"Brother Wood, we'll be entering Enmat Harbor soon." A young man with short brown hair and a pirate's headscarf pointed toward a brightly lit, remarkably modern dock in the distance as he spoke to the bald ascetic beside him.
They stood at the edge of a three-masted sailing ship's deck, and the route into port was busy. The young man's voice was nearly drowned out by the rolling waves and the whistles sounding all around them.
The bald ascetic had sharp ears, though. He studied the harbor for a while in the glare of its lights and the crimson glow of the night sky, then nodded. "Enmat Harbor deserves its reputation as the largest port in northern Loen... It's certainly much more prosperous than those cities in Intis.
"At least ships can enter at night."
"So, Brother Wood, do you think I'll find... well, as you put it, an 'opportunity' in Enmat Harbor?" The young man smiled wistfully.
Wood had coined the word "opportunity" by cobbling together two Loen words. The first thing the ascetic had said when the captain and old Kerton rescued him from that deserted island and brought him aboard was, "The opportunity has arrived."
The bald ascetic murmured a name the young man could not understand but had long since grown used to hearing. Then he said thoughtfully, "Wim, when you last came to me for a 'divination,' you told me you were born at eight in the morning on November 14, 1326?"
"That's right!" Wim nodded eagerly.
"And today is July 12, 1353. You're not yet twenty-seven..." Without counting on his fingers, the bald ascetic calculated Wim's birth-date number in his head:
"Four plus one equals five."
In mystical Numerology, the single digit obtained by adding the digits of one's birth date was called the