Whisper of Waves

31

18 Tarsakh, the Year of the Helm (1362 DR)

FIRST QUARTER, INNARLITH

Ran Ai Yu, who had a difficult time with languages, struggled with the Common Tongue. For nearly a month she had made her way through the vile-smelling shanty-town that the westerners called Innarlith and had finally come to the shipyards of a man named Djeserka. The consonants were difficult for her to pronounce and they ignored their own families in favor of meaningless single names. Their traditions and their manners were hopelessly alien, but there she was, and she did her best to remain focused and calm.

Before she could be properly announced, she stepped into the strangely appointed building and into the middle of a one-sided argument. The room smelled of sawdust and tar, with the occasional waft of sulfur from that accursed sea. The sound of a man’s voice echoed in the high rafters, bouncing from wall to ear to wall to ear. Even if she had been unable to understand any of the words he spoke, she would have known that the man named Djeserka was angry.

The object of his anger, another white-skinned western man with big eyes and wild, unkempt hair the color of rust, stood simply taking it, but he was no underling, no servant. His manner bespoke power, but not necessarily power granted by title or force, but by an inner calm that assumed its mantle and held it close.

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.