THE BOATSMAN (Draft)

The countryman's tale (continued)

We Chased disbelief away from our spirits during our journey towards the mass of risen rock written of in speculative tones, our ship sailing without rest for a total of twenty three and a half days of unhampered and swift motion; our predictions accurately foretold the oceans shifting temperament and the winds behind our sail amongst the more so agitated weather conditions. During the last half day of our Journey, we entered into Thogrid's trapping, our arrival met by the colour of the sky deteriorating from a listless blue to a singed yellow laced with a trailing waxy red. The motionless wind held our ship back to no more than a sluggish drift, where the stale air that settled on deck shrunk our planks and made each breath thick and troublesome; Yet, we did not allow ourselves to break or show any greater degrees of doubt. My forehead became beaded with a film of sweat in only seconds, so I chose to hang my coat upon the rightmost banister in order to free up my sluggish movement.
After the passing of many dragging hours with no such sights to mark our progress, a thin film of mist simmered from the water which in time, rose and expanded, swirling to our feet; I would like to think that through observing the stiff, cautious faces possessed by my ship-mates, this occurrence presented a challenge to our nerves, but did not destroy our spirits. It was soon after, that I sighted violent crags of angled rock pierce from the sea from either side, followed by the appearance of that terrible craggy island erupted from the abyssal depths of the sea floor at the far corner of my sight. We maneuvered with great caution towards the island, where despite the savage terrain hidden by both sea and fog, we landed without so much as a puncture to our reinforced hull.
While our Journey and subsequent venture onto the nameless rock had been marked by no peril or greater worries, it would seem that all too soon our optimism failed to divert us away from the brink of annihilation; where I speculate that our landing and subsequent actions upon that wretched place only served to aggravate spirits of tradition that slumbered beneath the very stone we trod. For what I can grimly assume to be the truth of our misfortune, not one of my crewmates left that blasted rock in good shape, where I am the only one to remain barely alive, having made my escape alone on the remains of our ship having become battered.
While I do not wish to detail the surrounding events that led to such loss with too greater detail, I should note that following our scavenging of the lands secrets and the tragedy that followed, the population of our makeshift camp had been cast into forms of mineral and stone, preserved in natural poses that retell the last moments of a cursed man. I became aware of the terrible fate of those men and women (many of whom I considered myself close during times that were easier for us all) following my hurried rush back to the camp with word of warning in response to the growing tremors that rocked the ground beneath my feet; at this time, I took watch for our expedition by patrolling the higher ground that surrounding the deep basin that we had established as base. What I saw truly shocked me, but the urgency gave no such time to grieve against the unknown horror I found myself surrounded by.
As I arrived to the first line of tents with the shakes building underfoot, I frantically hurried between petrified figures and ragged structures, where I could not help but glimpse at the solidified faces of my peers through the pressure of disbelief; I suppose that it is fortunate that I did not recognize any expression of pain marked upon the rigid corpses, so perhaps such a cruel transformation came instantaneous and struck without suffering. The trembling rock became patterned with a stretching fissure, dispersing in unpredictable patterns that dissected the rock into many sections. I felt my footing heave as the rock below me prised upwards through the pressure of the pursuing water, coiling from between the cracks.
I knew that at this point, we were no longer welcomed upon this land, and those survivors among us, must flee. Stumbling as the fragments of ground tipped, I rushed to the central tent in order to salvage the efforts of our attempts of harvesting the rich but fickle veins we had succeeded in uncovering from deep beneath. My search for that which I sought did not take long, as it had been kept in plain view on a long table among other exotic curiosities. As I fled with great speed, the water began to emerge in vertical frothing torrents from the expanding chasms; clambering upwards and away from the bowl like formation, I shuddered in response to the sound of waves lapping against the ragged furnishing of our camp, and the husk like frames formed from those I once knew, consuming indiscriminately.
I clambered aboard the ship that struggled against an ocean worked into a frenzy of viscous crests, claiming my jacket from the banister and placing it upon myself in an agitated hurry. All too soon, as I struggled to single-handedly undo the multiple means keeping the rocking boat firmly docked, the vessel ruptured from below, hurtling me away from the land on a splintered mass of wood and steel at the mercy of the rampant ocean.

At this point in my tale, while it may seem that our voyage had left nothing but a legacy of drowned hopes to be plucked from the broken remains, I do not feel a great amount of shame following from a sense of complete failure to scavenge the miraculous island and return home triumphant. I would like to think that somewhere upon this shore, that pot we bought from the island, which I clung to during my days adrift, has become washed up, similar to myself. When I fled the island to the falsely assumed safety of the ship, I retrieved a small lidded pot from our base camp. The appearance of this object was worn, coated with chipped enamel the colour of a fading rose, with a flat uneven lid bound by a sealant of freshly applied tar. It was inside this pot, that our efforts were kept in the form of a small supply of that wonderous ore pulled from the island, ground to an uneven consistency; even to the best of our efforts, We faced immense difficulty in salvaging the smallest quantity of this ore due to the fragile nature of our operation. In an effort to secure our efforts, I bound the pot against my deflated stomach with a coil of rope turned stale through exposure to the motionless, heat gorged air within Thogrid's trapping.
Through recollection with such effort rings the center of my skull, I manage to recall the events that lead me to the present as I struggle to regain my reserves of strength. My motivation is fuelled by hopes that the remnant bought from the island survives intact, and so I may yet return home with a cure to that plague that traps the mind under great depths, where leaving the body intact.
Afloat for so many days on a decimated ship, I eventually sighted the shore that I lay upon now, its appearance no more a strip of thin silver balanced at the far corner of the horizon. On sight of such, I felt a wave of relief, the sensation working my being into a sense of weightlessness. I stretched my body thin upon the makeshift raft, and began to paddle with the cups of my hands, leaving my feet to kick in a frenzied pattern.
While my body felt frail with its sources of energy baked through exposure to the beaming sun, my vitality once more boasted the strength of a complete man. Despite my inefficient movements, I shifted closer and closer to the apparent land I had set sights upon, but as I did, so drew closer the great wall of clouds looming overhead. The sky became swamped by great grey heaps, and the motions of the water's surface stirred with agitation. Very soon, waves formed from below, slowing my progress and propelling my mock raft over humps both wide and tall. The worsening of the weather came to a terrible conclusion, where against my efforts, the strength carried by the storm tore my transport into many pieces. First, the wood wrenched downwards to be lodged against a vast trench, and then, in spite of my strokes against such powerful force, I was pulled under, great breaths of salt-water weighting down each lung.