-

He noticed immediately. All the butchery and the macabre picture of the beach from a few days earlier had completely disappeared. The waves washed the thin golden sand, soft and foamy. They had erased all traces of what had been.

Ethan asked for information from passing fishermen, then from women smelling of carbonate and soap who carried wooden containers and a large quantity of breeches, shirts, and sheets. Nobody seemed to know anything about where the bodies had gone. Nobody, except…

“Hey, you! You, there! Yes, I’m talking to you, boy!” Screamed a bald man with a chest as wide as a barrel passing through. “I heard you! If you came to see the carrion of those unfortunate bastards who ran aground there a few days ago, it’s too late now. They took them straight to the morgue. Now, however, I think they’re already underground! There, see? There is the cemetery, right after passing the Secular which is located between the sanctuaries of Gwenaelle and Aedan! They put them all in the same pit, they say, I don’t know.” It was a fisherman who carried a large green tangled net on one shoulder. “There, behind that hill, got it?” he repeated pointing with an index finger once more to the hill.

Ethan just nodded his head to thank that man, not too sincere and grateful, to tell the truth. He hadn’t been pleased that the bald man had called unfortunate bastards the crew members of his family. He decided to trust the fisherman and walked towards the indicated place, first going up the Merchants’ District and then turning right on a wide dirt slope.

-

A light breeze began to blow, fresh from the new autumn, which stirred the grass to the right and left of the path, enhancing the scent of seasonal pollen.

He was already very high up when he turned around for the first time. He saw that the city was still, here and there, struck by the sun’s rays even though the sky was slowly but surely clouding over. It did not take long before the smell of pollen was mixing with the fragrance of the rain not yet fallen but which strongly impregnated the whole environment.

The uphill road suddenly curved and led him to a slope of the hill from which the districts of the city were no longer visible. During the climb, he could not help but wonder if there was another way to get there, suffering terribly in imagining how tiring the work of horses and mules of the gravediggers’ wagons must be in carrying corpses daily on that hill.

He found himself in front of a group of buildings arranged in a rounded way both on the right and on the left of the road. One could not speak of a complete circumference, however, because in the centre there was a huge paved free passage that cut perfectly into two semi-circular parts the assembly of buildings in grey and white stone. This passage led to a large area in the centre of which an authoritarian tree stood out that seemed to touch the sky: at a guess, Ethan believed it would leap up everywhere from three hundred to five hundred feet. It looked like a sequoia, but with thick branches that like streams covered the surrounding buildings, slowly and delicately red leaves stood out on the ground, forming a rusty tide stirred by the wind. On both sides two enormous statues rose, preceding the buildings.

On the left, a strong man, long hair and rock beard, was carved in granite. In his hands he held a tome as large as his mighty chest. He wore a crude tunic. HERE YOU WILL FIND THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTIONS YOU ASK YOURSELF. WELCOME TO THE WISDOM OF AEDAN, there was written in a copper plaque set in stone.

On the right, however, a statue with female features. She was fleshy and with large breasts smoothed in detail, her hair pulled back into a granite braid. The narrow legs ended in overlapping feet. The arms, on the other hand, were open and high: one, palm up, supported a dove with only one wing outstretched; the other was holding a parchment almost completely torn in two parts with index finger and thumb. UNDER HER WING YOU WILL BE FREE FROM ALL SUFFERING. HONOR GWENAELLE’S COMPASSION, another copper plaque explained.

In Ethan’s mind the fisherman’s words became clear: he had reached the Sanctuaries of the two Divine Patrons of Garatier and the abnormal sequoia with maple-like leaves, must have been the Secular. Not a step could be heard, however. He was in a practically deserted place where the only audible noises were the rustle of immense branches and leaves of fire. The frighteningly ghostly air gave the place the religiosity worthy of the most imposing shrines on the Continent, just as the one in which Ethan was. This sacredness induced him to offer his venerations, with solemn bows, both to the statue of the Divine of Wisdom Aedan and to that of the Divine of Compassion Gwenaelle. He thought that the depopulation was instead due to the time of prayer or meditation, so he did not pay much attention to it.

He set out along the way.

According to the indications given to him, he would have had to cross the clearing to reach the cemetery. However, the closer he got to the Secular, the more it seemed to become colossal both in length and in circumference. In fact, once he reached it, it took him almost a minute to overcome its diameter and leave it behind.

Gradually a black gate was appearing and becoming more and more clear, showing wrought iron bars joining in signs: MAY THIS PORTAL LEAD YOU TO YOUR NEW LIFE IN THE AOIBH EILEAN, UNDER THE GRACES OF THE DIVINES AEDAN AND GWENAELLE, it said.

Ethan had arrived at the cemetery.

He made a circumnavigation of the entire area with his eyes, looking for a tombstone that had a large square in front of it, after all it must have been a nice hole to contain all the corpses of his sea brothers. It was not difficult to find it, under the bare branches of an old black, and almost completely dead, maple.

He approached.

HERE, UNDER THE GRACES OF THE DIVINES AEDAN AND THE DIVINE GWENAELLE, REST THE FOURTEEN MEMBERS OF THE CREW OF THE TIBURON, PASSED IN THE YEAR 1324 FROM THE CONVENTION OF FIVE, could be read on the epitaph of the tombstone.

The first thought, seeing the cold rock, went to the stranded brothers and to Ilker, whose bodies had been battered by fish, birds and only the Divines could know what else. Then, Ethan dropped to his knees, his arms went limp.

A drop. Two drops. Three drops. Thus began the storm that broke out a few moments later. The first of the autumn.

Why, old man? Why didn’t you stay with me? We could’ve settled here for some time, tried to do business, maybe even open a company with our brothers. Why, then, did I let you go like that? He asked himself, staring at that ghostly piece of stone from which, like waterfalls, the drops that gradually accumulated on it streamed quickly. Although Ethan knew that Deniz’s body could not be there since it did not get to shore, he had nowhere to mourn him but that patch of land under the care of a dying maple.

‘Why are we here underground or why are you there, boy? You better ask yourself why you aren’t underground with us! Remember, remember what you told me. It doesn’t matter if we’re close or far away, the oath is in force. I’ll still love you, son, even if you don’t see me I’ll watch over you and guide your choices again.’ This is what would you tell me if you could speak to me from the Aoibh Eilean, isn’t it, old man? Ethan asked himself once again, imagining those phrases as if Deniz’s voice had spoken them.

He fell limp, this time not on his knees but face to the mud. My mind has begun to make malicious tricks on me, I also imagine how you would talk now. Maybe these are the first symptoms of a madness that up to this moment I have managed to keep dormant. Now… Now will it wake up because of the pain?

Ethan first experienced loneliness after fifteen years. The same one he had felt when those by whom he had been conceived had abandoned him in the countryside of Blackfort, on the east shore of the White Lake. He was six years old then.

He felt the same sensation as rain, as if there was only room in his heart for rain. Was it rain or was it tears?

Thanks for everything, old man. You’ll still live through me, through our stories, he whispered to the tombstone, stroking the cold, wet stone, while his mouth filled with mud.

He stood there, motionless. Drowsy in memories of what his life was like before he was saved by Deniz.