55th Day of Summer, 514AV
The Docks
11th Bell
The Docks
11th Bell
There should have been music, he thought. That was always the impression you got from The Stories. The Hero, arriving after a long and fraught voyage upon strange, teeming shores; accompanied by a rousing choir of voices and instruments. Something to commemorate it; etch in stone the momentous and unique event unfolding.
But since when had The Stories ever got it right?
Nate smiled to himself and breathed in that heady mix of fresh air and sea salt as the Fanris cut through the waves, fair winds and expertly-carved hull sending it fast towards the pier. Or one of them, anyway.
The big Sunberthian held tight to a rope ladder leading up to the main mast, even after a sizeable chunk of the season at sea. Sea legs weren't so easily grown, especially when you were a "land-strider" for as long as he'd been. But now he could at least stand on the prow and not want to blow chunks onto the dolphins frollicking in the surf around them.
That's that... I-word, isn't it? Live in a port, sleep less than a league from the docks, work there for years, even speak Fratava... but y'know sod all about swimming, boats, sailing and get sick on anything bigger than a row boat.
"Land-strider..."
He said the words in Fratava carefully, as if savoring the mercurial, flowing flavor of them. Another phrase learned, and he smiled at that feeling. His knowledge of the Svefra language had improved over the last two-dozen days had certainly improved, despite there being only a couple on the Fanris. But he'd listened, watched, pieced things together, queried a time or two...
Good practice for what is to come.
Ah, and wasn't that a sobering thought? The triumphant little smile died on his unshaven face and Nate saw the future lengthen and widen before his eyes. It was... humbling. It made him feel puny, faced with the mounting vagaries of all he would have to absorb. Was his brain even big enough? For an awful moment he thought of it as some sponge, clotted and soaked with so much information that the excess would just run out of his ears.
Probably not that dramatic... not the simple stuff, anyway.
"Simple stuff". That was already what he was calling the trade he would learn in addition to... well, the complicated stuff. Djed. Magic. Wyrd. So much to do, but atop it all, he still shook his head that he, a Sunberthian through-and-through, was actually going to embrace djed. The fact alone was stark, but the possibilities? They mesmerized him. He had seen what Edreina could craft with her will, her djed and the strange art she called "Morphing". A thousand childhood memories about being a fish, a bat, a bear, a lion, a dog, they all came to his mind... and now he could do it!
But not that alone, anyway. That was one half of this grand and looming adventure: the other was the comparatively mundane fact that, well, he still had to make a living. Nate didn't know what gold a man could make with Morphing, but he was willing to bet being a blacksmith or a merchant had far nicer odds.
"You see them, strider?"
The fair-haired Svefra spoke his own tongue as they neared the docks. Nate was always impressed at how smoothly and quietly the younger man could move, even on the swaying platform of a ship's deck. After finding out Nate knew a smattering of his language, the grinning kid had been happy to confound him by speaking nothing but that... and unsubtle as the lesson had been, Nate had learned. Sort of.
"Yes." He said with his eyes still on the mass of wood and cloth and sprawling activity on the docks. "I see."
"Not that. Them."
Nate had to frown before he understood the subtle difference in his ears, but the Svefra was already pointing to "them". Twin blocks of stone rose, towering from the waves as if their foundations were deep under them and buried in the earth. One black as pitch, the other spotless white. Nate squinted and saw symbols unknowable and unreckonable etched into them, but who could have carved such immutable idols?
"What... what is?"
"Gifts from the Sea Father," the Svefra said, switching to Common, accented lilting and amused. He clapped Nate on the shoulder and nodded to them as the Fanris strove between them both, every Svefra on board bowing as they did. "We just don't know what they do, yet. But we believe he favors Zeltiva because of them."
"How do you know their gifts?"
"What else could they be?"
"... big stones?"
The Svefra blinked a few times as if Nate had just recited astrophysics... then burst into laughter that exposed a half-dozen glinting gold teeth. His hair shook with his head, beads and coral clicking and clanking in the midst of his dreadlocks.
"You land-striders! You say such things!"
Nate just rolled his eyes and cast one more look at the Obelisks. He didn't feel any different for them passing; as far as he could see, there had been no change. No rumblings of djed in his body or keening of... what were they called? Otani? Nothing but cackling gulls and whooshing waves and...
"We nearly there."
"Yes. Close to pier. Must get your things." The Svefra rolled his eyes, now, clapping Nate on the shoulder again. "Be good when you gone. I can speak like normal again. Not like child."
"I still not hear much you say."
"Maybe that is for best-"
Nate swung out with his arm and the Svefra danced away, lithe and nimble as a monkey where Nate lumbered like a blind bull. The kid was a fair brawler, from what Nate had seen, but his sheer size should have helped... on land, at least. On the Fanris, though, the boy had all the advantages, and what did it matter how hard you could hit when you couldn't close the gap? Nate scowled his way and lurched down towards the stairs below deck.
"One day I walk better on sea. Then we see who laugh."
"I laugh still, land-strider," the boy said with the careless confidence of youth, "But now, must work."
He clambered up the rope ladder like he was walking on solid ground, leaving Nate below to mutter under his breath... and look beyond him.
To the rows of warehouses and factories with their neatly-thatched or tiled roofs. Wagons and carts of all sizes, bearing more goods and products than Nate had words in his head for. All of them obscured and shadowed by sea-going constructions, from little fishing boats crewed by father and son to vast galleys that whole work gangs had to sweat and curse for a day to unload.
Ahead of them all, the battered peak of the Cerulean Pier thrust out into the bay like a nigh-shattered spear tip. Nate could see the ravages of a mighty, vicious storm on it... perhaps that same one that had ripped through Sunberth in Spring the last year. Now the supports were splinters in many places, the walkway fallen through into the water, buildings gone... but at their head, by some god's favor or daemon's joke, the two statues remained.
Laviku and Eyris. Sea and Knowledge. Without them, Zeltiva would be just another dot on the map. But with them...
"Well, boy," Nate mumbled to himself "You coulda' picked worse places to land."
Then he caught sight of her. Not on the prow, as he had been, but Nate though that could be some sign of... whatever she had endured. Edreina had poked her head out of her scared little shell over the voyage, that had been plain to see. On the waves again, with fellow Svefra to talk with, putting leagues and leagues between herself and the two cities she had suffered so much in... it helped her. But she still could not bring herself to plant her soul and her flesh so plainly in the open.
Now she stood at the side, gazing at the oncoming port. Nate walked over, hesitantly, like a newborn, ready to shoot her a half-hearted glare if she smirked at his decided lack of sea legs.
"Time to get ready, Mistress Edreina."
Still that same title, and still that same note of subdued amusement whenever he said to to her.