Irwin's Journey - The Cardsmith

It took Irwin a while to regain his clarity, but when he did, he wondered why none of the others had come up. He'd almost expected Greldo to be watching him, noting something about his singing skills.

Locking the steering wheel, he headed to the cabin, but before he could reach it, it swung open.

Greldo looked at him, his silver eyes gleaming and a wide smile on his face. "So, done singing?" he asked as he walked outside, followed by Rindiri, who closed the door.

Irwin grinned at his friend, knowing he was just messing around.

"I wondered when you would show up," he said. "Even all your hair can't keep you warm? I'll buy you a mantle next time we reach a port."

Greldo barked a laugh, but as he walked past, Irwin was surprised when Greldo reached out and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing slightly. His friend's eyes turned foggy momentarily, and his grin faltered.

"That was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," Greldo said.

Irwin blinked in surprise while Greldo headed to the stern, leaning on it as he gazed off into the distance.

"Those were Chaos Whales," Rindiri said, inspecting him as if expecting to find something new. "I have never heard of someone singing with them. Do you have these where you are from?"

Irwin shook his head as he saw Rindiri stare at him curiously. Her hair was half gray by now, and he felt his smile slip as he realized what that meant.

"Did…" he began, faltering as he gestured at her hair.

"Seven lives remain," she said, squaring her shoulders. "Four with us and three somewhere else."

Irwin didn't respond but watched as she turned and headed toward the ladder that led to the steering wheel. Before she climbed up, however, she turned back to him.

"Greldo is right. That was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard," she said. "And that the whales saved us from a nasty death by that sudden Chaos Storm doesn't make it any worse of a story."

Irwin hesitated, wondering if he should talk to her, then decided against it. Instead, he turned and headed towards the door of the cabin.

"I'm going to sleep for a bit," he said.

"I'll wake you in ten hours," Rindiri shouted back.

--

Irwin woke gradually, his body relaxed and warm, his mind still somewhat fuzzy. He heard the shuffling above deck and the soft talking from the galley. Everything was fine, and he felt his mind drift off again, seeming still interested in more sleep.

Just as he pondered if he should continue sleeping, something pushed against his cheek.

He froze, and it happened again. Confused, he opened his eyes and looked straight at Ambraz, who was sitting on his chest, a massive grin on his metal mouth.

"What?" Irwin whispered, looking around for anything that might be ready to jump him.

There was nothing, his room empty, and the gentle movement of the ship told him that there wasn't another storm either.

"The kid's in the topmast, so she can't hear us, so stop procrastinating and take a look already," Ambraz whispered back, sounding incredibly excited.

Irwin blinked away what remained of his sleepiness.

"What?" he whispered, trying to figure out what Ambraz was talking about.

"Are you still sleeping?" Ambraz hissed. "Look at your soullake already!"

Irwin looked back, not sure what was going on, but slowly feeling himself grow infected by Ambraz's excitement. Closing his eyes again, he focused on his heartcard, and as he did, he could feel something was different. It responded a bit faster and with a bit more power than he was used to.

His vision changed, and Irwin was stunned as he saw the changes to his soullake. It had filled up slightly with the watery Soulforce now almost up to the edges. It was still shallow, perhaps an ankle-deep layer, but it was far more than the last time he had checked.

That's so much! Irwin thought as he looked at his heartcard.

It hovered lazily above the lake, glistening as if wet.

"What happened?" Irwin tried shouting, but his voice only echoed in his own mind.

Letting go of his focus, he saw Ambraz still on his chest.

"And?"

"The Soulforce has filled up, almost reaching the edges," Irwin whispered excitedly.

He jerked upright just as Ambraz was whispering something, causing the Anvil to be tossed back. Ambraz let out a softly whispered complaint before flitting back to hover in front of his face, but Irwin ignored him.

"What… how… the Whales?" he whispered, trying to make sense of where the Soulforce had come from. The Chaos whales were the only thing that made sense to him.

"Of course the Whales," Ambraz whispered angrily. "I couldn't talk to you while you were all zoned out, and after that, I was asleep from the excess Soulforce spillover, but… it was incredible!"

Ambraz began flitting around before Irwin, who tried to make sense of what the Anvil was saying.

"Each one of those things has to be a soulskilled creature and their singing? At least from one of them that was boosted by a Soulskill! It was somehow pulling in Soulforce from… Well, I don't really know from where. Somewhere?" Ambraz 's excited whisper turned to a confused mutter before he flitted in front of Irwin's face again.

"It doesn't matter. You just got a massive boon! This will shave off a year or more of collecting compatible cards! Not to mention how much it shortened my next rank up!"

A year? Irwin thought.

He pictured the tiny trickle of Soulforce the cards he had absorbed before had given, then imagined how many of those he'd need to get the Soulforce that now sat in his lake. A year seemed like an understatement to him unless the cards he had absorbed had been the worst of the worst.

Then he shook his head. It didn't matter! All that mattered was that he'd just had a major windfall due to the Chaos Whales.

"Do you think we can get a card that can do that?" he asked excitedly.

"What? Are you planning on finding and killing one of those Whales?" Ambraz bit back, his metal lips in a tight line.

Irwin closed his mouth with a snap. The entire idea of killing one of the beautifully singing Whales made his anger flare up.

"No," he hissed, shaking his head. Before continuing softly. "No, but perhaps there are other things with a similar skill?"

Ambraz was quiet, and as he flitted around in thought, Irwin thought about the Anvil's harsh reaction just now. Ambraz had never reacted that extremely to him harvesting cards. Beyond his own distate at the idea, was there another reason why Ambraz seemed angered by the mere thought?

Its probably the same reason I hate it, he thought.

Ambraz let out a weary sigh.

"I can't recall having ever read or heard of a skill like that. The closest I can come up with doesn't even remotely do what those Whales did. There might be cards like this out there somewhere, but the chances of finding one? Well, I'd say those are… well, closer to zero than anything I can think of right now," Ambraz whispered.

Irwin sighed as he sat back on the bed that creaked and protested from his weight. It made sense. If cards like those were anywhere, they would be the most searched-for card in existence, and he would have probably heard of them already. He leaned against the wall and suddenly felt like humming the Chaos Whale song again. He remembered large parts of it but not nearly all. Perhaps if he just started, he could remember-

He shot upright and bolted for the door before he realized Ambraz was flitting about.

"What are you-" Ambraz began before being cut short as he was stuffed in Irwin's pocket, letting out a strangled complaint.

Irwin yanked open the door and saw Daubutim's door was closed. He knocked on it.

"Enter."

Irwin pulled the door open to find Daubutim standing in the center of the room with only a thin shirt on. He lowered his massive blue two-handed sword, the point tapping the ground before wiping sweat from his glistening head.

"Did you hear the song?" Irwin asked excitedly.

Daubutim stared at him with his single good eye, then barked a laugh.

"I am half blind, not deaf," Daubutim said, sounding amused. "Everyone heard it, and Bendi almost went crazy. He kept saying we were doomed, and Greldo actually had to sit on him."

Irwin opened his mouth, then closed it. Sit on him? He'd have loved to see that. He would have to ask Greldo about that later.

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"Sounds like you had almost as much fun as I did," he said. "But, more importantly, do you recall the entire song?"

"Of course," Daubutim said as he flicked his hand, his sword vanishing. "Why?"

"Can you write music notes?" Irwin continued, almost wanting to start jumping up and down.

"No…" Daubutim said, and his shoulders sagged slowly.

Something about the sadness in his tone snapped Irwin back to reality, and he stared at his friend, realizing something was wrong.

"I… Well, that's no problem," he said carefully. "I think I can teach you?"

"Father said music and singing is a useless endeavor for a warrior," Daubutim said softly. "My oldest brother once had a friend teach him how to play on a lute… When Father found out, he exiled my brother's friend to the wall and forbade him from ever touching another instrument. My brother's punishment was worse."

Irwin stared at his friend in horror. He knew Daubutim's father was odd and was somewhere between a harsh but capable parent and a monster, but this? This sounded both stupid and horrible to him.

"I didn't know," he said lamely before stepping back. "It's alright, I'll find another way."

"I didn't say I won't help you," Daubutim said as he walked to his bag and pulled out a book and a pencil. "Make the sounds we heard, tell me the symbol representing them, and I'll write down the song."

Irwin didn't feel as happy as he would have only five minutes ago, but he nodded softly.

"Are you sure?" he asked, noting the fogginess in Daubutim's previously clear eye.

"Yes," Daubutim said calmly.

Irwin hesitated, then nodded. "Alright, let me get something quickly," he said as he ran back to his own room.

A short while later, they were sitting at one of the kitchen tables. Irwin was pointing at symbols in his book while he made sounds.

"So if the sound goes up, the position of the symbol does, too," Irwin said as he tapped a symbol and repeated the sound but a bit higher. "I'm not able to make the exact sounds perfectly yet, but if you take this-" He made the highest sound he'd heard the whales make and wrote it down before making the lowest sound that he could and noting that down as well. "-and use these as the highest and lowest while sorting the rest in between, it should be close enough for me to work with."

"Very good," Daubutim said as he examined the paper. "I like this. It has order and structure, and it makes sense. I also think father was wrong."

What? Irwin thought as he looked at his friend, wondering what he was talking about. The words had been soft and plain with little emotion, but… had Daubutim ever said his father was wrong? About anything?

Daubutim didn't seem to notice his confusion as he traced one of the lines of notes on the sheet while nodding.

"Learning this is a good way to get used to certain structures," Daubutim said. "It is like math."

Irwin stared dully at his notebook. It was? He tried to see what his friend saw, but he didn't see the resemblance. It felt more like a written language to him.

"You know math?" a soft voice asked.

Irwin looked up to see Trinn and Brinni look at him from the door. He realized that they had been standing there for a while, softly watching and listening. He'd subconsciously ignored them, as what they were doing wasn't a secret.

"I do," Daubutim said.

"Can you teach us?" Brinni asked with wide eyes.

Irwin saw Daubutim's surprise, and he couldn't blame him. He'd learned simple math at school, what seemed like forever ago, and he hadn't enjoyed it all that much. Later, he'd found that there were some calculations involved with smithing that proved useful, and that had helped, but by and large, he'd never really needed much of it. Why anyone would voluntarily learn it was beyond him.

"I can," Daubutim said slowly.

"You don't sound very sure," Brinn muttered.

"Because I'm very confused," Daubutim replied.

Irwin held back a snort.

"What? Why?" Brinn asked as she walked into the room and sat down on the other side of the table.

"I've never had a child come and ask me to teach them anything but sword-fighting," Daubutim said.

A strangled gasp came from the kitchen, causing everyone to look up in surprise.

Irwin got up and walked forward, looking in the tiny obscured area to find Zender huddled on the ground, hands clasped over his mouth.

"Why are you hiding there?" Irwin asked.

"Cause I wasn't sure I'd be allowed to listen in, Captain," Zender said as he scrambled up, very obviously trying to look innocent.

Your sisters were listening, and nobody told them to leave, Irwin thought, shaking his head and wondering if Zender was lying or hadn't seen the others at the door.

"So you decided just to eavesdrop?" he asked as he raised his eyebrow, wondering if he should be angry or amused. He suddenly recalled how often he'd eavesdropped on his mother while she was talking with neighbors.

Perhaps amused then, he thought, holding back his grin as he recalled his mother's punishments for eavesdropping.

"Sorry, Captain," Zender said, hanging his head down.

Irwin sighed. "Don't do it again. Now go and sit beside your sisters."

Zender was moving before he finished, and Irwin turned to see Daubutim inspect the three opposite him.

"Good luck," Irwin said as he walked towards the door, snatching his own book from the table in passing. "I'll go and take over from Rindiri and come find you after."

Daubutim waved at him as he closed the door.

Good luck with that, Irwin thought.

The whole idea of teaching math made his skin crawl. If he had to teach anything, it was going to be cardsmithing.

Or hammer fighting, he added as he recalled how much he'd enjoyed Crithann's training.

--

Days passed quietly, and surprisingly fast, the worry about another storm fading as slowly some order began to come to the ship and its small crew.

The morning consisted of Irwin doing the first shift on the deck while Daubutim tutored Brinni. Zender had lost his enthusiasm for math within the hour, and Greldo had taken over his sword training. Although Greldo wasn't as skilled as Daubutim, his enthusiasm proved a great match for Zender, and Irwin had to actually order them to only train in the ship's cargo hold so they didn't destroy their very limited supply of furniture.

The third child, Trinn, didn't care much for either math or swords but seemed capable of sleeping anywhere at any time and remained with Brinni. Irwin had pondered if it was Daubutim's lecture that caused her to fall asleep so easily and concluded that it had to be either that or a card.

Their older sister, Ib, had looked in on both the math and the sword practice a few times but seemed to care little about either. She was mostly in her room or in the kitchen, showing more interest in cooking by the day, to the point where she'd begun asking all of them for recipes and things about food.

Bendi was mostly hiding in his room unless it was time to eat or head out on the deck. If Greldo hadn't told him that the raider wasn't doing anything odd, Irwin would have worried he was planning something fishy.

Now, a week after the storm, Irwin leaned on the steering wheel and gazed ahead happily.

He was softly humming a part of the song he'd learned from the Whales, something he found himself doing a lot the times he was alone, especially when he was in a good mood.

Which he was.

Daubutim was making progress on writing the song down, while another day had passed without Rindiri sensing more of her children dying. How three had managed to survive whatever happened to Sesnanser, he didn't know, but if he had to guess, he'd say they had made it through the portal even if the people in that world didn't want them there.

Perhaps it's just the boys, he thought as he absently turned on the wheel to keep the nose of the ship in the direction of the arrow. It was only the girls and women that weren't allowed in the worlds, right?

He sighed as he lingered on the oddities of the different species he'd met since reaching the Portal Gallery before his mind drifted off to the other things that had happened. He could barely remember how he'd felt or thought back when he'd left Malorin years ago. With one card, he'd been teleported to the sorcerer's towers only to be forced into that training portal.

I wonder if that snake thing is still in the lava of that training world, he thought as he remembered those days.

His mind kept wandering for a while but eventually returned to the here and now when he heard the door below open.

Wondering if he'd zoned out for his entire shift, he tried to determine what time it was. As always, there was barely any way to gauge that, the lack of day and night or anything similar making it hard to determine the passing of time. The best he had come up with was keeping an eye on the edges of the seemingly ever-widening Portal Gallery landmass. As he looked at them, he frowned. The glowing blue barriers were so far away they were no more than distant blue lines while the ground was still only covered in a thin covering of fungi, but they didn't seem much further than when he'd arrived that morning.

Still, it was Rinidiri who was climbing up the ladder and walking towards him. More surprising even was that Greldo came up after her, shivering in the cold. White frost covered his thick fur, and from his glimpses back at the door, he seemed inclined to head back inside.

"We are going to reach the location that Daubutim showed us on the map," Rindiri said as she stopped beside him and glanced at the oval on the steering wheel. "I'll need to make some small calibrations if that's alright with you?"

Finally, Irwin thought.

He stepped away to let her at the wheel and walked to stand beside Greldo, who was rubbing his arms.

"Why are you out here?" he asked, watching the thick plumes of hot air his friend blew forward playfully.

"Cause all of you have bad eyes," Greldo said, his voice trembling slightly. "And someone needs to see if those other explorer groups left marker beacons. Remember?"

Irwin nodded as he recalled that Daubutim and Rindiri had discussed that a few days ago.

He examined his friend and was happy to see that although he was shivering in the intense cold, he also looked calm and well-rested. The haunted look that sometimes plagued him seemed gone for the moment.

I think training with Zender is good for him, Irwin thought.

Their exuberant laughter as they played a dangerous blade-wielding game of tag, with Greldo using his teleportation to make it even trickier, was something he heard more and more as of late.

"How are the kids doing?" he asked.

"They wanted me to ask you if you can use your warmth skill," Greldo said with a grin. "I believe Zender's exact words were, 'I'll do anything, please. Even cleaning sails is fun compared to being stuck down here!' or something like that."

Irwin laughed. It didn't surprise him in the least that Zender had been the one asking. Brinni seemed more than happy to sit with Daubutim for as long as he was willing to teach her, while Trinn never left her sister alone but seemed able to sleep always and anywhere.

Zender, however, had a ton of energy, and even practicing sword fighting with Greldo probably wasn't enough.

Irwin looked up and examined the sails, noting a few patches of dust and dirt that were starting to cake. He could use his Sweltering Skill to wash it off, but that would cost almost as much energy as letting the kids on deck.

"The sails could do with a scrub," he said with a grin.

"Let's see if there's something there first," Rindiri said as she pointed forward and slightly to the side.

"And with see, you mean if I can see anything?" Greldo said, giving Rindiri a shaky grin.

"Correct, young man," Rindiri replied.

Irwin burst out laughing as he saw Greldo's disgruntled look.

"Fine, fine," Greldo said as he moved to the railing and watched into the distance.

As Irwin saw him work, he realized he didn't care as much that he'd lost his Eyes of Blaze anymore. It wasn't that it wouldn't have been useful, but Greldo had a similar ability, and it would be better if they had a diverse skill set. Who knew what they would come across when they finally managed to find portals?

"Nothing yet," Greldo said after a while.

Rindiri muttered something and began working on the wheel. After a few moments, the ship turned slightly.

Irwin waited and watched, and as time passed, Greldo began shuddering while there was no indication of any marker beacon. Finally, he'd had enough, and he focused on his Sweltering skill, noticing that the larger pool of Soulforce in his soullake increased the speed at which the steam appeared and swirled across the deck.

Within moments, the temperature began rising. Greldo looked up and nodded gratefully.

"Thanks."

"No problem, but I'm going to let the others out for a bit," Irwin said. "It would be a waste of energy otherwise."

Rindiri looked up, seeming slightly annoyed. Then she shrugged. "Fine, but if we locate a portal, the kids have to return down below."

"Of course," Irwin replied as he walked to the door.

Before he reached it, it creaked open, and Zender's face poked through. His purple eyes widened as he saw the steam, and the door was shoved open.

"You were right, Brinni!" he shouted as he dashed out onto the deck, passing Irwin. "Thanks, Captain! I'll clean them bright and shiny!"

Irwin didn't respond but watched as the others filed out on the deck. Even Bendi had been waiting, and as the ex-raider walked onto the deck, he drew in deep breaths.

"I always hate these long trips," he said as he walked beside Irwin. "But having at least some time above deck does make a difference. If you ever decide to leave your own group, I can promise you that most mercenary and explorer groups on the main branch would accept you on their crew just for this one skill!"

"I'll keep that in mind," Irwin said. "Have you ever been to one of the main branches?"

Bendi smiled ruefully, shaking his head. "No, I wasn't allowed to pass Dimarintsia," he said, raising his left hand and looking at his cards. "Only those that belong to a wealthy family, large merchant group, smithing charter or have soulcards are allowed beyond these walls," he narrated as if reading from a pamphlet.

"Can't you just fly around Dimarintsia's port?" Irwin asked, slightly confused.

Bendi looked up in surprise. "What? Was your world on the Langost branch before it shattered? I thought it was beyond Dimarintsia?"