At the very moment Levis "woke up" after forty-six years, a sailing ship clearly built for seafaring was making its way upstream from Water-Drawing City along the only largely unchanged Surbrin River, heading for the newly risen crown of the North—Minas Tirith.
On the deck, an elderly man already in the twilight of his years lay quietly on his back in a "wheelchair" made of both metal and wood. Only the faint rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still breathing, though so weakly that one could not help worrying he might simply drift off to sleep forever.
With some difficulty, the old man opened his eyes and asked hazily, "Are we not there yet, Elisa?"
This should have been the fifth time he had asked that along the way.
Yet the young merchant woman in a long dress behind him, holding the wheelchair, patiently leaned down to say in his ear every time:
"We'll reach White City's docks soon, Grandpa."
If other young people saw this gentle, attentive side of her, they would surely sigh in amazement. Elisa, the "Queen of the Sword Coast," whose name shook the business circles of the North and even the entire Sword Coast, could possess such softness too.
But Elisa would surely disdain such thoughts.
Because without the old man in that wheelchair, she might have drowned at sea long ago.
The old man had an utterly ordinary, commonplace name:
John.
A merchant who had once enjoyed considerable renown throughout the North.
As for her, John had picked her up from a pirate-ravaged ship that was about to sink.
And on that same day, John's own son had left this world forever.
Thus, this old man who had lost his family had treated her as his own granddaughter and raised