On a gray misty morning, before the rising sun had cleared the ragged high horizon to the west, Morlock went down the bluff from Tower Ambrose to the edge of the River Ruleijn: the Banestone on a chain around his neck, a bag in one hand, and a long silvery throwing spear in the other.

A flatboat was waiting for him there on the water, a movable wooden bridge running from the bank to the boat. He walked along it with cautious speed, so it seemed to him.

The opinion was not shared by others. “Can’t you hurry up?” one of the oarsman called. “We’re in a hurry! We have to get this vocate to her ship while the current runs true in the Narrow Sea!”

“The ship won’t be going anywhere without me,” Morlock replied.

“True enough!” called one of the boat’s passengers. “This gentleman is also a vocate and rokhlan of renown.”

Morlock glared through the gloaming shadows at the cheerful speaker. “I thought you were still asleep, Deor.”

“And miss the chance to say farewell to my harven-kin Morlock and my new-friend Aloê? By no means. I’d lose years of sleep rather than miss this chance.”

Aloê was sitting beside Deor on the passenger bench in the middle of the boat. She looked at him with more than a little puzzlement. She clearly didn’t understand why the dwarf was so amused. Morlock, who understood full well, chose to ignore him. He muttered, “Good day, Vocate,” sat down on the deck with his back against the deck shack, and closed his eyes.

It was not exactly a pose. True, he had practiced saying those three words to say to her—practiced them over and over until he could say them without thinking, as if it were no great matter. He had planned on pretending to nap if his nerve failed him when he saw her eyes (as it had). But he was indeed tired—unbelievably tired, bone tired. He did not really sleep, but his mind wandered far away as he sat on the deck and listened to their voices, the slap of the oars on the water, the morning birds calling through the mist on the waterside.

Presently he felt a tentative touch on his elbow. He opened his eyes to see Deor crouching beside him in the light of rising day. “Sun’s rising,” the dwarf said, and then looked at Morlock uncertainly.

It was the custom of Morlock’s harven-kin to praise the day at the rising of the sun. Morlock rarely did so these days. But he was not going to stand aside from harven Deor while the dwarf prayed in the presence of Other Ilk.

He stood, stretched, and nodded at Deor. As one they turned westward and, facing the bright light rising over the crooked high horizon, sang the most common Praising of Day.

Heolor charn vehernam choran harwellanclef;

wull wyrma daelu herial hatathclef;

feng fernanclef modblind vemarthal morwe;

Rokh Rokhlanclef hull veheoloral morwe.

Dal sar drangan an immryrend ek aplam,

dal sar deoran an kyrrend knylloram.

Varthendunidh onkwel varthal veroldme ankwellandh;

Hurranidhclef Haldanidhclef Heorridhclef awlim hendonnin.¹

Morlock felt Aloê’s eyes on him as he sang, but he didn’t look toward her. This was a ritual: he could get through it because he had done so countless times before. He would find other ways to do what he had to do in her presence. The golden veil threatened to descend, but he ignored it.

A few of the boatmen seemed to think it was an entertainment and stomped their feet in applause. Others looked thoughtful, others bored. Aloê’s golden eyes held a cool measuring look as Morlock incautiously met them.

The golden veil descended before his vision; blood roared in his ears. He knew she was saying something, but couldn’t be sure what it was. He bowed his head in acknowledgement when she seemed to be done, but was unable to respond because he hadn’t heard what she’d said. That made him angry—not at her, but himself. How useless it was to stand here, like a lump on one of the boards of this badly made deck, and say nothing.

“We should talk about our mission,” he said abruptly. It was one of the things he knew he would have to say to her, so he had practiced saying it also. He could say it. He had said it. He felt a disproportionate sense of triumph at the tiny victory, like a man who was learning to walk again after a long illness.

“. . . talk about that here?” she was saying, when he belatedly attended to her response. He had surprised her by saying something unexpected. Somehow this was a cooling, calming thought.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said. “But we must talk soon about our course, and it seems unlikely anyone will report our words to the Two Powers.”

Aloê shrugged . . . and he saw it. He could see her, look right at her without dismay. Another victory! His eyes rested with fierce satisfaction on the notch in her collarbone, the coppery twist of a talisman resting there, hanging from a thin chain around her neck.

“The towns that have lost their gods are all near the south coast of Kaen,” she was saying. “I thought we might run down the Narrow Sea and land somewhere to gather word.”

“Or we could pass by Kaen entirely and go to Anhi.”

She did not respond immediately. He realized he was staring at her—glaring at her, it may have seemed. He opened his hands and looked over her shoulder. He looked at the wrinkled eastern horizon, the blue sky above, the dark gold of her curling hair reflecting and challenging the light rising in the west.

“Very well,” she said eventually. “You know something I don’t. What is it?”

“Know?” he said, startled.

“Know. It is an action one does with the brain. Or the mind. Know.”

“All I know is that I hate Kaen,” Morlock admitted. “My feet bleed whenever I think about that coastline.”

“Is that metaphor some charming Northerner slang with which I am unfamiliar?”

Morlock sat down on the deck and pulled off the shoe and footpads from his right foot. He solemnly held it up for her inspection. “From my last trip along the Kaenish coast,” he explained gruffly, since she seemed to be equal parts amused and bemused.

“I don’t exactly— Are those scars?” she asked, interrupting herself and pointing at the sole of his foot.

“From the rocks on the shore.”

“Hm. I like a rocky coast myself. But the rocks there must be like blades!”

Morlock grunted and put his footgear back on.

“The people are almost equally hospitable,” Deor said impishly. “You should ask him how he got the scar on his neck.”

Morlock was moments away from strangling his harven-kin and closest friend when Aloê gave the dwarf a golden glance and said casually, “He mentioned it to me on another occasion.” If Morlock was not misreading her, she understood that Deor was teasing him and declined to be a part of it.

“Gleh.” Deor seemed disconcerted. “All right. Maybe I’m putting too much wear on you both. My apologies.”

Morlock kicked him companionably and sat back against the deckhouse, and the three remained in silence for a while.

They came at last to Sandport on the southeast coast of the Wardlands. Now the boat was riding down the Long Canal that ran alongside the blue-gray Grartan Mountains. At notch in their southern foothills lay Sandport, a sleepy town on a silt-filled, rock-rimmed harbor.

There the ship awaited: Flayer, a galley with three ranks of oars. The crew was already assembled: it turned out that Aloê had already been down to tend to the ship a number of times.

Also awaiting were two Guardians in red cloaks: bitter white Noreê and tall fair-haired Jordel.

“You probably thought you’d seen the last of me,” Jordel started saying, shouting across the water at Aloê before the boat had tied up at the riverside dock, “and I hope you’re not seeing the last of me now. I had a bad dream last night, so I thought I’d come down to see you off. You, too, Morlock, of course.”

“I want to hear all about your dreams, Jordel,” Aloê called back, as the boatmen snickered, “but why don’t you wait until we’re all on solid ground?”

“That’s just it. I—”

“Wait!”

Jordel waited, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Noreê, standing next to him, was still as a stone.

Once the boat was alongside the dock, Aloê leapt lightly off the boat down beside the two waiting Guardians. Morlock followed her, less gracefully but with even more enthusiasm. Deor waited until the boatmen threw down the walkbridge, but he watched and listened to the Guardians’ conversation with open amusement.

“So I had this dream—”

“Do you really want to talk about this here and now, Jordel?” Aloê said.

“Why not? We’re under the Guard. There can’t be agents of the Two Powers listening. So I had this dream about you—”

“Is this going to be excessively intimate or personal, Jordel? We don’t want to shock the stevedores.”

“I had this dream and I’m not the only one. You were in a prison without walls. The Two Powers had changed you into sand of different colors, and they were sifting it into different piles with a sieve made of mist.”

“Oh.” Aloê became serious. “That sounds bad. Others had this dream?”

“Another friend of yours saw you being dissected by a knife with two blades. Different dream; same omen. That’s what Illion says. And Illion himself—”

Morlock interrupted, speaking to Noreê: “Have you collated these dreams?”

She replied without looking at him. “There has not been time. And only one has been caught in a dream glass.”

“Would you suggest that we delay our departure until you have time to collate the dreams and meditate on them?”

“No. We can always send a message after you if it seems needful.”

Morlock grunted and walked away, just as Deor joined the group. The dwarf looked at them, looked at his harven-kinsman, and then followed him away, calling out, “Wait a moment, Morlock. Wait a moment. Canyon keep you, slow down!”

Jordel looked after them, an unusually solemn expression in his hazel eyes. “I’m afraid that fellow thinks I dislike him. It’s too bad, really.”

“Why would he think that, Jordel?” Aloê wondered.

“Well, I sort of told him I couldn’t stand him, once. But that was before I really knew him. You have to admit he’s not easy to know.”

“Do you know him now, Jordel?”

“No, but now I know that I don’t, and that—Listen, who cares? It’s you I’m worried about. Noreê seems to disagree, but I don’t think you should go on this mission.”

“I don’t disagree,” said Noreê, surprising Jordel very much (to judge from the height he jumped).

“You just said we shouldn’t delay sailing,” Aloê pointed out.

“But there’s no need for you to sail with the ship,” Noreê replied.

“I’m not in the business of avoiding danger.”

“If there is need to face it. There is no such need here. You have value to the Graith, to the Wardlands. The danger seems to fall on you specifically.”

“Then, if I don’t go, the danger may fall on someone else. Specifically.”

“You’re not doing a good job of selling this,” Jordel said to Noreê anxiously. “Can’t you just shut up and look foreboding while I talk?”

“It doesn’t matter what either of you say,” Aloê replied. “Jordel. I’m glad you’re worrying about me, but I’m sorry to be a worry to you. I gave my word and I’m going.”

“I hoped to change your mind,” Noreê said, “but I didn’t expect to. Good luck to you, Vocate. Come and see me when you return.”

“Maybe we should go along?” Jordel suggested.

“Four vocates on shipboard with a crew of thains?” Aloê said, with real dismay. “No. I’ll sail with Morlock, because he won’t try to share command. Apparently he doesn’t like sea travel.”

“Ha ha ha. You’ll find out.”

“But I won’t have any doubt about who’s in charge at sea. It’s not safe, Jordel. There isn’t time for debate in the middle of a storm.”

“You’re right, of course. So I’m back to asking you not to go at all.”

Noreê threw up her hands and walked away.

“Finally,” Jordel muttered. “I wondered if I was going to have to talk all day to drive her off. Sometimes I think—”

“Did you want to say something to me in private, Jordel?”

“Give you something.” He handed her a woolen cylinder. “Message sock. Only me and Illion can use it from this end; only you can use it from that end.”

She deftly tucked the sock into her wallet and said, “Thanks. Why?”

“You might need it. And there’s something weird going on. Maybe we can see all of the elephant if we look at it from different angles.”

“What is an elephant?”

“Legendary beast.”

“I thought that was you, J.” She hugged him good-bye and ran off to catch her ship.

Morlock was already on board, having said farewell to his harven-kin. His pale face was paler than ever, and covered with a slight sheen of sweat.

“Don’t mind it, Vocate,” she said, pounding him companionably on his lower shoulder. “The ship does bounce around a bit at anchor, but she’ll glide along like a seabird once we get under way.”

His wretched deep-sunk eyes glared a little, but she didn’t let it bother her. Seasick people tended to be touchy, she knew (although she wasn’t sure why, never having been in the state herself).

“Thain Koijal,” she called out to her second. “Are the oar-thains in place?” She could she they were.

“In place and ready to row, Vocate,” Koijal replied.

“Cast off. Port-siders push off from the dock. Starboard-siders, five strokes in reverse. Get us out of here, Thain. I want a fish caught in the middle of the Narrow Sea for my supper.”

“I hear you, Vocate,” Koijal said formally, and gave his orders to his thirds-in-command at the sides.

Aloê glanced at Morlock; she assumed she would find him stealing a last look at dry land. Instead he was eying the maneuvers of the oar-thains.

It was something to see: the long white oars swinging in unison through the air, dipping as one into the green-blue water and out the other side, each oar leaving a trail of foam behind, scarring the dark shining surface. Not just once but time after time—a bit like a seabird, perhaps, but really like nothing else. As a maker, Morlock was no doubt impressed.

“Just wait,” she said. “We’ll put up the sail in a bit: we can usually catch a breeze off the Grartans. That’ll be something to see.”

“Inefficient,” he replied curtly.

The truth dawned on her. That sour expression wasn’t just from an unhappy belly. He was seeing the same thing she saw, but he didn’t like it.

“Are you saying the ship is badly designed?” she asked. But what she meant was: Are you saying my ship is badly designed?

“Half the crew,” Morlock said. “Put them to work on an impulse wheel. Go faster. Less weight, less provisions.”

“And use mechanisms to drive the oars? That would waste the crew’s energy, Morlock. These things have been discussed before—”

She was going to favor him with a brief course in ship design when he interrupted her. “No oars. Take the oar blades. Put them on a wheel. Put the wheel on the outside of your ship, under the water. The impulses drive the wheel of oar blades. You could have more than one—steer that way, more stable than a single propeller.”

“Propeller?”

“A wheel with little oar blades on it.” He sketched it briefly in the air.

“Brilliant!” she said. “I thought of something like that once. But, I, I guess I forgot it when a monster bonked me on the head this one time.”

As soon as she said this she was worried that it sounded like boasting—not a probable story, on its face.

But he didn’t seem skeptical, just nodded acceptingly and said nothing.

Which was for the best: she didn’t want to hear anything more just now. What he’d said already was sweeping through her like a wildfire on the prairie. Propellers to drive the ships. No sails needed—or maybe wind power could add to muscle power, giving strength to the impulse wheel. Ships could be redesigned. Ship routes could be redrawn. Would propellers work in the Sea of Worlds? What if . . . ?

She looked up and saw a day bristling with undreamed-of possibilities, a world that was utterly changed, that could never be the same.

The man who had changed it was bent over the taffrail, spattering the side of the ship with his vomit, to the amusement and disgust of the thains nearby.

Aloê sighed. This would be a strange trip. That much was clear.

NOTE

1.  Blindly Death takes hold of the timid and the brave;
vermin devour the evil and good alike;
maker and miner sleep in the same silence;
Dragon and Dragonkiller fall under the same fell.
There is one darkness that ends all dreaming,
one light in which all living will awake.
Those-Who-Watch beyond death wait for the world’s waking;
Creator, Keeper, King stand at every milestone.