The Farthest Shore (Earthsea Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin [Guin, Ursula K. Le]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-11T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

THE CHILDREN OF THE OPEN SEA

TOWARD THE MIDDLE OF THAT day Sparrowhawk stirred and asked for water. When he had drunk he asked, “Where are we heading?” For the sail was taut above him, and the boat dipped like a swallow on the long swells.

“West, or north by west.”

“I’m cold,” Sparrowhawk said. The sun blazed down, filling the boat with heat.

Arren said nothing.

“Try to hold west. Wellogy, west of Obehol. Land there. We need water.”

The boy looked forward, over the empty sea.

“What’s the matter, Arren?”

He said nothing.

Sparrowhawk tried to sit up, and failing that, to reach his staff that lay by the gear-box; but it was out of his reach, and when he tried to speak again the words halted on his dry lips. The blood broke out anew under the soaked and crusted bandage, making a little spider’s thread of crimson on the dark skin of his chest. He drew breath sharply and closed his eyes.

Arren looked at him, but without feeling, and not for long. He went forward and resumed his crouching position in the prow, gazing forward. His mouth was very dry. The east wind that now blew steady over the open sea was as dry as a desert wind. There were only two or three pints of water left in their cask; these were, in Arren’s mind, for Sparrowhawk, not for himself; it never occurred to him to drink from that water. He had set out fishing lines, having learned since they left Lorbanery that raw fish fulfills both thirst and hunger; but there was never anything on the lines. It did not matter. The boat moved on over the desert of water. Over the boat, slowly, yet winning the race in the end by all the width of heaven, the sun moved also from east to west.

Once Arren thought he saw a blue height in the south that might have been land or cloud; the boat had been running somewhat north of west for hours. He did not try to tack and turn, but let her go on. The land might or might not be real; it did not matter. To him all the vast, fiery glory of wind and light and ocean was dim and false.

Darkness came, and light again, and dark, and light, like drumbeats on the tight-stretched canvas of the sky.

He trailed his hand in the water over the side of the boat. For an instant he saw that, vivid: his hand pale greenish beneath the living water. He bent and sucked the wet off his fingers. It was bitter, burning his lips painfully, but he did it again. Then he was sick, and crouched down vomiting, but only a little bile burned his throat. There was no more water to give Sparrowhawk, and he was afraid to go near him. He lay down, shivering despite the heat. It was all silent, dry, and bright: terribly bright. He hid his eyes from the light.

THEY STOOD IN THE BOAT, three of them, stalk-thin and angular, great-eyed, like strange dark herons or cranes.

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