17th Brightblossom, 3308 AF
There were nine of them working the estuary this morning. James Hambert was in charge, supervising the little fleet with an anxious eye on sky and sea alike, his battered old face a testimony to years of experience afloat on the treacherous waters of Perque Bay. The mayor of Leeward Sands was also one of the best mariners. Blind Lincoln sat behind him in the wide flat bottomed punt with moistened fingers raised to the wind and a blank gaze to wander bleakly over them all. The three Tolson brothers had polled the ‘new’ boat without a name to within six or seven lengths and anchored against a cross current running over the bar. Dave Binwold and Jim Constan were crewing the ‘Water Tiger’, keeping the larger vessel sensibly clear of the shallows but ready to move closer once the time came. That left only Michael Jadrick and Tom Ritter in the trusty but aged ‘Tide Dancer’.
“Hurry it up there!” Hambert called to them, lightly touching the amplification torc at his throat to ensure that his word carried over the brisk breeze. The distortion had nearly broken. They weren’t ready yet and today, more than ever, the village needed a good catch. Ritter threw the sand anchor as far as he could across the brown underwater dune whilst Jadrick struggled to hold their station. In mid air it exploded into a barbed mass of spinning metal hooks and drills. The anchor hit the water with a satisfying splash where the rising swell of waves were forced over the shallows then sank rapidly to the bottom, automatically orienting the drills downward and angling the hooks for entry into the soft sand. In less than a minute they had a firm line to the western dune.
“I don’t know why we’re bothering,” Tom grumbled. “It’ll be another useless pissing like the last time we chased after one of these things before breakfast!”
Tom Ritter was a professional cynic and he felt he had to say these things as much for the young man’s education as for his own satisfaction. But today, even he was caught up a little in the excitement and the remark was made more for form’s sake than from his usual natural misanthropic inclination. Jadrick was nearly hopping up and down in anxiety.
Acrobatic gullings screamed abuse round the sky as the two fishermen swung their sturdy little craft and struck out across the narrow but fast flowing channel to the eastern dune.
“Your turn now,” Ritter said, passing the other anchor to his junior partner.
“No, not there!” he shouted, stopping the youth just in time. “Ahead of us, idiot! Do you want to finish up snarled in our own nets?”
“Didn’t you teach this boy anything?” he called across to Sam Tolson who just scowled his disapproval making his younger brother Jack laugh aloud and yell back at them.
“Leave him alone Tom! He can’t help it, he’s in love!”
That made them all laugh. Even Binwold and Constan heard it and joined in from the ‘Water Tiger’. Jadrick flushed in embarrassment, almost wishing for an awful moment that the sea would open up and swallow him. But that was a bad thing to wish for on Perque Bay and he quickly made the holy sign to ward his thoughts and looked back to the distortion.
“All right, all right,” Hambert shouted, cutting them off at last. “Keep yer wits about you, this thing’s about to blow!”
Ritter completed the stake out, triggering net flow with his remote control. Little metal crablets ran along the line between the two anchors, deploying a thin plastic mesh which they unrolled to form a drift net. Along the bottom edge, the net was almost perfectly moulded to the shifting contours of the volatile seabed, tacked and tethered carefully by the crablets with sufficient slack to let the whole structure balloon comfortably into the current. The plastic rope was remarkably elastic and capable of withstanding considerable strain against the anchors.
Jadrick blinked hard to clear away a rush of spray. The distortion was obvious to them all now and it was going to be a big one. Flickering moats of bright air, criss-crossed in an increasingly dense web work in front of the lead boat. Blind Lincoln was tense with expectation. The diviner needed a success to maintain his reputation. The last few expeditions, all launched at his instigation, had yielded disappointing results.
Then it happened. Jadrick cried out with mingled alarm and excitement as the sky opened up and all at once a vast volume of exotic water tumbled through from one of the Unfortunate Spaces. It was full of fat glistening silver fishes! The water cascaded in a roar of release over the sandbanks and Hambert was hard put to guide his boat backwards and avoid being swamped. They were a little too close to the distortion for safety. Meanwhile, the other boats were manoeuvring for position and trying to make the best of the sudden bounty whilst coping with the changing currents. The Tolson brothers eased their punt further into the shallows and stretched out with giant scoop nets to haul in as many of the flopping fish as they could reach. Jack Tolson even dared to wade out away from the boat to improve his catch. The Water Tiger came up behind for support but Ritter and Jadrick were in the best position as those fish that had avoided the sandbanks fell straight into the main channel and were driven inland by the running tide which was forcing them directly into the Tide Dancer’s net.
“Keep it clean lad,” Ritter yelled, encouraging Jadrick to maintain a firm hand on the lines. The school of alien fish were frantic now. Funnelled straight into the trap, Jadrick watched them struggle to break through, churning the water into a white maelstrom of fleshy terror. For the first time he wondered if the net was capable of withstanding such an onslaught. It wasn’t just the fish. Waves raised by the cascade from the distortion were pushing them onto the sandbank and he could feel the boat tip a little.
“We’ve got enough now,” he prayed. “Make it stop now!”
The distortions in Perque Bay were erratic and completely unreliable. In general terms the larger they were, the shorter they lasted but whatever mystic nonsense Blind Lincoln uttered, it was impossible to predict their duration in advance. Last year a small hole was torn in the sky far out over the bay and higher than the head of the Stone Giant. It was no wider than a man’s head but it had given rise to a cold blue waterfall, which streamed continuously into the sea throughout the whole summer before the distortion healed as quickly as it had arisen. Many distortions opened below the surface, giving rise to unexpected currents as the water in the bay was drained or high pressure deep water arrived from elsewhere to force its way up, in bubbling salty fountains. Three years ago the Water Tiger had been caught in open water when a whirlpool sprang into life as a deep distortion suddenly sucked at the sea beneath it. Jack Tolson had only just been able to save the boat and the whole village listened to a long sermon from Blind Lincoln afterwards on the dangers of unguided fishing. Very little was known about any of the Unfortunate Spaces to which the bay was connected by the distortions. They were domains of water and air in all their varied forms. Sometimes the water was clear and pure, more often it was salty. Sometimes it was cold, sometimes hot. Often it was teeming with alien creatures but occasionally it had the tangy metallic taint of poison and then the life of the whole bay suffered before its inevitable dilution by the Perque and the sea. However it arose, all this honeycomb activity augmented the usual ebb and flow of tide and river so that the sandy channels of the bay were forever in flux. Perque bay was a mariner’s nightmare.
A distortion could bring great luck or great misfortune. Or both. This one had almost outstayed its welcome already. But at the very moment when Ritter was beginning to join his apprentice in worrying about the safety of the boat, it stopped.
“Let’s haul ‘em in now!” the fisherman shouted exultantly, enlisting the aid of the crablets again with another electronic command. All the other boats were struggling with large catches but the Tide Dancer would best them all. They’d have to be careful not to swamp the deck, careful to stash the fish evenly under the thin tarpaulin and bail any water that they’d shipped in case they wallowed in the shallows. A period of frantic but happy work followed.
“You’ve brought me some luck today,” Tom Ritter said with a smile as the Leeward Sands flotilla finally headed back to the shore with all its bounty safely stowed and the nets reeled in. The little crablets had already begun to clean and stitch the plastic mesh before packing it away.
“Nice to think the old Tide Dancer can still land a better catch than Hambert and the Tolson brothers on that new rig. Not to mention the Water Tiger!”
He breathed deeply into the fresh morning breeze, shifting his weight in the prow and pulling on the short, wide bladed oar, that served partly to steer and partly to propel them. Jadrick couldn’t remember seeing Ritter in a better mood. Standing at the stern, wielding the light telescopic punt which provided their main motive power, the apprentice managed an answering laugh. The feast would be good tonight. His slim fingers were tired and a little cold from prolonged contact with the sea and the slippery wet fish but they were still agile enough to lock the pole at the right length as he almost unconsciously adjusted for the varying depth of the sea bed. For the most part, punting was a perfectly practical way of navigating round the bay despite the fact that sometimes mud would cling to the pole as if it were a drowning man so that Jadrick needed considerable strength and balance to haul it out without lurching into the ocean. Less often, the sand would cascade away in cloudy currents which gave no purchase and then Tom would have to use the oar to steady them.
“Perhaps you’re due a bit of your own luck tonight, eh boy? Though not if Oriel has anything to do with it, I’ll wager!”
Jadrick felt himself blushing again, despite the good humour of the old man’s teasing. Wasn’t he allowed any secrets? The whole village seemed to know all about his interest in the wild Rider girl and the uneasy jealousy of Hambert’s daughter. Oriel had almost sensed his own thoughts before he’d even had them he reflected, a trifle bitterly. And it wasn’t as if she even had anything to be jealous about. She wasn’t promised to him, after all. And he hadn’t got anywhere with Issa in any case. It was all so difficult and so unfair, and the knowing gossip of the fishermen made it that much worse!
And that was the moment when his pole struck something hard and smooth, and a mysterious electric tremor shot through his hands.
“What’s the matter boy? Been kissing fishes and let one bite your tongue!”
For a moment Jadrick had been dazed by the strange contact.
“I… I don’t know,” he said. “I just hit something there. Something with the pole. Something odd…”
Ritter shrugged and looked a little uneasy, reacting more to the disturbance in Jadrick’s voice than to his words. He stopped joking.
“There are some strange things in these waters,” he said carefully with all the old superstition of the fishermen. “Come on. Let’s get home.”
The boat had drifted backwards as they talked. Afterwards Jadrick couldn’t say why he did it. Perhaps he was still dazed, or perhaps he was just rebelling a little against the constant irritating superiority of his elders. It didn’t matter which. Driven by a sudden impulse Jadrick twisted a release mechanism at the top of the pole so that a spiny metallic flowering was born underwater at the other end. This particular morph could be used to free the pole if it was stuck or to pull things out of the sea. He pushed the pole down, sensing where it had struck the object before. And this time when it connected he was ready for the mild shock and twisted the top of the pole again, closing anemone like spines around the unseen object. He had no idea of its size or shape but the intelligent design of his tool needed only the appropriate motions of his hand to gauge intent. By applying torque to the control ring in the way he had, the pole was programmed to do its best to bring him a catch. It had its own sensors under the water and it gripped tightly and telescoped upward to haul a weighty catch out of the grip of the sands. Jadrick was nearly caught off balance before he managed to lift his prize into the boat and the two fishermen could examine it.
The object was the size of a child’s head; a pure flawless dodecahedron in polished crystal planes retaining an indifferent clarity, careless of the sea in rainbow yellows, greens, reds and blues which were fractured in sharp shards out of the morning light. As the residual salt water ran into the bottom of the boat it was hard to imagine that it had ever been buried in sand, so perfect did it seem in this unplanned moment. Jadrick was stunned into silence.
“It’s a gift,” said Ritter, with a mixture of awe and fear. “A gift from the sea.”
A slow sense of excitement had been building throughout the day. Tonight was the night of the leave taking feast when the Riders would end their short visit to Leeward Sands. What with the preparations for the feast and the extra work involved in gutting and salting the unexpected bounty of fish, the bay had been bustling with activity from morning until dusk.
But the news of Jadrick’s find had yet to spread throughout the village.
“Save it for tonight boy,” Tom said. “After the Tellings and the Naming. That will be the right time to show everyone.”
And so Jadrick had left the mysterious object wrapped in tarpaulin at the bottom of the boat and held his tongue as he was marshalled into half a dozen different jobs. Three quarters of the way between a boy and a man he was expected to shoulder adult responsibilities but could still be called upon by almost any of the villagers to run errands and perform jobs only marginally less humble than those assigned to the children. For today, however, he didn’t care.
After securing and oiling the boats, Jadrick found himself building a new fire in one of the smoking huts, repairing the roof on the same hut and then helping to raise the poles for the feast tent behind the dunes of the eastern shore. He was sent to supervise the Goridge children gathering brushwood for half an hour, a welcome rest from physical labour, and then rewarded with a generous bowl of the hot leek and potato stew which Martha Goridge was tending at the main hall fire. In the afternoon, he helped to chop logs with Dave Binwold’s son Martin and then he dug some onions for old Jemma James.
“It hurts my knees to dig for them now,” she said as she caught him on the way to the well. “I know you won’t run away with any like the Goridge kids would,” she continued in a loud whisper. “You’re a good boy, Michael Jadrick, whatever they say.”
‘Whatever, who says’, Jadrick thought with temporary irritation as he grubbed in the vegetable bed. It was typical of the old woman never to issue a complement without a sting in the tail. She was no doubt casting her mind back to the early days, shortly after his unusual adoption by the village council. He’d arrived as an orphaned eight year old with a troupe of Riders who effectively abandoned him when they left. These days, he rarely thought about the tragedy that had led to the exile from his original home but now he was reminded that the first couple of years in Leeward Sands had been difficult ones. Certain villagers had harboured a degree of suspicion about him. Despite the mystic attraction of the Riders, some still thought of them as vagabonds and thieves and his more narrow minded neighbours would occasionally wonder openly, if he were one too. Unconsciously, he scratched the small red and black tattoo on the back of his left hand that marked him out as a one time Rider.
Ah well. It all seemed an age ago. He’d long since proved himself a hard worker and an honest one. He was trusted now as just another young villager - a fisherman to help sour old Ritter, the hearty Tolson brothers and the rest of the men. Jadrick smiled ruefully at Jemma James outdated sentiments and then laughed. He was looking forward eagerly to the feast.
At last, sparks began to rise from the early camp fires and it was time for a bath before the evening’s entertainment began.
Jadrick had a small room in an annex of Jack and Mary Tolson’s cottage. He’d been living as their adopted son for more than six years but soon he’d have to move on. Now that he’d been apprenticed to Ritter he was expected to take his trade more seriously. The Tolson family needed the annex for their growing clutch of children. It was time for him to engage in the rights and duties of adulthood and to begin to build his own house. All that would wait until after tomorrow. Tonight there was the feast to look forward to!
On the way to the bathhouse he nearly tripped over Oriel. He heard her first, three heart beats before the corner, laughing with her sister as they ran to the old bake oven. They seemed to choke on their laughter as they saw him and slowed down immediately to a dignified walk. Katia gave him a scornful look. James Hambert’s elder daughter had been married to Ricky Tolson in the summer and now she’d joined the Tolson clan she’d become an insufferably self satisfied and righteous prig. Not that Jadrick had ever liked her all that much before but to hear her talking round the village now, you’d think she’d been appointed by her father to set everyone else’s life in order. This hadn’t particularly bothered Jadrick until recently. Now, however, Katia had taken the side of her sister and seemed to be leading a whispering crusade against him. And what for? What had he done after all?
“Good evening ladies,” Jadrick said carefully.
“Good evening Michael,” Katia said coolly.
Oriel favoured him with a small smile. She was wearing a white linen dress and her auburn hair was tied back with a matching ribbon. She looked beautiful. Feeling at a disadvantage, Jadrick cast around awkwardly for something to say.
“I’ll see you at the feast then,” he managed lamely.
“Well since we’re all going to be there and unless you’ve gone blind, I expect you will,” Katia said with a mirthless brand of logic which made his attempted pleasantry sound like fatuous redundancy.
That was the moment when Issa appeared. The Rider girl was wrapped in a short crimson poncho with a pair of black pantaloons tucked into leather boots. Her long black hair was threaded through with two rows of tiny red beads and pinned back with an ornate silver slide in the shape of a leaping cat. She strolled over and clapped him heartily on the back.
“Alright comrade?”
She’d taken to calling him comrade since she’d seen the Rider tattoo. It was half affectionate and half mocking.
Jadrick coughed from the force of the gesture. Oriel and Katia froze solid. Jadrick mumbled something meaningless and then the two villagers strode off in a huff. Issa raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘what can you do?’ then left him suddenly on his own, mission accomplished.
Jadrick growled and stomped off to the bathhouse unsure whether to be annoyed or just confused.
It was hot in the giant marquee tent. Smoke eventually made a languid exit via the vents that flanked the ridgepole and the perimeter struts but preferred to linger in the warmth of the feast with the fires, the food and the people. It seemed to add to the confusion caused by alcohol. The main fire was half way between the farthest of the three tall roof poles and the high ground at the back. It was shielded by a cage of thick brass wires but allowed to blaze high within its prison cell, its repeatedly stoked rage casting everything in a red and yellow jumping light. Round the perimeter of the tent were other smaller fire pits, sunk into the ground and kept smouldering with white coal, each one guarded by one of the older and more responsible children charged with ensuring that no one was hurt and that the fabric of the tent didn’t catch light.
The Riders were the guests of honour at the feast. They were a small troupe of ten; a forage group on sabbatical from one of the confusing multiplicity of Northern Patrol tribes (confusing, at any rate, to the provincial inhabitants of Leeward Sands). They’d come all the way across the Tumbled Plains and from beyond the Fern Forests - from further than Helsporan and Didivar. They’d been as far as Tree’skivo where the Geigamon crowd the sky with their huge orange balloons and the Landing Field Curtains wash the wind all night with purple and yellow streamers of light. They ate heartily, drank heartily and laughed heartily and they mingled easily with their hosts and made them laugh too.
On the low wooden boards there were platters of fried fat silver fish, bowls of crab apples and suet dumplings, mugs of mint tea spiced with juniper and jars of treacle mead. Jadrick took a place at the end of the longest table which ran clean through two of the roof poles, propping himself up on a pillow of sand and just managing to squeeze his legs underneath. He was next to Ritter and four places away from Oriel and her sister. He glanced round the tent trying to locate Issa but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you bring it with you lad?” Ritter whispered, startling him.
Jadrick patted the inside lining of his quilted jacket where the heavy artefact lay cold across his chest.
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Then you’ll have a story for ‘em all tonight. That’s if you want to tell it. It’s your story but I’ll look after it for you if you want.”
For a minute Ritter sounded wistful and perhaps even a little jealous.
“No. Leave it with me.”
Jadrick took a long swallow of mead just as the hubbub of conversation died down. Blind Lincoln was standing up. It was time for the first entertainment – the first Telling.
There were to be four formal Tellings tonight, two from the hosts and two offered by the guests. After the second Telling they’d have the Naming to christen the new boat. But there would be other informal entertainments as well and Jadrick hoped to astound everyone with his account of today’s strange catch. He was mentally rehearsing the way he might begin even as the revellers sat back to listen to the first Telling.
Blind Lincoln’s story was set in the era of the Long Northern Peace when those enigmatic and self styled guardians of justice known as the Grey Kings ruled Anoomenon.
“I give you the Legend of Tumbalo Bailey and the Wild Princess,” he began.
Blind Lincoln enjoyed story telling and he was good at it. As the firelight played around the tent he skilfully transported his listeners to a distant place and time in the Great Hall of Copernicus. It was here that the Grey Kings sent their representatives to forge an alliance with the Moon Princes. The Long Northern Peace demanded much politicking on more than one world and the Wild Princess of the Shining City had the task of negotiating with these ancient rulers. As Blind Lincoln spoke, his audience pictured a thin fall of snow outside the high open archways of the Great Hall of Copernicus. It cast a white cloak over the forest of grey and blue lunar pine trees and dwalf cedars below the windows of the Hall. Sparse selenic grass grew on black rocky shores where the forest met the majestic salty waves of the ocean rolling slow as a dream over the crater bottom. The listeners could imagine the lugubrious Princes of the Moon with their short leather cloaks, velvet pantaloons and milk pale faces, not one of them younger than three hundred years of age. Three Grey Kings had come to chaperone the Wild Princess, dressed in thick silver furs and with the white and yellow logo of Anoomenon City State sewn into their tall black hats. And there was the Wild Princess herself with long black hair and bright green eyes, resplendent in her primrose silk dress and wearing the finest jewellery of the Shining City. There she sat at long rosewood tables, or parading on the high balconies of the Great Hall in formal and informal negotiations. Her mind was as strong as salt and her body fashioned as carefully as the cunning gene splicers of the Shining City could manage. Her loyalty was the product of long training in the elite academies of the Grey Kings. She was a playing piece in a vast political game – a fact that she knew full well and accepted as she had been trained to accept. The Grey Kings practiced a self consciously archaic style of politics in those days, as was the fashion of the time. The Wild Princess was here to flatter the Princes of the Moon, to tease them, to divide and conquer them and to be given in marriage as a token of the friendship between the Shining City and the kingdoms of the Moon. Then she met Tumbalo Bailey, the Fisher of the Court of the Great Hall and all the schemes of the Grey Kings went wrong.
Tumbalo Bailey was one of the fisherfolk of the Moon who sail their iron ships on the gelid Sea of Tranquillity and far across the turbulent Ocean of Storms hunting for schools of silver flash tails and the luminous lunar shrimps. The fisherfolk are a hardy people, accustomed to dangerous journeys accompanying frozen fleets of icebergs and to playing hide and seek through the thin spectral mists of the Moon.
Blind Lincoln recounted how Tumbalo Bailey was appointed as a guide to the Wild Princess and the tallest most cadaverous and spidery of the highland Moon Princes, leading them on a fishing expedition to the crater lakes. He told them how the boat ran into an unexpected storm and how Tumbalo Bailey saved the Wild Princess from drowning whilst the cowardly Moon Prince, thrashing in the cold water, thought only of his own safety; how Tumbalo Bailey fell in love with the Wild Princess and how, throughout the remaining long lunar days and nights of the solemn conference he set about to capture her heart with laughter, stolen conversation and a series of gifts smuggled inside the fish served at her table.
Tumbalo Bailey was kind, handsome and far cleverer than the lumbering ambassadorial fools who sought to use the Princess. Of course he was. He was a fisherman after all. So by virtue of his own bravery and good humour and assisted by a series of cunning tricks and artful plans (all of which were set pieces designed to get a laugh out of the audience), Tumbalo Bailey won the love of the Wild Princess and outsmarted the Moon Princes and the Grey Kings. He escaped with her over the Sea Of Serenity to the New Lunar Commonwealth and they lived happily ever after (in the story, if not in real history which is sadly unromantic about this sort of political disaster).
The listeners clapped and banged their tables. Eating and drinking resumed. Glancing up the table Michael caught Oriel’s eye for a moment. Then Martin Binwold moved over to sit beside her and said something that made her smile. Jadrick frowned unconsciously. He took a deep drink.
“Thought any more about starting on a new house, Michael? Get it underway in the next week whilst the weather’s still good and I can arrange help for you as an advance trade against crafting in the boat yard in winter.”
The speaker was James Hambert. He’d come up on Jadrick’s blind side in more ways than one and the youngster felt suddenly trapped. Of course Hambert’s deal made sense. He knew that Jadrick had to move out of the annex at the Tolson’s place pretty soon. And it wasn’t as if he was unsympathetic to the young man’s situation in connection with his own daughter. In fact, Jadrick had a good idea that James Hambert favoured him over Martin Binwold who even now seemed to be making headway with Oriel. If he let things run along that groove he could probably smooth things over with Oriel. She was pretty and he did like her - sort of. So why did everything seem so difficult when it could be so easy?
“I’m still thinking,” Michael said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I promise.”
James Hambert smiled as though it was all a done deal. He might as well have said, ‘what’s to think about?’ He clapped Jadrick on the shoulder and walked off up the table, brushing past Issa. The Rider girl glanced across the smoke filled air and gave him a smile. Jadrick’s stomach lurched. He took another deep drink and considered standing up.
“Let’s have another story!” someone called, and a tall Rider rose to meet the challenge. His name was Galen Jones, a middle-aged man with dry golden skin and pale grey eyes. He wore a red and yellow poncho and a polished silver holster over his left shoulder.
“Here’s a tale from the Log of the Northern Patrol,” he began. “A proper Rider tale through and through!”
Galen told his short saga with plenty of gusto and at a breakneck pace. It concerned the convoluted politics of the Northern Patrol tribes and their intricate system of honour. After a promising beginning, however, Michael started to loose interest in the story and he wasn’t the only one. There was a great deal about horse trading, feats of riding and racing and endurance tests in the saddle but somewhere along the way Jadrick lost sight of the plot. The fishermen listened politely and clapped at the end but as far as they were concerned Galen wasn’t half as good as Blind Lincoln. The villagers didn’t really understand Rider culture and tonight they seemed to prefer their own familiar legends. But despite that this feast was destined to generate its own true stories which would form a common currency of conversation in Leeward Sands for many years to come.
Another Rider was rising to his feet even as Galen Jones sat down. He was an older man, perhaps only a little younger than James Hambert and thinner and paler than the previous speaker. He too wore the standard Rider poncho, this one decorated in blue and white linen stripes and with extravagant gold buttons.
“My name is Manacue San,” he said. “I don’t have a lot to tell you but I do have something to show you.”
The buzz of conversation died down a little. The Rider seemed to be conscious that his compatriot had disappointed their hosts. Everyone sensed that the mood was about to change. There was an electric tension, which Jadrick couldn’t explain. Manacue was a natural showman.
“This is my little friend Ghalar,” the Rider said. He gave his audience the challenging grin of a magician who knows that his next trick will impress them. Something round and furry popped out of the top pocket of his robe, rolled down his arm and uncoiled with a whistling flurry to land on the table in front of him.
Everyone fell silent.
The strange creature was the size of a small rabbit but with a more elongated body. It had grey fur and two rows of short legs capped with ivory yellow hooves which scrabbled for a moment on the wooden table before clicking flat. The creature opened wide orange eyes with dark black pupils and stared around the tent. It gave a small cooing sound a bit like a pigeon, then suddenly galloped down the table racing up and down before coming to a halt next to a wooden bowl piled high with nuts. The little animal sat back on its haunches and raised its head. In this position two pairs of front limbs were able to reach forward into the bowl. Michael could see that the creature had five pairs of limbs altogether but he couldn’t make out whether they had a conventional knee joint or something stranger. The onlookers watched fascinated as Ghalar extended a thin fan of delicate tissue that must have been folded above the hooves, and the legs turned into tiny but very effective surrogate arms. One by one the creature plucked a succession of different nuts and popped them into its mouth. Then all at once it stepped back and spat them into the air. Before a single nut could fall to the ground Ghalar reached out with phenomenal speed and began a complex juggling performance that kept them all in motion. There was a fountain of flying nuts cascading between two pairs of limbs and the animal’s mouth. Then Ghalar started to walk up the table to a collective gasp of astonishment. Dancing between the dishes and plates the creature performed a comic and acrobatic masterpiece. It capered little jigs for the ladies and helped itself to sips of beer from the flagons of astonished men, all the while managing to keep some sort of juggling routine going. When Ghalar came to Oriel’s place, Michael caught a glimpse of Issa behind her in the crowd. For some unaccountable reason a sly smile crossed the Rider’s face. Ghalar threw all the nuts in the air and caught them in his mouth swallowing them as they fell with an exaggerated gulping motion. A series of bulges appeared in its throat, passing in comical waves of swallowing into his stomach. The animal gave a deep bow to Oriel then stood on its back legs and stared at her intently for five seconds or so. There was an expectant hush in the hall. Without warning Ghalar’s eyes popped out of his head and sprang towards her. Oriel gave a shriek of surprise and there was a gasp of amazement from the assembled company. At first Jadrick couldn’t work out what had happened but it soon became apparent that this was only a weird anatomical trick. Whilst it initially seemed they might have been catapulted free Ghalar’s eyes were in reality still connected to the creature’s body by thin grey muscular stalks. The eye balls twirled around one another then rapidly unwound and were drawn back into their sockets with an audible plop. Issa gave Michael a conspicuous wink and he realised that she must have orchestrated this surprise for Oriel. He felt he ought to be cross but mostly he wanted to laugh – especially at the expression of distaste on Katia’s face. He wasn’t the only one and soon there was a general burst of laughter from the fishermen.
Manacue reached into his pocket. “A little music,” he said. He threw a small silver whistle across the table to his astonishingly talented pet. Ghalar caught the instrument in one wide spread fanned hand and proceeded to play a series of pretty ditties which kept them all entertained for the next ten minutes before the Rider finally recalled him to scurry into the folds of his master’s poncho.
It's time for the Naming," Hambert said. Everyone straggled out of the tent, half fed and half drunk and full of good humour and talk.
The main harbour of Leeward Sands was cut into a natural curve at the base of the Stone Giant near the geological boundary where greywacke met red sandstone. Above the sheltering quay that curved out into the bay, narrow cobbled lanes ran between whitewashed boat houses, most meeting at the slick plastic slipway. It was here that the Sirin stream, which supplied the village with fresh water from the hills behind the Stone Giant, ran out into the bay. The village also boasted a second site where boats could be launched and landed at high tide, a steep beach on the side of the village closer to Anoomenon which was called Sand Landing. This was where the Naming would take place.
Torches lit from the fire pits, blustered energetically against the stiff night wind from the sea as the crowd poured through the streets. In a transparent sky most of the stars twinkled fearfully as though they too could be blown out by the wind, but three steady greenish lights, brighter than the rest marched in a solemn line, descending where the setting sun had gone before them. They were Geigamon Liners in a holding orbit, probably members of the Inner Conclave or Arc Ships on route to the dim landscapes of the Meta Gradient worlds.
The new boat was drawn up onto the seaward slope of a shallow dune just above the high water mark, where marram grass, wild rocket and juniper bushes fought for a hold. Four pine logs wedged under the hull would make it easy to roll the sturdy craft over the salty sand and launch her into the sea when the time came. For now, six hemp ropes secured the rowlocks into a pair of active anchors and a rusting strut of reinforced concrete. The men began to unwind the ropes and take up the slack, bracing themselves against the weight of the boat. It was almost high tide and an army of eager waves was moving up the beach towards them.
James Hambert straddled the crest of the dune with his feet planted firmly in the shifting surface. The other men assumed their final positions in a semicircle round the boat. Sam and Jack Tolson would have the honour of taking her out to sea and they stood either side of the prow. Jadrick was near the back. Children ran round the lee side of the dune as adults half heartedly called them to order. The village had a good feeling about this boat. The vessel had done well in its brief sea trials - if it hadn't then it would never have been granted the honour of a Naming. And in addition there was something special about a boat that could take part in such a propitious catch of fish on the day it would be named.
Frivolous voyages on the Perque Bay were never wise and still less so at night, but a Naming launch wasn't frivolous. With this ceremony a new boat demonstrated that it had no fear of challenging the water at any time it chose to venture on to Perque Bay and Namings always took place after dark so that the point was well made. No unnecessary risks were taken, however; a small taste of symbolic danger was all that was required, consisting of a short run to the blue glow of the First Leeward buoy, a brief halt for the actual Naming and then a tack round to the Sirin channel and quickly back to the main harbour, the whole semi circular trip lasting no longer than ten minutes.
James Hambert began the singing, a traditional launching shanty which soon had the support of all the village voices and a few of the Riders too, even though they hadn't sung it before, for it was very easy to pick up the words and the rhythm. Eager hands gripped the sides of the boat as Sam and Jack jumped aboard and in less than a minute the boat was rolled into the waves, with much splashing and laughing, and set free into the bay. When they reached the bouy, Jack secured the stern against the glowing blue sphere whilst Sam reached into a locker under the prow and brought forth two flares. He signalled a thumbs up to James Hambert when he had the long cylinders secured in their launching tubes.
The mayor adjusted his throat torc to broadcast volume so that he could be heard over land and sea and began. The Naming speech was short and to the point and Hambert finished with the sentence everyone was waiting for. It was his privilege to decide what the new boat would be called.
“I name this boat, the ‘Tumbalo Bailey',” he cried.
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd. The recent story, still fresh in their minds, had been well told and it was an auspicious choice. A moment later Sam Tolson lit the fuses on the flares and two bright trails of sparks shot into the sky to be followed by spherical bursts of red and white lights and a round of applause.
The something happened that wasn’t in the script. It began in the sky to the south behind the fading glow of the fireworks; a quick red dot at first only a little brighter than the stars. Moving rapidly towards the zenith, it grew into a ball of bright crimson, leaving a crisp track of yellow ionisation in its wake that burned a hard line onto the retinas of the open mouthed villagers. There was no sound until the object had almost disappeared over the northern horizon when an extended sonic boom crashed over their heads.
“What in the name of the Lords was that?” Dave Binwold said at last, breaking the silence that followed, his remark the cue for a general babble of excited speculation.
“It’s come down over the back of the Rilling Hills,” Jim Constan offered. “We could take a look.”
“I reckon it’s further away than you think,” Manacue said. “Probably beyond the Jelin river. More than a day's journey even for we Riders.”
“What makes you think it’s so far away? Looked mighty bright to me!”
“Just a Rider skill,” Manacue said. “We get good at judging the stars, triangulating on distant points and estimating distances. It’s our life.”
Constan looked doubtful but the other Riders nodded in confirmation.
“Yeah, well that doesn’t answer the question about what that thing was”, Jack Tolson said.
Now Ritter spoke up, more slowly and less excitably than the others.
“It must have been a big meteorite or else it was a spaceship,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen either so I don’t know which but if it was a meteorite then the Orbital Guardsmen have been sleeping on the job and if it was a spaceship the treaties prohibiting entry outside the Tree’skivo Landing Fields have been violated. Someone’s in trouble whichever way - should be anyway.”
There was a murmur of agreement and for a moment everyone was quiet but it lasted no more than a couple of seconds. Then the excited speculation broke out again and continued long after a disgruntled Sam Tolson had brought the Tumbalo Bailey back to shore. His thunder had been well and truly stolen and far from being the highlight of the night the excitement of the Naming was now quickly set aside in favour of this new sensation. The debate was still going on when everyone had returned to the warmth of the main tent to resume the feasting and the stories.
The apparition in the sky helped to provide the next speaker with a natural lead in to her Telling which she must have quickly changed in honour of the fortuitous circumstances. She was an old Rider woman, a family leader from the medicine guild with a bright yellow scarf and a dark blue tunic, and her chosen story was an ancient swashbuckler from the time of the Succession Empires when the city of Modyran re-established the Orbital Guardsmen after so many unknown years without a planetary defence and they killed their first comet, just in time to save the Earth from a terrible beating.
Jadrick was only half listening though. It was a day of wonders right enough and he couldn’t wait to see what would be made of his ‘Gift from the Sea’. How would Oriel react? And more importantly, how would Issa? But he would have to wait a little longer to enjoy his moment of glory, for when the Rider was finished it was James Hambert’s turn to deliver the concluding tale. There could be no interrupting the village leader.
Hambert’s story was ‘The Siege of Isteron’ one of the traditional set pieces from the canonical tales of the Eternal War between the Thister-Arcs and the Thistlings. It told of how the lovely world of Isteron resisted the depredations of the murderous Thistlings. How a vast swarm of specially engineered soldiers were sent to conquer it, and how the Thister-Arcs withstood their attack with heroic self sacrifice until one by one the defenders were overcome by their vicious enemies. With much lamenting the story related how Isteron finally fell to the largest force of Thistlings that the galaxy had ever seen. ‘And to this day’, it concluded, ‘the Thister-Arcs have never tasted the beautiful air of Isteron again’.
There was another scattering of applause and somewhat drunken laughter. Tales of the Thister-Arch always had an air of mystery about them. Even though the aliens had resided in Anoomenon for many generations and were now an accepted part of the fabric of life in this part of the world, their culture and origins remained somewhat obscure. If their nature had been repeatedly shown to be gentle and contemplative their appearance still evoked primal fears which could not easily be suppressed. No fisherman had ever seen one of the infamous Thistlings reported in Thister-Arc history, but they’d still become legendary universal boogie men through the osmotic effect of the Thister-Arc tales.
The recent events out side the tent, the account of the Orbital Guardsmen and the effective telling of this last horror story had all served to create an exciting frisson of danger in the listeners – just enough to make most of them glad they were all in a warm tent in a backwater of the universe a long way from destructive comets and history shattering wars. Though perhaps for some of the younger listeners the effect was a little different, making them rather crave the prospect of adventures away from the daily boredom of fishing and farming. Michael Jadrick was one such. Impatient to unmask the secret of his great discovery he’d found the story telling interminable. And now was the time to seize the moment before the collective attention of the villagers and the Riders turned away to more eating and drinking and private conversations. He stood up quickly if a trifle unsteadily.
“Careful boy,” he heard Tom Ritter mutter, a sudden and late caution passing over his features but Michael had already launched into his speech…
“I have a thing now I wish to show you all,” he said. “Something found. A bounty from the Perque bay recovered this very day. Look, a gift from the sea!”
He drew out the crystal orb and held it up to the torch light. There was a murmur of surprise and out of the corner of his eye he could see that Oriel and Issa were both watching, the one warily and the other with amused interest. Without quite being able to anticipate the exact effect, holding their interest was certainly a large part of the result he had envisaged and wanted.
“Bring it here!” James Hambert ordered. There was something not altogether benign in the curt remark and as Michael stepped forward weaving round the crowd, he found his face was growing hot. He was still riding a wave of attention drawing glory, it was just that the wave no longer seemed quite so controllable. The slightest twinge of apprehension squeezed his stomach…
“Put it down on the table!”
There was no mistaking the tone of command this time.
“Has no-one told you about the rule of bay salvage?”
“I…, well, that is….”
“I know they have. In fact I know I have! And what is the rule?”
“That anything found in the bay should be surrendered to the mayor. And that’s what I am doing now!” he answered with a hint of a sulk.
James rolled his eyes and lifted them to the roof of the tent with exaggerated disgust. “That’s not all the rule is it? Is it Tom!”
He looked over to Michael’s fishing partner who was squaring his shoulders in defiant support of the younger man.
“The full rule, which you both well know, is that anything found in the bay should be surrendered to the mayor, immediately. That’s immediately. That’s straight away. That’s not several hours later at the end of a feast is it? And do you know why we have this rule? This rule which all fisherman have followed since Leeward Sands was founded.”
“Err.. yes… that is… I do”
This was becoming an embarrassment which was completely unfair. Michael felt he’d done nothing wrong – nothing to merit this public dressing down which was turning what should have been a triumph into a squirming humiliation. The mayor didn’t let Michael continue to expound his answer to the rhetorical question. He answered it himself with heavy handed irony.
“Good. It’s because anything that comes out of Perque bay can be dangerous. Sometimes very dangerous. Tom should have known that even if you don’t.”
“Give the lad a break. This thing doesn’t look dangerous to me!”
“I’ll be the judge of that!”
Blind Lincoln chose this moment to lean over and whisper into the mayor’s ear. A protracted awkward silence followed in which Michael felt that the eyes of the entire village and the eyes of all the riders were focused on him. This had not worked out at all as he’d hoped!
A murmur of interested comment swept the tent as the crystal orb was passed across the table. The old man turned it this way and that in his hands. In the matter of unknown objects and the lore of the bay, even the mayor deferred to him.
Blind Lincoln had come to the village from Anoomenon many years ago; a member of the dwindling aristocracy of that dwindling city choosing a life of exile from the City Of Exiles, here in Leeward Sands for reasons which he’d never disclosed. At first, the arrival of this young blind man had been resented by the villagers, unsure how he was going to fit in to their society; unsure what use he could be and whether he would be a burden on them all. The feudal dues owed by the village to the city obliged them to look after him, under ancient laws which had very rarely been invoked but which were ingrained into their patterns of thought with that mixture of superstitious awe, a little fear, a little respect and a little contempt which characterised the villagers general opinion of Anoomenon.
Despite the fact that his blindness was apparently of recent origin, Lincoln had been quick to learn how to cope in his new life, assisted by a suite of clever hi-tech aids brought from the city. In time the villagers came to appreciate his almost instinctive understanding of the currents of the bay, and to respect his education and skills as a healer. Everyone knew that Blind Lincoln had arcane knowledge and so in matters such as this it was natural that he should take the lead.
The old man frowned with concentration as his fingers probed the peculiar object. Then something strange happened. As he flattened his palms on two opposite planes of the crystal the object began to glow with a deep blue radiance which flowed up his fingers and sparked round his head with a disturbing energy. A spasm of electricity crossed the old man’s features and a matching shock of silence froze the onlookers. No-one knew what to do and for a full two minutes all they could think was to watch as a variety of expressions passed swiftly across the old man’s face. His hands seemed to be glued to the object. Then with a grunt that marked a change of state Blind Lincoln slumped over the table, cradling the crystal under his body, which was still glowing as it disappeared from sight, though now with a more uniform and paler colour.
A rush of noise broke out. The mayor bent over the old man’s body, trying to rouse him but with no success. Michael felt that the questioning stares of those villagers who now directed their eyes in his direction held a sudden hint of hostility.
“I can’t wake him!” the mayor cried.
When James Hambert spoke, Michael felt a rush of blood to the head, a heat which seemed to burn him and a guilty faintness as though he might go the way of Lincoln.
The mayor turned to him.
“What have you done boy? What have you done?”
And as he stood there in miserable silence Michael Jadrick had absolutely no idea of the answer to that deceptively simple question.
