She screamed at the top of her voice, but no sound escaped. Oh, Christ, this is it! The veil of no return. A film of cool moisture covered her hair, face, and neck. Visibility was now that of a white, backward balaclava. She felt the boat move quicker and quicker through the water, and the dread welled up like hot oil in her gut. Her eardrums rang. She fought giant panic breaths with all of her pride. The Elemental now hurtled faster than it had ever surfed as a sand yacht. Kate’s hair flapped wildly, and the spray drenched her eyes shut. Still louder, still faster, then suddenly… Ugh! Her stomach vaulted. The boat took flight for a second, and a raking wind lifted her bodily from the deck. On landing it spun and skidded at a sixty-degree angle, sending a shock right through Kate. She spread-eagled her legs and lay back as the current swept her down the steep gradient. All she could do was grip the ropes and hang on. Saltwater flooded over the raw, peeling skin on her palms and fingers. Hang on, damn it! Just hang on! The Elemental Crossing © 2008 by Robert Appleton All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. An Eternal Press Production Eternal Press 206 - 6059 Pandora St. Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, V5B 1M4 To order additional copies of this book, contact: www. eternalpress.ca Cover Art © 2008 by Shirley Burnett Edited by Diana Rubino Copyedited by Erin Cramer Layout and Book Production by Ally Robertson eBook ISBN: 978-1-897559-34-5 First Edition * Month 2008 Production by Eternal Press Printed in Canada and The United States of America. Book Two of the Eleven-Hour Fall Series Robert Appleton Acknowledgements: I'd like to acknowledge Steven Callahan's extraordinary book, Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea. Not only was it a true, vivid account of survival at sea, it explored the core of human endurance and spirituality and became the inspiration for this voyage into the oceanic unknown. Chapter One A New Mode of Travel “Keep that line taut!” Jason yanked his own rope back to straighten the sail. As the wind picked up, they skimmed over shallow sand drifts, the keel of their craft barely touching the ground. The faster they went, the farther back Jason had to lean in order to keep them upright. His control of the sand yacht was by two ropes, one in each hand, which tilted the sail accordingly. It required not only every muscle, but an incredible concentration at all times. “I said keep that line taut!” he snarled. “Shout at me one more time. I dare you!” Kate screamed back. But he didn’t seem to hear, so wholeheartedly was he at the reins of his contraption. Boys and their toys, she thought. Well, this was all your idea, sweetheart… The wind speed had increased enormously since those first kick-starting gusts. Jason’s ingenious creation—the wing and beak of a dead giant eagle, rigged with ropes—shot across the desert. Kate’s whole body now shook with the strain and the bitter cold. “How long has it been now? Half an hour?” shouted Jason. “I’m telling you…this is amazing, bloody amazing!” He had adapted so quickly to the steering that Kate wondered if there really was genius at work, or whether he’d simply done this before. Either way, he’s too damn reckless! “That’s it!” he yelled down to her through the wind. “You’ve got it, Kate! Hold that line! Now is this awesome or what? I’m telling you!” Kate shifted position to raise her butt for the next big impact. Thud! The keel slammed into a steep dune, slid up it, and ricocheted down the other side. He’s out of control! If he crashes us, it won’t be the impact that kills him…so help me! The giant wing dragged them across a mile-long, level plateau, scraping their keel over a bed of tiny rocks, all the while picking up speed. Its skin caught every gust; Jason seemed to tilt the rig intuitively for optimal propulsion. How fast now? thought Kate. Thirty, forty miles an hour? This is crazy! They hurtled toward a sandy incline at the far edge of the plain. It was shallow but continued to rise—exactly how high, they couldn’t tell. Its peak masked the entire desert beyond. “All right, you can stop us any time now!” she yelled. No answer. Jason leaned farther back, wrapping the two ropes around his knuckles. The yacht slowed for a moment before a firm jab of wind hit diagonally from behind, flexing the sail’s leathery skin. Kate elbowed his shin and screamed, “Stop! Now! What the hell are you doing?” Leaning forward, she made ready to jump off, but something held her back. He needs you, damn it. Hold on just a bit longer… Kate’s stomach heaved as they accelerated up the slope. Suddenly, the ground fell away, revealing an undulating surface fifty feet below. She hadn’t seen the peak coming. Rocketing through mid-air caused her to grip the ropes with every ounce of strength. The two halves of the giant beak chattered. The sail dipped sharply, jerking them forward, then shot up, wrenching them back. Kate’s heart sank as she realised her man had no control at all over the sand yacht. Jason’s right arm shook wildly under the strain. The wind eased momentarily, causing them to plummet. But at twenty feet, a powerful gust kicked the sail through forty-five degrees. The tendrils holding Jason’s feet tore loose. He had to let go of his left-hand rope. Now flapping through the air at the end of a single line, his whole body creased under sickening shockwaves, as though he was the tip of a whip enduring crack after crack. “Let go! Jesus!” cried Kate, horrified that he still chose to cling. At that moment, the sand yacht began to wheel into a final diving spin. We’re going…going…shit! Jason! Letting go of the stay rope, she wrenched her feet free and flung herself at him. The impact knocked the wind out of her and was enough to break Jason’s hold on the wild line. They landed in a tangle ten feet below, on the crest of a windswept dune. Jason watched in horror as his great invention veered sharply, corkscrewed, and then crash-landed into a nearby trough. The wing tip stabbed the sand. The beak stood upended at its side. It looked remarkably like a bird corpse half buried in the desert. “That could’ve easily been us!” Kate gave Jason’s arm a firm punch. “I hope you’re satisfied.” “Too right,” he replied, still shaking with adrenaline. “That was unbelievable! Un-believable! How about another go?” Kate gave a long sigh and, seeing in his sparkling eyes that he meant it, shook her head. “Men.” **** As they dragged the sand yacht to the summit of a large slope, another sandstorm hit without warning. Visibility shrank to just a few metres, but the wind was not especially fierce. Kate decided to press on for the ocean. “The longer we wait for this thing to clear, the more dehydrated we’ll be,” she said, stepping into her survival suit for the umpteenth time on Kratos. Jason had stopped trying to second-guess her. Though she offered him the democratic veto on most decisions, he knew Kate Borrowdale was the most qualified, the fittest, the most intuitive terrain scout he had ever come across. That’s a decent marker, he thought, glancing back to their giant wing wedged high on the peak. Good thinking, Kate. We’ll be able to find it again in no time. Their belts tied together with a twenty-foot rope, the couple shielded their faces to trudge through a swirling semi-dusk. The desert surface drifted all about them. The occasional coarse gust stung Kate’s ears and tried to unstitch a wound on Jason’s chin; by the time the winds eased, both were red raw. The sky, too, bled reddish purple between blue clouds. Bruised in the aftermath, thought Kate. Jason suddenly scooped her off her feet from behind and, holding her close, pressed his cheek against hers. “We’ve made it,” he said softly. “The only sand from now on is beachfront property.” Kate closed her eyes and sighed. Swept up by the man of her dreams, her lift was physical, spiritual, vital. A week ago, in the desert, she had started a survival cycle for two; here, on the mysterious shore of a green-blue ocean, the cycle had come full circle. Jason Remington…Jason and I. Though fate had raised its skull and crossbones more than once on Kratos—most tragically to sink the Fair Monique—Kate had in fact won everything she’d wanted: her man, her life, and a chance to explore a hidden world. But in the bargain, just as many questions, if not more. Their journey to the ocean was now complete… But in a survival cycle, she knew nothing was ever complete. The seascape was an elemental brew, a dark green wilderness settling after a hurricane upheaval. It tossed columns of spray from the crests of its swells. These danced and merged like feverish loners in an icy rave. Two miles to the north, the giant precipice curtailed the ocean for as far as the eye could see. This straight line amid the chaos haunted Kate. The idea of an entire ocean being little more than a puddle on the surface of a giant craft made her swallow self-consciously. “If you had to guess, how far would you say it stretches?” Jason asked. “Well, how far can we see to the horizon?” “Hmm…” He shrugged. “Say about five times farther than on Earth.” “That’s conservative,” she replied. “Kratos is proport...
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