Chapter 9 - Part 9

The old man grinned, catching sight of a beautiful salmon that darted past his boat, going for the brightly colored lure. Quick as a flash he flexed that inner, magical muscle, touching the depths of his heritage. His flesh shifted, and the hair on his face grew thicker as long claws grew on his hands. He speared the salmon expertly on one claw, and tossed it into a bucket on the small sailing skiff. His name was Ichab, and he liked the way that the day was turning out.

“Nice,” his daughter said, shaking her long hair. He preferred that she have it shorter, but she had fallen for human fashions, and as a mother in her own right, he had no right to tell her how to adorn herself. “You’ll pardon me if I rely on the net, Dad.”

Ichab laughed. “My son-in-law may have made fine nets to ensnare the loveliest girl in the Reaches, but I have forgotten more about fishing than he will ever know! Listen to your father, Medea, if there is one thing I know it is fish!”

She smiled, and indulged him, and he liked to be indulged. It wasn’t often that he got to sail out here with his daughter. His wife, her mother, had died in the winter of heartstop, and the news of both of their sons dying on the battlefield reached him within a week of that. For a while it seemed he would only brood and drink, and sometimes cry. Then Medea had gotten him to sell his farm to that goblin goatherd and work out at sea with her and his son-in-law again. It wasn’t bad, he had to admit. He got to feel the salt air, wrestle with the fish, and play with his three grandchildren every day.

“Is there a storm coming?” she asked him.

He squinted, looking east. There was a fog, and an odd one. It came flat against the water, but the sky above it was clear.

“Get the boat around,” he told her, grabbing the rudder.

“Is everything all right?” she asked him.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “But we’re pretty far out, and I don’t ever recall seeing a fog like that. Let’s just get around and back to shore.”

Medea did not argue.

It took them less than an hour to get back to shore, despite going against the tide. And odd wind that came and went helped their little sail. A crowd was at the two rickety docks, maybe eight or nine people. Medea tied up her catch, then shifted as she hauled it up, giving her more wind to get the haul up the switchback trails that climbed the thirty feet of crumbling cliff.

“See you at the house, dad?” she asked him, noting that he was headed to the group that were loudly discussing the odd fog.

“Aye, count on it,” he said. “Little Aril says he wants to show me he knows his first letters!” But the enthusiasm in his voice was tinged by worry. What was coming towards his home? A sea monster? A strange bit of evil magic that broke off of the Wastes?

At the end of the docks were several fishermen and their children, all gathered around Lobah. Lobah was a grizzled shifter woman who had been quite a beauty in her time, before she went south to fight the Brelanders. That was over four decades ago, before the revolution, when they were serfs to Aundair.

“It’s a bad omen, aye, but hungry bellies are a worse omen!” one young woman was saying. She was a human whose husband had been killed and whose two young boys worked with her. Her name was Awell, or perhaps Awihl. She was from ‘the city,’ central Merylsward, so he did not know her name well. The boys were eleven, maybe ten, and they clung to their mother whenever there was an argument. “I paid Munz for his time, and I need him working my nets!”

“When I gets me a coin I’ll refund you,” Munz grumbled. A drunk and a gambler, the half-elf was often desperate for work. That the young lady had hired him spoke of how desperate she was.

“Speak us a law, Lobah!” demanded a desperate shifter who was blind in one eye. “Who is right?”

“Yer not forcing me back on that boat!” Munz said. “The Ashbound been saying a prophecy that bad magic is on its way.”

“The Ashbound always say that!” the human woman said.

Lobah looked at him with relief in her eyes. Everyone listened to the old man. “Ichab,” she said, gesturing to him. “I need to speak a law, what do you say?”

“Yes!” someone agreed. “The old man will know what this means!”

Ichab shook his head. “I don’t know what it means, but what I do know is that you should all be ashamed of yourselves!” They gazed at him in astonishment. “Can’t you see how hungry these lads are of hers?” he snapped, pointing at them and glaring at the others. “Are we Aundair, that we do not feed our own? Are we Cyre, that we value machines more than people? Or are we the free folk of the Reaches, who look out for one another?” He turned to the woman. “The Host have blessed my daughter and I with a good catch,” he told her. “Come to my son-in-law’s for the night meal.” The crowd murmured their approval, and other offers to share food were given. The young human mother looked ready to weep with relief. “And you,” the old man said, jabbing a finger at Munz. “You gave your word to the last person that would trust you! Are you breaking it? It’s all you have left, Khoravar!”

“I’m not breaking, I just – I just didn’t think on it being –” Munz sputtered. He could see the crowd’s mood shift against him. “I didn’t agree to no fog, is all! I wants to work!”

“Then why aren’t you getting a needle and thread from your own shack and repairing her sail?” demanded the old man. “And recaulking her boat? And tying her nets? Can’t you offer a fair exchange for the labor that you promised?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do those things,” Munz said, nodding quickly.

“If she and her boys help me haul crates up the hill, I’ll give her a cut of my catch,” offered another person.

“Aye, me too!” said another.

“This is acceptable to you?” Lobah asked her. The woman nodded, clutching her boys. “Then that is the law I speak! All of these things shall be done!”

Everyone hurried to work now that the problem was solved, and the old man smiled to himself as he ascended the hill.

But he turned back to look at the fog, which as now a small puff on the horizon. It seemed to be holding steady now. It was far away, and not bothering anyone. He then turned back towards his destination, smiling as he saw a puppy chase a ball thrown by a small shifter boy. Surely a little fog was no trouble on this was a fine autumn day.