City of the Automatons

by Francesco Bertolino

  “You old fool!” yelled Kyra, clutching the rope so hard that her knuckles whitened.

  She was standing ankle-deep in water, watching Ezer singing loudly in the bow, oblivious to the chaos around him. The boat rolled horribly at the mercy of the storm and a seemingly endless series of waves swept across the deck, raging down on them.

  Few times before in her life had she felt so helpless: she could barely stand upright, her throat and lungs aching from swallowing saltwater. Ezer’s recklessness made her furious, especially since the old man enjoyed making fun of her, while flaunting a total disregard for danger. She felt stupid for having so badly underestimated the risks of a sailor’s life. Maybe it would be better to give up on the illusion of a new life at sea, and be more down to earth, in every sense.

  Only a couple of weeks had passed since she had joined Ezer in his trips out to sea, but the list of things she hated was already a long one: her hands flayed by ropes and nets, the sunburn, the windburn, the sickening roll of the boat, the omnipresent stench of fish... All these and more had almost convinced her to go back on her decision. She had been forcing herself to endure it through sheer pride.

  Now it seemed like a very bad resolution.

  “What’s going on girl, have you lost your tongue?” Ezer scoffed, standing open-legged in front of her. He was soaked from head to toe, his clothes and hair were plastered to his skin. “Just look at you! And all because of a little storm!”

  Kyra gritted her teeth, but didn’t have time to retort as a wave slapped her in the face, and saltwater filled her mouth again. Ezer helped her cough with a few pats on her back, while holding on to a rope to balance himself in the unstable swell.

  “Come on, come on girl, spit it out! I was just joking. You’re doing well for your first storm! I’ve seen many a big strong man whimper like a child in your place!”

  He almost slipped and grabbed her with both hands, cursing. He went on screaming into the gale:

  “I remember the day I was ferrying a merchant across the bay, when a storm like this fell upon us. The man promised me half his fortune, if I managed to bring him to shore safe and sound! Luckily for him, I’m not a greedy man! I didn’t claim a single coin more than we had agreed...” He raised his eyes to the sky. “What a fool I was! I could have been sailing in gold now rather than in saltwater!”

  “Why waste your time on nonsense, old man?” hissed Kyra, her face tense with fear “I’ll make you a promise too: you save me from this hell, and maybe I won’t pull your eyes out of their sockets!”

  “Ahahah, I see you haven’t lost your sick sense of humor, girl!” Ezer laughed. He looked up to the leaden sky, scanning the horizon, and suddenly became serious: “Well then, let’s get out of here! But I need your help. Come on, put that rope down and help me out! What are you afraid of? Can’t you see that even an old man like me can stand on his own two feet?”

  His laugh was lost in the wind’s howl, together with all the curses that Kyra shouted after him.

  ------

  A few hours later, as the sun’s orb was sinking lazily below the flat expanse of the sea, Kyra was lying exhausted on the deck of the boat. She could still hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, behind them.

  It was hard to admit, but she felt wonderful.

  She kept going over the frantic struggle against the elements: hearing again the deafening roar of the sea, seeing the fierce lightning and the white foam of raging waves in her mind’s eye... For what had seemed like endless hours, she had walked precariously from one end of the boat to the other, spurred on by the old man, trying to put into practice the skills she had learned over the previous days.

  And she had brilliantly succeeded.

  Now, her muscles aching and her head spinning like a whirlpool, she felt happier than ever before.

  She heard a soft laugh: she turned to watch Ezer sitting in the bow, staring at her with a smile.

  “Great feeling isn’t it?” the fisherman said, shouting the words loudly “We should have more of this in our lives.”

  He said nothing more, but Kyra thought she understood. The breath of the breeze on her skin, the creaking of the wooden planks under her back, the rhythmic lapping of the waves: all those sensations came to her as if amplified. She felt cradled. She felt at peace, fulfilled. She thought - not without regret - that those were the same feelings that used to rise in her soul after a hard fight alongside her comrades in arms, in the long gone days when there was no room for doubts or second thoughts, when only the present counted...

  Ezer was still looking at her with amusement, as if able to read her mind. He started to ask her something, but then decided against it and fell silent.

  Time passed, marked by the sound of their breathing, until night fell. One by one, the stars took their places in the vast, dark sky.

  “You did well today” the old fisherman said, breaking the silence “And you saw the hidden face of the sea. It can be generous with men, but it can also turn into our worst enemy. When that happens, just one mistake, just one small imprudence, can cost you your life.”

  She nodded, understanding that Ezer’s words were intended to teach her a healthy respect for the sea. And he was right. The memory of this day would serve here in good stead in the future.

  “You are an excellent teacher” she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  “Do you often get lost like today and have to spend the night at sea?” she asked instead, in a mocking tone.

  “Only when I have to take care of a dead weight like you, girl!” he replied, pretending to be insulted.

  They stared at each other for a few moments, and then burst into heart filling laughter. With no desire to interrupt the moment, Ezer sat down amid the nets. Kyra, her legs crossed and her hands folded behind her neck, stayed lying on the deck, to better admire the sight of the rising stars.

  “Wonderful...” she whispered.

  And at that precise moment, when the pain from the past, the fullness of the present and her hope for the future merged inside her, tears began to flow down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them.

  Ezer looked up to the sky, and said nothing.

  ------

  They didn’t go out to sea the next day.

  Gone was the euphoria of having faced her first storm, and now Kyra was so exhausted she felt she could have slept for an entire week. Ezer made her open her eyes by repeatedly slamming his fists on the door, cursing with such vehemence as to draw the attention of half the village.

  “That’s enough old man! You’ve won! Just give me a minute...”

  She closed her eyes again, but couldn’t fall back to sleep. She finally sat up on the bed and rubbed her temples, but the room kept turning around her. She had to fight all her instincts in order to set a foot on the ground, then the other, and to finally get up.

  “It’s worse than a hangover!” she thought, as she limped around in search of her clothing.

  While putting on her pants and shirt, she noticed the collection of bluish bruises on her arms and legs. She smiled: they were like medals, won at great cost! After desultorily dressing and combing her hair, she pushed the shed door and went out into the open air. She walked over to the well, filled a bucket with fresh water and plunged her face into it until the last annoying traces of sleep slipped away.

  Then she looked up at Ezer’s cabin. He wasn’t around.

  A few days before, the fisherman had offered her his hospitality and an uncomfortable cot in the tool shed, both of which she had accepted with enthusiasm. It was certainly not cozy, nor particularly fragrant, but Kyra still favored it over her previous room at the Dancing Lion, where the prying eyes of the innkeeper were always on her: he had not let her be since that infamous night of the brawl. Ezer, for his part, was happy to be her host, although he always tried to show otherwise in public - just to discourage the rising rumors about the odd couple.

  Water dripping from her face, Kyra rose on tiptoe and stretche
d her slender body towards the sky. She turned around and looked for Ezer, spying him on the pier, busy collecting the nets. The boat, small and with a single short mast, had been named ‘Anna’ in memory of the fisherman’s wife. She had died many years earlier, he had told Kyra, the victim of an incurable fever.

  Kyra smiled at the sight of the old man. She didn’t know how it had happened, but in just over two weeks a special bond had formed between them, something that went beyond a simple teacher-pupil relationship. It was as if each of them had filled a gap in the other’s soul, casting away the previous sense of loneliness. And perhaps that was the reason why Kyra’s original desire to set out to Dekka had weakened so much. The simple life in Mirna with its slow pace marked by the fishing activities was doing her good. The Wayfarer’s Company already seemed a distant memory, and even the thought of her separation from Dorian no longer hurt so much anymore. Wasn’t it just what she had wanted from the start?

  “What are you doing just standing there? Has the saltwater rusted your brains?” Ezer shouted from the dock, waving a fist in the air “Come on girl, for heaven’s sake, I need help!”

  “I’m coming, damn you! Give me time to catch my breath!” Kyra snorted, and ran to him.

  Together they lifted the nets and laid them on the ground: they were pretty battered after the previous day’s adventures. They worked on their knees, side by side, Ezer teaching her how to mend the rips and Kyra doing her best to help him in the tedious task.

  By the time they had finished, the sun was high in the sky. They took a rest, sitting on the pier, feet dangling in the brackish water of the marina. There was almost no movement along the quay: most of the other fishermen were out at sea. The expanse of blue off the coast was dotted with colorful sails, but many fewer than in the past, Ezer said. Many fishermen had left the bay to seek their fortune elsewhere. Year on year the fishing was becoming more difficult, as the black spots of oil spread on the water. Kyra had seen one in person, several days before, and it had left an impression on her.

  The sea creatures, as if foreseeing the mortal danger posed by the stains, were melting away and causing the fishing nets to remain woefully empty. Yet the men still insisted on going to sea with each dawn, if only to avoid the suffering eyes of their wives and children at home.

  Kyra did her best to help the old man with the fishing, but despite the efforts of both, things were not going well. She feared that they would soon feel the pangs of hunger, and she could not imagine how Ezer would get by alone, after the day she went back on the road.

  “Old man, can I ask you a question?” she asked, without much preamble.

  “Go ahead, girl. I’m all ears.”

  “I know that you have kept few friends here in Mirna, and why. I also know you’ve been a widower for years. But don’t you have any other relatives in this village or another one? Someone who could give you a hand in difficult times?”

  Ezer opened his mouth with air of annoyance, as if to ask her not to meddle in his private affairs, but then stopped. He shook his head a few times, sighed, and then fixed his tired eyes on hers.

  “I don’t speak lightly of these things. They bring up old pains. Still, I feel I can talk to you...”

  Kyra gave him an uncertain smile, and waited.

  “The thing is” he began “until a year ago I didn’t have to live or fish alone. Ethan, my son, was with me.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “We never got along too well, but we always respected each other. I am a practical kind of man, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Ethan is quite different from me: a dreamer, like his mother. I lost count of the times I scolded him for his lack of attention at work! Always with his head in the clouds, that boy! And this can cause serious problems when you are at sea.”

  He smiled, recalling the past.

  “I remember the day Ethan noticed a small dolphin trapped with the other fish. The fool cut the net to give it its freedom: the dolphin fled, and so did the rest of the fish. You can picture my reaction: as well as losing our catch, he had also managed to destroy our only fishing tool! I beat him for it, and didn’t speak to him for a week!”

  He kicked the water with his feet, lost in his thoughts.

  “It’s just the way Ethan is: he has always loved the sea and its creatures more than himself. I often saw him out of the corner of my eye, after a day’s work: rather than being satisfied with the good fishing, he seemed repentant, saddened. A fisherman who feels pity for his fish... Bah! He was more suited to a temple of Edessa!”

  “This son of yours, where is he now?” Kyra asked “Why isn’t he here with you?”

  “I was getting there, don’t be impatient! Like I said, these are not good memories. A year ago, our life took a turn for the worse, because of the cursed black oil: the currents dragged in so much filth that it blackened all the waters of the bay. It all happened in a matter of days, and the fish began to die in the hundreds, in the thousands!”

  The unpleasant memory made him press his lips together.

  “The bay was unrecognizable, covered with dead fish and birds, and the stench was unbearable. No fisherman could work, we could do nothing but wait for the currents to pull the dirt away from our waters.”

  “That’s awful...” Kyra murmured, trying to envision the beautiful bay in such a miserable state.

  “You have no idea” said Ezer “My son felt angrier than ever before. I had never seen him in such a mood: he seemed to suffer more than the sea itself. He spent whole days walking back and forth along the wharf, filled with rage, or he took a boat and tried to drive out the filth himself with his oars!

  I could sympathize with his state of mind, but he was leaving himself open to the ridicule of the entire village! One day I confronted him, tried to tell him he wasn’t accomplishing anything with his bizarre behavior. The black surge had come unexpectedly, without any apparent reason, and in the same way it would go away. We just had to wait, I said.”

  “Wasn’t the city of Dekka the real cause behind it all, as you told me?”

  “We didn’t know any of this at the time. It was Ethan himself who found out. Mirna was on its knees: for almost a month we couldn’t work. It was the same with other villages along the coast. We had no means of survival, so we began to borrow from inland farmers and merchants.”

  “Let me guess: Ethan didn’t sit around twiddling his thumbs...”

  “You’re right. I didn’t ask myself too many questions: I just kept waiting for things to follow their course. I wasn’t interested in finding a scapegoat. Everyday my fellow villagers brought some new absurd explanation for their misfortunes, either because they had unwittingly insulted the gods, or because the mythical fish-men were finally wreaking their revenge. Superstitious fools! Always quick to use their imagination, when they have to explain things they do not understand!”

  He shook his head in annoyance.

  “Ethan did not believe these lies: he studied the winds and currents, questioned passing merchants, went looking for answers in the surrounding villages... I let him go, as work was already scarce, and more so, I feared that he would go crazy if he just stayed here like a caged tiger.”

  “A worthy task. It seems that your son was the only one making an effort to use his brains” Kyra said.

  “Bah! After a while, Ethan came up with a theory. Judging from the evidence he had collected, and the testimonies of travelers, none other than the city of Dekka was responsible for our troubles. Unfortunately for him, all the villagers were sceptical from the start. When had anyone heard such a thing? Why would a city like Dekka, which lived on the prosperity of the sea, cause a disaster like that on purpose? And when Ethan quoted tales he had heard about the Factory and the oil-drinking Automatons, everybody was convinced that he had lost sight of all reason.”

  “That’s not hard to imagine. Mirna doesn’t seem very open to new ideas!”

  “I can’t blame them. I myself found it hard to believe, and did so on
ly after much insistence, and after he had explained to me all the details of his theory. I asked him why then no one in Dekka was trying to find a solution to the situation. He told me that some other villages had sent emissaries to the city with that same question, but to no avail. The City Watch had turned everyone back . It was very suspicious.”

  He sighed.

  “But I wasn’t ready for Ethan’s decision...”

  “What decision?”

  “I should have seen it coming. Since no one was willing to back him up, he decided to move on his own. Without any prior discussion, he came to me with a bag over his shoulder and told me he was leaving for Dekka. He wanted to see things with his own eyes, and try to find a solution.

  It was a shock to me: the idea of my son wandering alone in that huge city seemed unthinkable. And that wasn’t all. I just wasn’t able to see how he could abandon me like that. I tried to change his mind, first with kind words, and then with bad ones. We quarreled furiously, but I couldn’t budge him.”

  He paused, his face red.

  “I eventually locked him in the tool shed, convinced that a short period of incarceration would help him clear his mind. I went to the ‘Dancing Lion’ to drown my rancor in a mug. When I got home, the cabin door was off its hinges, and there was no trace of Ethan. I hurled a thousand curses at the sky, but there was nothing I could do: my son was already far away.”

  He lowered his eyes and his voice dropped to a whisper.

  “I haven’t heard from him since... Can you now understand why I am alone? And why I had to do that stupid thing with the golden fish? I was desperate, and there was no one around to help me! No one!”

  Ezer closed in on himself, and fell silent. Kyra felt guilty for having forced him to dig up such sad memories.

  “Life can be hard, girl. We all make wrong choices, and we can’t turn back time.”

  “I am sorry, Ezer. But I can understand your son’s decision. I almost agree with him, in a sense.”

  “What do you mean?” snapped Ezer.

  “It reminds me of my own story. It’s not easy for me to talk about it, but I feel I owe it you. So, if you are willing to listen...”

  “Please go ahead.”

  Kyra dipped her hands into the water and splashed her face. She spoke for nearly an hour, summarizing the most important events of her past: her sad childhood as an orphan, the long years spent with the Wayfarer’s Company, and finally her abrupt separation from fellow fighters. She deliberately omitted many details, not because she didn’t trust Ezer, but because she preferred not to dwell too much on matters that could fill a book and that she knew in some cases didn’t exactly cast her in the best light.

  “Impressive” said Ezer, when she was done. The annoyance had vanished from his face. “Now I know what you meant when you said you understood Ethan’s choice.”

  He smiled, but a sad expression lingered in his eyes.

  “It seems that this commander Dorian and I still have to learn a few things about our children...”

  “I have to agree” she said, forcing a smile.

  “But I suspect you haven’t told me everything” said Ezer, who still seemed in the mood to talk. The sun’s rays highlighted tiny creases in his wrinkled face, as he spoke. “What about that, for instance?” he asked, pointing to the scar on her cheek.

  Kyra’s face darkened, and she said nothing. She tilted her head to one side, hiding the old wound behind a curtain of brown hair.

  “I understand. It doesn’t matter” replied Ezer “You have the right to keep certain things to yourself.”

  Then, without warning, he plunged into the sea clothes and all, splashing Kyra from head to toe. He re-emerged a moment later, spitting water, and flashed a dazzling grin:

  “Come on, girl! Nothing better than a nice cool bath to lighten one’s soul!”

  Kyra stared at him in surprise for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Get out of my way, then, or I won’t go easy on you!”

  She got up and took a running jump into the water with a great splash.

  VII - Unexpected News