The Floating Island (12 page)

Ven nodded. “It just seems unfair. Char has it so much harder than I ever did.”

The captain regarded him seriously. “Aye, it may seem that way now. But actually, in some ways Char has it much easier than you will, Ven. Unlike you, Char is human. In most places in the world, no one will look at him twice. You, now, you are Nain. While you were home, in the protection of your family, that may not have been a problem. Your father is a very well-respected man, and a family your size—well, there is safety in numbers. But now you are on your own. Alone you may find that there are a few people who are not friendly to Nain, or anyone from a different race.”

He looked out to sea, where the sun was beginning to set into the western horizon, red-orange above the blue water.

“Now, Serendair is a friendly place to people of all races most of the time. The king himself insists upon it. But people come here from all around the world. You find all types of folks, especially in a port city, and not all of them have the same attitude as the king. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Ven nodded. His family had discussed the problems of being different many times, but as Oliver said, he had never felt in danger because of it.

Until now.

Oliver smiled, and Ven’s worry lessened. “Just remember, Ven, you’re as good as any other living soul on this earth. Whether other people know that or not doesn’t really matter as long as you do.”

“Yes, sir,” Ven said, smiling slightly. His father had often said the very same thing.

“Good man,” Oliver said. He put out his hand, and Ven shook it. “Now, give me your letter. Be sure to get that flask to Mrs. Snodgrass safely, and as quickly as you can. But not till morning.”

“I will,” Ven promised, handing him the letter. “Thank you for everything, captain. I owe you my life.”

Oliver shook his head. “You owe me nothing, lad. If you ever find yourself in the position to rescue someone, be sure to do it without expecting anything it return. It all evens out in the end, believe me.” His eyes twinkled. “But you
do
owe that albatross, don’t you think?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good enough. Best of luck to you, Ven. I expect we will meet again.” The captain tipped his hat and headed back up the gangplank.

Once Ven got down to the dock, he had to walk through a huge swarm of people pushing and shoving their way to get closer to the ship. They were talking among themselves.

“Do you suppose he’s gotten off yet?”

“I didn’t see him. He must have been kept for last, to get the less important people out of the way first.”

“Unless he came off
first,
and we missed him!”

“Oh, no!” a young girl wailed at the thought.

“Er—who are you looking for?” Ven asked a heavy human man who had stepped on his foot, trying to get a better view over the heads of the crowd.

“Marius,” the man said impatiently, still straining to see. “The greatest warrior that ever lived, boy. He was said to be traveling on this ship.”

At the name, the crowd grew even more excited and anxious. “Marius, yes, indeed, the greatest warrior who ever lived, everyone knows that.”

“Oh, brother,” came a familiar voice behind him. Ven looked over his shoulder to see Char pushing his way through the people.

“Hey, Char,” Ven greeted him, taking him by the shoulder and steering their way out of the crowd. “Where are you off to now?”

“The Sailors’ Rest,” the dark-haired boy replied. “Gotta find a place for the night.”

“What’s the Sailors’ Rest?” Ven asked.

Char shrugged. “Sort of an inn for sailors, a place to sleep for a night or two, down by the docks. They let you pay in scrip, o’ course.”

“Hmmm,” said Ven. “Do you think I count as enough of a sailor to stay there?”

“Sure,” said Char, shifting his duffel to the other shoulder. “It’s not a great place, lots of men who have had too much rum to drink. I was gonna go get a space on the floor, wander around Kingston for a while until the last minute, then go to sleep quick. We can go together if you want.”

“That sounds great,” Ven said.

Char led Ven off the docks and up into the cobbled streets of Kingston, where more people than he had ever seen were milling around in the afternoon light.

Above them they heard a harsh cry. The boys looked up to see a dark shadow of an enormous bird pass overhead, circling twice, then fly out to sea.

“That albatross must
really
like you,” Char said, starting down the street again.

Ven wasn’t sure.
I wonder why that bird is following me?
he thought.
It seems to be looking out for me, but every time it appears something terrible happens.
He watched the shadow until he could no longer see it, then followed Char.

Neither of them saw the other shadow, this one lurking in the streets behind them, following them silently through the alleys of Kingston.

T
HE MAIN STREET OF KINGSTON WAS LINED WITH PRETTY SHOPS
that sold roses and bread, arrows and armor, meats, lamp oil, fruits, vegetables, and everything else imaginable.

Ven followed Char around women buying fabric, men trading leather, and children playing, to the center of the street where a great fountain stood. In the center of the fountain was a large copper sun, and from its metal rays water sprayed in seven different directions, each reflecting a different color of the rainbow.

“You hungry?” Char asked.

“Yes,” Ven said, staring at the fountain.

“Well, then, let’s hit the Confectionery,” Char said, nodding across the street.

Ven followed him to a large stone building with a glass window across the front. The smell of freshly baked cookies and other sweets billowed out of the shop every time the door opened. A sign above the window said:

The Magical Confectionery

Ven stared in the window.

“Whoa,” he whispered.

“Don’t just stand there,” Char said, pulling open the heavy door. “C’mon.”

The shop was full of every kind of pastry and candy, all fashioned in amazing shapes. On one side of the shop were pieces of castles made entirely out of cookies—guard towers, gates, walls, and shields, and even a portcullis made out of pretzel sticks. On the racks next to it were chocolate figures of mythical beasts, some of them tinted with colors—strawberry-scaled dragons, white chocolate unicorns with horns glazed with golden sugar, winged horses rendered entirely in dark chocolate.

A completely assembled confectionery castle stood in the shop window, beautifully detailed, from the cobbled walkway of tiny sugared jellies in front to the garden of spun-sugar trees and beds glittering with gumdrop flowers in the back.

“Don’t just stand there,” Char said, picking up a gingerbread drawbridge. “Buy something.”

Ven stared at all the castle pieces, finally choosing a guard tower formed of boiled caramel sugar dipped into hardened chocolate.

“Good choice,” said the gray-haired man behind the counter, smiling.

Ven smiled awkwardly in return. “I’ve never eaten a guard tower before,” he said. “Makes me feel a bit like a giant, a rare feeling for a Nain indeed.” He fumbled in the envelope Oliver gave him for his scrip. “You—you do serve Nain, don’t you?”

The confectioner’s face lost its smile. “Of course we do, lad,” he said seriously. “Your money’s as good as anyone else’s. That’ll be a copper for the guard tower.”

“I’ll pay for his, too,” Ven said. He handed the man a gold measure of scrip.

“I wonder if they make ships,” Ven said to Char as the shopkeeper made change.

“Of course we make ships, lad,” the confectioner said, handing him back nine silver pieces and eight copper coins. “This is a port city.” He pointed to another table on which stood edible ships of every size and shape, with marzipan sails and gingerbread hulls, their riggings made of spun sugar.

Ven continued around the shop, walking past a table spread with crowns, rings, and necklaces, the jewels all made of candy, and paintings of pretty places all done in colored sugar on a gingersnap canvas.

“Don’t do that again,” Char said crossly as they stepped out of the cool shade of the confectionery shop back into the bright light of afternoon.

“Do what?” Ven asked in surprise, his mouth full of caramel sugar and chocolate.

“Don’t pay for me. I pay my own way.” Char popped the last of his gingerbread drawbridge into his mouth and wiped his hand on his shirt.

“Sorry,” Ven said, embarrassed. “I guess I’m still bothered by us getting the same amount of money, when you served all that time on the
Serelinda,
and I just got pulled out of the sea and mopped the deck for a couple of weeks. It isn’t right.” He wrapped the remainder of his sugar guard tower in his handkerchief and stowed it in his duffel for later.

Char shrugged. “It
is
right,” he said agreeably, heading down the street past a store full of colorful quilts and another filled with exotic birds. “Cap’n didn’t have any choice in that. It’s right, though it may not be fair. But then, life ain’t fair. It ain’t fair that some kids got no parents and others get two.”

“What about you?” Ven asked. “Do you have parents?”

“Naw,” Char said. “No one who had parents would have to work as a cook’s mate. At least, no one with parents who didn’t
hate
him.”

Ven felt even worse now.

“But I got two legs, and two arms, and two eyes,” Char said as they passed a bakery where the bread was sitting in the long front window, cooling. “And lots of folks don’t—you’ll see a bunch of them in the Sailors’ Rest. So I reckon I’m doing all right.”

Ahead of them they heard music, and Ven looked around for the musicians, but none were in sight. The farther up the street they walked, the louder the music grew, until finally they stopped in front of a garden in the center of the road, brimming with red and yellow flowers.

In the middle of the garden was an enormous sculpture of polished metal that was carved to look like a glade of trees, but in each branch and leaf were holes through which the breeze was blowing, playing a random melody of wind music. Char broke into a grin and pointed.

“Look!” he said to Ven.

In front of the garden Scroggins, the sailor they had traveled to the Floating Island with, was standing with his arm around a smiling young woman, a squawking bundle at his elbow.

“This must be the place she sent the message from, the one he got on the island,” Ven said, walking closer to get a better view of the sculpture. “The holes in those metal trees make it play like a giant flute when the wind blows through.”

“Criminey,” Char murmured.

Ven noticed the breeze was tugging at Char’s kite. “Do you want to see if we can find a place to fly that before the sun goes down?”

“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” Char replied.

Together they hurried through the streets, heading toward the north end of town.

Along the way they passed all kinds of people, rich families in splendid clothing, ordinary folk chatting among themselves, poorer people pushing carts and calling to their children, all of whom seemed comfortable walking the same streets. Most of them were human, but occasionally Ven saw a few other kinds as well. They passed two slender, dark men he recognized as Lirin, the people who lived in wide fields and forests. And across the street he thought he saw some smaller folk, but he was not certain, as they darted into a nearby store before he could catch a good look at them.

As the sun was starting to go down, they passed an enormous section of the city that was walled off by a barricade, a stone wall more than a dozen feet high, with guard towers atop it. Soldiers patrolled the top of the wall, armed with crossbows. In the center of the barricade was a huge set of doors, bound in brass, beside which a gatekeeper sat.

“What is this place?” Ven whispered to Char.

“The Gated City,” Char answered, pulling his kite and duffel a little closer. “The Market of Thieves—you want to stay as far away from there as you can. Some folks go in on Market Day, the middle day of the week, to shop for all kinds of weird stuff that you can’t buy in a regular store. Me, I’d never need to buy anything so bad that I’d risk being stripped of everythin’ I own.”

“Why is there such a place right here, at the north end of the city?” Ven wondered aloud.

Char shrugged. “I guess a long time ago it was a prison or somethin’. Dunno. But keep moving; I don’t want to lose my kite or my pay.” Ven followed him, staring back over his shoulder at the Gated City, his heart pounding with excitement.

Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw movement from one of the towers on the wall. Ven turned, and as he did, the setting sun cast a beam of golden light across the street, lighting the cobblestones and glittering in a rainbow flash. He lifted his hand to shade his eyes.

For a split second he thought he saw someone beckoning to him.

Ven squinted in the afternoon brightness, and came to a halt in the street.

He imagined, for as long as it took him to catch his breath, that the figure was summoning him, its long shadow stretching behind the wall of the Gated City. He took a step toward it, and when he did, he could swear that the figure nodded and beckoned to him again, but it was impossible to see who or what it was with the glittering sunlight in his eyes.

Char tugged impatiently at his shirtsleeve.

“C’mon,” the cook’s mate urged. “Let’s get away from here—last time I was in this port, I heard seven sailors went into that place an’ never came out again.”

Ven tried to see past the afternoon shadow, but whatever he thought had been there was gone now.

“All right,” he said finally, turning back toward the wharf. He pushed Char’s pinching fingers away from his shoulder and followed him through the streets again.

They continued walking north and west until they came back to the docks, where the traffic and activity was beginning to shut down for the night. In the distance Ven thought he saw an abandoned pier, and he pointed it out to Char.

The wind along the water was stronger, and the two boys hurried to the end of the pier, which was solid but had holes in some of the boards, where it led out into the harbor.

“Here, I’ll hold it and you run with it,” Ven suggested, reaching for the kite. Char nodded, and within a few moments the kite was dancing over the blue-gray waves, dipping and nodding in the changing wind.

Char offered Ven the string, but he shook his head, preferring to watch the sun sinking into the waves where the sea met the sky. Great dusty shafts of sunlight, burning brightly gold, stretched upward from the horizon behind the dancing kite. It was enough for him to just stand there and watch as the sky grew darker, the horizon fading from gold to fiery orange.

Once it was gone, and dusk was beginning to set in, Char reeled the kite back in and sighed.

“It’s getting late,” he said wistfully. “I think we’d better go get our places on the floor at the Sailors’ Rest.”

Ven nodded, and turned to follow him, casting one last glance back at the darkening sea.

In the distance, not far beneath where the kite had been flying, his eye caught movement again.

Ven squinted and looked harder. Something was sticking up in the water.

It was a tail.

And it was waving at him.

Then it disappeared.

“Uh—Char,” he sputtered, “go on ahead and I’ll catch up to you.”

The cook’s mate blinked. “You all right?”

“Yes, I just want a few more minutes watching the sea,” Ven said. “Go on, and I’ll be right there.” Char nodded and headed back toward town.

Once he was out of sight, Ven went all the way to the end of the abandoned pier, crouched down and spoke over the tops of the waves cresting under the dock.

“Hello, Amariel,” he said, trying to contain his excitement.

The merrow’s face broke the surface, water streaming from her hair and nose. She looked off in the direction where Char had gone.

“What were you doing?” she asked curiously. “Fishing for birds?”

Ven swallowed the laugh that came into his throat. “I can see how it might have looked that way, with the string and such, but no, we were just playing. It’s so good to see you. How did you find me?”

“Followed the ship,” said Amariel. “And guess what?”

“What?”

“I found a fisherman who knows how to cut gills!” she said, smiling but not showing her teeth. “His name is Asa, and he lives in the fishing village to the south of that big city. He sets out each day at dawn, but if we go to him early enough, he will do your neck, and then you can breathe underwater, and come with me to go exploring.”

Ven winced. “I’d love to,” he said, fighting back his curiosity, which was itching so hard that his brain felt like it was burning. “But I have to wait for my papers to clear with the harbormaster. And I really should find a way to go home.”

The merrow floated back in the water, confused. “Do you want to come into the depths with me?”

“Yes,” Ven said sadly. “But I can’t today.”

The merrow’s face took on a look of displeasure. “Hmmph,” she said. Then she floated back in the water, looking like she was preparing to dive.

“I do want to go exploring with you,” Ven said quickly, trying to keep her from leaving so soon. “There’s just a few things I have to do first.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the merrow testily. “I understand.”

“Will you come back?” Ven asked desperately.

The merrow shrugged in the water. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not. Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Ven called, but he was speaking only to waves.

He watched for a while, hoping to see her, or where she went, but it was getting dark, and the sea was too vast and too choppy to notice anything. Finally he gave up and started back to town.