Tuli chuckled. “Well, you could do better, and you will with practice. But for now, that’ll do. Now, I’ll be on my way. You stay here and mend until you are finished or your hands drop off or the captain calls you for another task.” His twinkling eyes laughed. He patted Edak on the shoulder and left. Edak smiled back, then settled down to work.
He fumbled at first, but his fingers got used to the new task and the mending speeded up. Now and then he would glance up and see the sights along the coast. Mostly he saw jungle. Occasionally, the ship passed a small village much like his own, and he ached to see his family and he thought about Ropl Du Meh. He wondered how many people were in the world. His hands knew what to do now and his mind was freed to wander in thought. Hours passed and at last the sails were mended, though his hands stung from blisters and numerous needle punctures.
* *
The trip to Atlan would take almost two full moons to complete. They would travel south down the coast of the Murian Bay a distance, then into the Murian Sea, then through the Sea of Og to the Southern Sea, which would take them to Atlan. As one day followed another and another, Edak began to anticipate the future, as he imagined the rich country he had always heard about.
He learned to use the hours of menial work to think and dream, and he was never at a task long enough to become bored. When not mending sails, he was running various errands for Ragna, and the boy was no longer afraid of him. Though he yelled all the time, he never hurt anyone. Ragna expected a lot but as long as the jobs were done, he seemed satisfied, once in awhile even grunting and nodding slightly. Edak took this to be a great compliment, and he felt honored.
He scrubbed floors, washed clothes, helped Seri clean up the galley, untangled lines for the sailors and even fished off the bow for Ragna’s dinner. There were many chances, after all, to see the world. Edak was tired, but one day he realized he was actually enjoying the trip.
And he and Tuli were friends, though the others remained cool toward him. He realized that he was just too different than the rest of the men. At the age of thirteen, he was already as tall as, or taller than, most of them, though very slender. Yet, he had years of growing before he would become a Murian of average height.
Often, when Edak passed some of the crew, talk ceased for a moment—only a moment—before an ugly slur spewed from sneering lips. Sometimes they called him the Mu ape, sometimes Lumphead. At night when he lay in his hammock, he couldn’t escape their cruelty. He was even ridiculed for lack of material possessions, for the only thing of worth he owned was the medallion Rehm had given him.
A fortnight from home, Edak awoke with a start. His hammock was swinging violently. Voices broke through the darkness. He grasped the webbing beneath him, trying to comprehend what was happening. Howling wind roared overhead and timbers creaked loudly.
“Damned storm! Let’s go!”
Edak heard and responded, though he was queasy. How could he help? He bumped into a sweaty body heading up the stairs and followed it into the moaning, screaming wave-wracked violence of the night.
Salt water stung his eyes. He wiped it away again and again and stumbled around, searching for Ragna. At last, a faint glow of a covered lamp illumined the captain’s face, screaming orders into the night. Edak bounced and staggered to him. “How may I help, sir?”
Ragna glared. “Get outta here! You’re in the way! Get below!”
Hurt, yet relieved, he struggled back to the ship’s belly.
He pitched and tossed about in the blackness and tried to cover his ears from the howl and roar of the waves. At last he could no longer endure and he regurgitated violently. When he was finished, he rested his head on the webbing of the hammock and stared into the dark, grateful so much water had splashed through the hatch—it would dilute the vomit. Maybe the crew wouldn’t notice.
Shortly before dawn, the storm lessened and one by one the men returned. Edak braced himself. He dreaded when everything went wrong. It was at these times that they took their anger out on Edak.
It happened as he had feared.
After they had grumbled about the work and cursed Ragna, they started on him. “Why did we get stuck with that Mu ape?” blurted a particularly obnoxious sailor, Belar from Uruk, who sat wringing out his crimson robe in the flickering lamplight. “He’s a freak. All he does is take up space. I can’t stand the sight of him.”
Edak’s blood chilled and he closed his eyes. “Hey you, boy! How come you got that ugly lump on your head? Did your mother beat you?” A few men chuckled at the sailor’s wit.
Edak opened his eyes, but didn’t speak; another man joined in. “All those Mu people have them. Probably get ‘em from bumping into trees!”
“Or walls,” a younger man chimed in.
“Or into each other!” said another. The men howled and hooted.
Edak turned and faced the wall. Was it possible to run out, jump off the rail and swim home? How could anyone be so cruel to another person? What could be wrong with the loving homeland he had left? Bitter tears flowed and he worked hard to be silent, lest the men know they had made him cry. He clutched his medallion and thought of Rehm and what he had told him. And he remembered Ropl Du Meh telling him not to find fault with life’s hardships but to endure and learn from them. “There are lessons in every experience,” he had stressed.
Perhaps this is a part of my education, Edak decided. I must learn to be strong in the face of these slurs, and show by my actions how good and noble Murians are.
Tuli came below and the torture ended. There would be no cruel games in his presence. It was time to sleep a bit before the day’s work.
* *
Edak sat on a stool in the galley, dreamily watching Seri preparing Ragna’s lunch. Black bread, cheese, grapes, filleted fish—Edak’s stomach growled. More than a moon had passed and life had assumed an everyday sameness. Even the ocean didn’t change, for they had been surrounded for days by dark green-blue water as far as the eye could see in any direction.
Seri arranged the food on a tray and added a carafe of tea. “Eh, that’s good enough,” he grumbled. “That’ll keep him happy. Off with you now.”
“Thank you,” said Edak. He took the tray and wondered if Seri had ever smiled in his life. He climbed the steep stairs, careful not to spill the tea. A made-up scene appeared before him, of a toddler named Seri. Angry, morose, he stomped his tiny feet and wailed, demanding constant attention of his mother. Edak tried to change the picture and finally succeeded in imagining the child smiling. It so amused Edak, he nearly laughed aloud.
He started across the deck and the vision of baby Seri vanished, replaced by a feeling—a feeling of foreboding. Foreboding? What’s wrong?
Danger! Danger in the sky!
He dropped the tray. “Take cover! Take cover,” he cried, running back to the steps. He flew down half the flight, slowing for the remaining steps.
At last he felt safe. He peered up to see how the others fared. They were standing there! Just standing there at their tasks, staring at him as if he were a madman! And over their heads in the sky a huge blue fowl, talons twice the size of a man’s hands, circled downward, its great eyes staring ravenously at the crew.
“Take cover! LOOK!” he screamed, pointing.
One by one, they turned and looked up. “Gahhh!” screamed a man. “Rukh! A blue rukh!!”
Men scrambled for cover, pushing, shoving, cursing, shouting.
It was too late.
Tuli’s work had taken him high up on a mast. He, too, saw the bird and frantically struggled to get out of the way, sliding down the rope ladder, his feet barely touching every fourth rung. The bird’s sharp claws clutched Tuli’s shoulders just as his first foot landed on deck.
Edak’s eyes bulged. He shrieked and ran up on deck. “No! NO!!”
Tuli twisted and writhed to get free. But he couldn’t. The piercing talons loosened only long enough to gain a tighter hold around his waist. <
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Tuli shrieked and cried out. “Aaaarrrhhh!” Then, he slumped. The mighty claws had crushed the life from him.
In the blink of an eye, the creature was airborne with its grisly reward.
For a long moment it was silent but for the wind and the eerie lapping of waves. Then a din arose, each man trying to out-shout the other.
Edak’s blood ran cold. He stood rigid, pale, his white-knuckled hands gripping the rail. His eyes riveted on one area of the mast where his only friend had been moments before. Only a scarlet trickle down the wood remained, searing a gash of anguish, rage and fear through Edak’s soul.
A memory flashed from babyhood and a giant cat pounced from the woods. Then he was a lad again on the ship. The same terror, the same helplessness, the same danger.
His hands loosened their grips on the rail and he ran to the mast, reaching up, grabbing at the blood, trying to take it, to save it, to save Tuli. A futile gesture—and he knew it—but he tried nevertheless, for it was all he could do. His breath was quick and shallow. He was moaning, wailing.
Nearly falling, he staggered back to the rail and vomited over the side. His friend was gone, completely, terribly gone, and there was nothing—nothing!—he could do.
He collapsed on the deck, sobbing until he could cry no more, oblivious to the others who stared in stunned silence at the piteous gestures of this strange one grieving for his friend.
Eternal minutes passed, and a voice broke the quiet. It was Ragna, a hint of gentleness in his bark. “Someone help that kid down to quarters.”
Footsteps tramped the boards. Seri approached and helped Edak to his feet. Halfheartedly, Belar volunteered, “I’ll help you with him if you want.”
“Ah, shut up,” snapped Seri. “You’ll give no help at all. Tuli was my friend, too.”
Through his daze Edak vaguely saw men averting their eyes awkwardly, as if they were ashamed. It meant nothing. He allowed himself to be led down the stairs.
Positioning Edak in his hammock, Seri patted him on the shoulder a few times, the only show of compassion he knew how to give. When Edak, staring morosely, didn’t respond, he backed out quietly, nervously, climbed the stairs and shut the hatch.
Edak closed his eyes and slept fitfully through the night, awakening every few minutes with a start as the scene of Tuli’s death reappeared in his mind.
Why didn’t they know? Why didn’t they run for cover? Why?
Grey dawn light seeped down the cracks in the hatch. Edak forced himself to rise with the men. They seemed a little gentler with him. “How are you, ship rat?” asked Seri.
Ship rat...Tuli’s laughter echoed in his head. “The same,” he said forlornly. “My friend is dead.” He sniffed involuntarily and brushed his wet cheek with his shoulder.
“One question runs through my mind,” he continued. “Why did none of you know of the bird? Did you not feel the danger?”
They stared at him, then looked around at each other. “What do you mean?” asked Belar. “How do you know a bird is coming?”
It must be so then. They do not know, even a little. “Can you not sense it at all? Do you not get a feeling when danger comes? Here?” He pointed to his forehead.
They were silent, then Belar said, “No. There’s no feeling there.” He shook his head. “I always knew you Mu people were a strange bunch. Here is the proof.”
Edak braced for more slurs and Belar cast a foreboding glance at him. Then he smiled. “But I wouldn’t mind being strange like that once in a while. Do you always know of such things?”
Edak relaxed. “Usually. If my head is too cluttered with outside thoughts, I sometimes fail to notice the feeling. But I have been taught to heed the warning. I can’t imagine living without such a thing. It would be like living without my eyes.”
The sailors said no more, each in his own thoughts, and they finished dressing. It was time to begin the shift. Halfway up the steps, a grizzled old man from Hwai Do stopped and put his hand on Edak’s arm. “If you feel that way again,” he said, “yell at us to take cover. This time, I tell you, we’ll listen.”
“We’ll listen, all right,” said another.
“Bet on it,” mumbled yet another. “Good to have a warning.”
Edak was accepted at last. Yet, there was no victory, no joy. Tuli was gone. His boisterous laughter and love for life had been snuffed out like a lamp in the wind.
Edak stared ahead to his future in Atlan, while caressing the medallion of Mu. Today he belonged nowhere.
* * * *
Chapter 8
“Land, land ahead!”
Edak jerked awake. He looked around. Blackness—still night. The ship creaked and rocked the hammock rhythmically, and the moist sweat-laden air hung heavy about him.
He slowly gathered his thoughts. Was that a dream, or did someone shout?
Thuds of feet hit the floor and a sailor lit an oil lamp. It’s real! Edak sat up and looked around. Shadows flickered and he saw the movement of men wrestling into their clothing.
“Let’s get going,” said Seri, covering his skinny body with a yellow tunic. “Lots of work to be done.”
“Then play, plenty of it,” added Belar as he tightened a rope around his waist. “We’re home!”
Atlan! We are here! Edak hurriedly slipped on his tunic and combed his long hair. It was tangled from sleep and he found it difficult to be patient, but he worked it smooth, braided it and fastened the thong. The men were on deck when he finished. He clambered up the steps two at a time.
The first deep breath of cool damp air awakened him fully, and he looked around. The predawn sky was still deep blue and the brighter stars had not yet disappeared. All men who didn’t have immediate work crowded over to the bow and stared at the land mass before them. Edak edged into the pack and peeked over a short sailor’s head.
The sky cast a lighter glow on the horizon, but it wasn’t the sun that caused the illumination—it was the land itself! There it stood, rising out of the ocean, a ragged silhouette that must be Aryaz. It glittered like a thousand stars, bunched together like grapes.
Atlan—greatest nation on Earth. How I’ve waited to see you! He stared awestruck. There must be thousands of lamps and torches. How can I believe this? He took another deep breath.
It was nearly a moon since Tuli’s death, and he had looked forward to this journey’s end with a deep longing. Yes, the men were civil to him now and even Ragna didn’t demand as much, but the voyage was bleak and tiresome without his friend. And now at last, it was over.
The sky slowly became lighter and the stars faded. The rising sun cast long shadows; it felt good on his face. Two ships appeared in the mist, resting in the harbor, and over there was a large white building.
Ragna called just then, demanding breakfast.
After the meal was delivered, Edak cleaned Ragna’s cabin and after that, washed the kitchen for Seri and after that, rolled up all hammocks for later cleaning. Each trip to the deck, each change of jobs brought opportunity to glance over the bow at the exciting, frightening new world before him: black and white domes, gleaming spires and pyramids. Such marvels!
The vessel entered the Bay of Aryaz where dozens of ships—all sizes, all styles, all materials, all colors, all nations—surrounded them, and they seemed swallowed up into anonymity. New odors wafted about, of dead fish, food being prepared, sewage, sweat. The men strained and labored to keep the ship from bumping their neighbors while Edak fetched more line and cork bumpers to assist. There was, however, little more for Edak to do but take in the strange sights everywhere.
As they neared the piers, Edak heard voices singing somewhere. Off the starboard side small boats bobbed up and down, tinier than even the fishing boats on the river at home. Each boat had a tarp roof that covered the cluttered living quarters for a family. Small children, hair still tousled from sleep, scampered and played while women prepared food and washed linens and
sang, pausing only long enough to gossip a bit with a neighbor or admonish a child. Somewhere an infant cried.
Edak drank in the scenes. How good it was to hear female voices again, the first he’d heard since he left his mother’s side. He listened and savored.
A woman looked up and saw Edak’s stare. Unpleased by her loss of privacy, she scolded at him in a dialect of Atlan he didn’t fully understand. Yet, he comprehended enough to know he had been rude. He mumbled an embarrassed apology and moved to port side.
A ship larger than his stood at dock. Three brawny men rolled large covered urns down the ramp. “Hurry up!” yelled another man. “Get moving!”
He must be the captain, surmised Edak. He yells like Ragna.
The men hadn’t been working slowly, yet they moved faster now, their sweat glistening in their rush. Unsatisfied, the captain took a rope and lashed out at the man nearest him. It cracked across his back and tore his robe. A line of blood oozed through.
Edak flinched; his skin tightened in goosebumps. He looked all around; surely someone had seen this and would do something. But no one seemed to notice. Shocking! Did no one care that this man is being hurt?
The crewmen glared hatefully at the overseer for a quick moment, but hurried with their burdens, lest their backs be next. The wounded man joined them silently. Edak shivered.
Kwandai brushed past Edak to coil a line. “Look,” said Edak. “That man whipped that man there.” Kwandai would know what to do.
Kwandai glanced over with disinterest. “They’re slaves. They get beat regular. Nothing new.” He went back to work at the line.
“Slaves?! Can’t we stop them? Can’t someone stop them?”
“Nah, it’s legal. They’re slaves, I tell you!”
Edak stared at Kwandai, then back at the slave’s oozing red wound. What sort of country is this Atlan?! He wanted to be back in Mu, back to his innocence and ignorance of such atrocities.
The ship bumped into the dock and Edak grabbed the deck rail to keep from falling. Men bustled about securing lines to the wharf. They lowered the ramp.
Time Odyssey: The Soul's Memory; Part I, Dreamtime Page 6
