In the vast reaches of the universe, an imbalance threatens the very fabric of existence. The Conglomerate, a powerful entity which plans to siphon water from the giant submerged planet of Pord and distribute it across the cosmos, saving trillions of lives in the process; their endeavor comes at a terrible cost—Pord, its people, and its extraordinary ecosystem face certain extinction.
On Pord, a diverse population grapples with the arrival of the Conglomerate. Some embrace the promised luxury and power, blind to the irreplaceable loss of their home. Others resist, valuing the uniqueness and beauty of Pord above all else.
Within Pord lies a rich ecosystem. Enormous jellyfish, city-sized, generate the planet's waves and are venerated in the central religion known as The Way. Mysterious creatures called squad, potentially more intelligent than humans, etch writing-like marks into stone spires.
Pord delves into the complexities of culture, entanglement, spirituality, and ecosystems. Taking and Giving, and the Many and the One are central themes within the book. It weaves a tale of the struggle between serving the greater good and enduring the consequences of forces beyond one's control.
In the vast reaches of the universe, an imbalance threatens the very fabric of existence. The Conglomerate, a powerful entity which plans to siphon water from the giant submerged planet of Pord and distribute it across the cosmos, saving trillions of lives in the process; their endeavor comes at a terrible cost—Pord, its people, and its extraordinary ecosystem face certain extinction.
On Pord, a diverse population grapples with the arrival of the Conglomerate. Some embrace the promised luxury and power, blind to the irreplaceable loss of their home. Others resist, valuing the uniqueness and beauty of Pord above all else.
Within Pord lies a rich ecosystem. Enormous jellyfish, city-sized, generate the planet's waves and are venerated in the central religion known as The Way. Mysterious creatures called squad, potentially more intelligent than humans, etch writing-like marks into stone spires.
Pord delves into the complexities of culture, entanglement, spirituality, and ecosystems. Taking and Giving, and the Many and the One are central themes within the book. It weaves a tale of the struggle between serving the greater good and enduring the consequences of forces beyond one's control.
“Axiom: The best way to elicit trust is not a full vault, but a strong lock.”
Dunite Meta
“Sometimes the meaning of things is lost in ritual. Sometimes the ritual never had meaning in the first place.”
Ovum, the Provider
Nish sliced open the vein in his forearm with a small fishing hook. Metal was precious, and what tools he had were used for many functions – including impromptu surgery. The vein seemed to move of its own accord, wriggling as though it were alive. Nish moaned softly, prying apart his vein with forefinger and thumb on one hand, and jabbed into the vein with his fishing hook in the other. He tugged at the hook. A red, wriggling string-like parasite. Nish pulled at the thing. It was longer than his forearm – he knew he had the red-string when he felt his shoulder twitch and squirm under his skin.
Once Nish had pulled the complete parasite out, he did what his forefathers taught him – he quickly swallowed the red string, grabbed the freshwater bucket, and guzzled a healthy dose of water to wash down the parasite, but not too much. He wanted to get it to his stomach fast, where it would dissolve. Too much water and his stomach acid would be temporarily neutralized, and the red string might find another vein to hide in.
Nish’s father had demonstrated this once. His father had hauled a fresh human carcass, caught in the reeds, onto their boat. Without any hesitation, his father had grabbed the big-U – a hook they used for catching larger fish – and gutted the man, then pulled a red string from his wrist and placed it in the man’s stomach, where it dissolved into a pink goo. The red string lived on and in blood but could not survive a person’s stomach acid.
The red strings haunted every fisher. Everyone in the lowwaters for that matter. People said the red strings are what connected them. Red strings were ubiquitous, tiny, opportunistic parasites that crawled into every scratch. Nish had many scratches. The flashfish that littered the bottom of his coracle lashed their fins, spearing Nish’s ankles, and feet with spikes.
Nish dipped his little-J in the seawater, cleaning off the blood. He then weaved the sharp end of the hook through the skin in his non-bleeding forearm, leaving the hook embedded, but not so much he bled. He only had two hooks, a little-J, and an even smaller T. Nish kept both hooks in his forearm, woven through his skin. Hooks were precious; he needed to keep them where he wouldn’t lose them.
Nish had once chased a fish, diving into the water with a small gulp of air, when he discovered his little-J was missing. That had been an antlerfish, slow-moving but strong in their migratory herds. While antlerfish weren’t particularly dangerous – they were unaggressive, nonpoisonous, and not big- perhaps as tall as Nish– their antlers grew long and could be sharp. And they moved in herds so extensive, powerful, and coordinated that they created their own current. He had grabbed onto the antlerfish’s long, bony protrusions, which grew right above their eyes, and well. He had his hook back. Antlerfish for dinner that night.
Today, Nish, and his wife Santi, who sat across from him, were searching for flashfish. Tasty in a stew, pickled, or as flashmash. Not a big fish, but plentiful. All around him was blue. Blue sky and deep, dark, clear seawater beneath him. Coracles were all around him, dark brown with white spots where barnacles clung to the boat. They looked like gillrats, scavenging the sea, Nish thought with a slight smirk.
Each coracle was very precisely built to hold a certain amount of fish and no more. The Fish Counters would, every few days, determine the maximum coracle size allowable for fishing. In this way, they ensured future populations of fish would not dwindle, and that the replenishment rate of fish ensured food for their grandchildren, and their grandchildren’s grandchildren. The game of coracles then became one of the risk-takers and safe fishers. Build a large coracle, and you may have a large catch or no catch. Build a small coracle you never had a large catch, but you always had something. Rich Fish Barons kept fleets of boats of all sizes, ensuring they could fish the maximum amount every day.
There was little mercy for those who tried to use their big coracles on a small coracle day. Your boat would be pierced with a sharp reed, and you would be left alone. Most never made it back to shore. It was easy to see who cheated, too – you can’t hide a boat on the open ocean for long.
The careful management of fish had allowed the lowwater folk to expand their rookery empire as the population boomed. There was always enough food. But just enough, no more. Lowwater folk tended to be stringy, very little fat. Lowwater peoples’ legs were wrinkled up to the knee due to their continuous contact with water. Except the Fisher Barons, Boat Builders, and the Leisure Lords. Their skin was smooth, not a wrinkle. They lived in immaculately constructed towers – the only thing to pierce the monotonous flats of ocean, reeds, and sleeping mats which constituted the lowwaters.
The salt in the air stung his bleeding arm, dried his lips, and the wind whipped at his hair. The spray from gentle waves hitting his boat splashed on his legs, tiny droplets forming, joining, and running in rivulets into the bottom of the boat. The smell of salt and lacquered wood lingered under heavy layers of fish, fresh to rotting. The bottom of the coracle would get a layer of fish slime if it weren’t cleaned thoroughly. Nish and Santi – his wife – would scrub the bottom of the boat with rolled mats of sponge-weed. Some fisherpeople left the slime in the boat, but Nish and Santi knew that the volume the slime occupied meant less fish would fit in their boat.
His wife was the most beautiful, smart, alive person Nish had ever met. She sat across the coracle from him now, a paddle in one of her hands. She had black hair, pale white skin, and eyes a blue he had never seen in the ocean – light turquoise speckled with green. High cheekbones framed the smile which often sat on her lips. Santi was always looking out at the horizon, able to see things others couldn’t. Santi was one of the bastard products of Rimen, not a full-blooded lowwater folk. Nish didn’t care. Her soul was in the Lowwaters, and even if it wasn’t Nish loved her beyond his love of place. Home was with Santi.
Nish himself was a handsome fisher, larger than most – strong. Bulky muscles looked like they were trapped in a net of veins. Nish, a full-blooded lowwater people, had brown skin, white teeth, and braided black hair that came down to his shoulders. His eyes were dark blue, like all lowwater men.
“Aye, that’s them,” Santi said, pointing towards a darkening point on the horizon – no more than a dot.
“Aye, if you say so,” Nish smiled at her, shaking his head.
The ocean under them frothed with fish, and other coracles had taken note – creeping towards them like crabs to a carcass.
“Hands you think? Makes the job a bit faster,” Santi wasn’t truly asking, she leaned over the side of the boat and with her hands made shapes like a slickwing bird’s beak and plunged them in and out of the water – fast as lightening. For each plunge she brought out a small fish, no bigger than a hand, and flung it into the boat. Nish, paddle in hand, beat each fish in the head – stunning or killing it. Nish had once seen a man overcome by flashfish slicing his ankles, wrists – hitting every artery.
Before long the boat was full to the brim with fish, Nish and Santi straddling the ends of the coracle to make room. They had been floating out towards the horizon where Santi had seen something, and it loomed into view. But Santi, a rare occurrence, had been wrong. It was not one thing, but two. A Rimen yawl, big as a sun ray on water, cut through the ocean smooth, strong, and silent. It was huge and white – like an island with white bluffs. Far above the hull Nish could make out specks of people hurrying about. They would be at the lowwaters soon, Nish and Santi would need to make it home before long. Even though the yawl was much faster than their coracle – powered by massive turbines, and sleek – it would take a few hours for the Rimen to prepare for offboarding.
To the left of the yawl there appeared to be a bump in the horizon. Meduze. Santi and Nish paddled their coracle steadily, and with urgency towards the Meduze.
*************************************************************************************
Knee deep water spread Ura’s dress around her like a lily pad. Her toes clung at the edge of an ocean-cliff. Beneath her toes, mottled colors swam back and forth in a deep, dark expanse of water. Clear sky projected a pink streak of sunset onto the water, cutting through the blues like a bloody dagger. Bad omen. Pink sky meant the stars were bleeding. Ura looked up to see all the assortment of small fishing boats leading far away into the horizon. Brown blobs, few sails. Ura’s parents were on one of the boats. Ura was waiting for the Rimen to arrive. They come once a year. One group from the north, one from the south. Big boats, big sails. Boats powered by motors when the wind was low. No oars. Ura had never been on an un-oared boat. There was something about it that made her shiver. The lack of control maybe. She thought she could make one out, far away, but too far to tell. She turned around on the sandbank and glide-walked along the underwater cliff edge.
Ura had grown up in water. Her whole family had. Lowwaters were at deepest ten feet, shallowest a foot. But water is everywhere. Some of the lowwaters were edged by beautiful beaches, other parts by sharp underwater cliffs that dropped off at a right angle for miles. It was said you could walk in one direction until you came back to where you started without ever leaving the lowwaters, but Ura had never met someone who did it. Buildings as tall as the eye could see were off in the distance, fashioned from island-rock and reed stems. Ura was young, but she knew only the rich lived there. The pleasure dens, the leisure abodes, the fisher-barons, the boat-builders. That sort. Ura grew up with most lowwater folk- sleeping on floating mats secured to the sea floor with rope. Her legs were wrinkled, skin flapping in the water, like most people of the lowwaters.
Ura’s mother always told her the tall buildings smelled – people defecated in a bucket, and the wind was held out. By the open ocean, salt clung to one’s nostrils, and seasoning for food seemed carried by the air itself. Breeze ebbed and flowed, constantly caressing her body. Blooming lilies floated carelessly at the lowwater edge, smelling of jasmine, and honeysuckle.
Ura couldn’t see the boat itself, but she could see brown splotches of the coracles bobbing up and down, and being cleaved apart by – ah, she could make it out now. She saw the beautiful white sails unfurling, even from a distance. The sail acted as a signal to the lowwater kayak and canoe taxis which would soon swarm the yawl and bring the Rimen to the lowwater high towers.
Once a year, the North and South Rimen come together for conference, information sharing, weddings, reunions, memorials, and sometimes funerals. They would bring with them salt, pelts, traded goods, and meat. They would leave behind a good deal of bastards, broken hearts, and empty wallets when they departed. For the Rimen, it was a festival – a celebration. For the highwater folk, in their tower, it was a good time for business. For the lowwater folk, it was work. The Rimen ate what four lowwater men would eat in a week in a meal. They demanded entertainment, were constantly slaked with seaweed rum, and when the day was over their evening delights, which were as vast as the ocean, and as diverse as the fish within, were alive. Rimen weren’t like other folk. The Planulists, the Meduzemen, the Stone Stewards– it was always men who visited the pleasure dens. But the Rimen were different. It was the woman who were the most demanding. Men were demanding too, of course, but the women…
Ura herself was on the cusp of womanhood and admired the Rimen women. Of course, lowwater folk were known for their honesty, openness, sense of liberty, and all that came with it. Ura would be a beautiful lowwater woman. Her skin was infused with sun, her eyes light turquoise speckled with green, and her hair streaked with brown and gold. Her figure was desirable – she has started to hide it less. But she would need to be careful around the Rimen. They often thought little of lowwater folk, and their appetites were insatiable during the festival. Ura was quarter Rimen – her mother’s father an unknown Rimen. The only tell-tale sign of Ura’s heritage was her eyes, turquoise and green being a particularly Rimen feature, while Lowwater folk had dollops of ocean in their eyes.
Ura’s parents were approaching in their coracle, each moving with grace – a hard feat in a boat shaped in an almost-circle. Some lowwater folk caught fish in pairs – each with their own boat. A net would be cast between the boats, and positioned to catch as many fish as possible, and then reeled in to one of the two boats. This was repeated over and over until one or both coracles was literally full of fish. Ura’s parents fished like the old folk. Said they felt more connected to their catch that way.
The lowwaters were blessed with abundant, and varied fish. Antlerfish were in the middle of their annual migration, and were the current prized haul, but flashfish, snappets, ghost-in-the-nights, and stripemouth stringfish were all fair game.
Ura’s parents made one last pull with their paddles, then put their legs over the side of the boat as it glided onto the shallower water. The boat had no fish in it. Instead, a long, gooey looking tube the size of Ura’s father was in the boat. It looked like the galaxy at night, swirling blues, blacks, and pinks with spots shimmering light. Ura gave her parents a quizzical look.
“Planula, hm? Must have been a good catch!”
Nish smiled at his daughter, placing his roughened hands on her shoulders gently.
“A man can eat fish here every day, but planula – that is a rarity the Boat-Builders will want to serve to a Rimen. And in return, your mother and I will get another coracle. For you.”
Ura’s face lit up.
“I can’t believe it! Mine own boat, mine! Are you sure? It’s too much, it’s…”
“Hush now girl, you’re father and I have decided. Now, if you want to go out to the Rimen be quick about it. You can borrow the boat. You’re father and I need to get this up to the towers,” Santi said this as she heaved the Planula. Nish ran over to grab the other end. It was heavy, sagging in the middle.
Nish flashed a concerned look at Santi.
“You sure you want her going out herself, I can…”, Nish tried saying.
“There is no way I am going to bring this all the way to the builders myself, Nish Paddlehands,” Santi gave Nish a rare, exasperated look.
“It’s okay dad, really. I went alone last year, remember?”
“I remember what happened, too,” Nish said.
“Ura would not exist if we did not do the same thing she did, Nish,” Santi said, sounding both sheepish and matter-of-fact.
Nish, looking torn, paused, and eventually nodded but did not say anything aloud.
Ura dug her toes into the sand with excitement.
“Thank you,” Ura said, not wanting to wait for a decision. She launched herself into the coracle. Reeds, some as thick as Ura’s torso, grew all around the shallows. Some were tall, a hundred or so feet tall, but most sat just a couple inches above the water. The reeds had four main purposes for lowwater folk: moorings for their boats, a “nest” like structure for their sleeping mats, a resource used to make everything from cloths to boats, and most importantly they stunted large waves and storms. But if you hit a reed the wrong way, if it caught in a coracle’s stitching, it could sink the boat faster than a flashfish to bait.
Ura had provided tours, usually for small children as a babysitting business, to the Rimen for four seasons now. Ura never understood why the Rimen brought their young with them. Lowwater folk had a saying. Failing well and often is better than passing badly and frequently. Rimen didn’t seem to care if they failed time and time again. Ura swore only half the Rimen children that arrived in the lowwaters made it back to their boats. Rimen failed badly and often. Or they just didn’t care.
Last season some men had joined in the tour, their women rolling their eyes. Ura hadn’t minded. In fact, she relished the attention without showing it. The innocent, lowwater girl who loved her home was the outward appearance she chose. She sought adventure, and the pleasures that only hardship unlocked – not the easiness of life in the lowwaters. She knew most people thought lowwaters life tough, and hard. Defecating in the water on which you slept, making babies in the same water. And sure, there were hardships. But water had a way of washing the hardness out, and the good times stretched longer than the bad. Her community was close, her sense of adventure broad, and she didn’t go long with an empty stomach.
Ura gently propelled the boat to the reeds edge of the lowwaters, the boat responded to the slightest touch. The paddle was smooth from use, and warm from the friction of her father’s hands on the shaft. Her knuckles fell into indents in the paddle which had been worn into the reed-wood from use. She smoothly propelled the coracle towards the yawl, amazed as always at the sheer size and grace of the Rimen boats as they loomed in front of her. They were almost all white, solid-looking, with curves that blended into the waves through which they cut. Everything was angular, she assumed to help the boat cut through the arctic ice floes, but she wasn’t sure. A swarm of service-boats had started to form near the hull of the yawl, some lighting lanterns hung from poles stuck into a corner of their boat in preparation for night.
Soft distant words quickly became close, loud, and sharp. The scene was frenzied. Rimen spoke in a dialect that snapped like yawl through ice- a crunching, snapping tongue to the roof of the mouth sort of language which contrasted starkly with the flowing consonantless sound of the lowwater folk. Some lowwater folk stood in their boats with baskets of writhing fish, eels, and mollusks. Others held dewbeans, bladdersquash, and all manner of seaweed hanging over their arms, gesticulating towards the yawl. Women and men alike briefly exposed themselves in tantalizing swishes of cloth. Card games, dice games, spears, swords, mercenaries. The smell of death, life, salt, sweat, jasmine, urine, fish, and reedwood enhanced the amalgam of senses. Boats with siphons in their middle prepared to shoot tall jets of colored water in the air, powdered dye from blues to reds at the ready. The ocean was alive with the market.
Ura stood on her boat to better see the yawl. It was huge, her coracle looking like a barnacle on a moonfish. There were three distinct Rimen groups she could make out. The first group seemed to not consider the work the yawl required, instead jeering down at the little boats, mouths hidden behind beards, bellies under light furs. The second group of Rimen frantically prepared the yawl: lowering anchor, securing the sails, spilling rope ladders over the side, lashing down every bit of equipment. The last group looked serious but did not lift a finger.
This group of Rimen was Southern, she could tell just from the boat. The draft was shallower than the Northerners, the people were a bit smaller, beards shorter, and manners less restrained. Not that Southern Rimen were all that different than Northern Rimen, they were so interbred the families were practically bad clones – more a case of nurture over nature. The South, from what Ura heard, had been shrinking more over the past years. The Southerners had farther to travel to get to the lowwaters. South Rimen felt the heat more in their stomachs, as empty as their fishing boats. They were hungrier in every way than the Northerners. Ura’s grandfather, whom she never met, was supposedly a South Rimener, not that it mattered. She was a lowwater breed – Rimen barely saw her kind as human.
Around the yawl it was customary for lowwater peddlers to circle clockwise close to the boat’s hull, Rimen pulling up lowwater folk, or lowering themselves onto lowwater boats or a set of giant Rimen dinghies which Ura knew were replete with bathrooms - a luxury – which would be the job of lowwater folk to clean.
“Tours for the babies! Tours for the young Rimeners! Willing to trade, no rock needed!” Ura waved her paddle in the air as she spoke, trying to get the attention of the Rimen. And she got attention, she made sure of it. The wind hit her cheeks and her hair flew in whisps around her, tickling her neck. She let the wind catch her dress too, which fluttered around her legs.
“Tour of what parts?” Yelled one Rimen. The yawl’s hull was so high she couldn’t make out his face, but she could see he was fat with long black hair. The Rimen man’s friends snickered.
“I like to show the private ones but I’m afraid you’d be lost,” Ura responded, not missing a beat. The man’s friends guffawed.
“That he would be, miss,” another voice called from above – a strong, calm voice. She saw his blond, straight hair blazing even with the dimming sun. Handsome.
“Poor lad’s still thawing out. Where you taking the young ones?”
“Reed forests, cliff’s edge, deep-coral, freshwater-pool, maybe the planulist settlement. Can’t be tonight though, need light.”
“Ay. Where can I meet you tomorrow?”
“Find me by the coracle docks. I’ll wave a flaming paddle in the air just past sunrise. Can’t miss it”.
The man smiled down at her.
“Looking forward to it. And what may I call you?”
“You may not. What may I call you?” Ura had no intention of giving her name to a Rimen.
The man chuckled, white teeth glinting.
“Well, you may call me Kvist.”
**
Nish and Santi buried their J hooks into either side of the planula, attaching reedrope to the hooks to better heave the planula around. It was heavy. The meat of a planula, properly cooked, was buttery, salty, meaty, marbled, and delicious. Nish and Santi only ever ate the end caps, the middle being far too expensive. A slice of planula middle was worth more than a small coracle filled with antlerfish. The trip to the boat-builders was difficult, and their planula haul gained them quite a few gawkers. Planula only came through the lowwaters once a day. The lowwaters, where they lived, was home to almost a million people along a strip of shallow water about a mile wide. The density of crowds was immense.
Nish and Santi had hired a couple of pushers to help them make their way to the Boat Builders, promising the pushers a slice of planula each once they arrived. Pushers were big. Too big for a boat. One pusher walked in front of the couple, one behind. The pusher in front gently pushed mats with sleeping families out of the way. No normal lowwater person stayed in one place for long, the gentle tides could push a family a mile between sunset and sunrise if they weren’t tied down properly. Only the rich stayed stationary, moored more with stone-money than stone itself.
They made their way from the rookeries – the poorest of neighborhoods, through the markets, and leisure bubbles. The closer they got to the boat builders, the louder it became. The Rimen were arriving in the lowwaters now, some drunk, some looking for men, others looking for women.
The great reed-tower of the boat builders loomed tall and imposing in front of them. The exterior of the building was punctuated with little protrusions – telescopes, and other mechanisms to see the stars, count the boats, and spot fish. Nish and Santi had never been in the tower, their business always took place outside. Coracles were small business to the boat builders. One Rimen, Planulist, or Stone Steward contract was worth a thousand coracles. Only big contracts, where the plans for boats took years to perfect, and years to build, were worthy of the lofty heights of the boat-builder reed-tower. It was said you could see all the boats, and that the boat-builders knew where the fish were best.
Around the reed-tower reeds were strewn about, messily organized into heaps. Slickwings flew over the heaps in thick flocks, their thin wings almost imperceptible. Gillrats swam unfettered amidst the high towers, scurrying between people’s legs. In the poor lowwaters, Gillrats were killed and eaten – their populations controlled. Here they were seen as a pest, no-one wanting their meat. Nish could understand why people didn’t want to eat the animals, their long stringy tails like a red-string, and their pink gills fluttering like a gash among their hairy bodies. Yellow teeth. Nish hated the things. Stomachs could speak loudly though, and Nish had consumed his fair share of roast gillrat.
Thermite fires circled the reed-towers in orange-brown hues. The thermite fires helped keep the reeds dry, served as the kitchens for many of the towers, helped liquify the lacquers used on the boats, and was essential in creating tar to fill gaps in the boats. Thermite fires were tricky and required a crew to man the fire alone. The fires would burn underwater, could burn through steel, and burn hotter than a normal fire. The Meduzemen mined Thermite by diving deep into water with a special breathing apparatus. It was extraordinarily dangerous.
A boatwoman saw Nish and Santi approaching the tower. She held a stick in one hand, and a jar of black tar in the other. She plunged her stick into the jar, scooping out the last of the tar and pushed in deep into the seams of a coracle. She threw the empty jar behind her without looking.
“What can I do for you,” the boatwoman asked, eyes still on the coracle.
“Brought a planula to trade for a coracle,” Santi said, dropping her end of the planula with a sigh, pushing her fists into her lower back.
The boatwoman paused and looked towards Santi. The boatwoman’s eyes flicked towards the planula, widening once they laid eyes on it. She licked her lips.
“Aye, that’s a good one.”
“Yes, and it’s not for you,” Santi said with a smile.
“Right, right – didn’t say it was,” the boatwoman grunted.
“Where can we bring this? Where’s the master of docks?”
“Lookin’ at her,” the woman said.
“But this goes beyond me, you need to get to a Boat Baron. They’re about to start entertaining the Rimen guests, better get up that tower quick before they sit,” the master of docks said.
Nish did not for a moment believe this woman was the master of docks. Dockmasters didn’t spread tar on coracles. They didn’t do any manual labor, there were thousands of lowwater folk doing that job. But he saw no point in arguing. He nodded at the woman.
“Thank you cap,” referring to the woman with the formal captain.
“Aye, that way,” The woman said – pointing towards a large gate like door at the bottom of the reed tower.
It took them time to heave the planula up the stairs, the two pushers helping immensely. Once they arrived at the top of the tower, the views took away their already laden breath. It was the highest Nish and Santi had ever been, slickwings fluttering below their feet, black against the thermite fire glows. Real glass windows surrounded the entire floor, each with thermite sconces inside and out lighting and heating the building. Hauling the planula over to a window, they saw only the stars in front and behind them, and lanterns strewn in an arc that reached the horizon to their left and right. Every lowwater person knew the stars, and tonight was clear skied. No moon circled Pord, but stars were bright here. And there was a star Nish had never seen lighting the sky this night. He pointed to it, and Santi nodded. It was large – one of the brightest stars in the night – with a bluish tinge.
“You know what that means,” Santi whispered to Nish. No response.
“Ma’am,” came a commanding voice from behind them. They both started, temporarily forgetting why they had come.
Santi braced herself and turned.
An immaculately dressed, true blooded lowwater man stood before her. Black skin, tightly woven braids. No fishhooks in the arm. A silky, thin shirt made of what she assumed was the skin of wings from a slickwing hung on his thick frame. The man was all muscle, and large. A head taller than Nish at least, and wide – Santi didn’t think she could put her arms around him. His face was solid, a trace of a smile – for politeness no doubt – played on his face.
“I am Bangka the Boat Baron. We hear you have a planula,” every word the man spoke was smooth, deep, pronounced. It had a calming, freezing effect on those on whom it fell – like the paralytic poison of a curdleblood.
The two pushers, who had been standing between the baron and the planula, stepped aside revealing the planula, which blended in with the unpolluted night sky behind them.
The baron breathed in deeply, as though inhaling the planula through his nose. He sighed out.
“Wonderful, so wonderful. We are thankful you thought of us, all the way down here,” he said this as though he lived in a shanty, not the tallest building in a hundred miles. He smiled, teeth white and carnivorous looking, while he bowed slightly at Nish and Santi.
“Ah, yes cap. We were hoping to trade planula for coracle. Our daughter is old enough to have a boat of her own now, see,” Nish started, but Santi interrupted him.
“You’ll get the full planula of course, except the ends of it. I know you towerpeople can’t stand the ends,” she smiled at the cap, baring her teeth to their fullest, and giving a full bow.
The baron’s smile faltered on one end.
“Why yes, of course – as is tradition. You mistake me though, ma’am. I grew up eating the ends. I enjoy them as much as anyone,” The man had turned, his voice quieter.
Santi shrugged, “Not an end eater anymore though I see.”
The baron sighed, looking over his shoulder and waving two men who stood with hands crossed in front of them. The two men synchronously stepped forward.
“I want you to see to it that these people are fed the ends and are given a table – perhaps a little far from the crowds. I then want you to provide them with a coracle of their choosing, as repayment for their goods.”
Music had started in the background, drums beat with paddles, clapping, slapping, wailing shouting, laughing. The baron looked in a hurry, bowed to Nish and Santi, and made his way to a long table which stretched the entire length of the building. He sat towards the head. Rimen started filtering into the room at a slow pace.
The two men the baron had beckoned took the planula, nodding wordlessly while a third crossed the room and gestured for Nish and Santi to sit at a table in the corner.
“We’ll find you after dinner and give you your pay,” Nish said to the pushers. Nodding to them. Neither moved, and Nish sighed.
“I pay my debts.”
The two men grunted, “You’ll pay one way or another, cap.” One man said, looking at Santi lustily, eyes following her silhouette up and down.
Nish didn’t want to make a scene, but he couldn’t stand anyone threatening Santi. Lowwater folk were uninhibited – everything was always on the table in an exchange. Sex, stone, death, fish – it all mingled in a messy pot. But Nish had certain boundaries he wasn’t willing to cross.
Nish unfolded his arms, and as he did so took little-T from his forearm, holding it discretely between his finger and thumb. He extended his hand to the pusher.
The pusher looked at the hand wearily, finally taking it.
“Alright, but if we don’t see stone or an end, we’ll, ah! What’re you doing?” The man yelled in pain. Nish quickly tugged the hook in between the man’s middle and forefinger, into the webbed part of the man’s hand. Nish was smaller than the pusher, but much faster. Nish tugged on his hook, pulling the man close.
“Threaten my wife with your little finger, I’ll take a finger. Understood? You’ll get your planula. Now quietly leave.”
The man nodded vigorously, trying to pull his hand away from Nish, but the barb took a special twist to unhook. Nish let the man go, brushing the hook on his hands before sliding back into his forearm, which he then proffered to Santi. The men scurried down the steps, throwing menacing looks at Nish as they descended the stairs.
Nish and Santi took in the room around them as they walked slowly to their table. Opulent, in a lowwater way. Reed, rock, glass windows, satin materials, fish of all kind, gelded squad swimming in tanks far too small for them lined the walls, thermite sconces, chandeliers of crystal, and multicolored glassware which digested light transforming it on the other side. Orange of the room shown like a beacon in the night sky, illuminating the ocean far below them, and the rows upon rows of mats which trailed off far into the darkness like a pixelated, multicolored wake.
Reedrum, rockwine, winter ale, and all manner of spirits they couldn’t identify flowed from large vessels into glasses which had been full moments ago. A couple danced in the middle of the room, entertaining the arriving guests. Lowwater people represented a wide array of Pord – they themselves had ancient heritage, but had since intermingled with Rimen, Stone Stewards, Planulists, and Meduzemen to form a diversity of people. Skin ranged from new-cloud white to storm black. Eyes from speckled pink and green to brown and black. Hair curled, flattened, or bald. It was hard to tell who was from who – how to keep track. Tracking your heritage was an absurdity to lowwater people. An old Lowwater saying was, “I was told I’m a Stone Steward, yet I have no money. I was told I’m a Planulist, yet I have no religion. I was told I’m a Rimen, yet I have no belly. I was told I’m a Meduzemen, but I’ve got plenty of kids!” Lowwater folk were all mutts, and they didn’t have the desire or time to track where they came from in days of old, or often new.
Their table was adjacent to one of the squad tanks. Squad were highly intelligent, sociable animals. They were the size of a tall man, with eyes the size of two hands. They had three trunk tentacles, and twenty-seven tentacle ends. Each of these tentacles split three times, with each end splitting into three – like a tree with branches. In fact, most creatures on Pord were based on three. Flashfish had nine fins, squad had three eyes. Humans were an enigma in these parts.
Squad were a nuisance out at sea. Wherever there were coracles, there were squad and often the best fishers would track squad to find fish. Squad would, rarely, kill and eat people too – sometimes jumping out of the water and tackling someone out of their coracle, ripping at them with vise-like tentacles and beaks. In a sign of power, some would catch squad and hold them in tanks like those around them. A conquering of sorts. They would geld the squad, often cutting off their tentacles and suturing the stumps before dumping their bodies in tanks to spend the rest of their lives.
Nish never liked the idea; it made him sick inside. He felt like the squad were uncannily like him. And he knew squad could communicate, and even empathize. He had seen squad tend to their wounded, using their tentacles as tourniquets. Squad were extraordinary parents as well, feeding their young before feeding themselves. There was reason to believe they schooled their children as well. Some even believed there were ancient carvings deep in the oceanic trenches that were made from squad beaks. Nish watched a squad in the tank near his table run its beak in the sand at the bottom of the tank, making nonsensical lines aimlessly. The squad seemed drugged.
Rimen were entering now, their rowdy, bawdy, inebriated presence filling the room quickly. Before long the couple that had been dancing were accompanied by four or five large Rimen diplomats in long furs. The room, which had been kaleidoscopic, patterned, a multitude of visual stimuli, became loud, stale-smelling, white and grey robes seeming to suck color out of the room.
Nish and Santi each gulped down a dram of reedrum, more to placate their noses than anything, and steel themselves for the inevitable bigotry, and belittling they would receive. It never came.
Bangka’s entrancing, soothing voice clambered over the din, “Thank you all for being here, and for your continued patronage of our humble lands. For centuries we have served as the obviously metaphorical round table for our world,” Bangka garnered polite chuckles as he gestured towards the elongated, egg shaped table.
“We see ourselves as the seam of Pord. North and South Rimen are mighty forces, and we are but a drop to their ocean. We hope this discussion will bring good fortune to all parties involved. Before we begin, let me remind everyone that we will have expositions for our various industries over the coming days, we humbly request your attendance,” Bangka smiled, raised his hands to his sides and bowed, slickwing shirt hanging from his arms like wings.
“With that, I pass the proceedings on to our good Northern Monarch friend, Eonde.”
“How many years has it been since we’ve heard from the good Southern Monarch friend now? Three?” a woman in front of Santi shook her head and smiled as Bangka sat.
Eonde stood. A bear of a man. Beard a mottled mess of reds, blonds, blacks. Nose like a baby bladdersquash, belly so big it peeped out from under layers of furs. But eyes as sharp as a knife, turquoise with green streaks. Eonde’s mouth wore a smile as a weapon. Nish heard the king ate live gillrats for breakfast, threw men off his yawl for minor infractions, and yet divided food equally – himself included, ensured all men were heard, and had the respect of everyone in the North and many beyond.
“Pleasure to be here, and so on and so forth…” Eonde said this while looking at the table and in a mumbling voice. He paused, then looked up – eyes flashing. A hint of a smile managing to escape his beard.
“But where is the King of the South? Grand old Snobel? You may remember him, long time ago – maybe, what now,” Eonde looked at his side of the table with a mock-question look, “three years you’d say?” Nods around him.
“What’s he trying to do down there? Screw the ice to make more of it? Got his little finger stuck in an ice hole maybe?” Eonde was yelling now, hands in the air, eyes crazed. The Northerners howled with laughter. The Southerners shriveled.
Eonde’s smile faded.
“I worry Snobel thinks we’re not important enough to dignify us with his presence. I worry about my Southern brethren, and their receding land. I worry about the hand which guides and unites them. I worry that hand has gone limp.”
The room was silent now. Eonde was standing straight, looking every Southerner in the eye. The silence seemed to amplify the stifling stench, glass walls keeping it all in, breeze unable to wash away the hot fur sweat of the Rimen. Even the squad, so anesthetized earlier, seemed alert, and listening along the walls.
A chair on the Southerner side broke the silence as a tall, muscular, short-bearded, long-haired man stood, proud and straight. The man had a faint scar etched from left temple to bottom right jaw, with tell-tale circles punctuating it. A squad scar. Not uncommon on corpses. Rare on the living. The man tilted his chin up slightly, staring down at Eonde, who looked carefree still, giving the man a yellow-toothed grin.
“Well, my-my. Blad! No clue what they named you after. Sounds a bit like a fart in the night, doesn’t it boys,” Eonde broke into a bit of a chuckle at the end of this. The Northerners chuckled dutifully, but their tone had changed slightly since Blad had stood.
“Eonde. My father has passed. He followed the Way, as you well know, so we don’t have his body here for a funeral. We can arrange something for a funeral on the morrow. Immediately, I wish to tell you that we have a monarch. The new monarch is new to our ways and did not accompany us for this joining of the poles but will be here time next.”
Eonde raised an eyebrow to this. Smile gone. Strange indeed.
“As is our way, next in line is the eldest child. That eldest child was born in the lowwaters, and never seen since.”
Santi almost audibly gasped, catching herself. Santi knew this was a lie. She had met with Snobel, her father, in years past. Her father, a stranger to her, had begged her to come away. Become a true Rimen. Santi, belly swollen with Ura, hooks deep in her arm, skin sagged by constant water, had said no. She unconditionally loved the lowwaters, it did not matter what tried to entice her away. Snobel said that his heir then lay in her, pointing towards her stomach, as was custom. Ura, future queen of the South Rimen. She had never seen Snobel again.
I enjoyed this book immensely largely because of the fascinating and detailed world the author has built. The planet Pord is a waterworld, its landmass submerged with only a few isolated islands standing above sea level. It consists of four different geographical areas, and six or seven biomes, whose various peoples live in quasi harmony: the Viking-like Northern and Southern Rimen, the spiritual Planulists and the Lowwater people. Each faction has a different culture and system of government. The Conglomerate, a powerful intergalactic organisation, sends Valkula, daughter of the Conglomerate’s leader, to take over the planet and siphon off all the water to other worlds in need. Pord’s people and its extraordinary ecosystem face certain extinction. Dunite, a Stone Steward on one of the islands, is in league with the Conglomerate and only Neph and Ura can unite the disparate factions against Valkula’s more powerful army. Will they succeed?
One of the reasons I enjoyed the book was that the familial and political relationships rang true and in the large cast the individual personalities shone out. But what I most loved about it was the richly imagined world - gloriously, madly, inventive. Huge jellyfish, the meduze, the size of an island, on whose backs a whole village can exist and by whose movement immense tides are formed. Rock-ticklers like gigantic millipedes, planula, odd seaweeds - an abundance, in fact, of strange marine flora and fauna, such as the gorgeous glass coral, all beautifully described and with intriguing scientific information on each.
My only caveat is that I was not entirely happy with the structure. I felt the story got off to a rather slow start as, although by no means a series of info-dumps, we were introduced to much of this new world and many of the characters and factions before the inciting incident, the arrival of Valkula and her army. This only takes place in chapter 4, and also means we get a great deal of unexplained vocabulary early on. In addition the ending seemed rushed with not all loose ends firmly tied. Perhaps a second book in the series is planned. And the glossary at the end might have been more helpful as footnotes or subsumed within the text.
However none of this detracted from my enjoyment of the story as a whole and I can recommend it as a thoroughly worthwhile read.