Bram sat on the steps of his house, accepting gifts as part of the Zeroth Mourning. This was a custom shared with the Three Mournings, an expression of support from the community. His mother was assumed to be incapacitated by sadness. Baskets of food and cloth and feathers were arrayed on the street around Bram’s feet.
A barefoot man wearing a loose shirt and ragged shorts, clearly a sailor, stepped up to the stairs. He touched the mourning garlands wrapped around the banister of the stairs. He fingered the dark flowers and seemed afraid to speak.
“Hello,” Bram said.
“Hello,” the man said. “I have come to offer Elen my condolences. I knew your father.”
“She won’t see anyone,” Bram said.
The man nodded. “Is she still working with feathers?”
Bram shook his head. The man had no mourning gift. Only his words.
“I knew your father,” the man repeated. “I served on his boat, years ago. Leaving it for Udali’s boat was the worst decision I ever made. It made me poor. Your father Habram was the best of us.”
Bram felt himself rocking back and forth. He forced himself to nod and say: “Thank you.”
The man stared down the slope, over the bright houses of Safran, into the shimmering Thalassic Ocean beyond.
“Sea dragons haven’t taken down a boat in forty years. They must have swarmed Habram’s boat, eh?”
“They did,” Bram said. He oddly felt like he was lying, even though he wasn’t.
“The whole world is swarming,” the old sailor said. The glanced at the mourning gifts as if regretful of his empty hands. “Rumors on the street are that Osvay has fallen.”
Bram squinted at that. What was this man offering?
“Osvay in Shamera?” The word Osvay was used by the Mijan generically to refer to lands to the east, beyond the Inner Seas. But the true Osvay was a specific valley on the far continent of Shamera, cradled by high mountains inland, isolated north and south from the other regions of Shamera.
“Indeed,” the old sailor said. “I traded in Osvay, at the port of Haogli, when I was a boy of your age. They were free then, but the Annihilation has taken them again. Shrines and libraries burned, so the sea rumors claim.”
Haogli was an ancient port in true Osvay. This old salt knew the Inner Seas.
“My name is Ybe.” He extended a fist. Bram met it with his own fist.
“You must promise,” the sailor said, “when your master returns from his wanderings, to bring me his news of Osvay. I had a woman there, many years ago. I mourn for the people of Haogli.”
Bram nodded. The old man open his fist and put the hand on his shoulder.
“And, for your father and brother.”
—×—
Alis would not let Bram manage the mourning gifts. She took over the house’s kitchen, guiding the servants and making sure meals were served on time. Bram’s mother would not take food, and Lanka blocked Alis’s attempts to encourage Elenthea to eat.
At the end of each day, Alis comforted Bram on his loss and Bram comforted Alis on her frustrations. Without her, he and Lanka would be hungry. The servants would have abandoned them. Alis had seen to their payment.
“Your sister won’t help me with the feather work,” she said. “If we don’t sell clothes, the money will run out within a year.”
Bram nodded. He didn’t understand domestic finances. He knew his father’s income from fishing had been balanced by his mother’s from creating cloaks and coats. But, he had no insight into how this was spent. The servants must be expensive, but they gave his mother free time for feather work.
“Lanka will come around,” Bram said.
“Your mother will not eat,” Alis said. “She is taking the mourning very hard.”
Bram nodded. “She is not well but she is strong. She’ll come out of the mourning.”
Alis put a hand on his shoulder. They were sitting on his bed, their nightly ritual. He leaned into her, and her arm slipped across his back to his other shoulder.
“When Perisfin returns,” she said, “you’ll be tempted to cast him off and serve your family.”
Bram shook. “Of course. Family is more important than books.”
She put her free hand on his face and forced him to look into her eyes.
“Bram,” she said. “Elen and Lanka are choosing their own path. You have to choose yours. Your father’s misfortune is not your fault.”
Bram scooted away from her, his head shaking. Now that his brother was gone, who would protect his family? Even if Lanka started crafting clothing again, who could supplement this with fishing? Who would pay for the servants who freed up his mother’s time?
“You are going to make a bad choice from good intentions,” Alis said. She was staring at his door, as if in preparation to leave him. Her face was indescribably sad.
“Alis,” he said. “You’ve done so much for us. I want to make sure that’s not in vain.”
—×—
The Zeroth Mourning was set to end a month after Bram’s announcement of the death of his father’s crew. The mourning gifts faded out. Condolences evaporated and the garlands withered on the banisters. Alis stopped coming to him at the end of the day, even as she kept managing the house.
Two days before the Zeroth Mourning was to end, Elenthea Swanjamin succumbed to her mourning fast. It was Lanka who found her without life. A new mourning began with Elen’s placement in a crypt in Safran’s temple to Lebura, the god of transitions. The First Mourning, as her body decomposed in private in preparation for the Second Mourning of her bones, governed by the ice god Soto.
Lanka joined Alis in the feather work Elen had abandoned. They had crafted three land dragon cloaks before the Second Mourning began, selling them to generous patrons who were clearly sympathetic to the losses of the household.
The First Mourning passed without a word between Bram and Alis. He had tried to sign on with several fishing masters—Alis’s father, Jonin Ekrura, even Uladi’s ill-fated crew—but none would take him. They feared offending the wandering sage, or offending Kevimiki. Instead, they offered the Swanjamin house a portion of their catch. Bram accepted this in humiliation.
At the end of the First Mourning, Elen’s bare bones were moved to the temple of Soto where they were honored by the community as Fue demanded. The mourning gifts were renewed, easing Alis’s burden. The feather work continued, and Alis managed selling the fish the boat masters gave Bram. The servants were paid, Lanka buried herself into her mother’s work, and Bram continued seeking and failing to find employment.
He was cursed by Kevimiki. No crew wanted him. They feared the swarming plotos, which had attacked several boats since Habram’s boat had sunk. Thanks to the gods, none of them had been lost.
After a month, Elen was interred in the Swanjamin cemetery with rituals to Watexa, the god of passing. The Third Mourning. Elenthea’s spirit was considered moved on to the realm of the ancestors. She was keeping company with Rebin Kansadi and Lera Swanjamin. Dark garlands were draped over the fence around the cemetery and, thanks to Alis, around the banisters of Bram’s house.
It was two days into the Third Mourning of Elenthea that Perisfin returned to Safran on an Andean ship.
The old man visited the cemetery first, after hearing on the docks the tales of what had happened. He placed a round stone on Elenthea’s grave. Alis met him there and led him to the Swanjamin house. The sage ignored Bram on the steps of the house and told Alis, out loud so that Bram could hear, that he needed to speak with Lanka.
Bram waited on the steps, the sun easing into the western horizon with orange glinting off the sea. Alis gathered the gifts of the Third Mourning in silence as Bram brooded and the sky grew dark.
The old man finally descended the steps and sat beside Bram. He was quiet for several minutes.
“Your father’s work was twofold.” He drew a pipe from his cloak and packed it with leaf. A match lit and the pipe came alive. Perisfin puffed as Bram watched him.
“I spoke with Lanka,” the old man said.
“About what?”
“Habram caught fish and he sold fish. And you and Lanka helped him sell fish. The other fishers will sell her their fish and she can sell them, with a profit, at market.”
Bram absorbed this. Lanka could keep the house on her own, relying on their father’s legacy for an income from fishing. She would find a husband, likely a fisher himself, and the Swanjamin household would survive. Perisfin had saved his family.
“Your house is safe now,” the old man said, puffing at the pipe casually. “You and I need to talk about you becoming a journeyman. Your apprenticeship is over, and there are events that require our attention, together.”