Bram told the crew of Mattan’s boat what had happened. The crew, those who weren’t feeding out the seine, were silent in horror. Bram was chewing on sea biscuit and trying not to cry in front of these toughened men. Some of them were younger than him. The older men looked on the verge of tears themselves. They were all friends with the men on his father’s boat.
“Your father is a good master,” Mattan said. He put a hand on Bram’s shoulder. “Was the boat in good repair?”
Bram nodded blankly.
“The hull, they’d just replaced the old—” He struggled to breathe. I am not mourning yet, he prayed to Fue.
“Forgive me,” Mattan said. “I was a fool to ask.”
“Are the plotos swarming this year?” one of the men spoke into the wind. The shadows of clouds played on his face.
“Kevimiki,” another said. That was the god of sea curses. A highly feared god among the Mijan.
“Enough of that,” Mattan snapped. He squeezed Bram’s shoulder. “When we get back to Safran, you’ll stay with us until you’re ready to speak to the city about your loss.”
Bram nodded. The man was giving him time to regain his strength before mourning. He was grateful for that.
After the boat was filled with fish, with no sign of plotosaurs, they sailed back to Safran. Mattan’s daughter Aliskoda was awaiting the boat, standing on the dock in a dark red dress. The boat’s master greeted her and whispered in her ear, glancing back at Bram. She was nodding, her auburn curls bouncing on her shoulders. Mattan gestured for Bram to come over.
“Go with Alis to my house,” he said. “She’ll give you some real food and show you to our guest room. Get some sleep. I’ll let your mother know you’re coming home tomorrow.”
Mattan’s sailors were spread all over the wharf. Some were carrying baskets of fish. Some were talking to their wives. Others were just talking to dock workers. As Alis lead him into the city, eyes were watching him. The story of his father’s boat was loose. Were the plotos swarming? Was Bram cursed by Kevimiki? Had any of old Habram’s crew survived, beside the boy? Bram could almost hear their conjectures in his head.
Alis took his hand and looked back into his eyes. Her face was sad.
“Just look at me,” she said with a forced smile.
He nodded with a promise to Fue.
—×—
Alis showed him to the guest room and brought him a plate of her mother’s food, some diced titan steak and boiled roots. No fish, he noticed. Nothing to remind him of what had happened at sea.
She sat beside him on the bed as he ate.
“Your sister Lanka will be upset,” she said. He didn’t look up at her. She sighed. “I’ll help her with your mother’s feather work, when I can. They’ll need help keeping the house in order.”
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“Our fathers are friends and cousins. We’re all descendants of Rebin Kansadi, may he be remembered.”
They were more closely related than that, Bram knew. Their great-grandfather was Rebin’s son, Gari. But Rebin was the boat master who was known for hunting plotos the last time they had swarmed. There were shrines to him on the wharf and in the uplands. Many sailors would not go to sea without first leaving a token at a shrine to Master Rebin.
She pointed to the ceiling. Bram followed her finger and noticed that one of the beams in the roof was round rather than square. The wood of this beam was far more gray than the others.
“That’s a spar from Rebin’s boat. Gari put it there four hundred years ago when he built this house. This was Rebin’s room in his retirement. He died in this room at two hundred twenty-two years old.”
Bram was suddenly cold as if he were being watched by his ancestor’s ghost.
“Are you serious?”
She grinned. “I tease you about being a sage’s apprentice. All your books. But, I wouldn’t tease you about Rebin Kansadi.”
She scooted closer.
“Bram.” There was a moment where he just stared at the Andean carpet in the guest room. “I would be lost if … if something happened to my father. I just want you to know that I will pray to Fue for your forgiveness. You know, if …”
He finally looked up into her amber eyes. Her hand moved up, as if to touch him, but she stopped herself.
“I’ll keep the custom,” he said. “But, thank you.”
She nodded.
“You’re a strong man, Bram Swanjamin.”
He shook his head and stabbed at the steak with his fork.
“I’m a terrible fisher and my apprenticeship is over.”
She sniffed.
“Perisfin will return for you,” she said. “Wanderers wander back.”
Bram chuckled. It was a funny thing to say. He looked up at her. She was smiling.
—×—
The next day, Alis went with him to his family’s house. They were only a few blocks away, up the hill. The sky was overcast, threatening rain without carrying through on the threat. The orange and green houses looked ill in the dim light. The blue of the Swanjamin house was washed out to gray.
His mother Elenthea and his sister Lanka were standing on the street in front of the house. There were no mourning garlands on the banister of the stair leading up to the front door. His mother was rejecting the rumors, awaiting her son’s word.
He and Alis stopped in the street.
“Bram,” his mother said. “Tell me they might have swum away.”
Bram shook his head.
The woman’s legs shook. She sank to her knees and put her hands on the street stones. Lanka knelt, hands on her mother’s shoulders.
“I wish that—” Bram started.
His mother sobbed. Alis grabbed Bram’s hand and squeezed it, almost painfully hard.
He stepped forward but his mother waved him off, without looking up. Lanka glared up at him. Did they blame him for surviving? Lanka put her head on her mother’s shoulder and wept with her.
Bram was excluded. Forever.
Alis stepped forward and pulled him by the hand around his mother and sister.
“Let’s go to your room,” she said. “Show me your books.”
Bram felt the spirit of Fue telling him his duty was complete. He sought them, but the tears wouldn’t come.
He climbed the stair with Alis, went to his room, and showed her the book Perisfin had given him. The book from the dream. He still could not read the square letters of the Old Tongue, but he understood the drawings. He showed Alis the drawings and explained to her what Perisfin had told him. She was obligingly attentive.
“The Annihilation ever threatens to rise again,” he said. “That’s the way Perisfin ended the lesson.”
Alis squeezed his arm. “You have more to do, Bram Swanjamin. I am sure of it.”
“How?”
She put a hand on his cheek and forced him to look into her amber eyes.
“You’ve seen swarming with your own eyes, the same swarming Rebin fought. If Perisfin is wandering because the Annihilation is swarming, you are the perfect apprentice for him.”
Fue tapped his soul and the tears came. Alis held him while he wept. She pushed him to lie on his bed and stayed with him until he surrendered to sleep.