regretted wrecks, and mast all studded over with golden nails that he had
rent in anger out of beautiful galleons. And the glory of the sun was
among the surges as they brought driftwood out of isles of spice, tossing
their golden heads. And the grey currents crept away to the south like
companionless serpents that love something afar with a restless, deadly
love. And the whole plain of water glittering with late sunlight, and the
surges and the currents and the white sails of ships were all together
like the face of a strange new god that has looked at a man for the first
time in the eyes at the moment of his death; and Athelvok, looking on the
wonderful Sea, knew why it was that the dead never return, for there is
something that the dead feel and know, and the living would never
understand even though the dead should come and speak to them about it.
And there was the Sea smiling at him, glad with the glory of the sun. And
there was a haven there for homing ships, and a sunlit city stood upon its
marge, and people walked about the streets of it clad in the unimagined
merchandise of far sea-bordering lands.

An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to the shore
of the Sea.

For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that there had
come something into his soul that no one in the Inner Lands could
understand, where the thoughts of their minds had gone no farther than the
three little kingdoms. Then, looking long upon the wandering ships, and
the marvelous merchandise from alien lands, and the unknown colour that
wreathed the brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and the
Inner Lands.

At that moment the Sea sang a dirge at sunset for all the harm that he had
done in anger and all the ruin wrought on adventurous ships; and there