Chapter Three
Cold! I’m so cold, thought Roanna.
She had been afloat a complete day and night, and now her entire body quaked. When she tried to curl into a ball to retain what little body heat she had left, something hard dug into her side, forcing her awake. She rolled off the offending object and started to slide. Her right foot plunged into water and the cold shocked her eyes open. On her back and sliding, she flailed with her arms and slapped with her hands, desperate for anything to hang onto, but found only a hard, smooth, weathered surface offering nothing to grasp. She slipped farther and was thigh-deep in liquid when her left hand struck a protrusion. She grasped it, held tight, and halted her descent, but not before she was waist-deep in seawater.
The handhold dug into her palm under the weight of her sodden leather clothes. Between short sharp gasps, she drew a deep breath and rolled onto her left side. She swung her right hand across her body and, when it joined with her left, she pulled with both her arms, crying out from the effort, and hauled herself up until her chest was level with her fists.
Her hips were clear of the water now and Roanna looked about. The sky and the sea had transformed from impenetrable blackness into the deep green that presaged the dawn. Red and orange glints from the first light of day flicked across the waves and when she looked up, she could just make out the silhouetted hulk of the tree she was riding. Holding tightly with her right hand, she released her left and patted its shape, feeling for anything else to hold onto. She sobbed when it uncovered nothing useful, so she returned it and clung to the knob.
She knew she could not remain like this forever. She had already begun trembling. She was about to search again, this time with her right hand, when her left knee, treading water, struck something hard below the surface. Of course there was more to this hulk than she could see, but that simple fact had eluded her until now. She used her knee to explore the protrusion and discovered she had found some sort of ledge. She struggled to pull herself onto it but was dismayed by how heavy her leathers had become. Attempt after attempt, her knee almost attained but couldn’t quite mount it. There had to be a way, she thought. It was the water’s motion that provided the clue.
She lowered herself into the sea as the swell she was riding passed, then pulled with her arms as the next one rose beneath her. She did it again and again, mirroring the sea’s rise and fall, making use of what little buoyancy remained. On her fourth effort, she kicked with her feet, pulled as hard as she could, and gave a triumphant shout as her left knee stood upon the shelf.
Her celebration was short-lived, however, since her shaking was now uncontrollable. Desperate to find someplace higher where she could rest, somewhere above the water’s chill, she stretched upward as far as she could and explored the trunk’s surface. Finding nothing useful, she looked forward in time for any possibilities. One feature stood out in her mind, and if she could just locate it …
Her hand touched an arm protruding from the trunk, the stump of what had once been a sizeable branch. And though her strength was vanishing, she had enough left to reach it with both hands, and from there, to pull herself high enough to stand with her feet on the ledge. Putting one foot onto the stub that had seconds before served as a handhold, she stepped even higher. Clear of the water at last, she scrambled onto the crook where the branch and trunk met. A second branch intersecting the first formed a V, and she climbed onto what she envisioned as the seat they created. With her legs splayed across the tree’s broken limbs and her back against the trunk, she was finally sitting, grateful there was no wind to rob her body further. Even so, the shaking would not abate. Afraid she might yet die, she began again to sob. Unable to focus her thoughts so that she might look ahead, she rested her faith in her daughter’s vision.
Oh, Pandy. Dearest Pandy. Where are you now?
The eastern glow was spreading, but a low wall of fog obscured the land, cut through by a bright sliver of white. That brought a hint of a smile and a tear of hope. Jadon, the hot stellar dwarf, would be the first sun to rise, not Mahaz, the cooler orange giant. As much as she loved the larger sun’s coloration, she yearned for its smaller companion’s heat.
Rise! Please rise! she prayed, as the trembling grew stronger.