The Lady of Osona passed into the storm’s eye. Where there had been wailing wind and rain beating against my back, there was now an empty, yawning stillness. The ship rested lightly upon calm waters.
My hands had contorted into stiff, aching claws, and splinters dug into my palms and the exposed skin of my legs. I climbed down from the mast, forcing my limbs to stretch. My head spun; though the ship beneath me lay as if in a deep, dreamless sleep, I felt as though it would throw me into the sea. When my rope-burned feet reached the deck, I fell to my knees and shut my eyes, forcing myself to breathe evenly until rain brushed against my shoulders and the back of my neck once again.
With the sails raised or missing, and our cargo tied down, we had little to do but wait for the back of the storm to pass. I went below deck to see to my horse.
Bran stood with his legs splayed and his head hanging low, his eyes flashing white in the thin beam of deceptive sunlight that followed me into the hold. I approached him slowly, speaking soft words in the language of the steppe from which he came. He would have been no stranger to storms, to the torrents of wind and dust that tore across the flat, empty landscape, but never before had the ground beneath his feet tossed him about with such violence. A bright, wet laceration on his shoulder showed where he had knocked against the rough beams of his enclosure.
He allowed me to come near, and after nosing at both my hands, let me touch his face. The light faded from the hatch, and the wind began its shrill lament once more. I was grateful for the low barricade of straw that kept Bran’s frantic hooves away.
I waited there with him in the dark, and sang him a song of the open sky that I had learned upon the steppe, though I doubt he heard any of it over the crashing waves and howling wind. When the storm departed these waters, neither of us had sustained further injury, though I would dream many times of being confined in blackness with a panicking horse in the coming year.
True, clear daylight shone from a sapphire sky in the storm’s wake, and I returned to the deck to assist in surveying the damage. We had lost one sail and one of our rowboats, but the crew was safe, and the hull remained undamaged, though the storm had strained its joints and allowed a small leak to spring opposite Bran’s stall.
From here to the great city of Charkand, at the southernmost tip of the continent, I rowed in double shifts to carry the wounded Lady safely into port. Without our main sail, it was the strength in our arms and the steadfastness of our hearts that moved the ship. I slept from the afternoon until midnight, exhaustion turning my hammock as luxurious as the bed of a king, and if I dreamed of anything but storms and a ship’s dark berth I do not remember it. I forgot the evil book and the magics contained within. Even if I had remembered, the others had no more time to read than I did, and I could not have asked them to decipher it for me.
And so, at the end of the summer, when the wind blew warm and wet and the rice had begun to reach maturity in the fields, I arrived on land. Before me lay a long finger of land, pointing south into the sea, with a city of red bricks standing beyond it, in the palm of the continent’s hand. I packed my few belongings, the book and my harpoon among them, and bade farewell to the crew.
“We go west, now,” Hamilcar told me. “If ever your road leads you there, you are welcome to join us.”
He made me show him my share of the treasure from Salmacha, to prove that I still had it, and I promised him I would spend it wisely. With the crew behind him, he waved me on to the next part of my journey, and I left the ship behind.
I would see them again, years hence, but as I walked from the dock to the noisy, crowded city, I could not know if I had beheld their faces for the last time. I feared I had turned my back on the sea entirely. It called to me, in a tempting song of wind and waves, promising adventure and a distraction from my cares.
Louder was the song of the bright green wood, which surrounded the city like a collar of emerald silk. The wind came down from the mountains beyond, soft and cool, promising autumn rains. My destination lay somewhere on the northern side, nearer to Phyreios, where a god ruled the city and wore the face of my beloved. It was a small relief that I would not have to look upon that face, that I did not yet intend to retrace Khalim’s journey from his home to the citadel.
For his part, Bran felt solid ground beneath his hooves for the first time in weeks and pranced with his head held high. I spent my first coin on a fruit he stole from a vendor near the dock, emboldened by his freedom and tempted by the sweet smell. I kept a better hold on him after that.
The language of Hamilcar’s crew, a pidgin mix of the tongues of each port they frequented, served me well in this new country, though I had to point at the provisions I wanted and had no hope of haggling effectively. By the time night fell, I had secured a week’s worth of travel rations and a room at an inn, where I intended to speak to every traveler I could, and thus learn the road I was to take.
My room was a humble one, and I shared its stacked bunks with three other men, all of whom were asleep by the time I arrived. They were sea-travelers like myself, resting in anticipation of a predawn departure. I entered the room with quiet steps and placed my pack on my assigned bed, the upper bunk beside the door, and left to continue my explorations.
The innkeeper, a toothless old man dressed in a long tunic of grass-green cotton, greeted me with an expansive wave when I returned to the main room. He offered me a drink, malt liquor that smelled of wet earth, and pointed curiously to my tattoed arms.
“I come from far to the north,” I explained, “where I was a warrior of great renown. Many of us are marked like this, to grant us the favor and protection of the gods.”
The old man smiled. “You are indeed a strange man to behold. But you came from the south—from the islands.”
I accepted the offered drink and took a long draught. “I have been wandering for a long time.”
He nodded, and his weathered face turned pensive, though he did not share his thoughts with me. I wondered if he had once been a wanderer; perhaps this bustling port had always been his home, or perhaps he had ended up here after years of sailing. He had the wiry strength and sunburnt face of a sailor.
“For now, my journey turns north again,” I said. “I am looking for a village called Nagara, between here and the citadel of Phyreios. A young man lived there—he was blessed by the gods, and had the power to heal any ailment. Do you know the way I might take?”
“The main road will take you into the mountains,” he replied, tugging at his white wisp of beard, “but beyond that, I do not know. I once had a traveler in my inn, years ago, who told a story like yours. He said he met a boy in the river valley who possessed a strange talent for magic.”
I placed my hands flat on the tabletop and leaned toward him. “What else did he say?”
“It has been ten years or more—before the year of the great storm, and it has been seven years since then. He was a pilgrim, and he had just come from the peak of Mount Abora. Before that, he had seen the headwaters of the great northern river.”
Then it was that river, the lifeblood of this green country, that I had to find, tracing the path of this nameless pilgrim all the way to the village where he met the boy who could heal. Ten years past, Khalim would have been a child, but already aware of the power he held and the terrible destiny that came with it.
I thanked the innkeeper and went outside to tend to my horse, and when evening fell I went to my bed, intending to wake and depart early the next morning. That night, I dreamt again of the mighty stag with its crown of green branches, and its strange human eyes that stared at me unblinking as I stood upon the gray beach. I tried to call out to it, to ask it what it wanted of me, as I saw in those eyes a purpose and a question that I could not decipher, but my voice was silenced and my motions slowed, as though I stood in deep water. An empty sky lay above my head, stretching out endlessly in all directions. In my dream, I thought that it was winter, though I did not notice falling snow or a cold northerly wind.
I awoke to an empty room, as the occupants of the other beds had all departed before dawn. I gathered my things, ate a simple meal of fish and rice at the same table at which I had spoken to the innkeeper, and walked out into a bright, clear day.
That morning, the wind came from the sea, smelling of brine and distant storms. The Lady of Osona lay anchored a short distance from the harbor, and I could see a new, scarlet sail hanging from its main mast. Soon, she would depart again, to sail the emerald sea without me.
My road turned north. I saddled Bran and rode out of Charkand on the cobbled street that led into the mountains. A blue fog crowned the distant peaks, and I was possessed by the brief but intense desire to climb them, to visit the high places that the pilgrim had once seen, but I would not waste valuable time on pursuits that would lead me farther from my goal.
Summer still hung over the green mountains, heavy with rain and hot as the red desert. Autumn would arrive soon enough—I would meet it on the way north. Two years had passed since the fall of Phyreios and the last time I had seen Khalim.
Back to Interlude Three: The Broken Road
Forward to Chapter XXIV: A Vast, Green Country
I was making pies all day yesterday and forgot to post this chapter! Please accept my apologies.
Space Whales Press 
2 thoughts on “Journey to the Water Chapter XXIII: The Port of Charkand”