The Arrival

The Arrival

On the southern shores of the Solaryn Reliquary, Tajan waited for the Mechanum ship in a port less than two hours from the town where she had been born. Unlike Blena, who had complained about the heat, the smell and the crowd in that order, Tajan was thoroughly enjoying herself.

“Oh, my Veyl. So good.”

She licked her lips and wiped a streak of grease from the corner of her mouth onto her sleeve. She held out a thin wooden stick upon which remained one piece of fried puff fish. Its golden coating was so light and crisp that flakes of it threatened to escape whenever the wind blew in from the water.

“Have you ever tried one of these?”

Blena leaned away from it.

“It is covered in peppers and pieces of salt large enough to break a tooth. It cannot possibly be good for you.” She sniffed suspiciously. “And it smells like something died in a pot of old beans.”

“It is fish,” Tajan said.

“Yes. That would explain the first part.”

Alster had already finished two sticks. A considerable amount of oil glistened around his mouth, though he seemed entirely unaware of it.

“It would be excellent with fresh chiranto,” he said, smacking his lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps some crushed silverleaf. The pepper is doing too much of the work.”

Tajan pulled the final piece away from Alster and ate it herself. “You cannot bring a satchel of herbs to the docks and improve every meal you find.”

“I can,” Alster replied. “And I have.”

Kaelen looked past them toward the rows of fishing vessels.

“Where is Drue?”

“He saw fresh meat for sale and went to check on his griffon Dasher,” Alster said. “He was worried she had not eaten enough.”

Blena glanced toward the stalls where fishmongers were chopping, weighing and loudly disputing the freshness of one another’s catches.

“If he releases a griffon anywhere near all this fish, we may have to leave the Reliquary under different names.”

Kaelen smiled, though his attention remained divided between his companions, the crowd and the open water. He had become acutely aware of where everyone was since their departure from Kefar. He considered it his responsibility that they were here at all.

Drue had carried them across the Solaryn Sea with four of his best griffon riders. The others were already returning to the Emberwild Dominion, but Drue had chosen to remain. He had once served for a year as a message rider in the Solaryn Reliquary and knew the southern lands well.

He also seemed to think Tajan was unusually good company, although Kaelen had noticed that Drue found nearly anyone good company if they would listen to stories about griffons for long enough.

The port was not the largest in the Solaryn Reliquary, but it was one of its busiest. It served the lands south of Helion, offered the closest safe passage toward the Thalorian Tide and possessed deep berths capable of receiving the tall-masted trading ships of the Virielia Bloomlands.

Dozens of fishing vessels had returned from the morning waters. Most carried crews of only four or five, and many sold their catch directly from wet tables along the docks. Knives struck wooden boards in rapid, uneven rhythms. Vendors shouted prices over one another. Gulls screamed from rooftops and descended whenever a distracted shopper lowered a meal too close to the ground.

Several fishing families cooked their catch beside their boats. Fresh fish was wrapped in flatbread with greens newly arrived from Virielia, then drizzled with oil pressed from the nongnut tree. Smoke from the cooking fires mixed with salt air, tar, wet rope, pepper and the unmistakable odour of several thousand fish regretting their recent decisions.

The smells and sites were reason enough to visit the docks even when one had no intention of travelling.

Blena wiped perspiration from her forehead.

“It is hot and it is crowded and there is not one useful tree anywhere.”

She scanned the port and pointed toward an awning stretched above a seller of woven baskets.

“Let us wait under that before I become the first guardian in Aethorian history to be defeated by sunlight.”

“You would still insist that it cheated,” Tajan said.

“It does. The sun has the advantage of unending energy.”

They made their way through the gathering crowd.

The arrival of a Mechanum ship was an extraordinary event. Years earlier, an ambassador from the Ascendancy had visited the port, and residents still argued over the details. Some insisted the ambassador had possessed a brass hand strong enough to crush stone. Others claimed he had been more machine than person and required energy crystals more than food. A fishmonger near the harbour steps swore that the ambassador’s arms had moved so quickly that it seemed to disappear then reappear in a new position.

One week earlier, a smaller Mechanum vessel had appeared offshore. It possessed no sails and seemed to move through smoke, fire and without the aid of sails of any type which seems very much against the natural order. The vessel had not entered the harbour. Instead, a hatch had opened and launched a metal cylinder toward the shore with remarkable accuracy. The cylinder landed on the dock and clinked and clanked until it stopped rolling then, unfolded three mechanical legs which opened in two sections to prop up the cylinder in a standing position and then it opened.

Inside was a message announcing that a Mechanum ship would arrive in one week and that a passenger would disembark. It mentioned that this person was to be treated with all the due respect afforded an ambassador and his treatment would be recorded.

That had been enough to bring several hundred curious people to the docks once the word got out which happened quickly in a town where the biggest news in a month was the new jewellery stall in the central market.

Some wanted to see a ship propelled by converted crystal energy rather than wind. Others hoped to glimpse the strange mechanical adaptations associated with the people of the Ascendancy. A few had arrived merely because everyone else had.

A deep metallic note rolled across the water. It was some sort of horn but it was  low and steady like a sick desert cow, more vibration than music. Conversations stopped as people turned toward the harbour entrance.

Beyond the breakwater, a dark shape emerged through a cloud of white steam.

The ship sat low in the water but still resembled a ship in its own way. There was a raised barrier around its deck presumably to keep the sailors from being washed away in large swells and it sat high enough out of the water for a row of portholes to line its sides. Its hull formed from overlapping plates of blackened metal rather than timber. Thick rivets ran along its sides in perfectly measured lines. Copper pipes climbed around two squat towers rising from the centre of the vessel, releasing short bursts of vapour with sharp, disciplined hisses.

And most notably there were no sails which is what the majority of the onlookers commented on. Two great paddle assemblies turned behind armoured housings along the ship’s sides. Their submerged blades struck the water with a heavy, regular beat.

Churn. Hiss. Clank.

Churn. Hiss. Clank.

The fishing vessels hurried out of its path. Along the bow, narrow crystal chambers glowed with a controlled blue light. Each pulse travelled through copper lines toward the ship’s stern, where mechanisms groaned beneath the deck. The vessel adjusted its approach without the help of oars, sails or visible crew.

Tajan stared. “Well, that is not remotely unsettling.”

Kaelen had already taken out his notebook. “It is controlling its speed independently of the wind. Look, it is evenly entering... against the tide!”

“Yes,” Blena said. “That is the unsettling part.”

“No, it is remarkable. Look at the paddle timing. Each side is turning at a different rate. That is how it is correcting its direction.”

From the crowd Blena heard “It is still coming directly toward us.”

And from another onlooker. “It is docking.”

The Mechanum ship entered the berth with such precision that the distance between its hull and the stone dock appeared scarcely wider than Blena’s hand. Then the paddles ceased together. The sudden silence was almost more impressive than the noise.

A final cloud of steam escaped from beneath the ship and drifted across the watching crowd. Several people stepped back. One child laughed and ran into it before being hauled away by his mother.

No sailors appeared. The upper deck remained empty. Dark, circular portholes lined the hull, but their thick glass revealed nothing within.

Then a rectangular section of the ship’s side opened with a sequence of metallic knocks. Something unfolded from inside.

A jointed arm extended over the water. Gears turned inside its frame as three panels slid outward and locked together. Brass supports dropped from beneath them,it was the exact distance to the dock and soon the entire structure rested level upon the stone.

The mechanical gangplank scraped a high pitch squeak on the stone of the dock as the waves in the bay, still disturbed by the ship pushed against it which caused the crowd to murmur.

“I think the ship just announced that it has successfully put down a board,” Blena said.

A second hatch opened above the gangplank. For several moments, no one emerged.

Then Anderix stepped onto the upper deck.

The crowd drew a collective breath.

He wore a fitted travelling coat of dark grey material fastened by polished metal clasps. Fine copper lines ran from a crystal chamber at his shoulder to the optical device fitted over his eyes. The familiar assembly of brass, glass and blue crystal curved around his temples, its lens shifting with tiny clicks as he looked over the harbour.

A compact mechanical case was secured to his back, and one of its articulated supports extended over his shoulder before folding itself neatly against the case.

Someone in the crowd whispered, “It moved.”

“Of course it moved,” another person whispered back. “It is a moving part.”

“I meant by itself.”

An elderly man near the front pointed at Anderix’s opticals.

“There is some sort of telescope on his eye.”

“It's a lens,” Kaelen said, though no one had asked him. “You know, like for seeing better.” Trying to dispel any false beliefs being born in the crowd.

A child waved enthusiastically.

Anderix stared at the child for a moment, apparently uncertain whether the gesture required an official response. He eventually raised one hand and moved it stiffly from side to side.

The crowd immediately began waving.

Anderix stopped.

His optical lens clicked rapidly as it adjusted to hundreds of moving hands. He took one step backwards and nearly disappeared through the hatch again.

Tajan covered her mouth to hide a laugh.

“The friendliest person in the Mechanum Ascendancy,” Kaelen said fondly.

“It really is like being the warmest glacier,” Tajan replied.

Anderix descended the mechanical gangplank with measured steps. The moment his boots touched the dock, the scrap sounded again.

He flinched and looked down at it.

“It does that,” he said quietly, as though apologising on behalf of the ship.

Kaelen raised his hand.

“Anderix!”

The shifting lens turned toward him. Anderix stopped so abruptly that a metal case swinging from his hand struck his leg.

Kaelen, Blena, Tajan and Alster pushed through the crowd to meet him.

For one uncontrolled instant, Anderix smiled.

The expression disappeared almost immediately, replaced by the careful neutrality expected of a citizen travelling on behalf of the Ascendancy. But inside, he felt it again: the strange tingling beneath his skin that had followed him through his year in Kefar. It had begun whenever a conversation moved somewhere unexpected, whenever people disagreed without filing a complaint, or whenever someone suggested an idea that had not been approved in advance.

Seeing Kaelen and Blena brought the feeling back at once. Seeing Tajan made it considerably worse.

Kaelen stopped in front of him.

“You came.”

“Yes,” Anderix replied. “That was the primary purpose of the voyage.”

Blena folded her arms.

“Good to see you too.”

Anderix turned toward her.

“It is good to see you. I did not mean to imply that it was not. Your presence was included within the purpose, as were Kaelen’s presence and the presence of the others requested for this consultation.”

“You have now somehow made it worse,” Blena said.

“I suspected that while I was saying it.”

Kaelen grinned and pulled him into a quick embrace.

Anderix’s arms remained at his sides for the first second. Then he awkwardly lifted one and patted Kaelen twice between the shoulders, as though checking a mechanism for structural weakness.

“I am also pleased to see you,” Anderix said.

“I gathered that.”

Blena stepped forward and embraced him next. Anderix had slightly improved by then and managed to move both arms, although he still looked like someone had handed him an unfamiliar piece of equipment without instructions.

Around them, the crowd pressed closer.

A woman asked whether his eyes could see through walls.

“No,” Anderix answered.

A boy asked whether his mechanical case could fly.

“No.”

A fishmonger asked whether Mechanum people ate fish.

“Yes.”

The fishmonger immediately held up a smoked ropefish.

“Would you like to purchase one?”

“No.”

The crowd laughed. Anderix glanced back toward the ship.

Behind the dark glass of its portholes, shapes moved.

They were watching.

His posture stiffened.

“I am operating under explicit directives,” he announced, speaking more loudly than necessary. “I am to meet with the named individuals selected by the High Council of Kefar who are responsible for requesting my attendance, determine the nature and purpose of the consultation, and report my findings to the Office of External Affairs.”

Blena looked at Kaelen.

“He has been here two minutes and has already reported us to someone.”

“I have not reported anything yet,” Anderix said. “That would be premature.”

Tajan stepped closer.

“Then perhaps we should go somewhere with fewer people asking about your eye.”

“It is an optical enhancement.”

“Yes. I remember.”

Anderix’s lens made a quiet adjustment as he looked at her.

“You remember?”

“You explained them to me at the academy. Twice.”

“The first explanation was incomplete.”

“It lasted nearly an hour.”

“Yes. That is how I knew.”

The tingling returned.

Anderix glanced at the portholes again.

“We should relocate.”

Thy Quest:
The people at the harbour react to the Mechanum ship with curiosity, excitement, fear and rumours. Connect their reactions to a real-world example of people encountering an unfamiliar invention or new technology. Explain one similarity between the two situations and why people sometimes distrust technology they do not understand.