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The five Folk leaned in close around an improvised tabletop on the main deck. Wenna insisted on moving the boat back up river, away from the rotting smells and declared a huddle and a meal break over the map. Pops found some shipʼs biscuits and some bamboo gin. It burned as it went down, but Ixxy was glad of it. The Princess sat on an upturned barrel crushing two crumbs of biscuit together.
“If you don’t want it, I’ll eat it,” said Hydn.
She snatched it out of his reach.
“When you’ve all stopped bickering,” Wenna tapped the map. Ixxy thought the Captain would be somewhat crankier. If they’d come all the way down here on a foolʼs errand and lost a crew member in the process... “We need to plan our next move.”
“I can’t figure at all how this bit,” The Princess tapped the map, “connects to this bit.” She lifted a corner and flapped it.
“Did it make more sense when you made the marks clearer?” said Pops.
“Well, it’s definitely a drawing of something—”
Hydn gave a dry laugh and the Princess threw her empty cup at him. Pops picked it up off the deck, refilled it and gave it back to her.
“I meant, the marks are pipes, rooms, corridors, when you scribe over them.”
“So, that’s where we’re heading,” said Wenna.
“Just how do we get there from here?” said Hydn. “Do you think the map’s to scale?”
“Likely not,” said the Princess. “The handwriting is shocking.”
Ixxy ran her hands all along the section from the Lychgate again. The Princess had already drawn a skull in as a warning where theyʼd lost Skink. “I thought there’d be a side passage or a door or something here.” She left one hand over the hole in the map, like she was divining meaning from it or plugging a leak.
Plugging. That was it. They’d searched everywhere to the sides and in front. After the attack from the awful cave creature, Ixxy felt like she’d Air-sensed every inch of ceiling. “It’s underneath us.”
“How?” said Hydn.
“I don’t know, but it is.”
“And how do you propose we search for it?” said the Princess.
“I don’t know that either, but it’s down there somewhere.”
“She’s right,” the Captain had one hand draped into the water over the side of the boat. She sploshed her fingers almost playfully, “the currents here are... strange.”
“Isn’t that because this is where the River ends?” said Pops. The whole River ending thing was something that felt huge.
“No, I mean right here, where we are now,” Wenna had made them row back against the current for half a span before she felt safe enough to drop anchor. “In the Last Lake the waters are deep. Here... not so much.”
Pops sounded unconvinced, “But the water flows out of there through here and only at a certain rate?”
“This pipe should be full,” there was no questioning Wenna’s tone.
“And yet...” Ixxy paced.
“How the hells are we going to find it?” said Pops.
“I might have an idea,” said Ixxy. “Do you still have the cork from that bottle?”
“I’m not leaving that bottle uncorked!” he was horror struck. “It’ll spoil.”
“You can have it back in half a span. I think it’ll help us find where to go.”
“If you can find our way, young Ixxy, we can drink the rest of that bottle and I’ll buy Pops six more!”
Pops reluctantly handed over the cork. Wenna had a clean rag from a dress that she donated as a temporary bung. Ixxy scrounged a fishing line from Hydn and sat in the bows of the boat fashioning whatever it was she’d conceived.
“Done,” she said finally. She gave her ‘cork on a string’ invention a triumphant twirl round her head.
“Now what?” said the Captain.
“We chuck it over the side at the stern and see how long it takes to make it to the bows.”
“I’ve a clicker beetle below somewhere,” said Pops.
“Perfect, then if Princess can make some notes on the map,” said Ixxy, “weʼll test how long it takes here, upstream and down and then maybe—”
“Sounds like a boring fishing trip,” said the Princess.
“With no fish,” said Hydn.
“Well, unless anyone else has any ideas, it’s the only plan we’ve got,” Wenna had a good way of sounding final.
It didn’t take long before Ixxy had everyone organised in a rhythm: splosh, click, count, catch. They’d been up and down the stretch of the river from as close as they dare go to the Lychgate and back to the end of the waters.
“Have we got enough now?” The Princess sounded whiny.
“Let’s drop anchor anyhow,” said Wenna, “Pops, break out the rations.”
“Thank the gods,” The Princess went and sat with a huff, thrusting the map at Ixxy on her way past.
“Thanks Princess,” Ixxy pulled up a crate to press on and sat on the deck, stylus in hand and scratched at the parchment, pausing only to mutter numbers. The others ate and talked quietly. Ixxy was transfixed by the numbers. She added, subtracted and averaged in her mind, her fingers moving over the numbers that were scratched onto the map in the Princessʼs neat hand. Slowly but surely, her mind filled with the waters of the pipe and how they flowed. The numbers fell away and she felt the meaning behind them. She jumped. Hydn was tapping her arm with a wrap.
“I saved you some, before it all went,” he said.
“Oh—uh thanks. Seventeen.”
“There’s just one I’m afraid,” Hydn laughed.
“If you wanted any more, you should have been quicker! You know what this lot are like,” said Pops.
“Mmmph—ngo,” Ixxy said laughing around a mouthful of food. Hydn offered her a water flask. She drank, swallowed and said, “Boat lengths. Seventeen boat lengths. Downstream from here. Ish.”
“So confident,” said the Princess, “then at the last minute, sploosh!”
“Well it’s more of a plan than we had before,” Wenna said. “Finish up and letʼs weigh anchor. There’s treasure to find.”