The Messenger

Kerrick wasn’t feeling better-in fact, he was numbed by disbelief. He tried to force himself into a sitting position. That only resulted in spears of pain shooting through his spine, his back, and both arms. He immediately collapsed. “ ’Oo oo ‘een I ‘in ‘ere ‘or a ‘ole ‘onth?” he croaked in disbelief.

“Why yes, four days more than a whole month, actually. The weather’s gotten quite cold and gloomy. Do you know, that’s a very long time for me to go without having someone to talk to. Well, of course, I could talk to you, but you really couldn’t talk back, which isn’t so bad come to think of it. It was like talking to a wall, or a fish, or talking to the ocean. I don’t mind a little talking to the ocean, but it does get boring.”

The elf felt the darkness rising, unconsciousness surging from the depths to wrap his mind in sticky, obscuring fingers. He tried to fight, tried to stay awake. As he slipped beneath the surface of awareness he heard the kender, still talking to the ocean.

He was glad Coraltop Netfisher was there.

“That’s not the mast-it’s the boom,” Kerrick said two days later, when he had finally, with much pain and extremely slow movements, crept through the cabin door to collapse in the cockpit.

“The boom … oh, I’m sorry,” Coraltop said, chagrined. “When you said ‘mast’-well, it sounded more like ‘ass’-and I thought I had better humor you. Seeing as how you were near death and everything.”

Despite his pain, Kerrick couldn’t help but chuckle. “Don’t be sorry. This is very good news. If the mast had broken off, we’d be doomed. The boom I might be able to repair.”

He leaned back, shading his eyes with a hand while he gazed at the pale sky. He couldn’t see any clouds, but even so the color seemed more white than blue. The sun was very low on the horizon, and the water, slate gray, was almost preternaturally still.

How far had they drifted? He knew, like all experienced sailors, that the prevailing current of the Courrain Ocean would carry them south, away from any known mass of land toward uncharted waters reputed for their lethal storms and dark, icy winters. It seemed almost unthinkable that he had lingered, all but comatose, for some five weeks, and that during that time they had not encountered a ship-killer storm. In fact, when he had asked Coraltop, the kender had shrugged and replied that it had never even gotten very windy or rained. “Boring weather,” said the kender.

That raised another concern, and Kerrick painfully made his way past the cabin to check the level of the water barrel. As he had feared, it was nearly empty-perhaps a handspan of water sloshed back and forth deep within the container. He realized that the kender must have been very shrewd in doling out the precious liquid. Normally in this part of the world there would be rainstorms enough to keep them well-supplied with fresh water. In the event of a long dry spell, he would typically put in to shore, refilling his stock from one of the freshwater streams common on the coast.

How far away was that coast, now?

“Are you sure about how much time I was unconscious?” he asked the kender.

“Look. I marked it on the deck,” Coraltop replied proudly. Sure enough, the tiny hash marks added up to thirty-four days. “That’s not counting the days since you woke up,” added the little fellow.

Suddenly dizzy, the elf sat down. His whole body ached, and he felt weak as an infant. His left arm was in a sling. Coraltop had informed him that he had set the broken bone right after moving Kerrick to the bunk. The kender had done a surprisingly good job. The limb was straight, and seemed to be healing well if slowly.

“Let’s pull the boom aboard and see what we can do with it,” the elf suggested. Yet as soon as he tried to lift himself, Kerrick knew that even limited activity, not to mention complicated repairs, was beyond his abilities.

“Let me try,” Coraltop suggested, kneeling and clutching the rope at one end of the boom. He pulled, but when the stout shaft started to rise out of the water he groaned, and the beam splashed downward. “It’s too heavy,” he admitted.

As Kerrick leaned back, despairing, he felt a breath of wind against his cheek. Raising his eyes in sudden alarm, he saw that the northern horizon was dark, obscured by a wall of cloud that could only mean an approaching storm.

“That doesn’t look too good,” the kender observed.

“Not too good at all,” Kerrick agreed. He felt hopeless and angry-why had he survived this far, suffering all this pain, only to face a storm threatening his crippled boat? Doom was inevitable if he couldn’t repair the boom and raise some semblance of a sail.

Only then did he remember the little strongbox, the gift from his father that might, one day, save his life, when he was in “imminent danger.”

He gasped out directions to Coraltop, and half a minute later the kender had returned from the cabin with the little box. Naturally, he had already opened it and was exclaiming in delight over the circlet of gold, holding it up to the sky, peering through the ring with curiosity.

“I need it,” Kerrick whispered, too weak now even to try to grab it.

Coraltop handed it over agreeably, and the elf, at last, held his finger up to the ring. He saw the pattern of oak leaves, winking in the daylight already fading under storm-clouds, and he pushed the metal band onto his finger. It felt warm and tight.

The warmth began to spread, a tingling sensation of energy that drove back his pain, tightened his sinews. Even his broken arm felt whole, strong, and limber.

He shucked off the splint and, accepting the enthusiastic help of the kender, was able to guide them through the job of heaving the boom back onto the deck. The breeze continued to freshen, rocking the boat slightly as he examined the break and planned the hasty repair.

The end of the post had been badly splintered, but by sawing off the broken wood and then reattaching the bracket to the freshly hewn end of the boom, they were able to once again mount it onto the mast. “It’s a foot shorter than I’d like, but we can live with that,” Kerrick announced, when the work was done. The wind was lashing spray across the surface of the sea, and Cutter was bobbing unpredictably in the rising swell. “Now, let’s see if we can get some canvas up.”

“Hooray!” cried Coraltop. “I knew you-we-could do it.”

Kerrick smiled wryly. “We make a good team,” he admitted. He turned to the sail locker, pleased to recall how neatly he had stowed the canvas, after their frantic and makeshift repairs. The ring was a powerful ally. His father’s warning, the notion that this enchanted ring might eventually sap his life, nagged at the back of his mind. Kerrick brushed the concern away, and in another five minutes they were ready to face the storm.

“You’ve got lots more sail!” Coraltop shouted over the howling of the wind. “Why don’t we put some more of it up?”

Kerrick grimaced as he leaned on the tiller and guided Cutter’s sharp prow through a black wall of rising water. Spray broke over the deck, churning into the cockpit, giving him a chill despite the protection of his slicker and woolens. He still wore his father’s ring, and he needed the magically induced stamina to steer the boat amid the violence of the southern storm.

The elf shook his head. “More canvas up there and the wind would rip it away. If it didn’t, it would push us so hard that we could capsize.”

“Oh, good point. I think I’ve had my fill of capsizing,” said the kender, bracing himself for the jolt of another wave, this one rising from the port beam. “Hey, that’s a really big one!”

The elf hauled on the tiller, bringing them around so that the breaker crashed over the port bow. The sailboat staggered sideways, wind and water tearing in opposite directions, but slowly she broke free of the heaving brine and clawed her way up another slope of the churning sea.

That was one of the worst things about these southern ocean storms, Kerrick realized. The waves seemed to come at them from every direction, and whatever way he steered the boat they were assaulted from fore and aft, from one side, then the next. The long twilight had faded into a night as dark and tempestuous as any he had endured. Only the slightly phosphorescent crests of the waves gave him momentary warning of the next crushing onslaught. Where the water lay smooth in a trough of the boat, it was black, eerily lightless.

He was piloting the boat more by instinct than rational thought. The sail, as Coraltop had pointed out, was deployed into a small triangle, efficiently capturing the gale roaring out of the north, but every time the wind smashed into the canvas and pushed the boat forward they had to hold on for dear life. Kerrick’s clothes were wet,