The burly destrar seemed surprised, but satisfied. “You see clearly, Sire, and you speak wisely.”
They watched the funeral ship, now entirely aflame, its black sails consumed, the masts transformed into giant torches. The
ship drifted west, toward the endless watery horizon.
Korastine stroked the lustrous painted icon of Holy Joron and gazed at the shimmering illuminated eyes of the saintly man.
He whispered, as if Ilrida could hear him, “I hope you find Holy Joron and the land of Terravitae, my love.” They watched
the plume of smoke as the burning ship shrank into the distance.
Then the pilot heeled the cog about, and they sailed back to Calay.
Black pennants and banners hung all around the castle for the declared time of mourning, and King Korastine withdrew to his
chambers. But Sen Leo was quite insistent.
Always before, the Saedran scholar had been allowed to see the king, but the royal guards were reluctant to disturb the grieving
Korastine. Sen Leo stood outside in the corridor, his arms wrapped around a roughly woven sack large enough to hold a thick
pillow. The sack was tied shut, showing only hints of the mysterious object within. “Tell King Korastine that I have found
hope
.”
One of the guards retreated into the royal bedchambers and eventually returned, signaling for Sen Leo. Gathering himself,
the Saedran scholar entered the room and stood before the king, who slumped in one of his high-backed chairs like a discarded
suit of clothes.
Sen Leo and the king had held many long discussions in this room, exchanging ideas on politics and history, contemplating
the war. Now the scholar took a seat opposite him, holding the sack in his lap. “Majesty, I have something very interesting
here.”
The king sounded incredibly weary as he regarded his visitor. “There are few things I find interesting these days, old friend.”
“Nevertheless, you will want to see it.” Sen Leo toyed with the string that tied the sack shut and slowly worked the knot
loose. With great care, he spread apart the opening and slid out a dome-shaped object flecked with bits of dry seaweed. It
was an old sea turtle shell, weathered and notched.
When King Korastine showed little excitement, the Saedran scholar reverently turned the shell to display its underside, where
many lines had been carefully engraved, coastlines etched, notations made.
“There is a map etched on this shell.” Sen Leo ran his finger along the lines, touching some of the blurred sections. “Look,
Sire—much has been worn away or covered over with algae, but see these islands, this coastline, the details of these reefs?
Believe me when I tell you, Majesty, this is an
accurate
representation of what we know, including obscure details that only Saedran chartsmen know.”
Korastine leaned forward, not grasping the significance. “So someone drew a map on a turtle shell…”
Sen Leo slid his hand to the far side of the engraved map where, well beyond any familiar points on the coastline of Tierra,
was marked another whole continent on the far side of the world. He lowered his voice with a genuine sense of wonder. “This,
Majesty… this is
Terravitae
.”
Korastine straightened with sudden interest. “The land of Holy Joron?”
“This map is clear evidence—or at least a very convincing argument—that the realm of Holy Joron is real.”
“We already sent out the
Luminara
.” Korastine sagged back a bit. “It was lost at sea. I received a letter, long ago, but no one ever found the man who wrote
it. Still, we know from the sympathetic ship model and from the letter that the ship was destroyed…”
“Majesty, it is a sad fact, but many ships are lost at sea, especially those that embark on dangerous missions. Does that
mean we should give up entirely? Years ago, Prester-Marshall Baine and I convinced you that Ondun wants his people to study
the unknown parts of the world. Now, with this map”—he thumped a finger on the hard shell—“we have a much better chance of
finding the lost continent from which we all came.”
The second foreign visitor who stayed with Sen Sherufa na-Oa proved to be stranger and far less comprehensible than Aldo had
ever been. Five years ago, the young Saedran chartsman had vastly increased Sherufa’s knowledge about the world, and for that
she would always be grateful.
The new exotic stranger posed an entirely different sort of challenge. Unlike Aldo, this man shared no language, culture,
or common experiences with her. He was said to have crossed the Great Desert from unexplored lands beyond and collapsed in
the foothills of Missinia. Sherufa didn’t know how she could believe that preposterous claim.
In the Olabar palace, the man had recovered from his mysterious ordeal. Sikaras prayed over him and performed the Sacraments,
but he clearly didn’t understand what was happening. A man so entirely unfamiliar with Urec’s Log was an amazing novelty to
the priestesses. Imir had suggested Sherufa to Soldan-Shah Omra, and as soon as the stranger was healthy, Omra sent him to
the home of the Saedran woman, who began trying to communicate with him.
He was a large, muscular man, albeit not threatening, and seemed genuinely interested in learning the Uraban language. The
man identified himself as Asaddan, but he was impatient because he didn’t have enough vocabulary to describe for Sherufa the
things he’d experienced, the places he’d seen.
He had a wide, flat face and tanned, weathered skin, as if he had stared into blowing winds all his life. When he smiled,
a prominent gap showed where one of his front teeth had been knocked out. His hair was a dark, thick black and plaited with
thin leather strands into clumps that seemed to have some kind of significance for him. His original clothes had been tattered
by his journey, and his new Uraban garments looked odd on him.
For days, her neighbors stopped by to see the curious stranger, and when Asaddan saw that he frightened the children who came
to see him, he released a loud storm of laughter and lured them back. Sherufa insisted to the wide-eyed boys and girls that
the stranger wasn’t
really
an ogre from the deep desert, but her tone sparked their imaginations. Asaddan then fascinated them by whistling through
the wide gap from his missing front tooth. A young boy who had also lost a front tooth spent hours trying to emulate the sound.
Sherufa devoted every waking moment to teaching her visitor to speak Uraban, working the lessons into the tasks of daily life.
Occasionally, Asaddan grew frustrated and lashed out in his own tongue sprinkled with new words, resulting in a mix that made
no sense at all. As the weeks went on and the two began to understand each other better, the pieces started to fit together
for Sherufa. Asaddan learned to convey increasingly complex concepts. When he couldn’t express himself well enough, he snatched
a piece of paper and drew a line to mark the Middlesea, then circled Olabar. He drew his finger vaguely down in the direction
of Missinia and made another mark. Then he sketched squiggly lines that Sherufa realized were meant to represent sand dunes.
“The Great Desert,” she said.
“Desert,” Asaddan agreed. He drew more lines to symbolize dunes that extended southward in a seemingly endless expanse. But
on the other side of the wasteland he drew hills, marked villages and more villages. He sketched strange animals that must
have been herd beasts.
Sherufa couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “There are no habitable lands beyond the Great Desert.” He merely grunted. Near
the bottom of the paper and far from the desert, Asaddan added a line meant to signify a southern coast. A new coast. An entirely
new sea.
The very idea rocked Sherufa’s concept of the world. The Great Desert was an endless and unbroken barrier of sand, the edge
of the world, a barrier beyond which no one could go. According to Asaddan, though, the arid wasteland was just an obstruction.
Once past the hot sea of dunes, new vistas opened up—whole new lands. Perhaps half of the Uraban continent remained to be
explored!
In halting words, Asaddan told her that his people, a hitherto unknown race called Nunghals, populated those southern lands
beyond the desert. None of the books in her library—even the tales of the Traveler—suggested such a thing! Excited, she and
Asaddan worked far into the night to unlock further secrets of language so Sherufa could understand what he was saying.
Over the next few days, the Nunghal castaway described his people, who were mainly nomadic tribes that lived in the vast grasslands.
The Nunghal clans herded buffalo, drank the milk, ate the meat, used the hides. Far to the south, another branch of the race—the
Nunghal-Su—were seafarers who lived their lives on ships and met with their landbound brothers, the Nunghal-Ari, only once
a year at large market encampments, where they exchanged goods, stories, and breeding stock.
One morning, Asaddan came to her at breakfast with weary but bright eyes. Sherufa realized that he must have stayed up all
night, practicing his words. The Nunghal sat down, drank morning tea with her, then announced: “I tell story now.” He grinned,
and his pink tongue flicked into the space of his missing tooth.
She caught her breath. “By all means.”
“I am caravan leader… in hills, villages. Storm wind.” He gesticulated and blew through his lips. “Drives pack animals away…
supplies, water, food, deep in desert. Winds make them…” He mimicked galloping movements with his hands. “Run. I cannot escape.
Animals run into dunes, run and run.”
He let out a long sigh, hanging his head. “After storm… lost. Not know where. Follow winds, travel at night. Stay with animals.
Some animals die, so I eat meat. Need water… drink blood of animals. Then sand dervishes.” He gesticulated more, but she didn’t
know what he was talking about. Sand dervishes?
“I find water… a well bandits use. I see bandits come and hide. Follow them at night to edge of desert. Your land. I walk
more. I walk and walk. Then—out of desert!”
Clearly pleased at having conveyed such an epic adventure, Asaddan wolfed down his breakfast, then went into his room and
collapsed into a deep sleep to make up for his restless night.
Calling one of her neighbors and handing him a note written in Uraban letters, Sherufa dispatched a message to the palace,
requesting to speak with the soldan-shah, also suggesting that Imir might want to be present. He would love Asaddan’s tale.
Then, after closing the door and making sure Asaddan was sound asleep, Sen Sherufa went to the back of her cupboard, removed
the false panel, and looked at the expanded Mappa Mundi that Aldo na-Curic had helped her develop. She studied the known boundaries
of the Great Desert and extended her imagination to encompass what she had just learned from her guest. Her finger quickly
ran off the edge of the paper.
If Asaddan’s story was true, then the Saedrans would need a much larger map.
After the Festival of the Golden Fern, Saan emerged from the forest scratched and dirty, his blond hair mussed, his shirt
gone, his remaining clothes torn. The afternoon sun hung low in the sky, and many families were already streaming back into
the city by the time Istar saw him and came forward to greet him, smiling. Other parents greeted their children with laughter
and presented them with false ferns made of golden feathers. She thought little of her son’s unkempt appearance at first,
since the energetic boy had spent the day running through the forested hills.
Then Istar sensed that something was wrong. Saan’s eyes were unusually bright, his jaw set with determination. He seemed breathless
and eager to leave. “We have to get back to the palace and the soldan-shah. I have news, Mother—important news. We’re all
in great danger.”
Instantly on her guard, she grabbed his shoulders, looking for injuries. “What is it? Are you hurt?”
He spoke in a low voice. “No, I’m safe now, but I’m worried about my father. There is a plot, and someone tried to kill me.
We have to talk with him right away.” Saan pulled his mother along.
Istar, painfully familiar with convoluted plots and assassination schemes in the soldan-shah’s court, looked over her shoulder
for some unnamed threat until they were back at the palace. She found one of the palace guards, who ran to find Kel Rovik,
who in turn informed the soldan-shah that they were coming.
When the two of them stood before Omra at his low writing table, he pushed the papers aside. Before the soldan-shah could
speak, Saan blurted, “You’re in danger, Father. Maybe we all are.”
He rose abruptly to his feet. “What happened? Are you harmed?”
“I survived. Someone wants to hurt you, and I believe that’s why I was a target.” Saan went on to describe the assassins who
had pursued him through the forest and how he had narrowly escaped.
Omra regarded the boy in silence, his dark eyes meeting Saan’s blue gaze. “You have never lied to me before, and I hear the
truth in your words now.” The soldan-shah reached a quick decision. “I will move your quarters closer to mine. I will inform
Kel Rovik that it is to be done.”
Istar’s thoughts spun, trying to think through the complex palace politics. Villiki had already tried to eliminate Omra so
that her own son would be the heir. Could Tukar have plotted such a thing from the Gremurr mines? No, Istar didn’t believe
that for a moment. But who would see
Saan
as a threat? A blond-haired Tierran boy with no Uraban blood would never be accepted as the next soldan-shah, no matter what.
It would have led to civil war among the soldanates. What could the plotters intend to accomplish by harming her son? She
felt a chill. “Cliaparia,” she whispered. “It might have been Cliaparia.”
Omra’s face darkened. “I will not have my wives squabbling. You’ve never shown any ambition to become First Wife, and Cliaparia
knows her place.”
She recognized the implacable tenor in Omra’s voice. His words were a command, and he would not change his mind. “Yes, my
lord.”