An Act of Faith

by C A Oliver

  His face swollen, his body bruised, Feïwal remained conscious. Screams of pain could be heard from the hold of the ship. The crew was trapped. The storm, as if temporarily overcome by their valour, seemed to retreat. The lull was brief. Feïwal tried to clear the deck of the mainmast debris to open an access to the hold and release his companions. But the hurricane was unleashed once again.

  Within moments, the darkness of the sky had burst into a demonic dance of foam. The Alwïryan was plunged into a twenty-foot-deep abyss, and then up the side of another wave, before resuming its mad race between the liquid walls.

  “To the stern!” screamed Feïwal to Roquen.

  But the tall Elf did not stir, nor did he respond. He lay unconscious, his hands still leashed in the deck’s cords. The rest of Feïwal’s words were lost in a roar of thunder. The ship groaned under the combined onslaught of the ocean and the hurricane, as it was on the point of being pulled apart. It teetered between port and starboard before diving downwards again. The sluices no longer drained the water that washed over the deck. The vessel was dying. Its slow death had already begun. Sea spirits circled around its bruised carcass, yelling wildly. Feïwal maintained his statue-like composure, riveted to the remains of the great mast, ready to disappear with it into the abyss. Impervious to the chaos of the elements, his posture remained defensive as his eyes searched the spray. He finally managed to reach the helm while waves, fifteen feet high, jostled and crashed against the Alwïryan, rolling across the deck like beasts. Cascading water crashed down upon the aftcastle before pouring in torrents down the steps to the deck. There he found Nelwiri, firmly bonded to the helm by ropes. He was still unconscious. His head was bloody. He was no longer master of the ship, whose mad, blind race was steered only by the chaotic winds. Feïwal clung to the helm, trying to regain power. Now confused, his senses were betraying him, and the navigator lost control. He uttered a cry of terror as his mind was swallowed into nightmare. But it was not the storm’s redoubled violence that filled Feïwal with terror.

  A winged shape, hidden by the spray, flew around the ship. Feïwal could not distinguish its contours exactly, although he recognized the silhouette of a large Elf amongst the swirls around him. However, his eyes were fixed on the two pale wings of the creature. Spread wide, they were beating with tremendous power, taking full advantage of the wind. In an instant, the winged creature was upon the aftcastle. It carried the breath of the entire storm. A flash of lightning set the horizon ablaze. The wind stopped suddenly. An aura of splendour emanated from the divine creature. Long sapphire hair covered the deity’s naked and ethereal body, as though shaped in the wind. He held in his right hand a silver trident, the symbol of his sovereign power over these waters. Feïwal stared around him, awestruck, completely motionless and utterly incapacitated. The creature moved forward and he could not resist it. Covering his face, Feïwal knelt in front of it. But his supplications and imploring words soon died on his lips, like a gentle breeze caught up in a whirlwind. In a final effort of will, he held up the sacred relic of his clan, that little piece of rope inlaid with unknown runes. The deity stopped, towering over him spreading its wings and brandishing its trident. Feïwal fainted at the blast of its power.

  *

  How long it lasted, he would not know, but the moment came when Feïwal finally awoke from unconsciousness. In his dizziness, he attempted to understand the hallucination he had been through. His gaze swept the space around him and scanned his surroundings in search of his companions. Nelwiri was still tied to the helm in a macabre dance. The rest of the aftcastle was empty. He moved towards the devastated railing. He could see Roquen below on the deck. The tall Elf knelt and suffered in silence, his right arm severely injured.

  In this twilight of doom, other concerns began to nag at his mind. But he could not do more. He let go. He gave up and started to murmur a song of old, the song of the Irawenti seafarers. With his last drop of energy, he sang beautiful verses about the ultimate refuge of the Elves, the Lost Islands of the Llewenti.

  Nonetheless, though badly battered, his ship fearlessly continued its course between the towering peaks, plunging into deep ravines only to be reborn at the top of fresh hills of foam.

  His song’s lyrics seemed to preserve the vessel from its ultimate destruction by conjuring protective marine spirits, dissuading the formidable force of nature from striking the final blow. The dance of death between the hungry and ferocious sea and its frail but agile prey continued.

  Feïwal’s senses had failed him; he resolved to search through the darkness of the night to find his way. He prayed to the wild deity that he and his companions be spared, and that he be granted his soul and his destiny. His eyes burned with salt; his body was broken.

  Suffocated by the wind, buried under a deluge of rain, battered by the downpour, Feïwal surrendered to the storm that had made him feel invaded and overpowered. He now chose to give up fighting, yielding to the power of the elements, to their superior forces, completely overcome by the magnificent cataclysm. He lost control, defeated, yet somehow, he was communing with the chaos. His confused mind was wandering into the unknown, haunted by only Griffins and Storm Eagles. Feïwal smiled briefly, thinking of his brother’s warning to stop bearing the fate of others on his shoulders. He then lost consciousness.

  The ship sped southward, as if sucked into an abyss, unaware of the day or the night, with no one watching over its destiny any longer. It was carried by the monstrous whirlpool, that vast column joining the darkness of the sky to the darkness of the ocean. There was no sign of hope or salvation.

  But, eventually, unexpectedly, the Alwïryan met an invisible wall, bursting in an explosion of sand and water on a deserted beach. The whole isle was shaken with the furious vibration, a shuddering convulsion that felt like the final scream of the unleashed elements.

  *

  Although unlikely, the dawn finally came. The dim morning stillness was torn by a shrill sound, an awkward noise in the majestic symphony that had been played by the sea and the wind since time began. A pelican, chased by the wind, came to perch on the ship’s railing, seeking shelter from the fury of the elements. Its repeated cries finally released Feïwal from his torpor. A shouting in the wind brought him back to reality. He recognized, through the surrounding tumult, the powerful voice of Roquen.

  “How am I to help him in this chaos?” Feïwal despaired.

  Soon the fury of the hurricane began to decline. Feïwal brushed the debris around him aside, got up, and began to call, hailing his sailors and shouting for his kin, but the wind carried his voice away into nothingness. He wandered on the deck, tripping amongst the wreckage and over ropes and debris. Finally, he stumbled over Roquen, who stood motionless and silent; gazing with rage at his own battered body. Feïwal knelt beside him, overcome with emotion.

  “Cil Cim Cir! We are safe. We were spared.”

  Roquen could not answer him. A vicious blow had struck him down; acute pain immobilized him. He endured this suffering without complaint, without a groan, as befitted a lord of the High Elves. Feïwal set about tending to his injuries, but he quickly realized that the great Elf was suffering from more than just physical pain. A mystical force was at work.

  It was only at that point that Feïwal noticed a faint star, shining through the veil of darkness which enveloped them. This distant speck of glimmering light was the first of many others that appeared gradually. Soon, the beach where they had run aground was bathed in a soft, silver light. Feïwal took advantage of this calm to rescue his companions. Nelwiri regained consciousness but remained weak and lost. He suffered from severe bruising, but his first words upon waking were to inquire about the fate of his companions. They then set about freeing up access to the ship's hold.

  Finally, the first survivors could emerge from the shipwreck. All were oblivious to their surroundings. They wandered around the deck, stumbling over debris, as if looking for some clue. Only the sound of the sea reached their ears. The rest
of the crew progressively emerged from the hold, with eyes half closed, like owls coming out of a long night. Arwela scoured through the ranks, providing care and inviting everyone to prayer and piety. Feïwal began to gather his two watch units. While he himself was haggard, he roundly jeered his sailors, urging them to quick mental recovery. The count began.

  Many were injured with bruises and fractures. But there was also one fatal casualty, a young sailor from the clan of Gnalweni. It was his first trip out to sea, and he had won over the entire crew with his fearlessness manoeuvring the sails, and his unfaltering hard work. He was found with a shattered skull, his chest crushed under an oar which had escaped its hinges. Many were the sailors who came to bow before his body before it was returned to Gweïwal Uleydon, as was dictated by the marine rites of the Blue Elves. Arwela uttered sacred words and read the ancient scriptures. Overwhelmed, she added a prayer.

  “Eïwal Ffeyn[14]! Deity of storms! Eïwal Ffeyn saved us from a deadly force. However, in exchange for his leniency, he claimed the life of the youngest among us. May his soul return to the sea and the wind! The lord of tempests sends us a warning. He demands our humility. This will remain in our minds.”

  The Alwïryan had emerged from hell. It was battered but still alive; its vital parts were not affected though it was stripped of its masts and spars. The figurehead remained unwavering, despite the last remnants of an aggressive wind. It lay on the beach motionless, like the remains of a warrior fallen in battle. At regular intervals, knocks from the powerful ocean waves served as a reminder of the danger it had escaped.

  *

  The next day, the sun shone with all its brilliance, rising in a sky flecked with distant clouds. The ocean was still agitated, but its wrath seemed to have been largely appeased. The castaways could now gauge the full extent of the disaster. The Alwïryan, dismantled, its keel deeply buried in the sand, lay down like a flightless bird. The deck was heavily damaged, repeatedly punctured with gaping cracks like multiple bloody wounds. Water was flooding in through breaches in the hull. Pieces of the mainmast sunk through the collapsed ruins of the deck into the sodden depths of the hold. The door leading to the aftcastle had come off its hinges. To the rear, the rising tide began to flood into the stained-glass lords’ cabins, but the aftcastle, though covered in debris, was largely intact. The rudder also appeared to have been spared. To the front, the foremast, which fortunately had been removed before the onslaught of the storm, was broken off at its hinges. Stripped of its sails, dethroned of its silver gull, the foremast was suspended in an unlikely position over the railing, jutting out like some ominous black gallows.

  The ship was laying on the beach of an isle which appeared to be little more than a heap of rock and sand deposited amid the immense and magnificent sea. At high water, the wreckage was submerged, but, when the tide went out, the tips of the rocks were exposed, and it was possible to walk out towards the beach. Fortunately, the Alwïryan had run aground on sandy soil; there was hope that the crew could repair and refloat it.

  Some of those who had suffered the least set about exploring alongside the dyn Filweni. They climbed the slopes of the isle towards its southern shore, eventually reaching the other side. Feïwal, leading the small group, was the first to make out the land on the western horizon. Close by he could distinguish on the water multiple islands and islets, with their sandy beaches and steep hills. But, along the horizon itself, laid a faraway strip of white that had to be the rocky heights of a vast land. Feïwal and his companions stood there for a moment in absolute silence, breathing in the earthy wind that carried the scents of wood and the aromas of plants: potent fragrances indeed for those who, for many moons, had enjoyed only the incense of the ocean. Moved to tears, they looked out, craving and hoping for this land, the object of their desire.

  They had suffered countless hardships, wounds, and losses, on their journey to finally reach these Promised Islands, the archipelago of the Llewenti. The small group, now quiet and recollected, set off down the path leading back to the beach, joining the rest of the castaways. Without a word uttered or an instruction given, all the Irawenti knelt around the dyn Filweni, forming a crescent around them.

  Slowly, almost mystically, Feïwal walked out into the water, submerging his body up to the waist. A moment later, Arwela, the seer, followed him, symbolizing the respect of the entire clan for its guide. Nelwiri the sailor and Luwir the oars master also joined them; together, they displayed the colours of the clan of Filweni: a silver feather against an azure field. The voices of the dyn Filweni rose in unison over the murmur of the wind, proclaiming their ritual verses.

  “We are dyn Filweni,

  By the grace of Gweïwal Uleydon, we descend from Filwen.

  For the glory of Gweïwal Uleydon, we sail from East to West.

  The silver feather, Gweïwal Uleydon entrusted us, to adorn our crest.

  We are dyn Filweni. We shall cross the ocean as did Filwen.”

  Feïwal turned to his clan, his long black hair, flecked with strands of azure, fluttering in the wind.

  “I am Feïwal dyn Filweni, the Guide who protects the clan.

  I am Feïwal dyn, the shipwright and the navigator who braves the ocean.

  I am Feïwal, disciple of Eïwal Ffeyn. I am the cleric of the angry deity.

  I am the servant of the prisoner. This passage was granted to me.”

  By late afternoon, the light breath of the ocean breeze had died away completely, and a cloudless sky stretched out above a smooth sea. Obscured by a distant, rocky island, the sun lingered just below the horizon, setting the whole of the western sky ablaze as it set. In the midst of this immense beauty and natural peace, two small white sails emerged from the east. Their silhouettes ascended and descended slowly, with the tide that was slowly retreating from the bay.

  CHAPTER 2: dyl Llyvary

  2708 of the Llewenti Calendar, Season of Eïwele Llya, 116th day, Llafal

  Nyriele dyl Llyvary murmured the last verses of a prayer to Eïwal Ffeyn, her voice still audibly weary. Her hair was wet. A strong autumnal rain just swept the coast.

  The beautiful Elvin priestess listened to the sounds that were drifting from the coast, her eyes not quite closed. A multitude of different noises could be heard intermingling on the shores of Nyn Llyvary[15]. Never had she heard so many of them at once. Thousands of birds were greeting the sunrise which marked the end of the most important storm that the Austral Ocean had ever produced in Llewenti memory. Nightingales, hummingbirds, swallows, seagulls, herons and pelicans all sang at dawn.

  As Nyriele breathed it all in and listened to the vast but invisible multitude, a seabird swooped down to land on her shoulder, and let out a long, guttural screech. She looked out at the blue morning sky, clear as mountain water, and saw other birds heading towards the hilltop Temple of Eïwal Ffeyn where she stood. They swept quickly through the air, dense as a swarm of insects. When they neared the top of the hill, which looked out across that vast expanse of water, the birds veered upwards, tracing concentric circles high above her head and around the temple’s colonnades, before they plunged downwards towards the young lady who stood exposed in the open, her silhouette stark against the temple steps. Encircling her frenetically, like a whirlwind, they seemed, for a moment, to absorb her entirely, before they scattered away in all directions.

  Nyriele then turned to the inner circle of the temple, addressing another priestess.

  “Our swanships have crossed the passes of the Halwyfal[16]. They have now returned to Llafal[17]. They found the wrecked ship and surrounded those who sailed it. We will soon have news.”

  “Then they did well. It is quite a distance to the isle of Pyenty[18],” replied Lyrine dyl Llyvary.

  She was the mother to the young Nyriele. Nature had endowed her with an aquiline nose, a firm yet sensitive mouth, high-arched brows and beautiful eyes that gleamed like sapphires. She was the most respected matriarch of their clan, expert in the ways of the deities and a scholar
of arcane knowledge.

  Suddenly, almost with certain violence, she rose from her stately chair and snapped an order at the guards stationed beneath the temple. One of them hastened up to her, somewhat disturbed by her authoritative tone.

  “Find me Tyar dyl! He has returned to Llafal. Let him come to the temple immediately. The swanships are back from the peninsula isles. I am eager to hear what news they bring.”

  The guard nodded and was about to take his leave when she added.

  “Yet be discreet! Make it known to Tyar dyl that I do not want this news to spread.”

  Her eyes then landed upon the heart of the temple, her gaze embracing the beauty of the edifice. Six high, fluted columns, sky-blue in colour, formed a perfect circle around the altar to the deity. The shrine to Eïwal Ffeyn had neither wall nor roof, which allowed for the powerful winds of the hilltop to flow freely through the sacred place.

  The temple’s wood was an ethereal garden, full of a multitude of plants and protected by tall pine trees. The mild air carried the scents of many flowers, and the wind could not entirely muffle the joyful birdsong. It was a peaceful sanctuary, dedicated to prayer and worship. But it was also a place from which one could hail the powerful energy of the Islands’ Flow, that mighty field of magic.

  Lyrine loved this place. She had been born in Llafal, the city located on the lower slopes of the hill which led down to the Halwyfal, the magnificent basin that was home to so many species of bird. Her bloodline was noble; she descended from Queen Llyoriane, so was counted among the ‘dyl’ of the clan Llyvary.