Dante teetered on the planks of the dock, gazing forlornly at the broad barge. "I could use a nap."
"That's what nights are for," Blays said. "If you plan it right, you can even get two or three good naps in a row."
"I was working on Mourn's jewelry."
"Is that all it takes to make you swoon? If Lira gave you a pair of her bloomers, you'd die of starvation."
Lira gazed pointedly toward the river. A pink blotch appeared on her turned cheek. Dante left for the nearest inn, a two-story place with a flagstone-paved porch and a mast rising from its roof, a towering trunk of pine stripped of all branches and bark. The wood was lacquered smooth, shiny under the overcast skies.
The innkeeper was in the process of blessing plates of eggs and potatoes and bread, flicking drips of water over the steaming bowls, then snapping sprigs of wintrel and depositing them in a small wire basket suspended over the hexagon of candles at the center of the table. Toasted mint filled the warm room. The innkeeper said a quick prayer to Arawn, then finished the rite by blowing a pinch of flour mingled with black sand—the grist of Arawn's broken mill—over the candles. Dante watched, transfixed. However many times he saw such open worship of Arawn, he couldn't help his shock. Back in Mallon, it would get the man tortured at the least. Probably, he'd never be seen again.
Dante rented a room for the day and collapsed into the straw mattress. Lira knocked an hour later. He rose confused and aching, feeling worse than before. Down at the docks, mules and wagons crowded onto ramps, unloading cords of wood and crates of coal.
A crewman with a salt-and-pepper beard gave Lira a wink. "No need to dirty your hands, ma'am. Prefer a tour of the ship instead?"
She stared him down. "Do you think my breasts get in the way if I try to lift a crate?"
The man backed off with his palms raised, muttering an apology. Behind Lira's back, Blays shot Dante a smirk.
It was the last smile Dante would see for some time. The next two hours were a monotony of picking up a cord of wood, crossing the flat gangplank, and tromping downstairs to one of the holds. Dante's leather gloves and the front of his doublet grew crusty with resinous sap. Blays was panting within a few minutes, too. Lira shuffled back and forth and up and down, face gray with pain, pausing regularly to catch her breath and rest her leg. Mourn came and went without slowing down, strong as a flood, inevitable as the tides.
Before long, Dante lost track of everything but the lessened gravity of setting down a bundle of wood. Two hours later, he rose to the docks and blinked in confusion. They were empty. Removed of everything but stray twigs, flakes of bark, and black patches of coal dust.
They were done. So was he. Ensconced in a hammock belowdecks, he slept until darkness. On waking, his body was sore from neck to soles, but his mind felt as if he'd just emerged from a warm bath. For several minutes, he did nothing more than breathe the cold air, smell the clean water, and listen to the soft slap of waves against the hull. Then he retired to a quiet corner of the empty deck and considered the loon until dawn.
Examining its physical and ethereal structures wasn't doing him any good. He didn't know enough about artificing to tease any meaning from the knotted and netted lines of ether. Instead, he needed to approach the loon from a theoretical standpoint. If he understood the thinking that allowed it to be created in the first place, he could, if nothing else, present Cally with a framework to allow the old man to duplicate the earring's function.
Not that this was any easier.
What did the loon do? It sent your voice and allowed you to hear back from someone who might be hundreds of miles away. Earlier, Mourn had informed him the effect was instantaneous, or something very near it. So its principles didn't rely on those of noises that carried long distances—thunder, for instance, could be heard miles from its source, but it could take several seconds after the lightning for the roar to reach your ears. If a trumpeter sounded his horn across a valley, you wouldn't hear the first note until after he finished blowing. Sound traveled fast, but it wasn't instant.
That implied the distance itself was somehow shortened. As if a piece of the speaker and the listener had been embedded in the loon, so when the speaker spoke, the loon spoke with him, however far away he might be. Mourn dashed that theory, too. According to him, a loon could be used by anyone. That was part of why the Clan of the Nine Pines kept their secret so close. Any enemy could listen in as easily as a member of the clan.
Alternately, the loons themselves were perfect duplicates, identical twins who resonated as one. But Dante'd never heard of such a thing. You couldn't just copy a tooth. Silver cast in the same mold from the same ingot did not make the pieces the same. He couldn't rule out the idea completely, but as a solution, it didn't compel him in the slightest.
Four days cycled along. Blays gambled with the crew by nights, winning more than he lost. It wouldn't be enough to buy them passage on a ship to Narashtovik, but at least they'd be able to pay for food and lodging while they worked out those logistics. Lira fended off the advances of sailors and paced around the deck to keep her leg limber and strong. Mourn whittled arrowheads from scrap wood, embellishing his pieces with hooks and grooves and jagged edges.
"Is that supposed to kill someone?" Blays said, leaning over a piece shaped like a devil's sawblade. "Or circumcise him?"
Mourn frowned up from his makeshift workbench. "What's a circumcise?"
Blays grinned. Dante walked off before he could explain.
After the turmoil of the last few weeks, the peace of their passage downriver was like an evening beer after a day behind the plow. Occasionally they were called on to haul cargo to the piers of various villages and towns, but for the most part, those four days passed in total quiet. The morning of the fifth day since they'd hopped ship, the river widened until a mile of water separated its shores. Craggy islands jutted from the slowing current, furry with pines. The western shore neared as the river swung due north. Smoke curled from the damp trees. Sections of forest disappeared in favor of dark brown fields and young green shoots of winter wheat. Above an inlet protected by a high spar of limestone, docks jutted into the gray water. Downstream, three more barges coasted toward the sea; a two-deck galley thrashed the water with its many oars.
They reached Yallen by mid-afternoon. The city consumed the western bank of the delta. Two high-arched bridges spanned the sluggish water, connecting the larger islands and the eastern shore with its smoky tents, shacks, and furnaces. Masts piked the river, clustering thickly on piers that bustled with sailors and merchants and travelers. Instead of a wall, the city was banded at intervals by greasy canals some forty feet wide and spanned by low wooden bridges. Flat-bottomed boats navigated the canals with poles or ropes strung along the brick-lined walls. Inland, three hills considered the sprawl, their crowns heavy with towers and high wooden manors. Beneath, three-story row houses stood shoulder to shoulder, capped by sharply canted roofs of tar-sealed pine. The shining gray sea waited beyond the last of the islands. Dante smelled salt and shit and the cold of northern waters.
"What do you think?" he said to Blays, who watched beside him.
"It looks," Blays said, "like a place where things happen."
"I think it looks like a place where you figure out how to get us a boat."
"Why do I always have to be the one who gets things done?"
"I'm sorry," Dante said, twirling the loon between his fingers. "I've been a little busy trying to save us all from decorating the spires of Setteven with our skulls."
Blays snorted. "You've got nothing to worry about. Your skull's too ugly to show in public."
"Seriously, do you have any ideas?"
"I have a very firm thought, in fact."
Dante raised his brows. "What's that?"
"That you should shut up and let me do my thing."
The barge angled toward the crowded docks. A couple hundred yards from the crush of ships, an oared tug-pilot met them in the waves. Ropes flew between the
vessels. Ashore, a team of oxen churned their hooves in the mud, guiding the barge in to port. Hulking norren and well-tanned men coiled ropes, lowered barrels, and argued on the briny planks.
Dante pulled up the cowl of his plain black cloak. The barge squeaked against the dock. Sailors flung ropes over the railing, followed by their own bodies. They landed lightly and tied knots as nimbly as the toe-dancers of Sweigh. Across the deck, Lira climbed into the sunlight. Dante moved to intercept her.
"There's a fountain at the far end of the plaza," he pointed, then pulled her behind the safety of a cabin wall. "The one shaped like a leaping salmon. I want you and Mourn to wait there while Blays and I see about finding us a boat."
The creases of a subtle insult crinkled her eyes. "Do you consider us baggage?"
"Baggage?"
"Bulky objects to be set aside whenever you plan to put your hands to use."
He frowned. "I consider you flags. Conspicuous things to be waving around when I'm worried about being found and flayed by the agents of a wealthy lord."
She regarded him for some time. "You won't learn to wholly trust us until you put us to use."
"We'll see about that as soon as we're out of increasingly hostile territory. For now, trust me and go wait by that damn fountain."
Sailors and stevedores hollered back and forth. Once more, the four of them pitched in to help unload, sweating in the chill breeze. The last of the lumber touched the dock an hour before the sun would touch the western hills. Packs shouldered, Dante and Blays thumped down the planks to the relatively dry land beyond the docks, a sodden square of wide-spaced cobbles choked with mud, sand, manure, and well-trampled grass. Taverns, public houses, and tailors fronted the square. Blocky warehouses rose behind them.
Mourn and Lira entered the crowds and crossed toward the fountain with the salmon. Beneath his hood, Dante scanned the throng, easily distinguishing the sailors in their tight leggings from the locals in their knee-length fur coats. No one seemed to be paying any special mind to the norren and the woman.
By the time Dante turned away, Blays had already flagged down his first sailor and asked which ships were Narashtovik-bound. The sailor chewed his beard a moment, and then, his breath smelling of yeasty beer, rattled off the names of three vessels that would depart the next day.
"Where are they docked?" Blays said.
The sailor scowled. "Seems to me anybody who knows that would be some kind of expert. You know the thing about experts?"
"They have expertise?"
"And they don't give it away free."
Blays' brows muddled, then he laughed. "They sure don't. For your time and trouble, most honored bosun."
He passed the bearded man an iron two-penny. The sailor ran his thumb along its clipped rim.
"The Boon's at Pier 15. The Vanneya's Song's at Farry's Punt. Can't miss it," he said, pointing downstream to a dock that bent from the shore like a misshapen Y. "And the Bad Tidings is berthed at the Westlong Docks." He gestured further downriver, then squinted between Dante and Blays. "Might not want to hop ship just yet, though. Hear bad things are coming Narashtovik way."
"Like what?" Dante said.
The man shrugged, gazing off to sea with weighty significance. "Arawn's own dead. Sent to right the heresy of that old man in the tower." He shrugged again. "Anyway, that's what they say."
"Zombies?" Blays said, hushed. "My goodness. I'm going to need a bigger sword."
Pier 15 was just a short ways down the muddy banks. The Boon was a large longboat bearing a single square-sailed mast and a high bank of oar-holes, but one of its mates informed them it was all booked and refused access to either of the ship's quartermasters. Marine-green kelp swirled in the cold estuary. They thumped down the salt-whitened planks toward the bent protrusion of Farry's Punt. There, sailors dangled on ropes over the railings of the Vanneya's Song, gouging barnacles from its high hull with flat iron chisels.
"Taking passengers?" Blays hollered from below.
Without turning, a soldier jerked his thumb at a rope bridge bobbing softly in the low swells. Dante frowned, waiting for more explicit permission. Blays strode forward and threw himself onto the ladder.
From the ship's deck, Dante had a clear view of the longboats, galleys, barges, caravels, and sloops snarling the docks between them and open sea. Inland, a seaborn breeze dragged chimney-smoke across the steep roofs of the city. Blays rapidly learned two of the Song's quartermasters were ashore in taverns unknown, but the third remained in his cabin. Blays knocked on his well-cleaned door without hesitation. A middle-aged man opened it a moment later, his scowl deepening the heavy creases around his eyes, one of which was clamped tight around a thick glass lens.
"We'd like passage to Narashtovik," Blays said. "We have—"
The man's lens flashed. "Four rounds and four pennies per body."
"Well, you see. We don't have that. But we do have someone in Narashtovik who would happily—"
"Four rounds and four pennies per body. To be paid before your boots hit the deck."
Dante bared his teeth. It was easily three times what they had on hand. "Perhaps we could strike a bargain for other services."
The man's vowels were flat with an eastern accent Dante couldn't quite place. "Four rounds and four pennies per body."
Blays' spine stiffened. "You, sir, have just lost a customer! Four of them!"
He turned before the quartermaster could inject another word. They descended to the dock, which was suddenly chilly and thick with the scent of overripe fish.
"They don't leave until tomorrow," Dante said. "That gives us plenty of time to locate a few pockets heavier than our own and relieve their owners of their burden."
Blays nodded, distant. "I don't know. That could attract attention."
"Since when did you consider that a bad thing?"
"Since legions of soldiers might be on our heels. Not to mention the grumbling we'd face from Lira."
Dante waved his hand. "She's so high on her horse I doubt we'd hear a word of it."
"Anyway, just because crimes are fun and easy doesn't mean I always want to do them." Blays gestured downstream in the vague direction the sailor had indicated for the Westlong Docks. "Besides, we've got at least one legit chance left."
Dante considered him a moment, then headed down the docks, swerving around an inborn oxen team and the spittle flying from their driver's lips. A quarter-mile walk took them to a rather less-peopled stretch of warehouses and half-paved streets. Grains of wheat and corn speckled the muddy alleys. Planks lay between the stone streets and the doors of the blocky lofts and silos. Broad, flat barges wallowed in the waters beside the thick piers. Mussels and dark green slime coated the pilings.
The Bad Tidings was one of the few sailboats at the Westlong, with one high mainmast and two smaller and well-mended sails snapping in the steady offshore wind. Blays hollered more than once before a sailor in a knit cap popped up on its deck. The creman let them aboard to see yet another quartermaster, a man in his early 40s with a beard thick enough to raise robins in. His name was Mart and he was blunt but reasonable; over the course of a few minutes, Dante and Blays bargained him from a fare that outstripped the official on the Song and down to a mere three rounds and change apiece—still more than double what they had on hand.
"I'm sorry, but that's as low as reason allows." Mart reached for a much-scribbled scrap of paper. "If you change your minds, we'll be here until tomorrow afternoon."
Dante sighed through his nose. "I hope by then to be able to take advantage of your generosity."
Blays glanced out the porthole. Sunset's last red spark trickled through the bubbly glass. He leaned from his chair and slapped the wooden floor. "What are you hauling here?"
Mart glanced up, eyes sharp. "Barley. A whole lot of barley."
"Got rats?"
"Does the king's mistress have crabs?"
"That would explain the pettiness of some of his recent policies. Maybe we can offe
r you something besides money." Blays tipped his head toward Dante. "My friend here is the finest rat-catcher in the land. Possibly in all the lands."
Mart smiled indulgently. "Is that so?"
"So they say," Dante played along.
"Here's my proposal." Blays leaned forward conspiratorially, patting Dante on the shoulder. "My friend Blegworth goes down into your hold and goes to work on your rats. If he clears them all out, we get free passage. Us and our two companions. But if he leaves a single rat alive, we go on our merry way, and you still have a whole lot less rats in your hold."
"I'll need complete solitude," Dante said. "The presence of others might scare the rats into their dens."
Mart jutted his lower jaw. "So you can steal the rum? Or set fire to the entire hold? What then?"
Blays held out his hands. "Then you and your crew stab us until you feel justice is served."
The quartermaster laughed for the first time. "I can't tell if you're arrogant or insane. But it sounds like I win either way. If you can get rid of all the rats, the trip is on me."
They squared off the details; the crew was still in the midst of relocating goods, refreshing supplies, and patching sails, but Mart claimed he'd have them cleared out belowdecks by 11th bell of the evening. Dante climbed down to the deck and headed offship.
On their way to meet Mourn and Lira, Blays stepped over a grassy pile of manure. "So can you actually do that?"
"I have no idea."
"Fantastic. Do you think you can do it?"
Dante slowly shook his head. "I have an idea. I can't say whether it's a good one."
"If it were I would be highly skeptical it was yours."
"Thanks for volunteering me, by the way. If I can't pull it off, I expect you to sell your body for the cause."
The Great Rift Page 18