Reng could only hope that the distant shape before him was an island. It was dark, and he had been swimming for hours. Although the waters had calmed once the storm passed, his strength waned, and he could not swim for much longer. He was exhausted. All he could do was hope for that distant shape to be steady ground and keep on swimming.
The storm had caught him by surprise. It appeared out of nowhere and swept him from his vessel, his boat quickly disappearing into the inky black of night. The distant shape grew larger and larger. Maybe it was just a trick of Reng’s mind, but hope doesn’t necessarily operate on objective fact. With a final heave, he washed up on the island’s shore, for it was indeed an island. The hard rock underneath his body was uncomfortable, but he didn’t care. Too exhausted to lift his head, let alone stand, he passed out where he lay.
The shipwrecked man dreamt of water carrying him back home to his daughter and wife in Seahome. He’d give anything to hold them again.
The last of the sun’s rays woke him up. He had slept through an entire night and day, right up to dusk. He was weak, battered and bruised, but he knew he had to get up. Dreams alone wouldn’t bring him home.
Something glimmered in the distance among the rocks. To his amazement, he found three coins lying on a large stone. Reng picked them up and studied them with an astounded face. The coins looked identical to the ones his daughter had given him in his dream. He didn’t understand how this could be. His mind raced, awakening a strong fighting spirit to make it back home. He had to find a way to get off the island. He had the skills to do it, he just needed the materials.
As far as he could see from the rocky shore, though the island may as well have been completely barren. What little vegetation that was indeed present wouldn’t be good for much more than matchwood.
Undeterred, Reng went inland, hoping for greater fortunes there. Hope felt ever bleaker with every fruitless step, but after an hour or so, a welcome discovery—tree stumps. These trees hadn’t been broken by a storm, they’d been felled.
Even though he was still feeling incredibly sore, he pressed on until he came across a simple, humble shed. Despite the pain, he broke into an almost involuntary sprint, eager to speak with whoever lived there, and perhaps borrow their tools.
However, as he got closer to the shed, he felt his skin crawl. His sprint slowed to a jog, and that ended at the makeshift door. Reng’s gut feeling screamed at him to stay away from the ramshackle hut, but he couldn’t understand why. There was no way he could pass up this chance.
He swallowed his fears and knocked on the door. “Hello?” No answer. He knocked again. “Anyone home? I mean no harm, I’m in need of aid.”
Still, no reply.
Slowly, he pulled the door open, only to stagger away at that same moment. Laying on the floor, were the remains of a dead man. After a fairly long while and many deep, calming breaths, he forced himself to search the shed. Perhaps he’d find an axe or something.
The bones hinted at how many years the body had been there; the flesh was gone, and most of the clothes had withered away, too. His heart sank as his eyes found little of value until something caught his attention. A book, with a small stone atop it. Reng recognised the significance of the stone, carved and polished as it was. It was a guiding stone, meant to help lost loved ones find their way home.
Then there was the book. Prying in the belongings of the dead and abandoned felt wrong, but it may offer insight that could help him find his own way home.
Reng slowly lifted the book and blew the dust off its cover, still holding on to the stone. As he flipped through the pages, the rough sailor’s handwriting revealed a terrible and tragic story. The man’s name was Ytreg. He’d been sailing with his son and twenty young men to find fame and fortune. A terrible storm had wrecked their ship, and Ytreg had seen them all torn away from the ship, one by one, until finally, the waves took his son too. Ytreg washed ashore on the island with nothing but the logbook in his pocket, wracked by grief and guilt.
Ytreg had refused to believe that his son was dead. Instead, the logbook told how he’d fashioned simple stone tools, how he’d built the shed and waited for his son to be washed ashore, and how he, in line with Waveborne tradition, had carved a rock for his son’s guiding stone. As the pages went on, it became clear that Ytreg fell ill, the final page simply read, “I am too weak to fish now. I can hardly move. I am starving. All I can hope for is that my son is safe, wherever the sea may have taken him.”
Reng finished reading and stood holding the book, without closing it. Suddenly, he was not sure what to do. Tearing down the shed seemed like the only way to get home, but to him, it’d feel like tearing down a memorial. A memorial to a parent’s love, no less. He, a father, couldn’t do that to another father. At least not for as long as another option may exist, and those tools had to be around here somewhere…
He was torn from his thoughts by an eerie, cold glow, slowly growing brighter. He could only watch, mouth agape in abject horror as a stitched-up face wreathed in sickly flame with green, baleful eyes wailed at Reng with a voice colder than the grave. He screamed and threw the logbook across the room before bolting out the door. He had no idea where he was running to, but he knew what he was running from, and that he wanted to be anywhere except for here.
Reng ran blindly until dense, thorny brambles blocked his path, and there seemed like no way around them. He glanced back in the direction of the shed, but it did not seem like the vengeful spirit followed him. It was only then that he realised the guiding stone was still in his hand.
The bushes behind him shook. Reng flinched. He turned slowly, then listened. He thought he saw something. It was the shadow of a creature. It walked upright but was too small to be a human. And it reeked. Reng saw a decaying hand pushing through the thorns, followed by a low, terrible groan. Tangled in the bushes was the creature, no, the corpse. Rotting, stinking, moving.
Reng was just about to flee when he noticed something. The undead gazed up at Reng, slowly opening its jaw to release a strange, meek sound as if it were pleading. It wasn’t until then that Reng realised that it was stuck, caught in the brambles. It could move ever so slightly, but it couldn’t free itself. With its one, free hand, it was reaching for the guiding stone.
Reng tried to calm himself down and knelt in front of the trapped monster. He began to put the pieces of the story together. He realised he wasn’t looking at a vile beast, he was looking at Ytreg’s long-lost son.
“I will help you.”
He had no idea if the dead boy could understand him, but Reng started untangling the brambles all the same. It was hard, painful work that left his arms riddled with cuts.
“Follow me. I’m not your father, but I know where he is. He made this stone for you.”
The corpse looked at him with its dead eyes, silent. It made no effort to harm him, and when Reng moved, it followed. Questioning his sanity, he turned back toward the shed. Sanity or not, somehow, this felt like the right thing to do.
The looming structure appeared in front of them, casting long shadows across the stones in the dim moonlight. He led the distressing monster inside the shed, where the ghostly glow still wailed. Reng swallowed his fear and held up the guiding stone.
“Ytreg!”, he called. “I return, with the guiding stone, and your son.”
The dead boy waddled into the room. It plodded itself down next to Ytreg’s bones and made a new sound, which Reng determined to be sobbing. The blazing soul stared, seemingly bewildered. Fighting against every reflex urging him to vomit, Reng forced himself to walk up to the weeping dead and place the guiding stone in its hand.
“Ytreg, you never gave up on your son. Nor did he ever give up on you. Even in death, you sought to be reunited, and now, at last, you are.”
Silence.
Slowly, the burning one approached the rotten, and the latter stood to embrace the ghostly flame. Feeling as though he was intruding, Reng quietly slipped out of the shed. He walked a short distance, found a surprisingly comfortable rock out of sight of the shed, and fell asleep.
When the sun rose, Reng returned to the hut, not knowing what he’d find. What he didn’t find, however, was the dead boy, the spirit, or the skeleton that he’d found the first time around. Searching the shed, he found the tools Ytreg had made years ago, they were still good.
Having decided not to tear the shed down, he harvested lengths of the tough brambles, cut away the thorns and wove the smooth stems into a humble raft. While he was at it, he made some simple containers that he filled with water from a small stream. In the end, he took only two things from the shed—Ytreg’s fishing rod, and the logbook. It may bring solace to any who knew the two if they ever got to read it.
When he finally set off, he couldn’t believe his luck. The seas were serene, nearly mirror-smooth. Within hours of setting sail, he had found himself riding upon the World’s Pulse Current. A few days later, he was spotted by and brought aboard another vessel. Unkempt and very hungry, but alive.
When he finally returned home, Reng embraced his wife and daughter, who cried with relief at the sight of him. That night, after having had dinner with his family, he stood on one of Seahome’s many docks, thumbing the three coins in the palm of his hand.
“For Ytreg.” He tossed the first coin into the sea, and it sank beneath the waves.
“For his lost son, now found.” The second coin followed the first, and Reng paused for a moment.
“For the bonds that bring us home.” With that, he cast the final coin into the sea, and it vanished into the blackened depths below.