Chapter XXVII
Swells Over Still Waters, Part 3: Bending (+Audiobook)
24th Day in the 4th of Ründ’s Months, Dry Season, in the First Year of King Feyaz’s Reign, 126th Reckoned Year
…Into the water,
below the waves,
secret passes,
hidden caves…
From ‘Rite of Entry’, Fāy-Núl Tör, Author Unknown in the Unreckoned Years
Chapel lounges against the bowsprit and stares at the passing clouds. Overhead, windgulls soar, hanging on the air with their large open wings. Petsune watches the Painful Lady sail behind the outermost trees of the Floating Forest, fascinated by the blurs of green against the blue sails. Pet allows Chapel time to think of a story, simply waiting for the beginning. He waits several moments then glances to Chapel’s place on the bowsprit, only to find it empty. Petsune sighs dramatically and looks around but does not see his Captain, until he looks up in the rigging along the foresail. Chapel is there, crouched precariously on a rope, speaking quietly to Sprig’s bird. The setting Saints sun cast him in a burning orange hue with a disconcerting shadow looming on the sail. The bird conjures up Sprig’s youthful voice and relays his words. “Tell the Cap’n we’re ‘bout done with his list, and we’ll be lookin’ for the signal. Okay? Got all that, bird?” Chapel nods to no one then pats the bird's head, but it doesn’t fly off. Instead, it begins pecking at his pocket. Petsune watches as Chapel proceeds to feed the prattlebeak and is startled when a voice behind him speaks. “What’s he doin’ with that prattlebeak?”
Petsune turns to find a soldier standing on the deck, gazing up at Chapel and the bird. Petsune looks at Chapel and simply says, “He’s feeding it.”
“Why?” The soldier asks.
Petsune looks down at the soldier, feigning a look of ignorance. “I guess it was hungry.”
The soldier scoffs and walks off, and Petsune breathes a sigh of relief. Chapel removes the last of the food from his pocket and hands it over to the large, round bird. He climbs easily back down to the bowsprit.
Petsune watches him the whole way, until he is once again comfortably lounging against the bowsprit they recently polished. Petsune raises an eyebrow as he looks back to the soldier, now on the other side of the ship. “You were nearly caught just now. That soldier was asking questions.”
“Nah. If you’re strange, people will write off strange behavior. It’s when the priests start feeding birds that you should worry.”
Petsune laughs, finally feeling some of the tension from the past few days leave him. “What were you feeding it anyway?”
“Sweetbread.”
“You still had some left?”
“Oh no, I borrowed it from the kitchens.”
This time Pet truly laughs, and it feels good. “Saints… Chapel you steal as much as Sprig.”
Chapel interjects, “Borrow.” and Pet just shrugs saying, “What will you tell Wittkinson if he catches you? That you were bringing it for him?”
Chapel laughs lightly. “No, no. I don’t think that line would work on him. I just won’t get caught.”
Pet is smiling now, closing his eyes as he speaks. “Right, because that worked so well when we tried to sabotage the ship.”
Chapel sits up onto one elbow and watches the water against the bow of the ship. “Could’ve been worse.”
“It could always be worse, how is that a helpful mindset?”
“Because it’s always right. And you know what I just realized: this is the second ship you were caught sneaking about on — you’re a terrible sneak thief.”
Petsune’s eyelids flick open fast enough to raise his eyebrows as well. “I turned myself in on the Lady!”
Chapel smirks but doesn’t open his self-satisfied eyes. “Only after I caught you in my cabin.”
“Well you… you lured me there! And sneaking onto this ship was your drowning idea, not mine.”
“Ah, Pet,” Chapel acquiesces, “it is too easy to get you riled up, it’s almost no fun.”
Petsune doesn’t stoop this time, opting for a subject change instead. “I believe you are avoiding your story.”
“I am not. You forget, I was brought up in the Tapestry: storytelling is in my blood. I bleed ink.”
“Alright, well, the stage is set, the audience awaits.”
Petsune leans back and closes his eyes. Chapel begins thinking aloud. “Well, let me think… you’ve likely heard all of the Hollow Tree stories, and I think I’d be hard-pressed to find a parable you haven’t read… maybe… but perhaps an old Broadfell myth?“
“I highly doubt I would know any of Broadfell’s folklore.”
“Well, perfect,” Chapel says, switching to a theatrical voice, “You shall now hear the tale of how Broadfell was made.”
Petsune’s eyes open and he looks over at Chapel, eyebrows raised in reaction to the voice.
Chapel looks up at Pet and winks. “It’s my inner Tapestry coming out. Now, this story is told in the halting speech patterns of old Broadfell, which is the only way I know it.”
Petsune leans back against the ratlines again. “I believe I’ve heard the speech of old Broadfell before, in the Book of Concerns.”
“Well, you will be no stranger to it then.”
“Though I might be a stranger to your theatrics.”
“You wound me, Pet. I could have become a full Finger Weaver, you know?”
Petsune chuckles mildly but finds his mind wandering to Sprig and the Painful Lady, and he becomes saddened. The Saints sun fully sets, and the Second sun is being tugged along behind it.
He feels a very close tie to Sprig, being an orphan and all. “How hard is it to become a Weaver?”
“It’s not too difficult, but it does take a lot of time and the mastering of certain skills,” Chapel, sensing Pet’s shift in mood, skillfully moves the conversation, “anyway, hush up now, schoolboy. I’m telling a story.”
“Ah, right. I nearly forgot.” Petsune says, smiling, grateful for the distraction.
“Now, this comes from folklore, so it’s never really been set into words — it’s up to the teller to convey the right story.” Chapel clears his voice dramatically, “Hear now, the tale of Boldifar Strong Oar,” then he adds in a quieter, less sure voice, “or maybe Boldifar Strong Arm, I don’t remember.”
“Hah get on with it, Captain.”
Chapel clears his throat and pauses to allow the quiet to blossom into anticipation.
Suddenly, a shout from above breaks through the silence and jarrs both Chapel and Petsune up out of their comfort. “Shallowback, dead ahead!” The helmsman calls out next. “Hard to starboard!”
Petsune can hear the Captain and the helmsman arguing over the need to steer around the whale, and within seconds, the ship wheel is being turned vigorously toward the west where the Second sun is descending. The Haul leans to the portside as it makes a sharp turn to the starboard. When the ship turns, Chapel slides off the bowsprit like a wet fish. He is left clinging to it with both arms overtop as the ship wrenches itself off its southward path. Petsune scrambles along the railing to reach him. He calls out for Chapel when he sees one arm slip off the freshly waxed bowsprit. Petsune reaches the Captain and finds that he is hanging easily with one arm, while the other fiddles with the rope he tied earlier. The rope comes loose and a small barrel of something falls down into the sea. Petsune helps Chapel back over the railing. “What was that?” He asks in exasperated tones.
Chapel watches the barrel bob away in the water like jetsam and he says dejectedly. “It was a millie in a barrel.”
Petsune is thoroughly confused and finds himself unable to respond, so Chapel does instead. “It was the signal if we needed help, though with that stunt at the shipwheel, I doubt we’ll need the signal.”
“Alright, but how is a millie in a barrel a signal? They would never see that?” Pet watches Chapel, who watches the water. Passing closely beside the boat is the immense sandbar of a shallowback whale. It is grazing on the abundant algae under the floating forest. Because of its size, it cannot swim below the forest, so its large body extends off from the edge of the forest, right across the course the King’s Haul was on. Petsune watches the algae and plant covered back of the grazing whale as they pass by it.
Chapel walks away from the portside toward the starboard prow. He speaks to Petsune, who follows him to the railing. “A millie fish will rise out of the sea when the weather is warm enough. They float up to a tower high before flopping back down into the water. So, I had one in that bucket to warm it more and filled it with trail oil from a red whale, so it would shine red in the sun.”
“Ah,” Petsune says contemplatively, “that’s actually quite clever.”
Chapel looks down over the railing and Petsune follows suit. Chapel says, “Sprig isn’t the only one. Too bad it didn’t work.” Petsune is struck with a thought. “Where did you get all those things? The millie, oil, and barrel?”
Chapel winks at Pet. “Borrowed them.”
Petsune looks sardonically at Chapel. “Mhm. ‘Sprig isn’t the only one’.”
Chapel just winks slightly, as amiable as ever.
Looking down, they both see the vexing signs in the water below: a sucking gap of water against the ship, and the large, warped wake that extends from the hull and off in a curve toward the northwest. The shouting from the helm indicates that the helmsman feels it too. They are being pulled in by the Flower. Petsune looks at Chapel with worry written on his face, but Chapel looks past Petsune toward the Painful Lady and the forest. A distant explosion rings out loudly, along with a puff of smoke from the hull of the Lady, and then Chapel smiles.
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