Sechsdee, the 26th of Harvest, 768 A.E.

  Unworried by what occurred around him, a man with reddish-bronze skin sat on one of many rocks that jutted up out of the sea along the coast of Maethlin, a score or more Kilomes from Harsbrukke and half a dozen from Norsjalde. Waves crashed around him, sometimes splashing up at his knees or even to his waist, but they could not break his silent benediction. His focus was beyond that which the elements could disturb, even should they choose to take his life.

  Pressing his palm to the crown of his head, he prayed to Fallu, the whale of Maletos, Queen of the Gods, and father figure and protector of his people. He also, out of tradition and reverence, prayed to Marceaupo, the Goddess of the Outer Seas, and to Tulis, the God of the Inner Seas. To be safe, he prayed longest to Tulis, for it was on one of his shores that he presently sat and prayed. To show more reverence to Marceaupo in Tulis’ territory would be to raise the ire of the God’s and elicit his temper, for which he was renowned.

  Makan, as this Mueran was known, prayed to his people’s revered Deities for direction. Several turns of bad luck had landed him here, on the Kerathi island of Maethlin, where he had to tread softly lest he earn the wrath of one of the warmongering people. And while the Kerathi had no particular hatred of the Mueran, most likely because their peoples lived so far apart that they rarely saw each other and not because of any kinship they might have felt, they had no love for them either.

  At thirty-six Yarres of age, Makan was on the downside of his middle Yarres, and he had nothing to show for it. He had no family of his own, no holdings, and his ship had broken apart on the rocks of this very island. He was left with little more than his fish-spear, a battered assortment of salvaged gear from his lost ship, and a collection of scars to show for his efforts in life thus far.

  This was enough to shake the faith of even a man as steadfast as Makan, who had always given generously to priests and shown the proper reverence to the Gods, even the ones favored by other peoples when he was outside the isles of his own people. Yet here among the savage Kerathi, he saw how the violent and greedy prospered. His own peaceful nature had landed him here alone on a beach without even shelter.

  At night he slept under a heavy blanket that kept out most of the crabs and sand fleas, but not the rain. For meals he ate what passed for edible seaweed in these parts, whatever crabs he could catch and break open on rocks, and the few fish that strayed near shore or got trapped in tidal pools. And while this food was not that different from what he might normally eat, he ate without relish, subsisting on mostly raw food that he took in during short respites from his prayer vigils.

  He stayed near the wreckage of his boat and waited for a sign from Tulis, from Fallu, or from any of the numerous Gods. Every Dee he rose out of his slumber and went about the same tasks as the Dee before, praying, foraging, and sleeping. He was at a dead end.

  He had briefly considered signing up as a contracted worker on board of a Kerathi fishing vessel, but the thought that they might hunt whales kept him from even searching for one. There was no guarantee they’d even offer one to an outlander like him anyway. He wasn’t unhandy with his spear either. Anyone who spent their entire adult life spearing fish or the larger and more dangerous creatures of the Inner and Outer Seas knew a thing or two about spearing a man if the need arose. Consequently, Muerans were perhaps the deadliest spear fighters on all of Elegia – Makan just happened to be even better than most of his people.

  While he sat there with his mind open to any and all forms of divine communication, earthly concerns kept intruding, keeping him from true openness of mind. The need to relieve himself, sleep, eat, or shift limbs that had long since gone numb from not moving for extended periods of time kept pulling him out of his contemplation.

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  “I am weak. My body overrides my mind, and that is why I have been left here. This must be the lesson I am to learn.” Makan said to himself, blinking slowly. The movement of facial muscles dislodged some of a salty crust that had built up on his face from countless waves splashing and drying on him.

  Disheartened at his own weakness, he stood abruptly. “Is this what you wish of me?” He demanded of the sea, daring it to answer.

  In his hurry to stand, he had not taken into account the numbness of his legs, which tingled as the circulation attempted to resume its former level. He wobbled there on the rock, waving his arms to balance himself. A wave crashed in just then, sweeping his legs out from under him. He feebly grasped for a handhold on the rock but was taken away from it and into the sea.

  Cold, blackish water swirled about him, whitened with foam only in places where it crashed against the rocky shore. He spluttered as water forced its way into his mouth and nose. His Seaskin clothes, normally a minimal hindrance in the water, seemed to drag at him like weights. His tired limbs battled the waves, but it was a struggle that he could not win. What man, especially an exhausted one, could hope to defeat the will of the sea?

  He was pulled into a deep trough of a large wave. As he turned into the wave, his mouth opened in surprise, for before him stood a wave many Mayters tall, while those around it for as far as he could see were no more than a fraction of its height. This wave, it seemed, was made just for him.

  “Take my life! You have taken everything else!” Makan defiantly shouted into the deafening roar of his wave.

  He went limp, ceasing his futile struggles. If the Gods wanted him dead, he would not fight it. But the wave never crushed him. It did not pound him into the rocks like a hammer striking metal on an anvil. Instead, it dove in front of him, causing the water to swell beneath him. He felt himself being lifted and then set down gently on a rock.

  When the water subsided and he took bearing of his position, he found that he was sitting right where he had been just a Mynette before, just before the wave had swept him away. He wiped the salty water from his face and looked around him. The water around his rock had turned calm as glass, while the waves a few Mayters beyond his reach still crashed and rolled as they had for thousands of Yarres.

  “I don’t understand. What is it you want of me? Why would you save me? What can I do?”

  Then, just at the edge of sight, a half-dozen Kilomes away from Maethlin, something grey crested the waves. With it came a brush of minds, a touching of man and something bestial but more than just that.

  “Fallu?” Makan whispered, blinking away tears of joy that came unbidden to his eyes. He felt something akin to rapture, as one who has seen his maker might. He was having an epiphany unlike anything he had ever experienced before or likely ever would again. “Have you come to take me away?”

  Their minds touched once more, one that of an ancient creature, nearly a deity, and one of a tired and confused Mueran man. Images flooded into his mind, images of a strange trio. The first person was a tired, frail looking girl of pale coloring and light hair the color of sunlight shining through crystal. Beside the girl was a giant creature with a bovine head and a brutish build, clearly an Ox-Man, though Makan had not realized there were any in this region. The last of the three was a young Kerathi male, though from his beard he looked to have his man’s growth and size to him.

  The grey shape in the distance slid beneath the waves and was gone. The images faded with the disappearance of the shape, yet they had left a sense that these three people were near and that he was to find them, help them, and protect them. The loss of contact with the greater being bred feelings of disappointment. He was being left on Maethlin and not going home.

  “I hear and obey, great one, father of our kind.” Makan called out to the sea, not caring who heard him.

  He ended his vigil then, crossing the short distance of what was now very calm water between him and the shore. When his feet touched sand, he went and collected his fish-spear and started toward Norsjalde. The nearest city was the best place he could think of to start asking around. After all, if anyone had seen the strange trio pass, they would certainly remember them. Such an odd group was unique.

  His past troubles forgotten for the time being, Makan walked with a lightheartedness and ease to his step that he had not felt in many Yarres.