Whisper of Waves

15

5 Uktar, the Year of Shadows (1358 DR)

FIRST QUARTER, INNARLITH

Fharaud let the brandy sit on his tongue for as long as he could take it, then he swallowed loudly and smiled. He looked over at Devorast, hunched over a drawing table, his own snifter of brandy sitting untouched on the table next to him.

“Really, Ivar, you should try it,” Fharaud said, pausing to take another sip of the potent liquid. “It’s really among man’s most extraordinary creations.”

Devorast made a notation on the drawing in front of him. His handwriting was so small Fharaud shouldn’t have been able to read it from where he sat, but it was so precise he found he could make out the words: “Adjust beam angle up one eighth of one degree.”

One eighth of one degree, Fharaud thought, then said, “I doubt the boatwrights’ tools will allow for so fine a measurement.”

Devorast looked up at him with an expression Fharaud had come to know too well. It was one of fulfilled expectations at having been confronted with some inadequacy in the world, irritation at having once again to suffer at such a deficiency’s hands, and a determination to set the problem right.

The next note read: “Refine tools-again-to achieve proper angle.”

“You know,” Fharaud said, “you could make a fortune on the tools you’ve invented alone.”

“I’m not interested in tools,” Devorast replied, “only what I can build with them.”

“A contradiction?” Fharaud asked, just to make conversation. “It takes tools to make tools after all, and isn’t a ship but a tool men use to ply the seas and not an end to itself?”

Devorast didn’t take the bait, but then why would he?

“People don’t like you, Ivar,” Fharaud said, the brandy-his second glass-loosening his tongue. “They think you’re arrogant and closed-minded.”

“A mind isn’t something to be left open,” the younger man said, “so that just anything might crawl in and take up residence there.”

Fharaud laughed. He had come to treasure those rare bursts of sincere humor and simple, if unsociable, wisdom from Ivar Devorast.

“Ah, Ivar,” said Fharaud, “I’d take you under my wing if I thought I had a wing big enough.”

“You have taught me much,” Devorast admitted.

That made Fharaud sit up straighter in his chair. The air was cold in the little room he called his office, the breeze coming from the north unusually cool but characteristically damp. Neither of them had bothered to get up and tend the little wood stove, and the fire had gone to slowly blackening orange coals.

“By all the gods above us, Ivar,” Fharaud said, “I do believe you just paid me a compliment.”

Devorast, try as Fharaud was sure he was trying to hide it, smiled at that, then glanced at the brandy.

“Go ahead, my boy,” Fharaud urged. “Drink up. It might loosen the reigns you keep on yourself.”

Devorast shook his head, the smile fading.

“We’re ready to build it, aren’t we?” Fharaud asked with a nod at the stack of drawings in front of Devorast.

“You should name it,” Devorast said, thumbing through the drawings. “It’s good.”

“High praise indeed, my boy. High praise indeed,” Fharaud replied. “Not yet, though. I prefer to see her in the flesh before I name her. She’s like a baby, you know.”

He paused to see some reaction from Devorast, but there was none.

“You know when you conceive a child,” Fharaud pressed on, “or at least you know when you might have.” He winked at Devorast, who didn’t look up to see it. “Anyway, you can see it growing in the womb, see it being built in whatever way it is that a baby is built by a woman.”

“But you don’t name it,” Devorast cut in, “until it’s born.”

“You don’t name it until it’s born,” Fharaud concurred.

Devorast sighed, and leaned back from the drawing table, regarding the plans down the length of his nose.

“Yes, I know,” Fharaud said, having seen the look too many times already.

“It’s too big,” Devorast said. “It’s too big and it’s too far away.”

“The client wanted it big, and the client asked that it be built here,” Fharaud said. Devorast shook his head. “It will be fine, Ivar.”

“It makes no sense,” Devorast said. “Why would Cormyr have us build a ship for them, here, on the shore of the Lake of Steam?”

“I wasn’t always a used-up, bitter old boatwright, my boy,” Fharaud joked. “I was a fine salesman in my day.”

Devorast ignored the remark and said, “There’s no way to get this ship from here to Cormyr. There is no navigable waterway to connect us, or the Sword Coast and beyond for that matter, to the Sea of Fallen Stars. This ship is too big to be taken overland. The hull wouldn’t stand it. It would get to the Vilhon Reach in tatters.”

“She would get to the Vilhon Reach in tatters,” Fharaud corrected.

Devorast ignored that too and said, “It’s folly.”

“There are ways to move a ship besides through water, Ivar. We’ve discussed this.”

Devorast sighed again and said, “I know, I know. These magical portals. You know I don’t trust them.”

“I don’t know why,” Fharaud said. He took another sip of brandy then stood, stretching limbs that were stiff in the cold air. “We have a long road ahead of us before we have to worry about that anyway. The ship still has to be built, and that will take a year and a half or more. Perhaps two years.”

Devorast said, “Of course, but not to plan ahead for its delivery is irresponsible.” He shook his head, then glanced again at the brandy.

Fharaud drained his own glass, coughed when the brandy burned the back of his throat, then set his glass on the table next to Devorast.

“Build me a grand ship, Ivar,” Fharaud said, reaching out to take the younger man’s untouched snifter, “and I’ll see it delivered to Azoun’s navy.”

Fharaud downed the brandy in one searing gulp, ignoring the look of doubt from Ivar Devorast, though the look was no less searing.