Dark Legacy: Book I - Trinity

Chapter I

It was a beautiful spring morning. The ocean winds blew gently against the leaves of an old tree that stood near a high ocean cliff. A seagull, flying away from the rising sun, flew right over the old tree. She, the seagull, was searching for something. There was a strong gust of wind and she glided until a long stretch of beach appeared far down below her; she had just flown past the sharp edge of a towering mountain wall. Beside the sea she could see scores of thatched huts cluttered around a circular plain, and from the western and northern edges of this village she saw flooded rice fields and newly plowed vegetable fields, both irrigated and not irrigated, leading up to a forested valley. And at the far end of the beach she saw a second mountain wall. She was relieved. She had finally arrived. She descended searching for someone.

A man emerged from his thatched hut and sniffed the air; he could smell the lingering scent of the night rains. He looked at the sky and felt the faint chill of winter saying its last goodbye. He clapped his hands three times, kneeled, placed his hands on the ground, and bowed his head until it touched the ground. He prayed to the goddesses of the sea for he was a fisherman of Ikishi. When he was done, he grabbed the spear that he had stabbed into the earth the night before and walked to the beach. Along the way he saw the pink buds of the cherry trees beginning to bloom. Hmmm, he thought, they are blooming a bit early this year.

When he arrived at the beach he stopped and looked out to where the sea met the sky before clapping his hands, kneeling, and bowing his head to the ground again. He prayed to the gods of the winds. When he was done, he stood up and saw his small sailboat at the end of a long pier made of wooden planks and bamboo stems. He walked to the pier, and he smiled when he saw a familiar seagull circling above him. "There you are, old friend. Come looking for food to feed your young?" He stepped up onto the pier, walked to his boat, stood before his boat with his hands held together before his heart and whispered a few words. He then stepped down into his boat, untied the rope that held it to the pier, and shoved off.

He set his sail, which was heavily marked by long curving lines of his own poor stitch work, and relaxed as he looked back and saw his young son dart across the beach waving at him. He waved back and smiled and thought of how proud he was of his little friend. When he had sailed safely past a reef of jagged rocks he prepared his traps and threw them into the ocean. He then reclined in his boat and waited as the morning sun began to shine upon him.

When the sun had risen high into the morning sky he awoke and found the seagull that he had seen earlier sitting patiently within his boat. He rubbed his eyes and said, "Let's see if I have something for you." He sat up and pulled in one of his traps. "Looks like I've got nothing. But, anyway, you wouldn't like a crab, now would you? Let's see what I can do." He grabbed one of his nets and threw it out into the sea. "I have yet to wake," he yawned. He yanked the rope that was attached to the net, pulled the net back into the boat, and was pleased to find a few lively fish squiggling within it. "Now I have something for you," he said with pride. "The gods are looking favorably on me today, now wouldn't you say?" The seagull agreed by flapping her wings. He picked out a fish from the net and asked, "Are you ready?" to the seagull. She replied again with flapping wings. He threw the fish high into the sky and the seagull flew up and caught it with her beak. "There you go," he commended as he watched the bird fly away to feed her young.

By midafternoon the seagull had returned to Ikishi. She stood on a high tree branch watching the rush of activity among the villagers who were preparing for the spring festival. Women ran to and from the marketplace trading and bargaining for the ingredients they needed to bake their cakes while old men debated over whose cows were to be sacrificed; children could be heard in the distance singing with glee: One cow to feed the gods, a second to feed our forebears, and a third to be eaten by adulty-dult men ...