by Marc Secchia
“Are we a dog, Sir Alex?”
“No, as in, I feel really peculiar all of a sudden. Hey ho.” He carried Zaranna all the way down to the water’s edge, where her grandfather waited with a longboard and two surfboards.
Seagulls wheeled overhead under a perfect African sky, cloudless except for a line of darks clouds just lifting over the horizon. The wide, white-sand beach stretched for miles to either side. Nonno, Alex and Zaranna wore thick wetsuits against the water’s cold; she shivered slightly with anticipation as she listened to the waves and looked out to where five or six other surfers drifted on the turquoise swells, exactly the same colour as Equinox’s skies.
Alex sat on the wet sand beside her, rubbing his breastbone. “Give me a minute. Maybe it’s just indigestion.”
“Alright!” Whiz enthused. “So, that’s a pretty good fit on the wetsuit there, Zars, and I see Alex thinks so too. All good on the … uh, legs? No pinching?”
“No, Gramps.”
“Except his fingers tweaking your behind? Don’t think I’m not watching.”
“Grumps!” She reddened on cue.
“I was young once. Still full of mischief. Right. I’ll take you out on the longboard to get a feel for the waves and water, just like we used to when you were a little Pixie. Then, we’ve a cut-down board for you with a few special mods of my own. Knee-cups. Should allow you to … well, to stand …” He paused to rub an eye, gazing along the five-mile length of pristine beach. “Dratted salt in the air. Always happens to me. Right. Stand and manoeuvre, I was saying.”
“Whiz, I love you.”
He gave her his best wicked-wastrel grin. “All the pretty girls say that.”
Thankfully, his lecturing halted at the pinching comment. After that the Whiz was all business, reminding Zaranna of how they used to surf together when she was younger. They caught a few waves and he showed her how he expected her to stand and control the board. Then it was back to shore, briefly, to pick up her modified blue surfboard. She paddled out with him. Alex smiled and waved from the beach; he sat on his board, not looking terribly enamoured with life.
“Come on in, the water’s great!” Zara yelled.
He just waved again and motioned for her to carry on. Killjoy. She would have loved to be out here with him. Instead, she pulled strongly offshore with both hands, feeling the familiar tightening of muscles across her shoulders. Good thing her rehab had majored on swimming, but this was a different position, with her head raised to check where she was going. She clipped the leash to her custom belt, surveying the wave sets ahead as the three-foot swell rocked her on the surfboard. Whiz had done ‘his thing’ as the family called it. He was a mad innovator. Some of his inventions were of debatable value or downright illegal, but here, he had custom-fitted two tacky ‘cups’ for her knees and handholds on either side, fore and aft, perfectly situated for a novice surfer. Well, pre-accident she had been capable in the surf, but not brilliant. Now she was a beginner all over again.
Zaranna soon lost herself in the physical challenge. She fell off a number of times before she accomplished her first real ride, skimming down the face of a perfect comber. As she paddled back from the shallows, another surfer called out, “Totally rad slicks there, man!” A compliment, presumably. A little further out, Whiz caught some hang time on the lip of a six-footer before vanishing into the barrel and eventually wiping out in a frothing torrent of water. But he surfaced spitting and laughing.
Lining up for her next wave, she saw from a distance offshore that Alex had resorted to taking a nap. Maybe that was best. He’d feel better afterward.
A second decent ride provided a real confidence boost. Wizard! She could actually do this. Of course the wave dumped her on the next one, but the one after … Zara’s eyes returned to her boyfriend. She squinted through the faint mist rising over the rolling breakers. Odd, the way he was lying …
… on his face!
She did not remember turning a perfect one-eighty or rushing back along the wave’s advancing face, almost colliding with another surfer as she raced for the shore. As she zoomed along, she shouted for Whiz, waving her right arm as she clung to the handgrip with the left. Closer. Oh no. Collapsed. Was he even breathing? Holy – this was her premonition! The foreboding she had felt in the airport … now she was too late, scraping to a halt in the surf just fifteen or twenty paces from her boyfriend, but the gap might as well have been a mile. She could never run again.
Throwing herself bodily onto the sand, she screamed, “Help! Alex! Oh God, someone please help!”
Exactly as her mother had screamed for her.
Chapter 17: Kesuu’s Tribe
FiNGERS CLAWING THE cold white sand, Zaranna army-crawled up the beach. She was dimly aware of someone shouting, far away. Was it her? As she hit the softer section where they had left their spare boards and Whiz’s bag, she floundered. Stupid stumps! Stupid … no … could she reach … she unleashed her white horses. The body on the board shuddered, but did not start breathing. He was blue! So blue, as if he had fallen asleep under ice. Reaching Alex at last, Zaranna shook his shoulder roughly.
Nothing.
Feet slapped the sand nearby, a cry, “I’ll help!”
Zaranna hit his back helplessly, furiously – then tried to recall her First Aid training. “Roll him over,” she panted. “Help me. Good.”
“What’s the matter with him?” asked the woman. A dog walker.
Letters of the alphabet. Airway, breathing, circulation … airway. Propping herself up on her elbows, she yanked his mouth open and fished inside. Zara shifted his tongue, not gently, with her forefinger, while a pair of hands depressed Alex’s chest firmly.
Nothing. “Again!” said her helper. “Check the airway again.”
“Oh … please …” If only his slack lips would smile, and his chest would move. She tried the horses again. This worked on Equinox, apparently, but was there magic on Earth?
The woman pumped his chest. “And one and two and –”
Hnnnnuuuhhh! The sound Alex made was terrible, but never more welcome. He coughed and gasped, then vomited suddenly.
Zara heard a cry. Whiz. Sprinting out of the surf faster than she had ever seen him run, knees kicking high, his longboard lying forgotten in the waves. He crashed to his knees beside them. “What the –”
“Some kind of seizure,” said the woman. “Epileptic?”
“I … I don’t know,” said Zaranna. “What – where’s your phone, Gramps?”
“I’m on it.”
Alex’s eyelids fluttered, causing her heart to leap crazily in her chest. “Zara? Zar … what’s ha –”
“Alex, honey. Don’t move. Just lie still, we’re getting help.”
She heard Whiz speaking into the phone. “Heart attack. Hurry … Noordhoek Beach … yes, the flying ambulance …”
Her life was a wreck. A wreck! First her, now Alex. Rhenduror must be behind this somehow. She could practically smell the sulphur and jasmine around Alex. She stroked his cheek gently, willing him to be well, to live, to breathe and be strong. She willed her strength into him, strength born in the trials of Equinox, in the growing up she realised she had been doing there. The world spun around her like a dreamy whirlpool. If this was a dream, could she not dream differently? A crowd had gathered; she cared nothing for them. Someone who knew her grandfather promised to take their belongings back to the farmhouse, another person popped their green jersey beneath Alex’s head. An off-duty nurse stepped forward to introduce himself and check Alex over as best he could.
“Good work on the resuscitation. Saved his life,” he said, nodding at her.
“Did that … months ago,” Alex whispered. “Love … Z-unh!”
Zaranna was just beginning to wonder what he meant when his breathing stopped again. She screamed briefly, but the male nurse gripped her arm.
“With me, now. Do exactly as I say.”
He started CPR immediately. Zaranna started the mouth-to-m
outh on his command. Breathe, Alex. Live! Now, the dull thump-thump-thump of helicopter blades rose above the constant crashing of the surf. Whiz was waving like a madman, as if the pilot could not have told from the crowd. Then there were paramedics and oxygen and Whiz scooping her up and running her to the helicopter, the rotors kicking up sand as the helicopter took off and headed over to Groote Schuur Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Unit.
Zaranna stared at her prone, deathly pale boyfriend. She had planned to surprise him with a proper helicopter ride one day. Not this. Now she was the terrified passenger and he was the one strapped to a stretcher, an oxygen mask affixed to his face. One medic worked on setting up a drip, the other phoned ahead to the hospital.
She reached out to touch his cold, unresponsive hand. “I love you, Alex.”
Then, the tears spilled over.
* * * *
Just two hours later, the surgeon pushed through the theatre doors, and smiled. “Good news!”
“Crystabel, bella carissima!” cried Whiz, bending over her bloodied surgical glove as though he were meeting the Queen at the opera.
“Luciano. They told me it was you, you old reprobate.” The female doctor had a smile and a wink for him, however. Somehow, Zara was not surprised. Her grandfather did not come without a reputation.
“This is your granddaughter?”
Gramps gushed, “Zaranna Inglewood, meet the beautiful, the incomparable –”
“Doctor Martinez,” said the pretty brunette. Rather than shaking hands, she bent to kiss Zaranna on either cheek, Latin style. “He’ll be fine.”
“Fine?” she gasped.
“Fine, honey. What he does have, that’s a little more complicated. The condition is called acute pericarditis, complicated by cardiac tamponade. Basically, it’s heart trouble caused by extra fluid collecting in the heart membrane, the pericardium, probably the result of a recent viral infection. We performed an emergency drainage and the heart is doing much better without that pressure. Alex is sedated now and we’ll pop him into ICU for a bit just to keep an eye on things. We’ve some tests to run so we’ll be keeping him in for a few nights.”
“And I –”
“You can see him just for a sec,” said the Doctor. “Then, during visiting hours tomorrow evening. I’ll keep Luciano informed. Don’t tell him, but I do still have his telephone number.”
Zaranna spied Whiz making a surreptitious fist-pump behind Doctor Martinez’s back.
She said, “The report says you placed him in the rescue position and extracted the tongue from the throat. Your clear thinking and quick actions saved Alex’s life, Zaranna. Now, pericarditis is often a result of a viral infection, as I said, so I have a few questions. Has Alex shown any symptoms in the last few days? Shortness of breath, chest pain – yes? I’ll need those details. And, how long do you think he might not have been breathing?”
Only a firm bite of her knuckles kept Zaranna from further floods. There was only one reason the Doctor would be asking that question. Potential brain damage.
She said, “It’s hard to say, but I’d estimate two to four minutes, Doctor.”
Doctor Martinez chewed her pen so hard, the plastic cracked. “I see.”
* * * *
“You look sick. Battle nerves?” asked Sanu.
“No.”
“Slept badly?”
“Worst ever.”
“Grumpier than a Sanu before breakfast?”
“By miles.” Zaranna turned to her. “Do you really think I’m crazy, Sanu?”
More to the point, did Sanu think she had some form of Dissociative Identity Disorder, in which her horse and human personalities were apparently galloping off to opposite ends of the Universe, and everyone she met could tell instantly? She had read up on the disorder on the Internet last night, unable to sleep for fretting over Alex’s condition. How had she not spotted the signs? That stupid, self-conscious moment when she prayed his chest pain was not due to carrying his lump of a girlfriend down the beach. The pallor of his cheeks as he waved her off. Go have fun, Zaranna. I’ll just die over here.
She had been working up the courage to tell him about Equinox.
How could she do that to him now?
Sanu said, “You may have noticed, Zaranna, that honesty isn’t a cultural norm for Kesuu’s Tribe.”
“Except when you’re trying to wriggle out of trouble?”
“Ah … yes.” The girl had the grace to look mildly embarrassed. She rattled, “Here’s the Sky-Fires honest truth, Zaranna. I can’t figure out if you’re disarmingly innocent, as cracked in the head as that gorge out there, or so fiendishly netherworld-cunning even we Outland Humans haven’t a clue as to your despicable plans for our annihilation.”
“What?” Zaranna spluttered.
“More truth than a River Horse running rampant?”
“More nonsense than a … a field full of sugar-ponies –”
“So, who’s Alex?”
Zaranna mouthed a word which made her feel immediately ashamed. Before she knew it, she was moving, trotting away from Sanu, who could not keep up with her still-tender knee and walking stick. She slipped down past the rocky overhangs and out along a short trail that led to the edge of Azoron’s Gorge. Beautiful afternoon. The sun blazing in the bluest of skies hammered the Obsidian Highlands with heat snatched from the mouth of an oven, and the Gorge was no better. Waves of arid, smoky air rolled up to bathe her face and chest as she peered over the edge. A storm of dark-edged clouds spitting sparks and streamers of fire boiled away down there, filling the bottomless abyss and spilling over the surface of Azoron’s Gorge with enormous, palpable force, engulfing the lava flows and fumaroles in boiling black clouds. The Earthen Fires. Sanu said that to be caught in Earthen Fires was to be seared into a pillar of charcoal.
Stupid Jesafion! A land-bridge, indeed. One of the elders said he remembered such a tale, but it was just a legend. Humans had explored the Gorge for many sunspot-cycles north and south and found it to be impassable. Why would he lie? It made no sense.
Unless she had talked in her sleep. Unless he knew something she had not told him; unless he suspected something of her nature. Sweet, gullible Zaranna had taken him at his word.
Oh, Alex! This world was tearing her apart. She wished nothing more than to sleep, to return to Earth and know he was getting better. Instead, the interminable waiting. No Illume. No Darkwolf Clan. Just villagers watching and waiting, and sharpening their knives, many looking at her as if they wished to indulge in a handy game of skin-the-equine.
Sanu’s stick tapped upon the rocks. Deliberately. The girl could move like a cat stalking a mouse when she wanted to.
In a moment, she hobbled up and placed her hand on the Plains Horse’s neck for support. Another disorienting sensation. Her Human perceptions caused her muscles to clench in outrage as Sanu stroked her neck. A Horse found it comforting.
Sanu said, “We’ve spotted Gryphons ousting Taysuu’s Tribe, the first to the north. This is not just a small blooding of troops, Zaranna. It’s all-out war.”
“Sometimes, I think I’m a misplaced soul,” she replied.
Sanu sighed softly. “You’re dreaming about a boy? A Human boy? This Alex who made you scream in the night?” She nodded gravely. True, from the perspective of Equinox. “Dreams are powerful indicators of destiny, Zaranna. Is this why you, a Horse, are helping us? Why a Horse might be mad enough to carry a Human – no, I didn’t know it was such a huge storm cloud. Kesuu’s Tribe doesn’t know much about Horses, only that the Equine-kind kicked us out of a paradise none of us have ever seen, for it happened generations ago.”
“Sentalia Vale is beautiful,” Zara said, “but I wonder –”
“I speak of war and history; you speak of souls and beauty. Where is your mind?”
“Sorry. I’m a Dreamer.”
The Horse bit her tongue and shivered, but the hand only returned to patting her neck. Sanu said, “There is beauty in simplicity.”
Zaranna muttered, “You’re saying I’m a child! You’re saying my worldview is –”
“Beautiful.”
“Ugh!” She growled more like a wolf than a horse. “Arguing with you is like arguing with an equinoctial storm.”
The girl only laughed. “It’s about time you bowed to my mastery. Tell me about this Alex. You woke half the village with your screaming, but then we could not wake you. Even grown warriors were afraid to approach, the dream had seized you so powerfully. Now they’re asking what it portends.”
Zara wished with all her heart Illume would shadow the horizon with his awesome presence. She would rather return to Alex than face this interminable waiting.
She blinked as Sanu’s tunic top landed over her head. “Hey! What are you doing?”
“Since we’re best friends in the disgraced-the-entire-species tribe, and I’m bored,” Sanu ducked beneath the cloth to flash Zaranna a quick grin, “I thought I’d show you a little Outland Human trick I – Earthen Fires! What did you do that for?”
“Oops.” Zaranna eyed Sanu’s tunic top as it floated off on the hot breeze. Goodness, all she had done was toss her head, frightened by being blinded near the edge of this ridiculously tremendous cliff.
Hands on hips, Sanu glared at the Plains Horse. “Oops? Mistake?”
“I’m not the one … uh, getting undressed … here?”
“There. That’s it.”
Zaranna almost bit the finger stabbing beneath her nose. Alright, Miss Weirder-and-Weirder. There was a line between girlfriends and she had just leaped gaily over it. She did not want to know about the admittedly impressive collection of scars on the girl’s torso. Nor that she could change colours like a chameleon! Heavens, now there was a trick.
“You can change your spots,” she gasped.
“Spots? Pick something harder,” said Sanu, her skin rippling into a passable imitation of horsehide. “Camouflage plus. Or this – sky girl. What do you think?”
That was the proverbial freakish thing growing in a forgotten dish in the refrigerator. Disembodied breasts floating in the middle of a torso so perfectly sky-coloured she could barely tell where Sanu began or ended? No. Just … no. Yuck!
