Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

“Then what options do I still have?” the Lion questioned.

“You will have to drink from my spring, but remember, that your own price for this act can be too high. Waters of my sea will suffice for a short duration, so you must travel with haste. However, even if you will finally come to a river, you will probably still not manage to return to your comrades. But my river brothers will help you to bring the message of a river source – but first, you should reach it.”

“And if I will refuse to drink from this sea?” the Lion questioned.

“Then, most likely, you will be unable to reach the river,” Fish answered.

For several difficult minutes, the Lion lay ashore, not even daring to take a sip of this water. However, when he has dared to do it at last and has scooped some water in a paw – it has tasted so bitter that he has immediately spat it out, being unable to bear that taste.

“No way. To drink from this sea means to die instantly, no matter what the Fish would speak,” the Lion has decided. “I still have powers, I shall reach that river, for I am the tsar of animals!”

And the Lion, exhausted with thirst, having gathered the rest of his forces, has run in the direction, pointed by the Fish.

His forces, however, finally run out after only several hours.

The sun has risen highly once again over the Great Desert – too high for some of the terrestrial ones. After several hours of journey, the Lion, exhausted with thirst, has fallen to hot sand, panting. He knew that he was dying. He knew that he failed to fulfill his duty.

“Damned fish!” he thought. “There are no even signs of a river here, and never was for certain. You have led me the wrong way, you have killed me!” he growled. “Devil's f-f-f-f-f-f-i-i-i-i-i-i-s-s-s-s-s-h-h-h-!” a loud roar of defeated tsar of animals spread over the desert – and then the desert went silent once again.

Only a sun was still shining the same, only a sandy wind was still blowing, and only waves of the great and boundless ocean were romping and splashing somewhere. And only several hours of the journey still remained to the fresh river, feeding the sea, which he could pass, if only has dared to drink from this bitter source…

02.07.2006

The azure smooth surface of a sea sparkled and shined under beams of a rising sun. Waves rolled over each other, foamed – and, having been picked up by a new stream, – were carried away. A fresh breeze was blowing – one that happens here day after another – one who has collected its tribute of moisture from a sea and was now desperately throwing it in the faces of men in a form of brilliant cold drops. A wind inflated sails and they, sagging before its force, were heeling the ship sideways. But – only slightly. Strong cables, adhering a vessel to a coast, didn’t desire to grant a wind even the slightest chance to shift this machine even for ten meters.

A captain’s shout ringed in the air – and sailors began to descend from ship’s masts to continue their duty on a deck. Soon this frigate will leave a port into its next sailing, but for now – there were shouts, carried downwind, the noise of adjusted tackles, the soft scratch of ship’s boards, which has been accepting the next portion of cargo on board, and yet a wind’s whistle in a face.

A strange and unclear premonition was still making him feel uneasy: a melancholy of abandoned – even for a day or two, while new provisions were being bought and captain’s assistants were conducting brisk conversations with dealers, trying to lower prices for goods, – but still home, new home among boundless waters and storm… a joy of incoming adventure and some sort of strange presentiment, that the life he has been experiencing, for now, will very soon change, that his path will sharply be altered and he will be compelled to make a new important step in own life. Two weeks ago this sensation was born in him, three months ago he became a ship’s boy…

“If a man trusts himself – he can once achieve his dare dreams. Remember it well, sonny,” words of his father, which he, a simple tailor, gave him before son’s journey – into his new travel into boundless sea spaces, into a path that has been awaiting him since childhood and called for in magic dreams. A path that was going to change so soon, granting him a new choice.

A captain’s shout rings aloud once again in the air – and sailors start lifting sails. Their captain was an inborn leader – a bane of pirates of the Caribbean Sea, he in his youth has made his name himself through dozens of brilliant attacks on pirate vessels. A remarkable strategist and even greater tactician, he has now become a sea trader – one of many. Yet the power has always been with him – even now it was swirling in that man, loudly appealing to his crew for the frigate’s departure from a port.

***

Raised and fluttering sails. A light breeze blowing in the face – soon it will change to the approaching squall and they will have to lower sails and start maneuvering downwind among rolling multimeter waves, so that storm cannot turn the ship sideways – even though a wind can change its direction more often than once in a minute.

But all that will happen in fifteen or twenty minutes, when a storm will finally overtake them – and for now he was looking forward, on a boundless smooth water surface, opening before his eyes, and a sensation of the approaching of the time of a choice and changes, how he has agreed to call it for himself, were becoming only clearer and stronger.

More than once during these three months of his new life among open seas their ship has passed through the most dashing and desperate storms, which have been known to the Caribbean Sea in the last two years. And each time the captain and team pulled it out of the most, apparently, desperate situations – evaded from direct attacks of several buccaneer barks and from battles in private with titans – enemy frigates and even once with a galleon ship. For this is the way their captain was – free like a wind adventurer and bane of pirates, knowing no such word as a retreat.

***

Furiously the wind whistled and waves showered boards of the vessel, trying to break or tilt their frigate on one side so that in a new impetuous pressure they can definitely finish off these pity daredevils, who have dared to struggle against mighty water elements.

The storm has been raging for almost an hour.

Waves have been beating on all boards of the vessel. The wind blew off from feet even those men slowly creeping on a deck of the ship, waves washed away into the storming sea and absorbed into its abyss crewmen, still shouting something in their last minutes.

This was one of the most terrible storms into which their vessel has got this year – or maybe these years. He knew not – he only saw how easily the sea finished with all those whom he has always considered as invincible… unbeaten until this dreadful day.

The new wave pours over him, trying to pull out a saving cable from hands – and yet another desperately floundering man is carried away, rolling on a deck with a scrap of rope in hands… a splash, which sound sinks in the noise of wind – and everything is over…

Waves, waves, waves. Wind, wind, wind.

A saving cable in hands – his unique link with this ship – and the only rescue.

Storm. A cruel wind, rushing about here and there.

The elements triumphed.

***

He didn’t know how much time has already passed. He knew nothing of the location of a ship. He cannot see other crewmen – only sea waves, whipping on the ship’s board, only a scratch of ship’s planks underwater weights – and own immobilized hands, holding an iron rope.