Though Aldo had studied numerous Saedran treatises on mathematics and mechanics, he could not fathom the reason for half of
the gears and curves and angular measuring levers. He understood the Saedran notations marked on each gauge, but they didn’t
make sense
to him. He traced with his finger, imagined how the pieces fit together, which component did what.
With a start, he realized that the mechanism had many extraneous and needlessly complicated pieces—intentionally so. The added
components served no purpose, except to confound anyone else who might try to copy the design. Now it all made sense: merely
another way for the Saedrans to maintain their secrecy.
Aldo rolled the blueprints again and huddled under a blanket that Destrar Sazar had given him. Listening to the slow lap of
the river, Aldo fell into a contented sleep.
Three days later, the riverboat made its way into the highlands, fighting through narrower channels and swifter waters. They
arrived at the outskirts of Corag Reach. The barge had stopped at river villages along the way, unloading cargo, dispatching
passengers, taking on new items. An hour after daybreak, the barge pulled up to a wide wooden wharf that ran along the bank.
Nine people stood waiting with their packs for passage back downstream to Calay.
Aldo rubbed his eyes and stretched. He looked past the landing to the stark and towering mountains beyond, a wilderness of
black and white and gray, crowded crags that looked impassible.
“This is as far as the river can take you, lad,” Sazar said. With a thick finger, he pointed past the landing to a dirt path
that wound through grassy meadows and up into the forbidding peaks. “From here on, you are on foot.”
Thanking the riverman, Aldo shouldered his pack and stepped onto the wharf. Nobody else disembarked from the barge, so he
would have no walking companions. Setting his feet upon the narrow path, he trudged away from the boat and the river.
Once past the fringes of Soeland, the
Luminara
sailed along without seeing any sign of land. Criston, with his sharp eyes, took many shifts up in the lookout nest, gazing
at the endless water in all directions, clouds scudding through the vast open sky overhead. For more than two weeks, the sea
remained unbroken and unending.
Criston couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a bird. This ship had voyaged much farther than any Tierran had ever sailed,
and he could not imagine how much more distance they had yet to cover. Captain Shay anticipated a journey of one full year,
and they had been gone from Calay barely a month.
All alone atop the mainmast, Criston had hours to let his thoughts wander, with Adrea prominent in his heart and mind. He
wondered what she was doing now, whether she was thinking of him, how she and Ciarlo were managing without him. If he continued
to think like that, he knew he would drive himself mad, so he concentrated on the waves, keeping watch… until his thoughts
drifted back to Adrea again.
Other times, Criston helped Captain Shay with his experiments. An amateur naturalist, the captain kept dozens of potted plants,
herbs, and flowers that grew in baskets rocking back and forth as the ship swayed in heavy seas. Every day, the captain gave
orders for the men to cast nets overboard and bring up the haul, dumping a variety of unusual fish onto the deck. Like a child
playing a game of marbles, Shay would bend over the creatures, prodding with a toe or finger, sometimes using a stick if the
fish looked particularly fierce. He sketched any unusual specimen in intricate detail. Some of the smaller oddities he preserved
in jars; the rest of the catch he turned over to the cook, a portly man of few words named Orico, who added any fish that
looked and smelled edible to the stewpot. He dumped buckets of offal over the stern, and sharks began to trail the
Luminara,
looking for a free meal.
Once, when Criston helped empty the bucket of guts and scales, the sharks suddenly scattered. A green-scaled sea serpent rose
up, it’s head as large as a cargo crate, to snatch a mouthful of chum, then dove under; its sinuous form rolled and curled
in the wake for several long minutes until it finally vanished. The crewmen let out such a cry of alarm that Captain Shay
rushed onto the deck, disappointed to have missed the spectacle. He insisted that Criston describe the serpent as best he
could, then asked Sen Nikol na-Fenda to add more specific detail as he took notes for his journals.
Over the next two days, they sighted three more serpents, each with a distinctly different appearance. One red-and-copper
specimen had spiky fins and long whiskers about its fanged mouth like the barbs of a catfish. A blue-and-silver one had a
rounded, stubby head and a small vestigial dorsal fin, making the creature look like a very large earthworm. The third serpent
was black with gold spots and two large frontal fins that extended to the sides like wings as it reared out of the water.
All of them had blowholes, which they evacuated upon breaching the surface.
Though these monsters unsettled the crew, the sea serpents simply swam around the ship, more curious than ferocious. Captain
Shay, intrigued, offered a gold coin to the next man who saw a new species of sea serpent…
At sunset in calm seas, Criston assisted the captain inside his cabin. “Why are you so interested in drawing sea serpents?”
he asked.
“When we return, I intend to publish a book. On this voyage, we’ll see more wonders than we can possibly catalogue, but I
have it in my mind to develop a naturalist’s guide to sea monsters. If King Korastine launches more long voyages, such a book
could be of great practical use to other captains.”
“I never thought about that before.” Criston scratched his chin. “But I agree. I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for unusual
specimens.”
“Mr. Vora, you are possessed of a curiosity that I admire. Oh, the rest of my crew do their work and they do it well—I am,
after all, a well-respected captain.” His lips quirked in a smile. “But they don’t see a fundamental difference between this
voyage and any other long haul, except that their pay will be significantly higher when we get home.”
As he talked, the captain sketched a fierce-looking spiny fish that had startled even the cook when the net was dumped onto
the deck that afternoon. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I’m glad to have someone I can rely on. We’ve had smooth
sailing so far, but that won’t last.”
“We can trust our luck, sir.”
“I’d rather be pragmatic. In an emergency, I’ve got to know how my crew will react. You never know…” The captain put his quill
aside and stoppered the bottle of ink. “Ten years ago I faced a terrible storm when I was outbound from Erietta. The winds
whipped up just as the sun went down, and I watched the clouds charge in like stampeding horses. We tried to reef the sails
in time, but the blast hit us. We could only hold on and wait for the skies to clear. My Saedran chartsman was thrown overboard.
I lost twelve of my crew in that awful storm.”
His gaze was distant. “I swear to you, Mr. Vora—in that storm, through the bursts of lightning, sheeting rain, and explosions
of spray, I saw something. I
saw
something. A large bearded man in a boat like a chariot being drawn by two sea monsters. It was Holy Joron, I know it. I’ll
believe that to my dying day.”
The captain took a breath. “By the time the storm cleared, we’d been blown so far off course we had no way of knowing where
we were. In the distance I saw low clouds that must have been strange coastlines, uncharted islands… but our ship could barely
limp along. We had lost many of our supplies. We headed due east, hoping we’d eventually hit the Tierran coastline.
“I brought my men home, which is what a captain should do. But I’ve never stopped wondering what might have been on those
shores I glimpsed. Could it have been Terravitae? Were we so close to Holy Joron’s land that if I had just sailed a little
farther…” He shook his head.
“And that’s why you wanted to captain the
Luminara
? That’s why you were chosen?” Criston asked.
Captain Shay chuckled, embarrassed. “That—and for more pragmatic reasons. After our last little misadventure at Ouroussa,
King Korastine wanted me to leave Tierra. I don’t suppose it matters anymore, but before the signing of the Edict, he had
already made up his mind to send me away… to the edge of the world if necessary.”
The
Luminara
’s Aidenist priest, Prester Jerard, performed services each dawn, calling the men on deck and raising his voice in prayer
as the sun rose. Other than that, the prester had very few duties. Busy with their own chores, the sailors were polite and
respectful to him, but tended to avoid the religious man.
Prester Jerard was far friendlier, however, than the aloof Saedran chartsman who stared at the sea day after day. Whenever
he had the opportunity, Criston sat with the soft-spoken prester. The only thing the humble and unassuming man was vain about
(though Criston was sure he would deny it) was his long, flowing beard, which Jerard claimed not to have cut in more than
nine years.
Jerard was earnest about his faith, unlike the village priest in Windcatch, Prester Fennan, who merely read from the scriptures
and followed the service without any particular imagination or interest. Jerard, on the other hand, seemed genuinely enthusiastic
about his beliefs—not fanatical, but confident.
Like all presters, Jerard wore a simple fishhook pendant at his neck. To strike up a conversation, Criston asked him about
it, and the old prester happily recited the familiar story of the founding of the Aidenist church.
“Sapier was the grandson of Aiden, the founder of our church. Long after Aiden departed to become the Traveler, young Sapier
wanted to build his own ship and find his way home to Terravitae, so he could tell Holy Joron what had happened to his brothers,
Aiden and Urec. Sapier’s ship sailed for months, far beyond any charts, and the crew grew frightened. When they began to run
out of food and water, they mutinied and threw Sapier overboard, then sailed off, heading back home.
“Stranded in the water, Sapier had only a few pieces of discarded wood, a fishhook, and a line. He floated for days in the
great emptiness. He prayed for Ondun’s guidance, hoped for rescue, but a great sea serpent came for him. Instead of giving
up, Sapier threw out the fishhook, which caught on one of the monster’s scales. Stung, the sea serpent pulled Sapier along
at a furious pace.
“Astonished, he arrived back at Tierra even before his treacherous shipmates did, and when the cowardly sailors told the lie
that Aiden’s grandson had been eaten by a giant monster, Sapier came forward to confront them. Seeing him alive, the mutineers
were stricken and ashamed. Some of them threw themselves into the sea to drown, and others were driven out of Tierra.
“But during his long privation at sea, Sapier had a revelation that became the basis for the church of Aiden.” Jerard held
up the pendant. “Sapier said, ‘This fishhook and line are like my faith that pulls me through life and secures me to the truth.’
Thus the fishhook became the symbol of the church.”
Criston had heard the tale many times, but he was pleased to listen again, and Jerard certainly enjoyed telling it. “You’re
a good teacher,” Criston said.
Jerard seemed embarrassed. “I suppose the quality of my students speaks to the quality of my teaching. A long time ago, when
I was just a prester in a small kirk, I taught a very skilled young man named Baine.”
“You mean Prester-Marshall Baine?” Criston asked.
“Well, he wasn’t prester-marshall then, merely an acolyte. But he rose quickly in the church, and now he chose me for this
voyage.” Jerard spread his hands as the two of them looked out to sea. “If we do find ourselves facing Holy Joron and the
people of Terravitae, someone aboard had better be conversant with the Book of Aiden.”
Over the next few months back home in Windcatch, Adrea’s life settled into a new routine without her husband.
She had not imagined Criston’s absence would feel like such an emptiness. She wondered if this was like what an injured fisherman
experienced when he lost an arm but continued to feel ghost sensations from the missing limb. But she had promised that she
would be all right without him. Adrea had made him swear not to worry about her. With the money from the sale of the
Cindon,
she could run their household for more than a year.
Now, though, everything had changed… and she couldn’t even tell him the news herself.
Instead, she had to rely on her family. As she helped Criston’s mother, Telha, cut up vegetables and slice strips of dried
seaweed from the last year’s harvest, she smiled to herself, drew a breath, and announced, “I have news, Mother Telha. Exciting
news. I waited until I was sure.”
Telha raised one eyebrow, as was her disconcerting habit. “News?” She continued to wash green mussels and throw them into
a boiling pot of salted water, while Adrea added the vegetables. “Is it the news I’ve suspected for days?”
“How did you know?”
“I’ve seen a difference about you. I can tell.”
“What news?” Ciarlo sat surrounded by ropes and cords, the tools of his trade.
“Criston and I are going to have a child.”
“That’s wonderful,” Ciarlo said, then muttered, “But he picked a fine time to go away.”
Telha drew a deep breath. “You’ll have all the help you need here. Ever since my Cindon was lost at sea, I’ve been looking
forward to grandchildren.”
Ciarlo grunted as he shifted his stiff leg to a different position, then pulled a large ball of string from the basket beside
his wooden chair. He made his living repairing nets for the town’s fishermen. Though he could walk only with great difficulty,
Ciarlo’s fingers were nimble, and he knew a thousand different types of knots. His hands were always busy. Even when he had
no net to work on, he used short scraps of string and thick threads, tying them together in intricate spiderweb sculptures.
Virtually every home in Windcatch had one of Ciarlo’s sculptures hanging from the rafters inside.