A few days later, High Chief Thoko summoned him. Rain was falling this afternoon, and Arlen sat outside trying to repel it. He was cross-legged, concentrating. The motes of magic around him stood out even with his eyes closed, like heat or sound but extending farther beyond his body. The sensation by itself was a wonder that, with practice, might let him walk around in pitch darkness.

He returned to the palace to sit cross-legged next to the fire.

The ruler on his throne platform looked down at Arlen with curiosity. "The spirits have accepted you, eh? Show me."

Arlen stood up and demonstrated his meager skill. He could still only make a ball of water and have it hover near his fingers, but absorbing that much pure water from the humid air was a potentially life-saving trick by itself. "I thank them for the gift and hope to get better with it."

A guard made him sit again, and then Thoko said, "I would not have tested their opinion of you so quickly, but it's for the best. You have made yourself useful already. My court should have one such as you. So, you will stay here. Advise the people of Decim in the making of tools and what other things you can do."

It was an honor, but he probed the limits of it. "I would like to visit the other islands and learn more."

Thoko laughed, and most of his advisers joined in. "Some you would not like to visit. No, you should stay here. I will make sure we learn what we can from you before any risk. Then, maybe, under guard."

Gilded cage, thought Arlen. He thanked the chief and was allowed to leave his presence. Beside the islands' master, there still sat that hammer. Arlen was about to leave, but stopped to point and ask, "What is that?"

Voz shifted uncomfortably. Thoko hefted the weapon, a heavy one-handed piece with a square head. Good for smithing and skulls alike. "I call it Tomorrow's Impact. An example of how our metalworking can make us strong."

No ancient relic, but a modern creation of his own industry. Arlen bowed and thanked him on the way out.

#

Life on Decim Island pleased him. There was no official salary, but he was understood to have a job. He was self-conscious of being an outsider no matter how he dressed, either in native garb that struck him as too little or in his Earth clothes that were usually too hot. Other parts of his life were an awkward in-between, too. The people had some notion of sanitation, but that meant foul latrines for the most part. He could admire their solution while still wrinkling his nose at it.

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The food was monotonous but the menu was at least filling and plentiful: fish, berries, several herbs and vegetables, and that bread he thought of as wheat pita. The fact that they had grain farming surprised him. Then there was a version of sugarcane, which meant a little rum distillery that put out enticing sugary smells. He thought of it as the beginning of a chemical industry.

The population of Decim was in the mid thousands, said to be the largest in the Echoing Isles. The total population seemed to stand at over ten thousand, but the concept of a census was new to Thoko and intrigued him to hear. "I should know what I have."

He worked more and more with the smiths and in the process, explained the idea of gears, springs, and levers. Easier said than done, of course, but in a day he carved a crude wooden gear and sketched an improved mechanism for the potter's wheel, to be run by a comfortable up-and-down foot treadle. "Many other tools can be built this way."

The smiths and especially the overworked young apprentices were impressed. Arlen added, "It would be helpful if more of you could write."

"That's shaman stuff," said one of the smiths.

Arlen had been learning what he could of the local system, a set of simple marks with many forty-five degree angles or octagonal patterns. There was a plant similar to the cattail reed that could make a rough, heavy paper sometimes waxed and used as a window covering. Arlen contemplated a sheet of it that he'd brought along, and said, "Writing doesn't have to be a hidden shamanic skill. They can keep their secrets, and you can have your own."

The other master craftsman said, "And why do you care about pottery? It keeps the women busy."

"A better method will make them happier, right? Seems like something you'd want. Why aren't any of them here at the smithy?"

The all-male gathering grumbled at his suggestion. "It's not fit work for them."

The women of Decim Island cooked and farmed, and there were a few doing crafting jobs like basket-weaving. But they weren't getting the range of opportunity he was used to. His first thought was to blame Thoko on the grounds that devoting people to the new metalworking industry was tied to keeping the ladies at home. Really though, what he'd seen of Opaline had been much the same. That was just how it had always been, for these people. There was very little "industry" of any kind, either; smithing was still an aberration, a personal project of the high chief rather than a vital part of island life.

The basic question was what he wanted out of this new life. He had skills and knowledge from another world that could push the islands toward... something new. A technological future. He couldn't give them airplanes or engines, but he could dream up enough tricks to make an early Iron Age culture with an interest in growth and exploration. And maybe he really could pierce the wall of storms someday and see what was beyond it.

Which raised the question of why he wanted any of that. The Echoing Isles lived in splendid isolation of the sort that any travel agency from his world would advertise as "paradise". His background gave him reason to be cynical about any such claims, and he knew already that the high chief ruled lands of monsters and raiders. So, there were things to fix. Even if Arlen really had found paradise, he'd ask, "Now what?"