Things had begun to move quickly.
So shortly after regaining my voice I had felt myself become no longer a shadow. The memories of sleeping ash lay in stillness; days before rekindled into a hope for the future lit by a lowly a burning glow. It was a simple kindness for the two strangers, but from their gift a warmth and beauty had returned to my life that I could scarcely name; the approaching winter no longer feeling as if it were to be the end of my story.
I thought of the coin. I remembered the bearded man who wore the blessings of a god in his well thought movements. He had given me a knife that may never do harm and from this passing gesture had given me the ability to cut the thread that held me in stasis. I thought of the baker who smiled at me despite the tradition of their homeland. They had given me warmth and the memory of a beating heart once lost to me.
I will state now that I would not have survived if these acts weren’t granted to me and as clear as I stand before you, I would give everything back to see that same kindness granted upon each person still living within that northern city of sorrow.
A lazy snow had begun to fall as the impassive sleet of autumn had abated and a familiar note had returned to replace it.
I’m not sure if you have felt the true bite of the northern winter in your time, or if you have lived to see its many moods, but no downfall is as oppressing as the fall of sleet in Liat. They say that the Lundrains have a great many words for rain, well the people of the north are more practical in the matters their speech. We know Kalt’s frost like a brother and walk with him despite his whims and peril. If the winter were kinder, I’m sure there would be epics penned to its very nature, but to speak of these things at length would only leave a tongue to be frozen so we talk of it plainly.
It begins as a dull grip. The faint surge of shiver that greedily creeps from your bootlaces without sound or with warning. You know it to approach by instinct, a knot in your neck that feels it lay silent upon the wind, a colourless phantom in the smoke. There is part of your very nature that knows the season of winter to have begun. In an instant, the air becomes a force, a hand that claps the air from your ribcage, a bar of iron that crashes into a rug that is compounded with dirt and with dust. Each breath feels like a rasp; every finger, every ear, aches in ways that are both maddening and inescapable.
And I thought I would survive this.
Bolstered by recent fortune, I imagined myself to be kin with the goddess of Luck and I no longer moved with the care that I had once lived so fragilely by. Stealing both book and candle I lay content within my shelter and remembered a home, a family, a place where I was safe. Words, foggy at first, had begun to return to the page as an ember of familiarity illuminated my nook below the saddlery and I wished in that moment to be nowhere else within this world.
I had eaten the bread sparingly for such a gift should not be taken with greed. The remaining loaf sat perched upon a shelf of bricks that formed one end of my shelter and appeared as if flower that may wilt under sunlight. Lost in thought, I closed my book and watched the drifting snowflakes begin to fall as a rain that landed with increasing urgency upon the cobblestone. The three bricks that enclosed my shelter from the world were left open, and in arrogance I had invited the hand of fate to cast its cruelty inside.
‘A rat in its den!’ A voice called from the street, its claw suddenly snatching at the warmth of my shelter and seizing me by the leg.
I cried in fright as the grip grew tight but through no effort could kick myself free. Scrabbling for any hold, I was dragged into the burgeoning rain and hurled so coldly against the stones that darkness had already begun to creep into my vision.
‘I knew I saw you crawling your way underneath the shop,’ the voice spat as an angry kick fell against my side, ‘you’ll not bring your ill luck upon my home.’ Twice the faceless growl kicked at my stomach as I was tossed down the road and away from safety. A sturdy boot from a voice unseen then cracked against my head with impassion and bent my nose into the shape that you see today. Scarlet red landed in the snow, I thought of the knife still hidden at my side. Anger built into the call of retribution, but my hand would not reach for it. “It comes to no harm”, I had promised, “it causes no harm”, I had sworn.
Fog overtaking the day, I could only catch glimpses of the next few moments as I was further dragged down that sodden road; fight leaving me abandoned and the cold of Liat eking into my chest as if to leave me voiceless once again.
‘Ain’t no use stepping on a rat,’ a voice callously barked at the other as I was hauled onto something wooden and rough, ‘they’ll feign death and then be back with a score of their kind. Best he be drowned and be done with it.’
–
The rushing wind was met by an explosion of consciousness.
Shaken awake into a world of terror I flailed against the sudden pain and breathlessly kicked with what little strength I had remaining. The water of Liat’s port is no place for life. I’ve heard of stouter men than I falling dead after passing too close to that water and how I found the will to clamber onto the dock is beyond my memory. For minutes, for hours, an eternity pressed down upon me as I staggered along the walkway, the draw of something familiar entrancing my reasonless stumble.
Unknown and without thought, I had found a chest marked with Lenith’s luck and saw it to be filled with more blankets than a man could count. I did not pause to consider what miracle had led it to be unlocked but as I fell into the chest’s embrace I thought of the baker’s smile and then drifted into absence.
I do not know how I survived but a man that you’ll not hear of in any book found me in that chest. His name was Benjamin Porter, a clock maker and navigator. He fussed over the state of my health with a recalcitrant looking doctor all the while demanding to know where I had hidden his watches, I did not realise at the time, but we were at sea I had left Liat for the first time in my life.
And that is how I found myself upon the Apricot. I lived, survived its journey, and the memories I have of my time abord that ship are coloured with a fondness that I scarcely can put to words. You asked of its voyage and I told you of myself, so for that I apologise. We all have beginnings beyond that which are scraped from the clay we are hewn from. There’s quite a story held at the back of every man’s throat and mine could only be one of luck.
Can I buy you a drink though? I’d like to hear of yourself before I go on.
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 