Blankmap: Book I

18. A Welcome Sight

The whales had finally swum away, leaving the battered Petrichor to drift lazily with the waves as it came closer and closer to the white sand beaches of the islands. They had been remarkably silent throughout the errand of pushing the ship to safety. It was as though the death of their leader was too great a sadness even to render in song.

Solomon saw heads breaching the surface of the water, a fine mist spraying from their noses and mouths. He had seen this same behavior from the whales. From a distance he imagined these creatures to be much the same. His father had joined Solomon at the deck's railing, and the boy was surprised to see the ghost of a smile playing its way across his father's face as Jacques looked back at him.

"What are they, father? More whales?"

Jacques was grinning now, a full and lovely smile that unnerved Solomon despite the joy it brought him. His father's teeth gleamed in the morning sun, and it dawned on the boy that he had never seen the older man so much as smirk. When Jacques was kind, he was kind with his eyes; his mouth never wavered from its stone-set pose. His rare grin gave the boy hope, though he knew not for what, and he forgot his question for a moment as he basked in the first true sign of happiness his father had ever showed him.

"Wait," said Jacques. "You'll see soon enough." The smile had yet to leave his face. How strange it was, Solomon thought, that the first real smile he had ever seen his father wear could come so soon after the death of the Irooj. 

As the ship trundled on, nearer and nearer to the island's mooring, Solomon found it difficult to keep his eyes on anything else. He stretched his neck out as he leaned over the edge of the deck, enjoying the feeling of being perfectly and precariously balanced as the ship hummed along on the ice-blue waves. He gasped audibly as they drew near enough to see the beasts for what they truly were. Their proud heads crested the waves and flecked sea foam dripped from their snouts. 

"We call that beast 'hippocampus'," said Jacques, "the water-horse. Though the ri-Marij call them the Lodrik. They tame the beasts and ride them when it's a short journey or they need to go fast. Can't really keep a pod of whales in shallow water, can they? When I was a bit older than you, in my twentieth summer, I came to Marij for the first time. I learned to love the hippocampi, and to ride them. We don't have months to linger here, as I did then, but perhaps someone will deign to take you on a kalodrik."

"A kalodrik?" asked Solomon.

"Ahh, forgive me. I forget myself already, being back in this place. Kalodrik means a hippocampus ride, in the Marij language. In my day I couldn't ride them nearly as well as the ri-Marij do, but I suspect you might be able to. Time will tell. Now, come down off that rail. There's plenty of work to be done and we might as well put that height of yours to use."

The words sounded like a chastisement, but Jacques' eyes were still smiling as he turned away from his son and headed below to gather his things. Solomon, for his part, allowed his gaze to linger a moment longer on the magnificent creatures sounding in the waves below the great ship. Before long his strange life would lead him to see all manner of fantastic and unbelievable beasts, but for the rest of his days he would remember his first glimpse of the enormous horse-fronted, fish-tailed Lodrik, with clinging manes like seaweed and blazing eyes of sapphire. They burned the pain of his great offense from his mind, and, for a time, he forgot all about the immense pit of loss he bore within him. 

                         .                              .                              .                              .

They offloaded the Petrichor in the windward lagoon of the island. This made it exceedingly labor-intensive for the ri-Marij to paddle out in their small boats to take cargo from the ship, but they had no trouble ferrying their loads to shore with the breeze at their backs. Solomon made himself useful carrying up crates from below deck as the men hurried about, calling to each other in their language. For more than an hour all was chaos on the ship as she weighed anchor and was emptied of all her supplies.