L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“How long have you been working on that?” the cooper asked.

“This voyage and the last.” Tarkyn looked toward the open hatch.

Kharl took the hint and slipped out of the carpenter shop and up to the bow. At times, the carpenter didn’t want to talk at all-not to Kharl.

The ship was headed due north, and Kharl could smell the smoke from the engine being fired up. The third mate was barking commands at the riggers, terms Kharl didn’t understand, except in general terms, naming sails to be furled, and those to be left in place. He had picked up some of the names, but he had no idea which sail the mizzen skysail was, nor the fore topgallant. So he just stayed out of the way near the bow and watched as the Seastag drew nearer to the coast. Before long, he could make out a long black line above the water-a breakwater. Hagen, on the poop, brought the ship more to the west.

The third, her voice hard and sharp, issued another series of commands, and the rest of the sails were furled as the paddle wheels began to move. The Seastag moved slowly northward, then hove to off the southern breakwater, waiting, the paddle wheels turning just enough to keep the ship with bare steerageway.

In less than a fraction of a glass, a pilot boat steamed up. The boat kept perfect station on the Seastag while the ladder went over the side. Shortly, a man in blue trousers and jacket climbed aboard. Furwyl met him on the deck and escorted him back to the poop, where he stood beside the captain and began to give orders to the helm.

The Seastag crept forward, wallowing slightly before gaining true headway, then picked up speed to perhaps three kays, Kharl judged, moving toward a channel marked with red and black buoys. The channel ran almost due east between the two long breakwaters of black stone. The breakwaters rose a good ten cubits above the water and seemed to be at least three times that wide, with the flat surface of a lord’s causeway.

“Never seen breakwaters like that…” murmured Hodal, one of the few deckhands who was actually taller and broader than Kharl-and a good fifteen years younger.

“Lots of things you’ll see here you never saw before,” someone else replied. “Nothing like Nylan. Nothing nowhere.”

“Winch crew! Stand by!” ordered Bemyr, the bosun.

Kharl moved aft to join the others, but continued to watch as the Seastag entered the harbor, not all that much larger than the one at Brysta. The difference was that there were piers and more piers, all of them stone, with clean lines and no signs of missing mortar, seemingly in perfect repair, with timbered rails and hempen buffers.

“Is this part of Recluce called Nylan, or is it just the harbor?” Kharl asked Reisl, who was the closest of the winch crew to him.

“Who knows?” Reisl shrugged.

The bosun looked at Kharl. “The southern tip of Recluce is called Southpoint. The port here is Nylan, named after some old hero. He was a smith, I think. Anyway, we’ve been coming north past the point ’fore coming inshore. That’s ’cause the harbor’s on the west side, north of the southern tip. Pretty big port, more than a half score piers for deep-ocean traders, a few more for coasters from Candar and fishing vessels. Most of the time, it’s crowded.”

“They got girls there?” asked the fresh-faced Wylat.

“The tavern maids are prettier here than anyplace you’ll ever be. And all you can do is look.” Bemyr laughed.

“Don’t believe that,” came a voice from the other side of the winch crew.

“You better believe it. This is the place that flattened Fairven some fifty-sixty years back. They got more mages here in Nylan than in the whole rest of the world. You see all that black stone out there? They got ships that move faster than the fastest war-steamers out of Hamor, and half the time you can’t see ’em. They got patrollers on every street. You won’t lose any coin to brigands there, and you’ll get fair measure for your coin. But you can’t buy a woman for all the golds the captain’s got.”

“You can’t?”

As the Seastag eased past the inner end of the breakwaters, Kharl’s attention drifted from the comments about women to the harbor and the city to the north of it. Outside of a few blocks immediately north of the harbor, the city was built on a long sloping hill, an almost symmetrical ridge that was more than two kays from the harbor to the crest and nearly twice that wide. The dwellings and the buildings he could see were constructed of a blackish stone, with dark roofs, and the streets were wide and straight.

“Anywhere you can buy a good woman…a woman, anyway,” another crew member said.

“Except on board,” cracked the third mate from across the deck.

“Can’t buy women in Nylan,” stated Bemyr. “Better not try, either. Now…once in a while, one’ll take a liking to a sailor…and that’s something. Only knew of two fellows that happened to…” Bemyr broke off. “Enough of that. They’ve already got the wagons moving down the pier. They move cargo fast here.”

“Lines out!” ordered Furwyl. “Tighten up forward! Bring her in!”

The Seastag ’s paddle wheel slowed to a stop.

“Double up!” ordered Furwyl. “Bosun!”

Bemyr put his whistle to his mouth and blew two shrill blasts. “Before long, cargo hatch’ll be off. Winch crew in place! Step lively, now!”

Kharl took his place and waited.

For the next two days, Kharl labored as a deckhand, shifting cargo, moving pallets. Not until midafternoon of the third day was he granted shore leave, along with Tarkyn and half the rigging crew. He had managed, with some difficulty, to wash his once-better outfit clean, but a close look would have revealed muted stains in the tunic. He also had the staff, which he felt he needed to return, although he wasn’t quite sure where to take it, only that it had come from Recluce, and he thought Jenevra had mentioned Nylan.

He stood on the section of the deck behind the gangway, in that ill-defined area that was called the quarterdeck, along with the others going on shore leave, sunlight and shadows from the masts and rigging falling across them.

“Don’t be too long, or too late,” Bemyr told those going on shore leave. “You don’t need a friend with you, not here, but be careful. Captain says we sail just after dawn. That’s when the winds turn and blow out of the northeast.”

Kharl stepped back and let the younger men surge down the gangway.

As the cooper waited, the captain appeared, looking at the staff. “I’d forgotten that. Where did you get it?”

“It belongs here. I need to return it.”

“That’s probably a very good idea. Enjoy yourself.”

“Yes, ser,” Kharl said politely, but Hagen had already stepped away.

Kharl looked around as he walked down the gangway onto the pier. All the piers were of dressed stone, and the stonework was simple but flawless, the joins between stones as tight as those of his best barrels, and with only the thinnest lines of mortar.

The pier itself was almost clear of wagons, except for one last one holding barrels, probably of provisions. Kharl walked past it, then stopped at the end of the pier and looked up the long, inclined hillside that held most of the city. Even though it was well past harvest, everything seemed either black or green. The streets and even the one alley he could see to his left were all paved in a dark gray stone that was almost black. The late-afternoon light glinting off it made it look gray, but as he looked closer, he could see that it was indeed black. In fact, he hadn’t realized just how black, and how pervasive the black stone truly was. All of the buildings, all of the dwellings, were of the same black stone, and the roofs of the buildings and dwellings were of a stone that looked like split black slate.