He turned the tiller and Cutter glided easily up to the longest dock. Several youths hurried to take the line he tossed ashore, and in moments the slender boat was lashed securely to the stout pilings. Knowing he had taken on a good amount of spray, Kerrick promised the boys a gold coin if they’d pump out the bilge, and they gleefully accepted.
“Do you want the sail in the locker?” asked the oldest, swaggering forward with the long experience of one whole summer as a boathand.
“Not yet,” the elf replied, suddenly reluctant to abandon the freedom of the sea. “Who knows? If the weather holds, I might take another run before sunset.” He knew that today’s sunlight would only total seven or eight hours, but he was not willing to relinquish the good spring weather, not just yet.
Mouse had wandered over to say hello, and now he raised his eyebrows. “Another run before dark? Well, you’re the captain.”
“At least, on this boat,” Kerrick said with a laugh, clapping the strapping young man on the shoulder, then gesturing to the nearly completed hull, the sleek boards his friend had been smoothing. Unlike the leather-shelled curraghs, the new boat was similar in shape to Cutter, with a keel, long deck, and single, low cabin.
“It won’t be long until you’ve got Marlin afloat.”
“I know.” Mouse’s face lit up at the mention of his boat. “Once we’ve got a stretch of solid good weather I’ll take one of the tubs across to trade for pitch in Tall Cedar Bay. I’ll get the boys to help-they’re always ready for a ride in a curragh. When I bring that back and caulk Martin’s hull, I’ll be ready to put her in the water. I think I’ll be sailing before the sun sets in fall.”
“I’ll enjoy the sight of another beautiful boat on these seas,” Kerrick suggested. He gestured ruefully to the round shapes moored around them. “You’re right. These curraghs look more like laundry tubs than proper sailing craft.”
Mouse laughed. “They’ve changed the way we live, and that’s the truth. It’s hard to believe that ten years ago no one from my tribe had seen the western shore of the White Bear Sea. Now we have small towns on both sides, and people go back and forth dozens of times in a year!”
“You Arktos are natural sailors,” the elf agreed. “Taking these open boats onto the White Bear Sea is bold work.”
“They’re the best we can do around here, I suppose, with the materials and tools of the Icereach. You know, some day I’d love to see the shipyards of Silvanesti, or Tarsis… all the places you’ve told us about,” the young man said dreamily. “To see the work of those who made Cutter.”
“I don’t doubt that if you had proper oak and mahogany in the Icereach, you’d make a vessel that’s equal to Cutter. You’ve done wonders with the materials you have. Think of Marlin, a pine-board longboat with leather stoppers and but two sails… and she’ll be able to ride the deep ocean as well as any king’s galley. She’ll take you to Tarsis, my friend, or to anywhere else you want to go.”
Mouse nodded, then looked almost guilty as his eyes flicked upward toward the fortress that loomed unseen beyond the mountainside overhead. “Of course, I wouldn’t want to leave Feathertail that long,” he assured the elf.
Kerrick smiled ruefully. “She’s as much a sailor as you are, and don’t think she’d let you leave her behind. As a matter of fact, it’s not exactly common for someone to sail by himself. Don’t get the wrong idea just because I showed up here that way. I was unusual even among Silvanesti sailors.”
“But you had Coraltop Netfisher along, didn’t you?” asked the young man. “You’ve always said so!”
The elf winced, remembering his dream. He had felt a stab of melancholy when he had awakened to find that his old companion was not in fact present on the boat. It was rare for him to think of Coraltop or dream of him these days.
“Maybe. I’m not even sure myself, any more. It’s been so long that I have to wonder if he really existed, or if Moreen is right, that he was a just figment of my imagination, created out of the long months of boredom at sea. Though I did have a dream about him,” he admitted, “just a couple of nights ago.” Kerrick thought of Coral-top’s suggestion that his father might have returned to Silvanesti in his absence. That was impossible, of course, but it was strange how the notion, once planted in his subconscious, kept rising to the surface.
Mouse frowned. “I’ve never heard you say that Coral-top didn’t exist! Didn’t you see him right here in your boat the day we won Brackenrock?”
Kerrick squirmed inwardly. He didn’t like to consider the suggestion that the kender wasn’t real-it sounded far too much like madness-but somehow here, today, he keenly felt the glaring lack of evidence to the contrary.
“That was eight years ago, and I never saw him again. That day no one else saw him, either. No, that kender may as well have been pure fancy. I’m glad to say that I’ve put the past behind me.”
“If you think so, that’s the important thing,” Mouse agreed, though he avoided looking Kerrick in the eye. “Um… how was the run to Bearhearth?”
“Smooth, no problems,” the elf replied, grateful for the change of subject. “Say, do you know why they call it that?”
“No. I never thought about it.”
“The thane told me that, five or six generations ago, there wasn’t a castle there, and the clan was a wandering tribe. Their leader speared a bear high in the mountains and tracked the animal down to the shore and along the beach for ten miles, or maybe more. When he finally caught up to the creature, he found the bear dead, right in the middle of a flat clearing above a sheltered cove. The Highlanders decided that the place was perfect for a stronghold. It turned out that the bear perished right on the spot where they put the fireplace in the great hall.”
“Bears,” Mouse noted. “They play a big role in our folklore, Highlanders and Arktos alike. You’ve heard our own clan’s legend about the black bear?”
“The one slain by Moreen’s grandfather, yes,” Kerrick replied. “It was a harbinger of greatness, I recall, the sign that the Bayguard clan would lead all the Arktos. I never got to see the skin-the ogres captured it that summer, before I got here-but I believe that is one prophecy that has come true.”
“Maybe someday Moreen will get that fur back,” said the young man ruefully.
The elf didn’t see how that was possible, since the trophy, so far as anyone knew, was kept in the ogre fortress of Winterheim, but he didn’t dash his friend’s hopes. “Well, we have the ogre’s sacred axe,” he suggested with good humor, “so maybe we got the best of the trade.”
“Perhaps,” Mouse mused, but he was looking southward. The elf knew he was remembering the talisman of his people.
Kerrick broke into the man’s reverie. “Say, when the boatmen come down for work, could you ask some of the lads to get the chest out of Cutter’s hold? There’s a lot of gold in there, payment from the Thane of Bearhearth, and most of it goes into Moreen’s treasure room.”
“Sure will,” Mouse agreed.
The elf felt strangely restless as he left the harbor, walking steadily but slowly up the long road that cut its way back and forth across the steep slope above the little anchorage. Yes, it had been a long time since he had thought of Coraltop Netfisher. Mouse’s remark had startled him into old memories, which he had decided were best left in the past where they belonged.
Such memories made him feel all the more out of place, sometimes jarringly so. An elf among humans! They were appealing companions, of course, but could they ever truly be his people? Once again he found himself thinking of what Coraltop had said in the dream. His father, Dimorian Fallabrine, had sailed off from Silvanesti, never to return. Now he seemed destined never to return. It didn’t seem right that the son should share the father’s fate.
Finally he crested the ridge, and Brackenrock loomed before him. The twin towers of the gatehouse stood tall and proud, smooth-seamed with fresh mortar. The gate itself was open, deployed downward as a ramp across the shallow ditch before the curtain wall. As Kerrick made his way up the road toward the gates, the terraces came into view on the oceanside of Brackenrock, opposite the shore of the White Bear Sea. The soon-to-be-verdant fields descended the long slope below the great citadel. They curved along an incline. The broad hillside faced north and so caught every precious ray of the sun that would soon shine for a nightless season lasting for three uninterrupted months.