The Floating Island

by Elizabeth Haydon

  At first he thought he must have dropped the straw because of his eyes being closed. Ven opened them quickly, feeling nothing in his hand, then looked.

  The straw between his thumb and forefinger was not even the length from his fingertip to the first knuckle.

  Nigel opened his palm. Every other straw was at least the length of his hand.

  “Tsk, tsk; hard luck, bucko,” said Osgood in obvious relief, wiping the nervous sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Your first draw, and your first short straw. Too bad.”

  Ven nodded but said nothing, knowing that any word out of his mouth would betray his jubilation. He turned away from his brothers and walked slowly down to the end of the pier, where the all-but-finished ship was moored, still waiting for its sails to be brought aboard.

  As Ven moved beyond earshot, Vernon turned in disgust to Osgood.

  “You sniveling baby,” he said contemptuously. “Why are you sweating like a prisoner about to be keel-hauled? You knew all along the draw was rigged.”

  Ven was too far away to hear when Osgood tackled Vernon, too caught up in excitement to notice his brothers rolling around on the docks, pounding each other’s heads into the planks. The sight was a common one anyway.

  Instead, he was listening to the call of the sea wind, to the scream of the gulls, to the glad song his heart was singing of adventure beyond the harbor of Vaarn, where he had spent his entire life.

  It was an excitement none of his family could possibly understand.

  In the distance he could make out a tiny moving shadow against the sun, flying in great circles on the warm updrafts.

  The albatross.

  Ven touched the long feather in his cap.

  “Thank you,” he whispered into the wind. “Seeing you seems to have brought me luck this day after all.”

  He had no idea how much—or how bad.

  2

  The Inspection

  * * *

  “Ours is a working family,” said my father that morning, again. My oath to Earth if he hasn’t said it at least twice a day, every day, I have been alive. He probably says it much more often, out of my hearing, to my brothers and sister, since they actually run parts of his business. For me, “Ours is a working family” usually explains why I have to do as I’m told, rather than as I please.

  My father inherited the factory from his father, who inherited it from his own father, Magnus the Mad. For Dad, manufacturing is a mission. Every one of his children works there, even my only sister, who apprenticed early in her career to a canvasmaker, and now runs the section of the shop that makes the sails. My mother is the only Polypheme who does not toil in the factory, but she is part of the mission, too. It is her job to manufacture the workers.

  And she has. Thirteen of us.

  I am the youngest, number thirteen, the last of the dozen sons of Pepin Polypheme. I am also by far the tallest, reaching the height at this early age of sixty-eight Knuckles, close to five feet in human measure, a half a head taller than all my brothers. I was named for my mother’s father, and Magnus the Mad, and so bear the name of Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme, but have been known most of my life simply as Ven.

  “Ven” is the Nain word for “and.” It was my first word, and so was added to my name at the age of three, when I first spoke it. That is the Nain tradition; each child’s first word becomes an official part of his or her name. As a result, three of my brothers are Petar Da-da Polypheme, Osgood No! Polypheme, and Linus Poo-poo Polypheme.

  Personally, I think the Nain should rethink this tradition.

  As for my name, I think perhaps there should be a question mark after it—“and?”—as if life is always posing the question of what I am to do next. I was born with more than my share of curiosity, and it gets me into a frightful amount of trouble. I want to know what comes next from the time I wake up in the morning, wondering what the day will hold, till the moment I fall asleep, imagining where my dreams will take me that night. It’s like an itch; my skin or scalp hums with excitement whenever my curiosity starts to take over. And? And? And? Scratching it does nothing to help; the itch doesn’t go away, and I just look like I have dandruff or fleas.

  On clear evenings I watch the sun dive into the sea, and wish I wasn’t wishing my life away. Wishing I was older. Wishing that I was diving into the sea with the sun. Wishing my beard would grow in enough so that my mother would make a joke about washing the smudge off my chin, like I’d seen her do with my brothers when they each first came into their own beards. Wishing for adventure, to see the places in the world I’ve read about in human books—Nain don’t write such tales—and the places no one has seen to write about yet.

  Wishing to know all the answers to “and?”

  But mostly I just wish to find the one thing that will finally satisfy my curiosity.

  Otherwise it will surely drive me mad as Magnus.

  * * *

  THE POLYPHEMES’ SHOP RESEMBLED A SMALL MOUNTAIN OVERLOOKING the port. It was set on the edge of the city, partly built into a ridge that defined the harbor. The brass bell clanged as Ven ran through the office doorway, puffing with excitement, slamming the door loudly behind him.

  The shop had three sections. In the rear was the factory, the huge ironworks, where smiths and casters, many of them upworld Nain, smelted iron ore into steel fittings for the ships the Polypheme family built, as well as those that needed repair. The forges ran all the time, day and night, bright rivers of orange coals burning furiously, turning rock to steel. The steam that belched from the towers sometimes made the factory look like an active volcano.

  In the middle of the complex were the woodworking tools and the drafting tables where the ships were designed and the smaller wooden fittings were crafted. From the time he was small, Ven had loved walking through the midsection, inhaling the fresh smell of planed wood, watching his father and brothers draw designs that would one day turn into ships that sailed the seven seas.

  And in the front was the office, where the deals were made.

  It was in this office that his father was now standing, trying to calm a very large man with a bulbous nose and bright orange hair.

  “Just a few more moments, Mr. Witherspoon,” Pepin Polypheme was saying when Ven came through the door. “He’ll be here, I prom—oh! There you are, Ven! You lost the—er, you’re doing the Inspection?” Ven nodded excitedly, and Pepin rolled his eyes. “He’s here now, Mr. Witherspoon.” Ven’s father glared at him, his eyes smoking like the towers of his factory.

  “This project is already three days late, Polypheme,” Witherspoon said with a growl. “I wanted to be loaded by now, with plans to cast off tomorrow. You haven’t even completed the Inspection yet.”

  “I know, I know,” Pepin said soothingly. “The Inspection will begin in a moment, will only take eight hours or so, and then you can begin loading. The weather is much better for it today, anyway. Been raining all week.”

  Witherspoon’s enormous nostrils flared as he inhaled.

  “We have begun loading already, Polypheme,” he said. “Couldn’t wait forever for your silly Inspection. A child could see that the ship is sound, but the harbormaster won’t release it until you sign off. So we took some of the stores aboard, some of the cargo, and a few of the weapons.”

  “Weapons? Which weapons?” Pepin asked, straining to keep his voice calm.

  “Not the heavy ballista, if that’s what has you worried,” Witherspoon said quickly. “Just some bows and the like. Some of the lighter cargo, too. The major loading will have to wait until the Inspection is completed and the certificate filed.”

  Ven and Pepin exchanged a nervous glance. The ship was supposed to be inspected without any extra weight. The cargo could make it difficult to determine where a leak was, or a balance problem existed. Still, the chance of one of Pepin’s ships being flawed was very slim. The Polyphemes produced the most carefully made ships in the known world.

  “I’m ready to begin if yo
u are, Mr. Witherspoon,” Ven said. “Let me get the checklist, and I will meet you at the gangplank.”

  The orange-haired man looked Ven up and down.

  “I’ve never sailed with this one before, Polypheme,” he said to Pepin. “He looks young, even for one of you Nainfolk, though he’s almost as tall as a human lad. Isn’t he just a boy?”

  “Ven is fifty years old today, Mr. Witherspoon,” Pepin replied huffily. “He has a fine eye for detail. Get along, then, Ven. The Inspection sheets are in the top middle drawer.” He pointed to a large cabinet of blue-gray wood with iron hinges shaped like butterflies.

  Ven dashed to the cabinet and pulled out a hand-printed sheet of oilcloth. He grabbed a quill pen and inkpot, then hurried out the door behind his father and Witherspoon, who had already started down to the docks.

  The ship loomed over the pier like a sea monster rising from the depths. For all the times he had seen it, Ven never failed to be amazed at the size and beauty of it, its towering wooden masts gleaming in the sun.

  The ship was a three-masted schooner, fashioned of blond wood. A painter’s scaffold hung in front of the prow. His brother Jaymes was perched atop the scaffold, putting the finishing touches on the figurehead. Ven shaded his eyes to get a better look at it.

  The large wooden statue carved into the front of the ship was of a dark-haired woman in a flowing blue gown. Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling, her arms stretched out behind her, with watery-looking wings dripping from them. The figurehead looked as if she was enjoying the sun and the wind on her face.

  “A beauty, isn’t she?”

  Ven glanced over his shoulder and saw old Max standing there, stirring a pot of pitch-paint.

  “Good morning, Max,” he said. “The ship, or the figurehead?”

  “Both, lad,” said the elderly Nain painter. “Hear you’re doing the Inspection today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that it’s your natal day as well?”

  Ven looked at the ground. Old Max had one of the most impressive beards of any Nain he had ever seen, a long gray Thicket with ends that curled up pleasantly. There were always flecks of multicolored paint decorating the curls. Standing next to such a beard, Ven felt suddenly naked.

  “Yes, sir,” he mumbled again.

  “Bless your—er—”

  Ven winced. “That’s all right, Max. I appreciate the thought.”

  The old Nain cleared his throat. “Well, then, seein’ it’s your birthday and all, I thought you might like to take a quick glance at this.” He looked both ways, then furtively opened a rolled piece of oilcloth so that Ven could see what was written on it.

  Ven’s brow wrinkled. “What is this?”

  Max looked behind him, then quickly rolled the oilcloth up again.

  “Ship’s name,” he whispered.

  “Of course,” Ven murmured. “I forgot it was your job to paint it on the prow after the Inspection.” His father had told him long ago that the task fell to Max because, besides being a master painter, Max could not read, and therefore even he did not know the ship’s name until its christening.

  But now Ven knew it.

  In his head he heard his father’s voice.

  No one hears a ship’s name until she is christened. It’s bad luck.

  A heartbeat later he could hear that voice in his ears.

  “Ven! Get up here!”

  Ven hurried up the gangplank and climbed aboard just as the major sails were hoisted. The sound of the cloth snapping almost sent him over the side.

  Three huge sheets of canvas with many smaller sails rigged to them opened to the wind. The massive ship lurched on the water for a second, then settled back into the gentle waves, tugging impatiently at its moorings. Pepin took hold of Ven’s arm and led him over to a group of men chatting on the deck in front of the mainsail.

  Mr. Witherspoon was talking to the captain and three other crew members when the Polypheme father and son joined the group. Pepin waited respectfully until the conversation lagged, then pushed Ven forward into the circle of human men.

  “Captain Faeley, this is my youngest, Ven. He’s to do your Inspection today.”

  The captain, a tall, clean-shaven man with dark gray hair, regarded Ven thoughtfully, then smiled.

  “Well met, Ven,” he said pleasantly, holding out his hand.

  “Thank you, sir,” Ven answered, shaking it.

  The captain turned to the other men in the circle. “I assume you know Mr. Witherspoon,” he said, ignoring the ship owner’s impatient snorting. “This is my first mate, Thomas Lavery.” The mate nodded, and Ven nodded in return. “Lewis, the boatswain, and Krebs, the cook.”

  “A pleasure, gentlemen,” Ven said, as he had heard his father say many times before.

  “If you are ready, then, Ven, we’re set to cast off,” said Captain Faeley.

  “Right. I’m ready,” Ven said. His stomach tightened suddenly in a mix of excitement and nervousness.

  “Have a good ride, my boy,” said Pepin, loudly enough for the crew to hear. He took Ven’s arm again and walked a short distance to the gangplank, then waited for Mr. Witherspoon to descend before turning back to his son. “Let’s have no problems, now,” he said tersely under his breath.

  “No problems,” Ven promised.

  “The ship’s already been completely checked; all you have to do is make sure she functions well in the water, which she will. You know what you’re doing, Ven. Just keep all your lessons in mind, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I will.”

  “I know you will, too.” A twinkle came into his father’s eye, and he reached into the pocket of his vest. “Maybe this will help.”

  He drew forth a flat wooden tool, only as long as his palm and about as wide as two fingers, and handed it to Ven.

  “This was your great-grandfather’s jack-rule,” Pepin said, closing Ven’s fingers around it carefully. “Now it belongs to you.”

  Ven couldn’t speak. He had coveted Magnus’s jack-rule from the first time he had seen it in his father’s hand. Carefully he unfolded the thin wooden and metal measuring stick, which was fastened together with an intricate system of oddly shaped hinges and pins, allowing it to extend more than the length of his arm. He ran a finger carefully over the marks by which his father had always determined measurement, then looked up to see Pepin grinning at him.

  “Magnus was the youngest in his family, you know,” his father said softly. “As was my da, as am I. So it’s only right that his jack-rule go to you now, Ven. The youngest may be at the end of the line for everything from shoes to supper, but often we are at the head of it for curiosity and common sense. Use it well—it was calibrated precisely to the Great Dial in the Nain kingdom of Castenen, and so it will always measure truer than any other instrument could. It also contains a small knife, a glass that both magnifies and sees afar, and a few other surprises—you will just have to discover those for yourself. Happy birthday, son.”

  Ven’s grin mirrored his father’s. “Thank you, sir.”

  Pepin cleared his throat. “Now, get the Inspection under way, get it over with as quickly as possible, and be home in time for tea. You know how cross your mother becomes when her tea is allowed to get cold.”

  “Yes.” Impulsively, Ven threw his arms around his father and hugged him in full view of the crew.

  Pepin clapped Ven’s shoulder awkwardly. “Good lad. See you at teatime.” He turned and disembarked, then waved to the crew as the dock hands untied the moorings and cast the ship off.

  Having no vest, Ven slipped the jack-rule into the buttoned pocket of his shirt and watched his father scurry back up the pier without a backward glance.

  On the dock, a dozen arms suddenly took to waving; Ven’s eleven brothers and his sister, Matilda, had come forth from the shops and offices of the factory to bid him a good journey. Ven waved back, watching them grow smaller as the ship pulled away from the quay.

  The movement of the ship b
elow him changed. When tied to the dock it had tugged impatiently, straining against its bonds as if in a hurry to get out deeper. Now, freed from the mooring ropes, it almost sang through the water, skimming smoothly over the waves of the harbor, out toward open sea. Ven felt exactly the same way, though mixed with his excitement was a fair amount of nervousness.

  He swallowed the knot that had tied itself in his throat, and nodded to the crew waiting on the deck before the mast. He watched them hurry to their positions, then rolled open the Inspection sheet and set about checking off the functioning of the moorings, the gangplank, and the sail structure.

  What am I doing here? he thought to himself as he watched the sailors go aloft, climbing the shrouds, the checkerboards of interwoven ropes that attached from the decks to the top of the new masts, with little effort. Shroud rosin good, no crew slippage, he noted on the checklist.

  Above his head, the sailors who had gone aloft stopped on the crosstrees to rest and check the main shroud. They cast shadows onto the sails that rippled as the ship plowed through the waves. Ven envied them; sometimes he dreamed of climbing the mast all the way to the crow’s nest on the fighting top, where he could see the wide world before him, beckoning to him.

  A beam of amber sunlight broke through the sheets of the upper sails, turning the ship’s deck gold. The brightness stung his eyes; Ven closed them and suddenly became aware of the wind rushing over him, billowing his shirt like the sails, whispering along the decks, blowing salt spray before it.

  The wind carried with it the feeling of utter freedom.

  Behind him Ven heard a deep chuckle. His eyes snapped open in embarrassment and he turned to see Captain Faeley watching him closely.

  “Don’t drink too much of the wind, young Master Polypheme,” the captain said, still smiling. “It’s intoxicating; it will get you drunk more easily than you can imagine. And then you will be lost to it, as we are, and have no choice but to chase it over the sea for all your life.”