1,464 Days till Union
Open Sea Aboard the Lead Ship of a Convoy of Four
Nathan rubbed his hands against the rough cloak in his pack. His palms were raw, the skin broken and abraded, leaving small traces of blood on the material. He searched his pack for a few very wilted leaves that were wrapped in a damp cloth. He pressed them against each of his palms, and then squeezed the leaves tightly in each fist, the last remaining drops of green water coming out of them, and he sighed.
He had already used them more than they were good for, and he pulled the torn and wilted pieces off his hands and tossed them over the edge of the ship. He half fell, half sat into a haphazardly coiled rope on the aft deck.
He sat there for a few moments, flexing his fingers, working the last of the green into his skin. His eyes were lost on the horizon. The long line of division between sea and air and the distinct lack of one thing: land. Three ships trailed the one he was aboard, their rectangular sails catching the afternoon wind. They were too far away to see much beyond their general shape and a few details. Far enough away to be safe, but close enough for the group to stay together. He moved the rope coil around a bit to make himself more comfortable as he looked forward to the straight and undisturbed horizon.
It was perhaps a half an hour before his rest was disturbed.
“We have to get your people off my ship.” The voice was deep, and the accent very thick. It came from above a pair of boots that were dusted with white from evaporated seawater. The boots were attached to an eel of a man. Tall and thin, but with a voice that seemed like it didn’t belong in that body.
Nathan stood slowly, treated to the protest of knees, back, and shoulders. As he rose, his hand found his quarterstaff and pulled it up with him. He placed it in between himself and the man with the boots. The staff was unassuming—it looked to be a straight piece of a vine that had perhaps once grown up alongside a very old tree. The bottom was carved and set into a cold iron cap, neatly attached with simple but effective craftsmanship, to prevent the quarterstaff from splintering. The top of the staff, however, had no such cap. It was broken and frayed, pieces of wood and something that looked like bark pushed into the air at rough intervals.
“When you find a port that will take us, we will be happy to disembark”.
“No port round ’ere’s gonna let yer lot in.” The captain had taken a small step back when Nathan stood. His tone took on an amount of sympathy. “Ye’r all sick, son... Ain’t no port gonna take the sick.” The captain’s eyes darted quickly to the stern of the ship before returning to Nathan, but not fast enough to be unnoticed.
Two sailors were making a show of rope work and checking sail, but they were no actors. It was clear that this conversation was being attended. Nathan’s eyes followed the captain’s and returned.
“What would you have us do sir? Jump off? I remind you that we paid for our passage.” The quarterstaff leaned a bit to the left, a little further away from the captain as Nathan continued. “We are not all sick either… and we were not ill when we boarded, we were at sea a day before any took ill. This ship is the worst I am sure of it. I have seen you signaling the other ships--are my people there as ill as they are here?”
“Not as much, they say, but still some are,” said the captain as he turned to take in the three ships behind them. “We don’t want this to get any worse.” The tone of his voice tightened. “The other captains are in agreement…”
Nathan interrupted. “Is it not common for people to become sick at sea, sir? I have heard of this before. Surely you have encountered it.” “Not sick like your folk.” His eyes looked below, to the hold.
“Not sick like that.” The captain put a hand out slowly, and placed it, cool and firm, on Nathan’s shoulder. The young man tensed as the captain leaned a bit closer and lowered his voice. “The men son... they think ye’re cursed. There’s a country a day’s sail from here. Lots o’ land. Lots of places without ports where we could let ye off.” With an air of finality and a pat on the shoulder, the captain said, “And that’s where we’ll take ye. My men... they want you off the ship.”
“This is wrong! You’ve said nothing about this until now!” said Nathan, voice raised. “Where will we go? You have taken most of our money, you cannot just...” Nathan’s outburst had caused a subtle but very noticeable wave of movement across the deck. Several of the crew had stopped the task that they were so intently involved in moments before, and many eyes had moved to take in Nathan and the captain.
“I haven’t said much about it that’s right, but… your people, they’re getting worse, and yesterday, that loon jumped overboard. We never—”
“That loon was my friend, sir. He just…” Nathan’s hand holding the quarterstaff began to go white around the knuckles. “I can’t explain. It’s—”
“It’s evil is what it is son. I don’t want you to explain. This ain’t sick at sea, and this ain’t right. Ye don’t just jump off a ship like that, and he swam down. Jeosh saw him, said he swam deep, till he couldn’t see him anymore. There weren’t no body. Usually we can find ’em if we turn about or signal the ships behind. There weren’t much wind that day. We weren’t going that fast…”
“You don’t understand” The tension in Nathan’s hand around his quarterstaff worked its way up his arm.
“No, and I do nae want to. We want you off the ship, and we’re willin’ to take ye somewhere safe. Have ye seen how sick they are down there? I know ye ain’t been down there much. Ye don’t like it either, we can tell, but it’s bad and it’s gettin’ worse.”
Nathan’s voice was measured as he spoke again. “I’ve been down to the hold... I take care of my people. We weren’t sick when we boarded. You know that, maybe it’s your ship. Maybe it’s—”
“Son... don’t matter what it is, it’s evil. And ye have to get off. But we’ll take a day to drop ye. That’s the best I can offer.” The captain had taken another half step back from Nathan as he was speaking. The young man was beginning to shake. His face had flushed, and his eyes were locked on the captain’s face.
“Don’t do this, son. Ye may be well, and the few of ye in the hold takin’ care o the others, but we’re lettin’ ye off. Ye’ve helped up here, ye have, and it’s largely for that, we’re going a bit further and droppin’ ye off somewhere civil, somewhere safe. But while ye may be ready to fight, and ready to sail, the rest of your family… they ain’t.”
Nathan did not move.
The captain squared his shoulders as his hand reached toward the knife at his belt. He said sternly, and not without compassion. “Boy… don’t do this.”
His free hand rising to his face, pressing slowly against his forehead, fingers running into his brown hair, Nathan said, “So be it, drop us off. We will—” In silence, he sat back down into the coil of rope that had served as a seat and looked again at the sea. The quarterstaff lay in his lap, the iron tip taping gently on the deck with the hold below.
“Good choice. We’ll have ye there in a day.” The captain raised his hand with a few signals, and the deck began to be a flurry of activity again, the ship ever so slightly changing course, and picking up a bit more wind. “And, son, it’d be best if—”
“I know” said Nathan. “I know, it would be best if everyone stayed below.”
“Everyone but ye, ye can stay up with us if ye’d like.”
Nathan continued to stare at the sea, his eyes on the other ships.
“All right then,” said the captain, as he stepped away and back to the work at hand.
Same Day - Open Sea, Hold of the Fortunate Goblin
Nathan leaned his quarterstaff against the door of the hold. The differences between the grains in the wood of the old ship and the broken staff were subtle. The wood of the ship had a salt crust, a dry weather veining across its surface, where the sun and the waves had stripped the weaker fibers away and left the stronger ones behind.
The quarterstaff had no protective skin of experience, no wave-fought, storm-won outer covering. Its green and fresh grain stood out against the door. If it could talk, one would expect the ship to knowingly smile at the new wood with just a hint of condescension.
Nathan could not open the door to the hold. His hand sat on the handle, the other splayed against the wall with the quarterstaff resting in the crook between index finger and thumb. His eyes were fixed on the spot where the pattern of deck boards disappeared under the door that would take him down below. This would be a good time for a big sigh, but there was not one to be found.
The young man just simply did not move.
It was the door itself that ended the stalemate. The handle turned and Nathan stepped back a bit, able to see the face that looked out from behind the new and slowly widening opening, a very worried face belonging to a pale young woman. Her name was Sarah. She wore an apron with a few telltale stains on it and was completing (or possibly repeating) the cleaning of her hands on a cloth that had once been white but was now dull and grey.
Her eyes looked up immediately to Nathan’s. Her face framed the question even as she spoke it. “Why have we changed course?”
“How did you…”
“It does not matter Nathan; they want to know where we’re going. They want to know why it’s taking so long. You need to come down and speak to them.” She stepped forward, onto the deck. Her eyes squinted to adjust to the sunlight. She stole a timid glance at the sea, taking a deep breath and brightening a bit as the air seemed to enliven her. She turned back to him, tucked a loose strand of her light-colored hair back behind her ear, and took a different tone.
“It’s been two days. You cannot hide. They need you...”
The hold was large, deceptively so, considering the outward appearance and size of the ship—a good quality in a trading vessel. The smell of the sea was completely absent as Nathan and Sarah descended the last few steps, ducking their heads and stepping into the dark underworld of the ship. The air here had a stale, earthy, human smell. It smelled of illness, of mud, and a thick humidity filled the hold.
In a moment his eyes had adjusted, and noticing the pause and silence his entrance brought to the room, he turned to Sarah: “Where is Ari?”
“In the back,” she said as she pointed toward a few barrels and casks in the rear of the deck. “How did you know he would be the most ill?”
“He is the strongest of us with the least amount of training. In Imbolg he is a prodigy, but here, he would be the most vulnerable...” Pausing as the unspoken pronoun hung in the air, he then slowly, softly, correcting it: “... of them.” He pressed past Sarah.
Nathan took determined strides through the hold, passing dozens of people in various stages of lying about. Their dress appeared similar to his. Comfortable traveling clothing, loose brown weaves, and multipurpose cloaks. Most however, had bands of cloth bound about their eyes. The only unbound ones seemed to be designated caretakers of some sort. They, like Sarah wore the apron and were attending to the ones wearing the blindfolds. They looked hastily made, with un-hemmed edges, and some having bits of string dangling from them. Underneath them were two small wads of cloth between the band and the eyes. The blindfolds all had a simple form of writing on them, an angular script with harsh lines, that again had the feel of haste. A few blindfolds had been given the time to dry, others were a bit runny, and some ran now, ink mixed with the sweat of the face they were upon, two, three, or four lines of gray running down the sides of faces. Nearly everyone, however, blindfolded or not, turned and faced Nathan as he moved through the hold. Some of the people appeared to be sleeping, others simply sat where they were, attending him as he walked by in silence.
When he had reached the midhold, he stopped. No one had said a word since he had entered. His quarterstaff had been tapping the floor as he walked, and now it continued to do so after he stopped. Five distinct raps on the floor, each louder than the last, until the final blow threatened to be too hard, but only proved loudly, the strength of the deck.
His eyes searched the room as he spoke. “You know we have changed course. We are landing soon. I have not, and I will not, apologize for what has happened to us. None could have known this was going to occur. We had all underestimated our… distance. We will reach a new land in the morrow. Our money is gone, we can sail no further.” A pause fell upon him as he surveyed the sick.
“Wherever we land… Wherever we land, there is where we will be. And that is where we will settle. Wherever it is, it will be better than here and better than what we have left behind.”
A young man stood shakily toward the front of the hold, leaning upon his quarterstaff; many in the hold still held theirs. As he stood, he began to shake less, and his legs and back seemed for a moment to draw strength from some reserve of pride one would not have expected to see. “Why are we being let off now, Nathan? We have not yet reached the Cogen lands, we have weeks left to sail. We know nothing of this new place, Jael and Hansh cannot even feel it.” He gestured to two other young people laying against the wall of the hold, a young man and a young woman with visibly similar features even blindfolded. One striking difference could be seen between them. Hansh, the young man, had a white birthmark that just showed over the top and bottom of the blindfold. In the dull light of the hold, it gave a ghostly quality to his face. The two were silently attending Nathan, their hands locked together between them. As they were pointed to, they both shook their heads in agreement.
“This new land is silent,” spoke the sister.
Nathan nodded as the young man sat back down, and he continued speaking. “We have little choice, Samael. The new land is silent; I hear you. The men of the sea are making us leave, and we are in no condition to assert our rights. Can you blame them for thinking us cursed?”
“Perhaps we are,” said another voice in the rear of the hold. It belonged to an older man, one of the oldest in the group, but that was not saying much. His dark beard had more than a few lines of gray throughout it, and his long 15 Until The Land Claims Us hair was loosely pulled back behind him. There was a certain dignity to him; he used no staff as he stood and turned his bound eyes toward Nathan.
“Perhaps we are. We have abandoned our Father and fled into the waiting arms of our Mother. She carries us with rage if she even remembers us at all. At first, we could only hear her, but now song has turned into vision and what we see… Her depths are treacherous and she is cold.” Each word, spat out with hatred, seemed to resonate with the community in the hold. His voice was deep, it had a melody to it, even if now it seemed a dirge. “Nathan, we should turn our efforts to returning home. If anything this has proven your…” —a pause hung in the air as he quickly self corrected— “our… folly.”
Unable to see the reaction of the crowd, the blindfolded elder continued, without knowing he had quickly lost more than half his audience, as most of the community looked away from him.
“It is too much for us to bear, there is no lore, no training for this. There is no understanding with the sea. Our Mother hates, she destroys, there is no life here, there is no tone, no—”
Nathan cut him off. “You are tired. We are all tired. We will land tomorrow and greet this new place.” He continued his walk to the back of the hold, quarterstaff striking the floor with each pace. He seemed for a moment to be approaching the old man, but he turned to a different corner of the hold. His eyes were firm as they pierced the gloom and met the older man’s blind-folded gaze as he passed. Walking by, Nathan spoke more quietly to the old man. “And tomorrow, Nadir, you will tell me why Michael, our brother and my friend, dove into the sea.”
A quick look across the hold revealed many faces now turned or slowly turning away from Nathan. He struck the hold again with his quarterstaff, and there was almost an echo in that cramped, dark space. “A new land will bring a time for rest, and a time for answers, whether we wish them or not.” His voice was fierce, deeper than before, and had a strength that challenged disobedience. “We know why we are doing this. We had to leave home, there was no way to find the One-Behind-The-Song in the shadow of the great tree. I know our plans have changed, but wherever we are placed, it will not be Imban soil. And that means we can begin our search… even there.” A murmur of assent washed across the hold, most nodded, some spoke, and some simply watched.
When Nathan reached the back of the hold, whatever force was holding him up seemed to weaken. His shoulders dropped a bit, and the rigidity of his stance began to disappear. Before him, Sarah walked to a pallet that had been made for someone obviously ill. A young boy, not yet sixteen lay beneath two matted blankets, still shivering. Behind his blindfold, the young face looked pale, and his brown hair was damp with sweat.
A quick and more piercing scan of the hold informed Nathan that there were others with some degree of the young man’s condition along the floor on other pallets. He had not noticed them upon entering, seeing first instead those who were able to stand, able to argue—able to challenge. But they were almost universally the older of the group. It was the younger passengers who seemed to be suffering the greatest. Each was attended by one or two concerned passengers in the hold.
Before him, the boy trembled, in the grip of some fever, something that brought fear to his face. Even behind his blindfold, the youth’s eyes were tightly closed shut. Sarah reached forward and placed a calming hand upon his forehead.
“Ari, it’s me, Sarah.”
A soft moan in response, as Ari turned his head toward Sarah. “My mother… She wants me.” He said with a mature resignation. “She is… horrible, She… She has teeth in the darkness, has already consumed Michael and she wants us all.”
“Ari, Nathan is here,” Sarah said, with pity in her heart.
The youth continued as if never interrupted. “She is cold and angry. Her songs are in my mind, Sarah. I cannot see her anymore but… she screams. The notes she sings are sad, but they thunder. She is breaking us with her song.” Sarah looked up to Nathan for a response, but none came. As he watched Ari, the young man continued. “Nadir’s blindness is not helping enough. It blocks the visions, we cannot see her true… but, her song continues. It asks us for an answer.” His face was a question as he placed his hand on hers.
“Who told you that?” asked Nathan as he moved closer to the youth.
“Samael” As the name was spoken Nathan turned his gaze back to the front of the hold. Samael, the one who had spoken first and stood before Nathan, was listening to their conversation in the back of the hold. And he was not alone. Nathan, Sarah, and Ari had retained the attention of at least half of those able to sit up.
Ari continued. “But Samael only speaks what each of us already knows… I never thought I’d envy you, Nathan, but it is a blessing that you cannot see or hear her… She wants us, Nathan… it is more than I can bear.”
“We will be landing soon, Ari, stepping on Father’s shores again will do you good.” Nathan’s voice could not completely mask his lack of belief in what he had just said, but Ari was thankfully incapable of seeing his face that betrayed him even more. Nathan continued, convincing himself anew with each word. “We will land tomorrow and begin to make a new place for ourselves. A new place to explore, a new place to learn.”
The young man had a faint smile on his face as he turned over to rest again. He mumbled, “I will be here tomorrow, and land… land would be a blessing”.
Nathan turned to Sarah with an unexpected fierceness in his eyes. His words were harsher than they needed to be: “You should have come sooner, gotten me sooner, if they are this ill.”
Sarah, recovering from the accusations, sat in silence for a moment. A silence that Nathan could not handle. His stare never left her, and his grip on the broken quarterstaff tensed. Sarah’s eyes were moist as she replied.
“And what would you have done? You think we have not tried everything down here, every remedy we know while you play sailor on the deck?”
Nathan began to reply, but her broken voice and her tears as she continued stopped him.
“You lead, and your decisions for the brothers and sisters have been as good as they could have been. No-one knew this would happen, it isn’t in the lore, it isn’t in the healing books, it’s nowhere, Nathan, and I know that you are looking out for us. I know…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But you have hidden long enough. You—”
His hand on her arm stopped her as his fingers closed tightly but gently around her. “Come above, Sarah, we will continue this conversation in the fresh air. It will do you good.” Her eyes darted to the many that were listening in, and she nodded, wiping her eyes on her apron as they walked out of the hold.
