Row, Row, Row
Rinka
The fall was over in moments. The impact with the waves below came as a surprise to Rinka, who hadn’t been willing to open her eyes to look.
The water was cold, far colder than she had expected considering what a warm day it had been. She thrashed her legs and thrust her bound hands out in front of her, pulling them back to her chest, a gesture she hoped would propel her towards the surface rather than deeper into the darkness.
She did not reach the air.
Panic began to set in as her lungs began to burn, the urge to take a breath where no breath was to be found overwhelming. She blinked her eyes open, feeling the sting of salt and struggling to orient herself in the blackened void around her.
She felt something reach for her before she saw it. A hand, pale and blue in the dim and distorted light under the surface, reaching for her shoulder and pulling her up, up, further up than seemed reasonable, until finally, she broke free.
She took a deep and gulping breath in, a glorious gasp of relief. She reached her bound hands for her eyes, trying to wipe the stinging salt away, but being thrust under by a wave before she could do so.
The hand reached for her again, and this time, it was joined by another. The hands pulled her up by the shoulders and into…something. A boat?
It was difficult to make out in the pale moonlight. Rinka could see nothing that distinguished the bottom from the waters she had been pulled from, but she could feel something substantial beneath her. She looked around, and what she saw frightened her even more than being thrown overboard.
It was a boat, that was for sure. Its build was identical to that of an ordinary two-seat rowboat, with curved sides and a pair of benches to sit on.
But it wasn’t made of wood, or even metal.
It was made of water.
“What is this?” said Rinka. She was still bound, soaked to the bone, and she hadn’t even gotten a look at whoever had saved her, but all she could focus on was the impossible vessel.
“Have you never seen a boat before?” Drystan turned to face her. He was as drenched as Rinka, but he looked no worse for wear. He had slicked his wet hair back, and as she watched him, he removed his shirt and began to ring it out over the side.
Rinka blushed and turned away, although she could not help taking one small peek at his bare chest, which gleamed with tiny streams of water in the moonlight.
It was not an unpleasant sight.
But it did not distract her for long. There were still the matters of her near-drowning, their dire predicament, and, most of all, the impossible boat to consider.
“I have seen boats plenty of times in the River Eabrun, but none that were made of water. Water.” Where in the world was Drystan from that this was an ordinary thing? Rinka had never heard of anything like it, not in the picture shows or the papers or even the fairy stories and tall tales read to children.
“I’ll admit it isn’t ordinary, but there wasn’t much to work from here,” said Drystan. He had finished drying the shirt and was holding something even more impossible, a long narrow column of water that coalesced into something like an oar as Rinka watched.
“You made this?” Rinka asked, trying to point to him with her bound hands.
“Ah,” he said, realizing she was still bound. He let go of the oar, and it pooled into the boat, lengthening it ever so slightly. Rinka felt dizzy watching it.
Drystan stood and climbed over the other bench to where Rinka sat on the boat’s bottom. He reached for her hands and began untying the rope.
“How did you get free?” she asked him.
“A dagger. A smaller version of the sword I used against the pirate.”
The sword, a dagger, and now the boat. All made from the old magic, somehow. All made by him.
“And why can’t you use the dagger now?”
“I’m concentrating on this,” he said, gesturing to the boat. “I can’t do both at the same time, and water won’t do much to rope.”
“Oh, I see,” said Rinka, although she didn’t, really. She spoke her thoughts out loud, hoping they didn’t sound silly. “The boat is made of water, and if you made a sword from water, it wouldn’t cut. Is that right?”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
“Then what was the sword made from?”
“Air,” he said. “And this.” He reached into his pocket with some effort (his trousers were still soaked, and he had not yet opted to remove them) and produced an ordinary silver coin.
“Incredible,” said Rinka. She took the coin from him and turned it over in her hands, but she could spot nothing unusual about it. It was an ordinary silver emblazoned with a portrait of King Derkomai on one side and a pair of dragons, the arms of his royal house, on the reverse.
Rinka looked at Drystan. The mystery of him was so deeply appealing, even more so with each new revelation. And the magic that he wielded so effortlessly fascinated her.
And, if she was really being honest, she also simply enjoyed his company and was very glad to have met him.
And, if she was really, really being honest, she found him very easy on the eyes as well.
But yet here they were, stranded in the middle of the sea. She had put her faith in him, and it had landed her overboard in the middle of the night.
And sure, they were in a boat. But it was a boat made from water, and how could they possibly take it to shore?
Was Rinka insane? She heard her mother’s voice in her head. “In the middle of the sea. The bloody sea! I told you that you were a fool. A fool’s fool. What are you going to do now, foolish girl?”
She could have died on the boat, she realized. She could die out here on the sea and no one would even know it.
“Drystan,” said Rinka quietly. “I’m scared. Why did you let them throw us overboard? They didn’t seem to know you, but why did you think they might? I’ve had so much fun with our guessing game. But my life is in your hands now. I want to trust you. Please. I want to know who you are.”
Drystan leaned back on the watery bench and drew a deep breath in. Now that Rinka’s eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, she could see the seriousness of his expression, the tension in his shoulders as the adrenaline wore off and reality set in. “Of course,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve gotten carried away. Rinka, in truth, it’s been so long since I’ve met someone—that is to say…aw, bloody hell. Let me start over.”
He shifted on the seat, a movement that would have rocked a normal boat but seemed to have no impact on this strange vessel. And then he leaned forward, looking Rinka right in the eye, and he took one of her hands in his. “I’m sorry. I was having such a good time getting to know you, and it had me in such good spirits. And maybe I was itching for a bit of excitement. I let things get out of hand with the pirates. But the elf wasn’t going to let the Halfling go, and I just—”
“You don’t have to explain that part,” said Rinka. “You did the right thing.”
He smiled weakly. “Is it right even if I was hoping for it to happen? Not for him to be hurt, of course, but hoping for the opportunity…Never mind. That doesn’t answer your question.”
He released Rinka’s hand and brushed his hair back, leaning away from her once more. “I let them throw us overboard because I knew I could get us to shore, and I was afraid of what would happen in a fight with the numbers so against us. Of what might happen to you. Not that I don’t think you could hold your own,” he said with a wink.
“Oh no, I really couldn’t,” said Rinka. “You judged that correctly. The best I could have done would have been to throw them overboard first.”
“I would have liked to have seen that.”
Rinka smiled.
“Rinka, the truth is, if they had realized who I am, it would have changed things, and not in a good way. I couldn’t take that risk. And if you truly want to know and end our game right here, I’ll tell you. No guesses. No qualifications. Only the truth. I’ll tell you anything you want. Is that what you want me to do?”
Rinka tried to read what he was thinking behind his furrowed expression. Disappointment that their game was over, or perhaps relief to finally be able to be honest with her.
And maybe a bit of fear of how the answer would change things between them.
Rinka feared that too.
“Don’t tell me yet,” she said. “I want to ask my final question. But once we’re safely on the shore.”
Drystan nodded and relaxed, fully breathing out for the first time during their conversation.
“Now,” he said, helping Rinka to her feet. Only once she was standing did she realize that the boat moved far less than it should have among the choppy sea waters. It had an ability to ride the waves that seemed as if it wasn’t moving at all. “Are you ready to row? It’s going to take quite a while to reach land from this far out, and we need to hurry before the current takes us around to the eastern side of Wilderise. It’ll be hard to come ashore there on account of the cliffs.”
There was a comfort in his tone. He spoke about reaching the land as though it were a certainty.
“What about the ferry? The passengers on board? What if they throw more of them over as they did to us?”
“I’m afraid we’re in no position to help them, but we’ll follow the ferry’s path as well as we can. Hopefully, the example they made of us will be enough to keep the others safe.”
Rinka could just spot the light of the ferry fading into the distance in the direction of Wilderise. She thought of the poor Halfling on board, hoping that he’d just give up the ring the next time he was asked.
Drystan reached beyond the boat, producing another column of water that turned into an oar as it reached Rinka’s hands. Like the boat itself, it felt wet and cool to the touch, but it did not slip through her fingers as she held it.
“Away we go,” Drystan said once he had produced a second oar for himself.
When the oars hit the water, they seemed to lose their form for a fraction of a second, and Rinka worried his plan would not work. But they quickly regained their shape, and the impossible boat was propelled through the dark waves, floating with an unnatural smoothness towards Wilderise’s shores.
After hours of rowing, Rinka’s arms were numb with exhaustion. It was still dark, the nearly full moon having crossed half of the sky during their journey.
Rinka’s stomach growled. Drystan had been able to pull the fresh water from the air without breaking his concentration on the boat, collecting it into a disconcertingly round blob that somehow did not break when held but that still could be drunk from.
But he could not manage anything for them to eat, and it had been a long time since the sandwiches they had eaten on the boat, the pirates having interrupted what should have been dinner.
“We must be nearly there by now,” said Rinka. “Are you certain we’re going the right way?”
“Yes, I’m certain. We won’t hit land at Sudport, but we’re heading north.”
The tone of Drystan’s voice had changed, and his shoulders were slumped now, the effort of lifting the oar seeming greater and greater with every stroke.
Rinka was surprised. Having seen him bare-chested, he was not lacking muscle.
“Maybe we should take a rest,” she said. They had taken a couple to drink and stretch their arms. What harm could a few minutes more do?
“No,” he said. “If we drift much more to the east, we won’t meet the coast at all.” He took a couple more strokes and then slumped over.
“Is it the magic?” she asked.
“Yes,” he muttered. “I don’t know how much longer—”
The oar in Rinka’s hands splashed over her dress and into the bottom of the boat. She leaned forward, catching Drystan before he fell overboard.
“Stay with me!” she said. The boat was holding for now, but it rippled alarmingly around them. “Drystan, wake up! You have to stay awake.” She splashed some water on his face. He blinked his eyes open.
Rinka wasn’t actually sure if he needed to be awake for the boat to continue existing, but it seemed likely to her. She searched the horizon. How far could they possibly be?
There it was. It was as far away as her eyes could see, but it was there nonetheless. Land.
“I can see land! Drystan, can you make me an oar? You can rest on the bottom of the boat. I can get us the rest of the way.”
“You’re nice,” he said. “I’m just going to rest my eyes.”
“Drystan, the oar—”
“Just a minute. Just need to rest for a minute.” Drystan’s eyelids fluttered. Rinka lowered him onto the floor of the boat, which rippled and wet his clothes as he touched it.
“No, no, no,” she said. If Drystan fell asleep, would she be able to swim far enough and fast enough to get them to shore?
She was about to find out. Drystan’s head fell to the side, and the boat collapsed beneath them.
Her head was pulled under the water by the fall, but she quickly resurfaced. She looked around for Drystan, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“You can’t have gone far,” she said, reaching out into the water around her. She dipped her head back under, forcing her eyes open again in the salty water, and she spotted him sinking beneath the waves.
She surfaced and filled her lungs with as much air as they could hold, and then she plunged down as far and as fast as she could.
His body was heavy, even in the water, or maybe it was just the exhaustion in her arms, but she managed to pull him up. At first, he did not seem to breathe, but she slapped his back hard, and he coughed up a bit of water.
He blinked his eyes open. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t keep going.”
“Hush,” she said. “You got us this far. I’ll take it from here. Can you hold on?”
He nodded weakly. “It won’t take long to recover,” he said. “Just need…a little rest…”
He was out again. Rinka managed to keep his head above the water. She wrapped her left arm around his chest, keeping her stronger arm free to swim.
It was slow going. Rinka was grateful for the times she had spent swimming in the River Eabrun as a young orc, her mother watching from the stairs as she splashed around with her younger brothers. But they must have been some miles still from shore, and while at least Drystan wasn’t trying to pull her under, dragging him along took a ton of effort.
Yet Rinka didn’t consider for a moment leaving him. He was a stranger to her still, but even if he were her worst enemy, she would never leave him, not even to save herself. It just wasn’t who she was, no matter how foolish her mother said that made her.
Finally, when the dim light of dawn began to touch the sky to the east, she could see the coast clearly. They weren’t near Sudport, that much was certain. Rinka could see little sign of civilization at all. There were great cliffs of stone surrounding a narrow strip of tan beach strewn with boulders, white waves crashing on the shore. The land stretched upwards beyond into a beautiful green hillside. Rinka’s eyes spotted the motion of tiny white sheep on the hill.
It was magnificent, and not just because the very sight meant their salvation.
“We’ve made it, Drystan,” she said to him. He had been asleep for at least the past hour, but he grunted in what Rinka imagined was appreciation.
She swam as hard as she could for the narrow strip of beach, but the ocean had other ideas. The current was faster here near land, and it pulled her so far to the east that she nearly had to swim sideways to counter it. As she was pulled off course, she spotted a narrow strip of rock near the horizon. At the end of it was a lighthouse painted with white and red stripes. It reminded her of candy they sold at a corner store in Arcas Dyrne, and her stomach growled.
“That must be where the land turns north,” Rinka said to the half-asleep Drystan. “It’s just cliffs on the other side of that.”
Rinka redoubled her effort to make it to land, but the current was just too strong. It pulled her closer and closer to the lighthouse until finally she had no choice but to aim for it instead of the beach. The land surrounding the lighthouse was dangerously rocky, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to keep them from being dashed upon the rocks.
And yet still the current pulled. “Drystan, it would be a very good time for you to wake up now,” she said. “We’re coming around the point, and I can’t seem to stop it.”
At least the sea was relatively calm. There were clouds in the distance, but the wind was still over the water. The problem wasn’t on the surface. It was far beneath, and Rinka was powerless to stop it.
She couldn’t believe they had come all this way only to fail at the last moment. As they came around the lighthouse, she looked up and down the eastern shore for an answer.
There it was. A tiny little patch of beach tucked among the cliffs, a cave of some kind beyond. Rinka could not see if there was a way out of the cave, but if she could just get them to shore, they could rest long enough for Drystan to remake the boat.
Rinka swam for it, hard. She used every drop of energy left in her, thrashing with the current now instead of against it, and before long, she had made it. She dragged Drystan along the beach, his legs stumbling beneath him, and collapsed with him to the ground within the cave, hoping they were above the waterline.
“Welcome to Wilderise,” she said to his sleeping figure and then passed out, exhausted.