The next morning, Rustam set off to search for the Lost Princess. As he was leaving, N�a came up to him. "Never lose hope, Rustam. Remember what we taught you, and never forget that the gods are watching over you, that we will help you wherever we can, and everything will turn out all right." Rustam could only nod. "I must go now as well," she said suddenly. "Mother calls." She turned around, and when Rustam had recovered from the sublime grabe of that gesture, she had gone."
The storyteller paused. "There were a great many wondrous adventures that Rustam had in his search of the princess. Sorceress, have we time to tell them all?"
I nodded. "But your voice must be tired, good weaver of tales. Perhaps I could tell one while you rest yourself."
I could see his eyes light with secret joy, but his manner remained solemn as befitted a man of his stature. "To speak truth, sorceress, your voice is so enchanting that all this time I've been hoping to gear one of the great epics from your mouth. But, I could not impose."
"Perhaps we should ask the children."
"Even so." The children, when asked, gave unanimous agreement, and so it was that I started my tale:
"Beloveds, Rustam was overjoyed to be truly back on his quest, but soon he eralized that there was little enough in the world for him to see without a ship. So he travelled to a town on the coast, and asked a man how a noble of limited means such as himself would go about obtaining a ship.
The man replied with a look of sadness that he could not assist Rustam, but that on an island nearby, a wrecked wing of Swan traders and their Dragonfly escort were washing up, and they were fairly salvageable, for the persistent. Rustam felt his hopes being dashed to bits. Then something came to him.
That very evening, Rustam thanked the man warmly, presented him with a letter of esteem should he ever need the assistance of his noble house, and rushed to the island on a ferry.
"Good evening," he called, walking into one of the island waterfront's boardign houses. "Would you, good sir," he asked the landlord after securing a room, "be able to tell me where I might be able to begin crewing a ship?"
The landlord nodded. "Go see my wift Ksatanih upstairs in her office; she'll arrange for the word to be passed around that you need crewmembers for a ship. Your name?"
"Rustam Paper Sword nah Iumaveili," Rustam replied.
"The ducal heir of Iumavei? Your Tranquillity, Iumavei thinks you dead," said the man in tones of distres. He wrung his hands nervously.
"Yes, I am he. Can you arrange for a letter to be sent to Blue Night Castle? I'd like the family to know I'm all right." The landlord nodded. "Then I'll leave a letter with you before I depart in the morning."
"Of course." He spoke briefly to one of the servants, and led Rustam to a chair. "So, O duke, what brings you here?"
"The Lost Princess. I'm trying to chase her down." Rustam sighed. "It's going to be a challenge."
"Yes. I hear that the Swift Storm is the fastest ship in the imperial fleet. It would take a sorcerer to catch her, if she chooses to run."
Rustam suppressed a smile. "I'll work it out."
Later, Rustam went in the dark of night to the nearest wrecked ship. "What should I do with this?" he asked no one in particular, frustratedly. He paces for a while, juggling magics in his head, thinking, rejecting ideas. "I know that I can do anything I can imagine. How can I imagine this ship into seaworthiness?"
Then the clouds shifted and illuminated a patch of flowers sprouting from a cleft in a driftwood log,and Rustam gasped with inspiration. He cut a chip of wood frop the splinteres ship, sniffing it. Fine cedar, stil fresh and fragrant. Good. This must have been one of the escort, a slim Dragonfly xebecsurul cut from the cool Silence highlands. Rustam went to a nearby tree and cut a branch. He was disappointed to learn that it was tth�nixkna, a coastal fruitwood not god for construction or magic. He whispered to it in the secret language of sorcerers, and watched smiling as it grew into a cedar staff. He climbed carefully up onto the deck, and stood the staff on the stump of mast.
"I hope this works," he muttered, and touched the staff with a leaf of the First Tree that N�a had given him while they were studying under its shade.
"Nur gave light and life to the world, the trees first of all," he spoke. "So, here I bring life back to the prematurely dead in Nur's name: Grow again, and build me a ship worthy of the Dragonfly name!"
Rustam listened to the song of a bird and the whispering of the sea for a moment, while on the ship all was still.
Then, the staff bucked and twisted, put forth leaves and roots. The planks underfoot creaked and bucked with the strain of growth. The staff became a mast, and soon the holes in the ship were mended. It still bent and shifted, becoming longer, thinner, a knife to cut the waters. As Rustam stepped off, still more carefully than before, the deck was becoming spongy with moss, and rigging - vines were falling from the mast's branches. All that were needed were sails and a crew.
Beore leaving, Rustam took a pen and scared a squid for ink, and wrote on the bow, "To Sarastih, the first sorceress and best of us all." Then he returned to the lodging-house to sleep.
The next morning, there were two new stories being passes around the town: one about the mysterious transformation of a shipwreck into some magical masterpiece, and the other about the handsome noble stranger seeking a crew. It was only a few days till Rustam had gathered enough people, and an obliging fabric merchant brouht over miles of heavy silk for the sails. It was the concensus among the crew, once the mission had been discussed, that no pay was required beyond the spoils of adventure. Soon enough, they pushed off.
posted by Shreyas Sampat at 12:41 PM