by Shane Mason
Melaleuca motioned to Ari and he sat between Quixote and Lexington.
‘Enough. Both of you,’ Melaleuca said. ‘You are both right.’
‘Yes we are,’ Quixote said chuffed.
‘We both cannot be right,’ Lexington said.
Quixote stood and drew in a huge breath ready to argue again although Melaleuca placed a hand on him, pushing him back down. Despite this, Quixote hung his hands over the side and made zapping noises, pretending to chant magic words in an attempt to annoy Lexington.
‘Just ignore him Lex,’ Melaleuca said.
‘Actually he’s given me an idea.’
She reached into her pack and pulled out a compass and held it over the side.
‘The magnetic field is being warped. Look for yourselves.’
The needle of her compass spun around and around, lost as to where north lay.
‘Moon face told me,’ Argus said, ‘the whole land mass is pushed up out of the sea about a thousand feet, and the sea hugs it all around. I suspect the sea bed is pure magnetic iron ore.’
‘That would explain the compass,’ Lexington said. ‘But not the photaic wall or the water. Something else is bending light.’
Argus shrugged his shoulders again.
‘You don’t care do you? How could you not even be curious?’
He rolled his head over his shoulder and Melaleuca caught his direct gaze, grasping in an instant a flame that had long since been extinguished. He pulled away as if he sensed her and said, ‘Don’t.’
‘Leave him Lex. You will work it out. I know you will.’
Not knowing how to take it, Lexington weakly smiled back and continued writing, while Quixote tried to untie his leg. The knot held fast so he inched over to Lexington, a troublesome look on his face.
‘Quixote,’ Melaleuca said. Man, he never stops.
Eventually the pair of them would have to work out their differences, even as Lexington and she would have to. Her instincts told her little as to where they were headed or what was going on, though it was becoming clear that one of her first tasks was to get them all working together. She thought on the words “trust,” and pondered why they were to keep playing. Playing what exactly?
Trust.
None of them, except Quixote, looked in the mood for playing. Ari would take anything in his stride and Lexington? Well, at least she had found something to focus on, strange as the sea now was.
The speedboat burst up into mid air like it had just leapt over a ramp and flew forward, splashing down in the sea with a mighty watery crash. Again they fell on each other and sprawled all over the deck. The speedboat spluttered and surged back and forth. Argus reached out and turned the keys to off. The motor stopped and silence fell about them and the speedboat came to slow drifting halt.
Ari hauled himself up first and then helped the others up. Melaleuca held his shoulder to steady herself and Lexington searched on the floor for her notebook and pen. Argus lay on top of Antavahni both of whom seemed content to lay there. Quixote leapt onto the front of the boat and held his arms out wide with the rope on his leg trailing behind him.
‘Waaaaahhhhhhooooo,’ he cried and turned to Melaleuca. ‘That was so much fun.’
‘Glad you liked it,’ she said. ‘Did we hit something?’
‘Didn’t feel like anything,’ Argus said, pulling himself up and hanging his head over the side. ‘We’ve driven up over the top. Sea’s flat now.’
‘Yes. We can see that,’ Ari said.
‘Flat sea?’ Lexington said as she surfaced from the floor and joined the others in surveying their surrounds.
The sea angled down at least a thousand feet to the Photaic Wall which now looked like a small spread out curtain and in front of them, the sea flattened out for about a kilometre and stopped where sheer cliffs rose up for hundreds of metres. Above the cliffs sat the forested slopes of the south side of the Long White Cloud Mountains. No longer shrouded in clouds, blue-tipped snow peaks adorned the tops. The cliffs ran for many miles south before petering out into low lying land and hazy blue hills way off in the distance.
At first Melaleuca had little clue what to make of it. Her feelings ran amok inside her and trusting that they would settle down soon, she eyed the others and gauged their reactions.
Ari straddled the land with his eyes and she could feel him supping in the spirit of earth he had often spoke about.
‘What is it Ari?’
He opened his mouth, stopped and then swallowed hard.
‘It’s strong.’
‘What is?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s like the opposite of the emptiness of the plains, yet I can still feel the emptiness in the land.’
Lexington continued to examine the sea and said in a matter of fact manner, ‘The land is obviously hidden by an energy field. Perhaps you feel that.’
Her voice brimmed with contained excitement.
She’s loving this.
‘It’s blinking amazing! That’s what,’ Quixote shouted. ‘A secret land, a real secret land. I bet there are heaps of things to discover. Let’s go. What are we waiting for?’
Argus threw the anchor overboard.
‘What are you doing?’ Quixote leapt onto the deck, and tried to haul the anchor up. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Yes,’ Melaleuca said. ‘The sooner you are on land the better.’
Quixote strained and strained and managed to heave the anchor part of the way up, though red faced and puffing, he could not get it on to the deck. After dropping it a few times and making lots of noise Lexington said, ‘Oh Quixote. Be quiet. I am concentrating.’
A dozen questions churned in Lexington’s mind. ‘Antavahni, why are we being hidden again?’
The floor of the speedboat could be partially seen through him now.
‘Tell me, please. You do not look well. I can help if you tell me what to do.’
Antavahni stirred and said in a half mumble, ‘Got to stay hidden.’
‘Why?’
‘Parents. Meet your parents there.’
‘Our parents are there?’
‘Always,’ he slurred back.
‘What’s that mean? Why is this land hidden?’
‘The two powers separated,’ he said and then spoke more faint words that Lexington struggled to hear.
Antavahni drew in a huge breath and his nostrils flared. Colour tinged his skin and he threw his eyes open with a jolt and hoisted himself up, crying out, ‘Tenarthdarway. Ahhhhh.’
Reveling in an unknown aroma he said, ‘Smell it. They are all gone but their scents linger on. I am the last. I am the last Etamol. Where we failed may the others pass through. My age can now finally rest.’
Lexington crossed her legs, laid her arms on them and tried to look as if she did not care.
‘Tell me. Tell me all you know.’
Antavahni seemed not to recognize her and a baffled glaze fell across his insipid face but then his shoulders drooped and a great oldness fell over him. All at once the slow sureness, which had come to characterize him, returned.
‘Argus,’ Antavahni said his voice sounding thin again. ‘Well done.’
‘Just tell me when I can go.’
‘Stop fighting. Be as these children.’
‘I’m not wasting a second youth as a babysitter.’
Antavahni glared back at him. His colour faded again and he reached for the side of the speedboat to steady himself. A great exhaustion washed over him and he sat before he fell.
A clear gut-instinct arose in Melaleuca from Antavahni.
He’s near death.
‘Soon...be there...and then you...begin.’
‘Begin what exactly?’ Lexington said.
Quixote flapped his arms. ‘I bet we learn to have super powers.’
Lexington ignored him and again said, ‘What do we begin?’
Antavahni pointed at Quixote. ‘Looks like he starts now.’
She pushed her notebook in haste toward Antavahn
i’s face.
‘What starts? Tell me.’
Antavahni chuckled at Quixote’s performance and then stopped, and though worn out said with great command, ‘Go closer to the cliffs. Silence until we land. As unlikely as it is, we do not want anyone spotting us.’
They upped anchor and cruised to the base of the cliffs and lay anchor again. Antavahni still insisted on silence and refused to answer questions. They ate some food and waited, slumbering in and out of sleep - bellies full and appreciative of the rest after their long trek.
Before twilight Antavahni removed his robe, exposing his pale frail body. With an air of finality he produced a black case and opened it, pulling out a long hollow tube dotted with many holes. One end had a mouthpiece and the other end bulged out like a cobra’s neck. He rummaged in his robe and grabbed the silverquick. Its blue shimmering middle twinkled as if many stars lay trapped within its gelatinous mass.
A small wave rippled across the water and rocked the speedboat - the motion nearly causing Antavahni to drop the silverquick. He let out a cry of astonishment and a bead of sweat ran down his forehead.
‘Oops, mustn’t let that happen.’ He settled himself. ‘Soon it will be dark and no one will see us.....but the sea will become wilder and wilder until nothing will survive its churn...By that time you must be on land. But I, Antavahni, last of the Etamols, will offer myself to the sea. Finally.’
An air of glad sadness hovered around him.
‘Come with us,’ Melaleuca said.
‘I cannot. I am done. Should I set foot back on Tenarthdarway, Aggorah, New Wakefield, then the land would know. Not even I can second-guess the Ethmare from whence we all come.’
A three foot wave broke out of nowhere, hitting the side of the speedboat, and it lurched to one side. The sun dipped behind the mountains, and twilight blanketed them with last-light greyness.
Antavahni cried out, ‘It is time.’
He grasped the tube and squeezed the silverquick into it and an electric blue glow shone out from it. He drew in an enormous breath and then blew and blew and blew until his cheeks puffed out. A loud roar erupted from it like the sound of a hundred oceans clashing and then dissipated with a suddenness that left faint echoes lingering.
A low noise ground upwards from the watery depth below and the sea chopped and slopped back and forth yet the air stayed eerily still.
One by one, square seaweed-encrusted columns of rocks rose out of the sea, forming a crooked line to the cliffs. The sea level crept up and licked the top of the columns and fell again exposing barnacles encrusted on them.
‘Cross. Quick. Soon they will be ten foot waves,’ Antavahni said with a great foreboding.
Chapter 6 - Hidden Antipodes
The swelling sea clenched the slight tops of the columns for a second, covering them, and then dropped away leaving them towering above the lowered sea level. Lexington counted about a hundred of them and felt giddy.
Argus eyed Lexington with a look of disbelief, and Melaleuca shook her head at him. She was in command. A decision surfaced and she said to Argus, ‘You are in charge of getting us across.’
‘Thrilled,’ he said and swung his unsteady body to Antavahni. ‘Couldn’t we go ashore at a beach?’
‘No time. Move or drown.’
God, how did I get myself into this?
‘Grab your packs,’ Argus said.
The cousins pulled their packs on and readied themselves.
Weakest link in the chain first.
‘You, Miss Nosey. Up first.’
Lexington closed her eyes and swallowing, touched her secret medallion through her clothes. Argus could feel her suppressing the urge to vomit.
Wuss.
‘What are you doing? Send Ari first,’ Melaleuca said.
‘NO PACKS,’ Antavahni cried out. ‘They will unbalance you. No longer needed.’
Lexington let hers drop from her back and looked a little more confident.
Quixote threw his pack overboard.
‘Here, let me,’ he said and leapt over the side, landing square on the first column. His feet started to slip. The sea sunk away and then rose up again and his precarious balance rushed out from under him. He fired a foolish grin at the others.
‘DON’T LOOK DOWN!’ Argus said.
Quixote plunged into the choppy sea. The rope still tied to his leg went taut and to his surprise his cloak held him buoyant in the sea. Argus and Ari hauled him back onto the boat feet first. A wet bemused Quixote laughed out some sea water.
Argus shook his head but saw that Quixote was okay.
‘Go now,’ Antavahni said. ‘Waste no more time.’
Another wave slopped against the speedboat and its white crest crashed over the side, drenching them. Argus scrambled around searching like mad until he finally reached under a plank and pulled out life jackets and some more rope.
‘Put these on. Here,’ he said to Ari throwing him a knife. ‘Cut him free.’
Ari sliced through Quixote’s rope, and as they crammed their life jackets over top of their cloaks, Argus threw the new rope around himself and threaded it through the cousin’s life jackets joining them all together.
‘I’ll go first.’ He glared at Lexington. ‘Look at the columns, not the sea. Focus on them one at a time. Concentrate and we’ll get there. Lexington, you go after me followed by Quixote then Melaleuca and then Ari.’
Antavahni struggled, pushed himself up and pulled on Argus’s pack.
‘Leave it behind.’
Argus smacked his hand away and leapt from the boat, landing on the first column. ‘OKAY. I’LL JUMP TO THE NEXT ONE AND THEN YOU JUMP LEXINGTON. THEN I’LL JUMP AGAIN AND YOU JUMP, THEN QUIXOTE JUMPS AND SO ON.’
Argus jumped to the second column and landed clean on it.
Lexington stood by the side of the speedboat. Seeing her nervousness Melaleuca clutched her hand and said, ‘You can do it. Just jump.’
She drew in a deep breath, stepped up and kicked off. A sea swell lowered the speedboat and for a fraction of a second she appeared to hang suspended in mid air. Argus yanked hard on the rope trying to pull Lexington toward the column, though he overbalanced and she plopped into the sea followed by Argus. Lexington floundered around and groped for the column catching the edge of it while Argus pulled himself back up.
Quixote tore past Ari, hurled himself onto the first column, landed and steadied himself. Toppling back and forth, he reached down and grappled with Lexington’s hands. She started slipping out of his grip, so he wrenched her collar tight - yanking it upwards with a mighty burst of adrenalin, pulling her out of the sea. Her chain-necklace snapped and the medallion flew out to sea unnoticed by either of them. They clung wet and dripping to each other and Argus jumped to the third stepping-stone, yelling for them to all start jumping. Soon the rest of the cousins all stood on the top of a column trying to find their balance.
‘KEEP LOOKING AT THE COLUMNS,’ Argus said. ‘NOT THE SEA.’
As they all teetered and steadied themselves, Lexington looked back at Antavahni. Melaleuca felt Lexington’s sadness and turned to see what she stared at, and along with Lexington witnessed Antavahni’s body become more transparent.
‘Go.’ Antavahni motioned, and as if to motivate them pulled the anchor up and the speedboat started drifting away, rising and falling amongst the swells.
One by one they worked their way across, combating vertigo and fighting for their balance until soaked and nauseous they reached a small lip at the base of the cliff. Climbing onto it, they lay there relieved. The lip felt cold and hard but at least it was solid. With the dark of evening now upon them they gathered their wits in silence and even Quixote had no words to share.
‘Who’s still got their torch?’ Melaleuca asked.
Argus sat up and said, ‘Back in command then?’
She ignored him.
‘I have,’ Quixote said. ‘I pulled them off my pack.’
He switched them both on and swept t
he lip with red and white light, stopping when they illuminated worn down steps cut deep into the cliff face. As he traced the steps upwards the torchlight petered out into the heights of darkness, and a decision welled up inside Melaleuca. ‘They will be fine. Ari?’
With a quick glance he smiled and said, ‘No sweat. We have climbed steeper at home.’
Argus inspected them and said, ‘Steeper than these. What? Climbed overhangs?’
A wave smashed over the lip, soaking them.
‘We have no other choice,’ Melaleuca said flicking her wet hair out of her face. ‘Besides you are going to lead the way.’
‘Torch then,’ Argus said and snatched it off Quixote. ‘If there are any overhangs then tough man Ari here can assault them.’
Torch in his mouth, Argus started up the steps and the others followed. They moved up the dark cliff face feeling their way and listening to Argus’s directions, keeping their eyes on his torchlight up in front, though Quixote held onto the red-lit torch. He insisted on stopping and shining it under his chin to make scary faces, though each time Melaleuca chided him.
Soon they could not see the lip they had sat on and the sound of distant powerful waves smashing into the cliff travelled up to them. They worked their way up and up and up. The strenuous climb abated their shivering. Their arms and legs ached, warming them up, and the sweat on their skin dragged their body heat out into the cool night air. The rope cut in to them and each time one of them complained Argus pushed on even harder.
As the climb got more arduous, Melaleuca kept on bumping into Lexington though in turn could feel her being tugged forward by Argus.
‘How much further?’ Melaleuca called out.
‘Just keep going,’ Argus called back.
He reached up and felt a carpet of grass under his hands. Elated, he scrambled over the edge and lay there as the cousins clambered onto the grass behind him collapsing, damp and exhausted but happy.
A fresh inland earthy aroma blew across them, a strangely welcoming hint of the unknown.
Argus stood and shone the torch around and it started to fade. He pointed it at the cousins checking them with haste and then relaxed.
