The Albatross
 
The morning of my fiftieth birthday found me, as the last twenty had, sneakily examining my chin in the looking glass, searching for a sign, any small sign, of a whisker.
 
And, once again, as on the previous twenty birthdays, I found nothing.
 
Absolutely nothing.
 
It may seem strange to you that I was able to reach the age of fifty years and still have my face remain as smooth and hairless as a green melon, and you would be right. Many lads of my race begin sprouting their beards by the tender age of thirty, and nearly all of them have a full layer of short growth, known as their Bramble, by forty-five. It is all but unheard of among the Nain for a boy to reach his fiftieth year without at least some sign that his beard is beginning to grow in.
 
But then, this is certainly not the first thing about me that the rest of the Nain in the city of Vaarn think of as odd.
 
If I were a human, by the age of fifty I would be entering the later years of my life, and my hairless chin would be of no consequence. In fact, it might even be seen as an advantage, since human men have the rather astonishing habit of removing their beards with a sharp knife known as a razor each morning, a practice that horrifies the Nain. This intentional sliding of knife over throat also permanently cements the distrust they feel for the race of humans. A man’s beard is the story of his life to the Nain.
 
And on that morning it didn’t seem as if I would ever have one—a beard, a life, or a story worth telling of it.
 
How quickly Fate turns things around.
 
Being fifty years old as a Nain is the same as being about twelve or thirteen in human years. We live about four times longer than humans, and grow more slowly. You might think that living four times as long as humans we would have special wisdom upon reaching those teenage years that humans do not have. I certainly thought so. On the night before my forty-second birthday I floated this theory past my mother, who looked at me doubtfully.
 
“Neh,” she said, scorn in her voice. “It merely means you have four times as many years being pigheaded and stupid.”
 
She had a point.
 
But while Nain can be somewhat pigheaded, I know they are not stupid. They are just uncomfortable in the air of the upworld, with the wind blowing and the bright sky and the commotion of those taller people walking about.
 
Nain much prefer the dark tunnels of the earth, the warm, solid feel of mountain rising around them, the clanging of anvils and the noise of digging that their deep world absorbs. Being out of the earth for any length of time bothers them. It makes them feel as if things are, well, loose.
 
So when my great-grandfather, Magnus Polypheme, chose to leave Castenen, the underground kingdom of the Nain, and make his way in the world of human men, it was considered more than strange.
 
It was a scandal.
 
Magnus the Mad, as he was known, was by no means the first Nain to leave Castenen. Nor was he the first Nain to choose to live among the humans that were the largest part of the population of the Great Overward, where I was born. Nain, in fact, lived in cities all over the vast continent. Oftentimes they were the merchants who sold the wares that were produced within the mountain kingdom of Castenen to humans in their towns and villages.
 
But not my great-grandfather. He chose instead to move to the city of Vaarn.
 
By the sea.
 
To work on building ships.
 
Even the upworld Nain couldn’t figure that one out.
 
 
On the morning of his fiftieth birthday, as Ven Polypheme hurried excitedly to the docks, the light of the sun disappeared for a moment, as if it had been suddenly blotted out.
 
Ven shielded his eyes and looked up into the dark sky just in time to catch sight of the largest feather he had ever seen, wafting down toward him on the hot wind.
 
Momentarily blind as the sun returned, he reached out and caught it, an oily white feather tipped with blue-green markings.
 
It was as long as his forearm.
 
He had no time to wonder where it had come from. His father’s voice filled his ears.
 
“Ven! Ven! Did you see it?”
 
Ven looked down the long wharf. Pepin Polypheme, a rather portly Nain of close to two hundred and fifty years, was hurrying toward him, puffing and wiping the sweat from his forehead with his pocket handkerchief.
 
“Did you see it, lad?” his father asked again.
 
Ven held up the feather.
 
“Not the feather, the bird!” Pepin gasped as he came to a halt beside his son. “The albatross—did you see it?”
 
Ven shook his head. “I saw its shadow as it passed overhead, but I was too busy trying to catch the feather to see the bird.”
 
The older Polypheme shook his head as well, spattering drops of sweat into the hot air, and sighed.
 
“I fear that may turn out to be the story of your life, my boy,” he said regretfully. “Catching the useless feather, missing the giant, rare, lucky bird. Ah, well. Come along.”
 
Ven sighed as well, wondering if he would ever be able to do anything but disappoint his father. He slid the feather into the band of his cap and followed Pepin along the planks to the pier where the ship his family was outfitting was moored. Like all Nain he was stocky, but he was tall for his age, so he kept up easily with the old man.
 
“Have they decided what to name her yet?” he asked Pepin, who was waving to the head shipwright.
 
His father scowled at him. “You should know better than that. No one hears a ship’s name until she is christened. It’s bad luck.”
 
“But someone must know what she is to be called,” Ven said, mostly to himself, as his father was now talking to the shipwright. “Someone will have to paint the name on her prow before the christening ceremony.”
 
“That won’t be you.”
 
Ven jumped at the sound of his second-oldest brother’s voice behind him.
 
“Morning, Nigel.”
 
“Morning, and many happy returns of the day, Ven. I’d say ‘bless your beard,’ but of course you don’t have one yet. Now get your oversized fanny to the end of the causeway where the others are waiting. We’re drawing straws to see who has to do the Inspection. Now that you’re of age, you have to throw your lot in with the rest of us. No more free ride for you, little brother. Even if it is your birthday.”
 
Ven nodded excitedly. He had long been aware of the need for the final check of the ship’s fittings that was made on the open sea outside the harbor just before its christening. It was the last chance the ship’s builders had to make certain the vessel was seaworthy before turning it over to the new owner.
 
His brothers dreaded Inspections. They feared the water and could not swim, so the eight-hour voyage on seas that were often rough was torture for them. Whenever it needed to be done, they had drawn hay straws, making the loser in the game...