“Sometimes it is best to let go,” said Samos. He held up the net to display the gaping hole. “If Markand had let go, instead of holding on to this net, he might be alive today. As it was, he saved the net, but lost his life. Not the best of trades, I think.”

“My father is coming back,” said Jan, fighting to ignore the knot of anger in his stomach.

“Ten years is a long time to be gone,” replied the old man. Then he turned his attention back to the net. Jan stood in silence, gazing out at the sea once more. For a moment he thought he saw something. He blinked and shook his head, and it was gone.

No. There it was again.

The sun was halfway up the sky, and its fierce rays filled the water with flashes of gold and silver. Whatever Jan saw was blending with those flashes, barely distinguishable. He shaded his eyes, squinting for a better view.

A sail! He leaped to his feet, feeling a surge of hope and, at the same time, cursing himself for being fool enough to get excited by every sail that broke the horizon. It would be some time before he could see whether this one carried the family crest—a blue circle that held the image of a gull in flight, with a single star above it. Even if it didn’t, the ship might carry his father. After all, the sea had its own ways of returning things. At least, that was what his mother had always said.

As the minutes wore on, Jan was troubled to see that the sail was the wrong color. It was not simply that it was not white, as his father’s would have been. It was not any of the colors that were proper for a sail—not red, like the sails of the traders from the north, nor blue or green, like those from the south, nor even black, like those from the east.

At first Jan thought the sail was yellow. But it sparkled and shone in a way he had never seen before, and as it drew closer he took in a sharp breath.

The sail looked as if it was made of purest gold.

Could this be the ship his father had gone in search of? Could his father be on it, even now, sailing toward them?

Samos placed his hand on Jan’s shoulder. “That is no ordinary ship,” he whispered.

Jan trembled. The old man was blind. How did he know there was a ship at all?

They stood, waiting. The ship continued toward them, its sail flashing in the sun. Jan’s throat tightened. He could sense something powerful about the vessel, powerful and frightening. Something that was reaching out toward him.

“Samos, I’m frightened.”