Abruptly Giron left the chamber, and Thella turned angrily on Dushik. “You let me handle him, Dushik!”
“Hamian!” Piemur called to the Masterminer, pointing toward the bluff on the right-hand side of the Island River. “Those mounds! They’re not natural!”
“No, they’re not,” Hamian answered without even looking up from the line he was neatly coiling. Minercrafter he might be, but he had been a sailor from his earliest Turns both in Southern and at High Palisades. He would no more leave untidy decks than he would an untidy forge or shaft. “There’re some more, farther down the river on the left bank. Don’t know what they used to be, but the piles haven’t been washed away.”
“But don’t you want to look?” Piemur was astonished by Hamian’s disinterest. Sometimes he thought the man took for granted all the beauty and wealth around him.
Hamian grinned at the young harper. “I’ve enough on my plate without haring off to look at ruins I can’t waste time searching.” His grin broadened, and he ruffled Piemur’s sun-bleached hair. “I make good use of the ones in the open pit. They even marked the direction of the veins. I don’t know how they did that!”
Piemur ducked away. “But who are ‘they’? You said there wasn’t any mention of Southern workings in the Smithcrafthall records.”
Hamian shrugged. “That doesn’t mean much. As far back as they’re legible, they’re all about mine yields and tons smelted, and who bought what and where it was shipped. Except for Master Fandarel, the Craftmasters didn’t look much beyond the main hall. Put your backs in it!” he roared at the oarsmen. Once past the delta region, he hoped for a good westerly breeze to fill the sails and make some headway over the broad portion of the Island River. He licked a finger and held it up. “The wind’s picking up!” He cupped his hands and yelled encouragement to the rowers. “Not long now!” But to Piemur, he muttered, “Those shiftless mongrels,” before he raised his voice again. “I can see who’s leaning on his oars! Number four oar, you there, Tawkin—you and your partner, number six, put your backs into it, damn your hides, or there’ll be no beer tonight unless you—that’s more like it!
“I tell you what, Piemur,” Hamian added, relenting as he saw the disappointment on the young man’s face. “You and Stupid can investigate on our way back. An independent study to show Toric you’re good at charting and measuring. Keep an eye on those starboard banks—” He outlined the area he meant. “See how long that bank is. This shallow draft sloop is fine for river traffic but, as we both know, not all that great in coastal waters. If we’d a collecting point here…” Hamian thought for a moment, then slowly began to grin. “We could set up a permanent hold up there, in those ruins, and transship ore direct to Nerat or Keroon Sea Hold. Save a lot of time and effort, and give some responsible man a proper hold. Hmm, yes, you do that.”
Hamian had already calculated that they had made better time coming east along the coast than they did beating around the Southern cape and having to wait for the tide to ride over the reef into the lagoon. They had enjoyed a couple of days of easy sailing down the Island River before they came to the fork where a smaller tributary came down out of the central hills to join the flow. Just beyond that conjoining was where Hamian hoped to set up a hold, if the river proved navigable that far.
Wanting to avoid the miserable haul down Lagoon River and through the swamps that his sister Sharra found so fascinating, he had taken several days off to sail east. Somewhere in that direction the Island River must start. It had been an easy trek down the foothills to a point where he could see the river shimmering in the distance. The terrain was perfect for a burden-beast route. It had taken some pretty sharp dealing with Toric, but with some subtle help from Sharra and their brother, Kevelon, he had convinced the holder to see the benefit of cutting down travel time. There had been another load of northerners to absorb, so Hamian had volunteered to take all of them off Toric’s hands and put them to work building pier and hold above the spring flood level. There was enough grassland for herdbeasts, and the mountains were close enough to quarry stone.
Hamian was backing his own judgment about the alternate route. He needed to prove to Toric that someone else could know something about Southern besides the self-styled Lord Holder. Sometimes Toric’s attitudes bothered Hamian; and Toric was always accusing him of being tainted by northern notions during his Turns at the Smithcrafthall.
Hamian had organized his arguments well. Lagoon River might appear to be the shorter route, but trying to pole ore-laden barges through the swampland halfway down the river made it quite another story. Hamian was not afraid of hard work, and he was remarkably effective in getting a similar effort out of his teams, but between trips, the channel markings got broken or swallowed by the shifting bottom mud. Hunting for deep waters, while being eaten by insects, bitten by swamp snakes, and harried by wherries who regarded anything that moved as fair game, was not an efficient use of available labor. Hamian had become infected by Master Fandarel’s overriding compulsion for efficiency.
“Pull that oar, Tawkin, don’t stroke it!” he yelled as the longboat began to veer slightly to port. Hamian intended to watch that fellow. He was getting to have as good an eye as Toric and Sharra for who would work out in Southern. “Now, there could have been some shipwrecked fisherfolk who built there,” he suggested to Piemur as the mounds slowly slipped out of sight.
Piemur was shaking his head. “Fisherfolk don’t build in stone, and that’s all that would have lasted four hundred or more Turns. Besides, there was nothing about this place in the Harper Hall Records, which are legible a long way back. I know,” he added, wrinkling his nose as if he could still smell the reek of decaying hides. “I had to copy ‘em for old Master Arnor.” Piemur drew in a deep breath of the forest-scented air as if cleansing his lungs of the remembered smell. He exhaled gustily.
Hamian laughed. “Well, you can see what your harper-trained eye makes of the mine fittings.” The single big square sail of the wide-bellied narrow draft ship began to fill. “Belay that, lads!” he shouted to the rowers. “Make ready to take the long-boat aboard,” he ordered the nearest crewmen. “That’s more like it. We’ll make some headway today. Both moons are out tonight, so if the wind lasts, we’ll be there in two days. That’s a damn sight better than six trying to wade through swamp. Too bad we can’t get as far as the Falls. They’re spectacular.”
“Falls?”
“Yes, Toric sent an exploratory party down this river, oh, just before I left for Telgar Smith Crafthall. They got as far as the Falls before they turned back. Sheer rock cliffs that no one could scale.” He saw the determined look on Piemur’s face. “Not even you, but maybe Farli. Look, you’d better go stand with Stupid. He’s getting restless.”
“He’d rather walk than sail,” Piemur said, though the motion on the river was not as unpleasant as on open water. He never could understand why Menolly and Sebell were so enthusiastic about sea voyages. At the moment, Stupid was stomping on the deck, and Piemur hurried over to calm him. It would not do to put gouges in the smooth deck planks. Farli was still doing her lazy circles far above, and Piemur wished he had the view she had from up there.
He sat down, leaning back against Stupid’s front legs—the best way to keep the beast still—and peered over the portside rail at the passage of the plain, wondering what lay in the dense forest beyond. Piemur hoped to prove his worth on this trip. Sharra had talked Hamian into taking him on in a scouting capacity and to record the alternate route. He had gotten a taste of exploring two Turns back and was becoming increasingly bored at setting up drum towers. He had done all he could, and Saneter was talking of sending him back to Harper Hall to get his journeyman’s knot. But Piemur wanted to explore uncharted lands.