Editing Fading Sea (section)

==== The Grey Mistress ====
Aspiring seafarers often hear the tale of the Grey Mistress, an elegant, well-regarded brigantine captained by one Ferdinand Lavarin. The Mistress' voyages were long; Lavarin was adventurous, even among seafarers, and had more than once stayed on the Sea for years without sight of Galgeleth. Each journey brought home great treasures; once, twenty intelligent automata of bone; once, a glowing sapphire that healed the wounds of the holder; once, a tiara of gold twisted with an unfamiliar blue metal that was said to give its wearer power over dreams. Some even say he found a key that opened an ancient door deep in the vault of one of the princes, but such a thing is surely fancy.

The present journey, however, was to be even greater. The University (it was, at this time, a single institution) had amassed a grand sum, and offered it to Lavarin if he could locate an island which they theorised could be a constant point, far out at Sea. Many watched the Mistress go; months later she returned, almost unrecognisable, crewed by unfamiliar, wild-eyed men who gave their names as those of men long thought Faded. All were arrested; eventually, one broke under questioning, and told the sorry tale.

Their ship, the Patna, had set out from Galgeleth securely leashed, years before. It was a cursed voyage, culminating in the shattering of the leash-hold in a storm. Thereafter the despairing crew wandered, searching desperately for a way to return. Years passed, endlessly hunting through island after island without a shred of hope until finally, unbelievably, they recognised the Grey Mistress far in the distance. The ships signalled and made contact, and the men persuaded Lavarin to let them join the Mistress' crew in exchange for their amassed treasures, the Patna being slow and barely seaworthy. The Mistress then encountered nothing but open seas, however; supplies ran critically low. The man claimed Lavarin was planning to throw the nomads from the boat, making their actions self-defence, but no-one who knew Lavarin believed the tale. In any case, the desperate wanderers slaughtered the Mistress' crew while they slept, and strugglingly managed to pilot the ship back to port. The man said that when they sighted the Old Five Thousand Miler on the horizon, the whole crew broke down and wept. Subsequently, all were hanged as pirates, but the story of a lost ship encountering a leashed one drove the University into a furor, to say nothing of the rest of the city. The tale ends with a warning, though against what seems to vary each time it is told.

Of course, this is only a story. The Mistress was real enough; many records support her long voyages and great discoveries under the good Captain Lavarin. The Patna and her crew, and the whole story of the returning Faded, on the other hand, may have been lost in the flooding of the Library, or they may never have existed at all. It seems impossible; things Faded are lost for all eternity. And yet...