Recognition of the self is not a simple thing; our close perspective distorts our view and makes it hard to discern truth from illusion. Often our baser fears and needs skew our perception - that we are flawed is inevitable, but even the best n shy away from confronting their flaws for fear of that intimate and personal disquiet that follows.
To have a soul makes this at once easier and more difficult. It is an abrupt and dramatic change, and the attendant shift in perspective can be enlightening. It can also be a trap, however, as such a shift naturally leads one to consider a division between the prior self and the sum of those changes which we thereafter call the soul.
Lingering overlong on this division is not constructive; the division does not exist. Pour a dram of water into a cup, then later fill it to the brim and ask: where is the dram?
- Leire Gabarain, Annals of the Sixteenth Star, 692.
If his departure had been noticed he saw no sign of it; no alarm was raised at the docks and no ships appeared to chase him down as the harbor receded. Michael rowed until he sat between the two outcrops that defined the islands bay.
A choice pressed itself upon him. East, to Ardalt, or west to the continent. Ardalt was tempting - it was closer, for one, and had the benefit of familiarity. But the Institute had successfully hunted him once before, and given that he had just killed their leader he deed it likely that theyd co after him again.
The continent was foreign to him, wracked with conflict and infighting. It was also where he would find ndian.
He let the boat drift for a few monts, thinking amid the gentle rocking of the waves. Jeorg had seed confident that his friend in ndian could help Michael understand his soul and divine its purpose. Containing Sparks malevolent soul was a different task entirely, but if they could help
He sighed and dipped an oar into the water, pivoting the boat roughly north-west - and then he began to row once more.
It was easy to fall into a rhythm. The seas were relatively calm under the evening sun, with no breeze to speak of. His progress away from the island was worryingly slow, however. Stefan had been right, this boat was not ant for traversing an ocean alone. He had no food, no water, and amid his bouts of unconsciousness and captivity he could not recall when he last partook of either.
But he was free. The island slowly receded into the distance as Michael navigated by setting sun, his back ward by its rays. The remaining water soaked into his clothing beca chill as its light dwindled, and finally sank below the horizon in a purpling smudge. Michael glanced over his shoulder at it and thought of Sparks bruised face; he turned back with a shudder.
Stefans soul kept his muscles fresh, but it was not a panacea. His hands were burning with pain before long, the rough wood of the oar and the fine dust of salt from dried seawater wreaking havoc on his skin. The calluses he had built up chopping wood and working the fields were inadequate to this sort of punishing, repetitive task - and the strangers hand lacked even those. There was a macabre satisfaction in that, and Michael found himself smiling.
He tore strips from his pant legs and wound them around his hands, which helped a bit. The pause in activity brought his attention to another problem, however - he was ravenous. One of his tutors had attempted to instill in him a knowledge of anitrys biological chanisms, of which he had retained little; the subject had seed pointless to a younger, soul-less Michael. It was nevertheless apparent that his exertions were depleting his bodys stores of energy even if his soul kept him feeling rested.
Reluctantly, he slowed his pace. Night fell in slow languor around him. With no light, the ocean beca an endless plain of black below the starry sky - and yet, Michael found he could see rather well. He moved his sight higher over the boat to look down and saw detail rather than vague silhouettes. It was nowhere near bright enough for reading or other intensive activity, but the vision of Benis spector soul was a marked improvent over mundane eyes.
Pleased at the revelation, Michael continued to row under the starry expanse until fatigue of a different sort began to dull his focus. He pulled the oars into the boat, stretched out along the bottom - and slept.
He woke before morning had truly co, the ghostly light of the sun tinting the horizon. Salt crystals glittered from his clothing and dusted from his skin as he pulled the oars into the water and oriented the boat to the west once more.
Through the morning, Michael rowed. The sun was not overly hot, but the lack of water and constant exertion soon had him feeling lightheaded. His heart was beating faster than it should, he was certain. It struck Michael that he might very well die in the crossing, having underestimated the range and ti involved.
There was nothing to do about it but row. Stefans soul was enough to spare him the feeling of exhaustion, at least. Michael had heard stories of runners and couriers endowed with a durens soul that had crossed countries without stopping for sleep or rest - but half of those stories ended with the durens in question dying at the end.
Then again, half were said to have lived. He tried to focus on other things as the heat of the day built. Moving his sight proved to be an entertaining diversion for so ti; he found that he could shift it about three tis the length of the boat in any direction he pleased. In a mont of whimsy he plunged his vision underwater and watched a few little fish swim along in the boats shadow.
Morning stretched into afternoon. The sunlight dimd from overhead as clouds swept across the sky a bit after mid-day; Michael looked up with giddy anticipation while the rainstorm gathered. There was chop in the water, but he did not care; the thought of fresh water was paramount.
When the rain did fall it did so gently, washing away the crusts of salt that had decorated Michaels skin and clothing, soothing the raw skin of his palms. The chill of the wind was welco. He caught water in his hands and gulped it greedily, wrung water from his shirt into his mouth. At the storms height he spread his hands wide and let the rain fall into his open mouth, shouting wordless joy up at the clouds for his slaked thirst.
He resud his journey as the rain tapered off, although he had so concern about his trajectory - amid the chop and the wind he was sure his aim had drifted. Michael had been navigating roughly north-west to this point, hoping to find the ndiko lands at the mouth of the strait. His spectors sight could not pierce the clouds, however.
Michael rowed until nightfall once more. The hunger in his belly had not faded, but it had hardened into sothing less strident than the pangs he had felt the day before. Bouts of lightheadedness had beco more frequent, although he felt much better overall after having had his fill of the rain.
Sleep ca, fitful and dreamless. Michael woke before dawn once more and began to row. No rain ca to relieve his thirst. The sky was cloudless and clear, the sun beating down punishingly over a glassy-calm sea. It made for easy, miserable travel, and though he had no way to truly gauge his efforts Michael thought he was making quite good ti across the interminably vast sea.
That evening, as the sun was sinking low over the waves, Michael heard sothing odd. He frowned and twisted to look, but could see nothing but the sun. So minutes later it happened again, and re seconds after that. He turned again to look and saw clouds obscuring the lower horizon.
Michael grinned and rowed with renewed enthusiasm. He had worried that more rain would not co, and even if this was to be a thunderstorm he would gladly chance it over the prospect of dehydration. He risked glances over his shoulder once more and thought he saw the brief flash of lightning, then the peal of thunder-
But too quickly. He frowned and paused to send his sight up high over the boat, affording him a better view of the horizon. Once again he marveled at the advantages of a spectors soul - though he stared into the setting sun, there was no pain or fear of injury from the act. His vision sharpened on the haze, and on a few odd objects at its base.
Light and smoke blossod from the side, followed seconds later by a booming report. Further off, at the limit of his vision, a smaller pinpoint of light blood with fiery warmth. For a bare second the scale of it swam in Michaels mind, and then it clicked.
Warships, shelling the coast.
The elation at finally having sighted land was tempered by the looming bulk of the ships. He could make out so of the details now that he knew what they were - the smokestacks and plus from their boilers, the squat protrusion of the gun batteries. Further inspection eluded him, however - the ships had been painted in a wild chaos of contrasting lines and angles that rendered their shapes hard to discern.
He paused to consider his situation. Rowing through the battle was obviously a bad idea, and that there was a battle at all ant that he had co in south of his planned route - sowhere along the Daressan coast. He could not tell from this distance whether the ships were Safid or Ardan, which would have given a further clue as to his position.
Michael turned the boat to the north and began to row at a diagonal to the shore, ensuring that his course took him nowhere near the fracas thundering away in the distance. Regardless of the allegiance of the boats, he was sure they would not look kindly on an unknown sailor intruding into their waters.
The shelling had dropped into a regular rhythm, he noticed. Not a fight, but a bombardnt of sothing on the shore. The waning daylight was too poor to permit much detail at this distance, the coastline still a barely-visible shadow on the far horizon.
Night fell and the guns continued unabated. Their booming regularity seed to Michael like a great heartbeat tolling over the sea. Then, at once, it stopped. Michael frowned and paused in his rowing, and in the silence he heard another faint noise - an angry sort of humming. He peered to the utmost limits of his sight at the ships, but it was too dark to see much.
A blossom of fire appeared amid one of the ships, then another. In the light from the explosion he saw the dot of an aircraft - a biplane, banking low over the ship. Another followed, then a group. Scattered explosions from the bombings rippled through the fleet, chased by the faintest chatter of small-caliber weapons.
The ships were not defenseless against the assault. Aircraft straying too close to the ships were sent tumbling down in pieces, their wings falling away as scalptors from aboard cut at them. Michael thought of the keen edge of his fathers soul and shuddered; the light tal of the aircraft was no match for that sort of power.
What eventually drove the assault away, however, was a searing beam of light that sprang forth from the citadel of the largest ship. The naval forces had a lucigens of rare talent, Michael realized - the light speared through one aircraft, then a second before the remainder of the squadron disappeared into nebulous Ember-clouds of darkness and fled.
Michael was left transfixed as the fires on the ships dwindled and the guns resud their assault. The fight had been brief and spectacular, a frenzied clash of weapons and souls that had - well. That had undoubtedly left many dead. He felt a pang of guilt at his excitent.
But despite such death he had not been affected. Was it that he had not reflected on the death as it occurred, or was it the distance involved? He pondered for a mont before concluding that it was not a question he ever wanted to answer. In the deepening night, to the cadence of pounding guns, Michael set the bow of the ship towards the distant coast and continued on.
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