Mizzle's Misadventure

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Mizzle has never known a time when he wasn’t near water. The older librarians hated the sea - “Salt! Air! Moisture!” they’d cry, as though naming the demons which tormented them - but Miz loved it. Out there, across the blue expanse, was everything. All the stuff in the old books the librarians fuss over, all the lands, all the people, all of it!

The Gallimaufry has been afloat for generations. The turtle-whale-thing that carries it about is generations older. The whole place exists to preserve its precious treasures: its magical artifacts, crystals, powders, and other rare mystic materials. Most of all, its knowledge - the tomes, the scrolls, the thick books with clasps on them made of brass, and more. When some itinerant gets hold of an important new work, they bring a copy back and stock it on the shelves. But nobody aboard the floating city is doing anything new. It’s all like a temple to the past, with the librarians as the creaky, doddering old priests praying to a snoozing god.

Miz likes sitting on the roof of the Portside Restaurant, kicking his legs over the edge, and staring at the clouds and the horizon and the glimpses of lands. He’ll listen to the people chattering below him, and take in the smells of the food. The fish are caught locally, but the herbs and seasonings and sides and such all have to come from land.

He thinks about becoming an itinerant, about putting stuff in his satchel and strapping on his heaviest boots and waving bye to folks and just going somewhere. He wants to see the lands where the onions come from, and those glowing red flower petals they put on top of rice for flavor. He wants to see a mountain and explore a desert and climb a tree.

He wants to see this “kingdom of the elves”, despite there being elves aboard. He wants to travel to the merchant princes’ lands, and stroll through their famous markets - “the world on a carpet”. He wants to see the deserts of the south, brimming with treasures and mysteries waiting to be revealed, the way he reveals the next page of a book by turning it over.

Most of all, he wants to be away from the librarians, who constantly tell him how valuable it is to have knowledge.

He knows.

He knows!

He wants to have more of it!

That’s the problem!

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

Miz is in his favorite place - atop the restaurant’s roof. He’s in the middle of reading and eating when the seagulls attack.

“No!” he shouts. “Mine!”

The seagulls take up the call. “Mine! Mine! Mine!” they shout back, though they’re not intelligent enough to understand the meaning.

He clutches the book and tries to pull his food out of the way as the annoying, noisy birds swoop in to grab hold of it.

And then –

The book slips out of his grasp. It falls - he watches it fall - he can feel it falling, for second after second.

And then - splash.

He forgets all about his food. He dives, right off the top of the roof. Like everyone on the Gallimaufry, he’s an excellent swimmer, and he’s got the Turtle’s Word to let him breathe underwater. He can still salvage this situation.

The book is sinking quickly. It’s all that metal lining and stuff, meant to preserve it. Other books are just made of leather or reeds or whatnot, and might have floated.

Miz struggles to sink as quickly as the book. He fails.

Fish swim past him, nipping at him as he goes, unaware that he’s not food. It’s distracting, and he flails in slow motion to drive them away. In the process, he loses sight of the book.

Oh no.

He keeps swimming, down, and down, and down.

And… He can’t find it.

It’s dark down here. He can’t really see well. But it’s a book, right? It should stand out.

Every minute that passes is a minute that the water is going to eat away at the pages, dissolve the ink, weaken the bindings.

Where can it be?!

Miz surfaces half an hour later, with what’s left of a rare book clutched under one arm. He swims glumly to the nearest ladder, and hauls himself carefully up. The book slams down on the deck before he does, making a sploochy noise as it ejects some of its pent-up moisture.

He’s greeted by one of the librarians, who looks down at the book and then back at him.

Miz finishes the climb under the beetled brows of the man.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” demands the librarian.

Miz knows.

“Umm..I brought the book back up?” It’s not what he’s gonna be punished for, but it’s technically something he did. Right?

The man’s bushy mustache wriggles in dismay and disgust as he picks up the thoroughly waterlogged tome and begins to towel it off with his own robe.

But what hurts Miz most is the look on his face. It isn’t anger. It’s anguish.

“The Three Fruits of Desion,” the man says quietly, half to himself. “A generation ago, the knowledge in this book helped cure a population on land, who’d contracted a mysterious illness. The herbal knowledge it contained would have led us to forgotten lands where those herbs once grew, and perhaps could be cultivated fresh. So much lost…”

Miz hangs his head. He can’t see what the man is doing, or how his face looks. He can’t bear to look up. Not now.

He tries to find some kind of way out of this. “But - the itinerants bring books all the time. Surely there’s more copies. We can just go and–”

The librarian snorts, and Miz falls silent.

“Almost every tome the itinerants bring these days is something we already have. We’re so busy cross-referencing everything, that we don’t have time to send people on buying trips. Nor would we know where to go for a rare tome like this. No. We aren’t getting this one back.”

Miz trembles. It’s not the cold of the water that’s soaking into his skin, though he feels that too. It’s something else.

“I’ll go get us another copy!” he declares.

The librarian looks from the soaked book up to the soaked boy. “No, Mizzle, you won’t. I’m sure you think it’s easy. But you must stop dreaming, boy. The world isn’t like in the stories.”

[garrett (Bill Garrett)]

That night, Mizzle packs his satchel.

He puts on his big boots, and laces them up.

He takes his Sage’s Journal, the one aspiring librarians use to record their experiences.

He creeps down to the raft tie-up, and takes a raft for his own use.

He pushes off the Gallimaufry, looking up at the stars for guidance.

He passes the half-lidded eyes of the turtle-whale-thing as it dozes, and waves in silent fondness. The beast whuffles in muted response.

Morning finds him on the coast.

He anchors the raft as best he can to a high, narrow rock spur.

And he begins walking.

I’ll find it. I’ll show them. I’ll bring it back. And then everything will be okay again.

This is followed by The Wrong Book