Fascinated, you observe the ship for some time. Lost in the starry black above and below, it’s heaving closer to the shore to the left. But although the binoculars lend a fiction of closeness, the galleon is still far shore, and for now you decide to explore the other parts of this cabin.
You decide to examine the map, which covers most of the wall. It stretches almost from corner to corner, and it starts an arm’s length from the floor and reaches all the way up to the opening—where gently waving twigs bend down and stroke its edges. The map is made of some kind of parchment, undated, but old and rather faded. It depicts woods, hills, sea and mountain ranges. But you don’t recognize these lands. In the corner glints a large compass rose denoting the four cardinal directions, the sea lying to the south-west. Are you in the woods next to the sea—and if so, where? You try to work it out, but outside the windows the ink of night is drowning out too much of the faraway landscapes.
Presently you return to the writing desk. The papers you noticed earlier are mostly empty, but a few have some notes in a tiny script that you don’t understand. Along the back of the desk there are small drawers in three levels. But on the desk itself, in addition to the papers, lies a hefty leather-bound book with no writing or symbol on its cover or spine. It’s closed with a lock. Turning your attention to the drawers, you find various writing implements, papers, envelopes, sealing wax, candles, matches, etc.
Then, in one of the last drawers, you find a solitary key. Hurriedly you try opening the book’s lock. But to your disappointment the key does not fit. You find nothing else of interest in the drawers. However, under the desk and to the side, there’s a small cabinet with one door. It’s locked, but there the key fits.
Inside the cabinet, among more sundry items, a tall wooden box stands out. Lifting the lid you discover a decanter filled with a clear liquid. You take it out of the box and place on the desk, and then you realize that its contents are not clear after all, but dark, almost black—a glossy obsidian color. You remember seeing small drinking glasses in one of the drawers. You take one; it looks clean enough. You lift the stopper of the decanter and start pouring.
As you gaze at the dark, watery liquid filling the glass, it occurs to you that you could fall into it and drown deep in its core—but to your confusion, at the same time you find that you can look into and even through it. You notice glittering particles floating around in the fluid, both in the glass and in the stream from the vessel. They seem rather like small shimmering dots of light, because they appear then hide as your eyes chase them. You feel like you have begun something that you should not quit—so you raise the glass to your lips and slowly empty it.
At first you sense no flavor at all on your tongue, but a refreshing, cool feeling spreads from your mouth, down into your abdomen and slowly through your limbs—and then a subtle taste emerges that you cannot place: it reminds you of the movement of the leaves through which you climbed, the smell of the meadow far below, the sensation of rushing water between your fingers and toes from a distant memory, and the salty summer wind by a grassy seaside you can’t recall.
At that moment, a sudden change in the air shifts your attention back to the window to your right. Outside it the breeze is giving way to a gale, the branches are whipping at the walls, and clouds are swirling above and below you. Still your vision is not obscured. Verily there are now more stars out, lending clarity to everything you see. You pick up your binoculars and seek the galleon once more.
The great ship has drawn much closer, and you can descry more detail than before. The sail hung from the mainmast is revealed to you now: a black cloth emblazoned with a white star with four points. The waves are wilder, carrying the ship rapidly to a port nestled among the hills. Strangely, you see no deckhands climbing the rigging nor any lookouts. Are there any crew on deck at all? You look for the wheel, which must surely be manned. But all of a sudden, the star-shaped emblem in the center of the sable canvas comes alive in a silver blaze! You realize that it’s the light from the moon—which, as you surmise, must have hid behind clouds until its abrupt appearance above.