Cob took them to the right of the Spire of Kor and Dion knew that the next part of the course was to travel straight on to the Great Shard. He saw it in the distance, hazy on the horizon, and realized there must be a fair margin of error in the route.

‘On the sail,’ Cob said. ‘We’ll make speed now.’

They were well into the Shards and Dion saw more rocks that would challenge the Great Shard for its name. They poked like the tips of spears above the water, more of them on the side of the mainland than could be seen in the direction of the isle of Coros. The path they followed was clear, though, and there was a wide swathe of unbroken water to their left and right.

Dion’s heart had been racing, but now he felt calm. Xanthians had been using this passage for generations. They would make it safely through and then with a wind like this it would be plain sailing the rest of the way.

‘Wildren!’ Cob suddenly called.

Dion glanced back at his companion but the old man didn’t seem alarmed, merely pointing at some distant rocks, flat-topped and slightly angular to the sun.

Squinting, Dion finally saw them, half a dozen large man-sized shapes with their upper bodies out of the water, sunning themselves and evidently presenting no danger.

‘Oh,’ Dion said. ‘Only some merfolk.’

He looked for their scaled tails but the water was breaking on the rocks and he couldn’t make out much more than the silver hair and bare torsos of both males and females.

‘We should still keep an eye on them.’

Dion continued to watch the distant merfolk as the boat sailed past, heading for the Great Shard. ‘Hard to think that once they were eldren, little different from you and me.’

‘Eldren are nothing like you and me.’

The merfolk continued to ignore them. Dion thought about the times he’d felt primal rage or animal hunger overwhelm every other emotion. Was that what it felt like for an eldran when it turned wild? He vowed to ask his mother when he returned to Xanthos. Unlike some others, she could always be relied upon to discuss the eldren and their strange abilities with calm and reason.

An axe blade of black rock jutted out of the water ahead, as tall as the tip of the sailboat’s mast. He had seen the Spire of Kor from a distance before, but he’d never seen the Great Shard. He couldn’t believe how huge it was.

‘Left or right of the Great Shard?’ Dion asked.

‘The direction is simply: “Right at the Spire of Kor to the Great Shard. Follow the Coros cliffs, then left of the Twins.”’

‘I suppose that if we turn in the direction of the cliffs of Coros we will be left of the Great Shard?’ Dion asked hopefully.