In a world of steamships and Progress, no one who sails due south across the Wild Sea ever returns.
No one knows why.
Dale Mortensen intends to solve the mystery. With the help of an old sailor and a reformed playboy searching for his missing sweetheart, he locates a captain and crew ambitious—not to mention crazy—enough to undertake the journey across the Wild Sea.
The Infinity and her crew sail south, but the truth of what really lies on the other side of the horizon is more amazing—and terrifying—than anything they can imagine.
It’s the adventure of a lifetime—and it may just get Dale and his friends killed.
Find out how this Young Adult steampunk adventure unfolds chapter-by-chapter every Thursday! Click here to start from the beginning. Or if you want to read it at your own pace, buy the ebook for $6.99 from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords or Sony, or get it as a trade paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Depository.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HORIZON
E. R. PASKEY
NINETEEN
“I’LL GET HER.” YUTHA BRIGHTENED, CHEERED BY the fact that somebody was taking charge, and hobbled out of the ward. He returned a few moments later with Mrs. Weatherby in tow.
The head matron looked as stern as ever, but Dale had the impression she’d formed something of a soft spot for Yutha. She fixed the five of them with a considering look. “Yutha mentioned you needed to speak to me about something rather urgent?”
“Yes, madam.” Raphael kept his face serious, instead of attempting to charm the older woman—again. “We wish to know when we will be allowed to leave.”
“And what will happen to us when we do,” put in Dale quietly.
Mrs. Weatherby’s eyes slid from Raphael to Dale and back. “Well, to begin with,” she said briskly, “none of you will be going anywhere until after you’ve healed.”
Raphael’s face fell, but he rallied and covered his disappointment with interest. Minh looked entirely unsurprised, as did Belly, though the latter grimaced theatrically at the thought of having to stay in this ward that long.
Dale could not blame him. Hospitals still made him breathless, as though he was being crushed under a massive weight. Phantom memories of those days he’d spent in the hospital in Port Ruby after the tsunami had been chasing themselves around in his head the last few days and he wanted them gone.
“And after that?” asked Raphael.
“You’ll have a meeting with the Committee for New Arrivals. They’ll explain the basic principles of life here, assign you work, and otherwise help you get settled in the city.”
“You have a committee for that?” Surprise washed over Dale. It seemed so…organized.
“What else would you have us do when strangers appear through the Rift?” asked Mrs. Weatherby, but her sharp words lacked any real bite. “Let them wander around without any guidance?” She harrumphed. “We’d have complete chaos.”
Belly made a sound of agreement. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged and pulled his collar away from his neck. “She’s right. Like a ship full of raw sailors with no cap’n or mates to give ‘em their orders.”
“I understand you’ve lost friends and family.” Mrs. Weatherby’s gaze drifted around their small cluster of beds to linger on Yutha. “All newcomers to the city have lost someone. The best thing you can do now is to heal. Once I release you from the Hospital, the Committee will help you take the next step.”
“That is it?” demanded Raphael. “There is nothing we can do between now and then—no one to whom we can speak?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Dale rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Do you have any books or other literature about this place that we could read?” Short of actually being able to wander around and explore the place or speak to someone who could tell them what they needed to know, books were the next best thing.
Mrs. Weatherby looked at him sharply. “Mr. Riley, I believe, left some pamphlets.”
“Mr. Riley?” echoed Dale.
“Yes. He is on the Committee.” Mrs. Weatherby glanced at her pocket watch. “I’ll send a nurse in with the pamphlets later.”
“Thank you.” Dale gave her a grateful smile.
“Thank you, madam.” Raphael did not sound grateful at all.
With a curt nod, Mrs. Weatherby left the ward.
Yutha, however, remained. He settled down on the foot of Minh’s bed, awkwardly stretching his leg out in front of him, and leaned on one of his crutches for balance. “Now what?”
“When the nurse brings us the pamphlets, we read them.” Dale shrugged his broad shoulders, noting the movement did not strain his shoulder as much as it had before. “Looks like the only way we’ll be able to prepare for whatever is out there.” He nodded to the door.
Raphael made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. “It could take weeks before this—” he waved toward his injured leg, “—heals enough for that dragon to let me go.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t, lad.”
Dale looked at Belly. His friend looked older than he had just a few days before; the loss of Ruben, the Infinity, and their near-brush with death had already taken a visible toll on him.
“You are thinking of this Committee,” said Minh unexpectedly. He, too, was looking at Belly.
“Aye.” Belly shook his head. “Think on it, lads. We’re on an island or a small continent, or whatever the hell this place is, surrounded by water no one’ll sail on because of dangerous rocks an’ murderous creatures livin’ under it. What kind of work will they have for a bunch of sailors who can’t sail?”
His words sent a wash of icy water crashing over everyone else. Even Yutha’s dark face paled. “I love sailin’,” he said in a very small voice. “What’ll we do if we can’t sail?”
“My point exactly,” said Belly.
“It is no use for us to speculate.” Raphael gave an elaborate shrug. “We will find out when the time comes.”
“That’s all well an’ good fer ya to say,” growled Belly. “You’re a merchant’s son.” He swung around to fix Minh with a baleful look. “And you’re a cook.”
Minh shrugged.
Raphael started to say something, but Dale cut him off before he could make the situation worse. “Raph does have a point, Belly. We can talk about it all we like, but we won’t know anything until we get our hands on more information. Like the pamphlets.” He held Belly’s gaze until the older man slouched back down on his cot with a grumble.
A moment later, the door opened and a pretty girl in a smart white uniform entered with a stack of papers in her hands. A starched white cap covered her dark hair. Approaching their beds, she began handing the papers round. “Mrs. Weatherby wanted me to deliver these.”
The instant Dale’s fingers touched the paper, he felt a knot inside him unclench. Here was something that could possibly help them. He looked up at the nurse. “Thank you.”
She smiled, nodded, and turned to Raphael, who still looked rather gloomy. “This should cheer you up,” she said brightly.
“Thank you, miss.”
The nurse’s cheeks pinked, but she said nothing else as she left.
Dale looked over at Yutha, who was staring dubiously at his pamphlet. “What’s the matter?” It occurred to him now that the boy might not be able to read—though he knew Inzin was literate.
“Some of these words are really strange.” Yutha wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know this language.”
Looking down at his own pamphlet, Dale realized that the boy was correct. At the top of the pamphlet, he read the words, “Welcome to Rift City,” in his native Varangian. Beneath it stood a strange configuration of letters containing equally strange symbols. They had a vaguely familiar look, as though he had seen a sample of it somewhere before, but he could not put a name to it.
He held the paper up for the others to see. “Do any of you recognize this?”
“I’ve seen it before on shipping crates,” said Minh flatly. “No idea what it is.”
“It is Demascenese.” Belly and Raphael spoke at the same time. Startled, they looked at each other.
“How do ya know?” demanded Belly.
“My father’s shops sell goods shipped in from Demas.” Raphael shrugged. “They are expensive.” He arched a black eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“I’ve seen the ships come in.” Belly shook his head. “They have to hug the coast—a voyage takes a year or more.” He tapped his pamphlet with a blunt fingertip. “You know what this means, don’t ya, lad?”
Dale’s breath caught in his throat. “The Rift catches ships coming the other way too.”
“That’s what I’m thinkin’.”
Dale skimmed the rest of his pamphlet to discover it had been printed in four different languages—Varangian, Demascenese, and two others he did not recognize. He read through the sections he understood, hoping they would dispel some of the mystery surrounding this place, but he was sorely disappointed. The pamphlet was nothing more than a banal piece of fluff designed to introduce newcomers to the city without giving them much in the way of actual information.
Raphael reached the same conclusion. “Bah.” He ripped his pamphlet into tiny pieces, his face an eloquent picture of disgust. “This is nothing.”
Dale shrugged. He was disappointed, yes, but they did have one more piece of information than they had possessed five minutes earlier. “At least now we know for sure that you can’t cross the Wild Sea from the north either.”
“Fer all the good that does us, lad,” said Belly with a scowl.
~oOo~
THE next few days passed with tortuous slowness. It was only now, after the initial shock and strangeness of their situation had ebbed, that the full impact of the strange weather on this world hit Dale. Thunder shook the sky in frequent intervals, and every time he looked out the strange glass windows, he saw gray skies.
Every time.
He itched for the faintest hint of the sun, or even a break in the clouds, but it just continued to storm.
Eventually, he asked Mrs. Weatherby about it.
“I’m afraid it rains all the time, dear.” She cast a glance out the window herself. “It does stop now and then, but it never lasts. You’ll get used to it.”
Yutha was a frequent visitor to their ward. He hobbled in every afternoon with a board game or a deck of cards tucked under his arm. The other children here had been teaching him how to play and he in turn taught his friends.
Dale was certain the chance to play games was the only thing keeping Raphael from completely losing his mind. His friend chafed under the restrictions Mrs. Weatherby had imposed on them for the sake of their health. Dale often caught Raphael staring at his leg as though willing it to heal faster.
His own injuries, being not quite as bad as the others, took less time to heal, but Belly was the first of them deemed fit to see the Committee. Before he stumped out of the ward, he looked around at Dale and the others. “I’ll be back to see ya, lads, an’ let you know how this here Committee operates, that I will.”
Dale, Raphael, and Minh waited on pins and needles for the old sailor to come stumping back in to give them the goods, but two days passed and Belly never returned. The afternoon of the second day, Yutha informed them on his customary visit that Belly had tried to come back to the Hospital to see them, but he was not allowed past the front door.
That struck all of them as odd.
“Why would they refuse him entrance?” Raphael frowned at the door.
Yutha shrugged dramatically. “Don’t know. He sure wasn’t happy. Heard he had a big argument with the front desk and then some men came and tossed him out.” His dark eyes widened as he told the story.
Dale and Raphael exchanged glances. “It sounds like they don’t want him to tell us anything.”
“That it does, my friend.”
Heavy silence fell over the ward. Dale did not realize how much he had been relying on getting information from Belly until that option was taken off the table. He hunched over on the side of his cot, clasping his hands together between his spread knees. What do we do now? he wondered silently.
Surprisingly, Minh broke the stillness. “We cannot let them pick us off one by one,” he said solemnly. “If they take one of us to see the Committee, we should tell them they must take all of us. That way we will know for sure what happens to each other.”
“That is a splendid idea!” Raphael blinked in surprise. “Why did I not think of that?”
“Because your head is too full of that girl,” said Minh dryly. Raphael could only grin and sheepishly shrug his shoulders.
Dale felt his spirits lift and nodded to the former cook. “Good idea, Minh. I’m sure the Committee has done that before.”
“And if they have not…” Raphael gave a careless shrug. “We will be the first.”
“You’ll take me too, won’t you?” Yutha tried to sound confident, but a waver in his voice betrayed his fear that he would be shuffled off to the side and forgotten.
Minh leaned over to clap him on the back. “Of course we will take you, Yutha. We are family.” A look of mingled grief and humor flasher through his eyes. “Besides, if we did not, your father would rise from his grave and hunt me down.”
Yutha managed a shaky smile. “I miss him,” he confessed in a low voice.
“I do, too,” said Minh. “Inzin was a good man.”
~oOo~
THAT evening, when Mrs. Weatherby swept through to make her rounds for the night, she brought news with her. It was still raining outside; in the silence permeating the ward they could all hear the patter of raindrops hitting the glass.
“I have news for you, Mr. Mortensen,” she said without preamble. “The Committee for New Arrivals wishes to see you tomorrow morning.”
For a second, Dale could scarcely believe his ears. His heart jumped inside him and began to beat in triple time. “They do?”
“Yes. You will be released from the Hospital tomorrow.”
“What about my friends?” asked Dale.
Mrs. Weatherby sent a sharp look around the room. “They will have to wait their turn.”
Dale folded his arms across his chest. “Mrs. Weatherby, I’m not leaving without them.”
“If one of us goes to see the Committee,” added Raphael, “all of us must go.”
Mrs. Weatherby shook her head. “It’s a fine sentiment, boys, but I’m afraid that is simply not how the Committee operates.”
“Then they’ll have to make an exception,” said Dale stoutly, “because I’m not leaving without my friends.”
“I see.” Mrs. Weatherby pursed her lips together. “I will pass your words along.”
Dale inclined his head. “Thank you, Mrs. Weatherby.”
“Yutha is coming with us.”
Minh’s unexpected words brought Mrs. Weatherby up short. “I beg your pardon?” She seemed a little taken aback that he had spoken at all; Minh had not spoken much in the time they had spent here.
“His father was a good friend of mine. I’m responsible for him.” Minh met her startled gaze and held it. “I promised him I’d look after Yutha.”
Mrs. Weatherby studied Minh for a moment, before nodding. “Very well. If you intend to look after him, I’ll release the boy into your care when you leave the Hospital.” She held up a finger. “But consider yourselves warned—the Committee has the final say on these things.”
Of course they do, Dale thought.
“Thank you,” was all Minh said.
Once the matron had performed her duties and swept away again, the three men exchanged glances.
Dale rubbed the back of his neck. “Now we wait.”
“Now we wait,” echoed Raphael, his smile sharp around the edges.
Find out how this Young Adult steampunk adventure unfolds chapter-by-chapter every Thursday! Or if you want to keep reading right now, buy the ebook for $6.99 from Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords or Sony, or get it as a trade paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Book Depository.
Copyright © 2013 E. R. Paskey