Kherron gave the man a knowing smirk, realizing how little Loro knew and how keenly accurate his speculation remained. “It almost cost me dearly,” he said. The thought of other men balking when they learned the only way to acquire such a weapon—taking on a furious amarach in a battle for one’s life—greatly amused him. “Thank you,” he said, fully aware of the fact that the leatherworker had provided the first true gift he’d ever received. Zerod had given him food, lodging, knowledge, and provisions in Hephorai. His hosts at Gileath Junction had offered him work, shelter, a meal, and his map. But this scabbard had been given with no intention beyond kindness and generosity, meant for Kherron alone and without his asking for it. He and Loro knew each other very little, but that did not lessen the vastness of Kherron’s gratitude.
“Just try not to use it on the man before you make it to Eran’s Crossing.” Kherron snorted in amusement, and with a nod, Loro stepped across the dock toward the Honalei. His long legs carried him as swiftly and smoothly as if he navigated the river itself, and he stopped aboard the vessel’s deck with an exaggerated, flourishing click of his bootheels. With his knuckles, he rapped upon the odious yellow door, which produced no response. Loro looked back to shoot Kherron a knowing glance, raised a finger, then pounded on the door with his fist. The ruckus carried across the wharves and echoed along the water, making it impossible not to be heard. “Rise, oh captain!” His heavy blows continued on the door until something crashed inside the cabin, followed by a muffled curse.
With a smirk, Loro nearly skipped down the gangway and across the dock, then brought a reassuring hand down on Kherron’s shoulder. “Remember that you paid him. Don’t let him corrupt your sanity.”
The words were given in jest, and Kherron found himself wanting to admit that his sanity had in fact withstood far worse. Instead, he smiled at the leatherworker, clasped the man’s proffered hand in farewell, and watched him stride back down the wharves toward Vereling Town’s main road.
Thinking it unwise to rush the newly awakened Uishen, he took a few moments to remove his belt and slide it through the thick loop on the back of the dagger’s new sheath. Then he replaced the belt and arranged his weapon on his left hip. When he reached across to grasp the handle, he found it took just a little more force to remove the dagger than when he’d carried it unprotected. Fortunately, he had time to familiarize himself with both the scabbard’s added weight on his belt and the new sensation of properly drawing a weapon.
The brilliant red glow of the rising sun flashed above the horizon across the Sylthurst. Kherron headed toward the Honalei just as Uishen threw open the yellow door and sent it slamming against the cabin’s outer wall. “I thought I said before sunrise,” the ferryman growled, teetering in the doorway and steadying himself against its frame.
With a deep breath, Kherron forced the amusement from his face and tried to look thoroughly reprimanded. “I apologize,” he said, crossing the gangway and stepping onto the barge’s deck. The coin had exchanged hands, the deal had been made, and he no longer felt the need to defend his pride with Uishen. The man had quirks, that much was clear, and perhaps Loro’s unexpected gift and acknowledgement of Kherron’s endeavors had eased some of Kherron’s own doubts about the voyage. Indeed, it would be easier for him and Uishen both if he managed to ignore the ferryman’s oddities and perhaps even submit to them. “I’m here now,” he added, taking in the sight of Uishen’s bare feet, soiled tunic, and unfocused gaze. The thong with which he’d bound his hair had apparently loosened in the night, and the man’s ponytail now hung, disheveled and askew, closer to his left shoulder.
Blinking, Uishen pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose and murmured, “Then do your part.” Kherron worked hard not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the command; he’d done his part with half his coin the night before. Uishen stepped out of the doorway and passed Kherron without a glance. He hoisted the lowered gangway, which moved from a hinge on the deck, and pulled it up until it closed the open space in the Honalei’s outer railing. As the man latched both sides of the gangway turned gate to the corresponding hooks in the siderail, Kherron considered asking what exactly the man wished him to do. But Uishen pushed past him again and stepped around the cabin wall portside, where he reached into the incomprehensible jumble of ropes and dangling baubles above him to produce a long wooden pole. This he brought to Kherron, nearly shoving it into his chest. Then he walked around the walls of the cabin, centered almost directly on the Honalei’s deck, and disappeared from sight.
For a moment, Kherron stood there and eyed the pole in his hand. He hadn’t the slightest idea what it was for, let alone how to maneuver a river vessel—or any vessel, for that matter. Peering portside, he called, “Can you tell me what—”
Uishen’s head appeared again around the cabin wall, and he glared at Kherron. “Shove off from the dock, then meet me at her fore.”
Reluctantly, Kherron turned to the dock and stepped toward the raised gangway, wondering how he could possibly get a barge as stocky and cumbersome as the Honalei to move through the water with a pole as thick around as his own wrist. It took him a few attempts to place the end of the pole firmly against the edge of the dock; the tool being awkwardly long, he found it difficult to maneuver with any accuracy. When he finally thought to lever it against the deck’s outer railing, that seemed to help, and he pushed down and away, as if he were shoveling coals from an absurd distance. The Honalei lurched from her berth, swaying, and Kherron almost toppled backward.
“I said slowly!” Uishen roared from wherever he stood out of Kherron’s sight.
“You did not,” Kherron hissed, slamming one end of the pole into the Honalei’s deck. He took that moment to breathe and compose himself, fully aware that these interactions with Uishen would most likely not abate during their voyage. If he wanted to make it across the Sylthurst with any semblance of his dignity intact, he would have to ignore the frustration.
Glancing downriver, he noted the swelling wake caused by the barge’s unmooring. The fishing boats directly downriver bobbed dangerously in the water, and their owners turned and raised their arms in surprise and irritation. A few of them shouted and offered crude gestures, but Kherron turned to step around the cabin, returning the pole to its incomprehensible place among the swaying ropes, which seemed to be nothing more than a tangled web Uishen used for storage.
When he rounded the corner of the cabin and reached the Honalei’s foredeck, he couldn’t fathom how he had previously missed the sight of the massive contraption mounted to the bow like a parasitic growth. He’d never seen a wheel such as this, with huge wooden paddles protruding from its edge. The lowest portion of it dipped below the surface of the river, but the rest of the waterwheel hung suspended above the bow, nearly blocking the view ahead. From the center of the wheel, a thick wooden shaft extended inward toward the cabin, where it then connected to a second at a ninety-degree angle. An incomprehensible series of joints and other shafts branched from the bow, and Kherron found it impossible to follow the intricate system of pulleys and moving parts. But he did understand the end result; a final steel rod, bending at many angles as it spanned across the deck from port to starboard, connected to a number of huge oars suspended in their rowlocks on either side of the hulking barge. While more oars existed on the starboard side, facing downriver, he did see empty rowlocks on the port side and assumed more oars could be added to the spinning contraption at will.
Kherron stared, confused, awed, and trying to work out just how reliably the wooden behemoth would get them to the Sylthurst’s opposite shore. Then he noticed Uishen, who crouched between the cantilevered poles, fiddling with some connection Kherron could not and didn’t care to see. The man stood, caught sight of Kherron, and took high, exaggerated steps over the parts of his vessel’s inexplicable mechanism.
“I assume you can row,” the man said, widening his eyes at Kherron as if he had not recovered from his drinking the night before and still could n
ot focus.
“First time on the water,” Kherron replied, eyeing the ferryman with wary anticipation.
“Fortunately for you, this doesn’t require any skill. Just manpower.” Uishen stopped beside Kherron and turned toward the bow. “The current’s not strong enough so close to the wharves. We need to row Honalei out before the Sylthurst takes over for us.” When Kherron turned to stare at the man, Uishen smirked. “She takes hard work and a lot of care, but she’s never let me down.” Then he reached down to grab the steel rod connected to the oars. With a shrug, Kherron did the same.
It was back-breaking work, far different than Kherron’s experience with wielding a hammer and lifting heavy weaponry. As any rower understood, the motion of endlessly pushing and pulling made Kherron’s shoulders burn. Most rowing, however, was performed from a seated position. Uishen’s contraption had no such luxury, nor would it have been possible; the angles of that center rod stretched so wide, the men had to bend over almost completely to the deck before the next upward pull. The first few strokes of that rotating rod were agonizingly slow, made difficult even for two men of capable strength. Kherron soon realized the added resistance came from the fact that they powered not just the connected oars but the entire apparatus aboard the Honalei, including the wooden shafts and the gigantic waterwheel hanging from the bow. The river’s current helped somewhat, but Uishen had been right; it was not strong enough to significantly lessen their burden.
The Honalei’s deck filled with the groans and creaks of moving parts, each turning axis of wood rumbling within its connecting joints. The sound grew so loud, Kherron thought he wouldn’t have been able to hear his own voice if he’d managed to speak at all. But the first few minutes of maneuvering the rod in his hands left him breathless and sore, sweat dripping from his hairline and pooling at the collar of his cloak.
What might have only been minutes felt like eternal hours, and Kherron started to wonder if he’d been duped into manually rowing this ridiculous vessel all the way to Eran’s Crossing. When the resistance of the moving rod in his hands decreased, he thought at first that his worked muscles had merely lost sensation. It had happened before, those first days of apprenticing under Eian at the Iron Pit; his untrained body had labored to its limits, and his arms had tired so much, they’d grown cold and weightless. But the heaviness of pushing and pulling abated further, and the turning metal rod moved faster despite his quickly depleting strength. Finally, without warning, Uishen loosed his hold on the rod as if it had burned him and clapped a weary hand on his passenger’s shoulder.
This tore Kherron so abruptly from the rhythm of hard labor that he stumbled. Whether from weariness or the glancing blow to his hip from the angled rod now cranking on its own, he landed jarringly upon the Honalei’s deck. Uishen hunkered beside him, veins throbbing beneath the sweat on his own temple, and chuckled. “Just have to warm her up,” he said, panting, and wiped a forearm across his brow.
Kherron fumbled with stiff fingers at the clasp of his cloak and tossed it to the deck, considering the removal of all his clothes despite the cool morning. Propping his elbows on his bent knees, he glared at the ferryman. “You could have mentioned this part.”
“So you could pay me more to avoid it?”
“So I could have been sure to eat first,” Kherron grumbled.
Uishen barked laughter, then grunted and stood. “You know the value of labor. This isn’t a pleasure barge.” He raised a hand to shield his eyes as he glanced east toward the rising sun, then added, “You can break your fast with me now, if you wish.” He clapped Kherron again on the shoulder and headed aft.
Kherron took a moment longer to be alone, waiting until the heat of his body subsided and he was less likely to topple again from exertion. When he finally stood, the morning breeze cooling his damp skin, he was struck by what an odd sight the Honalei had become—more than a dozen oars dipping into the Sylthurst of their own accord, the waterwheel turning seamlessly at the bow, and the churning collection of wooden mechanisms between them. But he was finally on his way to Eran’s Crossing, and the sun glinted off the Sylthurst’s grey surface, bringing with it the promised warmth of an early-autumn day and a surprising affirmation of freedom.
He headed aft, wondering if Uishen had configured the cabin door facing the stern in order to more easily watch strangers on the dock or to avoid the eyesore of the waterwheel at the Honalei’s bow. Then he stopped, impressed by the aesthetically irritating barge and all her prowess. However long he and Uishen had rowed the Honalei, they’d traveled farther in that time than any other vessel had a right to boast. Already, the high stone walls of Vereling Town spanned no larger than Kherron’s own hand upon the bank. While he realized Uishen and his barge had been accurately praised—by both Mattheus and Loro—the realization that they’d moved so far and so quickly across the Sylthurst made him nervous. He’d been told the voyage would last days, perhaps even a week, and even at the Honalei’s current speed, the river’s width now seemed unfathomable. So many things could happen before they made it to Eran’s Crossing, and now there was nothing around them but water—no one to call to for aid.
Kherron shook his head. He couldn’t think like this, not when he’d done everything he could to get this far. Many leagues still stretched between him and Deeprock Spire, but each day brought him closer to the shores of the Amneas and the hopes that there he would find Dehlyn.
Uishen’s beckoning shout pulled him from his wide-eyed stare at the west bank of the Sylthurst, and Kherron headed toward the cabin door to break his fast with his only companion for the next several days.
Chapter 9
The bright sun hanging over the midday sky did little to combat the chill of the Amneas. It seemed the ocean spray fuming over the rocky cliffs remained in the air, dampening even what the water never touched. Torrahs felt it particularly in his joints, which ached when he walked and did not ease when he sat. Only the scalding temperatures of a hot bath brought any relief, but he had neither the time nor the patience to bathe as often as his old bones pained him.
He’d opened the shutters within the library, thinking the sunshine on such a clear day would have driven away the sharp, briny tinge to the air. He had been wrong. The Amneas Sea had a frozen heart, her depths and her storms unrelenting in their drive to consume what might bring warmth and light to her shores. The freezing wind had gusted through the open shutters, knocking the loose sheaves of parchment off the table at which he sat. Torrahs had spent that morning organizing these documents according to the high standards of common sense—the Brotherhood seemed to have lost all such capacity in his absence—and he roared with frustration when his efforts were undone by the unyielding wind hidden behind a blue sky. He’d slammed the shutters closed and barked orders for a fire to be made at the other end of the library.
The scrawny, fidgeting initiate who had answered his summons stumbled over his own robes and took three-quarters of an hour just to light a spark within the cold, soot-stained hearth. The spark, of course, had died, the fire remained unlit, and Torrahs had cuffed the back of the boy’s head and told him to spend the rest of the day lighting every other hearth at Deeprock Spire. The Brothers would find the initiate’s absence at his duties irritating, no doubt, especially when the storehouse of firewood boasted such a large dent in logs and kindling. But he did not expect his Brothers to take stock of their own inventory. He did not expect them to do much of anything, just as they’d been doing for the last few decades. What was the point of all the things they’d sought and all the knowledge they’d gained if these old fools had let it all fall away into such disuse?
Torrahs gathered the scattered parchment and the dusty yellow tomes from the table beside the window and moved them all to the other end of the library. Setting them with a grunt of frustration on another table by the dead fireplace, he then retrieved his staff and pointed it at the gaping hearth. The cold logs burst into flame with a shower of sparks, crackling away as if the use
less initiate had indeed succeeded in doing what had been asked of him an hour before.
The boom of the heavy door closing resounded in the library and echoed up the high walls of shelves, their contents abandoned and nearly forgotten for far too long. “You did not use a spell.”
Torrahs recognized the gruffness of Fortenu’s voice, which the man no doubt employed to mask his wariness of everything he could not eat. “I summoned fire to wood,” he replied dryly, sitting at the table to begin again his efforts in arranging the parchments he’d selected to review that day. “It is not that complicated.”
The Brother’s footsteps echoed across the stone floors until he stood at Torrahs’ side. “What else can you do without an enchantment?” The man peered over the table at the documents Torrahs studied. His quivering belly spilled onto the edge of the table and shifted a number of parchments beneath its weight.
Torrahs laid a hand on those unbound scrolls and slid them slowly from beneath his visitor’s girth. “The things I can do, Brother, would startle you into skipping a meal. Unfortunately, they do not include staving off unwelcome interruptions.” Fortenu stepped away from the table, and a manuscript that had not escaped the man’s fleshy abuse fluttered to the floor. The Brother looked down and bent at the knees—no doubt in an attempt to begin the process of retrieving the parchment—but Torrahs raised a hand to stop him. He did not wish to wait as long for his Brother to conquer his obesity as he had for the initiate to fail in starting a fire. Instead, he leaned down from his chair and retrieved the wayward note, placing it on the table as far from the other man as possible. “Is there a reason for your visit, Fortenu?”
The Brother standing beside him cleared his throat, but when Torrahs did not look up at him in response, the man took a deep breath. “I wish to know how you yield such results without incantations or runes. How did you come by such inclinations?”
Secret of Dehlyn (The Unclaimed Book 2) Page 8
