Weekly Digest 111 - (#356 - #358) (Patreon)

The Interview

Telref, I soon found, was a man barely holding himself together and constantly on the edge of despair. It was in the tired way he sat, the tone of his voice as he spoke, and the air of needing sleep. He seemed a worrier, probably worrying about his work, his wife, his son, whether they could afford the rent on where they lived, whether they could afford food, whether they'd be able to afford heat in the coming winter…

In other words, he was a perfectly normal, responsible adult with a family.

I liked to think that he'd be happier living in Lorian or River's Fork as our resident non-Shana Deadspeaker. It would remove a lot of his worries… at least until Lori had to implement putting us on a bead-based economy again, but as a resident Deadspeaker, I was fairly certain Lori would continue to support him, since he'd still be a very valuable worker. I would just need to keep Lori from overworking him.

…

Maybe if I had Lori let me take care of assigning what work he had to do…

As to skills, Telref had needed to develop his abilities in Deadspeaking along pragmatic lines to make a living that would support his family, meaning he'd had to learn to do a little of everything over the years. Woodworking, boneworking, leatherworking…

"…though I'm not very good at deadcraft," he admitted, letting out a tired breath. Over the course of our conversation, I'd realized he wasn't actually sighing at the end of every sentence, it just cameut that way.

"Oh? Why not?" I asked, genuinely curious. Deadcraft and healing were what Deadspeakers were best known for, even if it wasn’t the only thing they could do, the way Horotracts where known for making rooms bigger on the inside and Mentalists were known for having perfect memories. "We don't really have much call or need for undead, so there's no call for it—" Lori probably wasn't going to let anyone else handle the corpses of Elceena and Ahnree, if only because she'd want to do it herself, "—but why not?"

"I've just never been very good at getting them to do anything complicated. I can make a leg move, and I can even move two, but I can't get them to move without the whole corpse falling over…"

"Huh…" I tapped my lips thoughtfully. "Could you, say, use a beast leg to—"

"Make a dead leg driver? Yes, I can do that," Telreth said, "though I wouldn't recommend it. It needs a lot of imbuement for it to work for a reasonable length of time, or else I'll need to sit by it and maintain it all day."

I nodded. "Well, something to keep in mind, but deadcrafting isn't something we need back home." We ate most parts of beasts and seels, so except for the bones, there wasn't exactly a lot of material for deadcrafting. "The woodpressing, woodworking and your familiarity with farming meanings are what we're looking for. What about healing meanings?"

"I can do the expected things," Telref said. "Knit flesh, mend bone, repair muscle and blood vessels… I can also mitigate symptoms, but I'm not very good at cleansing illness."

"You can't do it?" I said. It was hardly necessary, since we had Shana, but…

"No, I can, but… I can't do it very quickly," he said. "I have to take it slow so that I don't make any mistakes…"

Ah. "I see…" A thought occurred to me. "How much of what you have problems with could be solved if you had beads or someone else to provide more imbuement?"

He blinked. "Well… it would certainly help…"

That meant Shanalorre would be able to help… maybe? At least very least Telref, or anyone else we recruited, wouldn't need to do all the imbuing by themselves.

"Now, do you have any questions of your own?" I asked. I didn’t let my nervousness show, hoping he didn’t ask anything awkward, like 'what is our Dungeon Binder like?'.

"Actually, yes," he said. "Previously, you said that there would be a house provided that we wouldn't have to pay rent on…"

"Yes," I said. "Now, you wouldn't be the first owners, and at one point it was used for storage, but if you choose to accept our offer and move to our demesne, you're free to stay there for as long as you want."

"And… that's it?" he said, looking dubious.

"Well, it hasn't been lived in for a while—as I said it was used for storage—so there might be mold," I admitted. "We've done what we could, but you might need to remove that, or fuse new wood into some spots. But don't worry. We have several houses for you to pick from, so you can choose where you want to live."

He frowned. "Hasn't the house been maintained?"

"It's one of several houses that were originally made by a Deadspeaker who is no longer with the demesne," I said. Technically true. "They made them by hollowing out and reshaping each house from a tree. To be fair, the resulting houses are sizeable and could fit a family, and they're still in good repair. We've done what maintenance we could with our carpenters, but…"

"But they'd need to cut the wood," Telref said, nodding. "And the that kind of Deadspoken would have little in the way of flat surfaces or straight lines, making it hard for them to work without it without irrevocably damaging the structure or taking an unbinderly amount of time."

“It doesn’t help that glue isn’t as plentiful as we’d like,” I added. Extracting hide glue unfortunately ruined the skins such that they didn’t make for very good material afterwards, and while we had plenty more bone, Lori always had uses for it, not to mention everyone else. “I’ll be honest, you’ll probably going to become a local repairman when you’re not being asked to help increase and accelerate crop yields.”

He made a face at that last, clearly recalling an unpleasant experience. “That’s not an easy meaning to apply,” he said.

“I see,” I said. The late Binder Koshay had done it, but in hindsight, he’d been working with the advantages of a Dungeon Binder, which if Lori was any example were considerable. “Which aspects in particular make it difficult?”

“Imbuement,” he said immediately. “Unless you’re willing to spend talkbeads like water, any meanings I place to accelerate a crop’s growth or ripening wouldn’t last very long. There are ways, I’ve heard… but I don’t know them.”

I nodded. “Well, it was a hope, but not something we placed all our hopes on. Your woodworking experience is more important.” At least, it was for me. I wanted an actual wooden-hulled boat! And with his assistance, we could finally do maintenance on Lori’s Boat, and maybe build some new ones! “If the house isn’t to your liking, you’re free to select any of the other unoccupied houses in the demesne, or try and improve it. As I said, we’ll assist you in any repairs and additions you want to make, provided they’re reasonable. No two-floor mansions with multiple rooms and private dragon shelter.”

“Does it have a kitchen?”

I paused to consider that. “There’s the firepiti mentioned…” I said slowly, “but if you mean a kitchen with a sink and stove… no. However, there’s a communal kitchen and dining hall so everyone can eat and socialize together, which also helps prevent fire hazards. But if having a kitchen is really important to you, I’m sure something can be arranged.” Lori could probably put up a low-effort stone addition to the side of one River’s Fork’s houses, and Telref could poke a hole in the wall… Or maybe Lori could use a water cuter. “However, if you’re concerned about food, then our demesne is willing to shoulder the expense of providing food for yourself and your family, within reason. You’re not going to get grossly fat, but you certainly won’t be living on almost-water soup. It’s closer to meat and mushroom broth stew. Actually, it’s mostly meat and mushroom broth stew.”

Telref looked suspicious, but behind that suspicion was hope. I actually felt almost bad about that. It was the kind of hope that the unscrupulous took advantage of, building it up so that people would stop listening to their good sense before those terrible people struck. I had to remind myself that I was only creatively omitting things because believing how Lori ran her demesnes was hard until you actually saw it for yourself. “Free food as well?” he said.

“I know it sounds suspicious, but we’re willing to provide free room and board to have a skilled Deadspeaker come to make their home in our demesne,” I said. “In addition to that, you and your family will also have free use of the local bath house, as well as receive a soap allowance.”

He blinked at that. “Soap allowance?” he repeated.

“You don’t wantsoap for bathing and doing the laundry?”

“No, no… I mean, yes, we’d want soap…” he said.

“Well, you’ll have it,” I said brightly. “It certainly helps keep the number of people who get sick down, so that will be less work for you and the local doctors. Do you have any more questions?”

“You… mentioned free use of the bath house?”

I nodded. “Yes. Ah, I’m afraid I might have been accidentally misleading. The bath house is free for anyone to use, at all times of the year. Usually, the bath water is heated, especially during the window, but because of the summer heat the water isn’t being heated at the moment is the cooler water is more comfortable. However, come the next season the water will no doubt be heated again.”

“Your bath house is free to use for everyone?” Telref said, that mix of hope and suspicion in his eyes again.

“Yes,” I said. “I admit, it’s one of the best parts of living in our demesne. When I left to come here, people were bathing three times a day because it was so hot.” I was suddenly very conscious of how sweaty I was, how much my clothes smelled and how itchy I was under it, and had to resist the urge to start scratching. "Do you have any more questions?"

For a moment, he sat there, his breathing even as he considered thoughfully. "What exactly do you expect me to do, should I join your demesne?" he said slowly.

I sighed. "Unfortunately, a little of everything," I said. "While we have carpenters, we no longer had a Deadpseaker to help them, so you'll be asked to help with woodworking. The farmers will want your help to try and accelerate the growth of the crops so we have mave more harvests per year. The hunters and tannerswould will want your help fusing skins, furs and leather together so we can have larger sheets… I'm not going to lie, you'll probably be busy for the first few weeks after you arrive, but you'll be able to work at your own pace as long as you contribute to the demesne, like assisting at harvest time and things like that. You'll also be asked to assist our Dungeon Binder if they need anything built with Deadspoken wood, but beyond that, you're free to do as you please, within reason. Is there anything you particulalrly want to do?"

The question made him hesitate, before he eventually shook his head. "No…" he said, "…nothing in partocular…"

I nodded. "Do you have any intention of trying to establish your own demesne?"

That actually made Telref blink before he let out an abrupt snort and shook his head. "No," he said. "I have no intention of establishing my own demesne. Would I have stayed here in Covehold if I did?"

"Well, I didn't want to assume," I said. "Though, if I may ask… why did you come all the way out here, then?"

Talref fell silent for a moment, suddenly looking more tired than before. "I was young and foolish," he said eventually. "I outgrew it."

Ah. One of those kinds of regrets. "I won't pry, then," I said. I should probablyask if he'd ever been accused of a crime… but there was really no way for me to confirm or deny his answer. I'd just have to keep and eye on him when we got back, if he decided to join us. "Though in that case, what are you looking for now, that you're considering joining our demesne?

This time he actually did sigh. "I'm hoping for a place we don't have to pay rent," Telref said. "All the rest… as long as we don't have to pay rent."

"You won't have to pay rent," I promised. "Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

For a moment, Telref almost shook his head, paused, then shook his head harder, as if clearing his head. "I should have asked at the start… which demesne are you with?"

"Lorian Demesne," I said brightly.

Telref frowned. "I've never heard of it."

"We're a year-old demesne a long way upriver, so we're pretty far from Covehold," I said. "I'm pretty sure we're the demesne farthest from Covehold right now. That's probably why you’ve never heard of us. Not surprising, since this is only the second time we've come down to this demesne. We haven't had a chance to make a proper name for ourselves yet. Hopefully that changes soon."

"Ah… I see…"

"Do you have any further questions?" I asked.

He paused, then shook his head.

I nodded. "Now, I realized this is a big decision, so you don't need to answer me now. Take some time to consider the matter. Go and speak to your wife about it, decide together. When you've decided, you can find me having dinner at the Shady Stand. You know where that is?"

"I've heard of it…"

"Great!" I said cheerfully. "Now, I'd just like to say our demesne would be very happy to have a man of your talents joining us, but if you choose another course, then I'll understand. Good luck to you, Wizard Telref. I hope you find what you need."

It was an awkward parting as I stood up, prompting him to do the same, and I extended my hand so we could exchange grips. I watched as he walked out to the stockyard, presumably to meet with the maanger there to see about the woodpresser job.

I closed my eyes, bowed my head for a moment and sighed.

Well… I probably wasn't seeing that man again. After all, why take a suspicious offer to relocate when one could have a nice, secure job that they knew how to do?

Still, it was probably good practice, and now Ravia had fulfilled his part of our wager.

Shaking my head, I stood up to wake Hans and Liggs. Time to go back to looking for Deadspeakers…

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Looking For Deadspeakers

I felt better once we went back to Master Yhosed's workshop and collected our three walking sticks. There was just something about having a sturdy stick in hand that was reassuring. Very good for poking, swinging, hooking legs and arms… leaning on when my feet started aching…

…

Why do my feet ache so much? I'm still young and healthy, especially now since Shana's healed me once or twice and probably fixed things I didn't know needed fixing! I'm only twenty-two years old! I mean, I don't join the logging teams every day, but I don't hold them back when I join them, and I do a lot of walking all the time! Why do my feet ache so much!-?

…

Well, my feet aside, I had to get back to work.

Trying to find other Deadspeakers to recruit was hot work. After all, I couldn't just walk into any place with a Deadspeaker's sign and ask them to move to our demesne. Unless I had the luck to find someone sufficiently dissatisfied with their life, or the person in question was having a very terrible week, we weren't going to get any recruits that way.

Over the next three days, I asked around some of the carpentry workshops in the area, especially the ones to whom I'd sold beads to, inquiring about the local Deadspeakers while they I still had some goodwill. While there were no doubt Deadspeakers who were gainfully employed in one way or another, there were probably still those with the terrible luck of being unemployed because the workshops couldn't take on any more people as regular employees. Granted, these people might also be unemployable for one reason or another, but not all of them would be.

Between all this walking and the information I was able to learn about talking to people at the Shady Stand, we were able to meet and try to recruit over twenty people over that time. The key word, unfortunately, was 'try'.

Some of the Deadspeakers were far too young, still in their mid-teens and either apprenticed to older Deadspeakers for training, or attending one of the local schools that had managed to establish themselves. I wasn't sure as to the exact particulars of the latter arrangement, but casual inquiry gave me the impression that the schools subsisted on a combination of civic responsibility on the parts of the wizards teaching, tuition fees, support from the demesne, and local good will.

While the young Deadspeakers had been spoken well of by the carpenters I'd talked to, I'd thought that their references to 'young' someone was simply in comparison to them, which had been the case a few times. One carpenter had referred to a Deadspeaker as 'young', and it turned out the wizard in question actually just looked younger than them. No, it turned out some of the woodworkers had been literal. A few looked young enough to for me to think of them as children, and Lori probably would have as well.

There were older ones in their late-teens, those nearing the end of their apprenticeship or schooling, but many of them were shackled by debts they'd undertaken to pay for their education. The young Deadspeakers also probably needed seasoning in the application of their skills and abilities, which was probably safer for them to have in the controlled conditions of whatever workplace they'd eventually go to.

I could still have recruited some of the older ones, the ones who were recommended as really good or talented… but unfortunately, there was always a final factor that made me remove them from conservation: the size of their families. More often than not, the very talented, driven ones that I might be inclined to recruit had large families to support… which probably explained why they were so driven and worked so hard. If we'd be recruiting them, it was obvious we'd need to bring their family as well, which… well, often had far too many people for us to safely transport on the Coldhold. Not unless we didn't take on any cargo, and even then, it would far too overcrowded for safety.

Recruiting only the older of the young Deadspeakers was an option… but there were still their debts to consider. If we recruited only them, they'd at the very least want to be able to send beads back to their families to pay for their debts. Besides the fact we couldn't really paythem the way our demesnes were, Lori would be very annoyed at her having to restructure the current economy of her demesnes just to pay one person, and we wouldhave restructure, because as easygoing as everyone has become with Lori's rule, no one is going to be happy that only a one person in the entire demesne is getting paid.

Then there were people with difficult attitudes. Fortunately, there weren't many of them and none of them were belligerent, but I doubted Lori would appreciate a Deadspeaker who took the opportunity to slack off every chance they got. It would also be terrible for general morale. The same for the one who was far too flirtatious. In their defense, from what I heard they did very good carpentry work, but… well, at the very least, I put them at the very bottom of the list of maybes.

There were those who just refused our offer, though they did so quite politely, though I did make sure to mention the free baths. That admittedly made some people very thoughtful, but in the end they still refused, and I didn't press. However, some of them were kind enough to recommend other Deadspeakers who they thought might be more amenable.

Despite all that, we had some promising candidates.

Taeclas was a pleasant young woman who'd been recommended by two nearby carpentry workshops and three of the Deadspeakers we'd met with earlier. While a skilled Deadspeaker, she was currently not regularly employed by any workshop because she was considered a bit slow when implementing meanings as well as not very well-verse in manual carpentry, so she was less desirable to employ compared to many of her peers who could work faster and assist in the more manual aspects of the craft beyond carrying wood around.

While that wasn't the best when it came to any worker, it also wasn't the worst, and beyond the speed in which she worked, those who mentioned her said her work was exceptional. It was simply that in the workshops, fast and good was more desirable than not-as-fast and exceptional. It sounded like something that would sort itself out with enough experience and learning manual carpentry, and given the sorts of projects we were likely to ask her to do in Lorian and River's Fork such thoroughness probably wasn't a bad thing. She was also skilled very skilled in meanings meant for farming, something we found out when we learned she and her wife were growing pots of vegetables in their house, which supplemented their diet as well as their income.

As a recruit she was almost perfect, but Taeclas was a bit reluctant to uproot herself and her wife to move to another demesne now that they'd established themselves in Covehold. They promised to discuss it and I told them I would return in a few days to hear their decision, as well as help them with packing if they decided favorably.

Sharrod—yes, he had apparently been named after the bulb vegetable—was another candidate, an even-tempered and supposedly industrious young man who wasn't regularly employed because in addition to being the bead-winner of his family, he was also the oldest and had to take care of his three younger cousins. It was a recent change, as his aunt and uncle had died over the winter. I hadn't gotten any specific details as to how and hadn't pressed, but given he was a Deadspeaker, it probably wasn't from disease. Hopefully.

Since then, he'd had to go from being a regular worker to a part time or temporary one, or at least that was what we'd been told. When we met, I got the impression that some of his irregular hours was also because he became anxious when away from his cousins for too long, a fact that he admitted to with some embarrassment. Ah. Employers didn't like it when you started acting unreliable, after all. They'd no doubt be more than happy hire him again as a regular when he was more reliable again, but… well, that seemed to be unlikely to happen soon. Still, he was able to subsist on small jobs from the workshops for now, but that probably was not sustainable in the long run.

The Deadspeaker had listened quite politely when we had met in their home, his cousins sitting with us, and had asked me several questions about how safe our demesne was. He seemed interested to hear if there was any violent altercations, and I answered honestly that while there was roughhousing, it was generally usually resolved in a friendly manner. I also confirmed that there were no gangs in our demesne, which was probably a sign of what happened to his aunt and uncle.

By the end of our discussion, he seemed very interested in accepting, and said he would take some time to think about it.

There had also been Master Yhosed's recommendation, Lidzuga, who seemed about my age or at most a year or so older. He was skilled in Deadspeaking, friendly, hardworking, and seemed to be making a decent living, so I was a bit confused as to why he was being recommended, since it seemed very unlikely he would want to accept.

The answer to that turned out to be very simple: he'd come to the new continent searching for adventure, and now after working to rebuild his savings, he wanted to move out to one of the outer demesnes—as the least-developed demesnes furthest from Covehold were called, which… well, we qualified, so fair enough—to have that adventure. Thankfully, as a devout follower of the Mysteries of Alknowledge, his idea of adventure was being among the first to document the native plants, beasts, bugs and fursh, which was admittedly hard to do around Covehold because the march of progress had driven them out, killed them, eaten them, used them as building material, or some combination thereof. If he wanted to record anything new, a demesne far from Covehold was the best option.

On the one hand, he seemed a wonderful candidate for his skills, and as a follower of the Mysteries, he probably knew useful things beyond Deadspeaking. On the other hand… I felt very reluctant to recruit a Deadspeaker who wanted to go and be adventurous in his spare time. Especially one that wanted to observe, document and sketch the local beast population, study their habits, sketch them… I mean, I suppose that the hunters could accompany him, but Lori would probably be very annoyed about having a Deadspeaker who'd take long breaks from working to conduct such studies. Still, of the candidates so far, he was the most enthusiastic of about the idea of leaving Covehold and heading out to a distant demesne he'd never heard of once I told him we were from really far away.

It was vaguely concerning, actually. No wonder Master Yhosed had recommended him to me. I probably looked halfway trustworthy, so I was unlikely—well, far less likely—to rob Lidzuga and just leave him for dead somewhere.

Correction, Lidzuga and his sister. Because I learned at the end of our discussion that he also had a sister, but he was sure he could convince her moving was a good idea…

Uh… not my problem. Though I got the feeling the sister was probably the one who was going to decide whether they'd be coming with us or not.

Crucially, when asked, all of them denied any desire to found their own demesnes. Lidzuga said he had no need for it since he'd be living in a demense anyway, and actually ruling a demesne would be a distraction. Taeclas also said it seemed like hard work, and not something she'd be good at, and Sharrod said it was a position that would take up far too much of his time.

That was good enough for me. Hopefully Lori would accept it. Well, we'd already be there when she found out, so she really wouldn't have any choice…

After three days, we had to stop the search. Enough of the goods we had ordered from Emborin and Sons had been assembled that Ravia said they were ready to start delivering them to the Coldhold. That meant that the boat couldn't set out and gather salt that day, and I needed to be there supervise and direct the others as they arranged the cargo amid the space available.

After we sold the salt we'd gathered to Ravia again—we only had one barrel, since the priority was filling our water barrels again—it was time to move all the cargo into the ship. It took most of that day, since we had to balance and secure everything so that the Coldhold wouldn't tilt too far to one side or the other. The bound tools and some of the things that didn't need to be washed—like metal ingots and bar stocks, coils and coils of wire as well as the containers of ink—was stored in the front room, while the bundles of paper, bolts of cloth, books and anything else were put in the cargo boxes, sealing the lids shut so that no one could accidentally reach inside. We'd probably have to tell whoever we recruit not to touch them, but the darkness-shrouded appearance of the containers would likely make people careful around them.

By the time we finished loading the ship with most of the things we'd bought, it was mid-afternoon. To thank Ravia and the workers who'd pushed the carts with all the goods for waiting while we got the ship sorted out, I treated them to lunch when we'd stopped to eat in the middle of the day, which was gladly accepted.

"It was an education for myself as well," Ravia said as we ate. "I had not realized the importance of properly distributing weight aboard a boat. In hindsight, it seems obvious, but…" He shook his head.

"Thinking of commissioning your own boat so you can sell to the demesnes upriver more easily?" I asked.

"It's an idea that's been bandied about," he admitted, "but it was decided that we should wait until there are more experienced sailors to advise us."

"Given how your rivals likely have more beads to draw on, you'd likely be outbid. You'd probably do better to get the experience yourself by funding your own boat and crew," I said. I waved my hand at the men. "None of us had any sailoring experience before we built the Coldhold. We learned as we went."

"That has also been suggested, but the investment…"

I shrugged. "Why don't you fund a saltboat or two and work your way up from there? As an investment, it's not bad. Helps you cut out the middle man, so it might even pay for itself by the time you think you have enough experience to move on to larger ships?"

Ravia blinked, then tilted his head. "A sound proposal… I'll pass it on to my father."

"Glad to help," I said. "And since we're good friends, I won't charge you a consultation fee."

Ravia laughed. "That is greatly appreciated."

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The Ship

That night, after we'd loaded the Coldhold with most of the cargo that they'd bought from Emborin and Sons, I finally decided to indulge myself and went to have an early dinner at Engario's to have their highly recommended doughstrands.

It was absolutely delicious. The doughstrands were boiled, and then fried in beast fat with diced vauang and sharrods, fatty pieces of beast meat and mushrooms, with a dash of salt and ground green nigrum to taste. It was all I could do not to cry, it tasted so good.

Only my caution of the possibility we'd get waylaid on the way back to the docks kept me from eating until I was too full to move.

Afterwards, I took Cottsy, Yhorj and Multaw to have dinner at the Shady Stand, just leaning back with a meat dumpling as they ate. Tomorrow, I was going to be visiting our recruit candidates to see who needed help with packing and bringing their possessions to the Coldhold, so tonight I didn't have to work at listening for any possible people to recruit. Instead, I was able to just relax and talk to the people who came to sit with us, some of whom we'd met on previous nights.

"So, how's the search going for you, Rian?" Aran asked. He worked at a local papermaker's, something I'd wished I'd known before I'd placed an order with Ravia, but that was how life was.

"Pretty good, pretty good," I said cheerfully as I waited my cup of broth to cool. There was a little skim of oil on top, but I didn't mind. "We've found some good ones, and I'm checking up on them tomorrow. Thanks for the recommendation by the way, but they weren't interested."

"Ah, too bad," Aran's brother Golto said. He also worked at the papermaker's with his brother. "Still, glad to hear you've found someone to take back home with you. Most people wait until the ships come in with fresh blood to go recruiting. If you'd been here earlier in the spring, you might have had an easier time."

"I'll remember that for next time," I said, even as I wondered if there was some kind of schedule of boat arrivals. In hindsight, I probably should have asked. "Still, better safe than sorry. Wouldn't want to be caught by a dragon out at sea, after all."

The men at the table all nodded at that. Yes, no one wanted to be caught by a dragon at any time.

We left earlier than we usually did, as I didn’t have to stay to talk to people about recommendations. It was actually a nice change of pace. The streets were still fairly full of people out and about, either heading home or stopping somewhere for dinner, and I felt fairly safe that we wouldn’t be ambushed. Buying drinks for all those people the previous nights had been very obvious, and clearly a large expenditure. While I liked to think that the people I had shared a table and conversation with wouldn’t deliberately spread word about me, the fact I had done the same thing again the next night, and then the night after that, and then the night after that…

Well, it was fairly obvious I had so many beads on me that I was willing to share them.

And doing so every night, at the same place, for the same length of time… well, it was predictable. It was easy to observe where we went when we left the Shady Stand. It was easy to count how many of us walked together, and therefore how many people it took to outnumber us. Every time we left the tavern, I lived in dread of it finally being the night that our luck ran out, and some toughs coming at us for the beads I was carrying. It was why we stuck to the wider streets, so that it would be harder for us to get hemmed in.

Fortunately, we didn't have to deal with that tonight either, though every walk back I feared this would be it. The four of us reached the relative safety of the docks, greeted the dockworkers patrolling the docks that night as we gave them a warm paper bag full of meat dumplings.

"We're going to miss this when you leave," Plet, the night dockmaster, said wistfully as the bag of dumplings was passed around. He and the night shift usually sat outside of their office to be take advantage of the breeze coming from the ocean. "Most of the people that dock here give us nothing but trouble."

"We'll be back then," I said cheerfully. "Thanks for all the hard work."

From what I had heard, while the docks had used to get a few gangs trying to get into the warehouses or make trouble for the new arrivals when a ship came in, the miscreants had gotten bolder since the incident when someone had set a warehouse on fire and stolen a ship. I'd been woken up by the men once when they'd heard a commotion at the dock entrance, which had turned out to be a gang trying to climb get into the docks. The dockworkers had run them off, but one of them—Ryloi, if I remember correctly—had gotten hurt by a knife in the process.

The man had been fine two days later, soft pink flesh the only sign of the wound after a Deadspeaker had seen to him—the docks apparently had an arrangement with a local Deadspeaker for their workers—but it had certainly made the men more vigilant about keeping watch. They'd actually brought up perhaps taking the boat to sleep out in the open water again, though I'd eventually decided we were reasonably safe if we kept watch, and the time saved in the morning was worth it.

So why Cyuw woke me up in the middle of the night, I went into a controlled panic too wake myself up in case something was happening that I had to react to immediately, like a gang having set another warehouse on fire. "Wazapenin?" I eloquently managed to get out. The wisplight and air blower was near the back where it wouldn't shine on our eyes and could circulate air from the hatch, but there was enough illumination to sting my eyes as I opened them. One hand patted around me for either my new walking stick or my belt knife, the big one just barely not suited for chopping wood and undergrowth.

"Lord Rian, there's a boat coming towards us," Cyuw said, speaking quietly.

My hand felt the cane and I pulled it towards me as I blinked and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. "A… boat?" I said, trying to wrap around… Oh. I shook my head again and got to my feet. "Right, boat, boat… how close are they?" A boat coming towards us at this time of night— "Is it morning already?"

Cyuw shook his head. "Still the middle of the night, Lord Rian."

Right… a boat coming towards us at this time of night was probably some kind of mischief at best. If it was something malicious… "Go back up and get on top," I said, finally looking around for my knife instead of feeling for it. Where was…? Oh, right, it's under my pillow. "Make sure to stand somewhere they can see you and make it obvious you can see them." A paranoid thought occurred to me. "But be ready to get behind something if they have a weapon or…" Ugh, I was still sleep-stupid. "Be careful. I'll be right behind you."

"Do we wake up the others?" he asked.

"Be ready to, but not just yet. Let me see what’s going on first." If it was something malicious…

I got to my feet and debated whether or not t put my boots on before deciding I didn’t want to give Umu and Mikon more work to do by poking a hole in my socks. Quickly pulling on my footwear, I grabbed my cane in one hand and my knife in the other, heading towards the ladder and hatch at the back.

Then I had to leave my knife on top of the driver bound tool since I needed one hand free to climb the ladder up. The cold night air struck my face as I poked my head out of the deck, and a shivered a little, but the sudden shock helped push me a little further towards wakefulness. Once I stood on deck, I looked around. The moons were out in various degrees of fullness, giving me enough light to not worry about my footing as I looked out over the water, looking for—

Oh.

"Cyuw," I said, "I think I've told you all before, but just to be clear. If it's our size or bigger, it's a ship, if it's smaller, it's a boat. That's definitely a ship." I shook my head, rubbing my eyes again. "Uh, you can come down from there, I don't think they need to see you after—no, wait, put the wisplight were they can see it so they don't accidentally run into us!"

Fortunately, Cyuw was more awake than me, so he was able to act sensibly, taking the wisplight from downstairs—everyone was still asleep, and it was cool enough they didn’t' really need the breeze it made—and hanging it up at the front of the ship while he took the one that cast light in a cone and hung it from the tiller so its cast its light over the rest of the Coldhold, making it more visible. By the time he was finished, I was awake enough to be able to actually put together analytical thought.

The ship heading towards the dock, a vague outline of shadows and moonlight. Its sails hung like listless curtains as it moved slowly though the water, propelled either by a bound tool driver or a wizard. The ship's dimensions were difficult to ascertain, since it was still in the dark waters between the entrance to the cove and the docks, but I could see that its deck was higher than ours, standing above the roof of our cabin. The height, distance and darkness made it difficult to see what was going on, but I could make out shadows and lanterns moving along the edges of the deck as sailors looked out to make sure their ship didn't run into anything.

I watched as the ship came closer, shivering slightly at the wind. "I don't think we need to wake up the others, Cyuw," I said as th man moved to stand beside me, "but thanks for waking me. I think we should keep an eye out as they pass us, if only so we can react if it looks like they might get too close." The ship I'd been on had arrived on Coldholdduring the day, so they'd begun having us get off the ship shortly after we'd arrived, but it was the middle of the night right now." Hopefully they'll let people sleep and not start unloading right away, but if they do… well, we'll have to make sure no one tries to get aboard our ship in the confusion."

Cyuw made a face as if contemplating something unpleasant. He was probably remembering something that had happened when we'd first gotten off the ship. "Yes, we wouldn't want any troublemakers getting near us," the man agreed.

I stifled a yawn. “I’ll stay up with you until the end of your shift,” I said, already foreseeing my suffering tomorrow from lack of sleep.

“No, you go back to sleep, Lord Rian,” Cyuw said. “You need your rest for tomorrow. I’ll wake up Yhorj instead. We’d not going out for salt because the new Deadspeaker might be joining us, so we can rest during the day.”

I open my mouth argue, and that’s when great yawn left it. It went on so long I’m lucky a bug didn’t fly in my mouth. When I was done, Cyuw was giving me a smug look.

“Fine,” I said. It was being woken up that was making me grumpy, not anything else! “But if there’s any trouble…”

“Then I’ll wake everyone up, Lord Rian, not just you,” Cyuw assured me.

Yeah, that was probably smarter than what I was telling him to do.

Giving him a nod, I climbed back down the ladder and made my way back to my bedroll, laying my cane down beside me. As I put my head down on my pillow and closed my eyes, I heard Cyuw waking Yhorj up…

…

Wait, did I leave my knife on the driver?