Captain NorthStar Lightwalker's Arc

Chapter 14 of 14

He woke before dawn to a horn from the lookout tower. A ship had drifted in on the storm tide, split open like a cabin tipped on its side. Rotted velvet showed through the broken hull. Tarnished brass caught the gray light. He ran for the dock. Three crew were still breathing. His engineer helped him carry them to the weathered boathouse and lay them on dry planks. Their captain pressed a roll of star charts into his hand. The lines meant nothing to him. The man coughed once and did not cough again. NorthStar carried the charts to the carved table in the clearing and weighted them with stones. The grid did not match his sky. He turned the parchment. He turned it again. One foot. One order. He sent his engineer for the rib sundial from the altar path. They laid the curved bone beside the chart. The shadow lines on the rib matched three marks on the parchment. Not a map of stars he knew. A map of stars seen from somewhere else. A world. A direction. He went back to the boathouse. Two of the three were awake now, weak but alive. He told them they were safe. He told them he would learn their sky. The woman from the lodge brought broth and a lit lantern and sat down beside the cot without being asked. The captain of the drifter was dead. The charts were readable. NorthStar folded them under his arm and looked out past the tower lantern, toward a piece of sky he had never had a reason to study before.