A Long Voyage Begins
Chester and Monia carried out everything they would need from the house and loaded it onto the raft.
What they would carry day to day went into the backpacks they already wore, or clipped to the belts at their waists—nothing more. Living in one place and living on the move were two different things. For long stretches of travel the body had to stay light.
Of course they could not take every knife and cutlass that filled the house. A sword was heavy and constantly in the way. So each of them packed only three knives and a machete.
They took several changes of clothes, and Monia’s necklaces and bracelets as well—things that might, somewhere, be sold for coin. The telescopes were essential. Lenses could be ground only by master glassworkers; they were rarities, and any telescope that used them was expensive. One they would keep for use; the other they would sell if they had to.
They were heading into the civilized world. Whatever they meant to do there, they would need a way to make money.
“What about the chickens?”
“We leave them.”
“Right… Or maybe just take a couple? They only eat grain, after all.”
“Maybe. They’d be good to have if things get hard.”
While they gathered the chickens they wove a simple coop of branches on the raft. The birds would live there.
As Monia sorted through the house she suddenly noticed a wooden handle lying in a corner of the storeroom. She took hold of it and pulled; a heavy stone axe came free with it.
“Ah—I made this.”
She lifted the axe and ran her fingers over it, then turned and reached deeper into the shadowed space behind the jars. Out came a stone knife, a claw knife, crude arrows and a bow—everything she had learned to make under Chester’s teaching. All of it had been carefully wrapped in cloth and stored in that one corner.
“….”
Monia stared at the collection, then glanced sideways at Chester. Who would have kept these things? She herself never had.
A soft, unbidden smile spread across her face. She pretended she had seen nothing, hid the tools again, and went to where Chester was still packing what they needed.
He was examining the knives they would take—shape, condition, length, grip thickness, weight, balance—choosing only the ones that felt most natural in the hand. Three knives fitted to him, one fitted to her, and then, as an extra, the knife he had forged from the island’s own ore.
“Right. We should take some of the ore too. Just a little—enough to sell and see what it’s worth.”
He added a few pieces while he spoke.
“Chester.”
“What?”
The moment he turned at her voice, something soft and almost violent pressed against his back. Monia clung to him and kissed him deeply, full on the mouth.
It was sudden, yet they had done this often enough—kissing whenever the urge struck—that Chester simply accepted it, gentle and unhurried. Her pink tongue traced his lips; when his mouth parted she slipped inside like a snake through a narrow crack, and his tongue rose to meet hers.
How long they stayed like that neither could have said. Only when they were both breathless did they finally draw apart and return to the work still waiting.
“We should take plenty of boots, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. We’ll be walking a lot. When a pair wears out we put on a new one. Broken shoes ruin feet.”
“Got it.”
Boots that fit Chester were easy to find. His hands were larger than most men’s, but his feet were ordinary; tall as he was, they were still only a little bigger than average, and many pairs suited him. Monia was the problem. Years of roaming the island had toughened her, yet her feet remained small and neat. Boots that fit were scarce. Including the pair she already wore, she managed to take only two.
“Lucky any boots that washed ashore ever fit you at all.”
“Lucky is right! There might have been none.”
“True.”
After the boots came tools: lighters, leather gloves—and rope.
Thick rope, heavy rope, ordinary rope, long rope, short rope, thin rope, long twine, short twine, long cord, short cord… They packed every kind. Always. Whether a man survived danger or hardship often came down to how much rope he carried and how well he used it. Rope built houses, bound rafts, climbed cliffs, made slings, hafted stone tools, repaired knife handles, and threw together emergency shelters in a hurry.
Monia had learned from Chester that if any god truly walked this world, that god was rope.
Once the heavy coils were all aboard they moved on to the rest.
“Done.”
Chester took the Grace of the Summit from its jar, wound rope tightly around it, and left a length free so it could be slung like a backpack strap and carried easily.
“This stays hidden inside a pack. Understood? No one else can ever learn that the Grace of the Summit exists.”
The Grace of the Summit. Of everything they had found on the island, it was the most extraordinary—the closest thing in the world to magic, to miracle. It cured every illness and could haul a man back from the brink of death.
They buried it carefully among the other gear in the pack, then checked and rechecked that nothing showed, that no chance discovery was possible.
“Even if people don’t know what it is, just looking at it they’ll see a mysterious blue-glowing stone. Someone will decide it’s valuable and try to take it.”
“Ugh, the more you say that the more nervous I get.”
“Hey. Don’t tense up too much.”
“Nngh…”
Everything was ready.
After a light final meal at the house, Chester, Monia, Rex, and Ant set out for the shore that would carry them to another island.
Before they reached the beach Monia glanced back once at their home: the bamboo house nestled beneath towering trees, the long water channel that ran all the way to the distant waterfall, the storerooms attached below and beside it, the ladder hanging to the ground and the fishing rods for land-fishing, the various kilns for smoking meat, firing pottery, and melting ore, and the fields thick with every kind of plant.
“….”
Her steps stopped. She turned fully, let the memories of this place wash through her, then quietly faced forward again.
I’ll come back someday.
With that silent vow she ran after Chester’s retreating back.
On the first day she had entered this forest she had not managed more than a few steps before the high heel of her shoe snapped and she fell. Now she ran lightly over leaf litter and soil that hid tree roots, landed sure-footed on moss-slick stones, and flew after him until she caught up. Where once she had panted and scrambled in his wake, she now walked at his side, hand in hand.
Ant bounded around them; Rex clung to Chester’s pack and rocked himself back and forth in play. Watching them, Monia smiled softly. The moment they reached the raft she began loading the carefully gathered gear.
When everything was stowed and everyone was aboard, Chester used a pole to shove the raft free of the ambiguous shallows between sea and shore and out onto open water.
Out to sea, farther and farther from land.
The raft that had rocked unsteadily soon rode the waves with steady ease; the sail, spread just enough, caught the wind and drove them strongly forward.
Monia looked back at the island slowly shrinking behind them.
It grew distant.
It receded.
It dwindled.
“Farther than I expected. The sea has nothing to block the view, so you can see a long way.”
As Chester said, a considerable stretch of water lay between the long island and the Floating Island. That was why their home shrank so steadily until it could be held in a single glance.
Goodbye.
Monia whispered the farewell to her island.
It was the beginning of a long voyage whose end—when they might return home—no one could yet promise.
“Fine wind.”
Urgo lifted his face into the dry breeze that carried grains of sand and looked up at a cloudless, brilliant sky and a sun hot enough to scorch the earth.
“A good day.”
For a moment Chester and Monia rose in his mind. Ever since the day they left the island, any small turn of thought seemed to bring them back.
“I hope they’re doing well.”