From Balthazar’s Illuminated Manuscript:
Foamflower was the first ship to cross the Great Sea. Held aloft on the winds of an unearthly gale, she coasted along the waves through the night like a great ocean bird. The crew manned rope and oar and rudder, and prayed to Mons, lord of all that man has built, for deliverance. They prayed that the skills of the wrights who had built the ship had been skillful, and done their work well.
And so it was: in the dawn the mare’s head on Foamflower’s stem looked out over calm water at a coastline never before glimpsed by human eyes. The crew saw a great harbor many miles across, but protected by two arms of hills so that though the water was deep, for a Great River flowed into the bay, the harbor was protected from the worst of the ocean’s tumults. And in the center of the Bay rose an island, and Kenza - Foamflower’s captain - rowed to the island, and the crew gave thanks to Mons for their safe arrival, and that they had not been shown too weak to live in the world, and so they called the island the Island of Mons in thanks.
First, Kenza had his crew build safe places to live on the island, for they knew not what might await them in the terrible forests that lined the shore. And they fished the harbor, and hunted in the woods, and for a year and a day they lived on then island, and built up a place where others could come, and that they could create a great town where the people of Mons could live in a garden and be safe from the vagaries of the world.
And because it was harvest time, Kenza saw the plenty they had and what they had done he said: “we have found a paradise on earth, and it is time for us to sail back into the East, for we have families who know not what has become of us. We have braved the grinding ice, and we shall do so again - twice more, for we shall bring our people to this place, and great a new City so that Mons shall return.” And the crew of Foamflower took this to heart, and they worked doubly hard, knowing that though they had a long winter ahead of them, when the spring came they would sail for home, and so they feasted, and were glad.
But the Boy Who Had No Name said to Kenza: “my lord, though I was not of your company, and owe you much thanks for your rescue of me, I would say unto you that your task is not complete, for you have not yet set foot on the mainland. For a year and a day we have looked out across the water at the three hills that rise there, and I feel that we should go, and see what it is that awaits us.”
And Kenza looked at the Boy Who Had No Name and said “Though we found you on a rock in the ocean in a place that no man should be, I have found you to have a second sight, and so if you think that we should go to shore, we shall go”.
And so Kenza, and the Boy Who Had No Name and some of the crew set sail in small boats they had fashioned for the purpose of fishing the bay and exploring the coastline, and sailed to the three hills, that stood across the Bay. And they landed on a small pebble beach where a stream fell down over rounded stones from the heights, and flowed into the Bay. And - following the Boy Who Had No Name - they walked up the stream until they reached a hollow between the three hills where a spring rose from the earth, and they were amazed, for the place was beautiful, and perfect. The Spring stood as a perfect circle in a clearing that was also a perfect circle, and around the clearing were twelve trees, all tall and straight, and each of it’s own kind.
And Kenza said: “This place is the world showing tribute to Mons and his twelve spoked wheel - it is a holy place, and shall be kept as such forever.” But the Boy Who Had No Name said “it is not. For Mons is a Lord of
Men, and what they do with their hands, and yet this place has not been touched by the hands of men. This is a place that celebrates a different power than the power of men.”
And the men looked at the Boy Who Had No Name with fright, for now - though the dell was beautiful, it filled them too with fear because of what the boy had said, and they said “We shall leave this place untouched, and not despoil it, and hope that it shall do the same for us.”
And so they all departed. And when the winter began to break up, they loaded Foamflower with what provisions they had left after the winter and prepared to depart. And yet the boy Who Had No Name seemed not to be preparing to leave, and the men asked him “why are you not readying to go” and he said “while your path leads back whence you came, mine leads only forward. And so I will wait for you hear, and tend what I can until you return so that what you have left behind does not go to ruin in your absence.” And though Kenza begged him to come as a good luck charm as they tried to pass the grinding ice, he would not, and so they sailed away and saw him watch them alone from the shore, just as they had found him alone on another shore.
And Foamflower sailed back through the grinding ice, and Kenza and his crew told their people what they had found, and prepared more ships to return when the next summer came. And so they did. And so three ships sailed across the Great Sea, and came to the Island of Mons and found gardens tended and food aplenty, and yet they found not the Boy Who Had No Name. They said “he has tended these gardens, and cannot be far”, and it was true, but no one ever found him. And in time they moved their town to the peninsular of the three hills, and left ever after the grove untouched, and it was seen with wonder and awe and dread mixed together. And they called their new town Monsoth. And the people of Mons spread up and down the coast, but ever was Monsoth their home.
And for many years when folks walked through the woods and found something that might be the work of man, they said “The Boy Who Had No Name has been here,” even long after he had surely died. And even now when something seems too perfectly come from nature to serve the people they say “the Boy has been here”, and are happy that such things exist in the world.