87 — LOWER DECKS
"Captain's log, supplement. Captain Meko Kaire of the Galleon of Athena speaking, and I hereby inform you that the regulations for music players are revoked on my ship, so that Ensign-Engineer Lunara can hear her songs before bed. Unless, of course, my first-mate objects."
Lunara would repeatedly listen to Captain Meko Kaire's latest recording on her personal recorder whenever she ended her shift, as if to remind herself of how he thought she did a great job. It was something that made her a little sad with longing, but also made her laugh briefly at the nonsense and especially at the Immediate Geist super nervous on the recording.
She wasn't the only sad one on that ship.
The atmosphere was funereal throughout the Galleon under the command of Geist, who was also experiencing a certain apathy when occupying the chair of her former Captain, a man so energetic and adored by the crew. One night, at the end of the day-shift, they were all surprised on deck by the sad guitar that Seiya was playing while sitting on the forecastle, humming slow melodies. The guitar that had been a gift from the Captain himself and Seiya played it in a very delicate and sad way; he, always so cheerful and confident, had lately seemed to be mired in grief.
Even the Pacific Ocean seemed to live up to its name, and not for a day did it harass the ship with its traps, its typhoons, or its sirens; they sailed for days and days in an enormous calm, as if the ocean itself were mourning the loss of such a huge sailor. From someone who had respected the Seas and fallen in love with the waters.
The crew functioned perfectly, each in his own way, and there was no animosity towards Captain Geist, and she knew better than to resent the coldness with which everyone responded to her orders. June was raised to the status of First-mate and warned her about the morale of the crew only to fulfill her role as a medical assistant, because in fact she knew that there was not much to be done, as only time could ease that kind of pain.
All they had to do was go on with the Galleon quest: there were still three Relics to be sealed and they would fulfill that quest for Captain Meko Kaire. And for Athena, of course.
The Galleon left Polynesia in the South Pacific and descended close to the Antarctic continent to cross the southern most far coast of the American, known as Tierra-del-Fugo. Then it swerved left and sailed across the entire Brazilian coast upwards. Mysteriously, according to the Nicol's Nautical Chart, the Relic of the Sea was in the heart of the Amazon forest.
At dusk of another calm day at the Galleon, Seiya and Lunara were already getting ready to end their shift to sleep another sad night without Captain Kaire. June, in the condition of first-mate, blew a low whistle to announce the first signal, which was to wake up those who hadn't woken up to take the night-shift, as was usual. In the canteen on the lower deck, three seated sailors heard the first signal and looked at the ladder at the same time.
And then they faced each other, each with his own weary face.
"At the end of the day is another day over." said the first, Thales was his name.
"Not for us." Theo commented beside him.
They were two older men with scruffy beards; the first was thicker, while the second was so skinny and tall that he stooped a little. At the table sat a woman with strong legs but delicate hands; hair tied in a bun. She was bringing them three mugs of bitter tea.
"Did you hear something, Ophelia?" asked Thales, the burly.
"Looks like Elias' group didn't find anything. They left with one of the boys, but they couldn't find their way through the woods and had to return, because it was already getting dark."
Thales shook his head in clear disagreement.
"They're too young to command this ship." Thales said with his index finger on the table.
"Captain Kaire trusted them." Theo pointed out.
"I trust them too." added Thales quickly. "But commanding a ship is different. Captain Kaire knew the sea, he was a seasoned sailor."
"Captain Geist is a respected navigator from the Caribbean." pointed out Ophelia.
"She's a great sailor, but that's a sea of bucaneers." said Thales, spitting on the floor.
"What are you saying? Want to start a mutiny?" the woman asked, more harshly.
Thales sipped his terrible tea and shook his head.
"You know not. I'm not that kind of man." and then he looked harder at her, pointing to Theo at his side. "But you're June's ensign, you know the crew's morale is shattered. There's nothing worse for a ship than losing its Captain."
"It was a tragedy."
"It remains a tragedy." he doubled. "We've been stranded in this backwater for three days with no prospect of finding the Relic of the Sea. You know what I'm talking about."
"June is aware of the problems with the crew." commented Ophelia.
"I would put my life on the line for these boys, but they're too young to command this ship."
"That's why we must help them." Theo said, finally attracting the eyes of the two.
Ophelia nodded to Theo, but Thales still looked very glum under his beard. He let out a little laugh.
"Hell, when I think about it, even Captain Kaire was too young. Far too young to die." and drank the bitter tea, wishing it was a mug of rum.
Theo and Ophelia also looked at their dark mugs as the ship rocked; they didn't dare vocalize, but they felt that perhaps Thales's anxiety was much more for the loss of Captain Kaire than for the boys who now commanded the ship. He was the ensign in the bridge and therefore worked more closely with the Captain whom he held dear.
In that moment of mourning at the canteen table, the three noticed that Geist and June were going down the stairs to the canteen, causing the three to get up immediately.
"At ease, sailors." Geist said, passing them and sitting at the third table in the canteen, a little further away.
They went back to their seats, as they still had some time before the final shift change. Ophelia and Theo looked at each other, while Thales was still lost in the dregs of his tea, looking for meaning in the randomness of the bottom of his mug for that loss so felt between them. Theo dared to look back at June and Geist, who were talking silently, but in a worried way.
"You look a little anxious." said Ophelia to Theo, while he took another sip of his hot tea.
"The more time we spend here, the less time we have to fulfill our mission."
"Our mission." repeated Thales, displeased. "Our mission started to crumble when the Captain fell."
"Don't talk like that." Ophelia warned.
Theo then asked with his hands to speak more quietly, as they could hear traces of June and Geist's voice talking at the other table.
"It is not wise to eavesdrop." Ophelia warned him "Much less the Captain and her First-Mate."
"Did you say they didn't find anything in the woods?" Theo asked her, finally.
"Yea. I heard they just got back and unfortunately they didn't find anything. I think we'll stick around for a while longer."
"I thought it was not good manners to eavesdrop." pointed out Thales.
"Oh, it was Elias and the others." she justified. "Stop looking at them."
Theo turned his attention to the table where the three were sitting.
"Why are you so anxious?" she asked.
"I think I have an idea." he said, and Ophelia's eyes bulged, very curious.
"Hmm, do tell." she asked, and even Thales sat up to listen.
"No. I'll look for Lunara first to see if what I'm thinking is possible."
Thales shook his head, disappointed.
"What an unnecessary drama." Thales commented.
"Go find Lunara." scoffed Ophelia, sipping her bitter tea. "A big man like you. Tell us, what is it like to be a child's ensign, Theo?"
"Don't talk about Lunara like that." he corrected. "She may be a child, but she's brilliant. I'll be right back, I want to find her before she ends her shift."
And the boy got up from the table and went upstairs to the deck, leaving Ophelia and Thales alone, while June and Geist were still talking as they ate at a distant table.
"She looks a little unsure." commented Ophelia.
"How do you know? The First-mate Geist hides her feelings well, I can never read her expressions."
"Captain Geist." corrected Ophelia. "And I'm good at it. And I also know that you are a very sad."
He didn't answer, but his face twitched slightly under his dark beard.
"It's normal, Thales. You are Ensign of the bridge and I know how you cherished Captain Kaire." said Ophelia. "It's not wrong to be sad."
Thales was silent.
"It was a tragedy." she spoke to the void. "It's normal that we're still in mourning. We all are. June is very concerned about the emotional state of the entire crew."
"Look who's back." announced Thales, stoic and changing the subject.
Ophelia looked back and saw Lunara approaching them with Theo behind her. They sat down.
"Hi, Luna." Ophelia began, friendly with the little one, who took off her headphones and smiled the best she could at them.
"Hey, guys, how was your shift?"
"Full of monsters." said Ophelia.
"Yeah, right." Lunara joked back.
"Listen, Luna. I have an idea, but you can't call me crazy." said Theo.
"Um, I already liked it." she said, straightening up to listen with the other sailors.
At the other table, June and Geist said goodbye, each to their own corner, while Lunara, Thales and Ophelia listened to Theo's crazy idea.
Geist was sitting in the Captain's huge chair, after all it was made to Meko Kaire's measurements, as it was not even imagined that they would lose any of the crew, let alone their esteemed captain. And every time she sat down, her discomfort was a vivid memory that she, as an immediate, had lost her Captain. Something unforgivable for someone in her position.
Alone she allowed herself to be sad, but the Captain of the Hope of Athena was rarely alone or had any time to let herself be carried away by the waves of the sea in her chest. Her companion that early evening was the ship's log; flipped through the previous pages, rereading some excerpts from Captain Meko Kaire so that she could make her first entry following a certain pattern.
"Captain's log…
She repeated as she wrote the first few lines. Outside, she could hear the change of shifts on the deck, the whistles and footsteps on the wood of the galleon; Inland, the waves could always be heard crashing now and then against the hull of the ship. Some bird that dared fly far from the shore to sing in their heads. And the sad strings of Seiya's guitar in the forecastle. Captaining a galleon meant paying attention to every detail, and that's why there was no peace.
The door to her cabin, always unlocked, opened again and she looked up to welcome June, who was entering the room alone at the exact moment Geist was finishing her entry in the logbook; she looked up when June introduced herself and asked her to be seated.
"Lunara tells me one of the sailors has a crazy idea."
"A crazy idea?" asked Geist, confused.
"I don't like crazy ideas either, but we've been here too long without knowing what to do. Who knows it's not a way out?"
"All right, call that sailor."
"Theo." June said before leaving. "His name is Theo."
The Captain nodded and went back to her report, a little undecided. Geist signed the diary entry with her name, but then crossed it out in favor of one last sentence. It didn't take long and June returned with Lunara and a very uncomfortable sailor: Theo, the anxious boy full of ideas. They all sat down at the table and Geist took the floor.
"Tell me, Theo. I heard you had a crazy idea." she began, adding a hint of jocularity.
"Forgive me, captain." he began. "It was something I thought about these days that we're moored here. We heard that the last expedition group with Seiya could not go into the forest, because it is too dense; Elias told us that it was impossible to move forward."
"I see the stories on this ship spread faster than we thought, Captain." June pointed out beside them.
"That's better." said Geist.
"It's a good idea, Captain Geist." Lunara said, a little excited. "Come on, talk boy."
"I thought we'd use the orichalcum crystal and..."
"Fly to see if we can find the civilization from above." pondered Geist. "I've thought about it, but as you reported yourself, Seiya's group described the place as an extremely dense and closed forest, I don't think we will have any success."
Theo looked at her and at Lunara, who encouraged him, and then again at his Captain.
"I didn't think of flying, but of using the orichalcum crystal to navigate under the river. Perhaps the path is ahead, but within the river."
Geist and June looked at each other, confused by the ingenuity of the plan, and then immediately looked at Lunara.
"Is it possible?"
"Orichalcum crystal makes us fly, maybe if I change some parameters around it and manipulate the rudder wheels to force a descent instead of an ascent... I think we can at least try."
"Like Captain Kaire's island canoes." said Geist.
"Yes, they had special canoes that sailed underwater."
"Are you trying to sink this ship, ensign Theo?"
The man was older than Geist, but still the Argo Saint's presence was imposing in its own way and he swallowed hard before only nodding in agreement.
"Okay, let's try." she said. "Forgive me, Lunara, but your night has been cancelled. Start working on it right away. Excellent idea, Theo, work with Lunara in the necessary adjustments. June, rip that guitar from Seiya and cancel his night, as I need him at the helm as soon as this is done. Excellent work, Theo and Lunara. I trust you on this."
It was the boost the crew needed; Lunara and Theo left excited about their new tasks and June let out a surprised and happy expression before leaving. Geist looked one last time at that first entrance. Her last sentence seemed lost, but now maybe she knew what to do, too, thanks to her crew.
"Captain's log, day thirty-seventh of voyage. After sailing along the Brazilian coast, we took the mouth of the Amazon River, near Santa Rosa Bay, and sailed along the largest freshwater river I have ever seen in the world. An unsuspecting navigator would confuse it with the ocean when left adrift, as there are certain points of the river where it is not even possible to see its banks. We continued our journey along the river very tired until it changed its name, being called Rio Negro by local navigators. The Nautical Chart of the most excellent Silver Saint Crater Nicol describes the location of the Relic of the Sea a few leagues further on, but no longer there is more river for us to sail. There is no way to go forward. We are lost and the crew grows sadder each day for the loss of their Captain. For, after all, Captain Kaire would know what to do at this moment."
Lunara and Theo worked together on the orichalcum crystal on the deeper lower deck. While one gave ideas, the other calculated or vice versa; happiness seemed to be back on Lunara's face and Theo's focus was huge, as this was the first time he had the chance to help his superior more closely. Soon they received a curious visitor.
"Hey. I heard they're really going to try your crazy plan." said Ophelia, approaching them with Thales.
"I told you so. The Captain liked it." said Theo.
"Well, after all, it doesn't look so crazy anymore." Thales commented.
"I know it!" he said, smiling. "Now excuse me, we need to adjust things and you should be at your posts."
Ophelia looked at Thales and nodded.
"Geist will kill you if she finds out you're down here. Go at once." Thales ran off while Ophelia stood between them.
"Should I be concerned?"
"Oh, yeah." said Lunara to her.
"I'll let June know to prepare the crew for the ascent manoeuvre."
"Descent!" corrected Theo to the back of Ophelia, who was already going up the stairs.
"I'm ready, Theo." said Luna.
"Great, Luna. Let's go to the bridge, then."
They closed their tool kits and hurried to the bridge, as they still needed to adjust some configuration at the helm. They found Seiya practically sleeping on top of the wheel, moved him out of the way and dismantled the helm to make many changes with Lunara's notes. The two lifted wooden boards, bent masts and even made all sorts of machinery to perform that absurd test.
They checked everything at least twice, up to a point where they looked at each other, confident that everything was in order, as far as possible. It was time to sink that ship, if all went well.
"We're ready, Captain Geist!"
The Captain, in her beautiful overcoat, was supervising the movements of the two engineers from a distance, altering the whole logic of the ship. She took a deep breath. Her entire crew was ahead of her, because at that moment when night was falling on the Rio Negro, both the day and night shifts were there, as that was when the ascent maneuvers took place. It couldn't be different at that moment when the ship was about to sink.
"Very well, everyone to your posts!" she ordered. "Seiya, take the helm; Theo, I want you to lift the anchor at my command, and Lunara, you take care of the sails. We won't have the wind, but the current of the river can carry us forward."
Quickly, everyone took their posts as they had been training for many days at the Sanctuary dock for the ascent maneuvers. No one knew what to expect and Lunara hoped it would all work out. The eyes on the figure of Geist, the Captain of Athena's Galleon.
"Anchor, Theo!" she ordered, and the ensign manipulated the thick chain to bring the anchor back.
Everyone felt the ship move slightly more freely, and when the anchor was attached to the hull's rail, their eyes returned to the figure of the Captain, lit by lamps on the quarterdeck. The candles weren't even needed, for she closed her eyes and manifested a cosmos of shining silver; it was when she opened her eyes that she commanded strongly to Seiya:
"Sink this ship, Pegasus!"
It was almost ominous, but Seiya grabbed the lever next to the rudder and pushed it down hard, contrary to what he was used to. They heard a heavy creak throughout the ship and, for a moment, Geist regretted accepting that madness, imagining that maybe the Galleon would blow up its structure right there. But something fantastic started to happen.
Though it trembled, the ship did begin to sink slowly; and the sailors at the rail noticed that the river described small waves as the ship took the place of the water. There was no doubt that the Galleon was simply sinking slowly, as if it were a massive boulder of marble.
Geist kept her handsome Silver Cosmos haughty on the quarterdeck, lighting up the ship, but her attention, like everyone else's, was on what would happen when the water level reached the rail and fatally invaded the deck, sweeping through the larders and canteens. What happened was incredible and filled them with hope: for the water did not invade the deck and simply seemed to be prevented from entering the ship by an invisible wall, creating a vault of air for them to breathe. Just like the magic canoe of the Maori people. It was not far off to imagine that orichalcum was also the force that protected those magical canoes.
And so the Hope of Athena disappeared from the lagoon that formed at the end of the Rio Negro and submerged from the darkness of the Amazon.
The bottom of the river was lit by the cosmos of Geist, who walked up to the forecastle to serve as a light to guide the Athena's Galleon across the submerged river. Where on the surface the river died in a dense forest, below it the Rio Negro followed an underground corridor through which a light current passed that carried the ship forward. It was a corridor wide enough for two ships like that to cross.
The subterranean crossing was brief, but a little terrifying, because if night was already falling on the surface, the bottom of the Rio Negro lived up to its name, as it was of an interminable darkness. Even the light of the lamps or even more strongly the Silver Cosmos of Geist gave little light. Now and then they guessed some kind of fish swimming around them, but little else they could see.
"Look out, Captain!" announced Thales from the forecastle.
Ahead, something caught everyone's attention, as there was a faint light inside the river and, as soon as she saw it, Geist signaled for Seiya to prepare to return to the surface: it was a column of light refracted by the water from a light source. Geist gave the command and Seiya used the lever again to magically make that Hope of Athena emerge from the depths of the river into an absolutely wonderful lagoon.
The lagoon was in a huge clearing lit by the brightest moon this crew had ever seen. The waves of the river, caused by the ship, were not the only sound they could hear, as they could clearly hear the sound of a small but noisy waterfall, reflecting the light of the stars and the open sky. It was a disconcerting spectacle. Geist turned to the deck and crossed to greet Theo and Lunara, as well as call her to her cabin with June and Seiya.
Theo, very proud, received compliments from other sailors, as well as from Ophelia, who made sure everyone was ok. Thales climbed to the helm, as he was the one who usually replaced Seiya, but Theo asked for a moment so he could check the helm connections.
"Looks like it worked, Theo." Thales said, putting a huge hand on Theo's shoulder and, if possible, the engineer noticed that his friend looked refreshed.
"Yes, Thales. We found a way."
The Captain's cabin opened, from which the main officers of the Galleon came.
"Captain on the bridge!" Thales announced to everyone to brace themselves.
"Lunara, prepare the auxiliary boat. Thales, you have the comm."
He nodded and took the helm with Theo at his side.
"And there they go." commented Theo.
"Did you think that just because you had the idea, you would go along them?"
"You guys stop whispering there." said Ophelia, approaching them.
"I'm going to the crow's nest and have a look at the lake." announced Theo, moving away from them.
"He wanted to go with them." said Thales.
"Don't you?"
"Who are we kidding?" he said. "They are Holy Saints, we would only get in the way."
"I will agree with you on this one." she said. "I just hope they don't forget the three don'ts."
"Don't answer whistles, don't defy the entities of the forest and don't eat anything unattended." Theo recalled and Thales mocked.
"Seiya won't let anyone forget. Aldebarans great friend."
"All hail the king of bitterness." replied Ophelia to him.
Tales locked the rudder and left the post in his bitterness and went to help one of the sailors release the anchor at the bottom of the lagoon of that waterfall. They all gathered on the side of the ship to watch the auxiliary boat leave, as they always did. And then far away, on the shore, they saw the expedition group tie up the boat and disappear into the thick jungle of the Amazon in search of the Relic of the Sea. They all congratulated each other on their good work and each one went to rest in a corner of the ship, as they always did, awaiting the return of the auxiliary boat.
Thales was lighting and putting out a silver lighter he was keeping, when he heard the deep voice of one of the sailors chant a beautiful verse about the sea. He smiled and joined in the crew's nightly chant, for it was a sad, elongated, low-pitched song that Captain Kaire used to hum to himself. The chorus of voices came together beautifully and it was a rite of the night shift to sing in memory of the great man Meko Kaire had been.
From the top of the crow's nest, Theo heard his companions hum those beautiful verses and he himself sang them quietly alone at the highest point of the Galleon, investigating the waves of the moonlit lagoon. The dark surface was dotted with huge open water lilies spread out like platforms, while on the edges of the body of water there immediately rose mighty old trees where Geist and the others had disappeared.
But what caught his attention was to notice that the waves caused by the appearance of the ship in that dark lagoon still seemed to cut the water in some places. He put his eye to the golden binoculars and saw with horror that the short waves were actually not caused by the ship, but by something that moved slowly, parting the water in some spots. Some curious animal that seemed to surround the Galleon; every now and then, his eyes could see in the darkness the shape of its enormous tail. There was no doubt about it: the crow's nest bell rang, interrupting the singing to alert his crew, but also perhaps to scare the creature away.
Thales and Ophelia looked up, towards Theo, while the entire crew alerted themselves on deck at their posts.
"Report, Theo." asked Thales as soon as he came down from his post.
"Some creature in the pond, Thales." he said, looking for the nearest rail.
"Creature?" asked Ophelia.
"Yes, I could only see the outline of what appeared to be its tail."
"A snake, perhaps." said Thales.
"Perhaps."
"I do not see anything." commented Ophelia.
"Must have been startled by the noise."
But it was not true, for the next noise that everyone heard on that deck was a loud and frightening hiss in the Amazon night, driving everyone away from the edge of the Galleon to the middle of the deck, for the hiss of that creature now seemed to sound from all sides. At this time of night there were at least six or seven sailors on deck; all awaiting an order from Thales, as he was in charge.
"There's no need to run."
A terribly hissing voice spoke to them.
In the darkness of the lagoon, in the silence of the Amazon and under a wonderful moon, the crew saw with amazement how a body of water seemed to manifest itself from the lagoon, stretching into the Galleon, revealing the enormous head of a serpent. In one mouthful, she could swallow Thales, the greatest of them.
Its body was even more terrifying as it appeared to have eyes scattered all over its body; eyes that never blinked and seemed to stare at all the sailors in all directions. But Thales knew well that the only eyes he really needed to worry about were the two that stared at him from a few feet away.
"Welcome to Pamʉri Poeya."
Transformation Waterfall.
The sailors all heard that ethereal, hissing voice speak as if it spoke within their minds, so the meaning of those words automatically translated for each of them into their mother tongues.
"A pamuri yuhkusu like this has never been sen." the huge anaconda spoke to them and they all understood that it was a comment about that Galleon they were sailing.
"What are you?" asked Ophelia, June's subordinate and curious.
"They call me Cobra-Grande." replied the immense anaconda.
"And what do you want from us?" Thales asked again.
The huge snake looked with its snake eyes all the faces that looked at it, divided between fear and astonishment. A huge, forked tongue seemed to taste the air around it.
"I heard you singing in our waterfall." the great snake pointed with its huge big head at the brief waterfall tumbling down ahead. "This is the Waterfall of Transformation, where fish-people as you were become the men and women of our land."
Thales looked at each other with Ophelia.
"This must be a mistake." she began, trying to guess. "We don't live under the water."
The huge anaconda looked at her.
"There is no mistake." said the creature. "I saw you cross the darkness of the Uaupés. And arise in Pamʉri Poeya. You came from the waters."
And then they all saw how the huge forked tongue left that ever-closed mouth and tasted the air again.
"You are made of water like the largest or smallest of fished in the river."
"We've come from much farther." Thales tried again.
"It doesn't matter where you came from, but what you're made of." said the snake. "Made of water. Water running through your eyes. I saw it."
Again the snake tasted the air around them.
"You are sad." she guessed.
The crew looked at each other again, realizing that that creature had possibly been watching them since they had entered the mighty Amazon river.
"Did you see us cry?" asked Ophelia.
"Like waterfalls in the night." replied the snake.
Thales was the one in command and didn't quite understand the purpose of that huge mythological creature approaching them during that night, for although they were still in mourning, they were also on an important mission. And he knew that his responsibility to Athena's Galleon was immense in Geist's absence, as it was when they were all away with Captain Kaire.
"We have a mission to fulfill." said Thales harshly, and the Cobra-Grande showed the shore where the auxiliary boat was moored.
"They?" she asked. "They won't find anything."
"What do you mean by that?"
"My people don't want to be found. And so they will not be found."
"We need to find the Relic of the Sea."
"We know."
"Can you help us?" tried Ophelia, less harsh than Thales.
"Yes." the creature hissed at length. "Listen to my story."
The huge body of that dark, eyed anaconda moved slightly, curling around the mainmast and rising until its face was somehow hidden in the shadows of the night. In the darkness, his eyes glowed hypnotically.
"Once, a woman fell from the sky, as if she were a drop of rain." the creature spoke in its hissing, ethereal voice. "She became a woman who lives here on Earth, like many others of her tribe in Taba Caiari. She was reborned among us, but she fell among the birds, whose daughter she was. To them, she is now dead in the Underworld. For us, it is alive on our Earth."
The huge anaconda descended from the mast and dove silently into the lake to reappear on the other side of the ship, startling some of the sailors.
"On another time, a man emerged from the Underworld from that same hole of transformation that you emerged from. And he was also reborned among us in Taba Caiari, but he fell among the fish, his brothers. For them, he ascended to Heaven, but for us, he was also reborned on our Earth."
And then it brought its great big head close to Thales.
"Life is an eternal transformation that doesn't end when we cross the worlds."
"Do you know about our Captain?" asked Ophelia.
"I know of your sorrows." said the monster.
Thales noticed how the crew looked at each other in amazement that the creature understood their sorrows and Captain Kaire's fate, a pain emanating from all of them.
"You've been watching us since we entered those waters." said Thales.
"This is our world." said the hissing voice and lightly shook the thousands of eyes hanging from its body. "We have eyes everywhere."
"We don't need help with our grief, we need to find the Sea Relic to seal Poseidon." said Thales.
"You're wrong, Thales." it said, and the sailor-in-command swallowed hard as he heard his name hissed by that creature.
The sailor-in-command looked at Ophelia and found her with tears in her eyes, as well as some of her companions. Meko Kaire's death was very hard for all of them. Many already knew him before by the Sanctuary as Moses, a brilliant fisherman of the Sanctuary and excellent warrior. Everyone there once shared longboats and small boats with Meko, listened to his stories of the Pacific, the tales of his tattoos, the legends of his people.
That was his gang, his friends at the Sanctuary, who perfectly understood Geist, Seiya, Lunara and June having been chosen for the main posts, because they were Saints of Athena and that mission demanded control of the Cosmos. But the night shift was also aware of the enormous trust the Captain placed in them, for there was nothing more difficult than navigating through the darkness, and if they had reached that post, they knew it was because of each of their own contributions. And for the trust of that huge man.
"And what do you do with sadness?" asked Theo, silent until then, with tears in his eyes and sadness in his chest.
The snake hissed and its huge tail enveloped everyone who was there in front of it, bringing them all closer, who for an instant were afraid of being crushed by the snake's immense body.
"You share your sadness." said the snake, picking up its own body. "As you do when you sing. But have in your chest the certainty that life transforms. Even after we die. We live."
The night crew looked at the snake as it fled into the darkness of the boat, when Thales realized there was something in the palm of his hand. He opened it and found what appeared to be a jade amulet carved into the shape of a frog, heavy and cool to the touch. As he moved it under the lamplight, Thales saw that its glow was golden, though not entirely golden.
"What is this?" he asked.
"The muiraquitã." said the Cobra-Grande from a distance. "The Relic of the Sea."
Thales looked back at the amulet in his hand and thought of Geist and Seiya, far away in the woods in search of what was in their hands.
"When you seal it, throw it in the waterfall. And make a wish. Maybe it will come true."
The Cobra-Grande left the Galleon and disappeared through the dark lagoon and with the Muiraquitã in his hands, Thales looked at Theo and Ophelia at his side and put his hand on the shoulder of a sailor nearby. Her deep voice pulled the first few verses of Meko Kaire's song. And together they sang that night.
Geist returned empty-handed with her group a few hours later and Thales told them very precisely everything that had happened, much to the surprise of everyone that was out on a mission. Captain Geist listened to the night-shift reports as closely as possible; her eyes got a little lost in the waterfall as she listened to the stories of the Amazon recounted by Thales and Theo.
She also missed Meko Kaire immensely, who was still a huge presence in that Galleon and who would accompany them forever. She left the group on the deck and entered her cabin alone, quickly returning with a Seal of Athena. She joined them all and handed it to Thales, her ensign.
"Seal the Relic, Ensign Thales. And make the wish for Rio Negro."
Before the eyes of all the crew, Thales walked among them and wrapped the jade muiraquitã with the papyrus on which the Seal of Athena was inscribed. The amulet's golden glow glowed one last time and finally cooled. He walked to the ship's rail and spoke loudly for all to hear.
"May our Captain Meko Kaire have peace on whatever his next voyage is."
And launched the Relic of the Sea at the Transformation Waterfall.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I really wanted to do a chapter in Brazil, after all, I'm from here. =) But at the same time, I would like to get away from the most obvious choices in the country (like the beautiful cities on the coast, carnival, samba) and use some Amazonian legends that even among us are a little lost. The legend of the creation and transformation of the Tukano people in the north of the country is very rich and has recently been rescued and preserved. While I would like to show a piece of our culture, I also wanted to be very aware of the history; show how Kaire's loss was not only felt by the officers, but by everyone on that boat as well. And even because of that I used one of the best episodes of Star Trek as inspiration to focus on the background characters that never have a name.
NEXT CHAPTER: THE TREASURY OF TREASURES
The next Relic is in the heart of the Caribbean, where the world's worst bucaneers live.