Ships and the Seas

The waters of Aethorra and everyone who works them.

The waters of Aethorra and everyone who works them: coasts, lakes, rivers, winds and seasons, every people's ships, the navies of 1146, a thousand years of sea fights and wrecks, how a pilot finds his way, the trade roads of the water, sailors' lives, and the quarrels on the water in the present year. There is no magic at sea. Storms, lights, singing reefs and following sharks are real things, and sailors explain them each in their own way.

Contents: 1. The Waters · 2. Ships and Boats by People · 3. The Navies of 1146 · 4. Naval History · 5. Navigation · 6. Sea Trade and Voyage Times · 7. Sailors' Lives · 8. Naval Flashpoints in 1146 · 9. Where the Seas Are Going

1. The Waters

Aethorra is one continent inside one sea.

The Encircling Sea

Aethorra is one continent inside one sea. Its coastline runs about seven thousand miles. Every realm but Tharax touches salt water somewhere, and only Castavar treats the sea as a road rather than a wall.

The first rule every sailor learns is this: ships that go far enough out never come back. The pilots of Tandosa give the plain reasons. Two or three days out from any coast, the wind settles into a steady quarter blowing away from land, and under it runs a broad current the Castavari pilots call the Outward Set. A ship caught in both can sail out in a week and need two months to beat back, and no hull on the continent carries two months of water. The Salt-Sworn say the sea keeps what wanders too far. The pilots say the same thing in other words, and both keep their ships in sight of land. So all sea traffic on Aethorra hugs the coast. A voyage is a chain of headlands, river mouths and watering places.

The Coasts and the Isles

Coast	Runs	Character	Who sails it
The west coast	From the Frostmarch south past the Greenwarden to the Llovo mouth	Rocky and wet in the north, with redwood cliffs, driftwood beaches and few harbors; dry and sandy around Tandosa	Coastwrights, the Waheli of Moss Harbor, Castavar's navy and fishing fleets
The south coast	From the Llovo mouth east past Sonvera, the Sunmaw shore and Baamarsh to the Nhal delta	Reefs and lagoons off Castavar, then hundreds of miles of desert shore with almost no fresh water, then jungle swamp	The Salt Brotherhood, Castavari coasters, Baamarsh's boats, the Mud-Eaters
The east coast	From the Nhal delta north past the Tsanha mouth and Chaiyo to Shanyo	Long, low and busy, with paddy shore, estuaries and late-summer storms	Kaishon's junks, the Chaiyo tuna fleet, the Chaiyo Boat-People, the Brotherhood's Long Reach
The northern sea	From Shanyo west along the Frostmarch's fjords to the ice	Fjords, whales, walrus, seals, and sea ice for half the year	Hrodvald longships, the Barerk Whalers, the Uusung

The Shattered Isles lie off Castavar's southwest corner, some two hundred and sixty miles from Tandosa and a little less from Sonvera, which faces them across open water. Their reefs are their walls. A deep-keeled galleon cannot follow a reef galley through the passages, and the Brotherhood's pilots know which channels close at low tide. Monk seals breed in the sea-caves, petrels nest in the cliffs, land-crabs swarm the beaches at night, and reef sharks work the passages. Wreckers Cove, the Brotherhood's base since 1004, lies sheltered among reefs and sea cliffs. The drowned site of Vexport lies elsewhere in the chain. Crews do not moor there.

Lake Surmave

The Mirror is about three hundred miles from the Wenvorm mouth to Larvir and two hundred from the Northmere shore to the Surmave delta. Aldmere holds the western and northern shores. Caelvenne holds the delta, the southern and eastern shores and, with its galleys and mirror towers, the water. The lake has no tide, but a hard west wind off the Spine can pile the water a foot or two higher on the eastern shore. Fog comes down without warning in spring and autumn, which is why the earl's bell at Wromthalm rings the fleet in. In high summer mirror-weed thickens in the shallows and fouls galley oars.

Three things under the water rule how the lake is sailed:

The Drowned Roofs. The Builders' greatest city lies about sixty feet down off Solvaine, and its tallest towers reach to within a fathom of the surface. Galleys and grain barges keep to marked channels in the southern waters. On calm, clear nights the very old say they can see the roofs, and they are right.
The Drowned Gate. The Builders' stone arch stands a day's sail northeast of the Drownings. The Drowned Court's boats sail to it at every new moon.
The Sill. Where the Tsanha leaves the lake by Larvir, ash and rubble from the Builders' age choked the old gorge into a high, shallow sill, and those shallows are the Tsanha fords. Flat barges can pass over them. A war galley cannot. Caelvenne's navy rules the lake up to the fords and cannot follow an enemy one mile down the river.

Lake Farvig and the Other Lakes

Lake Farvig is frozen half the year. The ice breaks in Bryrso ("oar"), the Third Month, and closes in Thubor ("frost"), the Ninth. In winter the lake is a hundred roads for sleds; in summer it belongs to the longships. The Farvig Outflow drains it north to the sea, about two hundred and fifty miles of river open a few months each year, so a Stormbrand longship can reach salt water only in summer and must be back before the ice. Lake Shorooq is shallow and salt, and poled salt barges work it. Lake Tsenkin is deep and cold, and its sturgeon fishers keep close to the shore that fell in 890.

The Great Rivers

River	Navigable reach	Main craft	Hazards
Wenvorm (the Claurou in Caelvenne)	Hethlend to the lake, about 260 river miles	Grain barges, Drift barge-towns	Spring floods; Hethlend's river chain, raised at night
Tsanha	Over the Sill at Larvir, past the Tontanor fords and the Jade Gate to Kokrin and the sea, about 950 miles	Drift barges, tow-barges hauled upstream by Larvir mules, river war junks below the Jade Gate	The Sill; Cherüsh riders on both banks in 1146
Muhau	Lake Tsenkin to the sea past Chaiyo	Rice barges, canal boats, river war junks	The flood of Mûhauhi, the Sixth Month
Nollen, Shauho	Nolsomel to the lake; Sorogei to Kokrin	Small barges, rice barges	Low water in late summer
Llovo	Grarañe's Wine Quays to Tandosa	Wine barges	A shifting, brackish mouth
Talodin	Mazbaaran to Lake Shorooq	Reed boats, flat river barges	Low water in dry years
Nhal	Most of its length to the delta swamps	Kapok canoes, garrison boats	Caimans, razor-fish, fever
Barerk, Farrur	Barmin to the sea; the Farrur barely	Longships, whaleboats	Ice

Winds, Currents and Seasons

Aethorra has one moon, and the sea has two tides a day, strongest at new moon and full. The Brotherhood elects its Captain-King or Queen at the ebb and swears the winner in at the flood.

Wind or current	Where and when	What it does
The Pine Wind	Down the west coast from the northwest, spring to early autumn	A fair wind south to Tandosa and a headwind north
The Furnace Wind	Off the Sunmaw onto the south coast, high summer	A hot north wind that pushes ships offshore toward the Outward Set; coasters anchor rather than sail in it
The Crane Winds	Kaishon's east coast; onshore in summer, offshore in winter	The Chaiyo fleet sails with the season, and the storms at the turn wreck more junks than any enemy
The Ice Wind	The northern sea, from Thubor	Drives the pack ice south; no longship puts out once it blows steadily
The Coast Stream	Inshore along the south and west coasts, running westward all year	Helps a ship from Baamarsh toward Castavar and slows one going east
The Outward Set	Beyond sight of land, everywhere	The current that does not bring ships back

Water	Open season	Closed or dangerous
West and south coasts	Llusodo to Corenva (First to Ninth Month), opening with the spring tuna run	Winter gales from Fojiga; the navy lays up most galleons after the Hearing
Lake Surmave	Punsimor to Vailal (First to Ninth Month)	Winter, when the galleys lie in the sheds of the Yards; fog, midges and mirror-weed in season
Lake Farvig	Bryrso to Stajend (Third to Eighth Month)	Frozen from Thubor
The northern sea	Kalig ("sail") to Stajend (Fourth to Eighth Month)	Sea ice the rest of the year
Kaishon's east coast	All year, with care	Storms around Mûhauhi

Dangers

Storms kill more sailors than all the navies together. After storms come the reefs, the shifting shoals at the Llovo mouth, the northern ice, the Drowned Roofs and the forged star tables. The living dangers are the reef shark, the coast krait, the Nhal caiman, and the whales and tusk-walrus that kill whalers every season. There are no sea monsters. Every tale of one is a tale of a real animal, told larger.

2. Ships and Boats by People

Castavar has the only true ocean-going navy on Aethorra: ships built to keep the open sea for weeks, not to hop from beach to beach.

Castavar

Castavar has the only true ocean-going navy on Aethorra: ships built to keep the open sea for weeks, not to hop from beach to beach. A navy sailor is a tasmelve. A harbor is a dallatie, which is still the name of Tandosa's old fishing harbor.

The war galleon (danrele). Three masts, square sails, high castles fore and aft, and a wheel on the quarterdeck. It mounts six to ten bolt-throwers and carries a company of ratorlon crossbowmen with crank-wound heavy arbalests (chesva). Its masts are Tandosa pine, and every captain wants the Greenwarden redwood Castavar cannot get. The most famous is Captain Tandosno's Bairnaro Drosdo, the "White Star."
The troop transport. Broad, slow and two-masted, for soldiers or horses along a coast. The Pine Yards have been building them since the spring of 1146.
The coaster. The two-masted merchant ship of the Salt Sea Lanes. It carries wine, oil, cork and silver.
The dispatch boat. Narrow, fast and triangular-sailed, for orders and pilots.
Fishing boats (chobeche). Sardine boats out of Dallatie before dawn, octopus boats, and the net boats of the royal spring tuna fishery, which land their catch at the Tuna House under guard.

The Salt Brotherhood

The reef galley. Low, shallow and fast under oars, with one mast and a sail that comes down in a moment. It crosses passages a galleon would tear its bottom out on, and in a calm it rows circles around a becalmed galleon. When men speak of "Salt Brotherhood galleys," this is the ship they mean.
The prize ship. Captured Castavari coasters, and now and then a galleon, re-rigged by crews who know them better than their builders did. Vex has taken thirty Castavari ships, and some sail for the Brotherhood still.
The stores ship. Two-Fathom's Hold sails food, water, agave rope and agave spirit in broad old hulls that never fight and always eat.
The long-voyage ship. The Long Reach sails the deepest hulls in the Isles, built to carry water for a passage of months.

Sormerva Vex's own ship is the Ebb and Flood, named for the Vote on the Tide.

Caelvenne

Caelvenne's navy has never touched salt water. On its lake it has no rival.

The war galley (sodare). Long and narrow, thirty oars a side with two rowers to an oar, a lateen sail, a bow bolt-thrower, and a platform for marines with clockwork crossbows. Galleys are built and wintered in the covered slips of the Yards. Every one carries a knotted cord on its bow, though its officers are cardinals' nephews. The flagship is the Faltil-Fiajane ("serene lily").
The dispatch galley. Twelve oars a side, for carrying orders when fog blinds the mirror towers.
Barges and canal boats. Broad sailing barges carry Aldmere's grain to the Grain Quays. Inside Solvaine, which has no carts, every load moves by boat. The two Debtors' Hulks off the Yards are old galleys.

Aldmere, Tharax and the Drift

Aldmere's words for ship and boat, stunald and fowd, see more use on the river than at sea, and the kingdom keeps no war fleet. Its grain barges carry Crown wheat down the Wenvorm from Hethlend's Swan Quays and are towed back up by oxen. Its perch boats work out of Wromthalm's Darthir ("haven"), each with a knotted cord on the bow. In war the lakeshore earls levy fishing boats, as they did in the War of the Tsanha Fords, when Caelvenne beat them on the water.

Tharax has words for ship and boat, ditherk and trethak, and no use for either. A Phymon will stand on a galley's deck if ordered. He will not sit at an oar, because an oarsman faces backward.

The Drift lives on its boats and, by its own reckoning, is never on land. Its nine barge-towns of lashed-together barges drift the Wenvorm, the Nollen and the Tsanha, and Surmave Float lives on the lake. Threeoars carries four hundred people. A barge-town can unlash in an hour and scatter when the customs boats come. On the Tsanha the barges come back upstream behind Larvir mules on the towpath.

Zarvand

Zarvand keeps no seagoing navy. Its one port on the southern sea, Baamarsh, is guarded by about twenty fire-boats, oared boats with a bronze siphon in the bow for Talodin fire (hizikeen), which burns on water. That is why the Second Crusade landed on the open coast nearby in 866 and took Baamarsh from the land side. A few Baamarsh coasters (nekoz) fetch pepper from the Nhal delta and salt from the Shorooq shore, and they do not go west of the Sunmaw shore, where the Brotherhood hunts. Reed boats and flat river barges (doodaq) work the Talodin from Mazbaaran's Reed Wharves to Lake Shorooq.

Kaishon

The sea war junk (ryônishì). High-sterned, with three or four masts of battened matting sails that reef in a moment, a deep stern rudder, and a hull divided into sealed compartments, so that one hole does not sink it. It carries repeating crossbowmen on its castles and an engine in the bow that throws many bolts at once. The Chaiyo flagship is the Tèkba-Meksi ("new rampart").
The river war junk. Smaller and flat-bottomed, with oars and sail. It patrols the Tsanha, the Muhau and the Shauho, escorts the grain-tax barges, and flies signal kites from its mast.
Rice barges and canal boats (soksoi). The grain-tax barges come down the Tsanha from the Jade Gate, up it from Tauya, and down the Shauho from Sorogei to the Granary Steps at Yomìn ("harbor").
Tuna and cormorant boats. The Chaiyo fleet lives on the great Chaiyo tuna. Inshore fishermen fish with leashed cormorants.
The Boat-People's junk. About six thousand Chaiyo Boat-People live on family junks in the estuaries and have not touched land in generations.

The Hrodvald Clanholds

The longship (denak). Long, low and open, clinker-built of taiga pine, with one square sail (kalig), a bench of oars (bryrso) down each side, and a beast carved on the prow so the ship remembers it was alive. It draws so little water that it can run up any beach and go down the Outflow. Sea longships are larger than lake ones. The best on the lake are built on Krasvuv's Keel Strand.
The cargo ship. Broader, deeper, and sailed rather than rowed, for furs, amber, ivory, whale oil and cattle.
The whaleboat. The Barerk Whalers hunt the Barerk whale from open boats of six oars and a harpooner, and tow the carcass home. One whale feeds a clanhold for a winter.

A Hrodvald ship is a gotam and a boat a keyf. The first longship, the old tale says, was a whale carved from a taiga pine by a stelest's daughter who could not watch her father's men drown in a coracle.

The Free Peoples of the Coasts

The Coastwrights build from driftwood only, because under Waheli law cutting a tree is death. Their patched, lashed boats are small and very seaworthy, and one of them carried Vex's sealed letter to the Bairnaro Drosdo. The Waheli of Moss Harbor fish from dugouts cut from fallen redwood, which the Circle allows because the tree fell on its own. The Tzalan carve canoes from the Nhal kapok, from two-man fishing canoes to war canoes of thirty paddlers, and harpoon the ten-foot serpent-fish from them. The Mud-Eaters pole reed rafts through the Nhal delta. The Uusung hunt seal and walrus from light one-man skin boats, and in the whale season, Malnaanvaq, they launch big open skin boats that carry a camp's hunters. The Barerk Whalers learned the whaleboat from Uusung who came south.

Ships at a Glance

Type	People	Length	Crew	Good day's run	Carries	Use
War galleon (danrele)	Castavar	130–150 ft	250 sailors, 100 marines	90–120 miles	400 tons, or 500 soldiers packed	Battle, convoy, pirate hunting
Troop transport	Castavar	110 ft	60	60–80 miles	300 soldiers or 40 horses	Carrying armies
Coaster	Castavar	80–100 ft	25–40	70–100 miles	150–250 tons	The Salt Sea Lanes
Reef galley	Salt Brotherhood	90 ft	120	60–70 rowing, 100 sailing	40 tons	Raiding and boarding
Long-voyage ship	Salt Brotherhood	110 ft	70	80–100 miles	250 tons and months of water	The Long Reach
War galley (sodare)	Caelvenne	120 ft	180 (120 rowers, 40 marines)	60–70 miles	Little	Command of the lake
Lake grain barge	Caelvenne, Aldmere	70 ft	8	50–60 miles	60–80 tons	The Golden Road
River grain barge	Aldmere	60 ft	5, and oxen upstream	25–35 downstream	40 tons	The Wenvorm
Barge-town	The Drift	A floating town	50–400 people	The current's pace	Whatever pays	Living, ferrying, smuggling
Longship (denak)	Hrodvald	70–100 ft	60–80	100–150 sailing, 50–60 rowing	60 warriors or 20 tons	Raids, war, travel
Cargo ship	Hrodvald	60–70 ft	12–20	80–100 miles	30 tons	Northern trade
Sea war junk (ryônishì)	Kaishon	100–160 ft	150, 60 of them crossbowmen	70–100 miles	300 tons	Coast defense, escort
River war junk	Kaishon	60–80 ft	50	40–50 miles	30 tons	River patrol
Fire-boat	Zarvand	50 ft	30	Harbor work	A siphon and naphtha jars	Guarding Baamarsh
Driftwood boat	Coastwrights	20–30 ft	4–8	50–70 miles	2 tons	Fishing, quiet trade
War canoe	Tzalan	60 ft	30 paddlers	30–40 downstream	30 warriors	River war
Big skin boat	Uusung	30 ft	8–12	Short trips	A camp's hunt	Whaling, walrus

3. The Navies of 1146

Tandosa is ruled by the king through the navy's senior captains and the crown's harbor officers.

Navy	Strength	Bases	Command	Doctrine in a line
Castavar	About 36 war galleons, 60 lesser craft and 12,000 tasmelve; transports building	Tandosa; Sonvera	The king, through the navy's senior captains	Keep the lanes open, hunt pirates, never fight a reef galley in a calm
Caelvenne	About 64 war galleys in three squadrons	Solvaine (the Yards), Claupiose (the Rèvascare), Larvir	Captains of the Nine Houses under the Conclave	Command the lake, escort the grain, signal before you fight
Salt Brotherhood	About 70 hulls in nine crews, 45 fit to fight	Wreckers Cove and the coves of the Isles	Captain-Queen Sormerva Vex and the council of nine captains	Take ships without hanging anyone, and fight where the reef helps
Kaishon	About 120 sea war junks and 300 river war junks	Chaiyo; the Tsanha mouth near Tauya; the sea forts by Shanyo; Yomìn	Officers of the professional corps under the ministries	Hold the coast and rivers, and never chase past sight of land
Hrodvald	Perhaps 200 longships on Lake Farvig and 150 on the northern coasts	Krasvuv's Keel Strand; Barmin; the Fevur coast	Each stelest; the Hearthking in war	Strike fast, beach, and be home before the ice
Zarvand	About 20 fire-boats and river patrol boats	Baamarsh; Mazbaaran's Reed Wharves	The Jaarzeb of Baamarsh	Let the enemy land and let the desert do the work
Aldmere	No war fleet; levied lakeshore boats	Hethlend's river chain; Wromthalm	The crown and the lakeshore earls	Rely on the chain, the walls and Caelvenne's galleys
Tharax	None	None	None	"Our walls are men," and men do not float

Castavar

Tandosa is ruled by the king through the navy's senior captains and the crown's harbor officers. A quarter of its forty thousand people are at sea at any time. The galleons lie along the Galleon Mole with their bolt-throwers shrouded. The Pine Yards build and arm them, and the pilot school trains their navigators from the age of twelve. Sonvera keeps a smaller squadron facing the Isles.

Castavar has no single sea lord, and in 1146 its senior captains are divided. Captain Modarsa Tandosno (31) of the Bairnaro Drosdo is the navy's best captain, and nobody argues it. She has sunk four Brotherhood ships and lost one of her own. She thinks the crusades a waste of good hulls, and she is the heart of the Vinvelon, the party that says Castavar is a power of the sea. Against her stands Nietie the Senior Captain (nietie, "cold"), a Grandee's younger son of about fifty and an Ecclesiast, who runs the Pine Yards' building from the galleon Corenva-Jartodo ("holy hawthorn"). He has accepted the Rislo's order to build transports, and he has said on the Galleon Mole that a captain who refuses the church refuses God.

Galleons sail in pairs or with convoys. In open water with a wind, a galleon outranges anything afloat, breaks a reef galley's oars with bolts, and boards with crossbowmen. In a calm or near a reef the advantage turns, and every captain is taught to stand off rather than follow a pirate into shoal water. Tandosno's four kills all came in open water at dawn.

Caelvenne

The lake navy is the one armed force Caelvenne owns outright. The Lake Treasury was founded in 220 to pay for it. The main squadron lies at the Yards, four islands in Solvaine's northwest with galley sheds, ropewalks, oar-makers and pitch-boilers. The Claupiose squadron keeps the southwestern shore from the Rèvascare, and the Larvir squadron watches the Tsanha fords. The senior captain of the Yards is Tevon of the Yards (tevon, "strong"), a Farisel cousin in his forties who won the Pavir race four years running as a young man.

The Caelvennois way is to signal first and fight second. The mirror towers can gather every squadron at one point in a day while an enemy is still rowing. The galleys escort Aldmere's grain, enforce the lake tolls, mark the channels past the Drowned Roofs, and keep the Drift's smugglers honest enough. They fight with bow bolt-throwers, clockwork crossbows and pitch, which Claupiose used in 271 to burn Ienvaune's harbor. Their oarsmen are free men and women paid by the day, drawn from Reedside, the Drownings and the boatmen's guild. That means the Bells and the Bench are at the oars.

The Salt Brotherhood

About 12,000 people sail in nine crews, and each crew is a tribe with its own ships and captain: Wreckers Cove (Vex's own), the Reef-Runners, the Black Sail, the Drowned Kings (who dispute Vex's claim to Vexara's line), the Tandosa Ghosts (Castavari deserters), the Long Reach (who sail east to Chaiyo), the Salt-Wives (captained and crewed by women), the Coastwright Cousins, and Two-Fathom's Hold, the stores fleet. The nine captains sit in council.

Captain-Queen Sormerva Vex (39) has taken thirty Castavari ships and hanged no one. Captured crews are offered a place or set ashore. Captured captains hear Zarvani poetry. Chobecho "Two-Fathom" (48) runs the shares, the stores and the elections with a tally-stick. The Long Reach is captained by Lonre of the Long Reach (lonre, "fast"), a Sonvera-born woman in her thirties who has made the Chaiyo voyage five times.

The Brotherhood fights the other way round from Castavar. Never fight a galleon at range. Take it in a calm, at night or in shoal water, where oars beat sails. Lure pursuers onto reefs. Board fast, take the cargo, and let the crew go. Its pilots read charts as well as Castavar's, and they know the reef passages by sight, which no chart shows.

Kaishon

Kaishon uses its ships the way it uses its wall: to keep things out and keep things in order. The sea war junks hold the coast in three squadrons. One lies at Chaiyo, guarding the Muhau estuaries and the tuna fleet. One lies at the Tsanha mouth near Tauya, guarding the river road to Kokrin. One lies under the sea forts by Shanyo, where the Rampart's northern forts were carried to the shore after 763. The river war junks patrol up to the Jade Gate, and the engineering corps builds barges and war junks in its yards at Yomìn.

The Chaiyo squadron is commanded by Chaishosâ the Junk-Captain (chaishosâ, "sea"), an examined officer of fifty-five from a Chaiyo merchant family. He is quietly of the Open Gate faction and has not reported the Long Reach's visits in eleven years. His orders say never to pursue beyond sight of land, and it suits him to obey. The Kaishoni way is weight of bolts and good order. A junk's repeating crossbowmen loose more bolts in a minute than a galleon's company in five, and its sealed compartments keep it afloat after hits that would sink anything else. Squadrons signal by kites from the mastheads by day and by lanterns at night.

The Hrodvald Clans

The Clanholds have no navy, only clans with ships. Each longship belongs to a stelest or to the crew that built it. In war the Hearthking asks, and the clans send what they think fair. Clan Stormbrand keeps about forty longships on Lake Farvig, the most of any clan on the lake. Clan Barerk's sea longships work the northeast coast from Barmin. Kruman Ironjaw, who does not sail and has no voyage bands, keeps few ships. Their way of war is the raider's: row in at dawn, land, strike, and be gone before the country rouses; at sea, lash the ships together and fight across them as on land. Since 1144 Selra has turned Stormbrand crews to trade, and the old men in the Split Shield say it is not the same.

The Barerk Whalers (about 4,000) live within Clan Barerk's lands but not under its orders. Their first elected Harpoon-Master is Bekil the Harpoon-Master (bekil, "safe"), a broad, gray, half-Uusung whaler of about forty-five who has killed eleven whales with his own iron. Fevstel watches him nervously.

Zarvand and Aldmere

Baamarsh's fire-boats are commanded by Tolaarz of the Fire-Boats (tolaarz, "hot"), a siphon-master of about sixty who drills his crews every Kelong. Zarvand's way at sea has not changed since the First Crusade: let the enemy come, burn what enters the harbor, and let the desert and the distance do the rest. Aldmere's grain crosses the lake under Caelvennois escort, and its river is closed at Hethlend each night by the iron chain between the two river towers. The Moot debates building galleys whenever it debates the debt. It has never voted the money.

4. Naval History

The Salt Wars (410–415). For two hundred years Vexara's kings lived on Castavar's ships, and Castavar's fleets could not follow them through the reefs.

Year	Event
Before the Reckoning	The Builders ship Cinder Teeth ash to every coast, build stepped harbors and control the lake's level with gates. About 1900 before R. the lake rises sixty feet and drowns their greatest city.
c. 210–410	The kings of Vexara prey on Castavari shipping from the Shattered Isles for two centuries.
220	Solvaine, Claupiose and Ienvaune found the Lake Treasury to pay for a galley fleet.
231	The Hethlend Collapse. The timber bridge falls in the spring flood; three hundred drown, among them the Lord Chancellor.
255–294	The Marrowmere Wars over lake tolls, fought with galleys and with hired Hrodvald raiders, Tharaxi spears and Castavari knights.
271	The Burning of Ienvaune. Claupiose's galleys fire Ienvaune's harbor with pitch. Two thousand die.
410–415	The Salt Wars. Castavar's ocean fleet destroys Vexara, and the survivors become the Salt Brotherhood.
539	The Great Surmave Flood drowns Solvaine's lower city and the Marrowmere Wardens and uncovers the Drowned Gate.
690	A Castavari fleet lands missionaries at Baamarsh, and the Zarvani burn their ship.
712	The Salt Brotherhood is sworn, with a code and an elected Captain-King.
763	The Barerk Raid on Shanyo. The survivors among Shanyo's fishers become the Barerk Whalers, and Kaishon carries the Rampart's forts to the sea.
866–868	The Second Crusade goes by sea: 45,000 Castavari land near Baamarsh and are broken at the Salt Pans in 868.
890	The Tsenkin Earthquake drops the archive's lakeside wing and the villages of Old Tsenkin into the lake.
911–914	The War of the Tsanha Fords. Caelvenne wins on the water and loses on land.
960	The Berrode bans the star tables; Castavari navigators keep using them.
1004	The Drowning of Vexport. A storm sinks half the Brotherhood's fleet, and the Brotherhood rebuilds at Wreckers Cove.
1041	Hearthking Farrun Icebrand dies in a longship on Lake Farvig.
1089	The Great Winter. Lake Farvig freezes to the bottom in the shallows.
1131	A Castavari mercenary company defects mid-siege in a lake-shore raid, and Caelvenne signs the Iron Contract.
1138	Selra Stormbrand's raid on Shanyo, the last great Hrodvald raid of any kind.
1140	Kruman Ironjaw burns a Sun-Turner lamp-house on the Barerk coast.

The Salt Wars (410–415). For two hundred years Vexara's kings lived on Castavar's ships, and Castavar's fleets could not follow them through the reefs. The Salt Wars ended it the only way a fleet could: five summers of blockade outside the reef passages, which starved the islands of the grain they did not grow and burned every hull that came out. Castavar never settled the islands, and the survivors took to the coves with what boats they had. Castavar kept one lesson, and its captains still teach it: do not go into the reef; make the reef come out to you. The Brotherhood kept another: a fleet that can blockade you can starve you. That is why Two-Fathom's Hold exists, and why the Brotherhood trades quietly up the west coast. The old tales call Vexara "the drowned kingdom," which is wrong. Vexara was destroyed, and Vexport, six centuries later, was drowned. Old tales may get the past wrong.

The Barerk Raid (763) and Selra's raid (1138). In 763 Clan Barerk's longships rowed down the northeast coast and sacked Shanyo. Kaishon answered with stone, carrying the Rampart's forts to the sea and keeping a squadron under them. In 1138 Selra took Stormbrand longships down the Farvig Outflow in early summer, east along the coast and past the sea forts by night, and struck Shanyo at dawn. She came home with silver and cloth. The clans starved anyway, and the raid made her name. Six years later she was elected Hearthking on a promise to trade instead of raid. She wears three blue voyage bands for three voyages beyond the ice.

The Second Crusade by sea (866–868). The First Crusade died of thirst, so Rislo Pueco and King Mairo II went by sea. It took every hull on the Tandosa Coast and many hired ones to carry 45,000 men, their horses and their water fifteen hundred miles. The fleet came ashore on the open coast, because Baamarsh's fire-boats would have burned it in the harbor. The army took Baamarsh and Vonteen-Shorooq and held them two years, until the cataphracts charged across the Salt Pans. The fleet carried the survivors home. The navy remembers it as the one time it did everything asked of it and the army lost anyway.

The Drowning of Vexport (1004). A great storm came out of the southwest at night and caught the fleet at anchor. The last Captain-King took his ship back out into it to lead the fleet to sea room, and he was never seen alive again. Half the fleet sank and the town drowned, and the Brotherhood has never since anchored its whole fleet in one place. The crews say he is seen on the water in every storm, still signaling the way in. Lightning on a wet sail can look very like a lantern. Vex claims his blood. Chobecho says everyone does.

The star tables (anseesh). Every navigator on Aethorra uses the tables of Zarvand's House of Learning, made since 681.

The star tables (anseesh). Every navigator on Aethorra uses the tables of Zarvand's House of Learning, made since 681. They give the sun's height at noon and the places of the navigating stars for each night of the year, so a pilot who measures them knows how far north or south he is. The next year's tables are read from the Star Tower's steps on the 1st of Peenfid, and foreign navigators fill the Scholars' Quarter that week. A bound copy costs three talod. The Berrode banned them in 960. Tandosa's pilot school teaches from them anyway, bound inside the covers of approved books, and Queen Rorelle and Sormerva Vex both read them. The danger is forgery. In the week of the Reading, Mazbaaran's underside sells forged tables with errors that wreck ships, and a careful pilot checks a new copy against known stars before he trusts it.

The arc, the line and the book. A Castavari pilot measures the sun at noon with a brass arc marked in degrees, a ship's cousin of the great arc on the Star Tower's roof. He finds depth with a lead line, a weighted rope knotted every fathom, whose hollow base is packed with tallow to bring up the bottom, and a pilot who knows his coast can name his place from the color of the sand. He judges speed by timing a wood chip from bow to stern, and he keeps the day's courses in a book. No Aethorran pilot steers by a needle. East and west are reckoned from speed, time and the coast. Hrodvald steersmen use no tables and no book. They read the sun, the swell, the color of the water, whales and birds, and the storm priests read the weather for every longship that leaves Krasvuv. No stelest sails against Statha's word.

Pilots. The Pilot School on Pilot's Hill is a plain stone house with a flat roof for star-sighting. There boys of twelve learn to read a chart, a coastline and a sky under Tolerto the Pilot-Master. It is the one place in Castavar where a fisherman's son learns to reckon with numbers, and several Brotherhood pilots learned there. Caelvenne licenses lake pilots at the Yards, and they alone may take a galley past the Drowned Roofs. Kaishon's harbor pilots are examined officers. The Drift trusts no pilot but the river and the Helm.

Mirror towers and lights. Caelvenne's mirror towers (sieran) are its great advantage on the lake. Sierine Tésvol built the first line from Solvaine to Larvir in 788, and the towers now ring the southern and eastern shores, from the First Sieran on the Furnace Isles to the Claupiose tower above the Rèvascare. By day the bronze mirrors flash sunlight, and a message crosses the lake in an hour. By night they work with lamps and serve as harbor lights, and a galley lost in the dark steers by them. Sierelle Tésvol has drawn a tower that could reach the Grass Sea. Solvaine's chain towers burn lamps all night, and Tandosa lights a fire basket on Pilot's Hill when a ship is expected after dark. On the northern coast, whalers coming home steer by the Sun-Turners' lamp-houses, which is part of why the Barerk Whalers have not forgiven Kruman for 1140. Kaishon signals at sea with kites, lanterns and beacons, and the Brotherhood's Reef-Runners use a whistled code for the passages that no Castavari has broken.

6. Sea Trade and Voyage Times

A traveler who goes from the Llovo to Kokrin the fastest way, by sea with the Long Reach, still spends three months.

The Golden Road. The Wenvorm and Lake Surmave: grain down to Solvaine's Grain Quays, and glass, silk and wine back up to Hethlend's Swan Quays.
The Tsanha Crossing. Drift barges and tow-barges carry the river half from Larvir past the Tontanor fords to the Jade Gate, and Kaishoni barges carry it on to Kokrin.
The Salt Sea Lanes. Castavar's coastal route from Tandosa south and east past Sonvera and north up the west coast. It carries silver, wine, olives, cork, sardines and tuna more cheaply than the carts of the royal road, and the Brotherhood preys on it without rest.
The western sea-trade. The Coastwrights, the Waheli of Moss Harbor and the Brotherhood trade fish, furs, deadfall redwood, agave spirit and iron along the west coast. Nobody in Castavar knows about it.
The Long Reach. Once a year the Long Reach sails along the south coast, takes on water at the Nhal delta, and trades at Chaiyo with the Open Gate merchants and the Boat-People. It carries silver taken on the Lanes, agave spirit and Isle pearls east, and silk, porcelain, tea and lacquer west. It is the only sea link between west and east.
The northern and eastern coasts. Kaishoni ships move rice, salt, Shanyo tea and tuna between Chaiyo, the Tsanha mouth and the north. Hrodvald cargo ships carry furs, ivory, amber and whale oil, and in bad years grain bought on Caelvennois credit comes north in ships hired in Kaishoni ports.

Route	Distance	Usual time
Tandosa to Sonvera	~200 miles	2–3 days
Tandosa to Wreckers Cove	~260 miles	3–4 days; a reef galley in 2
Tandosa to the Coastwrights' coast	~800 miles	2–3 weeks north against the Pine Wind; 10 days back
Tandosa to Baamarsh	~1,500 miles	4–6 weeks; a fleet with horses, two months
Wreckers Cove to Chaiyo (the Long Reach)	~3,100 miles	About three months each way; one round voyage a year
Chaiyo to Shanyo	~700 miles	2–3 weeks
Mouth of the Barerk to Shanyo	~350 miles	4–6 days by longship
Krasvuv down the Farvig Outflow to the sea	~250 miles	A week down, two up; summer only
The Outflow's mouth to Shanyo	~900 miles	2–3 weeks by longship
Solvaine to the Drowned Gate	~95 miles	A day
Solvaine to the Isle of the Accord	~140 miles	2 days by galley
Solvaine to Larvir	~185 miles	3 days by galley; an hour by mirror tower
Solvaine to the Wenvorm mouth	~200 miles	3 days
Hethlend to the Wenvorm mouth	~260 river miles	8–10 days down; 3 weeks towed up
Larvir to the Jade Gate	~410 river miles	About two weeks down, past Cherüsh riders in 1146
Jade Gate to Kokrin, Kokrin to the sea	~240 and ~300 river miles	About 8 days each
Mazbaaran to Lake Shorooq	~335 river miles	10–12 days down

A traveler who goes from the Llovo to Kokrin the fastest way, by sea with the Long Reach, still spends three months. Overland it takes four.

7. Sailors' Lives

A sailor earns about what a laborer ashore earns, but a sailor is fed.

Pay

Fleet	Ordinary hand	Skilled hands and officers	How paid
Castavar	A tasmelve 1 larrama a month and rations; a ship's boy 5 jabirga	Bolt-thrower hand 30 jabirga; quartermaster 2 larrama; pilot 3; captain 8, and a share of prize money after the crown's half	In silver, late; Tandosa lives on credit between paydays
Caelvenne	An oarsman 1 flirone a day afloat, 5 flirones a month in winter	Marine 1½ flirones a day; steersman 2; captains buy their posts and draw no pay	Weekly, on Gresil
Salt Brotherhood	One share	Pilot, carpenter and healer 1¼; quartermaster 1½; captain 2	A tenth of every prize goes first to Two-Fathom's Hold for stores and widows, and Chobecho keeps the tally
Kaishon	Rice and a tenth of a tsinkya a day in paper notes	Squad leaders double; officers draw salaries in silver by rank	Monthly, by the ministry
Hrodvald	A place on the bench and a share of cargo or plunder	The steersman 1½ shares; the owning stelest a third, and arm-rings for the brave	By weight, in hacksilver
Zarvand	A fire-boat hand 1 balaal a day	A siphon man 2	On Kelong
The Drift	No wages	The Helm	What the town earns, the town eats

A sailor earns about what a laborer ashore earns, but a sailor is fed. That is why the navy never lacks men in a bad year.

Ranks, Food and Discipline

Ranks at sea are jobs, and they are named in plain words. On a Castavari galleon the order runs from ship's boy to tasmelve, topman and bolt-thrower hand; then the quartermaster, who keeps the stores and the Salt-Sworn oaths, and the pilot, who keeps the course; and at the top the captain. Above the captains stand Tandosa's senior captains, and above them the king. A Berrode priest sails on every galleon and looks the other way at the right moments. On a Caelvennois galley the captain commands, a stroke-caller sets the pace from a drum, and the marines fight. On a Brotherhood ship the crew elects the captain and can unelect him. On a longship the owner commands, the steersman holds the steering oar, and every oarsman is a free warrior who chose to come. A Kaishoni junk is run as a small ministry, with written orders and a register of every bolt.

Castavari sailors eat ship's biscuit, salted sardines, chickpeas and olives, with Llovo red cut with water, and tuna on feast days. Brotherhood crews eat grouper, land-crab and whatever the last prize carried, and they drink agave spirit. Longship crews live on dried fjord cod and seal fat, Kaishoni crews on rice, Rampart soy and Shanyo tea. Caelvennois rowers sleep at home most nights. Castavari discipline is the lash and the stopped ration. Brotherhood discipline is the vote, and for a thief of shares, a waterless island and one jug. Hrodvald discipline is the owner's temper and the drolak.

Oaths and Burials

Every Tandosa sailor swears his first oath on a cup of seawater at the Salt Cup Steps, while the priest present looks the other way. Leldo the Quartermaster swears the boys each spring. Captain Tandosno was sworn at twelve, and so was Captain-Queen Vex. The Salt-Sworn, perhaps sixty thousand on the Castavari coast, the Isles and the Barerk coast, bury their dead in the sea. They believe a promise sworn on salt water and broken will be collected in a storm. The Berrode wants its dead in consecrated ground, and the navy has an old habit of reporting its drowned as buried ashore. The oars of Stormbrand longships that did not come back pave the path to Selra's door. The Drift gives its dead to the river, and Kaishon sends ashes home with a register entry.

Superstitions

Castavar: A dolphin riding the bow-wave is a Tandosa blessing. On Seawater Row King Llelilo's refusal of water is told only as a fool's story. Two-Fathom's wooden foot was carved from the bolt that took the foot, and the joke of it is the one joke both coasts share.
The Brotherhood: Never bring a Castavari saint's medal aboard, because the sea has no saints and takes offense. A shark that follows without striking is the Brotherhood's dead. If the reef sings, the sea has a name to collect; the Singing Reef off Wreckers Cove whistles when the wind is in the quarter that brings storms. An Isle seal at departure means a good voyage, and seals do haul out before settled weather.
The lake: Tie a knotted cord to every bow, or the Drowned will count you as one of theirs. Nobody swims at night. Fishermen touch the Flood Stone before sailing to the Gate.
The Drift: Never sleep with your feet toward the current. A barge that turns upstream on its own is telling you to go home.
Hrodvald: Never count longships leaving; count them coming back. Shipwrights spit on Icebrand's Slip for luck. A raven on the masthead is Selthar listening.
Kaishon: The Boat-People feed the Stove-Kin of the junk's stove at every meal, and the magistrates do not see it.

Beasts and birds change their ways before the weather does, so a sailor who watches gulls and seals is often right about the sky. He calls it an omen. It works because it is weather.

8. Naval Flashpoints in 1146

The transports. The Pine Yards have been building troop transports since spring under Nietie the Senior Captain. The Fourth Crusade may go through the Tharaxi Gap as the Third did, or by sea to Baamarsh as the Second did, and the transports say someone expects the sea. The navy cannot carry an army and hunt pirates at once.
Tandosno's refusal. She has been ordered to leave the pirate hunt and ferry crusaders to Baamarsh, and Pilot's Hill says she has refused in writing. The Berrode calls it mutiny. The Vinvelon call it a start.
Vex's letter. A sealed letter from the Captain-Queen reached the Bairnaro Drosdo by a Coastwright boat, and Leldo carried a cup of seawater aboard that night. The offer, it may be guessed, is the Brotherhood's fleet for the crusade's transport, in exchange for the Isles as a free kingdom. The Rislo will not treat with pirates, and Chobecho's Brethren do not want a kingdom.
The Tandosa Ghosts. The deserters' crew has been recruiting on Seawater Row, and three shipwrights from the Pine Yards are missing. Men who know how the transports are built are worth more than the transports.
Naphtha at sea. A Castavari envoy came home from the Cinder Teeth with an empty silver chest and went to the Rislo. Talodin fire on a galleon would burn reef galleys at range and end the Brotherhood's way of fighting. If the Hizkari sell only to Zarvand, Baamarsh's fire-boats stay the one thing a crusade fleet cannot sail past.
The star tables. The House of Learning's tables are leaving Mazbaaran, and Tolerto has cleared a shelf. If the succession war closes the House, next year's tables may not be read, and forgers will fill the gap.
The Sill at Larvir. Cherüsh riders have been seen at the Tsanha fords. Caelvenne's galleys can hold the lake and cannot go past the Sill, and when the Iron Contract lapses in 1147 they will be the only force Caelvenne owns.
Longships and the north. It may be that Farisel's factor takes Stormbrand longships and crews for service on Lake Surmave instead of repayment; the two lakes are not joined, so the crews would walk south and row Caelvennois hulls. Selra has also asked Umenn Keelwright how many longships could reach Kaishon by the Outflow before the ice closes, and Chaishosâ's squadron and the sea forts would see them coming. Meanwhile Bekil's election gives the Barerk coast a leader Clan Barerk did not choose.
The rising lake. The Drownings say the water stands a hand higher at the Flood Stone than at New Year, and Iaza the Gatekeeper has stopped diving. If the Builders' drain under the Isle of the Accord blocks, Solvaine's quays drown first. Threeoars, meanwhile, has been seen moored off Claupiose at night with no lamps lit.

9. Where the Seas Are Going

CONTESTED. Aethorra's waters have been quiet for a century, measured against the Marrowmere Wars and the Salt Wars.

CONTESTED. Aethorra's waters have been quiet for a century, measured against the Marrowmere Wars and the Salt Wars. Every navy afloat now has a reason to fight within two years.

Power on the water	Direction	Why
Castavar's navy	Contested	It is winning its war on the pirates and may be ordered to lose it by carrying a crusade. If the Vinvelon win, Tandosa becomes the capital of a Castavar that faces the sea.
The Salt Brotherhood	Rising	Vex holds the best pilots, the only sea road east and a treaty offer, and needs only a Castavar desperate enough to sign.
Caelvenne's lake navy	Stable, under strain	It commands the lake completely, but Caelvenne's dangers come down the Tsanha and over the Sill.
Kaishon's fleets	Stable	Large, disciplined and unambitious, with Open Gate officers already trading with the Brotherhood.
The Hrodvald longships	Contested	Selra wants raiders turned into traders and perhaps allies of Kaishon; Kruman wants raiders. The ships are the north's only wealth that floats.
The Barerk Whalers	Rising	They have their own Harpoon-Master and their own coast.
Zarvand at sea	Fading	Its fire-boats depend on naphtha it does not control and a Khaasar who is dying.
The Drift	Stable	The river does not care who rules its banks.

Vex has thought about the water-peoples: the Brotherhood, the Coastwrights, the Barerk Whalers and the Chaiyo Boat-People. They are a ring of free crews around the whole continent who already trade with each other and have never met as one. The great powers still treat the sea as the edge of their maps. The people who live on it are beginning to treat it as a country.