Chapter One
The mid-morning sun gleamed like polished gold, hanging motionless and bright above the seemingly infinite sea. The warming rays streamed down, revealing the contours of an archipelago; a vast arm of dotted specks like pepper spilled across a cyan tablecloth. As the sun climbed slightly higher, the outlines of boughs and leaves swaying gently in the offshore breeze became discernible, the lush canopy hinting at the vastness of the forests below. Strangely, many of the trees appeared to be not tropical, but from more temperate climes, a subtle oddity that was joined by others upon closer inspection. Strange looking birds swooped from bough to bough, calling to each other, looking for their mates and nestlings. Stretching half again as tall as the tallest trees on a few islands stood mighty pillars of grey stone, worn smooth by time and wind, and still the sun beat down.
A breeze ruffles the branches along one of the smaller islands, lying farther out into the azure swells, an ordinary island, at least on first looking at it. Beneath the gentle lapping of the waves and the weaving cries of the local birds, a deep, thrumming pulse, as of the island’s heartbeat, could be felt more than heard. Along one stretch of pure white sand, a small shack was hidden back among the trees, seeming to blend in with the forest, be swallowed up into the shadowy green under the branches. On the beach out front stands a small circle of rocks, with the charred and blackened remains of a fire strewn across the beach by the morning wind, a coal-black slash across the pearl-white. Near the ring a large, fist-sized rock sits in the sand, and seems to emit a dim bluish glow nearly lost in the brilliant sunlight. Nothing is heard except the waves and wind.
The door creaks open, and out of the hut emerges a young man, dressed in loose leather pants and boots, and an over-shirt the colour of parchment, with a few stains of use spotting it. Over his shoulder is swung a small canvas pack, from which protrudes a pair of what look like overly large frog feet. The man’s face is angles and planes, coarse from exposure to the sun and wind and water, and his shaggy, dark-blond hair shades brilliant blue eyes that seem to take in anything and everything at once, the razor gaze of a watcher, a falcon’s stare. Turning, he moves back into the shade of the trees, before stripping off his shirt, and removing his boots, until he is wearing nothing but knee-length, tight-fitting breeches. He folds his clothes and places them on a shelf outside the hut before walking back out onto the beach. He strolls casually down to the water’s edge, scanning the line between air and water with rapt attention. Spotting something, he plucks it quickly from the surf. A flash of blue is seen in his fist, but with a burst of white, he fades and vanishes.
A different place, the same world and yet as alien as the moon. Sunlight streams down from above, rippling across the floor of the ocean, white from the pure crushed shells that have accumulated over the centuries. Clumps of greenish, striped seaweed sway gently in the current, while an explosion of colours, vast airy castles of coral, soar up and out into the azure dimness. Creatures small and large, vaguely fish-like, and coloured like some vibrant montage gone wild, dart in and out among the monuments, flying easily through the liquid void. The surface, 800 feet above, shimmered like quicksilver. In the distance, the haze hides shadowy leviathans, their calls like a lonely trumpet call in the blue.
Suddenly, a portion of the water seemed to melt and distort, and from it stepped the young man, still holding the object in his hand. He gently places what seems to be a small ball of blue into the coral, before straightening and donning the pair of fins. He exhales in a cloud of bubbles, and takes in a lungful of water. Instead of instantly collapsing and drowning, he continues to breathe, small amounts of air slowly escaping his mouth and nose to get caught in his hair and spiral upward towards the light. He mumbles something about algae growth, and oxygen levels, before speeding off into the blue dimness, fading into the background, and losing himself in the gentle cradle of the currents.
