600-603 (The Cove of Fell Teeth)

iv

Now Locrien looked on from on a crag

that towered over that northeastern sea,

that was the fell usurper, and the snag

of many ships that, great ships, used to be.

For Wrenogal, approaching, he would not

give leeway o’er his vicious, rocky brink.

It now was time to see if he who’d sought

escape had earned his aid, or if he’d sink.

Yet unseen was the seraph on his peak

by Wrenogal, who eyed the sea below,

who must not err, who must alone now seek

a path that no-one else as yet could know

through Locrien’s cove. Wren and dragon wend

through what was every other good ship’s end.

v

That mix: divine and mortal, scale and skin,

engaged the two again, and now the wings

of nature gained the virtues of a sin,

and godspring gained earth’s pure underpinnings.

The dragon pitched and whorled along the string

that held him to the helpless ship below,

and bore the eldritch fluxed understanding

that only beasts controlled by man can know.

The Wren bore, too, the knowledge of the beast,

and leaned betimes into it, trusting more

the one who knew the currents more, not least,

who knew well how to reach a distant shore.

For this last mile was the longest yet,

both knew that which they must not now forget.

vi

Between each pass, and through each needle’s eye,

the unit towed the hurtling ship by,

betwixt rocks, searching, scraping, screaming by,

about and turned about more than the eye

could follow fully, thus it soared along

far farther than good reason could have guessed;

but one wry move would prove the ship’s hope wrong,

and add her hull to Locrien’s ship nest.

One turn more, when the Wren reflexed his gaze

from task to shore for but a moment’s daze,

was when the rope guiding the Prowler grazed

the peak of Locrien, whose sharp rocks razed.

Untethered kite—the Wren and his mount flew,

while, for the ship, there was naught left to do.

vii

She had enough momentum thus to reach

the shore—though not without the weight of care

the Wren would learn upon that sorry beach—

one last stone by the shore laid her side bare.

And as she came to rest, the waves rest too

within her belly—cracked and caving in.

Her sails still waving, high, and full, and true,

her lower decks left to the ocean’s din.

Seaweeds already pushed into her space,

then mussels, and the mosses of the sea

would creep upon her seaspray-laden face,

until fully claimed as the sea’s debris.

So for some time the Wren would naught but stare

into the world that he had lost in there.