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Authors: Bernard Evslin
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More slowly, the dust cleared. The boulders had disappeared. Had they shattered themselves upon each other? Or dissolved again into vision? No—they had been there. Fragments of rock littered the water. I was holding my breath. I didn’t even know I had stopped breathing until I heard the tortured air moaning as it forced itself out.
What was I hoping? Did I want to see the black head breaking water beyond the litter? Or did I want to detect blood on the water? I seemed to feel my eyes burn, hungry as a gull’s for a glimpse of redness among the rock litter, or a bone, or a gobbet of flesh.
Whatever I hoped, I saw him surface, not merely showing head and shoulders, but broaching like a porpoise, rising straight out of the sea until his feet were clear, shedding diamonds of waterdrops, then turning in the air and arching back, shouting exultantly … uttering a victory yell that was impossibly loud coming from that slender frame. His voice bowled across the still air like thunder, rattling our oxhide stays.
We were all laughing and shouting, embracing one another and dancing on deck as he swam slowly now toward us, pushing through rock fragments as he came. But one stone about the size of a fist followed him as he swam. And when he reached the stern and was scrambling up to us, that white stone leaped out of the sea and landed on deck. It rolled to his feet.
It was as if this single stone were the survivor of those boulders that had dashed themselves to death upon each other—as if it had inherited their weird energy and menacing intelligence and now offered itself to the victor.
NINETEEN
E KION
F OOD AND WATER WERE running low; we decided to stop at the first island we sighted. But the wind fell off, and for the next two days we crawled across a landless sea. On the morning of the third day the wind freshened, and by midday we had sighted a small, hilly island.
“It’s called Bebrycos,” said Argos. “But I don’t think we should put in. It has a bad reputation.”
“You’ve said that about every other island we’ve passed,” said Jason. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“I don’t remember exactly,” said Argos. “Something about a king who doesn’t like visitors—or maybe likes them too well and never lets them go. We’d better pass it by.”
“And when we come to the next island, you’ll remember something bad about that one,” said Jason. “In the meantime, we’ll run out of food and water. We’re landing here.”
“You’ll take the skiff, then,” said Argos. “I’ll stand offshore.” I saw Jason’s jaw muscles throb and his gray eyes darken. But all he said was, “Find a bottom and drop anchor. We’ll take the skiff.” Actually, we knew this was safer, although we were all getting irritated at the way Argos would rather risk our lives than endanger a plank of his precious ship. Still, we knew that most islanders did not welcome strangers, and that it was better to sneak ashore than sail boldly into an unknown harbor.
We spent the rest of the afternoon hunting a good place to anchor—which was hard to find because the bottom shelved sharply here and the water stayed deep almost all the way to the beach. We didn’t dare anchor so close to shore. A war canoe could dart out swiftly as a dragonfly and put a party aboard us before we could get under way.
We sailed all around the island without finding a place. Then Jason had an idea. By this time his rock had grown to boulder size and rolled behind him wherever he went, sliding off the deck and surging after him when he swam. Jason instructed Rufus to make a harness for the rock.
The smith went to his deck anvil and wrought rods and chains into a strong openwork iron nest and attached it to a long cable. Jason spoke to the rock; it rolled into its harness, slid to the edge of the deck, then overboard and sank. The cable stretched taut, and the Argo swung at a bow mooring where there was no bottom.
We rowed to an empty
What was I hoping? Did I want to see the black head breaking water beyond the litter? Or did I want to detect blood on the water? I seemed to feel my eyes burn, hungry as a gull’s for a glimpse of redness among the rock litter, or a bone, or a gobbet of flesh.
Whatever I hoped, I saw him surface, not merely showing head and shoulders, but broaching like a porpoise, rising straight out of the sea until his feet were clear, shedding diamonds of waterdrops, then turning in the air and arching back, shouting exultantly … uttering a victory yell that was impossibly loud coming from that slender frame. His voice bowled across the still air like thunder, rattling our oxhide stays.
We were all laughing and shouting, embracing one another and dancing on deck as he swam slowly now toward us, pushing through rock fragments as he came. But one stone about the size of a fist followed him as he swam. And when he reached the stern and was scrambling up to us, that white stone leaped out of the sea and landed on deck. It rolled to his feet.
It was as if this single stone were the survivor of those boulders that had dashed themselves to death upon each other—as if it had inherited their weird energy and menacing intelligence and now offered itself to the victor.
NINETEEN
E KION
F OOD AND WATER WERE running low; we decided to stop at the first island we sighted. But the wind fell off, and for the next two days we crawled across a landless sea. On the morning of the third day the wind freshened, and by midday we had sighted a small, hilly island.
“It’s called Bebrycos,” said Argos. “But I don’t think we should put in. It has a bad reputation.”
“You’ve said that about every other island we’ve passed,” said Jason. “What’s wrong with this one?”
“I don’t remember exactly,” said Argos. “Something about a king who doesn’t like visitors—or maybe likes them too well and never lets them go. We’d better pass it by.”
“And when we come to the next island, you’ll remember something bad about that one,” said Jason. “In the meantime, we’ll run out of food and water. We’re landing here.”
“You’ll take the skiff, then,” said Argos. “I’ll stand offshore.” I saw Jason’s jaw muscles throb and his gray eyes darken. But all he said was, “Find a bottom and drop anchor. We’ll take the skiff.” Actually, we knew this was safer, although we were all getting irritated at the way Argos would rather risk our lives than endanger a plank of his precious ship. Still, we knew that most islanders did not welcome strangers, and that it was better to sneak ashore than sail boldly into an unknown harbor.
We spent the rest of the afternoon hunting a good place to anchor—which was hard to find because the bottom shelved sharply here and the water stayed deep almost all the way to the beach. We didn’t dare anchor so close to shore. A war canoe could dart out swiftly as a dragonfly and put a party aboard us before we could get under way.
We sailed all around the island without finding a place. Then Jason had an idea. By this time his rock had grown to boulder size and rolled behind him wherever he went, sliding off the deck and surging after him when he swam. Jason instructed Rufus to make a harness for the rock.
The smith went to his deck anvil and wrought rods and chains into a strong openwork iron nest and attached it to a long cable. Jason spoke to the rock; it rolled into its harness, slid to the edge of the deck, then overboard and sank. The cable stretched taut, and the Argo swung at a bow mooring where there was no bottom.
We rowed to an empty
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