Chapter 1: FAROCHIN: The Terraformed World

 

Grief-stricken over losing his wife in childbirth, Karydor commands that his son be drowned. Carers choose to hide the new-born instead. The child, when his father realises his terrible mistake, vanishes without a trace.

Ages later, suffering cycles of rebirth to walk in the same time as his son, Karydor discovers the identity of the man his son becomes and, in need of atonement, sets out to ease his path through life, hoping for a future when he will be able to look him in the eye without guilt.

On Farochin, a world where the terraform is about to fail, Karydor, Kristyn, Echayn and Fletcher team up, hoping to save the world from the influences of FARA, the godhood responsible for the failure.

A god, however, is not easily undermined.

A world is not effortlessly rescued.

A father will step into that arena, though, because of the love he bears his son. This is Karydor Danae’s atonement.

 

 

CHAPTER 1

A flag is History’s banner.

~ Adjunct Glestiel of Nolkoth ~

  

Farochin

Thela

City of Therin

SUMMER in Therin this year was milder than usual, according to the locals, and yet sufficiently present to make for uncomfortable sleeping patterns. When the sun rose, Karydor was relieved. The act of trying for rest could now be abandoned. Nightmares plagued him, too; respite was elusive for many reasons.

Dressing swiftly in lightweight linen after splashing tepid water on his face and completing the morning ritual of ablutions, he hastened down the bougainvillea enhanced outer stairs to the cobbled street in search of breakfast. The old man baker on the corner knew his hours; a savoury pastry would be waiting.

It was indeed waiting, steaming on a platter, although the old man was not in sight. He was rarely in sight, preferring not to talk to Karydor - or, more correctly, be seen talking to Karydor.

Karydor snatched it up and, chewing, wandered along the lonely path down to the ocean.

The tide was in, and the wind seemed favourable, which meant ships were able to enter harbour. Sitting on the low sea wall encrusted with dry seaweed, he finished his tartlet while watching masts aplenty vanish south to where the calm deep-water and a berth awaited. The Waymere Sea on Thela’s western coast was still, the sky clear, beckoning travellers to cross the ocean to lands beyond. Few did, according to the tales he overheard while picking olives; most would head north again from here and then east into Natticus Sea instead, the cradle of their civilisation on Farochin.

Inhaling the fresh air before the summer winds dried it to kiln degrees, Karydor simply sat. Today was a rest day; no pressing duties required his attention. Unfortunately, that also meant he could not hide from himself, but this day he intended to remain as serene as the gently lapping waves. Anger and aggression did little to aid the process of recovery, after all.

He knew his name and he knew one date, and that was all. Memory of before was lost when he went overboard a ship much like those now lining up to the south, he was told. No ship’s captain or quartermaster had yet recognised him; either no one wished to know him, or his ship had sailed onward.

He had no recall of going into the ocean, but his clothes revealed him as a seaman, according to the healer he eventually woke up to. They hauled him, waterlogged and near drowned, from the beach after a storm. That was two months ago, and no memory had resurfaced.

Other than a date.

The healer, upon hearing it, looked around in some fright and advised him not to repeat it. The man would not be drawn further, despite repeated prompting even after he discharged his patient. While he was no help regarding information, he did arrange a bedsit for Karydor in the recuperation enclave, as well as work on the olive farms to the east. The labour was intense, but Karydor preferred that to any activity involving the sea.

To the east, behind him, the first yellow rays breached the hilltops and sent tendrils amid the earthy-hued structures that comprised sleepy Therin. Soon the city would awaken, and a buzz would overtake the natural world’s sounds.

Standing, he chose to amble along the shoreline; it afforded the most privacy. He preferred avoiding people or, more correctly, the strange glances they sent his way. He did not look like them. He could not explain it, and no one seemed to have the courage to tell him more. Even the farm labourers avoided him.

Perhaps this morning a ship would put in with someone aboard who knew his face, or at least his kind.

 

Therin Harbour

RIGGING groaned and sails flapped. Barnacled hull bashed against swollen jetty, and sailors everywhere shouted and cursed, laughed and jeered at mates, either engaged in securing ships, offloading merchandise, or smoking together where the quays met dry land.

It was chaos.

Karydor counted sixteen vessels, with six more awaiting entry, and noted wagons begin the descent from the merchant district to the harbour road. Structured chaos would soon become bedlam.

Gritting his teeth to still his instinctive reaction to the noise and frenetic activity - frustration that frequently led to fury - he ambled to the far docks where the larger ships berthed. Those sailors travelled further, and many were from strange ports; perhaps one working them would deign to talk to him.

Moving through crowds of men, who swiftly stepped out of his way, given that he towered over them, he noted a fair few shaven heads showing fuzzy growth, lending their scalps a coppery sheen. No doubt the roll of a ship at sea put an end to grooming, fuzz being preferable to nicks and gashes. He grimaced, watching them watch him; not only was he larger than everyone in Therin, but his dark brown hair flowed to mid-back. He arrived with his tresses attached to his head from the ocean; he refused to shave to bare skull, although the healer had recommended he do so, to fit in, apparently. He lost his temper that day, hearing that.

The locals were placid. He was not. Wherever he hailed from, clearly equanimity was not among his people’s traits. He snorted as he approached a hulking vessel, acknowledging that maybe his temper was out of place even among his own.

The Dromerias had seen better days, but was a strong ship. Isolated at the far point, it summoned him. Perhaps it was the lack of activity that drew him, but more likely was the silence. Admittedly, the two states complemented each other, and yet this silence contained something extra. What that was, he could not fathom; intrigued, he closed in.

Karydor soon squinted up. The absence of movement on deck seemed unnatural. Either the vessel arrived on the night’s tide and had already unloaded, its crew now in port somewhere, or something else kept everyone below. He frowned, noticing the colours snap in the breeze. On a black background, a silver sickle moon cradled an emerald. He shuddered on truly seeing it. He knew that flag. He had no memory of it, but he knew it.

An odd sound pierced the even stranger silence.

The pull of a longbow.

How he knew that, Karydor could not gauge, for the locals generally openly carried daggers only, but again, the knowing was immediate. This was a longbow.

He instantly sidestepped.

An arrow thudded into the planking beside him.

“I suggest you leave,” someone said. A man of some maturity, by his tone.

No, he was not walking away. After two months of nothing, now this? Silence, longbow, the sense of summons? Here was something in the offing, something he did not foresee upon waking earlier, and he would be the fool if he walked away. He wanted answers and those answers might be before him now. That arrow was no more than a warning; the intent had not been to kill. He hoped so, anyway, and took the risk.

“Do you know me?” Karydor asked.

He spoke the language - Faroche - but had questioned whether it was his native tongue. He possessed an inflection no Therin inhabitant had yet revealed.

Instantly a white head of hair craned over the railing above. He had hair. Karydor’s heart stuttered into an uneven rhythm. Hair. Like to his. The man was old, his face lined and weathered, his skin tanned to that of aging wood. Hazel orbs latched onto his.

“I do not know you, but I can tell you are not from these parts.”

Karydor snorted again, aloud this time. “Pretty obvious, I’d say. Seems you are not a local either.”

A cackle erupted. “Did the hair give me away?”

“The bow, too,” Karydor grinned.

“Bring the arrow,” the old man commanded, and shoved at something. A rope ladder swung over the side. “Come aboard.”

Karydor worked the arrow free - a slim head, sharp. Whoever made it had to be a master. He then gripped the nearest rung and clambered up He was not about to deny this opportunity, whatever it might herald. Those answers? He needed them.

FAROCHIN