The Secret of Ka

by Christopher Pike

  "They're standing up?"

  "They are now."

  Amesh glanced toward the shore. Already we were more than a quarter of a mile from the beach. If we were to get dumped now, it would be a long swim back, although not an impossible one. For me. With his missing hand, he might not make it.

  "Try it, before we get too far out," he said.

  I hesitated. "If we jump off this ley line and there isn't another one beside us, we might end up in the water."

  "The ley line should be wide enough to let us turn," he said.

  "I checked it on the beach. It was only ten feet across."

  Amesh sighed. "We're going to have to turn around at some point."

  "Do you know how to swim?" I asked.

  "Yes. But I'm not a fish."

  I understood. With each second we allowed the carpet to take us away from the shore, we increased our risk.

  "There's another set of those things, the tassels, sticking up behind me," he said. "I'll try to use them to take us back to the beach."

  "Don't you want me to try to stop the carpet first?"

  He hesitated. "I'm not sure. If we stop, we might sink."

  "It beats flying away from the ley line."

  "All right, give it a try. But be careful," he said.

  Slowly, I pulled back on the left tassel. We immediately began to lose speed, until we came to a dead stop. The carpet felt less stable floating above the water than it did flying over it.

  Behind me, Amesh turned so his back was to me.

  "You just pushed the central tassel forward?" he asked.

  "No, it's more complex than that." I explained how the three central tassels worked together. Then I left him alone to try to make it work.

  A few minutes went by. We continued to hover in place. Below, the surf lapped with a soothing hypnotic sound. Overhead, more stars became visible. I turned sideways so I could watch the stars at the center of the carpet move. They appeared to rotate around an invisible point.

  "It's not working," he finally said in disgust.

  "Maybe only women can fly magic carpets."

  "Or maybe your controls got locked in place because they were the first ones we used."

  "I suppose," I said, although I thought that sounded silly.

  Amesh turned to face me. "Now that we've stopped, we might be able to turn the carpet around without leaving the ley line. Grab that tassel on the right and bend it to the right. See what happens."

  "We might tip over."

  "We have to try. We can't float here all night."

  I reached for the tassel. "We should have experimented more with the controls while we were still on the shore."

  "We should have done a lot of things. Turn us around."

  He knew I was stalling. The sense that the carpet didn't want to go back plagued me. I could not explain why. Still, I did what he said, and slowly the carpet rotated. In seconds we were facing the shore. Far off, the lights of Istanbul beaconed. There lay safety, I thought, security. But out here on the carpet was magic, and I didn't want to give that up so soon.

  "Take us back at a slower speed," Amesh said.

  "Aye, Captain." I reached for the central left tassel to restart our silent engine. But the second I did so the carpet rotated back out to sea. I wondered if it was responding to what I wanted, instead of obeying what my hands were doing.

  "Why did you do that?" Amesh demanded.

  "It did it on its own. Maybe it wants to keep going."

  "You talk about it like it's alive."

  "What if it is."

  "Don't be silly."

  "Amesh, I feel something coming from it. Like you can sense another person's feelings. It's like it's telling me it wants to go farther."

  "Where? All we have in front of us are miles of ocean."

  "Aren't there islands off this coast?"

  "Well, technically, we're in a really huge bay. But everyone calls it the Sea of Marmara. If we keep going, we'll either run into the Gallipoli Peninsula or fly through the Dardenelles Strait. That's a narrow strip of water that connects this bay with the Aegean Sea. But no way are we going that far."

  "Why don't we go just a little farther, then make up our minds. I don't think it's going to dump us in the water and run off."

  Amesh was not happy with the plan. "You can't be sure of that."

  "I have faith in the carpet."

  The words just popped out of my mouth, but they were true. Not only did I feel the carpet was alive, I felt it was a friend. An ally, at least.

  I bent the left tassel forward until we reached a speed of about fifteen miles an hour, which proved to be easier on our nerves. The night air continued to brush my face but it was a gentle breeze.

  To my surprise, the farther we went, the calmer the ocean grew. Soon the sea was as still as a mountain lake and utterly quiet. The lights of Istanbul faded to a faint glow. We were able to see the band of the Milky Way, along with a million more stars. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see the center of our flying machine was thick with stars.

  And my friend's breathing had grown long and deep. He was out cold! At first I was stunned. Who could sleep at a time like this? I pulled him away from the carpet's edges so he wouldn't fall off, and he still didn't wake up.

  My thoughts turned to what Amesh had told me in the hotel, the story of how he had lost his hand. It had happened only a year ago, the previous summer. He was still healing from the blow, he admitted, emotionally as well as physically. But losing a hand—maybe that was something he would never get over.

  He had described the accident to me briefly, almost as if he were reading from a prepared card. He was working a circular saw that was used to cut long steel cables that provided a framework for the tons of concrete the company poured daily. The machine was a powerful band saw—it had the power to reshape diamonds. He wore goggles while he worked to protect his eyes, and a mask to block out the fine particles of metal the saw threw into the air.

  One day a smoldering shard of metal flew off a cable he was cutting and struck his goggles. Ordinarily that would not have been a problem, but the shard was exceptionally large and hot. It melted through the goggles and filled the interior with scalding steam. Afraid the metal was going to reach his face and maybe put out an eye, he panicked and fought to get the goggles off. Unfortunately, in his haste, he swept his right wrist in the path of the band saw.

  He said he didn't feel his hand get cut off. There was just a sharp tug, no pain, followed by a wave of dizziness. He probably fainted; he was never sure. Fellow workers picked him up and took him to the hospital, which was where he woke the next day.

  "Why weren't they able to sew your hand back on?" I asked.

  It sounded to me like it could not have been removed more cleanly. But he shook his head and said his hand had landed on a pile of recently cut cable that was still smoldering. The flesh was too badly burned. The doctors could do nothing with it.

  "Why don't you wear a prosthesis?" I asked.

  The question troubled him. He told me the hospital kept offering him lots of prostheses, but he couldn't find one that was comfortable. He would get sores and blisters where the synthetic material touched his skin. He was beginning to think he was better off without one.

  "Did you sue the company?" I asked.

  He didn't sue anybody; his boss had convinced him that the accident was his fault. They covered his medical expenses and paid his salary while he was at home healing. But he was never given money for his pain and suffering.

  "Why didn't you hire a lawyer?" I asked.

  The question angered him. This was Turkey, not America; people did not go around suing each other. He was lucky the company gave him another job. It happened; it was an accident, he said. It was Allah's will.

  I did not know what else to say, so I gave him a hug and told him he was very brave. That, at least, made him smile. Why was he brave? For being clumsy?

  "No," I said. "Because you're not a whi
ner."

  That was the end of our discussion about his hand.

  Now, flying over the water on our magic carpet, halfway to God knew where, I reflected on his story and realized it had all been a lie. There were too many convenient details. A burning shard had hit his goggles and melted into them. He worked with the band saw every day, but rather than taking a step back to get his bearings or turning it off, he swept his hand directly in its path. Then, his hand just happened to land on the one spot where it could be destroyed.

  Who cared if it was Turkey? He was working for an American firm. He should have been able to sue for big bucks.

  Plus, who would have given a teenager such a skilled job in the first place? The fact that Amesh was now a gofer made sense. Making deliveries was an ideal job for a young man on a moped. But cutting critical cables to within a fraction of an inch? Gimme a break—that was a job for someone with years of experience.

  Amesh continued to sleep. Scooting around, I saw the knot on his right sleeve was loose. His stump was visible, although it was only a shadow in the dark. Taking out my flashlight and cupping my palm over it to reduce the glare, I decided to take a closer look.

  "Forgive me, Amesh," I whispered.

  I had to be sure I was right. I lifted his sleeve several inches.

  Amesh had not lost his hand with a single clean cut. The skin on his lower right arm was heavily scarred. A number of scars reached past his elbow. The discolored flesh on his stump was particularly bumpy. The surgeon who had sewn it together had done a poor job. Or perhaps he had not had much to work with.

  The wound had been no accident.

  It was as if Amesh had been hacked with a sword.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE FACT THAT AMESH had fallen asleep did not stop me from eventually passing out. Perhaps the carpet was casting spells, or else I simply stopped worrying about falling into the water. It had been a long day and I was totally exhausted.

  When I woke up and checked my watch, I discovered it had stopped. It read 10:35 p.m. That would have been an hour after we'd left Istanbul.

  It was an expensive watch. Waterproof. Shockproof.

  The battery was fresh. It should not have stopped.

  I didn't have time to worry about it. It was no longer dark, although we were light years away from a sunny day. The carpet had transported us to an eerie fog bank, where there were no stars or sky. And it had lowered us to within three feet of the water. Our speed had also decreased; we were creeping along.

  The fog was neither cold nor warm. It did not even feel damp. I might have mistaken it for smoke, but I smelled no odor. I could not tell from which direction the light was coming. There was no wind and yet the fog moved, forming brief-lived spirals that spun up from below. As one swept over me I felt a distinct chill. They looked like ghosts.

  The stars in the center of the carpet had disappeared. In their place was a gray-green circle—the same color as the water.

  I had lost my desire for adventure.

  I wanted to go home.

  Amesh sat with his chin resting on his chest, breathing heavily.

  "Amesh," I said, then louder, "Amesh!"

  He did not wake up. I tried shaking him. He slumped to the side; he almost fell off. Still, he did not regain consciousness. "Amesh!"

  I was terrified. He was breathing; he was alive. Why didn't he wake up? Was there something about this place we were traveling through that was keeping him asleep? Of course I blamed the fog and not the carpet, although the reverse could just as easily have been true. I felt it was a mistake that I had woken up in this place. I wished I hadn't.

  Not long after, I blacked out again.

  ***

  When I awoke next, Amesh was softly calling my name. I sat up with a start. I had passed out sitting in his direction, and as soon as I saw him I gave him a quick hug. "You're all right!" I gushed.

  "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

  "Because ... never mind, I was just worried." I realized our surroundings had changed again. The creepy fog had lifted and the sky was back, along with the stars, although a rising sun in the east was chasing them away. Yet in the opposite direction, near the horizon, was a weird red glow. The color seemed angry; a bloody red. It was shrouded in mist and I could not tell if it was caused by a single star or planet. At the same time it was sinking below the horizon.

  I mentioned it to Amesh but he had no idea what it was.

  "I woke up just before you," he said, gesturing in the direction of the sunlight. "I can't believe we slept the whole night."

  "Maybe we didn't." My body was stiff from sitting for so long, and yet I knew I had not been asleep seven hours. But how could one argue with the heavens? It was a brand-new day. And now my watch read 6:30 a.m. I said the time out aloud. Amesh's expression suddenly turned glum.

  "My Papi's going to kill me," he said.

  "I won't tell you I told you so."

  "You just told me."

  "Well, that's beside the point. Where are we?"

  Amesh frowned as he scanned the area. The carpet had climbed once more to ten feet, and it was traveling at about ten miles an hour. The color of the water had returned to normal, but the red glow was not the only thing that troubled me.

  Like I said, my dad had taught me a few things about the stars, but I was not an expert when it came to astronomy. Still, I did not recognize a single constellation. I tried to explain my difficulty to Amesh. He brushed me off.

  "The sun's coming up. There aren't that many stars to go by."

  "There's that weird red glow, too. We can't just ignore it."

  "I'm not ignoring anything; I'm just trying to figure out where we are. If the carpet stayed at this speed for eight hours, we could be two hundred kilometers from shore."

  A kilometer was about two-thirds of a mile, I reminded myself. He was saying we were about 140 miles from Istanbul.

  "You said if we kept going, we'd run into the Aegean Sea. Isn't that full of islands?"

  "Sure. We're bound to run into one. But there's more chance we'll see one in the distance. We should keep the binoculars handy and practice turning the carpet. If we see one, we'll want to head straight for it."

  "You don't want to retrace our path home?"

  Amesh yawned and stretched. "I can't sit here another eight hours. Let's find an island. They'll have boats heading back to Istanbul. It's the biggest port in the area."

  The red glow vanished as the sun rose higher. We decided to have breakfast. Protein bars, candy bars, and bottled water. Amesh chewed the peanut butter bars with relish.

  "I thought you were nuts when you packed all this stuff," he said.

  "It goes to show how good my intuition is."

  "You've been right about a lot of stuff, Sara."

  I blushed. Just the way he said my name, it got me.

  "A lot of lucky guesses. Usually my batting average is lower."

  "Batting average?" he asked.

  "Like in baseball."

  "Oh. I'm serious. You were right about the carpet, how to fly it, the ley lines. Everything."

  "Does this mean you'll be my slave from now on?"

  "I feel like I already am. Why don't you use your intuition and figure out how to turn the carpet?"

  "Okay," I agreed, although my intuition was still telling me to do the opposite and keep going. The carpet knew where it was heading and we would know when we got there. But there was no point in saying that to Amesh.

  Especially since we had a more pressing problem.

  "I have to pee," I told him when we were done eating.

  He turned red. "So do I."

  "Why are you blushing? You can just slide up on your knees and pee off the side into the water."

  He turned a deeper red, if that was possible. "I can't do that."

  "Don't be embarrassed. I won't look. I'm the one with the problem."

  "Why?"

  "Duh! I'm a girl!"

  He looked away. "I'd rather not ta
lk about this."

  "We have to talk about it. I can't hold it much longer."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I'm a girl and Allah made us inferior to boys. What do you mean, why not? My bladder's about to burst."

  "You shouldn't have drunk so much water."

  "I was thirsty! Besides, you drank twice as much as I did."

  "I did not!"

  "You drank half a bottle! And you ate three protein bars!"

  "Well, why didn't you stop me?"

  "You were hungry. But forget that. Are you going to go or not? There's no reason for you to suffer just because I am."

  "In my country, males do not urinate in front of females."

  "Like it's a big sport in America! I'll turn around and put my fingers in my ears so I can't hear you."

  He did not respond. He was simply too embarrassed.

  Fortunately, ten minutes later, when I was on the verge of stripping and hanging from the back of our glider, we spotted an island. It appeared small, devoid of trees and grass, although there was an array of low-lying hills that blocked a clear view of the far side. I was learning not to make snap judgments. For all we knew, it might be miles across and have a hotel on the other end.

  The carpet took us beyond the shoreline before it slowed and began to lose altitude. A moment later we were sitting on a sandy beach and staring at each other. A wind howled against the stone cliffs and in our ears. The sun was bright in the sky. The stars in the center of the carpet had stopped moving. They faded until they were no longer glowing.

  I was the first one to shake myself and stand. "Get up," I said.

  "What's the hurry?"

  "You know."

  "You don't have to take the carpet with you."

  "We have to keep an eye on it at all times. We don't know anything about this island." The second he was off the carpet, I knelt and rolled it up.

  "All I'm saying is I can watch it while you—"

  "I like carrying it," I interrupted, holding it close. I did not know why I felt so possessive of the carpet. Especially here, of all places, it wasn't as though he could steal it from me. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

  "I'll meet you here in five!" he shouted after me.