All the Paths of Shadow

Meralda tilted her head. “You mean they actually tried to make a rope long enough to cross the Great Sea?”

Donchen met Meralda’s eyes. “They had no choice, Thaumaturge. None at all. Whole provinces were planted with hemp. Two enormous cities sprang up, one on each coast, at the places from which Sosang decreed the ships should set sail. Day and night, they wove ropes, ready to pay out the line on turning wheels so large each was visible from nearly a mile away.”

“Your kings have considerable power,” she said, thinking the most a mad Tirlish king was ever able to accomplish was the line of dancing gargoyles atop the park wall.

Donchen smiled. “We are an obedient people,” he said. “To a fault, at times, as you would say.”

Meralda shook her head. “And these ships?” she asked. “What became of them?”

Donchen shrugged. “Oh, they were crewed with the sons of noble houses,” he said. “Again, at the whim of the Emperor, who bestowed it as an honor. The crews, being sane, if overly obedient, considered themselves doomed and bade their families farewell.”

“The day came for departure,” said Donchen. “And so they set sail, vanishing from sight as they dragged their ropes behind. One went west, the other east, and soon the only evidence of their leaving was the slow, steady turning of the monstrous wheels on the shore.”

Donchen had begun to walk again, and the pair quickly reached the end of the row of shelves. Ahead of them now lay the shadowed rear of the laboratory, where larger mageworks were stored. There, tarps stretched across hulking frames of wood or dark iron, and all was silent and shadowed and still.

Meralda halted at the end of the shelf, and motioned Donchen toward the right.

“And did one of these vessels reach the Realms?” she asked.

Donchen entered the next rank of shelves and nodded. “Indeed,” he said. “But only after three years of sailing. Three years of drifting, actually. Mad kings make poor sailors, as the saying goes. The ship couldn’t tack, dragging such an enormous weight. After a time, both ship and rope were simply dragged along on the current, and the captain struck his sails and gave up.”

Meralda walked and nodded. Wait until Shingvere hears this, she thought.

“There was a storm, and the rope was torn away, and lost,” said Donchen. “The captain sailed and searched for the rope, determined to fulfill his charge, fearful that if the rope wheels stopped, his family would suffer Sosang’s mad wrath. But the captain never found the rope, and soon another storm cast the vessel upon a reef, and tore it apart,” said Donchen. “One sailor clung to a floating door, and I imagine you can guess the rest.”

“He was cast up on an Eryan beach?” asked Meralda.

“A bit farther south, but correct in essence,” said Donchen. He leaned down and peered into the eyepiece of Delby’s Far-Seeing Glass, and laughed when he was presented with a bird’s eye view of his own backside. “Our castaway sailor awoke to find himself in the bed of a Kiltish fisherman.”

Meralda went wide-eyed. “Kilt is only forty miles south of here,” she said.

Donchen nodded, and continued his stroll. “I know,” he said. “Charming place.”

“Is it,” said Meralda, blithely.

“The sailor was afraid, at first,” continued Donchen. “As he recovered, he realized he was in a foreign land. This was a new concept, for him. How would he be treated? Would he be held prisoner, or cast into the wilderness?” Donchen shrugged. “He didn’t know. Time passed. He healed, learned a bit of Kingdom, rose from his bed. And found that, after a time, he was welcome among the fisher folk.”

Meralda slowed. “How do you know this?” she said. “If the ship was lost but for him, how did word get back to your people?”

Donchen shrugged. “Our sailor settled down,” he said. “Married, even. Had children.”

Meralda halted.

“Yes, that’s right,” said Donchen. “All those black-haired, small-framed fishermen? My cousins, many times removed.” Donchen chuckled. “The Hang have always been closer than anyone thought.”

Meralda heard Mug whistle softly. She suspected Donchen heard as well, but if so he pretended not to notice.

I’d whistle myself, if it weren’t impolite, she thought. Centuries of watching the distant horizon, while the fisher folk laughed and went about their business.

“Children aside, though, the tale is not yet done,” said Donchen. “You see, while the ships were at sea, mad Sosang died. Messily, I’m afraid, by means of a sack of serpents and a bottle of poison, proving that he was King of Death as well as life.”

Meralda lifted an eyebrow, but was silent.

“The mad king dead, the families of the nobles aboard the two doomed vessels set forth to rescue their fathers and their sons,” said Donchen. “They built ships, crewed them with wizards, and set sail from the rope- weaver cities, just as the big ships had. And they searched. Searched for years. Forty years, in fact.”

“Forty years?” said Meralda, unable to hide the disbelief in her voice.

“Oh, they weren’t continually at sea for forty years,” said Donchen. “Five years was the longest single voyage.” He saw the confusion on Meralda’s face, and smiled in sudden comprehension. “Ah,” he said. “All our vessels can make fresh water from salt. And the original Great Sea rope haulers could grow their own food, as well. So it was feared that the great ships might lie, becalmed, with the crew helpless, but very much alive.” said Donchen. “Also, the rescue ships did not merely search at random. Each of the original sailors wore a chosong. A chosong is a small medallion, which houses a finding charm specifically designed and secretly crafted against the day the mad king might reign no more.”

“Fresh water from salt?” asked Meralda. “How?”

“The process is very similar to that by which your guilds extract lifting gas from ordinary air,” explained Donchen. “We carry a number of spare devices. I’ll have one sent round for your inspection, if you like.”

Meralda nodded. Hang magic, at last. And one that might extend the cruising range of our own airships tenfold, if I can work out how it functions.

Donchen halted before Finnick’s Second Lifting Plate and watched the pair of spectacles suspended in the air above it bob and turn. “One by one, these new ships searched out the rope-hauler chosongs,” he said. “And, one by one, they found them, all lying on the bottom of the sea. All save one, and the wizards pointed west, and one ship sailed after,” he said. “On and on they sailed, until one day in late summer of your year 714, a Great Sea five-master dropped anchor off a beach near Kilt,” he said. “The awestruck wizards claimed the very last chosong was near. And it was. Still around the neck of their long lost countryman, who sat mending a net in the shade while his grandchildren played at his feet.”

“I imagine he was shocked,” said Meralda.

Donchen laughed. “He set his dogs upon his rescuers,” he said. “And would have taken a stick to them, as well, had his sons not rushed from their boats and stayed his hand.” Donchen shook his head. “Everything the old sailor said was dutifully recorded by the ship’s scribe,” he said. “He used a variety of colorful terms, but basically he’d had enough of mad kings and doomed quests and, most especially, he’d had quite enough of the Great Sea. ‘I am home,’ he said. ‘This is the happy land, and I am home.’”

“The captain of the five-master explained to this man that his house was minor no more, and that as the eldest of his house he was, by rights, the rough equivalent of a duke. This caused the old man to throw his stick at the captain, and once again call for his dogs. ‘Hear this, then,’ he said, as his sons held him back. ‘I tell you to go. I tell you to pass the rule of my house on to the eldest of my nephews and give him my blessing and leave me, my sons, and these people alone’.”

“And they did?” asked Meralda.

“They did indeed,” said Donchen. “Are we not, after all, an obedient people?”

“And your ships stayed away until last week.”

“Well, not entirely,” said Donchen, his lips turning upward in the faintest of smiles. “Subsequent voyages mapped the entire Great Sea, and, of course, all your coasts. And I’m sure you’ve read accounts of the dozen or so brief diplomatic landings, which were meant only to establish that the Hang mean no harm.” Donchen lifted an eyebrow, and put his finger to his chin as though in deep contemplation. “And we may have made a few other landings, as well. All to satisfy the curiosity of various naturalists, I assure you. Always in uninhabited areas, and only in the pursuit of science.”