Enter The Light
Part Nineteen: At Sea
Standard Disclaimer Thingie: Plot: mine, characters: not mine. Don't steal, don't sue, don't forget to Moo.
It was mid-afternoon, just past noon. The sun was high in the sky and the air was growing quite warm by the standards of early spring even despite the cool breeze blowing off the ocean. The salty smell of the water had only urged their already empty stomachs to protest the lack of nourishment.
The Rusty Plate, despite whatever bad reputation its name might have given it, appeared to be a fairly clean and reputable establishment, and so Miyako went in to see about some food while Hikari went to talk to the sailor dozing in the dilapidated rowboat at the edge of the small dock.
The moment Hikari stepped warily on to the creaky planks of the dock the sailor awoke. He was a slightly rotund man with a gray beard and gray eyes that seemed to reflect the water. He was dressed in a battered pair of brown pants and a much-patched blue shirt, a leather jacket loosely hanging off his shoulders to give some protection against the cool sea breezes. His partner, a green Betamon, was napping on the seat beside him, lulled to sleep by the gentle lapping of the waves.
When his eyes caught sight of his visitors, the sailor got to his feet, leaping to the dock with an agility that belied his apparent old age. "A pleasure to see you, your majesty," he greeted, bowing low. "I daresay I hope I might be able to help you."
"I hope so, too," Hikari said, eyeing the rickety boat rocking in the waves behind him. "In that?"
"That rickety thing?" he asked, following her gaze. "Heavens no! In that!" He pointed further out on the waves, where a rather decent-sized, newer looking sailboat was gently bobbing in the water.
Hikari breathed a sigh of relief.
In the daylight hours, the room that Ken had fallen asleep in looked only a little different than it had the evening before. It was only sparsely decorated, with a bed, a few small chairs, some mostly-empty bookshelves, and a dust-covered wardrobe. A large, heavy trunk rested at the foot of the bed, and he was not surprised to find that it held the contents that were lacking from the wardrobe and closet. It was stuffed with clothes, a few books, and some other little trinkets that he had no clear memories of obtaining – a pocket knife, a small change purse, and a few pieces of jewelry.
He slowly removed the clothes from the trunk, remembering them as he did so, his mind slowly recovering memories when he had worn them and things that he had done. They were neat and clean, though a bit stiff from disuse. When they had all been laid out on the bed, he selected one and put it on, then stood before the tall mirror in the washroom and studied himself.
Thanks to the previous day's skirmish, his hair was now quite uneven, and he thought that it would be best to see if that could be fixed as soon as possible. It gave him an unbalanced sort of look, and he was certain he had frightened enough people for one lifetime.
The trunk seemed empty of clothes and anything else, but something was nagging at the back of his mind, something that made him double check the inside, just to be sure. There was still nothing, just the plain wood that it had been made out of. He ran his hand over the smooth wood and felt nothing out of sorts but the small metal head of a nail.
He tapped lightly on the bottom of the trunk, one half of his mind demanding to know what he was looking for in an empty trunk while the other half of his mind insisted to him that he was missing something. But what?
"I don't know," he said aloud. "Something."
"Maybe it's not there," Wormmon suggested from his spot on the bed. "Maybe it was never brought here."
"Maybe," Ken conceded, but with doubt in his voice. He kept looking, tapping on the sides of the trunk with his knuckles, listening for some sort of an unusual sound. He sighed and gave up, sitting on the floor and staring up at the ceiling. "Or maybe I hid it so no one would find it…."
He shut the trunk and turned it upside down – grunting with effort for the trunk was heavy even emptied – to examine the bottom. Again, he felt along the sides and this time felt a small nail head and a tiny metal latch connected to it. When he dislodged the latch, the bottom opened, revealing another, smaller compartment in the bottom of the trunk.
"You found it?" Wormmon asked, his voice sounding eager and excited.
"Yeah…"
"No, no," said the sailor in answer to Miyako's curiosity. "Not much of a mage myself. I'm content on the water, and I don't know too many spells save those that have to do with the water. If we come to a storm, it'll be you to save us, not I."
"I'm not much of a mage, either," Miyako told him, but he shook his head, waving aside her truthful modesty.
"The ocean will help you, no doubt. At any rate, we'll likely not see much storms. It'll be a quick journey, I wager," he said with a grin.
The boatman made himself busy turning a heavy crank to lift the anchor into the boat. The chain creaked noisily and he grunted with the effort of the job, sweat beading on his face in the sun. After a few moments, the heavy anchor was lifted, and he began the task of unfurling the sails, great white squares of cloth that filled with the breeze almost immediately. The small but sturdy boat bounced on the water a few times, causing its less experienced passengers to grip tightly to the walls. The boatman laughed gleefully, however, and settled himself in behind the wheel of the boat.
Hikari began to feel a little nauseous, which concerned her as they had barely begun to move. "How long do you expect this will take?" she called over the sailor's joyous laughter.
"Hard to say," he answered. A strong breeze caught the sail just then, filling it and propelling them forward at a quick speed. The sailor seemed to be most thrilled at the motion. Hikari felt her stomach leap in circles. Salt water splashed the sides of the boat as they bounced through the waves.
"If we get a good strong wind the whole way, we might well get there in two days. Fastest trip I've ever made was leaving in early morning and arriving just before dawn the next day, but that was with a good strong breeze in the right direction and no storms to disrupt me. Longest trip was nearly a week – four days straight with barely a light breeze and then a monster of a storm two nights in a row. Most trips take about two and a half days, but it's all luck, really."
Hikari glanced toward Miyako, on the other side of the boat, with a somewhat hopeful expression. Miyako certainly had enough power over the wind to create a speedy journey, and that would certainly lessen the feeling of seasickness. But the young mage didn't seem to have heard the previous conversation. She was peering out over the water in front of them, which seemed to stretch out as far as the eye could see.
The shoreline behind them was becoming smaller and smaller, the Rusty Plate Inn looking no larger than a small hut now.
Sometime near nightfall, the stars beginning to appear in the sky, Takeru and Shijo returned to the palace. Takeru had coaxed Pegasmon to fly them as far as a village halfway between them and the palace (thus cutting out a considerable part of their journey) where they had rented the use of a small cart, though not a driver, and two sturdy and reliable Monochromon. They had little to carry, but the prospect of traveling the rest of the way on foot was not a welcome one so far as Takeru was concerned, and Shijo was pleased to be relieved of a long walk.
Though he was exhausted, Takeru sought out first Taichi, to tell him of Hikari's plans, and then Momoe, Miyako's sister, to see that she was well, and to tell her that Miyako would not be coming directly home as planned. Shijo went to his brother, who had taken up a room in the hall that housed the other mages and was already surrounded by tall piles of thick, heavy books.
"It's all so interesting!" Maigo told his older brother with an eager grin on his face. "There's so much to learn!"
"So you're glad you've come then?" Shijo asked. He took a book from the pile and glanced at the page that he opened to. The first word was "Your." The second word was "Aura." The rest of the page was mostly incomprehensible to him, full of magical words and advice. He shut the book and set it down before it threatened to give him a headache.
The room was small with not much more than a bed and a desk to work at. Any available floor space had been taken up by the books. Feeling tired, Shijo sat on the bed.
"Glad? Yes!" Maigo answered. "Beyond glad! Thrilled! And you? Did you see the Princess? Did you give it to her?"
"I did," he said, yawning. "And I did, and then the person that the digivice belongs to appeared." He frowned in thought and leaned back on the bed and shut his eyes half-way.
"Really? That's great!"
"I suppose," Shijo said, yawning again and shutting his eyes the rest of the way. "Except that…" he yawned again "…this monster attacked and then the carriage caught fire. And then…" another yawn "…there was a battle…."
"A battle?" Maigo echoed. "Wow!"
Shijo opened one eye, amused by his brother's excitement, then yawned and shut it again. "Yeah. And then the spell broke, but it didn't, really. And then it rained."
"The spell broke but it didn't?" Maigo repeated. "What's that mean?"
The answer would have to wait until morning, for Shijo had fallen asleep.
"You're right," Yamato told his brother as he splashed cool water on his face. "Someone ought to tell Jun. Maybe you, since you know what's happened and where he's gone."
The younger brother sighed, letting the water drip from his nose and eyelashes back into the basin. "I believe I once saw Jun when she was angry," he said, blinking his eyes. "I'm not sure I really want that again."
"Why should she be angry with you?" the other returned, but he was frowning. "It isn't as though you're the one who enslaved him."
Takeru rubbed his face with a towel, laughing to himself. "No, but as that person is not currently available and I would be…." He sighed, setting the towel aside and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. "She thought – thinks – he might well be dead, and yet, instead of me returning to tell her that he is, in fact, alive, and here he is, I tell her that he is alive, but traveling out to sea. You know Jun. Tell me how she will likely react to that?"
Yamato hesitated, shrugged. "She will want to know why he has not come immediately home and why he allowed her to think that he was, or at least could have been dead for so long."
"Yes," Takeru said, walking past his brother from the small washroom into the sitting room where he could collapse into a comfortable chair and relax. "So I explain that he has not come immediately home because…because he is enspelled and the best way to break that spell is to travel out to sea."
"Out to sea?" Yamato echoed. "She will want to know what sort of help might he get out to sea that he cannot get here, and why could he not have at least sent a note before he left? Or traveled home to inform her that he was well. Especially after she traveled to seek him out."
Sighing again, Takeru contemplated the ceiling for a few moments before he spoke. "See, I'm not sure how much of him is left."
"Definitely don't say that," Yamato advised, turning to glance out the window, his eyes having caught sight of a distant candle light in the gardens below.
"He's been under a spell for a few weeks now," the younger brother continued, "a spell that, from what I can tell, takes away one's identity and free will."
"And you think this might cause him to forget something?"
"Maybe. There's no way to know, until the spell is removed. If it can be."
There was a few moments of silence. Takeru contemplated the ceiling, yawning more and more frequently. Patamon slept soundly on the arm of a sofa. Yamato watched the candlelight dance in the garden below, wondering at the source of it.
"All the same, I think it's best if you go to Jun. Explain it, as best you can, from the beginning. She'll want to hear it from someone who was there, anyway," he said, finally. The light in the garden extinguished itself, and he turned away from the window.
"I know you're right," Takeru said. "I suppose I'll go tomorrow." He yawned, his mouth stretching wide open.
The night on the waters of the sea passed peacefully, a brilliant red-orange sunset slowly fading to darker colors before being replaced by thousands of glowing stars. The passengers slowly drifted to sleep in the warm night air, lulled by the gentle rolling of the waves.
It was still dark when Miyako awoke, feeling a cold breeze and a splash of salt water against her skin. She squinted in the inky darkness of the night and struggled for a moment with disorientation. The boat moved up and down with increasing frequency.
There was a single pinprick of light coming from the opposite side of the deck – a lantern that the boatman had lit before he himself had fallen to sleep near the wheel. It was resting on the seat, rocking back and forth in the waves, but the boatman had awakened and taken the wheel.
"Doesn't seem like much now," he said when Miyako had come close enough that he could see her clearly. "But this sort of thing might easily become a hell of a storm in a half a second or less."
"Do you think - ?" Miyako was about to ask, but was interrupted by the sound of a large wave suddenly crashing into the side of the boat.
"Damn," muttered the sailor, just loud enough to be heard. Shouting, "Take the wheel!" he rushed toward the front of the boat.
"I don't know the first thing about boats! I've never before been on the water!" Miyako called after him.
He turned back, briefly, shouting: "Just trust the magic! You know something about the wind, don't you?"
"Not that much," sighed the young mage, taking hold of the wooden wheel, which was now rapidly spinning out of control. She gripped it with both hands and tried her best to stop it from spinning, but it didn't seem to be working, and from the slightly higher vantage point of this side of the boat, she could see that waves were building and crashing into the sides of the craft with increasing frequency now.
Hikari had awakened, and was instinctively making her way toward the center of the boat, but the waves crashed over the edge and were managing to soak her nonetheless. She gripped hold of the center mast just as the boat titled sharply to the side, sending everything that wasn't bolted down to the opposite end. Another wave crashed over the edge, soaking the wooden floor of the tiny craft.
She'd gripped tightly hold of Daisuke, but as the boat lurched in the opposite direction, the water loosened her grasp on his hand, and he slid toward the edge just as another wave splashed over the side, drenching him from head to toe. "Come back here!" she shouted, and he was trying to do just that, but the boat kept lurching, and he couldn't easily stand on the wet floor.
The boatman had managed to reach the center mast of the boat. He wrapped most of his body around the thick wooden post and hugged it with his right arm. With his left, he held up a hand and unleashed the magic that he knew, halting the largest wave yet just as it was about to crash over the edge of the boat.
Tailmon climbed up the side of the mast and dug her sharp claws into the wood. "Hikari!" she called just as the rain began to fall from the sky in sheets of droplets. "Hold on to me!"
"Hang on!" Hikari called, taking her partner's free paw in one hand and stepping away from the mast, reaching for Daisuke, who was trying unsuccessfully to gain footing on the drenched wood.
Miyako had taken hold of the wheel and was trying her best to hold on to it, but she was afraid to release her hold on her partner, who would likely be blown away in the strong winds and rain. She was beginning to feel not a little bit queasy.
"Can't you do something?" Hawkmon asked her, having to shout over the crashing waves even though he was only a short distance from her ears. "With the wind?"
"I can try," she answered hesitantly. A wave crashed into the boat from behind, jolting her forward and causing her to completely lose her grip on the wheel and fall to the ground. The boat titled and she slid downward at an alarming rate of speed toward the ocean below.
Miyako stopped all the thought as best she could, knowing that her likely best hope of survival would be to use her magic, to gain control of the wind and use it to propel the boat through the violent waters. It was not easy to do so, however, while she was sliding across the slick wet surface of the deck.
The wind was screaming in her ears, and she tried to remember what she knew about the wind spell. The first time she had cast the wind spell, in the frozen forest, on solid ground, with no threat of seasickness, likely a week's journey from this place in the middle of the water. She shut her eyes, trying to remember the words she had seen in the book of magic, trying to remember the way the magic had felt when she had cast the spell just the day before.
When she had regained the memory, the magic came easily, flowing through her body and escaping through hands and mingling with the air around her.
The wind stopped. The waves continued to bash against the side of the boat and rock the craft from side to side in the choppy waters, and the rain continued to pour, but the wind had stopped and Hikari had taken hold of Daisuke once more and pulled him toward the central mast, where she and the sailor clutched tightly to the massive wooden post and Tailmon had her claws dug into the wood. Hikari became aware of the lack of wind and she turned toward the back of the boat.
She was clutching the wheel tightly and her eyes were shut just as tightly, and something about the expression on her face told all that she was concentrating on something very strongly. Then, she opened her eyes, and even across the boat Hikari could sense, could see, that she had taken hold of the wind.
And then the sail above them filled with the wind, billowing fully. The boat lurched forward and then sped onward at a rapid rate of speed. The sailor laughed triumphantly.
"I knew it!" he shouted over the sound of the rain and the wind roaring in their ears. "She said she wasn't much of a mage, but look at that! Look at it! She's a hell of a mage." He remembered himself suddenly and added, "Beg pardon, majesty."
Hikari grinned. "She is indeed."
"I'm going to regret this, you know," Takeru told his partner from the safety of their carriage. "I'm going to very much regret this, likely from the second Jun sets eyes on me."
"Maybe," Patamon agreed. "You'd regret it more if you said nothing, though, I think."
Takeru sighed. "You're right, of course."
The carriage stopped, the door was pulled open, and Jun Motomiya herself appeared, a concerned sort of expression on her face. Takeru shivered.
"Much as I'm pleased to see you, Takeru, it's not often you come here on social occasions just for me," Jun told him, stepping aside to give him room to exit the carriage. "I hope you bring news."
Takeru hesitated briefly before he stepped down. "I do. Not all good, not all bad."
A frown appeared. "I see," she said, sighing. She turned to walk inside, and he followed. "I told him…I warned him, you know. I was afraid it would end like this." She paused when they reached the door. A servant opened the door and she resumed her steps. "I've already lost my mother. I told him I didn't want to lose another…."
"I'm sure he knows," Takeru said, trying his best to be comforting. He sighed, watching the pattern of the carpet below his feet as he walked.
There was silence for a few moments when they reached a small sitting room. There were dark blue carpets and dark green drapes and a few dark brown couches. Some bookshelves lined the walls, and over the fireplace was a portrait of some deceased relative that Takeru couldn't identify.
"Some tea, I think," Jun said, and he nodded politely before sinking into a couch. Only when the servant had left to fetch the drink did she take a seat on the couch opposite him, a small table now between them.
"You say he knows," she said. "You speak of him as though he lives."
"He does," Takeru said forcefully, trying to convince himself as much as Jun. If she sensed any sort of hesitation, she might not be convinced. It would be best, he thought, to not have her organize some sort of memorial for her brother who was still living.
She looked at him closely as though trying to determine if it was wise to believe him. "Have you seen him?"
"I have."
"Did Hikari send you?"
He shook his head. "No. Hikari is at least three days journey from here, on a boat in the middle of the sea. I did tell her I was coming here, though."
Jun opened her mouth to speak, then shut it as the servant entered with a tray of tea. Something about the way in which Jun seemed completely oblivious to this action convinced him to simply set the tray down on the low table between them and then quickly leave.
"It's sort of a long story, Jun," Takeru said before she could interrupt. "He lives. I have seen him with my own eyes."
"And he is where now? If he lives, why is he not here? Why does he not return home to tell me that he lives? Where is he? What are you not telling me?"
"He is with Hikari," he answered.
Jun was silent a moment. "On a boat in the middle of the sea?"
"As I said, it is a long story. I will tell you, and you must trust me that what I'm saying is true, because it is."
She stood, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face, and turned away. She was silent a long while, and Takeru poured two cups of tea while he waited. Without any particular destination in mind, she wandered about the room, seeing nothing. It seemed an interminably long time before she nodded, taking the tea he had poured and sitting once more. "All right," she said, after she had taken a sip and set the delicate cup down once more. "Tell me all you can."
Two days more passed on the water before they caught sight of land in the early morning. Hikari shook Miyako awake; she had been sleeping quite a bit the last few days as she often did after casting a powerful spell.
"Is that the place up ahead?" Hawkmon wanted to know, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he awoke. He spread his wings and perched atop the mast where he could see more clearly.
"It is indeed!" the boatman answered from his spot by the wheel. "Not a bad journey, all in all." He was gleeful, laughing cheerfully, and seemed full of energy, even while his partner Betamon dozed behind him.
It was only a dim spot of green on the horizon, but it grew to be an even larger spot of green the closer they came, and then trees and rocks came into focus. Shortly after noon they were within sight of the docks and the small cove through which island visitors entered. They couldn't see people from the docks, only trees, and a great cover of them.
"How will we know where to go?" Hikari wanted to know. "I don't see any people. Didn't you say this island is populated?"
"Don't worry," called the boatman as he turned the wheel sharply so that he could enter the cove. "They'll know when you've arrived."
"I see someone," Hawkmon reported from his vantage point. "Just one woman, coming down a path from the trees toward the docks."
By the time the sailor had lowered the anchor in the waters of the small harbor, the woman had reached the edge of the dock. She was elderly, her gray hair streaked with white, but she seemed not to lack energy, and she looked pleasant and cheerful. She wore a white skirt and a soft brown cloak that covered the rest of her and protected against the strong ocean breezes, but she did not wear the hood, and her hair danced in the wind.
"Welcome," the woman called to them as they made their way across the wooden dock, the boards creaking beneath their feet. The waves splashed gently against the beach beyond them and the wind rustled in the trees. All felt peaceful. "Welcome to the Sanctuary of Magic. We've been expecting you." She bowed in greeting.
Had this not been an island full of magic, this statement might have caused much more surprise than it did. There was a long silence, the visitors taking in the sights while the woman waited patiently.
"I -," Hikari began. "I am glad to have made it. I hope you can help us."
The woman's calm smile didn't fade. She nodded. "I hope we can, as well, your majesty. Come. I'm sure your journey has left you tired and hungry. Some more tired than others." With this last statement, she glanced toward Miyako, who had unsuccessfully tried to suppress a yawn, a knowing sort of smile appearing now.
"My name is Akiko. Please, follow me. We will find you something to eat, and something to help you regain your energy. I am sure you have many questions, much to ask, much to learn. Don't hesitate to ask."
Progress! More to come soon!