“Aye,” said the ferry master when it died down, “it’s lookin’ like an early winter. Already had some ice floatin’ down from the north.”

If their business in the west took longer than expected and the river iced over, Karigan and Fergal would have to ride south to the nearest bridge for their return crossing. The river would not freeze smoothly like a lake; no, it would crack and buckle, and the layers would stack up in sharp angles, making the ice impassible.

Karigan was about to comment when there was a loud splash and a strangled cry. To her horror, Fergal no longer stood at the rail. He no longer stood on the ferry at all.

THE GOLDEN RUDDER

Everyone froze. The only sound was the water lapping against the ferry.

“Fergal!” Karigan cried and she dashed to the rail.

At first she saw nothing, heard nothing, then there was another splash and his head bobbed to the surface. He flailed his arms, the current sweeping him down river.

“Keep with him, lads,” the ferry master ordered the oarsmen, and he abandoned the tiller to gather a line to toss to Fergal.

“Fergal!” Karigan cried again. “Tread water—hang on!” But Fergal’s efforts to stay afloat foundered. He did not know how to swim. Before the ferry master could toss his line, Fergal sank under and did not reappear.

For five heartbeats Karigan hesitated, staring in horror at the bubbles that rose to the surface. She then glanced at the ferry master and oarsmen who seemed unable to move.

Without a second thought, she threw off her message satchel and coat, then unbuckled her swordbelt. It clattered to the deck.

The ferry master’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “Ye can’ go in there, sir, it’s cold! Ye’ll drown!”

She tore off her boots, ducked under the port rail, and jumped into the river. At first she felt nothing but a space of shock. Then the cold grabbed her.

When Karigan was little, her father teased her that she had the hide of a seal because she loved to play in the ocean. Even at the height of summer, Sacoridia’s coastal waters were frigid, fed by rivers, including the Grandgent, that were born of the northern ice. If she waded in the shallows for more than a few seconds, her toes would go numb, then her feet and ankles, making her legs ache all the way up to her knees.

She’d made a game of it, charging in and out of the waves, giggling madly, challenging herself to go deeper and for longer. Sometimes she endured the bitter currents long enough to swim out to a ledge at the mouth of the cove on which cormorants liked to perch and spread their wings.

Karigan had an idea of what she faced when she plunged into the brilliant waters of the Grandgent, but knowing could not fully prepare her. The cold stole her breath. It seeped through her clothes, through flesh, and gnawed into her bones, sapping her inner warmth. Her toes and fingers grew numb. She had not the hide of a seal, nor was this some childhood game of summer days long past. She had only minutes to find Fergal or succumb to the river herself. She took a last glance at the ferry, and saw that the oarsmen were holding it steady, allowing the craft to drift with her and the current. They watched her in disbelief, but would not abandon her.

She took a deep breath and dove beneath the surface. It was a dark world that swallowed her. The cold pressed against her head like a vise and cut off her hearing. It squeezed her lungs and almost forced the air from her cheeks. From the lighter levels of blue near the surface, she kicked into deeper, darker blue, searching in desperation for Fergal. She knew the currents were carrying her swiftly along, and it frightened her.

Sunlight penetrated through bluish-green layers to the river bottom, where she found an otherworldly landscape littered with boulders the size of wagons, and huge logs lying among them that had sunk during river drives. Weeds grew up between the rocks, and she caught sight of a cart wheel and broken jug.

She despaired of finding Fergal in the rocky, shadowy river and had no breath left in her. She swam back up to the surface, the relative warmth of the air stinging her face. The ferry was still with her, and the men shouted to her, but her ears rang so fiercely she could not hear them. The cold had already exhausted much of her strength and her extremities were without feeling, but she couldn’t give up if there was a chance she could save Fergal. She plunged again into the river’s depths.

This time another unnatural shape appeared among the boulders, a river cog gouged on its port side, debris spilled around it, the shapes of barrels and bottles and jars all coated with a fine silt. In the blue-green light, the cog’s tattered sails flowed in the currents with ghostly gestures. Karigan drifted over the figurehead of a fair lady holding a bouquet of flowers, her expression eerily undismayed by her watery grave.

The current drew Karigan on and she thrust upward to avoid becoming ensnared in the sails and rigging, and then she saw him. He was trapped in the rigging, his arms and legs splayed out like a dead man. She swam toward him, the lines groping for her like tentacles. If she got caught in them, they were both dead.

She pushed the ropes away as she swam, aware of darkness flooding the edges of her vision, aware of expending her last breaths, and of feeling weary. So very weary. When she reached Fergal, she found the rigging lashed around his torso and one of his legs. He showed no signs of life. Karigan tugged at the ropes that bound him but they held fast, unwilling to give up their prey.

She drew his longknife. The darkness clouded into her vision as she sawed into the thick rope. The knife was well-honed, something she now came to expect of Fergal, and it slashed through the rigging that anchored him. She dropped the knife and it drifted with silvery flashes toward the wreck.