He found as he lowered his legs his feet came to rest on the bottom and the water was only waist-deep. Rocky, gravelly bottom that felt wonderful, and he stood and worked the canoe onto the shore – a gravel-and-rock beach – rolled it to dump the water, untied the spare paddle he thankfully had tied into the bow and put it on the rocks to dry. Spread the blanket to dry as well and took a moment to evaluate what he had lost.

His spear was gone. He had somehow not tied it in with cord. And of course all the smoked fish – and his story board – that had been sucked out by the water.

But that was it. Not bad.

He would have to get food soon – hunger was already pulling at him – and he would, but now he had to rest. Any conceivable reserve he might have had was gone, used up pushing the canoe to shore, and he lay on his stomach on the gravel warmed by the sun, put his cheek on his hands, and closed his eyes. One blink open, then shut again.

And he slept.

Changes; Skin to Wood to Water to Become

Hunger tore at him now.

He had slept – had deeply core-rested – for a long time. Time enough to dream of a dark tunnel that was pulling him down to what Old Carl had called the caves of screams where vicious god-beasts ripped flesh from the bleached bones of cowards.

He’d awakened just as he was taken up and out of the pit of dreams by a giant hand – again, the hand of Odin? – and was instantly so hungry, he put two pebbles in his mouth to give his tongue something to do, then had to keep his throat from swallowing them to get something in his cavernous stomach.

The spear was gone but he found a stand of willows and made a new shaft. He had no steel point – the only one he had vanished with the fish spear in the whirlpool – but he had seen Old Carl fashion a spear from wood.

He cut the shaft longer than Old Carl was tall, peeled the bark and let it dry in the sun. When it was no longer sap-slick, he used his knife to split the large end partway down, jammed a piece of wood into the split to make a fork with the two tines about a hand’s width apart.

With the size where he wanted it to be he used cord to lash the cross-stick in place, which made the tines rigid. Then he carefully sharpened each of the points with his knife until they would draw blood if he pushed his finger against them.

And he had a fish spear again.

He made his way out into the gravel beds where he could see fish moving and stood, waiting, until they had accepted him as a new part of the water.