The Edge of the World

by Kevin J. Anderson

  As part of Aldo's education, he had studied the numerous tales of the Traveler, descriptions of journeys made by a nearly immortal man. The Aidenists said that the Traveler was Aiden himself, who had struck out on his own to explore unknown lands after establishing himself in Tierra. For their own part, the Urabans claimed that Urec was the Traveler. Rumored sightings of the Traveler had continued from one generation to the next, and villagers always gave hospitality to wandering hermits,

  treating them kindly because any one of them might be the Traveler himself.

  According to tradition, the Traveler kept notes about the places he'd been and things he'd seen, and whenever he filled a volume of writings, the old man gave it to the first person he encountered. Thousands of these logbooks had appeared in villages and Aidenist kirks across Tierra.

  Looking at the documents objectively, Aldo could see that the handwriting varied wildly from volume to volume, and it seemed clear to him that most of the books were hoaxes written by tricksters--like Yal Dolicar, he supposed--but perhaps some I of them were true. Regardless, the descriptions of distant lands were vivid and detailed, and might contain accurate information. Until verified, however, the data could not be permanently painted into the Saedran Mappa Mundi.

  While Aldo pored over the written tales in his continuing daily studies, Sen Leo entered the temple vault and was pleased to find the young man so diligently working. "The Luminara is about to sail, and we have chosen our chartsman to join the expedition."

  Aldo's heart leaped as a giddy yet unrealistic hope ran through his head. What if, despite his youth and inexperience, he had been selected to voyage to those lands unknown, to accompany Captain Shay and crew, far out on the Oceansea?

  "Sen Nikol na-Fenda is gathering his materials even now."

  Aldo was crestfallen, though he tried not to show it.

  "Sen Nikol is a very knowledgeable and talented chartsman. He is also objective, and his observations will be accurate. The Mappa Mundi requires accuracy above all things. When the Luminara returns in a year, our mission might be complete." Sen Leo sounded like an excited boy; he had spent his entire life dreaming about the expansion of knowledge. "We may finally possess a map of the whole world."

  "Someday I hope to see it with my own eyes," Aldo said.

  Sen Leo pulled out several thick volumes from the temple's bookshelves, setting them down with a heavy thump on the table. "That is what we all hope--but you have more studying to do before we can turn you loose on the world." He tapped the hard leather cover of another log of the Traveler. "You must learn what we already know before you dream of discovering something new."

  20

  The Luminara

  After the Luminara was fully rigged and loaded, Criston Vora stood on the dock in Shipbuilders' Bay, not quite ready to board. Crowds had gathered for the launch of the magnificent threemasted carrack. Griston saw King Korastine himself standing with Princess Anjine and Prester-Marshall Baine, who had blessed the ship and its historic quest.

  Jerard, the bearded old ship's prester assigned to the Luminara had come aboard after the dawn services, bearing his holy books, sacramental vestments, and relics. Behind him came an intense man about thirty years of age, who hurried past them and up the gangplank to the deck. He had short dark brown hair and was clad in Saedran clothing; he carried several intricate and ornate navigational instruments in his arms, refusing to let a porter bear them.

  Criston drank in the noises of the city, the smells of people, the play of boats in the numerous bays--but he was focused on Adrea. His fellow crewmen hurried up the boarding ramp with bundles of clothes to last them during the year-long voyage.

  With his back to the ship, he held Adrea, not wanting to let

  go, his arms wrapped around her like anchor ropes. "I'll think of you every day. I will write letters to you."

  She laughed. "How do you expect me to get your letters if you've sailed beyond the edge of the world?"

  "I'll throw them overboard in bottles, and the currents will take them to you." Griston had no doubt that sympathetic magic--the strands that connected all things in Ondun's creation--would be strong enough. "Let me have a lock of your hair. If I put a strand in with each letter, it'll be drawn back where it belongs."

  Adrea separated out a small bunch of her golden-brown hair, and he used his knife to cut it off, leaving a ragged, prominent missing patch. Criston lovingly twisted the strands, then tucked the lock into his pocket. "We'll be like a Captain's Compass, bound together. The currents of the sea will feel the magic and bring the bottles back to Windcatch."

  "It's a pretty thought... pretty enough to believe in." She toyed with the gap in her hair. "Now every time I see myself in a looking glass, I'll be reminded that part of me is with you."

  Her brother limped forward, extending his hand. "I'll take care of everybody while you're gone."

  Criston ignored the younger man's hand and gave him a sturdy hug. "You'd better. Don't just sleep all the time!"

  The ship's bell tolled, and the Luminara's crew manned their stations. First Mate Willin shouted orders, and Captain Shay look his place at the prow, wearing full colors and fine garments, hat in hand against his chest; a broad white plume from an exotic bird waved jauntily in the breeze.

  Criston refused to release Adrea. "One more kiss." He touched his lips to hers and lingered there. This kiss would have to last a year. When he finally let go, he felt his knees weaken, as though he had suddenly lost his sea legs.

  "Goodbye, my love," she said.

  He tried to answer her, but the words caught in his throat. He hurried up the gangplank, the last man aboard. Sailors loosed the hawsers and pulled the plank back onto the deck.

  On the docks, Prester-Marshall Baine raised his hands and intoned, "May the Compass guide you." The crowd of onlookers set up a loud cheer. King Korastine lifted his hands and called, "Ondun watches us all!"

  Heaving on pulleys, the men raised the yardarms to unfurl the sails, and the sheets grew taut. Slowly, the Luminara eased away from dockside, drifted into the main channel, and rolled out of Calay Harbor on the departing tide.

  Criston stood by the rail, his eyes never leaving Adrea's as she grew smaller and smaller in the distance. The first mate clapped him on the shoulder, startling him. "We've all left someone behind, sailor. Get to work!"

  Abashed, he ran toward his station, grabbing a rope and helping to pull and set a sail. He turned away from the crowded city to face the bowsprit, looking out to sea.

  Once past the lighthouses at the mouth of the harbor, the Luminara headed due east in open water. Captain Shay set course for Soeland, the group of islands that formed the most distant reach of Tierra, where they would take on whale oil and a few last provisions. The chartsman could have headed directly into the unknown, but Soeland was like a stepping-stone, the farthest point explored by Tierrans.

  Captain Shay took meticulous notes of their speed, the winds, the color of the water. Though numerous ships had plied these waters between Calay and the Soeland islands, he began the voyage by testing his own powers of observation. He dropped lines overboard tied to weighted cylinders with tallow on the ends that

  sank to the bottom. He recorded the depth to the bottom and the composition of the seabed--sand, clay, crushed seashells, pebbles.

  He asked Criston if he might like to help with some of the naturalist activities. "Most of my sailors do not have the abundance of curiosity you do, Mr. Vora," Shay said. "Not even First Mate Willin. I think I should make use of your skills." The young man jumped at the chance.

  The Saedran chartsman, on the other hand, simply watched the activities around him, keeping himself separate. Sen Nikol na-Fenda stood at the side of the vessel, gazing at the waves as though the reflected sunlight sent him secret messages. Other than his ornate navigation instruments, Sen Nikol carried no charts, no maps, no logbooks.

  Criston could not figure out what fascinated the Saedran so. When Criston wasn't occup
ied in holystoning the deck and washing down the planks with buckets of seawater, he struck up a conversation with the man. "Shouldn't you keep track of this voyage? Why aren't you making records?"

  Sen Nikol regarded Criston with heavy-lidded eyes. "I am keeping records. I remember every detail." Then he turned to look out at the waves again.

  Over the next few days, Criston learned that until recently Sen Nikol had a fairly lucrative career guiding ships down past Fshalem to the distant coastal cities of Khenara and Tener, but he had seen them as mere destinations, not wonders.

  "Those routes are closed to us after the burning of Ishalem, so my expertise is no longer needed," Sen Nikol said. "Perhaps when the Luminara returns in a year, the conflict will be resolved and trade restored between Tierra and Uraba. Then I will have my old job back."

  "You expect the conflict to be resolved that quickly?" From

  what Criston had heard, he was sure the bloodshed would last for generations.

  The Saedran shrugged, speaking as though he were explaining a simple concept to a child in school. "In the long run, the demands of commerce will outweigh the demands of religion. Both continents need the trade, so the king and the soldan-shah will find some compromise. And then the world will go back to the way it was."

  Criston didn't believe it. "But you are thinking logically."

  Sen Nikol shrugged. "Yes, yes I am."

  Soeland Reach was called the "Thousand Islands," though Captain Shay's maps showed no more than eighteen named patches of rocky land, some of them barely large enough to support colonies of migratory birds. The hardy Soelanders were an isolated and independent people, but they were also devout Aidenists and called themselves Tierrans.

  The Luminara wove a course through the clustered islands in a procession from one small harbor to another, so that the people in the bleak, windy fishing villages could watch, wave, and remember them. They had never seen such a vessel before. Most Soelanders had never heard of Prester-Marshall Baine's revelation and were unaware of the Luminara!% mission. Many of them apparently didn't know (or didn't care) about the burning of Ishalem, which seemed like a distant tragedy to them.

  The Soeland destrar, Tavishel, did not think of himself as royalty. Although the man lived in a large blocky house in Far port, the capital of the innermost island, he still sailed his own large fishing boat and raised his children to hard work; he had no patience for pampering. As destrar, Tavishel did not tax his people any more than was absolutely necessary, proclaiming that their lives were already hard enough. They didn't need to

  freeze and sweat, he said, just so the nobles in Calay could buy luxury items.

  The Luminara pulled close to shore at Farport and dropped anchor, since the small docks could not accommodate such a large ship. The anchor--cast in the shape of two joined Aidenist fishhooks--sank to the bottom and caught hold.

  Captain Shay, Sen Nikol, Criston, and four burly sailors took one of the two ship's boats over to the docks, to haggle with a local shipper for a dozen casks of whale oil. When they agreed on a price, a flatboat was dispatched to the Luminara, where sailors used a block and tackle to lift the barrels up to the deck, then stored them below in the holds.

  The Saedran chartsman sought out local fishermen as they repaired their nets and patched the hulls of overturned dinghies and pressed them for details about the islands, the depths of channels, the preferred routes. Criston was surprised to see that not even the chartsman knew much about the outer Soeland islands. Some of the passages, while adequate for shallow-draft fishing boats, would make a vessel the size of the Luminara run aground.

  After returning to his cabin and weighing anchor again to set off, Captain Shay spread out his maps and charts, studied drawings of the known islands, and plotted his course to the edge of I he windswept archipelago.

  For the next two days, as the ship passed through safe channels, the islands became more rugged. Criston noted Sen Nikol studying the coastlines as they passed, memorizing everything he observed.

  Nobody lived on the outermost islands; they were simply rook cries filled with squawking gulls, and the immense racket carried across the waves. The sheer cliffs were white and beige, streaked with ochre. Guano ships anchored close to the cliff, while island

  ers went ashore with shovels and pickaxes to harvest the layers of stinking fertilizer, which was transported in sluggish barges to Calay. With grim pride and not a hint of humor, Soelanders claimed their main exports were whale oil, salted fish, and the highest-quality shit in Tierra.

  Though this was the last land they would see for a long while, the stench was so terrific that Captain Shay ordered the Luminara to steer clear, and the carrack sailed past the boats anchored near the guano-encrusted islands, leaving the filthy workers to stare at them without waving.

  A day later, out on the open sea, they did encounter a whaling ship. After hailing them, Captain Shay pulled alongside the long and sturdy vessel, and the other captain came aboard, marveling at the ornate complexity of the exploration ship. Shay told the whaler's captain of their historic mission, and the other man was astonished by the audacity of the Luminara's quest.

  "The weather gets worse the farther out you go," the whaler captain warned. His face was weathered and windblown, with craggy eyebrows that now drew together. "You don't belong out there." He pointed to some undefined point westward. "Treacherous currents, whirlpools that will suck down even a ship like this, sea serpents -- and the Leviathan. Nobody has ever sailed beyond and returned."

  "We will," Captain Shay said with aloof confidence. "This is the finest ship Tierra has ever built. I've already seen most of the fearsome things the sea can throw at me."

  "Suit yourself." The whaler captain shrugged. "But I warned you. I warned all of you." He climbed back aboard his ship, and the two vessels separated. The whaler headed back toward the islands, while the Luminara, all sails set, cruised off across the open waters, leaving the known world behind.

  21

  King Korastine's Castle

  Something had to be done about Ishalem.

  Anjine sat with her father, listening in on the private tower room sessions with Prester-Marshall Baine and Sen Leo naHadra. King Korastine consulted his small cadre of advisers when he had difficult decisions to make. As he rested bony elbows on bony knees beneath his gray robe, Sen Leo said, "We cannot leave the city in ashes."

  Baine added, "Do we let the wound fester, or do we help it heal?"

  The windows had been thrown open so the fresh breeze could circulate around the room, and a pool of bright sunlight warmed the rugs covering the wooden floor. A buffet of cold beef, fresh bread, pastries, cheeses, and red apples had been spread out in a casual feast, and the men picked at the lunch as they talked. They drank mugs of fresh-pressed cider.

  Korastine sliced off a chunk of beef, put it on his plate, then used the same knife to cut and core his apple, though he showed little appetite. "Are you sure the wound isn't already mortal?"

  "We must make the gesture, Majesty," Baine said. He quoted from the Book of Aiden: '"It is better to fix than to break, better to stitch than to tear, better to caress than to strike, better to build than to knock down.' We should return to Ishalem, bring a reconstruction crew of carpenters, stonemasons, farmers. We cannot replace, cannot forget, but we can rebuild."

  Anjine's father looked very tired. "Ishalem will never be the same."

  "No, it will not," the prester-marshall agreed, showing some of the zeal that had so inspired his followers, "but what we propose will not only benefit the Aidenists, it will show the Urecari our good intentions. Maybe we can avert a war after all."

  Since seeing Ishalem on fire, Anjine felt as though a large part of her childhood had gone up in smoke. She had always thought Tierra would be the same when she was queen as it had been for her father, and for King Kiracle before him, but in a single year she had seen her mother die, Ishalem burn, and the holy Ark ship destroyed. Tierra and Uraba were poised to collid
e in a war that might not end until one continent or the other was utterly devastated. Her life was no longer certain, and her instruction in statecraft was no longer an esoteric exercise.

  Prester-Marshall Baine was relaxed next to the old Saedran scholar. The two were obviously friends, not religious rivals; Aidenists had long ago given up trying to find converts amongst the Saedrans, and the Saedrans themselves never proselytized.

  "But how can we rebuild Ishalem?" Sen Leo sounded quite pragmatic, as though the decision had already been made. "Ishalem has few forests. All the trees in the surrounding hills were cut down long ago. Our crew will have to bring everything with them." He ticked off a list on his fingers. "Tools, workers, materials, food. We can order a raft of logs straight from Iboria, commission bricks and rope from Erietta. With ashes, lime, and sand we can make mortar."

  Though Anjine could not forget the images of the city in flames, her imagination gave her other visions: new homes built on the charred ground, pilings installed in the waters, new docks erected... and a rebuilt primary kirk to take the place of the one that had burned.

  A seemingly small event could have tremendous consequences;

  a pebble could start an avalanche... a spark could start a fire. Nothing was certain.

  Anjine recalled the story of how Korastine himself had unexpectedly come to the throne. King Kiracle, her grandfather, had loved to ride his horses, and while visiting Erietta he had gone out on an impulsive ride, ignoring the dark thunderclouds. When Kiracle had stopped on a hilltop to survey the reach, a bolt of lightning struck him. The horse miraculously lived and bore the dead king back to the stables of the Erietta destrar. Thus, Korastine had come to the throne.

  Anjine spoke up for the first time during the meeting. "Didn't Aiden write that the air smells freshest after a storm? His Ark ship may be gone, but the memory is still there, the truth is still there--in Ishalem. The spot is still there."

  Sen Leo chuckled. "We have indeed been through a terrible storm."

  Prester-Marshall Baine said, "Your daughter will be a wise queen one day, Majesty. Perhaps reigning over many new lands, if the Luminara's voyage is successful." He glanced at the intricate model mounted on a firm wooden shelf.