COMPANION

The Elder was just finishing her breakfast, when Companion settled on his bench at the end of the table.

“Good rising, Companion,” the Elder said in greeting to the selkie, or at least that was how Companion interpreted her words. He didn’t really see anything good about it. This was the second day in a row he was off of his beach way too early. He noticed the Elder was coming back late every evening after almost everyone retired to their beaches. When Companion rose early to catch the Elder before she left the square, he found her on her way out of her room carrying three heavy cloth containers. He knew they were heavy because she thrust them at him as he greeted her in the hall.

“Here,” she said, “carry these.” He followed her down the stairs and across the hard space to a closed shop. The Elder tapped on the glass and Sarah opened the door. Inside was a mostly empty shop. One shelf contained a six count or so of books. On the front of the first book was a drawing of sewing tools on it. Companion admired how the tools were arranged to signify the craft. Companion sat his bags down and leafed through the book. He recognized human writing, but he wasn’t very good at reading it. He reached a page that contained an incorrect spell coding on it. He studied it for a moment and realized the page was trying to teach him how to read the coding.

Paging through the book and looking at the pictures he thought it was teaching him how to craft thread. He set the book down and picked up the next one. The cover on it was a surprising six fingered hand closed in a fist. He thought this book was throwing magic. On the cover of the next book was what he thought was water flowing into a basin. The drawing of water made him long for the sea. Leafing through it he couldn’t figure out what it was trying to teach him. The next book was the same six fingered hand holding a knife, obviously this was weapon magic.

He thought he was getting the feel of these books when he opened the next one. It was full of spell codings. Companion recognized some of them. He realized these were the spells described in the other books. There were more spells than just the ones he saw pictured in the first books. Companion thought there must be more books somewhere else.

The last book was maps. Companion recognized many of them. They were map sections for all the human shores the pod visited that spring. Just then the Elder called for him from the back room. Companion put the books back how he found them, retrieved the bags from the ground and went to answer the Elder’s call.

The trip to the shop left Companion with a lot to think about. After leaving it, when the Elder asked him what she could do for him, he’d put her off. Instead he went out to the training yards and helped Todd train the halflings. By the time he decided what he wanted to ask the Elder, she was gone from the square.

So now he was up too early again. “Good rising to you, Elder,” Companion fluted.

“Have you decided what it is you want to ask me?” the Elder queried.

“I know you want to finish the tour of the human shores,” Companion said, “but I humbly request we travel to the selkie shores first.”

“Do you miss your home, your family?” the Elder asked.

“Yes,” Companion replied with perfect honesty, “but that is not why I am asking this. I want my people to also be part of your ocean.” The Elder wore her puzzled face. Companion was very good at recognizing it because he saw it a lot.

“I request that you pay them for their spells also. I want our traders to come through the portal and buy the books in the shop. I want our two communities to share in the wisdom of the true god. I will translate your human words so that my people will hear you. You will convince them, I know you will.”

“You know I can’t speak for other humans. I could only negotiate trading with this shore,” the Elder said to him.

“Yes,” Companion responded. “This would be enough.”

“I will talk to the others, no,” the Elder said, suddenly switching her thoughts. “I want you to talk to the others. Be honest with them about the risk. If they all agree to go, when our break is over we will go to your home shore and speak to your elders.”

Companion gruffed his happiness. “I will, I will,” he assured the Elder. He rushed out the door. Alex was almost harder to find than the Elder. One of the halflings in training yesterday mentioned that Alex was going out the back gate every morning. Companion went directly to the gate and asked the halflings there if they saw Alex passing.

The halflings didn’t really understand him. Companion’s pronunciation of Alex’s name was close enough that along with a few flipper signals they told him Alex hadn’t been through yet this morning. Companion had the strange thought that maybe Alex was going through the portal, even though he was tier three and should not be able to use it with a tier four’s help. Companion moved down the hall to wait for the human at the hard space end of it.

Alex emerged from a shop front very near to the back hall. He was heading in the direction of the yards.

“Alex, my friend,” Companion called to the man. Alex stopped and turned back to look at the selkie.

“Companion, well met,” Alex replied. “Are you interested in doing a gathering swim?” Companion considered, he thought such an activity would give him plenty of opportunity to explain to Alex. Plus he would get the chance to swing his ax.

“Absolutely, friend Alex, I will fetch my ax,” Companion replied.

“Bring your cloth containers,” Alex called from behind him.

“I swim with you,” Alex responded to Companion’s request that the pod go to selkie shores. They were in a multi-room suite that didn’t even contain any animals. Alex was wearing a second skin of leather on his hands. He was carefully searching the debris. Companion wandered around and picked up any tools or vellum. Alex mentioned that Ellen promised a finder’s fee. Companion didn’t know Ellen was involved in the shop. Alex explained that Sarah and Ellen were running it together.

Companion was worried that Alex’s consent was too easily given. The Elder stressed that he must tell each one of them the danger.

“My people may not be welcoming. There could be trouble. We may have to fight. Perhaps the Elder will not fight with us in order to avoid a war between our peoples,” Companion said.

“All is good my friend,” Alex responded. “Almost since the moment I picked you up in that hallway, the Elder has said we will make sure you get home. Talking to your people when we get there will be fun.” Alex was examining a long piece of wood carefully. Companion thought it looked a lot like a gravel beach shoring, even though it was out of the wrong material.

“I think you have the wrong impression of the Elder,” Alex added. “You see her as jovial and kind, but she has a hard side too. That interaction with her family member in Londontown was nothing. Perhaps she wants you to speak with each one of us because she wants us to warn you what could happen.”

“I know what can happen,” Companion replied.

“Do you really?” Alex said. “I met the Elder during a migration of orcas. She used a spell that killed everything around us out to 108 flipper-feet. She cast it over and over, until I lost count. She was only tier five at the time.” Companion wasn’t certain how far 108 flipper-feet was, but by the way Alex said it Companion knew it was impressive. He thought all this time that his pod mates were excessively naive about the danger of a tier six, yet here was proof that they weren’t as ignorant as they appeared. Alex knew the Elder was deadly and still he followed her.

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“If you offend a lesser god and the god decides you should die for your crimes, you die,” Companion said back. “I know.”

“Good,” Alex said to him, “you do understand. If you want to introduce your shore to the Elder and all us humans, I swim with you.” Alex confirmed. “Does this plank look like anything to you?” he asked, changing the subject.

“It looks like a beach shore. You need three more and a lot of gravel to fill it, round rock would be better.”

“Do you think your people would be interested in buying it?” Alex asked.

“Yes, they are hard to come by. Many selkie who rent apartments still stay in the inn one day out of six in order to get a good rest,” Companions explained.

“I will take it then, even though it might be hard to get through the portal. Maybe some of your people will move into the shore and want one. I wonder where I can get round rock…” Alex trailed off thoughtfully.

“I saw some two rooms ago,” Companion offered.

“You did? Why didn’t you say something? Still two rooms isn’t far, let's go back,” Alex announced.

Alex ended up with three of the four boards needed for a sleeping beach and about a quarter of the round rock. They filled four cloth containers with the stuff. Companion was covetous since the rock was a finer grain than the stone in his inn room.

When Alex started to throw six hall seals on the top of the load, Companion insisted they take six spinners instead. There was a sudden glut of hall seal meat in the human shore and they tasted so bland. Spinners weren’t as good tasting as land urchin, but Companion could make do.

Companion followed Alex into his shop. Alex’s shop was the opposite of Sarah’s. Here the room in the front was large, while the back room was small. Companion glanced at the front room’s contents as they passed through. He noted a sturdy bench built out of iron with approval.

The back room was filled with ‘constructions’. Most of them were a kind of shelf, but with no surface, just the horizontal supports. Alex stacked his pieces of tubing across the supports, each set of supports was filled with a different type, or length of tubing. Near the front by the door, small pieces were set carefully on one set of actual shelves. At the very back of the space Alex was working on building a bin system. Using tubes he’d put together a frame system that held the shelf material into a u shape. The ends were open. There were several of them spread across the floor.

“I keep looking for short pieces of flat material, but they seem rare. The few I have found I used for chairs,” Alex explained to Companion. Alex was considering storing the round rock there, so he could return Companion’s two cloth containers to him.

“Rotate and push them against the wall,” Companion suggested. “That would block one end.”

“Let's do it,” Alex agreed. They turned two of the bins and added the rock at the back. As it piled up a few pieces rolled out the front, but most of it stayed inside.

“Sarah could use something like this,” Companion observed. “The Elder supplied them with crafting tools to sell with their books. It was amazing how many tools fit in the Elder’s containers.”

“I’ve noticed that before,” Alex said. “Cloth containers always rearrange items so they fit tightly, but I think her containers actually compact things down. The items only turn back into their real shape when they are taken back out.”

“A lesser god’s presence changes the world,” Companion observed, “this is known.”

“In more ways than one, friend,” Alex replied.

After they finished with the stone, Alex sorted through the contents of the rolling platform. They threw all the tools and vellum in the cloth containers onto the platform to make room for the round rock. Companion managed to get it back into his containers, before going to look for Ellen and Sarah. Alex directed him to an apartment up two rises from the hard space.

Companion pounded on the door with a drawing of birds on it. He was certain it was the work of his podmate Sarah even though it was fading under the true god’s eye. The door opened and Ellen stood there.

“Companion, this is an unexpected pleasure. Come in, what can we do for you?” Ellen said. Companion stepped through the door. He carefully leaned his war ax against the wall next to the door to free his flipper-hands.

“I went swimming with Alex. I have brought you things Alex said you wanted,” he sang. He looked around the room to find it cluttered with crafting gear and vellum. A high surface to the side was almost buried in the stuff. Sarah was stretched out on the floor like a weanling. She turned to look at him at his entrance, but her hand still held a stylus.

“Let’s go into the food area and see what you have,” Ellen said. She led him through to the next room where there was a little more order. Sarah rose from her position on the floor to let them pass and followed them into the second area. Companion emptied out the vellum first. There was a large stack of notebooks. They found a room Alex called a supply closet. Alex used a cleaning spell to remove the stains that were on the books. Companion thought the stack would please the women and he was not disappointed. They talked excitedly about the books. Their speech was a little too fast for Companion to follow, but he caught bits and pieces. They were happy and could do something they put off with them.

While they were still counting loose sheets and books. He dumped out the other bag of tools.

“What is that?” Ellen said. She reached over and picked up one of the tools. Companion didn’t actually know what it did. He just knew it was the collection list for the crafters in his home shore.

“Stone crafters like it,” Companion replied a little defensively. He felt bad he couldn’t tell the women all they wanted to know.

“I like it too,” Ellen said. “Let me total this up and I will pay you the promised finders fee.”

“You need to ask selkie crafters what it is,” Companion commented. “I asked the Elder if we can go to my people’s shores next and ask magic questions. She said I must tell you the dangers and get your consent.”

Ellen and Sarah shared a look with each other. Companion was hopeful they were giving careful consideration to his proposal when they both turned back to him.

“That sounds great,” Ellen said.

“When do we leave?” Sarah responded.

“It will be dangerous. I can’t guarantee your safety, not like the Elder,” Companion offered.

“You have enchanters right?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” Companion admitted, “there is a master on my own shore. But she may not talk to you. She may be sure of her own knowledge and treat you as a weanling not yet wetted. All the crafters might.” Companion placed on flipper-hand spread across the aluminum breastplate Sarah enchanted for him when they first met. “They might not understand your own skill. You may be risking your life for no gain.”

“Companion, I was a weanling not yet wetted when Ellen and I first followed Grandmother out of the true god’s domain. This world is full of risk. The chance exists that your master enchanter will talk to me. That is enough.”

“I will speak for you Sarah, friend,” Companion swore. “I will show them the fine quality of my armor enchantment.”

“Should we take anything else to show them?” Ellen asked. “I don’t want to disappoint the Elder by not buying any spells.”

“Take the spinning book you have in the shop,” Companion said. “Offer to sell it to them even as you buy their spells. This will help them understand your wish to trade.” Ellen looked happy with the idea of trade.

“All our books are written in the human script,” Ellen said to Companion. “Will they still work?”

“I could follow the spinning book from the drawings. The spell codings are the same as the true god’s beginners script. All selkie can read that.” Companion thought about the other books he saw in the shop. “Throwing light is not so useful for selkie in the sea. The warrior book didn’t have any spell codings and I didn’t understand the waterfall book. The map book is the kind of thing exchanged between leaders when trade is agreed upon. The crafting book is the best. Do you have others?” Companion explained.

Ellen did have others. Companion was delighted. Not only did she have more on fabric, there were books on other crafts. She showed him ones that worked with hides, wood and metal. Sarah even wrote one on enchanting. He noticed that most of the books didn’t have the spell codings in them. Ellen explained how they used the old woman’s spell from the last shore to copy the spell to the blank pages left in the book when the book was purchased.

When he asked which book the old woman’s spell was in, Sarah told him that was the waterfall book. They explained to him that it was the ‘utility spells’ book. They would add spells to it as the customer purchased them. The first two spells that came with it were how to make the water hot and cold. Companion heard almost every youngling who approached their stall claim they could do those spells. Companion was embarrassed to admit he didn’t know them.

“It’s probably because you only have two flippers per hand,” Ellen said. “You might be able to sing the spells. Come I will show you.” Ellen led him off to the apartment's small sanitary facility.