“Ballast!” the swordsman yelped. “There must be ballast in the hold!”
Stanager was quick to disappoint him. “We carry base metals. Ingots of iron and copper that we can trade with the inhabitants of the towns on the other side of the Semordria. You’ll find no rock in the belly of the Grömsketter.”
“Well then, there must be at least one stone somewhere on this ship! Firestone in the galley, to protect her wooden walls.”
The Captain shook her head sadly. “Firebrick.”
“In someone’s sea chest, then. A memento of home, a worry stone, anything! If Ehomba says that he needs a stone, that means he needs—” Simna broke off, gaping at his tall friend.
Reaching into a pocket of his kilt, the herdsman had removed the small cotton sack of “beach pebbles” he had carried with him all the way from his home village. As Simna looked on, Ehomba selected the largest remaining, a flawless five-carat diamond of deeper blue hue than the surrounding sea, and shoved the remaining stones back in his pocket.
“No, long bruther.” The swordsman gestured frantically. “Not that. We’ll find you a rock. There’s got to be a rock somewhere on this barge; an ordinary, everyday, commonplace, worthless rock. Whatever it is you’re thinking of doing—don’t.”
The herdsman smiled apologetically at his friend. In his hand he held a stone worth more than the swordsman could hope to earn in a lifetime. In two lifetimes. And somehow, Simna knew his friend was not planning to convert it into ready currency.
“Sorry, my friend. There is no time.” Pivoting, he returned his gaze to the little boat, now starting to pick up speed beneath the press of the freed breeze its sail had captured. “Soon he will be out of range.”