Excerpt:

The waves lapped against the set of four buoys as the battered ship sailed away. Clinging to one of the buoys, Rivios Amoran watched the ship leave. Loops of leather secured the hammer to his left wrist and the chisel to his right. The buoys supported a small platform, onto which was secured a stone tablet. Underwater, heavy chains led to the bottom of the ocean, where an anchor held the platform in place. When the ship was merely a speck on the horizon, Rivios hauled himself up onto the platform, examining the tablet.

A complicated design in looping strokes and deep cuts into the stone, the tablet evoked images of screaming winds and powerful waves, the world’s most devastating storm. However, one part was incomplete. The sea was calm, for now; the wind was just a breeze, cooling Rivios’s soaked clothing.

He shivered. The sun was beginning to set, and the day was turning cold. Slowly, he positioned the chisel in the proper spot on the tablet, then began to chip out the last stroke of the storm runes, a simple, relatively straight line. As the stroke neared completion, Rivios’s teeth began to chatter. They’ll be coming back for me soon, he told himself.

The wind grew stronger, and colder. The waves began to rock the platform, sloshing seawater over the sides and soaking Rivios. He hung on to the platform, chipping out the last bits of stone as carefully as he could. As he did, the wind began to roar, and the sky turned dark.

Rivios looked up. The platform floated in turbulent water, as clouds swirled in the sky, blotting out the stars and the setting sun. Lightning flared in the sky, too close for comfort, and a driving rain lashed Rivios where he lay. The ship can’t come back. Not in this storm...

Lightning flashed again, allowing Rivios one last glimpse of the stone tablet, the tablet that spoke of an eternal storm. Then he let himself slip off the platform into the raging sea. They knew all along...