The Key to Chaos: A Novel

The Key to Chaos

"I'm done being afraid," I told myself. I stared down at the white water rushing past my eyes below the cliff, but I did not see it. I saw a boy, seventeen years old standing on the same cliffside, many years ago. The trees were not green then, but the red and yellow of autumn. Each leaf was like a little sunset, each tree just a trick of the light. They glistened like evening, shining brighter than the stars that would soon fill the sky. And when they did come they bathed the forest in sterling light, causing all the silver under the earth to rise up and fill the air. Darkness was everywhere, and yet the whole world was shining.

And still into the grey light of evening the boy stood there, his eyes transfixed on the water below. "Come on so, you can do this," said a tired man who I once knew, long ago. The shivering boy with my name and my face looked at him with disbelief. He knew this was the custom of the village, for boys to come of age by diving off the ledge into the river. He knew that almost all survived unscathed and he knew that if he didn't jump he would be scorned by his family and everyone he'd ever known. And still he was more afraid of jumping.

Ten years later, an older boy with the same name and the same face stood on the same ledge. And he was also afraid. But not of jumping. No, he was ready to jump. I thought back to the situations that had brought me here, how my fear had driven me so far away and yet I was still the same terrified child that couldn't jump.

...

I woke before the sun and spent the early hours before dawn along the shoreline, looking out at the waves that crashed against the sand. With time, as the ocean changed from black to blue the city began to stir from its slumber, growing louder as the sun rose higher and brighter in the pale blue sky.

I walked back over the footprints I had left behind, trailing back to the eastern gate. On my way I passed through the harbor, which was stretching it's long wooden arms and yawning. A ship, a sleek, young caravel, had just docked, and one of its passengers was arguing with the harbormaster.

He was a dark man, of bronze-like complexion, who stood with the manner of someone not quite sure of his place in the world. When he spoke it was like warm milk spilling from his lips, fluid and pure like the foam of the sea. This was a great contrast to the harbormaster, a squat little man who was always red in the face, whether he was angry or not (though chances were that he was). His arms seemed to be stuck together, crossed over his chest like armor, resting on his round belly.