The Sweet Sea

The water under the keel turned fresh this morning, and while the pilots were still arguing about what it meant, the castaway came up on deck, tasted a cupped handful, and nodded the way a man nods at his own front gate. This is the river's water, he says. He came down it once with silver in his shirt. Somewhere behind the western haze the river narrows, and the road to the White King begins.