Knowledge Is Power: The Last Reader

The old sailmaker smelled of tar, saltwater, and the kind of stubbornness that only came from surviving long enough to stop caring who disliked you.

His workshop sat at the far end of the docks, squeezed between a cooper’s shed and a warehouse whose walls had surrendered to the sea decades ago. Coils of thick rope hung from the rafters like sleeping snakes. Half-finished sails covered every flat surface, patched so many times they resembled maps more than cloth. The rhythmic scrape of needle through canvas was the only sound inside.

The old man never looked up.

"If you’re buying," he muttered, "come back tomorrow."

"I’m not."

"Then you’re wasting my afternoon."

Milo stood silently for another moment, watching the weathered hands continue their work with practiced precision.

The fingers shook.

Not from age.

From exhaustion.

A man who had spent his entire life earning every coin one aching stitch at a time.

Ordinarily, Milo would have respected that.

Ordinarily, he would have introduced himself politely, explained what he needed, perhaps even shared a cup of tea before asking questions.

Ordinarily.

The problem was that he had run out of ordinary six ports ago.

He reached into his coat and unfolded another crumpled scrap of parchment.

Captain Hollow.

Red-haired.

No.

Black-haired.

No.

Shaved bald according to one drunken merchant.

A woman according to every source.

A man according to two sailors who swore they’d shared drinks with "him."

Dead.

Alive.

Retired.

Hiding.

Raiding.

Every rumor contradicted the last.

Every witness had spoken with complete confidence.

Every one of them had been wrong.

Seven days.

Seven ports.

Twenty-three taverns.

Thirty-eight sailors.

Nine merchants.

Four retired pirates.

One priest.

Not a single useful answer.

His patience, already stretched thin by lies told with smiling certainty, finally reached the point where it simply stopped existing.

The old sailmaker felt himself lifted before he even realized someone had moved.

The needle slipped from his fingers.

His boots scraped helplessly against the wooden floor as Milo hauled him halfway out of his chair.

For the first time...

The old man looked directly into his eyes.

He immediately wished he hadn’t.

Milo wasn’t shouting.

There wasn’t the slightest trace of anger in his voice.

That frightened the sailmaker far more.

"I’ve spent an entire week," Milo said quietly, "listening to men tell me stories they wished were true rather than facts they actually knew."

His grip tightened just enough to make the point.

"I have reached the end of my willingness to indulge that."

The workshop had become very quiet.

Outside, gulls cried somewhere above the harbor.

Inside...

Only silence.

"I can place enough gold in your hand that you won’t need to repair another sail this season."

Milo withdrew a heavy coin pouch with his free hand.

The weight alone made the old man’s eyes flick downward.

"Or..."

He let the word hang.

"...I can leave with exactly the same information after considerably less pleasant negotiations."

The old sailor swallowed.

Hard.

"The outcome is identical."

Another small tightening of Milo’s fingers.

"The only variable is whether your hands are still steady enough to thread a needle afterward."

For several seconds, the old man’s weathered face remained unreadable.

Then something changed.

Not fear.

Calculation.

He looked at the gold.

Then at Milo.

Then somewhere over Milo’s shoulder, toward the harbor beyond the open doorway.

When he spoke, the stubbornness had vanished.

"Windward Shoals."

Milo released his collar immediately.

The old man coughed several times before continuing.

"Three days east."

His breathing steadied.

"Past the Bleeding Rocks."

He rubbed absentmindedly at his neck.

"Charts don’t mark the cove."

"They don’t?"

"They can’t."

The old man gave a humorless smile.

"The reefs move."

Milo frowned.

"Every storm shifts them."

He nodded toward the sea.

"One wrong turn and a warship tears its belly open before the crew even realizes they’re aground."

"So why sail there?"

The sailmaker barked out a dry laugh.

"Because pirates aren’t navies."

He leaned back against his chair.

"They don’t need maps."

"They need memory."

A pause.

"Every free captain worth remembering gathers there once a season."

His eyes met Milo’s again.

"If Captain Hollow is anywhere this side of the horizon..."

He hesitated.

"...that’s where you’ll find her."

Milo searched his face for several long seconds.

No hesitation.

No embellishment.

No desperate attempt to sound important.

Just certainty.

It was the first honest answer he’d heard in days.

Without another word, he placed the heavy pouch of gold onto the workbench.

The old man blinked.

"I answered because you threatened me."

"I know."

"You still paid."

"I said I preferred generosity."

Milo turned toward the door.

The sailmaker watched him go.

"You’ll probably regret meeting her."

Milo stopped.

"...So I’ve been told."

"You know what they call Hollow?"

"I’ve heard several names."

"They’re all wrong."

The old man looked back toward the sea.

"They call storms disasters."

"They call wars disasters."

"They call plagues disasters."

His expression darkened.

"They’re all temporary."

He looked back one final time.

"Hollow changes people."

Milo considered asking what that meant.

Instead...

He simply nodded.

Then walked away.

---

The Overdue left harbor with the evening tide.

She wasn’t an impressive vessel.

Her paint had started to fade.

Her sails had been patched often enough to become more repair than original cloth.

The cabin leaked whenever rain decided to become ambitious.

She also floated.

At the moment...

That qualified as perfection.

The harbor gradually disappeared behind him as the mainland dissolved into a hazy silhouette beneath the setting sun.

For the first hour, Milo stood at the wheel without moving.

Not because sailing demanded constant attention.

Because his mind refused to remain still.

Captain Hollow.

The name circled endlessly through his thoughts.

Every conversation replayed itself.

Every rumor.

Every contradiction.

Every dead end.

He reached into his satchel.

Spread dozens of loose pages across the small navigation table.

Names.

Dates.

Ships.

Witnesses.

Sketches.

Some of them contradicted each other completely.

Others agreed on details too strange to dismiss.

One sailor insisted Hollow had once robbed a royal treasury without drawing a sword.

Another swore she’d challenged a sea monster to a drinking contest.

A merchant claimed she’d once returned stolen cargo because the owner had asked politely.

Someone else insisted she’d sunk an entire fleet because one captain had insulted her hat.

Ridiculous.

All of them.

Probably.

Yet...

Rumors didn’t grow from nothing.

They grew around something.

The problem was separating truth from the stories people preferred remembering.

Milo sighed.

"I need facts."

The sea answered with quiet waves against the hull.

---

Night settled gently across the ocean.

Stars appeared one by one.

Without cities nearby, they seemed impossibly numerous.

His course required little adjustment.

The wind remained steady.

The sea calm.

By all reasonable measures...

It should have been peaceful.

Instead...

Milo reread the same page of notes.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Only after nearly half an hour did he suddenly stop.

"...Wait."

He blinked.

Looked down.

Then frowned.

He couldn’t remember reading a single sentence.

Not one.

His eyes had traveled across the page.

His mind hadn’t.

It had remained somewhere else entirely.

He folded the papers carefully.

Set them aside.

Closed his eyes.

Took one slow breath.

Then another.

His pulse remained elevated.

His shoulders ached despite having done nothing strenuous all evening.

He recognized the symptoms immediately.

Stress.

Not the explosive kind born from immediate danger.

The quieter variety.

The one that accumulated unnoticed until every thought eventually began orbiting the same problem.

He had been living inside that problem for over a week.

And for the first time...

He admitted something to himself.

He wasn’t simply worried about finding Hollow anymore.

He was afraid.

Not of her.

Of what happened if she wasn’t there.

Because if Windward Shoals turned into another dead end...

He had nothing left.

No names.

No leads.

No second plan.

Only silence.

Milo looked out across the endless black ocean.

"...Please be real."

The words disappeared into the wind before even he fully heard them.

Behind the Overdue...

Something enormous slipped silently beneath the moonlit water.

It followed at a distance.

Patient.

Watching.

And Milo, lost inside his own thoughts for the first time in many months...

Never noticed.

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