Kaimana Tidecaller's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Kaimana Tidecaller reached the harbormaster's office with his crates unloaded and his fish sold. He carried his skull-topped halberd and eight years of patience. He asked the harbormaster to name him trade-king. The harbormaster set down his ledger and smiled. "Your cargo reached my port. Prove it came whole. Prove no man bought spoiled fish under your name." Kaimana had no signed count. His buyers had scattered into the town by noon. Without proof, the harbormaster would not hear the claim. He never meant to. Kaimana walked back to the dock. His last boat sat low and silent. Two men had gone missing from its deck in the Dead Mouth. The crew would not speak of it. He needed a record no man could deny, and every witness he had was gone or afraid. A voice spoke behind him. "You look like a man who lost a count." Tre Sorvekk stood at the water's edge, webbed hands folded, blue skin wet from the channel. Tre had traded with House Tidecaller for twelve years, hauling catches that spoiled above water through channels no one else could sail. Kaimana had never been gladder to see him. "The harbormaster wants proof my fish reached him whole," Kaimana said. "My buyers are gone." Tre did not blink. "I logged your fleet. Every crate." He reached into his vest and pulled out a folded sheet. "Dock authorities hold my shipment. I watched your boats come in while I waited. I count what I see. Habit." Kaimana took the sheet. It listed each boat, each crate, the tide-mark of its arrival. Tre had signed it in his own hand. "Why did you keep this?" Kaimana asked. "I keep everything." Tre paused. "You paid me fair for twelve years. Now the guild holds my cargo two channels down. House Tidecaller has not pushed back." He let the words sit. Kaimana understood the price. "Give me the harbormaster," he said, "and I will give you the guild." Tre nodded once. They walked to the office together. The harbormaster read the sheet twice. He looked at Tre's webbed hand, then at the signature. Every trader on the tides knew Tre's count was clean. The harbormaster could not call it a lie without calling out his own dock. "This proves arrival," the harbormaster said slowly. "Not the title." "It proves you heard my claim," Kaimana said. "You said prove it whole. I have." The harbormaster wrote something in his ledger. "Your claim is entered. Halverson will weigh it." He would not say the title aloud. But he had written the claim down where every clerk could read it. Outside, Kaimana folded the sheet into his belt. He had beaten the harbormaster's silence. But now he owed Tre a fight he did not want, against a guild that held ports he had never touched. "Two channels down," Kaimana said. "Tomorrow." "Tomorrow," Tre said.