Rebha wheeled her horse around and trotted off, signaling Nasatya to follow her. He crushed his growing impatience and went after her amid the clopping of the hooves on the wooden boardwalk.
They rode the plank-covered path for a bit and then took a dirt road that scraped by a high stone wall. A right turn brought them face to face with a heavily guarded arched gate, sealed by wrought iron doors.
The gatekeepers opened the doors as soon as they saw Rebha approaching. She led the rest through the gates and into an outer yard. Stable hands appeared and quickly whisked away the horses as soon as the riders dismounted them.
"Come along." Rebha was all mysterious, sporting a pert smile on her bowlike lips. She walked forth boldly through an unguarded narrower gate that opened up into an enormous paved courtyard. It was all noise and chaos amid sawing of lumber, yelling of men, screeching of carts that carried coal and iron. Malayan banners hung from the courtyard's walls, the same red with white conch shell, but with two oars crossed in the middle. On the right section of the yard, a fleet of canoes was lying against the wall.
"He is here," Nasatya heard Rebha, and turned.
King Saudipta stood before them, glittering in a blue brocade knee-length coat with exquisite gold embroidery. A silk-sewn belt around his waist proudly displayed his familial curved sword, the Moon's Smile that was believed to be indestructible. But a weapon was only as powerful as the hand that wielded it, and Nasatya had well known that Saudipta's arms held the strength of a hundred men.
Nasatya shuffled over to the man and bowed. "My King."
"I heard you were planning on a mission at your own peril. A voyage into the far ocean?" Saudipta had a still look to his face, but his tone was gentler than last time.
"Ships from this port have sailed into the ocean and have returned safely. Ours is no different."
"They have not sailed to the far end of the world seeking a creature who only lives in myths."
"He is the primal being," Nasatya did not hide the protest in his voice, "the oldest creature in OneRealm, older than the realm himself. Perhaps this search won't amount to anything, perhaps it will be a failure. But I must try for the sake of the realm."
King Saudipta looked to Rebha. "How many men did you bring?"
Rebha squinted her pretty, hazel eyes, her fingers hooked into her crossbelt. "Twenty swordsman and archers each. They are embarking as we speak."
Nasatya looked at her in doubt, and she noticed. "The heart of the ocean is full of dangers, cousin mine. A mere merchant vessel would never do." She exchanged a knowing glance with Saudipta.
Nasatya spent the next several minutes in confusion as he followed the other two breezing through the inner courtyard and then a busy entryway that led to a wide staircase with men rushing past them. Balanced on their heads and shoulders were ropes and planks and fabrics and coal. Rebha led the way through the three flights of stairs.
When they reached the top, a great, bright porch stretched out before them, for a moment, Nasatya forgot to move, instead watching with strange fascination what stood before him.
"Perhaps, you should take a closer look," Saudipta gently urged him, tugging at his elbow.
Nasatya had never seen anything so magnificent. The closer he got to the structure, the larger it became until it felt like it was about to swallow him.
"What is it?" He asked, almost breathless from awe.
"It is a ship that flies," answered Saudipta, "through the clouds."
And indeed it was a ship, a multideck galleon docked on rectangular stone blocks. Nasatya gazed at it as the three of them stood in the shadow of that mechanical monster, large enough to fit a hundred grown men and their mounts. It was made of polished wood, the hull fitted in two places with fans made of metals. Similar but bigger plates sprung up from the top of the ship's main mast and opened up to the sky like flowers.
On the sides, flaps of fabric stretched on a wooden frame like bellows running from the back to the very front. The vessel smelled of newly burnished furniture, mixed with iron and smoke. Men atop the lower deck were pulling cargo into the ship amid shouts and curses and drumming of the wood. The front of the airship was carved into a graceful wooden swan with a long, dainty neck.
Nasatya brushed the smooth hull of the airship with his fingers. "Remarkable! What do you call it?" He asked the king.
"The Great Swan."
"The Great Swan," Nasatya echoed the words as if tasting them and then gave a nod of approval. "You kept your words. You have found a way to concur magic after all." He still remembered young Saudipta's vow to vanquish magic in his juvenile rage.
Saudipta chuckled. "That was no more serious than a child's play. I merely plan to find something that will remain long after magic is gone."
"You think magic will be gone?"
"You came to me, did you not, to save the realm from the great dissolution? There is one thing certain in this world, that nothing will last," he gave Nasatya a meaningful look, "not even magic."
Nasatya looked up and found Rebha climb the ladder to the ship deck and quickly vanish. "Do I surmise correctly then that you intend to send your men with me under my cousin's command?"
Saudipta gave Nasatya a long stare. His eyes had softened now, glistening from the sun. "Partly so. They would be under my command."
Nasatya's face faltered. Suddenly, the journey seemed full of demons and monsters to him, almost unsurmountable. "That is foolishness, Saudipta. I will not allow that. The risk is too great for a mortal," he spoke out of turn, forgetting for a moment that he was speaking to the king.
"You are on my land, Ashwin Nasatya." Saudipta's smooth, clean face was guarded again, like an invisible mask. "And this is my command."