It was as if the man was confronting Mereque directly. Reaching out of the portrait for him. The intensity behind this person’s unspoken character made him feel like it was enough to break through the veil of the living and the dead, by way of a canvas and an artist’s brush.

  Mereque had to stifle a chuckle at being made to feel like he had become part of some fanciful work of fiction. He could not fathom that such a personage truly existed. Had to credit his imagination with running away on him; and he had to credit the artist for creating such a masterpiece.

  A name was scrawled along the bottom. The penmanship was atrocious, making it impossible to read. He wondered who it might be.

  Such a talent, but they couldn’t even write their own name!

  An image began to form in his mind then. One that hinted toward who these Havenites might be, why he was drawn to them, but why he was also mindful of them.

  But first he wanted to hear what else his friend had to say.

  So, he offered an appropriately approving expression at the portrait before turning back to listen.

  Jenker gave him an appraising look, then let out a sigh. Emptied the cup in his hand, finishing it with one giant gulp as he seemed to wrestle with something internally.

  All that Ventrullis could do was give him time. Time to gather his thoughts. Time to speak his mind. Thus, he waited patiently until the captain had collected himself enough to go on.

  Clearing his throat, his voice was full of regrets, laced with an undercurrent of flint.

  “Slop cups. I’m not proud to admit it, but I’m not going to apologize either. My people, we can be a ruthless bunch. We’ve earned ourselves something of a reputation. A well earned one.”

  Mereque could see where this was going, he didn’t need to hear anymore.

  “Stop. I think it’s understandable, Jenk. You live in a world where the land itself can be your enemy. Never knowing what kind of dangers lurk around which corners. It must have put your people in a perpetual state of heightened anxiety facing constant conflicts. You fight to survive. You shouldn’t have to apologize for that.”

  Jenker met his gaze.

  “You’re unbelievable. By your own admission you’ve barely been here a few handfuls of days. Despite running into one hairy mess after another, you still stopped to save me. Then you lead the efforts to rescue this tub and all my crew, without asking for anything more than a ride. Now here I am trying to warn you about us, and you have too much empathy to let me go on.”

  Jenker admonished softly with a smirk.

  “We come from different places. But we are from the same world.”

  Mereque replied.

  Moving over to the large table. Leaning across it.

  “The Earth my people left—this is the same Earth your people had to survive in. Just like you, our sea was up there. In the empty spaces between the stars.”

  He paused.

  “This Havenlocke of yours—he led your people in the ancient past. He did what needed to be done to keep his people alive. Just as every one of you has done since his time. He paved the way so that your people could survive, and so that you could be here now. Regardless of what you or I think. Those are the deeds of heroes. We had ours. And you have yours. Do you have something I can draw on?”

  Jenker retrieved a long roll of parchment. Placed it down before him.

  “Whatever happened here since the colony expeditions were sent out must have been catastrophic. Your maps of the world are nothing like what we had in our archives. Here, I’ll show you.”

  Handing him a thin, grey-tipped tool and a small pot of ink to draft with, the captain said with some relief as he passed over the objects.

  “Here, if you can draw. I have some old maps we can compare that with. Thank you, my friend. I wanted you to understand what you may face when we reach the Harbour. There are many of us who have little tolerance for things that are not human. Even though you saved me, bringing an eight-foot-tall man to our front door may cause some… controversy.”

  Nodding his head in understanding, Mereque got to work.

  Inside his mind he accessed artificially embedded processors with a series of thoughts.

  He brought up a mental display of the Earth for reference. Old Earth. The world of his descendants.

  With pencil to paper, he began recreating a part of the image that he held in his head. Adding more complex details as the work went on.

  Jenker watched with deep interest.

  Within minutes he had a complete outline.

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  It was a piece of work that may have taken hours—if not longer—for any normal man to accomplish by hand alone.

  On the left side, a pair of large continents stretched from north to south. Running vertically. Nearly touching the polar regions.

  The two connected by a tapering land bridge between them. They were massive compared to anything on Jenker’s maps. Dwarfed the largest of the contemporary landmasses he could compare them with.

  The Havenite started rummaging through shelves and cupboards. Pulling out various old tomes and ancient atlases to hold against it. Many of which had seen better days.

  Every comparison he produced didn’t match any of the land formations Mereque was sketching out. It was like two different worlds. One with full and robust surfaces across the globe. The other only sprinkles of terrain where one could step foot.

  When he finished filling in the last details, Jenker didn’t recognize anything on it (other than the water). The huge continents on both the Eastern and Western hemispheres of the world were foreign to him.

  His face betrayed his thoughts. He had never seen their like. The size unbelievable to him. There was so much land.

  “This is the Earth as it was kept in our records. As you can see, between the two hemispheres it had two distinct continental formations.”

  Mereque stated as he began to draw a series of horizontal and vertical lines across his work. Easily recognized by the naval officer as latitude and longitude indicators.

  “Unbelievable. I’d say you were a master map maker if I didn’t know better. How have you managed to do this from memory?”, Jenker wondered, marveling at the level of detail.

  “Another benefit of our medical science. There is a very small machine inside my head. I can pull up any information it keeps in there. To be fair, without it, I wouldn’t be drawing us any maps.”

  Mereque explained wryly, tapping a finger to his temple to illustrate the point.

  Causing his host to spill his drink as he laughed. Jenker wiped it up. Still smiling.

  They spoke for many hours then. Pouring over the various maps the Havenite retrieved. Comparing them carefully against his own. Discussing any possible similarities at length, as they tried to piece together anything that could link the past to the present.

  A moment came when Mereque’s gaze fell on a section of one of the captains’ older navigational maps.

  Lingering long enough for the other man to notice. Not so far from where they were now. Due north.

  “What is it, what do you see?”, Jenker asked.

  “During the emergency evacuation of the Cazeus, I tracked another escape pod. Last I saw, it was headed here.”

  Mereque pointed his finger at a spot, near to where a clover shaped island was located.

  “It’s what I’ve been chasing.”

  “You think someone else from your ship survived and made it down?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s possible. I did.”

  Thoughts of Antoinette bubbled up, and he had to chase them away. Now was not the time for grief. There would be time enough for that later, he promised himself.

  Mereque’s eyes suddenly darted between maps, narrowing with focus. A detail missed.

  “What’s this? It’s not on any of the other maps.”, he remarked, indicating the clover shaped island.

  “That? I’m not sure, let me think.”

  Time seemed to stretch. Only a rattling pipe overhead broke the quiet.

  “Bilge-sacks! I think that’s Aught Naur Aught. The city of wizards. Home to an assortment of unnatural things, if the stories are true.”

  The captain’s face was twisted into a jumble of concerns and questions of his own now.

  Aught Naur Aught. A city of wizards. Why not.

  Mereque’s head was spinning.

  Dragons. Fairies. Blanched.

  And now. Wizards.

  “Sorry mate, it must be a lot for you. I’ve never seen the island myself, but it’s real. We have records—dating all the way back to the time of the notorious Black Admiral, Yarl Narford. The great-great-great-grandson of our founder. “

  Jenker recounted.

  Mereque leaned closer. He looked between the maps again.

  “If someone from the Cazues survived, that’s where they’d likely end up.”

  “Not ideal. Almost as dangerous as running into the Blanched.”

  The captains’ expression was pained.

  Mereque ignored it.

  “You say it’s a city of magical wizards. What does that mean? Do they perform trickery, or is it performance art?”

  Jenker’s stare was deadly serious.

  “Their powers are real; they can bend the laws of nature. I can tell you don’t believe me.”

  “I’m skeptical.”, he answered plainly.

  “I can prove it to you.”

  The captain motioned for him to watch.

  He took out a writing tool. Dipped it in ink. Then he began to draw an outline of the island on another map pinned to his table.

  To his astonishment, as soon as the outline of the little island was complete, it simply vanished.

  “It must be a trick.”

  Dammad shook his head.

  He repeated the process. Again, his markings of the island disappeared before their eyes.

  Then he made another marking on a different map. This one was of a small fish. It stayed there.

  Mereque wondered if it was the ink.

  But as if to disabuse him of the notion, the captain gave him the instrument to test for himself.

  To his ongoing astonishment, whenever he attempted to recreate the same island, his drawings would disappear before he could blink. But when he drew anything else, it dried on the paper as it normally should. Visible.

  After multiple tests—doing both repeatedly—he conceded. Something was amiss.

  Mereque stared at the map.

  “We don’t sail in those waters anymore. We did once. But we had too many run-ins with the people who lived there, and it never ended in our favour.”

  Jenker suddenly realized he had a full cup in his hand and took a big gulp from it.

  “The leaders of the time agreed to avoid the place. But the stories say the wizards cast a curse on our maps, hiding their island from us forever.”

  Mereque was scratching his head.

  “If that’s true, why is it on this one?”

  “That one was before the curse, and it wasn’t made by us. It was made by them.”

  Mereque couldn’t deny there was a mystery to it. This world was already far stranger than he could have imagined. What was one more thing.

  “It weirdly makes sense.”

  “Of course it does. The wizards can conjure things from nothing. This is child’s play to them. But they’re not the only thing that lives on Aught Naur Aught.”

  Mereque gave him a look.

  “The stories say that other creatures live alongside them. Many fairy types, gnomes, trolls and the like. But there’s also mythids, monsters with the bodies of men and the heads of animals. And even apparitions that can freeze one’s soul.”

  “Do you mean ghosts?”

  Jenker slowly nodded.

  “Worst of all, we have old logs stating that they had dragons.”

  Mereque’s blood went cold.

  A singular dragon had been enough for him. Hearing it referred to in the plural sent his head spinning. What he could only describe as a primal type of fear was beginning to boil just beneath the surface.

  With a grimace he shut the lid on that hard.

  I’ve already faced a dragon, what’s one more, he weakly convinced himself.

  Whatever Aught Naur Aught was, and whomever these wizards were, it was clearly a place where monsters dwelled.

  And a place he would likely have to go.

  Great. Just great.

  Jenker took a seat and finished his drink. He set his cup down with a clink. His gaze full of sympathy.