The day of departure came and I was heading to the agreed upon place, at the east gate of the western campus. I had packed all the things I needed and looked towards the departure with confidence. Although the summer weather in Northbridge was warm enough to wear a breezy shirt, I had included in my travel gear my leather coat. With two rows of buttons and a fresh layer of dubbing, it would protect me from all sorts of elements, including the arctic winds that occasionally blew south from Botrelandt. 

I saw Professor Scutolith waiting from far away, with his staff, backpack, a large wooden crate and another person next to him. The Professor wore a sturdy robe in the university’s colours, cut short at the shin as to not trip over it as with the usually very long ceremonial robes. The person next to him wore a jacket and pants, so I thought it a young man roughly my age, but as I came closer, I saw it to be a woman with short blonde hair and fair face, currently occupied by a less than enraptured expression. 

The Professor saw me and waved his arms to greet me. “Good morning Havellan! I hope this day has found you well!” he yelled still from far. 

I arrived at his side. “Yes, it did, Professor. Thank you.” 

“May I introduce you to another member of our expedition: Anne-Liese. Accomplished alchemist of the guild and graduate from this very institution.” 

She greeted me with a minimalist nod. She picked up a backpack much larger and heavier than mine, swung it onto her shoulder with heft and then turned to Professor with annoyed exhaustion. “Anne-Liese of house Zvlastnove, uncle. You keep forgetting that.” 

The Professor dignified that remark with a glance of stern temper. “This is official university business, so there is no need to flaunt your noble blood, little Liese. Your alchemical knowledge will be enough to earn your place.” 

Anne-Liese sighed, appearing too tired to roll her eyes. 

“May her title be as it is. Havellan, I hope you have finished all your business.” 

I nodded. “I have, Professor. Will we be leaving now?”  

“Yes of course, let me just take care of our cargo.” He turned to the large wooden crate that lay on the paved ground. It was wide enough to house two of me side by side and tall enough to have me riding on my own shoulders. The Professor reached into a pouch on his belt and took a fistful of dark blue iridescent powder, then he poked the crate with his staff in the other hand. The powder in his fist went up into an iridescent flame that surged through between his fingers. 

The crate began to hover just slightly off the ground. He then handed me a rope attached to the crate and I remembered my time as a deckhand well enough to know the task expected of me. We headed towards the harbour of the city, which laid directly beneath the bridge that gave the city its name, a quarter mile wide and one mile long colossus of a construction, housing five floors of storage space, administration, stores and even an indoor marketplace. 

The spell had freed the crate merely of its weight, not its mass and so, I still had to struggle with the crate like a drunken block of granite on a frozen lake, much to my shins' dismay. More than once I had to use my leg and my entire weight to exert and meaningful force onto the crate as it hovered, drifted and slid around just inches above the cobblestone streets of the city. “What do you have packed? Who is supposed to carry all of this?” 

“These are important, sensitive instruments and gear, but do not worry, we have packed quite enough for it to carry itself.” 

I did not know what the Professor meant by that and I was unwilling to ask for more riddles, finding the task of crate wrangler daunting enough for the moment. 

I only noticed now that the staff the Professor carried was unusual. It was made from naturally grown wood rather than a carved spar and at its top sat two crystals in the same receptacle, rather just one. Both were naturally grown quartz crystals of even and milky colour, only one was however engraved with many runes, something one rarely saw with mages. My inertia-minded charge did not allow me to further think about it. 

We arrived at the top of the ramp zigzagging down to the harbour, in the shadow of the bridge that spanned the northern mouth of the salt river. It was always a great spectacle to see the many cranes and hoists, both in and on the bridge, heave cargo to and from the ships moored in the harbour below. There in that harbour stood a forest of masts and sails, colourful and bright from all over northern Ackarom, the Gimean Islands, Osmurak, Botrelandt and even further away. 

The Professor pointed to one of the ships, a three masted carrack with white sails, and proclaimed “The Cydwen, there she is. Reliable and a regular traveller from here all the way from the Gimean Sea. She will carry us to Phainos. Is she not a beauty?” 

While holding the crate back from slipping on air down the ramp, I allowed myself a better look and had to admit that yes, she was a beautiful ship. I remembered my own time as a deckhand in the University’s service and was glad I would not have to carry my weight on the ship as well. The Cydwen was of course a civilian vessel and the difference in attire and discipline showed, but it was still the same work of men in harmony and coordination that made the world go round. 

We stepped aboard and were shown to our berth, four beds for the three of us. Anne-Liese carefully put her pack down with a relieved groan, then she took from it what looked like a wooden cabinet. As she unlocked the door, I saw it was a portable alchemist’s laboratory. Vials of differently coloured powders, oils and liquids were lined up like in a spice rack, a small oil burner, several beakers of high-quality glass and other implements of alchemy were all found inside. 

“Did you bring an entire laboratory with you?” 

Anne-Liese did not look up from her vials and instruments as she answered me. “Of course, I would be of little use if I could not make any analysis on site, now would I?” 

She had a point. I had always imagined alchemists to rather stay in their laboratories than take them out for a walk around the world. Anne-Liese was deeper and deeper inmersed into checking her equipment and I saw no further need to continue this conversation forcefully, so I decided to linger on deck for the day. I would have to dedicate some more time to the spells the Professor had given me. It were three and I had already copied all of them into my small spellbook – an octavo of vellum pages, six by nine inches – that I had prepared accordingly. It was not the repository of all my knowledge of spells as my large spellbook, but an entire folio would be too heavy and big to lump around.  

The first spell was one to reshape stone as I knew it from my lectures already. It required a large portion of flux to supply, but allowed giving any shape to stone, as long as I knew the right formulae to describe that shape. The second spell was one to cool and circulate air, certainly useful when visiting a volcano. The third and last spell was one that could condense air to such a degree it would slow particles or projectiles that passed through it. It would be useful to shield us from drops of magma ejected by surges or flying rock splinters launched by explosions that might be necessary to clear a way into the mountain. Or back out. 

Our travels continued without a problem. I spent much time on deck, watching the landmass behind us disappear into the distance while the assortment of small, craggy islands passed by to our east. The Professor seemed to share my appreciation for fresh air and stood at the railing most of the time, taking in the salty breeze, sometimes even humming or singing a tune as if the wind was listening. 

On the morning of our second day of sailing, Phainos was within reach. At twenty miles in length, it was the biggest and also safest of the islands within the furrow of flames. It rose not like a broken, dark cone of rock, but instead like the back of a giant sleeping just below the water, ready to sink below or rise up at any moment. A small forest of palms and shrubs had grown on the slopes, displaying a rare richness of greenery on these bare and black dots of rock. This island was very close to what one could consider a safe passage through the furrow of flames that even large and heavily laden ships could use with much lower risk of being swallowed by the furrow. 

On Phainos was Port Consolido, an important hub for trade and a busy city, although not boasting the population or impressive architecture as the big cities of the mainland. It was merely a place for business and rest, not for living and settling down. For many merchants, Port Consolido was the place to trade their wares and make a profit without risking their entire ship in the treacherous ever-shifting waters of the field of fire. For us, it was the place where the Professor’s friend lived and the guide he had hired waited. 

We stepped off the ship, the rope of our cargo again in my hands. The Professor oriented himself for a moment, then pointed further down the harbour. “There is an inn down there where we will meet them, come along.” He took a brisk pace ahead and we followed.  

We came surely enough to an inn with chairs and tables outside to bask in the sun while enjoying refreshing ale and a morsel to eat. Professor Scutolith pointed to a table with two men, each with a tankard in front of them. 

The friend of Professor Scutolith turned out to be not a mage but a scholar of the purely mundane world, a young man of tall but spindly physique but with a warm but timid smile to welcome us in Port Consolido. The Professor called him by the name Ceolmund. Next to him was a man obviously belonging to the crolachan kind. Like all members of his race, he was covered in short fur of a golden-brown colour, had curved claws instead of nails on fingers and a short but stout figure, as wide as a human male but only rarely above five feet tall. I knew that although it was concealed by his pants, he possessed as well a short tail that served more a purpose of adornment than of agility. Their kind was prized among ship captains for their superb abilities and security when climbing, thanks to their strong arms and sharp claws, making them regular sailors on the highest masts and the most dangerous seas. I knew that the term ‘peltshaker’ for an aggressive and unabating storm came from their kind. 

The Crolachan man stood up and greeted us with a “Good tidings, dear customers.” And a wave of his hand. “My name is Beredalion, but you may call me Brad. I will be guiding you to your destination and ensuring your safety on the trek. I am looking forward to working with you.” For the sake of our skin, Crolachans refrained from shaking one’s hand with their clawed fingers. 

The Professor answered the verbiage with one of his. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Professor Scutolith and these here are my associates, Anne-Liese the Alchemist and Havellan the Architect.” 

Admittedly, I was flattered by that title, but I had to object, as a matter of honesty. “I am not an Architect yet, Professor, remember?” 

“Ah! Nothing of it! Very soon you shall be known by architects and geomancers alike, boy, just you wait for the phenomenal discoveries we will make out there.” 

Still, it felt wrong to go by such a name already. The Professor and Ceolmund engaged in a debate of the newest naturalistic discovery within their fields and from their talks I could glean that Ceolmund was a scholar primarily of winds and soils. He had taken an interest in the many different plants that grew on the young volcanic land and how they came to be there in the first place. Beredalion on the other hand was a guide, a surveyor and a pilot – a ship captain specialized in the furrow’s unique topology that made it so dangerous. He would often be hired to steer ships through both the shallower parts only accessible to small and light ships as well as the broader strait that allowed larger vessels to pass through between the flames entirely. For this expedition, he had also decided on and acquired our supplies apart from those required for magical or scholarly pursuits. We would have enough to eat and drink for seven days on the island. 

The Professor eventually handed Ceolmund a thick ledger and finalized a few agreements, then it was up to Beredalion to lead us to the ship that would carry us to our destination. 

It was a small and slender single-masted cutter with a crew of just three, but the helmsman, a man by the name Yohannon, was also an experienced pilot that Beredalion had selected himself. He would get us to our destination without a scratch and come back to pick us up when we needed to return. We brought our luggage aboard and waved Ceolmund goodbye. 

The two other crew members, a crolachan youth and a weather tanned human, secured the large crate on the free portion of the deck with ropes, we took secure positions and with an oar, Yohannon pushed the ship away from the peer. The crew manoeuvred the ship through between the harbour gates, where Ceolmund stood and waved us a last goodbye.  

The crolachan youth climbed up the mast and untied the sails. A gust of wind picked up as they unfurled, right towards our destination: the broad slopes of Mount Proxilus just over the horizon. It seemed the winds themselves could not wait for us to hurry along our journey. 

I looked back to the last outgrowths of civilization vanishing behind us. The boards beneath my feet felt like a sorry raft on a stormy sea.