“Bad sleep?” asked an overly cheerful voice the next morning. Skíði looked up to see Lin handing him a cup of strange-smelling green liquid. “I make for Ajax. He say make also for boy. I make for boy Skidthi.”

“Skíði, he corrected absently, taking the hot mug. “What is this?”

“It is chá. It wakes. Drink, drink!”

He took a drink of the mystery liquid and made a face. “Is this medicine?”

“What is medicine?”

“Lin,” Ajax said from the other side of the ship. He spoke quickly in Latin, and Lin nodded his understanding.

“Ah. No. Medicine, no.” He pointed to the cup and then to Skíði. “Drink. It wakes.”

Skíði made a face but drank and handed back the empty cup. “Happy?” he asked sourly.

“Happy, yes!” Lin responded with a sunny smile and took the cup over to the chest that held all of the crockery.

“Bad night?” Yrsa asked.

He shook his head. “Everything I drifted off the ship would heave,” he grumbled.

She nodded. “They do that. You get used to it.”

“How come you’re used to it?” Skíði asked. “Svanbjörn worked for a merchant, I know, and Brother Paweł traveled everywhere before he settled with us, but why do you know about ships?”

“Do you think I have only ever lived in Visby, Skíði?” she asked tartly. “When Svanbjörn went off with that merchant, do you think I sat quietly at home with our mother, waiting to be wed by some smelly raider?”

“Well…” he hedged.

“No, Skíði, you know I am not that way.” She shook her head, clearly exasperated. “When Svanbjörn signed on with the merchant, so did I. He had two young children to mind. I have traveled as much as Svanbjörn, and have learned much in my time traveling.”

“Do you speak Latin too, then?” he asked.

“Yes, better than my brother. I speak Greek also.”

“What is Greek?”

“Another language from far to the south of here.” Yrsa raised an eyebrow at him. “So you see, young master Skíði, there is still much for you to learn in this world. There are reasons Ajax keeps calling you ‘boy’, although you have your growing gone and done.”

Skíði flushed. Yrsa hadn’t called him “young master” in years, and she always said it in as sarcastic a tone as she could manage. “Why didn’t you tell me before now that you have traveled with a merchant like Svanbjörn?”

“Why didn’t you ask?” she retorted. “I remember you asking Svanbjörn about his adventures as a younger man, and Brother Paweł, but me? Oh no. I’m just an old woman to you, and surely I was spawned that way, hmmm?”

Skíði frowned. “Yrsa, I did not… I do not… I mean…” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m sorry, you are… not wrong in some ways. I never thought to ask you.”

She nodded, somewhat mollified. “You are a good boy, Skíði, but sometimes thoughtless. That was fine and well in Visby but, out here in the world, you will need your wits about you. Especially following the will of the Allfather.”

He nodded. “Will you tell me about traveling with that merchant?”

She sighed. “Maybe. Not today. But perhaps someday.”

He nodded, mostly accepting this. He wanted to know, but Yrsa would tell him her story or not in her own time. There was no sense in pushing her.

“The wind is dying,” Ajax said, walking over to them. “Our luck couldn’t last forever. It is time now to row.”

Skíði bit back a groan of complaint — his arms, shoulders, and back all still hurt from just rowing out of the harbor — but he sat himself on the rowing bench and took up his oar. He reminded himself that he would pay any price, any price at all, to find his heart’s desire. Even if that price was rowing.

“Stroke!” Ajax called out as soon as they were all settled, and they rowed together with his call. After several minutes of calling out the time, to Skíði’s bafflement, he began to sing. The others kept rowing to the beat of the song. He followed them belatedly, and after several strokes realized what they were following. When that first song ended, Ajax launched into another one, and this time Skíði could understand the words.

“Oh, the ocean, she is a hard mistress,

But her waters, they call me ever home,

She gives her gifts sparing but plenty,

And so over her body I roam,

Someday she may call me to her chambers,

And there I will evermore lie,

Until then I wander the ocean, my home,

And will until, someday, I die,

Oh, the ocean, she is a hard mistress,

But her waters, they call me ever home,

She gives her gifts sparing but plenty,

And so over her body I roam!”

And then Ajax switched to singing in Latin and Skíði focused again on his rowing. They rowed for what felt like hours, but the sun had barely moved when Ajax called a halt. Lin and Brother Paweł, who were not rowing just then, handed out mugs of water.

“Slow,” Lin told Skíði when he handed over the mug. Skíði, who had been about to gulp at the water, paused. “Else sick make.”

He nodded his understanding and sipped carefully at his water. It tasted like wood and algae, but he didn’t care. He was so thirsty. His stomach cramped a little, but then relaxed again. When he finished his water he wanted more, but Lin put the cup away, to his disappointment.

“Enough rest” Ajax called out a moment later. “Stroke!” And then he launched into another song in a language Skíði could not recognize. Was it Greek, maybe? Or whatever language Lin spoke natively? Or Tanis?

They continued like that throughout the day. They would row for a count of eight songs, take a break for water, and once for food, and then they would go back to rowing for another count of eight songs. A few time Ajax made them stand up and stretch in strange ways. Tanis, who was rowing on the right (port?) side along with Yrsa, didn’t seem to feel tired, but Skíði was grateful for the rest. And the stretches, odd as they seemed, loosened the muscles in his back and arms.

That evening, with a fog rising over the water, when they were resting and eating, Ajax said, “I think we are making good progress. The wind favored us well yesterday, and the codgers and the skinny boy do not row as poorly as I feared.”

Despite the rocking of the boat, Skíði slept deeply and well that night. He was awoken abruptly near dawn by a loud crackling sound, and the sudden feeling of cold sea brine washing over his feet.

“Leak! Leak!” Yrsa yelped, standing up out of the middle of the puddle forming in the middle of the ship.

“What happened? Ajax demanded. “What did we hit?”

“Never mind that for now!” Svanbjörn shouted. “Skíði, get that rope out of your pack! And your knife! Hurry!” He held out a hand urgently.

Fumbling, Skíði pulled out first the rope, then the knife, and passed them to the older man. He watched as Svanbjörn cut a small length of rope and reached with it down into the deepening pool of water. He fumbled around for a moment as Yrsa and Lin frantically filled buckets of water and tipped them over the side. Then Svanbjörn nodded, stood, and cut another small piece of rope.

“I found the leak. A piece of chinking has split.” He bent again and fumbled in the pool of water a moment longer. At last he straightened. “That should patch the worst of it.”

“Good,” Ajax said. “Now, what did we hit?”

Lin dumped another bucket of water over the side and paused. “Wood drift. Big.”

Ajax splashed through the pool of water to look over the side. “That’s not driftwood, that’s a blessed tree.” He shook his head. “Who was on night watch? Tanis? Why didn’t you steer us around it?”

Tanis shrugged when they all turned to look at her. “In fog like this? I did not see it.”

Skíði looked around to see she was right. The entire ship was mired, surrounded by a thick fog. He had seen worse, of course — you don’t live in a seaside town without being very familiar with fog in all its variations — but he hadn’t seen worse very often. He could barely see the other end of the ship. It was that thick.

Ajax also looked around, sighed, and made a frustrated gesture. “Just… bail the water and let us get away from the thrice-damned tree.”

They bailed out the water as best they could as Ajax steered the ship carefully through the fog away from the tree. After they were well away, Skíði saw him pull out the map and consult it.

“Boy, “ he called over, “what is wrong with this thing?” Skíði took it from him, frowning, and looked at it.

The map was blank except for the indicator of “Skíði” directly in the center. There was no line showing which way to go. He frowned, shook the map, turned it over, turned it upside down, turned it right side over again, shook it one more time, and finally tried rolling it up and unrolling it. Nothing happened.

“I don’t know,” he pronounced at last. “Maybe it needs… something. Sun? To work.”

“It worked last night,” Ajax pointed out.

“You’re right…” Skíði looked back down at the map, trying to puzzle out why it had suddenly stopped working. “Maybe… maybe it’s telling us not to move?”

Ajax shook his head. “Well. We don’t have time for a capricious map.” He peered through the fog, then turned to Tanis. “This is the course we were on?” He pointed, and she nodded. “We will stay the course for today. If we go slow, perhaps we will not go too far off course… if the map ever starts to work again.”

“What if Skíði is right?” Tanis asked uncertainly.

“Then we can stop later,” Ajax grumbled. “Let’s go.”

“Food to be eating first, yes?” Lin asked, holding up a pan.

“Fine,” He looked down at the damp spot in the bottom of the ship. “Yrsa and the boy, keep bailing. Svanbjörn, keep an eye on that leak. See, maybe, if it can be patched further.”

“I believe I will say a prayer of thanks and another for safe passage,” Brother Paweł said.

“Do as you like,” Ajax said sourly. “Tanis.” He nodded towards the helm, and she followed him to the rear of the ship. They started to speak quietly as Skíði bent to fill his bucket with water.

Svanbjörn bent several times as they bailed, testing the chinking of the ship. Once and again this revealed small leaks and he cut small strips of cloth to fit into these leaks. Finally, they had bailed enough that there was no more water to bail, and the leaks had been patched enough that there was very little water leaking in. Lin handed around bowls of porridge and they ate the hot grain gratefully.

They were scraping the bottom of their bowls when there was another loud crunch and another rush of water over their feet. With a groan, Skíði set down his bowl and picked up his bailing bucket again. Svanbjörn rushed over to where the crunching had come from, knife and rope in hand.

“Leave the bowls, Lin,” Ajax ordered as Lin moved to collect them. “Take an oar and stand at the fore of the ship.”

“Why—?”

“I expect you will see. I hope I am wrong, but I do not think so.”

So Lin picked up an oar and stood at the front of the ship as they bailed and patched again. Suddenly he reached down with the oar and there was a thunk as he struck at something in the water. He hit whatever it was again, and then moved down the right side of the ship repeatedly hitting something away with his oar.

“More driftwood?” Ajax asked when Lin started to move to the front of the ship again. Lin nodded. “Then it is as I feared. We’re in a dead forest. You three,” he pointed to Svanbjörn, Yrsa, and Skíði, “keep bailing and patching the leaks. The rest of your, grab an oar and keep the ship safe as best you can.”

They all set to work. As Yrsa and Skíði bailed, Svanbjörn bent repeatedly to patch leaks. Now and again they would hear the others hitting away driftwood, and see them running around them. The water started to dry up at last.

“Boy,” Ajax called to Skíði, “enough bailing for you. I think you were right. I want you to take out the map and tell me if we have a heading yet.”

Skíði obediently pulled out the map again and looked down at it. “Not yet.”

“Keep an eye on it. Tell me if anything changes.”

They went on through the fog and the mist. The leaks patched as well as they might be, and water needing to be bailed only infrequently, Svanbjörn took an oar from Lin and Yrsa took up the remaining oar. Skíði sat on the rowing bench as the others hurried around him for hours. He chewed on a fingernail, waiting impatiently for some kind of a sign.

At long last, a thin line appeared on the map, pointing the way.

“Ajax!” he called with his heart in his throat and rushed to the helm. The older man glanced at the map and adjusted his heading.

“Finally. Get those oars in the water! I want to get well away from here, even in this fog!” Skíði went to take an oar Brother Paweł and Ajax called after him, “Not you, boy, or you, Lin. Boy, keep an eye on that map and tell me if you see anything different. Lin, keep everyone fed and watered. This is going to be a hard rowing day.”

They rowed hard through the fog all that day. No wind came to stir their sails or clear the fog. Skíði kept his eyes on the map, pointing their way through the fog and mist, and ever onwards. For the first time, Skíði began to wonder if Brother Paweł was right. If the mysterious Üçüncü had truly been a demon seeking to harm him.

But… even if Üçüncü had been a demon, was it worth it? His heart’s desire? For what, maybe his soul? And what was a soul anyway? He nodded to himself. For his heart’s desire, he would do anything, risk anything. Even a dead forest in the sea on a leaky ship. Anything was worth it to him, anything he could give or borrow.

It had to be.