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Veltanup his little sloop after Gunda had left, squaring away the sail, coiling ropes, and generally h to bore any curious onlookers, and then he went up to the bow and ducked down out of sight He reached back over his shoulder and took a gold brick out of nowhere He set it at the very bow Then he took another brick and put it behind the first one When there were ten of them, he stood up and covered them with a bit of canvas If his calculations were correct, he had roughly the equivalent of five thousand Trogite gold crowns to get Narasan’s attention, and if Narasan wanted to seehim to the Land of Dhrall should be fairly easy

Narasan had discarded his beggar’s rags, and he looked quite i black leather unifor a sheathed sword belted at his waist, and the heavy-looking handle suggested that the sas for business, not for show "Where in the world did you get that tub, Veltan?" he de at Veltan’s sloop with a certain disdain

Veltan shrugged "I bought her from a fisherman I needed a boat She doesn’t look like much, but she sails well"

"Is that a Dhrallish boat?"

Veltan shook his head "It’s a Trogite fishing sloop Dhralls don’t build sloops, and I didn’t feel up to paddling a Dhrall canoe all the way here I have so I’d like to show you, and then we’ll need to talk"

"All right," Narasan agreed "See if you can hold your sloop steady I don’t swierly climbed down the ladder that was attached to the pier, while Veltan snugged his sloop up against the ladder with a long-handled hook Narasan aardly dropped the last few feet into the sloop "What was it you wantedthat canvas out of the way"

Narasan went forward and turned the canvas back "Well, well, well," he said, staring at the gold bricks, "aren’t they pretty"

"I thought you h"

"I know I didn’t really want to sink ht Let’s just call it a deold’s back in Dhrall These should give you soht of the standard block"

Narasan hefted one of the bricks "Heavy," he noted "How can you buy anything with so this bulky?"

"We don’t use them for money, Commander" Veltan res, bracelets, door handles, and the likeNow, then, we’ll need to move at least part of your army to Dhrall immediately We’ve discovered that the enemy forces will attack very soon We have other soldiers that are already in place, but you’ll probably have to reinforce the an army off to the west, and she’s sent a part of that arht not reach Dhrall in time"