by Ellis Knox
Nik was trying to widen the trail and, we all hoped, find us a supper.
As we put away our meager possessions, Nik tried to give me his pistol for protection, but I refused, saying I had little experience with guns. That was not strictly true—I’d hunted with my father on more than one occasion, though only fowl and small game—but I was fairly sure he’d make better use of it and that he was offering only as a sop to my supposed weakness. I admit, however, that when I refused and he merely shrugged and nodded, I felt oddly that he ought to have argued. We may figure out others, but we figure out ourselves last. Nik’s words.
As we spread out into our line, I could see Beso readily. Professor Queller was little more than a silhouette illuminated by his lantern. Cosmas was hardly more than a light, and Nik I could not see at all. The proximity of others had been a comfort I’d not even noticed until it was gone.
The beaches of the Second World were rocky and bleak, running well back from the sea—I had decided to call it a sea until it proved otherwise. The ground slanted upward, but as far as we could see, which was no more than a few hundred yards, it was covered with the same combination of small stones and gravel that ran right down to the water. Here and there a boulder protruded.
I looked inland, but saw only the unending beach. The multitude of rounded stones were broken sometimes by larger rocks. In the distance, at the limit of sight, some of those became very large, as big as a house, though I could not be sure my eyes were not playing tricks on me. Never did I see tree or shrub or grass, nor even moss or lichen. All was dead, as if someone had cursed the land.
I looked seaward. The smooth surface of the water was broken by no wave, not even where it gained the beach. Low swells undulated, as if great creatures swam beneath, or as a stream will rise over a boulder, but that was all. Peer as I might, I could see no fish jumping nor telltale ripple. I told myself that I could have walked the length of the Baltic and never seen a fish jump either, that this was no indicator of a dead sea, but my spirit was so dejected it leaned most readily to the worst of possibilities.
I turned to noticing what I could. The best I could do was to mark a discoloration of the stones, which discoloration ran in a line all along the beach.
“High tide,” I said aloud to no one. “Proving a lunar influence even in Urland.” I would mention it to Professor Queller.
I listened constantly for a cry from my compatriots. My stomach longed to hear it. Despite the lack of any evidence or indicator, I had half convinced myself that Nik would find life. No doubt memories of the Surface led me there, providing images of beaches that lay between sea and forest—a forest teeming with animals. At this point, I’d be happy with berries and nuts.
As it happened, I was the one to issue the cry of discovery.
Boat of Stone
The landscape had grown more uneven, with low ridges running from the unseen inland down into the water like a jetty or breakwater. Each was a bit higher than the previous until they were several feet high and I had to stop at the top to give Beso time to climb up his section.
I climbed yet another, but this time I did not stop. Between this ridge and the next, the water ran several yards in a shallow cove. I scrambled at once down the other side, for resting upon the stony beach was a boat.
It was black as charcoal, well over twenty feet long and about five feet wide. I didn’t even think about my compatriots or to cry out a signal. I needed to touch the thing, to make sure it was real.
The boat’s material was charcoal smooth and shiny as if wet. I reached out when close enough. It was dry, and it was made of stone.
“Gah!” I cried. Not a profound sentiment, I admit, but it was the true sound of frustration combined with disappointment. “Who makes a statue of a boat?” I demanded of this dark, empty world. I struck the boat with my fist, which the reader may add to the running list of foolish things done by the author.
The boat rocked back.
It took a moment for the significance of that to register. I pushed at the boat again and again it rocked gently back. I pushed harder and the thing actually moved on the rocks. Just a few inches. At last I thought to cry out.
“Beso! Come here!”
This was no rowboat. It looked like very large canoe, and it had no fittings for oars. The sides were about three feet in height. Inside were something like benches fore and aft, and at one end a kind of platform. I grew up in Rostock and spent many a summer at Warnemunde and on Rügen Island. I know my boats. Leaving aside that it was made of stone, this was neither a sailing nor a fishing vessel. As far as I could tell, it was as bare of practical function as a wheel-less cart.
The interior was as smooth as the exterior, though apparently of a different material. Outside was the charcoal gray of granite, but the interior was the light brown of tufa, of the sort I’d once seen in the Maremma. This substance, though, had been worked until it was nearly smooth. It can’t have been tufa, however, for the whole boat was so light it might have been made of paper.
Beso arrived. “Is it fish? Did you find a fish?”
“It looks like your First Ancestors may have been sailors,” I said to him.
He pulled up, seeming to see the craft for the first time. He took a step back, as if the boat might suddenly sprout claws and leap at him.
“Dwarves do not sail,” Beso said.
The others came up one by one. I left it to each of them to discover the wondrous lightness of the craft. Nik climbed into it, then out again.
“Did you find anything, out there?” Beso asked of Nik.
“Rocks,” Nik replied, “and more rocks. Then I found more rocks.”
“Niki,” Henrik admonished, “do be more explicit.”
“All right. The rocks get bigger. But no sand, and that’s odd. It’s like this whole land used to be solid and someone came along with a million tons of gunpowder and blew it up. It’s not so much a landscape as a wreckage.”
“A bit colorful,” Henrik said, “but that was my estimation as well. However pressing is our need for food, I find this landscape to be encouraging.”
“You’re encouraged?” I asked, incredulously.
“They cannot have blown up the entire world,” Henrik replied, as complacent as ever, “and those who built that dwarf town had to have had food from somewhere. We need only to get there.”
His logic, as ever, was solid. And, as ever, was not at all encouraging.
“I say we go sailing,” Nik said.
We all looked at him.
“There’s nothing here,” he went on, “nothing at all. If we go by boat, we’ll go at least as fast as on foot, maybe faster. In any case, we won’t get so tired out, and it won’t be so chancy. I didn’t much care for the look of some of those beasties in the carvings, but they all looked like land animals to me.”
We nodded in tentative agreement.
“The other point is that we’ve not really explored the water. I’d not be much of a fisherman if all I did was walk along the shore hoping to spot a fish.” He chuckled. “The boat’s big enough to hold us all, so I say we make the attempt. We’ll run along the coast. Land to camp at night. And all the while make course in the direction of uncle’s bright city.”
“Niklot,” Henrik said, “you make an excellent argument. I am persuaded.”
I didn’t exactly gasp, but I was astonished. Not once had I heard Professor Queller agree immediately to someone else’s idea. I wondered if he was softening up a bit.
“Do you think the boat will float?" I asked.
“Of course it will," Queller said. "Why else create one?"
I smiled to myself. No softening up there.
“Is it pumice?” I asked, trying my best guess.
“Like to it, but not, I think,” Professor Queller said, plainly as mystified as I. “We see here evidence of geologic activity unknown on the surface.”
For several minutes the professor and then Nik tried to collect a sample, but the stone woul
d not yield even a chip or splinter. Nik called a halt to the effort, fearing the hammer itself might break.
“Some comfort, anyway,” he said, “Our boat will be sturdy.”
“Let's give it a go," Niklot said. "All hands; two on a side; Cosmas will push from behind."
I silently thanked Niklot for not excluding me from heavy work because of my sex, but the work was not heavy at all. Once we were in position he called out, "Heave!" The vessel slid so easily and quickly we had to scramble to keep up with. It plunged into the water light as a flower petal.
“Well, that worked,” Nik said, then he had us haul it back onto the beach again, lest it float away.
“Before leaving land,” Professor Queller said to us all, “we have one last task to perform.” He paused grandly.
“Yes,” Nik remarked under his breath, “we have get to into the thing without swamping it.”
“My nephew scorns solemnity," Queller continued, "but ritual serves a purpose — this is known and accepted among all the Five Folk.”
“My uncle wants to name the boat.”
Queller cleared his throat.
“I've given it due consideration. Ahem.” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “I name this vessel Tykhe, the goddess of good fortune and one of the daughters of Oceanus.”
He placed one hand on the hull as if posing for a picture.
“It's a fine name,” I said, for he seemed to want our approval. The professor smiled in acknowledgment, as proud as a boy.
“How are we to board the Tykhe?” Nik asked, returning to his previous question. The professor’s smile disappeared.
“Never mind; I've got that figured,” Niklot said. “Bessarion here climbs aboard first, with the boat on shore. He secures a line to the tiller. I'll lash the other end around a boulder and hang on just for added security. We don't want to take you to sail without us, do we?
“Right. Then you three”–he meant myself, Professor Queller, and Cosmas–“push the boat into the water. Only just in, if you can manage it. The closer to the shore, the better.
“Once everyone's aboard, I'll loose the line and stumble after, and away we go. Easy as nodding.”
“All climb in,” Cosmas said. “I can hold the boat. I will get in last.”
Nik frowned.
“I am the stronger,” Cosmas said. “It is easier for me to push you than for you to push me.”
Nik frowned again. “That’s entirely too sensible. I ought to have seen it.”
Cosmas shrugged; Nik grinned. He was not the sort to pout over being shown he was wrong.
Cosmas moved the boat until the bow sat in shallow water. We four clambered aboard. It took but a moment to see the benches suited Bessarion, whereas Henrik and I had our knees almost to our chest. Nik sat in the bottom near the tiller.
“Hold tight,” Cosmas said, then gave a strong push. The boat slid easily over the round stones. When the stern was a foot or so in water, Cosmas climbed in. Ogres can be surprisingly graceful.
In a blink we were away. Cosmas took hold of an Alpenstock and pushed us into deep water. The boat rode lightly, with more than a foot of the boat above the water line. We shifted positions, with Cosmas moving more toward the center. Nik went back to the tiller. In all this, our boat remained reassuringly stable. We looked at one another, then back to shore, which was about ten yards away. The boat rocked gently.
“Here we sit,” Beso said. “Now what?”
“Paddle back to shore and fashion some oars, now we know it can hold us all,” Nik said. “I’ll steer.”
“I can get out and push us back,” Cosmas volunteered, but even as he spoke, Nik took hold of the tiller, and the boat at once began to move.
“Ye gods!” Henri exclaimed. Cosmas and Bessarion both said something in their native tongues that would likely not bear translating.
Niklot laughed.
“And if I let go?” he asked of no one. The boat at once slowed to a gradual stop.
“A magic boat!” he cried, and laughed again. He took hold of the tiller, and off we went again. We all broke into excited talk, punctuated by laughter. It had been so long since our mood was light, the laughter felt as refreshing as a warm rain, fresh water for our parched spirits.
“At last, something encouraging,” I said, though I do not think anyone heard, for we were all saying more or less the same thing.
I was very glad we did not have to figure out how to fashion oars, and even gladder we’d not have to row our way across the Second World.
We made our way along the coast, which satisfied everyone. We were able to make landfall more or less as we pleased, there being no great cliffs and no crashing surf. When we tired, we landed.
Being in the boat let us take a step back, as it were. That perspective affirmed my earlier impression. The Second World had undergone some cataclysm. The land did not look worn away by time, but rather had the appearance of a place wrecked by catastrophe. The shoreline consisted of immense boulders, many the size of a grandee’s mansion. Between outcroppings lay boulders of more modest size—of a cottage or house—with few rocks or pebbles and no sand whatsoever. It was as if Urland had once been solid stone until some titan appeared, tore the place up, and went his way again, leaving behind him a shattered, empty land.
For, empty it was. Not one indication of life did we find—neither leaf nor bone, much less any living plant, animal, or insect. Urland had not been denuded; it had been cursed. The curse now fell on us as well, for we were fast running out of food. Nik and I spoke privately about scurvy.
As ever, Professor Queller was, if no longer cheerful, the least gloomy among us. He continued to insist we would find food.
“We had better,” Nik said, after yet another expression of groundless optimism from Queller.
“How many times have you doubted me so far?” the professor asked, “and have I not been proved right?”
“Yes,” Nik said, reluctantly.
“Every single time?”
“I already said yes, Uncle.”
“I shall prove so again,” Queller said, “so long as we stay this course.”
The coastline ran more or less directly toward the distant light that I continued to think of as sunrise red. It was perhaps a still more foolish optimism than Queller’s, for it was mere hope. I fully comprehended, in those waterborne days, how important hope is to the lost. We had a hundred reasons to think we would never walk beneath the sun and stars again. We weren’t likely to find our way back and had not enough supplies in any case. Even if we could manage that, we would still have to re-thread the Tangle, get through the Long Dig, and avoid the traps of the Troll Gates. And yet, when I looked to that rosy-hued light smeared across the horizon, my spirit lifted, if only a step or two. The light represented something new. A potential. A place where, if hope could not be held here, might breathe anew there. By such slender threads do we pick our way through dark hours.
The self-propelled boat was an unexpected pleasure, but it also limited how fast we could move, which was no more than a casual walking pace. The prospect of starvation grew ever more present as our food supply dwindled. It was not until the second day that a fish jumped.
Only Nik saw it, but we all heard the sound. We turned and saw the outspreading ripples.
I glanced back at Nik and saw on his face an instant transformation. I could actually see his mind change: astonishment followed by calculation followed by decision, all in the space of five blinks.
He turned the boat toward land, speaking to all of us as he did so.
“We’ll eat, sleep, get a fresh start. Most importantly, we need to make fishing lines.”
I quickly gained an appreciation for my forebears who contrived to fish using primitive materials. We had brought no rod and reel, of course. No fishing line of any sort. After some consideration, Cosmas drew out a length of rope, which he proceeded to unravel laboriously until he had it down almost to individual threads. As he worked, the rope itsel
f began to come apart, for none of the strands ran for the full length of the rope. So he had essentially to reconstruct a rope-length thread of some thirty feet or so. We already had needles for general repair work. After labor lasting a full three hours at least, we had our fishing pole: an Alpenstock with the line both nailed and wrapped to secure it, and a hooked needle at the other end. We had no proper bait, but chose a twist of cloth.
“The fish will surely be blind,” Henrik said, “but they may respond to movement.”
All in all it seemed like much work with little hope amid a field of desolation. The only prospect grimmer than fishing was not to try.
We also set up our lanterns; Professor Queller said we needed to keep a cycle of light and dark, to keep the rhythm of our days. I was glad for the modest light they shed, for otherwise we rode in a dreadful, crimson twilight that evoked nothing so much as a bleak impression of the afterlife. This created an absurdly cozy tableau: Beso at the bow, gazing forward like some stern figurehead; Professor Queller on the bench behind him, next to a lantern, alternately looking around him, making notes, or engaging one or another of us in conversation.
Cosmas occupied the entire center of the boat, the hull itself for his seat, sitting placidly with his eternal ogrish patience. My bench came next, though I confess I used it less than anyone, for I often stood or knelt, moved forward or aft. I eagerly took my turn at fishing, a natural occupation for a Mecklenburg girl. Nik worked the tiller. It was not a difficult task, any of us could do it and indeed took a hand now and again, but Nik had the helm most of the time. I think it kept him occupied, the way fishing did for me.
The fish were plentiful, but most of them were scarcely edible. Our first was a pale, spiny thing with a single dark stripe down either side, out of which grew nasty spikes. Beso lent his hammer, and we used this to kill the thing once we had landed it. Its skin was tough, its flesh spare and foul-tasting. We brought in another like it, then one fat creature somewhat like a flounder. These three we brought ashore and tried to cook but there was simply no more fuel left for flame, so we ate them raw.