Sable Ashwick's Arc

Chapter 9 of 9

Sable blew out the lantern and lay on her side, one hand on the pillow near Sylvara. The falcon shifted on the rail. Rain started on the tavern shingles and stayed light. She listened to the fairy's breathing until it slowed and deepened. Then she slept. She woke to gray light in the loft window. The rain had stopped. Sylvara sat up on the pillow, small and straight, her braid re-tied. Her wings caught the window light and threw it back clean. The pale had gone out of her eyes. "You slept," Sable said. "I slept." Sylvara stretched one wing, then the other. "I can finish it." Sable pulled the charts from under the pillow and spread them on the floorboards. She set a mug of water beside Sylvara and broke off a corner of bread. The fairy ate two bites and bent to the page. "Read them to me," Sable said. "I'll write." Sylvara touched each symbol in the ring around the second hull. Her finger moved slow but sure. Sable wrote in the margin as the fairy spoke. "Water," Sylvara said. "Deep water. Not the river. A pool he cut himself. The hull sits under it." Sable's pen stopped. "Under." "He sank it on purpose. The mark here is a lift-line. Rope and pulley. He left the gear in a hollow tree at the pool's north edge." She touched another mark. "This one is the hunter. It drinks at the pool at dusk. He drew it three times because it came three nights." "So we reach the pool before dusk." "Before dusk. Raise the hull. Be gone before it comes to drink." Sable finished the last note and sat back. She had the map now. The whole map. Twelve years of waiting collapsed into one page of ink. Boots on the stair. Ire pushed the loft door open with her hip. She carried two packs and a coil of rope over her shoulder. Her tail flicked once at the doorframe. "Horse is saddled," Ire said. "Light's up." "The hull's sunk," Sable said. "In a pool past the river bend. We need to raise it before dusk or the thing that hunts comes to drink." Ire set the packs down. She looked at the charts, then at Sylvara sitting upright on the pillow. Her mouth pulled to one side. "Dusk gives us the day and no more," Ire said. "Rope in your pack. Tell me the shape of the pool on the way." Sable rolled the charts and tied them. She lifted Sylvara into her vest pocket, careful with the wings. The falcon dropped from the rail to her shoulder. She had the last mile now. She also had a clock. Sundown at the pool, and whatever her father had seen three nights running would be walking down to the water.