“We have to hurry,” Alessia said with frustration.

They were kneeling on a planked pier in one of Trito’s southern-most bay. The merchantmen, the long ships, and all other great wooden beasts with banks of rowing oars, all had their place in Trito’s northern bays. Certainly, fishermen and women could and did moor there, but the space in it was rather “occupied” most of the time. Unfortunately, the moored small ships there had little say when the sea beat the big ones against them..

Chloe was not a woman who needed to take risks anymore, so she didn’t.

Multiple piers like the one they were stepping on straddled the eastern beach of Tritos all through its bay. Some were, of course, where private ownership of land met the sea and private citizens had their own personal piers with their own personal ships. 

The pier they were on was technically private as well, but this one was rented out to those fishermen who had both the means, and the motivation, to have others take care of their ships.

Which Chloe did.

Had Alessia been less of a hurry, she would have opined that she was perhaps the only one who really should have.

The monoxylon was an ancient sort of vessel known equally for how it was made as for its use. Tritos, like any coastal city in the Warm Seas, had a hefty ship-making industry that imported, and cured, timber from whichever coast would take fell trees to it. But curing timber into lumber was a time-consuming process and turning that lumber into planks, into masts, into keels, was a labor-intensive one.

But the monoxylon didn’t need any of that.

A single big enough tree trunk could be hollowed out with fire and adze or hammer and wedge. The same tar or paint that could be used to make a long boat impregnable to the sea, could then be used to extend the hollowed tree’s time in the water. But if you didn’t? It didn’t matter. 

You still had a vessel you could row along the coast.

The time that it took to make one of these, the tools that its craftsmen needed to even own, was a fraction of true sea-going vessels. Their price, therefore, was affordable to even the most humble of fishermen.

And to those who couldn’t even afford that?

Well, they could always try making one on their own.

Thus that most ancient design lived on.

However, Chloe’s monoxylon was neither cheap nor a hallowed-out tree.

Unlike all the other, admittedly well-made and decorated, monoxylon in this bay, Chloe’s vessel had a keel. One thick curved beam went down the middle of the base of the boat and allowed planks to form its ribs. Given its construction, bitumen calked the seams of these planks. The hull was thoroughly whitewashed, but paints of red and blue highlighted where the seams would be, and led to each other at the stern and bow. 

With a keel to work with, a mast actually protruded from the middle of the boat, its sail all but ready to unfurl. Compartments at the end of the stern and bow provided spaces for fish or provisions to be stowed. Compartments that, all the same, had pathways to reach the ends of the ship if need struck.

The beam of the ship could afford to be wide enough that the mast wasn’t a problem, but that wasn’t the same as saying that this was a big boat.

Like a monoxylon, it was designed to be used by a person alone, or a baker’s dozen of his friends. Like a monoxylon, it could go upriver if the strength of its rower were enough and only the shallowest of waters proved a problem. Like monoxylon, it was a vessel made for short travel and taking bounty from the sea.

And for those reasons it, too, was a monoxylon.

Alessia had no idea who had the time and space to spend lumber and labor making a keeled monoxylon of all things.

But apparently the Anax’s favor was more beneficial than she even thought.

“We have to make it there alive, aristocia,” Chloe corrected her as she measured rope and felt it in her hands. Nodding to herself, she placed it inside a large clay pot on the stern of the ship.

“If we take any longer we won’t make it there at all,” Alessia shot back as she moved a clay pot into the vessel from the rented pier.

Readying the ship to set sail apparently wasn’t as easy as she first thought. This was the third trip that they had made from the local shed, which was a little facility the owner of the pier and beach also rented out to the fishermen who wanted to stow things near their ships.

Which Chloe, and Alessia thanked the gods this time, did.

Rope and thread. An extra sail and spare timber. Salt and smoked fish. A rather impressive amount of fresh water: They had brought all these in huge pots of clay.

“Well, spare your worry: I think we are almost done with our preparations,” Chloe said.

“What else do we need?” Alessia moaned.

If she knew they were going to take this long, she would have gladly chanced Chiara following her. Better to have her screaming in her ear as her mother helped out to sea than to miss the short window she had.

In response, Chloe reached for her waist and wrapped her fingers around a handle of bone.

When she pulled it out to her chest, she revealed a knapped stone blade, “Something to cut and to trim.”

Wordlessly, Alessia reached for her own waist and grabbed a handle of worked horn.

A bronze blade whined in the afternoon sun as she showed it to her ex-friend’s mother, “Will this do?”

Chloe inhaled air through her teeth, “If you lose that at sea…but I suppose that wouldn’t be a problem to you, is it?”

“Yes, fine,” Chloe waved Alessia into the boat as she untied the mooring line and started drawing it into a tidy circle, “Come aboard.”

“That is, if you won’t change your mind.”

“Doubt might be the beginning of wisdom,” Alessia grabbed the rail of the keeled monoxylon and took a seat near the front, “But it’s the death of hope. I will live with whatever outcomes of this, so please, let’s go!”

“Take the oars then, Alessia,” the older woman used her name for the first time as she reached up and grabbed an odd end of rope, “I trust you know how to use them?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Alessia grabbed the two short oars affixed- who affixed anything to a monoxylon!- to the front of the ship and started rowing them out of the pier.

“I think you have a rather optimistic opinion of others, aristocia,” Chloe laughed and pulled on the rope. Without anything to anchor it, the rope holding the sail slacked and allowed the white sheet to unfurl.

The wind around them wasn’t particularly strong.

But it pushed the boat forward as much as Alessia, straining as much as she could, did on her own.

They didn’t head directly to where the Marin had been moored, of course. So much time had already passed that they would have entirely missed the ship if they did. Now, Alessia didn’t think the Marin sailed the second that she said goodbye to her mom. But, all the same, there was no way she would have been allowed to stay in port a second longer than she needed to set sail.

The Marin’s aim was the east, but it would have to go south first. That alone gave Alessia the confidence that they would be able to reach it.

But only if they hurried up!

“I see them!” Chloe grunted a while later as she, too, strained against two small oars affixed abaft of the ship, “The Marin! Unless there are any more biremes with a purple torch on its prow, that has to be the Marin!”

Alessia, who had been facing Chloe as she rowed, momentarily stopped to look at where they were going.

And, yes! It was her mother’s ship!

“She’s turning east,” Alessia realized, “Come on, let’s pull!”

For 20 minutes now, they had been beating against the sea at a steady rhythm. The coast of Tritos was but a mirage at the edge of the horizon now, but the visage of Frija’s ship was beginning to get closer and closer.

Ships that sailed out of Tritos tended to go south to hit the easternly currents unless they wanted to make port on northern Anilan ports. So long as Alessia and Chloe were around this part, they could wait until her mother’s ship came to them. Or so her plan went, originally. 

Tailing them wasn’t ideal.

But it soon wouldn’t matter.

“Mom!” Alessia started screaming and waving her hands once the Marin got closer, “Mom, wait up! It’s me, Alessia!”

“Row, aristocia,” Chloe grunted as she strained against the oars, “They should be hitting the current any moment now. We haven’t a single second to spare.”

“Gods damn it,” Alessia started rowing again, “Mom, can you hear me? Slow down!”

But however close the ship might seem to her, apparently it wasn’t close enough for her voice to get across.

“Just a little more,” Chloe reassured her, starting to sweat now, “Just a moment-oh no.”

“What?” Alessia groaned as she propelled the ship.

“We weren’t quick enough; they’ve hit the current!” Chloe replied, her eyes looking at the distance. 

Alessia dared not look back again.

“Gods damn it!” Alessia’s breath exploded as she redoubled her efforts, “Row, row, row!”

So row they did.

“We are not getting, argh, any closer,” Chloe grunted again, “But soon we’ll hit the current too. We just have to persist until then!”

That was fine. Alessia could keep up with that. Traveling around the island, going through its steep hills and sometimes wet roads, laden with struggling animals or packs of something of equal divine value wasn’t easy; the Parsimoni priesthood expected its priestess to be hardy. 

Rowing this intense might be a stranger to her, but hard work wasn’t.

She could do this.

“FUCK!”

“What?” Alessia asked.

“The wind is turning against us!” Chloe said with the frustration that Alessia was feeling, “I am afraid this is it, Alessia.”

The older woman stopped rowing and slumped on her seat, sweat running down her face, “We didn’t make it.”

The sail of their unorthodox Monoxylon made their mast groan as it leaned back, a gust of wind arresting most of their progress.

Alessia looked back and saw that the same happened to her mother’s ship, for a moment. But its sails were quickly furled while it’s oars just did not stop.

The rows upon rows of slaves that the bireme had were something that they just couldn’t compensate for.

Chloe’s monoxylon slowed down. The Marin remained the same.

“Impossible,” Alessia paused for a single second to glare at the retreating ship, “I am not going to fail!”

“Why are we stopping?” Alessia demanded as Chloe gave her a helpless look, “We can’t stop now! Strike the sails.”

“I’ll do the rowing all on my own if I need to,” Alessia added as she continued her rowing.

Chloe sighed and got up to roll the sails up, “Whatever you say, darling.”

“Whatever you say.”

They tried. They really, really tried.

They tried so hard that Alessia heaved for air even as she strained her muscled arms against the tide. The ship went a little faster, yes, but the wind had not abated and its direction had not changed.

With trepidation, Alssia peeked behind her back.

And saw that the Marin was getting lost on the horizon.

“We can’t-” Alessia choked a sob, “We can’t make it.”

It was a realization she wanted to deny and Alessia hated how lost she sounded.

But it seemed Chloe had been correct in her assessment.

“The only thing we can do is pray, darling,” Chloe said, taking her hands off her oars and placing them on her lap. Alessia almost snapped at her, almost yelled at her to get rowing again. But it was impossible to ignore how little that bit of rudeness would help.

“...ok,” Alessia, too, let go of her oars, placed her hands on her lap, and closed her eyes. It was hard to say how much effect prayer had, with so many of human beings doing it.

But Alessia did it because it was the only thing she could do.

If only she was…if only she was…if only…

Her eyes snapped open.

They called her an acolyte, but she was every bit as good as an anointed Priestess.

Not only could she call upon the gods, but she could also light their holy fire without transferring flames between sources.

Maybe she’ll never be a Priestess now.

But she’ll be damned if she wasn’t a Torchbearer.

“The salt,” she said, going through all the rites in her head and settling on the quickest one that she could modify, “And the timber, what wood is it?”

“Linden, I think?” Chloe replied, being surprised at Alessia’s sudden manic energy.

“It will have to do,” Alessia said, moving to the boat and opening the relevant clay pots, “I am going to grab the smallest of timbers and a fistful of salt, but I am going to need you to keep quiet as much as you can once I begin.”

“I’ve never done what I am about to try, so I don’t need any distractions.”

“What ARE you about to try?” Chloe wondered.

“I am going to light a Torch,” Alessia replied as she made her way back to the front of the vessel.

She had no altar, and she wasn’t in a temple, but the temples were founded in places that had neither. Alessia wasn’t insane enough to think that she could consecrate Chloe’s monoxylon into either. Not because she thought it couldn’t be done, but because this wasn’t the time or place for it.

But the thing about founding a holy place was that lighting a Torch in the area was a prerequisite for sanctifying it. She knew a lot of priests simply assumed that was still just a small part of a greater rite, but that still meant that the holy fire preceded the holy place. 

This was a bit of a stretch, Alessia would admit, but was the sea god’s realm not holy to the sea god? If she could make the sophistry work and appeal to the divine as well, she could make it matter.

So she took one of the first Triol prayers the Parsimoni acolytes were ever taught and turned it into a rite, “Lord of waves, lord of deeps, lord of brine. Though we wade in your tunic, though we sail in your body, we offer salt from the earth-”

Alessia threw the fistful of salt in her hand into the air, the wind scattering it into the already salty water.

“-the sweat of my brows and the breath from my body but for a boon from you.”

“Yes, for a favor that you might grant, in kind,” Alessia pled.

She didn’t set out to make a story, a tale that would give her sacrifice value, because the time to do so had been hours ago in all probability. But a story had been told all the same. Her desperation, her need, were real things, and so it would lend weight to her willingness to pay the price for this after the fact.

“Alessia-” Chloe swallowed when nothing immediately happened, only the sound of the wind being there to answer Alessia’s words.

But she stopped when a thunderclap resounded in a clear sky.

Alessia could feel something…but it wasn’t enough.

This needed more!

“Lord of broken ships, lord of the drowned,” Alessia threw herself fully into outright heresy, hoping that the truth, no matter how offensive and unkind, might lend her words just that bit more power, “Let me plead my case before you, so that I might fully offer my sacrifice!”

The water, being disturbed and moved only by the wind and by the waves, suddenly started to bubble around them.

 It started to churn.

“Alessia,” Chloe drew back into the back of the ship, looking around her with wide eyes as Alessia looked around her and frowned.

She felt the power and she felt the connection.

But it was still not enough!

“I need to stand before you!” Alessia yelled, frustration growing as she quickly found herself short of both assets or promises to offer the divine, “I need this Torch to light!”

What else could she do? What else could she give? The truth and the future clearly mattered but they were not enough.

But she could feel it: The miracle that she sought was almost here!

What else could she-the memory of her father, rite on his tongue and knife on his hand, came to mind.

She recalled how his blood spilled on the altar and summoned the divine.

Her bronze knife, unorthodox for any kind of Parsimoni sacrifice, filled her hand. Its sharp edge bit into her palm, and sharp pain traveled up her hand as she slit its surface.

“From me then!” Alessia intoned, “A sacrifice of life! A sacrifice of blood!”

She put her hand overboard and allowed the rich red fluid to start dripping down into the salty sea below.

“A sacrifice for Triol, who dwells in the dark of our shores!”

The second her blood touched the ocean…all of it turned red.

The sky disappeared.

The air disappeared.

Reality churned.

One second they were sailing on the warm seas, the sun on a horizon far away, and the sky above the ocean.

The next it changed as if they had never been there.

There was still a “sky”, sure enough, but it was a dull white with blue clouds. It managed to demarcate what had previously been the ocean, but said ocean was now an opaque window of bright red.

The air they breathed was water, and the wind they felt was currents.

The light they saw came from below-or should that be above?- the surface of the blood sea, which shimmered with a trapped sun underneath it.

Alessia gasped and turned to Chloe, but the previously panicked woman was frozen in place. In this place where sky and ocean had switched places, not even a single piece of her hair moved. Almost as if Chloe were a sculpture of herself, switched for the real thing. Alessia tried to scream out if she was well.

But nothing came out of her mouth.

“Finally,” a voice she had only heard once, a few days before in the temple and above an altar, sighed from the “sky”.

Alessia looked up and the leviathan face of a man was peering down at them, almost as if he were hanging down from the sky.

It was not any clearer than it was in the temple, Alessia couldn’t make out its features even though she KNEW they were there, but its feelings and its mood could be perceived all the same.

It was satisfied, “You humans are so limited, aren’t you, in arriving here only now when so little stops the trip?”

Alessia got on her knees and pressed her head against the wood of the boat. Her mouth opened to speak out platitudes but, like before, no words came out.

“This is not a summoning,” the thing Alessia knew for a god turned his body and peered down at them, “So you don’t ask questions and I don’t give their answers.”

“But don’t worry, your pleads are still here,” the entity waved around it and Alessia heard herself.

“I need to stand before you,” Alessia’s voice struck across the white sky, “I need this Torch to light!”

“As is what you would put in the altar,” the divine being gestured with his head and Alessia’s voice echoed again but from a different direction this time.

“A sacrifice of life!” she heard herself say, and Alessia shuttered.

“But, ah, this is a new thing,” the god thing said before Alessia could even form the question in her mind, “So congratulations are in order, acolyte, for achieving this.”

“But you are not an acolyte anymore, are you?” the god mused, “You’ve abandoned the temples and what you could have been at their head.”

“What shall I call you then?” the person that she worshiped asked. Alessia tried to answer, but a smile blossomed on Triol’s face when nothing came out of her mouth.

Sweat tried to come down her brow as the god thing waited, the tension that these soundless depths generated only adding to the shock she still felt.

But she felt, down in the pit of her stomach, that it was a bad idea to be without an answer.

That not having a direction here, of all places, could see her lost forever.

So she took the piece of linden timber in her hand and stared at the red barrier overboard, past where the sun was.

As panicked as she was, she still had the presence of mind to know that a crucial step in this whole thing hadn’t been fulfilled: she had not lit a flame yet. So, regardless of where she was or who she was in front of, the ritual couldn’t be done yet.

She dipped her stick of wood past the red barrier upon which their monoxylon sat. She pushed it into the sun on the other side.

And felt it come alight.

When she pulled her piece of timber out, the blue flame of Triol turned even the white sky blue again.

“Torchbearer, then,” the god thing said with some amusement, “Torchbearer now and Torchbearer later.”

“But not mine, perhaps,” he mused, “Nor ours.”

Alessia tried to protest.

But again, she could produce no sounds.

“It doesn’t matter, regardless,” it shot whatever she could have said down, “Because I have a mind to grant you what you desire.”

Alessia stared at it.

“You didn’t sacrifice the life you could have had in the Priesthood of your island, enjoying the sort of power and privilege your father could only dream of, to me,” it said, “But I claim it all the same.”

“Already your mother’s vessel enters the ebb of the bridge that outsider god is making for her,” the god thing smiled, revealing a mouth full of shark teeth! “But what does it matter to me?”

“No Torchship ever carries a sea god’s mark.”

For a moment, a single moment, Alessia was able to taste the sea, and it’s taste was bitter, bitter.

“So, perhaps this is a good reminder,” he said as one of his hands lowered-or perhaps he was rising them?- from where they hung at his waist. He made a circle motion with his palm and the flame in Alessia’s Torch started to stir, “That wherever there is a matter I am not part of-”

The Torch in Alessia’s hand suddenly became a blaze, widening and enlarging to the point that it enveloped all of the ship.

But it didn’t burn, no.

The flame was cold and bitter.

“-that I don’t have to care!”

The flame consumed the air for her, and it consumed the sky. It consumed the blood sea, and the sun underneath it. It drowned Alessia, for a moment, and made the whole world disappear.

Until-

“Alessia!” someone was shaking her awake.

“Wha?” she blinked her eyes as adrenaline and the sense that something was deeply wrong enveloped her.

“What did you do?” Chloe, that was the name of the woman Alessia now remembered, stopped shaking her.

“What did you do?” the mother of the girl Alessia once had a crush on said, “One moment the sky was thundering, the water was boiling and THEN WE WERE HERE!”

Alessia had no idea where “here” was, but she raised her head and cast her gaze around them.

The ocean, once you ventured out of sight of the shore, looked much the same anywhere you were in it, so she didn’t expect to see the difference.

But she was wrong.

The long, lithe, prow of a Bireme faced them.

With Frija, Alessia’s mother,  leaning against it.

Looking down at them with utter shock.