One

Over the Horizon

"It seems to be speaking to me."

Auburn, like everyday but this twilight looked and felt different. Same as the sea breeze―to him, was very suspecting though as pacific as any ordinary day from his past three years. The sun had something else on the tip of its tongue but he could not hear or could not stand listening to. Perhaps the breeze coaxed the sun to voice nothing. That he never understood or never tried at least to learn how to communicate with nature. That was some witchy thing or hallowed talent only for Balaccun. However, it was just a gut feeling or profound yearning that his mind was being disheveled like frayed fishing nets at his foot.

It was a settlement on wharves where its dwellers had to fish every day of their lives to survive, and only to survive; they knew nothing or cared less about livelihood. Civilization was something they never wished or uninspired from societies some of them had been with, accordingly depriving them of surnames. One of their homegrown philosophies identified that intruders were most attracted to civilized territories, thus, keeping a stranglehold of their traditions. Granted, the whole community was soaked in direct heat, but their skin was not too dark as withered; maybe tan or lighter. Their hair, jet black, long, and coarse. And they―most of them―naturally got the sultry scent of the sea or maybe because of getting used to the odor. Nonetheless, they were content people of worth one's respect.

Lyrrio was how this fishing colony was called, six years younger than that forested hamlet modernized into an earning village that was presently conquests of the Diltan army. As remote as the mentioned hamlet it had been, Lyrrio could only be explored if you could voyage. It was settled in an islet formed by a once active seagirt volcano. Besides the legendary volcano, here tranquilly lay a handful of rock-strewn, uninhabitable knolls and then Lyrrio itself. By acclamation, chieftains were taken from a traditional, month-long contest of endurance partaken by adult men. They had shanties as their homes, clattering around of their desired location, made from a patchwork of tin and cardboard. Nurtured mangroves were a common sight around alongside tattered fishnets and oars. And this good hamlet was where Keogh spent his four years after his escape from the attacked kingdom aforementioned.

Somehow, he was identically Sir Harmond―the yellow hair, the fine nose, and the stance that anybody could foresee from a son of a chivalrous man. But the eyes that Lyrrians adored because of the very oceanic color were from her mother. His complexion that was innately fair as his mother's was now as dark as the men of the hamlet. He was now one grownup man in his early twenties. Sir Grandt, on his deathbed of Helmdock grass, had mentioned his boldness that was inbred after his father and that he already learned enough about life and living. Keogh had resuscitated these to life.

It took him roughly eighty days before he found the new life that Sir Grandt never meant but nonetheless found one in Lyrrio. But before he sailed his way to his "new life", the young squire back then was shadowed by Diltan men when he landed on a desolate prairie from where he could view Helmdock as the size of his toy castle. He didn't have any idea where he was from his tragic run. "Lucky Keogh" indeed, for that night as he was sleeping by a weak bonfire, two thickset Diltan men sprang from the dark, and he got something to fight back with and a number of combat moves he observed from his father's drill. That night initiated the new episode of his life as a fighter, no longer some warrior assistant. He had no knight to assist, anyway. He never carried the weight of a sword in his whole life aside from the nightfall he would smooth it; he managed applying what he spied from the drills to the Diltan hulks. From that encounter and few gashes he received from those genuinely trained fighters, he learned a lot.

He could no longer stay, so he began his lone journey. Yet, somebody remained stalking; he could feel it everyplace he would go. Rustling scrubs, every so often an unaware shadow in the corner of his eye, and careful footsteps behind him that he without a doubt knew were not his. Signs of absolute stalker. He would be waking up in the middle of his nap from feeling some breathing against his face. He would feel being watched behind the foliage when he would bathe in a lake, so he uneasily bathed. He tried confronting it but he was only speaking to himself. Still, he never cared much about the stalker because the stalker seemed to care less of harming him, anyway. It never impeded his journey.

Onil was nearly as vast as three million square miles but Lyrrio was isolated from the very continent. Rousing him to dream of ruling his own village, Keogh travelled through the wilds: fertile savannahs, serene riverbanks, accessible plateaus, and other potential expanses. A few derelict settlements were along his way, too, reminding him of his hometown and where he would spend most of his nights. Big living communities might admit him but he stayed never more than a night or two. From those times he realized he was rather a wanderer―one who constantly had this significant silver stuff around on his either hand that merchants would argue to barter them. Now, he already made a sheath out of lumber for his father's sword. On his drifting, he would meet people with the same way of life; most of them were deceitful thieves. Keogh contentedly breathed like this for eighty days till he noticed from up a precipice while watching blankly the perpetual shrinking auburn horizon this interesting small island separated from the coast beneath him. Overnight he feverishly assembled a raft to convey himself to the islet, unlike before when he only used to folding her mother's papers for boats.

It took him two and a half days to reach the territory and dock his waning raft. To Balaccun he was grateful for the clement waves. He knew he would be paddling then losing his arms and mind in fatigue for more than five days if he paddled not the hard way he did. He finally heard no stalking signs but the sense of being observed from a distance lingered; much less he cared. Lyrrio improved zero from that blistering noon he first landed his sandals sopping wet onto the first wharf. He was expecting and ready for malicious pointing harpoons and daggers like any intruder deserved but curious gazes greeted him instead. That made him realize he could rather bear facing a hundred native spears than a few―even just a few―paralyzing stares from these sea-dwellers. He couldn't decipher what they had in mind. It would be better to be terrified than to stand before them like that. He never felt as strange as their "hospitability" in any living community he had visited. Women were steady at their doorsteps, carrying their unclothed toddlers of much lighter complexions. Most of them had either breast bared from being disturbed by the outsider while breastfeeding―an apparently accustomed appearance of their women. Bigger children on their naked feet were grasping their mothers' mottled garments fastened at their shoulders and some hiding behind them, sucking their filthy thumbs. Now, where were their men? Shortly, he wanted to leave, regretful of his eagerness to see the colony which appeared to be someplace for purveyors of wealth from the deep. But on the thought of spending days strenuously paddling trapped his feet. He stayed.

Silence. Only the gulls, whispering waves, and oceanic gusts.

Keogh gaited. Two cautious steps. He could still feel the sea underneath the bobbing piece of heavy wood that slackened his walk. Then, as soon as a child's shrill cry broke all the silence, Keogh felt a dull blade against his neck that he was too late to clear his throat in unexpected terror. The women, with their children, faced back to their shanties and to their chores. They never seemed to care.

"Get back to your raft," a youthful masculine breathed over Keogh's right shoulder, "immediately."

"Very likely," Keogh uttered a response to the voice with a confidence that he tried to match but the blade precluded, "if you first draw your weapon away."

Keogh won that easy. What an easy talk with an armed stranger! Before hunkering down to the edge of the wharf, he studied the man who caught him―lean and tall; with his bulging, compact muscles along his arms, torso, and legs, Keogh could not accurately tell his age but was certain he was of his same age. As an eagle's, his eyes locked at Keogh's as he was gently swiveling his dull blade that looked like a scythe. Behind him were boats containing bountiful fishes sparkling under the sun, the whole hamlet's supper. More men, adult and stronger ones, settled down in the dinghies. Some of them were cackling, revealing yellowy teeth as their eyes against the darkness of their complexion―the menfolk had the darkest complexion, something they attained from fishing in the scorching sun. Prudently, Keogh started to look for his balance on the raft but what he found were the pieces of lumber unraveling. To the water he sank with the raft, very slowly. Before he completely fell, he promptly hurled the helmet onto the dry surface. Louder cackles echoed.

"Quit it, folks!" a stern, controlling voice spoke up from the distance.

The laughter was interrupted. The strong voice came all the way from the biggest shanty at the farthest end of the hamlet. Its draped entryway in threadbare textile was drawn open by a tall man. He wore the same only clothing like the other men―trousers of canvas-like fabric artlessly cut into shorts. The menfolk wore no top or they preferred to be shirtless to cope with their dwelling's location under the sun. Excepting the chieftain, he had a string of the rarest seashells and aquatic rocks round his sturdy neck.

The man looked like the chieftain. With a body build and voice tone as intimidating as his, he was positively the chieftain. And he had the weighty necklace, pattering on his chest in rhythm of his prideful stride. As he approached Keogh and the boats, the men started to rise and left the area with their nets, oars, harpoons, and their shimmering scaly supper. Everyone went outdoors now, some observing their chieftain, Keogh, and the boy with the scythe. Before having a word, he was stunned at the sight of the helmet at his foot.

"Help him back to the wharf," the chieftain commanded the young man.

Reluctantly, the boy with the scythe reached out for Keogh and the latter instantly gave his hand. When they finally held hands, Keogh pulled the boy forcefully into the water with a wide splash, wetting the bossy brawny man standing. The men's laughter resounded again from the chieftain's back. Keogh smirked at the drenched boy then got on the wharf by himself, stunning the chieftain further when he saw the sword in the stranger's strapped sheath. But he never said a thing about it until the night came.

As soon as the horizons shut dark, they kindled a bonfire in the middle of the floating hamlet, enough to light the bottommost corners. They had given Keogh a warm welcome―the hospitable one, finally―with a long table of grilled and seasoned raw fish of different species that only the seas of Onil had. Also, pots and pots of indefinably delicious stews, still made of fish. Keogh thought, they eat these things for everyday? Everyone turned out to be sincerely pleasant. The ladies were asking for forgiveness if they looked inhospitable before the men got into the scene. Likewise for the men, feeling sorry for the chieftain's son's initial action which they clarified was of precautionary purposes, something that Keogh understood. Keogh's eyes fascinated them, especially the young girls, and were considered reputed gifts from the seas. The early part of the night was an occasion he sought for years; he missed stuffing himself. And when the evening was ending, the men and a few women mostly their wives gathered round the waning bonfire for the chieftain himself was about to state something about their guest. Keogh sat adjacent to the son of the chieftain who was on the other side.

"I know of your lost home, kid," Fragan, the lenient chieftain, started.

Though a bit amazed, to talk about it was of Keogh's disinterest but he had to favorably listen to show Helmdock-born cordiality that Fragan's people seemed to lack. Everyone listened as their sight shifted from the flames to each other's eyes gleaming.

"I've seen something identifying on your helmet this afternoon," Fragan continued, "and got even more convinced through the help of your sword. Its hilt has the emblem of the order to which it belonged."

The folks took a look at the two mentioned things Keogh placed beside him. They noticed; he could not leave a place without those, he ate his fishes beside those, until now. Something might be so special. Qiba, the chieftain's son, snatched the helmet and examined. As if he truthfully cared.

"You came all the way from the far east. I should not be mistaken," revealed the chieftain with a very ensuring tone.

Keogh never nodded but curved his lips to a slight smile to affirm. He was being dumbfounded by Fragan who was as if a telepathic behind his soothsaying tongues of fire.

Fragan got Keogh's smile and resumed, "Helmdock, am I correct?"

It appeared like a tête-á-tête between the chilly moonlight and steaming flame. Nobody understood except from the two of them and only them. And hearing the dead place's name from another person paralyzed him. It was like it echoed against the darkness repeatedly till it rang in his ears then bled. He never let his mind to reminisce as Qiba rudely yawned right to his ear in boredom and tiredness from fishing.

"Am I correct, kid?"

Keogh looked through Fragan's eyes with a cold face and answered with a beam, "yes, Sir. You can't be correct anymore. But how did you know about my hometown?"

"I, with my father, met a man with wounds still fresh from a struggle. He was making his way through the mountain pass over the coast where you primed the ride on your raft."

Keogh lent his ears more carefully. The people now attended too although some of them already knew of this or witnessed themselves. They loved it when their chieftain would tell past experiences and folklores till the tots would fall asleep on their mother's shoulders as well as the rest of the children. His deep voice was a lullaby to their little ears.

"He was all alone, walking the dusty path," Fragan began his lullaby. "He was in ache, in starve, in tire! Before he collapsed toward the rocks, my father had caught him. We brought him here till he woke up the next morning and introduced himself, where he came from, and all. He left after six days, perpetually gratifying. If he did not leave, he might have been Lyrrio's chief, not I, for he was a man of greater strength, wisdom, courage, and audacity. Hence, he, for sure, could win the contest. And yes, he was one of the knights of your hometown that is now under Diltan army."

Keogh had the cold face again with eyes sharp at the chieftain who just finished his short "lullaby". The wives started to leave one by one with cherubs asleep on their shoulders as the bonfire was burning weaker but still lighting the circle.

"Where did he go?" Keogh snappishly questioned.

"That, he didn't answer," replied Fragan. "But westward he went."

Keogh refrained from interrogating moreover, ending the talk that night and the night itself for the Lyrrians. But that night was not the last for Keogh; he was persuaded to rather stay until his third year.

"The horizon. It seems to be speaking to me," Keogh guessed.

He was on a windy precipice of one of the hills of the island. With him was Qiba. The latter grew up to be his father's personification―brawny, tall, and braver. Even the prideful walk and voice. But to finally wear the authoritative necklace, as what he always dreamt of, was too soon for him. Nevertheless, he was self-assured nothing could impede his dream, not even Keogh and the fact that the throne was not heritable. He knew he still had more scales and fishbone in store to swallow to be inducted; Fragan was ageing but not over the hill yet. To while away the days that seemed to be a million more, he trained Keogh in sword fighting and other combatting skills that the latter certainly must, though he had learned from his father way back then. Lyrrio barely experienced invasions and huge, hazardous encounters but they were no ignorant about weapon wielding; their harpoons were specially prepared. Keogh had finally found the real worth of the broadsword that as far as he could remember was last used on a mad forest wolf. And he could ultimately manage to bear the weight. That was why they were up on the hill. The overwhelming, overlapping current of the wind up there could be of great help for leg and stance stability. Almost every midafternoon they climbed so they, or only Keogh, saw how the horizon differed today.

"Trust me, Keogh," Qiba started commenting on Keogh's bizarre, mystic discovery that he almost laughed. "No man on Onil's lands has ever heard the horizon speaking!"

Keogh hissed and said, "That is not what I try to say! Only a witch can show that. I know that."

Keogh could hardly expound what he was strangely feeling about the burning horizon or the whistling winds or the rolling sea. This feeling was unconsciously not new to him but it was just construed in a very dissimilar manner that he could never understand. It was like feeling some forgotten sensation. Very, very unexplainable! Or was the horizon trying to voice words through itself as an endless auburn line and a significant decipherer? The feeling might be decoded by the view of the setting sun and the vermillion clouds, like an old painting with an ambiguous connotation, perhaps. Keogh could not remove his eyes from the redness of the skies. So fathomless. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder. His scrutiny was interfered.

"Let's go home," Qiba suggested.

He responded none. He stood up on his reflexes. From the earth, he pulled the hilt of the sword where he tied the necklace that Sir Harmond gave. The warhorse pendant was discolored over time. And started following the long, rocky footpath down to their boats. Qiba was all the way behind Keogh who began to contemplate again. And worse came when they were seeing the horizon nearer as they paddled to the wharves, Keogh was out of his mind. Qiba respected the moment, he remained shut for his friend.

For three years and counting, Keogh had acclimatized into the Lyrrian way of life. He fished with the menfolk daily, built muscles from everyday rowing, readily ate fish three times a day, bathed in brackish seawater, tanned himself in the sun, wore canvas, and smelled like everybody. These three years had his past memories being drifted by the water into oblivion and thus molded him to be a stronger man in mind and body. Once more and probably way better, he felt being in a family amongst the Lyrrians―Qiba as a brother and Fragan a father. And he was evermore grateful for Balaccun of that.

Daybreak had flickered; the horizon looked as ordinary as the last sunset―indigo, and the rays of the peeping sun igniting the bordering areas; the rest, playing shades of navy or cobalt to evening ebony. The morning zephyr as cold as ever. But Keogh was still disturbed; he did not sleep a wink. But he never considered blaming the stalker that he could still sense even above the wharves of Lyrrio; it was rather a stalking mental struggle. Nonetheless, at least, he could name the surface of the void progressively―the yearning to revive his nomadic days. And he was yet to explore the depth of the void to perceive the inmost, the very reason of finding things differently.

After the first fishing at the early sunrise, the women were setting the dining boards and men broiling gifts of the sea for breakfast. The whole Lyrrio was interrupted when a short sorrowful cry and deep sobs, coming from one of the small shanties. A mother finally concluded her life with age. The women began to sniffle, empathizing with the daughter, in the arms of their men. Keogh felt a sudden, sharp pain in the chest. He was gaping, eyes stuck, and transfixed to the sensation―something he never felt so tenderly.

This can't be, Keogh thought in disbelief.

He never saw the tear coming when he heard everyone grieving over the mother's death, when he saw the kneeling daughter before her bedridden, breathless mother. He never saw a dramatic scene as poignant. He had never experienced his world stopped spinning after Sir Grandt's confession of his father's demise. Not until today. He hustled from the compressed crowd towards the first wharf where the boats were tied up and where he stood still with head stooped down to the water, seeing a sad reflection. He could not reverse the feeling anymore, the seething guilt that he wanted to settle now.

He wanted to murmur the name―her name, or what he used to call her―but he was choked in sudden misery.

At last, he was no more a victim of his own contemplations and he suddenly craved to leave the "home" he thought had been. The horizon at twilight that stole his sanity took the culprit out from him for an important task that he might have forgotten, that he should not let the last blink of daylight wane without accomplishing. And the burning color completely dampened him down. Sun setting connoted something to end. And endings were always out of favor.

His heart once a stone for his mother tempered. Begrudged mindset no longer tickled the core. Memories that he assumed were now part of the incessant sea haunted once again, back to the surface―Helmdock, Sir Harmond, and his mother. It was about time to see her again. To be in her consoling embrace once again. To be a son once again.

"Is it the horizon again?" a familiar voice butted in, startling Keogh. It was Qiba.

Keogh gasped and smiled back to his foster brother with eyes holding the sadness.

"The horizon no more, Qiba," he said under his breath. "I have fathomed everything. I have heard the horizon spoke audibly through my ears."

Qiba never got it he hooted.

"Sounded like a good laugh, wasn't it?" agreed Keogh with a bright tone. "Truly, it was a droll discovery for me."

Qiba creased his forehead in total misinterpretation. He knew Keogh meant beyond the joke.

"I'm afraid I do not comprehend," he confessed.

"You need not to. Things are rather doomed to be profound and self-explanatory. Things are rather doomed to be valued when misplaced."

An axiom from Keogh? He started to sound strange for Qiba; still, the latter attempted to crack what the other just stated. And he failed. He tried no more and instead, stared emptily at the distance with Keogh, overlooking the horizon with another message but very palpable equally for the both of them and the whole hamlet―a rain was on its way.

As final hints of weakened daylight being swallowed by the night skies, the rain as expected came. The horizon could really tell a lot of truths. Balaccun had finally bestowed Onil this shower after months. Moderate yet nonstop. Some people would find it as grace after a long time of sheer sunlight and they would be dancing in it like in the devastated Helmdock. Keogh would remind him of that―he as a kid and his mother in the rain, laughing, playing, happy. Things reminded Keogh of everything as he stayed in Lyrrio; he could not hide that from himself but he was struggling all the time just to be insensible. Besides the rain, the Lyrrian complete families, eating fish or any at the same table, and Fragan as a protective adoptive father. But, time had already made him a master of that―masking real homesickness. And as the moon above could be barely seen behind the dense clouds, Keogh was completing his scheme that would take him to the new life that Sir Grandt wanted him to seek. He was now eager to grant that. This enthusiasm that he was feeling was comparable to the eagerness when he first sighted Lyrrio that ultimately became his impermanent home. But tonight, he would be walking his way to his true home.

True, Keogh was indebted like forever to Fragan, Qiba, and the entire fishing colony for three years of too much humanity. Truer, Lyrrio built the man that he must be, that he accordingly became. Truest, one of his schemes had to be leaving the hamlet without Fragan's blessing.

He wanted nobody to obstruct the thirst over what the auburn horizon had conveyed; he had not sated that thirst for years. Fragan might stop him, concerning the danger―be it in the wild or from Onil denizens themselves―waiting on the plains. Or the children that he treated as his sons or younger brethren could decline his heart. So he was unwavering in leaving with nobody having an inkling of it. Tragic for Keogh, indeed.

The thrash of the rolling waves onto the far coast was clear, still strong to the hearing behind the clattering rain that looked aggravating into the night. But nothing could stop Keogh's escape, no fortuitous event. The wharves were swayed as wild as the waves but it appeared to be a rocking cradle for the Lyrrians; they were sound asleep. Now, that was a good cue for Keogh.

He brought with him nothing else besides his sword and the canvas shorts he wore yesterday. When he felt best, he sneaked out of his shanty where he purposely left the helmet then into the rain. It dribbled to his yellow hair tied up at his back and shoulders down to his bare, grubby feet as he fastened his scabbard round his waist. He took a peek into the biggest shanty to find two sleeping men who looked alike and to whom he was much obliged. Well, he wished they were truthfully in peace. Then he proceeded until the last wharf he would feel under his feet and to where the boats were collectively tied up. Neither moonlight nor a big bonfire was to expose his escape. The rain was indeed a Balaccun-sent blessing. He made it across the hamlet slickly though almost slid to the slippery, shaky wood. Into the nearest vacant boat he prudently hopped. He cut the rope with a trembling sword and off he went. He glanced back to have one final look but a still, indistinctive figure on the last wharf met his eye. It looked like a caped, hooded figure from the distance. Who was that? Who ever wore a cape around Lyrrio? If that was a Lyrrian, why didn't it stop him? Whoever that was, Keogh should resume before a true Lyrrian might be seeing him. This very moment reminded him of his tragic escape from Helmdock. Now, he was leaving another place he used to call "home".

His arms were contracted and worn by the overpowering freezing winds, making his paddling hard. He was now several feet away from Lyrrio's vicinity but not yet halving the waters between the shoreline and the hamlet. The rain was as if Keogh's feelings as he was rowing―heavy, intricate, yet eager. Just as these feelings had struggled him, so with his oar. The rain was readable way before it landed the earth, however, to be this strong―yet weaker than a storm―was not foreseen. A blessing no more for Keogh. He never risked to boat against angry waves before. Fragan would let no Lyrrian to leave the wharves in weather like this because a small old boat could possibly bear gusts as frantic. The waves remained dancing madly. He had no more control of anything. What a tyranny for the seas to be!

O Balaccun, have mercy, he prayed continually, trying to keep his dinghy steady on the surface.

But no god seemed to hear him. The boat was driven to the area where jagged rocks were jutting out. Then, a wave strongest of all tossed his boat upside-down. To the water Keogh was flung, hitting a rock by the head. And farther down the seemingly boundless depth of the blurry water he sank, unconscious. Unlucky Keogh.

Pronunciation Guide

The following names of characters, places, etc. are enumerated sequentially according to when they were mentioned.

Prologue & Chapter 1

Onil- oh'neel

Balaccun-ba'lak'koon

Egran- eg'rǝn

Helmdock- helm'dok

Mirodas- mee'roh'dǝs

Miro- mee'roh

Keogh- kjoh

Grandt- grænt

Diltan- dil'tǝn

Harmond- har'mǝnd

Uriq- yoo'reek

Jad Hen- dʒad hɅn

Lyrrio/Lyrrian- leer'rjoh/rjǝn

Fragan- fra'gan

Qiba- t∫ee'ba