Mapmaker, p.21
Mapmaker, page 21
“Why?” Desara asked. “What are you thinking?”
“StarFire Island sits like this,” she drew an image in the sand at her feet. “Five Finger Island sits like this, about 300 miles from the apex of your island. I’m wondering if there’s a chain or an underwater archipelago of similar volcanic islands, and if there are, do any of them show any signs of activity like we’ve seen on the Five Fingers.”
Desara looked over at Snee, on the other side of Nathaniel. “What do you think, Captain?”
Snee pursed his lips. “In all honesty, we haven’t paid a lot of attention to it running to and from the island and the Bolandrian coastal waters. The Nautilus does have underwater excursion equipment that the Chimera does not. I think it could be a worthwhile endeavor. Who would you propose to go on this excursion, as you called it?”
“Myself, Natty, either Enesneth or Kipling in their role as Librarians, and probably Pipia and Orlal, our actual Naval Rangers. Major Ciliren has accepted the position of Executive Officer, so she would be in command of the airship while we were gone,” Tessa explained.
“The airship would follow overhead, providing overwatch and assistance if needed,” Nathaniel added. “And if it doesn’t pan out the way Tessa thinks it will, Mr. Senter can bring the airship close enough to the submarine that we will be able to climb up a rope ladder. Then the Nautilus can continue back on its course to the coast.”
Snee looked at Tessa’s drawing in the sand. “If you’re right, the archipelago would run in an arc like this,” he stooped and ran his finger from the image of StarFire Island to the other end.
Tessa nodded. “And if I am right, each one will be progressively closer to the surface as we approach the Five Fingers.”
Snee looked at his mother. “I think it’s very doable, Commodore. I’ll command the Nautilus for this particular exercise.”
“This will mean delaying your departure, of course,” Desara pointed out to Nathaniel.
“Understood, Commodore. We have no set agenda other than mapping and searching. Let’s see what we can find down there.”
“Agreed, now, let’s get into some work clothing and see what we can find in those caves.”
“Amazing,” Desara said as she looked at the pictographs. “This is definitely Elven artwork. Even on these rough walls, you can tell that it is definitely Connor, Iolena, and Menta Kai.”
“Tessa, did you and your group go any farther into the cave?” Nathaniel asked.
“No, Natty, why?”
“I think you missed something,” he replied slowly. “Look at this. He pointed the electric torch he was carrying at the wall farther into the cave. Tessa moved closer and her eyes widened as she took in the image. Lona brightened the ball of white light floating above her hand and stared at the image.
“That’s…” She began.
“That’s you,” Tessa confirmed, “and Fiona, Abilynn, Alistronia, and,” she turned and looked at Nathaniel. “Natty? Do you see what I see? Anyone? Somebody say something. Please.”
Nathaniel gripped her shoulder and pulled her close, neither of them taking their eyes off the image that looked back at them of a red-haired woman holding a sextant and a compass and a man who was the image of the Truthbearer, only with the pointed ears of a half-elf. “That’s us,” he whispered. “Tessa, that has to be you and me.” Tessa nodded, mutely.
“Tessa, Lona, how quickly can you copy these images?” Sage broke the silent spell.
Tessa shook her head slightly, as if waking from a dream. “A couple of hours at least.” She looked at Lona, who nodded in agreement.
“Well let’s stretch the canvases and get at it. Mira, Esse, Natty, any of you who can make balls of light, let’s get this cave lit up to help them.”
Snee shuffled his one boot on the ground. “Two observations; first, this ground is wet. Since there’s no flowing water, this is probably a tidal cave. The tide is out right now, but we have to get this done before it comes back in.”
“What was your second observation?” Natty asked his friend.
Snee raised his eyebrows. “If this is a tidal cave, that’s got to be very durable paint.”
Three hours later they were on their way out of the cave, just as the tide started to roll back in. The party made their way back to higher ground and stood looking where they had been only moments before as the water overtook it.
“I’m glad that you two can seal the things you work on,” Sage observed. “Obviously, we couldn’t wait for the paint to dry.”
“What do we do with these?” Lona asked. “Nana, Adda Connor, and Amil Kai are in Eldaria. Amil Fi and Tia Ali are in Ireland, and Sissy, Natty and I are all down here.
“We need to get them to Uncle Thallan and Uncle Tanner,” Abilynn proposed. “Thallan will know what to do with them. Zed, Skye and I can take them to Great Forest Castle.”
“Next time Doctor Wicker is here, Commodore, he needs to take his photograph machine down there and take pictures of the images,” Nathaniel suggested. “We have another adventure tomorrow that we have to get ready for.”
After dinner, Tessa knocked gently on the door to Nathaniel’s cabin. He rose as she entered and took her into his arms. Tessa buried her face in his shoulder.
“What’s a matter, Nin Mel?”
She looked up at him. “What do you think it means, Natty? I mean, it didn’t show Berian or Sage. I was the only,” she stopped looking for the word.
“Significant other? Spouse?” he suggested. She looked up at him at the last word.
“Do you think...? Do you think this wonderful plan of ours to take one day at a time just got blown out of the water?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know, Tess. Would it be so bad if it were?”
“No,” she admitted, “but we’re not Connor and Iolena. We’re Nathaniel and Tessa.” She smiled. “Now that I say that, Nathaniel and Tessa, I love the way it sounds.”
“I do too,” he conceded. “Still, it is yet another day, and tomorrow will be another one. One day at a time, together.”
“Together,” Tessa repeated and looked up into Natty’s grey eyes. “I love you, Nathaniel Clark. I think I may have since the moment we met at the Juncture. What do you say to that?”
“I wondered which one of us was going to say it first. Four days. We may beat my parents’ record yet. I love you, Tessa Chart.”
“Can I sit with you for a while before I have to go back to my cabin? We don’t need to talk, just,” she smiled hopefully, “just hold me.” They settled back on the couch set into the side of Natty’s cabin, and, eventually, both drifted off to sleep. That was how Ciliren found them when she got off of her watch, the door propped open wide for propriety’s sake. Silently, she shut it until it was only open a few inches and went on to her own cabin.
Chapter twenty-five
Under the South Sea
The knock on the cabin door brought Nathaniel back from dreamland. The first thing he realized was that he had a terrible crick in his neck from sleeping upright on the couch. The second thing that immediately followed was that he was holding the woman he had fallen in love with on his lap. Gently, he shook Tessa’s shoulder. “Hey, Nin Mel. You dozed off, and so did I.”
Tessa’s eyes opened wide and then softened as she focused on Natty. She smiled as the knock on the door came again, a little harder this time, and the door swung open.
“Breakfast is ready, Commander, Sub-Commander,” Sinead Brice said matter-of-factly, as if finding her two unmarried commanding officers together in Nathaniel’s quarters at sunrise was nothing unusual. “Doctor Ciliren said that I should wake you first, so nobody would have any wrong impressions,” she smiled. “I’m sure Lona will want to know why her roommate didn’t come to bed last night. I’m just saying.” She continued down the hall.
“We didn’t do anything,” Tessa muttered, “wrong.” She looked up at Natty. “Did we?”
“No, we didn’t, and if it weren’t for this pain in my neck from sleeping sitting up, I would say that I like waking up in the morning seeing your face.” He chuckled. “It’s almost like we’re reliving my parent’s courtship. They had something very similar happen at Gewellyn Castle. I’ll tell you about it sometime.” He helped her sit up and then kissed her.
“Natty, are you thinking what I’m starting to be thinking?”
“Probably,” he admitted. “I’m actually coming up with a plan, but let’s deal with what we have to do today first. That will give me a chance to think it out a little more thoroughly. I think, at least I hope, you’ll like it. Is it okay with you if I tell Sinead that we would like to take dinner privately in my quarters tonight?”
Tessa grinned. “I’m liking it already. That sounds wonderful. I had better go get changed for the day.” She smiled, shutting the door behind her as she left.
Much to Nathaniel’s surprise, Tessa was waiting outside his door when he came out to go to breakfast, fully dressed in her work uniform. “That was fast,” he commented.
She smiled. “I wanted to have breakfast with you. Besides, we need to go over what everybody’s duties are going to be today, starting with Ciliren and Thea, so I’ve arranged for them to eat with us.”
“Good. Lona and Sage, too. Have Kip and Enesneth decided which one of them will be with us on the Nautilus?”
“It will be Esse,” Tessa confirmed. “Mr. Senter believed that he will need to keep Kipper here to help with the engineering.”
One by one, the others joined Tessa and Nathaniel at the table Talindra had reluctantly designated for the officers. Tessa laid out her overall plan and what she hoped to accomplish using the submarine, and Natty assigned the shipboard duties. All the while, Lona kept eyeing her roommate in a strange, almost accusing manner. Nathaniel noticed that too, and finally spoke up. “Ensign Yaleria, do you have something you wish to ask the Sub-Commander?”
“I’m just curious where she was last night. She never came to bed.”
Tessa started to answer but Ciliren spoke up first. “You are out of order, Ensign. But just to allay your suspicions, the Commander and Sub-Commander were working late, and they both fell asleep on the couch in the commander’s sitting room with his cabin door wide open. I shut it partway when I got off watch early this morning but left it open enough to assure no allegations of impropriety could be made.” She emphasized the last few words, looking directly at Lona, who looked down at the table in front of her.
“Lona,” Sage said, sitting next to her, “this is where you apologize to Tessa. You are her friend, not her nursemaid, and not her mother.”
“I’m sorry, Tessa. Really. I was just concerned.”
“Thank you, Lona, but you really have nothing to be concerned about.” Tessa said coolly, and turned back to her notes, ending that line of conversation. “We will head out when the Nautilus is ready to go. Does anybody have any questions?” No one spoke up, so Tessa continued, “As soon as we know that the Nautilus is ready, we’ll board the vessel.”
“I may have to move my things into another cabin,” Tessa said quietly to Nathaniel as they climbed up onto the deck. “I don’t need a thirty-seven-year-old elf girl chaperoning my, my life.”
“You mean our courtship?”
She stopped and looked at him. “Is that what we’re doing?”
Natty smiled. “It’s one of the things I want to talk about with you over dinner. Right now, you need to focus on the assignment at hand. This is your project, Tess. What do you want me to do?”
“Primarily, act as my interference and liaison with Snee. You’re his friend, and I find him somewhat imposing.”
“As you well know, I’ve seen his imposing moments. You won’t have any problems though.” He started to move down the gangway to the pier, but she caught his sleeve.
“I have to know, because otherwise I’ll be thinking about it all day and I won’t be concentrating on what I have to do. Are you going to ask me to marry you?”
“Is that a problem?” Natty asked.
“Absolutely not, but why not just do it now?”
“Because, Tessa, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight. I want to do it right, and then we need to talk about going to Eldaria so we can hopefully get your parents’ blessing.”
“Really?” She smiled warmly. “My parents and my little brother are going to love you, just like I do.”
“I certainly hope so,” Nathaniel replied. “Besides, right now my parents are in Eldaria too, and I already know how they feel about you. Amil and Adda will be thrilled to have you as a daughter-in-law.”
“Okay,” she said as she hugged him. “I feel better now, but I can’t wait for dinner tonight.”
“Presuming that the ridge runs like this,” Snee ran his finger across the map from StarFire Island to Five Fingers Island, I would suggest that we go on the north side of the arc going out, and the south side coming back. Does that work?”
Tessa nodded slowly. “I’ve never done anything exactly like this before, so the best I can say is, let’s try it. If we find anything that we need to salvage or examine, Enesneth, Pipia, and Orlal will use the submersible suits to examine and/or retrieve it, if possible.”
“Another member of the crew and myself will also be part of any excursion team,” Snee told her. “Other than the training we’ve done since we took possession of the submarine a few weeks ago, nobody has a lot of experience with the suits. However, Mr. Cassel from Bolandria has a great deal of experience, so I was able to convince the Commodore to let him accompany us.”
“Do you trust him?” Nathaniel asked.
“Let’s just say that if he does anything to hurt any of this team, or the Nautilus, he’s going to be fish food, and he knows it.”
Nathaniel nodded. “I’m going to keep an eye on him all the same. However, he was the one that sat on Maior Tallis until our Rangers could get down there.”
“Excuse me, Commander or Sub-Commander,” Chadoc, the submersible’s communication elf approached. “Would one of you please designate whom I am supposed to be communicating with on the Starduster? I have Princess Lona, Mira Del Tor, and Kipling all trying to speak for the airship.”
“Do you have a preference?” Natty asked.
“I am quite used to communicating with both Mira and the Princess, but the young Lady tends to be distracted some of the time. Mr. Kipling is just concerned about his wife.” He gestured toward Enesneth.
“I get that, but Mira it is then.” Since the airship was only about 50 feet above them at that point, Nathaniel was able to communicate with Ciliren, who assured him that she would take care of the issue. Moments later, a much less confused looking Chadoc indicated that he was communicating with Mira alone. Aside to Tessa, Nathaniel quietly mentioned, “Another good thing about going to Eldaria is Menta Kai is there. Sage isn’t really her father yet, and I think this whole area of disciplining a thirty-seven-year-old elf is new to him.” Tessa smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Kai and Lona are two of my very best friends, but one is the mother and the other is the daughter, and sometimes the daughter needs her mother to sort things out, shall we say?” Natty nodded and squeezed her shoulder.
“Rig for dive,” Snee commanded. Immediately, the crew started spinning valves and pulling levers as the ballast tanks started to fill with water. “We can actually run faster underwater than on the surface,” Snee indicated. “I am going to have them run at about 20 to 25 knots. Nautical miles per hour,” he said looking at Tessa.
“Captain, I’m a cartographer,” she responded. “I know what knots are.”
“Duly noted, Sub-Commander,” Snee answered without inflection. “At 100 feet we can run for about two hours before we have to surface for air and to recharge the batteries. It is going to take us most of the day to get to Five Fingers Island. That doesn’t count if we have to send out any excursion teams. We will open the viewing port when we reach cruising depth.” He looked at Nathaniel somewhat skeptically. “Do I get the impression that I’m going to get another chance at being your best man?”
“It will probably mean traveling to Eldaria, and fairly quickly,” Natty responded.
“Does this have anything to do with the images down in that cave?” Snee queried.
“Tangentially, yes. I mean, they just serve as confirmation of what the two of us were already feeling,” Nathaniel explained.
“Personally, I’ve never seen much point in binding myself to one person,” Snee didn’t look up from his charts. “My parents don’t have a real good track record.”
“Doesn’t mean that you can’t,” Natty told his friend.
Snee just shrugged. “The Commodore says that the blue-haired one just lost her nerve. What did she tell you?”
“Who, your mother or Silva?”
“Silva.”
“Essentially, what Desara said, plus a feeling that it wasn’t right for her at this time. I think she grew to regret coming through the Durglad like she did.”
“She can’t go back, can she?” Snee asked.
“No, but I seem to recollect that she made a good life for herself at this end of the timeline.”
Tessa came back to the map table as the submarine leveled off. “Can we open the viewing port now?” She asked. Snee nodded, walked over to the side of the port and pulled a lever, causing the steel doors to retract. Tessa, Nathaniel, and the others were met with an amazing scene.
“Beautiful. I’ve never seen coral in so many colors, and look at all the different types of fish.”
“So far, it still looks pretty flat out there, Sub-Commander,” Snee observed.
“Tessa, Captain Snee. It’s so much shorter than Sub-Commander,” she sniffed. “Proceed on, and we shall see what we shall see.”
“As you wish, Sub-, Tessa.” He glanced up at Nathaniel. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
