Aeternitas by M Mixson (web based ebook reader txt) 📕

Ohiel licked his lips, “How do you know if a detail is important?”

Diar wrinkled his nose. “You just…” he gestured with his hand, “You really look. You look hard, deeply, at the subject. When I paint men for example,” he waved his hand again, “I try and look at their individual muscles, the expression on their faces, the way they hold their hands, the way they stand,” he stopped and waited for Ohiel to stop writing. “Have you ever heard of contrapposto?”

Ohiel shook his head. “No, I don’t think I have…”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t. I see you mostly do portraits and landscapes, rarely ever full forms, am I correct?”

Ohiel nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, that’s a problem. As an artist you should be able to paint a variety of ways, not just one or two ways. I’ll have to teach you how to do full body paintings.”

Ohiel nodded again.

“So, contrapposto is a way of standing, counter pose actually. When you stand casually you put more weight on one foot, one side. That is conrapposto.”

Ohiel’s pen scribbled frantically across his pad of paper.

Diar calmly told him, “When you actually start painting or drawing using contrapposto you’ll start to understand it.”

Diar gazed intently at Ohiel, before he took the sketch pad from Ohiel and his charcoal pencil. “Hold still,” he commanded.

Very quickly his eyes traced the boy’s features as the charcoal pencil scratched across the page. A few minutes later he turned the sketch pad around to show Ohiel the result.

“See? In this I sketched you at one moment – the moment of your surprise as I took the sketch pad – I managed to create a whole new idea, not just blank or emotionless as was preferred in the past.”

Diar took another breath, “You are a great artist, never doubt that. But remember, you are not the best, you may never be the best, I for one, am only known so widely because of a single commission. You may never get something like that, but I would not worry. I’m sorry this is very confusing for you right now, and I wish there was something more I could do, but…”

This time it was Ohiel who smiled. “I am not going to worry.”

That was their first conversation of many about art during the two day journey to the ship.

The ship was large and made of a gorgeous red colored wood. The masts seemed to pierce the sky and when the sun shone down it reflected off the white masts unstained by dirt and grime of the sea. This was her maiden voyage – the first time she was to sail. Ohiel thought of their journey on the carriage and wondered at this new marvel.

There was a round barrel sitting at the corner of the beginning of the pier and he found it was a good vantage point to observe the ship. Once he was comfortably seated he pulled his sketch pad and his charcoal pencil. He flipped through his sketch pad until he got to a clean page. He stared for a moment as he took in the ship before touching his pencil to the paper and starting to sketch. Every few minutes he would look up and double check that he was drawing accurately. The ship began to take shape in his art, the minute details, the small cracks in paint, the beautiful name of the ship, “The Sea Maiden” in its gorgeous cursive, and the handsome sailors who moved around each other going about their jobs easily.

Diar spoke over his shoulder, “You seem to be getting the hang of what I taught you.”

Ohiel jumped, not realizing that the man had come up behind him.

“Sorry,” Diar apologized, “I thought you had heard me come up. I called your name several times.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I was just finishing up anyways…” Ohiel let the sentence trail off, “Did you need me?”

“Oh? Yes, we’re getting ready to board.”

Diar gave him his ticket. “We’re in first class, we’ll have a large sitting room, two bedrooms and an onboard bathroom as well as a breakfast room. I think you’ll enjoy this trip very much.”

Ohiel stood up from the barrel which was promptly whisked away by a sailor in white.

“They make good subjects, don’t they?” Diar inquired of his young pupil.

Ohiel nodded as he was too busy staring as they walked up the gangplank of the ship. After waiting for about a half hour in the boarding line the Captain greeted them introducing himself as, “I’m Captain Leer. This is not my first ship, nor will it be my last. I am here to take you to Helvonum. Please enjoy your time aboard this ship but also remember you must follow the rules and regulations. Come aboard.”

“Aaaah!” Leer grinned as he patted Diar on the back. “Here you are! Did my carriage arrive here in good shape?”

“It’s back here in perfect shape Leer, don’t worry.”

The Captain turned and looked down at Ohiel. “Who might you be? You can’t be related to Diar, now can you?”

Ohiel shook his head. “I’m Ohiel. I’m a painter. I’m going to be Diar’s apprentice.”

“Apprentice, eh? You manage to get along with him? I’ve never seen anyone get along with this rascal!”

Ohiel ducked his head and looked away with embarrassment.

“Aww, don’t be like that boy, I meant nothing by it. Diar here is my best friend’s son. His Daddy’s dead now of course, but I still look after him.”

Diar gripped the older man’s hand, “Enough about that now, we’ve got things to be doing.”

Leer laughed his big belly laugh and waved them onboard the ship. “Enjoy!” he called.

Once they were away from the old man Diar commented, “He’s like a second father to me, although I think he’s losing his mind. In any case, here is our cabin!”

And with that he threw open a door and their sea voyage began.

Ohiel was sick from the first few days of the voyage on, so sick in fact that he could barely move without throwing up all of his food. Diar had tried to stay with him but seeing Ohiel sick was making him sick too. Instead of staying with him, he enlisted one of the many maids on the ship to look after his young apprentice.

The maid’s name was Blose. She was a middle-aged woman whose smile was kindly…until she started talking. She was firm and strict, she liked things kept neat and orderly and above all clean.

While she may not have been the best pick to be Ohiel’s “nurse maid” he liked her and she liked him. Perhaps she took a liking to him because he did not ridicule her slightly overweight stature or the wrinkles that were starting to line her face or maybe it was simply that he was nice to her and always apologized when he made a mess and often insisted on cleaning it up himself even though he was sick.

She asked him on the third day she was assigned to him this, “Why are you so intent on keeping things picked up when you’re sick? That’s what I’m here for.”

Ohiel smiled a bit wryly and spoke (between coughs and gasps for air as the ship tilted this way and that) “I’m used to picking up after myself. I grew up in a poorer family. Which meant we all had our jobs to do. Because my mother was sick we had to do our best to keep her comfortable and make sure the house was clean in her place.”

“Was sick? Did she get better?”

Ohiel shook his head than promptly threw up into a dull metal bucket due to the motion of his head making him sick.

Blose soothed him for a few minutes and when he had his breath back Ohiel answered, “Yes she was sick, but no she didn’t.”

“And yet you left her?”

“She wanted me to go – to achieve something – to do something with my life other than letting it stagnate.”

“Even so, you should have stayed and helped take care of her!”

“I couldn’t…there was nothing to…”

“Nothing to what? She’s your mother!”

Ohiel took a deep breath, his voice wavering, “She died, not long after she told me I should go. She died and left me.”

Blose made a sorry sound, “I’m so sorry…I didn’t know. What exactly is it that you do?”

“I paint. I’m a painter. Well, a painter’s apprentice. To Diar.”

“Diar? That famous painter? He’s the other man in the room next to yours?”

Ohiel nodded, “Yes. He’s the one. We’re on this trip so that he can study a new style and train me in it.”

“That was kind of him; you must be very good for him to want to bring you on this trip with him.”

The boy shrugged. “I’m not sure I’m that good, but he thought so. Obviously, I’m not a master painter yet – I doubt I ever will be – but I hope to learn more from him. He is a great painter after all.”

Blose’s mouth twitched up into a smile, “I think you’re really sick – you just said that twice.”

He groaned and rolled over onto his side curling up into a ball. “I feel sick. It’s like the waves are in my bones.” He shivered. “And it’s cold. All I want to do is sleep…I could die happy if my feet touched land just once.”

Blose laughed out right at his comment. “Many people feel that way, but if you travel by ship enough then you’ll start to get used to it.”

“I never want to travel by ship again.”

Blose stroked his hair back from his forehead commenting, “It’s certainly getting long…I’ll cut it for you later.”

With that, she left the room and the young man to sleep a deep sleep.

A little later Diar came into Ohiel’s room and woke him from his slumber. “I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were still doing well. Sometimes people who get really sick die in their sleep.”

Ohiel was far too sleepy to completely comprehend the words and murmured something back.

Diar glanced out the window in the boy’s room and saw the sea bashing up against the side of the ship. He shook his head and made his way to the door where he stopped and looked back at Ohiel once more before he closed the door behind himself.

A few minutes later, he was mounting the steps to the captain’s quarters where his good friend was sleeping. He knocked on the door briskly and waited for a reply.

A few seconds later, the door opened and Leer poked his head out to see who was knocking on his door at this time of night.

“Diar? Something wrong?”

Diar frowned and shook his head a little bit. “Can I come in?”

Leer stepped back from the door and held it open. “Of course, now, you wouldn’t look like that unless something was truly wrong.”

“It’s not that something is ‘truly wrong’ as you put it, but something feels off to me. You know I’ve been on quite a few sea voyages myself and I wouldn’t come to you like this unless…how do I explain it?”

Leer examined his best friend’s son in silence as he waited for Diar to continue his explanation.

“It’s like a gut feeling, something telling me that,