The Book of Terrus: The Ghosts of Goran

Chapter 11 - Cracks

Then, just like a dream, Zaneo was gone. There was nothing but the splash of the sea and Vinie's own reflection gaping back up at her. A gull cried out overhead, circling before turning and crossing the short distance to the coast. Then Vinie saw it.

Acting immediately, she threw her entire body against the tiller. The dhow reacted in an instant, banking hard right away from the shoreline. The turn was so sharp that Gideo and Bakko were sent sprawling out from under their cover and across the deck. They both hit the port side rail with a pair of heavy thuds.

"What was that about?!" Gideo shouted, untangling himself and Bakko from the piles of rope that had slid with them.

"Are you alright Vinie?" Concern was plain on Bakko's weathered face, even as he himself struggled to regain his feet.

Adrenaline still pumping through her veins, Vinie had to take a moment to correct their course before breathing again. Sweat trickled under the leather cord which bound her pearl to her brow. With the back of one hand, Vinie rubbed her forehead.

"Yas, yas I'm fine. We almost weren't though...look!"

Still half on their feet, Gideo and Bakko turned to look back over the stern of the dhow. The enormous, wickedly sharp coral reef they had barely missed was only just visible beneath the clear surface of the water. It would have been practically impossible to spot from even a matter of yards away.

Part of the reef scraped the underside of the hull even despite Vinie's maneuver. It rasped terribly in their ears, but there was no tell-tale splintering sound to indicate the hull had been breached.

Once they were clear, everyone released a breath they didn't know they had been holding.

"Well, that was close," Gideo commented casually. He still went to the side and leaned over for a look at the hull.

"Your eyes are getting better." Bakko approached Vinie and lifted her chin with a bony hand. He smiled proudly. "Even the best mariners I know could have easily run up on that there coral."

The sun was still painful in her eyes, and Vinie had to pull her face back down quickly. Tracks of moisture gathered on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the light though. Mistaking her sudden reticence for exhaustion, Bakko pointed to the tarp.

"Why don't you go and take your turn resting? Let this old man handle the tiller for a while."

"Maybe that's a good idea."

Vinie hesitated only a moment before surrendering her spot to her father at the stern. While she made for the shade, Gideo went to work, coiling up all the rope that her maneuver had sent flying across the deck. The wooden boards were hard beneath her back, and it took some fidgeting before she finally settled on lying on her side, one arm bent to provide a makeshift pillow.

Lying in a troubled half sleep, Vinie tried and failed to convince herself that she had just been seeing things earlier. Every time she closed her eyes though, she could still see Zaneo's face in the sea spray. And thank the stars she had too, or else she might never have spotted that coral reef in time, or even at all. Still, what she had seen was impossible! For the first time since her escape, Vinie seriously began to doubt her sanity.

After trying and failing to sleep for a few hours, Vinie at last got up and went to join the men on the deck. The three of them piloted the dhow along the coastline all through the night, and beyond, in the golden-pink dawn.

OoOoO

Mid-afternoon on the third day was when they caught their first glimpse of the Bay of Torbos. The steep shoreline and wall of jungle abruptly fell away on their left, revealing a natural harbor so wide across it was impossible to make out the far side.