Foretellers (The Ydron Saga Book 3) (3 page)

The icy water stunned her, returning her to the moment. Roanna’s eyes followed the curtain of bubbles rising and saw she was still near the surface. Instinctively, even though she was a poor swimmer at best, she brought her arms down hard against her sides and the force of the act moved her toward the light. When her ascent slowed, she kicked hard, brought her arms down again and broke the surface a second after.

Gasping for breath and casting around for the ship, Roanna saw the stern disappear as an ocean swell moved between them. The sound of its hull cutting through the waves receded and was replaced by the slap of water against her head and shoulders. Any thoughts of loss, however, were soon replaced by a new urgency. The weight of her sodden leather clothing was pulling her back under and she knew she could only remain afloat a minute longer at best.

How far was the shore? She turned towards it as she fought to prevent herself from submerging. She could barely make out the shoreline beyond the swells. Even so, she realized the distance was much too far to swim. It was then that a large dark shape loomed in the corner of her sight. As her body came around, she looked up to see… a portion of a tree! What had once been a tree was now a stump.

“Grab the log,” her daughter had told her.

As it came within reach, she grabbed and held on, realizing had she hit the water a few minutes sooner or a few minutes later, she wouldn’t have landed where she did. In fact, had she not turned around at that very instant, it might have drifted beyond her reach. A critical moment. Life or death. Pandy had reacted in time.

Roanna held tight, fearing what would happen should she lose her grip and surrender the tree to the currents. She searched the weathered hulk for purchase and gradually pulled herself up from the sea to a place where she could sit and dry in the sunlight, riding the thing until it eventually came ashore. It would, too. She could see it coming aground. The joy of this realization quickly soured because, on one hand, she knew her young daughter was right, but on the other…

“Oh, Pandy!” she cried and began sobbing because she could not foresee a reunion.

… … … … …

In all the girl’s fourteen years, Pandy and her mother had rarely been apart. Consequently, knowing Roanna would be alright, if only for the present, was still not enough to comfort her. As much as her foresight should have made parting easier, as much as averting her mother’s death removed whatever horror she would have felt had Roanna been trapped aboard this ship with a killer, the emptiness and pain welling inside were beyond her experience and threatened to drop her to her knees.

“Clever, aren’t you?” a voice interrupted.

Pandy knew at once who had spoken and turned to face him. As hard as it had been to watch her mother go, she refused to give Harad the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She swallowed, took a long deep breath and returned his look with a stolid stare.

“Clever enough,” she replied in a monotone she hoped would conceal her emotions.

“Well, you have accomplished what I would have in another day or two. Less mess, but the result is the same. She is gone and now I have you all to myself. Come,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll show you to our cabin.”

Pandy twisted and wrenched free.

“The fo’c’s’le is forward, sir, and men are not welcome there.”

“That was while your mother was here. I’m taking care of you now.”

“I may have no say in what happens once I’m off this ship, but I think the captain will be displeased if he learns you have disobeyed his command. Shall we tell him?”

Harad’s expression soured. He removed his hand and took a step backward.

“You have a few more days before landfall,” he said. “Be a good little girl and don’t provoke me.”

He opened his mouth again, as if about to add something, then closed it and stalked off.

Cold! I’m so cold
, thought Roanna.

She had been afloat a complete day and night and now her entire body quaked. When she tried to curl into a ball to retain what little body heat she had left, something hard dug into her side, forcing her awake. She rolled off the offending object and started to slide. Her right foot plunged into water and the cold shocked her eyes open. On her back and sliding, she flailed with her arms and slapped with her hands, desperate for anything to hang onto, but found only a hard, smooth, weathered surface offering nothing to grasp. She slipped farther and was thigh-deep in liquid when her left hand struck a protrusion. She grasped it, held tight and halted her descent, but not before she was waist deep in sea water.

The handhold dug into her palm under the weight of her sodden leather clothes. Between short sharp gasps, she drew a deep breath and rolled onto her left side. She swung her right hand across her body and, when it joined with her left, she pulled with both her arms, crying out from the effort, and hauled herself up until her chest was level with her fists.

Her hips were clear of the water now and Roanna looked about. The sky and the sea had transformed from impenetrable blackness into the deep green that presaged the dawn. Red and orange glints from the first light of day flicked across the waves and when she looked up, she could just make out the silhouetted hulk of the tree she was riding. Holding tightly with her right hand, she released her left and patted its shape, feeling for anything else to hold onto. She sobbed when it uncovered nothing useful, so she returned it and clung to the knob.

She knew she could not remain like this forever. She had already begun trembling. She was about to search again, this time with her right hand, when her left knee, treading water, struck something hard below the surface. Of course there was more to this hulk than she could see, but that simple fact had eluded her until now. She used her knee to explore the protrusion and discovered she had found some sort of ledge. She struggled to pull herself onto it but was dismayed by how heavy her leathers had become. Attempt after attempt, her knee almost attained but couldn’t quite mount it. There had to be a way, she thought. It was the water’s motion that provided the clue.

She lowered herself into the sea as the swell she was riding passed, then pulled with her arms as the next one rose beneath her. She did it again and again, mirroring the sea’s rise and fall, making use of what little buoyancy remained. On her fourth effort, she kicked with her feet, pulled as hard as she could, and gave a triumphant shout as her left knee stood upon the shelf.

Her celebration was short lived, however, since her shaking was now uncontrollable. Desperate to find someplace higher where she could rest, somewhere above the water’s chill, she stretched upward as far as she could and explored the trunk’s surface. Finding nothing useful, she looked forward in time for any possibilities. One feature stood out in her mind, and if she could just locate it…

Her hand touched an arm protruding from the trunk, the stump of what had once been a sizeable branch. And though her strength was vanishing, she had enough left to reach it with both hands, and from there, to pull herself high enough to stand with her feet on the ledge. Putting one foot onto the stub that had seconds before served as a handhold, she stepped even higher. Clear of the water at last, she scrambled onto the crook where the branch and trunk met. A second branch intersecting the first formed a V, and she climbed onto what she envisioned as the seat they created. With her legs splayed across the tree’s broken limbs and her back against the trunk, she was finally sitting, grateful there was no wind to rob her body further. Even so, the shaking would not abate. Afraid she might yet die, she began again to sob. Unable to focus her thoughts so that she might look ahead, she rested her faith in her daughter’s vision.

Oh, Pandy. Dearest Pandy. Where are you now?

The eastern glow was spreading, but a low wall of fog obscured the land, cut through by a bright sliver of white. That brought a hint of a smile and a tear of hope. Jadon, the hot stellar dwarf, would be the first sun to rise, not Mahaz, the cooler orange giant. As much as she loved the larger sun’s coloration, she yearned for its smaller companion’s heat.

Rise! Please rise!
she prayed, as the trembling grew stronger.

One eye cracked open, then the other. Her body still shook, but the tremors were less severe and the breeze across her face felt almost warm. The stump had made landfall and she stared at the cliff face before her.

Limast’s coast is forbidding. Its uninterrupted palisade precludes harbors and is bordered in places by narrow strips of pebbles or sand, hardly big enough to call beaches. Otherwise, it presents a vertical wall of gray rock against the sea. Roanna groaned as she straightened in the saddle the branches created and began scanning the cliffs for a way to ascend.

By her estimate, it was already late morning, but due to the rock wall’s proximity, neither sun had yet risen sufficiently high to reveal any of its features. If locating a way to the top were not problem enough, the tide had begun rising. If she failed to determine an ascent route soon, the strand would soon submerge and she would find herself afloat and adrift yet again.

All at once, light flooded her eyes as Jadon peeked above the ridge top. It took a moment for her vision to return and Jadon’s dancing phantom to fade. When at last she could see, the wall’s crevices became apparent and she noticed a diagonal shelf rising up and away from the sea, ascending to her left. She thought it seemed sufficiently wide that, if she proceeded with caution, she might manage the climb. Roanna leapt to the sand, glad to feel land beneath her feet. With no time to savor even this fleeting joy, she ran to the cliff.

The first several yards proved easy enough. Although the ledge’s width forced her to sidestep, it was somewhat more than the length of her feet and handholds were abundant. She was making good time, smiling at the ease of it, when halfway up she ran into trouble. The way narrowed unexpectedly, forcing her onto the balls of her feet and offering fewer protrusions for her hands to hang onto. At one point, as she glanced to determine where to step next, she caught a glimpse of the sea. Startled by how high she had climbed, she lost balance and screamed as she began to teeter backwards. Yet, even as she cried out, a part of her mind spied a fissure. She reached for it. Wedging the edge of her right hand inside, she curled her fingers to tighten the fit and gasped when it held. She was still teetering precariously when she spotted another handhold just above her left shoulder. Flailing with her free hand, she grabbed it and pulled herself upright as sand and pebbles clattered down the rock face.

It would not do to panic. She could die if she did. Trying to remain calm, she took several deep breaths. Her heart was still pounding, but she knew she might survive if she did not let fear overwhelm her. She exhaled. Then, as she looked above and around to assess problems or opportunities, she noticed another incline, this time leading diagonally up and to the right. A short distance farther, it ended where a rock chimney cut through. The vertical fissure was something she thought she might scale if only she could reach it.

Another handhold appeared a short distance beyond, so, hanging on with just her left hand and releasing her right, she took hold and began inching up the grade. Continuing upward, finding new ways to secure herself, several more minutes found her standing by the cleft.

This breach in the wall ended far below where it narrowed to a slit, midway between her current route and the one that preceded. Above, it cut a jagged gash all the way to the summit. At the level she was standing, it was barely wider than her shoulders, widening only slightly as it ascended.

Roanna studied it a while, trying to determine if the way it presented was safe. If any of its interior surface were to come loose while she was climbing, she would have nowhere to go but down. She saw no unfavorable outcomes, but no favorable ones either. Like many of life’s pathways, there would be so many choices—where to place a hand or where to place a foot— she could not foresee all possible outcomes. She could hope foresight would save her from disaster, as it had moments before, but myriad possibilities often leave so many outcomes obscure and this was one time her talent seemed useless. She wondered for a moment if Pandy had seen this far ahead, or only to her landfall. It was a pointless question, she knew, serving only to postpone the inevitable. There was no turning back, since the way down is always more difficult and dangerous than the way up, so she had to attempt it. Brushing her hair from her face, she began.

As she inched her way upward—sometimes wedging herself with her back against one side of the fissure and her hands and feet against the other, at others with her hands and feet braced against opposite walls—she had to laugh. Pandy would have been in her element here, yet once again, it was Roanna who was climbing. She was nearly at the summit when, just as before, boarding the ship, she found her strength failing. Her arms and legs trembled and she remembered she had not eaten for almost two days.

“You can’t stop now,” she chided. “You have to find Pandy.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and braced herself for the final effort. She opened them and froze. A few feet above, a rope ladder dangled in the breeze.

It can’t be real
, she thought, certain it had not been there moments earlier.

She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them, but the ladder remained. Half in dread, she tilted her head skyward. In the chimney’s opening, silhouetted against the sky, two heads and two pairs of hands beckoned.