“Kit Meinem of Atyar,” Kit said.
Valo asked, “What sort of name is Meinem? It doesn’t mean anything.”
“In the capital, we take our names differently than you.”
“Oh, like Jenner Ellar.” Valo nodded. “I guessed you were from the capital—your clothes and your skin.”
Rasali said, “What can we do for you, Kit Meinem of Atyar?”
“I need to get to Farside today,” Kit said.
Rasali shook her head. “I can’t take you. I just got here, and it’s too soon. Perhaps Valo?”
The youth tipped his head to one side, his expression suddenly abstract, as though he were listening to something too faint to hear clearly. He shook his head. “No, not today.”
“I can buy out the fares, if that helps. It’s Jenner Ellar I am here to see.”
Valo looked interested but said, “No,” to Rasali, and she added, “What’s so important that it can’t wait a few days?”
Better now than later, Kit thought. “I am replacing Teniant Planner as the lead engineer and architect for construction of the bridge over the mist. We will start work again as soon as I’ve reviewed everything. And had a chance to talk to Jenner.” He watched their faces.
Rasali said, “It’s been a year since Teniant died—I was starting to think Empire had forgotten all about us, and your deliveries would be here ‘til the iron rusted away.”
“Jenner Ellar’s not taking over?” Valo asked, frowning.
“The new Department of Roads cartel is in my name,” Kit said. “but I hope Jenner will remain as my second. You can see why I would like to meet him as soon as is possible, of course. He will—”
Valo burst out, “You’re going to take over from Jenner, after he’s worked so hard on this? And what about us? What about our work?” His cheeks were flushed an angry red. How do they conceal anything with skin like that? Kit thought.
“Valo,” Rasali said, a warning tone in her voice. Flushing darker still, the youth turned and strode away. Rasali snorted but said only: “Boys. He likes Jenner, and he has issues about the bridge, anyway.”
That was worth addressing. Later. “So, what will it take to get you to carry me across the mist, Rasali Ferry of Farside? The project will pay anything reasonable.”
“I cannot,” she said. “Not today, not tomorrow. You’ll have to wait.”
“Why?” Kit asked: reasonably enough, he thought, but she eyed him for a long moment, as if deciding whether to be annoyed.
“Have you gone across mist before?” she said at last.
“Of course.”
“Not the river,” she said.
“Not the river,” he agreed. “It’s a quarter mile across here, yes?”
“Oh, yes.” She smiled suddenly: white even teeth and warmth like sunlight in her eyes. “Let’s go down, and perhaps I can explain things better there.” She jumped the fence with a single powerful motion, landing beside him to a chorus of cheers and shouts from the inn garden’s patrons. She made an exaggerated bow, then gestured to Kit to follow her. She was well-liked, clearly. Her opinion would matter.
The boat yard was heavily shaded by low-hanging oaks and chestnuts, and bounded on the east by an open-walled shelter filled with barrels and stacks of lumber. Rasali waved at the third boat maker, who was still putting her tools away. “Tilisk Boatwright of Nearside. My brother’s wife,” she said to Kit. “She makes skiffs with us, but she won’t ferry. She’s not born to it as Valo and I are.”
“Where’s your brother?” Kit asked.
“Dead,” Rasali said, and lengthened her stride.
They walked a few streets over and then climbed a long, even ridge perhaps eighty feet high, too regular to be natural. A levee, Kit thought, and distracted himself from the steep path by estimating the volume of earth and the labor that had been required to build it. Decades, perhaps, but how long ago? How long was it? The levee was treeless. The only feature was a slender wood tower hung with flags. It was probably for signaling across the mist to Farside, since it appeared too fragile for anything else. They had storms out here, Kit knew; there’d been one the night before, which had left the path muddy. How often was the tower struck by lightning?
Rasali stopped. “There.”
Kit had been watching his feet. He looked up and nearly cried out as light lanced his suddenly tearing eyes. He fell back a step and shielded his face. What had blinded him was an immense band of white mist reflecting the morning sun.
Kit had never seen the mist river itself, though he’d bridged mist before this, two simple post-and-beam structures over gorges closer to the capital. From his work in Atyar, he knew what was to be known. It was not water, or anything like. It did not flow, but formed somehow in the deep gorge of the great riverbed before him. It found its way many hundreds of miles north, up through a hundred narrowing mist creeks and streams before failing at last, in shreds of drying foam that left bare patches of earth where they collected.
The mist stretched to the south as well, a deepening, thickening band that poured out at last from the river’s mouth two thousand miles south, and formed the mist ocean, which lay on the face of the salt-water ocean. Water had to follow the river’s bed to run somewhere beneath, or through, the mist, but there was no way to prove this.
There was mist nowhere but this river and its streams and sea; but the mist split Empire in half.
After a moment, the pain in Kit’s eyes grew less, and he opened them again. The river was a quarter-mile across where they stood, a great gash of light between the levees. It seemed nearly featureless, blazing under the sun like a river of cream or of bleached silk, but as his eyes accustomed themselves, he saw the surface was not smooth but heaped and hollowed, and that it shifted slowly, almost indiscernibly, as he watched.
Rasali stepped forward, and Kit started. “I’m sorry,” he said with a laugh. “How long have I been staring? It’s just—I had no idea.”
“No one does,” Rasali said. Her eyes when he met them were amused.
The east and west levees were nearly identical, each treeless and scrub-covered, with a signal tower. The levee on their side ran down to a narrow bare bank half a dozen yards wide. There was a wooden dock and a boat ramp, a rough switchback leading down to them. Two large boats had been pulled onto the bank. Another, smaller dock was visible a hundred yards upstream, attended by a clutter of boats, sheds, and indeterminate piles covered in tarps.
“Let’s go down.” Rasali led the way, her words coming back to him over her shoulder. “The little ferry is Valo’s. Pearlfinder. The Tranquil Crossing’s mine.” Her voice warmed when she said the name. “Eighteen feet long, eight wide. Mostly pine, but a purpleheart keel and pearwood headpiece. You can’t see it from here, but the hull’s sheathed in blue-dyed fish-skin. I can carry three horses or a ton and a half of cartage or fifteen passengers. Or various combinations. I once carried twenty-four hunting dogs and two handlers. Never again.”
A steady, light breeze eased down from the north, channeled by the levees. The air had a smell, not unpleasant but a little sour, wild. “How can you manage a boat like this alone? Are you that strong?”
“It’s as big as I can handle,” she said, “but Valo helps sometimes, for really unwieldy loads. You don’t paddle through mist. I mostly just coax the Crossing to where I want it to go. Anyway, the bigger the boat, the more likely that the Big Ones will notice it; though if you do run into a fish, the smaller the boat, the easier it is to swamp. Here we are.”