Chapter 32: Strongback

Chapter 32: Strongback

Strongback

A month later, on a clear afternoon, a boat docked in Baitown. Kalen and every single one of his female relatives disembarked.

Salla and Illess, wearing their best dresses, raced around the dock, calling out in wonder at every small sight. Kalen couldnt chase after them since he had Fanna in his arms. The baby was sleeping like a log, completely untroubled by sea travel.

Their mother hadnt fared so well.New novel chapters are published on

Shelba was decidedly green, and shed wobbled down the gangplank with Caris and Aunt Jayne holding onto her to keep her from falling.

You really couldhave sent Da with me instead of coming yourself, Kalen said, not for the first time. He watched in concern as his mother leaned against a post stained with seabird droppings. Kalen had assumed she hated boat travel out of some strange sort of principle. That was shed always made it sound like.

But it turned out to be a much more common and simple reason. Boats made Shelba dizzy and seasick. Shed been ill, and ill-tempered because of it, ever since they left the village before dawn.

We can go back home in a cart or something?

Dont be ridiculous, said Shelba. Im not going to spend days going over mountains in a cart when a ship will have us home in hours.

Do you get cart-sick, too? Kalen asked. He was genuinely curious, but she glared at him instead of answering.

When shed recovered her equilibrium, they headed into town.

The girls were thrilled to be on an adventure, and no doubt Veern and Terthwhod gotten into a fight with each other yesterday and been left behind as a punishmentwould be devastated to have missed the trip. But Baitown was less impressive than Kalen had imagined. Certainly it was much larger than their village, but all the tales hed heard of continental cities had overwritten and warped his expectations for the largest settlement on Hemarland. He took it all in with an interest that was faintly dulled by disappointment.

The shop where his books were usually purchased was a dusty place that also sold furniture. There were three churchesthe only ones Kalen had ever seen, since any worship services conducted in their village were always held outdoors. There was a school.

This last particularly interested him, and he stopped walking to watch the lesson through one of the narrow windows. There were around a dozen students of mixed ages. They were learning multiplication by rote.

Kalen was relieved. He knew multiplication. He was not missing anything at all by never having gone to school.

Then they started in on thirteens, and he scowled. Surely there was no real need to memorize past the twelves?

Kalen! Caris called sharply. Youre getting left behind, and this trip is mostly about you.

He spun and hurried after the girls, trying to do 13 times 16 in his head as they passed by a public house. Aunt Jayne stopped the woman sweeping the front porch and had a quick word. Coin changed hands, the girl went inside, and a moment later she returned with an enormous brown loaf studded with dried fruit and glazed with sugar.

Caris, you take this, Jayne said. I dont want your sisters swinging it around. Itll go sailing into the bushes. Kalen, let your mother hold Fanna. You run down that street there and ask at the church about your letters. They can point you to Yardas house when youre finished. Dont get dirty.

Kalen wasnt sure how she imagined he might get dirty walking down a street to visit a church. Did she think hed stop to roll around in the mud? But he didnt argue.

They separated, and he headed for the church, wondering if there was any point when it had been such a short time since his letters had gone out. Hed sent two of them, just a few days after his family had agreed that he could seek an apprenticeship with Arlade Glimont.

The first was addressed to Vardnie of the Amphora Clan on Makeeran Island. This was a polite, bordering-on-pleading message for Zevnie. Kalen reminded her that the year was over, she had agreed she would help him, and that he really, really would like for Arlade to be apprised of all the things theyd kept hidden from her. As soon as possible.

I should arrive in Granvill Port in Circon around the middle of Saint Tocks Month," he'd written, taking enormous pains to make his penmanship perfect in case Zevnie showed the letter to the sorcerer directly. "I will be traveling with Yarda Strongback, whom Sorceress Arlade has met. We will wait there for her, or we will receive any reply she has sent us by churchmail.

Hed gone on to add how very much he would like to see Zevnie again. And how wonderfully exciting it would be if they were both Arlades apprentices.

He knew he was laying it on a bit thick. And he knew there was a fair chance Zevnie would spit on the letter when she received it. But it wasnt like he had a lot of options, and hed gone a step further for insurance. His second letter had been addressed to Arlade Glimont and sent directly to the Archipelago. Hed made sure to mention it to Zevnie.

It might take a couple of years from what he knew of the sorcerers travel habits, but if Zevnie failed to deliver Kalens message, Arlade would eventually arrive back home for the next apprenticeship tournament and find out about it.

It felt like there were a lot of opportunities for Kalens plans to go awry. Not the least of which was Arlade receiving the letters and wondering why in the world she ought to port around the continent to pick up someone like Kalen.

But at least he had a way of tracking the letters as they traveled.

The churches of Parneda, Yoat, and Clywing were particularly popular throughout the continent; and they had expanded to some of the islands long ago. Smaller local churches sent membership tallies, a portion of alms, and requests for aid to their respective mother churches every month.

Personal letters could be added to a churchs regular delivery for a fee. The system worked well, from what Kalen had heard. This was the first time hed ever had occasion to use it.

He arrived at the Church of Yoat, which looked like a very well decorated barn on the inside, and rang a bell he found on a small table by the entrance.

A plump, cheerful woman with a scarf on her head appeared from a side door.

Someone brought letters here for me earlier this month? Kalen said. I wanted to check and see where they were?

Youre in luck, she said. A new receipt page arrived yesterday. I just need your name and verse to check it.

She took him through the side door, and he found himself inside a tiny room, barely big enough for the two of them. The woman wedged herself into a chair behind the desk and pulled out a wooden box that was full of papers. She took out the one on top. It was covered in a hand-inked grid.

Aunt Jayne looked faint at the thought. But she cleared her throat and said, Our whole family appreciates you agreeing to watch over him, Yarda. He wont give you a bit of trouble.

Of course he wont, Shelba agreed.

He will not, Caris confirmed.

Kalen sighed. Having three people vouch for him in such rapid succession made it feel less like they were offering honest assurances and more like they were trying to bind him with their words.

But Yarda only laughed again. I hope he does give me some of it! My own boy is eighteen now. And such a fine, sensible young man that he takes care of me instead of the other way around. I miss all that trouble he put me through back when he was full of stupid.

Ill try to be a good traveling companion, Kalen said diplomatically.

Our ship leaves in a month, she told them. Its coming in from Tiriswaith. An autumn sailing is a bad omen some say, but I see no reason to give them heed. Youll share a room with me if my snoring doesnt drive you abovedecks. Only a couple of quick stops along the way, and when we land on the continent, well stay in Circon for a time. If Arlade wizarn cannot meet us, we will travel across the country and take a ship from the Eastern coast. Or maybe head south to Swait and go from there.

Kalen was glad Lander wasnt present to hear that. Kalen had sworn on his life that he wouldnt set foot anywhere the Orellens were being hunted, and that included Swait.

They spent the rest of the evening talking about the upcoming trip, letting Yarda play with the baby, and offering marital advice to Yardas strikingly normal-looking son.

Roden handled the influx of increasingly personal information with a steadiness that Kalen found impressive. And before they all left the next day, the young man took Kalen aside and thanked him seriously for the small part he would play as Yardas tagalong.

It will be a relief to have letters from her, he said quietly. She doesnt say it, but she has truly been unwell these past months.

Ill write you messages from every port, Kalen promised.

Rodens fiancee was the towns schoolteacher, as it turned out. She would read Kalens letters to him when they arrived.

They shook hands, and parted ways.

It feels strange, Kalen thought as he walked beside his mother on the way back to the docks. In a month, he would be here again to board a ship. It would sail away. No matter what happened next, he wouldnt see home again for a long time.

Kalen, you be good to Yarda, Shelba said suddenly.

Kalen looked up in surprise. In the morning sunlight, the loose hairs around her face were glowing bright. To her? he asked. Not for her?

She must be so afraid to leave her family for such a thing. Shelba spoke quietly. She laughs much, but she must be worried.

Roden said something like that, too...

His mother nodded. Her arms tightened around Fanna. If you were a little boy, I would tell you to behave yourself and not make trouble for her, she said. But you are growing up, arent you? So I will not tell you what you ought to know full well on your own.

She paused, her eyes fixed on the distance.

Instead I will tell you to take care of her. Pay attention to the difficulties of your journey with her, and ease her burden in the ways you can. Write her letters home for her and see to it that they are sent properly. Can you do that?

I can, said Kalen, a peculiar weight settling inside him, as if hed sworn an oath.

How odd, he thought later, as he watched the coastline slide past the railing of the small boat they were taking home. If his mother had told him to behave for Yarda Strongback, he would have said yes and meant it.

Hed had no intention of pestering the woman on the trip, and he had certainly not planned to abandon her if she became ill or needed help. But now, just because of his mothers small and obvious request, he thought that he might literally be able to carry the giantess to the Archipelago if he had to.

It felt almost like Shelba had cast a spell on him.

As the sun set, their ship approached the village, but Kalen found himself staring across the dark water to the place where the continent waited. Almost without thinking about it, he reached into his pocket and drew out the bone-covered coin.

He didnt have the right kind of question to ask, but he pulled a tiny bit of magic from inside himself and pushed it into the coin anyway.

Hed felt a faint warmth from the coin before when he used it, and hed seen the runes glow when he had it out of its case. But now that hed become a magician, there was something a little different about it. It was likea texture in the air around the coin when it was used.

An invisible, diaphanous something just beyond Kalens sight or reach.

He could only examine it indirectly, like it was a quiet thought on the edge of his own imagination instead of anything real. But sometimes, when he was in exactly the right mood, he thought he felt a single thread of that mysterious something, thin as spider-silk, trailing off into the distance.

Always toward the continent. Or maybe even beyond it.

What are you?

The coin lay in his palm, quiet and harmless.

Kalen didnt know what, exactly, he was asking. But he knew in which direction his answers lay.