Sorry for the long delay; I have many mad schemes I'm working on with my co-conspirator, and they take time...
Many thanks to my reviewers! You win the whole parade.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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Seventh Waking.
We're on the mountain. It's me, Dhalan, and Greys.
Dhalan said something to me shortly after I ended my last entry. He said I should "get my nose outta my book and start helping". I realized how everyone else had been reacting to our situation, but I didn't think about myself. I guess I have been a little reclusive. Why am I so drawn to pen and paper? I don't know. Maybe it's just something to hide behind. An outlet? A comfort? Maybe it's what keeps me sane.
We've been looking a lot at the engine these past few wakings. We've found what pieces are damaged and we've been trying to repair them. All it is to me is a bunch of twisted metal that needs to be bent back into shape. But I'm learning a lot from Greys. He's shown me and Dhalan how the moonstone-chamber works and where the energy goes... I still don't understand it all the way, but I think I'm getting it. Greys said we were lucky that the chamber didn't rupture.
But honestly, I'm wondering whether it's really fixable. I'm not an engineer, but it all just looks so terrible. The damage, I mean. It makes me wonder whether the Zephyrus will ever really fly again.
Think positive, think positive. I guess we'll find out if it'll fly when and if we can get all the pieces back together.
So. Since the engine is in such questionable shape, we decided we'd better scout up the mountain. We all want to get out of here, and back to civilization, and we're going to search every possible avenue until we find one that works. Maybe this mountain leads up and connects with an island or a reef or something. I don't know what we'd do from there, but...
Ah, and I'm getting visions of rock-climbing in open sky, rock-to-rock through a stone-reef until we reach a landmass. Could you sleep on a reef-rock? Don't they pitch and roll, so you'd fall off if you didn't keep moving? Do reef-rocks collide with each other? Very often, anyway? Wouldn't want to wake up to that. Pinched between two small islands.
Maybe if you could find one with a little nook in it, and then somehow lash yourself inside, so you wouldn't fall out if it rolled, and so you'd be protected if there were a collision. Could you sleep doing that? Rolling around inside rope and rock? Maybe if you were tired enough. Maybe you could sail the world inside a rock. Madness...where would you put the privies? And worse! If it turned upside-down!
I get ahead of myself too easily. So far it's just a lot of mud. This mountain is a lot bigger than it looks. Not that it's easy to actually see how big it looks, in the darkness. It's like the horizon comes closer just to tease you. And then you go forward and the horizon leaps ahead, just out of reach. It's all shadows. I can see the great mass of it, barely against the clouds, there. But it always seems closer than it is.
At first we tried a plank-line thing again, to go up the mountain, and it didn't work so great. Well it worked fine, it was just time-consuming and difficult, and you have to pick up the planks behind you, and hand them forward to lay down in front. So we tried that, and it was really slow--and then Shanda has this wonderful idea. (She's been doing a little better.) What we did is we each took two of the railing posts, and lashed them one to a foot.
The railing posts are good for everything all of a sudden. They're wide and shovelly, and you can also wear them like sleds on your feet.
All at once it makes me glad of our low-class fishing vessel. I've seen bigger, richer ships that have round railing posts. But ours are flat. They're perfect.
So you lash the post under your boot, with the rope over your toes, and then over your ankle and back behind. And it helps if you can thread the rope through any buckles you have. Dhalan's shoes were a little trickier to get to work. Nasrean style and all.
When you have them on your feet, you take a couple more ells of rope and lash the front ends of the posts together. You hold this like a kind of double-leash on your sleds, and you can pull it up if one of your leading edges gets stuck. And it also helps to sort of pull your feet forward. It keeps the fronts above the mud, anyway.
It's a lot easier than hauling planks with us, that's for sure.
It's funny. We've been doing something that Dhalan calls "switchbacking". Going straight up the mountain would take too much energy too fast. So we go mostly sideways, but with an upward angle, and then we switch back and go the other way. It's a zig-zag. He said Nasrean caravans have to do that sometimes in certain places along their trade-routes.
But it made me laugh, and I consider that very precious right now. I thought it was funny because it sounded like someone trying (and failing) to say "swashbuckling". Switchbacking, swashbuckling... Tremble before the great switchbacking pirate, Daccat!
...And I remind myself that I hate pirates.
We're moving.
That was something like an hour ago. Maybe more. I think we're as high up as we're going to get today--this waking. In a little bit we'll turn around and go back down. We can't even see the ship anymore. Just the trail we've left behind us. A few rests ago (I've been writing this in between stretches of hiking), we could barely see the glow from the lanterns we left hanging outside the ship. It was more of a dirty-gold haze. The air is so strange and thick here. Now we can't see any sign of the ship at all. It's too cloudy.
That eternal question... What lies below the clouds?
More clouds.
And our ship.
And what's on this mountain? Mud. And also our ship. And us. I think if we ever plan to get to the top of this mountain, wherever it is, we'll have to leave the ship behind. For a few wakings, anyway. But for now we're not going to extend that far. Besides, we didn't even bring anything to sleep on.
It suddenly frightens me, thinking about sleeping on this slope. Under the dark sky. No moonlight. Not even starlight. Will we ever have to sleep out here? Counting the things to keep you company... The ground, the air, and the horizon. Three.
I've been out in open sky before. Where you look out, and there's just nothing. No islands, no reefs. Just your ship, clouds below, and Moons above. Well I guess that's something. The Moons. And the stars. And your ship for that matter. But I mean when there's nothing else in the open sky. Just...open sky.
I used to think I could call that "nothing".
But this is worse. There really is nothing down here. The skies are eternally dark, and the land is the same in every direction. Does it bother Dhalan and Shanda that much? Aren't there some places in Nasr where the desert stretches for leagues and leagues all around? But at least in Nasr they can still see the Moons and stars and clouds, and blessed daylight.
It's like being an insect, lost in the space between two enormous overlapping blankets. Mud below, darkness above, and that's it. Forever. Limbo.
No, I want to sleep in the ship tonight--this...sleeping? Wakings and sleepings, days and nights, does it make a difference?
When we get back, I want to sleep in the ship.
Maybe I'll give Haley's ring to Shanda before I do. I think she'll be okay.