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Novel: Sparrow

Excerpt from chapter one: Drums

'What kind of god requires subjects to bow down before him and worship his glory? What kind of god would demand acquiescence with his commandments, where a failure to believe in him, or a failure to meet his exacting standards, would be punished by an eternity of unrelenting pain and torment?' Sparrow contemplated this as he watched the crab scuttle across the kelp, its little claws pointed with all the menace it could muster in his direction. He reached out and deftly grasped it softly between thumb and forefinger; lifting it up to appraise it more closely. Sparrow had heard it said that God was in every stone. He had lifted a stone to reveal this tiny crustacean, so maybe it was God's messenger on Earth? Now he held its fate in his hands, or rather between his fingers. The power to determine between life and death was his; to either judge his captured subject worthy of continued existence, or to crush it into oblivion. Such power felt whimsical. Rising, from his crouched position, he tossed the crab high into the evening's dusky sky, and watched it plummet down onto the sea's grey surface, where it quickly sank without trace. Maybe it lived but then again, maybe not? Maybe some crab-eating critter was lying in wait and the crab, having escaped one danger, had succumbed to another equally great one?

Kai Delorge, known to his friends as Sparrow, was in a brooding mood. The drums weren't helping. They were emanating, he knew, from beyond the sea walls. Knowing this didn't insulate him from the sensation that they were surrounding him, as if some ghost fleet was out amongst the unnatural har with Far Islander slaves beating a low call to war. Beyond the drums, though, was a deeper melancholy. Life's dreams suddenly felt like chains with which to weigh him down; or a noose to choke a man so that all he could do was gurgle an incoherent death rattle as life seeped insidiously away. He felt like curling into a ball and closing his eyes to make it all go away. He was too young to have such a dark fate bequeathed to him.

Instead, he clambered up onto the highest rock he could find and stared out towards the harbour. It was a distance of maybe half a mile. On a clear day, he'd have been able to make out the names of the boats, painted proudly on their tall metallic sides, and the guns primed for use lined up along those sides. There had not been many clear days recently. Through the misty tendrils, all he could see

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