The Boat

Chapter 41: The Boat

The sun sank behind the mountains, and the light was growing dim.

Within Lokos's royal palace, shadows drifted through countless intersecting corridors, driven by the unimpeded wind.

From one passageway to another, different whispers quietly conversed with each other. Low conversations, music, laughter, and suggestive frolicking slipped silently out of one room and passed quietly into another.

Yet none of those chattering sounds seemed to have any true source, as though another mysterious canopy lay hidden in the reflection behind the palace. From the reflections behind that canopy, things neither bright nor dark, neither clear nor comprehensible, crept out in concealment, stirring restlessly within the dim silence.

To Andos, this was the nightlife he had known since childhood.

His sensitive nature had made him naturally fond of observing every hazy phantom in the world and drawing from them the nourishment he would pour into his creations.

Before anyone had taught him, he had understood that art must arise from all manner of experiences in life.

By day, if he was not lingering in his workshop, intoxicated by some detail that delighted his spirit, then he was wandering through the streets and among nature, savoring the sights. With attentive observation, he added vivid, lifelike qualities to his works, while greeting every citizen who smiled at him and wishing them happiness that day as well.

At night, sometimes he remained within the palace, and sometimes he went beyond it.

In the deep of night, when excessive clamor returned to stillness, he would pass through dew, cold air, and mist. From sparse lights and shadows and the gentle night, he could often hear the rhythm of the world's own movements as it half-slept. The mountains breathed, shadows slipped past him, and every emptiness whispered to him.

He could not help but lose himself in it. It was a pleasure far more inescapable than the dizziness after wine and revelry.

As Andos passed through a moonlit alley, someone recognized him.

That was hardly surprising. He had crossed paths with far too many citizens in the capital.

Andos was merely surprised that someone was still awake at this hour.

"Prince, it's so late. Aren't you going back to rest?" A young woman's clear voice poked out through the window. Then several slender, pale fingers pulled aside the dark-red curtain, revealing the lovely face of a young woman behind it. Her light-colored eyes were devout and cheerful, while her rose-red lips bore a joy that soothed others.

The warm light behind her fell upon Andos in the street. In an instant, all the silence and darkness scattered like mist, and the city's coldness melted away at the tips of the girl's porcelain-white fingers.

The world's whispers became more solemn still, almost carrying tangible songs, dance music, and the captivating scent of fragrant ointment.

Andos felt the places on the back of his hand touched by the light grow warmly feverish. A current of delight stirred warmly and restlessly through his veins, while an unfamiliar intoxication surged within his soul.

In that instant, hundreds upon thousands of statues and paintings of maidens formed in his mind without thought. Never had inspiration fallen upon him with such abundance; or perhaps, for the first time in many years, mysterious revelations and omens like secret riddles flooded into his heart.

His feet unconsciously stepped backward, as if he were about to run back to his workshop and bring countless dreamlike smiles and countless despairing cries, sleeplessly and without rest, into this dull and barren world.

The girl extended an arm fuller and smoother than the skin of a ripe fruit, hooked the curtain onto the hook beside the window, and rested her chin on the sill. "Prince, why won't you answer me?"

"Oh..." Andos woke somewhat from his dream. The girl before him became even more vivid. He tried hard to warn himself to stay clear-headed. He could not entertain improper thoughts about a kind-hearted girl—they did not know each other at all, understood nothing about one another.

Yet the thought that he might have little to do with her from then on made the prince's sweet heart immediately wither, like a dead branch drying up.

"I was... just taking a walk," Andos answered drunkenly, though he had not taken even a drop of wine in a long time. "I'll be going back soon."

The moment he said those words, he suffered in secret. The pain swiftly churned into resentment and gathered into a terrifying thought. At that moment, he actually wanted to kill this girl he had never met and take her away.

Even he was shocked by this baseless emotion. Heavy guilt and shame mingled with overwhelming force, and Andos cursed his wicked thoughts with every word and phrase he had learned in his life. How could he be so vicious?

The girl smiled at him, showing her teeth. "We can't let the prince be all alone in the street. Would you like to come in and sit for a while?"

A rolling heat rose along Andos's back and surged up his spine to his face. His wrists ached and tingled, while his fingertips felt as heavy as if they had been cast in molten gold.

He awkwardly tried to step back, but it seemed as though powerful hands had reached up from the level road and seized his legs, holding him in place.

"No!" he shouted. "I'm going back now, citizen!"

Though he shouted it, he could not move his feet at all. He blamed it on his own baseness.

The girl's brows drooped pitifully, and a mist seemed to veil even her bright eyes, as though countless colors had gathered within them. Her sorrow made Andos dizzy, as if his very soul would dissolve and be spent away because she was about to cry.

The girl lowered her head and rummaged through a small cabinet by the window. Andos could not control his fascination with every movement she made.

Before long, she gave a delighted little cry and took out an exquisite palm-sized model. When she brought it to the window, Andos saw that it was a tiny sailboat.

The girl drew a slender little needle from the boat's mast, laid it in her palm, and gently leaned her upper body out the window so Andos could take it from her hand.

"It's a little dagger," she teased. "Take it and have a look. You can't refuse me again, my prince."

Andos held out both hands. The little needle gently dropped from the girl's hand and slid into his palm.

What remained of his will told him that the needle was a minuscule dagger crafted with extraordinary precision. Yet in his eyes, there remained only the afterimage left by the girl's jade-white fingers and the faint, densely tingling itch where her fingertips had touched his skin.

"Is it pretty?" The girl giggled. "Then I'll give you my little boat as well, my prince. My heart is carried aboard it."

Before Andos could utter a single word of refusal, the little sailboat, gold-bottomed and silver-edged, set with bright red blood-jade, fell into his hands. Even the slender little dagger had somehow returned to the sailboat's mast.

Andos walked as though in a dream. He drifted blankly out of the alley, trembling and joy bound tightly together with the passion coursing through his entire body.

He stood there trembling stupidly as the world shook in dazzling disorder before his eyes. The roar of the wind became exceedingly faint, leaving only the intense stimulation of blood passing through his veins, flowing through his heart, and bursting outward again.

Soon, even that unstoppable burning pleasure was restrained by emptiness, and he sank drowsily into a swamp-like numbness.

Only when he lowered his head and glanced at the little sailboat in his hand did his senses and longing blaze fiercely again. Amid endless agitation and urgency, the world around him responded once more, making him desperately eager to melt into all these scorching things.

He stared at the little sailboat in fascination for a while before suddenly realizing that he could not take someone else's belongings. He hurried back in anguish, intending to return it.

But after the lights went out, the girl's window was as dark as every other window. No matter how he searched, he could not find it. Left with a hollow, heavy unease and an uncontrollable secret delight, he could only carry the little sailboat back to the palace and set it in the remotest corner among several wooden shelves in his room.

Though the little sailboat's craftsmanship was incomparable, he could not bear to look at it again.