Skytrails

1-The Lights of Mn'vaarin

Sharn reached for an outcropping with both hands and pulled himself up. Standing on the outcropping, he could reach the top of the plateau with his hands. He threw his bag up and over the edge, grabbed onto the rocky corner, swung one leg up, and rolled onto the top.

Sharn picked up his bag and walked west. He walked along the cliff edge. He could see the trail he had just come up and the Minkaera settlement far below, and past the settlement, sandy beaches and the ocean beyond.

On a clear day, at the furthest point of this plateau, a person could see for miles in three directions. One of his favorite spots in the world. One day, Sharn would bring his son up here and show him the magic of this place.

Sharn continued along the cliff, until the forest became too dense. He followed a vinlii trail, a little to the north, weaving through the trees and brush. Finally, he came to the edge of the plateau.

Sharn stopped and set his bag down. He shielded his eyes, though the sun was not strong, and scanned the horizon. He saw a great grey ocean spread out before him, covered in a thin blanket of cloudy, grey sky. The wild Maernic Ocean, across which the Minkaera had come and still came. They, and all the sons of the west, who had shared these lands with the Kualii Edain for generations.

Sharn's son, too, would look out over the immense ocean, and try and comprehend the largeness of it. His son, too, would look north and follow the curving cliffs with his eyes, knowing that a great river entered the sea beyond his vision. Then, like him, his son would look south and watch cliff faces give way to vast stretches of sandy dunes, and look toward a place somewhere beyond vision, at the southern edge of Kaalbriia, where high tide separated it from barren Telkiia, the land where people went to die.

The sky began to weep. A light drizzling rain. Sharn stretched his arms wide above his head and let the rain run down his skin, then unpacked a poncho from his bag and dropped it over his head onto his shoulders and torso. 

He wondered if his son's world would include the Minkaera. It occured to him his son's world might not include his own people, the Kualii Edain. Oh, Great Spirit, he prayed, Let my son inherit as good a world as I have lived in. Teach our people, and the Minkaera, and all the sons of the west, to live in peace, so my son can enjoy all the good things in life I have enjoyed.

Sharn found a smooth pebble close to the cliff edge, dropped it in his bag, then gathered the bag and tied it around his torso. He took one last look out at the horizon. He saw a couple sea birds flying high above the surface of the water, then, right on the edge of the horizon, far to the south, he thought he saw a ship. Must be a massive ship if he could see it from this distance.

More Minkaera, he thought. More and more and more.

Sharn walked all that day and all the next, before making one last stop on the final leg of his journey home. A stop he made as often as possible, though it took him almost a day out of his way. Mn'vaarin.

The town of Mn'vaarin sat alongside a wide, sweeping bend in the river Vari'noo, almost a lake. Snuggled in among the foothills, the town provided a last breath of civilization for anyone crossing the rugged Ni'kairo.

Sharn saw the lights of the town twinkle into being as his shadow stretched in front of him like a top heavy giant. Docks reached into the river from the town like splayed crooked fingers. Some fishing boats floated on the water, out for an evening catch, while many more bounced and bobbed along the docks.

The lanterns of Mn'vaarin glowed like firebugs all along the valley and up into the hills. On the boats, along the docks, on front porches and in windows, they were a welcome sight for tired travelers. There was even a song called The Lights of Mn'vaarin, all about finding peace and comfort at the end of a long, hard road. A song about dying, some said.