Philip Athans - Whisper of Waves

Of what Djeserka was shouting, she understood only: “I know you … that … we have to … on the Weave, but that is a … of life. It’s a … of life not just for shipbuilders, but for any number of people who … any number of … Your … is … and I … you have more good ideas in a day than most men have in a year, if not a … but when you … those ideas by this narrow … you do a … to yourself as well as your patrons. And when I say patron, I … mean me, but those who hire our … and expect certain … And when those … depend on a ship being sent through a … then by Umberlee’s grace we’ll send the … thing through a … Now, I … that … not something you will be able to live with, so I’m afraid that, my … respect for our … friend Fharaud aside, I will have to ask you to consider yourself … and … this very … Now, good day to you, sir.”

The man looked disappointed, perhaps, but not angry. He was not upset at having been removed from his position, but he appeared to have left something unfinished.

Ran Ai Yu stepped backward out the door and into the salt-and-sulfur air of the quayside. She waited, thinking.

The man she had seen was the man who had been described to her: the wild red hair, the confident and even superior manner. Though she had been in Innarlith only a month, she had spent that time productively, of course, and went to that particular shipbuilder on the recommendation of many and the condemnation of many more. It was the open hostility to the red-haired man that had really brought her there. No one of mediocre quality could illicit so strong a revulsion from those who thought themselves his peers.

After only a short time, he emerged from the building and Ran Ai Yu considered the shape of the man against the outline of the structure. Western architecture did not appeal to Ran Ai Yu. She found it square and unimaginative. The man, though, was more suited to the East. Though no bigger than the average westerner, which is to say quite large, he seemed to soar above the landscape around him.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, stepping into his path.

He was startled but took her in quickly with eyes a color brown Ran Ai Yu had never seen, though everyone in Shou Lung had brown eyes. He didn’t seem pleased or displeased by her appearance, and Ran Ai Yu had had her pick of suitors in Shou Lung. He didn’t even seem surprised by her foreign features, eyes and skin that so many ignorant westerners would mistake for an elf’s.

“I am Ran Ai Yu,” she said. “It is my desire that you are Devorast Ivar.”

He said, “I am Ivar Devorast.”

Ran Ai Yu bowed and corrected herself, “Ivar Devorast. Apologies.”

“Is there something I can do for you?”

“Build a ship,” she said.

He looked at her as if he didn’t understand, though Ran Ai Yu was sure of the words.

“You are a shipbuilder,” she said. “Ivar Devorast.”

“Yes,” he said, “but I’m afraid that … been …”

“What are these words, please,” she asked, “‘I’ve’ and ‘discharged’?”

He explained the words to her in simple terms she easily grasped and she responded, “I hear that. To me it does not matter. I want you ship, not his ship. You will build it for me, yes?”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Ran Ai Yu,” she said. “I am a merchant, who trades from Tsingtao in far Shou Lung. My own ship, a fine Shou ship, went below the waves of your Lake of Steam. I escaped the waves and so did my crew, and some also of our cargo. I have traded and I have gold, and that gold will be given to you that you will build a ship.”

“A ship to carry cargo,” he said, “all the way back to Shou Lung?”

“A journey of much distance,” she replied with a bow.

Something began to glow in Ivar Devorast’s face, and he smiled.

“That is yes,” she said.

“You will sail this ship all the way back to Shou Lung,” he said. “Sailing, the whole way.”

“I do not trust any other journey,” she said, hoping that conveyed what she thought would be a point over which they agreed: their mistrust of magical means of travel. “I will sail.”

“Then it would be my pleasure to build your ship, Miss Ran Ai Yu of Shou Lung,” he said.

6 Kythorn, the Year of the Helm (1362 DR)

FIRST QUARTER, INNARLITH

Would you believe it’s taken over a month for word of all this to filter to me?” Willem asked.

His old friend Ivar Devorast had no response. Instead, he continued to chip away at a block of what Willem thought looked like mahogany. The tool took both delicate slivers and crude chunks from the hardwood, precisely as Devorast desired.

“I never knew you were so handy with an adze,” Willem said as he settled on a stool in Devorast’s cramped, busy workshop. “And the workshop … it’s small, but it suits you somehow. So I guess you’re your own man now, eh? Master Shipbuilder Ivar Devorast?”

Devorast allowed him a shrug at last and Willem forced a smile.

“I’ve heard complaints about you, you know,” Willem said.

Without pausing in his exacting work, Devorast replied, “The meaningless chatter of tiny minds.”

That made Willem laugh, and for the briefest moment he thought he saw Devorast smile too.

“They’re a curious people, aren’t they, our new neighbors,” said Willem. He glanced around at the crew Devorast had hired to help build his ship. He saw a pair of dwarves, but the rest looked like locals with their dark skin and lean physiques. None of them were speaking, all simply bent about their tasks. “At risk of sounding elitist, they don’t seem to … to …”

“Like themselves?” Devorast offered.

Willem was surprised by that but only a little. He had been leaning in that direction, though he also tried to take a more diplomatic tack. The locals nearby either hadn’t heard, believed he was right, or needed the work too much to risk defending themselves.

“You’ve seen it too,” he said.

Devorast nodded and paused from his carving.

“They import everything,” Devorast said, “as if their own hands aren’t capable, but they are capable. I’ve seen good, solid tools made by local craftsmen on sale in the Third Quarter for half the price-less than half-of a cheap piece of cast-off iron from someplace like Waterdeep or Sembia. It’s their principal weakness, this distrust of themselves.”

Willem thought about that for a moment as Devorast went back to his work.

“I’ve been collecting friends since we came here,” Willem said. “You probably sorted that out though, eh? Friends and contacts, patrons and mentors, and they all share that same curse, that lust for anything from anywhere but Innarlith.”

“Including engineers,” Devorast said with no hint of meanness.

“Or shipwrights,” Willem shot back, likewise without malice.

A little while passed as Devorast continued his precise carving and the crew buzzed around him like so many bees at work on their hive, but instead of a hive, what was taking shape in that rented space on the quayside was a ship unlike anything Willem had ever seen.

“I understand your patron …” Willem said, “or is it matron … is from Shou Lung.”

Devorast stopped long enough to nod, examine his progress a bit, then continue.

“I suppose that makes your vessel the greatest prize an Innarlan could imagine,” Willem said.

Devorast looked up and said, “Is it?”

“Certainly,” Willem replied. “A ship built by a Cormyrean for a Shou. If that’s mahogany from Kozakura you’re working on, I’ll have to wonder if there’s anything of Innarlith in it at all. And what could these dwarves of yours be about? I didn’t think their kind could float.”