Anchored against the stone quay stained by the muddy current of the Tempe, lay a single masted catboat. Sail furled atop it's boom. Open cockpit and tiller with a hatchway leading below. Below deck upon a sleeping pad was where Soleim had curled up to nurse a hangover and dream of earlier days as an Archivist. The season of Piloting was done. Winter doldrums of idle furlough to endure and last night's bottle lay by a canid head throbbing in tune with a voice echoing from the hatchway.

"Hallo there? Pilot Soleim?"

Soleim voiced a low groan. That was not part of the dream.

"What do you want?" barked the dark colored canine.

The voice replied. "Is there a pilot on board? I need a river guide! I must follow the golden quest!"

"Wait there! I'll come forth!" Soleim called out as he pulled knee length shorts up long, ebony pelted legs. With the air still warm and heavy, he decided to forgo a shirt. He crawled by the gimbaled stove easing past cramped shelving packing a few sets of clothing, rain skin and other items befitting a river pilot guiding ships for the City of Thane.

Soleim emerged through the hatch into the light of mid day. Fall air stagnate from the sub-tropical humidity of the delta. He stood up in the cockpit, one hand resting atop the furled boom. His height allowed the shirtless, black dog to gaze eye level at the well dressed felid with long ear tufts squatting on the poured stone dock.

"I did not hear you the first time. What do you want?" He asked the lynx again.

The lynx hesitated, "Are you a pilot? This isn't a very big boat. I thought pilots rode in tugs."

"I'm Soleim. River pilot." He replied to the young Lynx dressed in baggy pants and a tunic shirt with a spiral pattern trim. Soleim's memories as a former Archivist dredged up a a tome describing that pattern as belonging to a remote mountain noble house in the Karkov mountains where the great river Tempe cut through on it's lazy journey to the sea through the vast conglomerate city of Thanes.

Soleim added. "I am off duty for the season. As for this catboat. I live here when I'm not guiding boats up from the Tempe delta to the docks of Thanes."

The bob tailed feline stood up, motioning to the cut stone stairs leading down to the quay. "My name is Tristan. I've journeyed down from the Catamount Keep in the Karkov's to follow a quest. I entered Thanes two days ago. A vast city indeed and I managed to make my way to the Hera Inn. Where I am staying. The staff sent me here when I inquired about hiring a pilot."

The flop eared Soleim grunted. "A ship's pilot rarely guides individuals. How did you get on this dock? It's not open to the casual visitor."

"I spoke to Tem, the dock guardian. He allowed me entry after paying a fee."

"Ah." Soleim thought to himself, that old bastard took a bribe. But, I could use a few extra Sous as well.

"Where on the river do you want to be guided?"

"My quest leads me to the great castle of Distribution in the Old City. I am not at liberty to say my purpose here. And on the island, I must go alone."

Soleim's ears flickered, "By the Old City, you mean the Drowned Isles downstream?"

The lynx nodded. "The very same. Can we leave now? For I need to encamp there and plan."

Soleim shook his head. "You'll have to do your planning aboard the boat. Those isles are under Marshall Law by decree of the Emperor."

"What was the reason?"

"Bandits used to encamp there till they were slaughtered by the Guard. Since then, the decree forbids encampment of any kind. I can guide you there for exploring an isle during the day. But you must leave the place to board my boat by nightfall."

The lynx seemed disappointed. He stood up. "I see. And your fee for guiding?"

Soleim shrugged. "Twenty Sous for the trip there and back. Another ten to stay in the boat overnight. This is not a luxury boat. You will be sleeping out in the cockpit. It will be like camping out in the open and the weather should be favorable. You may be asked to help crew the boat. For food, you'll get what I eat in the evening and morning."

"Why overnight?"

"If we leave now, we will not reach the isles until late afternoon going on towards evening. As I will not let you ashore during the night, we will anchor riverside. Come the morning, I'll guide the boat to a ruined dock and you can go ashore to complete whatever quest you've set your sights upon. If you need guiding onshore it's extra."

Tristan pondered. "Thirty Sous it tis. I'll think about the onshore guiding."

"Jump aboard." Soleim helped the felid clamber onto the cockpit.

"Is that all you're bringing?" Soleim asked. Other than a sack backpack, money purse and a short sword encased in a leather scabbard around Tristan's waist, the young mountain Elite seemed more prepared to stroll from his inn room to a local pub.

"My sword, Slab and golden discs are all I need."

Tristan settled in a cockpit seat, content to watch Soleim unfurl the sail and hop over to the bow to grab two pulleyed halyard lines, slowly raising the gaff sail upwards. The black, shirtless dog anchored the fore line and continued hauling on the throat halyard line to set the sail's aft end. The breeze fluttering the sail.

Soleim scrambled over to to the bow, grabbing a wicked looking boat hook off it's mount. He untied the bow line anchoring the boat to the dock and barked at Tristan. "Untie the aft dock line!"

Tristan complied while Soleim pushed the boat hook against the dock, easing the catboat's bow into the Tempe river. The breeze helped. The ebony water dog remounted the boat hook, bounded over the roof deck and into the cockpit, ducking under the boom. He grabbed the tiller and sheet line, letting the gaff sail out to catch the wind. The fat bodied boat eased it's way downstream under a hazy sky.

Eddy lines traced curves through the Tempe's muddy swirls and occasional fist sized whirlpools appeared briefly to noisily slurp up floating debris before vanishing again. The upstream wind drove the catboat to lazily tack it's way downstream against an oncoming tide.

Soleim sat on the rear cockpit seat, pointing out various sights out to Tristan. The lynx slouched on the side bench seat, eyes half slitted, napping while the boat tacked to and fro within the vast width of the Tempe as it curved past shores lined with shanty huts topped by smokey contrails. Tristan turned his back towards the conglomerate of squalor that ringed the districts of Thanes like coral atolls. Preferring to interact with a device hauled out from his sack pack. A black flat, slab like device that he fed with a golden disk the size of one's fist. It beeped and glowed various pictures, symbols and lines upon it's glassy front.

"Bored?" Soleim asked after a long while. For he was no stranger to old tech as he eased the tiller round, sail self tacking to the wind.

Tristan glanced up. "The river...it stinks worse than the city."

A tri-colored barge with lateen sails passed by within several yards, on it's way upstream. Soleim chuckled, "Raw sewage is the spice of a city. Thane has been here a very long time. Under various names. It used to be far downstream. Beyond the present delta upon a much older delta now vanished under the waves."

Tristan looked up from the slab like display. "Really? What happened?" He twisted to gaze at the near shore. The catboat was now passing by the Citadel district of the Lower East Bank. Iron truss framed towers loomed above mostly abandoned hovels. Ancient structures now used by various cult like functionaries of the Emperor.

"The land fell and the sea rose." Soleim replied. "Some of it by geology. The rest by warming waters and melting glaciers of the cold lands and poles. The city grew upstream, shedding it's older downstream parts. Time and time again, rising waters has forced the city to shift again. The Drowned Isles we're sailing to were once hills upon dry land."

"I take it your tribe has sailed these waters for generations?"

Soleim shook his head. "No. As a pup I was an apprentice to Archivists. Till the Emperor closed the public Libraries at the behest of the Oligarchs. I had to find another trade. Piloting."

The dog fell silent. Tristan returned to interacting with his beeping device.

The sun had sunk lower in the haze till it seemed to hover above the horizon when the boat reached an area where the vast river widened further. The Tempe cleaved itself into interconnected braids with pockmarked bars and steep peaked islands embedded within the brown, sea like water.

Tristan glanced at his device and looked up. "The delta?"

"Just the upper reaches." Soleim eased the tiller about. Tacking the boat sharply. "Those hills ahead are the Drowned Isles."

"Good!" The lynx glanced down at his device. "By the Map of Quest, we go to...the second island over there!" Had he been a dog, his stub tail would have been wagging.

Soleim had managed to lean over and catch a glimpse of the display's map. His eyes narrowed. "Try the third."

"But the map!"

"Was databased when Thanes still used the isles as docks. The sea's higher and that upper isle has split in two. Your castle of..." He held back a chortle. "Distribution is on the island marked 'Warehouse district'. Third isle."

The boat made it's way towards the island. Tristan spotted a ruined stony pier that jutted out from the hilly island. Greenery pockmarked with fangs of concrete and re bar. The pier was the silt coated remains of the great dock laid out on the map digitized in his display device.

"During the spring flood, the Tempe rises and drowns the old piers on this isle." Soleim said as he hauled on the tiller and let the sail out. The boat heeled, swinging sharply about, till it faced upstream.

"We'll anchor here for the night. I'll put you ashore on the pier in the morning." The black dog leaped over the deck roof to the the bow. He shoved the anchor over, paying out the line.

"Why not land on that eroded stretch of beach?" Tristan asked.

"My boat has a fixed keel and I don't want to run aground." Soleim replied as he fixed the anchor line and began untying the mast halyard lines.

Tristan sat in the cockpit, watching the black water dog furl the sail. Finished, Soleim crawled through the deck door and below. The lynx continued playing the game stored on the hand held slab. The game that launched his quest. His nostrils twitched. He smelled meat boiling on a stove.

Soleim reappeared after a while with two bowls filled with dried stores and pemmican floating in a broth. "Our dinner."

The pair ate silently while the sun set. Tristan found the meal salty and absent of spice. Hunger drove him to eat, even draining the broth.

The sub-tropical twilight faded quickly. Night cloaked the boat. Soleim took the bowls below and returned with a red lantern that he tied to a mast rope and and hauled it up towards the top. A fat gibbous moon rose over the shore, staining the waters.

Soleim placed a conch shell and flashlight on the bench next to Tristan.

"Tristan. You'll be on First watch. I'll relieve you in four hours when my alarm rings at midnight. Keep an eye on the river."

"Why?"

"We're anchored in an active channel. This lantern is visible to passing vessels. But one mustn't rely on it solely to keep ships from running us over. All you have to do is sit on your bench seat. Play a game on your Slab. But if you see a ship coming close, take this conch shell and blow on it. And turn on this flash light and play the beam in the ship's direction. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good." Soleim went below. Leaving Tristan alone.

The lynx smiled and inserted a disc into his Slab. The display returned to a saved game. Fingers slid, making movements through a maze. The game that entranced him so. A return to the level where he found the Egg of Spring that told him to mail a coupon with his game disc serial number along with a copy of his high score to the Castle Distribution center in Thanes to pick up a prize. And though the center now lay in ruins, it should still hold some sort of treasure worth salvaging!

Tristan switched discs to consult the Map of Quest. By it's golden lit background, he examined the four colored map of the streets belonging to the Isle labeled the Warehouse district. The shore line had changed, but Belltown Avenue in Red led arrow straight from the dock they were anchored by into the center of the island where it intersected Benard Street in green. Turn right and three blocks down was the Castle itself. It should be recognizable after all this time. Stone turrets endure.

He looked up, noticing the moon had passed zenith. He switched off the Slab, placing it back into the backpack sack and glanced stern wards down the river. And spotted a moonlit shape gliding towards the boat. Long and black. Water foaming at it's mouth. Startled, Tristan watched the thing grow larger. Then larger. Till it became a Leviathan. Growling with a voice felt through the water. Tristan grabbed the flash light, forgetting the conch shell and flicked it on. Waving the beam about like a sword at the Leviathan. The dark shape seemed slowly shift away as it approached and then eased past the catboat. The tiny craft's hull trembled in tune to a rumbling choral voice of steady pitch. A huge rectangular dorsal fin loomed atop it's rigid, textured back. A fin as tall as the catboat's mast. The vast sable creature swept by.

A hand touched him. Tristan yowled, dropping the flashlight into the cockpit.

"Easy Tristan. It's me." Soleim called out.

Tristan pointed over the gunwale just as the wake began rocking the boat. "Th..th..the.."

Soleim nodded, keeping his balance in the swell. He snagged the flashlight. "Good work using the light. What a rare sight. Didn't know the Emperor still had a submarine."

"Sub?"

"First watch is over. Go below Tristan. I'll wake you at 0400."

Tristan entered the cramped, dark burrow of the catboat. He chose to stay near the open hatch by the dimly lit shelving and gimbaled stove aglow with moonlight leaking in. He curled up, half seated on the narrow floor, propping his tufted eared head against a padded seat. Eyes closed. Thoughts of what kind a creature that swam by. Soleim called it a Sub Leviathan. Sleep claimed him.

Soleim's hand shook Tristan awake. "Wake up. Morning watch."

The lynx made his way back up into the cockpit under a sky turning a hazy purple. He sat, eyes open, but dozing. No other craft approached. The moon bent down to kiss the horizon, banded colors slowly flowing upwards to the heavens. It was brightest on the horizon over the boat's starboard side. Though he had been raised in the mountains, Tristan shivered in the sub tropical dawn, feeling humid condensate on the boat's surfaces for the first time. Along with the sound of a yawning dog and a stove firing up.

Soleim was boiling water for soup. The sky had brightened for the short dawn when he came up from the hatch with a soup bowl. They ate breakfast silently. The sun finally arose. Long shadows crept across the Isle and ruined jetty.

"Are you ready?" Soleim asked.

"I'm ready to go ashore."

Soleim went about weighing anchor and raising the boat's sail. A light breeze had sprung up, allowing the craft to ease towards the jetty of the Third Isle. He skillfully steered the boat to a piece of support jutting out from the structure. And tied the boat there.

Tristan stood up in the rocking boat.

"Do you still need a guide?"

Tristan shook his head. The treasure was his and his alone. "I must do this alone."

Soleim replied. "A quest and a map. Following them is as dangerous as being led by a warlord or prophet. Suit yourself. I will wait for you. Do not tarry for we must be off the Isle by sunset."

Tristan nodded and without a word, he scrambled over the gunwale and vaulted up onto the silt coated jetty. Trotting towards the ruins.

Several dozen strides brought Tristan into a corridor of kudzu and wild vine coating the concrete and narrowed, gritty blocks of pavement. The street rose, fell, rose and fell in heaved blocks. As if some great quake had compressed it. The greening, roofless buildings were skeletal ribs of concrete with exposed re-bar for marrow. A glance back showed no view of the jetty. He sat down on a crumbling parapet lying like driftwood upon the ruined avenue. He pulled out the Slab from his pack, fed the Map into the display. Trying to compare landmarks then with the now. That alley *might* be a street. The next two should be the fabled street, then turn right.

He set off, scrambling over the broken ground amidst a silence broken only by the distant cry of river gulls. A widening to the right. Was that it? Yes, the street! His fevered imaginings envisioned a castle in majestic ruins. A main gate would lead to a great room filled with ancient boxes of electronic treasure or even packed with gold filmed discs containing...

The street ended in a house sized hill of rubble. He clambered up the boulder and fist sized debris. And stood halfway up, gazing. Beyond, was a riot of greenery and spikes of support posts poking up from a series of rubble hills. Nothing that even resembled a castle.

A set of black beady eyes peered from a cluster of vines. Then another and another. A trio of quadrupeds flowed out from the greenery. Looking like low slung, wolf sized weasels. The creatures raised their heads, bobbing them up and down. Long, black and brown furred bodies slowly slinking forwards. Approaching.

Tristan scrambled up to the crest of the rubble pile. Studded with re-bar jutting up like spikes. He picked up a stone and hurled it. It bounced, causing the closest to scatter. The others hung back, slowly circling around the rubble pile's base. He unsheathed his sword.

"Stand aside! Or I'll cut you thieving animals to ribbons!"

Feral eyes showed no sign of understanding the lynx's words. One of the creatures slowly clambered up the hill. Tristan leaped down to slice it. A move that would have worked had the debris underneath held firm. The rubble collapsed, sending the lynx tumbling onto the jutting spikes of re-bar. Like an anchored pike, a shaft of re-bar pierced his shoulder, pinning him and sending his sword clattering down the rubble pile.

The yowls and groans of the injured elite scattered the huge, ferret like animals. They regrouped and approached again. Long tails lashing. Bolder now that the object of curiosity was bleeding and stationary. The largest was ready to scramble up the rubble only to have it's skull impaled by the curved boat hook belonging to Soleim. The rest scattered for good.

Adrenalin drove Tristan to mutter nonsense to Soleim as he was half carried back to the catboat tied to the jetty. While the dog staunched the puncture wound and applied a heated poultice of herbs and bandage, Tristan's retelling of the events changed their unfolding from being attacked by feral animals to a band of pirates.

He lay against a cockpit bench during the trip upstream to the quay. Delirious. By mid afternoon when the catboat had docked at it's home quay, Tristan's mutterings had transformed the day trip. A majestic quest to a treasure filled castle guarded by pirates. Along with a sword fight, a war wound and a heroic pilot who came to his aid.

Tem, the tabby dock guard, was asleep on a bench. Only to be rudely awakened by a tossed stone from Soleim.

"Tem! Get up! We have an injured Elite. Puncture wound in the shoulder!"

The pair helped Tristan up from the boat onto the dock. Soleim carrying the lynx's little backpack. He set it on the dock.

Tristan rubbed his bandaged right shoulder. "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Soleim growled. "That shoulder needs deep cleaning. Septic infection might set in. And you'll be needing some physical work to regain use of your sword arm. There's a Clinic near your inn. They serve the District nobles and a son of a remote noble house would be gladly admitted."

Tristan stood up, turning towards Soleim. "Your fee. How much do I owe you?"

"You only owe me forty Sous. For river guiding, a meal and patching you up."

Tristan shook his head, ear tufts laid back. "You did much more for me. Here..." He fumbled with his uninjured arm into his battered belt purse. Clawing out a roll of Sous. Peeling a few leaves off. He planted them against Soleim's chest. The dog took them. The lynx secured his purse, leaned down to rummage through the backpack lying on the dock like flotsum. Fumbling through the transparent leafed book that encased the golden disks. He hauled a disk out, holding it up by it's edges.

"A gift. A disc of great, copyrighted literary works held by the Barnes Oligarchy. It's leased to me and I assure you all DRM rights will be given to you. Take it. There's bound to be a reader sold in the bazaar."

Soleim muttered his thanks. He held the disc in his dark fingers. "Tem! Take Tristan back to the Hera Inn. And make sure they fetch a medic from the Clinic to examine him! I'll watch the dock for you."

The uniformed dock felid picked up sackpack and guided the injured lynx up the quay steps. Soleim waited till they topped the rise. He wandered over to the dock's edge, pocketing the Sous in his shorts. He held the disc close to his muzzle, one eye studying it's shimmering rainbow gold finish buried under clear plastic. A product from a time that decided destroying paper tomes and archives after placing them into binary code was righteous Commerce. Profitable obsolescence by forcing repeated transfer to other locked formats held by one Oligarch and then sold to another.

"All the works of literature..", Soleim said aloud to no one. "Thieved from public collections till the written became binary ash under the shadow of rent seekers and eternal copyright." His tail sagged. "More honest barbarians merely burnt the great libraries of the past."

Still, there were a few illegal and unencumbered readers to be found in the bazaar. Soleim then noticed a faint blotch on one side of the disc. It wasn't on the surface.

He turned the disc edgewise. Examining the faint glued seam where two layers of plastic had been joined together. The stain had spread from within. Already fungal spores in Thanes had spawned mold growing through the thin layer of glue. It would spread through the joint and render the data disc useless in less than a season.

With a flick of his wrist, the golden disc spun off into the air, slicing into the swirling depths of the Tempe.

(c) 2011 Sirius Dogfire ("SiriusDF"). May not be reprinted, reposted, or redistributed without permission. First appeared in the August 11,2011 Thursday Prompt series hosted on FurAffinity by Poetigress.