A Line Through the Cloud

By the time Nima finished her first chart, two of the six lights had gone dim.

Orra braced the chart table with her hip as the *Morrowfin* shifted against its moorings. The island’s crown sat above them, hidden by the cliff. Through the open hatch, the pillars’ glow still showed in the stone, but the routes in the sky were fading one by one.

“Which ones?” she asked.

“The nearer two.” Nima pressed a weight onto the curling edge of her paper. Her constellation cards were spread around it, inked marks and brass pins crowding the chart. “They held long enough to take bearings. I’m working from those.”

Brask leaned over her shoulder, careful to keep his sleeve out of the ink. “And the one that ran into the clouds?”

“Still there.” Nima pointed to a line drawn across the page. It stopped at the edge. “I have its direction and the angle it took from the other routes. I can’t give you an endpoint.”

Vey stood by the hatch, one hand on the rail. “Then we don’t sail toward an endpoint we can’t name.”

Orra looked at the far line. It had pointed beyond the cloudbank, past any island in their charts. The keel-instrument rested beside Nima’s paper, its brass warmed by the living course. Its point trembled toward the same direction.

She had wanted that line to mean something she could follow. A place to reach, an answer to bring back. Her old salvage crews had praised nerve when it saved time and forgotten it when it cost a winch or a diver. She’d learned to hear the difference.

“How long before the lights go?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Nima lifted one card and compared its marks with the diagram. “The pattern’s changing as the island turns. The routes may be bearings, or they may be more than that. I need another reading before I can tell.”

The deck gave a low shudder. Orra caught the table edge. Below, a mooring line groaned as the *Morrowfin* swung close to the rock.

“Brask?” Vey called.

“Port line’s chafing.” Brask was already moving. He grabbed the spare coil and ducked through the hatch. “Keep her there. I’ll shift the lead.”

Orra took the keel-instrument. The living course still ran beneath the hull, its glow passing along the island’s cut seam. She set the instrument’s point against the table and watched it turn. The pull ran up and to the right, in the direction of the nearest lighted route.

“Vey, ease us out a little. Don’t leave the cleft.”

He looked from the instrument to her. “Why?”

“I want to see whether the course changes with the basin or with the ship.”