The Song Guardian

2: The Beginning

Of all those events there is always a beginning, and the beginning lay within his mind, and the mind within that day on the maiden voyage of the Black Ship.

'Where?'

'There,' he pointed.

Frowning, the Master raised the naval glasses to his eyes, turning the brass wheel as he scanned the horizon.

'I tell you, it was there!' The Bosun's Mate said, his curly sweaty hair clinging to his forehead and neck in greasy tendrils.

'There,' he repeated, moving his finger with a certain sense of urgency.

Though he strained his eyes, wondering what on earth it was he was trying to show him, the Master began to doubt the man. It wasn't uncommon for Bosun's mates to neglect their duties in the interest of secretive intoxication at this time of day...

There, something. His glasses swept past, then back again, finding a smudge that wobbled in motion to the combined motion of the vessel and the beating of his heart. A swell had begun to roll in from the South-East, making it difficult to make a steady fix. The glasses were the most powerful ever made, a fitting tribute to the new accomplishment, as long as his arm and the outer glass as wide as the palm of his hand. But they were of little use in an oceanic swell.

He tried to calm himself, focussing on the ... vessel it was, a vessel of sorts. It appeared each time he swept from one side of his angle of vision to the other. He held his breath long enough to see the flutter of banners, the like of which he had never seen, the ends tattered and torn. It was if a pirate of the old age had come alive, a wooden gaff-rigged antique come to life.

'See it?'

The Master was trying to stay still, long gray hair fluttering in the wind.

'See it?' He persisted.

His heart beat in the need for air... and something else, his attention fixed to a place amid-deck. There, in the middle of the unsteady sweep of the glasses. Finally, he turned his own centre-parted locks in the Bosun's Mate's direction with a nod. 'Ring the bell.'

The solitary cry of a seagull brought Danthrey out of revelry, the mists of memory dissipating, becoming circular wall and stone edifice. He looked down at his quill, lying dormant, the tip resting lightly in the ink well. He thought of continuing his chronicle, but knew it was futile, so many pieces missing in the great puzzle. And still his mind rested on the waters of the day, across the remote horizon of long forgotten oceans.

The costume he wore was orderly. A white shirt with pleated sleeves, a golden ring on his little finger bearing the order of his House and a fine pair pair of velour red trousers being his only extravagance.

That his words were the words of future History was lost upon him of course, it taking the workings of a generation to heave into motion the greater events of the future. The fact no one had uttered it's mention, that he had lost his Master's privileges long ago, that all was fifteen years ago. He had been allowed to keep his title, Danthrey being a Master of charts, maps and those words contained within. How many ships exist now? He thought. And to where may they still go?

Danthrey stood up and looked out of his tower window, where in the middle distance the rising smoke from a coastal steamer as it ploughed a gentle course to the minefields in the North. He felt the bitterness of his treatment more clearly then, more than he had ever done before. He remembered the smug expressions on the faces of the Council when they had informed him of the termination of his Master's duties. All because he had asked one question.