Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou letest down?... His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves… He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood… Upon the earth there is not his like, who is made without fear.

The snow stopped falling as I made my way out of the valley back to where Hador was waiting. I started a fire and tired to get some heat back into my shivering frame. Grist found me an hour later. Not long after that Adah and Zillah returned. Elara never reappeared. When the night passed and the morning dawned with at least some semblance of heat and life we searched the valley. We found only three wolf corpses frozen to the earth and tracks leading away. I waited all day for Elara to appear and saw her appear once with a wolf then immediately disappear and leave it behind. The wolf fled. I waited three days, but Elara didn’t reappear.

Before I left Grist he told me I was welcome as a guest whenever chance brought me to his door and that my debt was paid in full. I had grown fond of the little fae and would have liked him to continue journeying with me, but when he considered it I dreaded what I would have to do in return. He declined and I promptly dropped the matter. The best and most generous thing a fae can do for you is leave you alone. Them owing you a favor is often worse than owing them one.

Adah and Zillah traveled with me for a short time after leaving the mountains until they turned north toward Enoch and I went west around the rim of the crater toward my family on the coast. They were never friendly to me, nor I to them, but we were at least civil and tolerant. They had kept away Lamech’s wolves, as promised, and they were helpful to have around at times, but Hador never trusted them and I agreed with him. Their distaste for Edomites ran so deep that I could never feel safe around them, which was why I had to avoid Enoch as well. I remembered Juryal and her family with fondness but I also remembered what had happened to them because they sheltered Elara. It was far better to go alone than risk that.

Traveling with Hador was fast and light. A curelom is as swift as the fastest horse and hardier than a camel at need. Hador proved to me that he was great and that his pride was not vanity. Leagues passed like fleeting thoughts and whole countries like dreams. By mid-winter I was home. Karala saw me first and ran out to greet me. She had grown so much that I hardly recognized her.

In my excitement at seeing my own home and father and mother and sister I nearly forgot that Fauron was missing. The reunion was bittersweet but I have found that even sweet mingled with bitter is better than none at all. The bitterness is always there and will haunt away the sweetness if you let it. So yes, I did relish the time I spent there even with the subtly bleeding hole left in my family.

I could go on for a long time about the joy and simple good times of home, but stone is not the easiest thing to etch and it would be even less fun for you to read. Such is the blessing and curse of good times, joy, and peace.

My dad helped me to rebuild the same ship that I had washed ashore on as an infant. I loaded my little ship with food, fishing gear, canvas, extra timber, and anything else I thought I might need. My mother pleaded with me not to go. The ocean was uncharted and unknown. Eden was so vast that there were very few places where people encountered the sea. My parents had settled on the west sea and there were rumors of a sea to the far east but north and south it was thought that Eden may enclose them. Many years later I learned otherwise but to this day that is the widely held view.

If I had known how foolhardy it was to embark on the endless sea to find an island that I didn’t know where to look for then I may not have attempted it. I most definitely would not have succeeded. It was this decision, more than any other, that would chart the course for the rest of my life.

It was the spring of my sixteenth year when I set out for the open sea. I had explained the situation to my parents and though my father thought I should stay he was willing to help me if I couldn’t be swayed. He said that hard though it may be, it was my fate. My mother, on the other hand, warned me to the very last that nothing good would come of it. They were both right.

I learned a lot about navigating and sailing those first few months on the water. I nearly sank my vessel twice and found a new shore only to realize that I had turned around and found Eden again. It was into autumn before I found my way home again then resupplied and waited out the winter to try again. The next spring I left again and sailed westward for months before I found my first clue.

Word must have got around that a crazy man was sailing aimlessly in the boundless ocean because in the usual way of things everything converged on me at once. I was hauling up a fish that I was planning to eat for dinner and the school of fish below me was so big that it made the water seethe and shimmer. There were times I was afraid of the monstrous shadows in the depths beneath but I found that most of the time it was giant schools of fish all swimming together rather than a monster. The air was warm and sweet. Nothing but blue sea and sky around me. It had been months since I had seen another person which was why hearing a voice was enough to send me scrambling to let out my canvas and aim my harpoon.

“What is a man doing in the sea?” it asked.

After my initial flight and mad scramble I saw a head peeking out of the water behind my boat. The thing stayed hidden in the water, but I saw hair and scaly skin. “I am seeking my kin,” I answered.

The creature raised its head and it was not something I was familiar with. It had a long stretched face like a horse and a long body with short flippered limbs. “There are no men out here,” it said. “Eden is the home of men. The waters can not be crossed.”

“So there is something out there to cross to,” I said. The creature sank into the depths without answering and when I pulled up my line the fish was gone. I was frustrated by the encounter but also encouraged. After months of endless sailing I knew that there was someone or something out there to get answers from. If I could only find them. The schools of fish were gone and only the two abysses remained to me, one above and one below. Alone again, I started a new search.

That night I heard a voice in the air. I couldn’t discern words but it was as if someone were singing a song at a great distance. The wind was favorable so I sailed through the night using the stars to guide me. The sound of the music pulled me on and the water itself responded with a soft light. The wind and the waves harmonized with the voice and all of creation led me onward. Fish leaped from the water around me and to my astonishment some of them were like the creature that had spoken to me that day. There were even some that had a human head and body with the tail of a fish. They joined in the song and I pushed my vessel ever faster. The deep sonorous melody infused me with yearning and filled me with desperate need. I found myself humming along with it and seeing the subtle vibrations it was woven with.

The sea ahead glowed with an inviting light. Hundreds of fish as well as what appeared to be men and women and everything in between bobbed in the water around one who was singing. I could feel the webs of song woven to the center where the woman sang her beautiful, exquisite trap. I knew it for what it was and I also knew that simply because you knew a trap was there did not mean you couldn’t be caught.

“Boy,” the woman said as I pulled my ship beside her. “You are a skilled mariner.”

“Have you seen others?” I asked. She was pristinely beautiful in the water’s luminescence. Her skin was pale and almost glowed with its own light. Dark hair tumbled around her and I thought I could see the flash of scales and fins below.

“You are not the first,” she said. I bristled a bit that others had met her first, but that was good wasn’t it? That was what I was looking for. My birth mother was a seafarer so my people must be as well. “Can you show me?” I asked eagerly.

She smiled and extended her arms. “Come.”

I could feel the pull of her words. As I reached out I sang the same invitation back to her and she shied away from my touch.

“Incubus,” she whispered. Her music died and her cloak of desire slipped away. It was like becoming suddenly sober after a night of drinking. She was still lovely, that had not been part of the deception, but the glow beneath the water faded and went out. The air felt cold.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You may call me Asherah,” she said and began idly swimming a circuit around my boat. Every now and then I would see her naked side or the flash of her tail beneath the calm water. “How did you come here?” she asked.

“I came from Eden,” I said.

That made her pause. “First all of Lilith’s children are dead and now they come out of Eden,” she puzzled.

“Are there others?” I asked eagerly.

She smiled in a way that brought heat to my face then retreated beneath the surface. It was completely dark and silent. I held my breath waiting for her to resurface. Instead I felt the water shake with a reverberating boom and flash in a thousand blinding lights. My boat rocked violently on a wave that should not have been there as I clutched blindly to keep myself from falling overboard. I stumbled to the mast and furled the sail by touch while the afterimages in my eyes faded. My own heartbeat thundered in my ears as I wondered what manner of thing could make light from water.

I heard the water seething before I saw the huge shape emerge. What had rocked my boat had merely been the ripple of something massive breaking the surface. “Tiamat,” I gasped when I finally discerned the serpentine shape. I cowered at the bottom of my ship, nowhere to run.

“How do you know Tiamat, child of Lilith?” a voice reverberated off the water.

“You are not Tiamat,” I said, realizing the voice was wrong. Too pervasive. I recognized in the monstrous sea serpent the Leviathan of legend.

“No,” Leviathan answered, “but I lament her fate every day. Have you seen her? Does she still live?”

“Yes,” I said, clearing my throat to steady my voice. “She still guards the two trees.” I still shuddered at the memory of delirium brought on by her poison.

“You do not lie.” The monster sounded surprised. He was every bit the size of Tiamat and more. He had many frills and fins, but like Tiamat had no legs. A smouldering fire burned behind his eyes and an indifference that was just as dangerous as Tiamat’s hatred.

“I seek the land of Lilith where she was banished,” I croaked.

Leviathan regarded me and narrowed his eyes. “You are close,” he rumbled. “The dragon will guide you.” The boat rocked and the ocean began to seethe as Leviathan sank beneath the water. I clung to the mast as my small ship bobbed like a cork on the turbulence. As the water stilled another boom resounded from the waves. The water flashed in thousands of points of light just as before and I cried out. By the time I could see again the glow of the sun was lighting the flat horizon in the east.

“The dragon will guide you,” I repeated. “What dragon?” I had only ever met two dragons and even with the few I have met since I didn’t want to be guided by them. I gazed up at the stars in contemplation of what I could possibly do when I saw it. I was looking right at the answer. Seth had taught me constellations and the dragon was blazing right in front of me. The island was north.