Chapter Two: Rafting to Elaria
Tranith Argan: Book 3
Barely escaping from the winter creatures, with a raft that is not fully ready, the four travelers are being carried by the currents.
The next morning dawned with a bright-red sky and fewer clouds. Felanar and Dolen were asleep, having been relieved after a few hours by the women. As Alessa predicted, they were slowly drifting south, the western shores of Shanaar dimly visible to the left at some distance. The air was still cold, but the sun brought welcome warmth.
“See the red in the sky?” asked Kara quietly.
“Yes, it worries me,” said Alessa.
Kara stared at the sky and spoke very softly, “We will be in for a storm before the day is out.” She paused. “I wish we could make for shore soon.”
Alessa stared eastward.
“We cannot go back to Shanaar for by now we would reach their populated lands and be caught. Maybe we can drift long enough to reach the southernmost tip, but any land before that would be too dangerous.”
“I know,” said Kara, “our only hope is Elaria. Perhaps the storm will hold off long enough.”
“What storm is that?” came a loud voice from the front of the raft. Dolen had risen and was staring at the sky. “I see sun and sky and few clouds. Is this the sign of storm to man and elf?” He walked to the back of the raft, unsteady on the logs and looking determined as he progressed. Alessa laughed at his clumsiness.
“And what is so funny?” Dolen said with a frown as he reached the elf.
“It is nothing, Dolen,” said Kara. “You had a look of such determination as you walked that it was humorous to see. Your lips pressed together at each step.”
“Can the elf not answer for herself,” responded Dolen without taking his eyes off Alessa. “It was she who laughed.”
“I mean no disrespect, Dolen,” laughed Alessa. “Kara is right, I was just finding lightness where it could be found. You are not used to the water, and so it is unfair of me to expect you to be a seasoned sailor.”
Dolen glowered at her.
“What have I said to offend?” asked Alessa.
“You laugh at me and then insult me, and all while having been betrayed by your own people. I see the ways of the elves even when they put on a friendly front.”
“Stop, Dolen,” cried Kara, “you are being unfair.”
“How dare you!” said Alessa angrily. “My people did not betray you, and I told you so the other night. How dare you keep repeating that which you know to be untrue!”
“I do not know it to be untrue, and I think our present circumstances offer proof of what I mean. Why are we even on this unsteady raft?”
“Unsteady!” said Alessa.
“Aye, unsteady I said and unsteady I meant. We are on this raft when we should be on a sailing vessel, vessels we would have had access to if your people had not fled at the first sign of danger.”
“This is shameful,” shouted Alessa. “My people came to your aid, and Felanar’s aid. My people died on the field of a battle that was not their own, merely to show their support for their friends! And now you accuse them of cowardly conduct?”
“Where are these friends in need then?” asked Dolen. “Why are we adrift on the sea with few provisions, and according to you in danger from the weather with no hope of shelter? What answer can you give to this?”
“I do not know what happened to my people back on the island,” said Alessa firmly, “but whatever the cause it was not because of some contemptible conduct that you imply. We do not abandon our friends!”
“We shall see,” said Dolen simply. “We shall see.”
“You shall see,” said Alessa.
“And what of this storm?” asked Dolen. “Why do you call for a storm on such a clear day?”
“See the redness in the dawn?” asked Kara. “Before the day is out we will see the weather change. The only question is how bad it will be.”
“Kara is right,” said Felanar, who had now awoken and been listening the conversation. “Father and I would be cautious on such mornings and not go far out into the lake. We would never think of crossing the Straits on such a day.”
“Then we shall add bad weather to our bad luck,” said the dwarf as he picked his way back toward the front of the raft and sat down.
“Never mind him, Alessa,” said Felanar. “He is upset at his loss and I cannot blame him.”
“I know,” said Alessa, nodding. “He should not say such things, though I know why he does. Yet I do blame him if he continues to speak untruths after correction. Our people do not abandon friends.”
“I know, Alessa, I know,” said Felanar warmly. He then felt it best to change the subject. “Tell me more about these waef murch creatures. You called them evil last night. Surely they were not always such.”
“No,” said Alessa, taking a deep breath, “not always. They were just like other creatures at one time.”
“Meaning what?” asked Kara. “Were they friendly to the elves at one time?”
“Yes,” said Alessa, turning to Kara. “They were not of the same friendly nature as the rabbit and bird, but they were not fearsome or ill-tempered at one time. Our people tell of a time when they were easy to talk with, and no one needed to be fearful in their presence.”
“Something clearly changed,” said Felanar, “for I saw fear in you last night that I could not imagine you possessed. You have always seemed to me to be in complete control of your emotions and surroundings. Never tired, never hungry, always friendly to the world and everything in it. But last night I saw terror in your eyes and it unsettled me.”
“It unsettled me too,” the elf said quietly. “I’ve not faced them before, and although I’ve heard the stories in recent seasons of how they have become things to fear, what I saw last night terrified me. There was nothing to reason with among these creatures. They were merely beasts of the field with nothing on their minds but destruction. It is hard for me to admit that such creatures exist, but I saw it for myself and may I never see such creatures again.”
“Saarks exist,” countered Kara.
“Ah, but saarks are reasoning, thinking creatures with a society, and families, and children for whom they provide care. You and I may not agree with the choices a saark makes, but we can understand that reason went into those choices.”
Felanar interrupted Alessa. “Excuse me, but my dealings with the saarks, brief though it may have been, left me no thought that they care for family. They seemed cruel and disgusting, and the Erenár felt the same way for they slaughtered them on sight.”
“That is because of what they had done,” said Alessa, “not merely for who or what they were. If that is your only contact with saarks, you might be surprised to learn that cruel though they may be, they are not animals, and they do reason, and they do have families. You have never been in the western lands beyond Elaria, so you have never seen their homeland.”
“What happened to the waef murch to make them change?” asked Kara.
“Ah, there we find the mystery,” said Alessa as she turned back to Kara. “Our people speak of a time of change in the past, distant for you, more recent for us. The weather shifted, and the cold retreated to the high places and the northernmost lands. As the winter moved north, the creatures, being heavy with fur, migrated with it. Soon they could only be found in Shanaar, and soon only in the northern wastes. My people later lost contact with them at the time Vélakk seized power in that land. What cruelties he may have inflicted upon these creatures, we do not know. But after many seasons had passed, and explorers from the Erenár traveled close to the northern shores of that island, they brought back horrible tales of these creatures and what they had become. They spoke of creatures who would no longer speak with them, or even show signs of being able to communicate, but every sign of rapacious and cruel appetites. Several Erenár were lost, and soon my people would have nothing to do with the waef murch. It fills my heart with sadness that such animals were lost to us. It weighs upon me that evil can have such a wide reach that even innocent creatures can be changed thus.”
The sun was higher and they decided to have breakfast. Their provisions were now few and hardly adequate for a long journey. In their haste to depart from the shore the previous night, much of their equipment had been left behind. As Kara prepared a simple breakfast from her pack, Felanar and Dolen created an inventory of what remained. Dolen had now recovered from his earlier indignation and had even expressed sadness for his anger to Alessa, who had accepted his apology in a dignified and restrained manner. The matter was not forgotten, but it was put behind them.
Their inventory was sparse. Felanar’s pack had been left behind. Dolen had nothing but the axe he had when he had been taken prisoner by Vélakk’s soldiers. Felanar had his sword, as had Kara, and Alessa her bow and arrows. But Kara and Alessa had the only provisions on board the raft. They had mostly dried fruit, bread, and nuts, enough to satisfy them for a day or two, but nothing beyond. They had their weapons and the clothes on their backs, but little else. They were alive, reminded Alessa, when this was noted, and being alive when facing waef murch was no small accomplishment.
Something in the way Alessa said this made Felanar think how much more this must mean to an elf, and such a young one as that, who had thousands of years of life yet to look forward to. When you are an elf, he realized, and need not fear sickness or early aging, the one thing that could instill fear in you was the threat of accidental or violent harm or death. What a loss compared to that of a man who might live a hundred years!
He thought again how noble it had been for elves to join in his battle when it was not their fight, for they were truly risking more than he could comprehend. He decided to speak with Dolen and try to get his friend to understand this point.
After breakfast, with the sun shining down on their unsheltered state, the Brindledown-reared brother and sister used their fishing experience to fashion a simple line from a vine and a hook from carved wood. They set about catching a fish to supplement their midday meal. Dolen sat cross-legged and sad-faced at the front of the raft. Alessa left him alone.
The morning passed without event. At lunch, Alessa politely declined the raw fish offered. As was usual with elves, she was self-contained. Beyond that was her love of all creatures, and the thought of eating fish flesh was more than she could accept, at least for herself. After the others had eaten, Felanar approached her and quietly asked if she was offended by their meal.
“No, Felanar, I am not offended,” she said smiling. “I have for a long time accepted the necessity of your people to draw fish from the water for food. Your people seem to need meat, and I cannot begrudge what appears to be a necessary part of your survival. If it were within my control, I would have created man without such a need. It seems sad for one creature to require the life of another in order to survive, but I do not question its necessity even if I do not share the same need. It is the way of many creatures.”
“They are not thinking creatures,” responded Felanar quietly. “They feel no pain.”
The elf looked at Felanar and said nothing.
“What is the meaning of that look? They do feel pain?” he asked. “Is that why you stare at me like that?”
“Have I taught you nothing,” she asked, “that you think such things? I would expect this of your brother, ignorant of the ways of my people, rather than you. For you have learned to talk with animals, and have come to see that they do think and feel and love and fear and care and show longing even as do we. Think you the fish are exceptions?Have you not learned their language? I admit I have never taught this to you, and also admit the Erenár are far more adept at communicating with the creatures of the sea than am I. But could you not guess that they must be able to communicate in their own way as well?”
“You must think me a barbarian,” he said, lowering his head, “for my very way of life growing up was devoted to killing creatures of the sea, and yet I say with sincerity that until this moment I never considered the possibility that they had thoughts like a hawk or a fox. My people have never perceived this.”
“I think no such thing,” she said as she softly put a hand on his arm. “I never disapproved of your life as a fisherman.”
“But to your thinking my way is a way of death,” said Felanar.
“As are the ways of many creatures,” Alessa said, “such as the fox who catches and eats mice, and yet I am friends with both the fox and the mouse. I accept that the way I live may not be as the way all others do, nor does it mean their ways are incorrect – for them. You each, in your own way, do what you must naturally do. All I ever ask is that you avoid cruelty in the process.”
“You are not like other elves, Alessa,” said Felanar thoughtfully.
“In what way?”
“Most elves would insist on their way being the only and right way, and yet you are willing to accept others on their own terms without judgment.”
“I accept what is new and different,” she said.
“Yes, and that is not common among your people.”
“That is sadly so, and it is why we at times find ourselves in arguments with others. We appear arrogant.”
“Your people are arrogant at times, but I find not much of that in you, Alessa.”
“I am but a child to my people, having hardly lived any seasons at all. Perhaps I will learn this arrogance as I experience many more seasons and become convinced our way is the best and only way.”
“I doubt that very much,” Felanar said. “I think you will always be more open-minded, and I certainly hope I am right in this.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“Because that is what drew me to you in the first place,” he smiled as he walked across the raft to the others, Alessa staring all the way.
As the afternoon progressed, Kara’s prediction about the weather came true. As clouds gathered, the sun was blocked from view. The wind grew stronger and the clouds darkened.
“We are in for rough seas,” said Kara. “Are we certain we cannot make it to shore?”
Alessa stared to the east.
“I can’t see land,” she said. “We have drifted too far out to sea.”
“So even if we were far enough south to be safe,” said Felanar, “it would take too long to paddle or push the raft to land before the storm begins.”
“What does this mean?” asked Dolen.
“That we are going to get very wet soon,” said Felanar. He spoke softly.
Dolen grumbled something about not fearing weather.
Kara, looking at the sky, merely said, “You may yet learn.”