Basil woke up very early; the moon was still in full bloom, and the streets were a barren waste of pests and garbage, devoid of civilized life. I knew because my night had been spent by the window, catching sleep in moments, in a state of mind somewhere between being awake and being asleep, in a daydream or a nightmare.
"You're awake?" Basil grunted while he did some stretches. I nodded, absent.
"It's difficult to sleep without my own bed," I said, rubbing my eyes. It wasn't completely true, but not a falsehood either; nerves were my main reason for insomnia. Nevertheless, Basil nodded and woke Sage up.
Sage yawned, then his eyes widened when he saw how dark it still was. The gears began turning in his head, and he came to an understanding that culminated in a shared look between him and Basil. At the time, I was too tired to really care, so I never bothered to ask what this moment was in regards to. It didn't take long for me to experience first hand what this meant, however.
We gathered what little we had and left as swiftly and silently as possible, leaving everything as if we had never been there. Walking down those desolate streets made me feel like we were spectres, dark figures that sent the public away at the mere sight of us. I wasn't too far off, either.
With everyone away, I spent that walk taking in my surroundings better than I had before. I never knew just how ugly and stagnant the world could be. Red Bay was my first experience with the more impoverished areas of my country, and it left me wondering how it had gotten to that point. Living in Persea, I was lead to believe that my country was not only the greatest on Longan, but the richest, strongest, best looking, the whole ten acres; in actuality, I would come to find that we were much like everywhere else, filled with ups and downs and grayish hues that would leave me with more sleepless nights, more bags beneath my eyes, more chest pains to keep the comfort at bay.
The sun was barely kissing the horizon when we made it to the docks, and here there were a few shady characters scattered about doing their own thing. I must have looked worried, because Basil pat my shoulder and leaned in to tell me quietly, "Fisherman. They need to be out at certain times in the day to achieve the greatest hauls." He pat me again and added for Sage to hear, "Follow me. We must be quick."
Sage nodded and the two began taking long strides down the boarded dock, and I had to jog just to keep up.
We passed a number of larger boats, transport boats and fishing boats with plenty of space and resources, before the docks gave way to a series of smaller, more agile boats that were operated by oars and nothing more, and the further we moved away from those larger boats the more I began to dread what was about to happen.
Sage and Basil stopped, eyes searching the area for anyone who would be suspicious of our suspicious activity. Once they were satisfied, the hopped in a boat and I followed suit, awkward and dreadful.
The boat itself was long, filled with enough bench seats for two dozen people if there were two per bench, but that was it; the conditions were as spartan as the castle Sage and Basil had come from.
Sage was undoing the knot holding the boat down when Basil confirmed, "So where are we going? The Archipelago?"
He shook his head, which surprised Basil. "Durian. There's something I need to get confirmed before we go there. The hope is that we can get there in a day, if he starts right now we should get close to that goal."
He? That didn't sound right. Maybe I was too tired.
"You say we'll get there in a day?" I asked, stifling a yawn. Sage nodded.
"Well I can't help but notice there are twelve spots for rowers and only two of you to row it." Sage finished undoing the knot and kicked the boat off, sending us out into the sea with more force than I had expected, as we drifted past the ported boats at high speed, carving out waves that towered above our small craft.
"We won't be rowing," he said, placing a foot on the bow of the boat like a captain. "You will row us to the best of your ability."
I sputtered, at a loss for words. There was no way I was going to be able to do that sort of task. My arms could barely lift a feather, let alone an oar. And I certainly couldn't use that oar to guide us to an island. He was talking crazy.
I don't remember what I said, but it must not have been good.
Sage walked over to me and, in an instant, slapped me hard onto the deck floor. My right cheek was almost instantly swollen, and before I could begin arguing with him he picked me up and sat me down on the seat in the back of the boat.
"You are far from your home," he said, his tone becoming too fatherly for my taste. "We are not people you can order around, you are merely a prince not a king, and you're only what, thirteen? So don't go thinking we are here to do all the heavy lifting. You're in a rowboat, and you will row.
"Secondly," he added, "you recall what we spoke of last night? The promise you made?"
My face was already burning from the hit, so blushing didn't happen to further my shame. I nodded to him, tears welling in my eyes. I felt powerless.
"I'm not crazy, am I Basil?" Sage asked, arms spread out wide.
Basil was sitting towards the front of the boat, picking barnacles idly. "Crazy? Of course not! Boy's obviously been slacking when it comes to combat training, may as well make him work his body out a bit."
"Good, then it's settled," Sage said, smiling.
Still rubbing my cheek, I glared at him and asked, "What happens if I'm too slow?"
"Quit asking questions and row, boy."
So, with Sage holding me hostage and Basil nodding off on his bench at the bow of the boat, I rowed us on my own, with Sage roaring out encouraging phrases that did more to hurt my morale than anything, and I rowed until my arms were numb.
♣ ♣ ♣
Before I continue, I should say this regarding my attitude. As I'm sure you've noticed, I wasn't a great kid. In fact, I was a bit of an asshole. Okay, more than a bit. I am, however, committed to telling the world just the way I was. There are many who have only heard of me after I became a hero, and with that comes a level of prestige that is inhuman, absolutely deific and unfathomable, impossible to live up to. I was never this mythical man people claim me to be. This story will put that to rest. That said, writing this has all been cathartic, even though I cringe often at the thought of the things I'd say. My wife is proud of me for my commitment to the truth, which is nice I guess; part of me wishes I were a better liar, though. At least if I could lie to myself, maybe I'd be able to feel a little more pride in the life I've lived.
Anyway, I just thought I'd say that so anyone reading this at least knows I'm coming from a place of understanding. Back to the boat:
There is a point when you row where the muscles in your body will remember they exist, and the pain you were numb to will start to permeate throughout your body, into areas that you probably aren't even using to row in the first place. My legs and stomach were killing me by the time the sun was high in the afternoon, and the pain made me stop to think more than anything, and contemplate jumping overboard.
Stopping, however, was not in Sage's plan.
"Come on," he said, wrapping a hand down next to me with enough force to rattle the whole boat. Basil didn't even flinch—he'd slept the whole time, snoring on the off beat of my oar-strokes to an almost rhythmic degree. "We aren't even halfway there yet, boy. You're going to have to put your back into it more if you want to get to Durian fast."
"I don't want to," I groaned. That wasn't even defiance, I really didn't want to go to some backwater island for reasons no one would tell me of. Basil didn't exactly seem to keen on it either, and that certainly wasn't adding to my wild mentor's credibility.
"That's because you don't know any better," he said, as though he could read my thoughts. "But that's okay, most people don't know what's good for them until they are shown the way."
"Why don't you row?" I asked, sighing heavily and rowing anyway. At this point, rowing was the only thing keeping me from attempted suicide. Or murder. "You're the one with ridiculous strength, I'm not even fourteen yet. Odds are you've got more strength than I do by a long shot."
"True," he said, smirking. "But I only got here because I did things like what you're doing now."
"So you're saying that if I row enough I can blast people back with wind?"
The oars slapped the water in an uncomfortable silence.
Running a hand through his brow length bangs, Sage shrugged and said, "No, probably not."
"It's either a yes or a no," I said, words getting angrier with each oar stroke. "No probably about it."
Sighing, he said, "True," and after looking around and fidgeting, scratching his head to the point where there where wild white lines criss crossing across his forehead, he sighed again heavily and said, "Stop."
I'd never been more grateful to someone of such low social status before that moment. I nearly threw the oars off the boat and leaned back, feeling my whole body tingle with the feeling of relaxation, of sitting and doing nothing.
Sage sat down in front of me and removed his cloak before picking up the oars in his seat. His back muscles shown through his shirt, standing taut like he was constantly in a state of flex. Then, without so much as a grunt, he rowed once, going a brisk but regular distance forward; he rowed twice, this time with some wind behind us, or so it felt; he rowed a third time, and we flew. The boat gained air and momentum, and I felt the wind on my face moving so fast that I had to squint my eyes, and the boat soared a good fifteen to twenty steps above the sea, seagulls flying above, next to, and beneath our boat.
And on that last stroke, Sage didn't make a sound, no sign of strenuous usage of his body at all. He simply rowed and we flew.
When the boat slammed back down into the sea, bobbing up and down and taking on a small amount of water, sending waves into all directions, Sage got up and stretched his arms up over his head, smiling at me. "The first time I rowed, I used only the strength of my body," he said, now sitting down to be eye level with me. His eyes had a strange softness to them, the shade of green the same color as the sea we rowed on. "The second, I had called upon the power within me and it helped a little, adding maybe an extra pair of hands or two to the strength of my row. You follow me?" I nodded, still breathing heavily. "The third row, I called even more of that power inside, and added maybe a full boats worth of people, in addition to all my strength, rowing simultaneously."
"That makes sense, I guess," I said. "But how do you do that? You some kind of magician or are you one of those weird monks who study their body?"
He laughed and shook his head, then sat down next to me and pat my shoulder. "No, nothing like that. In all honesty, I'm surprised you don't know what I did, since you're the prince of Avocado. The royal family has known about what I just did for ages."
"Is that why you were locked away in that empty prison of a castle?" I asked, regaining my breath a little.
"It was," Basil called, his voice a hard bark from the bow. Sage's face grew pink and he got up, his hand still on my shoulder, the grip tightening around my clavicle; it was comforting.
"You sleep well?" Sage asked, forcing cheer into his voice.
"Until we started flying for some reason, yeah I slept great," Basil said, shaking off the water he had been covered in by the wave Sage had made. The fact that it even took that to wake him up was amazing to me.
"Whoops," Sage muttered, and I snickered. "Well at least you're all caught up on your sleep."
"Hmph," Basil grunted, glaring daggers at Sage. He glared back, before the two of them broke out into smiles.
"You want to help us row? The boy's pretty much drained and we've only made it a quarter of the way to Durian," Sage said. Basil nodded, and I was relieved.
Sage took a step forward, rummaged in the bag that was on him in his cloak, and pulled out three orange pasties, passing them around so that the three of us could eat. I scarfed it down in three bites, and despite being good, the food made me feel fuzzy, yet still hungry. Sage saw my face and just shrugged.
"We can't afford to eat everything I've got in here right away," he said. "Just one pastie per person right now, we can eat better once we get to Durian."
"Is there a lot of food in Durian?" I asked, feeling reluctant to row again.
Sage sat down in front of me and said, "Of course there is, boy. I only stay where there is good food, and my friend in Durian has some of the best I've ever eaten! Now get back to rowing so we can get there fast."
With a heavy sigh, I returned to rowing, running on no sleep and no food, feeling all around like I might die any second. But at the very least, I thought, if we can get to Durian quickly I may be able to feast and sleep to my heart's content. I wasn't sure how true it all was, but the hope in my heart kept me going.
The speed at which we were able to travel once all three of us were rowing was incredible, and despite my strength being tapped out and a few bouts of sleeping while rowing, moments which varied between minutes to perhaps hours of lost consciousness, we made it to what I presumed to be Durian. The island on the horizon was small in the distance, a little miracle highlighted in cascades of pink clouds and the soft glow of an orange sunset, but even so far away it gave way to me groaning out a noise of relief—rest and food were all I cared about.
"I'm happy to see it too, but we have to keep rowing if we want to get there," Sage said, accentuating his words with pauses filled with the sound of slapping oars.
"Yeah, yeah, I just want to eat," I replied, back in step with his and Basil's rows.
"Is that all you think about is food?" Basil called from up front, a cadence of sarcasm to his voice—he was a chef, after all.
"What's wrong with that?" Sage drolled. "Food is one of life's greatest, most sincere pleasures. I'm sure even a big tough guy like you can enjoy a good meal every now and again."
"I eat for the sole purpose of survival, and that is it," Basil called with a laugh, enunciating his words with the slap of the oars much as Sage had.
"Great big ball of sunshine he is," Sage muttered to me. "Well then let me ask you this, do you have a favorite meal?" Before he could answer, Sage yelled, "Be honest! None of that eating to survive shit, just tell us what you crave. I'm sure you've had food dreams on your travels. Why, back in my youth I recall dreaming fondly of eating some of my great-grandmother's candied nut 'n caramel 'n chocolate freecs—though when we were young we called them candy balls—but they were delicious, and whenever I was out and about, my mind would always return to—"
"How about you shut up and let me answer?" Basil yelled back from the front.
"Right, go on then," Sage said, shaking his head.
Basil didn't stop rowing, but he slowed down and lowered his head, then raised it up to the sky as if he had to ask it what his favorite food was. His protracted, ostentatious struggle so hard to think of something so obvious to any normal person made me giggle, and I remember Sage's smile back at me, the sunset basking it in an undeserving yet fitting radiance, imprinting it in me forever since as a moment where for once, I forgot to be uptight and instead enjoyed some banter.
Then he muttered something, and the waves covered it up.
"Speak up, Basil!" Sage called, "For those of us in the back, you know."
"Grilled fish and steamed vegetables," he declared with a chuckle, his cheeks pink from either sunburn or embarrassment.
Sage turned to me and shook his head, sighing. "Grilled fish? Steamed vegetables?"
"Yeah, that's my answer," Basil said, rowing a bit faster now. "It's nothing fancy I know but it's what I tend to prefer."
"Ugh, you golem," Sage chided. "You don't even know which fish or vegetables you prefer? Or is it that you don't care. Bah, you vanilla bastard, just keep rowing. I'm too disgusted to care what you like anymore."
"You're the one who asked, you nosy old criminal!" Basil yelled, and the three of us laughed. They traded insults with the vigor of an old married couple speaking a language familiar to themselves, violent on the surface but soft in its meaning.
"Criminal? You green haired bastard, you know I've saved more people than I've killed!"
"You've killed more people than you've saved, you number challenged lumberjack! And in case you haven't noticed, we all have green hair you colorblind glutton!"
"Glutton? My stomach is smooth as butter and hard as this boat!"
"More like your stomach is butter, you big lard eating curd!"
I'm sure there were more, but if I listed them all my hand would begin cramping, and besides, I'm afraid that I've forgotten a great deal of their insults at this point. It's one of the few things that I truly regret forgetting.
After a certain point, however, when we had rowed close enough to the island that I could see details in its terrain, the island itself taking up the entirety of the horizon now, Sage threw down his oars and placed a hand on his bicep, screaming over to Basil with a hoarseness in his voice. "Well if I'm some fat, washed up butterbean, why not come over here and try me? See if the kissless old golem can try his hand against me, eh?"
Before Basil could get up to argue with him, the waves of the sea had started to raise up above the boat, slapping heaps of pale green water inside. I should say that the waves had been rising slowly since we had started to get closer to the island, but they went unnoticed in the commotion of their arguing. Now, though, the waves were so turbulent that the island was disappearing behind the water, as if we were diving without any water being above us.
Basil and myself, or at least myself, began panicking in the wake of the natural disaster befalling us. Basil shut up and sat down, attempting to row us out of danger somehow. I simply held tight to the oars, picked a god—probably Altera, considering the circumstances—and shielded myself behind Sage.
Sage, being the man he was, stood up almost taller than he had been previously and chuckled wryly.
"What's so funny, you crazy old man?" I asked, my head between my knees for safety.
"We're here," he said, simply. Raising a hand to his mouth he called out, "Calm down, Hammy, it's me!"
"Hammy?" Basil and I asked, simultaneously with an equal amount of incredulity that Sage was oblivious to.
Through the water, a mass of darkness hurtled toward us with a speed that was both agile and slow, due in part to its own sheer gravitas. The water parted and through it a mass of scales and tendrils that appeared to be fur-like popped out of the water, nearly slamming into our little boat and knocking us all over. It was a serpent, though I suspected that beneath the water it had fins of some kind, or perhaps limbs, the scales on its body were the color of bright sapphires, and it's great big eyes wore a brighter tone of blue that still managed to pop and draw attention to itself, bringing all of our gazes directly towards the great serpent, and it wore a mane of white furry tendrils that began at the top of its head and ran down its neck, stopping short before touching the surface of the sea.
"That's Hammy?" I choked out, coughing up some water that had strayed into my throat. Sage nodded and walked to the edge of the boat, holding out a hand to the massive creature. To my surprise, it knelt before him like a knight to its king, and allowed Sage to pet its scaly face, one eye staring at me from a mere two steps away.
"Are things okay here, Hammy?" Sage asked, his voice taking on the soothing timbre one has when speaking to a pet. Hammy nodded politely, causing the boat to rock more.
"Good. I've brought two companions from my land, I hope that Arsene won't mind. Do you think he'll mind much?" Hammy looked from me to Basil, and when it saw me its eyes dilated, pupils becoming needlelike slits.
Sage laughed, "Worried about him, eh? Well don't, Hammy ol' girl. I'll take full responsibility for anything he does. Besides, we need to get out of here fast anyway. Isn't that right, Basil?"
Breathing a sigh of relief, Basil nodded and said, "Damn right. We can't be here too long, we have a lot of work to do back in the mainland."
"See? Don't worry about him. Now let us through and we can get this all over with, alright?"
Hammy stared at me some more, maybe for ten seconds, before snorting so forcefully wind sent the boat back about fifteen steps from the serpent. I found myself once again hiding between my knees, the sound of Sage's laughter finally bringing me out of it. When I got up I noticed immediately that we were floating toward the island at top speed and no one was rowing. Sage sat down facing my direction and winked at me, slapping the floor of the boat for effect.
"Good ol' Hammy's letting us in," he said with a grin.
"Is she magic or something?" I asked, a yawn erupting from my mouth in the middle of it. My day had been far longer than necessary.
"No, no of course not," Sage said, shaking his head. "She's just the guardian serpent, she lets in those who she deems unthreatening to the livelihood of Durian and its inhabitants. Lucky for you two, she knows me, otherwise you'd have been eaten right on the spot back there."
Our little boat zoomed across the remaining ocean and slid onto the beach with enough force to make me check the boats bottom, just in case the landing had created any holes. Basil and I had held on tight to the boat while Sage stood standing, arms folded in a strange satisfaction. Before the boat even stopped fully, he was off and stretching out his legs, then his arms, groaning casually as if he had just awoken from a nap.
I got up to get out and the movement was too much; I slipped and fell, nearly hitting my head on the side of the boat, and I braced myself by shutting my eyes and holding my arms up around my face. I felt something prop me up from my chest, and when I opened my eyes I was being stood up by Basil, his discerning eye gliding over my body with invasive precision.
"You're exhausted," he said calmly, though I noted the glare he passed to Sage for a split second. "You shouldn't be walking. I'll carry you to our destination."
Sage shook his head and stepped in, slouching down a bit to get close to Basil's face, his hair almost creating a curtain so I couldn't see either of their faces. "You'll do no such thing," Sage said.
"Are you mad? Or just an idiot?" Basil cried, his voice ramping up quickly into a yell. "You must understand that he's not like you, or even myself. He's never been outside this long, he hasn't eaten, and he hasn't even slept. I can take him, it'll let us move faster and we can get going. Or have you forgotten that we aren't here for pleasure?" He wasn't addressing me, but the venom in Basil's voice had become so palpable I felt as if he were, a lump making its way to my throat, and I had to force myself to not only stay awake but keep myself from crying in front of them.
Without a trace of empathy, Sage asked, "Anything else?"
"Plenty, actually," Basil huffed, pushing him back like he was starting a bar room brawl. For a second, Sage looked like he might oblige the notion. But he took a long, deep breath and shut his eyes, then glanced back at me and smiled.
"Well save it. I know you want to help, and you make a lot of good points, Basil. But you have to remember that we won't be around forever to keep Mint here safe. And I'm sure Mint doesn't want to be a burden forever, does he?" He looked to me, and Basil raised an eyebrow toward me, and I stared deeply at the grass.
"Well?" Sage asked, placing a firm hand on my shoulder. I felt like falling over again, but widened my legs and stood up, shaking my head.
"I will not be carried like someone's luggage," I said, trying to sound as intimidating as possible. The boy in me wanted to curl up and be done with it, sleep and wake up in my bed. But the logical part of me knew that I couldn't do that, and the prince in me wanted desperately to get a hold of this situation and stop being treated as if I weren't in charge.
I had a lot of guts back then. I just didn't know how to utilize them, and usually just ended up coming off as a pompous ass.
"And," I added, trying to stand tall but coming up to both men's chests, "I can keep up with you guys just fine. Quit worrying about me like some boy. I'm the prince of Avocado, and when this is all over you will both be rotting away in a dungeon for kidnapping me and putting me through all of this!"
Sage chuckled and pat me on the back. "That's enough, boy. I think we get it."
"Shut up," I growled, "You're going in there with him."
"They'll have to catch us first," he said, grinning.
Basil turned around and began walking toward the massive forest that started maybe fifty or so steps off the beach, and without turning around he asked, "How far to this Arsene you want us to see? Will we be there before nightfall?"
"Obviously not," Sage grunted, walking after him. I shook my head of the dizziness I felt and followed, hoping I wouldn't regret my decision not to be carried. "We'll be there before midnight, so long as we experience no snags. We haven't been followed, though, so the only thing that could go wrong is the boy falling unconscious. But we'll swim that river when it rises, right?"
Nodding, Basil jumped to the top of one of the tall, strangely green trees, and began leaping across them as we had in the forest in Avocado. Sage snickered and nudged me. "Don't worry about him too much. Basil is a passionate man, so when he thinks things aren't right he can become a bit cantankerous. He's a great companion, though, and he cares deeply for you."
"Cares?" I repeated, confused.
Sage smiled. "We both do, boy."
I spat on the ground as we began following Basil. "If you cared, I'd be at home," I mumbled. Sage just smiled, oblivious, probably for the better.