62nd Summer, 512 A.V. "Lord of the Deep," swore the lonely Svefra who had agreed against all rational thought to ferry them to the remains of Denval. In fact, there was no Denval, not anymore. Alea's home had ceased to exist but for the refugees who had come through Avanthal. Some had stayed, remarking at the warm weather in the Everwinter City, and others had continued east, the bulk settling in Novallas if rumor were true, and still yet others continuing on around the continent in a continual diaspora. It was enough to make a girl feel lonely. Denval had always had a rather dangerous, rocky harbor, requiring the odd ship with a deeper berth to loose anchors farther away and let the barges and ships with shallower drafts ferry passengers and cargo to the appropriate quays. Now a strange ring of coral set with jagged rocks closed it all in. Alea remembered collecting bits and pieces of coral on the pebbly beaches, but nothing like this, and it had appeared far too quickly as those things go, apparently dredging rocks up from below to crown the reef, which required the water to remain healthy. But Hekh Farstriker found a way in, or rather, his Tavan did, and he brought the casinor expertly through a break in the coral crown. His Tavan wouldn't follow, as the water was not salty enough, and tasted wrong, which made the man all the more skittish, but then he didn't want to find out what happened when he angered a Zith, so he found them a spot to bump up against shore, which was now glassy, black, and smooth. He jumped ashore with a rope to find a big enough rock for a makeshift mooring. "This isn't how I remembered it," he said with his strange accent. Nor Alea. Gone was the familiar sight of the Stranger's Rest with its smell of food and degtine, Denval's signature spirit. The Quays, the skyglass spire of the Chapterhouse of the Order of Radiance, the Captain's Hall, the Chapel, the Temple of Nikali; all was gone. Her house. Oluse's house. Everyone. Everything. But the surrounding mountains and rockfalls were blooming as if in tiered gardens, and the plants, even from far away, seemed strange, too big. No, this wasn't Denval. Not anymore. |