Current Finder

The ship that bore Kalen from his home and out onto the wide expanse of the Western Sea was called Ester Ivory. She was a huge, three-masted vessel, built of a kind of smooth pale wood Kalen was unfamiliar with. Cream-colored, with sails to match, she looked like an apparition on the water.

She had three cabins—one for the captain, one for the crew, and one for anyone who was willing to pay a hefty sum to travel in private quarters. This last was Yarda’s room, and by extension, Kalen’s.

He’d been determined but doubtful the moment he saw it. And now, two weeks into the trip, he could confidently say that he’d never hated four walls more than he did these.

It was not the company’s fault. Yarda was entirely too big for the cabin, but her unflagging good spirits were probably the only thing keeping Kalen from gnawing at the walls of his tiny prison like an enraged beaver.

Nor was it the fault of the captain, who was a peculiar but polite man from Tiriswaith, who had a son at home Kalen’s age and was therefore pleased to have him aboard. And the crew were fine. They mostly kept to their own business and left Kalen to his.

It was just the unending boredom, discomfort, stench, and inconvenience of the situation that was driving him slowly mad. He crouched on the woven mat that had been his primary place of residence since leaving Hemarland, one of the sun crystals from the pig barn clutched in his hand as he hunched over a project and tried to distract himself from…everything.

The sea had been rough for most of the journey, and it was again today. The ship wallowed dizzyingly beneath him, creaking and moaning. It was nearing sunrise, he thought, but it was raining once more. And the world beyond the small, leaded glass dome of the cabin’s skylight was dark.

Yarda snored in her bed—no worse than Iless at least. And both of her legs hung over the side of the mattress to rest on the stack Kalen had made of his luggage.

Nanu’s map had been left behind, but the books had all come with him from his room at home. There were also two carefully folded and wrapped sets of new clothes made by his mother and aunt. They were beautiful, and they’d been thoughtfully cut a little too large so that he might grow into them.

He’d refused to stick them in one of the holds where they might be exposed to damp or rats. And he didn’t intend to unwrap them until he had escaped from this hellcabin.

He’d need them when, and if, he managed to meet Arlade. They would at least look like new even if they no doubt smelled like the revolting liniment Yarda rubbed on her feet and ankles every morning.

It was made of seal blubber and herbs, and it smelled like death. In the cramped room, her legs were rarely more than a foot away from Kalen’s face, so he’d become all too familiar with the particular miasma of the stuff.

Kalen suspected the liniment didn’t work, but he’d held his tongue about it.

Yarda’s feet and hands had been swollen before they ever boarded, and now they were a truly alarming size. The skin was stretched taut over them. It looked horribly painful even if she never complained about it, and there was no point in being negative when he had nothing better to offer her for the problem.

Instead, he wrote letters for her. One almost every day. Neither of them had planned for such a robust amount of correspondence when they set out, but the rain had kept them trapped belowdecks together for almost the entire trip.

Yarda’s letters were long and thoughtful. They were full of advice about gardening and housekeeping for her son’s new wife, and occasionally they contained stories about her exploits as one of Hemarland’s best wrestlers.

Kalen had realized at some point that these last were mostly just for the sake of entertaining him, but he appreciated it and took particular care with his handwriting as he described the friendly violence Yarda had inflicted on her opponents.

As a result, Kalen was almost out of blank paper and ink. And he was glad the price for mailing the post would come out of Yarda’s coin instead of his own.

As always, the thought of his own wealth drew his eyes to his pack, where entirely too much gold was hidden.

Kalen had been subjected to three whole nights’ worth of basic economics lessons with Uncle Holv and Lander right before he left.

He had been made to memorize and recite the average prices of various essential goods and services until his uncle was satisfied that he understood what money was worth. And there had even been haggling practice sessions with Lander, which Kalen dearly hoped were not representative of normal merchant interactions on the continent, since his cousin seemed to greatly enjoy tormenting and robbing his only customer.

At the time, Kalen had wondered how practical the lessons would be for him when he had no money to speak of. He’d almost fainted when, to celebrate his final successful purchase of an imaginary donkey, his parents had given him a whole bag full of money.

It was the money—the coin that had been saved up over all the years of Kalen’s life to be given to Sorcerer Arlade in exchange for her treatment of Shelba.

The sorcerer had refused to accept it, and it was understood that the accumulated wealth would become Kalen and Fanna’s inheritance.

“But you can’t give me all of it!” Kalen had cried, aghast. “It’s one hundred fifty gallons of mead! It’s seven good donkeys! It’s a small wooden cottage in a farming community!”

“I hope you won’t buy any of those things with it,” his father advised with a sad smile. “It’s for keeping you fed, clothed and well for as many years as your education takes.”

“And for paying your way back home whenever you need it,” his mother added quickly.

“But…what about Fanna? What if you need money for something?”

“We can always eat Sleepynerth if we start to star—ow!” Lander’s vile suggestion was cut short as Iless stomped on his foot.

“Sleepynerth is my pig until Kalen gets back,” she said, breathing through flared nostrils and glaring. “He promised me.”

“You did?” Lander gave Kalen an exasperated look.

“Sleepynerth will protect Iless,” he said unashamedly.

“We all know you mean exactly the reverse of that!”

In the tiny, smelly ship’s cabin, Kalen chuckled at the memory. It was bright and warm, but it felt distant. As if it had happened years ago instead of a couple of weeks past.

I just have to work hard, he promised himself. I just have to work until I’m strong enough and smart enough and safe enough to make it back home.

For now, there wasn’t much he could do as far as magic went. Cramped quarters and sea travel did not make for good practice time. The ship occasionally sailed through a patch rich with atmospheric mana; it had been happening more often of late. But at the moment, there wasn’t much to be had.

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It wasn’t nothing, though. Just enough for his current project. He was attempting to create a magical recording jar, using the notes he’d taken on the ones he’d had back at home, along with various supplies he’d scavenged from the ship.

If it worked, he might be able to send his own voice back home. Nanu would no doubt grumble at the detailed instructions Kalen had sent her for activating the jars, but she’d be able to manage it.

His mother would pester her until she did.

The small jar he was using had once held the captain’s tobacco, and instead of a leather membrane on top, Kalen had used a piece of stretched canvas, secured with glue. He painted the appropriate runes carefully around the edges of the canvas and the jar.

Kalen’s first and only purchase as a wealthy boy had been a very small jar of the cheapest magepaint, to replace the paint he’d used so lavishly in his final experiment on the rock.

Hopefully this small amount would tide him over until he met his new teacher.

I don’t know what I’ll do if she never comes.

He’d travel with Yarda of course. They’d make their way. But he couldn’t just let months and months of his life elapse with no training and no guarantee of it when he reached the Archipelago.

Leave tomorrow’s problems until tomorrow.

It was something his father often said.

Kalen had found that his parents’ advice only came to him more and more clearly the farther he traveled from home.

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The next day dawned sunny.

Kalen flung himself out of the hatch and onto the deck with glee. He wanted to run and jump and bellow about his own freedom while he took in huge lungfuls of clean sea air.

But since the deck was always busy with working sailors who would not appreciate such antics, he confined himself to standing quietly near the skylight that looked down on the passenger cabin.

Through the thick glass, he could see Yarda still sleeping below.

I’ll wake her up soon, he thought.

Being up here in the light away from the smell of rancid seal fat would make anyone feel better. Kalen was already wondering if he could persuade Captain Kolto to let him sleep right here on the deck tonight.

It wasn’t long before he spotted the man himself emerging onto the deck. He was thin, not much older than Kalen’s father, and his skin was heavily weathered by a life spent outdoors. He had a nose like a beak and golden brown eyes, and his voice and manners were much softer than those of the captains Kalen had met before.

Perhaps it was a matter of culture, since the crew from Tiriswaith also seemed relatively subdued compared to Uncle Holv’s.

I wonder if every single place in the world will be different. And how everyone is supposed to get along with each other if that’s true.

Kalen watched Captain Kolto work for a time. Then, since he had little else to do, he took a seat on the deck and practiced the gyring technique Zevnie had taught him. He’d wondered if becoming a magician would make it more useful for him, but it hadn’t. It was still a good way to relax and feel out his own magic, though.

Afterwards, he set his teeth and set himself to his hardest task of the day—contemplating the nature of wind.

You’d think it would be easy, since I’m supposed to be naturally good at it.

But it wasn’t.

Assuming that a practitioner with an elemental affinity should learn important things about said element, Kalen had tried very hard to figure out what the wind was and what it did and what it meant. No matter how he chewed over the problem, though, he found every definition and explanation he came up with for the wind felt awkward and contrived compared to that moment of profound…inspiration he’d had on top of the rock.

What he’d told his baby sister was still the best definition in his opinion. The wind moves.

Only he couldn’t build his entire future as a practitioner on top of three words. Could he? The Leflayn book went on and on about all the things fire was. A warmth in winter, a ward against dark, a bane for wolves, etcetera and so on.

Kalen could do the same thing for wind. He could say it was the thing that filled the sails. He could say it made up storms. He could even, with some effort, be more romantic about it and imagine it as something mysterious that was pushing him forward across time and space toward the Archipelago.

But it all feels like a game I’m playing with myself to pass the time.

The wind moved. If it didn’t, it wasn’t the wind anymore.

Everything else was just forced poetry. And he didn’t know how he was supposed to work with it.

It’s not like I can try something right now anyway. Caris’s declaration that people shouldn’t be allowed to travel if they might capsize a ship was always at the forefront of his mind.

Frustrated, he stood and stretched. The sun felt absolutely wonderful against the back of his neck.And looking around, he saw that an excellent distraction was about to commence.

Captain Kolto had brought out his pet current finder.

Kalen hurried eagerly over to the side of the deck, where the captain and a couple of the men were gently maneuvering a large barrel into place by a gap in the railing. The barrel was made of another wood Kalen had never encountered before—something silver and soft enough to scratch with an incautious fingernail. And the water inside it was always full of small bubbles, even when the barrel’s resident was out doing its work or lying quiescent on the bottom.

“Ah! Boy!” called Captain Kolto. “Come see her. She is ready to fly.”

Kalen had never heard of a current finder before boarding the Ester Ivory, and he’d been fascinated by the captain’s from the moment he saw it. It was a golden flying fish, slender and a bit shorter than Kalen’s arm.

According to the captain, they could only be found in one of the three mighty whirlpools that bore ships to their deaths in various places around the world. When they were taken from the pools, they longed to return, and because they were creatures with magic of their own, they had mysterious methods of finding the best route to the nearest great whirlpool.

Captain Kolto had trained his current finder to return to him when he blew on a whistle. In pleasant weather, he used the strange fish for navigation.

Kalen had gotten the impression from the ship’s first mate that this was more of an eccentric hobby than a regular practice for seamen from their island. But even if that was the case, he enjoyed watching the current finder work.

“Can I—?”

“Of course. Feel her out for me before she goes.”

Unable to resist examining a magic animal up close, Kalen had obtained permission to stick his hands in the current finder’s barrel within minutes of hearing about it. And now the captain gave him permission to do it whenever the fish was awake and active.

Closing his eyes, Kalen plunged his hands into the barrel up to his elbows. The fish was used to being fed, so it nudged at his fingers. But after a couple of minutes of disappointment, it stopped.

Kalen took slow, steady breaths and tried to focus. He wanted his mind to be in that strange place, the one where he could feel the invisible thread that led from his coin toward the continent. Since the current finder had the ability to make its way back to its whirlpool, Kalen had wondered if he might not find a similar thread attached to it.

But he’d only managed to grasp the proper mental state once while examining the flying fish, and what he’d felt from it was not a thread at all. It was more like…

A terrible bundle of boiling energy with a deep peace at its center.

It was beautiful.

Kalen wished he could see it again. He’d tried to explain how amazing it was to the captain, and Kolto had listened to him eagerly. But he didn’t understand the working of the current finder’s magic himself, so he couldn’t help Kalen grasp it.

But he was always pleased for him to try.

“No,” Kalen said at last. “I can’t feel it today.”

He could feel what the magic did though. In the physical world. When he made a quick grab for the current finder in the bottom of the barrel, his hands were redirected around the animal by some illogical movement of the water. Like it stirred itself perfectly and precisely so that Kalen always missed.

Apparently, there were stories about how the deadly whirlpools were made by the sea in her attempt to hold the beautiful current finders.

The sailors laughed as Kalen made a few more attempts to grasp the fish, his hands slipping around it every time.

Laughing himself, Captain Kolto finally called a halt to the experiment. “Kalen, boy, you will have to become a finer magician than you are now if you hope to catch the ocean’s lover.”

“Thanks for letting me try,” Kalen said, still staring into the barrel where the gold fish seemed to be mocking him.

Kolto nodded. He brought his whistle to his lips, and the current finder leaped into the air, sparkling as it shed the water from its four, delicate fins and shining scales.

Kalen watched, just as awed as he had been the first time, as the fish soared over the side of the ship into the sea. It disappeared for only a few seconds, then leaped, gliding easily above the dark water.

Unlike the flying fish Kalen had heard about from Uncle Holv, the current finder seemed to have a significant ability to direct itself in the air. It didn’t flap its fins like a bird might its wings, but it could change direction quickly, zigging and zagging over the waves for long stretches with ease.

Captain Kolto never let it get too far ahead of the Ester Ivory before whistling for it to come back. Each time it did, he fed it small, putrid-smelling tidbits from a pouch around his waist.

“It’s amazing,” Kalen sighed. “I want one.”

The captain laughed. “She’s glad you appreciate her,” he said as the fish sailed off again. “But she still will not let you catch her to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Will there be others at the Lonely Twins?” Kalen asked, naming their only port of call on this trip before they landed on the continent. “Other current finders, I mean? They have a whirlpool don’t they?”

“Yes, a mighty one when the tide comes and goes. But it’s not one of the great three, so there are no friends for my beauty. Though I do let her play to her heart’s content when we make port there.”

“Can I watch her?”

“Of course,” said the captain. “The mysteries of the world should have an audience, don’t you think?”

“I do,” Kalen said.

“A fine point of view. Very like a practitioner. And you won’t have to wait long. We arrive at the Twins in three days.”