Blankmap: Book I

24. Repairs

During the next few days Solomon saw very little of his host. The ri-Marij chieftains were in the process of initiating Melion into his duties as an Irooj, a process which involved a number of clandestine ceremonies and rituals, passed down across the waves and the centuries. As such he didn't get many glimpses of the other chieftains, either, despite his desire to get another look at the Lerooj of Nonoear and her fearsome atti.

"Even I'm not allowed to watch," said Jacques, as Solomon sat staring out the window of Melion's house towards the center of the village, his breakfast untouched, on the third morning since the arrival of the ri-Irooj and ri-Lerooj. "Don't feel too bad."

"Can't they make an exception? I've spent every day with Melion since we landed here."

"Like I said," remarked Jacques, "even I'm not allowed to watch. And I've spent a good deal more nights with Melion than you have."

"It just doesn't seem fair. We're the only ones on the whole island who don't get to watch Melion become the Irooj! Why can't we? Melion even said that he considers us more than just guests. That has to count for something."

"You wouldn't understand a word of it. Wouldn't that get old? Besides...we're not the only ones not going." Jacques smirked. The sunlight filtering in through Melion's door was momentarily blocked, and Solomon spun around to see what his father was looking at.

"Rip Rap!"

The old lighthouse keeper's bulk filled the doorway, and he shuffled into the house sideways. 

"Mornin', boys," he grunted. "Where's everybody got to? Whole town's quiet as the grave."

"It's the last day of Melion's initiation ceremony," said Jacques. "Solomon is rather concerned that we aren't in attendance."

"What kinda nonsense is that? Yeh wouldn't understand a word, would yeh? There's a million better things yeh could do with your time."

Solomon cast his eyes down. "Melion's my friend," he mumbled. "I just want to be there for him. The way—" 

He cut himself off, staring intently at the floor as though there were something fascinating about it. Jacques softened.

"I know," he said. "He's been there for all of us, in one way or another. We just can't go. This isn't our affair. Alright?"

"Alright."

"How go the repairs, old one?"

"Slowly," said Rip Rap. "We're still lookin' at a month at the earliest. S'why I'm here now. Thought I'd recruit some able bodies to help me out today. Seein' as how all the able bodies are busy, I guess that just leaves the two of yeh. Come on, it'll do yeh some good."

Jacques was laughing, but it seemed to Solomon to be too automatic, too easy. He had not missed the look in his father's eyes when Rip Rap said it would be a month before the Petrichor would be seaworthy again. Still, he was tired of asking questions to which he either got no answer or one that he didn't want to hear, so he made no comment. Instead, a different thought crossed his mind.

"On one condition," Solomon said. "I'll help you on one condition."

"Son," said Jacques sternly, "we've already talked about the ceremony."

"Not that, Father. Rip Rap...when we're done working for today, could we have another lesson?"

"A lesson?" The older man seemed surprised.

"A reading lesson. I still have the...text we were working from before. I saved it from the ship. I'd love some help with it."

Jacques, preoccupied with his thoughts, did not catch the look that passed between his son and Rip Rap. 

"Yeh've got a deal. Hope yer ready to work, boy. I don't bargain lightly."

. . . . .

The Mejekweet had not been kind to the Petrichor, inside or out. With fresh eyes Solomon saw all of the damage wrought by the beast. He shuffled crablike through the passage that led from the galley to the office his father had occupied. Despite his best efforts not to upset the order of things any further, he could not avoid crushing plates and cups underfoot as he picked his way through the ruined interior of the ship. The sound they made when they broke was magnified in the empty passage, and Solomon's heart skipped a beat each time one broke, the cannon-shot echo of it making his neck hair stand on end. 

"Save what you can," Jacques had said. "Drag it up here and we'll sort through it. The ri-Marij don't throw things away lightly, so if it looks useful, it's probably worth holding onto—one of them will make use of it. Here." From inside a cupboard in his old office, Jacques had pulled out a wide woven mat with a long rope handle and handed it off to Solomon, who gave him a puzzled look.

"So you don't have to make too many trips," Jacques had explained. "Off you go. Start at the other end of the hall."

So there he stood, steadily piling ceramic dishes onto his makeshift skid. He briefly wondered where they had all come from, since he had seen no indication that the ri-Marij on Kwajro owned anything other than woven plates and wooden cups, but he reasoned that it made perfect sense for a ship that had been all over the world to have collected a few foreign things here and there. 

When he had piled the dishes high he pulled the lot back up and out the way he had come. As he approached the doorway that led back to the deck, Solomon heard his father's raised voice. He stopped just out of sight and listened.

"—a month, and that's just not going to cut it! I know it sounds desperate, Rip Rap—I am desperate! I sailed across the world to be here, to do this, and I can't do it without a ship. Other things are coming to a head, here. I don't have a month."

"And what other things might those be? Yer expectin' an awful lot o' me, out here by myself tryin' to fix up a ship what was ravaged by a beast who was designed to destroy it, and not even tellin' me why there's such a blasted hurry now! I know yer in a hurry to see her, but even that can bear a month, can't it?"

"It's not just about her! If it was I wouldn't ask so much of you, much as she means to me. It's...it's them."

"Them?"

"What happened sixteen years ago...the last time I was here...I think it could happen again. I'm terrified, Rip Rap. What if I brought them here? That was a close enough escape in Nishaya. Do you think it so unlikely that they won't have followed us? Jara did a nifty job burning through the sail, but you know as well as I that they won't be too hindered by that. If they come here, if drastic measures have to be taken, we'll need the Petrichor. There's not another vessel in Marij that will get us away from here and away from a Dammerung warship."

"Do yeh really think that's likely? That they'd come all the way here again, after all this time, just to settle up wi' yeh? After the mess we made of 'em in Nishaya, too?"

"I can't rule it out. Since the day we made port I haven't been able to shake the feeling that we're just idling while something terrible is brewing."

"Yeh weren't even seen, though. They can't've known fer sure yeh were even there. They saw me, they saw ri-Marij, that's all we know."

"I don't think the leap between the ri-Marij being surrounded and a bundle of weapons appearing out of nowhere will be too hard to make. I'd rather operate as though we're preparing for their arrival any day."

"If it means that much to yeh, I'll see what I can do. But I need more men, Jacques. I've only got two hands."

"I'll get you men," said Jacques. "I'll stay out here every day myself and work. Nights, too, if it won't keep you up."

Rip Rap grunted. "Suit yerself. Speaking of men, where's yer boy got to?"