In that moment Iskander hated the sea as much as any man had ever hated anything. Driven by the storm the waves rose up like mountains around them, and the little ship tried to climb them. The crew fought to keep the bow pointed at the onrushing waves, but something was wrong. The waves refused to come in straight lines, but kept swerving around to new directions, battering and tossing them. Around him the sailors prayed to their god to save them from something, but Iskander did not know the word. Iskander also thought to pray, but he could not clear his mind enough, so full it was of hate and fear. And then a fierce wave came from their side and flipped the ship over as easily as an old woman might turn frying bread, and they went into the dark water.

  Iskander could see nothing, feel nothing. He knew nothing but the certainty of death. Then out of the nothingness, images burst upon his mind. They were the same ones he had seen on the day his village died. He had been in the hills, guarding the goats, when he fell asleep and woke to the dream of pirates slaughtering his family. He ran all the way back to Ibalba, forgetting the goats, and found there smoldering ruins. The pirates were already in their boats on the river, rowing down toward the sea. He ran along the bank after them until he collapsed from exhaustion, then dragged himself back to Ibalba. In his home were only corpses and flies. Why, he thought, why had they come so far from the sea to this tiny hamlet of a dozen houses, passing richer places?

  But the answer came to him at once, and he walked to the little shrine they had built. It was gone. The thing they had found, the Akanis, the golden glowing mystery that they had put on a mound of stones and roofed over, the thing that radiated power and promise, had disappeared. We should have buried it back in the sand, he thought. It was cursed, as Ousman had said.

  Iskander had not buried the dead. Let the jackals have them, he thought, let the maggots gnaw them. My heart is dead. My heart is stone, and sand runs in my veins. He stood on the bank of the river that night and set his eye on the north star. “As you are my witness, most constant star, guide of travelers in the desert, I swear this: I will not rest until the killers of my people are dead.”

  He found his goats and drove them to the next village downriver, where he sold them. People asked him about Ibalba but he said nothing, just took their money and asked about the boats. Yes, they said, we saw them pass by toward the sea.

  Iskander kept walking down the river, asking the same questions in every place. Yes, they had all seen the boats. After a week he passed out of his own land and into that of the Siriae, who had lighter skin and spoke a language he could understand but had never liked. He could speak well enough to ask about the boats, and understood that yes, they had passed. Then at the teeming city of Kasch he heard a new story: yes, they said, a ship stopped here. A great galley from the north, with red sails. It launched two boats that went upriver, and when the boats returned it sailed out toward the sea.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Iskander sat down by the dock. Kasch was the farthest he had ever journeyed, the farthest anyone he knew had ever gone. Beyond it was the unknown world of the great Middle Sea, surrounded by a hundred nations, now at war with each other over the scraps of the Great Kings’ fallen Kingdom.

  An old man with white hair and dark skin sat beside him and spoke to him in his own language. “Those were no pirates on that ship,” he said. “That was a warship from the old days. When I saw it I thought it must have sailed across time, bringing messages from the drowned ones. But I found out that a few ships survived the Wave, in some hidden harbor. Now they sail for a lord they call the Red Admiral.”

  “For the sails,” said Iskander.

  “Yes, the red sails,” said the old man. “This Red Admiral is now a great lord, and all the sailors fear those sails. When I heard this I went to rouse the council. They tried to keep me out of the chamber but I told the guards they were children and said this was business from the old days, that only old men could speak of, and they let me pass. So I went to the council and said this ship was on evil business, said that it was an omen of bad things. They should attack the ship and seize it, I said, while its warriors were upriver making mischief. But they laughed at me, and introduced to me the captain of the ship, sitting among them. I saw that he had bribed them all, and that they did care what his men did upriver in Madzur.

  “My friend you do not have to tell me why you have come; I know those men did great evil, and I read in your eyes that your people suffered it. But listen to me: if you go farther you will step onto a battlefield where armies of strangers fight each other for reasons you will not know, and you will be lucky not to be caught between them and trampled in the dirt.”

  The man spoke wisely, Iskander knew, but he went on anyway. There was nothing else to do.

  But I will only be trampled in the dirt, Iskander thought, if I am not drowned first.

  Iskander burst to the surface, gasping. A wave carried him high, then dropped him down, but he kept his head above water and breathed. Then something bumped against him, and he grabbed it with his arms, wrapping around it. It must be the mast, he thought, although he could see nothing in the darkness.

  He thought, I am saved.

  Then he thought, I am damned. I am cursed to keep on with this journey, with this revenge, until the bitter end. The gods will not let me die so easily. As he rose and fell on the mighty waves he thought, I should let go of this wooden thing that keeps me alive, let go and sink into the depths, and then it will all be over. But he knew he would not. It was in the gods’ hands now, and they would decide.