You can see my ferry from here. It’s the dark shape on the shelf below that split in the cliff.
No, we didn’t carry it up for a view. I wouldn’t have carried it up for any price. It was a good boat before the mountain stood up.
You asked how to cross. I’ll tell you. First, don’t follow the old sign by the willows. It points to a place that has no water now.
The river used to run past my house. My brother Avit and I worked the ferry together. We took people to market, carts to the mill, goats wherever goats had decided to belong. We had a quiet season that year. Avit wanted to sell the boat before another quiet one.
I thought the market would improve. That is an opinion I no longer charge for.
It was a stormy afternoon when Rask came down the ridge. He was a fire giant. You may picture flames, but they were mostly under his skin, showing red at his elbows. He walked slowly because the ledge above the spring held the graves of his kin. He didn’t want to break it.
Nuur rose from the river. A water giant moves the bank before you see the body. The willow roots came out dripping, and then her head was there, broad as the ferry landing.
They had argued over the spring for years. Rask wanted its flow held back so he could raise dry land for more graves. Nuur wanted the water downriver, where the deep pools were shrinking. The fish there had nowhere cooler to go.
That afternoon, Rask put one hand across the spring.
Nuur hit him with the river.
We were loading six people and a cart of empty milk cans. The boat jumped against its rope. Avit grabbed my sleeve.
“Leave it,” he said. “Take the road.”
The road ran close below Rask’s burial ledge. People were already coming down it, stumbling over stones that had not been there a minute earlier. A family stood at the landing with two bags and no cart. Their smallest child carried one shoe.
“We take this load,” I told Avit.
“Then what?”
“Then we see.”
I would like to tell you I knew more than that. I didn’t.
We unloaded the milk cart. It had no one in it. Its owner objected until the bank shook under his feet. He helped us lift the family aboard. Avit took the rope, and I pushed off with the pole.
The opposite bank was still low. We got everyone over, tied the ferry and let them climb to the road behind the mill.
Rask raised his other arm. Heat came over us like an opened furnace. The river hissed where his fingers touched it. Nuur pulled back, and a muddy pool was left between her and the bank.
Fish jumped in it.
I saw her look at them. I saw Rask look at the graves. Neither looked at our boat.
Avit said we should leave from that side. More people stood at the other landing. The road behind them was beginning to buckle.
“If we go back,” he said, “we may not get over again.”
“I know.”
He kept the rope in his hand. After a moment he untied it.
On the return, a wave lifted the ferry high enough for me to see over Nuur’s shoulder. I could see the spring boiling around Rask’s wrist. I could see a crack opening under the burial ledge.
Nuur struck again. Water rushed beneath that cracked stone. A piece of the ledge fell, taking three grave markers with it.
Rask shouted. The sound knocked dust from the mill roof. He reached for Nuur, and the air over the stranded pool turned white with steam. The fish stopped jumping.
Nuur reached toward the water for another blow. Then she looked at the pool again and held her hand still.
Rask was staring at the broken ledge. His lifted arm lowered slowly. He could keep striking. He could also break what remained above him.
We had no breath to spare for speeches.
At the landing we loaded nine people. One man tried to bring a chest too heavy for two of us to lift.
“I won’t leave it.”
“What is in it?” Avit asked.
“Everything.”
Avit pointed to the man’s two daughters, waiting by the rope. The man stood another second, then helped them aboard.
We pushed out. Behind us, Nuur spoke. Her words moved across the river in deep knocks. Rask answered with a sound like stone pushed over stone.
I didn’t understand every word. I understood the gestures. Rask pointed to the broken graves, then drew his finger beside the ridge. Nuur pointed downstream and shook her head.
He drew another line, lower this time. She put one wet hand along it. Water began to run where her hand passed.
Rask lifted the land on one side. Nuur held it cool enough not to crack. Between them they made a new channel. Most of the spring ran into it. A smaller stream stayed beside the old burial ledge.
Neither had got the whole spring. Both had stopped losing what they already had.
The river beneath us slowed. The ferry scraped bottom.
“Pole,” Avit said.
I tried. The pole stuck in mud. The boat leaned, and the people on it pressed toward one side.
“Stay apart,” I told them. “One at a time.”
We were close enough to the mill bank for Avit to lay our gangplank across. He held it steady while people climbed. The last passenger was a child from the second load. Her father took her hand as she reached the bank.
I stepped off after the child. Avit was already on the bank.
Rask’s new ridge rose beneath the empty ferry.
The sound was small compared with the giants: a crack, then a long wooden groan. The hull bent across the rock that lifted it. Its middle split. Our boat went up while we stood watching.
By evening it was on that shelf. The water had gone the other way.
We went to the mill road with the people we’d carried. Nobody had time to thank us properly. There were children to find, animals to catch and houses that might still be reached before dark. Avit gave his coat to the man who’d left the chest.
For three days I kept trying to work out how to get the ferry down. Then Avit walked with me beneath the cliff. From there we could see the split through its middle. I stopped planning.
We bought a used wagon together. It takes people along the new channel to the shallow crossing. We carry market goods, mill sacks, goats. The goats continue to have their own ideas.
So yes, I saw them. No, I won’t climb up there with you to prove it. The boat isn’t safe, and I have work.
If you want to cross, put your bag in the wagon. We leave when the woman with the two hens arrives.
One fare. The view is included.
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