After many and bold deeds, those knights who had a desire to quit the country that once King Gaspar ruled to journey toward their homes or other lands where a name for bravery might be earned all traveled to ocean-favored Saphonium, foremost in that land as to its harbor and ships. The whole body of foreign knights that once split met again there but for a few, and the men therein told one another and heard all that had happened. They learned, as is common for warlike men, that some they had left alive were since killed, and what is rarer, that some they feared dead were alive. And in all there was gladness alongside grief.
The foreign knights who did not then wish to take ship, added to those no longer able to leave, made more than half the host of hundred knights that first sailed under Sir Kauko's fell command, so that five and thirty venturesome knights were all of that number who gathered in Saphonium. They were given this boon by Count Augusto, which was the use of the finest ship and the soundest that ever put in to that port. It had for its figurehead a likeness of Gabrielle, King Gaspar's queen of old, and it was said that water and weather favored it above other ships for that.
Sir Reiner of Boncot boarded that many-oared roamer of the seas, and Sir Poemen of Argetych, Sir Clovis of Salisville, and Sir Donn of Caerffos who set out together from Mumport, and Sir Hring with the Krystilan knights, Sir Pardos of Hephon and Sir Henryk of Bagnad those young cousins by marriage, Sir Mort of Clerod who had enough of adventure, Sir Bevan of Gwellas, and more beside. There were rowers also, and a captain picked out by merchants. They chose him with full care, for they had burdened the hold with cloths, clasps, and other goods, much of it as gifts for the knights by the open-handed will of Count Augusto and the more of it in this hope, that the several ports where the oars would rest might see that cargo and like it, winning the owners trade thereby.
The day when that galley left port was festive, as every day was in that land for some time after the death of Viljami, for such cheer the people had. Count Augusto watched them as they went, Sir Arsam of Estash beside him who was his greatest friend and most trusted counselor, as well as commander of his armsmen against the brigands that dared toil still at their dishonest work. There were also come merchants full of hope who had run there straight from the church where they prayed for a good result, and men and women of every sort who felt gratitude and awe at the feats of those warlike men. Indeed, the ocean seemed that day unable to find the shore for all the numberless feet that hid it, and neither could the sound of its waves be heard over the merriment, so that it withdrew, baffled.
The ship joined the waters in that retreat. Much as when an army is routed and each soldier in it, unmanned by fear, throws aside his shield for the sake of speed and shoves back even his comrades that there might be a body between him and the pursuing swords of the victorious foe, so too did the rowers beat back the foam to hurry their parting from the unconquerable earth. Their will was to reach the sail-swelling wind that would carry the galley far away, and neither did they fail in that.
The wind drove that ship and the knights on it southward along the joyous coast freed from the vile king and dread cockatrice that menaced it for many years, not so wondrous swiftly as traveled the uncanny galley they had rowed thither, but speedily enough, and safe. No storm or fleet of pirates who loved gain more than honor raised any risk to that journey, nor did the crew fail to find water at night that was good to drink all that way to the mouth of the blue-gray sea, which welcomed the travelers with weather no fiercer than the ocean had offered them.
But one day when the ship had yet crossed little of the sea, the weather waned too much in fierceness, for a fog arose and hugged all that was above the water with gentle limbs. The captain had no liking for that, but ordered his most farsighted sailor up though his watch was done and caused the pilot to sail wider of the coast than earlier. All talk but what was needed came to its end by the captain's strict word, and though the sailors obeyed, their thoughts begged Queen Gabrielle to guide them as she had before. The knights also were quiet. They faced a risk where nothing of their skill and puissance was an aid to them and were sore tried to halt themselves from making some defiant shout, but their training had taught them how to obey.
The galley behind kind Gabrielle Gaspar's queen slid through waves unhindered by any wood-splitting rocks or shallow shore. Then the mist-piercing eyes of the lookout saw this that was a relief to them all, which was a sandy coast friendly to fog-wandering ships with no crags or shoal to guard it, as the crew learned by the use of careful ropes. The captain ordered the ship to be landed, the sailors were nothing unwilling, and soon it was done.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
The knights, eager to have their will in some matter or other, leapt from the ship to the soft and grainy ground to search over that island that none of them knew, nor the captain, nor any of the crew. They looked over it in no great time, for it was unpeopled and small enough for that not to be strange, since not a village of so many as ten families might live there and thrive. There was though a spring for the comfort of any who, driven abroad by the tumult of the late war, wished to live alone or in a company numbering few. On that day it instead gave relief to the crew and passengers on a ship sent astray from its purposeful course.
The men took in water and made the ship fast. That done, the captain judged it best to stay on that island all the night and outlast the fog in that manner. The knights, practiced in such, made a camp for the purpose when sleep seemed good, which was not till after tests of archery against the thin trees there and bouts of wrestling that the sailors joined, deeming themselves brawny enough for it though their skill proved less. And all took themselves to bed when the fog-hidden sun was felt to reach the far end of its daily course.
Nothing unsettled that sleep. When Sir Poemen awoke, however, he learned the oddness in that, for everything about him was unlike how it was before. He lay not on a roll, but on the thick cushions of a tall bed crowned by a canopy and set apart from the room it was in by some fabric that warded off pests but not light. There was indeed light, not from the sun, and a room surrounded by walls of some stone painted most brightly with unfaded colors. The floor as well was bluer than the sky itself, much as when a man of such fame that a play is written with some deed of his as its matter by a crown-winning playwright visits a city and is not believed when he says his name or the truth of what happened by people who like the play much and the actors of it. In the floor's middle was painted a great yellow circle. No furniture sat on that sun though there was enough around it, cabinets and tables all polished and wooden, carved well and capped with gold.
The knight's desire then was to look over that room, but he had more of trouble in that than might be thought. For the fabric that ringed his bed did not suffer that he pass through it or stir it at all with his hand. Baffled by that, he unsheathed his shining sword, but he left off from his first plan for a moment. “I am Poemen of Argetych,” he called out. “Is the host about? Or some servant who listens for the words of guests that their wants might be fulfilled or refused with regretful speech? I know not where I am or what was the way that I reached it, but for all that I deem peace better than war and speech better than the use of this sword that is keener than most. I see also signs in this room of a mind that thinks long on how best to spend wealth and has for its answer not arms and conquest, but rather the arts of ease. For those reasons, though I seem a prisoner, I have doubt in that and hope to have speech on this matter.”
In that manner he spoke, and did so again, and a third time, which he judged his duty. That done, he gripped his blade and parted the curtains with one swing, whereupon he stepped away from the bed. Nothing inside the room seemed to be a help to him. The cabinets were empty and the tables bare. What had the most of his care was the door, which was a slab of some metal, silver in color, that withstood the weapons Sir Poemen wielded for all that his sword had sorcery done to it and for all of his might, which was great. Above that was mounted a sign that said this, “The Room of the Waning Crescent.” He knew not the meaning of that, nor who was the builder that named rooms not by their purpose but by some other plan, yet he doubted not that there was something behind it.
“I see nothing of the moon in this room for it to be named after such, but I must think on it better. It is true that the sky seems to me blue and the sea as well, and the earth green and brown, and so on. But those are figures, not the things themselves. Oft men use a figure to play the part of some other thing, such as when those practiced in counting and angles use numbers and other signs, though never will two or three cows bear the shape of anything but cows, no matter how many you add or take away. Just that very way the makers of maps will give mountains one color and hills another though they are alike when seen, and those who study the stars might make the moon yellow, if they had reason for it. Then I will look past the color and bethink myself of the shape, which is wrong, but there is means at hand to change that.”
So said the knight who hailed from Argetych where wit is put to every matter and nothing is left unthought, for they esteem there discoveries and craft above all else. He steadied his long and pointed sword on the floor and carved an arc across the yellow sun to make of it a moon in the waning phase, not something every weapon is able to do from the want of Sir Kauko's art. The silvery thick door thereupon rose up and gave Sir Poemen the opening he hoped to have.