The Voyages of Trueblood Cay

by Suanne Laqueur

  “Once,” Rafil said, “all was One, and One was called Os.”

  Rafil was the Cay’s oldest sailor and considered the best rakontistos onboard, if not the world. The youngest of the crew, including Trueblood, sat at his feet and crowded the arms of his chair. The ship’s newest member, barely nine years old and terribly homesick, sat in Rafil’s lap, eyes drooping with the effort of holding tears back all day.

  “Of all the children of Os,” Rafil said, “Nyos was the greatest and most loving. When Os divided herself into sky and land, Nyos planted a tree to bridge the two. Rooted deep in the earth, the tree’s nine branches touched the sky, where Nyos anchored each one with a star.”

  Abrakam, the Cay’s wise and wonderful centaur, passed a book around, beautifully illustrated with pictures of Nydirsil, the great Tree of Life.

  “As she anchored the ninth and tallest branch to the ninth star,” Rafil said, “Nyos accidentally tore a hole in the sky, releasing the winged horses. The pegasos.”

  “What was on the other side of the hole?” Trueblood asked.

  The sitting room hissed with shushing noises.

  “The hooves of the winged steeds tore another hole in the sky,” Rafil said, “releasing the birds, who came to earth and build nests in Nydirsil.”

  Trueblood was unwavering in his curiosity. “Where were the birds before?”

  “Nobody cares,” the ship’s cook said. His name was Seven, because after bearing six children, his mother had given up on names. Seven’s younger brother Eleven was among the crew, and their youngest sibling, Sixten, was the lad dozing in Rafil’s arms.

  “I care,” Trueblood said.

  “Well, I don’t,” Seven said. “If I wanted scientific explanation, I would’ve gone to university. I became a sailor and the face value of stories is enough for me.”

  “Lad, it wasn’t so long ago you were the one asking questions,” Rafil said to him. He jostled Sixten against his arm. “And it won’t be long before your brother starts challenging every story that crosses his ears.”

  “I just wondered where the birds came from,” Trueblood said.

  Kepten True’s golden eyes twinkled at his son. “Not many things are to be taken at face value, Pé,” he said. “Legends are one of them. Let’s enjoy the tale.”

  The book passed hand to hand. Few could read the ancient text but the pictures coupled with Rafil’s voice were all they needed.

  “Nydirsil’s roots were fastened below the ocean floor, down into rock and through lava to the core of the earth. The birds nested in the lower branches while the upper canopy, among the stars, was home to the pegasos.

  “Nyos took no mate, for her one great love was for the tree. Nydirsil drew love up like sap, into her trunk and branches and leaves. Nydirsil swelled with buds and the buds opened to release Nye, the spice of life, the source of love and the birthplace of happiness.”

  Sixten was asleep now, mouth parted against Rafil’s sleeve. Kepten True stood by the fireplace, which the giants had cleverly built into an exterior wall and vented out to the weatherdeck. The fires it held were kept prudently small, but the two-stepped, tiled hearth was wide and a favored place to sit for story hour.

  True rested an elbow on the mantel, gazing fondly at his crew. His eyes lingered on Pelippé, his only child. As usual, the boy sat between the Ĝemelos brothers, Raj and Lejo. Their shoulders touching and their six outstretched legs stacked like wood.

  “Forests of Nye trees grew thick over the land,” Rafil said. “They swelled with buds and released clouds of Nye spice. But no seeds fell from their spent flowers. No seedlings or saplings grew at their feet. Only Nydirsil dropped seeds to grow into new trees. The birds took the seeds all over the land and planted them in the earth.”

  The book closed. Rafil said no more, but the wheel of his story continued to spin in the quiet room. Trueblood stared at the pile of his feet, Raj’s ankles and Lejo’s calves. Keenly aware the story of Nye was still being written and it could end in his lifetime.

  Once, the ship called Cay transported Nye to every port city in every part of the land, a special hold in her hull called the nyellem stacked to the ceiling with casks of the beautiful spice. But that “once” was long ago. Beyond the time of Kepten True’s father and grandfather and his grandfather’s grandfather. The Cay’s history was built from generations of mariners from House Tru, stretching from this sitting room back to the time of the giants. All the stories told in past tense led up to today’s present truth: Nydirsil was gone.

  “What happened?” Trueblood asked. He knew. He only asked to fill the swollen silence. And because it was polite to the rakontistos to pretend you never heard the tale before.

  “Once,” Rafil said, “a great feud was fought between Nyos and her twin brother Truvos, god of the sea. It started when Truvos climbed Nydirsil, stole the nine stars that held her branches to the sky and gave them to his lover, Khe. Loosened from the sky, the tree toppled and swayed, until her roots began to pull free from the earth. Nyos begged her brother to return the stars, but Truvos would not relent.

  “Nyos slew Khe,” Rafil said, “and Truvos slew his own sister. Nydirsil was torn from everything she loved and everything that loved her. Truvos sailed away in his mighty ship, towing the Tree of Life behind, vowing he’d never give back the stars until a love like he knew with Khe returned to the earth threefold.

  “Truvos took Nydirsil away, and all the seeds for new trees went with her. Now when a tree died, nothing took its place. Less spice was in the world. Year after year, a little less. Decade after decade, less spice in the holds of ships. Century after century until Nye grew too scarce to be traded, and it began to be hoarded.”

  “But what does Nye do?” Trueblood asked. “What’s it for?”

  “It makes the world beautiful,” Abrakam the centaur said. “Simply by existing.”

  A collective sigh went around the kepten’s sitting room, each crew member thinking of the nyellem, deep in the Cay’s hull. They could only imagine the golden age when it would’ve been crammed full of casks. Today the Cay sailed with her nyellem dark and barren, only the scent of Nye lingering in its walls. Some believed the spice hold was kept empty out of respect. Others felt it was a sign of hope. One day spice would again be as abundant as air and water, instead of a scarce commodity and the cause of so much trouble in the world.

  “Every year a little less love and a little more trouble,” Rafil said, and Sixten whimpered in his sleep.

  “Enough,” Kepten True said. He regarded the empty nyellem as a sign of hope. “Larks still bring the souls of newborns, even if no seed is dropped to mark the beginning. Finches still return souls of the dead, without a seed to mark the end. Even as the trees die and Nye decreases, we live and we die. One day, Nye will be no more. Which means what?”

  He paused for effect, meeting each of his crew’s eyes.

  “It means we can’t take beauty and love and goodness for granted,” he said. “We can’t sit around and wait for the world to be made beautiful for us. We must find beauty in a troubled world. We must be the goodness Nye once granted. And what are things beautiful and good, lads?”

  “Stories,” Seven said, and other crew members chimed in.

  “Truth.”

  “Respect.”

  “Friendship.”

  “A job well done.”

  “Ships built by giants.”

  Hands thumped the floor and table tops in appreciation.

  “Never forget this ship is made from the wood of Nye trees,” Kepten True said. “Who better to live as Nyos intended if not us? Trouble and despair and greed are for lesser men. Not mariners. Do you understand? Answer your commander.”

  “Aye, Kep,” his crew said, shaking their heads and limbs out of the melancholy. They got up and one by one, approached the kepten to say goodnight.

  Ikha
rus-Lippé True believed in a day’s beginning and ending. He liked evening biddings to be something sweet to lay your head on. He liked a formal greeting in the morning, to show the day was new and the slate clean and the possibilities endless.

  The kepten knew not every ship’s commander took the time to open and close the day. But it had been his grandfather’s way. Then his father’s way. The True Way. It was one of the few things he took at face value and didn’t question.

  “Good night,” he said. “Rest well.”

  “Amatos, Kep,” they all said in return. Until the morning.

  Pelippé was last. He didn’t sleep below decks, but in a room off the foyer of the kepten’s quarters, across from Abrakam’s cabin. This, too, went unquestioned. After the murder of his wife, nobody faulted the kepten for wanting his son close by, or accused him of favoritism.

  Kepten True looked forward to the day when his son would retire at an adult hour and be the last person True said goodnight to. For now, Pelippé was last among the minoros, the crew under the age of sixteen. True folded the boy into his long arms and kissed his head.

  “You are my story,” he said. “And I love nothing the way I love you.”

  Pelippé Trueblood was named after Pel, the giant who built the Cay. “Ippé” was an ironic suffix meaning “little,” often given to those who already stood head and shoulders above other men.

  Ikharus-Lippé True was seven-and-a-half feet tall and giants of old would’ve considered him a runt. His height was a rarity in the modern giantsbloodline, which grew more diluted with every generation. Pelippé was over six feet and still a growing boy, but he doubted he’d reach his father’s height. His mother was a Treeblood, a family known for being petite.

  Noë Treeblood had been a vicreĝo, one of the elected regents of Nyland. Her marriage to Ikharus was regarded as a superb uniting of two dynastic houses, and everyone approved Trueblood as the surname for their only son.

  From an early age, he was known by his surname alone. Those closest to him called him Pé, but because his resting expression was either curious worry or worried curiosity, many of the Cay’s older crew called him Troubled.

  “What’s on your mind, Troubled?” they’d ask, jostling him out of deep thought.

  Or, “What’s troubling Trueblood?” as they startled him from the pages of his leather notebook, which he always quickly closed.

  Trueblood was seven-almost-eight when Abrakam Centauros gave him his first journal. It was right after Noë died, when Trueblood’s troubles robbed him of his voice. Into the pages he put all the words he couldn’t speak aloud, framed by little drawings in the margins.

  He was twelve now, and on his fourth notebook. No longer silent, yet he still liked to end his day by filling a page or two. He was a skilled artist, and he considered writing to be an extension of drawing. The flow of hand to pen to paper and the construction of letters and words was satisfying work, but he found stringing words together to express himself difficult. He almost never read what he wrote out loud. He cared less about how his thoughts sounded than how they looked on the page.

  He inscribed the flyleaf of each notebook with the same words, in his especial beautiful penmanship:

  The Most Private Journal of Pelippé Trueblood

  An especial accounting of his life and

  voyages on the Cay.

  As written by Pelippé Trueblood

  (Me)

  “Especial isn’t a word,” Abrakam said, glancing over the boy’s shoulder as he started a new tome.

  “Yes it is,” Pelippé said. “My mother said it.” It was one of the few things he could remember in Noë’s voice.

  You do have especial beautiful handwriting, Pé.

  The old centaur’s eyes filled with love and sadness. “It was her accent, lad. People from Alondra often put an E in front of words that start with S.”

  “Well, I’m from Alondra, too.”

  Whenever Trueblood spoke of his destroyed birth city, his voice felt too big for his throat. The sack of Alondra robbed him of both mother and motherland. He didn’t like talking about it. Not on paper, not out loud.

  Abrakam put a hand on this serious boy’s head.

  “Well-argued, Troubled. It’ll be your especial word.”

  From the Most Private Journal of Pelippé Trueblood

  These are the people I love.

  My father. His full name is Ikharus-Lippé True. He has a title that comes before the name, which is Kepten. He owns and commands this ship. He is my father but also my commander. When he asks a question, I say “Yes, Da.” When he gives an order, I say, “Aye, Kep.”

  Da has gold eyes and long black hair he wears in many braids, as is the way of giants. My hair is being trained for braids so they are short right now, and red-gold at the tips. Da says this is because my mother’s soul kissed each one.

  Da is tall, because men descended from giants are of a very m agnificent height. The bed in Da’s cabin is the longest bed on the ship and also the longest bed I have ever seen. It was made for giants because they were so very tall.

  One day I will be kepten of the Cay. My father is teaching me about it. It’s a lot of work to command a ship and the people on it. I have lots to learn but Da is patient. I ask a lot of questions, because Da likes people who are curious. He doesn’t like people who boast or brag. He is strict, but he doesn’t punish mistakes. He only punishes disrespect.

  Da took me aboard the Cay when I was seven-almost-eight. Usually boys don’t go to sea until they are nine. But after my mother died, Da wouldn’t let me be anywhere but with him. He is my home and the person I love most in the world.

  Once a year, the Cay invited youngsters over the age of nine to take the ship’s single entrance exam: climbing her main mast. It was made from the trunk of one of the greatest Nye trees ever to grow on earth. Three men could embrace its base and touch hands, if they stretched their arms.

  From its ironbound foothold in the bottom of the ship, this wooden needle stretched to pierce a hole in the sky. The anchoring shroud lines holding it straight were bigger around than a man’s clenched fist. The ratlines, strung like ladder runs between the shrouds, were broad planks of wood for the first fifty feet, then became braided rope the rest of the climb. Floating like a cork three hundred feet above the deck was the crow’s nest, where six men could sit comfortably as they kept watch.

  The maristos—crew members over the age of twenty-one—took turns climbing behind the candidates, coaching where to step and grab. By tradition, a kheiron hovered close by, ready to swoop in if there was a fall. Or a panic.

  These children who tried to climb the Cay were the stuff of family legend. Stories and tales abounded, detailing success and failure, courage and surrender, near misses and close calls. But none recounted death on the mast. There never had been a fatal fall.

  For a week, the Cay threw her gauntlet at the world’s youth. A hundred might accept the challenge, but when the ship set sail again, only four or five new faces would be among the minoros.

  Most of them stayed for life.

  Pelippé Trueblood climbed the Cay’s main mast when he was six. No crowd cheered him on. No kheiron circled his ascent. Only a few early-rising crew members watched quietly from the deck.

  “And your mother watched, too,” Kepten True said. “She looked through her telescope outside her bedroom window. Do you remember?”

  “No,” Trueblood said. He remembered his father below him the whole time, advising a little here, coaching a bit there. He praised good technique and chided careless missteps. Trueblood winced at the admonishments and never made the same mistake twice.

  “Are you afraid?” his father occasionally asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Good boy.”

  The fear was healthy, and more for not being able to finish than falling. Trueblood wasn’t afraid of th
e height. He needed little encouragement above the topsails. The view was exhilarating. The climb felt natural. He paused once to put arms around the mast and hug it, his smiling cheek to the rough wood. He loved the Cay’s impossible dimensions and her siren call upward, farther and farther, beckoning him to touch the sky.

  The day was beautiful, perfect and superlative. He was young and brave, still two years away from the tragedy that would wipe his childish memory banks nearly clean. Today, however, would remain in the basket of his heart like an un-cracked, unblemished egg. Every detail intact.

  “This is the best thing I ever did,” he said when they reached the crow’s nest and the earth stretched on either side of him, as far as the eye could see. Like a humungous pair of arms flung wide, declaring, I made all this for you. Do you like it?

  “You are the best thing I ever did,” Kepten True said, swinging Trueblood up in his arms. Perched like a bird in the nest of his father’s hip, Trueblood gazed at the top of the world. True’s long black plaits blew around in the wind. The air was thin, clear and salty. The rock of the ship as comforting as a mother’s cradling embrace. Wanting for nothing, stretched wide with happiness, the boy turned his face into his father’s shoulder and wrapped arms around his neck.

  “I love you, Da.”

  His father hugged him tight, one large hand heavy on his head.

  “You are my true blood,” the kepten said. “And I love nothing the way I love you.”

  The descent felt more precarious. Trueblood didn’t like not being able to see where he was going. Climbing up was a test of courage, but climbing down was a lesson in trust and prudence. He relied more on his father’s guidance. He thought twice before he stepped once. His father praised him for resting often. By the time he made the awkward scramble past the futtocks shroud, his body was wrung out. In a mixture of elation, relief and bravado, he jumped the last ten feet to the deck below. His exhausted legs buckled and he toppled on his bum, somersaulting over one shoulder and sprawling on his stomach. Accomplishment burst out of him as hooting, gasping laughter. A crowing triumph that abruptly stopped when his father seized his arm and hauled him roughly to his feet.