Volker choked on a mouthful of salt water. He spit it out onto his chest as he struggled to pull himself on the plank that had fallen with him. Volker’s chest ached from his heavy breathing, panicked as he gently rocked back and forth on the ocean’s surface. All was quiet. Volker listened to the pounding sound of his heart echoing in his lungs and ears. Still blue water surrounded him in all directions, freezing and soaking into his skin.

Endless blue horror as far as he could see.

Volker’s jeans and thick bomber jacket hung drenched on his frame, weighing him down as he hung on the wooden board. He bobbed in place, his frozen exterior a lying front to his racing heartbeat. Volker sneezed; the smell from the wet fur around the collar made his nose twitch, but he couldn’t make his limbs move to remove the jacket.

The board sat half in the water and half hanging in the air thanks to his weight. No matter what he did, he couldn’t keep the board flat enough to stay entirely out of the water. Volker wished the wooden slat he had been carrying to the dumpster was larger, but there was no helping it after the fact.

Volker shivered, suffering a perverse mixture of terror and temperature that made his head hurt. The sun and clouds reflected off the ominously still surface of the water, deceptively hiding its depths. His fingers twitched into the grained slots, hands trembling as they clutched the plank. The years had been kinder to his sense of panic around water, but even fourteen years old, Volker felt he was justified.

The stillness of the water helped, though.

No current dragged Volker under, and there were no rushing rapids to confuse and toss him about. He simply floated in place. Volker moved his hand in the water, cutting the surface. The waves around him were restricted to his immediate vicinity, the ripples disappearing a few inches away from him. It made the surface seem more like an unnaturally still pond than an ocean. Volker dared to look down, but found he couldn’t see past the surface of the water. He instead saw his own face, and the terrified expression reflected in the glass-like surface.

Volker splashed his face with water and shook his head. He was above water. He was breathing. He would be okay. He would be okay. He would be okay. 

“Just pretend you’re on a mirror,” Volker whispered to himself. “No water. There’s no water.”

Volker set his forehead on the board and ignored his violent trembling. A bird cried in the distance, but if there was land nearby, it was too far for him to risk falling off the board. The young man sniffed as his nose began to run, and shoved his hair out of his face when the bangs slapped against his eyelids.

He should have listened to his mother when she had told him to get his hair cut the week before. It was always getting in his way when he helped out his uncle, too. There was nothing worse than trying to clean the sawdust out of a machine when your hair kept falling in your face. At least at the shop, he could hold it back with a hair clip. It’s not like anyone he knew would see him wearing it in the back room.

Volker shivered as the wind picked up, and he counted to ten. Volker gripped the board tightly, and sucked in a breath before exhaling. With a death grip on the board, Volker ducked down into the slightly warmer water. Volker kept his head above, but felt better once his shoulders were submerged. The comfort it brought disgusted him on a base level.

He cursed at the water, unable to remember how he got here. One minute he had been pulling broken planks out to the dumpster from the wood shop’s cutting floor, and in a blink of an eye he’s under water. The ground outside the back of the shop had literally—Volker would stress this—fallen out from under him, crumbling away like an over-cooked gingerbread cookie. He fell for about a minute in free fall, clutching the rotten wood mid-toss, and landed with a splash. By the time he surfaced, instead of a dim alleyway, he saw nothing but bright blue skies.

Volker’s hand slipped on the board and he went under. He broke from the surface a second later, whimpering and spitting up water. Volker clutched the board, digging his nails into the grainy surface. He glued his cheek to the side as he hugged it to his chest. He counted to ten in his head, eyes screwed shut. He was above water, he was fine. All he had to do was control his breathing, and concentrate on how the water was warm and still.

No running water. No branches. No pebbles at the bottom.

Memories of his lungs flooding with water edged around his mind, dancing around like fireflies blinking on and off. They dared him to remain calm, counting down the seconds until Volker lost his grip on the board again. Until he went under and drowned again. Volker sobbed into the wood, shaking and pleading.

Volker kicked his feet and pulled himself higher on the board until his entire chest was lying flat on the surface. He kept his eyes closed and counted.

---

Emerald stripped off his shirt and threw it over an aging wooden barrel, snickering as Vin rolled his eyes at the action. His first mate always disapproved of the captain walking the ship without his shirt. 

“It isn’t proper,” he’d say without fail at every offense. 

Emerald would agree if he was meeting a customer, or had a guest aboard, but today the sun was out and shining. It felt too good on his skin to put a barrier of cloth between the rays of the life-giving sun and his flesh.

Besides, it was his vessel. The captain could do whatever he pleased, and no stuffy first mate could say otherwise when the sea mists were licking at his biceps, and wind blew through his hair. 

Was there anything more wonderful than the ocean?

Emerald brushed his bangs from his face, the black hair sticking to the side of his cheek with his sweat. He could hear his two hired hands rushing about in the background, who also could care less about their Captain’s state of dress, and the wind caressed the wooden decks of his ship with light dustings of salt hanging in the air.

Days didn’t get any more perfect.

Perfect for work, sailing, and enjoying the ocean at her finest. Emerald adjusted the mainsail’s cordage, ensuring it was secured into its proper place around the spars. He ran his fingers along the thickly weaved rope, tied together so tightly water beaded on its surface. The Sons of Anubis may be on the odd side, but Emerald would buy rope from them every time. It was definitely worth the frustration of dealing with such beautiful people. 

“Did you pull the last basket yet, Vin?” Emerald asked. He watched Vin make checks on his clipboard, eyes never leaving the page. Emerald patted one of the cords on his ship’s rigging. “I want to head back to shore before the sun sets.”

“Yes, the other two pulled it up. They’re sorting the catch as we speak.” Vin flipped a page on his board, checking the inventory. Emerald guessed calculations to see if they would come in with enough profit to feed his captain’s fetish for jewelry were running through his head. Vin was loyal and nit-picky that way, always aiming to please. Vin shut the book with a snap of his wrist, rubbing his temples like he was pained. “We caught less than we’d like, I’m afraid.”

“Well, you know how fickle those little crabs can be. I’m sure they’re all huddled together somewhere,” Emerald said. He leant over the side of the boat railing and looked down into the blue water, smiling at his own reflection. Just beneath the still surface were multitudes of life he’d never be able to comprehend. The crabs and shrimp they pulled aboard their ship were only the tiniest sample. The oceans and water never failed to calm and sooth in the same breath that they set his adrenaline to rush. 

The sensation was all Emerald could want from life; water was life. 

Emerald grinned at his first mate and said, “We’ll get them next time.”

“Yes, and you tell that to my wife when I can’t afford that stupid imported candy she likes from Aten.” Vin flipped the notebook back open and checked another box. He grumbled to himself, and Emerald knew well why. The man’s wife had expensive taste, and preferred goods from what Vin called “That place.” Their countries may be on good terms, but Vin would never accept that group of “stuck up bureaucrats.” Aten was a den of blue-eyed hypocrites with a fetish for paperwork as far as Vin was concerned. “There are days I envy you going home to an empty house. I swear, if she goes on about that stupid country one more time—”

Emerald hummed as Vin continued his ranting, a small burning growing in his chest. There was nothing to envy about an empty house. Emerald could have gotten married at some point, he supposed. It’s not like there was anything wrong with him physically, or that he didn’t make any money, he just never quite met the right girl. More specifically, he could never find someone who understood his need to be on the sea for months on end. How Vin had managed it, he’d never know. Disheartening never quite seemed to cover his frustration, until he just gave up on it entirely.

His neighbors had been pestering him to buy a slave if the house felt so empty and he didn’t want to get married. Someone to talk to and clean. Keep things in order. Emerald rubbed the siding of his ship. It was an option, and there was no reason they couldn’t come onto the boat when he shipped out. Emerald had gotten along with the slaves okay at his parent’s house, but it wasn’t quite the same as what he was wanting. Emerald had gone a long time without owning a slave and he supposed he could continue that way.

Besides, as long as he had his boat and his crew, loneliness would never hit him too badly. Even Vin’s ranting had a special place in his heart—for a spell.

“—It’s like she’s forgotten all about that mix up with the jail! I was in jail for—”

“Six weeks, I remember,” Emerald said.

“Yes,” Vin said, “Six weeks. It’s luck alone that I don’t have a prisoner marking! If it had been even one more day I would have been in trial and shipped off to a real prison. How dare they!”

“Yes, yes, over a mistake with the locals. I remember,” Emerald said. He pulled himself up to sit on the siding. He twirled his fingers in the strand of his necklace, watching the gold sparkle in the sunlight. Emerald closed his eyes and leaned back, gripping the railing. His hair blew in the breeze, and he sucked in the salty air. He cracked an eye open to see Vin pouting. “But it all worked out, didn’t it?”

“I still don’t like them, or their country.” Vin slapped his clipboard on a table, shifting the pages. He stuck a hand on his side, scrunching up the fabric of his tunic. “And I swear, my neighbor—also a Son of Aten mind you—is hitting on my wife. The scoundrel. As if I didn’t need another reason to dislike everything that comes from that—”

Emerald stopped listening, distracted by something off in the distance. He could see a small lump bobbing on the water’s calm about half a mile or so away. Emerald reached for the looking glass hanging from his belt, eyes never leaving the suspicious figure in the distance. He pulled the small telescope out, and put it to his eye. Emerald clipped the glass back into place not a second later, and jumped away from the railing to gather rope. “Vin! Change the heading, we’ve got someone stranded toward the East!”

---

A voice called out, piercing through the light wind. Volker jerked awake on his board, hands groping for purchase after a brief spell of panic dipped him under the water. Back on the board, Volker saw the sun in the sky was farther south than he remembered. His skin itched, stretched, irritated, and an annoyance at the front of his mind even in his new panic. Volker rubbed the sleep from his eyes, wincing when dried salt scratched at his cheeks and scratched his nose. The shouting continued and Volker had to turn to turn around to find the source. His body slipped half into the water, shifting to hold the board with one arm.

Volker pulled himself up higher out of the water upon spotting signs of intelligent life. A boat a bit larger than a yacht sailed toward him, cutting through the mirror pool of the water. It looked like a fishing vessel from the old wood and the netting draped along the railings. With water soaked through to his skin, Volker wasn’t going to complain. He’d take a buoy over the flimsy board! 

Hanging off the side railing, much like the netting, was a dark skinned man shouting at him. He continued to wave, eyes locked on Volker. Whoever the stranger was, he at least wanted to help. 

Volker grimaced though, unable to understand what the man was saying. Swallowing a few times to get his voice back, Volker prayed for the best and shouted back, “Hey! Over here!”

The man, a growing speck in the distance, replied again in that odd language. Volker slumped, relaxing on the board when the boat moved faster in his direction. The vessel drew near enough that Volker could see one or two others scurrying on the deck in addition to the man on the side. Volker hoped they were friendly, and not pirates or something equally stupid. Volker had no where to run if they weren’t good people. The boy shivered, wondering which would be worse: being captured by people who wanted to hurt him, or staying stuck out in the water.

The water.

It wasn’t even a contest.

Volker counted to ten over and over in his head as he waited for the boat to arrive. His shaking increased by every passing moment, the day growing colder with the setting sun. By the time the boat got close enough for the first man who called out to drop a rope, Volker was ready to go with anyone if they got him out of the water.

The man who had called out, leant over the edge and kept talking to Volker. The unpronounceable cluster of sounds coming from the man’s mouth rattled around in Volker’s ears as he spoke to Volker and the people on deck. Volker could have put more of an effort into trying to split the syllables into possible words or listen for the man’s tone of voice, but Volker was far more distracted by the man’s appearance to pay his words that much attention.

The man’s skin was a warm auburn color, somewhere between red clay and the bloodwood flooring in his uncle’s wood shop. Delicate black tattoos wove into every surface of skin they could find, stopping only at his wrist, ankles, and neckline. They reminded Volker of henna body art, but with patterns closer to what he’d seen on his grandmother’s lace tea cozies. The man’s long black hair hung over his shoulder, the evenly trimmed tips ending at the middle of his chest. Volker lost his grip on the board when he met the stranger’s eyes. A piercing emerald green, like something stolen from the Emerald City of Oz, stared back at him. 

The rope hanging over the ship’s edge smacked Volker in the head as the man maneuvered it closer. Volker grabbed the rescue device, fully intending to pull himself up. The man spoiled his efforts by yanking the rope the length of the boat’s side with three or four tugs and defined muscles. He grabbed Volker by the scruff of his jacket and dumped him on the deck, excess water splashing against the knotted wood. The man knelt beside him, rubbing Volker’s back as he shivered like a soaked pup.

Volker wiped water from his face, and pulled at his water logged coat until it collapsed in a heap in front of him. He tugged it close to his chest like a security blanket when he got a better look at the man next to him. The red-skinned man was a good two feet talker than Volker, standing about 6ft or so, and wore a pair of pants, secured by a thick leather-like belt. The buckle was silver and large, reminding Volker of old pirate stories. He had a gold-colored hoop earring in the top cartilage of his ear, two tear-drop red gem earrings at the bottom. He also had a gold ball piercing above the corner of each eyebrow, and three necklaces hung around his bare neck, each with various jewels of varying size and colors.

He really hoped the guy was just a fisherman who liked jewelry. Even if it was better than being stranded out in the ocean, Volker had no desire to be picked up by actual pirates.

Volker shifted on the deck under the man’s gaze, clinging to his jacket. The stranger kept talking to him in that weird language, the tone ranging from concerned to confused as best Volker could guess. After a few more moments, the man took the hint Volker had no clue what he was saying and stopped talking with a sigh. 

The stranger pulled his hair back into a loose ponytail, before smacking Volker on the back one last time. He headed for the boat’s cabin located the back third of the deck. Volker stayed put, fingers digging into his coat lining and trying to ignore the endless ocean behind him. 

He pulled his knees up into his chest, digging his fingers into the wet coat. He shivered in the cool air, now that the water was no longer distracting him from the temperature. Volker kept his vision locked on solid objects, like the wood of the deck and the thick wheat-colored ropes. Anything that wasn’t blue or wet. It wasn’t long before Volker spotted the three or four other people lingering on the ship deck, keeping their distance as they openly stared. They shared the same skin tone, hair and—while significantly less—tattoos as the man who pulled him up. Their eyes were all shades of green, too, but a much duller shade than his rescuer.

If they weren’t made of flesh, Volker could have sworn that the first man’s were real emeralds deposited in the white of his eyes.

Volker pushed his face into his jacket and tried to breathe through the awful smell. He licked his lips, tasting the salt crushed on them. A blanket fell on his head with a heavy thump. It smelled like settled dust, but it was soft to the touch. Volker pulled the fabric out of his eyes, seeing the stranger looking at him with a sad sort of smile that crinkled the edges of his eyes. Volker wrapped it around himself and leant into a barrel sitting on the deck.

Volker squirmed under the weight of his wet clothes. “Thank you.”

The man waited for two seconds before shaking his head. He lifted Volker from the deck by his elbow in an effortless pull. The man’s arm didn’t even have the nerve to flex. Volker clung to the blanket around his shoulders and his sopping jacket as he was dragged across the deck. The stranger pushed the cabin door open, ushering Volker inside with a soft push on his back. The teen stood a foot from the doorway, blanket in a death grip.

It looked like a navigator’s room of some sort, with colorful maps along the walls and a table in the center covered with papers full of scribbles and half-melted down candles. Volker didn’t recognize the handwriting as any language he’d ever seen, and the map on the wall didn’t resemble any map he’d seen in school or in an atlas.

The door shut, blocking out the sounds from outside. Alone in the room with his rescuer, Volker tensed. Who knew what the man would do now? Volker hugged his jacket as he clung to the blanket, the pressure rubbing an old scar on his stomach. Volker knew how cruel people could be.

The stranger pointed at Volker drawing his attention out of his memories. He waved his hand before pointing back to a spot on the map. He tapped it a few times, and looked expectantly waiting for some sort of response. Volker glanced at the land mass to which the man was pointing, but shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

The man sighed heavily and tried saying something else, the pitch and words sounding different than before. Did he change languages? When Volker shook his head again, the man turned to a bookshelf on the sidewall. He dug through a few thick volumes before pulling down something covered in dust. He blew on the cover and opened it. After his eyes scanned the page, he looked up at Volker and tried saying something else, but this time he spoke much slower and his face scrunched in odd expressions as he tried to pronounce the words. It reminded Volker of when he tried to stumble through a Spanish sentence in class.

Volker didn’t recognize this language either.

He sat through two more attempted tries before the man gave up and tossed the book on the table. He sat in a chair behind the desk and just watched Volker stand awkwardly in the middle of his room. He grumbled something to himself, and Volker stifled a yawn with the blanket. The man caught him however, and grinned into the palm of his hand.

Volker’d seen that look on both his grandmother and mother when he was younger and vowed he could stay up all night, even when the yawns escaped during his defiant arguments. The look was odd on someone who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years older than Volker.

The man stood, pushing the chair out from the navigator’s table. He opened the door at the back of the small cabin, opposite and to the right of the door to the deck. He ushered Volker over with a wave of his hand, and the boy complied one tiny step at a time. The stranger moved behind him, patting the boy on the shoulder. Volker stood in the doorway, wary, but still never so happy to see a bed in his life. 

---

Oils watched his master.

“Where is it?” The man shouted at the water, as his hands gripped the edge of the ebony boat. Royal blue gloves hugged his fingers, differentiating his black skin from the boat’s shade. The water mocked him with its smooth and moonlit surface.

His master Nile had never been one for patience. It was a flaw he inherited regretfully from his parents. Being short of patience often led to being short of temper. While it was often endearing to see his master’s little fits, it wasn’t that way at the moment. Oils sighed deeply to himself as his master’s short temper got the best of him. Nile slammed the edge of the railing, rocking the boat and sending ripples through the glass-like surface. He loved the man dearly, but his severe lack of self-restraint was trying.

By the Jackal, it was frustrating, though. Oils crossed his arms over his knees, watching the moon in the surface of the water. It was bad enough his master’s plans had been delayed by that wretched Daughter of Horus, but their new plan was failing as well? It was supposed to be the simple part of their task! Was there no place in Duat that would favor his master?

Nile splashed a handful of water to the side, a slip of his silky black hair falling over his shoulder and in his eyes. He leant over the side of the boat like a child, letting his hand linger beneath the glass-like surface. “It should be here somewhere!”

“Are we sure it didn’t sink, sir?” Oils asked from his seat on the back of the small rowboat. Their cruiser was a few yards away, but Nile was determined the object was in their exact location. They rowed out here to avoid disturbing it, but Oils figured it was probably pointless.

He leant over and pushed Nile’s hair away from his face, revealing the worry in his milky white eyes. Oils knew he should have insisted Nile let him use the spell, but his master was his master. He still, technically, had the final say in all decisions. “Unless your spell was off, it did land in the middle of the ocean.”

“No, it should be floating in a protective sphere. I made doubly sure to get that part right when I was putting it together.” Nile collapsed back onto his bench seat. His expression was pinched enough that Oils could almost see the wrinkles in his companion’s perfect pitch-black skin, an impressive accomplishment. Nile cradled his head in his arms on the boat railing. The moonlight above lit the water in a way that would be lovely if not for his anger ruining the mood. “I just don’t understand, Oils. It should be here.”

“Maybe someone picked it up, sir?” Oils dipped the paddle back into the water, fitting it neatly into the hook on the edge of the boat. He should have insisted on the motorized boat, too, but Nile was persistent in his nagging. Something about electricity upsetting the wildlife in the area. Oils wasn’t particularly concerned with the wildlife, but he found himself hard pressed to deny Nile anything when he looked so sincere. Oils secured the second oar, and paddled their way back to their boat. “This is a high traffic area for trade between Set and Aten.”

“No, the Heart of Anubis wouldn’t be swayed by such things.” Nile picked at the fabric of his gloves. His light blue robes folded on each other as he slumped lower against his backrest, pooling around his navy blue belt. Nile’s hair fell in his eyes again as he looked across the still water, moonlight reflecting in his hair. “Only a Child of Anubis can touch it.”

“Are you sure about that?” Oils continued to pull them away. He was aware of the legends around the artifact, but Oils had his doubts. A true Relic of Anubis would want as much attention as possible. The Children of Anubis had never been known for isolationism. They generally craved attention, and being the beautiful race that they were, often received it. “We don’t know very much about it, and the Horus witch was able to touch it—”

“She used magic. Surely she could come up with a levitation spell if she could manage to teleport the object out of our world!” Nile slapped the side of the boat, his eyes narrowing in anger. “You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously, my friend.”

“Forgive me, sir. But you’ve just been looking for it for so long, and it took over twenty-four cycles just to locate the spell we needed to retrieve it—” Oils’ response was choked off when Nile grabbed his throat. One of the oars splashed into the water, slipping from its hold. Oils pulled at Nile’s hand, enough to breathe. “Sir!”

“Oils,” Nile pulled a small box from the inside of his robe. He tightened his grip around the man’s throat, cutting off any argument. “What is in this?”

“The—the Eyes of Anubis!” Oils said, voice hoarse around the choking. He really needed to do something about his master’s temper. Why hadn’t he scolded the man more when he was younger? Nile smiled wide enough to show off his pearly white teeth, before nodding in a gesture that Oils recognized from as far back as when Nile was as tall as Oils’ kneecaps as go on. “And his tongue!”

“Very good,” Nile placed the box back into his coat, safely in the pocket nearest his heart. Nile stood dragging his companion to his feet. He held the slimmer man up until he was on his tip toes. Their black cloaks caught the light wind and fluttered as they stood on the shifting boat. “And what am I missing?”

Oils gripped Nile’s sleeve, trying to keep his inner thoughts from showing on his face. This would be over any minute. “The heart!”

“Which should be…”

“Here!”

Nile dropped Oils into the base of the boat and listened as he tried to catch his breath. Nile gripped the edge of his silver embroidered coat, and settled his gaze on the floorboards. Oils pull himself back up onto the bench, straightening out his own black robes. He reached out for the fallen oar. Nile shuffled his feet.

His master sat abruptly on the bench and looked down at his feet. His shoulder’s hunched, and he bit his lip. The shame washed over him like a wave. “I apologize, that was uncalled for.”

Knew it. Oils smiled, knowing his master couldn’t see it as he plucked the loose oar. The temper tantrums never lasted long, and always ended in regret. It’d been that way since his master was a tiny tot. Oils could still remember the days when he’d destroy his playroom due to some injustice or another, and breakdown crying when he realized Oils would have to clean it up. The former from his parents, the latter a trait all his own. Oils adored it. “The Heart has you worked up. I understand.”

“I apologize all the same,” Nile said. The calming rays of the three moons raked over them both, blanketing them under the silence. Nile clutched at the case over his heart, nestled safely under the heavy fabric. His master was so close to his dream of restoring Anubis’ rightful place in Duat. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It is fine, and we will succeed.” Oils would make sure that they found that Heart, even if he had to rip out a beating one to get to it.