None of them spoke as the boat carried them further and further out to sea. They’d been riding in silence for almost an hour before AJ killed the motor. He held the wheel and dropped his head down to it. Brian moved from his spot by the railing and watched as Howi rose and went to his friend. He spoke something to him in a language that Brian didn’t recognize, but AJ obviously understood.
With a nod, AJ moved away from the wheel. He didn’t speak, didn’t reach for Brian, but simply went to the back of the boat and knelt by the railing. It was Howi who came over and took Brian’s hand in his. “He needs a little space, but it might be a good idea if to come with me and sit.”
They moved to the back of the boat, leaving it without a captain for the moment. There was nothing in sight for them to hit, and the waters were calm.
Howi led Brian to the back deck, and pulled him down to sit on the ground. They were a few feet between them and AJ’s back. Enough that he had his space, but they were still able to hear him. The words he was saying as he rocked made no sense to Brian. Realizing that, Howie began to softly explain.
“In the time frame that he grew up in, death is a big thing. There were customs that followed. This is one thing he’s never been able to let go of in all the time that I’ve known him. Right now you’ll hear him praying to Χάρων, which translates to Charon, whose job it is to carry souls across the river Styx and Acheron. Those rivers separate the world of the living from the world of the dead.”
Despite the situation, Brian found himself fascinated. He was watching AJ as he prayed, seeing this new side to his lover. On one hand, it was almost baffling to find someone in this day and age who worshiped what everyone considered myths anymore. On the other, it explained why AJ had never seemed to hold much in other faith.
All of a sudden AJ stopped, patting down his pockets frantically. He dug through them, his movements growing more and more panicked. Quickly Howi went forward and stuck something in AJ’s hands. That seemed to calm him, and he kissed Howi’s hands before turning back to the boats edge.
Once he was seated, Howi continued his explanation. “It’s customary to put a coin in the mouth of the deceased, to pay their passage to cross the rivers. If they don’t, it was believed that they would wait a hundred years on the shores, wandering alone. Since we can’t be there to do this, Alyck is going to make his payment to the sea.”AJ put coin after coin in the water, never breaking in his praying.
“He’s now asking Ἀϝίδης, Hades, to please accept these souls and guard them in his domain. He should be done soon. I hope this will ease his grief. No matter how many years go by, Alyck never has forgotten the value of a mortal soul. It’s what makes him perfect against Roth. Roth was rotten to begin with, and immortality has made him worse. He has no value for any life but his.”
“How do we fight someone like that?” Brian asked. To go against someone who had no qualms about killing an entire people just for information. That kind of evil was beyond his comprehension. “How do we win against someone who doesn’t hesitate to do any means necessary to win?”
Howie shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t know. But we will figure something out.” A movement caught his attention, and Howie rose to his feet to join AJ, who was now standing against the railing. Howie motioned Brian to join him.
“Αλυκ” Howie’s voice was gentle when he spoke to his friend, using the Greek pronunciation of Alyck in an effort to connect with his friend. AJ turned to smile at him, tears still standing in his eyes. He would grieve for the souls that had been lost today. But now, there were other things he needed to attend to. They had been given their moment, and it was in the hands of someone far stronger than he now. “I’m fine, Howi. Please, don’t worry. We’ve got enough on our plates now.”
He held his hands out to Brian, smiling as his lover took them. There weren’t any words needed between the two. They came together, holding tight for a moment. AJ relished in the strength of his partners arms.
When they pulled back, both were smiling. Brian knew that his partner was going to be ok.
“So, let’s figure out where the hell we’re heading.” AJ said suddenly, looking to both of them. “We need a place to hole up a while, show Brian some of the ropes, and figure out what the hell we’re going to do.” As they talked, the three of them moved back toward the wheel.
“He’s not going to just let us hide, Alyck.” Howie said. He took a seat in the bridge, allowing AJ to man the helm. “I don’t know that anywhere is really safe for us. Well, safe for the people around us, really. We don’t need another thing happening like today.”
“I know, Howi. But we need some time. Somewhere to go that he wouldn’t think. He’d expect us to go to areas that are important to us.”
From where he was watching out the window, Brian asked “Well, where haven’t you guys been to?”
Silence filled the helm. Brian turned and looked from one face to the other, surprised. His lover was smiling and watching the navigation, and Howie was biting his lip and looking at the floor. “You’re kidding, right guys?” Still no response. “You’re telling me that there isn’t anywhere you haven’t been to?”
“We’ve been alive a really, really long time, Brian.” Howie reminded him gently.
“That’s right, baby.” AJ cut in. “I mean, I was born in what you know as ancient Greece. Howi was born somewhere he doesn’t remember-“
“Wait, you don’t remember where you were born?” This time it was Brian who cut in. He looked over to Howie, unable to contain his surprise. His friend just shrugged. “When I was brought over, whoever did it left me to lie there. The moment I woke up is the last thing I remember. I don’t know anything of the mortal life I led before that.” He didn’t even seem upset by the idea.
Ignoring Brian’s shocked silence, AJ continued on. “From there, after we joined up together, we stayed in Greece for a while. Lived through the Trojan Wars. We traveled to Rome, stayed there a while. Then, I don’t know, we were kind of nomadic. I enjoyed Rome back then, a lot.”
“We stayed in Rome a long time by mortal standards, Alyck. From there it was Sicily, wasn’t it?”
“I think so. God, the food there is good! We went back to Greece for a while. Those fucking Persians, coming in at us. That’d be what you call the Battle of Marathon, I thin.” AJ chewed on his lip, and then nodded. “I think so. Sometimes I forget what people call things anymore. We were there through that and through the second invasion too. That was hard. We got those bastards though, didn’t we Howi? That war ended, oh, when was it?”
“Around 449 B.C. I think. Kicked them right out of Europe.”
All of this was spinning around in Brian’s mind. “Jesus.” He muttered. “This is almost too much to take in.”
AJ leaned over and stroked a hand over Brian’s hair and down his cheek. “Give it a millennia or so, you’ll be talking the same way.”
……………
Though they could, none of them really needed to sleep. It gave them plenty of time to sit and talk. They had no idea where they were going yet, but for now, drifting through the ocean seemed the safest route. During that time, AJ was taking it on himself to start to teach Brian to control his magic. He left Howie in charge of the ship, which they had switched over to its sails. They put them down for the moment, out in the center of the North Atlantic Ocean.
“Ok, let’s get to this.” AJ put his hands on his hips and grinned at Brian. Out here there was no one to hurt, nothing to damage. There really wasn’t much to work with but wind and water, but that was enough for the moment. “While I get some ideas going, I want you to meditate like Howi taught us that day.”
Brian sat down like he remembered doing, and started to center himself. Above him, AJ paced and continued to speak. “I don’t want you to embrace anything. I want you to find it, on your own this time, and connect to it, but do not attempt to let it fill you. I want you to stay in that center, and try to use the senses there, combined with your own senses, to tell me what you feel around you.”
As he sank deeper into himself, Brian tried to open his senses wide. It was harder than he had thought it would be, to be in all of that brilliant light and magic, and not take a hold of it. But he trusted AJ, and did what he asked as best as possible.
“What do you feel, Brian?”
“The wind. It’s light.”
“From which direction?”
That stumped Brian for a moment. He let his senses stretch, finding that there was so uch more to the world that he had realized. For a moment he lost track of what he was supposed to be doing, so caught up in the simple joys of the wind. A purely mental poke snapped him back to attention. Yes, that was right. The direction. Ok. He concentrated again, holding fast to his center this time. “It’s from the north west. Like I said, it’s light, only around ten miles an hour.”
“Good, good. Is it like that all around us, or do you sense anything else?”
Extending further, Brian marveled to himself. It was as if, in meditation, he had found a whole other world. With his mind, his magic, he could see the patterns in the air. The currents as it swirled around them. Then, further out, an increase in air pressure and density. “There’s a storm, over there.” Without realizing it, he lifted his arm and pointed. “Could be a doozy. Winds pick up, fast, and swirl all over. I can feel the water churning. It’s as if the world is mad.” His breath started to hitch, and he didn’t notice that AJ had gone momentarily silent. “It doesn’t feel right, though. There’s something there, at the center. It’s not normal.” Inexorably he was drawn to that center.
Suddenly AJ’s presence was around him, wrapping him up and pulling him back into himself. Brian tried to resist for a second. He wanted to see what that was! But AJ had both strength and experience on his side. He pulled Brian back in, and helped him center again. Then he brought him slowly back out of his meditation.
Eyes snapping open, Brian looked up at AJ. His lover was almost pale, and he was clutching the boat railing. “Howi!” AJ shouted. What he said next wasn’t a language that Brian knew, but by the sound he guessed it was Greek. Then AJ was off like a shot, hoisting the sails, climbing through the rigging like a monkey.
Within five minutes the sails were up, and the boat was picking up speed. Brian felt the magic in the air as the two men used air to speed themselves up.
“What the hell is going on, Alex?” Brian asked, rising to his feet.
AJ rushed back toward him. “I thought we’d be safer.” He spat, pulling Brian with him toward the helm. “I used you as a line and felt what you were feeling. That storm was still far out enough that it didn’t hit my normal senses. Only someone stretching like you were would have felt it yet.”
“But what is it?”
Howie was the one to answer. He stood at the wheel, staring out at an ocean that had started to turn choppy. “It is a storm created by Roth.”
Nausea greased Brian’s stomach. He found himself gripping AJ’s hand. “Why a storm? He knows that tossing us into the ocean wouldn’t kill us!”
“No, but he knows it’d slow us down a little while, to be out here and without a boat. We could use magic to get to shore, but we wouldn’t have the navigation to find the right shore. We’d risk mortals seeing us, too.”
Behind them, the hurricane was catching up. Brian watched as it raced toward them at an unnatural speed. The wind picked up, whipping their sails around, flattening their clothes to their bodies. Still, AJ and Howie struggled to straighten the ship out, and to push it forward. Brian watched the sky slowly darken, turning almost black. Then the rain started.
That was when Howie and AJ gave up any pretense of trying to navigate the boat. The stepped into the open air, arms raised, hands joined, trying to do what they could to dispel the storm. But as Brian watched, nothing happened. He hurried to them, ignoring the wind and the rain that soaked him in seconds. “Can I help?” He had to shout to be heard.
“There’s too much!” Howie shouted back, his hair whipping across his face. “Alyck, this isn’t normal!”
“I know, I know!”
Lightening flashed overhead, and the waves grew, tossing their little boat this way and that. Brian took hold of AJ’s free hand, fear coursing in his veins. It was one thing to know that nothing in this storm could kill him. It was another to not feel the normal mortal fear. “What do we do?” He asked them.
It was AJ who shouted the answer. “We either wait it out, or we risk swimming!”
But it seemed that nature was going to answer that question for them. Lightening hit again, striking the main mast. Fire that should not have been able to burn in the rain grew and traveled down the mast, spreading quickly to the rest of the ship. There was no choice but to jump. They held on tight to one another, gave one last look, and dove into the churning water.
Almost instantly the pressure surrounded Brian, pressing in on him. He kept his grip on AJ’s hand, holding fast as he was yanked one way and then another. The waves were strong. It was almost as if they were trying to pull them apart. Try as he might, Brian felt AJ’s fingers slipping out of his. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything but the icy water and the tips of AJ’s fingers as they finally slid free.
Panic overcame Brian, and the urge to breathe was clouding his mind. He tried to swim, tried to break free to the surface and find his friend and his lover. But something was twirling him like a top, sending him this way and that. Then a feeling struck, a numbness that reminded Brian of anesthesia. He tried to fight it, but his body was too busy fighting the water.
The last conscious feeling that Brian had was the sensation of rising up from the water and into the sky.