The helmsman and the astrologer

The gentle crackling of the sand was the only audible sound keeping company to the helmsman after all the crewmembers went searching for shelter in the lower deck.

Only a lone dwarf, hand on the helm and mind lost somewhere on the horizon, would have been held responsible for any issue arisen over the night, apart from a man and a woman whispering pleasant words to the dice in a pathetic attempt of stealing the salary of the others.

Their muffled voices were nothing but a mutter for the stoic veteran, fully absorbed by the act of handle the boat, impassive as a beekeeper busy displacing a hive, careless of their little inhabitant's retaliation.

The sun was nothing more than a pale memory behind the boat stern, and his place was already being contested by a multitude of shiny knaves, each one eager to prove himself inside that endless battlefield the sky is. 

It was costly to admit for someone as mulish as the seasoned helmsman was, but the night has descended over him and from that moment a hand would have been necessary. But not from the spirited couple still mumbling on the deck.

There was no cabin boy in the world capable of giving him advice on the matter of navigation, and surely the absence of daylight didn’t make anyone eligible as an advisor.

Strengthened by this philosophy, he had proven himself more than capable to steer the ship through countless sleepless and lonely nights, leaving his post only after having witness the sunrise coming back once more to keep the living company. 

However, the captain had come back from the last shipyard with “a capable extra pair of hands, with unordinary talents, immeasurable passion for the night sky and a pair of vibrant eyes, surely a useful resource for our beloved helmsman”. 

Obviously, Beòdul rushed to clarify with the captain that there was absolutely no need of someone else on the deck during the night shift. 

But the captain proved adamant on that matter, and captain’s orders were the passepartout on that little kingdom of them.

And no kingdom could never hope to prosper if his monarch conveys hatred towards his subjects. Especially an errand one. 

“It seems that the unfriendly breeze out there did couldn't bring you down, sir!” a warm voice emerged out of nowhere, preceding the arrival of the physical manifestation of the captain will. 

“Happy to see that you have had enough of sleeping for today, navigator” retorted the dwarf, putting too much emphasis on the last word. 

“I never sleep enough for someone who works all night long. And it doesn’t even Star!” said the young lad, in the middle of an attempt to convince a flying owl to take a rest on his straightened arm.

Star, however, seemed far more interested in staring the helmsman with his small, inquisitive eyes than in his master lures. 

In the end the bird chose to land on the railing that ran around the perimeter of the stern, offering the crewmembers nothing more than a faint hope of avoiding a fatal fall into the waves during stormy nights.

Seeing the scene, the other burst into a raucous laugh “Not even your damn bird listens to you, but the mighty spirit lurking between our world and somewhere else should kneel before you?”.

The other smiled back and then turned his attention to the sky. His sparkling eyes started moving frantically, as they were in the middle of an attempt to count all the vastness of the cosmos. “Nobody could never hope to bind a spirit using something futile as power or authority. These concepts mean nothing to them; they value other things and we must think of something extraordinary when dealing with them.”

“Yeah, sure...” Beòdul commented raising his eyebrows.

Their first conversation of that work shift run out while the younger of the two went finish carving a complex circular rune on the axes about ten steps behind the helm.

- 

The moon was starting the descent towards the sand expanse when the two deckhands considered their card game officially concluded. Without other thrilling activities in sight, they resign themself one to check the knots that secured the load, while the other to climb the rope ladder obtained from the rigging, to reach the watching post over the sails. 

The battle in the sky had reached its peak and every of the lucent soldier had come out of his hiding spot to join the scuffle.

The keen eye of the helmsman, trained during countless nights of navigation, was able to distinguish most of the old constellations: the Raven, the first asterism that his old master had stuck in his head, was still easy to spot, master of a corner of the night sky as long as the Lion, or the Hydra.

They had been guiding sailors through sea currents since time immemorial and they would keep doing so for hundreds more years, even if the sea had turned into sand. Until they were not covered by the new arrivals, of course.

The most unthinkable phenomena do not happen overnight. Sometimes the need hundreds or thousands of years to alter the fabric of reality. But sometimes, apparently, the hand of fate could be forced by superior forces.

At first, seafarers from all around the globe began to perceive an increase in the number of celestial bodies. Truly an anomalous event. But the thing that turned to be amusing for most of them was the fact that these newborn stars were moving.

Steady and slow, the brought an unexpected turn in the race of the night sky.

“They aren’t such a futile thing as a new generation of stars!” these were the words that started the conversation that time. 

“Futile, you said?” echoed the dwarf.

The other treated himself a sigh and then went on "What I'm trying to tell you is that they’re not stars at all! At least, most of them...”

The recent arrangement of the night shifts had forced the helmsman to spend more and more time with the new navigator, and since they first meet their relationship had improved, to the point that the former had begun seeking the latter’s knowledge for explanations about the grand celestial movement above their heads.

It was hard to admit for the mulish sailor, but the peculiar proficencies of the new fellow had proven almost necessary. He was capable of converse with these "star-spirits", predicting their motion and which constellation would have been hampered next by their lights.

Long story short, he was one of the few mortal which had predicted the Star Exodus before it happened.

“Yes, yes, you already told me they are sentient beings and that nobody knows why the appear so suddenly." tried to remember the old helmsman "And are they busy just... drifting off?”

“Not quite. They follow reasoned movements and seem to gather only around certain constellations, maybe in the strive of adding radiance to some of them, leaving the others untouched. That's why you've been able to run the ship all this time without me, for instance...” add the navigator, in a clear attempt to tease the fellow.

“And I would have gotten along just fine without you, sort of second-hand scholar!” 

“For sure! You would have cursed the spirits so stubbornly that they would have had no other choice than moving from your beloved stars in a rush...” 

They both laughed. 

“Just one more thing. What are exactly these spirits? Undead souls, as the skalds use to sing? Or something... else?” 

That was a cleaver query. One that wouldn’t have been answered yet. In fact, their late-night conversation would not have found a place in the logbook as the most trilling event of that voyage. 

“Fennec ears! Raise the alarm!” the woman on the main mast gave voice to a sudden scream, alerting the sailors below her. 

“May the Devils curse them all!” hissed the dwarf “The night is going to be quite eventful”. 

The owl strengthened these hexes with a couple of deep hoots. The veteran tightened his grip on the rudder, while the shaman run to the complex set of runes that was his personal place on the upper deck.

Fennec ears was the appellation given to the heterogenous mob of marauder, scavengers and cutthroat that, since the first man was ensnared by the whispers of greed, had contended the desert with merchants, explorers and mappers.

There were ships crafted especially for skirmishes in the sand which would have been able to fight tooth and nail against these raiders, and small yet nimble boats that would easily win a race for survival like this.

But this was not their case. The ship's bulkheads were far too thin to come out fighting and their cargo were far too heavy to attempt an evasive manoeuvre.

"Alert the captain.” Beòdul shouted to the closest deckhand, the other dice player. “If possible before these scumbags impale us in the butt!” he added to banish the boy's indecision.

“No.” the passionless voice of the astrologer cut through the fear that was gathering in the air around the crew members “No need to alert the captain. Let's stay this course and focus on gathering pace. The spirits will bear the weight of vessel allowing us to escape this mishap by flying. No one's ass will be impaled. Not tonight at least.” he said with a slinky grin, waving the hand in the direction of a series of tiny will-o'-the-wisps that were gathering around the wicked circle.

He took a moment to add a couple of woodcuts on the already elaborated rune, now lightened by a pale luminescence, and then straightened his back, murmuring something to his loyal familiar and then gifting all the attention to the night sky, regardless for the uneasiness of the ever more numerous crewmen which was gathering on the upper deck. 

The dwarf couldn’t help but addressing him with an incredulous gaze “Are you gone mad? Do you really believe that spirits will lift the boat just because you’re the one asking for this?”

The owl silently left the railing he had elected as a rest no more than an hour ago and went drifting around the main mast, a semi-visible trail of sparks left behind his wings.

The shaman turns to the helmsman. His face was unrecognizable, entirely covered in tiny shining stars, and his eyes were no longer oriented towards the fellow. They were nowhere to be seen, completely gone in pursuing the harmony of the universe. Despite the effort, no colour could be detected around him, drained from the navigator sleeve.

“They won’t do as I wish because they’ve been asked to. They’ll follow the plan because they are curious enough to witness our travelling.”

The shaman's arms rose towards the sky, while his voice grew... strange. Different. Distant. As it was coming from a sidereal distance. “I can hear them wondering: how long will mortals just watch us from afar? Will they ever find the courage to unravel the mystery of the night sky?”

And so, the hull rose from the sand hill, leaving an orphan trace in the land to drift between the stars. That was nothing more than the beginning of the Defiant voyage. 

As an old story says, "per aspera ad astra".