Riverlands - chapter 1

Riverlands – chapter 1

The rain thundered upon the ocean, and on the roofs of the town’s grey-white houses. The evening was stormy, but still bright, the sun’s rays slanting in broad bright beams through the gaps between the thick grey clouds. The town of Te’ern lay nestled in the forested bay on the north shore of a vast continent, its stone buildings tucked between winding, cobbled streets and shade-providing trees, their leaves currently bent and streaming with the weight of water, under the downpour. Very few people were out and about.

Instead, lights shone out from the buildings into the rain-swept, empty streets. From one building, a three-storey stone construct with white walls, voices and laughter spilled out along with the warm glow of indoor lamps. It was a tavern, one of the places where the townspeople came to socialise, and eat and drink, and catch up on one another’s news, and listen to whatever tales and knowledge the tellers might have today. The bustle of cheery voices, in the warmth of both the chendnut-oil lamps which hung from the ceiling and of simple companionship, partly drowned out the ceaseless pounding of the storm outside. Thunder cracked and rolled, and only increased their sense of snug comfort indoors.

Among them was Feyrin. Like most of the people currently inside the tavern, she was a dridder. About five feet tall, she had a slender build, her skin smooth and evening-blue in colour. She was wearing a light woven jumper of pale pink-dyed silk, which left her forearms bare. Her shoulder-length pure white hair was partly braided, and swept back from over her forehead by a silvery glittering clasp. She had a dark red bracelet around her left wrist, set with tiny green stones, and an amber ring on the fourth finger of each hand. The lower, spider-like part of her body was a hard deep black. Her eight legs, coated in a fine soft dark fur, were neatly folded beneath her, on the thick silk cushions. Her elbows rested on the low table, amidst the mugs and flagons and bowls and plates, her hands folded to prop up her chin. She was leaning forward, a faint smile of quiet interest on her pretty, youthful face, as she listened to the history-tellers. Her reddish-pink eyes were fixed upon them, as they sat on their own cushions across the table. Seated on either side of her were some of her friends, who like her wanted to hear this evening’s tales.

There were two tellers tonight, both men. They spoke of the villages far south, deep within the forest, and the customs of the dridders who lived there. In lands that were still wild, amidst fearsome beasts and spirits and wondrous plants, their lives closely entwined with nature. People who still hunted with webs, woven in glistening silk between the trees, and with bows and arrows and blow-darts.

“Historians think that those villages were the earliest homes of our people,” one of the men said. “It was only much later that our ancestors moved up to the coasts and built towns, thousands of seasons ago.” Feyrin knew this already, but she felt captivated all the same. Her imagination soared. The past felt, to her mind, like a different and mysterious land, just as much as the remote, primitive villages in the forest.

The tellers, in their deep warm voices, went on to speak about explorers who had travelled further south, beyond the most remote and least accessible villages, into the very heart of the continent. Where strange animals roamed, and there was no trace of civilisation. Until the jungle was so thick that there was simply no going any further – leaving all that lay south of there unknown, accessible only to flights of wild fancy and daydream. Feyrin drank from her mug of hot, spicy, relaxing brew as she listened, fascinated. From time to time, she picked some food from a bowl and ate it – crunchy chunks of vegetable, or malleable, squirming green bwets, fleshy little blob-like creatures which wriggled as they were swallowed whole. She popped them into her mouth idly, keeping her eyes on the tellers.

Eventually, the tellers had finished, and flutists replaced them on the stage, their hauntingly soft music lulling the patrons’ conversations. Feyrin chatted comfortably with her friends, ate and drank some more, then slipped quietly out, weaving her way through the crowd. She would have an early start at work tomorrow, and she needed some fresh air.

Outside, it was getting dark. The air smelled crisp and damp. It was still raining, though not quite as hard. She stood for a while under the porch of the tavern door, glancing up and down the wet, empty street. After a moment’s hesitation, she dashed across through the rain, to a shelter on the opposite side of the street. It was a small public space, a simple roof propped up by pillars, jutting out to provide a view over the bay, and over the lower parts of town. There was nobody else here, at this hour and in this weather. She stood with her arms folded over the wet balustrade, and gazed out idly at the ocean. The surface of the cold-looking water, rippled by the fading wind, was pockmarked with raindrops.

To the west, the bay curved further inward, with other towns along the coastline, out of sight in the cloudy evening darkness. To the east, quite some distance away and equally beyond sight were the coastal mountains of the harpies, the only other sapient beings in these lands. The bird-women lived in caverns far above ground, some of them natural and some carved out generations ago by dridder miners, seeking the ore with which to build tools or carve ornaments. Some of the harpies lived in the dridder towns, but many others kept to themselves, seeming uncomfortable with living so close to the ground.

To the south was the forest. The town extended some slight distance out between the trees, then gave way to cultivated fields nestled prettily into woodland, between smaller villages. And then nothing but trees, and wildlife, and the distant, scattered villages of the wilder dridders who had stayed away from the coasts. To the north… Nothing but ocean. She gazed out at it, quietly, watching the rain patter over its surface.

“Pleasant evening, isn’t it?”

She turned, surprised at the voice calling out to her. A man was approaching her, crossing the street without hurry in the rain. He stepped under the shelter where she was standing, and smiled at her amiably. A dridder like herself, with cornflower blue skin and short white hair, which he ran his hand through, brushing out drops of water. He was wearing a white silk shirt, damp with rain from his brief walk across the cobbles.

“I’m not sure that’s the first word that comes to mind,” she replied, with a light smile.

“No, quite.” He moved to stand beside her, gazing out at the ocean while she studied him. “Peaceful, though,” he said.

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

There was a moment’s silence between them.

“We’ve met before, by the way,” he said at last. “You’re a carpenter, right?”

Feyrin nodded, mildly curious. “Yes, that’s right.”

“I bought a table from you once. A while ago now, but it’s still in excellent condition. Sturdy, and elegant.”

She smiled, automatically, pleased. “Well, I do try my best.”

He touched his chest, the standard greeting. “My name’s Roebrem.”

“Feyrin,” she said, with the same gesture in return. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Maybe…” He turned back to look at the ocean. “I noticed how interested you were in what the tellers were saying. About unexplored, mysterious lands, in the south.”

She gave a little shrug. “It’s… intriguing to think about. And imagine.”

“Only imagine?” he pressed. “You’ve never been tempted to go out there?”

She gave him a strange look. And was quiet for a few moments. “Why are you asking?” she said at last.

He gave a slightly strange, flickering smile in return. She noted his hair, an odd mixture of elegant and messy. His dark red eyes, set in a rather narrow but not unattractive face. The dark stains of the raindrops on his shirt. “Have you ever wondered about unexplored, mysterious lands in the north?”

Without even thinking, Feyrin let out a startled, incredulous little laugh. “I’m sorry, what? There are no lands in the north. Well, except for the isle of shades.”

The quirky half-smile lingered on Roebrem’s face. “How do you know?”

“Well, I–” She stopped short, with her mouth open. And frowned, puzzled. “Well, it’s… possible, I suppose…” she said slowly. “But…” She looked at him, with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. “You mean, there might be other islands?”

“For example, yes,” he said, still smiling faintly. He paused. “Tell me, Feyrin: What do you know about the world? Our world.”

This was a rather odd conversation to be having at nightfall, outside in the cooling air, standing under a shelter while it rained on all around them.

“I’m not sure I understand the question.”

“This world we live on. How much do we know about it?”

“Oh!” She paused, to think. “Well, we know that it’s a great big landmass, surrounded by ocean. Astronomers tell us that our sun is a star like all the other stars in the night sky, and from time to time our world moves instantly through space –no-one knows how– and places itself near another sun instead. Right now the sky we’re under has no moons, but sometimes–”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “but if we leave aside the sky, what about our world itself? What about this land?”

That was easy. They all learnt about these things while growing up, and the tellers would remind them of such knowledge throughout their lives. “Our ancestors explored the coasts, sailing all the way round, a long time ago,” she said promptly. “But there’s a large part of the inland that we know almost nothing about. As the tellers reminded us this evening.” She looked at him.

He nodded. “So all that it is possible to discover by ship… has already been discovered?”

Feyrin felt suddenly wary. “Has this got something to do with those two ships they’re building at Reshar?” She gestured vaguely, trough the evening sky, in the direction of that town, to the west, on the opposite side of the vast bay.

Roebrem’s smile broadened. “It has, yes. Do you know what those ships are for?”

She shook her head. She had heard about them only indirectly. “Are you going to sail round the continent again? Are you sailing with them?” What has this got to do with me?

“No, and yes,” he said calmly. “Yes, I’m part of the crew. No, we’re not going round this landmass. We’ll be sailing north.”

She felt a little shudder, inescapably. “To the isle of shades?”

“To the isle of shades,” he said, still calmly, looking right at her. “And beyond.”

* * *


The rain began to thunder down again, drumming loudly on the roof of their shelter. Feyrin shivered a little, as the air grew colder. She glanced down the empty street, through the thick, pouring sheet of rain. “I should be getting home,” she said.

“In this rain?” Roebrem said. He reached behind himself, to a pouch tied to his back, and withdrew a piece of folded material, which he opened up into a large cloak. A reddish green, it was made of thick seaweed, and waterproof. “Let me walk you home at least. I’ll shelter you.”

She hesitated. “I’m just two streets away.”

“Good. Then we won’t get too wet.” He held the cloak up over both their heads. “Shall we?”

She was silent just a second or two longer, then gave a still uncertain smile. “Well, all right. Thanks.”

Together, they hurried out from under the shelter, with Roebrem holding up the cloak to cover them from the rain. Their legs chittered over the wet cobblestones, without slipping, as they ran. The rain intensified a little, pattering over the cloak and running down Roebrem’s hands and bare arms. Feyrin led the way, and they darted through wet, empty streets until they stopped in front of a closed workshop, with a window open at the front, showing a worktable, shelves and tools in the shadows within.

“This is me,” she told him, turning to him. Under the shelter of the cloak, they were standing very close to each other. “Thanks for the escort home.”

He smiled, amused. “You’re very welcome.”

“Would you like to come in? For a hot drink.”

He shook his head. “Thank you, no.”

“Or come in to buy another table, perhaps?” she quipped, her lips curving into a slight smile.

Roebrem laughed. “Tempting, but no. I need to get home too.”

“All right.” She stepped back from under the cloak, and pushed open her door – she never kept it locked. She stood under the porch, and looked at him. “Good night, then.”

He tipped his head at her, politely. “If ever you want a real adventure, rather than daydreams, come down to the docks at Reshar. You’ve got a few weeks to think about it still – but don’t take too long.” And with that, and a quick smile, he was gone, off into the dark evening rain, into the winding side-streets.

Still standing in her own doorway, with the wind flicking drops of rain at her, Feyrin chewed at her upper lip for a while. Then she shrugged, went in, and closed the door behind her. Into the dry cosy warmth of her familiar home.

* * *


For the next few weeks, she thought about it only on few occasions. Her work kept her busy, and when she wasn’t working, she was relaxing and having fun with friends or family. The simple, steady activities of her everyday life were a solid anchor, to prevent her mind from drifting too far into flights of fancy – and from dragging the rest of her along with it.

But she was beginning to hear more and more about the ships at Reshar. Customers asked her whether she’d heard. People talked about it at the tavern. Her friends speculated. The rumour was, indeed, that the ships were going to sail north, seeking out new lands. They would sail out far beyond sight of the coast, and would explore the vast, unknown expanse of the ocean. And so, Feyrin began to daydream again, despite herself. And one day, when packing off a hand-carved bedframe to a customer who had moved to Reshar, she decided to go along and take a look.

She had hired a long, light wooden cart, tethered to a large placid herbivore with long grey fur, and she clambered up onto the diver’s bench for the ride. The bedframe was securely strapped in behind her, and covered over by large seaweed-woven cloaks, even though there was no suggestion of oncoming rain in the clear, sunny blue sky. The path west out of Te’ern went down a smooth, easy slope, and then was mostly flat all the long way round the bay. Feyrin was in no hurry. The tall, leafy trees provided comfortable shade, as well as a relaxing rustling sound, stirred by the nice cool breeze off the water. She ate a packed lunch, mainly of moist seed-and-insect cake followed by fruit, and then allowed herself to half-doze, while the grey furry pack-animal simply followed the path.

Reshar came into view around the curve in the wide bay. It was a significantly bigger town, with several tower-like buildings rising two or three levels above the rest, the upper parts of their rounded walls inlaid with patterns of colourful, shimmering shells. There were trees along every street, patterns of green amidst the white of the stone buildings. Small boats were out fishing in the bay. Occasionally, harpies circled the water and dipped low to catch fish, more swiftly than the patiently boating dridders.

Roads converged into a wider one, and she guided her cart into the still relatively sparse movement of traffic and pedestrians. The homes at the outer edges of town had large cultivated gardens, which grew smaller as she entered the winding streets between Reshar’s more tightly packed houses. Stopping to ask her way from pleasant, idle-looking passers-by, she soon found her customer’s house. She helped him install the bed, stayed a short while for a drink, then entrusted the cart to his safe-keeping while she walked to the harbour.

* * *


The smell of the sea was reassuringly familiar, amidst the town’s unfamiliar surroundings. Wavelets lapped against the soft stone quay. Birds flew both high and low, along with the harpies. A pair of fishermen were mooring their small boat.

The two ships Roebrem had talked about were unmistakable. They loomed high above the many smaller boats, dwarfing them entirely. Their hulls of curved beams looked astonishingly thick. The decking above them made it clear that there was a very large enclosed area below deck – as did the windows fitted into the hull. Two sturdy masts protruded upward from each ship, though they were not currently fitted with sails. The design was unadorned, purely functional, but Feyrin felt her mouth drop open a little as she stood at the top of a winding stone path down to the waterside, and gazed upon them. Her eyes travelled over every detail she could see from this distance, marvelling at the ingenuity of it all. She had been working with wood since her early teenage years, carving and smoothing it into realisations of her mind’s visions. So she understood to some extent, intellectually, how something so big could be made to float, and keep its balance while in motion. But she would never, herself, have dreamt up anything like this. She was struck with admiration – and curiosity.

She gathered her wits and wound her way down the path to the docks themselves. People were going about their business as though all this were perfectly normal. No doubt they had had time to get used to seeing these unprecedentedly large ships here day after day: the novelty had worn off. For now. Not for Feyrin, though.

Her eight multi-segmented legs skittered across the cobblestones as she approached the closest ship. A wide, tilted plank led upward to its deck from the quayside. She slowed a little as she walked nearer it, feeling suddenly a little intimidated.

“Can I help you?”

She looked up, startled out of her hesitant introspection. Up on the ship’s deck, a woman stood with her arms folded over the side railing, looking down at her. Like all dridders, she had blue skin (hers fairly dark) and white hair, which she wore quite short. A felt cap of sorts, dark brown in colour, sat tilted atop her head. The sea breeze played through the light-looking fabric of her loose white top. Her expression was inquisitive, particularly when Feyrin did not immediately answer.

“Oh! Sorry. I was, uh…” She paused. “I was looking for someone called Roebrem, I guess.”

“Were you, now?” The older-sounding woman seemed amused. She shifted her arms to cup her chin in her hands, looking down at her a little closer. “Tell me, dear: what is it you do?”

“What?” Feyrin blinked, confusion.

“Your trade,” the woman clarified. “What’s your trade?”

“Oh! I’m a carpenter.”

“Mm.” The woman was silent for a while, her expression unrevealing. Then she straightened, and made a vague motion with one arm. “Come on up.” Without waiting to see whether the invitation would be heeded, she turned away, facing the interior of the ship, and called loudly: “Roe! You’ve got a stray!”

Feyrin allowed hesitation to hold her back a few moments longer, before skittering up the plank with perfect agility. The tips of her legs probed the tight-fitted planks which constituted the deck, as she stepped up onto it. Seen from atop it, the ship only appeared even more gigantic. She could see, now, that there were huts of sorts built onto the deck, and roof-like shelters extending outward from them, providing shade. At the front tip of the deck, some sort of large apparatus had been fitted, and placed under a shelter too. She could barely begin to imagine what it was for.

“Ah, you’re that carpenter girl!” a male voice exclaimed, obviously pleased. She turned again, away from the mysterious wooden machinery at the prow, and saw Roebrem emerge from one of the ‘huts’. He had left the door open behind him, and she saw a flight of steps descending into the darker interior of the ship, below the deck. “I knew you’d come!” He advanced on her, smiling with lop-sided warmth.

She smiled back, on impulse, without having decided to do so. “I doubt it. I didn’t know myself that I’d come. And I know me better than you know me, I think.”

“Well, we can remedy that now, can’t we.” He embraced her in a brief and unexpected hug. “Now that you’re here.” He stepped back and released her, still smiling. “Welcome aboard the Windskimmer!”

* * *


“You’ll need to familiarise yourself with how everything works. How it’s all put together. All the wooden stuff.” He gestured vaguely, expansively. “I don’t know that we’ll need you to make ship-board repairs during the journey, but you might have to.”

He had led her down below deck, where she had discovered a network of corridors and rooms – the rooms that the outwardly visible windows belonged to. The one he had taken her to had a low table by a comfortable sofa, and still empty shelves fixed to the walls. The window offered a view of open, unbounded ocean, with just a glimpse of the curved coastline. He had got her to sit down, and now they were drinking from cups of mildly fermented fruit beverage.

“I haven’t actually said that I’ll stay,” she reproached him, and took a sip. “I just… wanted to see what the ships were like.”

“Oh, pifflenit!” he exclaimed, dismissively, with a vague gesture of his hand. “Of course you’ll stay. If we sail without you, you’ll be annoyed at yourself for the rest of your life.”

Feyrin felt another involuntary smile curl her lips. She concealed it by raising the cup to her mouth. The scent of the fermented fruit was pleasant and relaxing, and very slightly intoxicating. “My job would be to… repair things that fall apart? If we’re out in the middle of the water, with no land in sight, that’s not very reassuring.”

Roebrem shrugged. “We don’t plan on the ship dislocating at sea. But if it does, and you’re not able to patch it up, we’ll have boats on board to take us back to safety.” He sounded remarkably unconcerned.

“How carefully have you thought this out?” she asked, cautious. “No-one has ever tried to sail out of sight of land before. We’d be on our own.”

To her slight relief, he sobered. “We’re taking safety seriously, I promise.”

She said nothing, but settled back a little deeper on the sofa. “You said you want to go beyond the isle of shades.”

He gave a quick, firm nod. “Yes.”

“You want to go north of… what’s furthest north.”

Another nod, with a hint of a smile. “Yes.”

She laughed, despite herself. She was feeling a little giddy, and she knew it wasn’t just the drink. “You’re crazy,” she smiled.

* * *


She spent the next few months alternating between her work and leisure at home, and travelling to Reshar to get to know the Windskimmer. She studied every detail of its design, and after a while she began working on it too, helping to put the final touches. Carving the furniture that still needed to be fitted into many of the cabins.

Gradually, she began to get to know some of the crew. There would be about four dozen crewmembers for this voyage, spread out between the two ships – the Windskimmer and the more prosaically named Explorer. Not all had been recruited yet, but several of them were harpies. They would serve as lookouts and advance scouts; they would carry out repairs, if necessary, to difficultly accessible parts of the outer hull; and they would catch fish for meals, more efficiently than the dridders could.

Roebrem was friendly enough, but she did not see him that often, and he sometimes appeared distracted. She still wasn’t sure what exactly he did. She assumed he was some sort of personnel manager. Instead, she found herself becoming friends with one of the harpy lookouts; with a young, nervy but sweet-natured dridder man in charge of supplies; and with the Windskimmer’s pilot, a rather bubbly dridder woman with lots of green beads in her plaited hair, called Temmin. She had been keen to explain to Feyrin, over drinks one day, what exactly being a pilot meant – it was an entirely new concept. It seemed that, in addition to sails to catch the wind, the ship was equipped with some sort of very large apparatus at its rear, called a rudder, with which it could literally push at the water and change direction. Or so Feyrin understood, a little vaguely. It was all a bit mystifying, yet rather exciting.

Except when she stopped to really think about it, and then it became a bit scary.

The evening before they set sail, almost the entire team congregated at the largest tavern in town, for a hearty meal. It was the start of what seemed like a warm night, and spirits were high. Everyone had been hard at work all day with the finishing touches. Feyrin felt pleasantly weary, and famished; she had virtually skipped lunch, nibbling a bit between tasks. Now that she could relax and unwind her weary muscles, she tucked hungrily into the feast, devouring a succulent roasted bird with steamed vegetables, followed by a hot delicious bowl of puréed fruit – and then another. Her crewmates had made it clear that fresh fruit would all too soon be a luxury, once they were all aboard ship and far from the coast. She wanted the taste to linger in her mouth, and imprint itself on her mind as a pleasant memory.

Having eaten her fill, she sat happily enough with her crewmates at the tavern table, listening to their conversations now rather than saying much – her full stomach and the warm air were making her feel a little dozy. She yawned, folded her almost bare arms over the grainy surface of the table, and rested her head on her forearms, watching and listening to the others with amiable, smiling sleepiness.

Someone tapped on her shoulder. She lifted her head with faint reluctance, and looked into Temmin’s bright, eager face. “Come on,” the pilot said to her, over the thrum of conversations.

“Where?” Feyrin asked. But Temmin was tugging at her arm. She yawned, unfolded her eight legs and got up. The food and drink stuffed into her full tummy shifted a little with her movement. Temmin held onto her arm impatiently, and Feyrin followed her, out of the tavern and into the comparatively cooler air of the street. There were no clouds, and it was almost a full moon, its glow mingling with the cheerful light pouring a short distance out from the tavern. The world had two moons right now, she noticed, but the second one was a pale and distant dot, only a few times larger than the stars.

“To the ship! Come on!”

Rather than question her further, Feyrin simply followed, through the winding nocturnal streets. She stifled another yawn, but the cooler air was making her feel livelier again. “Not too fast!” she protested with a light giggle. “My tummy’s really full. You’ll make me feel sick!”

They reached the docks, empty and quiet at this hour. Somewhere, a night-bird hooted. Small waves from the ocean lapped peacefully against the stone quay. Together, the two young women scuttled up the gangplank, onto the empty ship. Night lights from the street reached it only faintly. The cabins and shelters on the deck were dim artificial shapes in the darkness.

“What are we doing here?” Feyrin asked, laughing. “We’ll be seeing more than enough of this place soon! Don’t you want to keep your legs on solid ground one last night?”

Temmin laughed too, but did not answer, as she ran to the prow of the ship, her legs making skittering sounds on the deck. She stood at the helm, the sheltered wheel-like apparatus that was to be her work station during this voyage. Feyrin walked up more slowly to join her.

“Look out to the sea,” Temmin said, warmly. “Pretend there’s no shore. Pretend this is us, out there, with nothing but the ocean around us. And the stars…”

“Sometimes, I try not to imagine that,” Feyrin admitted. She walked to the deck railings, though, and looked out at the dark waters of the ocean. The faintly rippling waves on its surface caught and reflected the moonlight, in evanescent shimmers. “I don’t want to scare myself out of this at the last moment…” she whispered.

Temmin joined her, standing beside her at the railings. “Does it scare you?” she asked quietly.

“A bit.” Feyrin paused, her eyes on the ocean. “Not as much as I’d thought it might,” she added after a few moments. “Mainly, I’ve just been worrying about all the little practical details. I’ve always liked to keep my life well-organised, plan things ahead.” She bit her lip softly. “Even when I’m being impulsive…”

Temmin nodded. “What is it you’ve been worrying about?”

“Little things,” Feyrin said again.

“Such as?”

“Well… I mean… Water, for one thing. We must be carrying a lot, right? Fresh water?” She looked at her.

“I would imagine so, yes,” Temmin said with a little smile. The green beads in her silky white hair refracted a faint glimmer of moonlight. “You’d have to ask Perid. He’d know.”

“I suppose we’ll all be rationed. To make it last as long as possible.”

“Well… yes. Though we’ll be able to collect rain water, too.”

“Apart from drinking, we’ll need water to keep ourselves clean. We can’t wash in saltwater. And what about washing our clothes?”

Temmin laughed, kindly. “If you’re more worried about that than about what might be out there, that’s probably a good sign!”

Feyrin frowned a little. “There’s probably nothing out there,” she murmured. “We’ll probably just keep on sailing north until we’ve used up half our fresh water or food, and then we’ll turn back. It’ll all be a big… anti-climax.”

Temmin smiled, slowly, in the moonlight, her green eyes bright. Her voice was a warm, excited whisper. “Ah, but… What if it isn’t?”

* * *


For what remained of the night, she had slept in a room at the tavern. She had slept soundly, and awoke fresh and rested, untroubled by dreams. After a good wash to freshen up further, she dressed in a simple light but faintly frilly white silk top, which left her arms mostly bare. The early morning sun was streaming in through the window; it was going to be a warm, pleasant day.

She forced herself to eat only a light breakfast – sliced fruit which would leave a nice lingering taste without weighing too much on her tummy. And then it was time to hoist her bag over her shoulder, and make her way to the ship, walking there with the others who had slept at the tavern too.

Somehow, it all felt less real now than ever before. She could barely wrap her mind round it, even as her legs carried her down the cobbled path to the decks. She was about to take part in something that no-one had ever done before. Something that even she viewed as crazy, and almost certainly pointless.

They would find nothing out there. She felt almost certain of it. Nothing but… nothingness, and deep empty ocean.

And yet, and yet… If there was some other land in the world, and if they actually discovered it… She felt a swell of excitement. How could she not be a part of this? If she had turned down this opportunity, she would have regretted it for the rest of her life.

Quite a large crowd had gathered to see them off, despite it being mid-morning and many people being at work. This was a bizarre and unique event, a break in everyone’s routine, and people wanted to be able to say they had seen it. And I’m going to do more than just see it, she thought giddily.

They filed up the gangplank, chatting quite idly. There was a thrill in the air, though.

Feyrin moved with most of the others, down below deck, to her quarters. She placed her bag on the bed in her cabin, and began to unpack. She had already stored her work tools here several days earlier, so all she needed to do was unpack a few final sets of spare clothes, along with the bathroom necessities, and three more books that she had slipped in just before leaving home. She put everything away tidily, and realised she was smiling without quite knowing why.

She returned to the deck, and was mildly surprised to find that the ship had already left the dock. They were heading out into open sea, with the Explorer by their side. Behind them, people were waving from the quay, and people in fishing boats were waving too, trying vaguely to row alongside them but rapidly being left behind. She waved back at those who caught her eye, and grinned at them. Above her, the thick white sails were flapping and clacking in the breeze. Perched high up on the mast, Beyya, their harpy lookout, flapped her wings and made herself comfortable.

So, this is it… Feyrin took a deep, quiet breath of fresh sea air, and walked to the prow. She exchanged brief smiles with Roebrem, who was busy talking with several men, and came to stand beside Temmin, at the helm. The two women looked at each other, warmly, but said nothing for now. The pilot focused on her task.

Feyrin gazed out at the ocean, glittering in the morning sunlight, its expanse so much clearer and brighter than last night. And so much vaster, too – stretching on until it touched the horizon, the curve of the sky. She was seized by a sudden impulse to run to the back of the ship, and watch the coastline retreat behind them until it finally disappeared. She didn’t, though. She kept her eyes ahead, merely raising her hand to shield them from the sun.

For now, but just for now, she knew they were sailing with a clear destination. There was only one known land to the north. Their first stop – and perhaps, in the end, their only stop. The isle of shades. Everyone’s final stop in life. The land of the dead.

And beyond that, the unknown.

She felt a shiver pass through her, a brief touch of chill in the gradually warming air.

As she gazed out, steadily, at the sun-sparkled ocean ahead.