10
Kawha brought the maps and confirmation of Fortran's claim, and also more maps of the islands.
"You see here - these are the main islands for growing crops? These are the largest we know of, and linked now by rafts and bridges."
"If the sea retreats, these will all join together, and there'll be a lot more land."
"Ice - the corollary of ice is cold weather?"
"Yes. In the centre here it'll still be warm, but north and south will be colder."
"Your island chain will change then," Kawha pointed out. "But not in your lifetime, nor for generations to come."
Bitra wondered about that, but did not argue the point as they rolled up the maps and made their final purchases, and stacked them carefully to preserve the balance of the raft. One of the snout-hounds had been paying court to a female, but Fortran went to collect him and came back with some worked hide.
"Look at this - this isn't dragon hide," he said to Bitra when they were in the cabin. "This is the same as your flying gear - it must have come from a dead rider's clothing."
Bitra fingered it, running his finger along the reworked seams.
"So - did they find him dead - or kill him?"
"Uncomfortable to think of either way. I've marked their raft and them, in my mind. I didn't tell them where we sail to, and I don't think my father would have done so either."
"They might follow us?"
Fortran glanced at him and shrugged as they lashed the water containers safely. "They might do so. Two alone, with goods from the market. Who can tell? What did you barter for?"
"This good straight wood for arrows. There were two bows in that detritus from the pirate raft, and I intend to learn how to use them."
Fortran was looking over his shoulder and now nudged him.
"Your friends come," he said quietly. Bitra twisted around and saw the five dragon riders paddling their canoes towards the raft.
They halted just beyond the reach of a tossed rope, and held the canoes steady. Bitra examined them carefully, seeing hollowed out logs of trees that must have been immense when in the ground. He could see the places where planks of wood were laid to make a raft to come to market, and understood why the canoes were piled high with traded goods.
Fortran had sold all the matting they had made, and a tied roll of it, with his distinctive woven patterns, was in one of the canoes.
"Hola, Bitra, dragon rider," the leader, Dis, said. "Are you coming with us now?"
Bitra finished tying the rope and then stood up and moved to the edge of the raft so that they had to look up at him.
"I had not thought to come," he said slowly. "I know you're my people, but I don't know what your way of life is, anymore."
"The same as yours," Dis said impatiently. "We farm, we harvest, we make things, we bring them to sell."
"You ride the dragons?"
"Ride them? If you come through with your dragon, you can ride, yes. Most of the rest of us don't."
"What use are they then?"
Jad leaned across from his canoe.
"They help with fishing, and clearing the ground. They breed, obviously, but always smaller than before, not bigger as we think they must have done at home."
"At home. This is your home. Or do you dream of returning through the void?"
Jad moved his paddle nervously, and glanced at Dis.
"No," he admitted at last. "We can never return to that past. With the aid of our few memories, and some maps, and some things brought through, we can piece together a little of what the life was like. But it's gone, and we're here."
"You must breed amongst yourselves," Ricard said suddenly. "Are there female dragon riders?"
"They come through, but infrequently," Jad said.
"Shut up," Dis snapped. "It's not something anyone needs to know about."
"Fortran and his people have been gathering up dead dragons and riders since they started coming through," Jad said, a note of contempt in his voice. "There's no secret about it, Dis Brown. Your friend Fortran found you, Bitra, and rescued you, and there're stories of other dragon riders rescued and nursed back to health. My clan name is Green, and I'd be pleased to have you, and your friend if he wants, come to the islands."
The other three riders had been watching, and now another spoke up.
"Gar Green, I'm called, and I'd like to learn the way of weaving yon matting, if your friend would teach it me? I'm thinking we don't have the right way of it, it's always too loose. If he'd come, and stay over the wet season, perhaps, we'd have some things to trade for the knowledge."
Bitra looked down at them.
"We'll speak of it, Fortran and I," he said briefly. "I'll be in touch."
"Don't be too long," Jad said. "We don't want to be storm-bound on the waters."
"I'll give you a decision soon."
He stepped back and watched them back off, gather in a cluster, and he thought they were arguing.
"What sort of goods would that be?" someone asked, and Grisson the trader was on the other side of the raft, his own piled high. "What would they trade for a simple thing like weaving a mat?"
"Who can tell?" Fortran replied. "But I've my own crops to plant, my own islands to guard and nurture. Friend Bitra?"
Bitra glanced at Grisson and shook his head, stepping back from the edge.
"We'll talk it through, like I said."
Fortran looked across at Grisson.
"If there's trade, then I'll return here next year with it," he said, and the trader nodded.
"I'll be waiting for it, Fortran the Seeker. Always and always, they told you the world is as it is, and you'd come scuttling over the rafts and ask me - why is it so? Maybe you'll find out sooner than I will!"
Fortran nodded, and watched the trader going, his sails filling with the breeze. Petris was on the raft with him, and waved.
"In time, friend Fortran, we'll find the pirates," Bitra promised. "There's a thought I have about dragons, but I need better maps, and I need to know how long and how well they can fly."
"And you don't know?"
Bitra shook his head. "I'll find out somehow. Meanwhile - are you willing to come with me, or will you return to the islands?"
"In the wet season there's only tasks suitable for wet and windy conditions," Fortran said. "But if I come, I'll need somewhere secure to store my own goods."
"The jars are stoppered? Once we reach land, you can store them in pits like you usually do? Maybe there'll be places to haul the balonraft up onto land? Or at the very least, secure jetties?"
Fortran looked across at the canoes.
"I would think they haul those out of water, you can see the marks on the hulls where they rest on something. By deflating the balons I can make the raft ride lower, as a protection against the storms. Come now, friend Bitra, we'll collect Wavehover and be following them, yes? Call them over!"
He did so, and the five canoes arrowed across and jostled around the raft. Fortran produced his maps, and pointed out where Wavehover was, and how they could rest there and take on water, and whatever food was there, and then cut down south easterly towards the fire islands making their own beacon in the sky, and so to the islands.
"Can your dragon fly that far?" Jad asked doubtfully.
"We'll find out, won't we?" Bitra replied. "I have a thought - a memory perhaps - of dragons flying for a long time, over oceans like these."
Jad frowned up at him. "I was born on this world, I don't know about those sorts of memories. My father might know, I suppose."
Dis was obviously itching to leave, and the canoes drew away and began to thread their way through the Homebase rafts, some of which were also preparing to depart.
Fortran and Bitra untied their raft from the Homebase, Bitra hauled the sail up and secured it, ran the ropes through the blocks greased with the fruit-scented oil, and Fortran lowered the rudder into the water.
As they set sail Bitra found himself straightening without realising he had been hunched and wary all the time they had been tied up at the Homebase and within sight and sound of the other folk. He looked to the front, watching the clouds bubble up on the western horizon, a storm building out there perhaps, and trimmed the sail more closely to the wind, north easterly to the island where Wavehover and the snout-hound waited their coming.
Bitra found he was impatient to see his dragon again, and sent out his mind calls to her, and Fortran pointed into the oceans, clearer now they were out of the oiled waters of the market.
"The grey swimmers are below us. They don't usually come this close to the markets or the Homebases."
"Maybe they like my singing," Bitra said with a smile, because he had devised a hollow tube and sometimes in the night he had whistled and hummed very softly into it when he had plunged it into the water. Fortran laughed, but he kept looking down into the water, and called Bitra over.
"Look there! A whole group of the grey swimmers! Oh, I hope they don't come too close!"
The great beasts streamed with them, keeping pace, and Bitra sighed as he tried in vain to push past the darkness in his mind, aware of a creeping headache starting in the back of his neck. He sat down and leaned to fetch a handful of cool water to ease it, and Fortran gave a startled screech as a grey shape loomed under the raft, rocked it, and Bitra, unbalanced, fell off the edge into the water.