiny water rippled between the two.
The chief of the Children of the Open Sea spoke to him once more, briefly. Swim, he said.
Arren let himself gingerly into the water. Its cool was pleasant on his sun-baked skin. He swam across and hauled himself out on the other raft, to find a group of five or six children and young people watching him with undisguised interest. A very small girl said, You swim like a fish on a hook.
How should I swim? asked Arren, a little mortified, but polite; indeed he could not have been rude to a human being so very small. She looked like a polished mahogany statuette, fragile, exquisite. Like this! she cried, and dived like a seal into the dazzle and liquid roil of the waters. Only after a long time, and at an improbable distance, did he hear her shrill cry and see her black, sleek head above the surface.
Come on, said a boy who was probably Arren's age, though he looked not more than twelve in height and build: a grave-faced fellow, with a blue crab tattooed all across his back. He dived, and all dived, even the three-year-old; so Arren had to and did so, trying not to splash.
Like an eel, said the boy, coming up by his shoulder.
Like a dolphin, said a pretty girl with a pretty smile, and vanished in the depths.
Like me! squeaked the three-year-old, bobbing like a bottle.
So that evening until dark, and all the next long golden day and the days that followed, Arren swam and talked and worked with the young people of Star's raft. And of all the events of his voyage since that morning of the equinox when he and Sparrowhawk left Roke, this seemed to him in some way the strangest; for it had nothing to do with all that had gone before, in the voyage or in all his life; and even less to do with what was yet to come. At night, lying down to sleep among the others under the stars, he thought, It is as if I were dead, and this is an afterlife, here in the sunlight, beyond the edge of the world, among the sons and daughters of the sea