His brow is sweaty from the effort. I fight the urge to reach out and wipe it away. “How much farther?” he asks.
The relic’s light intensifies. “Keep going,” I tell him.
Still, even with an Ophir ancestral spirit guiding us, I’m worried. The sea is hazardous, its mood unpredictable, and we have nothing but an aged fishing boat. No food, no fresh drinking water. Even if we’re headed the right way, we can’t possibly survive many days of this. If nothing else we’ll die of thirst. And what happens when the sun comes out and bakes us beneath its relentless rays, without any type of shelter?
I can tell Eban is thinking the same.
“There’s no going back now, anyway,” I add. He can’t deny that truth, either. We both know there’s no point in complaining or worrying.
We’ll arrive when we arrive, Tadhana sings.
I gaze into the bottle, eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?” But Tadhana gives no answer.
We continue on, silently, for a while, until I give in and slide to the floor of the boat. I try to find a comfortable position by resting my head on one arm over the bench seat in the middle of the vessel. It doesn’t quite work, but it has to be good enough, if only to rest my eyes for a bit. Despite the anticipation of the journey, and the promise of reaching the Lashing, my body is giving in to exhaustion. “Are you all right?” I ask Eban.
“Perfectly fine,” he answers, slightly out of breath. It’s getting to him, too, even if he won’t admit it. “You rest. I’ll keep going,” he says. The oars aren’t moving as quickly as they were before.
“But when will you rest?” I mumble. My eyes are heavy. I will them to stay open, but it’s as if they’re weighed down.
All at once, I fall asleep, the relic clasped in one hand on my lap.
In what feels like mere moments, my eyes pop open. The sky is maroon and orange above deep green, rippled water. Eban stands, one hand at his forehead, gazing at something in the distance. I fumble around for the relic, finding it still nestled in my lap, glowing brighter than ever before. “What’s happening?” I ask. I wipe some drool from my cheek with my sleeve, quickly, so he won’t notice.
“I think we’re here,” Eban says.
Yes we are!pipes up Tadhana from within her bottle.
I hoist myself up. I ignore the ache in my neck and arm and try to shake off the sleep from the foot that was folded beneath me for hours. “Where? I don’t see it.” I scan the horizon for the shimmering towers of the Lashing. All I see is blue and more blue, water against sky, with almost no separation between.
“There, I think.” Eban points straight north.
I search in that direction. Then I see something moving in the distance. “That’s not it.” It isn’t clear, but it looks like a pod of whales, maybe even dolphins. “That’s just…” A figure comes into focus, then another. The unmistakable shape of a man stands above what I’d mistaken for sea animals.
The stories Eban heard are accurate, then. The Lashing is a community of rafts and elaborate tent shelters. Enormous rafts, yes, and much sturdier than any I’d ever seen, but a far cry from the utopia I’d secretly hoped for. It’s not so much a city but a collection of floating docks. Its residents, even if they are fellow Ophir, also don’t appear to be friendly. “Are they…” The people standing along the edges of the rafts appear to be lifting up weapons. Something flies through the air and hits the water. Arrows.
“Duck,” Eban shouts as he drops.
I slam down on the rough floor of the boat and yell at Tadhana.They’re attacking us! Why did you bring us here? Are you trying to kill us?
Keep going, Tadhana insists.Keep heading toward it! You’re almost there!
The sound of the warriors shouting warnings carries across the water.
Eban moves beside me. “We have to turn around, unless we can signal that we aren’t Lacon.”
No! Don’t turn around. Continue.
“Tadhana says we should keep going,” I tell him, even as we can make out what they’re yelling now. “Death to Lacon!” “Approach at risk of certain death!”
Stay the course!
“Tadhana says we can’t turn back.”
Eban nods. “Of course not. But we need to let them know we’re here in peace. We’re Ophir.” Except with the way the arrows are falling, we’ll be riddled with holes before we get the chance. “We just have to show them we’re not a threat,” he says.
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know.” He’s still steering the boat toward the nearest floating dock, while dodging arrows.
