Mist-Weave Crossing turned out to be a rope ferry, one flat barge and an old man carved from driftwood. The channel ran wide and slow between the reed banks, brown enough to hide a grown man’s knees completely.
"Barge goes over at sundown when the mist thins, son, which leaves you two hours to sit and be patient," the ferryman said, packing his pipe.
Ray lowered himself onto a crate with one hand pressed to his ribs, "Patience was never one of my features, sir, though I appreciate the warning."
Yuzu settled against a mooring post with her bandaged arm in her lap, closing her eyes like a cat.
’Two hours of sitting still with cracked ribs is exactly how a man ends up shopping.’
He opened the Shop with his tongue poking out, scrolling past rope coils until one listing stopped him.
[ SHOP ]
[Item: Marsh-Sled Runner Licence]
[Use: Glides Cargo Over Mud]
[Forge Match: Moonwalkers Mk I]
[Blueprint: 8 BP]
[Fabrication: 130 HC]
"A plate that floats cargo over mud is handy, but a plate that floats me over mud is... a whole new career," he muttered.
"You’re making the face again, the one you make right before you spend money," Yuzu mumbled without opening her eyes.
"This is my investing face, Doc, a completely different face with much better posture."
He fed the licence into the Forge, grinning as the cost ticked off his balance without a pang.
[ FORGE REWORK COMPLETE ]
[Build: Moonwalkers Mk I]
[Function: Hover and Air-Skate]
[Cells: 2]
[Duration: 40 Seconds Each]
[Blueprint Points: 17]
[Balance: 480 HC]
’Eight points and a hundred thirty HC for flying shoes is the best deal anybody ever offered me.’
The new pair settled over his feet like they were cut for him, faint blue runes waking along both soles. Two cells clicked into the heels, each one the size of a thumb, humming softly whenever he knocked them together.
"Oh, look at you," he breathed, turning one heel to the light, "you’ve got stabilizer runes in the arch with a cell housing tight enough to make a watchmaker cry."
"Are you talking to your shoes right now?"
"These are not shoes, they’re precision instruments for the discerning professional, who deserve your respect."
She cracked one eye open, "They look like very shiny shoes that cost more than my whole clinic."
"Flying shoes at this price are the best bargain anybody has offered me since—"
"You said that about the gauntlet, the pistols and the tuning fork that screams," she said, closing the eye again.
He stood, tapping both heels together, then rose four inches off the planks on a soft, steady hum.
’Forty seconds a cell means one quick lap over the water to prove the concept, with zero showboating.’
The ferryman’s pipe sagged in his teeth as Ray pushed off the landing, gliding out over the brown channel. The air beneath his soles felt firm as packed ice, carrying him across the water in long smooth strides.
"Tell me you’re seeing this while I walk on absolutely nothing at all!" he yelled, spinning once despite his ribs.
Yuzu sat bolt upright against her post, "I’m watching a man who forgot to count!"
"Thirty-eight... thirty-nine," the ferryman said around his pipe, tapping the stem against his palm.
Ten feet from the far bank, the hum stuttered as the runes faded from his soles like a dying candle.
[ CELL 1 DEPLETED ]
[Recharge: Overnight]
"Gah!"
He dropped straight into the shallows, the mud swallowing him to the waist with a deeply unpleasant slurp.
Yuzu laughed so hard she slid off the post, clutching her bandaged arm while she wheezed into the reeds.
"It’s a prototype, which makes every failure data collected in the field!" he called back with enormous dignity.
"Hahaha, your data is covered in swamp, so don’t drip on the barge when he comes to fetch you!"
The ferryman poled across to haul him out, grumbling that fools who needed carrying twice paid double.
Ray sat dripping on the barge’s edge, "For the record, sir, the shoes performed flawlessly right up until the moment they stopped."
"Same could be said for my first mule, though she at least had the decency to sink on dry land," the old man said.
The barge pushed off at sundown with a fire-pot glowing at its center against the evening chill. It was a caged brazier of fire runes, fed peat by the ferryman like a beloved pet.
"Keep your hands inside the rails, son, for the channel lizards get frisky this time of year," the old man said, leaning on his pole.
"How frisky are we talking, considering I’m still finding mud in places I refuse to discuss?"
"It’s mating time, when the bulls steal anything warm to line their nests for the females, same as every autumn since my grandfather poled this water."
Ray scraped a clump of drying mud off his collar, "So it’s lizard romance, which is disgusting but also kind of sweet."
"Romance is a generous word for theft," Yuzu said, tucking her knees up beside the fire-pot.
Halfway across, the water ahead bulged into a long green back crested with a ridge of bright orange frills.
[ CREATURE ]
[Type: Channel Lizard (Bull)]
[Rank: F]
[Disposition: Lovesick]
’Ten feet of F-rank with a crush means the only target on this barge is that fire-pot.’
The bull hauled itself up over the rail, tilting the deck while its frills flushed a bright and hopeful pink. It ignored all three of them completely, staring at the glowing cage like a man staring at a diamond ring.
Ray’s hand drifted to Payday on pure habit, his thumb already resting on the safety.
Yuzu grabbed his sleeve with her good hand, "Don’t shoot it, Ray, when all it wants is a date!"
"I would never shoot a romantic, so relax while I ask the big guy nicely to leave."
He stepped in square with his ribs locked tight, slapping the lizard hard across the snout.
The frills flared brighter, rippling from pink to deep rose along the whole length of its spine.
"You’ve only gone and made him show off for her, son, so now he’ll want to—"
The bull snatched the brazier in its jaws, cutting him off as it flung its tail over the rail. Its weight dove backward into the channel, dragging the barge after it until the deck stood almost on end.
"Oh, shit," Ray said, sliding toward the water with both arms windmilling.
The channel closed over his head, warm and foul, as the barge rolled over above them in a slow arc.
He came up spluttering beside the upturned hull, his ribs on fire from the shock of the plunge.
"Yuzu, sound off, I can’t see a damn thing in this soup!"
"Here with the ferryman, tell me those shoes have one cell left," she called, coughing out swamp water.
’One cell left means forty seconds, exactly enough for one rescue and zero showing off.’
He tapped his heels underwater, the second cell lifting him straight up through the surface in a muddy spray. He hooked the ferryman under one arm with Yuzu clinging to his belt, skating hard for the nearest bank.
’Before the rank-up this old man would have sunk me like an anchor, but now he weighs about as much as wet laundry.’
The cell died two strides short of the reeds, though this time his feet hit mud instead of deep water.
[ CELL 2 DEPLETED ]
[Recharge: Overnight]
[Contractor Damage: Ribs Aggravated]
They sprawled gasping in the reeds while the lizard surfaced upstream, the stolen fire-pot glowing in its jaws.
A smaller, shyer female waited in the shallows, her frills pale green and folded tight against her neck. She sniffed the cage once before nuzzling his snout, the happy pair swimming off into the mist together.
"Did that lizard really sink our barge for a date?" Yuzu asked, wringing out her sleeve.
"He sank it for true love, which earns my respect for the hustle even while I’m furious about it."
"You are a terrible person," she gasped, laughing again despite the mud in her hair.
"I’m a soaking wet terrible person with cracked ribs who would like a little mercy from the judges."
She pressed two fingers along the binding under his coat, her face turning clinical in an instant.
"Your left side is swelling again, which means no swimming, flying or lizard diplomacy tonight."
"Hell, there goes my whole evening plan," he said, wincing when her fingers found the sore spot.
"In forty years of poling this channel, no passenger ever carried me off it before tonight," the ferryman wheezed, clapping Ray on the shoulder.
"There’s no charge for the ride, sir, though I’d gladly take a discount on the next crossing."
The old man waded back to right his barge, cursing every lizard born since the dawn of time.
Then something pale drifted past them on the current, turning slowly as the channel carried it downstream.
It was a drake carcass, gutted and bloated, with a hook as long as Ray’s arm sunk through its jaw. The shank bore a crest of a willow beneath a rain cloud, the steel still bright where the line snapped.
[ OBJECT ]
[Type: Bait Hook]
[Mark: House Amamiya]
[Line: Severed by Force]
Ray waded out knee-deep to catch the shank, turning the hook until the crest caught the last of the light.
"Who fishes with a hook this size, when it could anchor a warship all by itself?"
"That’s House Amamiya’s mark, Lord Julian’s people, who’ve been baiting the northern mire all month," the ferryman said grimly, spitting into the water.
"What does a lord hope to catch with a whole drake for bait?"
The old man stared north into the mist for a long moment, his voice dropping low when it finally came.
"Something that bites through steel line, son... and I pray to the river they never land it."
Ray let go of the shank, watching the current tug the carcass loose from the reeds and carry it on.
’Somebody up north is fishing for the thing the lurkers ran from, using a noble’s money to do it.’
He squeezed mud out of his sleeve, watching the carcass slide into the dark with the bright hook trailing behind.