The Afternoon Before Departure

Kraft returned to the inn with a book tucked under his arm.

The inn was quiet that afternoon. There were no customers in the little dining room on the first floor, and the owner was polishing wooden tankards behind the counter. When he saw Kraft return, he greeted him first. "You're back pretty early too. Want something to eat? I recommend the grilled fish with beer."

"Why did you say 'too'?"

"Oh, your companion got back not long ago as well. You don't look like you're here on business, or I could recommend a few old acquaintances." The owner set down his tankard. Being busy was all well and good, but an empty afternoon was too boring. He couldn't just abandon the inn and go for a stroll, so having someone to chat with was the next best thing.

Ryan was back that early? Kraft had thought he'd spend at least the whole day out and about. After all, things mysterious enough to fit the bill weren't easy to find. Even if Ryan went looking among his captain friends, they wouldn't always happen to have something suitable. Their main business was trading for profit, not collecting all sorts of odds and ends—especially not weird things like these.

Quite often, when captains or sailors were far from home, they'd drink a little too much in a bar to ease the strain of a long voyage. Once they stepped outside, they might run into locals peddling all sorts of things.

Some of these unknown sellers would spin them a tale or two, claiming the goods brought good luck or had special functions. Then the drunkards would get carried away and buy things they'd never seen before.

It wasn't out of the question that, somewhere as rough as the Ice Plains, you might step outside and find a burly man holding an axe, asking if you'd like to take a look. It would be hard to tell whether he genuinely wanted you to look at it or was politely hinting, "Buddy, I'm a little short on cash."

There were plenty of reasons for it, and no need to go into detail. Most cases were much like Kraft being on holiday and getting pitched "local specialties" or "handmade goods" by the locals. You'd buy on impulse, then see red afterward. A pure sucker's move.

More than once, he'd later found a torn-off label in a corner—or worse, a mass-produced trinket from a market stall with its label still attached.

If Kraft lost a few dozen silver coins, a hundred at most, on a souvenir, that was one thing. When captains and sailors realized they'd been ripped off, it could be much worse. Losing a couple of black silver coins was the least of it; anything more really hurt.

At times like that, they were more than happy to sell the items and recoup some of their losses. Most of the little oddities found on sailors' street stalls had come to them this way.

"So, you know quite a few people in Wenden Port, then, boss?" Kraft found a seat near the counter. He didn't get to visit Wenden Port often, and after that lunch he still felt like eating more. "Grilled fish, please. No beer."

The taverns and inns in ports like this often doubled as information hubs. While chatting with customers, the owners sometimes acted as brokers, and some even kept their own stock of goods.

Whether or not they did any of that, most owners were pretty good conversationalists. The stream of customers coming and going gave them plenty to talk about. They were a bit like taxi drivers in the Otherworld Soul's memories: people who worked in one place for a long time, developing the gift of gab whether they wanted to or not.

The owner called to the kitchen to bring out the grilled fish, poured himself a beer, and leaned over the counter to clear his throat.

"How can a man not like beer?" He took a long swig, foam wetting his wildly grown beard. "The people I know all make their living at sea. Most of them only show up a few times a year. Sometimes I help them sell their goods and point them toward suppliers, too.

"When I was in my twenties, I was so envious of them. I thought I'd save up some money, sell the inn, buy a ship, then take a crew around just like them—running from Dunling to the Ice Plains and back."

Among the young people of Wenden Port, at least nine out of ten shared the owner's dream: to own a ship, take on the raging sea, then return with money and enough stories to boast about in a tavern for days.

"That sounds great. So why didn't you?" Kraft promptly played along, making it easy for the owner to keep talking. It was a little embarrassing, but Kraft had entertained the same idea himself. He'd always had some impractical romantic notions about the ocean.

"Ah, because I got to know too many people." The owner sighed, as if remembering his lost youth.

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Once you know enough people, you realize things aren't as good as you imagined. Those folks may look carefree, roaming all over the place, but they're actually living on a tight budget. They make their money through information and connections, and most of their wealth is tied up in their ships. Stick to the old routes and you won't make much, and even then, you have to keep an eye on the markets at both ends."

The owner knew the ins and outs pretty well. He must have seriously considered getting into the business.

Kraft grew interested, too. He hadn't really learned much about this before. "What about new routes? I remember some captains like to sail routes hardly anyone takes, like going from here to the Ice Plains."

The owner's words reminded him of Captain William's story—the captain who had carried grain and liquor there and traded them for furs from the Ice Plains People.

The story Ryan's cousin had told him had sparked a huge interest in unfamiliar lands overseas. He even wanted to collect and revise accounts like those for publication, compiling something like Kraft's Fairy Tales to pass down through the ages.

The owner forced a belch out of his gut and snorted dismissively. "That's what I thought when I was young, just like a lot of people. We all think we're the clever ones. But there are plenty of clever people in this world. Someone must have thought of a new route before, but either it was hard to sail or there was something wrong with the destination. That's why it's only being developed now.

"Take the Ice Plains, for instance. It wasn't hard to get there, but there were only a few tribes you could communicate with, and it took old captains a lot of effort to establish contact. These days, trading with a few familiar captains is enough. Anyone else would have to follow the coastline even farther, searching for new tribes.

"As for the new tribes that haven't had much contact with us, who knows if you can even communicate with them?"

The owner took another swig and gave the look of a man who'd seen it all. "That's why it's better to stick to steady business. Every year, some of the people I know don't come back. Even those who take the old routes. The good stories are the ones you get to hear while drinking in a tavern. Nobody really wants to be the hero of an adventure story all the time."

"True. Only the living come back to tell their stories. Who cares about the ones who end up as fish food?" Kraft agreed with the owner. Even the Titanic could meet with disaster at sea, let alone the wooden sailing ships of this world. Sea travel wasn't as safe as it had been for the Otherworld Soul. If a ship went down, there'd be no rescue. You were as good as dead.

"Boss, do you know where I might find a shop in Wenden Port that sells unusual things?" Kraft asked on a whim, without much hope.

"I don't think there are any. You only see things like that at street stalls. A shop without regular customers in this town would've starved to death long ago." The owner set down his tankard and shook his head. "Too bad you won't see any stalls these next few days. Wait until the snow's melted. And don't let those people charge you a fortune. I've never found anything worth more than two silver coins."

He'd spoken from the heart. Paying a high price for something at a street stall made you a complete sucker, and Kraft knew that all too well.

After finishing the grilled fish, and giving the owner a chance to satisfy his appetite for conversation, Kraft went upstairs and knocked on Ryan's door.

"Are you in, Ryan?"

"Come on in. I've already bought the thing." Ryan opened the door and invited Kraft in to see what he'd found. He'd gotten lucky: a stonemason had a severed hand salvaged from a damaged stone sculpture, and it had given Ryan a chance to exercise his creativity.

As soon as Kraft walked in, he saw a striking ornament on the table. It was a stone hand, severed at the wrist, with the flat end perfectly suited to standing upright on the tabletop.

A crooked rune had been carved into its palm, something like an octopus tentacle. It hadn't been polished or given any other fancy treatment, so it looked as though it had been dug out of some old ruin. Kraft had no talent for identifying antiques, of course, but his instincts told him he'd seen this style somewhere before.

As soon as he gave it some serious thought, a flood of memories flashed by. His inhuman consciousness told him that the rune closely resembled one on the rune-covered stone eyeball Ryan had bought. It seemed a little more refined, smoother than the original on the eyeball, with no rough or chipped joins between the strokes.

"Where'd you buy it? The same place as last time?" Kraft pressed a hand to his temple.

He wasn't dizzy or in pain, but he still wasn't used to the feeling. It was as though he'd been split in two: one part was his ordinary self, while the other expanded without limit, reaching effortlessly into an ocean of information to fish out the piece he wanted.

It gave him the strange impression that a living thing was stirring inside his skull, that his brain had gained an ability of its own and was growing dissatisfied with its cramped home.

"How did you know it was from the same... captain?" Ryan had almost thought Kraft had figured out he'd bought something from the same stonemason again, but fortunately he realized in time that Kraft hadn't meant that. He quickly changed "stonemason" to "captain."

Ryan wiped away a bead of sweat and added an explanation. "He said he got it from the same place as last time. It does look connected to those two stone eyeballs, doesn't it? He knew I'd buy things like this, so he saved it for me. I think Grandfather will like it." The language here was similar to English and didn't distinguish between maternal and paternal grandfathers, so Ryan called Old Wood the same thing Kraft did.

People who didn't know the truth could easily mistake them for brothers, though in practice they were pretty much the same.

"By the way, here's your money back. I'm on good terms with him, so he gave it to me cheap. I didn't use your money." Ryan took out the purse Kraft had given him that morning and returned it, untouched.

"Is that so? How much was it, then? Shouldn't we split the cost?" Kraft took the purse, not doubting Ryan at all.

"It's fine. It only cost one silver coin. I'll have my own fief soon, so I don't need to sweat the small stuff." Ryan looked immensely proud as he said this.

Considering he was almost twenty, and Old Wood thought it was no good for him to keep running around everywhere, he'd been planning to formally grant the young man a knightly title, give him a piece of land, and let him help the family branch out. When the time came, Ryan would also get two good horses, a suit of full plate armor and weapons, and the right to recruit his own attendants.

"When the time comes, I'll be happy to testify to your generous nature." Kraft smiled. "I'm going back to sleep for a while. Hopefully I'll feel refreshed when we set out tomorrow morning."