Destiny's Road

"Dish?"

He pointed. "On the other side-"

"Oh, Meetplace!" The girl laughed so hard that all the other children started laughing too. "Meetplace is where we trade."

"In the dish itself?"

"Yes. Kids get to go too sometimes."

"Where're the Otterfolk now?"

The oldest boy pointed at the bay. "Watch," she said.

They watched. Boats ru

He asked, "When do you trade? Is it soon?"

"Oh, no, not while the caravan's in." Damn!

Merchants and yutzes, local women and children all pitched in to dig out fire pits and fill them with twisted wood from upslope. Coals were burning nicely, and vegetables were cooking, when the boats came in.

It all happened in some haste. Thirty-odd boats ran aground while the men pulled the sails down, then jumped into waist-deep water to pull them up onto the sand. That looked like fun, and Tim plunged in to help.

There were men on either side and he did what they did: grip one of four handholds set at water level, lift, and pull. Fish flopped around two peculiar objects in the bottom of each boat: a flat wooden fin with a bar for a handle, and a bigger heavy fiat thing with no handle.

You couldn't sail a boat with those things lying in the bottom. They'd get in the way. Hmm?

The merchants and yutzes only watched as the sailors, and Tim, pulled the boats ashore.

Now the sailors pulled straight up on the masts, pulled them out and set them on the sand, and set the big wooden fins there too, to get at the fish. They spread the sails on the sand and began scooping fish onto them.

The smell of fish was everywhere.

The women began to clean fish and array them in fire pits.

The men flocked off, not toward the houses but toward the mudflats below. Two came jogging back to get Tim, who stood dripping wet.

Two fishers, mid-teens, jogged up toward the houses. The rest plunged into the several cha

The boys came back with armfuls of towels. Fishers were taking off their clothes, dipping them, and wringing them dry.

The boys were setting their towels on... trays? Not on the mud. Tim hadn't seen that as a problem. And the fishers were setting their wrungout clothes on those same trays, narrow things near a meter wide, scores of them sitting everywhere along the flats. They didn't look carved and they weren't quite flat, and Tim manfully resisted the urge to turn one over.

The fishers were staring at him, not unfriendly, just curious. Tim looked back. They were built like he was, and they must have seen the same, because they were turning away, curiosity satisfied.

Damn, he'd guessed right: he was the first naked man they'd ever seen from a caravan. What had the Haunted Bay women been telling their men?

The smell of di

"That's the rudder," one of the youngest fishers said. "You steer with that. That's the keel, it keeps the boat moving straight when the wind is from the side."

Tim had learned not to ask twice. He studied the boat instead. He could see that there were mountings on the bottom of the boat and hinges at the stern. Fins to guide the flow of water?

The locals cooked; the yutz chefs served. Tim found several merchant ladies in a crowd of local men, in the silver glare of Quicksilver. He served out the vegetables he was carrying. He took the chance to ask Senka, "Have you ever seen Otterfolk?"

Senka smiled at him. "Not close."

He went away, and thought, and came back with a sizable Earthlife fish deboned and cut up for serving. Senka and her grandmother were perched on dunes to eat. Tim asked Shireen, "You must have seen Otterfolk."

The old lady gri

Senka laughed suddenly. "You think they're a hoax? A joke?"

He hadn't. He remembered the grendel hunts in Spiral Town; the new kid was always told he would be the bait... but Tim Ha

"You did."

"From high up?" He'd seen a momentary black speck in a sudden white riffle on the bay, and a shape carved on a shark's shell.

He came back to serve a corn pudding. Senka ibn-Rushd studied him without humor, and this time he didn't speak.

"You don't go near Otterfolk," she said. "Fishers took you to the mudflat because you swam with them. Don't do that again, and don't think it means you can go there alone. Don't cross the river until the caravan does. Tim, we never have to say these things! Most yutzes are afraid of Otterfolk. Why aren't you?"

Tim shrugged that off. "I know people who are afraid of guns. And swimming." What tales did children hear about Otterfolk that never reached Spiral Town? Dangerous topic. Change it. "Senka, doesn't anyone go near the Otterfolk?"

"Well, yes, here and at Tail Town. But they know the rules."

''Can't I-''

Shireen spoke. "Not rules you write down. Rules you learn from when you're a baby, if you live along this shore. Boy, it isn't the locals who make the rules. It's the Otterfolk. Stay clear of the Otterfolk."

12

Tail Town

Cavorite blew up on the Neck. Half the crew got out in time, and they moved back up the Crab. Yes, it's only a story, but can't you see how the whole Neck was fused?

-Tail Town tale

Tim crawled around the tea table and out of the tent. His sleeping hosts didn't stir.

Why had Senka assigned him the alcove farthest from the entrance? Come morning, a yutz chef had to crawl past everyone else. He hadn't wondered until now, but- Had there been yutzes who robbed merchants? Dawn flamed off the mirror-smooth water of the bay. The mirror broke in a frothy wave as an army of chugs pushed a jungle of weed onto the beach. No sharks appeared. Only the Tucker and Spadoni merchants even bothered to draw their guns.

The chugs finished feeding and straggled into position.

The wagons began moving away from Baytown. Their sides dropped open to welcome the younger men and women of Haunted Bay. Older folk must be staying with the children. Chefs moved bread, yutzes moved merchandise, merchants bought and traded.

The locals weren't holding out for bargains today. The upward slope was robbing them of breath.

It didn't slow the chugs. It didn't slow Tim, though once it would have.

The locals followed the caravan onto the bridge and across the Spectre. Thirteen wagons and hundreds of people, but the bridge never quivered. At the far end they turned back, every one. The caravan continued along a rising path.

In the afternoon, merchants went out to hunt. A dozen yutzes were sent to harvest what was to be found. The chefs went with them, armed with shovels.

The way continued gently upward. It might have been a cow path widened by wagon wheels, but picks and shovels had shaped it in places, and here a landslide had been cleared away.

Along the way were fruit trees and fields of grain half-strangled by Destiny weeds. Without weeding parties, Destiny life would have won. Tim was sure they must exist. He was glad not be drafted into one.

The chefs didn't stay with the pickers. Hal held rank here, and it was Hal's task to make ready for di

They stopped at a spring-fed stream. They found wood for fires. They found traces of old fire pits on the slope, dug them out, and shaped the detritus into seating arrays. Beds of coals were glowing orange by late afternoon, when the yutz and merchant parties arrived.