He took a puff on his pipe and nodded. “Captain’s privilege, once you get your own ship, you go to the caves to pay homage to the old gods. Since they were there first, seems only polite. And there are stories aplenty about the ill fates of captains who failed to make the pilgrimage.”
“So, they’re statues found centuries ago.”
“More than statues, scribbler.” The captain’s gaze darkened at the memory. “Statue doesn’t make you sweat the moment you lay eyes on it, doesn’t make your head ache when you get near, nor put images in your head when you bow to touch its foot.”
My quill stopped its track across the parchment and I concealed a sigh. I had seen enough by now to fully appreciate that what I once thought of as superstition was all too real, but still the inherent skepticism lingered. “Images in your head?” I asked in a passive tone.
“Just for a second. I touched her foot and . . . I saw the Isles, but not our Isles. There was a city, standing where our capital now stands. But so beautiful, gleaming marble from end to end, the harbour filled with ships, longer than ours and mostly driven by oarsmen. And they were not pirates, I could see that. Not a single sailor carried a weapon. Whatever time it was, it was a time of peace.”
He fell silent, face now clouded with memory as he took the pipe from his lips, barely stirring when I prompted, “Her foot? The old gods are female?”
“One is. The other two are men, one a great bearded fellow, the other younger and handsome of face. I didn’t touch either of them, for the visions they impart are only for the bravest eyes. They say the Shield touched all three though, the only man ever to do so.”
“There’s a story, about a man who couldn’t die. It says he came to the Isles in search of the old gods.”
The captain huffed a laugh and returned to his pipe. “Urlan. My old gran used to tell me that one.”
“The version I have says he offended them by asking for an impossible gift, so they cursed him to walk the ocean floor for all time.”
He frowned, smoke billowing and a faint dullness creeping into his eyes. “Gran’s tale was different, but the old stories often change depending on who tells them. She said Urlan was driven from the Isles, set adrift in a boat and warned never to return. And not because he had offended the old gods, but because having heard his words, the people feared one so young who knew so much.”
