The ropes holding the beam of the sail tightened in the stronger winds the boat had been facing. Although it seemed that they were heading into favourable winds, it also felt like the were making worse progress through it.

image [https://i.imgur.com/cObWeNl.png]

The sun was nearing noon and Kaza came from the tent, looking to the sky. Clouds were nearing and she seemed happy.

“Rain will come soon.” Her voice showed the anticipation she had about it, as Lirran had become better at hearing the slight changes to intonations whenever her mood changed. Right now, her mood was best when rain was nearing, even if just a light drizzle.

Lirran focussed on himself and gathered his breath in his mind, imagining his mental image inhaling deeply. He had meditate don this several times, including with his Navigator.

I think I can see the waves better now, see gusts of wind before they arrive. Does the world without thought have a will?

No, but in a way, it has a common source. If all minds and all bodies were once one, then all can derive its behaviour from the same rules. You cannot see the will of the wind, it is without thought, but it and thought come from the same original unity. The force that makes will is the one from which all direction and movement stems. When the wind blows into a direction, it draws upon this very same rule.

It didn’t make much sense to Lirran, but he knew he had to meditate on this too.

If wind and thought share components, and will is that which creates direction, away from a passive state of awareness or existence, then I can see the wind’s direction. Can I then also alter the wind’s direction by infusing it with my own will?

He can’t say he didn’t try and in another nightly communion, his Navigator commended his odd inspiration. You are reaching far, but influencing the material world this much also requires material representation. You are learning what it means to be a wizard after all, but in the end, their deeds are based little on this deep understanding as far as I know and more on acquired skills and objects in the material world that have fixed this understanding in a material form. Like a shipwright can make better boats by better understanding the wood, but anyone can pilot the better boats even if they don’t understand the wood. No one mind can encompass all of the world, be it the mental or material one. Learning of the original unity puts you at the beginning of a long path.

Then can I in the end become a wizard? Or surpass them?

Kaza had shown great resignation at that remark. We are all retreading the paths of powers beyond our immediate grasp. By the footprints those powers have left, we try to find their source, like trying to follow the footsteps in the sand only to stop at the waves of the ocean. Some have mastered working stone or steel to such a degree it seems to acquire properties that makes people call them enchanted; others have learned fragments of great songs of power that have once created the world and call them spells or incantations; others again have developed a method of breathing so precise they can perform seemingly impossible feats. There are many things in this world that you would consider magical, but I have learned this truth common to all of them: no discipline is in the end separate from another, for all draw upon the same singularity that once was and now is lost but not gone. It is still there, underlying everything, a foundation we can build upon if we find it, like the solid ground that sits even at the bottom of this ocean. Remember the first and last truth of this world.

At the foundation, the mind and body are one.

Yes.

After that exchange, Lirran had understood more. His childhood dreams of becoming a wizard would have found fulfilment only at the cost of the same effort he was now pouring into his meditations. All mortals had limited time and he had to choose the house he built with it. As a child, his dream was wealth and power, now it was truth and meaning. Maybe it was him growing up, maybe it was him loosing all things of material and social value only to discover value beyond that.

It was on another windy day when Kaza sat at the far side of the boat, inscribing a new shell while Lirran was at the rudder. The way her hand and mantle wielded the tool was mesmerizing, as if things happened without much thinking on her part. It moved forward and backward, rotated and pressed down without her fingers doing much, instead it glided along the rim of the mantle that undulated in waves and rows.

They had only a light lunch and by the time they were done, the clouds from the east had approached rapidly, darkening the sky and moving ever closer to the sun. “Will it rain this day?”

Kaza looked up from her shell only for a short moment. “Yes.”

“The mountains are now more small.” He pointed to the Farzum mountains, no longer as towering and imposing as a few days ago, yet in the distance at the horizon was already the next peak: the central massif of Argivi.

Without looking up, Kaza nodded. “Wind from east soon is more strong. We will have to be careful or wind will blow us away.”

Lirran could imagine, the wind had been turning more and more westward for a while now.

The clouds moved in front of the sun and soon, the first raindrops fell. Without having to ask, Lirran’s Navigator stood up and took his place at the rudder. She basked in the wetness and Lirran did not deny her that little joy. He sat under the tarp, working on his own piece, a mere copy of one of Kaza’s shells.

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This story of the travelling person at the shores of Zirrol had become clearer now. It told of a tzappatt scholar called Tzitzirr, a man so knowledgeable that he attracted kings and sages whenever his arrival in a city was made known. He travelled from city to city and people sought discourse with him, asking his opinion on many matters and seeking guidance. Some jealous priests or advisors of kings sought to drive him from the city and to it, Kaza had commented. “Tzitzirr was foolish. Tzitzirr spoke wisely and loudly, therefore, he attracted much ire. Tzitzirr did not think of worthiness, instead he poured knowledge valuable into waters foul.”

Lirran had meditated on it for a while and had to agree. Many things can spoil by giving it to ignorant or malicious people. But he had also found an answer to Kaza’s concern: “This is not wise: to live in darkness because fire burns hot.”

Navigator Kaza had conceded that point and agreed that there was a benefit to driving away darkness, but someone must hold the torch, not drop it to the ground. The two had agreed with each other in this new stanza to an old story, for Tzitzirr had apparently been dead for over a thousand years, yet these shell was still copied and handed on.

This continued for some days. The rains became more frequent and the shore they drove by less mountainous but more green and lush. Soon, there was rain every day, at the same time. Kaza called this “the centre of the world” where the sun stood directly above them and said that soon, they would reach Argivi, the densely forested island known to house the treefolk of which Lirran had heard. That would also be their last stop before going eastward across thousands of miles of open ocean. He worried much less about this plan now, assured by his Navigator’s knowledge and his growing strength. He may not be able to live freely in the water, but as long as one of them was, both of them could rely on another.

The day came that the continent of Insisa ended. He had reached the northernmost point of it, the last rocky outcrops reached into the sea and the next day, they saw the coast of Argivi. They had passed the strait by. With every day from that on, they would get further and further away from Niisa, centre of commerce of the human world and the place where two continents convene. Now they were truly headed for the open ocean voyage.

By now, the two of them had developed a rhythm with the weather, so that Kaza would enjoy the rain at the rudder and scoop the water out of the boat once the sky had cleared. Each day, Kaza seemed more worried about the weather. She talked about the wind not being as weak as she thought. Instead of going more and more westward until it died down completely for a while, it grew stronger and seemed to bend northwards.

Then, one day, as she looked toward the mountainous centre of Argivi rise clad in deep green, she spoke a word in her tongue, more to herself than anyone. “iunngsseonng” Her face fell into despair as she said that, as if letting go of a hopeful wish.

“What does mean that?”

“Wind that is strong and comes every year.”

“Similar to rainy season?”

“More bad than rainy season.”

Lirran swallowed. “Maybe we can do this: land and wait.”

Kaza shook her head. “Last too long.” She looked to the west. “Maybe we can do this: take other route.”

“Around west? To Zirrol?”

Kaza seemed to honestly contemplate it for a moment. Then she took the limpet map from her satchel and started laying out a few of them, mumbling a few things to her in a sort of low chittering and clicking.

As Kaza was more and more confused about the options they had, the wind suddenly picked up even more. Not only did it come from the south now, it also pushed them further east of all directions. “I think this happens right now: the wind turn around the mountains!” He pointed to the central massif of Argivi that rose far away in the haze. The winds coming westward at its southeast side must be curled by presence of the mountains, flowing into their wind shadow.

“WEST! STEER WEST!” Kaza hissed at him as the boat rocked and her shells were strewn across the boat. She looked up and saw with fright the mass of clouds that pushed against the western shore of Argivi.

“CANNOT!” Lirran yelled back, a sudden bellowing of the sail pushed them to the right even more. He had to undo the ropes from the oarlocks so he could re-adjust the tack, the direction the sail was aligned with and get them back further west. “Take rope there!” He pointed to the left rope while he tried undoing the right one.

He had long undone it when he looked to Kaza and saw that she had problems undoing the tight knots he had used to keep the beam in place. He barely brought forth a “Let me do this:” when the wind whipped the beam free from only one rope, smacking him in the head. He fell forward, onto Kaza, who squelched and rasped angrily.

The boat rocked another time, Kaza grabbed the fluttering rope. She pulled on it, let herself fall backwards with her full might, but the rope slid through her slimy fingers. The beam whipped around another time and Lirran saw her being struck again, above him. She fell backwards and her huge mantle covered him like a tarp.

The boat was now shaking violently, a storm was brewing and they were being sucked into the wind shadow of Argivi, right underneath it.

He struggled against the slimy mantle, managed to push his head free and gasped. Kaza’s mass pushed him down, he grabbed the railing, pulled himself out from underneath. She was struggling to gain a direction in which to stand up. Lirran got up and felt another gust, another wave, pushing the boat further east. A crack and the oar that was the mast broke, the oar that was the beam slipped off, the sail fluttered away in the wind like a handkerchief.

“THE SAIL!” Lirran screamed in his own tongue. “THE SAIL IS GONE!” He pointed into the direction it had flown into.

Kaza raised her head above the railing, then looked as distressed as Lirran. With a quick push, she slithered over the railing into the water and headed towards where the sail’s white shape could faintly be seen floating atop the water’s surface. Lirran was alone in the boat.

Another gust rocked the wind and Lirran grabbed one of the spare oars. Instead of putting it into one of the locks, he moved to the railing and tried using it as a paddle, even though it was too long to be practical for that. All he wanted to do was keep the course while Kaza retrieved the sail. He tried looking for her but both she and the sail were out of sight. The wind picked up further and despite his best efforts, he was struggling against futility. The winds and waves had made the boat their plaything.

The gusts turned into a proper storm and the clouds that pushed against the mountainous coast began to thunder as if enraged by their intent to pass them by.

Lirran was thrown left and right as he still tried to keep something resembling a course, until a wave and a gust conspired with each other to throw the boat left but him right. He let go of the oar and fell down onto the boards, ramming a limpet shell into his palm. He yelped in pain and did not even attempt to get back up, just crawled towards the tarp to find shelter from the rain, trying not to be knocked unconscious by the rocking boat.

With his Navigator gone, he now had to follow the path of raw nature, without true will of its own but still stronger than his.