"I have asked myself before, as I pass through many lands, what is home?" I've heard many people call it whatever they like. Is it those people who pass us every morning, saying hello and asking the same question that never changes with the passing days, "How are you?" A question they don't even bother to answer, because no one has ever really answered it—"How are you?" "I'm not well. I wake up every day with one feeling—that the whole world is against me. I'm having a bad day, and I hope it will end before it's time to go home and lock the door behind me, hoping that when I wake up the next morning, the world has gone to hell." They ask that question, then smile and go on their way. Or is home that barren land that we melt on, love its details, its hills, its plains, the winds of its mountains—certain places where we have past stories, perhaps an abandoned house we used to play near as children? If we stand there again, you see us smiling and recalling the past, examining its eroded bricks to find a drawing or name we engraved, while that house, that land, does not exchange any feelings with us. I didn't know then the answer to that question, "What exactly is home?" But now, as I see the last of the lands disappearing behind the waters of this sea, I tell you categorically that home has never been a specific thing. It is that to which we return when we are in dire need of something to anchor on, whoever it is—person or land."
Abu Bakr's mind wandered as he stood in the stern of one of the three ships on the sea, looking at the last of the lands his eyes could see. He carried with him those people who had always been his support—remembering his brother Moses, his younger sister Asmahan, Artemis, and his promise to her. He took a deep breath, then turned and walked to the front of the ship, looking out at the endless sea in front of him, which seemed utterly desolate, foreboding dark times to come. He suddenly remembered the question of the man in the temple: "What are you looking for in these books you are reading?" At the time, he had no answer.
He didn't know the answer then, but now, as he set off towards another land, he remembered exactly what he was looking for. He had always been reading to see if he could find his story in one of those books—someone named Abu Bakr, leaving the rule of an entire kingdom and sailing into the unknown to find a land that no one knew existed. He returned to his room on the ship, leaving the helm to the shipbuilder, who seemed most excited about the journey, watching his ship, the one he had built, battle the waves.