Now I could rest a little, despite the chill discomfort of being immersed in the cold sea from my chest down. Now, at least, my death by drowning was postponed for a time.
It might be an hour, it might be two, before the numb cold paralyzed my limbs and I slid into the depths. But at least I had a fighting chance.
All I have ever asked of life or fate, or whatever gods stand over the destinies of men, is a fighting chance. I clung to that bit of wood and let the wild waves bear me where they wished.
And after a time, I slept the dead slumber of exhaustion.
When in time I recovered my senses, the storm had abated and it was day. I could not see the brilliance of the Green Star, but I could feel the warmth of its silvery-emerald rays against my face and arms, my back and shoulders.
From the chest down, I was still immersed in the waters of the sea. The numb cold had by now virtually paralyzed my legs; I could no longer feel life in my extremities.
If I did not soon find rescue, I would succumb to the sucking grip of the waters, or perish from exposure to the elements. I drifted there among the idle washing of the waves for a measureless time, feeling miserable, lost and lonely.
I was feeling sorry for myself—an emotion rarely experienced by the heroes of romance. But I am no hero, only an ordinary man to whom the most extraordinary sequence of adventures has happened. Thinking on this, I shrugged off my gloom and despondency. Surely, thought I, I have not travelled across the immensities of space to a strange and alien world, entered the body of another man, passed through the black gates of death only to be reborn in yet another body, to perish in so mundane a manner as drowning! Surely, whatever nameless, inscrutable gods in charge of my destiny will preserve me for a unique doom and an end far stranger and more marvelous than this!
My blindness made my present position tantalizing. For all I knew, the sandy shores of an island might well be within eyeshot at this moment, unknown to me. I might even now be drifting past some tropic isle well within the reach of even my numb, strengthless limbs! The very thought caused me such exquisite agony as to almost drive me mad—I strained my every sense to detect the savory odor of jungle flowers upon the wind, or to hear the slap of waves against a sandy beach.
And then I heard a human voice!
A voice, calling me across the illimitable, invisible waste of waters! I lifted my own voice in a hoarse, croaking cry; waving one arm aloft clumsily, not knowing from which direction that call had come.
I heard it again; and this time it was clearer, as if closer to me than before. It was a girl’s voice, I fancied, or perhaps the clear soprano of a young boy. Again I cried out hoarsely.
“This way! Over here—can you swim?” the clear voice called.
I shook my head feebly. “I am blind—I cannot tell where you are—you will have to come to me!” I cried.
Then there followed an interminable time when I lay there in the dank embrace of the waters, waiting … but no one came. My spirits sank within me; and my heart grew leaden within my breast.
Had there truly been a voice at all, or was it only an auditory illusion? A figment of my disordered wits—a dream born in my tortured brain?
And at the very moment that these dire, dreadful thoughts entered my weary mind, there came to my ears the rhythmic splash of oars or legs thrusting through the waters; the slap of the waves against the sides of some rude vessel, and the panting of a labored breath.
And, while I hung there in suspense, scarcely daring to hope, there followed yet another phenomenon before which I almost dissolved in tears of exhaustion and relief.
For I felt the warm, comforting touch of a human hand upon my shoulder!
My rescuer, it seemed, was a young boy whose name was Shann. In a shy, hesitant, wary voice he told me that he had been carried off by slavers from the city of Kamadhong; from their clutches he had escaped, after many perils. I gathered from the boy’s words that the slavers had been transporting him and his fellow-captives over the sea in a ship; I deduced that he had either been washed overboard in the storm as had I, or perhaps had jumped.
He was riding astride the trunk of a tree, floating amidst the unknown sea, when he had spied my tousled hair, bright gold against the blue-green of the waves. The effects of the sudden storm had covered an area larger than I had thought, in order to fell trees on one or another jungled strand.
He helped me aboard his treetrunk. I fear it was difficult for him to haul me aboard, for I was at the end of my strength and could do little to assist him.
I gave him my name, Karn, and told him my country; but the moment had not yet come for us to exchange adventure stories, and so I said nothing about my past. Much of what I could have told him would have seemed incredible; so I said nothing of my adventures among the Assassins of Ardha, or in the Pylon of Sarchimus the Magician; nor of my lost friends, Prince Janchan, Zarqa the Kalood and faithful, homely Klygon.
He seemed to be some years younger than myself; his legs and thighs were smooth and his arms girlishly slender, and his voice the clear soprano of a boy before the years of puberty. These things I discovered as he dragged me to the treetrunk, our bodies close together. His hair was very long, long as a girl’s; and when I touched his cheek it was innocent of hirsute growth. He was smaller and slighter of build than was I, and I guessed his age to be no more than twelve. Like me, he was nearly naked, a scrap of cloth about the loins, his boyish breast covered with the rags of a tunic.
Once he had gotten me up on the floating treetrunk, I stretched out in the sun to let the welcome warmth dry my limbs and send life tingling through them. I dozed for a time in the sun, my new-found friend at my side, at watch over me lest I slide back into the waves.
I felt myself to be very lucky. For amidst the trackless waters of the unknown sea, I had joined forces with another castaway. Now, at least, I had a little friend; a comrade to share my perils and adventures.
The sun sank and night fell. We slept, cuddled in each other’s arms for body-warmth, shivering in the coolness of evening. The boy sobbed for a time; I stroked his shoulder and patted his tear-stained cheeks, comforting him as best I could. Though alive and together, we were hopelessly lost. No one could say what surprises we might find with morning.
Chapter 12.
A STRANGE DISCOVERY
With dawn, the world lightened, as it does for all but I. My young comrade stiffened where he lay curled against me and sat up suddenly—so suddenly that his movement rocked our precariously balanced craft, nearly sending me back into the waves again.
“What is it?” I asked.
The boy hesitated.
“It’s—I think it’s—yes, it is! An island!”
My heart leaped within my breast. Controlling my excitement, I asked him to describe what he saw. His words sketched in a rough picture; a sandy beach, scarcely more than a dun line against the blue-green sea; massed shapes loomed darkly behind, which must have been great trees, or perhaps rounded knolls or hills mantled with dense verdure.
“How far away?” I asked.
He shrugged. “How can I say? I know not how to measure distances at sea. But near enough for us to reach, with some effort.”
Indeed, the wind or the motion of the sea current was driving us in the direction of the island which Shann’s keen eyes had spotted; so for an hour or two we let the Sea of Komar do our work for us. Later, towards mid-morning, we had drawn close enough to the mysterious island for the boy’s sharp gaze to ascertain further details. There were indeed wooded hills, and a thick stretch of jungle, he affirmed. But nowhere did he see any sign of the presence of man—no cleared or cultivated areas, no rooftops visible above the trees; not even a plume of smoke hovered on the clear morning air, rising from a cook-fire.