The next morning, he set out. Two sailors of Decim Island brought him to a canoe with an outrigger, a long side-buoy helping with stability. One of the pair was a mage of basic wind talent, who conjured a steady breeze to fill their crescent-shaped sail.

Arlen watched how he did it and asked a few questions. The method involved gathering matter with the hands, in this case air, but it was a stream that the man directed continuously past him. "A jet!" said Arlen.

Having seen that, he tried using the same idea with his hands in the water, hoping to push the sea along. His calm attempts to contain a glob between his fingers and his combat-focused freezing hadn't prepared him for that. But he kept trying over hours of sailing, no matter how silly his hand-waving and splashing looked and despite falling overboard twice.

Around noon, he felt a distant rumble. The sky that was pale blue everywhere else had grown a dark indigo ahead. The sailors with him left off their casual talk about fish and dueling and women, and focused on their work. They veered slightly starboard to avoid approaching head-on.

Then the Roaring Storm was in his ears like a waterfall. Continuous hammering of sea and booming of thunder. The clouds had thickened into a wall that grew more and more plain, stretching all the way ahead. "A wall!"

"Of course," said one sailor. "And a pit. The water drops off."

"What do you mean?" The storm filled the whole horizon. Silver lightning danced through violet fog.

"You sail much farther, and you fall like someone's dug a trench all around our islands. Then you get flung up into the sky and struck by lightning."

"That's impossible."

"Sure; want to try?"

"Can we get a little closer, please?"

The current here was bizarre, pushing them this way and that. The sail beat forward and back like a drum. The thunder had several pitches and it never stopped for long. Though the boat's mast wasn't tall or thick, he could climb it a little to peer down. In the roiling clouds ahead where sky met sea, there was a line of white water that bubbled and crashed as though this whole patch of ocean were ringed by a waterfall. A flat disc continually spilling outward, maybe. Or a fountain, or some kind of suction yanking moisture upward from the seabed and flinging it into the storm and down again. Arlen hungered for a logical explanation but it was beyond him, even in terms of magic spells.

He leaned outward from the mast, saying, "A little closer! I need to know!"

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The sailors cursed him out and dragged him down, so they could pilot away from there and not study the mystery by leaping into its mouth.

#

He returned to Decim by nightfall as planned. He sat around a campfire, eating vegetables and bread, and thinking. How could anyone see that and not dwell on how it worked, what colossal force controlled it? The sheer energy behind it could power a city! The volume of water had to create some massive effect on the ecology of the whole region. That much magic could be measured, charted, theorized about. It was big and loud!

The other diners stomped and hooted. A woman had stepped up toward the fire wearing a grass skirt, a tight palm-fiber top, and bracelets trailing long ribbons. Drummers beat a tune and she began whirling and hopping, slowly at first. Feathers bobbed in her hair.

She was the younger niece of Thoko. She spun dangerously close to the fire, but every step was carefully placed. Her bare feet stamped the sand and Arlen unconsciously stamped to the same beat from his own bench. The drums banged and someone shook a metal sheet, making thunder. She raised one arm and Arlen's gaze followed the motion all the way up along her side, then stayed with her hand as she turned and shook and waved. Until her palm rested on her heaving chest, and then his attention was there for another round of motion. She paced and hopped with muscle and precision. Even her tail was part of the act, swinging for balance until he couldn't imagine how she stayed upright without it.

He sat up in alarm because she'd made a mistake. The long streamers from her wrists touched the campfire and ignited at the ends. He and others gasped. She only smiled. She turned, whirling them around so that embers shined around her in bright arcs. Flame consumed them slowly. She paused and deftly untied one, then the other, and spun each time to swing the burning cloth around and cast it into the fire.

Then, at last, she seemed to look directly at Arlen and smile, just a little. He couldn't move. Then she turned and began walking away. The crowd erupted in hoots and cheers. With a playful shake, she was gone, only showing how exhausted she was as she faded into the night.

She hadn't spoken a single word. Arlen was speechless for the rest of the night, in turn.

#

The next day, he was sitting on the fringes of Thoko's throne room, his presence requested so that he could give his thoughts on the Roaring Storm. Most likely the ruler wanted to be amused by the outsider's thoughts, but he'd also expressed interest on the idea of breaking through it.

He was still gathering his words when a group entered the palace with some argument. Someone was saying, "We have a right to ask it!" and pushed past the guard.

Thoko shifted on his platform and said, "What is this?"

The visitors, four of them, included the doctor he recognized from Opaline Island. They knelt before the high chief and the doc said, "We want our boy back. You have a replacement from our island, so you don't need him."

Thoko frowned. "Who?"

"Ar-il-en, the outsider. He arrived on our island, and you took him away."

One of the other visitors quickly added, "As is your right."

"So now, you have him. Return the boy."

Thoko said, "You claim Arlen as one of your own? You suggest that if you cause trouble, I should punish him, and you will care?"

Arlen froze. They were talking about hostages held for good behavior. Arlen had been warned away from a particular large house that he'd vaguely understood as holding "visitors" but well inland, far from the kind of guest quarters he had.