by Tad Williams
* * *
• • •
Several streams empty into Landfall Bay, but the water that leaves it flows out in one great river—Tinuk’oro, the Ocean Road. As placid as a pond in some places, in others fast-flowing and treacherous, full of hidden rocks and surprising cross currents, the Ocean Road is a challenge even to experienced sailors, but with Captain Iyato at the helm we swiftly made our way down to the ocean.
I watched from the stern rail as Asu’a’s bright towers and walls vanished into the morning mist. Later, as we approached the river’s mouth, I watched the jade expanse of the sea spreading before us, its swells shimmering with the trail of the setting sun, and my mother’s long-ago words came back to me again: “One day you will feel the heartbeat of the Dreaming Sea.” This was not that day, but I did feel something as we left the river behind, a sudden sense that I was on the verge of something important. Ocean Children—that was what Tinukeda’ya meant. Children of the Ocean.
We did not set our course immediately toward the west. Iyato had seen clouds that he did not like along the horizon before darkness fell, so we swung the bow northward and made our way a short distance up the coast before anchoring in a shallow bay for the night. The captain had been right to wait: before an hour had passed, a storm swept down on the coastline with high winds and rain so hard it stung the skin, while the skies echoed with distant thunder. Even in the sheltered bay, Petrel’s Wing rocked and pitched against the hawser as though it were only a child’s plaything. I tumbled from side to side on a straw-stuffed pallet in my master’s cabin, trying not to think of all that I was leaving behind and all the things that would never come to be. I had chosen duty, I reminded myself. I had chosen honor, which was eternal, over mere happiness.
My master, I am sorry to say, had one of his worst nights, moaning in his sleep and even shouting sometimes, though I could not understand his words. Whatever dreams plagued him must have been terrible. I had to wrap my cloak around my head to shut out his cries, but still I had little sleep.
With the dawn, the skies cleared. The winds were strong but not dangerous, so the captain ordered the sails unfurled and we began to make our way west. But even Iyato the Mariner could be fooled: the storm that seemed to have spent its fury returned shortly before sundown. The waves rose swiftly until the ship rolled and bobbed like a piece of corkwood. Iyato ordered storm sails, and for a little while we beat on against the winds, the snap and flap of canvas so loud that it hurt my ears. Iyato ordered me to leave the deck so, as the sailors struck the storm sails and tied down everything that might move, I made my way to my master’s cabin. When I entered, he opened his eyes.
“Do I still sleep?” he asked. His voice was ragged, plaintive. “Pamon, is that you? I can scarcely see you.”
What he said frightened me more than a little, because my master’s eyes had always been so much better than mine. “Let me light the lamp,” I said. As the wick caught and I replaced the fish-skin hood, I saw that Hakatri had flung his blankets aside and his face and neck were gleaming with sweat.
“You must leave me, Pamon.” He said it as flatly as a sentence of death. I had never heard that harsh tone of voice from him before, and for a moment I was speechless. “You must not make this journey.”
“I have only just come into the cabin, Master,” I told him. “Let me cover you up again first. I fear you are still ensnared in dreams.”
“No,” he said. “No, Pamon. I have been dreaming again, yes—dreaming of my thousand reflections, of a thousand different lives—and I have seen something that has frozen my heart.”
I still thought he was babbling, as he sometimes did when he first awakened. “Dreams, even the dreams brought by the dragon’s blood, are still only dreams, my lord. I am here with you now. You may rest.”
To my surprise Hakatri forced himself upright on his narrow bunk, clinging to the pallet with straining fingers. His golden eyes were wide in the shadowy cabin, like those of some hunted creature turning at last to fight to the death. “No! By the Lost Garden itself, no! Listen to me! In all those dream-lives I saw you die, Pamon. It was a torture as great as anything the worm’s cursed blood has brought me. I lay helpless and saw it—saw your death—over and over, in more terrible ways than I could count. In every life where you were beside me as we sailed into the west, I saw you die. If you accompany me, your doom is written.”
The pitching of the Petrel’s Wing was now becoming even stronger, so that Hakatri lost his grip on his pallet and fell back on his bed. The wind howled like a wolf pack beyond the cabin walls. I grabbed the edge of the bunk to keep myself from toppling, but even the ship’s fearsome wallowing could not distract me. “No, Master, no,” I said. “These are only dreams, you know that! And even if they were true, what then? You will live much longer than I will. I knew that when I swore to your service. But I will die serving you, whether it is tonight or ten years from now or a hundred. I reconciled myself to that long ago.”
He shook his head roughly, like someone beset by stinging insects. “No! I cannot allow it, Pamon. I cannot stand by and see you die when I know I could prevent it. We will return to land tomorrow and put you ashore.”
“But I will not go.” I had never before defied him, or even contemplated it, but I knew I could no longer stay silent. “You do not know all that I have turned my back upon for you, my lord. You cannot be so unfeeling, my lord, as to send me away now—”
“Enough! I order you to leave me, Armiger Pamon.” He was struggling to sit up again, but the rolling of the ship prevented it. I could scarcely hear him now for the thunder that rattled the skies. “Do you hear me? As your master, I order that you leave this ship!”
I had fought with myself so fiercely over what to do and had suffered so much unhappiness to make my decision that his words provoked a kind of madness in me. “No and no, Lord Hakatri. I refuse your order. I would do anything else, my lord—I would gladly give my life for you—but in this one thing I must defy you. If you would rid yourself of me, you will have to summon Captain Iyato to put me in chains first. I will not leave your side in any other way.”
“Get out!” Hakatri cried, sounding as pained and miserable as I had ever heard him. “If you will only go in chains, then chains you shall wear. I will not have your death on my conscience, Pamon—I have done enough damage to those around me. My back is nearly breaking under the weight of my mistakes.”
“I am here to care for you—” I began.
“Out!” He was shaking with anger now—and fear, too, I could see. “Go and summon Iyato. If you will not obey me, he will. You say you have given up much for my sake. If my suffering made me selfish and blind to your pain, then that is a curse I must bear.” And indeed, I could see a dreadful shame on his damp, tormented face. “But that is all the more reason for you to leave me now. I pray it is not too late to undo some of the hurt I have done—at least to you, Pamon, most faithful of servants. Go. Summon the captain so I can tell him to head to shore. I have no strength left to argue.” He fell back on the bed as though he had been pierced by an arrow.
Heartbroken and full of rage, I got to my feet, fell as the ship yawed, got up again and stumbled a few steps before crashing against the cabin door, then managed at last to get it open and stumble out into the narrow passage. I was overwhelmed to think that my master could feel so deeply about my unimportant life, but I was also furious that he should so badly fail to understand my loyalty, as well as all that I had sacrificed for him.
The growing tempest seemed to echo the near-madness that filled me, thunder cracking and booming. As I climbed the swaying ladder to the deck the ship pitched and rolled like a wounded animal. When I opened the hatch and clambered out, rain flew at me like arrows, so I could scarcely see a thing. Thunder seemed to make the entire sky shake as Petrel’s Wing heaved and rolled in the storm’s fierce grip.
I have turned my back on everything f
or Hakatri’s sake, was all I could think. And now he would send me away to protect me, as if I were a child—as if I had not long ago given my life over to him. I clung to the rail as I looked around for the captain, but the few sailors I could see were all desperately at work, struggling with ropes, trying desperately to stay upright as great surges of water rushed from one side of the deck to the other. I was so battered by the thunder and the driving rain and my anguish that I did not even stop to think about my own safety. I leaned into the fierce wind of the storm and waded across the deck, still looking for Iyato—still, even in this mad moment, trying to do my master’s bidding.
One of the Zida’ya sailors had noticed me. As lightning split the sky, I saw his eyes widen. He was roped to the mast to keep from being washed overboard. “What are you doing up here, changeling fool?” he cried, his voice nearly swallowed by the howling wind. “Get below decks!”
“Where is the captain?” I shouted, but the shrieking gale obliterated my words. I gripped the rail and took in breath to try again, but at that moment Petrel’s Wing crested a wave and suddenly the bow tipped down. For a moment I felt my feet rise off the deck, then we hit the bottom of the trough and a massive wave leaped out of the darkness. I saw only its edge, white with foam, as it struck me and sent me spinning. A moment later I was struck again. Everything was cold and black then, and my mouth was full of salt water.
At first I thought I had only swallowed too much of a wave crashing over us, but the ship’s wildly swinging lanterns were suddenly above me and swells were pounding me, one after another. I had been swept from the deck into the sea.
I tried to call out, but a wave swept over me and left me spluttering. Even as I managed to spit the salty water from my mouth and take a breath, another, even larger wave thundered down on top of me, and I went spinning down into the cold darkness, limbs thrashing slowly, helplessly against the ocean’s powerful grip. My first thought as the sea closed over me was a strange one.
I am free—!
The larger part of me flailed in utter terror, fighting to reach the surface again as the air began to burn in my lungs, but I had been tossed and turned until I had no notion of which way might be up, and the heavy blackness of the stormy ocean crushed me from all sides.
I am drowned, I thought.
Then, a moment later, as the darkness around me passed into me as well, and life began to sputter out, I thought again, with sorrow but also relief, I am free.
* * *
• • •
When the blackness at last rolled away I was astounded to find myself alive and floating in a wind-whipped nighttime sea, clutching a broken yardarm that must have been torn free by the storm. I could see no lights from Petrel’s Wing, and storm clouds had effaced the stars. In truth, I was not entirely certain that I lived, but until it was proved otherwise to me, I determined to stay afloat.
I bobbed on the gradually calming ocean for the rest of the night. I think I went mad after a while, because I thought that my master came to me and said, “I am sorry I never called you by your true name, Kes.”
“You always treated me well, Lord Hakatri.”
“I did not see you when I should have. I did not hear you when I should have been listening. The terrible singing in my blood blinded and deafened me. Forgive me, if you can.”
“I will never leave you,” I told him, but of course I had left him already: I was talking only to myself.
As the hours of darkness crept past, I slipped in and out of a sort of dreamy wakefulness. After the storm had spent its ire, the movement of the waves felt almost soothing. When the sun rose again it first turned the swells pink along the eastern horizon. As it climbed higher, I could see myself at the center of an endless desert of water, little dunes of green topped with white foam stretching as far as I could see. Much of the ocean’s surface was covered with a thin cloak of mist, and I saw no sign of either the ship I had lost or of land. A part of me thought it might be better to simply let go of the broken yardarm and thus of life, to slide into the depths and take a deep drink, but I was not yet ready to die. My mother’s words again came back to me.
“Someday, at a moment you most need it, you will feel the Garden inside you—you will feel the heartbeat of the Dreaming Sea.”
And as I hung between the sky and the deeps, floating like an unhomed spirit, I began to understand what she meant. Time passed, but it also stood still. The waves splashed me, but were they different waves each time? Or was the same wave slapping at me over and over? Why had I thought I was saved when I was drowning? Saved from choosing my master’s orders over my own loyalty to him? Or simply saved from the confusion and disappointment of being alive?
I could not answer these riddles, and I still cannot to this day, but my mother’s long-ago words soothed me: there was something in me that was more than my thoughts, my breath, my beating heart. That was all I knew, but during that timeless time it seemed to be enough.
* * *
• • •
It was Tinukeda’ya fishermen—my own people, but of the Niskie folk—who found me bobbing among the waves like an empty but sealed jar. And like an empty jar, when they pulled me onto their boat, I could not tell them who I was or how I had come there, and only said “I feel the heartbeat” over and over. I know this because they told me so after they had taken me back to land and nursed me back to health in their small seaside village. I remember nothing of the moment of my rescue except the feeling of hands pulling me out of the water—a rebirth.
No, I can remember one more thing: I mourned the sea when it no longer surrounded me.
Here is where the story of my master ends, because I have no more to tell of him—or little, in any case—and the rest of my own story will be of little interest to those who study great matters.
After my rescue from the waves, I spent a good while among those Niskie-folk of the western coast, staying with them through all the Season of Withering. Petrel’s Wing did not return for me. My master and Iyato must have believed me swept into the sea and drowned. While I stayed with the fisher-folk I helped them on their fishing boats, learning a little of their hard lives and their old stories, but when the Season of Renewal came I felt the urge to move on. Fate had given me my freedom: now I had to decide what I would do with it.
I could have returned to Asu’a, but though I greatly admired and respected my master’s family, it was Hakatri who had chosen me and lifted me up, and without him I knew my life there could never be the same. I would be permitted to live among them, I knew, and even treated kindly, but it would be the sort of forbearance shown to an old horse who has long passed his useful days. Instead, I decided I would go to Ravensperch. I still had the letter I had meant to send on the day we left. The ocean’s waters had made it unreadable, but I conceived a desire to deliver it in person to those for whom it had been intended. And that is what I did.
Years have passed since the sea almost swallowed me, but I have never regretted seeking out my new life, and I write these words from my chamber in the castle atop the Beacon, the smells of heather and hawthorn wafting to my window from the green mountainside. Two floors below me, my wife and Lady Ona are watching the baby learn to crawl.
But no matter how different my current life is from my old, and no matter how long I live, my master Hakatri will never be far from my heart. He still lives, this I know and will always know so long as it is true, because at times I still share his dreams. Hakatri’s visions can be painful, frightening, and difficult to bear, but I hope by sharing them I might take a small share of his pain on myself. I will never know if that is true, of course, but I can hope. He was good to me, and even if I were to live as long as one of the highest Zida’ya, I still could never forget the glad sight of Hakatri and his brother Ineluki as they rode side by side in days that are now gone—swift as a storm, so fair and full of laughter, the Brothers of the Wind. I wish my one
time master only happiness and an end to his suffering, that he might someday find his way back home—as, in my own way, I have done.
Despite the unknowable distance between us—both the distance between then and now and the distance between dream and waking—it seems I will remain bound to Lord Hakatri until his death or my own finally cuts our ties.
I am content with that.
About the Author
Tad Williams is a fantasy superstar. His genre-creating (and genre-busting) books have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide. His considerable output of epic fantasy and epic science fiction series, fantastical stories of all kinds, urban fantasy novels, comics, scripts, etc., have strongly influenced a generation of writers.
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