Free The Luck of Brin's Five by Cherry; Wilder

outer room in an old blue sleeping bag that might have been one of our own weave, for we supplied the Ulgan with much of her furnishing. I went back into the inner room and fell asleep on the fine cushions.
    Suddenly I was wide awake; Harper Roy had gone. I felt a stab of alarm although the place was warm and beautiful; I was alone. Then I heard a murmur of voices and saw Diver, quite close, talking with the Ulgan. One of my family was there . . . I was safe. The Harper, I knew, had gone to fetch the others from the cave at Stone Brook; they would join the Ulgan’s barge outside the town at the river junction, according to the plans we had made. So I went back to sleep and half woke, once or twice, to hear Diver and Beeth Ulgan talking away, companionably, about stars and engines, like two ancients, yarning over their lace-looms at a spring fair.
    The two suns were shining and the sky was so clear that it seemed to stretch all the way to Rintoul. The cold ate into our bones as we crouched on the wharf; the weather was clear and cool as the Ulgan had predicted. We shivered in our cloaks and waited, behind a stack of wool bales: Diver and Dorn, alone. The wharf was not busy. We had just seen Petsalee, Leader of the twirlers, bundling his bedraggled flock into a shabby old bird-boat, all lime and old cages, for the journey downriver. The Pentroy officer was there and a couple of vassals to hustle the twirlers out of town. Now these vassals hung about, two hundred feet away, chewing bara seeds against the cold and spitting out the rinds.
    There was a step, and Gordo loomed up beside us. He spoke without looking down. “Barge coming. Be ready.”
    There was a churning of water and the Ulgan’s barge, a cheerful, flat-bottomed fool of a boat, painted in bright colors, swung slowly up to the wharf. Diver, struggling with his cloak, muttered, “Hope this works.”
    â€œHave no fear,” said Gordo. He stared at me boldly and said: “Are you strong enough, hill-child?”
    â€œStrong enough to break your magical head!” I snapped.
    Gordo and I picked up the prepared bale, which weighed as much as a tree trunk, and walked towards the barge. Far to my left I saw the vassals staring; I concentrated on my load. Then, just as I was sure they were coming to investigate, Beeth Ulgan in a gorgeous robe strolled onto the wharf with an entourage of town grandees. This party captured everyone’s attention, Gordo was on the low gangplank, so was I; the load was crushing me to death, but I breathed out hard and lasted until the clear deck space was reached. The wool bale lay at our feet, and the muscles of my legs were twitching with relief.
    Gordo grinned; he did not seem such a bad fellow. “Good luck!” he said. “See you at the Spring Fair.”
    I sat down on the deck, and he skipped back onto the wharf. He flicked up the gangplank and shoved it aboard. The barge heaver, a sturdy figure in a checked sailor’s hood, pushed off with the pole and went back to working the paddle wheel. Beeth Ulgan raised her staff in a gesture of farewell, and I managed to wave back politely, like her deckhand. The barge swung out onto the broad blue gray waters of the Troon and went slowly, easily, towards the south. I sat there feeling for the first time the sensation of floating on water in a boat. The water spread between the barge and the wharf; there was a sundering, a breaking of ordinary ties. The figures of the Pentroy vassals looked smaller already. Then, with a slight curve of the bank, the houses hid the wharf from view.
    The flap of the stern tent flew up, and I was embraced on all sides. There they were . . . Brin, Old Gwin, the Harper, Narneen dancing about like a mad thing. Diver crawled out of the wool bale. We stood all together on the deck and shouted with triumph. The Great Sun blazed in the east, and the Far Sun shone overhead; we were setting out on our journey under a clear