The parting

"There was no going back. He could not return to the place he had come from. There was too much danger there. That place had betrayed his very best intentions - and there was danger that what was left in the Glass would be evaporated, just like he had observed with frightened eyes in the city. No, he had been given the Glass by strange circumstances and he knew he had to look after it. He pulled out the Glass one more time and rubbed it caringly. Already the blue liquid in the Glass was turning to dust and vaporizing. He looked ahead and the cold wind off the sea matched the cold chill down his spine. The vessel docked at the pier was old and decrepit. It was rusted and looked entirely sinkable. Yet it was his only hope. He could feel his power waning as the blue substance in the Glass receded some more in the short time he had stood there, gazing at his next move. By some unexplained work all that had been provided for the Glass was this rickety old boat. It had to be done. The ocean was vast. But the power of the Glass was vaster still. He turned up the collar of his coat and boarded the old craft as the sole passenger. The captain refused to accept his offer of payment, and laughed a death-defying laugh, as he loosed the moorings. In broken English the captain described the journey as one of an unknown duration, subject to the force of the tides. As they pulled out from the jetty, Michael looked back one last time at the city and clutched the Glass that he held under his coat. He thought about home and wondered whether the red-breasted cuckoo had returned from migration which was always the first sign of spring." - The Journeys of a Journeyman by Henry Cote.