The survival of a civilization. The Ring of Fire

III. THE FIRST VOYAGE TO THE NORTH

Therefore, not even the school was a concern of everyday life, the number of students continued to decrease under the pressure of the hard times, but especially because of the obligation to learn useless things, while skilled teachers were ignored completely and were replaced gradually, under various imaginary pretexts, by questionable individuals.

Anyway, some years had passed since graduation, and the young student had to start with menial jobs, in order to save the amounts of money that would allow his planned trips year after year; thus, as a member of the regular crews, he crossed the waters of the world in search of land spots – the true natural riches.

After he had saved just the amount he needed, no more, no less, the young graduate, now also having some maritime experience, decided that the first place he would go to was Isbynorr, the largest settlement of the Northern District; the only thing he knew about those lands was that the winters were harsh and the means of transport was a commercial vessel that set sail from Narzomand, his hometown; he was determined not to miss it again.

The ship barely squeezed through the ice banks... It was a large ship meant to carry food to the inn, a point of supply for all the inhabitants who arrived here from all over the Northern District. Every month, the ship brought the same products and returned with the same amount of wood and iron... It wasn't much, but it was a fair exchange between the North and the East, following the agreement between the governors of the two provinces, Stephen and Olympia. The same routine over and over again, except now, when an unknown man was aboard, eagerly searching for adventure, toward these snowy territories; the man was unfamiliar both by appearance and by name, Filip Tyrip.

He sat low among the bags of food supplies, covered from head to toe with the worn and smelly furs he had borrowed from a crew member. That's right, traveling in these conditions hadn't exactly been his dream, but he could not oppose them; the thirst for knowledge was much more important than any physical discomfort.

Moreover, he kept himself occupied. He read. How else? A book gifted by the ship's cook, in exchange for his favorite fish recipe, with whom he had become friends at the first meal. Not with the recipe. With the cook! And there was no more precious thing in those days than being a cook's friend. The book was not a recipe book, as one could easily misunderstand, it did not even tell a beautiful story – it was something about some technical analyses of building structures – but the boy devoured it, for something else piqued his interest and fueled his hunger for knowledge: the descriptions of realms long gone under the muddy cover of the waters, realms about which there were not contemporary mentions. This led him to the conclusion that he was holding an important manuscript. and its place was on the dusty shelves of the Royal Library.

The closer they got to the North, the angrier the cold, the excess moisture made it difficult to breathe, and the furs were no longer doing their heating job, a good time to light a fire to warm up his soul and shed some light on his way to his destination. The closer they got to the end of the voyage, the more the waves that crashed into the ship would be replaced by the noisy ice banks.

He knew that here there was something that no other district had; although it was buried in the snow, this part of the world drew him incessantly, and it wasn't because of the iron mines, nor because of the great glacier... Even though he truly despised the water of the seas—in which the most beautiful years of his youth had drowned — the ice did not have anything appealing either... but he had no choice. He had decided to follow his hidden mysteries, and these mysteries led him to the North, farther to the North; this is what the fine sense of smell of the young greyhound reminded him.

He was aware that he had to move swiftly, to find what he was looking for so passionately, but at the same time he could not miss the return home on the same ship with which he had arrived. So he had three or four days to find the answer to all the questions, otherwise he would have to choose between leaving the same way he had come or staying for a whole month until the next transport.