Weekly Digest 103 - (#326 - #328) (Patreon)

Leaving For Covehold, Again

The ten days of a week passed by faster than she thought. In that time, work had progressed and returned both of her demesnes back to the state they were in before the dragon's arrival, which was the point that Lori felt everything had recovered and was back to normal. Not everything, of course. While the attempt was made, they lacked the skilled hands to save all the crops that were damaged by the dragon's passing. Most of the damaged crops died, though some seemed to persist even with broken stalks. Those, the farmers were laboriously identifying and trying to support with sticks so they wouldn't be overshadowed by the other crops around them as the plants grew.

It was long, difficult and borderline futile work, but if there was a chance…

Still, Lori had—very reluctantly—given Rian the authorization to recruit two Deadspeakers, one for Lori’s demesne and one for River's Fork, and their families, provided the families were small. This meant she’d have to actually start building a bath house in the latter demesne, since that was part of the facilities Rian would be promising to the recruits. With her capability to now make rudimentary bound tools, such a facility wouldn’t be as taxing and frustrating to maintain for her as it would have once, but constructing the facility in question would still be something only she could do.

Lori gloomily considered the work she'd have in front of her as she sat back on her new chair, listening to the louder-than-usual din of the dining hall as people loudly bade farewell to the people who would be accompanying Rian to Covehold Demesne on this trading trip. Really, shouldn’t they have done that last night? They'd had… well, it hadn't been a holiday. People had done a full day’s work, which had involved fully loading the Coldhold with all the trade goods they could spare. The Coldhold’s cargo containers were filled with seel furs, what beast hides could be spared, bags upon bags of wispbeads in hide sacks that had been stitched together just enough to not have any of the contents fall out, and the very large wispbeads that were meant to imbue the boat’s new massive steam jet driver.

The boat had also been loaded with provisions. While the plan, as before, was that they'd catch, clean and cook food on the way, the boat was still carrying food in the event of emergencies or scarce hunting. As such, jars of happyfruit and pink lady slices sitting in brine had been carried aboard, along with jars of smoked and cured meat, and little bricks of something called biscuit that looked like a waste of good flour. There'd also been a barrel of mikans and golden buds, which would probably be eaten first since it was th most likely to be bruised and ruined by Iridescence growth.

After all the work, a holiday-like mood had fallen over the dining hall. Instead of the usual stew and bread for dinner last night, they'd had roasted beast meat, and along with the usual bread, everyone had gotten a little fruit pulp-filled bun that was slightly green from the honey syrup that it had been dipped in. The food had been delicious, and everyone had been the kind of noisy they usually been for a holiday.

Lori had distinctly remembered Rian eating his fruit bun fastidiously, touching it only with his fingertips, which had been amusing to watch.

Now was the morning they were supposed to leave. With all the cargo already loaded onto the boat the night before, theoretically that meant that al Rian and the ones going with him—the boat’s ‘crew’—needed to do would be to get on the Coldhold and sail away—was it still called sailing if the boat did not, in fact, have a sail?—after they finished breakfast, what with everything but putting their personal effects onto the boat already done. But no, people were lingering over breakfast, and then afterwards there would no doubt be a crowding saying goodbye—shouldn’t they have done that the night before?— but in practice blocking the way to the docks enough to slow down the men going on board with their things. It would no doubt delay the boat’s leaving to midmorning, possibly even late morning just before lunch. She was recognizing the pattern, even if she didn’t understand why.

"I know that look," Rian said. He looked a little sleepy, as if he hadn't had much sleep the night before. He probably hadn't. "We haven't even been delayed yet. Don't aggravate yourself by pre-emptively being annoyed about something that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps everything will go smoothly and there won't be any delays."

Lori snorted loudly.

"Well, think of it this way. It's a sign everyone heading to Covehold has a reason to come back instead of running off with the profits."

…

Well, it was still annoying.

"I realize that's probably not much comfort, since you have to build a bath house in this heat—" Rian cut off as Lori made a sound in her throat like a prolonged groan. "You don't have to. Just let them and their families live here, and we'll bring one over to River's Fork when work needs to be done."

The sound from her throat went from a groan to a growl.

"Well, if you insist on minimizing your risk, then you have no choice but to build the bath house," her lord said with annoying sensibleness. "It's not just for them, it's—"

"Yes, yes, it's a long term investment and will make the people who live in River's Fork materially dependent on us for their luxuries, I know how monopolies work," Lori said, waving a hand dismissively. "I know I need to do it, I just don't like it."

"You'll manage somehow. You always do. And if you can't, both Deadspeakers can live here in Lorian until you do."

Lori twitched.

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The boat’s departure was delayed.

One would think that standing under the hot summer sun with no shade would have people cutting things short, but no, people seemed willing to sweat as if they'd just dumped a bucket of water on themselves to have long-delaying goodbyes. Normally Lori wouldn't have minded, except she'd gone aboard the Coldhold to do a last moment check on the bound tools and bindings, double-checking her list of things she needed to maintain.

The lightwisps in the interior of the boat, for example, had been replaced with a couple of wisplight bound tools that also served to circulate air, something Rian had begged her for. She'd also made a simple bound tool stove, to reduce the use of fires aboard the boat for cooking, though Rian had orders that make sure it was used properly. Along with the stove was a bound tool coldbox to let them store meat for longer, and the evaporator for collecting salt and proving drinking water had been replaced with bound tools as well.

Then there were the special cargo boxes. Raised up on blocks of ice, the special cargo boxes where shrouded on all sides by darkwisps to keep out Iridescence and kept inside a bigger locked box so that nothing could be put in or taken out of the boxes when between demesnes, lest someone's errant hand introduce Iridescence to the space within. They had only the one, which contained some of their hides to see if there would be a difference in quality. That one, she'd need to maintain herself, and she made sure it was on her list, along with the hull.

She reallydidn't want to forget to keep the hull imbued.

One thing she no longer needed to keep imbued herself, at least, was the water jet driver that propelled the boat. Once, the driver had been a large block composed of several different pieces of wood that had been carved out and fitted so that when placed together they formed tubes through which water flowed. This was because there was a simple binding of waterwisps that made water flow anchored to one of the blocks, and it kept flowing at all times because the boat was meant for someone beside her to operate it. Through an arrangement of sliding wooden blocks, the flow of the water was controlled so that the Coldhold could move forward at different speeds, stay in place, or move in reverse.

However, this meant that the binding of waterwisps that made the water flow and gave propulsion to the boat had to be heavily imbued so that it would never, ever run out, lest the binding dissolve. It was something she had needed to do daily, even when the boat wasn't being used, because… well, she was more likely to remember to imbue the binding than to activate or deactivate it.

All that had changed when she'd found the means to create a rudimentary but reliable bound tool.

Using the… cores, for lack of a better term, of white Iridescence tightly packed in a waterproof metal container, she'd been able to make bound tool drivers for all the boats in her demesne.

The first steam jet driver had been mounted on Lori's Boatas a proof of concept prototype to test its effectiveness and assess how much imbuement it needed in beads. The corrections learned from that were applied to the bound tool steam jet driver that she built and mounted onto the Lori's Ice Boat. The corrections and notes for improvements from that were applied to make the far, far larger bound tool driver that was then installed onto the Coldhold.

Doing so had required moving the Coldhold onto land and first removing the arrangement of wooden blocks they'd been using. Then they had installed the long, thick tube of bone along the center line of the boat, securing it with wooden braces to anchor it to the wooden frame of the boat before putting the ice that served as the boat's hull back in place.

The driver bound tool wasn't complicated. It was actually quite simple. Bindings of waterwisps where anchored to the long tube, which had openings in the front and back of the boat to let water pass through. When the waterwisps were imbued from the large wispbead, they made water move though the tube, and therefore propelled the boat in the opposite direction.

The complicated part had been the controls for the driver bound tool. It had four cores in total, each controlling a separate bindings of waterwisps, as well as the binding of earthwisps on the tub that acted to reinforce its structure to both prevent wear and as a preventative measure to keep the tube from cracking under the pressure of the water. One of the bindings propelled water so that the boat would go backwards, so that the boat would be better able to maneuver in and out of dock, while the other three propelled it forward, with each additional binding activated increasing the boat's forward speed.

The smiths had needed to make a special lever that routed imbuement from the wispbead to all the bindings, but doing so had been well within their skills. It has been simple enough to design, but had required proper metal bearings and springs at the contacts to ensure the flow of imbuement through the metal. It would have been quire unfortunate if the bound tool had stopped working because of a loose connection. Fortunately, white Iridescence-alloyed copper had the durability and elasticity to work in this capacity, at least as far as their tests had shown.

All in all, she'd finished her inspection with an updated list and feeling satisfied that the boat was as it should be… and now she couldn't leave as the dock was crowded by people who weren't moving.

It was all very irritating.

Still, at least her inspection hadn't turned up any problems that had managed to spontaneously manifest since yesterday's inspection and all the new improvements to the Coldhold functioning as intended.

She glared over everyone's heads at Rian, who was being crowded by Umu, Mikon and Riz. Really, they’d had breakfast together! They’d probably spent the night before… well, doing whatever they did in Rian’s house together! They’d known this was coming for a week! Shouldn’t the goodbyes be over already?

Lori didn’t notice Shanalorre until the younger Dungeon Binder had interspersed herself with the group and was drawing Rian’s attention to… oh. Rian met Lori’s eyes and actually looked embarrassed, as well as mildly exasperated. She, for part, gave Shanalorre a nod of thanks and her lord a flat look to convey her dissatisfaction.

He visibly sighed as he turned towards the three women, who all turned to look towards where Lori was standing on the boat, her arms crossed impatiently.

It took a few moments for Rian to get the crowd to part enough for Lori to be able to pass through, and that finally seemed to be the signal for people to stop delaying and end the overly long goodbyes. Slowly, people began separating and getting off the dock as Rian led the way to the Coldhold. People were crying. Why were they crying? The men would come back. Rian was with them, and they'd all already comeback from one such trip like this before.

"Cottsy, put the driver in reverse!" she heard Rian direct from where he was handing the tiller. "Everyone else, grab an oar, let's get turned around quicker! The sooner we leave, the faster we can come back home!"

Lori heard their affirmatives as the four of other men on the boat grabbed long wooden oars, each one trailing a rope that secured it to a post. With awkward looking movements of men who'd practiced just enough to know what they were doing but not actually done it enough for the movement to feel comfortable, they started trying to maneuver the boat to turn. She watched from on top of the flood wall, ignoring the people around her as they cried and waved and wasted all sorts of time.

Once the Coldhold was oriented so that it was pointing downriver, Rian looked towards them and waved. "We'll be back soon!" he called, his voice carrying audibly over the water. "Hopefully we can bring back something nice. Don't make trouble for her Bindership while I'm gone, all right?"

That seemed to make people laugh for some reason, even as they started waving back, and the men who had been at oars hung them from brackets built into the boat to do the same. The boat began to move downriver, clearly having activated the driver again even as all the men stopped working and waved to those on shore.

It took a while for the boat to move sufficiently downstream for people to finally stop waving back. With the slow awkwardness of a crowd with no more to do, the families who'd congregated at the docks began to drift off, obviously wanting to finally get out of the sun.

Sighing, Lori turned to Riz, who was still waiting next to her. Mikon and Umu had gone, presumably back down to the second level of the dungeon to their looms. The woman who was most definitely not an officer, and technically not a temporary Rian because she wouldn't be doing what Rian normally did. "Erzebed," she said.

"Yes, Great Binder?"

"We'll be going down to River's Fork to begin construction on the new baths there either tomorrow or the day after. Arrange for someone to come with us to help you guard, will you? Then after lunch we're going upriver"

"Yes, Great Binder."

Stupid recruitment promises.

Still, she supposed it could be worse. At least she wasn't having to promise land. That was just nonsense.

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Three For One

Lori spend the rest of the day making wispbeads just beyond the upriver edge of her demesne. It was a familiar tedium that she didn't have to think too deeply about, and allowed her to get lost in her thoughts and simply wait. Since she spent it sitting inside her shed made of bound ice, she wasn't uncomfortable even though she was technically sitting outside of her demesne. The binding to circulate cool air inside the shed saw to that.

The tray she used was a pace long and half that wide, with columns of little wooden trenches arrange in rows atop it. A copper sheet on the tray acted as a contact point for all the trenches, and a copper wire extended from one side of the tray all the way down to a another sheet of copper that was secured to a small plank of wood about the side of a large book. One of Lori's bare feet rested on that copper plate, channeling magic through the metal contact to the beads. It had been the best solution to the problem of how to best keep contact with the copper sheet to imbue the amalgamating beads while keeping her hands free, and after all this time of using it, she was forced to admit it was an intelligent solution to the problem.

It freed her hands to put shards of Iridescence on the trenches of the tray and anchor heavily imbued bindings she plucked from the half of the shed that was within her onto the tray next to the shards. If nothing else, learning how to mass produce beads had done wonders for ability to perform multiple tasks at once. Well, in stages, in any case. Place fragment on the tray, removing binding she'd anchored to a convenient rock in arm's reach, anchor binding onto bone edge of trench where it contacted the fragment, touch both with finger to begin amalgamating the two into a bead. Repeat previous steps to make the next bead, all the while channeling magic through her foot and the copper pad it was contacting to imbue the beads that were already in the middle of forming.

When she wasn't making beads, Lori had to wonder how it was actually done in the large, established demesnes of the continent she'd just left. She couldn't imagine how a bound tool could possibly be used to replicate this process, much less allow it to be done by anyone who wasn't already a Dungeon Binder. Perhaps imbuing the growing beads could be left to other people, but actually beginning the process itself? That would probably just result in the world's smallest dungeon…

… which, come to think of it, might actually be what was occurring in the old continent. Did established demesne have little demesnes bare yustri wide at its edges, their growth forever constrained by the far, far larger demesne they were already abutting? Were there people who had claimed those miniscule cores who worked in perpetuity to create beads?

It was a disturbing thought that would sometimes arise when she wasn't forming beads, which had sufficiently distracted her when she had first conceived it that she'd accidentally interrupted the flow of imbuement, ruining some of the batches she'd been working on. The very thought, the sheer plausibility of there being Dungeon Binders in such circumstances… it made her heart want to squirm in discomfort, especially considering what she was doing.

It had taken her three days to stop thinking about it, and now the thought only came up when she was lying in bed, waiting to fall asleep after a long day's work.

Occasionally, she'd stop everything but the imbuing and look up to listen for Riz and her friend, who were outside ostensibly keeping their eyes open so that some beast couldn't just come up behind her shed and smash the shed while her back was turned. The two were outside, taking advantage of the shade of the tree Lori had built her shed under. It was a little bit less shady from the damage inflicted by the dragon, but more than enough for the two former militia to shelter under and basically relax even as they kept a watch. they were just far enough away from the entrance of her shed that their words were background sounds she had to concentrate on to decipher.

Fortunately, it was an unremarkable day, and bead production proceeded uninterrupted. The trough next to her filled with wispbeads at a constant pace as the amalgamating beads grew until they were lifted up from the copper contact at the bottom by the angled sides of the trench the cloudy white perfect spheres were forming in.

She stopped well before late afternoon so that beads could be scooped up into a large leather sack for transport back to her Dungeon. When she had originally started mass bead production, Rian had wanted to count how many beads in total in a day, but that idea had been rejected after the one time they had tried to do that accounting. The way he'd moped at not having a new number to watch grow bigger had been both amusing and exasperating.

He'd still gotten his wish to eventually count how many beads there were in total—she'd conceded they needed to know how much stock they had available—and the number he'd reported was… well. She hadn't quite realized she'd made that many.

Of course, since they were making use of bound tools now—rudimentary as they were—there had been beads expended… but production had far exceeded expenses. Granted, she had to maintain production so that they'd have a supply to send to River's Fork in the winter, but that was no great difficulty.

Lori headed back downriver to her Dungeon, operating Lori's Boat herself as they headed down for dinner, the wooden boat weighed down by the three of them, the bead production tray, and three large leather sacks of beads. The sacks weren't all the way full, and could hardly be said to be bursting… but they were three sacks nonetheless.

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Dinner was a stark reminder of Rian's absence.

The spot on the bench opposite her was empty, and Riz was pointedly refusing to slide into it, as if doing so would be some sort of tacit move of acting as a temporary Rian again. As a result, there was a gap between Umu and the others… or there would have been if Mikon hadn't pointedly sat down next to the blonde-haired woman and started inquiring about when they should launder the bedrolls and blankets.

Lori ignored the mundane, if awkward, conversation as she ate the stew that Riz and Mikon had brought to the table. Despite Rian's absence, the two still seemed to be bringing food to the table, for which she was glad. Around her, the dining hall's conversation sounded subdued.

When she finished eating, Lori remained seated, leaning back on the backrest of her chair as she waited patiently. Ah, she was never going to tire of being able to lean back when she sat!

"Karina, could you take Yoshka to the baths? I'll meet with the rest of you there later, I just need to speak with Binder Lolilyuri."

"Sure, Shana. I'll take care of things while you do Lady Binder things. Come on everyone, let's take a bath…!"

As the happily cheering children marched out of her Dungeon, clearly looking forward to the prospect of a bath, Shanalorre walked around to the opposite of the table from Lori and sat on the bench in front of her next to Riz. "Great Binder," she said as Mikon and Umu rose, vacating the table, presumably to also head for the baths.

"Binder Shanalorre," Lori acknowledged. While she was still wary and reasonably suspicious of the younger Dungeon Binder, in her time in Lori's demesne as a subject, Shanalorre had been punctilious in the fulfillment of her responsibilities. These responsibilities had consisted of acting as the caretaker of the children from River's Fork who had been sent by their parent's to Lori's demesne for their safety and comfort, as well as compiling the numbers of what stocks they had in storage every week for Rian.

She was probably the one who'd had to compile the final count of the wispbeads, poor thing.

Lori had learned from the last time Rian had left to go to Covehold. Riz had proven… insufficient to the task of doing his duties, even with assistance, but the woman hadn't been completely useless. She'd done quite well when Lori had told her exactly what to do and what to arrange. Organizing something more complicated on her own initiative, however, had left the woman lost beyond the border, and had shown she lacked the aptitude for overall authority that Rian had.

There were currently no outstanding projects in the demesne, with the sawmill having been deferred to after Rian returned so that they'd have the assistance of the Deadspeaker he returned with, as well as his own presence. However, there were current endeavors to maintain such as the mushroom farms, the logging for materials, maintaining the fields, gathering ropeweed… even with Lori's assistance to manage the heat, she had still needed to agree to allow people to stop working from late-morning to mid-afternoon because off the heat.

However, Lori still needed someone to talk to people so that she wouldn't have to do it herself, and in that Riz was just barely suitable. She could work with that.

Once Shanalorre was seated, a man who'd been lingering at a nearby table approached and nervously sat down on Shanalorre's other side opposite Riz. Lori immediately reached into her belt pouch and pulled out, rather wide rock. Rian had felt she needed far more than simply a name in this instance. On the tablet was written: 'Kolinh. Retired Captain, formerly of Lomabuyar Demesne'sMilitia Engineering Banner. In charge of all building projects in the demesne (on my authority)'. It was all carved in what she recognized as Rian's rather awkward handwriting, though that might have been the material in question. Next to it was a simple caricature of a face that, Lori was amused to see, was actually identifiable as the man across from her.

"Engineer Kolinh," she acknowledged.

The man nodded carefully. "Great Binder," he replied, even as he resolutely kept his gaze directed at something just past Lori's right ear.

Lori took a moment to consider this arrangement. Riz, to talk to people and have them talk to her, and to be sent to do things for Lori directly. Shanalorre, to keep track of what they had and what they needed. And—Lori checked her rock—Kolinh, who'd see to organizing what things needed to get done.

It was slightly disturbing to think that Rian did do so much she needed at least three people to substitute for him, and that was merely a tentative minimum. She knew he was capable—very much so—but quantifying it like this…

Lori chose not to think about it.

"Riz, what have people bothered you with since we've come back?" Lori said.

"I've gotten complaints that the baths are crowded, Great Binder, but everyone thinks that. It's why some people have been bathing in the laundry area again. They're clothed," Riz hastily assured her. "They splash their clothes too so it soaks up the water and maybe gets some of the sweat off. So nothing too serious. The medics haven't reported anyone fainting from the heat today, so we're good there too."

Lori nodded. "Binder Shanalorre, are there any deficiencies we need to be aware of?"

"Nothing beyond the usual expenditures so far, Great Binder," Shanalorre said. "Intakes of seel meat continue to dip from the effects of the heat on the seels and those who hunt them with Karina, but we are managing to make up for it with increased beast hunting."

"Will that be sustainable?"

"I do not know, Great Binder. Unlike with the seels, I am unaware of the particulars of beast hunting. However, Karina has stated her intention to wake up before surprise while it's still cool to try and take the seels by surprise."

"Remind her that she's not allowed to do so without someone there to get her out of the water if she should fall in. Riz, find out if the hunters think if they can make up the difference the lack of seel meat is going to cause."

Reluctantly, Riz pulled out her knew bone tablet, writing something with a burnt stick. "I'll ask, Great Binder."

Lori turned back to—she checked her rock—Kolinh. "Engineer Kolinh. Are there currently any deficiencies or problems in any of our ongoing projects that need to be brought to my attention?"

"Nothing beyond the heat, Great Binder," the man said. "We've shifted to waking up before dawn so we can get as much work done before the sun rises properly again, just as we did last summer, and have done what we can to do a little work in the evenings when it's cooler, but given the lack of true urgency some have elected to simply sleep through the heat." He spoke confidently, likely aware she'd already discussed this matter with Rian. "It helps that the dragon's passing caused so little damage to buildings."

Lori nodded. She'd done what she could to ameliorate the heat where people were working, but due to a lack of stationary objects she could anchor them to, bindings of darkwisps to cast shade on work areas wasn't really viable when she wasn't actively maintaining them, and she had better uses for her time. The best she'd been able to do was anchor bindings of airwisps and firewisps to make cooling breezes, but even that was of limited utility. She couldn't put those on their fields, for example, where the farmers were still working to ensure that their crops were continuing to grow. The soil had turned slightly caustic, and they were working to address the imbalance lest more of their crops die. "Very well. Tomorrow, I'll be going to River's Fork to begin construction there. Riz, Shanalorre, the two of you are coming with me…"

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A Coldhold Interlude

I was glad I'd had a roof extended to the back of the Coldhold. It solved so many problems, not the least of which was how hot it got when someone was operating the tiller. The sun still managed to shine on whoever was steering during the morning, but that was a tolerable heat.

The trip downriver was routine enough that Yhorj handled the steering while everyone else was cleaning and butchering the seel we'd caught earlier… from the shade cast by the roof. I, being the ‘do everything I ask people to do’ leader that I was, wasn’t as lucky, standing at the front of the boat with only a woven reed hat to keep the sun off held in one hand as I acted as the lookout to give Liggs a break from the hot sun.

It was a necessary post, since despite how wide and deep the river was most of the time, it had submerged rocks in the most awkward places and not all of them had seels conveniently resting on them to mark them out. While I was familiar with most of the rocks between Lorian and River’s Fork, I wasn’t as knowledgeable about the rocks between River’s Fork and the hidden bay that the river let out to. Neither were the rest of the salt crew. While they’d done the trip several times already, it wasn’t yet routine enough that they could navigate it in their sleep—metaphorically—and so the watch was still kept.

Also, this way I didn't have to join in on the cleaning and butchering.

An abuse of my position? Maybe, but I had to stand out here under the sun with only a hat to keep cool with, so who was really suffering?

“You all right up there, Lord Rian?”

Looking directly in front of the ship and not seeing any signs of rocks, I risked turning to look over my shoulder at Hans and gave him a smile. “I’m fine! How about you four? Done yet?” It was very hard to tell when the process of butchering was done by smell alone.

Hans made a face. “Almost done, Lord Rian. Just washing them up and putting them in the cold box. We'll have something more to eat besides the slugs Cyuw found under those rocks this morning.”

"More for me, then!" a cheerful voice called.

Hans and I shuddered. Every time we’d had to eat slug, I told myself it was just like eating tongue, and kept calling myself a liar every time after I was again proven wrong.

“Well, remember not to wash off with bloody water,” I said, going back to facing ahead and went back to keeping a lookout, doing my best to keep covered under the hat. Just because I had darker skin than everyone else didn't mean I didn't get sunburned. Also, it was hot. Agonizingly hot. A part of me wondered if all the sweating I was doing was helping wash off Iridescence. It was technically moving water all over me, after all.

I checked my shadow, but it was still angled. Not yet noon then, which was when we were scheduled to take a dip and wash break, when we jumped into the river and splashed water on things to wash off Iridescence growth. It was particularly important for the stove and cold box bound tools, since unlike the water jet driver bound tool that propelled the Coldhold, those two bound tools weren't under water and getting constantly washed. Lori had said they should last as long as we washed the bound tools every day to free the wisps from being trapped by Iridescence, and I hoped she was right.

Still, that was a problem for later. For the moment, all I had to do was keep watch for rocks, keep the sun off me and relax.

And it was very easy to relax. True, the high-pitched bugsong coming from the iridescence-covered trees on either side of the river could be annoying when you were trying to sleep, but since I wasn't, it provided a nice counterpoint to the sound of the water rushing through the bound tool that moved the Coldhold. On either side, trees covered by iridescence swayed slightly in a breeze that I didn't feel. Probably because we were in the middle of the river. Winds cause by temperature difference went in the direction of relative cold to relative warmth. Maybe we'd feel it if the ship we were on wasn't made of bound ice that didn't exchange temperature?

Even without the wind though, the view was pretty, in the way that a raging fire was pretty even as it destroyed. The trees and rocks and the very ground shifted color as they moved past and the angle I saw things changed. The treetops seemed like a shimmering ocean as leaves and branches swayed to the wind, and the glittering fall of Iridescence dust seemed to color the very air. Bugs shone with colors as they flew through the air, the Iridescence dusting their bodies refracting the air.

The stick in my hand swung, a precise move the slammed into a bug that had gotten too close for my comfort. The stick struck solidly, and the bug went tumbling and splashed into the water. I watched the bug as the water washed away the Iridescence on it, revealing the dull, dark colors beneath that, ironically, blended with the water very well. The bug didn't struggle for long before a dark, sinuous shape emerged from below. With a splash and a flash of pale teeth, the bug was in a seel's mouth even as the fursh dove deep once more, it's long body undulating to propel it through the water.

It wasn't the only one. This far down river from the two demesne I had to help keep alive, the fursh didn't have even the little bit of caution that the seels Karina had hunted so assiduously had for anything people-shaped. If it weren't for the seel blood and offal that was still occasionally dripping into the river, the seels would have been curiously rubbing up against the hull and following in the Coldhold's wake. I'd seen it before when we'd gone down to collect salt from the ocean.

At least they weren't climbing onto the outriggers.

I reached down into the bucket next to me and splashed my arms with water to cool them down. "Rock ahead," I called, "twenty paces out! Slow and veer left!"

"Slowing and left," Yhorj acknowledged. It had taken a while for them to see the necessity of the call and respond to make sure that important instructions were heard, but everyone was following it now. It helped that the sound of the water jet driver was pervasive enough that it could be mistaken for loud, and people instinctively tried to talk over it.

I reluctantly put the hat on my head as I grabbed the solid oar, watching both the rock I'd identified and the water ahead of us, in case I needed to use to oar to try and assist in pushing the Coldhold to the side of the rock, but it wasn't necessary. "You're past it! Straighten up!"

"Straightening up!"

With the cold box filling up, we were still on the easy part of this journey. It would get a lot harder once we left the river and the cove at the mouth of it and started crossing the open ocean. Despite what we were using it for, the Coldhold wasn’t really meant to be a deep-water ship. It was too broad, and the draft too shallow. Without the outriggers on either side, extending out on the strongest wooden beams they'd had, it would have been only a matter of time before the waves capsized the ship. As it was, they had to sail near the shallows so that the waves wouldn't overwhelm them, which was why the last journey to Covehold had taken so long.

They'd managed it last time, so I was confident the Coldholdwould survive the trip again. Almost certainly. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully?

It was one of my ulterior motives for getting Lori to agree to recruiting a Deadspeaker. With a Deadspeaker who, no offense to Shana, actually knew what they were doing. I wanted hulls. Solid wooden hulls! The kind could be fused to a keel and weighed down with rocks, the kind that has a draft that will work for proper sea-going water craft!

Yes, all the stuff I told Lori about food production applies too, but why only try to solve one problem with one solution? And maybe once Lori grows to trust the men or women I recruit, maybe she'll be amenable to letting them set up an allied demesne near us. With someone to keep trees growing even as they were cut down for wood, and Lori's skill with Whispering, we'd be able to really raise living standards! No more people sleeping one family to a bed! No more single room houses! No more roof repairs! Well, probably still the roof repairs, but they'd probably be done a lot faster with a Deadspeaker!

Admittedly, that was unlikely to happen any time soon. Lori had only authorized this to secure their food supply after the recent losses from the dragon, so that was going to be their priority, and if the past year was any indication, that was probably going to take a long time. However, as lord, I had to think of the future between tomorrow and Lori's far-off dreams of grandeur. I had to think of building more storage buildings, of educating our children, of keeping everyone gainfully employed and occupied, and even of the financial system neither Lori or I really want to try to build but was going to be inevitable so I might as well get ahead of it.

I knew Lori probably had her own opinions on those subjects—I even knew what some of them were—but until she actually mentioned a specific thing she wanted done out loud, I had to organize things as best as I could. The plans for teaching the children how to read and write were already in place, ready to be enacted when I got back.

Hopefully Lori would let me hold classes in the Dungeon. Learning was hard enough without attaching bad memories of being hot and bored to it too.

Those were all future problems, though. Right now, my problems consisted of washing off Iridescence, not getting heatstroke or sunburn, and keeping us from crashing into any rocks. And in the near future, I… well, I had to figure out how to sell wispbeads in sufficient quantities that we actually made a profit on this trip. I was already partly resigned to the thought that we might have to sell directly to Covehold's government and let them worry about distributing the wispbeads as a fuel for bound tools. I hoped I didn't have to do that, but if we became successful and their Dungeon Binder couldn't reproduce what Lori had done in making beads, it was only a matter of time before they passed laws to get their cut of our potential bead sales.

…

Well, that was a future problem as well. For now, I had an easy day in front of me—the sun not withstanding—after almost a month of stress and work.

I reached back down to the bucket next to me and splashed water on my arms again, watching the colors of the Iridescence shift on the wind, and hoped that Umu, Mikon and Riz were getting along without me. And that Lori wasn't getting too aggravated. And Shana wasn't working herself to the bone. And—

Stupid worries. Leave me alone, I'm resting!