“Eggcellent eggs,” Corra added, triggering another round of laughter.
“Plump pastries.”
“Fulfilling frittatas.”
“You guys were amazing,” my face twisted with more suppressed laughter. “But I have to get out of this petticoat.”
“You should save it as a souvenir,” Corra giggled, laughter exploding out of her as she looked at it again.
“Or burn it before we all go blind,” Izaiah suggested.
“I just hope this spreads enough confusion so my family doesn’t murder me later,” I chuckled. Everyone’s Skinscript was covered during the display, so there was no way to identify us all as Voyagers. If some of the blame for this incident landed on Jessarian and his family, all the better.
The noose around my finger was gone, and unrestrained giddy happiness overflowed in me.
We spilled back into town, intoxicated with laughter and merriment. Izaiah pointed out a pub he liked on the corner and we made our way in.
Consequences could come later.
Tonight was for celebrating with friends.
Tomorrow, we’d set sail.
Chapter 36
Gangplank
The first day of autumn arrived on a chill wind with gorgeous sunny skies. I wanted to rip the clear sky open until the weather bled out to match my mood. Any minute the hellishly bright sunlight would tear my skull open.
I might have overdone it a bit last night. I could remember what we’d done up until the fifth drink. Or was it the eighth?
Cyrthei had once been a beautiful natural beach, but society had encroached on its wild splendor. Thick palm trees had fallen and been replaced with food stalls and merchant shops. The appetite for commercial goods had levelled out the sandy dunes into a flat plain of sand, interspersed with flagstone pathways.
The volume of the shouting vendors hawking wares aggravated the hammering inside my skull. On my left someone had a tincture to cure fatigue and impotence, on my right someone was selling unbreakable rope.
Anything you could dare to dream was being sold here, apparently. If it existed, I would part with an absurdly large sum for a hangover cure.
As a child, these wharves had been full of wonder and magic, not charlatans. It was an enchanted playground that teleported itself between different parts of Mesmoria, belching out impossibilities. Now, I shouldered my way through with a quickened step and a grimace.
I went through the gates to the perimeter. My nerves were already alive from the shouting of everyone in the Cyrthei market, but being this close to the miasma set them alight.
That’s when I laid eyes on the Shadowtide.
It towered over me, sturdy lumber of the hull’s underside freckled with rounded windows and Cragscales. Planks of garnet wood gleamed in the sunlight, unblemished near the bow, as if they’d never felt the rough touch of weather. Defensive Starshell metal spikes protruded out from beneath its rails like fearsome gills. A fountaining carving framed the crows nest, which stood above the central enclosure on the main deck like a guardian beast. This was closer than I’d ever been to an Arc.
Miasma lapped harmlessly against the side of the hull.
Knowing something is different than seeing it. It was the definition of faith to know something without witnessing it. I’d known my entire life that Arcs were immune to miasma’s corrosion. But seeing the smoky wisps of miasma rising off the sandy foam where the waves collided, while simultaneously not seeing any reaction at all from it against the ship was shocking in an affirming way. By miracle or magic, the Arcs were truly impervious to miasma.
From here, miasma stretched out in an ethereal carpet to the horizon, dazzling in its splendor. Under direct sunlight, it glittered like it was made up of thousands of diamonds rollingagainst each other, a rainbow of hues fracturing and fluttering on its surface.
The harshening light was exacerbating the pounding in my head. No way was I going to stand around admiring the Arc when I could be inside it sleeping off this hangover.
Nearby, a massive gangplank stretched between the shore and the Shadowtide.
It was several feet across, with a guard rail rope stretched between each end. It extended out several yards between me and the Arc, with more between the wood and the ground below. And the burning miasma.
With no disrupting vegetation, the breeze here was much more powerful. A dragonfly caught in a particularly violent gust went careening past me.
