CHAPTER LIST
The Wild Lands
—
Five
—
I write this on the twentieth of June, the year sixteen hundred and eleven.
At my birth I was given the name Senku, but I have carried many names from where and how I worked. I have been named for fish, I have been named for barrels, I have been named for trinkets, the living, and the dead, and I have even been named for absurd things, such as exotic teas or the secretion of insects. My surname carries the last descriptor; the English world, however, brands my tongue and my mind with the title of Arthur.
I have traveled across the world, studied many languages and cultures, and suffered through many misfortunes. I had considered writing this in my original tongue, but I fear such a writing would be cast aside by those who will surely come to inhabit this land. These are the waters of the English and the French, and I do not know any French.
I have been through Europe and Russia, I have tasted the frozen waters of the Baltic sea… I have never been so cold in my life as I am right now.
“Stop the rudder.” The Captain murmurs. He is a very strong man with a very strong heart, but this is a strain that no man can endure forever. His boy is no older than twenty; he has been shaking like a reed in the wind ever since we descended onto the water.
The Russian nods in response and moves from the bow to where I am seated. He fixes the rudder while looking at me. Does he know the power I have, that I could break him for such a look?
“This is the mark, Arthur.” The captain’s voice is a triphammer, measured in its beats and impossible to speak against. Yet it is his own strength with words and determination in his spirit which fuels my endeavor. “Give him the key.”
I hand over a large key, painted black and spotted with rust. The Russian places the base against his forehead and closes his eyes, facing across the wide expanse of black water. Just as silence takes command over the boat, he turns the key sharply, cracking his eyelids open.
“By my troth.” The Finn looks about him almost as wildly as the boy. “We’re on land. Us and the whole vessel.”
“Did I not tell you to hold faith?” The Captain rebukes. “We make camp here and tomorrow we give full speed before anything else befalls us. Koba, come with me for a moment.”
I shall not describe how the boat was turned about and used as a crude shelter for the woman and the boy, or how what should have been a joyous night was answered with silent and morose staring. I must instead detail the full extent of my companions before I forget their inclusion, as each one was hand-selected by the Captain to play a critical part in his endeavor.
The Georgian is Koba, a little man with dark skin and a heavy moustache. He smells like the sickliest tobacco at all times, and I find myself tearing up at his passing, as a cloud seems to follow his every move. The Russian is another tale, almost as tall as the sun, with flaking hair and an unkempt face. He cannot speak English, but he seems to hear it just fine, and his name — he writes it Феофилакт, which the Captain spells as Feofilakt — I cannot comprehend its pronunciation.
The woman I have known before this endeavor, and her coming was my strong recommendation. Her name is Kaur, she is only five years older than the boy, and I hate her more than the Devil himself. She threw off her people and her home when I was still very young, and she younger still, but has tormented me on my travels ever since. I have an end in store for her.
The Finn is Herr Rasmus Jussi Partanen, although he insists on being called Herr Otso, primarily, I believe, to irritate the Russian. He is a fraud and a liar, a scoundrel of the highest order, and would steal from his own mother. Such an act is what got him chased from his populous, and he now feigns nobility among foreign societies foolish enough to believe him.
Mansel is perhaps the only member of this repulsive crew I appreciate the presence of. He is half-French and half-English, thin as bones and strong as a tiger. He came to America four years ago to observe the formation of those three or four colonies the English are so proud of, and stole something from the native Indians which made them all terribly upset. That something I hope to pilfer off his body once he has inevitably thrown himself in front of some wild animal to protect us all; I appreciate having someone I do not need to kill myself.
The Captain is Henry Hudson, and it is to my understanding that prior to this he had done a good deal of exploring on previous expeditions. Now, however, his return was to throw off suspicions as to his whereabouts in the hopes that power unimaginable lay just inside the heart of these wild lands. I feel sorry for him and his boy, John; they will prove useful in stringing these fools along.
I must stay strong. May Isarraitaitsoq give me power. The darkest hour is coming.
—
“I long for less,” The Endless said,
"Of boundless time and space,
"For now I seek to long be dead
"And other take my place.
"I shall construct a second one,
"Perhaps another four,
"And they shall bear the burden that
“I have forever bore.”
Then shaped he all the universe,
The galaxies and stars,
And crafted four eternal ones
To cultivate and guard.
Time kept her balance of the When,
The What did Matter hold,
The Spirit held the strength of Who,
The Where did Space control.
—
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