Explorer of the Endless Sea

by Jack Campbell

  “So people could settle here if they wanted?”

  “There’s no rule against it, and we do have empty homes.”

  Jules looked toward one wall, thinking of what they’d seen. “I’m going to be honest with you. There’s a small harbor here, and nothing special about the land outside the town that we can see. We’ve passed a number of places that look far better suited for towns and eventually cities. A lot of people will choose those places. But I’m sure some will want to come here.”

  “New people,” Terrance murmured. “How strange to think of such a thing. Have you noticed people staring at you? They’ve never seen new faces, except when a child is born.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Jules asked.

  “Not to sound rude, but it would be best if you left. Everyone in town is going to be worried that some Mechanic device will be reporting that your ship is here, and that we’re violating the rules.” Terrance spread his hands. “And, to be honest, there’s not much here you’d be interested in. We’re not set up for visitors.”

  “Do you have a bar?” Gord asked. “A tavern?” he added as Terrance shook his head. “An inn?”

  “We’re not set up for visitors,” Terrance repeated.

  “Do you have anything you’d want traded up north?” Jules asked. “Any goods you create?”

  Terrance considered the question, looking toward the picture of the odd castle as he thought. “We have some preserved fruits. We can spare a little, but not much. And there’s wood.” He touched his desk.

  Jules took her first good luck at the wood and inhaled in sudden surprise. “That’s beautiful. It has an amazing grain to it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Nor have I,” Keli said. “The trees it comes from must not grow in the lands around the Sea of Bakre.”

  “We have planks in a warehouse,” Terrance said. “In case they’re needed for repairs. We could part with some of those.”

  “Would you like to be paid for them?” Jules asked. “We have Imperial eagles,” she added, wondering how she’d estimate how much that wood would be worth.

  “Those are coins?” Terrance shook his head. “Why not sell it for what you can get, and bring back whatever goods you think we might want. I have no idea what you have and we don’t.”

  “Do you have weapons?” Gord asked.

  “In storage,” Terrance said, his eyes saddening. “We’re going to need them with more people coming this way, aren’t we?”

  “You might,” Jules said. “Are you going to tell everyone else I’m not a Mechanic?”

  “Not yet. Maybe once you’re gone.” Terrance smiled, looking around the office.

  For the first time, Jules did as well, seeing well-crafted furniture including cabinets for filing documents, walls of white plaster, and at the back a window giving a view of the outside. The office held the comforting feel of a place that had existed for a long time and would be here for a long time yet.

  “I’ve lived a long life,” Terrance said. “If the Mechanics do have devices that tell them you were here, and they wish to blame and punish someone, better it be me than someone younger. If the others don’t know you weren’t a Mechanic, they can sincerely be held blameless.”

  “You wouldn’t go very far in the Imperial bureaucracy with attitudes like that,” Jules said. “Thank you.”

  “You see? You pretend to be a Mechanic and then you say thank you again to a common!” Terrance laughed. “You really need to practice being unpleasant to your inferiors.”

  “I guess that’s a compliment,” Jules said. “We should get back to our ship so I can let everyone know we’re all right.”

  “I’ll have Kahya and Corda escort you back while I arrange for some families to contribute preserved fruit,” Terrance said. “Look after my town, will you?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Jules said.

  As they walked back to the ship through the nearly empty streets of Pacta Servanda, Jules found her spirits sagging.

  Keli noticed. “What’s eating at you?”

  Jules shrugged, looking ahead at Kahya and Corda, who were far enough in the lead that a low-voiced conversation probably wouldn’t be overheard. “I hate to admit to it, but I was proud of us having found these places. Of us being the ones who’d first seen them. But now I know that’s not so. The Mechanics have always known about these waters and these lands.”

  “That’s what’s bothering you?” Keli laughed. “And how many knew of all this before? Except for Mechanics, and maybe not many of them? Everywhere we’ve been west of Dor’s and south of the Sea of Bakre is new to every common person on this world, from the lowest beggar in the gutters of Landfall to the Emperor himself on his throne in Marandur. As far as they’re all concerned, you did discover all of this. Maybe you could say all you’d done is discover a secret the Mechanics had kept for a long, long time. But that is a mighty discovery in itself, and something to be proud of.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Jules said. “We did.”

  “Oh, nonsense. Tell her, Gord. We’d have never put a toe west of Dor’s if not for her, and we’d resolved to turn back short of that strait despite her, until she shamed us into following her all the way here.”

  “That’s what happened,” Gord agreed. “We found all of this because of you.”

  “I don’t like taking credit for things other people have done,” Jules said. “Or sole credit for things others helped me with.”

  Keli laughed again, the sound of amusement bouncing off the walls of the old, unused buildings they were passing. “At times I’ve wondered what would make that daughter of your line so special she could free the world,” he said. “But then you say something like that, and I think if this girl passes such things on to her daughters, perhaps that prophecy could be real.” He rubbed his chin, looking about again. “Speaking of that prophecy—”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Speaking of that prophecy,” Keli continued as if he hadn’t been cut off, “the people here have never seen a Mage. They don’t know what Mages are. Clearly, the Mages have no more idea this place exists than anyone else living around the Sea of Bakre. If someone had a special reason to avoid Mages, this could be a fine place for that person to stay a while.”

  Jules looked about as well, at the old buildings that put her in mind of Landfall where she’d grown up. “There’d be worse places. I guess every other place there is would be worse.”

  “The Empire doesn’t know it exists, either,” Gord said. “The Emperor’s hand could never find you.”

  “Others will learn about this town eventually,” Jules said. “But you two have made your point. I was already thinking that perhaps we should leave this town off the chart. These people may have a wall around their town, and the fear of the Mechanics Guild to keep others in check, but I’m still worried about the world suddenly showing up at their doorstep.”

  “As you say, that’ll happen sooner or later,” Keli said.

  “Then why not try to make it later?” Jules said. “For their sake as well as mine.”

  “I’d keep quiet about this town if asked,” Gord said. “If anybody else in the crew talks about the place, the rest of us could laugh and say they were making it up.”

  “Sailors telling stories that are a bit exaggerated and perhaps not entirely truthful?” Keli said. “I guess folks might believe that could happen.”

  * * *

  The longboat crew didn’t bother to hide their relief when Jules and the others returned, or their disappointment at learning that a port town could exist without bars, taverns, and inns.

  Once back on the ship, Jules asked Keli and Gord to tell the crew about the town while she spoke with Ang and Liv. “I’m thinking this is a sign of sorts,” she said when done. “That we should head back north from here.”

  “I agree,” Ang said. “If there is a chance at encountering a Mechanic ship, it would go ill for us if we were seen. They’ve kept all of this secr
et, and will want to keep it that way.”

  “Which would mean silencing us,” Liv said, “and destroying that chart. We should get it to Dor’s, as a start, and get copies made, and get it sent around to as many places as we can.”

  “We’ll sail in the morning, after Terrance of…of Pacta Servanda visits the ship.”

  * * *

  The former mayor of Pacta Servanda came out to the ship the next morning on one of the fishing boats hauling planks of wood. As the crew hoisted the wood aboard, Terrance stood on the deck of the Sun Queen, gazing around with delight. “So many new things. So many new people. It’s a little unnerving, but also wonderful.” He shook his head, smiling, then reached into a pocket to pull out a small, polished fragment of wood. “Here. Our carpenters thought you would want this. It’s a finished piece of the wood, showing how it looks when sanded and finished.”

  “That’s lovely!” Liv said, eyeing the wood with amazement. “Jules said it looked nice, but I had no idea.”

  “Will this help you get a good price for the wood?” Terrance said.

  “It will,” Jules said. “I’m going to store this in the ship’s money chest,” she told Liv and Ang. “And now, I think we owe our friend here a look at the world.”

  She led them into her cabin, where the chart already lay open upon the table.

  Terrance hunched over the chart for a long time, muttering to himself, sometimes shaking his head. Finally, he straightened with a sigh. “The world is much bigger than we knew. Pacta Servanda is certainly a very long ways from everywhere else people are found.”

  “There must have been a reason why the Mechanics put this town here,” Jules said. “So far from anywhere else.”

  “There must have been,” Terrance said. “I have no idea what that reason was, or if that reason still exists. The Mechanics left, after all.”

  “You never saw anything that might offer a clue?” Liv said.

  Terrance hesitated, his eyes looking into the past. “Once…I was a little boy. I heard a sound in the sky. I was about to look up when my father told me not to. Never look at the sky when you hear that noise, he said. The Mechanics forbid it. My father said he’d only heard the sound a few times, and never in the last several years before that moment.”

  “A noise in the sky?” Jules said.

  “Yes. Nothing like anything natural would make. You know, not like an animal or a bird.” Terrance paused again. “I can’t remember any details of that sound after all these years, but I do remember something odd. Have you heard Mechanic devices as they work? They always sound…rhythmic. Is that the right word? As if many things are moving together in the right way. But that noise in the sky, it made me think of an animal gasping for breath. It didn’t sound like an animal gasping for breath, but there were hesitations and…I don’t know how to describe it anymore. It sounded like whatever was making it was hurt somehow. Or old and straining with effort. That was just how a boy felt hearing it. And I’ve never heard such a sound again.”

  “I’ve heard loud noises bounce off of low clouds,” Liv said. “Maybe that’s what it was.”

  Jules didn’t say anything, her eyes on the chart but her mind elsewhere. Remembering the Mechanics at Western Port saying something about a flight, and there not having been any in decades. And remembering Mak suggesting that over time the Mechanics Guild would weaken, that its jealous control of Mechanic devices would cause them to lose important knowledge, and that the Mechanic devices would gradually wear out and be lost. Maybe what Terrance had heard had been such a thing. And maybe when it was lost, the Mechanics had left here.

  But even if that was true, had it been the only reason why this town was so far from other places? That implied not just secrecy but security. And that inexplicable wall about the town. Perhaps even now it protected some important Mechanic secrets?

  There was no way to know.

  Terrance was moving one finger down farther south on the chart, beyond Pacta Servanda. “I see you have nothing drawn in here south of our town. We rarely speak of this lest it somehow get back to Mechanics, but about twenty years ago a few daring souls took one of our boats a little beyond the horizon to, um, search for new fishing grounds along the coast. They said the coast ran fairly smoothly for a long ways before turning west abruptly. Just beyond that turn a mighty river met the sea. Worried that the further they went the more likely the Mechanics would learn of it, they turned back at the river. That’s the extent of what we know of the world beyond our town, and, as I said, you didn’t hear any of it from me or anyone else in this place.”

  “You must have been a good politician,” Liv said.

  “I hope that’s a compliment.” He looked around the cabin, smiling. “Part of me wants to come with you. To see places I’ve only dreamed of, and places I didn’t dream of because I couldn’t imagine they existed. But that might doom those in this town. So I’ll stay.”

  “You’re a fine man,” Jules said. “One last question. The name of your town is unusual. Does it mean something?”

  “I assume the Mechanics named it,” Terrance said. “We didn’t realize the name was in any way unusual because it was the only name of a town that we knew. As to what it means, your guess is as good as mine. You don’t know the words pacta or servanda?”

  “Never heard them,” Liv said. “They must be Mechanic words.”

  “We’ll be back,” Jules promised Terrance as he prepared to climb down into one of the fishing boats.

  The morning wasn’t far along when the Sun Queen stood out of the small harbor and sailed north on a beam reach.

  The voyage back felt unexpectedly tense, everyone now alert for any sight of a Mechanic ship or one of the low-lying clouds that might mark the presence of one just beneath the horizon. “There hadn’t been a Mechanic in that town for thirty years,” Keli reminded Jules. “The Mechanics obviously aren’t making regular trips through these waters.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t have a device that would’ve let them know we were there,” Jules said.

  They’d passed the big river joining the sea, heading north-northwest toward the future site of Julesport and looking forward to the waters changing to mark their passage into the Jules Sea, when a storm came charging out of the west as if the ocean was angered at their leaving.

  Massive waves rolling in from the west and high winds tried to drive them onto the shore, every bit of their skills needed to avoid that fate as sails ripped and rigging parted. Sails reefed to minimize strain on the masts, the crew exhausted from frequent calls to adjust the sheets, they finally clawed their way north far enough to escape the brunt of the storm.

  “We’re in the lee of something!” Ang called to Jules over the still-driving rain as they stood on the quarterdeck in soaked clothing. “Something’s helping to block the storm.”

  “Maybe those were mountains we saw to the west. Large islands, something like that,” Jules called back, grabbing the rail to steady herself as the Sun Queen corkscrewed over a swell. She blinked away rain, looking to the east. “We couldn’t have stayed off the coast much longer with that storm trying to push us onto it. We’ll put into Julesport when we get there to repair the rigging and sails, and get some fresh water.”

  That stop cost them another two days, but at the end of that time, with the weather turning placid again, the Sun Queen turned north-northeast toward the Strait of Gulls. As they passed south of Cape Astra, Jules went up in the rigging to gaze to the north, thinking of Mak, happy to know that she’d fulfilled his dream. Part of that dream, anyway.

  The weather closed in again as they headed northeast through the strait, but this time they knew what to expect. Rounding the coast at the mouth of the strait, the ship headed east for Dor’s, everyone looking forward to being in familiar waters again and relieved that they hadn’t encountered any Mechanic ships before reentering the Sea of Bakre.

  “We’re back in the Sea of Bakre,” Liv said to Jules. “I never expected to say th
at, because I never expected to leave it.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jules said, leaning on the railing and raising her face to the sun as it broke through the clouds. “Two more days to Dor’s, do you think?”

  “That’s just a guess. That rotten weather made it hard to spot landmarks on our way west, or get a good feel for the distance we covered each day.”

  It turned out to be a good two and half days more, the sun setting as they neared the valley opening onto the sea. Since Dor’s still lacked the lighthouses and buoys that Imperial ports maintained to ensure safe navigation, Jules decided to wait until morning to enter port rather than risk trying to reach Dor’s piers in the dark.

  The sun rose the next morning through a rosy sky that the crew eyed with concern. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning, the old saying went. With storm clouds threatening to the north and east, the Sun Queen sailed back into the harbor at Dor’s.

  As they tied up, other sailors on the pier called up to the crew. “Where’d you come from? Kelsi’s? Jacksport?”

  “We came from Julesport,” Liv called down at them. “Buy me a drink tonight and I’ll tell you all about it!”

  Dor himself showed up soon, walking aboard as the final lines were tied off and the boarding plank set on the pier. “It’s always good to see the Sun Queen. What’ve you got for us?”

  “Not much,” Jules said. “Some exotic wood that’ll probably be worth its weight in gold when Imperial princes get a look at it.”

  “Exotic wood? Where’d you find that? Western Port? I’m glad you gave up that crazy idea of sailing west,” Dor said. “I’ve been worried since you left.”

  “Yeah,” Jules said. “About that. Come to my cabin so I can show you where we found the wood.”

  She had Ang and Liv lay out the chart on the table, standing behind it while Dor looked at it with first a casual glance and then growing amazement.

  He finally looked up at her again, followed by searching looks at Ang and Liv. “Are you saying you went west and found this? You’ve actually laid eyes on everything on this chart?”