Journal of Sed The Elder of Issad.
If conditions continue to be well, today will be the last day of the journey to Ald’Hin. I have already learned much of these people from the crew and Captain Shar.
The Issadi gods are gods of order, propriety, dignity, honor. It is our purpose in life to reflect those qualities to the best of our abilities, to devote ourselves unconditionally to the paths dictated by our priesthood, that we may bring ourselves closer to the gods. My standing in Issad would be destroyed, were I to admit that I have become skeptical. I have begun to doubt our priest’s divine status. I have begun to doubt the existence of our gods.
The Aldites believe in the divine, but in a way that is difficult to fathom. To them, any god or gods are unknowable, and divinity is achievable through the refinement of intellect. If I could put it as simply as possible, the people of Ald’Hin worship knowledge and wisdom, and all the expressions of those qualities.
There are no Aldite priests, though there are “holy men” of a sort. Captain Shar has told me of the “Mad Alchemists” of Ald’Hin. Those who are exceptionally intelligent or clever are encouraged to let their minds wander, to drop all barriers of social etiquette and morality that might get between them and the knowledge they seek.
The Aldites provide these madmen with whatever materials they might need or want for their projects. The bodies of the dead are delivered to doctors like livestock, and are butchered for the purpose of better understand the workings of the body, the effects of disease. Sometimes, criminal offenders whose lives would otherwise be forfeit may be conscripted for a doctor who requires a living person for an experiment.
Rare and priceless goods traded from faraway places are donated without question or compensation. I am told that one such experiment used minerals from the far east to create “Thunder Dust”, which can be added to flame to birth a much greater, albeit brief, inferno. Any damage caused by these experiments is deemed an acceptable risk in the pursuit of invention.
The Aldite considers a keen mind to be more attractive than a strong body. They have a concept of love that has no regard for divisions of class, birthplace, or gender, but of mind and spirit. The priests of Issad would lament for the state of these barbarians if they knew an Aldite man could marry and mate with anyone else, even another man. Perhaps that is why I find myself quite fascinated by this concept. There is a part of me that was born the moment General Kepi died by my hand, a part that enjoys things that would upset the priesthood.
Among other things that would upset the priesthood is my relationship with Captain Shar. She is quite attracted to me. Throughout our voyage, her visits to my chambers have been frequent and increasingly intense. She has even brought other women of the crew with her on occasion. At first, I thought it was a quirk of Shar’s personality that she enjoyed storytelling during carnal acts, but it seems to be a trait shared by the rest of the crew, and possibly all Aldites. They may worship the mind, but that does not mean they have foregone pleasures of the body.
But enough bragging about that. I’m eager to learn more about these strange people in this strange land.
Sed set aside the quill and looked over his latest entry. When he set out on this journey, he did so with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the world outside of Issad. He wanted to get to know these barbaric outsiders a little better, in the hopes that it would mean less people like him were ordered to kill them on a whim.
It seemed his mission was changing. He now wanted to stray well outside the standards of his society. He wanted to contradict the priesthood, to rebel against them in thought and action. He wanted to feel like he was free, rather than trapped by the threat of social stigma as punishment for free thought. He also wanted to stab King Ekon to death, but maybe it wouldn’t have to come to that.
Sed’s thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, continuous rapping, coming from above deck. He stowed his journal and opened the door to his cabin, peering up the stairs leading up top. A few members of the crew walked quickly past him, and he followed them up. The sound was coming from one of the odd, armored individuals (he had been told they were called the Verat), who was tapping their chitinous forearms together. It pointed off into the distance, towards a disturbance in the surface of the water.
Captain Shar, looking as stunning as ever with her tan fur shining softly in the day’s hazy light, made her way over to the edge and peered out. “Althin.” She said. “from the ripples, it looks big enough to hurt the ship if it decides to take a bite out of it.”
The captain turned to one of the crew, an Emer with similarly sandy fur. “Fetch the long-net.” The crewman nodded and ran down the steps, coming back moments later with a long, wide, thick roll of heavy netting.
Captain Shar walked over to Sed and explained. “Our ships are built to withstand the teeth of the Althin, but some can grow so big, even our best ships risk being torn apart by them.”
Another crew member came from below decks with a harpoon in their arms. This tool more than dwarfed the sort Sed had seen used by Issadi fishermen. The harpoon was a solid, heavily treated wood encasing a metal spear-point whose length ran well into the length of the shaft. It looked heavy, sturdy, and deadly.
In Issad, legends spoke of the vicious fish of the misty, swampy waters of the south. Large, aggressive killers that could tear apart most vessels that crossed their path, save for those of the Aldite savages, whose fiendish resourcefulness allowed them relative mastery over the razor toothed fish. Apparently, some Althin were a threat even to the clever Aldites.
The ripples in the water came closer, and beneath them, Sed could now make out the creature approaching the ship. The front was all teeth. Long, thick jaws surrounded an array of countless thick sharp teeth, a few of which protruded far enough from the upper jaw to be visible with its mouth closed. Behind the jaws were a pair of large, round eyes that managed to convey an expression of both cunning and malice. The rest of its body was thick and powerful, and every motion of it propelled the Althin through the water with swift, fluid grace. All this was covered in an armor of thick, murky scales. The Althin skimmed the surface, passing by the edge of the boat before dipping back down into the darkness of the water.
Captain Shar grabbed the net and began to unroll it until the edge hit the water and its weights dragged it down along the edge of the ship. She was joined by someone on either side of her, holding the edge, while two others on either side held ropes attached to the lower side of the net. Then they patiently waited, ready for the Althin to return.
The edge of the net jerked as the Althin rose from the depths and attempted to tear out a piece of the boat. Instead, it caught its head in the net and became entangled and enraged, thrashing about violently and causing all those holding the net to stumble. A shouted command from the Captain, and the rope holders started hauling in the beast.
With much struggle, they finally hauled the Althin over the edge of the boat and onto the deck. The rope bearers dropped the line and threw themselves over the creature, fighting to keep it pinned to the deck while the Verat crewman stepped forward with the harpoon. As silent and stoic as ever, the Verat lunged forward, driving the spearpoint through the Althin just behind its gills and pinning it to the deck.
The Althin gnashed its teeth and jerked sharply, pulling the harpoon from the strong Verat’s grip before lowering its head again and going still. The captain stood to the side while other crewmen carried the Althin below deck. “We rarely confront the Althin like this,” she explained, “but this one’s large enough to be a threat to our ships. Its body will provide us with many useful things, as well.”
Sed stepped past her and knelt down, examining the mark in the deck where the harpoon had gone through the Althin. The hole had been widened considerably by the final thrash of the monstrous fish. Shar knelt down with him. “We’ll be arriving at Ald’Hin soon. What little of your writing has made its way to our city is very popular. There might be quite a crowd waiting to see you.”
“That will be nice,” Sed replied, “The last time a crowd celebrated my coming, it was after I killed an innocent man and threatened to destroy an innocent people. You Aldites celebrate my coming because you like the way I think. Your treatment of me is a gift I hope I can bring back to Issad with me.” He turned back to Shar with a smile, something very rarely seen on the face of Sed the Elder.
For the remainder of the voyage, Sed stayed undisturbed in his cabin, meditating and continuing his journal. An idea was forming, and he felt the need to put it into writing, even though doing so now put him at considerable risk.
Journal of Sed the Elder of Issad.
Since I returned to Issad from my campaign against Abun, I have tried to remain outside the public eye of my fellow Issadi. I often told myself it was because I worried the scar on my face might mar their image of the hero I had been declared to be. Maybe that’s true, but really, I worried about the scar left on my soul.
My fight was supposed to bring justice to heartless savages who ravaged and pillaged Issadis without reason or warning. As it turns out, it had been Zonizans, posing as Abunese, who had been fighting an underhanded dishonest war with us. Although I will forever remember what the Zonizans did to us, I must also accept that the blame does not rest with them, but with the fallen king Eras. As far as I knew, Eras only ever acted in the best interest of the Issadi people. And yet, he was so ready to throw away all of our values in the name of bringing those values to other.
Since Eras’s death, I am perpetually questioning the values and motivations of our priesthood, the foundation upon which the Issadi people so casually rest their trust. It was not the scar on my face that I was worried would show and frighten others, but the doubt that began to permeate my every thought.
That same doubt that led me to refuse the priesthood’s offer to make me King Sed of Issad.
Honestly, I believe my ability to be king exceeds that of King Ekon, who was given the position after my refusal. However, he has spiritual qualities that I lack. Conviction and belief. Those were stripped from me by his predecessor. As the former High Priest, Ekon has divine legitimacy. Were I king, I would be tempted to express my doubts of the priesthood, likely dooming myself to the same fate as Eras.
Whatever spiritual foundation they may have, the Issadi Priesthood is a tyranny that plagues my people. Perhaps I can bring back more than just knowledge from my journey. Maybe I can return to Issad with a way to destroy or purify our priesthood without bloodshed or dividing the people.
There was a time when Ekon and I were friends. I suspect that friendship has been damaged beyond repair by my words and actions towards him in the days following Eras’s death. He knows my feelings and likely suspects that I might come back from my travels as a threat to him.
