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Looking at a map, Gaunt said, “I don’t like the idea of this ship suddenly expanding inside a small building. Innocence, you’ve been to that other realm?”

He nodded.

“Can you get us from there to Oxiland?”

“Yes. The power is getting easier to control.”

“And this time,” said Deadfall, startling the crew, “I will be there. I can magnify your energies, Lord Gaunt.”

Gaunt raised her eyebrows at hearing that name with “lord” attached. Innocence stroked his chin. “They’ll be hostile in Sølvlyss. And when we come through to Oxiland, we’ll be inland, near Huginn’s place, called Sturla’s Steading.”

“Is there a river nearby, lad?” Erik said.

“Yes.”

“Then we can move the ship by sweat and shoulder, and ride the river to the sea.”

“Then let’s be about the thing,” Yngvarr said. “I don’t like that current, and the witch-woman’s dragons seem clearer to me.”

After two hours of hard rowing they neared Malin’s skerry and its tunnel. Taper Tom gasped and pointed.

Out in the strange sea was a silver chariot pulled by a frothing, tentacled disturbance in the water. The man aboard the chariot itself was tall and thin and had a white beard flecked with red. Gold runes covered his black robes like precisely cut bloodstains.

“I know him from descriptions,” Gaunt whispered. “The Winterjarl. Author of the
Chart of Tomorrows
.”

The chariot swung toward the disturbance on the horizon and was lost to sight.

In the uneasy silence, Innocence called out, “
Leaping Bison!
I have a sort of riddle for you. Imagine you can speak to yourself—a future self who has come to your time and place to talk with you. What is the most important question you can ask?”

As it happened they were a nervous band, and it was a good moment for a puzzle. There were glib answers—“‘Where was the woman of my dreams hiding, anyway?’” “‘Which town really had the best beer?’”—and funny ones—“‘What’s that axe doing in your head?’”—but most tried to be thoughtful. Gaunt sensed that despite her son’s easy tone, Innocence was deathly worried about something. She thought upon the problem as others offered their answers.

Bone was quick out the gate. “‘What moments should I savor?’”

Steelfox was almost as swift. “‘What was my worst mistake?’”

Katta said, “‘What can I do for you?’”

Northwing said, “‘What can I do to make you leave?’” When everyone stared at the shaman, Northwing answered. “Who the hell wants their future ghost haunting them? The past ones are bad enough.”

But Deadfall said, “‘Who was worthy?’” and his tone raised prickles on Gaunt’s neck.

Nine Smilodons replied, “I know who is worthy. But I would ask, ‘What should I carry?’”

“That’s a practical answer,” Erik said with an approving nod. “Funny question, isn’t it? It isn’t like asking Heaven, or the dead, for answers beyond our ken. My future self. He’d be an ordinary man, wouldn’t he, just like me. Only further along.” Erik laughed. “I think I’d ask him what he’d ask
his
future self. That might be illuminating.”

Malin said, “I would ask where Inga is.”

“‘Did . . .’” Yngvarr hesitated. “‘Did I err?’”

Taper Tom said nothing.

There were some other intriguing answers from the crew—“‘One more foamreaving?’” “‘What is the most spectacular thing I will ever see?’” “‘Has my best moment already come?’” “‘Birgita or Eeva?’”—but Gaunt thought most about Nine Smilodons’ and Bone’s. Implicit in the first was a confidence that future information could be of specific, immediate value to the past. Underlying the second was the assumption that events would not change, that the best one could do was better appreciate them.

And why had Innocence asked in the first place? Because of the vision of the Winterjarl?

“Mother,” Innocence said, “do you have an answer?”

Something came to her. “‘Do you remember this meeting?’”

“What?” Bone said.

“I would ask her, ‘Do you remember this meeting?’” Gaunt looked at their blank faces. “Because, you see, there are two basic possibilities about meeting your future self. If everything is fated, she must remember meeting you, because it’s an event in her own past. But if she does not remember, then perhaps everything is not fated. Perhaps she brings news that can change the future. And maybe even she herself doesn’t know which is the truth about time. It is something the two of you must decipher together.” She shrugged. “I have probably missed something important. I’ve never met my future self. I hope she has reason to be proud of me.”

“That might be what I’d have asked,” Innocence said. “‘What do you think of me?’ But I like your answer better—”

“Beware!” called Steelfox. “Qurca sees something.”

“More specifics, perhaps?” Bone drew a dagger.

“Difficult to say. A ship like this one, I think, but it lacks sails, and its construction is peculiar. It is built of many tiny, pale, jagged stones, I would say.”

There was whispering among the crew. Malin said, “Do the tiny jagged stones look like fingernails? Or toenails?”

Steelfox stared at her and simultaneously at something else. “Yes. They might. But aboard it . . .”

“Tell us,” Gaunt said.

“Aboard it is one who should be dead but isn’t. Captain Glint, do you see the ship?”

“I do,” Erik said. “And I hope it isn’t
Naglfar
, the ship that sails at world’s end.”

“I do not know what it is,” Steelfox said, “or what it portends. But I must go within shouting range, for the Grand Khan is on board.”

“What?” Gaunt said. “Jewelwolf’s husband is out there?”

“No, not Clifflion. The first Grand Khan. My father.”

“Just to clarify,” Bone said, “because I am sometimes slow-witted. Your father is dead, yes?”

“Yes. He should not be here in some far Western nightmare. His spirit should be in the skies above the Karvak Realm.”

Nine Smilodons surprised Gaunt by speaking. “Then so he is, Lady. This is some apparition meant to trick us.” He said more in the Karvak tongue, and she lowered her head.

But a voice called out across the waters from the ship, and Gaunt looked up to behold this
Naglfar
. It sailed silently nearby, a longship of similar dimensions to
Bison
but with only tattered remnants of sail. Its hull did indeed look like thousands of human fingernails all fused together. The agglomeration made her skin crawl.

“
Yngvarr, come to me
,” said the voice. “
Let me repay you your kindness
. . . .”

Yngvarr closed his eyes. “It is Kalim, my brother. The first man I ever slew.”

Now came a voice Gaunt did recognize, and it troubled her greatly.

“
Erik
,” said old Nan the Runewalker. “
Erik, you must listen
. . . .”

Erik covered his eyes with his hand. “No! Rowers! Onward!”

Malin cried out, “Nan! Then you are really dead?”

“
We are
,” answered a different voice from
Naglfar
. It was Ruvsa, the Rose of Larderland. “
The ship has come for us, and we go to fight the Vindir, wherever they are. Will you join us
?”

Both Erik and Yngvarr looked stricken.

“No!” shouted Taper Tom.

“No.” Malin sounded afraid, but she also sounded focused on matters more important than ships of the dead. “I go to stop the troll-jarl.”

“
You’re going the wrong way
,” came the voice of Briartop. “
Silly girl
.”

“I am going the right way, and I am not silly, and I am a woman, and you are not Briartop.”

Gaunt shouted, “Malin has the right of it! Think! Even if this nail-ship had the power to gather the dead, why would it gather our dead specifically? Why would it take a form exactly the dimensions of our ship? It may be
Naglfar
, but it’s our personal
Naglfar
, our nightmare. Something wants us scared.”

“You’re right, Gaunt!” said Bone. “Also, I don’t think dead men’s nails are really that reliable a construction material.”

“
Clever, clever girl
,” sighed a voice from the nail-ship. “
You were always the brightest of my children
.”

“Father,” Gaunt gasped. “You are dead?”

“
As I said, clever. And the most spoiled and selfish. When the monsters of the wizard Spansworth tore your younger siblings apart, did you grow up? No, you spat in the face of everyone who did right by you—your mother and I, your elder sisters, and the bards. Until you took ship to become a harlot of Palmary.
”

“Poet,” Gaunt said, but her voice shook.

A new speaker said, “
You think you have a serpent’s tooth for a child, Basil of County Gaunt? Look at mine—arrogant, murderous, useless. He turned away from the honest path of a fisherman to become a thief.
”

Bone twitched. “Fishermen drown, Mother.”

“
And thieves hang. I never wanted such things for you, but when the sea took your brothers, you took to the road. Did you never wonder what happened to the rest of us, with one less able back
?”

“I . . . I always meant to go back. But years passed, and then decades . . .”

“
Listen to yourself. ‘Years passed.’ As if you were helpless before them. The truth is, you lived, day after day, each one deciding not to visit us. Until now, when we are all dead, O finest thief in the Spiral Sea.
”

“
At least he has a trade, Illudera Bone
,” called out Basil of County Gaunt. “
My daughter is just a pickpocket
.”

“Poet!” shouted Gaunt.

“
They shame us
,” said the voice of Illudera.

“
They compound their shame with each other
,” answered that of Basil.

“You two,” Bone declared, though his hands were shaking, “are perfect for each other.”

“Yes,” Gaunt managed to say, “find comfort in each other. Do not mock the living. Especially the poets. You can ask Muninn Crowbeard about that.”

“
We know all about Crowbeard
,” said Basil. “
How you mocked him into throwing his life away
.”

“He sold me into slavery,” said Bone.

“
At least you finally did some useful work
,” said Illudera.

“Leave them alone!” Innocence raised his hands. “I’ve had enough of my elders telling everyone what to do! Let my parents live their lives. Go away!”

A crackle of unseen energy, and a path of displaced water roared from
Leaping Bison
to
Naglfar
, from the living to the dead. The nail-ship rocked, and as though a spell was broken
Bison
’s foamreavers rowed, putting distance between them. But the shadowy crew rowed as well, and the voice of Freidar called out, “
Beware your power, Askelad! It will eat you alive! We think we wield power, but more often it wields us!
”

And Nan echoed, “
Erik, steer your ship away if you can, but once you’ve roamed the Straits of Tid, part of you will always be here. Listen, that is the source of us . . . the memory of each of us that resonates within time. . . .
”

“Go!” said Innocence. “Away!” And with each word he sent more of his essence against
Naglfar
, rocking it with wind and wave.

Voices in the musical-sounding language of the Karvaks crossed the quicksilver sea between the ships, and Steelfox and Nine Smilodons looked at each other in anguish. Nine Smilodons rowed like a madman.

There followed voices in three languages Gaunt did not know, though perhaps she’d heard one of them in the marketplaces of the East. Katta and Northwing looked stricken. Yet there was a third mysterious language being called out, and there seemed no one left to be affected by it.

No, there was someone. Deadfall thrashed upon the wet floor of the boat.

“They will destroy us,” Deadfall said. “They will weaken our resolve and attack when we are at our most disoriented. Some of them will claim to want otherwise, but they will still attack.”

“How can you know this?” Innocence said.

“Lord Gaunt, it is my maker I heard, the evil sorcerer Olob. His shade understands the situation better than the others. They are summoned into being by the Straits of Tid themselves. For time resists alteration.”

“We’re not trying to alter time!” Bone said. “We’re just passing through.”

“Nevertheless. Our presence disturbs the forces here. We are confronted with our dead in response.”

Innocence looked out into the waters. “Cairn! Do you hear me? You helped me once. Do so again!”

And Gaunt saw a narwhal leap out of the waves, and on it was riding a battle-decked young woman of perhaps sixteen. She raised a polished steel spear, and braided red hair flowed beneath her helmet.

“Ship of nails!” she called out, and her voice was accented with the lilts of the desert lands between the Eldshore and Mirabad. “You have your full complement of dead! You cannot dishearten me. Back! Back into potentiality, and harry this longship no more!”

She threw the spear, and the hull of fingernails and toenails was weakened, for the material shredded at that spot.
Naglfar
took on water and slowed. The warrior looked over her shoulder at
Bison
. “Go! I cannot travel with you, for there are those among you who would cast a shadow upon me. But I will keep your shades from destroying you. Go!”

“Row!” commanded Erik, and the strange warrior receded behind them.

“A chooser—” Yngvarr said, “a chooser—of the—slain. We are—favored—”

As
Naglfar
receded behind them, the dead aboard took on the aspect of shadowy creatures with one blazing eye apiece. They had been Draugar all along.

Bison
reached a vast rocky islet with a sea-cave fit for sailing into. Gaunt felt a sickening disorientation as she saw the tunnel fork into two paths, one of which led to the base of a gigantic stove. She preferred to look down the other tunnel, for all that it led somewhere strange. It was easier to look at a different world on her own scale than her own world writ large.