Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,63
road back to the edge of the crater. Mere is tired and not used to running in the dark, and after a while, I pick her up again and carry her. The access road turns south once it reaches the crater wall, and I follow it even though it is going the wrong way for Hanga Roa. I could climb the crater wall, but doing so with Mere in my arms would be tough. She's still enough that I suspect she's fallen asleep.
The road bends back on itself fairly quickly, turning into a series of tight switchbacks that lead up to the rim. It ends in an old dirt road that runs north to south. I turn left, north, and start jogging toward the distant glow of the airport and Hanga Roa.
* * *
It's nearly dawn by the time we get back to the hotel. I wake Mere up so that she can climb the stairs under her own power, and she does so listlessly. Once we reach our room, she kicks off her shoes and falls down on the bed, letting her exhaustion pull her back into dreamland.
The recent exercise and inhaling Mere's scent over the past few hours have made me restless, and if the sun weren't coming up, I would go back out again and prowl around the tiny town of Hanga Roa. But nothing good would come of that. The thirst is there, at the back of my throat. My body is still fighting the toxins. I had been hoping to get some dirt time at the spa, but with that option no longer available, I'm starting to consider Plan B.
It's not a long-term solution. Blood brings other complications.
Mere is sprawled on the bed, and I adjust her position slightly so that I can lie down too. I fold my hands across my stomach and stare at the ceiling, trying to ignore the steady beat of her heart. She turns onto her side, a mumbled sigh slipping from her parted lips…
I close my eyes so that I don't see here anymore, and when I hear her exhale again, it doesn't sound the same. It sounds like wind on water…
And I'm not lying next to Mere anymore. I'm on the boat again, fleeing the ruin of the fairest city ever built. Fleeing everything I ever knew and loved.
“We are no longer who we were,” Aeneas says. “We were men who stood our ground, who swore to fight to the last for our king and country. Now, we are nameless scoundrels, running across the dark sea that will surely swallow us before the sun rises again.”
The men are scattered on the deck—exhausted, wounded, close to death. No one is rowing, and it is up to the captain and me to hold the tiller straight, to keep us on course—the only course available we can take. The wind is behind us, and our sails are full. The timbers of our boat are our most valuable possession. Everything else is broken and worn.
“We will become something else,” I tell him. “We will find new names.”
“Have you seen this?” he asks me. “Have you heard such a prophecy from the birds?”
I shake my head. “That is all behind me now. Like everything else.”
He laughs, a cold laugh of a man who feels he has no future. “So be it. Let us never look back again. We are Dardanoi no more, you and I. We are men of the west, and we will go as far as these timbers will carry us.”
The wind blows us away from the war, and we try to forgot how to be soldiers, but our bodies know nothing else. The short list. Kill everyone else.
I sigh, and the boat vanishes. I am standing on a cliff now, and the sun is a blazing fire in the west, its flames licking across the surface of the ocean. The people of the clans are behind me, chanting and beating their drums. I am naked but for a headdress of white feathers and a pair of wings made from palm fronds strapped to my arms. The ocean is far away, but I leap anyway, spreading my wings. I dive gracefully, and the cliff rushes past me. The updraft is warm and strong, and when I spread my arms, my palm-frond wings fill with air. I don't hit the water—not yet—the air carries me across the waves. Away from the volcanic cliff behind me. Toward the tiny spur of rock, jutting