10 Windcatch

Before the departure of the Dyscovera, and the very real possibility that he might never return home, Criston felt obligated to visit Windcatch, the village that had once been his home. Adrea's home. A place of love and a place of loss, filled with memories, shadows, and ghosts.

Back in Shipbuilders' Bay, while the new vessel's quartermaster saw to loading the supplies and the sailmaster began hanging the sheets on the yardarms, Criston took passage aboard a small merchant vessel that was heading south to his old hometown. Javian asked to go along, so eager to help that Criston could not deny him. “Let me visit your village, Captain. I want to see where the raiders attacked. I promise I'll be helpful.”

Criston hadn't wanted any witnesses to the emotional impact the place might have on him, but he agreed to take the earnest young man. On the short voyage, Javian made a point of assisting the merchant ship's captain, intent on proving how well he would serve as the Dyscovera's cabin boy. He ran errands and worked as hard as any member of the real crew, much to their amusement. Criston never regretted his decision.

Four months ago, the two had sat on the dock in Shipbuilders' Bay, eating apples that Criston had bought from a farmer's cart. The young man matched him bite for bite, imitating his movements. Back then, the Dyscovera was only a framework in the construction area, surrounded by piles of fresh Iborian lumber. Shipbuilders pounded the planks to the hull supports. Looking at the great sailing vessel taking shape, Criston had mused, “So, boy, would you like to sail on her when she's finished?”

Javian's entire face had lit up. “Of course, sir!”

“I might be in need of a cabin boy, if you think you can handle the hard work.”

“I can handle hard work.”

“And follow orders?”

“Anything you ask, sir!”

“I'll hold you to that.”

Javian had tried to prove himself every day since….

When the small merchant ship docked in the Windcatch harbor, Criston saw an unfamiliar place filled with strangers. Porters lifted crates and unloaded supplies from the hold. Shopkeepers came forward to study the newly arrived wares; villagers hovered around to receive mail packets from Calay and other coastal towns.

Criston drank in the details that were so common and yet so strange. Home. The little seaport town seemed the same… but different. The dozens of houses and shops burned in the raid had been rebuilt, but the new ones didn't look right. The docks had been greatly expanded, but many slips were empty, with most of the fishing boats out for the day's catch. Drying nets hung on plank racks on the gravelly shore.

Criston smelled only the faintest lingering scent of rot. “Lucky we weren't here a month ago. When the migratory seaweed spoils in the water, the stink is so bad it drives even the fish away.” He kept a jovial tone in his voice, but his heart ached with the memory of the many times he, Adrea, and her brother Ciarlo had waded out to harvest the kelp. Now that near-forgotten normalcy seemed as imaginary as the tales told by grizzled old seamen in dockside taverns.

Over the years since returning to civilization, Criston had gone back to Windcatch off and on. The first few times, he had kept to himself, expecting someone to spot him on the street and call out his name. But no one did. Soon enough, he realized he needed no disguise. The people here no longer remembered much about him, his old mother, or Adrea. Most Windcatch families had lost much in the raid—nineteen years past now—and many other deaths and tragedies had happened since, through violence or natural causes. Hurricanes, fevers, an accidental fire that had burned an entire section of docks. His town had moved on from its tragedies.

When he looked at the young townspeople, the active fishermen, the boys longing to go out to sea, he realized that many of them had not yet been born at the time of the devastating Urecari raid.

Without a word, he led Javian to the end of one of the old docks, not one of the newly rebuilt structures or the expanded wharves. Criston gestured out to the harbor opening and restless waves far beyond. He kept his voice low, musing to himself, although the young man listened with eager attention.

“I used to stand here and watch my father set off to sea every day in his fishing boat. I'd wave to him until I couldn't see him anymore. My mother would always tell him to be careful, and then she'd pray for Aiden to watch over him. But one day my father didn't come back. His boat sank, lost at sea in a storm—or maybe the Leviathan found him.”

He blinked furiously, but his eyes continued to burn. When he was younger, he had so wanted to be like his father. He had even purchased his own sailing boat to follow in Cindon Vora's footsteps, taking cargo back and forth to Calay. But that was before the Luminara… before everything.

“There were times when I'd sit here, on this dock, under the starlight with Adrea. I'd show her the constellations, and we'd talk about the wide world that neither of us had ever seen. The lands and seas seemed endless but reachable. The world was exciting.” He looked down at Javian. “So I understand your longing to sail off on the Dyscovera, I really do.”

The young man frowned and looked away. “We understand each other in many ways, Captain. But I ran away from home for entirely different reasons.”

“Are you going to try to see your father again before we depart?”

“No.”

Two bulky Soeland ships, former whalers now converted to patrol vessels, came into the harbor and dropped anchor away from the crowded docks; farther out to sea, Criston could see three sailing ships that were clearly of Uraban design, keeping station with two other Soeland patrol vessels; their colorful silken sails were patched, hulls repaired with fresh wood.

The people in town cheered the arrival of the ships. Stony-faced Destrar Tavishel himself rode in the first boat to shore. “Two more enemy vessels captured for the Tierran navy!” When he stepped onto the rocky beach, the people of Windcatch whistled. “Another Aidenist victory—and another seventy prisoners to be put to work in our camps.”

Rowboats shuttled the downcast captives to holding areas; the foreign men were tied together in strings like fish on a line, shuffling along, knowing they had no hope of escape. Destrar Tavishel had become a legend for his skill in intercepting Uraban ships, capturing their crews, and delivering the spoils of war to villages along the coast. Tavishel took little for himself, drawing satisfaction from hurting the followers of Urec, wherever he found them.

Javian looked with wide eyes at the captured ships and the many Uraban slaves, and Criston stared, trying to feel moved by the sense of celebration. “When I left here many years ago, Windcatch was a quiet place.”

Inside a new inn, he bought the young man a small cup of local kelpwine and a large one for himself, then they shared a bowl of the traditional stew of dried seaweed and shellfish. Criston recognized no one, including the bartender. It had been so many years since he'd left home, eager to sail off on the Luminara. Back then, expecting that nothing would change, he hadn't taken the time or trouble to notice his daily life. Now it was too late.

Stepping out of the inn, he looked toward the hill overlooking the town and the rebuilt Aidenist kirk. Yes, he would find Ciarlo there. “Follow me. There's someone I need to see before we go.”

The two trudged up the worn path to the house of worship. A cast-iron fishhook as tall as Javian graced the kirk's entrance. The window shutters were open wide to air out winter's leftover mustiness. In the garden beds out front, rows of seeds had been planted in newly turned soil, and fine green tendrils were already sprouting.

A man in prester robes limped out of the door, paused upon seeing Criston, then gasped. “I hoped you would come for one last visit before you sailed off again.”

Criston embraced Adrea's brother, but the sudden lump in his throat made it impossible to speak. Finally, he said, “I went away on the Luminara because I wanted to see what was out there, but I didn't realize the price I'd have to pay.” He stepped back, just looking at the other man. “This time, I have a different reason.”

“You can't fool me, Criston. This time, you think you have nothing to lose.” Then he broke into a smile. “Just greet Holy Joron for me when you see him, all right? I'll be waiting right here for Ondun to return.”

Remembering his companion, Criston introduced Javian. Ciarlo looked at the fourteen-year-old, adding the years in his mind, surely imagining how old Adrea's child—Criston's true son—would be now, if the raiders hadn't taken her. But both Adrea and the baby had probably died long ago. And Javian was much too young.

Turning to hide the tears in his eyes, Ciarlo effusively invited the two into the kirk. There, a dark-haired young boy nearly bowled them over, his arms wrapped around a half-empty cask of oil. Ciarlo reeled out of the way. “Careful, Davic! Spilled whale oil is not a mess I have any intention of cleaning up.”

The boy gulped and stuttered; he looked to be about eleven years old. “S-sorry, Prester Ciarlo, but you said that once I finished—” He caught himself, noticing the two strangers beside the prester. “Oh!”

Ciarlo laughed. “This is my enthusiastic helper Davic.”

“Pleased to meet you.” The boy steadied himself, bobbing his head toward the visitors. “I filled all the kirk's lamps, Prester, and I swept your office, like you asked. Then I stacked the books neatly.”

“Good enough. Now, put the oil back in the shed. Take a handful of dried peas and plant them in a row outside, and then you can be done for the day.” Ciarlo turned back to Criston, shaking his head indulgently. “You aren't the only one to take on a young lad who needs guidance in his life. This boy came to Windcatch six months ago after his family was killed in a Urecari raid on a nearby village. He had nowhere else to go. I found him here in the kirk, wanting to pray.” He tousled Davic's dark hair. “He assists in the dawn services each morning. Maybe one day he'll even want to become the town's prester. I could train him just as Prester Fennan trained me.”

Criston's expression hardened at the sharp memory. On the day of the Urecari raid, the town's previous prester had sacrificed his own life to give his lame apprentice time to hide.

Though the two boys were separated by only three years, Javian wanted to be considered an adult, while the other boy was more interested in play time, now that his chores were done. Davic bounded away outside, but Javian stayed with Criston.

For a late midday meal, they broke bread in Ciarlo's small parsonage adjacent to the kirk. Criston and his brother-in-law talked about nothing of consequence, basking in the shared company. Though neither man was old, both had lined and creased faces, aged more by harsh memories than by time itself.

When the low sun spilled a golden path across the sea, Criston excused himself and left the kirk. “There's one more visit I have to make.”

The graveyard on the hill outside of town had grown in the intervening years; a new section of eleven graves all dug in a single month when the gray fever swept through Windcatch. Criston went to a particular wooden post with its fishhook symbol, where he studied the weathered name of TELHA VORA, his mother. Another nearby post memorialized his beloved Adrea, though her body had never been found. Maybe she was still alive. Criston squeezed his eyes shut. He would never know.

As he sat there, saying goodbye for what might be the last time, Criston renewed his solemn promise to send Adrea letters. He would keep throwing the bottles into the sea, where he hoped the tides would bring them to their destination… wherever that was.

There was too much uncertainty. Whether Adrea was alive or dead, whether he would ever come back to Tierra, whether they would find what they sought. After the sinking of the Luminara, when Criston had been lost, he had felt like this. Adrift.

Back then he had taken refuge in his prayers, clinging to a fishline of hope that he would get home to Adrea. This time, though, he had no ties to bring him back to the known world….

He and Javian stayed the night with Ciarlo in the parsonage, then before the morning services they trudged back down to the town so they could take passage on the next cargo boat heading back to Calay. The Dyscovera would be waiting for them.