Brian Murphy - The Search For Magic

Despite his elation and enthusiasm at the wind and rain that was pattering ever harder onto the tarps, he saw no difference in the faces of his neighbors as they looked at him. No appreciation that he alone wore clothes that could stave off the rain and sea. He saw no realization of what the approaching storm meant.

The baker, a man his age but with more hair and much more girth, looked him up and down, and though he said nothing, his disdain was evident. The man who sold milk and cheese and butter snickered to his wife about the Captain’s “crazy get-up” before Effram was out of range. The fruit seller refused to let him touch her, but made him put his coins down on the table instead of into her hand.

Children darted about him, their voices sharper than the stinging drops of rain, lingering in the air despite the worsening gusts of wind. “Captain! Hey, Captain! Here’s a puddle for you to sail your boat in!” They tugged at the tail of his cloak and stomped in the rapidly swelling puddles of water, splashed him to test the worthiness of his rain gear. But at least they noticed how the drops splattered against the knees of his oiled trousers, bounced on the back of his cloak, and slithered away.

The adults laughed and shrugged. After all, they were “just children,” and what did he expect, always acting so crazy? Only Lydia, the carpet maker, chased them away, chiding them in her lovely voice for teasing him. Effram was as surprised to be championed as the children were to be scolded. She had never noticed him before, never spoken softly to him. Beautiful women like Lydia did not notice men like him.

He gaped at her, unable to stop himself, though pride dictated he turn his back. Her long, black hair swirled about her as she rolled up her carpets, putting them away. She was closing shop, as were many of the other merchants. The rug that disappeared into a tidy, tight cylinder was a thing of magic and beauty, so colorful it looked more like life than wool, more like a painting than woven threads.

A dwarf went past, carrying a chair and a jug of wine and squinting as lightning flashed overhead. Effram followed the dwarf out to the street and watched, chuckling, as the fellow sloshed toward the center of town. Water was already ankle deep in the gutters, calf deep for the dwarf. To the south, more rain was coming. Much more. The sky had gone from light gray to deadly dull, and squalls with their peculiar perpendicular streaks filled the southern horizon. Water was returning to Tarsis, this time from the sky.

Effram shivered. Fear, anticipation, chill, all swirled about him like a cyclone. No longer interested in the chaos of the market, he hurried home. He dumped his purchases on the kitchen table and went out back to check on his boat. The water in the pit was already knee deep, swirling and cloudy with sand.

Fast. It had happened so fast. There was water in the seabed, as far as he could see! Gray ripples flecked with silver and black, like a badly tarnished mirror, stretching away to the horizon. Far too much water for the simple rain. The water must be coming from the ocean to the south, being blown by a horrendous wind.

It was going to be a glorious storm, this strange unnatural tempest that was unlike any that had ever ravaged over Krynn! Perhaps crazy Captain Effram would be vindicated.

He rushed back into the house and searched frantically for the coils of rope he’d bought only last spring, when he knew that he had only a few more finishing touches to put on the boat. Their use seemed so unlikely that he’d almost forgotten where he put them. He finally found them in one of the unused front rooms under a pile of canvas. Maybe… maybe this storm…

He hardly dared hope that the water would flow high enough to float his boat. Not even as he jumped down into the pit and found that the water sloshed around his thighs did he allow himself to dream the impossible. Rain splattered on his bald head and dripped from the fringe of hair onto the back of his neck. Rain ran under the cloak, beneath his collar, and down his spine. It blew into his eyes and dripped off his nose. It tasted salty, of the sea, and not like rain at all. But the rain was a minor nuisance, barely noticed as he scuttled amidst the strong wooden beams of scaffolding, looping the rope through strategic points, sloshing back to tie the ends to a post up in the yard.

As he worked, the water rose. So fast. Too fast. He’d never seen such water, a rain that came so fast and furious it filled the vast seabed like a huge pitcher being tipped over to fill a tiny glass. The water rushed into the pit, swirling so that he could barely stand. He tied the last length of rope around his waist, just to free his hands. He pulled himself from beam to beam, dragging himself up onto land.

He was soaked through to the skin, his boots full of water that chilled his feet. Only the tops of his shoulders were dry, as if he’d stepped into a lake up to his armpits. The rainproof cloak was no deterrent to this miraculous storm. It weighed twice what it should, just from the weight of water streaming off it, and it was of no use anyway, considering he was already soaked. He tossed it aside and stood in the downpour, shivering with cold and anticipation.

Only then, standing on the edge of the pit, holding the bundled ends of rope, did he dare pray that the storm would not stop. Not until the water was lapping at his toes. Not until the ditch was full and the seabed was deep enough to bear up the weight of his boat.

He could feel the storm strumming in the rope, tugging at the thick lines, and he closed his eyes. He dared not watch for fear that in the boiling clouds of gray approaching from the south, he would see sunlight and clear blue sky. He didn’t want to smell heat and sun. He wanted water. And thunder. And the chance to hear the hull of his boat splash into the sea.

In answer to his prayer, no blue sky came. No sun or smell of warm sand. Only the metallic scent of storm, more water, and stronger wind. Somewhere nearby, a shutter banged against a house, loud and insistent. Air trilled across a chimney, squealing like an out-of-tune whistle in the hands of a demented kender. Water pounded on the tin roof of his equipment shed, slapped against the breakwater, and gurgled from the ancient gutter on the eaves of his house.

The music of the storm grew ever more relentless and obstinate until one breathtaking moment he heard none of it. The sounds and the cold and the taste went away, driven out by the scraping of the boat. The most beautiful sound of all: the scratch and screech of wood against wood.

The boat, his boat, the only boat in Tarsis, tried to lift free of the arms of scaffolding. Like a child struggling to be free of its mother’s arms, the boat rocked and kicked, trying to take its first baby steps. Trying to float.

With a last small prayer to gods he did not believe in, Effram twisted the ropes around his arms, doubling them then doubling them again for fear of losing the ends. He braced himself against the lone post driven deep into the ground, and he yanked, putting all his body weight into it. The muscles in his shoulders cramped, bunched. His feet slipped in the wet grass. The blades of green-waterlogged down to their hairlike roots-gave way and tore free of the mud.

Effram fell hard against the post. Air grunted out of his lungs and skin peeled away from the flesh over his ribs, but the scaffolding folded in slow motion, cracking and crying out in protest. The boat slipped sideways, threatening to crash into the side of the pit, then righted, slid down the last remaining section of scaffolding, and plopped into the water.

The sound was a tiny, insignificant sound for so momentous an occasion. His boat bobbled, dipped, and floated, gracefully bobbing in the water, the bow nodding to him as if urging him to board.