“Oh, yes, of course. This is Cliaparia, only daughter of Soldan Andouk in Yuarej.” Imir lowered his voice to a conspiratorial
whisper. “I’ve owed him a favor for a long time.”
Cliaparia extended her hands to her sides and slowly pirouetted so that her silken garments fluttered about her like butterfly
wings.
“See—she is intelligent. She is beautiful. She is talented in music. And most of all, she wants to please you. What more could
a man want?”
“Indeed,” Omra said, feeling nothing. “What more could a man want?”
Taking that as acceptance, the soldan-shah clapped his hands again, and a sikara rushed in. “Good, we can marry you right
now.” He seemed afraid Omra would change his mind. “Later, we will announce a joyous reception. The people will be happy for
some cause to celebrate after all the recent dire news.”
Omra remembered everything he had been taught, the purpose behind all his training, and he saw how he had withdrawn from the
world. In his mind, he could imagine Istar scolding him for allowing his sorrow to weaken Uraba. He could not do that. “As
you command, Father.”
The sikara held a gilded scroll containing passages from Urec’s Log along with the wedding ritual. Soldan-Shah Imir stood
proudly next to Omra and pulled Cliaparia closer to his son. “Let’s have this over with, so we can get on with our work.”
Even in his blackest pain-filled dreams, Hannes was surrounded by fire. He lay in delirium, wrapped in ointment-soaked bandages
that felt like chains. His skin burned, his eyes burned, his lungs burned. He was lost in the depths of nightmares and memories.
But he found no refuge in his past; he was trapped there, as well.
He’d been a young boy when his mother abandoned him. She hadn’t particularly cared for Hannes and had despised his father,
a man named Bartho, who was quick to anger but slow to consider consequences. Hannes remembered little about his mother except
for her shrill voice, her tears, and how often she had struck him (usually after Bartho had beaten her). When she was no longer
around, Bartho simply turned to Hannes as the next convenient target.
The man’s attitude toward his son was not so much hatred as indifference. Bartho was not the type to think even two days into
the future; he did not plan how he might better his situation, how he might find another wife who could raise Hannes or even
bring in more food or income. Bartho lived each day and complained about each day, letting himself drift like a rudderless
boat rather than trying to steer away from jagged rocks.
In their small dockside home in the Butchers’ District of Calay, the wind from the tanneries brought a constant stench and
the sounds of terrified livestock being slaughtered. Hannes and his father rarely had enough money for food, yet Bartho could
always afford a jug of grain beer or occasionally something stronger. Fortunately, when he drank, Bartho did not become more
violent, simply more lethargic. When the man finally fell asleep grumbling, Hannes could slip out of the house and make his
way through the streets.
After one particularly severe beating, the boy had run away, vowing never to return. He’d done the same thing several times
previously, but always came crawling back a few days later. Bartho never seemed to notice that he’d been gone. This time,
though, instead of trying to beg for scraps from the food vendor stalls or earn a few coins mucking out the offal trenches
at the slaughterhouse or using buckets to splash away the blood on the ground, Hannes took refuge in an Aidenist kirk.
He had always found the architecture to be graceful and beautiful, the pictures intriguing: proud Aiden on his Arkship with
his crew, the first landing at Ishalem, even a painting of the mysterious old Traveler, who was Aiden in his later years wandering
the world. As a dirty young boy, unlettered and quiet, Hannes sat in the back of the kirk and listened to the presters.
One compassionate young prester named Baine noticed Hannes and took him under his wing. Prester Baine taught the boy how to
read by using the Scriptures, and also taught Hannes how to pray. During prayers, the boy silently cast his words out, hoping
Ondun would hear him from where He had gone to create other worlds… or he prayed to the spirit of Aiden, who might still be
alive, wandering as the Traveler. Prester Baine did not know what the boy prayed
for:
With his eyes screwed shut and lips moving faintly to the words that he shouted inside his head, Hannes had prayed for revenge,
begging for something terrible to happen to his father.
One day his prayers were answered. A bull about to be slaughtered broke loose from its handlers and gored Bartho, ripping
open his stomach. Men in the Butchers’ District added gruesome details as they told and retold the story, how Bartho had stared
down at his intestines spilling out of the gash, trying to hold them in place, the other animals going wild, already terrified
from the smell of death around them. Bartho had tripped on his own entrails, and the animals had trampled him. According to
one story, Bartho’s body had been so broken and mangled that one of the disreputable butchers threw it into a rendering bin,
where the man had later been made into tallow.
Certain that Ondun had performed a miracle, Hannes gave his life to the church from that day forward. He declared to Prester
Baine that he wanted to be a prester and showed a strong devotion to the rituals and sacraments. He read the entire Book of
Aiden, and studied the many stories of the Traveler. Then he read the Book of Aiden again. And again.
Once Hannes was formally ordained in the Aidenist church, Prester Baine took him aside. “I have a great plan for you, Hannes.
This is an assignment that I would trust to few others.”
“I will do my best.” Hannes did not even ask for details. “I swear on my life, for the memory of Aiden and the glory of Ondun,
that I will do as you ask.”
Baine handed him a copy of Urec’s Log, and Hannes jerked his fingers back, as if the volume contained pestilence. “Do you
want me to burn this? It is blasphemy.”
“It is
information,
” Baine corrected. “I don’t want you to burn it. I want you to
read
it. Study it.”
“No!”
Baine looked angry. “Did you not just swear that you would do as I asked? Did you not vow before Ondun?”
Hannes flushed, ashamed that he had been so quick to break his oath. “Perhaps… if you explained to me why.”
“Is your vow conditional upon my reasons?” Baine had often challenged him with such conundrums.
“I will obey. You have my promise.” Hannes drew a ragged breath. “But will I not be damned forever if I read this?”
Now Baine smiled. “Though these may be lies, you will not be tainted, so long as you don’t believe what you read. Think of
it as
strategy
. Know your enemy, so that you can see weaknesses, since the enemy is too blind to see his own flaws. Learn from Urec’s Log.
Tell me what you find in these writings.” The redheaded prester smiled, tapping the cover of the thick book. “This should
strengthen your faith, not challenge it.”
And Hannes did exactly as he swore to do. He learned the Uraban language. He read Urec’s Log with a scornful and skeptical
eye. He noted so many errors and contradictions in the passages that he found the whole book laughable. How could the ignorant
fools in the Urecari church believe such nonsense? They must either be gullible or stupid.
Years later, when Baine was elected prester-marshall of the Aidenist church, he had secretly dispatched Hannes to Ishalem.
Hannes at first considered this his reward, the most important posting in the church. But rather than becoming the prester
assigned to the central kirk in the shadow of the holy Arkship, he was told to live among the Urecari, to disguise himself,
to learn their ways, and to watch them.
“Consider yourself a spy for God,” said Prester-Marshall Baine. “Your discoveries will be vital to the church of Aiden.”
And Hannes did, letting himself be swallowed up in their foreign culture. He spoke their language with barely an accent. Since
Ishalem had many pilgrims from all the scattered soldanates of Uraba, no one gave him a second glance…
Thrashing now in his delirious dreams, the languages combined in confusion. He dreamed of the fire in the church, and he remembered
grasping the sacred amulet—what had happened to it? Like a punishment from Ondun, he felt the flames pour over him, smelled
the stinking canal whose waters had provided little relief.
And now, as he thrashed, passing in and out of consciousness, he babbled hateful memorized verses from Urec’s Log. As if from
a great distance, he felt people tending him. He heard a woman’s voice, speaking Uraban. Trying to escape his dreams, Hannes
struggled toward consciousness, but he awakened only to pain.
So he released himself and plunged back into darkness.
Now that he had been accepted as a chartsman, Aldo was eager to see the world. He dreamed of visiting exotic places, of voyaging
farther than anyone else so he could add details to the Mappa Mundi—
accurate
details, unlike the embarrassing map he had bought from Yal Dolicar.
He knew the mathematics of navigation and how to recognize the stars in every known constellation. He understood the currents
in the Oceansea and the prevailing winds from the frozen seas of the far north down to the isthmus of Ishalem and all the
way past far Lahjar, where the heat and reefs blocked further passage.
A chartsman could tell his captain to set a course in a seemingly nonsensical direction until the ship caught a swift current
or encountered favorable winds; a chartsman could guide them safely away from reefs or shoals, maelstroms, or doldrums. Saedrans
allowed none of their maps to be published or disseminated outside of their own people, and only the most foolhardy or overconfident
captains would sail far from the coastline without a chartsman.
As part of Aldo’s education, he had studied the numerous tales of the Traveler, descriptions of journeys made by a nearly
immortal man. The Aidenists said that the Traveler was Aiden himself, who had struck out on his own to explore unknown lands
after establishing himself in Tierra. For their own part, the Urabans claimed that
Urec
was the Traveler. Rumored sightings of the Traveler had continued from one generation to the next, and villagers always gave
hospitality to wandering hermits, treating them kindly because any one of them might be the Traveler himself.
According to tradition, the Traveler kept notes about the places he’d been and things he’d seen, and whenever he filled a
volume of writings, the old man gave it to the first person he encountered. Thousands of these logbooks had appeared in villages
and Aidenist kirks across Tierra.
Looking at the documents objectively, Aldo could see that the handwriting varied wildly from volume to volume, and it seemed
clear to him that most of the books were hoaxes written by tricksters—like Yal Dolicar, he supposed—but perhaps some of them
were true. Regardless, the descriptions of distant lands were vivid and detailed, and might contain accurate information.
Until verified, however, the data could not be permanently painted into the Saedran Mappa Mundi.
While Aldo pored over the written tales in his continuing daily studies, Sen Leo entered the temple vault and was pleased
to find the young man so diligently working. “The
Luminara
is about to sail, and we have chosen our chartsman to join the expedition.”
Aldo’s heart leaped as a giddy yet unrealistic hope ran through his head. What if, despite his youth and inexperience, he
had been selected to voyage to those lands unknown, to accompany Captain Shay and crew, far out on the Oceansea?
“Sen Nikol na-Fenda is gathering his materials even now.”
Aldo was crestfallen, though he tried not to show it.
“Sen Nikol is a very knowledgeable and talented chartsman. He is also objective, and his observations will be accurate. The
Mappa Mundi requires accuracy above all things. When the
Luminara
returns in a year, our mission might be complete.” Sen Leo sounded like an excited boy; he had spent his entire life dreaming
about the expansion of knowledge. “We may finally possess a map of the whole world.”
“Someday I hope to see it with my own eyes,” Aldo said.
Sen Leo pulled out several thick volumes from the temple’s bookshelves, setting them down with a heavy thump on the table.
“That is what we all hope—but you have more studying to do before we can turn you loose on the world.” He tapped the hard
leather cover of another log of the Traveler. “You must learn what we already know before you dream of discovering something
new.”
After the
Luminara
was fully rigged and loaded, Criston Vora stood on the dock in Shipbuilders’ Bay, not quite ready to board. Crowds had gathered
for the launch of the magnificent three-masted carrack. Criston saw King Korastine himself standing with Princess Anjine and
Prester-Marshall Baine, who had blessed the ship and its historic quest.
Jerard, the bearded old ship’s prester assigned to the
Luminara
had come aboard after the dawn services, bearing his holy books, sacramental vestments, and relics. Behind him came an intense
man about thirty years of age, who hurried past them and up the gangplank to the deck. He had short dark brown hair and was
clad in Saedran clothing; he carried several intricate and ornate navigational instruments in his arms, refusing to let a
porter bear them.
Criston drank in the noises of the city, the smells of people, the play of boats in the numerous bays—but he was focused on
Adrea. His fellow crewmen hurried up the boarding ramp with bundles of clothes to last them during the year-long voyage.
With his back to the ship, he held Adrea, not wanting to let go, his arms wrapped around her like anchor ropes. “I’ll think
of you every day. I will write letters to you.”