4. Moonbeam Rider

I was cleared to leave - I had entertained the thought of sneaking away by night, but then decided that the last thing I needed was a coast guard cutter catching me at sea on the suspicion of smuggling! So I dutifully passed all the procedures, got the cautions from the port's captain, and... was, in effect, done with my earthly life. My nominal destination was declared as being in Funchal, the capital of Madeira - a reasonably unsuspicious statement, as the island was only about 480 kilometres to the north. The weather forecast was, as I had learned, moderately favorable - and inquiring about it was not entirely a cover story, since I still had to get an honest hundred miles or so clear of the shore, out of anyone's sight, before I could hope to be... picked up, for the lack of a better word. I felt a pang of conscience as I thought of all the trouble the Spanish and Portuguese emergency services would have to go through when my boat's transponder would cease to be registered by the tracking infrastructure. No doubt I would be declared lost at sea with my vessel due to... Eru only knows what kind of mishap; but since there would be no one to inquire about me - much less to lament my presumed demise - there would probably be less of a fuss. Just one crazy Englishman (and I had a solid British passport in my pocket; I chuckled ruefully at the silly thought of having a Valinorean border guard stamp it with a seal covered in Tengwar inscriptions once I made landfall at Tol Eressëa!) attempting a solo sailing voyage in the open ocean and biting off more than he would be able to chew!..

That'd be it. No wreckage, no life rafts, no telltale slick of diesel upon the water. Now you see me, now you don't.

There was no small amount of unease in my mind, and not all of it - far from that - was due to the uncertainties to be found in the voyage over the Atlantic, and then the otherworldly, shadowed seas. No less of it came from the inevitable - if the transit was to turn out successful - necessity to deal with the judgement of the Valar. But now, at the forefront of my mind was the plain - and frankly, surprising - reluctance and regret. I've become used to this world over the millenia - and not just the amenities I would hardly expect to find in Aman. I've left the ashes of those once dear to me - though thankfully not their souls - beneath the seas, hills and mires of this realm, changed beyond any recognition though it might have been. I simply took a liking to some of the places - inevitably, most of those were the oceans and the secluded, unobvious seaside places like my present abode, Tenerife. There was something primal and eerily evocative about the craggy islands in the Atlantic - Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries - which were bringing back the memories of very different shores to me (that's why I liked these rocks so much, and have been spending a lot of time there). After all, just six hundred years ago these were the westernmost points of land known to the European man, and beyond them the superstitious medieval people perceived only the boundless expanse of the ocean, always frightening, forever beckoning.

Does that not sound familiar? Have the Men, through means unknown, contracted the Elvendom's fever of the West, the burning desire to ride the waves in chase of the setting sun - and look into the sundown, finding their promised land beyond?

Maybe the good old Christopher C. had heard me play some of my sorrowful ballads in his native country back in the day, before petitioning Isabella and Ferdinand, who knows. I can't deny being there at about the same timeframe.

I was not expecting to feel anything meaningful in transit to the point of entry. I quickly learned that I was wrong.

No sooner than I cleared the marina's breakwater, leaving the town, still hidden in the shadows of the early, cloudy morning, behind, that strong wind from the southeast picked up. I hurried to unfurl the sail - thankfully, much of the process was automated, Eru bless the more peacefully inclined scientific minds for bringing a myriad of useful little things to humankind! - then killed the engine to save the precious fuel. Fastening the wheel, I hurried to the prow - and froze there, closing my eyes and clutching the railings for dear life.

I felt with it every inch of my skin, which immediately crawled with goosebumps from head to toe. The wind was charged with a force not of this world, and with every gust my blood was becoming filled with magic - and the melody. Strings of fiery notes started to flow before my mental vision, and each of them was a golden droplet of power. I lost all sense, except this and - distantly - the cold touch of the metal guardrails against my gloveless palms, drinking in this vast song of the seas. In a flash, the sight of the ocean around me was restored, even though I never opened my eyes - but there was no boat behind me, and really not even my body to contain the spirit, anymore: only the acute feeling of sailing turning seamlessly into flight. It was an almost sensual, indescribable moment of synaesthesia, as melodic sequences melded with the mental sight and the sensations of the fёa until they became one. Only then I understood the feeling of fulfilling the eternal desire of our kind, knowing that I would be coming home before long.

I was never the one to forget a piece of music, unless I consciously wished so. Trying to erase this from my mind, however, would have been akin to the deed of Herostratus, or Mullah Omar, or Maigys.

If the magic of our world was, at the outset, music, then the inverse is also true, for music is magic. All of it. Even the, Eru forgive me, a "tune" to which Nicki Minaj would sway her ass in a YouTube clip, was a spell - of lust, in this case, a crude and borderline ineffectual, but an attempt at altering the viewers' mental state through sound, nevertheless. Mind you, that was not the subject that would grace my thoughts at that moment - but later, I decided that it merits explanation. In that case, the little gift of being able to erase such an insignificant bit of information from my memory helped.

But as I opened my eyes - and the two pictures, the real and the mental, snapped into one - I saw, dead ahead, the sight that made all of my being tremble, for it was absolution.

The weather was overcast as I sailed off, and remained this way, but now, a rupture in the clouds has allowed a wide pillar of light to break through, illuminating a broad swath of water and turning it from grey to golden. In an instant, I realized that it was where I needed to come - yet the wind was, curiously and alarmingly, abating and changing direction, not completely reversing it for now, but enough to carry me past this phenomenon if I were to stay the course. For a moment, I felt a pang of irritation, confusion and fear - have the Valar simply beckoned me with a vision that I took for a sign of probable escape and redemption, only to mockingly deny me passage at the last moment?

The melody was still within me, now pacing along like a cat - slow and tentative, but with a hint of underlying aggression that only took one wrong motion to awaken.

Then I realized what the catch was. This was the final choice given to me - the passage was not inevitable, I had to consciously make that decision and make good on it - but could just as well turn away and head for the shore. I hurried back to the cockpit and steered in the direction of the bright spot, suddenly feeling no hesitation anymore. Somehow, I was made fairly certain that if I decided to avoid it now, there would be no second chance ever given to me, and I would still eventually fade - though filled with an additional heavy load of regret before the end. Come whatever may, even in the worst case I might say that I've had a good, long life with enough memories for a dozen - elves, not mortals, at that.

When the yacht broke into the circle of light, I was blinded by the sun for a moment - and then, all of my other physical senses failed me for an instant even as the never-ending music within me rose to an infinitely elevated crescendo. In that endlessly brief - and yet lasting like aeons - point of time, I realized just what I had to do as the ultimate step of my millenia-long penitence rite.

Note: the chapter name is from a song by Voivod (from The Outer Limits album, 1993)