Shallow Tides and Shale Steps
It was early afternoon on our sixth day of sailing. The sun blinked in and out of existence, hiding behind large fluffy clouds racing across the sky with the quick, sharp winds. I was up in the crow’s nest of the Onyx Glory with Jeremey, the sea elf sailor, scribbling down the many ways he described of how he defeated different sea monsters.
The smaller ones seemed pretty easy to handle, but then Jeremey started talking about fighting dragon-sized snapping turtles and krakens. I shivered. Apparently, Jeremey had been the sole survivor of his ship, the Eyebright Corso, that was attacked by a kraken a few years ago.
“They always say that krakens don’t strike the same person twice, so this ship is the safest ship to be on,” he said, nodding to himself as he thrust his short sword into the air with fast precision.
“I heard something similar said about lightning strikes,” I said, looking out to the horizon far beyond the boat and ducking a little lower out of his sword’s reach. He’d nearly given me a haircut earlier when the ship swayed unexpectedly. “I believed that saying until I saw Grouse, a goblin small-folk I know back in Hill Hollow, walking home from work one day in the middle of a thunderstorm. He was hit by lightning.”
Jeremey’s bright green brow creased with confusion, just like everyone elses did when I told this favorite story of mine. “But he was only hit once,” Jeremey corrected me.
I grinned, meeting his green-blue gaze. “Two years later, I saw Grouse walking home from work in the middle of a storm again. He knew that lightning never strikes the same place twice, so he was being extra careful, only stepping where he’d once seen lightning hit before. Right when his foot landed on that spot where he’d been hit by lightning the first time — Bam!” I clapped my hands together for added dramatics and Jeremey jumped at the unexpected sound effect.
“He was hit by lightning in the same exact spot?” He asked, eyes wide and jaw dropped with shock.
I nodded. “Survived both times, too! But as it turns out, he wore metal armor underneath his clothes every day. No wonder. We amended the saying a bit after learning that, so now it’s something more like lightning only hits idiots twice.”
Jeremey laughed loudly, throwing his head back and clapping a hand to his leather-armored stomach after a couple of seconds, still unable to stop his laughter. One of Jeremey’s favorite things in the world was jokes. I’d learned that from the other crew who liked to make fun of him for not being “as smart” as the rest of them. But Jeremey was the only one who’d survived the unthinkable and now he laughed like someone who hadn’t seen the horror of a kraken sinking their ship.
Maybe Jeremey was the smartest of us all. What if laughter was a kind of medicine?
Jeremey chuckled under his breath and sunk onto the planks of the crow’s nest next to me, his sword thunking on the soft wood. Tears streamed down his face, and he cracked a wide smile. “You should give a humor class to the crew before we all part ways. I could use some funnier jokes onboard.”
I smiled, thanked him for his compliment, and stared back into the horizon. What kind of joke-telling could I teach to a bunch of sailors? I mused for a second about a bunch of humans and elves learning small-folk humor, but then I noticed a dark spot in the distance, spreading slowly over the slight curve of the sea. Was that land?
“Jeremey… is that Roahdhan I see ahead?” I asked, pointing to where the horizon was changing. He pulled out a spyglass, looked through it where I was pointing, and gasped.
He jumped onto his feet and leaned over the side of the crow’s nest. “Land ho!” His shout rang out clear over the lulling deck below.
On the decks below, people started shouting orders and scrambling to begin preparing for making landfall. “Can I use that to see?” I asked, pointing at Jeremey’s spyglass. He unhooked it from his belt and handed it to me. I aimed, adjusted, and caught my first real glimpse of the country of North Roahdhan.
We were approaching a large city on the coast, and behind it, a gray, stony mountain rose up out of a thick forest at a slow incline. As more of Tonirn’s coast came into view, I scanned further from the city we were sailing toward. Another, larger, port city was about fifty miles down the beach reaching for about a hundred miles toward icy waters and snow. No wonder it had gotten colder each day as we sailed. Back in the mountains we were sailing toward, strange, blocky things were carved into the side of the mountain to the south — almost like someone had built a city into the mountainside.
“Where are we going again?” I asked. Jeremey was writing something down on a scratch pad beside me, looking between a compass and the sky.
“Fifteen notches….no, sixteen notches,” he muttered, tapping the glass of his compass. I cleared my throat. “Oh, you asked where we were heading? That’s the port city of Shallow Tides Bay, right there. And up in those mountains is Shalesteppes.”
Finn would be thrilled. We’d always talked about Shallow Tides Bay when we were younger. When the tide washed out super far, it was said you could see thousands of starfish of every color in the water. We were so close to achieving a childhood dream that we shared. And one step closer to my dream of finding the Dragon’s Head Warrior.
“And when we travel past those, we’ll see Yaunger, right?” I asked, keening my neck, hoping for a glimpse of further into the continent than those mountains ahead.
Jeremey looked up at me from his note taking, like he was realizing just how inexperienced I was with travel right then. “You’ll have a week or so of walking beyond the Raulian Mountains — those mountains right there — before you get a glimpse of Yaunger. Luckily you’re heading to Skai City, which is on the closest border of the kingdom.”
More than a week of walking. And that was if we weren’t slowed down at all. This trip was turning out to be longer than I expected — Ma and Da would have gotten my note by now. They would be worried out of their minds, and probably a little angry, too.
I should send something back to them to let them know I’m okay. We had a few more hours on the boat, and then we’d be in Roahdhan. I had time to write something.
“Thanks for the entertainment, Jeremey,” I said, climbing down on the ladder to the main deck. I’d write a quick note to be delivered to my parents and ask if Captain Serpentis would send it for me the next time he was in Dellegan. Maybe I’d get lucky and be back home before it even arrived…
“Thank you for the company. It gets lonely up here in the crow’s nest,” Jeremey said, holding out the paper he’d been scribbling on to me. “Would you mind taking this to the captain? He’ll need it to dock the ship.” I nodded as I took it from his hand, then pocketed it before climbing the rest of the way down from the crows nest.
Finn was waiting for me at the bottom of the ladder, bouncing on his toes. A day ago, someone on the crew had plaited his fluffy brown locks into two tight braids against his scalp after he complained that the wind was tangling it too much. I liked the style on him well enough, but his curls usually bounced along with him when he was this excited, and I missed that a little.
“Can we please stay in town until half-moon so we can see the starfish?” he begged, his brown eyes practically bored into my soul with how hard he was pleading.
I was going to ask him the same thing, but a flutter of mischief danced around my stomach. “Oh, I dunno, Finny, we’ve got a lot of walking between here and Skai City. Isn’t Aramedia the mage expecting us to come as soon as possible?”
Finnan’s mouth gaped wide open, looking like a fish out of water. “I– But – Um,” he floundered over his words. “Aramedia doesn’t, uh, have any sort of predictive magic, though,” he said, looking uncertain. “They couldn’t know that we stopped for just a couple of days. Unless… Aramedia is a more powerful sorcerer than folks say they are.”
“I was only teasing,” I chuckled, poking the now relieved-looking Finn in his side. “I wouldn’t give up the chance to see the millions starfish of Shallow Tides with my best friend for anything.”
Finnan released a big sigh as if he’d been holding his breath. He probably had been. “Okay, good. Do you want to go below deck and pack our bags now so we can see the city come into view?”
“Race you,” I said, taking off, darting around a couple of busy sailors, and making my way toward the stairs to the berthing.
A few hours later, we were close enough to North Roahdhan to start making out the details of Shallow Tides Bay. Seagulls swooped around us and squawked overhead, following the ship to shore. I could now tell that the coastline was crescent-shaped here since some land reached beyond our boat and into the sea.
Close to the water’s edge, the docks brimmed with lively activity — at least two dozen wooden piers were lined with ships, from wee fishing boats to large merchant vessels. The town behind it rose with a hill toward a grand, white-bricked manor. That must be city hall or something. The rest of the city was a mix of clay, wood, stone, and brick buildings of every shape, size, and color. It was like the town was saying, “Hey, look at me! Come to me! I’m fun — can’t you tell by how colorful I am?” And it did seem more fun compared to the other port further down the coast — which was mostly a mix of dull browns and earthy colors from this distance.
A tall, stone lighthouse stood guard over the bay on the edge of town. Its light was out due to it still being daytime, but it looked ready to guide ships traveling by night. Finn and I stood at the bow, taking in the sights as they grew closer and closer. My pulse raced under my skin, seeing people in the town grow from ant sized to where I could start to make out differences about them.
How would my life change in when I stepped foot in Tonirn? Would I find my mysterious warrior? Would they let me train with them? It was all I’d wanted to do for so long now.
We passed the first dock, full of small fishing boats, and headed for a long, empty pier at the edge of the docks. The air was filled with the creaking of wooden ships around us, the dockworkers’ calls, and the town’s distant murmur of people.
Cranes and pulleys lifted cargo from boats bigger than ours, and sailors and traders haggled loudly over unloading fees. The scent of saltwater mingled with that of fresh fish, tar, and the faint, inviting aroma of cooking food wafting from market stalls that must be hidden just behind the city’s outer walls.
“So,” Toni said quietly. How’d he sneak up behind Finn and me without either of us noticing? “I guess this is where we part ways, huh?”
I turned around to look at my friend. His under eyes were red, irritated… almost like he’d been crying. Who’d made him cry? Did they need a talking to? And by talking to, I meant a talk with my fists. Toni was too nice to be made to cry.
“Are you upset about something?” Finn asked, a little more blunt than I would have asked.
“What? Me? Upset about something? Never!” Toni replied, wiping a very obvious tear from his face.
I didn’t want to leave without knowing if Toni was alright. “We’re your friends. You can tell us anything,” I said, reaching out and gently squeezing Toni’s hand.
Toni burst into tears, and my heart broke into pieces. “Who’s behind do I need to kick?” I asked. “Cause I’ll do it. I can swim the rest of the way to shore now if the Captain kicks me off for fighting.”
“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you two,” Toni said, dropping onto a knee and pulling Finn and me into a bear hug.
I wasn’t ready to leave Toni, either, if I was honest with myself. Beyond being a potion-making genius, over the last six days, he’d become like the big brother I’d always wanted. He was more courteous and kind than I ever thought I could be, but he too dreamed of grand adventures. Adventure was part of what drew him to Captain Serpentis’s crew in the first place. Had he found enough of it on a merchant ship?
Toni let go of us, wiping the free-flowing tears from his face. “But I guess I gotta let you kids live your lives and go find your destiny,” he said, trying his best to hide his frown.
“Or you could come with us?” Finn said, glancing sideways at me.
I nodded. “Toni, come with us. We need you and it wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t there.”
Toni was stunned into silence for a moment. Then, he said, “I mean, I’d have to ask the Captain — though I don’t think he can say no… Are you sure?”
“More than sure. If you don’t come with us now, I’ll be extremely insulted,” I said, smiling. Our duo would now be a trio, and that felt right to me.
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