"You said you'd answer me!" She scrambled to her feet and trotted after him when he headed down the beach in the opposite direction to Kieran.
"I said you could ask, not that I'd answer," he called over his shoulder, sprinting away.
Talsy made a futile attempt to catch him, but was soon left panting far behind. As she stopped, Chanter sprang into the air and turned into gull that sailed high on the breeze. She watched him, thwarted yet uplifted by his freedom.
After regaining her breath, she slogged through the soft sand in search of survivors, staying close to the camp while Chanter and Kieran searched further afield. When the three returned to the ship's wreckage, they had found twenty-two chosen. Most were youngsters who had run fast and hidden in small places, but a few adults had survived, amongst them Sheera, to Talsy's delight. The old woman had crawled into a hole in the rocks by the camp and gone unnoticed.
As they sat around a fire and ate a meaty stew Sheera had prepared from her scattered supplies, Chanter considered the chosen.
"So, twenty-two it is. Pitiful few, but better than none."
"There may be more wandering around in the wilderness," Talsy pointed out.
"No, the Hashon Jahar will leave no one alive, including these if we don't flee now. The only reason these few remain is because the Riders were not so thorough in their search. They know that many more Hashon Jahar will pass this way, and they will kill any they find. Tomorrow I'll make the stone ship. We have no time for anything else. The chosen must gather provisions for the journey."
Talsy nodded, saddened by the thought of those who would be left behind to die.
In the morning, Chanter helped to bury the dead by opening a great pit in the ground and closing it over the bodies. There was no time to mourn them, and, while the people picked through the debris for useful items like pots and pans, blankets, clothes and utensils, Chanter went back to the beach with Talsy and Kieran. He pondered, then turned to Kieran.
"Draw the ship again."
Kieran obliged, and the Mujar watched as he drew it from every angle. Chanter thought for a moment longer, then walked down to the shoreline. Placing his palms on the wet sand, he invoked Dolana. The freezing solidity lasted longer than usual, then the Mujar straightened, his hands outstretched as if holding invisible ropes. His stance was relaxed, but a deep frown furrowed his brow. A low grinding started deep within the earth, sent vibrations under their feet and rippled the calm sea beyond the breakers.
The sand bulged as the soil had done before, swelling into a pregnant hummock that broke open and birthed a wall of grey rock. It rose, shimmering as it formed a broad rampart some fifty feet long and ten feet wide. The Mujar studied it, tilting his head this way and that like a bird appraising a juicy worm. The stone flowed and melted as if unseen hands moulded it. It stretched, becoming vaguely boat-shaped, and pulled apart to form a concave surface within. The sides rose higher as he thinned the rock, then he broadened it, and it rose on a short keel.
Chanter walked around the crude boat-shaped rock, ran his hands along the hull and stroked the rippling stone. Again the ship changed, the hull swelling to form a broad base and higher freeboard. The stone rippled as he caressed it, and imperfections disappeared. He raised his head, and a mast shot skyward, straight and round, two booms sprouting from it like branches. Like oil spreading across still water, the stone closed over the gaping hull to form a deck, and a hatchway appeared, steps leading below.
The Mujar stepped back and glanced at Kieran, who approached, raising a hand to touch the glistening hull.
"Don't touch it!" Chanter's sharp command made Kieran jump back. The Mujar smiled, adding, "It's dangerous in its present state."
Kieran looked annoyed and embarrassed. "How thick is the stone?"
Chanter held up three fingers.
"Too thick," Kieran said. "It'll sink. Make it this thick." He held up two fingers. "And make the mast and booms hollow if you can."
The Mujar scowled at his creation, and the ship's surface sloughed off, sliding down to the keel in layers. The mast and booms thinned like wax melting in the sun, the outer layers running down to join the rest of the excess in the keel. Chanter glanced at Kieran again, and he gave a somewhat dubious nod. The Mujar leant forward and kissed the hull. Where his lips touched, the cross and circle of the Mujar mark formed, sealing the stone. The shimmer vanished, leaving dull grey bedrock sprinkled with the slight glitter of embedded crystals and seamed with occasional streaks of brown.
Commanding the Earthpower again, he caused the ship to move down the beach with a grating of stone and sand, sliding into the sea. The tie with the bedrock that had birthed it broke, and the vessel floated free, bobbing sluggishly. It sat too low in the water, however, and rolled even in the calm sea. The first hint of a storm or a large wave would capsize it, but, with the Mujar to control the weather, there was little chance of that. Chanter turned to beam at Talsy, obviously proud of his first attempt at creating such a complicated artefact, and its flaws could not detract from his achievement. It took years of training to learn the skills of a shipwright, and, considering his lack of education and mechanical aptitude, it was a miracle that the ship floated at all.
She returned his smile, deciding that her reservations were best left unsaid. "It's beautiful."
He cast a critical eye over it. "I wouldn't call it that, but it will do."
"What would have happened if Kieran had touched it?"
"I'm not sure. No one's ever done it. He might have been frozen by the cold, or maybe lost his hand in the stone."
Talsy shivered, glancing at Kieran, who studied the ungainly vessel with a jaundiced eye.
"It's a real tub, I'm afraid, but I'm no shipwright," he said, taking responsibility for its design, which was fair enough, since he had drawn the pictures Chanter had used as a guideline. "I think it'll handle like a sick mule and roll like a pig, so I hope you don't get seasick."
"Perhaps we should name it the Mulish Swine, after you," she suggested, earning a glare from Kieran and a stern glance from Chanter.
They set sail late that afternoon, their meagre supplies stored aboard and lashed in place. Below decks, the ship boasted crude stone bunks and tables with benches, even rude partitions that separated the men and women. Washing facilities consisted of a bath that could be filled with sea water and drained out of the side of the ship, and a simple drop toilet. The attention to detail was surprising and welcome, something no one had expected of the Mujar.
As the ship turned away from the land, the sea before it calmed, and a brisk wind sprang up to fill the square ice sail that formed between the two long booms at Chanter's command. Fortunately, the wind came from astern, for the ungainly vessel would not have survived the slightest list. Despite her shortcomings, the water foamed at her bow as the ship headed out to sea at a creditable speed, driven by wind and currents. Ahead lay the distant, unknown western continent, where they must travel to the Plains of Redemption and be tested by the gods.
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Children of Another God tbw-1 Page 30