by Jason Fry
Through hand gestures and whispers, Stax finally got one of the librarians to understand that he was trying to go home. The librarian pointed to a door Stax somehow hadn’t noticed before, one whose door was emblazoned with gilded letters that said MAP ROOM.
The Map Room had its own shelves of rare books, but at its center were large tables covered with piles of charts and maps. Stax started to explain to one of the strange librarians what he wanted, but the gray-skinned being held up a hand to stop him and reached into the center of the pile on the table in front of them, extracting an old map in a wooden frame.
Stax goggled at the map in disbelief. It was the Overworld, rendered in beautiful detail—gray mountain ranges and dark green forests and blue curlicues of rivers and broad yellow deserts. There, marked with an X, was the lonely shore and his tower.
Stax followed the shoreline to the west, watching as it decayed into a series of islands, until he stopped at the little speck of land where he knew he was at that moment tossing and turning in bed. Beyond that lay the Sea of Sorrows, marked by fanciful clouds with baleful eyes and downturned mouths spewing out winds. Excited now, Stax looked farther west. There was the pale blue of an ice field. And there, beyond it, a green triangle of land sticking out into the ocean: the Stonecutter peninsula.
Stax couldn’t help himself and let out a cry of triumph, earning stern looks and shushes from several librarians. He snatched up the framed map to take with him, as it would be invaluable for crossing the Sea of Sorrows. But as he lifted it, the map disintegrated, worn away to nothing by age. As Stax watched in horror, it crumbled into flakes of colorful paper that fluttered to the rich green carpet.
Stax put the empty frame back on the table. Only bits and pieces of the map remained at the corners: mere fragments of mountain ranges and savannas. Stax got down on his knees, sifting through the colored scraps, but he knew it was hopeless.
Stax awoke in his cabin to discover the morning was cloudy and slightly chilly. He shook his head at the disquieting dream, but decided he wasn’t surprised it had happened. Of course he’d dream of maps; he was trying to get home, and it would have been handy to have a map like the ones that had been stolen from him. If anything, he was surprised that his sleeping brain hadn’t also filled the dream with compasses.
“Well, maybe that will be tomorrow night’s dream,” Stax muttered to himself as he munched on his familiar breakfast of dried kelp.
He pushed the boat down the beach and got in, surprised at how familiar this morning routine had come to feel. His back and arms even hurt a little less than they had yesterday.
“If I can’t get home, I can take a job as a rower,” Stax said, laughing at the thought. His laughter suddenly seemed very loud, out in the middle of the sea with only a little dot of a rocky island nearby. But instead of being ashamed of disturbing the silence, Stax decided to disturb it a little more.
“Oh yes,” he told the world in a loud voice as the island shrank behind him. “Stax Stonecutter is a very fine rower, yes, sir! Makes his own oars, can row from sunrise until sunset, and only asks for a little dried kelp for his meals. Bit of a loner and talks to himself all day, mostly about cats. And sometimes he can’t stop laughing. But everybody’s got a few eccentricities, don’t they?”
And he kept on talking as the morning stretched on and the islands became fewer and fewer to the south of him. He talked about his new science of rowing, which he called the Stonecutter method. (“The secret is to row all day, and then row some more!”) He named each island as he passed it, alternating between “Stax Island” and “Stonecutter Island,” and inventing arguments with mapmakers about whether it was appropriate to use only two names for an entire archipelago. He told stories about his cats. He extolled the virtues of dried kelp and invented elaborate recipes using it as an ingredient.
If you’re thinking that all this suggests Stax was going a bit crazy, well, Stax thought the same thing. But it made the day feel like it was going by more quickly, and it mostly prevented him from thinking about the dangers of the journey, or becoming anxious about how to get home, or worrying about whether his cats were hungry or frightened. And that made him feel better.
Or at least it did until he passed into the Sea of Sorrows.
Stax was pretty sure that’s where he was. It had been at least an hour since he’d seen an island either to the north or to the south. The wind was blowing chaotically, seeming to switch directions almost at will. Stax was over feeling seasick, but still gritted his teeth, hating being alone in the middle of a seemingly endless sea.
And there was another problem. The raiders had sailed across the Sea of Sorrows, but Stax had been asleep or too numb to notice how many times they’d changed direction. He did remember that Fouge’s flotilla of boats had spent several hours heading south, judging by the sun’s path across the sky, but he had no idea exactly when they’d turned in that direction.
Stax stopped rowing and sat in the boat for a while, turning this problem over and over in his mind and not finding a solution. He’d have to guess. He decided to row in the direction he thought was west for another hour, turn north, and hope he recognized something, or at least found a place he could make his next camp.
It was a relief to turn when the hour was up, or at least when Stax judged it was up by the position of the sun. Stax glanced down at the compass, thinking to himself that it was strange to see it no longer pointing directly behind him.
He rowed throughout the afternoon, seeing nothing but the blue-gray sea around him and hearing nothing but the wind and his own voice. But unlike the morning, Stax found it impossible to keep distracting himself with a stream of cheerful chatter. There was no island nearby if something went wrong. No refuge he could flee to.
With the sun lower in the sky, he scanned the horizon for any sign of land, thinking what a relief it would be to find an island big enough for a little cabin, or with a single hill he could dig into for shelter. But there was nothing. He rubbed the salt out of his eyes as best he could and kept rowing, hoping the sunset might reveal a safe haven. But the sun kept sinking, inevitably and pitilessly, and still Stax saw nothing.
“Miggs rowed all night,” he told himself. “I guess I’ll have to do the same. But that’s no hardship for a seasoned veteran rower like Stax Stonecutter!”
That had sounded good in his head, simultaneously defiant and cheerful, but when Stax actually said it he was struck by how small his voice seemed. Worried now, he kept rowing, peering at the compass and trying to make sure he kept heading north, as best he could judge it. The first stars appeared in the east and the sun became an orange line on the horizon, then a mere smear of color left behind in the sky, until finally it was dark except for the pale globe of the moon.
“Keep going,” Stax whispered to himself. “Just keep going.”
And he did. But he was frightened now. It was hard to keep the boat on course; every time he looked at the compass the needle indicated he had drifted away from where he thought north was. And he was tired, more tired than he’d been on the previous two days when he’d been able to tell himself that soon he’d be able to sleep.
Stax completed a stroke with the oars and stayed in position, his head back. He shook himself and started rowing again, but the pauses between strokes became longer and longer, until finally he sat slumped over the oars, motionless and half-asleep.
It was a long, miserable night, but finally there was a bit of color on the horizon: sunrise. Stax got the boat turned so that the rising sun was on his right, indicating he was heading north again, and began to row, but he was already exhausted.
And worse than that, he was hopelessly lost. There was no point pretending he wasn’t. With no reliable memory of the route Fouge’s raiders had taken, Stax had just been guessing when to turn north. He remembered that before turning south and crossing the Sea of Sorrows, Fouge’s boats
had passed beneath gray mountainous shores and camped on a little island. But there was no sign of any land to the north, and Stax might well have slept through several changes of course by the raiders.
If Stax could find the ice floes, he might have a chance of making his way home, since the frozen spires were visible from his estate. But he had no idea how to get there. He’d thought of his journey home like a jigsaw puzzle, similar to the ones he used to do with his grandparents, but now he realized that he was missing the critical pieces.
Stax decided there was nothing to be done except keep rowing north, in hope that he would spot the mountainous land he remembered. And so that’s what he did—he rowed numbly all day, ignoring the wind and the rings of salt that built up around his eyes, stopping only to eat a little dried kelp and stretch out his aching, cramped legs.
But no land appeared—no mountains and no islands. There was just the sea, which he had grown to despise. On the one hand, it was always changing, the color of the water shifting to reflect the sun and the sky above. But despite all that, his situation remained the same: He was in the middle of nowhere, in a huge place that was hostile to him, and he couldn’t find his way out of it. Stax rowed more and more slowly, until night came, and then he rowed glumly on through the night for a while, and then he stopped.
Stax was drifting himself by then, his brain wandering in and out of sleep. So when he saw the light, at first he thought he was dreaming. He’d soon wish that had been the case.
Things that go thump in the light * Strange fish * A familiar destination
One reason Stax thought he was dreaming was that the light wasn’t a sharp, clear light like you’d expect from a lighthouse or a lantern mounted on a boat. And it was the wrong color. Rather than being the orangey-red of fire, it was a pale, blue-green light that seemed to shimmer and wobble.
Stax reached over the side of the boat and splashed water on his face, to make sure he was awake; he had troubles enough without chasing a figment of his imagination across the dark, seemingly endless water. He accidentally swallowed some of the water and gasped and coughed, the noise sounding dangerously loud amid the ocean’s vast, still darkness.
The light was still there, ahead of him and a little to the right. That should be east, Stax thought, except when he looked at the compass the needle indicated the light was to the northwest. Either the compass had started pointing somewhere else, or the boat had drifted again while he slept over the oars.
“We’ll worry about that later,” Stax told himself in a croaking whisper, his voice rough and raw from salt.
He began to row toward the light, half-expecting it to disappear as he did so, revealed as another trick played by the cruel sea. But it was still there, shimmering in the night. It wasn’t until he was much closer that Stax realized that the light wasn’t coming from a structure on land or from a boat, but from under the sea.
Mesmerized, he drew closer, rowing slowly and straining his eyes to see through the water.
Below him, he saw a strange, eldritch land: pale hills and valleys beneath the surface of the sea. There was a forest down there, but one made of strands of kelp, waving in the currents. And atop a white hill was a sprawling castle made of ghostly green stone, surrounded by a scattering of towers. The mysterious light that had drawn Stax seemed to emanate from the castle.
Stax let the boat drift, enchanted by the strange sight. He was so focused on what he saw that when the thump came against the bottom of his boat he was nearly knocked overboard.
“Wh-what?” he yelped, swiveling his head and trying to find his attacker. The boat jumped again, and he heard a deep, gurgling growl from somewhere in the water nearby.
Stax knew that sound all too well, and pulled frantically on the oars. The boat leapt forward, toward the castle, as Stax rowed as hard as he could.
Something flashed in the darkness, glowing purple. A trident, Stax thought, but this light was a continuous beam, from ahead of him. As he rowed, the beam swiveled and landed on his chest. He stared down at it, puzzled.
The beam turned yellow and Stax cried out in pain. He felt like his flesh was burning. He ducked, pulling at the oars, and turned the boat away from the burning light.
He was above the green buildings now, awash in their spooky radiance. Below him, the scene that had seemed so enchanting had turned terrifying. Spiked creatures like giant fish swam below him, gazing up at him from pitiless single eyes, and he could see the gray-fleshed shapes of drowned swimming toward the surface, their mouths black Os.
Another purple beam flashed past the boat, lancing out into the night. Stax rowed hard, trying to put distance between himself and the undersea castle and its defenders. Something thumped at the bottom of the boat again, knocking Stax sideways and causing him to lose his grip on one of the oars. That sent the boat into a spin, and water washed over the side.
Stax fumbled for his wooden sword, yelling defiantly. A glowing purple shaft flashed by his ear, and this time it really was a trident. He dropped his sword and pulled hard on the oars, grunting with the effort. The glowing castle was behind him, but not far enough, and he waited for the trident to strike him between the shoulder blades, or for the burning light to find him again.
Keep going, he told himself. Keep going, keep going, keep going!
He rowed until he couldn’t anymore, his arms falling to his sides. He was panting now, desperately gulping for air. His chest hurt where the strange yellow light had touched him.
But he was alive.
Stax risked a look back over his shoulder. He’d rowed farther than he’d thought; the greenish light was a dot far behind him. Far enough, perhaps, that the guardians no longer considered him a threat, or had given up the pursuit.
Stax wanted desperately to rest, but he forced himself to keep rowing. If the wind or the currents pushed him back over the strange castle, he would be attacked again, and this time he doubted he’d escape.
Stax rowed until he couldn’t see the light behind him, and then rowed until he was exhausted again. And then—not because he thought it was a good idea, but because he couldn’t help it—he fell asleep at the oars. When he woke up, it was day. The sun had climbed a fair distance above the horizon.
There’s not a lot I can tell you about the next two days, because they were pretty much the same as the days I’ve told you about already. Stax rowed until he was too tired to row any longer and had to slump over his oars, apparently dead to the world, and then he woke up with a start and rowed some more. He no longer talked to himself—he was too weary to do that—and he barely looked at the compass. He simply rowed. At this point, he could barely remember a time when he’d done anything else.
It wasn’t until he saw the islands that his exhausted brain started to work again. He saw two at once, one to his left and one to his right, and they looked much the same, dots of dirt and rock.
But Stax’s brain didn’t work right away. He was so overwhelmed by his ordeal that he assumed his mind was playing tricks on him. So instead of landing on the closest island to rest, he simply rowed past it. But then he passed more islands, some to the north and some to the south, and finally something about them struck him as familiar.
A couple of hours later, there was no doubt at all: There were the gray bluffs, and the shipwrecks in the surf. This was the broad bay into which the raiders had sailed after leaving the perilous Sea of Sorrows.
Stax didn’t know whether he’d found his way back there by pure luck or some dimly perceived memory, but now he rowed with grim determination, and even found himself thinking of the sad, ruined tower he’d been so desperate to leave. He rowed until his arms were shaking and nearly limp, staring at the water ahead of him with wide eyes. He was racing the sun again; it was starting to set behind him, and the sky ahead of him was already darkening. Some instinct told Stax that he had used up all his reserves of strength
and courage, and wouldn’t survive another night exposed to the Overworld’s dangers. So he rowed and rowed and rowed.
The first stars were emerging when he saw a familiar low swampy place ahead of him, with pale sandy hills behind it and a spike of stone rising from the beach. Stax cried out and turned for the beach, rowing until the boat crunched into the sand and pebbles beneath it. He tried to stand, couldn’t, and fell over the side, landing on his hands and knees in the shallow water. Gasping, he made himself stand, gritting his teeth as his brain insisted the world was bobbing up and down around him. Step by step, he forced his legs to work, carrying him through sand and mud to the familiar patched door in the tower.
Hands shaking, Stax assembled his bed and then collapsed onto it.
“Well, I made it,” he muttered.
He tried to laugh, but nothing came out but a dry, awful-sounding croak.
A decision made * An unexpected green country * A cabin and a riddle
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Stax was too tired to do much of anything for several days except eat dried kelp. But little by little, he recovered from his ordeal. He rebuilt his furnace and crafting table inside the tower, gathered more kelp from the shallow waters offshore, and repaired the cracked boards on the bottom of his boat.
While doing these chores Stax found, somewhat to his surprise, that he wasn’t as depressed about everything that had gone wrong as he’d feared he’d be. He had built a boat, survived a dangerous journey, and returned to safety. Not so long ago, he’d doubted he’d be able to make it through a single night on his own, but he was still alive, having relied on no one but himself.
“But that’s not the way we’re going to get home,” Stax said. He’d started talking to himself again, just to hear a human voice. “No, that plan isn’t going to work.”
