Of North Blood Drawn by C. J. Watterson

Author:C. J. Watterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: scifi, hope, military, fantasy, war, christian, irish, sword, irish author

Chapter 13: Tossed by the Sea

“Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thought unsex me here,

and fill me from the crown to the toe top, full of direst cruelty!”

-Macbeth By William Shakespeare

The rough frost encrusted path came to an abrupt end. Magen glanced up. The gusting shard laden wind clawed at his face. He raised his hand to shield his eyes so that he could see.

The termination of the path had not in fact been so abrupt. A tall watch tower of a greyish white, stood there. It was old and disused, though not abandoned. It had a fairly modern looking plasma gun turret mounted on the icing sugar dusted parapet. Most likely, a Guard came up every so often, or perhaps it was manned only at night – which made a bit more sense. It was empty now.

Magen had been caught unawares by it though, lucky actually, that he hadn’t walked into it. He had most on the winding path that led from Gahon with his head bowed due to the blinding wind. He turned, uninterested, away from the stark tower.

He was high up on a cliff that edged on to the sea, or rather away from it, if you took erosion into account. Janessa had suggested this place when he had mentioned that he wanted to see the sea. She had described it, and the vision created, while imperfect, had been good enough to entice Magen to investigate.

Of course, the decision had been largely influenced by the fact that Janessa had suggested it, loath as Magen was to admit it. She had a kind of power over him, worst of all though, he was happy to comply. But he didn’t like to think what it meant.

Magen though, was not one to avoid something just because he didn’t like it – he thought about it.

He drew up to the precipice; getting down on his knees as he approached it. He was wary of the wind; it might whisk him over too easily. On his stomach then, he peered over the edge.

Sure enough, as Janessa had described, the cliff was pretty sheer at this point. Far below there was a plateau of hard, durable volcanic rock. It had been chiselled and etched with lines, crevasses, and smoothed, by the hammer of the sea. The sea was quite far below, and all Magen could make out was an array of wriggling cream lines as the waves broke and ebbed.

He drew back and stood up. He took a southerly direction, following the terrain in hope of finding the path down that Janessa had mentioned.

There wasn’t strictly speaking anything wrong with liking something beautiful, or even being drawn to it. One of his problems was that he was afraid that it was just that. Did he really know Janessa enough to actually love her – that is, who she was, not just who she appeared to be. So far, they had mostly argued, and generally annoyed each other... but it had been fun. Nevertheless, there was something more than that between them.

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