Eloy's Legacy

by Kara Timmins

  Captain Kern continued hacking at the dense greenery, sweat dripping off of the tip of his nose in steady drops.

  “At least we’ll be able to find water,” Captain Kern said through huffs of breath.

  Eloy walked behind Captain Kern, followed by Neasa, with Malatic at the back. The vegetation was too thick for all of them to cut their own way. Eloy hoped the growth was too dense for any creature or man to sneak up on them too.

  Eloy was starting to wonder how far they would need to go in order to ensure the beach was safe when Captain Kern let out a triumphant, “Ha!”

  The view ahead was no longer a tangled mess, but open clearing. Captain Kern wasn’t moving forward any longer, and Eloy, Neasa, and Malatic had to go around him in order to stand at his side. When they saw what he was seeing, they didn’t move, either. All four stood in a line gaping at the view.

  There was more color than Eloy had ever seen in one place in his life. Every sky-reaching tree bore hearty flowers up their trunks. Some of the blooms were the size of a human head. They varied in color from blood red to snake belly yellow. Little beetles buzzed around their heads, their tiny iridescent wings catching the lazy rays of light that found their way through the leaves.

  Eloy had his attention fixed on the growth on the forest floor. Fern leaves were a common sight in his travels. The long, green stalks and thin, feathery blades grew wild over most of the northern region of his homeland, and Eloy was so used to seeing them he had stopped noticing them long ago. Their plainness faded into the background. But the ferns swaying in the clearing were a world away from the uniform green of the ones back home. Here, in this strange land, they were every color of a prism. All throughout the clearing fern leaves of summer-sky blue, wild-berry purple, poison-frog orange, and love-blush pink flicked and twitched in a breeze Eloy couldn’t feel.

  All of the strange plants grew from a ground just as odd. The ground cover looked as soft as the nose of a newborn foal, and colored in the same vibrancy. The shades moved from one to the other like a patch quilt of hides from curious animals.

  Neasa moved forward first, her weapon lax at her side, her eyes dreamy and entranced. She was lost in the wonder of it, and the cautious woman Eloy had met in Valia was gone in the moment she stepped on the soft multicolored ground.

  Something jerked under her foot and Eloy saw her eyes go wide. Malatic reached out for her arm to pull her back. Everything around them, the tranquil and lazy scene, erupted suddenly into a flurry of movement. Eloy saw Neasa throw her arms over her face a moment before he did the same. Soft pads beat against his body, but they seemed harmless.

  Eloy uncovered his face and saw how wrong he had been: there weren’t any ferns growing in the clearing. What he had thought were leaves were the twitching antennae of giant moths. The plush ground had been their overlapping wings, the mounds their fuzzy bodies.

  The wings must have rippled alarm from one to the other, alerted by the first creature Neasa had stepped on. They were up in the air now, swirling overhead, their colors blurring together like a tornado from a dream. The moths broke through the high forest canopy and were gone.

  Eloy, Neasa, Malatic, and Captain Kern looked around at each other, eyes wide with surprise.

  Malatic started laughing first. “What was that?”

  “Never could have prepared myself for that.” Neasa had a look on her face that was the personification of childlike glee.

  “I think I wet myself,” Malatic said.

  “Speaking of wet.” Captain Kern walked forward into the now empty clearing.

  The uncovered ground was etched in vein-like rivulets of clear, flowing water.

  “Must have been why they were here,” Eloy said.

  Eloy moved next to Captain Kern at the center of the clearing and crouched down in a squat. He put his sword back in its sheath.

  “Keep your weapon ready,” Captain Kern said.

  Eloy pointed at the edge of the clearing ahead, at lease fifty running strides from them. “I doubt the moths would be here if there was danger, given how they reacted to Neasa. If anything comes, I have enough time to be ready again.”

  Captain Kern tightened his mouth and pursed it toward the bottom of his nose. If he was holding back a response, he succeeded in keeping it in his throat.

  Eloy turned his attention back to the little stream, cupped his hands, and let the water flow into them. The little river was warm, like sweat.

  “We’ll boil it,” Captain Kern said. “Should be fine.”

  “Should be,” Eloy agreed. “Do you want to go in any farther?”

  “This should be enough,” Captain Kern said. “We’ll stay watchful.”

  There was a whistling moving up from the path Captain Kern had cut.

  “It’s the others,” Captain Kern said.

  Oisin, Niall, and two others, Gaius and Menes, came into the clearing.

  “Oisin and Niall,” Captain Kern said, “get the pouches from the ship and fill them from here and bring it back to the beach.”

  “Already off the ship and waiting in the sand,” Niall said.

  “Hotter than a crotch in here,” Oisin said.

  “Go. Now.” Captain Kern looked at Gaius and Menes. “You two start making some traps.”

  “Here?” Gaius was an older man who spat words through a gummy mouth, only a few teeth left on the right side. “What kind of thing you think we’re going catch to eat?”

  “Whatever wanders into the trap,” Captain Kern said.

  “Captain,” Neasa called from next to one of the trees at the side of the clearing. “There might be something here.”

  Eloy followed behind Captain Kern to Neasa.

  “Here,” Neasa pointed at a hole in a part of the bark free of vines or flowers. “Claw marks.”

  Her fingers curled around the lip of the hole and she pulled. The vines snapped and fell away as she removed the bark off the tree. The sweet, earthy, rich scent of bark filled the area, and gooey globs of sap dribbled out of the new opening. The space underneath the flap wriggled. Thumb-sized white larvae bobbed and bumped into one another.

  “The hole and claw marks tell me something in this forest can eat these.” Neasa pulled one of the larvae off the tree and held it between her finger and thumb. “Hopefully that means we can too.”

  “If they’re not poisonous,” Captain Kern said, “we’ll eat it. Bring what you can find.”

  “You got it.” Neasa pulled a swatch of well-worn hide from her bag and started loading the squirming creatures into the center.

  “Never thought a woman collecting bugs could look so happy,” Malatic said.

  Eloy smiled. “Maybe we should make her a bigger bag.”

  8

  The crew of the Siobhan were all on the beach by twilight. A few were keeping an eye on the growing shadows inland, but most were lying in the still-warm sand. Neasa, Eloy, and Malatic were sitting around a fire. An iron pot sat in the center of the flames, a third batch of water bubbling inside.

  Malatic grimaced every time Neasa skewered one of the larvae on a stick. “That popping noise isn’t helping to make that appetizing.”

  “It doesn’t have to be good,” Neasa said, putting the loaded stick over the cracking fire, “it just has to keep you alive. Maybe put some meat back on your bones.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Malatic flexed his arm. “I’m as strong as ever.”

  Neasa leaned over to where Malatic was reclining next to her and put her eyes close to his flexing arm.

  “Eloy,” Neasa said looking over the fire at him, “would you mind giving up part of your share to Malatic?”

  “He can have all of it,” Eloy said.

  She laughed, pleased with herself, and focused back on the browning grubs.

  Eloy couldn’t help but see the look M
alatic gave Neasa, a softness he could never have imagined in the man he had first met in Nicanor’s camp. In all the chaos, that softness was a break of serenity, seeming to deepen with every day and every challenge.

  Eloy looked over their heads at the rocks and trees beyond. His mind was finally beginning to let go of the swaying imprint of the sea. The sound of soft, crashing waves rustled at his back, but he didn’t want to look at it. The only water he wanted to see was the clean kind, cooling in a pot at his side.

  “Done!” Neasa pulled the stick and the grubs out of the fire.

  “And you’re sure it’s safe?” Malatic asked.

  Neasa pulled one of the grubs off the skewer. “Should be. But there’s only one way to find out.”

  She lifted the lump of meat up to her open mouth. Malatic may have been at sea for weeks with little food and water, but his movements were still hunter fast. He snatched the charred lump from Neasa and popped it into his own.

  “Hey!” Neasa looked at her empty hand and then at Malatic.

  She punched Malatic on his shoulder, making his body rock back on his elbow. The look he gave her was one of triumph while he chewed his prize, the muscles of his jaw moving back and forth. Neasa opened her mouth to chastise but stopped when when Malatic stopped chewing and his eyes went wide.

  Eloy straightened, ready to move.

  “What is it?” Neasa said, her voice panicked. “Spit it out!”

  Malatic smiled and gulped. “Probably should have.”

  “You’re a jerk,” Neasa said, settling back down to the sand. “I hate when you do that.”

  Eloy and Neasa both shook their head at Malatic, hers softened by a deeper relief.

  “How was it?” she asked.

  “Disturbingly sweet. But it should be fine. I’ll take another.” Malatic held out his hand.

  Neasa split the bounty up between the three of them and started skewering the rest of the grubs, giving Malatic side glances while she worked.

  9

  Eloy woke the next morning feeling better than he had in weeks. The ground was steady underneath him. The headache he had grown used to waking up with was gone. He scooped handfuls of water into his mouth and finished off the pot he’d drank most of the night before. He wiped his wet hands over his face and through his beard.

  A few of the other crew members were still awake, but only the ones who were on early morning watch. Malatic was still sleeping next to the black circle of the burned-out fire, but Neasa was gone.

  Eloy knew in his gut there was no need to worry about her. He knew exactly where she was: exploring a new forest in the dawn light.

  Birds called out throughout the forest in front of him, strange morning songs that twittered and cooed. The song was the jumbled music of the unknown and undiscovered, but the sound was something else too. The noise was the song of progress. The place he was looking for was here. He knew it. There was a whisper of victory in its closeness.

  Captain Kern kept quiet until midday, more than enough time for everyone to get their fill of water, rest, and food. “We’ll get packed up and ready to move on by morning,” he called out.

  The crew started gathering around him.

  “Move on to where?” Gaius asked.

  Captain Kern pointed northwestward down the beach. “Get enough food and water to carry with you.”

  “We’ll fill up the bladders first,” Malatic said to Captain Kern. “Then someone else can go while we boil. Right, Eloy?”

  “Sure.” Eloy didn’t know what Malatic wanted, but he didn’t need to give a reason for Eloy to support him.

  “I don’t care how you do it,” Captain Kern said, “just be ready by morning.”

  The crew broke up to disperse to their various campsites, and Malatic led the way toward the path to the clearing.

  The space was still empty; as far as Eloy knew, the moths had not returned. Malatic stopped a few strides into the clearing and turned to Neasa and Eloy.

  “I thought it might be about time we talked things over,” Malatic said.

  “You mean make a plan?” Eloy asked. “Or was there something else?”

  “We need a plan,” Malatic agreed. “We need a plan about a few things. But I’m not the one leading this treasure hunt, so I need to know what you have in mind. Do you know what you’re looking for? Did this Seer of yours tell you what you should keep an eye out for once you got here?”

  Eloy looked at Neasa. “She didn’t say,” he said. “She didn’t really say anything about this part. We’re on our own. But it’s here, I know it. We need to look around.”

  “That’s not as encouraging as I was hoping.” Malatic looked at Neasa and softened. “Okay, so have you given any thought about what you’re going to do when you find all this treasure? We have to get it back somehow. Are you planning on getting the rest of the crew in on moving it to the ship?”

  “I don’t even know what it is. It might be something so big that I’ll have to let Captain Kern in on what we’re doing here, or it might be something I can fit in a bag. A bundle of thyrethan silk wouldn’t weigh much and could still be considered a treasure, right, Neasa?”

  “I hope we wouldn’t have to come all this way for thyrethan silk,” Neasa said. “But you’re right. I can think of a whole bunch of things worth infinitely more than their weight.”

  Eloy looked at the ground. “And answers don’t weigh anything.”

  “What if the treasure isn’t here?” Neasa asked. “We have no idea how big this land is or if we’ve landed in the right place. I agree with you that the Seer wanted you to go out to sea, but she never said this is where you were meant to go.”

  Eloy reached for the stone around his neck and felt its warmth, teetering on hot.

  “It’s here,” Eloy said. “I can’t think about what I’m going to do when I find it or how I’m going to get it back until I see it. Right now, there’s still too much I don’t know. I have to keep moving until I’m where I need to be.”

  Malatic sighed. “Well, okay then. We don’t know what to look for, and we don’t know what we’re going to do when we find it. I guess it’s enough to know that we’re looking and we’ll know it when we see it. Does that sound about right?”

  “That’s about it.” Eloy shrugged. “I wish I had more of a plan, but I don’t. We’ll move on with Captain Kern and the crew and keep an eye out.”

  “Sounds okay to me,” Neasa said.

  “What she said.” Malatic winked at Neasa.

  Niall walked into the clearing. “I thought you were out here getting water?”

  Oisin walked up from behind Niall. “Doesn’t look like you have any water.”

  “Why didn’t you alert us that you were walking up?” Eloy asked.

  “I guess we forgot,” Niall said.

  “Thought you were three great fighters.” Oisin smiled. “Thought you would hear us coming. Didn’t think we needed to remember.”

  Niall walked up to Neasa and took the empty bladder out of her hand. “Let’s get a move on. Captain Kern wants to be ready by morning.”

  Eloy, Neasa, and Malatic exchanged looks. Oisin was right: they should have heard the brothers coming.

  10

  Captain Kern led the crew northwest, up the beach, early the next morning. Many of the crew chanced quick, nervous glances over their shoulder as the Siobhan slipped out of view. The group rounded a commanding jut of black rock by midday, and the camp and the ship were cut from their sight.

  The sun was hot, and the sand was soft. Many of the crew—Neasa, Malatic and Eloy included—crafted spears to fish.

  They walked for two days at a slow and lazy pace. Captain Kern kept to a schedule, but he wasn’t tyrannical, and the time he allowed everyone to sleep grew every day.

  Eloy got used to the lax schedule, which made the jolt of Neasa j
abbing her toe into his side surprising.

  “Get up,” she whispered. “I want you to see something.”

  Eloy looked up to see her haloed in the early blush of morning.

  “Everything okay?” Eloy stood up and collected his bag and sword.

  “No alarm. Just come.” Neasa ran across the soft sand toward the forest.

  The greenery next to the beach was less dense than it had been where they’d first landed, but the area was still crowded with trees, reeds, and vines. Neasa had cut a haphazard path, which is where she slipped into the forest and disappeared.

  Once inside, it sounded as if the cries and coos of the animals soaring overhead or scurrying on the ground were everywhere. The cacophony of activity was enveloping.

  “Over here.” Neasa pointed at a tree with a thick trunk, made thicker by the woody vines that snaked around it.

  Even though the rays of morning sun that managed to find their way through were weak, the light was enough to show the excitement on her face. She pointed toward the top of the tree and started climbing.

  Neasa was already almost halfway up when Eloy gripped the vines at the bottom. They were as thick as his wrist and just as sturdy, but the darkness between the layers made Eloy hesitate. Anything could be living within the crevices.

  “It’s fine,” Neasa called down. “I’ve already been up. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Not afraid,” Eloy said. “Just cautious.”

  “Then cautiously hurry up.”

  She reached the upper branches, and Eloy lost sight of her behind the disk-shaped leaves. He didn’t scale the tree with the same speed or grace as Neasa had, but he got to the top.

  By the time he reached her, his muscles were burning, his hands stung, and his heart was beating. He saw the beauty of the scene reflected in her face before he saw it for himself. She looked golden against the green backdrop of the sea of leaves, as if the morning sun was cupping her face. He looked out for himself.