Seer's Hunt
The canoe bobbed gently on the waves.
Seer lay back letting the heat of the sun take away the chill from his free diving. The pile of fish he had speared lay at the other end of the small boat.
The water was thirty feet deep here and clear making for good spearfishing, but going down to those depths multiple times sapped the warmth from his body.
After several minutes he sat up, grabbed his paddle and started back toward the shore.
A half hour later he stopped paddling and let the boat glide to a stop. Below him was the island of Ancestor. He always stopped here on his way back from fishing.
Ancestor had brought his tribe to the island a thousand years ago and claimed it for his own. Back then it was above the waves and the tribe flourished here protected from the Outsiders on the mainland.
Ancestor taught his tribe his wisdom. How to grow the tay-toh for food, to harvest the fish from the Big Water much like Seer himself had done today. How to make sweet water safe for drinking. And how to use the thunder weapons to drive away the Outsiders.
Ancestor had been a mighty warrior and his thunder weapons had kept his tribe safe. They grew many and strong and became the People.
Seer's tribe.
The boat gently rolled in the swell. Seer looked over the edge. Now warmed up, he almost dreaded going back into the cold of the depths. But he was drawn to see again the remains of the submerged island. He pulled on his fish feet. Fins made of bamboo and a covering of hemp cloth to make it easier to swim. Then he checked the cord tied to his ankle.
He never went out in the canoe without being tethered to it. The water here was too deep for an anchor and to lose the boat would be a disaster. And possibly fatal. There were dangerous creatures in the Big Water. Sharks didn't worry Seer very much but the crocodiles near shore surely did.
He pulled the goggle over his eyes. Ancestor had used goggles like these when he dove in the water, as well as fins.
His had been made of a magic cloth from his time called plastic. Many things could be made from that cloth according to Grandfather. Nowadays the people melted sand to create small amounts of glass to make the eye pieces for sea goggles.
Seer tied the cord behind his head, adjusted the goggles to his eyes and rolled over the side into the water.
He involuntarily gasped as the chill enveloped his body. He held on to the side of the boat breathing deeply to charge his lungs as his body adjusted to the water temperature. Finally he was ready. Grasping his short fishing spear he bent and lunged down into the shadowed deep.
The clarity wasn't as good here. He had to go down twenty feet before he could make out the lumps of sea weed that marked where the artifacts were.
The island had been three miles away from the then shoreline connected with a narrow causeway. The broken remains of the road were mostly covered with sand now. Every now and then a storm would wash some sand away and show what was underneath.
There was a few large metal things that now formed small reefs for fish. Grandfather said that these metal things were what Ancestor and his tribe rode inside. Like a boat on land. Seer couldn't see how that would have worked. The things were too big and heavy for a sail to move them. And you certainly couldn't row them around. Still, they were neat to look at anyway. He peered at one, almost completely rusted away it's outline still visible from a delicate framework of coral and sea grass.
He flippered around the side of it and found a fair sized grouper. He considered adding it to his day's catch but then decided that it was too late in the day to be letting fish blood loose in the water. No sense drawing the tiger sharks in closer to shore when visibility was so bad.
His lungs were starting to burn. He turned and saw where some recent storm surge had cleared away a square box. It was white colored metal and oddly wasn't rusted. He swam over and ran his hand over it. Being buried in the sand must have helped preserve it. It was a long as he was. He tried to move it but it was too heavy.
He was almost out of air. He had to leave. Noting where the box was in comparison to the rusted things he started swimming back to the surface. He had pushed his time limit for free diving. His lungs ached. He fought down the panic that bubbled within him. Flippering madly toward the fading light above.
He broke the surface, gasping. He swam over to the canoe and clung to it while sucking in great shuddering breaths of air. His head spun. Eventually he was able to pull himself back into the boat. It was late afternoon now and there was not enough sun to warm him. He dried off with a hemp cloth and picking up his paddle started back toward shore again.
He needed to tell Grandfather what he had found.
