Ships at Sea

I packed up my paper and pencil this morning with the distinct feeling that I would not survive to write more.

“We can only go deeper into the desert,” said the Hunter.

The Fool pulled his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth, moaning.

“Come on,” said the Knight. “Take water and food. Leave the rest.”

The Noble grabbed her pack of clothes and tried to drag it behind her. The Knight wheeled on her, drew his sword, and brought it down. She screamed and leaped into my arms. The blade sliced into the luggage. Silk and velvet innards spilled out. Another blow. Lace and beads flowed from the gash. With a final strike, the Knight cut clean through the bag. Sand infected the gaping wound, filling sleeves and covering hems.

For a moment, the Noble wept on my shoulder; then she screamed and launched herself at the Knight. He shoved her away, and she began rooting through her belongings, looking for survivors. Without a word, the Knight turned and began to trudge north. One by one, the pilgrims picked up what they could carry and followed, leaving me with the Noble beside the massacred clothes. The nomads on the horizon were bigger now—not by much, but enough. “They’re coming,” I said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Leave without me.” She sounded like a petulant two-year-old.

“Here’s one,” I said, picking up a sandy green dress that had evaded the Knight’s wrath.

She pounced on it, snatching it out of my hand. “Don’t touch them.” She dusted it off reverently and folded it. She found two more amongst the slain. Red, green, and blue. She tucked them under her arm. But she wasn’t finished. She dug through the sand and cloth, searching for something.

I looked to the north and south, where (respectively) the pilgrims were getting farther away and the nomads were getting closer. I wondered if I was strong enough to drag her.

“Come on!” I said. “We need to move.”

“Shut up.” She kept digging. With a cry of pleasure she found what she wanted—a golden box. Inside were rows of cigars. “Now I’m ready,” she said. “Carry these.” She shoved the dresses into my arms, contradicting her stipulation that I refrain from touching them. Then, we jogged after the other eight pilgrims.

“They’re not gaining very fast,” said the Singer an hour later.

“They don’t have to,” I said. “It’s like two ships at sea. There’s nowhere to hide. One time, my ship was being chased by pirates—”

“Not topical,” said the Wizard.

“No,” said the Hunter. “I think it is. Go on, Nial.”

“We sailed for days,” I said. “They were faster—not by much, but it doesn’t take much. Every day they were a little bit closer.” Everyone was listening to me now. “With some math you can actually calculate the exact moment they’ll catch you.”

“Elementary,” said the Wizard.

“The captain and I spent hours calculating. Could we afford to change directions and head for land? How would they respond? Changing directions meant slowing down. And of course they would change course too, trying to intercept. We evaluated every conceivable angle. As it turned out, no scenario was satisfactory. The math revealed the hopelessness. We were cornered. Cornered! In the middle of the open sea.”

“Get on with it,” said the Wizard.

I had to suppress a smile; even the Wizard was intrigued.

“What did you do?” asked the Singer. “I don’t see why the story has to be so wordy.”

“There were only two options,” I said, ignoring her. “We could keep traveling with the wind, maximizing the time before they were close enough to attack, and praying that a storm would come. Or we could stop and fight, like cornered animals.”

“You still haven’t said what you did,” observed the Singer.

“We stopped,” I said. “We waited. And somehow we won. The book shipment arrived on time—including several trigonometry and calculus textbooks that we gave away for free because they were covered in coffee stains.”

“Well then,” said the Knight. “Shall we go north and pray for a storm? Or should we turn around and fight?”

I counted at least fifty nomads in pursuit. All had horses or camels. And they probably had weapons. I mentioned these facts.

“Yet,” said the Morl, “if we keep running, there will be just as many of them, and we’ll be tired and thirsty by the time they catch up.”

“I agree,” said the Hunter. “And the chances of a storm? Not likely.” The sky was blue and cloudless, as always. So we stopped and waited. With wide hats shielding us from the sun, we sat at the top of a dune and watched the nomads come. The approaching band grew larger, coming close enough for me to distinguish the color of their clothes—but not yet close enough to see their faces. And then, just as the sun was falling, the nomads stopped.

“Too bad they won’t be attacking at night,” said the Morl. “I could give them quite a surprise.”

The wind was heavy throughout the night. It whipped across our faces, peppering our skin with sand. We sat on our hats to keep them from blowing away. I fell asleep for a few blessed minutes and woke covered in sand. The grains had invaded my ears, nose, and mouth. I spit and spit, but couldn’t remove the grit from my teeth.

“Don’t spit,” said the Hunter. “Conserve your water.”

***

When morning came, we waited for the nomads to begin moving. But they didn’t. The figures seemed perfectly content to wait.

“They can afford it,” said the Hunter. “Our water supply won’t last much longer.”

“Come on,” said the Knight, taking a swig of water. “If they won’t come to us, we’ll go to them.”

He trudged forward, hand on the pommel of his sword, never looking back to see if anyone was following him. Eventually, after exchanging glances, we did follow.

The result was a disparaging anticlimax. As soon as the ten of us began to move, the nomads turned around and walked away. We became the pursuers, never gaining any ground. By late afternoon, the futility of the venture was apparent.

“What do they want?” cried the Noble. “They already have all our stuff.”

“They want us alive,” said the Morl. “Without a fight.”

“But why?” asked the Singer.

“Slave trade,” said the Knight.

“You’re not serious…” said the Singer.

The Knight just looked at her. She began to cry.

The Fool put his arms around the Singer and cried with her.

I looked to the Old Lady. “Any military tricks? Something from fifty-four years ago that they won’t be expecting?”

Exhausted, her bony chest jerked in and out as she reclined against a dune. Somehow she managed a smile. “Now that you mention it, yes. It’s called surrender. They probably won’t kill us. Whatever they have planned isn’t as bad as fighting and dying to protect ourselves from a fate that we don’t understand yet. We can always escape later.”

I was alarmed to see how seriously the pilgrims were considering this option. The Wizard was slowly nodding. The Singer actually looked relieved. Only the Fool still wept.

I pulled the Morl aside. I had the disconcerting feeling that I was talking to myself, unable to see the Morl at all. “If you could get into their camp at night, you could cause some serious damage,” I said. “But they’re too far away for you to get there in one night. They would see you coming by morning. So the question is, how can we get you there?”

“Is that the question?” said the Morl.

“And the answer,” I said, “is… think about the sand vipers.”

The Morl was silent.

“They can be anywhere beneath the surface of the sand, waiting for you to step on them,” I said. “We bury you. They’ll follow us north. Night will fall. They’ll be basically right on top of you. And…” I snapped my fingers. “You can eliminate them.”

The Morl sighed. “Brilliant,” he said. “Really brilliant. But there’s a problem.”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“I’m a priest.”

Dear Human, although Nial could not see it, please know: I was hiding a smile. His plan wasn’t terrible. I could see real fear in his eyes and I knew that, for once, the engine of his mind was fueled by a new kind of fear. It was not the fear of being unliked nor the loss of social status, but of death, of slavery, of pain, of the unknown horrors that humans can inflict upon each other.

As it happened, I was in need of a plan. It was imperative that the pilgrims (the ones who mattered, at least) reach the shrine. It was imperative that I reach it as well. And the nomads did indeed deserve to die for… how shall I put it? Let’s say: Overachieving.

But the fact of the matter is that morls cannot freely kill humans. The reasons for this will become clear to you, Dear Human, very soon. Suffice it to say that I certainly could not reveal these reasons to Nial at the time either. So I had to give him an explanation that was (as he would have put it) “bullshit.”

“You’re a priest? And?”

“As a priest, I cannot kill.”

“You’re a priest who’s about to get sold into slavery!”

“Still a priest,” said Father Ori.

I didn’t answer. I watched the not-too-distant campfires to the south. My mind ached, trying to create a new plan, wringing and twisting my stupid imagination. No drops of inspiration were forthcoming.

“Nial, I—”

“Hush,” I said. “I’m trying to think.”

The Morl put a hand on my shoulder. “Like I said, your plan is brilliant. I may still be able to help. You’ll have to trust me.”

I narrowed my eyes at the place where I guessed the Morl to be. “What do you mean?”

“There are ways to slow them down without killing them,” said the Morl. “Come. Let’s tell the others. Perhaps we can convince Sir Mau to give his sword to a morl.”

***

I sit now, waiting for morning. I find myself hoping desperately that this plan will not only save us but (finally!) make everyone realize that I’m not just dead weight around here. Fingers crossed.