“You seek the what?” the sour, stern-looking merchant asked, rolling an apple around in his hands idly.

  “The Mead of Poetry,” Skíei supplied again.

  The merchant looked over at his crewman, a dark fellow with long, black hair and strangely slanted eyes. “Am I supposed to know what that is?” the merchant asked. The crewman shrugged helpfully.

  Svanbj?rn shifted uneasily. “Ajax, you have wintered here for thirteen years, and traveled here with your father many times when you were only a boy. Have you really learned nothing of our mythology?”

  Ajax stopped rolling the apple around in his hands and set it on the table firmly. “I wish to know nothing of anyone else’s mythology. It can get you killed where I travel. Iisoús Christós is a jealous sort of god, the priests say.” He pointed at Brother Pawe?. “Ask your monk friend.”

  Yrsa sighed, rolling her eyes. “Ajax, it is an artifact of great power. Will you take us?”

  He picked up the apple again and took a bite. Around it, he said, “I’m missing three of my crew. I’m not going anywhere this year, I’m afraid.”

  Brother Pawe? put a hand on Skíei and Svanbj?rn’s shoulders. “Three strong men stand before you, man! We will help crew the ship.”

  Ajax only snorted and took another bite of the apple. “Two codgers and a skinny boy, you mean.”

  “And what am I, an ox?” Yrsa demanded. “I can row as well, if not better than, my brother.”

  Ajax stared at her for a long silent moment, punctuated only by the bleating of a nearby goat. He took another bite of his apple and looked at his crewman. “Where is Tanis?”

  “Market,” the man said in a heavily accented, light tone. “Go for supplies.”

  Ajax grunted and turned back to Yrsa. “Tanis is one of our oarsmen. There’s many who would laugh at the idea of a woman rowing, but not me.” He took another bite of the apple. “Three codgers then. And a skinny boy.”

  “I am seventeen,” Skíei said defensively.

  Ajax ignored him, looking out the window at the distant sea. It was just barely visible through the cluster of buildings outside the inn. “Three codgers and a skinny boy who might yet grow into a man,” he said thoughtfully. He set down the half-eaten apple and stood, looking Skíei up and down. He nodded. “Your build is right. Skinny, but strong bones. You must get it from your father.”

  “I do not know my father,” Skíei felt compelled to say. “I would not know.”

  Again, Ajax ignored him. The merchant turned to Svanbj?rn. “And this map to the… mead?” Svanbj?rn pointed to Skíei. Ajax made an unreadable face, but turned back to Skíei. “The map, then, skinny boy.”

  Skíei glanced uncertainly to Yrsa, not liking or trusting the merchant, but she nodded. Reluctantly, Skíei pulled the map out of his pouch and handed it to Ajax. Ajax unrolled it on the small table in the room and peered down at it.

  “Interesting,” he grunted after a moment. “Why would the map start at this inn and go off the edge of the parchment?

  “It what?!” Brother Pawe? demanded, striding over to also stare down at the map. Skíei, Yrsa, and Svanbj?rn moved to look at it as well. As Ajax has said, the central point of the map had moved from their cottage to the inn.

  “Sorcery!” Brother Pawe? exclaimed. “Black magic!”

  “Strange magic, to be sure,” Svanbj?rn said, “but we do not know it is evil. Certainly, it is a strange thing the Allfather has gifted you, Skíei.”

  “Perhaps it is of Dwarvish make?” Yrsa mused.

  “Skíei, do you truly mean to follow this… this piece of witchcraft?” Brother Pawe? asked.

  Ajax followed this exchange, a bemused expression on his face. “So you mean to tell me this map was not showing this before?”

  Skíei shook his head. “Yesterday it started at the cottage.”

  “Interesting.” Ajax looked down at the map again. “Would you sell me this map, boy? After you find what you seek, of course.”

  “You cannot mean you want this piece of devilry?” Brother Pawe? objected.

  “I can mean whatever I want to mean, monk,” Ajax said insistently. “And I mean to want this map when the boy has gotten his use out of it.”

  Skíei bristled a little at being called a boy — again — but said, “When we get there — after I find it — I will sell you the map. I will have no use of it, then.”

  “Ah…” Yrsa started hesitantly.

  “Permitting the Allfather does not show any sign of disfavor,” he amended hastily.

  “A bargain, then,” Ajax said. “Your help on the voyage, the four of you, the sale of the map once we reach this… mead… and I will take you to wherever this map leads. And home again too, for good measure.”

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  “I do not know…” Svanbj?rn murmured uncertainly, frowning at the map. “Skíei…”

  “I will swim if I have to,” Skíei said stubbornly.

  Svanbj?rn sighed. “I will still come with you, then. Only promise me, Skíei, if you can… Promise you will turn aside if you change your mind. This can still be a regular voyage, no magic maps needed, if you only want to get away from Visby.”

  “I promise nothing.”

  “What about at the first sign of witchcraft or devilry?” Brother Pawe? asked hopefully.

  “According to you, there is already ample evidence of that,” Yrsa said with a sigh. “No, no, he has made up his mind.”

  “Anyone with eyes can see that,” Ajax put in. “Do we have a bargain or no?”

  “We have a bargain,” Yrsa said firmly. “On one condition. Your oarsmen who are staying behind, they stay in the cottage. And they had best keep it tidy and mind the garden.”

  Ajax, no doubt knowing a good deal when he heard on, agreed immediately. “They’ll keep it tidy and the garden tended, or find new employment,” he told her in no uncertain terms. “There is no room on a ship the size of the ósk for slovenly behavior.” He eyed Skíei as he said this. “Yrsa, I know you and Svanbj?rn know this, and monks are of course ascetic, but what about the boy?

  “The boy is neat enough for Yrsa, and what he does not know he may learn,” Svanbj?rn said firmly. “Skíei is smart enough to learn any part of sailing a ship that you care to teach him

  “I care to teach him rowing,” Ajax said icily, and then paused. “Does the boy cook?”

  “He cooks well enough for my standards,” Yrsa put in.

  “Lin might teach him ship cookery when the wind favors us then. There is no such thing as too many cooks on a ship. You may find yourself cooking as well, Yrsa.”

  “Skíei is smart enough to learn knots and how and when to use wind instead of only rowing,” Svanbj?rn argued stubbornly.

  Ajax shrugged. “If he can learn, he can learn. He can start with the basics. Rowing and how to take direction. If he can learn those, he can move up to knots and sailing.”

  Skíei listened to all of this quietly. He didn’t care about learning to sail or about knots. He had one stake in this venture and one alone. It lay on the other end of that map. How far away would he have to travel? No distance, no matter how far, would be too far for him. Oeinn or ü?üncü, god or demon… he knew what his heart’s desire was worth to him.

  His life. His soul. Nothing he had mattered. He would sacrifice anything he had in order to find what he was seeking. What the map was leading him to was everything. His entire life, or nearly, he had wanted this. Why Oeinn or ü?üncü, god or demon, had decided to give him the map did not matter. Trick or divine reward, he had to try.

  “Skíei,” Yrsa said, pulling his attention back to the present, away from the far off future, “we’re going to the shipyard to see the ósk. We’d like you to bring the map and watch it on the way there.”

  “You wish to see if it moves while open or only when you have just opened it?” he guessed.

  “Yes.”

  He picked up the map and together they left Ajax’s room, and then the inn entirely. He glanced down at the map as they walked, wondering if it would move or no. At first, while they were in the inn, nothing changed. But as they passed by the cottage next to the inn, the map began to move.

  “It’s doing something!” he told the others in an excited whisper.

  “What’s it doing?” Ajax asked, peering over Skíei’s shoulder. “I see… interesting.”

  “I want to look,” Yrsa said, trying to push past Brother Pawe?.

  “Stop!” Svanbj?rn hissed. “We will all have a chance to see the map work. Let us not draw attention to it.”

  Yrsa subsided as Skíei rolled up the map and put it back in his pouch, deciding it might be safer there. Svanbj?rn was probably right… They continued on to the shipyard. There, Ajax led them to a small ship, rather than a longship like the Lord used for raiding or a larger trading ship.

  “This is it?” Skíei asked uncertainly. “Where do we cook? Or eat or sleep?”

  “On the ship,” Ajax told him sardonically. “Unless you really would rather swim?” Skíei flushed. “She’s a good vessel for this kind of journey. She’s a coastal trader, but she can cross the sea if needed and traverse rivers. We may even need to carry her, and you will be very glad of her small size if it comes to that.”

  “Carry it?” Skíei asked, aghast.

  “Yes, it is very common,” Svanbj?rn said absently. He pointed at the ship. “Some of this needs re-chinking, Ajax.”

  “I was going to do it this spring since Biarn broke his leg and Jor and Galti refuse to go anywhere without him.”

  “What about the mast?” Yrsa asked, pointing.

  “What about the mast?”

  “There’s a crack in it.”

  Ajax waved a hand dismissively. “That has been there since before I bought the ship ten years ago. The seller said it was lucky.”

  “It looks like it is about to break,” Yrsa said flatly.

  “It is fine.”

  Ajax and Yrsa glared at each other for a long moment, and then Yrsa shrugged. “Your ship,” she said. “What of the chinking?”

  Ajax squatted on the dock, looking closely at the ósk. “No leaks… it does look worn here,” he pointed, “here, and here… but we might be alright.” He stood again. “The ship was in worse shape when I bought her, but she still made that first voyage and home again.”

  Svanbj?rn shook his head. “In my day, we would never… but she is your ship. If you say she can make it, I will believe you.”

  “I do say that,” Ajax said firmly. “When can you four be ready to leave?”

  They exchanged glances.

  “Not tomorrow,” Brother Pawe? said after a long pause.

  “Perhaps the next day. No, better make it the day after,” Svanbj?rn said, stroking his beard contemplatively.

  Ajax nodded. “We will depart in three day’s time, then. We’ll leave here soon after dawn.”

  The merchant and Skíei’s guardians began to leave the shipyard. Skíei cast one last doubtful glance down at the small ship before nodding to himself.

  Any price paid was worth it, if it got him his heart’s desire. Even traveling on a small, rickety, old dingy. Even leaving home, leaving Visby. Let his entire world, his entire way of living change. Anything was worth it, if it was his to give.

  He followed his companions from the shipyard.