Shadows - Character Introduction

His memory begins with a blur, scraps of images, flashes of sound and color; then darkness. All is quiet, quelled is the tumult of senses. At once, his entire world is knotted up into an intense whiteness of pain between his eyes. The screech of the terns echoes the jaggedness of his nerves.

Trying to roll over, he nearly retches.

Unmoving, he hovers on the edge of consciousness, time an inconstant sea washing over him. No plumb could measure the depths of the gulfs he waded in; hours, perhaps days, passed.

Finally, black resolved itself into colors, acquired shape, and then, a face.

Master Janif was a practical man, which meant that he was often brutal in the application of his duty. And so, the slap across Garin's face nearly sent him spinning back into oblivion. But the cold splash of water unmercifully pulled him back.

Rough hands seized Garin, wavering colors coalesced into a single eye, piercing in its unblinking intensity; this was the eye of Kraken, of Leviathan. And then, all at once, it faded, a smile forming, a widening crack threatening to tear the rigidity of Jarif's face apart.

"Aye, y'll do."

With each day that passed, his strength returned, his world grew beyond the confines of his low-slung hammock to encompass the galley as well; a place which would be the surrogate womb of his existence for the weeks that followed.

While he was able to move without effort and discomfort in the cramped confines of the ship, the trespasses through his memory were much more restricted.  The past remained a wall in his mind, smooth, cold, impenetrable.

In his sleep, images crashed in on his dreams, moments of hatred and of longing.

And there were others, wholly apart from him, which bore no glimmer of recognition; mouths moved wordlessly, events rolled backward from end to beginning. He strained for meaning but found none.

In time, he came to realize that these were not the whispers of his past, but of his future.

With infinite concern for those that had given him the only life he'd known, he cautioned them of missteps warned them of lingering doldrums.

Though Master Janif had taken heed of Garin's words, plied them as a useful application of a mariner's knowledge returning with use, the scope of the advice grew and so did the apprehension of the crew. 

In mid-June, when the storms were beginning to inhabit the equatorial seas, Garin's mood became less temperate, darker, filled with foreboding.  At first, this was as inexplicable to him as anyone else; the air was light, the winds strong and constant, and the whole crew, including Master Janif, was buoyed by it.  Yet, each day he felt the press of the beams against him, felt the ship breathe, steal his breath, suffocate him, like a tomb.

When his eyes met those of the Captain, he saw only hollow caves, dark, sightless, and fixed on something far away; a look of infinite longing.

In his dreams, the sky and ocean seemed reversed, the moon floated on the water. But the more he fixed his mind on it, the more it fled from him.

Then, on the last day of June, When he saw the ends of Iol's shirt stir as with the telltales of the ship, the meaning of his dreams froze his heart.

With a fervor that was not lost on Master Janif, he pleaded with the first mate to alter course.  But the Captain, already overdue, would not waver; the Ilian would keep to her heading.

As the days drew on, trapped and unable to act, Garin grew more agitated.

Master Janif finally had no other option than to confine him below decks, away from the crew; one was easily dealt with, but if they were to keep to their mark, he could afford no other agitation in the rest.

That night, a group of five men seized Garin and threw him overboard. Yet, even then the ship was pitching in the water; they'd arrived too late.  The storm that Garin had foreseen gripped the sea, stirring it into a frenzy that the Ilian, heavily laden with cargo could not long survive.  Most of the hands perished below decks, never waking from their sleep. The others, including the Captain and Master Janif, died at their stations.  Garin though survived.

Adrift on the flotsam of the Illian he floated for three days. On the morning of the fourth, just after dawn, he was sighted by the Tristan a swift Cutter out of Port Frey.

Once again, he was nursed back to health.

Once again, he joined the crew.

Whereas before he was thankful and enlivened, he was now withdrawn, fearful that the fate of the Ilian would soon befall the Tristan as well. Again, he was feeling restless; his dreams were filled with storms, the wind carrying a confusion of voices.  But these were not of the sea and the ship upon it, but of a land, far off; and a lone castle upon a shore.

Recognition lapped at the edge of memory, constantly eluding him. Mostly, his nights were as empty as he was, a void waiting to be filled, or filled again.

On the third week aboard, they veered north, their course taking them windward of Escar's Foot. For four days it grew, an incongruous swath of green cutting across the horizon. But the Tristan was not to set to port at the Isle, their destination still lies many leagues further.

And slowly, the Foot slid past to starboard, then drifted towards their bow, finally sinking back beneath the waters to the south. Two days past the Foot, the wind changed abruptly, lashing with a cold urgency from the north-northwest.  Garin faced into it, his hands gripping the rigging.  Even before he had heard the mate cry out for land, he knew with a fearsome certainty what lie ahead, Escar.