Adaptation Is Survival

Adaptation Is Survival

Eleven days at sea had made even Alster, who had difficulty keeping things down when on a griffon, rethink their mode of transport. There were no storms that met the passenger ship but relentless southern winds had battered them the entire way and they all ached to stop rolling. The one benefit of the nausea inducing winds was that is shortened their trip by 2 days. Finally on the morning of the twelfth day it was calm. Marinth Bay had announced itself by smell before it appeared through the morning mist.
Salt, tar, drying nets, spices, hot bread and several varieties of fish competed for possession of the air. The harbour revealed itself next, spreading along the southwestern coast of the Thalorian Tide in a confusion of stone quays, coloured sails and warehouses built upon pilings. Merchant ships crowded the deeper water while fishing boats slipped between them like minnows avoiding fesealons.
Kaelen stood at the bow as the ship entered the harbour.
For the first time since leaving the Kefar, his shoulders relaxed.
“Home,” he said.
Blena leaned against the rail. “It smells like fish.”
“It is the largest commercial harbour in the southwest.”
“That explains the quantity of fish.”
“No, the fisheries explain the fish. The harbour explains the ships.”
Tajan joined them at the rail. “You two have a lot to talk about.”
“I was just explaining to Blena how language works.” He gave her a nudge. He really was so happy to see the windmills and sails that made Thaloria so special that he didn’t even hear her come back.
“Karvok never smells like fish. Now that is a city.”
Marinth Bay climbed from the water in broad terraces. Warehouses occupied the lowest streets, their upper doors opening onto cranes that swung cargo directly from the ships to waiting workers below. Above them rose markets, inns, navigators’ offices and the tiled roofs of dockside homes. Wind vanes turned atop narrow towers, each with small crystals fixed to the pinnacle. Channels carried fresh water down from the hills and disappeared through grates beside the harbour.
Everything moved.
Cargo moved from ships to carts. Carts moved into warehouses. Sailors moved between taverns, some slower than others and merchants moved money from everyone else’s hands into their own in a roaring trade that kept everyone busy till dusk each day.
Kaelen smiled.
“People say Zouken is the mind of Thaloria,” he told them, “but Marinth Bay is its heart.”
Blena watched a fishmonger shout at three customers simultaneously. “That heart seems to be a little angry. Looks like it is as hard to make a deal here as it is in Kefar.”
“Good prices do require negotiating in Thalorian Tide.”
“Do good prices come with the threat to put a crab in someone’s trousers.”
“No, it looks like that man is actually just angry now.”
“Aright..lesson learned only barter three times unless you want extra crustaceans."
Their ship secured a place at the outer quay shortly before noon. Kaelen, Alster, Tajan and Blena descended with a company of merchants and pilgrims, each carrying enough luggage to appear respectable but not enough to interest customs officials.
The market began before the quay ended.
Canvas awnings in sea-blue, green and yellow stretched above rows of stalls. Traders sold fruit and wheat from Virielia, metal from Mechanum, the only item they traded with any crestrealm, Kefarian books, Argent glasswork and spices whose names none of them could pronounce except Alster. One entire lane belonged to cooked food including insects that not only Anderix found a little unsettling.
“If you eat that thing in front of me I will throw up on you.” Blena threatened Kaelen.
“But it is fried and with the culin and salt all over it...’ he smacked his lips. You really would like it.”
“I really wouldn’t.”
“Don’t citizens of the Ironroot Bastion eat frogs from the Bordrad Marshes Alster reminded Blena.
“That is different.. They are frogs and Kaelen’s fried “treat” is still moving and it is all leggy and crunchy. Eww even describing it makes me want to..” She held her hand over her mouth.
Blena walked on through the lively scene hoping not to see any other “food” until she felt better. Clay ovens released steam whenever their lids were lifted. Fish sizzled on flat stones. Vendors folded rice, herbs and chopped shellfish into leaves and passed them to customers faster than coins could be counted.
Blena stopped walking.
“We are staying here right.. It is actually a great market.”
“We are not staying in a market,” Kaelen said.
“Why not. We camped under a volcano. We stayed in a hut on a mountain.”
“That was not by choice.”
“There is actually food here, I saw some pastries with what looked like cream inside. We could buy some food, find a room. Shop?”
Alster’s attention had settled upon a display of translucent green fruit suspended in seawater.
“What are those?”
“Salt apples,” Kaelen said. “They grow in tidal orchards.”
“Fruit grows in the ocean?”
“Only the roots are submerged.”
Alster bought one. He bit through its thin skin and stopped chewing.
Tajan watched him. “Good?”
Alster’s eyes watered. “Very.”
“You look injured.”
“It is unexpectedly salty.”
“The name may have been a clue,” Blena said.
Kaelen led them towards a stall where strips of fish had been glazed with honey and pepper, a favourite from his childhood. He bought enough for everyone. Blena had been converted and was happy to try by that stage and then Kaelen had to return almost immediately to purchase more.
“Did you try this yet?” Tajan asked Alster with her mouth full and handed him what was left of a sausage wrapped in a flat bread.
He bit what she was holding from her hand.
“The combination of sugar, salt and oil makes that something I would definitely eat.”
“Better not let Drue or Anderix see you feeding Alster like that.” Kaelen teased. She smiled with a closed mouth and tilt that let him know what he could do with his tease.
Kaelen continued as he was in a buoyant mood. “And Alster, that sausage you just ate is made from the intestines of a sea snake. Even locals think it is an acquired taste.”
He shrugged, “What can you do? Salt, sugar and oil my friend!”
They ate on a seawall overlooking the harbour. Sunlight flashed across the water. Signal flags travelled up and down the masts, and somewhere in the market a musician played a stringed instrument fast enough to make three children dance although the cries from the pet pyma with them had a terrible rhythm.
For a little while, no one spoke about warrants, Guardians, ancient towers or dying power crystals.
Alster watched a blackbird settle upon the roof of a message house. A clerk removed the tube from its leg and carried the bird inside.
“Could one cross from here to Virielia?” he asked.
Kaelen followed his gaze. “A blackbird? No. They can cross narrow channels if they can see land, but they will not fly over the open Central Ocean. A message would have to go aboard a ship and be transferred to another bird on the far side.”
“How long?”
“With favourable winds? Several days.”
“And without favourable winds?”
“Longer.”
Alster looked back towards the sea.
Blena folded the remaining fish glaze inside its leaf. “Your family knows to leave Amaryn if the Guardians come.”
“I know.”
“But they will want to wait for Alfer before leaving.”
“I know.”
“Kaelen thought for a moment and said “I’ll send a message by ship right now and we will find out what we can soon enough.”
Alster nodded, but the words could not cross the ocean any faster than a blackbird.
Kaelen let the silence remain for a moment before pointing towards a crystal tower above the market.
“Windharbor maintains larger versions of those instruments,” he said. “Researchers there are permitted to recharge navigation crystals directly from the city’s primary crystal.”
Tajan held up the grey crystal she had once used for strength. “Including these?”
“If we were sanctioned researchers with the right authority then I think we could.”
Blena looked at him. “You listed several problems without sounding worried.”
“I have had six days to consider them.”
“Six days?”
“I left instructions with Drue and Anderix to meet us here on the sixth day.”
“You arranged that before we left and you are only telling us now?”
“You were eating.”
“With my mouth not my ears.”
Kaelen rose and collected his pack. “My parents live in the hills above Zouken. We can reach the capital in two days if we take the western packet ship and then meet them back here.”
Blena stared at him. “You intend to introduce us to your parents?”
“I intend to sleep in a house that has walls, beds and no active warrants posted inside it.”
“Does your mother know we are coming?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Parents enjoy that.”
Alster was concerned about only one thing and Kaelen could see it on his face. Kaelen looked at him and spoke to Blena, “it will take all our time but it will be a worthwhile diversion for......” he paused before completing the sentence... “the crew, plus I haven’t been home in a long time.”

Alster dreamed of an ocean without waves.
He stood knee-deep in black water beneath a sky containing no stars. Far below the surface, lines of blue light travelled through the darkness. They crossed, divided and joined again, forming a network too large for him to understand.
Someone waited ahead of him.
The figure was not one he recognized. Its shape shifted between human and something older. Pale eyes watched him from beneath a crown of delicate horns or branches. Water passed through its body without disturbing it.
“Alfer is that you?” Alster asked.
A white-and-red shape drifted beneath the water. Alster stepped forwards, but the illuminated currents tightened around his legs.
“Alfer?”
Then between them a Veylborn he did not recognise raised one hand.
Its voice seemed to come from the sea below rather than the figure before him.
“Carry on at all costs, as failure would mean greater costs for all.”
The blue lines flared up and then he heard.
“The Water Mage will end the light.”
Alster woke in darkness with his brother’s name caught behind his teeth.
For several moments he did not know where he was. Then the creak of the packet ship returned, followed by the slap of water against its hull. Kaelen slept in the bunk above him. Tajan and Blena occupied the two hammocks in the small space next to them separated by a hanging sheet too thin to obstruct Blena’s snoring.
Alster got and lifted his legs to the deck.
The dream had done nothing for his state but disturb him and now it robbed him of his sleep.
“Carry on at all costs”, he recalled aloud.
He disliked the words. He disliked the ease with which anyone speaking of costs usually expected someone else to pay them. He tried to recall the rest of the dream but he could not as detail disappeared even before he woke.
He lay down again but sleep did not come.

Zouken was grand, it rivaled some areas of Kefar in some places. The western coastal city was the Capital of Thalorian Tide and it looked the part for a Crestrealm that is synonymous with the oceans. Sweeping terraces of pale stone, many leading down to their own private docks. Homes stacked one on top of the others with the wind and weights used to elevate people to the tallest levels. Sails used on land and sea vehicles and the wealth of trade on display in imported stone from as far away as Sylvan Watch.
The capital’s lower harbour was larger than Marinth Bay’s, but less chaotic. Naval vessels occupied protected quays beneath high towers. Channels divided the city into districts and carried water towards gardens, fountains and wind driven mills. Beyond the harbour, academies and council buildings climbed the slopes towards the central heights.
The house belonging to Kaelen’s family stood above the city among wind-shaped trees and gardens bordered with black volcanic stone. From its western windows, the Central Ocean extended to the horizon.
Kaelen stopped outside the door.
“You look frightened,” Tajan said.
“I am not frightened.”
Blena adjusted her pack. “You stood beneath a collapsing building with less hesitation.”
“My mother is likely to be surprised.”
The door opened before he knocked.
A woman with Kaelen’s blue eyes stared at him.
Her hair had become greyer than he remembered.
“Kaelen?”
“Hello, Mother.”
She pulled him into the house so abruptly that his pack struck the doorframe.
Kaelen’s mother held him at arm’s length, examined his face and embraced him again.
“You are thin.”
“I am approximately the same....”
“You are thin. Ren! Kaelen is home!”
A chair scraped in the room beyond. Kaelen’s father appeared holding a collection of council reports, dropped half of them and crossed the entry hall without stopping to retrieve them.
For several minutes, Kaelen ceased to belong to the company.
His parents touched his face, his shoulders and his hair as though verifying that every part of him had returned. His mother alternated between laughing and crying. His father embraced him with such force that Kaelen’s feet almost left the floor.
Then his mother noticed the others.
Kaelen cleared his throat. “These are Alster, Tajan and Blena.”
“Where are the Griffon Rider and the Mechanum?” his father asked.
Kaelen stared at him.
His father gestured towards the papers scattered across the floor. “The notices from Kefar are thorough.”
The happiness in the room changed shape.

Kaelen’s parents fed them before asking for explanations.
His mother, Maris, covered the dining table with bread, shellfish, roasted vegetables and three kinds of soup. His father, Ren Thorne, closed every shutter overlooking the road before taking his place.
Kaelen described Helion, Alfadin, the Heartwell disturbances and the machinery beneath Veritas Temple. He described the warrant, although he was at a loss as to why the rest of them were on it as their most illicit action had been to ask a Mechanum citizen to stay with them which he did of his own accord.
“We did disturb and enter some ancient protected sites,” Blena added.
“But we did it on behalf of Kefar for the High Council.”
“And we entered three crestrealms without permission or paper.”
“We can’t include Thalorian Tide, I am a citizen and you are my guests.”
“See that is my point. There is no logical reason for our inclusion in this warrant. I can see Kefar wanting to avoid a crestrealm clash with the Mechanums but we were originally sanctioned by the high council. Look.” He gave the paper signed by High Councilor Thrankal to his father who as a member of the Thalorian Tide Council knew full well there would be more to it.
“Thrankal signed this. He is a slippery snake. I know of businesses that have closed because of his involvement and yet he seems to always come out on top. He is not to be trusted.”
Kaelen frowned. “Then should we contact the high council and ask for their clarification, perhaps without his involvement?”
His mother put down her spoon. “Why you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did they ask you? Not that I don’t think you are wonderful. You are my son and I think everything you do is ..”
“Alright.. I get it but what do you mean why me?”
“Well there are thousands of others that could be doing this with more .. she paused to choose carefully.... Experience and some ...she paused again.. Notoriety that would open doors and get things going. You barely even graduated and he came to you for a mission that is not widely known about?
“He mentioned it would be a chance to prove my worth and perhaps get an opportunity to continue specialising at the Academy.”
His mother closed her eyes. “There is more to all of this and I fear you are being used for tasks that Thrankal can’t undertake under normal circumstances. Tell us exactly what he has you doing.
Kaelen continued with more details. He explained the Guardians’ arrival in Virielia, their escape away after Alfer’s warning and the messages from the Veylborn about a danger to the whole system from a water mage. When he finished, the room became silent except for the wind pressing against the shutters.
Ren Thorne looked across the table at Alster. “Your brother remained with them?”
“Yes.”
“And there has been no word?”
“Not yet.”
“I am sorry.”
Alster looked down. “Thank you.”
Kaelen’s father turned towards him. “And you intend to continue?”
“We have found evidence of the same ancient system in four locations. The disturbances are connected to the Heartwell and may be affecting the etheria trees. We haven’t found any connection to a disruptor like this mage but we are learning so much. Dad this is for all of Aethoria. It affects all of us. We cannot stop now.”
“You can.”
Kaelen had prepared for anger. His father’s calmness unsettled him more.
Ren folded his hands. “You can stop today. You can remain here while the Thalorian Tide council investigates.”
“The council does not understand what it is investigating.”
“Then teach us.”
“I cannot teach what I have not yet learned.”
“Precisely. You are seventeen, Kaelen.”
“I am aware.”
“You speak as though you alone have been appointed to repair the world.”
“I do not think that.”
But some part of him had. And his father had spoken a possible truth that he had to consider. Were these delusions of grandeur? Was he the problem?
His father leaned back. “You can study here. Zouken has navigators, water mages, engineers and crystal researchers. Your mother and I can protect you while the warrant is challenged.”
Maris reached across the table and covered Kaelen’s hand with hers.
“We are not asking you to abandon your work,” she said. “Stay. Study. Let people with ships, soldiers and years of experience take responsibility for the danger.”
Kaelen looked at their joined hands.
His mother’s skin appeared thinner than he remembered. A new line crossed the back of her wrist. His father’s hair had receded farther from his forehead, and he lowered himself into chairs more carefully than he once had.
They were getting older while he was elsewhere discovering reasons not to return.
“You are our only child,” Maris continued. “We thought you would study at Kefar and come home. We thought you might teach. Marry, perhaps.”
Blena looked down at her soup with remarkable concentration.
Maris’s grip tightened. “We imagined grandchildren running through this house. We imagined growing old with you close enough to complain about us.”
“I can complain about you from a considerable distance,” Kaelen said. “Have you heard of blackbirds?”
His mother laughed despite herself. “That is not the same.”
Kaelen looked towards the darkened window.
Stay. Study. Marry. Become the scholar he had told everyone he would become. Help his father on the council. He could correct his mother’s tidal calculations and be thrown out of her workroom for doing so. Have meals on their balcony and overlook the beauty of Zouken. Live long enough to grow tired of the harbour view.
It was not a small future.
It was everything he had once wanted.
And he may not be good enough for the alternate future he was now living with his friends.
He reminded himself that he was not a leader. He was a student who spoke with confidence because uncertainty frightened him. The problem beneath Aethoria crossed oceans and Crestrealms. It involved machines designed by people whose understanding exceeded his own. It required finding some important mage he had not yet met. It was too large for him, too old for him and too important to trust to his incomplete theories.
He could not solve it.
Perhaps his parents were right. Perhaps continuing merely placed more competent people in danger while Kaelen pretended that finding the mystery had made it his responsibility.
“I need some air,” he said.

Kaelen found Alster outside on the terrace.
The lights of Zouken descended towards the harbour below them. Far out at sea, navigation crystals marked a line of blue points along the shipping channel.
Alster stood at the stone wall, looking west.
“You cannot see Virielia from here,” Kaelen said.
“I know.”
Kaelen joined him.
For a time they listened to the wind in the trees.
“My parents want me to stay.”
“They love you.”
“That makes their argument inconvenient.”
Alster almost smiled.
Kaelen rested both hands on the wall. “They are right. This is too large. We have found pieces of a system we do not understand, and every discovery creates three new dangers. I don’t know where to lead everyone next. I am not certain I should be leading anyone.”
“Then it is fortunate no one has consistently followed your instructions.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
Kaelen looked at him. Alster had borrowed the words from Felib, but the humour disappeared quickly.
“I dreamed about a Veylborn last night,” Alster said.
Kaelen waited.
“It was not one I recognized. I asked about Alfer. It would not answer me.”
“What did it say?”
“Carry on at all costs, as failure would mean greater costs for all.”
“That is unhelpfully imprecise.”
“Yes.”
“And ominous.”
“It also spoke of the water mage.”
“I am from here the home of water power. Do you think It might be me?”
Unlikely since you specialised in earth powers but I wouldn’t put it past you to be the bad guy.
“Oh yeah? How so.”
“You let me eat that intestine and didn’t tell me.”
They laughed and the easing of tension allowed the conversation to continue.
“Do you think the dream meant something important?”
“I do not know. I have spent every waking moment thinking about my brother. Dreams do not become prophecies merely because they frighten us.”
Kaelen heard his own beliefs in Alster’s answer.
Alster looked towards the black ocean.
“If Alfer is gone, I cannot make that worthwhile. Nothing makes it worthwhile. But I can make certain the time he bought us is not wasted.”
Kaelen thought of the life inside the house. His room. His parents. The safe work waiting in Zouken.
Then he thought of Alfer leading six Guardians along the wrong road.
“I am afraid I am not good enough,” Kaelen admitted.
Alster turned to him.
“The problem is too large. Even if every theory I have is correct, I cannot repair something that crosses the world.”
“No,” Alster said.
Kaelen had expected encouragement.
Alster continued, “You cannot repair it alone. That is why there are six of us.”
“Seven, including Dasher.”
“Dasher does not understand the ancient network.”
“Neither does Blena.”
“She understands enough to throw things at it.”
“That has been unexpectedly useful.”
Alster finally smiled. “You do not have to be good enough to solve everything. You only have to be good enough to help us take the next step.”
Below them, the harbour lights reflected on lapping waves.
Kaelen recalled that he had always been taught the Thalorian Tide mantra Adaptation is survival . The willingness to change when the wind refused to obey the chart.
“All right,” he said to Alster who waited expectantly. “Let’s adapt.”

Ren Thorne did not attempt to change his son’s mind again.
The following morning, he entered his council office before sunrise and issued a maritime security notice to every Thalorian port, naval station and registered vessel.
Six Kefarian Guardians were to be identified, monitored and detained for questioning if they entered Thalorian jurisdiction. They had pursued travellers across foreign territory without recognized extradition authority and might be operating under false claims of official assistance.
Kaelen read the notice twice.
“You called them hostile agents.”
“I called their conduct hostile,” his father corrected. “A council member cannot declare six foreigners enemies of the Crestrealm because his son dislikes them.”
“They may object to being detained.”
“Then they should adapt.”
Kaelen folded the notice. “This could create difficulties with Kefar.”
“Most things involving Kefar create difficulties with Kefar. But more likely this will create difficulties with Thrankal not Kerfar.”
“Aren’t they the same?” He looked at his father who raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “You still want me to stay.”
“Yes.”
“But you are helping me leave.”
Ren adjusted the clasp of Kaelen’s travelling cloak.
“If I cannot convince my son to remain somewhere safe, I can at least make his home less welcoming to those who would do him ill.”
Kaelen embraced him.
His father held him for a long time.
Ren knew nothing of the plan for Marinth Bay and Kaelen intended to keep it that way. The less he shared from this point on the better.

Thy Quest: What Makes Continuing Worth the Risk?
Explain how Kaelen and Alster influence one another on the terrace. Use evidence from the chapter to show why they decide to take the next step.