euGh. Remind me never to start work on a new multi-chapter piece if I'm already working on one. Oh wait, I already did. Gehh... Slows me down, sorry guys.
You're beautiful, Reviewers! Now enough madness. Moving on with chapter thirty-four.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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I, Alex Reyes, speak. Mr. Greys transcribes. My arms have no strength.
Fifth Night.
We're not dead.
I did not think to write again, and sleep wants me, as I want it. But the journal consumes, it must be recorded, now.
My last entry was completed before the sun had peaked. Though the day was strong, it was still very cold. There was a terrible wind from the west. It brought cruel clouds that blocked out the light and would not share their rain. So we lay covered in our blankets, and I held my wrapped-up book as an ensepulchered soldier holds his sword.
I didn't know. It seemed... a thing to be done. The doomed may still have dignity.
And so we lay there. We tried to sleep, but the wind blew right through us and we froze. All we could do was wait. Just shiver and doze, and wait for death. Or a ship. But we saw no ships. I thought again of things to write. But I was just too tired to unbind my book. And I was sufficiently satisfied with what had already been recorded. I was content with my fate.
Mr. Greys has just reminded me of something I'd forgotten. I don't remember it very clearly; feels like a dream. At some point I said to him, "You can eat me if I die first."
Maybe I was dreaming. I only remember the wind. Weeping.
It's a strange place, when there's nothing to live for but dying. Just waiting and wondering when, and what it feels like.
This is too morbid.
But I'm glad Mr. Greys is here to interject the memories I've failed to keep. He's helping me write this in more ways than one.
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We waited a long time.
And then Mr. Greys cried out.
I thought he was dying. I opened my eyes, and the sky was darker than I had left it. The sun was setting.
He wasn't dying, he was yelling at me to wake up. He pointed to a thing in the southern sky. It was a ship, flying low. After that point it was like another life, another strength, and I was reeling and threatening to fall over before I realized I had gotten up.
The ship was flying north, and it would pass by us on the west. We waved our arms and yelled and screamed and our voices did not sound like our own; they didn't want to work, and shouting made the parch more painful.
Mine still does not sound like my own as I speak. It's thrashed.
Our voices and arms were too small. So we took my blanket and flapped it back and forth, again and again. It left me winded after only a few flaps. Mr. Greys too. We were so tired. But they didn't change course. Maybe if the blanket hadn't been so mud-caked they would have been able to see the color.
They stayed on their heading. When they were close enough for us to hear their engine chugging, and they kept flying straight, I wanted to cry. I didn't even know if I wanted to live anymore. It was all Yes's and No's in my head all over again.
Then Mr. Greys put his hands on my shoulders, and I opened my eyes and found that I was on my knees. I didn't even remember falling down; I still don't. But the gesture was enough; I did want to live. I really did.
But I looked at Mr. Greys, and he had a mad look in his eye. He said, "We need a fire. The blankets."
I couldn't think. I said, "We could die without the blankets."
But he said, "We will definitely die without that ship."
So it was to be a fire.
But we had nothing to make a fire with. We used to get our fires going by using the lantern. Mr. Greys could open it up and make a short, and get it to spark.
But the lantern was gone.
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This is Samuel Greys. Mr. Reyes has asked me to write for a time. A heavy heart has rendered him uneager to dictate further. I do not blame him; he has lost Shanda's ring. He does not wish to speak of it.
We knew we would not be able to start a fire, at least not by any means we had used before. So, Mr. Reyes undid the cord from around his neck and offered the ring. I had forgotten about it. Thank the Moons he had not. He made it plain to me that the gem was a Nasrean red moonstone, conductive to pyr-energy, however small an amount.
Neither of us knows how to use magic. But we were able to release a small amount of energy by destroying the stone. We used the cutlass to fray one edge of the quilting, and positioned the scraps as kindling around a flat rock. We set the ring in the middle and used another flat rock to crush it. The flames came out between the rocks in a red disc, and ignited the fabric.
We kept the fire high by feeding it both blankets, and our coats, and we continued to wave until the ship came level with us to the west. But it still did not change course.
I will not pollute this book with recitations of my expletives.
Suffice it to say I became very violently angry. As no other ideas came to me, I used the four remaining shots of my pistol against the ship. The distance was impossible, but one of the balls must have connected, for the ship turned toward our smoke a moment later.
I asked Mr. Reyes for the cutlass, but he had fallen into another swoon. I took it from his things and was favored with a last shaft of daylight. I used the blade to reflect the light back at the ship. It makes me grateful that Mr. Reyes has kept the metal so clean.
The ship came toward our beacon until it was almost directly above us. We saw it was Valuan in design, steel-hulled. The engine strained to lessen the altitude, but the ship was still several fathoms out of reach.
After a moment, two men leaned over the deck rail, and one of them waved and said something in Old Valuan. I yelled back at him to lower something. Either he understood me or it had been his intent from the beginning, for he then dropped a line over the side.
When I had enough length to work with, I secured Mr. Reyes first. He regained enough sense to hold on, and then demanded his journal with a vigor I had not seen in him for days. I put the book in his rucksack and strapped it to him, and then shouted back to the men on board and they hoisted him up.
Shortly thereafter they let the line back down, and I tied it fast around me. I took the cutlass and left the rest, and bade Deep Sky farewell.
When I cleared the railing, the cutlass and my pistol were taken from me. It was understandable enough; I expect we'll get them back later. Mr. Reyes was sprawled on the deck, still holding his journal tight against him. One of the crewmen helped him with a canteen. The same man offered me a drink as well, and I accepted it gratefully.
Then a man whom we have since learned to be the captain of this ship stepped forward, and put forth what I could tell was a question. I didn't understand it, but Mr. Reyes did, and, still closed-eyed on his back, he answered likewise in Old Valuan. The exchange went on for a moment until the captain paused. He looked us both up and down, distributed some orders, and a short time later Mr. Reyes and I found ourselves in the mess, with hot bowls of hamachou broth, a variety of fruit and a pile of biscuits at our disposal.
I don't think either of us had ever been so happy to lay eyes on a meal.
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Alex Reyes again. Mr. Greys still transcribes. I fell asleep and he took the liberty to keep writing. He's shorter in words than I am. Probably better, elsewise it would never be finished.
He read it to me, and I am happy with what he has put down. But he forgot to say he burned all the hair off his arms when he smashed Shanda's ring.
What the captain said—Captain Alvarez—he asked who we were and if we were "thrown off by the storm too."
I told him we were sardis-fishers, attacked by pirates and stranded in Deep Sky for weeks. Pirates he believed. Sardis-fishers and weeks in Deep Sky I don't think so. He gave us food either way, and some makeshift berths in a storage room.
I'm just glad the language is still in my head. I haven't studied it in a long time.
The fruit was very good. Never tasted its like before. But now I feel so full. A little sick. So much food after nothing. I hope it will go away.
After we ate, the captain came to talk to us again. We found out this is the west side of the Valuan Rift. We must have drifted here under the clouds after we were shot down. There's no way back to the east side, back to Isla de Faro except up and across Valua and back south through Nasr.
It makes me sad. It's such a long way. Too far. Too far for my family.
But I'll be all right. And they'll be all right. I just—we'll be fine.
Captain Alvarez didn't believe we were sardis-fishers because there are no sardis west of the Valuan Rift. We told him how we crashed, and how far we climbed, but I don't think he believes that either. I think he took our mountains to be only very low islands.
Thinking about it, he has not seen the depths, he doesn't know. Perhaps it doesn't matter, what he believes or not. Either way, he has been more than gracious in giving us passage, for the moment. We're going north to the Pasaje del Oeste. His ship—this ship, the Viento Rico—needs repairing there. They took damage in a storm.
Mr. Perez, the one who gave us water, he told us what happened. They make their runs from Valua to Ixa'taka of all places. Or a remnant of it. There is some land left then; the Rains didn't destroy it all. There's a small Valuan colony near the north end of a big landmass, and it's there Captain Alvarez gets his fruit stock. Garpa, they call it. Sells for a high price up north. We've tasted why.
They had begun their return journey to Valua when they were blown far off-course, way out to the east, by gale-winds and lightning. That's how they ended up near the rift, where they found us. They were only flying as low as they were to ease the stress on their engine. If they'd been in the trafficking altitudes, they would never have seen us.
Call it what you will, to me it's a miracle.
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Mr. Reyes would still have me record. But he is weary of dictation, and wants to sleep. I do not understand this urgency he feels to have it all down on paper, as it happens. I understand even less the need I feel to oblige.
The sun is rising. In which case, Sixth Day
Sr. Perez has brought us some breakfast. He has been very helpful, to myself especially, as he speaks some broken Mid-Oceanic. But he has seemed anxious about something.
A few moments ago he exchanged some words with me. He asked me if there had not been another with us, a mujer—a woman—when they found us on the mountain.
I figured what he must have been referring to, and told him it was the wind. I had to make gestures for him to take my meaning.
He asked me what was down there, in the depths.
I knew enough to answer in his native tongue. "Sólo la muerte." Only death.
I do not think it satisfied him entirely, but he did seem to realize I do not want to think on it anymore.
Mid-day. Mr. Reyes would write with his own hand. I am going to sleep.
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I'm all right now Elena.
Love you so much. Forever.