The Gardener of Nahi

Chapter 26

Nahi

Tragically, we have started our return from the Still much sooner than planned and in a manner unexpected.  I would be in better spirits if Utte and Seirsy were not hanging onto their lives by a thread.  They are below deck now – Myria and Elindra are looking after them.  As for Akuli, I have no idea where he is, nor frankly do I care.

     Utte's ship is a marvel.  It's not that large, but it fits the few of us well enough.  I do not know the slightest thing about these ancient types of ships (the ones that travel over water), but I know enough to recognize its preciousness.  The wood is in fine condition and the hardware is polished to perfection.  Clean white sails, over and around us, snap in the wind and carry us over ever darkening water.

Already the Shule can just barely be seen in the distance, as if the entire place was only a figment of my imagination.  But one look at Tsuru’s weary face at the railing tells me this is not so.

“Do you need help with the sails?  Anything at all?”  With Utte being sick, Tsuru had taken control of his employer’s ship and had been manning everything in a tortuous silence up until now, refusing any help whatsoever.  I thought asking once more would not hurt.

“I am good, but thank you.”

“Where are we headed?”

He hunched his shoulders.  “We will keep the coast in sight until Utte wakes.”  Then after staring into the distance for many seconds, he seemed to say to himself, "but I will never go back.”

I knew he meant the Shule.  “I second that,” I said.

His dark skin glistened in the harsh sunlight as he turned to me.

"Yet part of me will miss it.  Part of me will miss the Shule dearly."

"I don't know how you can feel that way," I said, shaking my head.  Tsuru was silent for some time while the breeze grew stronger.  The sun was too harsh and I had to shut my eyes and look downward.  I was lost in thought and had almost forgotten what I had said when Tsuru replied.

"Seirsy and Elindra.  You knew of their profession, did you not?”

“Of course.”

“The men who paid for their services were fooling themselves – Seirsy and Elindra never loved them, even though it might have seemed to their clients that they did.”

“I can imagine.”

“The Shule is like that to me,” Tsuru said to me.  “I have always loved her, but she has never loved me back.  And now I think that was never a true love.  Only a selfish love.”

Our escape from Utte's shop was narrow and abrupt.  We awoke in the early morning, which must have been only a few hours after our intimate dinner party had ended the night before, when Utte had told us his story.  I didn't feel well rested and my head throbbed, due to drinking too much wine hours earlier.  I remember I was packing this journal into my bag when the attack happened.