-2-
----------
It is excellent
To have a giant's strength
But it is Tyrannous to use it
Like a giant.
-William Shakespeare
----------
Leaving his warriors to their farms, Akedah sailed with land portside and the stationary star, Polaris, at his back until he passed through the choppy Straights of Gibraltar, where Hercules placed pillars to hold up the sky.
Akedah stiffened his jaw against the thought of Hercules’ father, the henpecked god Zeus, and all his frivolous pantheon of playboy demigods. This was the gateway to barbarous backsliding Civilization, a self-righteous settlement of people who thought that just because they bathed every day they were clean. He could stomach Rome. He could understand a culture of military nobility, even if it was weakened with opulent squalor, but Greece could go to hell. For all its laziness and unnatural passions, it was no better than Carthage who sacrificed its infants in a fiery pyre to the abominable Molech. Of course, a man of action would not think that Greece would be redeemed for its philosophers. “All philosophers are Sophists,” the Viking thought, “except maybe Aristotle.” And with these, his own very self-righteous thoughts, he absentmindedly cast a piece of his bread upon the water.
Here, closer to the equator, during the equinox, the sun reached its zenith near the sky’s meridian, and the heat boring down from that height altered the cheerfully chopping waves into a smacking angry antagonist, that left an embalming residue of crusting salt against every surface it touched. Akedah knew he must soon leave the protection of predictable water with its clear sight of the navigable astronomical horizon, to replenish his supplies on solid ground. If the ocean was dangerous, at least it was foreseeably so; in a civilized city, anything could happen. The celestial bodies moved with mathematical precision presenting with clarity the order of the mind of God, yet on land, amongst drifting lost souls, one could never know where one truly stood. Akedah deeply prefered the bold expansive company of Neptune to the uncanny conversation of the market bizarre.
Just as the sun was setting, and the viking was steeling himself for an unwelcome transition to land, a glowing paper lantern skimmed the surf against his longboat. It glanced the prow, glinted off the port bow, and disappeared into the wake spray. Akedah sat transfixed gazing at it for a quiet moment. When he turned around, he could see several pinpoints of light wafting from a queer locus amid the waves. The current was picking up in an unnatural contrary action against the wind, running tangentially to its previous course. It was as if a path was being carved out in the midst of mighty waters. The viking had enough imagination to understand that this was a whirlpool without ever having seen one, but by now the current was clipping along at an irresistible pace, and despite his best efforts to jibe, he was being dragged sideways down into that spinning hole that was, with violent force, puffing out gaily colored lanterns to waft like summer seeds in the ocean zephyrs.
The shipboards groaned as they flexed with the unnatural momentum. Akedah, in his ship, spiraled out of control down into the depth of the whirling darkness. The force of the water would have undoubtedly surpassed the tensile strength of the oak keel, but with a boom, that sounded as if he had out-sailed sound itself, it was suddenly over.
The ocean bounced cheerfully under his boat. The sun was higher in the sky, and the happy lights still floated festively all about. The wild-eyed wind blown man ferociously bracing himself like a cornered wolf against the mast cut a contrasting figure to the surrounding serenity.
“Hullo there, Stranger!” called the common fisherman. “Welcome to Atlantis. Though I daresay you have stumbled upon us during our most dire festivities.”
Akedah leaned heavily over the side of the ship,... Support this podcast
