I have been told that it is best to write about the things for which one has the most experience. For instance, police officers, when putting fingers to keys in a creative way, would do best to write about their personal experiences in enforcing the law, thus making their stories all the more realistic. It should be terribly obvious at this stage in the story that I am no fisherman and that anything I write concerning such things are basically unintelligent guesses about what goes on in catching fish and bringing them to market. Also, I have never stood at a mountain pass and used some exotic spear to slaughter invaders. I am just thinking about such things and imagining how these activities would look and how one might experience them. Therefore, I feel the need to disavow any claim to realism in such matters.
I do have a bit of experience in making and keeping covenants with God, though like any other man, I suspect that I come up quite a bit short. I have known the feelings of desire to serve God and felt that sad feeling of not quite measuring up to expectation. I have found that God, who makes the other side of such covenants, is quite happy to provide the help needed to keep up my end and there is nothing I can have but gratitude for this fact. Not only does he keep his side of the bargain, but he is very willing to do the heavy lifting when it comes to my side of that bargain as well, as long as I am willing to put forth pretty much any effort at all toward my promises. It makes for some very lop-sided deals, but fortunately they are lop-sided heavily in my favor and I can't seem to offer up much complaint.
Enis, bereft of a good part of his defenders lately, is paying a visit to his somewhat casual friends, Mullicynda and Daavor. Under typical circumstances, the pair would be making a regular trip to Waykeep to share their recent catch with the people who defend the pass, but these times have become extraordinary, so much so that the captain of the pass has come down out of the mountains and brought his wife with him.
"So," Daavor said a bit slowly, "who is guarding the pass right now?"
Enis was devouring a fish without much regard for the disapproving looks of Tessreen. Between large bites, he managed to say: "I left a young man in charge of things. He shows promise."
"It is kind of you to have us in and feed us," Tessreen offered brightly, turning away from glaring at her own man and his impudence at the table. "How are things here on the shore?"
Daavor looked at Mulls and Mullicynda looked back at him. It was one of those awkward silences where no one knew if it was safe to speak truth from their hearts or just offer up the sort of pleasantries that are more anticipated. Daavor wanted to say, "I hate fishing and I always have," while Mulls would have honestly offered that "I feel trapped in a pathetic life that is far below my potential." The indecision over what to say stretched out the silence, which seemed to answer Tess' question more eloquently than mere words.
Mulls looked coolly at the captain of the pass. "And to what exactly do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"
There was another awkward silence, this time from the small delegation from Waykeep. Enis took another large bite of fish and Tessreen rolled her eyes at how intimidated her husband acted in relation to getting to the point of things. "There is trouble at the pass," she offered as a bone to her mate.
"Trouble?" Daavor, like a curious fish, couldn't refuse the bait.
Enis frowned and glared at his wife. "It isn't so much trouble..."
"There are only thirty men left to defend the pass." Tess blurted it out and the abruptness was enough to cause Enis to slam his fists on the small table, sending various things flying. I'm guessing he wanted to approach the subject more gradually and without so much desperation, but there it was, out in the open for all to see.
Mulls raised her eyebrows at her fish dinner that now rested in her lap. She bit her lip and looked to the captain of the pass. "That doesn't seem adequate for the job."
Enis looked back at her. It wasn't an angry look. To be honest, it seemed like more of a blank stare. It was honestly the look of a man who had something difficult to do but came ill-equipped for it. "That's right," was all he ended up saying.
Daavor was looking around at the expressions offered up at the table, from the customary condescension coming from Mullicynda to the expectant looks of Tessreen that were directed at her husband. Tentatively, he ventured a question. "So, do you need us to help you at the pass?" It was a silly thought that saw Mulls roll her eyes.
"Sort of." Tessreen offered and nudged her husband to elaborate. He answered by taking another bite of his fish.
Mulls felt the need to rebuke her man. "No one here has taken on the covenant." She brushed food off her lap. "It isn't our place to defend the pass."
Enis chewed his food and raised his brows. He was thinking how much easier it would be just to bring the pair into the covenant rather than talk about his real purpose.
Tessreen could read the captain's thoughts and kicked his shin under the table. He grunted and frowned. "Mullicynda's right." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "But, God has shown me a way that you both could be helpful to the cause."
"You mean besides providing your people with fish?" Daavor offered up this insightful question and began to reveal his own hopefulness toward a more interesting life.
Enis nodded in an almost grudging way. "Yeah." He looked with hope at Tess, hoping that she would take over and explain the idea, but she had wandered over to the corner which served as Mulls' wardrobe and begun to admire her old party dresses. "I need to bring some new defenders to Waykeep."
"We saw the Salvation bring some people to the marker not long ago," Daavor blurted. Everyone stopped what they were doing, including Enis, who was amid chewing, and turned to the man, who got the impression he had said something wrong. "Mulls was there, too," he offered as a potential excuse. "Ishmael talked to us."
Everyone was now looking around at each other with surprise and a lot of uneasiness. For Enis and Tessreen, this was something of a sacred subject that should never be spoken of openly to others. It created a tension in the room that suddenly caused Mullicynda a desire to censure the uncouth Daavor, but he was already looking contrite enough to keep silent. The fact that the couple on the shore had seen the very people who had brought the first parents of the Alaed to this blessed land, a boat and crew led by the Mariner himself, who was often considered a myth and only spoken of in hushed reverence, was frankly astonishing. It would have been more astonishing if Daavor had revealed that this was not his first encounter with Salvation.
Mulls broke the uneasiness by moving to the corner and pulling out the shimmering dress that she had worn to her Investment party all those years ago for Tess to admire. Enis pulled another fish from the platter in the center of the table and gave Daavor a curious look. "This is some good fish, isn't it?" was all Daavor could offer as he followed Enis' example and concentrated on his eating.
The captain of the pass merely grunted.
I suppose it is hard to understand what is offensive to others when one hardly knows the local history and why things are so revered. Mullicynda and Daavor are only somewhat versed in the history of the Alaed and that only comes from a tattered book that Mulls took from a forgotten library twenty years ago. For Enis and Tessreen, the Mariner is only mentioned in a handful of annual rituals involving the legend of Waykeep and in the Covenant that each resident takes upon themselves to defend the pass. It is a justifiably touchy subject but one that is going to take on a larger significance in a coming part of our story. It isn't just that these are things that the dizens of Waykeep have held sacred for generations, but that Enis has had his own experience with the Salvation in recent days. It is simply stunning to everyone involved that the Mariner seems to be especially present lately and affecting some relatively obscure people that are now congregating uneasily in the same rather rickety shore-side hut. It is making the hair on the back of everyone's neck stand out and both Enis and Mulls have felt such sensations before when God is at work.
"It's funny that you should mention the Salvation," Enis offered quietly. "I have seen her, too." Tess flinched at the casual reference but went back to admiring Mulls' dress collection. "Well, in a dream."
Enis hunched over his plate and quieted his voice still further, drawing in Daavor. "I saw the lot of us on Firsthome, teaching people about God." the sudden reference to the fishing couple's homeland caused Mullicynda to draw in a sharp breath. "In the dream, we bring a group of people back here across the channel on that ship and Waykeep is saved."
I imagine that, under other circumstances, the men at the table would have replied with something akin to "Cool!" and the women in the room would have begun to work out in their minds all the potential pitfalls to such a venture. As it was, the two listening men could only manage, in the somewhat primitive way that they had available to them, to stare at each other with awe. As for the women, Tess could only offer the raising of her brow over the handling of some fine brooch as Mulls' eyes widened toward her.
Now, the concerns of everyone in the small shack were quite divergent, to use a word. For Tess, the largest matter was the thought that, given the finery Mulls was showing her, she needed to acquire and use a finer wardrobe than her two rough and simple dresses. For Mullicynda, there were the competing emotions of a curious yet illogical home-longing and the empty hope that any woman of Firsthome, much less any Lady, would accept the God of Kiyami and motivate themselves to live the rather asture life of a defender of the pass. For Daavor, the only concern that glittered in his eyes was how soon a novel, non-fishing adventure could begin. Lastly, Enis seemed to only have an eye for how much of this freshly caught fish meat he could manage to shove down his maw, as the foodstuffs he was accustomed to at Waykeep was more along the lines of dried fish jerky and vegetables. So, in the matter of consideration toward executing this idea that had steeled into the Captain's dreams of late, there didn't seem to be much resistance beside a touch of apprehension at details.
Of course, no one but I and you fine readers know that the whole lot are somewhat enamored, in one way or another, of the dream-plan, what with the commonplace lack of sharing that is floating about the tiny room. Enis, who has been forced into the unenviable role of the revelator here, is looking about rather sheepishly and wondering if he looks foolish. The simpler man looks a little too exuberant about the whole thing, which causes Mulls a bit of consternation that her man would be excited about returning to a world where their familial arrangement was meaningless and that he would be considered fair game for consorting and/or slavery among the Ladies of the Convocation. A further bit of apprehension for Mulls can be seen in the almost covetous over-interest that her friend Tessreen shows over the younger's collection of dresses and jewelry from her abandoned Convocation life. The former Lady and the Waykeep captain find each other's eyes in all of this, make an unspoken tally of "for" and "against", and realize that their apprehensions have already lost to the growing anticipation of this new venture and neither feel very well-settled about it. It seems nothing is more telling here than the smell of electricity in the air, bound to either light up some previously dim lives or to render everything and everyone nearby into a charred crisp.
I cannot speak for everyone, but personally, like Daavor, I am excited for some action after twenty years of nothing much worth writing about. As a bonus, seeing a bit into the future of the story, I am further excited that I am merely writing about what is going to happen, rather than having to live through it as our characters by nature must. You fine readers have the most enviable place of all, for you can just watch, listen to me putter along, and soon revel in the fact that you also are not them.