The next day, Telmair had his company assemble at the mouth of the cave; his revolver at the ready in case someone tried something. Don Passarid leaned against the mouth of the cave eyeing the land around them. It was a land rather like the Pacific Northwest the northern Andes. Only the highest mountains had snow and thick evergreens on the slopes gave way to foggy foothills dotted with subtropical vegetation. The cries of crows and eagles could be heard most often, and the sea to the west consisted of huge white capped waves which constantly crashed against the shore.
"My companions," began Telmair. "You may wonder where we are and what has happened. I can start by telling you that luck has turned to our favor. For I can see that we are nowhere near those who pursued us. Some remarkable twist of fate has taken us from the bitter hands of Roemer and brought us through some strange portal to another world."
Needless to say there was some commotion amongst the four men and especially their women who were of the Island and spoke only a form of Malay Creole. Then one man, Bernard Clark, spoke up in an attempt to bring reason. "We cannot deny this. I could see that the stars which shone last night were not the stars of are world. You three mock this? I ask you, come up with a more logical explanation."
Now logic was something very few pirates, even these more sophisticated modern pirates new little about. Clark himself was not so much a pirate himself as he was a deserter. His father wanted him to join the Navy and his mother wanted him to be a surgeon. Neither of these occupations pleased him and while at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich he ran away and found Captain Roemer and the Sea Blade. Roemer promised to take Clark to California; instead he was run aground on a strange Island, and now another world entirely.
The remaining three sailors could not refute Bernard, and after sometime were resigned to the fact that by some form of magic they had come to a new world. Casper began to give out orders, himself resigned to the fact that he was in charge, no matter what anyone else might have said to the contrary.
Passarid gazed down the slope of the mountain in search of the best possible way down. The sides dropped steeply. However, on the left, southward, there was a traversable gradient leading into the forest. He alerted Telmair who then called for the others to gather their belongings and follow. Slowly the twelve climbed past jagged, natural obelisks of dark basalt and twisted yew trees. The sandy soil beneath them made their path slippery.
After nearly an hour of tiresome travel they reached the foot of the mountain that brought them to the new wilderness. They were facing a nearly impenetrable forest with the sea at their backs. The sun caused them to long for the cool of the woods. Casper drew his hatchet and thus began the custom of his descendents, the felling of trees.
As they progressed into the dark woods, making their way into nothing, seeking the clearing which they had spotted from the mountain, Bernard could feel a harsh and hostile presence around him. It came upon the wind like as an unseen frigid fiend breathing down Clark's neck. The woods grew darker, the light became a dim bottle-green, underwater sort of light, and the sylvan denizens could be heard converging amongst them to escape the heat of the day. After nearly two hours of trekking southwestwardly the light grew again more intense until it was ordinary pure sunshine. They had come out into a relatively large clearing. The pleasant and familiar sound of trickling water could be heard coming from not too far away. Clark surmised that a better place to set up home in this new world could not be found for quite some time.
He approached Telmair with his idea. The bearded first mate smiled greedily. A cheep but unexpected pleasure of having a land all his own, without competition, such hurts the pride of one like him but feeds the greed. He strode over to the stream, placing one foot in it and the other on the grassy shore he proclaimed, "I claim this land for me and the men of my company. It will be the land of my descendents forever. In the name of The Sea Blade, the Blessed Virgin, and the honor of my men, I christen this land after my own name. It shall be called Telmar!"
The men were trying not to show either their contempt or utter amusement at this display. The women stood gazing upon the one who was their master with a curious look. "Would you call that a satisfactory job, Dr. Clark?" said Casper, almost mockingly.
"I suppose so," Replied the young scholar. The sort of foreboding came over him that one has when they've just woken up and have thought that something is doomed to go wrong for no real reason. The worst thing about it is that it is very often the case that something does go wrong. Clark turned, "If you excuse me, I think I shall see what sort of food is available."
The woods appeared as the sort of place that makes a person feel that there is something ancient living there amongst the venerable soaring trees yet something very new and artificial, as one does upon finding an arrow head, or greater still, a cabin in a very old forest which looks as if it simply appeared there by magic. Here and there he found patches of a sort of tall stiff grass that upon further inspection turned out to be a type of feral wheat; still further on were whole hillsides interspersed with raspberries, not the small tart ones one would typically expect to find in the wild but sweet, cultivated juicy berries, yet still earthy as if tended by a gardener who really knew what a plant goes through and was just as earthy as it. This was at first a shock to Clark. Did some sort of settlement exist in the nearby vicinity? He determined that if anyone at all lived here is must have been a good while ago and he ought not to worry himself over it.
When he returned he attempted to tell his "wife," as best he could, of the blessing he had found.
"Look here. It is food, comes from over there. Tell others too so we all not starve."
Hine nodded and walked briskly towards the other women.
Clark decided that he had now found his place in this new system. If Casper wanted to be a king, he would be the prime minister, not taking the glory, but in his own right being more important. His knowledge would serve as the basis for this new world. He knew history, laws. The responsibilities he ran from on earth he gladly took up here. It was as if the air itself made him more mature with every full and smooth breath he took, more of a man with every exhalation. He had found his calling.
For Don, a different discovery was in store. He felt as if there was something here, a presence in the trees themselves, in the very earth. A living earth, is that what this place was? With hands trembling he stuck his hand through the grass and into the soft earth on the river bank. It was rich, deep brown, saturated with life. It was, in fact the most fertile soil that he had ever seen. Passarid rinsed his hands in the swift stream. He looked at wonder at the back of his right hand. The scar which had been there for months had healed and vanished. The soil could heal.
How long would this last, he wondered, now that man was here. Would the magic be lost? Would all that made this world special fade out of memory forever? Don hoped not. If only he could ensure that this land remained as it was, beautiful, magical, full of dreams and longing.
The sound of Casper's hatchet broke the pristine silence and with it came a blow of despair straight to the young Spaniard's heart. The nature of man was too strong. The desire to conquer, to go above and beyond to save his name, his kind, would one day weed out all that was enchanting about this land. Don felt a pang of guilt for thinking this. Was it not his duty to guarantee that Man prevailed? He was torn between what he had known all his life and what he now felt sitting in a place where the stars above his head sing and there is healing in the very dirt beneath his feet.
"Passarid!" shouted Telmair, "Come over and give us a hand with this tree."
With head hung low he approached the place where the young spruce had been felled. The soil was dry like sand. The healing had gone out from it. It was now only a matter of time before the whole land was cleared and dead just like this patch of ground. He shot a quick glance of scorn at his first mate, picket up the tree and carried it over to the place Telmair directed. The urge to strike the man where he stood was immense as Casper smiled and said, "Soon there will be more men than trees in this land. And one day they will return to this spot and say here are founder built his first home and cleared the forest and removed the savage beasts. Who knows, perhaps we have been destined to be the Adams and Eves of this new world. "
Passarid scowled. Did the man have no regard for the magic which he himself could feel so strongly emanating from all that was about them, directed by one beyond the woods, the sky, the sea?
"Eh, what is wrong with you man?" questioned Casper in a voice which was nearly caring.
Don remained silent. He wished he could shout; scream even that the dirt could heal, it had life in it, they would never have to worry about fresh food, but only if there remained trees near it. But all that came out was a whimpering "nothing, just the heat."
"Yes, blasted isn't it. If only we had taken more tools with is we could do this job in about two days. I suppose that's the problem with not having more skilled men on a ship."
Passarid knew this was to be taken as an insult to captain Roemer but he could not stop himself from interjecting. "Bresner is fairly adept with metalwork and such."
"Really? Well it is a shame we have no iron to supply him with. In fact we have nothing save a hatchet, two pistols, and some knives." He sighed. "I suppose my dream is gone now, isn't it?"
Don thought to himself, indeed, and for the best. Instead he merely shrugged much to Telmair's displeasure.
He eyed one of the sailors wading in the stream as he jumped up and began to run towards the sailor known as Clark with something which looked rather like a dark lump in his hand. "It is clay, no?"
Clark looked up and smiled. "Indeed it is! A capital discovery my good man" he said with all the pride and flair that Don associated with a British nobleman rather than a young runaway. Perhaps the land was working a change in him as well.
From this point onward various tasks were found and carried out. Food was gathered from the places that Clark had stumbled upon, and in the evening stones were piled up to create an oven for hardening the clay.
That night Passarid laid his head down beneath the cloudless sky and the singing stars with the sickening knowledge that this place would soon never be the same. If there was somewhere in this world intelligent creatures, they would always remember the day the men of Telmar came. When modern man broke into the enchanted woods and crushed it, made it into another Europe, the very place he had been so glad to escape.