The Archipelago had existed since long before the humans upon it began keeping written records. It was centered around a chain of underwater mountains, or seamounts, formed from the fiery eruptions of a pool of magma which seemed to drift along the ocean’s floor over the millenia. Only the tallest seamounts breached the ocean’s surface, but every mount, short or tall, shaped the currents to create a fertile bed of life.
For many of the island turtles, these waters were ideal grounds for resting or mating. Once a turtle had arrived, it might stay for years, and so the Archipelago tended to host thousands of turtles at any given time. And with them, came the hundreds of thousands of humans that lived upon their shells.
Jun’s eyes shot open to the sounds of Alcar and Elys packing knapsacks with food and other supplies. Outside his shelter, he could hear a hum of activity as the whole island seemed to be doing the same. “Have we arrived?”
Alcar gestured outside. “Take a look for yourself.”
Jun peeked his head out. What had once been open ocean was now peppered with islands in every direction. While Che’el was not the smallest of the islands Jun saw, it was definitely smaller than most. At the center of the group was a seamount, reaching into the sky, with a rocky surface mottled black, gray, and green. Sea birds flocked around nests dotting the portions of the rock nearest to the water’s edge.
Jun turned back to Alcar. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?” he asked.
“You have an exciting day ahead of you, and I thought you could use the rest,” Alcar said. “Besides, what would you have done? I’ve got everything just about ready to go.”
Jun sighed and ran out to find Lira. In truth, it was probably best that he had slept longer; even now he unsuccessfully stifled a yawn which left his jaw cracked and aching. He had aimed to be up with the first light to watch the final arrival into the Archipelago, and as a result, his sleep was fitful, plagued with dreams of waking up to find Che’el already having departed with the Archipelago long behind them.
The last time Che’el had visited the Archipelago was when Jun’s parents had met. Che’el had stayed for 4 years during that visit, which was just enough time for Elys to meet Alcar, fall in love, and convince him to move to Che’el with her. Visits to the Archipelago were often accompanied by a flurry of romance and shuffling of communities. It was uncommon, if not rare, for couples to form within an island during Archipelago visits, but as time wore on after, people relented and formed families with those around them.
As the first raft was placed in the water, Jun and Lira pressed forward through the crowd waiting to embark upon it. Lira’s father Bors was preparing to board with a collection of records when Lira approached him. “Please can we go first?”
Bors spoke to the historian accompanying him. “Let them go. We will have years to handle our affairs, but they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this moment.”
The historian nodded and gestured for Jun and Lira to step onto the raft. Once they sat, Bors began to row with an oar of knobby wood and woven grass. Slowly, they drifted along the water, threading between various islands and working their way towards the seamount. While the narrowest gaps between islands still measured hundreds of steps, Bors tended to pass close enough to several islands for Jun to see the faces of the people living and working upon them. They were the first people he had ever seen who didn’t live on Che’el.
An hour or so passed, and Jun found himself wondering how Bors had determined their destination. As he was about to ask, Bors ceased rowing and steered the raft to a gentle stop at one of the islands directly adjacent to the seamount. Jun and Lira hopped onto the island as a woman emerged from a shelter to meet them. Bors stayed on the raft, but looked up to address the woman. “My name is Bors, and we live on the island Che’el. This is Lira and Jun,” he said, pointing to them, “two of our children born since our last visit.”
The woman gave Bors a long slow nod before responding. “Welcome to the Archipelago. I am Leta, and I live on the island Botar. We swim in the shadow of Koatus.”
Bors looked over Leta’s shoulder at the black spire behind her. From this distance, Koatus rose even more intimidatingly upwards, high enough to block the sun at midmorning. Its mottled surface was now revealed to be a patchwork of birds’ nests, plants, and lichens. “Thank you Leta,” Bors said. “I shall bring our historian next, along with more of our people, but until then, may I leave the children? They wish to learn more about the Archipelago, but my memories will need to be refreshed.”
Leta walked up to Jun and Lira and placed a hand on Lira’s shoulder. “We look forward to meeting your people, but until then, Jun and Lira will be safe in my care. I am the leader of Botar, and we have been long enough with Koatus to be quite familiar.”
With that, Bors gave his farewell and began his journey back. Jun peered in the direction Bors headed and tried to pick out Che’el from the several islands, but felt disconcerted that he couldn’t do so. Lira noticed his frown and looked at him with confusion, but he just shook his head and smiled back. Leta began to walk back towards the island’s center, and Jun and Lira followed behind. “So what would you two like to know?” Leta asked.
Lira and Jun looked to each other, both struggling to contain growing grins. Jun turned back to address Leta. “Everything.”
As the sun peeked out from behind Koatus, Jun’s eyes shot open and he pushed himself to his feet. Several steps away, Lira started to awake and emerge from her own impromptu shelter. Over several months in the Archipelago, Jun had hardly slept a night on Che’el, instead hopping from island to island as he and Lira explored them all.
That first day they arrived, when Bors returned with Che’el’s historian, Jun paid little heed to what they were up to. He rode from island to island, learning everything he could about how they were similar to and differed from Che’el. While the industries and trades were generally similar, he found a variety of economies. Some used currencies of shell or stone like Che’el, while others operated via pure barter or more centrally planned resource allocation.
However, when Jun tried to ask about the islands themselves, he found most others had similarly little perspective to what he had. Except for the historians. Jun had always thought Che’el’s historian was just responsible for rotely recorded meaningless events. What he now realized was, when the historians of different islands came together, their experiences spanned across more time and islands than any person could observe alone.
The historians would gather once every few days on the island Dalom to discuss, and Jun began to attend religiously. After one of the first meetings, Jun followed behind Karu, who was seemingly one of the more experienced historians, and asked a question that had been bothering him. “How do you know when the islands come and go to the Archipelago?”
Karu looked at Jun as if surprised to see him. She was a stern, older woman with long wiry hair, more silver than black. She seemed to ponder whether it was worth the time to answer, but ultimately gave in. “As the islands arrive, they start out orbiting the seamount at the periphery of the group. Over time, they start to swim closer towards the seamount and slow their speed. At some point, they swim further once more, and after once more reaching the periphery of the group, they depart.”
“And what about the other seamounts? Have you ever been to one of them?”
“They generally work the same,” Karu said, “though the larger ones will attract larger groups of islands. I rarely make the full day’s journey myself, but the historians on each seamount will send representatives on occasion to share records and discuss findings.”
“And-” Jun stopped as Karu raised a finger and narrowed her eyes.
“If you want to join us as an apprentice, we can discuss it next time, but for now, I must get to work.”
Jun stopped and watched Karu and the other historians wander to their own shelters, deep in thought, and with an occasional murmur. Taking Karu’s advice, he continued to attend the historians’ meetings, listening and learning and taking every opportunity to pepper members with questions about the islands and about whether any would mentor him until he finally wore down Rusik, an even older historian. Rusik was raised on an island that had long since departed from the Archipelago, but like many of the other historians, he had packed his things and moved to an island which seemed likely to stay put for some time longer.
It was now the morning of the first meeting Jun was to attend as an official apprentice of the historians, and he could barely contain his excitement as he and Lira took their morning meal from one of the peddlars on the island they woke upon. In the midst of a monologue of questions and hypotheses, Jun stopped, a little embarrassed. “Sorry Lira, I’ve been talking so much about what I’m doing, but what have you gotten up to?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” Lira said dryly. As she started to talk, her eyes lit up. “People here have discovered the most amazing things. On one island, they’ve made contraptions with cords running underneath their island so they can dive secured and gather from that entire space we miss. On another island, they’ve trained sea birds, cormorants I think, to dive and fish for them! On another, they’ve discovered how to make their plants grow better through breeding over time! They’ve got trees that are taller and straighter than ours, and samphire that grows so much faster.”
Jun’s eyes veered off in thought. “If the cormorants are fishing for people, and the cormorants eat fish, how do people keep the cormorants from eating all of the fish?”
Lira punched his arm. “Is that all you heard? Besides, I’ve just heard rumors, and I haven’t gotten to actually learning anything yet.”
“Well let me know when you do, I’m certainly curious.”
Lira turned to face Jun and grabbed his shoulders. “Just imagine what it’ll be like if we can learn how to do all of these things on Che’el,” she said excitedly. “We’ll save so much time that maybe we’ll even be able to come up with our own discoveries like they do in the Archipelago.”
“Well,” Jun said, laughing, “I’ll believe you when you do it. Meet back here tonight?”
“Tonight!”
Jun and Lira each took separate rafts and headed towards their respective destinations. The Archipelago was a land of plenty in more ways than one. Between the high volume of sealife, the extra planting space granted by the seamount, and the specialization of work across islands, people here had time and resources to spare. As a result, and due to the advances Lira had mentioned, it was no wonder there was food and rafts freely available for the two of them to thrive and explore.
Jun arrived at Dalom by midmorning, around when the last of the historians arrived. As he began to join their loose gathering, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Rusik with an apologetic smile on his face. “Hey Jun, unfortunately, apprentices have other duties that take precedence over attending meetings, at least to start.”
“Other duties?”
“Don’t worry boy,” Rusik said, ruffling Jun’s hair, “it’s just a way to keep apprentices like you from asking too many questions all the time. In order for us to keep records from the arriving islands as well as from the historians of the other seamounts, we must make copies onto our own keratin plates. Even as sheets of our oldest records start to wear out, we must recopy them to preserve their knowledge.” Seeing Jun’s confusion, he continued. “This will be your duty for now, but it won’t be forever.”
Jun’s heart sank as he processed Rusik’s words. At least the historian on Che’el was able to discuss his boring records with other historians when he came to the Archipelago. Jun truly had the worst of it. Rotely copying keratin plates was a waste of Jun’s limited time in the Archipelago when all he wanted to do was learn everything that the historians knew. But Rusik assured him it was temporary, and Che’el wasn’t going to leave in the near future, so Jun picked up a sharp rock chisel and got to work.
Over weeks, Jun spent hours hunched over keratin plates reading and writing what seemed to be endless recounts of when islands arrived, when islands departed, how big the islands were, or how many people were on the islands. The only times Jun looked forward to on those working days were when Rusik would come to collect the copied plates and stay to answer Jun’s questions. One day with Rusik, Jun decided to revisit the topic of a past conversation with Lira. “Do you think the islands want us to live on them?”
“Well I’d hope so,” Rusik said, “but it’s hard for us to truly know what they’re thinking.”
“Then why do they always float? Why don’t they swim underwater like sea turtles do?”
Rusik put a hand on Jun’s shoulder. “You aren’t the first historian to worry about that, you know?” he said, waiting for Jun to nod in response. “We have a few thoughts on why the islands have chosen this lifestyle. For one, we believe it saves them a lot of energy to do so since the sun helps keep them warm. Plus, they seem to float without putting effort into it, so we believe they’re naturally buoyant, maybe from air pockets inside the shell.”
Jun furrowed his brow. “So they just happen to float and we just happen to live on them?”
“That’s definitely possible, but I don’t think so,” Rusik said with a mischievous expression. “This is still in debate within the historians, but some of us believe that the islands developed this behavior as a way to combat parasites. We’ve observed ocean sunfish come to the surface for birds to eat parasites from their skin, and from what we’ve seen of other large sea life like whales, the larger the beast, the more things that come to feed upon it.
“If you look at the islands that come to the Archipelago for the first time, they are just covered in all sorts of critters, far more than we ever see on an inhabited island. Makes sense given how gathered parasites are the biggest staple of our diet. I don’t know if it’s conscious thought that drives islands to the Archipelago to get their own population of humans or if it’s an evolutionary impulse, but either way, it seems to do them well.”
In the days between historians’ meetings, Jun and Lira continued to meet and explore. While Lira would effusively describe the skills she learned, Jun grew more and more despondent with the state of his studies. One evening, he found himself sitting with his parents during one of his almost weekly visits back to Che’el. Jun watched as Elys attended to Jora and Alcar inspected what appeared to be a new set of tools. “Every time I come back to visit, you’re always here,” Jun said to Alcar. “Don’t you have things to see and do in the Archipelago?”
“Just because I’m here when you are doesn’t mean I’m here when you aren’t,” Alcar said.
“So, how often do you go?”
Alcar chuckled. “Last time I was here, I felt the same way you do, but I explored enough then to last a lifetime.” He looked at Elys and Jora. “I’ll take the opportunity to upgrade my tools and get some gathering tips, but mostly I’m just happy to gather better in the richer waters and trade better among the larger markets. Makes life a little easier for all of us.” Alcar looked back to Jun and noticed the hint of disappointment in his expression. “How are you finding it? Has it been everything you’ve dreamt of?”
“Well, I’ve become an apprentice with the historians and-” Jun stopped and sighed. “All they have me doing is making copies of old records that no one looks at. I just feel like our time here is passing by so quickly. How am I supposed to convince them to let me discuss with them and actually learn?”
“Well, when you want to learn about ocean creatures you see when gathering,” Alcar said, “what’s the first thing you do?”
“I ask you,” Jun said, frowning at the change of topic.
Alcar raised an eyebrow. “Well that’s fair, but what if I don’t know and your mom doesn’t know and the diver doesn’t know?”
Jun thought for a few seconds. “I guess I’d just go watch them for a while.”
“Then what?”
“I’d come up with some guesses about what they do, then I’d keep watching them to see if my guesses seem to be right.”
Alcar waited with a smug expression for Jun to make the connection, but after a moment, realized he needed to elaborate. “So then, if you want to learn about the islands, and nobody knows the answers, how are you supposed to observe them?”
Suddenly, it all made sense to Jun. The keratin plates he had read and copied had included thrice copied summaries of centuries past, modern records of islands just arriving, and everything in between. If these past few months were wasted, it wasn’t the fault of the historians who had set Jun to this task, rather, it was his fault for not internalizing and analyzing the wealth of information placed before him.
Seeing Jun’s rising excitement, Elys broke into the conversation. “Now just remember, those historians will hop islands as long as they need to so they can stay on the Archipelago, but you make sure you come home.”
Jun nodded quickly. Of course he would never leave Che’el. He could never abandon his parents, Lira, or even baby Jora, who was already looking so much bigger than when they first arrived. That just reminded him of how much more he had to read and learn in the uncertain span of time he had left.