By the time he could see treetops in the distance Brokk had been without provisions for two days. His modest store of oranges had run out, and his skin was cracked and burned from the sun where his jerkin failed to cover him. He had become numb to the salt spray that stabbed at his limbs whenever the waves lapped against the raft. The sight of the mangroves served as confirmation that the bird perched upon his shoulder was not, after all, a figment of his imagination. He was unsure how long it had kept his company. Through half-closed eyelids he saw its luxuriant plumage, red and blue and green and gold. Perhaps he shouldn’t be too quick to trust his senses—he’d never known of a bird so colorful.

Nine nights before, he had said goodbye to his brother Gruzzon while he lay sleeping, fearing he might prevent his leaving were he awake. Under Gruzzon’s blackened breastplate he had tucked a short note, scrawled on the back of a fragment torn from one of the many broadsides posted throughout the city which announced the coming new year’s gladiatorial games. Remembering this goodbye note he chuckled, wondering what use a note would be to someone who cannot read—especially one written by someone who cannot write.

Next to Gruzzon he presented a pathetic figure, due less to his stature (they were both quite large) than to his timorous bearing. The jailer called him “Paragon of the Coliseum” out of contempt. In reality his life had been spared in the arena twice, and on other occasions he had prevailed over his opponents only after his brother squared up beside him in support. The jailer had become determined to orchestrate Brokk’s appearance in the arena alone and unaided: for him meet the fate his shameful behavior demanded. He took relish in every opportunity to remind him of this eventuality.

It was small consolation to think of the jailer now as Brokk had left him, slumped against the rough stone wall, his dark blood funneling into the cobblestone joints along the corridor floor. The act had been easy enough: his skull had caved in on itself like some great rotten melon. It would take many more days for Brokk to realize that within this melon he had unearthed a valuable seed of wisdom: determination counted for much more than strength.

Much had happened in the intervening days. Stowing away on a cargo ship leaving the Capital was simple enough—its destination mattered little to Brokk. But as is typical to these sorts of tales, a storm dashed the ship against the black rocks encircling Aldo’s Isle. The crate of oranges in which Brokk was hiding broke into several large panels, one of which he fashioned into a raft. The storm dispersed suddenly as it had appeared, and Brokk drifted, powerless to control the course of his vessel, leaving a trail of citrus peels to mark his path southward, until the last orange was gone. The southern sun then visited its unabated fury upon the unfortunate flotsam. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his dreams vivid and portentous, filled with serpentine stone forms, yet he always startled awake to the same blank horizon. The bird had arrived brightly-colored against the penumbral labyrinth of his dreams, or at least it seemed that way until an avian screech woke him to behold the tops of trees in the distance.

The roots of the mangroves rose out of the water in great arches. As the raft passed under the first of these into the welcome shade of trees, he jolted upright at the sound of a monkey’s desolate shriek. The bird, whose corporeality was by now beyond question, flew up from his shoulder into the branches of a tree further on. It watched him there, a beacon among the dark leaves of the mangroves. He was being beckoned further. Not that there was any point in doing otherwise—these trees meant there was shore ahead.

For a short time the raft passed through the trees, startling the fish who took refuge in their roots. Clusters of small crabs scuttled up to higher ground. The yellow eye of a crocodile bobbed just above the surface of the water, lazily tracking his progress. Whenever he neared the bird it flew deeper into the trees. Soon enough the growth became too thick to pass through, and he was forced to abandon his raft and clamber up into the tangle. His limbs ached after many days of disuse. The bird beckoned. As he progressed his weak groans receded into the feverish undulations of the cicadas and the rasps of the dragonflies. The monkeys shrieked on all sides, and when he turned to look up into the canopy he could see many had gathered to track his progress. Perhaps they gathered to prevent him from discovering their treasures, those they had been tasked with concealing from the covetous eyes of men. As a child he’d heard such things said in passing by the older men of the village. That’s fine by me, he thought, If I can only find somewhere to rest I’ll be satisfied. “Fear not for your treasures, I’m only passing through!” he called out to them in a weak voice, and then chuckled at himself for the outburst. The bird flew further ahead.

When his hand clenched the first fistful of cold mud he gathered what strength he had left and launched himself from the roots. There he lay prone, spent, on the first few feet of muddy shoreline, shaded by great arching branches. He did not look up to see the great stone ruins that stretched over him, nor the leathery skeleton that sat nearby, the remains of a warrior. It would be two days before he would wake, sit up in the mud to find the pile of ripe fruit left by the monkeys, two days before he would turn to see the dour skeleton still grasping the shaft of a stone-tipped spear. And the bird still perched in the branches above, beckoning.

For now it was left to him to dream.

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