Lucan din Nicander Riven Sail
| Lucan din Nicander Riven Sail | |
|---|---|
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| LU-can din neeh-CAN-der riv-EN SAEI-l | |
| Created by | Kenneth Edberg |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation |
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| Affiliation |
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| Bondmate(s) | Darrik al'Kall |
| Nationality | Atha'an Miere |
| Attributes | |
| Talents | |
| Weapon Skills |
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| Masteries | |
| OP Strength | 7.3 |
| Affinities | Air, Spirit, Fire, Earth, Water |
Lucan din Nicander Riven Sail was an Atha'an Miere Yellow Asha'man of the Grey Tower.
Description
As a son of a Mayene tradesman, Lucan has dark hair that reaches him to his lower back. He might wear it loosely or in a leather cord behind his neck. He is a six feet and two inches tall man who had just reached his mid-thirties when he entered the Grey Tower the first time. He has grown up among the Sea Folk his whole life, and is thus tanned of skin after long years at sea and his hands display the tattoos all men of the ships wear - a six-pointed star on his right hand and marks of clan Somarin on his left. Though where his lineage should be on that hand, there are no names inked. His pale grey eyes, like wind-worn stone, are almond-shaped and are the most evident contrast to the rolling grace in his step that all Sea Folk men possess - as if he can still feel the motions of the sea. He has high cheek-bones and is clean-shaven.
When he was away from the Tower for fifteen years, he wore a beard, but he shaved it off as soon as he returned to the Tower. Doing so, he noticed that because of his powers, he has not aged anything since he returned to the salt, even though he is currently in his early forties.
He wears three rather thin gold earrings in each ear and carries two long gold necklaces. Like most Sea Folk, he prefers to go barefoot, wearing baggy breeches of dark, oiled cloth, held up by a narrow, red sash, and left loose at the ankle. He carries two curved knives in his red sash - which hangs to about the knee, and it is completely unknotted after he was exiled from the salt in order to study the True Source. When he is not bare-chested or has to wear the dark coat of an Asha'man in-training, he wears the torn, knee-long white coat which earned him his salt name - Riven Sail.
The first time he studied at the Grey Tower, he reached the level of Dedicated. He befriended Drelle Tai'shar and through certain choices he felt compelled to make, he swore a Blood oath to the Dark One and became Shadowsworn. As a Dark Friend, he committed atrocities no follower in the Light could stomach. His Mistress on the dark path had been Cora Calle Sedai, and she had aided him as he had aided her to gain influence and progress in his aims to power.
It was during his Arches test that he saw himself for what he had become, and he abandoned the Shadow.
Before he decided to return to the Sea Folk and settle his score with the man who had killed his loved one, he had aspired to the Yellow Ajah. And now, when he has returned - having failed in his ambition - he continues to do so. Yet where is his heart now? A blood-oath to the Shadow is not easily forsaken.
Biography
Wetting lips as dry as paper, the child could no longer cry.
Laying aboard a large piece of driftwood, his head rolled from side to side with the leaden motions of the vast sea. The white coat, tailored after his now dead father, was all that kept him warm. He could not remember how long he had been lying there, but since the sunshine stung his eyes whenever he tried to open them, he knew that the dreadful night as well as the storm was long past.
The storm had caught the captain by surprise, since they had entered a thick fog. When the mist had blown past them, the crew had seen that the winds that had cleared their sight would become their doom. His father had taken him down below deck and draped the coat over his small shoulders with the quick words; "Stay here, son. I will go up and help as best as I can." His father had been a Mayene tradesman, and the boy had wanted to tell him to stay, for the sea would claim him first.
Now, the sound of the sea was all that held Lucan awake.
Sometime later - he knew not how long - he heard the shadow coming before it shaded him from the sun. And when he opened his eyes, he saw a rope ladder uncoiling down the side of a ship.
"Ready about!" the command from the Deckmaster to the crew came from above and implied that all the hands were to be attentive, at their stations for tacking.
Lucan - now a deckboy of the Soarer named The Galepreserver - threw off the blanket and sat up. "What? Are we changing course this soon?" he sighed heavily and climbed out of the small bed, leaving the deckgirl Kisane looking for her small clothes among the sheets. "Hurry, else Nauyir will hang us from the mainmast by our toes"
The dark-skinned young woman pulled on her baggy breeches just as Lucan found his own. Kisane's usually murky dark eyes were stressed now, yet she found her wits as she made for the door of the small cabin they had sneaked into. "If he finds out you are wooing me, he will more likely punish you than his daughter." A quick smile was thrown over her shoulder before her graceful form slipped out.
Sighing again, Lucan tightened the red sash around his hips, and as he ran his arms through the sleeves of his father's white coat, he answered her in his thoughts; Yes, the blame always fall upon the sandlapper. The only crew member without Sea Folk blood exited the cabin and made for the deck - his torn and sun-dyed coat flapping like a sail after him.
The only crew member on the small and sleek Sea Folk ship, with two masts raked back sharply and spars laid across them squarely, who really cared for him was the Swordmaster - his foster-father Aikean din Nicander Clashing Winds.
Yet now, after this night, Kisane might care for him too.
When he reached the moonlit night above, the crew had almost found their stations. Though a few still ran across the water-slick wooden deck and threw themselves down upon their thighs to slide to the tack they were assigned, and Lucan had a final chance to reach the topsail in time. Leaping to the giant trunk of the foremast, he grabbed the loop-ended rope he had left prepared the last time the Galepreserver had changed its course and untied the line that held it from recoiling skyward with a deft tug. Holding on to the loop with his left hand, his feet left the deck.
The next moment he was flying among the billowing sails of his home.
The act to regain precious lost time would have been joyous if it had not been for the man he passed on the way. He met Lucan's grey eyes with shadowed sockets, but the shaved scalp and the scar across his left forehead made it hard to mistake him for someone other than the more experienced crew member Sanael - the leader of the four who did not tolerate his presence on the ship. He did not say anything, but Lucan knew what the cold man was thinking. Sanael had been feasting his eye upon Kisane for year before Lucan found the courage to approach her. Though they had just declared their love for each other this very night, Lucan could not shake the feeling that Sanael knew what had happened.
Defiantly touching his right hand to his heart in mid-flight, Lucan managed to greet the higher ranking young man before he passed out of sight. I will have to watch my back. That bilgestone will have me overboard without batting an eye.
As he reached the foremast's topsail, he released the loop and grabbed the handholds on the mast. He was about to follow through, climbing out on the larboard spar, but he heard shouting far below and he leaned down from his handhold to listen over the scything winds. Had the wind really been so strong before he had gone below deck?
"Avast! Avast!" came the faint shouts and the command to cease was unexpected, for they had not been given an order to proceed further than what they already had. Frowning down towards the deck, Lucan wondered what was amiss. "Crowd on all sails! Luff, steersman, luff!" Has Nauyir gone mad? Full sails in these winds? And the command to the steerman to put the helm towards the lee side of the ship, in order to sail nearer to the wind did not make sense either. We might loose the sternmast!
But then Lucan raised his eyes to the horizon behind the ship, and he saw the reason. His blood ran cold.
It was a Seanchan ship - much less than a nautical mile astern with four masts carrying them through the waves like a dagger to its aim. Lucan did not have the time to find himself before the first spheres of liquid fire hissed into the The Galepreserver's sails. And the inferno resounded below on deck as well. The Seanchan could use the One Power. Everything around him engulfed in flames and he could see nothing but the doom of his current life all around. "No!" he shouted, terror blinding his judgement. He nearly lost his handhold. "Kisane!" He had shouted her name before her eventual fate had even registered in his mind.
Then, desperation cleared all useless thoughts away like fuel to a flame and he was dead-set on reaching her. He reached above and grabbed one of the lines that connected the foremast with the main one while his other hand grabbed the single-edged axe that was tied to the spar. With three cuts, the line was free and Lucan sucked in his breath before falling from his elevated position by the topsail. As he fell, he tucked the line underneath his arm for support and hoisted the axe as if he was about to protect Kisane like a Warder would protect his Aes Sedai. The flames had eaten a great hole through the mainsail and through it Lucan swung before he dropped the line and rolled over the deck, compensating the impact. In his desperate state, he did not register how he crashed into another before he could climb to his feet again. The pain in his back and his arms were nothing, the emotions ran off his mental plumage. He looked around to find either his foster-father or his love.
Through the throng of running crew, the family and so-called friends that despised him - he saw the Windfinder Hanea running astern with a clenched expression on her face. The dark flow of her hair had wisps of white in it despite her young features. She must know where Aikean has gone. Making his way after her, he ignored the Deckmaster's orders and shouldered his way forward.
When he reached her, she stood by the stern bulwark together with the Sailmistress Eneayacute;. "What can you do? Can you save us?" asked the latter, her many earrings glinting in the firelight behind them.
Hanea's eyes betrayed as much thoughts as calm waters in summer. "I will do whatever I must, whatever I'm capable of," replied the woman in a resonant voice.
Devoid of emotion, Lucan looked beyond the two, upon the steadily approaching vessel. The many sails looked like ghosts about to bear down on them, to claim their souls. Yet he was not frightened anymore. It felt like his vision had improved for he could make out two women and three armoured warriors on the enemy's bow. One of the women could channel. One of them had attacked and was going to do so again anytime. His eyes settled next upon the three warriors, and he saw their eyes - hard and cold as granite in helmets much alike the heads of insects.
Those were their executioners. Those had to die if they were to live.
And as if his intent had triggered the Pattern, something shocking happened. The armour of the three warriors exploded as one in a storm of steel shards, effectively killing the wearers and tearing the two women apart in a rain of blood. It happened to quickly that Lucan was not sure he had seen it at all, but when the sound of the explosion reached The Galepreserver, he knew his eyes had not lied.
Lucan's wide eyes focused on the rigid back of the Windfinder. Obviously, winds are not all she is capable of, he thought and turned away, not sure he was meant to see what she had accomplished. He did not see her turn to look after his disappearing frame.
On the main deck, the crew fought in desperation to haul the burning sails overboard, but they would not make it in time, and the procedure cost lives. The lack of sails turned the Soarer broadside in winds, and also in the path of the Seanchan vessel. Lucan understood that the ship that was his home would be bilged - and the people from the Isles of the Dead would board them across the bow of their much larger ship. It was then that his foster-father called out from the bulwark that would take the impact. Silhouetted against the approaching doom, Aikean din Nicander raised his ivory-hilted sword into the winds. "Prepare to defend our ship! Mainmast crew, hoist the new sails! Sternmast crew, take the wounded below deck! Foremast crew, to arms together with the rest! The Light see us safe to docking!"
The crew answered with a clenched "Hoay!" as one but Lucan did not open his mouth - he had found his foster-father, but Kisane was still missing. The axe in his hand would help him little, for he knew not how to slay a man with it. He could chop with it, but without finesse or defined purpose. He wished Aikean had begun to teach him the sword, but the man had told him that the time would come when he had learned to use his mind. Only then, would Lucan be taught the blade by the Swordmaster.
It felt only like moments until the great impact came, and with it, a wave of armoured soldiers with blades winging forward to kill them all. Lucan found himself in a red battle-haze, his common axe finding the chinks in the insect-like armour of those who came in his way. He hit weakly protected armpits and knee-joints, sending them to the deck, and the Atha'an Miere bore down on them whenever the opportunity presented itself. It took mere moments before Lucan's white coat was splattered in blood.
However, his luck soon ran out, and his axe was lost while blocking a massive overhand blow. Only the body of a less fortunate man saved him from taking the return-cut through his chest. And Lucan was sent crawling away from the carnage over a blood-soiled deck. When he regained his footing, he saw his foster-father being pressed back through the door to the stern cabins by two soldiers. Aikean... No... he wiped the grime from his face and started after, not really knowing what he could do without a weapon.
Following the clash of steel against steel, Lucan soon found his father battling the two soldiers in the dining cabin. Aikean kicked the long table over and sent it across the floor into one of them with a second kick. He pivoted and blocked a strike before moving in to shoulder the second soldier in the chest. The return swing would have beheaded the soldier if it had not been for the small oil lamp that hung from the roof. It hooked Aikean's blade long enough for the soldier to regain his composure and deal a second strike himself. The Swordmaster had to suck in his gut and dance back a step in order to escape disembowelment. The oil lamp hit the floor and the flames came alive before Lucan's terrified eyes. He wanted to help, but he could do nothing.
The first soldier had recovered and moved in, and Lucan was only able to shout once before the end. "Aikean!" The cut fell diagonally across the Swordmaster's back, and his father slackened to the floor since the spine was shattered. "No!"
Not knowing what came onto him, he leaped forward and formed his intent in his mind. "The Father of Storms take you, he was alone!" He was going to sweep the soldiers legs out underneath him and then get the sword. But before he came into range, the closest soldier was slammed sideways and the air hummed as if a giant fist had passed through the dining cabin. The soldier impacted with the wall and the clamour of rent steel and breaking bones resounded before the scream. Lucan did not care; one still stood. Taking another step forward, his eyes pierced through the helmet and into the eyes behind. He was actually pleased to see the terror there. "He was alone!" The air hummed again, and the invisible fist struck the soldier off his feet and through the stern cabin window. In a rain of glass, the already crippled Seanchan was taken by the waters.
Lucan did not know how long it took for him to reach his foster-father's body, but when he did, the light had already passed out of those light brown eyes. "Father," he said to the dead man for the first time since he came aboard The Galepreserver fifteen years ago, "Father, do not leave me. I beg of you."
Behind him, the Windfinder Hanea stood tall. After having looked briefly towards the remains of the soldier by the wall, she watched the deckboy in his distress, not knowing what to tell the Sailmistress about the night's events. Will this young man's misery have an end, I wonder?
Kisane entered by her side a few minutes later, and she looked between the body of the Seanchan soldier and her. She seemed to think Hanea was responsible for the man's unnatural death and quickly went to the deckboy's side. Hanea said nothing. Maybe it was better if she did not voice her suspicions before she was certain of their actuality.
After docking in the wide, lop-sided bowl of Cantorin Harbour, The Galepreserver had to undergo a period of repair, during which, Lucan was anointed a higher rank, among many others.
However, to honour the memory of the offspring-less Swordmaster Aikean, the Mayener orphan who had been saved from certain death in the Sea of Storms received his surname. This was something never heard of, but it fell under the jurisdiction of the Somarin Clan and the Sailmistress of the ship. Lucan was thus named Lucan din Nicander and was granted the right to wear three earrings in each ear and two necklaces - one for his rank and another for shown bravery during the Seanchan attack. The Windfinder Hanea had stepped forward at the end of the ritual, handing him the torn and out-dated coat they had found him in so many years ago. She looked at the young man in a peculiar way, as if she was looking at a diseased animal.
After the coat had been bloodied during the attack, the Windfinder had personally restored it. As she held the coat up for the young man to run his arms into it, the Sailmistress even announced him a salt-name; Riven Sail. Still suffering from the grief and the mysteries about what had happened the night his foster-father had died, Lucan adjusted the torn coat that had granted him his salt-name over his wide shoulders, unsmiling. There was only one spark of joy left for him now, and her name was Kisane.
What he did not know, was that her life also laid in peril's way.
Late at night, walking along a small street in Cantorin towards the inn where Kisane stayed, Lucan din Nicander's mind was cast in shadow.
What is happening to me? He could not understand what had happened any more than he would tell anyone about it. How could I kill the Seanchan soldiers by mere thought? He had not even told Kisane yet, even though he was planning on doing so that very night. Maybe she could help him understand. His mind settled, he looked up from the pale stone under his bare feet. What he then saw made him stop.
At the end of the street, three bare-chested figures blocked his path.
"Greetings, shipmates," he said and moved his hand to his heart, saluting the three who accompanied Sanael in the hatred towards his presence on their ship. They could not stand how a sandlapper could be amidst their crew. Their names were Aldon, Mellem and Berdaor. They were all of Sanael's big size, but they did not share his intellect - a fact that distinguished him as the leader of the four. However, the leader was not present, and in the back of his mind, Lucan found that more disturbing than anything else.
"We don't return salutes from the Son of the Sands," replied Mellem, and the grave insult made Lucan clench his fists by his sides. The three entered the small street he had been walking along, edging closer with the flowing grace common to all Sea Folk men. It was the easiest way to separate clan members from the island-bond Amayar. However, this docking in Cantorin had provided the group a perfect opportunity for approaching him without the Deckmaster finding out. There would be no punishments here if they were not caught in the act or strong evidence towards their involvement could be presented.
"We understand you want to visit the deckgirl Kisane tonight," continued Berdaor then, and enhanced discomfort crept higher along Riven Sail's spine. "I'm afraid we cannot let you do that, for she is already enjoying company."
"Sanael favors her, and ye know it," said the third, Aldon as he pointed an accusing finger at him, "yet still ye don't have the wit to stay clear from her. Sanael told us to teach ye the importance of manners among us Atha'an Miere if you are to remain with us. And now when you see reason, you will seal a bargain with us that you will stay away."
"No bargain," replied Lucan instantly, for breaking a bargain would shame him beyond what he thought he could suffer after he had watched his foster-father die. His pale grey eyes darted between the three as he took a step back. "And I have more salt in my veins than the three of you combined. If it is a fight you seek, I will stand against you three jellyfishes as a true man of the sea. Have you not the spine to fight me one at the time?"
That had not the desired effect, for they cursed him loudly and rushed at him, their baggy breeches flapping. They rushed in together despite his taunt.
Since Lucan knew little more than the next man about unarmed fighting, he was quickly sent to the stone pavement after a few brave moments - subdued under hard kicks and blows to his back. The pain blinded him after a while, and he could no longer see what happened around him. He heard curses and vile racist words and suffered the venting of their withheld rage - a rage unjust and condescending towards a fact he could not escape.
After a while he felt nothing, for he took refuge in a place where no pain reached.
Soon they tired, stepping back to view his bloodied remains. His breathing was even, and he watched as they spat on his face. Am I dead? No, that could not be it, for he could blink at their backs when they began to walk away. What is happening? After they had walked a few yards, Lucan propped himself up on his arms and folded his legs underneath him. Degree by degree, he regained his footing. Finally, when he staggered sideways to catch his balance, the three turned at the sound of his bare feet on stone. With a hard tug, he straightened his torn coat over his blood-stained chest.
His eyes were grey and black fire.
"Have you not had enough?" asked one of them, but he could never remember which one afterwards. For during the next few seconds, their high-pitched wailing began and ended just as abruptly in the night air.
"Sanael!" gurgled Lucan as he stumbled down the corridor towards Kisane's room. He reeled from side to side, leaving bloody hand prints on the white stone walls. He could only see though the slit under his swollen right eyebrow, and he had to lift his head in order to make out the doors which framed his path. "Ki.. Kisane! Kis..ane! Answer.. me..!"
The Light be with her, she must be safe, he thought, drunk on pain. And then, he reached her door, shouldering it open with great effort. "Kisane!" he shouted again, looking around in the chamber.
It did not take long for him to find her.
She was lying on the bed in her skin, with great blue bruises on her throat. The light blue sheets contrasted beautifully against her, and had it not been for her wide open eyes and the smashed furniture in the room, he might have thought she had died in peace. Lucan staggered to the bedside, the anguish he felt welling up his throat. "No... No..." his tanned shoulders raked with sobs, and soon he was crying silently before her, tears streaming down his face.
Only after some time, he mustered the strength and resolve to climb up the bed and kiss his bloody fingertips, pressing them to her lips. "The Light willing, we shall meet again," he told her, yet he could find no pride in not hearing his voice break.
He must have been there for some time, for when the Windfinder Hanea entered Kisane's rooms, the dawn had come outside the arched window-frame. A cool wind was brushing over Lucan din Nicander's terribly battered body as he sat beside the bed. He had covered his love's body with an additional sheet.
"The Light illumine her soul, and the waters take her peacefully," the woman said as she looked upon the outline of Kitsune on the bed.
"So you knew, mistress?" asked Lucan and looked up upon Hanea, not quite in surprise since it was an emotion beyond him at the moment.
"Yes," replied the woman to him and walked to gaze out the window. "Sanael came to me and confessed in the middle of the night. He did it out of frustration for her not wanting him. He was very regretful."
Lucan did not answer. His hate boiled to high in his ears to speak for the moment.
"He will be imprisoned here in Cantorin, and the clan will deal out his punishment. He will be locked away for many years, and never become more than an Ayamar here," she continued, but she got no further.
"No, he will die, by my hand," said Lucan in an icy tone, flat and un-bendable. Sanael would never do anything unless it served his ends. This way, he would escape death and flee later on as soon as he could.
The Windfinder turned towards him "That decision is not yours. And you will have no opportunity for vengeance."
Lucan met her dark eyes with his pale grey, and his silence was question enough.
"We found Aldon, Mellem and Berdaor," she stated flatly as if the sea was their home, "and what I saw there has confirmed my suspicions. It was you who killed the damane on the Seanchan ship, and killed those who murdered your father. I did not want to voice my suspicions until I was certain they were true, for these accusations are grave for a young man of this Age. Lucan din Nicander, you can use the tainted half of the One Power. You... should be delivered to the Land of Madmen presently before you grow more mad than you obviously already are. Do not think you can resist me, for I have Shielded you off from your newly discovered powers since the moment I entered this room."
Lucan had figured as much during the night, he was now fated to rot and die in madness. Yet now, when he was without Aikean and Kisane, his fate did not matter. He was too tired to argue, so he asked a one-word question. "Should?"
"There is a place you can go instead, a place where you might make use of your powers. The Grey Tower in the Mountains of Mist teaches male channelers to improve their skills in the name of the Light. I and the Sailmistress are willing to grant you this chance since you saved us all when the Seanchan attacked us. We... owe you as much."
"No," said Lucan, shaking his head slowly, "I will not walk away from this. I will not leave the salt, and I will not leave Sanael here breathing."
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," said Hanea with a little edge for the first time.
Lucan slowly rose to his feet, swaying only a little. "With all due respect Windfinder, you have no idea what you are talking about."
"Enough!" she snapped pushing him back into the chair with her powers. "You have no choice in this matter. You will become fully trained in the Grey Tower so that you can handle your new powers, young man."
What choice did he have, when facing Hanea? Long moments passed while his worn mind pondered the decision before him.
With a sudden smile, Lucan inclined his head. "It is agreed, under the Light. We have a bargain," he stated tiredly. He was no true Atha'an Miere by blood, but a bargain was to be kept no matter what. A Sea Folk man would sail through fire and storm to keep his end of a bargain. He would be fully educated at this Grey Tower in the middle of the nations.
However, as soon as he was done, he would return to claim Sanael's life.
The bargain Lucan din Nicander Riven Sail had struck proved even more trying on his patience, for it appeared as if the male half of the One Power has been cleansed by the day he reached the foothills to the Mountains of Mist. Of course he was gladdened about that fact, since he had no desire to turn up as a rotten madman before Sanael was killed.
Adjusting his torn white coat and hefting the walking staff he had made himself, he began to climb towards his new, very temporary home. In his mind, he saw Sanael lying in a puddle on the floor - dead as dead can be - and himself saying his final goodbye to Kisane.
Career History
- Soldier
- Dedicated
- Asha'man of the Yellow Ajah (19 June 2008)
- M'Hael (11 February 2009)
- Asha'man of the Black Ajah
- Supreme Leader of the Black Ajah
