The Mirror After the Cavern

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Ah, here are the fishing docks,” he changed the topic. “Let’s look for a boat that looks beaten up.” They walked out on a pier, Silas looking out beyond the crowded field of ships to see glimpses of the open water of the harbor beyond. It was a sight of more water than he’d ever seen before.

  “Is it some secret friend of yours who owns a disguised smuggling boat?” Silas guessed.

  “No,” Ruten gave him a sideways glance. “I’m looking for a fishing boat that looks down on its luck and in desperate need of cash. They’ll be most likely to take on a paying passenger.”

  “But,” Silas felt warning bells in his mind. “If it looks rundown, how do we know it’s safe?”

  “Oh, most boats are safe. As long as the weather is mild and the crew is competent and the ship is seaworthy, there’s nothing terrible likely to happen,” Ruten shrugged off Silas’s concerns. “There’s a likely prospect there,” he pointed midway down a row of vessels, and started to plunge onward, Silas in his wake.

  The boat looked adequate to Silas. It would benefit from a fresh coat of paint, but it didn’t appear to suffer from any patches in the hull. A trio of men sat on the deck, fixing the nets.

  “Gentlemen, what do you aim to catch?” Ruten called from the floating dock as he stood next to the hull of the boat.

  One of the men looked up and spoke. “We’ll catch whatever the sea goddess sends in our nets, as long as we think we can sell it.”

  “Well, the goddess may have just sent you an unusual but profitable catch,” Ruten smoothly baited the men. “You can make a good deal of money for not much work or risk, thanks to the goddess sending my footsteps this way.”

  “And how exactly would that be?” the man in the boat asked.

  “My nephew here has never experienced the open seas before. I’m going to take him to Amenozume on the next ferry, but I’d like him to go out to sea now to get accustomed to the motion and the air. I’ll pay you four golds to launch your ship from the dock right now with him on board, and wait out at sea to rendezvous with the ferry the day after next,” Ruten framed his proposal.

  “Just sail out and wait outside the harbor for the ferry?” the man asked skeptically. “You’ll pay four golds for that? Are we supposed to do anything else?”

  “No, you can do what you want. Just keep the boy healthy and alive, then put him on board the ferry to Amenozume,” Ruten confirmed. He handed over two large gold coins. “There’s half payment now, and half more when you deliver him to us.”

  The fisherman closed his fist around the coins, then looked up at Silas. “Let’s have a look at you boy; lower your hood and give us a see.”

  Silas looked at Ruten for a moment, then lowered his hood with both hands, revealing his features, including his gold and purple eyes, to his new shipmates.

  One of the men in the boat whistled, while the man holding the coins spoke. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “He comes from the mountains, but he’s a good lad,” Ruten answered easily. “Do we have a deal?”

  “I took your money, didn’t I? That means it’s a deal; I don’t break promises. Hop in the boat lad, and let’s hope you bring us some luck; we haven’t netted a good catch in two weeks. We could use your help,” the man replied. He motioned for Silas to step into the boat. With a sigh, Silas did so. He turned and looked at Ruten, who waved a casual salute, then turned and walked away.

  “What’s your name, lad?” the ship’s leader asked.

  “I’m Silas,” he answered.

  “I’m Gaspar, this is Remon, and that’s my boy Greymont. We’ve been fishing these waters all our lives. What do you know about sea fishing?” he asked. “And you can put your things in that locker there,” he directed Silas’s attention to a wooden box build against the ship’s hull.

  “Let’s gather supplies, then put out to sea,” Gaspar instructed. “Here, Greymont,” Gasper held out one of the gold coins. “Go pay our debts to the dockmaster, then go to the market and get food for four for three days at sea, then get back here as quickly as possible.”

  “I’ve never seen the sea before,” Silas belatedly answered Gaspar’s question. “This is my first time on a boat.” Greymont leaped up onto the dock and disappeared in the direction of the shore.

  “First time on a boat? I think Remon was born on a boat, weren’t you Remon?” Gaspar asked his crewman. “We’ll have a lot to teach you in the next couple of days, won’t we?”

  He proceeded to give Silas a crash course on the parts and functions of the fishing vessel, along with a too-fast vocabulary lesson on the terms the fishermen used. By the time Greymont returned with a large canvas sack slung over his shoulder, Silas’s head was reeling with information. It was worse that trying to memorize any of the codes the academy had taught him while he had been a Wind Word student.

  Greymont stowed the bag of goods in a small cupboard, then leaned over to his father and spoke softly in his ear.

  “Perhaps we better get ready to leave port,” Gaspar said aloud in response.

  “What’s this coming down the dock?” Remon asked at the same time.

  Silas turned to look. A squad of a half dozen men dressed all in black were walking along the dock, looking into every ship as they walked past it. “Oh gods,” he muttered in despair, drawing a glance from Gaspar.

  “Silas, come here; I want to show you something,” Gaspar moved to the opposite side of the ship’s hull, away from the dock, and peered down into the water. Silas followed him over and leaned down to see the surface of the gray water lapping against the ship.

  “Here, focus on the water below the surface, and watch for movement,” Gaspar’s hand brushed the water a foot out from the hull, and Silas leaned closer, looking intently, without spotting anything visible in the murk.

  He heard footsteps on the dock, and then suddenly Gaspar’s hand was on the back of his head, shoving him down into the water. His face entered the water unexpectedly, making him gasp and swallow the salty brine as he felt the cool element on his face, in his ears, and then up over his scalp. Gaspar was pushing him further into the water and holding him there.

  Gaspar’s strength was extraordinary. Silas couldn’t lift his head, though he struggled to try. He heard voices in the air above as he waved his hands and tried to grab Gaspar’s wrists, desperately hoping to lift his own head back into the air. The man had betrayed him. He was going to take Ruten’s two golds, pay off his debts, then kill Silas and dispose of him. Or perhaps they’d turn his body over to the guards from Ivaric, and collect some bounty for that as well.

  Gaspar’s hand suddenly tightened his grip on Silas’s hair, then lifted his head clear of the water, just barely. Silas sputtered and gasped and moaned, while vomiting out the sea water he had just swallowed unexpectedly.

  “The boy found my personal bottle this morning and helped himself to it; he wasn’t ready for something like that,” Gaspar chuckled loudly. “You wouldn’t want to take him and sober him up for me, would you?” he asked.

  “we’re looking for something even more deadly than your moonshine,” a humorless voice answered from some unseen spot. Silas opened his eyes and saw the water just inches below his face. “If you see golden eyes, you come running for us to protect you before you get killed.”

  The footsteps sounded again, walking away.

  “Keep you head down there and retch some more. I’m going to dunk you again,” Gaspar’s voice said softly. Before Silas understood their meaning, he felt his head shoved underwater once more. He swallowed more water and felt the water sting his still-open eyes, as he waved his hands wildly overhead.

  Gaspar jerked his head up into the air, and Silas spit and vomited out his latest dose of the seawater.

  “You’re supposed to take a breath before I put you under,” Gaspar hissed in exasperation.

  “I didn’t know,” Silas coughed.

  “They’re coming back. Take a breath now,” the fisherman commanded. He
waited a long moment, then pressed Silas back into the water.

  Silas just managed to close his mouth before his face was back in the water. He held his eyes shut and tried to imagine what was going on above – how close the Ivaric assassins were, how closely they were watching the men in the fishing boat, their rate of travel. Suddenly, Gaspar lifted the boy’s head, and added a hand at the back of his shirt to lift him and return him to the interior of the boat.

  “Let’s cast that line off and get out of the harbor,” Gaspar told his companions in a no-nonsense voice.

  Silas lay in a wet heap and watched the men scramble around him, then felt the boat give a jerk and begin to move as Greymont pressed a long pole that propelled the fishing vessel into the open water away from the dock.

  “Remon, man the oars. Greymont, get the sails ready. We’ll bear west-southwest,” Gaspar told the others as he took the long pole from Greymont and put it back in its holder. “Silas, help Remon with the oars.”

  Silas found the handle of a sweep shoved hastily in his hands.

  “Turn around; face the back of the boat and do as I do,” Remon instructed hastily.

  Silas struggled to understand and comply, delaying his movement for a fraction of a second to watch what Remon was doing.

  “Hustle down boy, we’re doing this to save your skin,” Gaspar snapped at him.

  Silas quickly slipped his legs around and copied Remon in locking his oar handle into the lock on the top of the hull, then strained to pull. The blade of the oar slipped upward and skipped across the water, before Silas hastily pushed it forward and sank it back into the water, then tried to match Remon’s smooth stroke.

  “That’s it, keep it steady,” Remon encouraged him.

  “Greymont, how’s that sail coming?” Gaspar shouted out the question as he tied down more loose equipment.

  “Ready in two minutes,” the boy replied.

  Silas continued to awkwardly match his rowing efforts with those of Gaspar.

  “Take us out to that open patch in the south,” Gaspar directed.

  “Hold your oar in the water until I tell you to lift it,” Remon told Silas, then he began to pull his own oar with long, powerful strokes that made the boat slowly rotate as it advanced.

  “Now, start rowing with me again,” Remon instructed Silas, and they moved their oars in tandem until Silas heard the sound of canvas rippling in the faint wind.

  “Bring your oars inboard,” Gaspar spoke, as the boat began to gain a gentle momentum and started to travel further away from the dock.

  “Okay lad, now tell me why the monsters from Ivaric are all the way down here in the docks of Avaleen looking for you,” Gaspar turned to ask Silas, once he was sure the fishing boat was moving on the course he desired.

  “I was in a caravan, driving a wagon that carried mirrors for sale to the palace in Ivaric, but one of them broke, so to punish me, they took me into the palace to interrogate me. I fought back and killed the interrogator, then ran free, and they’ve been chasing me ever since,” Silas tried to give a succinct version of the much more complicated story.

  “Hmmm, it sounds about right. What do those eyes of your have to do with all of this?” Gaspar mulled over the explanation.

  “Nothing, really,” Silas answered. “They’re just what make me different, easy to find in a crowd.”

  “They do that,” Greymont agreed.

  After that, nothing more was said about the men from Ivaric, and Silas entered an intensive, short apprenticeship in the arts and sciences of fishing. He spent a day and a half with the three men in the boat, learning to operate the boat, to cast and retrieve the nets, to sort the catch, and to work with the others in the confined space of the ship. It was a pleasurable experience for Silas, unlike any he had known before. The work was hard, but the three men of the crew were patient with him, and he felt a twinge of regret with Gaspar announced that the ferry was in sight the following afternoon.

  Chapter 23

  Gaspar’s boat sailed next to the ferry, and waited for the larger ship to drop a line. The ferry was much larger than the fishing vessel. Silas saw a number of familiar faces lining the railing of the ferry, his friends from the caravan, who waved cheerfully as Silas looked up at them and waved in return. A stout rope was soon dropped over the edge of the ferry, and lowered to the deck of Gaspar’s ship. The fisherman grasped the leather bag tied to the rope, saw his payment inside, then secured the rope around Silas’s waist and gave the traveler a friendly slap on the back.

  Silas was then slowly lifted and deposited on the deck of the ferry.

  “How was your journey?” Prima was among those waiting for him as he was untied by the ferry crew.

  Silas turned and waved farewell to the departing fishing boat, then turned again to answer Prima.

  “It was good; a patrol from Ivaric almost found me before we left the dock, but Gaspar tricked them and we got away. This is a big ship,” he commented, turning his head to look around at the ferry.

  It was large, a wide, long, flat-topped vessel that held most of the wagons from the caravan, as well as other vehicles that were destined for the Amenozume market. There were many people who sat atop carts or even sacks of goods and belongings.

  “Ameno buys a lot of goods that they don’t make on their island,” Prima answered Silas’s unspoken question as the boy’s eyes roved over the ferry load.

  “What do they make?” Silas asked.

  “They produce the world’s finest pearls. There’s a little bit of gold in the mountains too, but it’s mostly the pearls – they’re worth a lot of money, and they keep the kingdom wealthy,” Prima told him. “For us, this is mostly just a trading trip, a chance to sell some of our more luxurious goods. The rest of the caravan is riding down to Barnenob – we’ll meet them there after we leave the island.”

  “Is that where Minnie and Sareen are? With the other wagons from the caravan?” Silas asked. He had mentally inventoried the members of the caravan crew he had seen on the ferry deck.

  “Well, Minnie is leading the land wagons with Ruten, but Sareen has left the caravan. Her nobleman-friend’s family offered her a position as maid to his sister – they called it lady-in-waiting to make it sound fancier,” Prima grimaced.

  Silas stood in silence, shocked by the unexpected news. He’d never reached a point of claiming a relationship with Sareen, but he had half-heartedly convinced himself he was just outside the door of doing so. Her disappearance from his life was a total and unexpected shock.

  “The caravan will be back through Avaleen in nine or ten months,” Prima said. “Maybe we can call on her to see if she wants to come back to the good life. Of course, I don’t even know if you’ll still be with us by then, or if you’ll be back at the Academy in Heathrin finishing your training to be a Speaker.”

  “I don’t know either,” Silas stuttered. He was confused and discombobulated. He’d gone from the pleasure of a successful fishing trip to the discovery of the loss of a friend in such a quick turn that his head hurt.

  “I’m going to go check on my mule,” Silas told Prima. He wanted to spend time alone so that he could digest all that he had learned. He walked through the crowded deck, weaving around the piles of goods, and reached the wooden pen, where numerous beasts were penned together. He knew where Hron was, even before he saw the mule – he’d sensed the animal’s presence when he’d arrived on the ferry, and he was pleased to be able to squeeze into the narrow stall where his friend stood.

  The two spent half an hour together, mutually benefiting from the opportunity to let their friendship overcome their woes – the loss of Sareen for Silas, and the encagement in the stall for Hron. After that time of contemplation, Silas decided it was time for him to go mingle with the others on the ferry. He bid Hron farewell, then stepped back out and walked among the others on the ferry.

  The ride to Amenozume lasted for two and a half days. During the days, Silas watched the sea, talked with others who als
o sought to pass the time, and finally turned to studying his strange mirror fragment. When last he had looked in the mirror, he had inexplicably seen the interior of a building, which wasn’t a part of his own location at all.

  When he looked into the mirror fragment while he rode on the ferry, he found that he again saw nearly the same scene, the interior of a large building, perhaps a storeroom or warehouse. But the scene had changed. There were numerous crates stored in the warehouse now, crates that hadn’t been visible before. He saw barrels of arrows as well, many, many arrows. When he looked at the mirror later, he saw men carrying more crates into the warehouse, adding to the large store of goods already being collected there.

  Silas didn’t check the mirror too often though. He was observed staring at the mirror by a peddler who was riding on the ferry too, and the man spread the tale that Silas was vain about his looks, studying his own reflection for minutes on end. Silas had no good retort to the accusation, unless he revealed the magical nature of his mirror, and he chose not to do that. It would be hard to explain, wouldn’t be believed by many, unless they saw the mirror’s revelations themselves, and – along with his eyes – it would further add to his reputation for being different from everyone else.

  The ferry approached the pier in the city harbor of Amenozume city late in the day of their arrival, riding in fast on unexpected breezes that carried the ship at a brisk pace. The crew of the ship was not prepared for the arrival and mischief of the sudden squall, and they worked frenetically to slow the ship and correct its course for a smooth docking. They almost succeeded, but not quite.

  “All passengers prepare for a hard landing!” one of the officers shouted loudly and repeatedly ten seconds before the ferry struck the dock. “Hold onto to something – brace yourself!” he repeated.

  Silas rushed towards Hron’s stall, but did not quite make it before the ship obliquely struck the stone pier. The ship shuddered violently, but did not stop. Instead, it careened off the pier at a shallow angle and slowly drifted along the side of the pier, while people and materials lay scattered all across the deck.