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Epilogue

 
Sunreader dotscript
Portfolio 23
Page 13
Jersey Saple
 

On we sail into gawd knows what.

This matter of the Cantilou is a knot of bollworms. Being a Fungus Person, as the Rafers call men of my kind, I suppose that I am not meant to gully this to the bottom. But it dawns on me now that the Rafers are not the first civilization to have hybrid human-cats slinking a crooked path through their histories. They were known even to those people what the ancients called ancient.

But the Rafers take ownership of the Cantilou, for better or for worse. They do not seem to regard him as the most joyous of beasts to have in their midst—most written references in the Rafer histories portray him, at best, as a sort of troublesome satyr. At worst, a horror. But still they hailed his appearance at their sea attack with a sort of morbid glee.

Tym, the new mate of Gregory, offered an oblique explanation. She described for me the sea roiling with the fins of feeder beasts, where once there had been the wriggling body of Big Tom. "They may be feeder beasts," she said in the Rafer tongue, "but at this moment they do our work. Fear only the beast that has come for you—the one that smells your blood."

We are a week at sail now, and the Rafer crew is as comfortable with the Nina as a wine sluggard is with his bed of old blankets. The feeder beasts have fallen away. All crew are anxious for sight of new land.

I saw a whale today—not by actual sight, as you would know, but by the sensory gift that I am blessed with. It came alongside the Nina, a breathing behemoth a quarter the length of the ship itself. And then came another and another crashing to the surface, an entire herd snorting and lolling in the waves. They are virtually unknown in the waters of the Out Islands, more storied than encountered.

Today it seemed that my blindsight developed to a new level. Or perhaps there is just more now to be seen than ever before. For I sensed in a rush all of the new waters around us quaking with life, a vibrance unknown to the seas of Merqua. And I came to the belief, haltingly, that we had entered a new land and a life system distinct from our own.

There is a continent beyond. I know this. I can feel it as surely as I feel the stylus between my old fingers. Centuries back, it was seared and blistered and scarred in the terrible war as we thought it must have been, and now it has healed over in ways strange to all of us.

Herewith I close out a tale scripted in a dot writing that mayhap no man will ever read. With my next clean parchment I begin Portfolio 24. I will take it up on a new land, at the beginning of a new history.

I and all aboard are in reasonable physical health. The Cantilou has occupied the captain's quarters, which reeks these days of the acrid odor of manure. The Rafer food is foreign but palatable—heavy with spicy vegetables and meats stewed in preserving brine.

A final note: It is for Gregory's health of mind that I fear most. What time he does not spend below decks with his beloved Tym he passes clinging to the battle-splintered section of the starboard rail. He is drawn to the gray-green waters by visions to which no others are privileged, sighted or otherwise. He stares blankly into the waves, nodding and chuckling to himself over and over a madman's punchline:

"Here be monsters."

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