He motored on through the turbulence, water rushing and smashing at them. Behind them, the inflatable cut through the whirlpool as it turned faster and faster. Then all of a sudden, the inflatable was caught by a curl of the current; it tipped, then flew up into the air and landed upside down.
‘They’re in the water!’ Annalie cried.
‘There’s nothing we can do for them,’ Will said. ‘We’ll be lucky if we get across this thing ourselves.’
He fought on, across the swirling water.
‘I think we’re going to make it,’ he said.
‘Don’t jinx us!’ Pod said.
But Will was right. The force of the water was already lessening. The current was slowing. They had made it through the Cauldron.
Annalie was still looking back, worried about what had happened to the other marines. ‘The second inflatable’s going in to help,’ she reported. ‘There are a lot of marines in the water. They’re going to have to call for back up. It could take them ages to find them all.’
‘That’s what I’m hoping for,’ Will said. ‘While they’re doing a rescue mission, we can get away. Come and keep an eye on these charts. I’m going to take us right in close to shore.’
In moments, the island, the whirlpool and the inflatables had vanished once more into the fog. Will switched the noisy motor off and they raced to raise the sails once more, then he steered as close to shore as he dared. Pod, Essie and Blossom kept a lookout for rocks, Annalie following the charts. They sailed like this for many hours, their ears straining for the sound of engines, but they heard nothing but the boom of the surf and the occasional cry of a seabird. The strange thing about sailing through fog was that they had no idea how far or how fast they were going. The boat was in motion, pushed by the wind and the waves, but sometimes it felt like they were trapped in a bottle, being shaken by a giant, and were not really going anywhere at all.
‘It’s no use,’ Annalie said finally. ‘I have no idea where we are.’
‘What do you reckon?’ Will said. ‘Do we stick our heads out and look?’
‘We’re going to have to at some point,’ Annalie said. ‘Or we might hit something.’
Essie looked over at them. ‘What if Beckett’s still out there?’
‘Let’s find out,’ Will said.
They sailed cautiously out of the fog. The late afternoon sun as it struck them was like a blessing.
The ocean stretched out all around them, sunlit, empty.
‘I think we lost them,’ Will said, and smiled.
Kinlemotukinle
Expecting Beckett’s ship to appear again at any moment, they sailed as fast as they could down the coast of Sundia. The clinging fog faded as they travelled south, revealing stark red desert, and the wind that blew off it was baking hot. But as they travelled still further south, they began to see signs of life: coastal scrub, green and silver and white, emerged from the intense red, promising water; birds, and people, too.
The west coast of Sundia was famous for its high cliffs and pounding surf, which made it difficult to get ashore except in a few rare places. The town that serviced the Ark was one place—it was set on a little inlet—but they had decided going into the town was too risky. Instead, they would go ashore at a place called Kinle Bay.
Kinle Bay was a natural harbour almost exactly due west of the Ark. It had once been a tourist destination of sorts—it was the site of an old temple to Kinlemotukinle, a sea god in the form of a hunting fish. The temple was one of the last remnants of an early Sundian city which had collapsed for reasons which were now unclear—possibly a drought. The site, even pre-Flood, was rarely visited—it was too remote for most tourists to bother with, and even the Sundians didn’t go there much. Annalie and Will hoped that it was still mostly deserted and the wide shallow bay would be somewhere safe to leave the Sunfish while they went ashore. Its relative proximity to the Ark also meant that the distance they’d have to travel overland was pleasingly short.
And how beautiful it was! The bay was wide and blue and lovely, and the shoreline was a mixture of tall, rocky outcrops and verdant greenery growing almost to the water’s edge.
‘Does it look like people might live here?’ Will asked.
They were all on deck, scanning the foreshore. There were no boats, no houses, no signs that anyone lived here apart from birds.
‘Graham, can you go and check it out for us?’ Will asked.
Graham went winging around the bay, disappearing over the treetops. A pair of small angry birds popped up out of the treetops and chased him, screeching.
‘Locals only, huh?’ Will said. ‘Everywhere’s the same.’
While everyone else was watching the birds or the shoreline, Essie’s eye was caught by something moving in the water. She only glimpsed it for a second, but whatever it was, it seemed big. ‘Did you see that?’ she asked.
‘See what?’ said Will.
‘I thought I saw something in the water…Probably nothing.’
A few minutes passed, and Graham returned. ‘Big temple,’ he reported. ‘Nothing else. Just rocks and trees.’
They sailed in a little closer to shore, and as they came round a small headland, the temple of Kinlemotukinle was revealed.
‘Whoa,’ Essie said.
‘I didn’t realise it was going to be that big,’ Annalie said.
The temple was built out of enormous slabs of rock. Some of it was the same local rock that lined the cliffs and rolled down to the sea, but some of it was entirely different rock, obtained from who knows where. Washed up by storms? Transported from elsewhere? These enormous rocks had been stacked upon each other into great imposing columns to make the shape of the temple, while others had been beautifully carved into ornaments and statues.
‘Look!’ Blossom cried.
The motion of the boat had gradually moved them
