Awakeners by Sheri S Tepper

“Blight-fish!” one of the boatmen cursed. “I swear by the carrion birds of Abricor, it’s too much. All we get lately’s the blight.”

“Come on, Swin, it’s not that bad. We haven’t really seen any of it since Vouye. Be careful!” Thrasne pulled him back. “You almost touched that one.”

“It’s hard. Probably blight’s gone out of it. Almost.”

“ ‘Almost’ gave the boatman a wooden leg.”

The men snorted. An old jest, but a true one. What the blight touched, it turned to wood, slowly or quickly, and if it touched the boatman’s hand he would have the choice of cutting the hand off if he moved without hesitation or becoming a life-size carving of himself.

Some said once the blight hardened completely it lost its power of contagion, but Thrasne had seen a man lose a foot kicking something that seemed very hard indeed. “Just push it over the side, Swin. Don’t stand there looking at it, or you’ll forget what you’re looking at and pick it up.”

Swin grunted and pushed the fish overboard with a boathook. The few remaining fish were free of blight, thrashing around on the deck making high-pitched squeals from their air bladders. The men began clubbing and cleaning them, tossing the gutted fish down where other crewmen waited with the salt kegs. Thrasne turned to stowing the nets. Blight meant extra care there, too. They would have to be lowered into the net locker without touching them and sprayed with a mixture of sulphur and powdered frag leaf. Only when they had steeped in this mixture for a day or two could the men safely handle them again. Now they were plying (he long hooks in gingerly fashion, pushing the nets below, and Obers-rom was already mixing frag powder. A good man, Obers-rom. Never needed to be told anything twice.

Thrasne leaned over the rail to watch the blighted fish moving alongside, sinking very slowly as they went, still visible after long minutes had gone by. They floated right side up; they looked almost alive, only the lack of movement betraying that they were fish no more. Or perhaps fish of a different kind. Thrasne had seen a man touched by blight once. In fact, Thrasne had been the one to use the axe, and he still woke in the night sometimes sweating from the memory of it. The boatman had kept his chopped-off leg in a netting sack, sprayed down with blight powder. He carried it about with him to taverns, where he sold topers a look at it in exchange for drinks, daring the foolhardy to touch it and see whether the blight had left it or not.

“Dangers in every caste and trade,” said owner Blint from time to time. “None free of peril.”

Thrasne supposed that was true. He went below to change his shirt and hide his books. Not that he had many, but those he had he wanted to keep. His book of fables about the South shore. His History of North shore in three volumes, Bine-tenths of it nonsense, Blint said, and all of it forbidden. Thrasne didn’t care. It made a nice thing to do some evenings when the winds were warm, sit on the deck in the light of the owner-house windows and read about how humans first landed on North shore, down from the stars, and about their great wars with the Thraish, whoever they may have been. Winged creatures, by the sound of it in the stories, who could talk just like men. And all the men using metal tools and weapons, which was enough right there to show you why it was all false and unapproved. But who wanted to read approved books? Lives of the Great Awakeners. The biography of Thoulia. Poof. One might as well read the chart-of-towns; it was more interesting.

They’d be in Bans by noon, and owner Blint would likely seek trade. Most of the towns along this stretch were short of spices and salt. They’d want to give pamet in exchange, and the Gift couldn’t take it. No room left in the holds. It would have to be something less bulky. Dried fruit, jam, jelly. Candies, maybe. The confectioners were supposed to be something special along here. Something about candies in one of their Festival myths. And toys. Little things for children. Mechanical ones that could be wound up. The toymakers on this stretch were notable. Not that Thrasne had been along this stretch before; he’d been only four years on the Gift of Potipur, starting when he was twelve as go-get-boy.