“That fool is going to pile onto the rocks.”

I woke up. The coaster was perilously near said danger. She shifted course a point and eluded disaster by a hundred yards, resumed her original course.

“That put some excitement into our day,” I observed.

“One of these first days you’re going to say something without getting sarcastic and I’ll curl up and die, Croaker.”

“Keeps me sane, friend.”

“That’s debatable, Croaker. Debatable.”

I went back to staring tomorrow in the face. Better than looking backward. But tomorrow refused to shed its mask.

“She’s coming around,” Elmo said.

“What? Oh.” The coaster wallowed in the swell, barely making way, while her bows swung toward the strand below our camp.

“Want to tell the Captain?”

“I expect he knows. The men in the lighthouse.”

“Yeah.”

“Keep an eye out in case anything else turns up.”

The storm was sliding to the west now, obscuring that horizon and blanketing the sea with its shadow. The cold grey sea. Suddenly, I was terrified of the crossing.

That coaster brought news from smuggler friends of Tom-Tom and One-Eye. One-Eye became even more dour and surly after he received them, and he had reached all time lows already. He even eschewed squabbling with Goblin, which he made a second career. Tom-Tom’s death had hit him hard, and would not turn loose. He would not tell us what his friends had to say.

The Captain was little better. His temper was an abomination. I think he both longed for and dreaded the new land. The commission meant potential rebirth for the Company, with our sins left behind, yet he had an intimation of the service we were entering. He suspected the Syndic had been right about the northern empire.

The day following the smuggler’s visit brought cool northern breezes. Fog nuzzled the skirts of the headland early in the evening. Shortly after nightfall, coming out of that fog, a boat grounded on the beach. The legate had come.

We gathered our things and began taking leave of camp followers who had trickled out from the city. Our animals and equipment would be their reward for faith and friendship. I spent a sad, gentle hour with a woman to whom I meant more than I suspected. We shed no tears and told one another no lies. I left her with memories and most of my pathetic fortune-She left me with a lump in my throat and a sense of loss not wholly fathomable.

“Come on. Croaker,” I muttered as I clambered down to the beach. “You’ve been through this before. You’ll forget her before you get to Opal.”

A half dozen boats were drawn up on the strand. As each filled northern sailors shoved it into the surf. Oarsmen drove it into the waves, and in seconds it vanished into the fog. Empty boats came bobbing in. Every other boat carried equipment and possessions.

A sailor who spoke the language of Beryl told me there was plenty of room aboard the black ship. The legate had left his troops in Beryl as guards for the new puppet Syndic, who was another Red distantly related to the man we had served.