Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [146]
Exasperated by his tall friend’s caution, the swordsman explained that if they could not part company even for a little while, they would have to query the operators of each craft one by one. While Ehomba concurred, he pointed out that they could begin with the largest, most self-evidently seaworthy craft. It was not necessary to inquire of the master of a two-man rowboat, for example, if he would be willing to try to transport them across the vast, dangerous expanse of the Semordria.
They began with the biggest ship in sight, one docked just to the left of where they were standing. Its first mate greeted them at the railing. After listening politely to their request, the wiry, dark-haired sailor shared a good laugh with those members of his crew who were near enough to participate.
“Didja hear that, lads? The long-faced fellow in the skirt wants us to take ’im and ’is circus across the Semordria!” Leaning over the railing, the mate grinned down at them and stroked his neatly coifed beard. “Would you like to make a stopover on the moon, perhaps? ’Tis not far out of the way, and I am told the seas between here and there are more peaceful.”
The muscles in Ehomba’s face tightened smartly, but he kept his tone respectful. “I take it that your answer is no?”
A vague sensation that he was being mocked transformed the mate’s grin into a glower. “You can take it anyway you want, fellow, so long as you don’t bring it aboard my boat.” As he turned away he was smiling and laughing again. “Cross the Semordria! Landsmen and foreigners—no matter where a man sails he’s never free of ’em.”
The response was more or less the same everywhere they tried. Most of the larger, better-equipped vessels plied their trade up and down the great watery swath of the Eynharrowk and its hundreds of navigable tributaries. A whole world of kingdoms and merchants, duchies and dukedoms and independent city-states was tied together by the Eynharrowk and its sibling rivers, Ehomba soon realized. They were the veins and arteries of an immensely extended, living, shifting body whose head lay not at the top, but in the middle. That head was Hamacassar. If they could not secure transportation there, they were unlikely to happen upon it anywhere else.
So they persisted, making their way along the riverfront walk, inquiring even of the owners of boats that seemed too small or too frail to brave the wave-swept reaches of the Semordria. Desperation drove them to thoroughness.
There were craft present that from time to time risked the storms and high seas of the ocean, but without exception these clung close to shore whenever they ventured out upon the sea itself, hiding in protected coves and harbors as they plied ancient coastal trade routes. Their crews were brave and their captains resolute, for the profits to be made from ranging so far afield from the Eynharrowk were substantial.
It was at the base of the boarding ramp of one such coastal trader, a smallish but sturdily built vessel, that a third mate supervising the loading of sacks of rice and millet provided their first ray of hope.
“Ayesh, there are ships that cross the Semordria.” He spoke around the stem of a scrimshawed pipe that seemed to grow directly from his mouth, like the extended tooth of a narwhal. “More set sail westward than return. But now and again some master mariner reappears laden with wonderful goods and even better stories. Such captains are rare indeed. They never change ships because their owners keep them content. Their crews adore them and are spoiled for use on other vessels. Having sailed under the best, they refuse to haul a line for anyone not as skilled.”
Ehomba listened intently, making sure to let the mate finish before asking any more questions. “Where might we find such a ship, with such a crew?”
Squinting at the sky and focusing on a hovering cloud that might or might not contain a portion of the evening’s rain, the mate thought