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and
bobbing with the rise and fall of the sea. "Coaster. Maybe a twenty
tonner."
    "That big?"
    "For a coaster. Deep water ships sometimes run eighty tons."
    Time pranced along, fickle and faggoty. We watched ship and
whales. I began to daydream. For the hundredth time I tried to
imagine the new land, building upon traders' tales heard
secondhand. We would likely cross to Opal. Opal was a reflection of
Beryl, they said, though a younger
city . . .
    "That fool is going to pile onto the rocks."
    I woke up. The coaster was perilously near said danger. She
shifted course a point and eluded disaster by a hundred yards,
resumed her original course.
    "That put some excitement into our day," I observed.
    "One of these first days you're going to say something without
getting sarcastic and I'll curl up and die, Croaker."
    "Keeps me sane, friend."
    "That's debatable, Croaker. Debatable."
    I went back to staring tomorrow in the face. Better than looking
backward. But tomorrow refused to shed its mask.
    "She's coming around," Elmo said.
    "What? Oh." The coaster wallowed in the swell, barely making
way, while her bows swung toward the strand below our camp.
    "Want to tell the Captain?"
    "I expect he knows. The men in the lighthouse."
    "Yeah."
    "Keep an eye out in case anything else turns up."
    The storm was sliding to the west now, obscuring that horizon
and blanketing the sea with its shadow. The cold grey sea.
Suddenly, I was terrified of the crossing.
     
     
    That coaster brought news from smuggler friends of Tom-Tom and
One-Eye. One-Eye became even more dour and surly after he received
them, and he had reached all time lows already. He even eschewed
squabbling with Goblin, which he made a second career. Tom-Tom's
death had hit him hard, and would not turn loose. He would not tell
us what his friends had to say.
    The Captain was little better. His temper was an abomination. I
think he both longed for and dreaded the new land. The commission
meant potential rebirth for the Company, with our sins left behind,
yet he had an intimation of the service we were entering. He
suspected the Syndic had been right about the northern empire.
    The day following the smuggler's visit brought cool northern
breezes. Fog nuzzled the skirts of the headland early in the
evening. Shortly after nightfall, coming out of that fog, a boat
grounded on the beach. The legate had come.
    We gathered our things and began taking leave of camp followers
who had trickled out from the city. Our animals and equipment would
be their reward for faith and friendship. I spent a sad, gentle
hour with a woman to whom I meant more than I suspected. We shed no
tears and told one another no lies. I left her with memories and
most of my pathetic fortune. She left me with a lump in my throat
and a sense of loss not wholly fathomable.
    "Come on. Croaker," I muttered as I clambered down to the beach.
"You've been through this before. You'll forget her before you get
to Opal."
    A half dozen boats were drawn up on the strand. As each filled
northern sailors shoved it into the surf. Oarsmen drove it into the
waves, and in seconds it vanished into the fog. Empty boats came
bobbing in. Every other boat carried equipment and possessions.
    A sailor who spoke the language of Beryl told me there was
plenty of room aboard the black ship. The legate had left his
troops in Beryl as guards for the new puppet Syndic, who was
another Red distantly related to the man we had served.
    "Hope they have less trouble than we did," I said, and went away to brood.
    The legate was trading his men for us. I suspected we were going
to be used, that we were headed into something grimmer than we
could imagine.
    Several times during the wait I heard a distant howl. At first I
thought it the song of the Pillar. But the air was not moving. When
it came again I lost all doubt. My skin crawled.
    The quartermaster, the Captain, the Lieutenant, Silent, Goblin,
One-Eye, and I waited till the last boat. "I'm not going,"