Chapter 43: Senthra-sha-lews-tlanvee

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I have three shells and four bone marks Lianth paid me for tasks besides my carting. There's no way to turn one into the other, but maybe the headman would take them as equivalent for the sandals. Or I could ask at the Overseer’s lodge for work. Enough to earn the last shell.

Or ask if I can just be an overseer. Smack the peasant girls across the face when they scream for the lost babe. Smack them hard enough that they forget their child - how long can they remember? Beasts have no memory. Can peasants have much more?

I can’t go back to the house where I grew up. Mother had to move out before she placed me with the peddler. Our cousin had died - her cousin, I mean. That’s why she’s so eager to find a new situation.

I walk up the cut, by houses on my strong side. Some people look at me. Some I grew up with nod.

No one speaks to me.

I’m starting to huff at the exertion. I’ve carried loads and pulled loads but only along the Path of the World. Going up is another matter.

Soon, I’m at the top bridge. The path of the cut goes on, past the runestones that keep goblins at bay, up toward the Plateau of Silence.

I turn and cross the bridge, but I don’t turn down, going up the weak side instead.

“Happy in the Light,” I say.

“Happy in the Light, friend,” the sailor says. He and a mate sit at the edge of the field by the drying racks where fish that keep well are dried and salted.

They repair a fishing net. Well, I know that, now, but then it just looks to me like they’re sitting with a pile of nets. “What brings you up here? We can’t give away any fish. Our catch is all bought.”

“I want to be a sailor,” I say.

They ask me to sit down and offer me bread and drink, but do not tease me.

“There are no spots in our fishing fleet,” he says. “We’ve got four more men than we need. The captain’s a soft-hearted man and he takes on more than he should.”

“Like you,” his friend says. I think this is lighthearted and not meant to wound.

“Like me,” he admits. “You’re, um, Abigita’s son, um-”

“Bessil,” I say. “I knew your brother, growing up. Is he a sailor?”

“Munson? No, he’s a leatherworker. Apprenticed. Smarter than me and good with his hands.”

He looks down at the web of cords that make up the net.

“Hey,” his friend says. I don’t remember him or whether I know his family. “You want to be a sailor? Show us you can climb.”

“Don’t lead the boy on,” Cowen - for that was Munson’s brother’s name.

“There’s no spot for you here, but show us you can climb.”

On the cliff face behind us hangs a net of rope. I’ve seen the sailors climb it to help bring down the fishing boats and to help launch them in the wind.

So, I climb. I scamper up the slope, using both hands and feet, catching both the rope net and the holds in the rock. The men point to spots on the wall for me to climb to, this way and that.

Finally, they call me back down.

“Good job, fellow,” the other sailor says. “You might be a sailor, but not for us.”

I look up, not angry or hurt, for both these men have been kind to me. “I-”

I see Senthra-sha-lews-tlanvee straight out over the world, flying at the same altitude as us. I know her by name and by sight from my dreams.

“What about her?” I ask, point behind them in excitement.

Both men turn.

“That's a leviathan,” Cowen says.

“Do they need hands?” I ask.

The returning longboats interrupt our conversation, but Cowen says I can wait while they unload and talk to the captain.

And this is what the captain tells me.

Submitted: November 20, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones