Crystal Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

Reef?”
    “Not too far.” People who didn’t sail needed patience. John sighed. You didn’t just get in a boat and show up somewhere.
    In the distance a long line of white breakers roared. John skirted them and followed another reef line, edging up against the wind until palm trees magically rose from the clear water. Frenchtown, Salt Island.
    John closed his eyes and looked at his mental map of the area around the Lucita. Sharp, clear, and in his mind’s eye he could rotate it around to examine it from different directions. The Wicked High Mountains rose to John’s left in the west, splitting the continent in half as they ran north and south. They trailed off into the sea to make a commalike curve of rock chimneys and reef. Inside that protective curve lay Brungstun. Among the reefs were the flat islands the Frenchi lived on.
    It was all an impassable, jagged maze. No ships ever got out from this protected area into the ocean. No ships got in. In this safe basin the Brungstun and Frenchi fishermen existed.
    “Mom say the water dangerous. Story does say that old metal airships from the old-fathers fell into the harbor water. We could wreck on them.”
    John opened his eyes and nudged the tiller to adjust their course. “I’ve never seen that. Just the reefs I need to watch out for.”
    Nanagada’s coasts were too rocky and clifflike to land on. Except for fishermen in Capitol City’s great harbor, a few traders from Baradad Carenage on Cowfoot Island on the continent’s other side, and the fishermen in this protected area, no one sailed the ocean. The towns settled on inland lakes or rivers. Safe, with calm weather and easy wind.
    John smiled as a gust leaned the Lucita over. They didn’t know what they were missing.
     
     
    Lucita pulled into Frenchtown’s flat, still water. Huts clustered on the beach’s edge, and bright-colored fishing skiffs lay canted on the sand.
    The water depth shortened to three feet. John moved forward and pulled the daggerboard up. It sat in a little well just behind the mast and dripped water as it slid out. John could see water, and the sand beneath it, passing under his boat. Without the extra ability to point into the wind, Lucita skittered sideways.
    John ran back and grabbed the tiller. He expertly wobbled the boat the rest of the way to shore and dropped the sail as the Lucita’s bow hit the beach.
    Then he grabbed Jerome and threw him into the water.
    “Hey, man!” Jerome stood waist-high in it, dripping wet.
    “Hey, you.” John jumped in after him. Jerome splashed at him as John pushed the boat as far up the sand as he could.
    “DeBrun, that you?” someone called.
    “Yeah.”
    Troy, a fisherman, sat in his boat with a paint tin. Troy’s white skin flaked from sunburn. His straight blond hair hung down to his shoulders. No locks, just limp strands. “Where you been all this time?”
    “Busy fishing. Have to make a living.”
    Troy laughed.
    John couldn’t help looking at the bad sunburn on Troy’s pale skin. Frenchies could put on an accent so strong he had trouble understanding them. But they were very white. That was uncommon. On Cowfoot Island off Nanagada’s southeastern coast, and northeast up the peninsula in Capitol City, yes, he had seen some white people. But that was it. John reached over the prow and pulled out the canvas bag.
    “More paintings?” Troy asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Good.” Troy put down his brush and hopped out onto the sand. He looked down at the canvas bag. “I go trade with you.”
    Jerome wandered down the beach toward several Frenchie children. His darker skin color stood out, oddly
enough. He joined them kicking a leather football down the beach, laughing when it hit the water and stuck in the wet sand.
    John smiled and followed Troy in toward his small beach store. Two old, wizened Frenchies sat on the porch smoking pipes. They nodded as he passed, then continued playing dominoes, enthusiastically slapping the ivory pieces down