Velar Tidemark's Arc

Chapter 10 of 6

The hive racks were braced. The bees were loaded. Velar poled the heavy barge out onto the glowing river, eight hives humming behind him. The water carried him south toward the black mirror lake. His arms burned from the work, but the barge held steady. It would not tip. Thorn had built it true. All he had to do now was deliver the colony to the forest edge, and the vessel was his. The river narrowed between banks thick with shining mushrooms. Soft blue and violet light rippled on the water. Velar read the current the way he read it for silkfin. He kept the flat hull in the fastest line and let the water do the work. Behind him the bees settled as the barge glided. By the time the river opened onto the still, dark lake, the glow of the shore faded to a thin ribbon at his back. A figure waited on a flat rock at the water's edge. She wore black scaled armor and a hooded veil of fine mesh. A smoker hung from a cord at her side. This was Béyla Frostcomb, the keeper the bees belonged to. Thorn had built the barge for her crossing. Velar had only to bring it. He poled in close and held the hull against the rock. "You kept them calm," Béyla said. She looked at the humming racks, not at him. "Good. The last keeper to cross spooked his bees. The far side took him." She stepped aboard without waiting. The barge barely rocked. "I studied how he died. I don't plan to repeat it." They crossed the lake together. Béyla worked the smoker over the racks when the bees grew loud. Velar poled. Neither spoke much. Her calm steadied the colony, and the colony steadied the barge. They turned east along the shore until Velar heard falling water. Silver ribbons poured down mossy rock ahead, glowing soft in the mist. Below the falls, ordered rows of resin-sealed hives stood among tall trees. The apiary. The forest edge. They offloaded together. Béyla lifted each hive onto its stand and sealed it. Velar carried and braced. When the last rack stood empty, she closed her smoker and turned to him. "The trade is done," she said. "The barge is yours." She drank once from a horn at her hip, a flat toast. Then she walked into the trees toward her bees and did not look back. Velar poled the empty barge home alone. It rode high now, light and fast. His hands had earned it. Beneath him the deep water stretched dark and still, and somewhere below it the leviathan waited. He had a vessel broad enough to hold a hunting party and a spear. But the barge was slow. It could not run. When he found the beast, he would have to stand and strike, with no line to let it run and no boat quick enough to flee.