Read Online Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vera Nazarian
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or wizened with ancient black parchment skin. Ocean is an old woman, reeking of desolation and, for a moment only, distant alien sand underneath a burning sky.
Even now it is awaiting, it seems, my true choice, my final decision. Its hunger may be appeased in different ways.
And now, I make that choice.
If you hear me, Ocean with the face of a hag, if you hear me now, all great gods, then let it be as it must!
Come within my mind, and read me like a chart of ocean ways, and fathom me to the utmost depth.
G reat waves shuddered and rocked the Eye of Sun. Captain Lero lay, eyes shut tight, face down, lips upon the wood. . . .
A single wave came crashing, like the greatest thunder. In that wave flickered the face of an ancient woman with warm young eyes and skin dried to black parchment by the desert wind, a strange antithesis. And the wave spewed forth human limbs.
The men were moving still. Weakly, and barely alive, they lay, water and seaweed rolling off them, gasping for air, like fish on land.
All fifty-seven of them. Fifty-eight, counting the son of Lord Erae.
Overhead the skies cleared, and the waters receded calmly, allowing a golden blaze of a single eye in the heavens, an incandescent eye that was the true sun.
The ship continued moving, unguided, and along the far southern horizon came a sudden faint glimmer of land.
V arian Erae stepped down quietly upon the black sanded shore of the Southern continent, and was greeted by two men clad in priestly robes of persimmon orange, and with warm humorous slanted eyes. They had known him instantly, here in the Kingdom in the Middle, never having to be told that this was the Lord’s disturbed son, the wild power-wielder. They asked him gently to follow, and Varian sensed—without having to reach out a finger of his mind—an instant of homecoming. In that same moment his wild power suddenly settled a notch, settled into a new key.
He looked behind him once only, at the solitary figure of the tall captain. She stood watching impassively from the upper deck, while all around her the cheerful crew, among hollering and guffaws, was busy unloading part of the cargo.
A haze of memory slithered, vague like the horizon.
He looked, and then did not look again, and disappeared beyond the curve of land in the wake of the two sage figures.
Lero stood and watched him absently, watched the curving line of shore only a hundred feet away. She smelled the pungent sweetness of the air that was born of land.
Lero’s hand rested lightly upon the smooth polished railing of the old ship, feeling cool silent wood against coarse fingertips.
“ Captain! We’re done movin’ the last of it. And the rowboats are secured. Shall we cast off?” the First Mate cried, grinning at her.
They did not remember, none of them.
Only she would, always.
A few paces away, old Hareve whistled intently, spat, and then started to bind a new length of knotted rope, while Bear winked in mischief to his brother on the far side of the mast, and pulled at the other side, raising aloft the great sail. Somewhere high up in the crow’s nest, little Rikah waved his hands in the patterns of a seaman’s code, and his thin boyish voice resounded in laughter upon the wind.
“ Cast off, then, brothers!” Captain Lero cried. “Let’s sail home!”
She grinned, looking at them all. She startled them with the insane fierceness of her smile.
Then she turned, shielding her eyes against an auburn sunset, and walked slowly to take the helm. And only at that one point—only for a moment—the quiet singular emptiness was visible in her eyes.
Beneath them, the ship rolled softly, sweet and ancient.
Her beloved. But no longer unsinkable, no longer eternal. She could taste it now, mortality encroaching, just at the edges.
The Eye of Sun would sink someday now, as surely as her heart beat in her breast. And there was nothing she could do about it but live with the taste of its death just on the tip
Even now it is awaiting, it seems, my true choice, my final decision. Its hunger may be appeased in different ways.
And now, I make that choice.
If you hear me, Ocean with the face of a hag, if you hear me now, all great gods, then let it be as it must!
Come within my mind, and read me like a chart of ocean ways, and fathom me to the utmost depth.
G reat waves shuddered and rocked the Eye of Sun. Captain Lero lay, eyes shut tight, face down, lips upon the wood. . . .
A single wave came crashing, like the greatest thunder. In that wave flickered the face of an ancient woman with warm young eyes and skin dried to black parchment by the desert wind, a strange antithesis. And the wave spewed forth human limbs.
The men were moving still. Weakly, and barely alive, they lay, water and seaweed rolling off them, gasping for air, like fish on land.
All fifty-seven of them. Fifty-eight, counting the son of Lord Erae.
Overhead the skies cleared, and the waters receded calmly, allowing a golden blaze of a single eye in the heavens, an incandescent eye that was the true sun.
The ship continued moving, unguided, and along the far southern horizon came a sudden faint glimmer of land.
V arian Erae stepped down quietly upon the black sanded shore of the Southern continent, and was greeted by two men clad in priestly robes of persimmon orange, and with warm humorous slanted eyes. They had known him instantly, here in the Kingdom in the Middle, never having to be told that this was the Lord’s disturbed son, the wild power-wielder. They asked him gently to follow, and Varian sensed—without having to reach out a finger of his mind—an instant of homecoming. In that same moment his wild power suddenly settled a notch, settled into a new key.
He looked behind him once only, at the solitary figure of the tall captain. She stood watching impassively from the upper deck, while all around her the cheerful crew, among hollering and guffaws, was busy unloading part of the cargo.
A haze of memory slithered, vague like the horizon.
He looked, and then did not look again, and disappeared beyond the curve of land in the wake of the two sage figures.
Lero stood and watched him absently, watched the curving line of shore only a hundred feet away. She smelled the pungent sweetness of the air that was born of land.
Lero’s hand rested lightly upon the smooth polished railing of the old ship, feeling cool silent wood against coarse fingertips.
“ Captain! We’re done movin’ the last of it. And the rowboats are secured. Shall we cast off?” the First Mate cried, grinning at her.
They did not remember, none of them.
Only she would, always.
A few paces away, old Hareve whistled intently, spat, and then started to bind a new length of knotted rope, while Bear winked in mischief to his brother on the far side of the mast, and pulled at the other side, raising aloft the great sail. Somewhere high up in the crow’s nest, little Rikah waved his hands in the patterns of a seaman’s code, and his thin boyish voice resounded in laughter upon the wind.
“ Cast off, then, brothers!” Captain Lero cried. “Let’s sail home!”
She grinned, looking at them all. She startled them with the insane fierceness of her smile.
Then she turned, shielding her eyes against an auburn sunset, and walked slowly to take the helm. And only at that one point—only for a moment—the quiet singular emptiness was visible in her eyes.
Beneath them, the ship rolled softly, sweet and ancient.
Her beloved. But no longer unsinkable, no longer eternal. She could taste it now, mortality encroaching, just at the edges.
The Eye of Sun would sink someday now, as surely as her heart beat in her breast. And there was nothing she could do about it but live with the taste of its death just on the tip
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