A Hand from Beyond the Sea (1)
Rotin climbed up onto the prow and raised his spyglass. Far out across the open ocean, where the sky seemed to drop and meet the water at the horizon, he saw it—a dark, foreign speck sitting in the middle of that vast white marble of sea and sky, like some unidentifiable impurity that did not belong.
“You’re certain it’s the Floating Island?”
“Yes. I watched it for a while. It’s definitely moving. A living island.”
The man used the name his own country gave the place rather than the one the kingdom preferred. Rotin, who already knew it, caught the meaning at once and nodded.
“Good. We found it sooner than I expected. Or maybe the island’s just moving slower than I thought. Either way, it doesn’t matter. All hands! We’re landing!”
At the single word landing, every man who had grown weary of life aboard ship let out a cheer.
“Waaaaah!”
“Finally!”
“Good God, we actually found it!”
“Right? Our captain’s something else!”
Life at sea wears people down.
At first a man may marvel at the endless blue of ocean and sky, or grow sentimental under a night sky embroidered with moon and stars while the dark water holds its terrors. But human beings adapt. The wonder of beautiful scenery lasts three days at most; sometimes it dies in a single day and the view becomes nothing more than ordinary scenery.
The moment there is nothing left to steady the heart, what remains is an environment in which a person cannot truly live.
The sun beats down without a scrap of shade. The wind is thick with salt; hair turns into a greasy mat, skin is stripped of moisture until it grows rough and cracked. The constant roll of the ship sours the temper. Rations must be stretched, so every meal is meager and every day drains a little more strength.
Water is the worst of it.
Water is everywhere the eye can see, yet here it is more precious than gold. No matter how filthy a man becomes he cannot wash; no matter how dry his throat he cannot drink. So everyone lives with a bottle of strong rum at his lips.
In such conditions people grow rough. The weak reach their limit simply by enduring and sometimes take their own lives. If a voyage stretches too long, mutiny is common.
This expedition was worse still: the destination was not a fixed point on any chart. They had been sailing endlessly in search of an island whose location no one knew. A little longer and mutiny would almost certainly have broken out.
But now that they had found the Floating Island, that danger was over. All that remained was to land, find Monia, and live on the island until it drifted into the waters near the kingdom. The island itself would carry them there; they need only wait.
The Floating Island usually appears near the kingdom every two or three years. If we can hold out a year or two, that should be enough.
Fortunately they had stocked supplies for a long voyage. They could hunt on the island as well; it would be better than life on the ship.
Of course it would not be easy.
The sailors who obeyed so willingly now might turn at any moment and put a blade to his throat. Surviving on that primitive island, where no trace of civilization existed, would be every bit as hard as life at sea.
Then again, if we just moor the ship and live aboard her, that shouldn’t be a major problem.
The ship was already prepared. There was even a large bed big enough for a man and a woman to sleep side by side. They would only need to go ashore when they truly required supplies.
Yes. No real problem.
After carefully reviewing every other uncertainty, Rotin nodded and pointed toward the Floating Island.
“You already know this, but we’re going to anchor off the stretch of coast that shows signs of people. Stay at your stations so you can work the ship the moment I give the word.”
“Aye, sir!”
“Yes!”
“Good. I like the sound of those voices. Let’s go take a look.”
Yesterday had been an exhausting day.
While the ore was melting they had finished the field they had started clearing and sown the seed. Of the thorn bushes planted as a fence, the ones smashed beyond use had been thrown out and replaced with sound ones. First thing in the morning the water channel had stopped working properly, so the entire length of it had to be inspected; that alone had taken a great deal of time. The culprit turned out to be a single large fish wedged tight across the channel.
Because they had put so many tasks aside while concentrating on smelting, their bodies had been busy. Now they needed to make more chili powder bombs, and the preserved food they had been carefully rationing while hunting was impossible would have to be restocked as well.
“They still haven’t all come back.”
“Mm. When the creatures that lived here fled, every other place must have become overcrowded. Competition will be fierce.”
“So only the ones that lost and had to run came back here?”
Chester nodded at Monia’s words.
“In that case hunting is out of the question. We’ve already taken up all the traps, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Nothing ever gets resolved quickly, does it?”
“Tell me about it. I just hope that Grace of the Summit they said they’d give us as an apology is as good as they claim.”
Chester watched a rodent race along a branch overhead, then leap to another tree. The little animal glanced around tensely, then darted into a hollow.
A mother with young, maybe.
Its cheeks had been stuffed full; it must have been carrying food for its babies.
“It’s strange somehow.”
“What is?”
“There used to be so many animals here all the time.”
“Ah. That’s true.”
They had failed at hunting before, but they had never gone a day without game simply because there was none. Kill as many as they liked, more creatures always appeared.
“Where plants grow this well, life overflows.”
The greatest limit on the number of living things is food. Even ancient humanity could not increase its numbers until farming provided a stable supply. This island was different. Herbivores were born in droves to devour the endless plants, and carnivores were born in droves to devour the herbivores. The forest had always been full of animal sounds.
Now the song of the grass carried on the wind was clearer than any animal cry.
It was so unnaturally quiet and empty that Monia felt as if they were the only two people left in the world. Without thinking she tightened her grip on Chester’s hand.
“It’s a little frightening.”
“Is it? It’s all right.”
“……Yes.”
Monia nodded carefully.
Yet the awkward, uneasy feeling would not leave her—the sense that something bad was about to happen, the same anxiety that rose in an opera when the music dropped away and a dark, ominous scene began.
It’s just because the forest is too quiet. That’s all.
In the grip of that nameless unease, Monia absently stroked the rope tied around her wrist.
That night, unable to shake the feeling, she clung to Chester far more tightly than usual as she tried to sleep.
Stare long enough at a black sea and a man begins to feel he will be sucked into it and vanish.
It is only water that has changed color, yet some force seems to pull at him until, without meaning to, he takes a step toward it. That is how accidents happen on the night sea: a man falls by mistake in the dark, or he is drawn in by the water itself and throws his body overboard.
The moment he hits the water, the cold that has stolen the day’s heat from the sea smashes the dreamlike haze and drags him back to reality. By then it is already too late. All he can do is thrash and scream amid the cold and the rough waves.
How many people have cast themselves into the night sea and disappeared?
Rotin lowered the spyglass and gazed silently at the Floating Island.
They had used wind and current as best they could, outrunning the island and closing the distance, yet by the time they drew near the place that had once been only a speck on the far horizon, the day had already grown this dark.
“We’ll abandon the landing for now.”
The sailors who had slept through morning and afternoon so they could work the ship at night nodded their understanding.
“I’ll pass the word to the ships behind us.”
“Do that. Furl the sails! The wind’s strong. Keep this up and we might ram the island. Hold a proper distance and land on the sand when daylight comes.”
As the sails came down the ship’s speed fell; soon it was moving almost parallel with the Floating Island.
Rotin looked at the island again.
To eyes that had grown used to the night’s dimness, the island looked like a monstrous whale rearing out of the sea, ready at any moment to crash down upon the ships. The Floating Island was almost entirely sheer cliffs, sharp as knife blades, except for the single stretch of sand on one side; that only made the impression stronger.
“Hm?”
Something strange caught Rotin’s eye as he watched the island in silence.
Near what must have been the summit—where an unidentified blue light had been glowing—an orange mass of light suddenly appeared.
……
He raised the spyglass at once and fixed it on the glow.
It’s moving. Could that be a torch? Could it be Monia?!
No one else lived on the Floating Island. No animal had the intelligence to handle fire.
Certain the light on the summit belonged to Monia, Rotin stared at it with a heart pounding with love.
At that very moment, one of the People of the Summit who had woken in the night with a full bladder was relieving himself by torchlight, yawning hugely from sleepiness and scratching an unaccountably itchy backside.
Monia……!!