[story] sea of red sand
author: flamebyrd (flamebyrd)
email: flamebyrd [at] gmail.com
Kai prodded the buzzer at the entrance to Arcady's apartment once, twice, three times before leaning on it heavily. There was no movement from inside. He sighed, and headed back to the car to grab his laptop.
Makani was still dozing on the back seat of the car - he seemed to spend a lot of time sleeping in the city. When Kai leaned over him to pick up the laptop he woke and flew up to wrap himself around Kai's neck. "Hey," said Kai, smiling. Maka licked his ear and fell asleep again.
It seemed ironic, somehow, to use a program Arcady had written and a magical technique Arcady had invented in order to break into Arcady's own apartment. Once he ran the program and let his magic work on the electronic lock, the door gave easily with a soft click. Kai pushed it open with his toe and let himself into the apartment.
Kai hadn't been to Arcady's apartment before, but it seemed familiar all the same. Pizza boxes and empty cartons of cola were piled up by the door and various electronic goods took up most of the flat surfaces in the open plan living area. It reminded him of their share-house days.
He hesitated at the door to Arcady's bedroom. Kai wondered if Arcady still considered nine in the morning to be early.
Well, this would be easier with Arcady half asleep anyway.
He knelt by the bed and shook Arcady gently. "Hey. Wake up."
Arcady snuffled, and rolled over. "Wha? Kai?"
"Yeah," said Kai. "C'mon, pack an overnight bag, we're going for a drive."
Arcady blinked slowly. "Um, okay," he said, sitting up.
Arcady had always been more susceptible to suggestion when he'd just woken up.
Kai left the room so Arcady could get dressed and dug around in Arcady's kitchen for something he could pack for Arcady to eat. His cupboards seemed to consist entirely of pasta and snack food, although there were some frozen dinners in the freezer. Eventually he found some muesli bars and shoved them in a plastic bag.
Arcady came into the living room, carrying a sports bag and a pair of sneakers and yawning widely. He hadn't changed much physically in the years since Kai had been gone - still the same scrawny figure, greasy-looking hair just a little too long and falling over his shoulders. There was a hair tie wrapped around Arcady's wrist.
"C'mon," said Kai. "The car's parked illegally out front."
Arcady was asleep against the car window before they'd driven more than a couple of streets away. Kai smiled.
It was strange to be driving a car again. Strange to be on solid ground, to be trapped behind glass and not hear the sea in his ears. He opened the window a little just to let some air into the vehicle, although since they were in the city centre it was smoggy and made his eyes smart.
Arcady woke again a couple of hours later, when they were finally out of the suburbs and the countryside was starting to even out into farmland.
"Kai?" said Arcady. "What the hell? Where are we?"
"Roadtrip," said Kai, not taking his eyes off the road.
There was silence for a moment. "What the hell?" Arcady repeated.
"It's a long story," said Kai. "There's some food in the shopping bag on the back if you're hungry."
There was another moment's silence, then the rustle of plastic. "Sorry, I think I woke your mythical serpent thing," said Arcady.
"He's been sleeping a lot. I don't think he likes being so far from the ocean," said Kai, absently. Privately he thought he agreed with Makani.
"Hmm," said Arcady, thoughtfully. There was some more rustling from the back of the car.
When Kai glanced over a few minutes later, Makani was asleep on Arcady's lap.
"So where are we going?" asked Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "I'm not quite sure yet."
"Do you think you're going to start making sense sometime soon?" Arcady whined.
"We'll talk after lunch," said Kai.
"Ah!" said Arcady. "I'm supposed to be having lunch with Sebastien today!"
Kai was confused for a moment before he remembered Arcady's boyfriend. Sebastien had been a surprise - not that he was male; not even that he existed, really, since Arcady might be a giant nerd but he was still human; but that he was a literature student who barely knew how to operate a word processor. He'd always thought if Arcady made it into the dating scene he would pick another geek. "Um," said Kai. "Well, we should be back in mobile range soon?"
Arcady swore. "You're lucky I remembered my mobile," he said, irritably. "I didn't get my laptop."
Arcady had a caffeine headache; his best friend had apparently returned from five years at sea in order to kidnap him for a roadtrip to the middle of nowhere with no warning; he was missing a date with his boyfriend (who now thought Kai was insane, and frankly Arcady agreed with him); and he didn't have his laptop with him, which meant no internet. He was starting to feel just a little bit twitchy.
They passed a "free coffee for driver" sign and Arcady sat up straight. "We're stopping here."
Kai blinked, and glanced over at him. "What's up?"
"Coffee," said Arcady. "I need coffee, and I need food, and I need some explanations."
Kai thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right."
Makani stirred slightly on Arcady's lap and Arcady stroked him lightly. The creature, whatever Makani was, felt soft and slightly warm to the touch, but not really alive. There was no heartbeat, no soft rise and fall of breathing he was familiar with from having cats on his lap.
When they pulled into the service station and ground to a halt, Makani uncoiled and flew to wrap himself around Kai's cheek. Kai chuckled. "He thinks you're a good seat."
Arcady snorted. "Does he talk to you now?"
Kai shook his head. "Just impressions. Emotions, sometimes images."
Makani disappeared as they walked closer to the shop. Arcady gave Kai a startled look, but Kai didn't seem concerned.
"Normal people can't see him at all, but any magic users can unless he's hiding himself," Kai murmured.
Sometimes Arcady appreciated the reminder that not everything in life could be boiled down to mathematics (including magic), but today he wasn't feeling very charitable.
The heat seemed to rise off the bitumen that paved the floor of the service station, and the air stank of petrol. Arcady wrinkled his nose.
In the shop, he bought two cups of coffee, several bottles of cola, two large bags of chips and a bag of chocolate licorice, and a meat pie for lunch.
Kai sat next to him at the counter, picking at a bucket of potato wedges.
"So where are you two boys off to?" asked the woman behind the counter.
She was clearly talking to Arcady, but he hesitated and Kai jumped to the rescue. "We don't really know yet," said Kai, smiling easily. "I guess we'll know when we get there." He laughed a little.
"Yeah?" she said, smiling back. Kai was good at being liked. "Well, you two be careful out there."
Kai smiled. "Thank you. We will."
The woman bustled off to serve some other customers.
"She's thinking what a nice boy you are and wondering why her sons aren't polite like you," Arcady said.
"What, did you learn mind reading while I was away or something?" said Kai, quite seriously.
Arcady shook his head. "You know that's not possible." Magic was about moving things. It couldn't make you perceive things that weren't physically there.
"These days I'm becoming less and less convinced that there are any rules to magic," said Kai. "But I'll accept that humans can't read minds for the moment."
Back outside, Kai danged the car keys from one finger. "You want to drive for a bit?"
Arcady cleared his throat pointedly. "Not until you tell me where we're going."
Kai looked shifty for a moment. "You drive, I'll talk."
Arcady took the car keys.
"So the thing is," said Kai, as they pulled out onto the highway, "ever since we got back on land, I've had this feeling that Maka wants to go somewhere." Maka, curled up on Kai's lap, didn't have the decency to respond.
"Somewhere in particular?" asked Arcady, navigating around a road train.
"Mm," said Kai. "I managed to narrow down the physical area by showing him aerial photos of the state," and hadn't that been an adventure, "but I don't actually know what's there."
"So why kidnap me?" asked Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "You were there in the beginning," he said. "I didn't want to go alone." He glanced over at Arcady, who was still staring resolutely at the road.
"You could have just told me," he muttered.
"I was going to explain," said Kai, truthfully. "But I didn't have the time to wait for you to wake up first." And I thought you'd say no.
"What if I'd had a project to work on?" said Arcady. "I work, you know."
"You told me at the party on Sunday you'd just finished a big project and were looking forward to a break," Kai pointed out.
"Yeah, well."
Kai leant against the car door and watched the countryside slip by. Sheep huddled under the occasional tree for shade. He felt hot in sympathy, even though the air-conditioning in the car was on.
"I'm sorry," said Kai. It hadn't really occurred to him that Arcady might have things in his life that he couldn't just drop at a moment's notice.
Arcady sighed. "Well, it's too late now."
Kai took over the driving again after about an hour, when Arcady's caffeine addiction began to make itself known. "Remind me to have a word with your boyfriend about your diet," muttered Kai.
"Believe me, he knows," said Arcady.
Makani licked Kai on the cheek before wrapping himself around Arcady's arm and falling asleep again.
"The least he could do is try to stay awake," said Arcady, tickling Maka lightly behind frill on his neck. "Since he's brought us all the way out here and all."
Kai laughed, and started the car again.
Arcady sat twitchily in the passenger seat for about five minutes before he started twiddling with the radio dial. Kai winced at the hiss of static. All you could get out here was government AM radio.
"Talk radio or cricket," said Arcady in disgust. "Tell me you have an mp3 player."
"In the glove box," said Kai.
Arcady's taste in music tended towards techno and dance music, which Kai suspected was because the only time he really found himself listening to music was while programming, when actual musical value didn't matter. Kai's tastes were more varied.
They bickered good-naturedly about the relative merits of Kai's favourite rock artists for at least half an hour. Kai felt some of the tension in his shoulders melt out.
They found a town with a caravan park not too long after sunset and rented a "chalet", which appeared to mean a tiny transportable house. Arcady was vocal in his disapproval.
Kai pulled a folding chair outside and stared at the stars. Without the light pollution of the city, it was almost like being out at sea again. Except that the sounds were all wrong, the air didn't smell of salt and the ground beneath him was stiff and unmoving.
Kai stood and walked back into the chalet.
They were out of farmland now and into station country. The dirt was dark red and the plant life dull green and brown, as if all the luminescence of the world had been sucked into the bright blue of the sky.
Makani started to get more lively the nearer they drew to the place Kai had marked on the map. He suddenly seemed intensely interested in the view out the window, although Arcady had been staring at it for several hours now and frankly hadn't found it that interesting the first time.
"So here is where we have to break the law a little," said Kai, pulling off the road and stopping the car abruptly at the edge of a fence.
"Cool," said Arcady, scrambling out of the car and stretching long and hard.
Kai opened the boot and pulled out a sheet dyed roughly the same colour as the dirt around them. "Help me put this on the car so it's less obvious from the road." The scrub in front of the vehicle barely reached the top of the wheels.
"If you'd let me grab my laptop I could have set up the illusion program for it," he said, conversationally. He was really starting to miss his laptop. And airconditioning. And not being outdoors.
"The what-now?" said Kai, as he unfurled the sheet.
"Oh, there was a brief period where I was considering becoming a sneak thief," said Arcady, taking the far side of the sheet that Kai threw at him. "I wrote this program, it basically takes input from a camera and makes a hologram of it. We could put the camera behind the car and project the illusion in front of it." He was pretty proud of that program, actually, although he'd never been able to figure out how he could use it to get past cameras on the far side of doors.
"And, what, you'd just sit in the car channelling magic whenever another car came by?" said Kai, pulling the sheet down over the bonnet.
Arcady sighed. "Fine, never mind. You have no imagination."
Kai paused. "Were you really considering becoming a sneak thief?"
Arcady snorted. "Nah, it was mostly just a 'fuck you' to my father. But I decided it wasn't worth it." Which was a lie, it totally would have been worth it. He'd had grand plans of leaving a post-it note on his father's computer as proof that it was easy to break their super-duper new expensive security with magic. But in the end it just hadn't been practical.
"I have to admit, I'm not convinced that being able to use it to commit robbery is going to convince your father that magic is more than just a toy," said Kai.
Arcady rolled his eyes and followed Kai back to the car tracks. He felt Kai gathering magic together to smooth them out, returning the desert floor to its natural state.
"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" said Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "If someone sees the car they may stop to check it out, which might lead to them following us. I just want to reduce chances of that happening."
Arcady shrugged in return, and pitched in to help.
"Not like that," said Kai. "Make it look natural. We do it like that we may as well have just used a shovel. Try to be like the wind."
"You have no idea how great it is to be with somebody whose only reaction to my magic is correcting my technique," said Arcady, furrowing his brow in concentration as he tried to copy Kai's method.
Kai laughed.
"So where are we going?" said Arcady as they turned away from the road.
Kai shrugged a shoulder at Makani. "Ask him."
Makani licked Kai's cheek and flew off. Kai hurried to catch up, grabbing Arcady by the arm when he hesitated. Arcady groaned and said goodbye to his nice, white sneakers.
Walking was much slower going for the humans than for Makani, from whom Kai was receiving the impression of excitement and anticipation. The sand wasn't so soft that it was difficult to walk on, but the spinifex grew in thick clumps and scratched at their shins. Kai occasionally called out for Makani to wait.
"I have sand in my shoes already," muttered Arcady. "How long will we have to walk?'
Kai was amused at how quickly he'd remembered how to tune out Arcady's whining, although after half an hour it began to get on his nerves. "This isn't easy for me either, you know," he said, tartly. "I don't think I've been less than twenty kilometres from the ocean in my entire life, and certainly not in the last five years." His throat felt dry, and when he wiped sweat off his brow his fingers came back muddy. His hair felt like it was on fire, the dark colour absorbing the heat far too well.
Arcady flushed. "I'm sorry."
Kai sighed. "Don't apologise, just... try to put up with it. It shouldn't be too much longer."
He was wrong, it was about an hour before Makani stopped them at an outcropping of boulders.
"Is this it?" asked Arcady, sounding disappointed.
Kai frowned. "He thinks so." His own feelings mirrored Arcady's. The rocks were large, but not particularly impressive, just red rock half buried in red sand.
Makani disappeared behind the boulders. Kai followed carefully.
"Makani?" he called, when the other side of the boulders showed no sign of Makani.
"Where did he go?" asked Arcady.
Kai shook his head. "I'm not sure."
Arcady stepped backwards and let out a sudden cry as he disappeared in a cloud of red dust.
Kai swore and scrambled to the hole that had appeared in the ground. "Arcady?"
Arcady coughed roughly. "I'm all right, I think," he said. "I didn't fall far."
When the dust cleared, Kai looked over the edge. "What is it? Some kind of cave?"
"Yeah," said Arcady. "There's water down here."
Kai took a deep breath and clambered down the hole, landing lightly on his feet next to Arcady, who was sitting in a hummock of sand.
"You're completely red," said Kai, amused.
Arcady snorted, and thwapped at his t-shirt ineffectually.
Kai sneezed at the sudden influx of dust and walked to the edge of the water. As his eyes grew used to the gloom, he began to pick out details. It was an underground lake. He squinted, but he couldn't see the bottom more than a metre or so ahead of him. Water dripped slowly from the roof of the cave with a gentle plop.
"Maka?" he called, softly. Somehow this place seemed to call for quiet.
Maka appeared from beneath the water without disturbing the surface with so much as a ripple. Behind him, Kai felt Arcady shiver.
Behind Maka he began to pick out another form. Larger, much larger and thicker around the body, with fins that shimmered in the dim light of the cavern.
"Oh my god," Arcady breathed.
The creature looked like Makani, only many, many times larger. Its frill was easily the length of Kai's entire body and Kai didn't think he could have circled its breadth with his arms. It was coiled up, far too long for Kai to even begin to guess its length. Translucent fronds lined its back, two wavey fins jutting out a little way down its body. The creature fixed Kai with a beady eye.
Kai glanced at Makani, but he didn't get an impression of fear.
Makani coiled himself around Kai's neck, licked his cheek, then dived back under the water. The creature followed, utterly silent.
"Oh my god," said Arcady. "That thing was huge." He shivered again. "I think it would be less scary if it actually made a sound."
"Or if it actually disturbed the water," murmured Kai.
They sat in silence for a moment, but Makani and the creature didn't return.
Once he'd stopped freaking out, Arcady got to his feet. His ankle felt a little sore, but he didn't think he'd actually done it any damage. The world blacking out around him was probably just a result of standing up too fast.
He toed off his shoes and walked over to the water's edge. He hissed at the cold as he dipped his toes in, but somehow managed to bear it long enough to slide his feet under the water.
It felt nice, cool against his hot feet.
"Tell me about Sebastien," said Kai, suddenly.
"Pardon?" said Arcady.
"Your boyfriend. Tell me about him."
"You met him on Sunday," said Arcady. "Briefly, anyway."
"I don't even know how you met," said Kai.
Somehow it'd never come up. Even when he and Kai haf exchanged the occasional email it had always been about technomancy or other programming, never about their personal lives. "He works at a late night coffee shop," Arcady mumbled.
He cringed, waiting for Kai to laugh, but his friend just walked over to slide his own feet into the water. "A match made in heaven," he said, wistfully.
Arcady flushed. "Something like that." He picked up a handful of sand from beside his leg and let it trickle softly through his fingers. "You wouldn't think we'd have anything in common, but... Somehow we never run out of things to talk about." He grinned. "Back in high school I never thought I'd end up in a relationship before you did, though." Kai was the friendly one, the one everybody loved.
Kai smiled. "The funny thing is," he said, "now I'm the one who feels out of place."
It took him a moment to figure out what Kai meant. "Just because I have Sebastien now doesn't mean I'm any less awkward," said Arcady. Arcady wore his nerddom like a badge of pride.
"Yeah," said Kai. "I don't know, I just feel like the world's moved on and I... I haven't."
"Did something happen?" asked Arcady, hesitantly. "While you were away?"
"Sort of," said Kai. "It's nothing, really - well, it could have been something, but I managed to get out of it. It just reminded me of... of where I came from."
Kai didn't talk about his childhood much, but Arcady knew enough to wince in sympathy.
"Out there, around the archipelago, there are boats. They scavenge shipwrecks, maybe do a little legitimate fishing, but mostly they engage in gang warfare. I kind of got involved when one of them stole my boat right out from under me."
"God," said Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "Another one picked me up, but of course the gangs are full of magic users, so they found out about Maka, and, well... they didn't want to let me leave." He sighed. "I got away, with Maka's help, but... I don't want that to be my life. I'd rather be here, where magic is just a silly academic pursuit."
"Maybe you should keep away from the archipelago," said Arcady.
Kai's laugh was small. "I should, but... in a way it's home."
Arcady nodded.
The pool of sunlight provided by the opening in the ground above them slowly shrank as the day moved on.
"We'd better start walking," said Kai, quietly. He estimated they had a little over an hour until sunset. He got up, stamping to get some feeling back into his numb feet.
"My feet are filthy," said Arcady.
Kai glanced back at the pool, then turned to look up at the sky. "I'll give you a boost," he said. "Then you help pull me out."
"What about Makani?" asked Arcady, hesitantly.
Kai blinked rapidly. "I guess he's staying."
Arcady gave him an even look, then turned away. "All right."
On the surface, they collapsed in the sand to catch their breath for a few minutes before getting back on their feet.
"I might go back to uni," said Kai, as they walked. "Study metereology, marine biology, something like that." He glanced back at the cave. "Maybe some anthropology."
Arcady nodded. "There has to be some kind of legend about this place," he said.
"Yeah," said Kai, quietly. "Maybe I can finally get some answers." He turned back in the direction of the road. "Come on, we don't want to be trying to find the car in the dark."
The sun was just slipping below the horizon when they reached the car. They pulled the sheet off together, and Kai leant back heavily against the passenger side door.
"I think there was a tiny caravan park attached to that last service station," said Arcady. "That was only a couple of hours away."
"Yeah," said Kai. "We should get going."
When he opened the door, Makani was asleep on the driver's seat.
"Hey," said Kai, softly. "I thought you were staying behind."
He had the distinct impression that Makani thought he was an idiot.
Kai smiled. "Come on. Let's go home."
the end
email: flamebyrd [at] gmail.com
Kai prodded the buzzer at the entrance to Arcady's apartment once, twice, three times before leaning on it heavily. There was no movement from inside. He sighed, and headed back to the car to grab his laptop.
Makani was still dozing on the back seat of the car - he seemed to spend a lot of time sleeping in the city. When Kai leaned over him to pick up the laptop he woke and flew up to wrap himself around Kai's neck. "Hey," said Kai, smiling. Maka licked his ear and fell asleep again.
It seemed ironic, somehow, to use a program Arcady had written and a magical technique Arcady had invented in order to break into Arcady's own apartment. Once he ran the program and let his magic work on the electronic lock, the door gave easily with a soft click. Kai pushed it open with his toe and let himself into the apartment.
Kai hadn't been to Arcady's apartment before, but it seemed familiar all the same. Pizza boxes and empty cartons of cola were piled up by the door and various electronic goods took up most of the flat surfaces in the open plan living area. It reminded him of their share-house days.
He hesitated at the door to Arcady's bedroom. Kai wondered if Arcady still considered nine in the morning to be early.
Well, this would be easier with Arcady half asleep anyway.
He knelt by the bed and shook Arcady gently. "Hey. Wake up."
Arcady snuffled, and rolled over. "Wha? Kai?"
"Yeah," said Kai. "C'mon, pack an overnight bag, we're going for a drive."
Arcady blinked slowly. "Um, okay," he said, sitting up.
Arcady had always been more susceptible to suggestion when he'd just woken up.
Kai left the room so Arcady could get dressed and dug around in Arcady's kitchen for something he could pack for Arcady to eat. His cupboards seemed to consist entirely of pasta and snack food, although there were some frozen dinners in the freezer. Eventually he found some muesli bars and shoved them in a plastic bag.
Arcady came into the living room, carrying a sports bag and a pair of sneakers and yawning widely. He hadn't changed much physically in the years since Kai had been gone - still the same scrawny figure, greasy-looking hair just a little too long and falling over his shoulders. There was a hair tie wrapped around Arcady's wrist.
"C'mon," said Kai. "The car's parked illegally out front."
Arcady was asleep against the car window before they'd driven more than a couple of streets away. Kai smiled.
It was strange to be driving a car again. Strange to be on solid ground, to be trapped behind glass and not hear the sea in his ears. He opened the window a little just to let some air into the vehicle, although since they were in the city centre it was smoggy and made his eyes smart.
Arcady woke again a couple of hours later, when they were finally out of the suburbs and the countryside was starting to even out into farmland.
"Kai?" said Arcady. "What the hell? Where are we?"
"Roadtrip," said Kai, not taking his eyes off the road.
There was silence for a moment. "What the hell?" Arcady repeated.
"It's a long story," said Kai. "There's some food in the shopping bag on the back if you're hungry."
There was another moment's silence, then the rustle of plastic. "Sorry, I think I woke your mythical serpent thing," said Arcady.
"He's been sleeping a lot. I don't think he likes being so far from the ocean," said Kai, absently. Privately he thought he agreed with Makani.
"Hmm," said Arcady, thoughtfully. There was some more rustling from the back of the car.
When Kai glanced over a few minutes later, Makani was asleep on Arcady's lap.
"So where are we going?" asked Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "I'm not quite sure yet."
"Do you think you're going to start making sense sometime soon?" Arcady whined.
"We'll talk after lunch," said Kai.
"Ah!" said Arcady. "I'm supposed to be having lunch with Sebastien today!"
Kai was confused for a moment before he remembered Arcady's boyfriend. Sebastien had been a surprise - not that he was male; not even that he existed, really, since Arcady might be a giant nerd but he was still human; but that he was a literature student who barely knew how to operate a word processor. He'd always thought if Arcady made it into the dating scene he would pick another geek. "Um," said Kai. "Well, we should be back in mobile range soon?"
Arcady swore. "You're lucky I remembered my mobile," he said, irritably. "I didn't get my laptop."
Arcady had a caffeine headache; his best friend had apparently returned from five years at sea in order to kidnap him for a roadtrip to the middle of nowhere with no warning; he was missing a date with his boyfriend (who now thought Kai was insane, and frankly Arcady agreed with him); and he didn't have his laptop with him, which meant no internet. He was starting to feel just a little bit twitchy.
They passed a "free coffee for driver" sign and Arcady sat up straight. "We're stopping here."
Kai blinked, and glanced over at him. "What's up?"
"Coffee," said Arcady. "I need coffee, and I need food, and I need some explanations."
Kai thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right."
Makani stirred slightly on Arcady's lap and Arcady stroked him lightly. The creature, whatever Makani was, felt soft and slightly warm to the touch, but not really alive. There was no heartbeat, no soft rise and fall of breathing he was familiar with from having cats on his lap.
When they pulled into the service station and ground to a halt, Makani uncoiled and flew to wrap himself around Kai's cheek. Kai chuckled. "He thinks you're a good seat."
Arcady snorted. "Does he talk to you now?"
Kai shook his head. "Just impressions. Emotions, sometimes images."
Makani disappeared as they walked closer to the shop. Arcady gave Kai a startled look, but Kai didn't seem concerned.
"Normal people can't see him at all, but any magic users can unless he's hiding himself," Kai murmured.
Sometimes Arcady appreciated the reminder that not everything in life could be boiled down to mathematics (including magic), but today he wasn't feeling very charitable.
The heat seemed to rise off the bitumen that paved the floor of the service station, and the air stank of petrol. Arcady wrinkled his nose.
In the shop, he bought two cups of coffee, several bottles of cola, two large bags of chips and a bag of chocolate licorice, and a meat pie for lunch.
Kai sat next to him at the counter, picking at a bucket of potato wedges.
"So where are you two boys off to?" asked the woman behind the counter.
She was clearly talking to Arcady, but he hesitated and Kai jumped to the rescue. "We don't really know yet," said Kai, smiling easily. "I guess we'll know when we get there." He laughed a little.
"Yeah?" she said, smiling back. Kai was good at being liked. "Well, you two be careful out there."
Kai smiled. "Thank you. We will."
The woman bustled off to serve some other customers.
"She's thinking what a nice boy you are and wondering why her sons aren't polite like you," Arcady said.
"What, did you learn mind reading while I was away or something?" said Kai, quite seriously.
Arcady shook his head. "You know that's not possible." Magic was about moving things. It couldn't make you perceive things that weren't physically there.
"These days I'm becoming less and less convinced that there are any rules to magic," said Kai. "But I'll accept that humans can't read minds for the moment."
Back outside, Kai danged the car keys from one finger. "You want to drive for a bit?"
Arcady cleared his throat pointedly. "Not until you tell me where we're going."
Kai looked shifty for a moment. "You drive, I'll talk."
Arcady took the car keys.
"So the thing is," said Kai, as they pulled out onto the highway, "ever since we got back on land, I've had this feeling that Maka wants to go somewhere." Maka, curled up on Kai's lap, didn't have the decency to respond.
"Somewhere in particular?" asked Arcady, navigating around a road train.
"Mm," said Kai. "I managed to narrow down the physical area by showing him aerial photos of the state," and hadn't that been an adventure, "but I don't actually know what's there."
"So why kidnap me?" asked Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "You were there in the beginning," he said. "I didn't want to go alone." He glanced over at Arcady, who was still staring resolutely at the road.
"You could have just told me," he muttered.
"I was going to explain," said Kai, truthfully. "But I didn't have the time to wait for you to wake up first." And I thought you'd say no.
"What if I'd had a project to work on?" said Arcady. "I work, you know."
"You told me at the party on Sunday you'd just finished a big project and were looking forward to a break," Kai pointed out.
"Yeah, well."
Kai leant against the car door and watched the countryside slip by. Sheep huddled under the occasional tree for shade. He felt hot in sympathy, even though the air-conditioning in the car was on.
"I'm sorry," said Kai. It hadn't really occurred to him that Arcady might have things in his life that he couldn't just drop at a moment's notice.
Arcady sighed. "Well, it's too late now."
Kai took over the driving again after about an hour, when Arcady's caffeine addiction began to make itself known. "Remind me to have a word with your boyfriend about your diet," muttered Kai.
"Believe me, he knows," said Arcady.
Makani licked Kai on the cheek before wrapping himself around Arcady's arm and falling asleep again.
"The least he could do is try to stay awake," said Arcady, tickling Maka lightly behind frill on his neck. "Since he's brought us all the way out here and all."
Kai laughed, and started the car again.
Arcady sat twitchily in the passenger seat for about five minutes before he started twiddling with the radio dial. Kai winced at the hiss of static. All you could get out here was government AM radio.
"Talk radio or cricket," said Arcady in disgust. "Tell me you have an mp3 player."
"In the glove box," said Kai.
Arcady's taste in music tended towards techno and dance music, which Kai suspected was because the only time he really found himself listening to music was while programming, when actual musical value didn't matter. Kai's tastes were more varied.
They bickered good-naturedly about the relative merits of Kai's favourite rock artists for at least half an hour. Kai felt some of the tension in his shoulders melt out.
They found a town with a caravan park not too long after sunset and rented a "chalet", which appeared to mean a tiny transportable house. Arcady was vocal in his disapproval.
Kai pulled a folding chair outside and stared at the stars. Without the light pollution of the city, it was almost like being out at sea again. Except that the sounds were all wrong, the air didn't smell of salt and the ground beneath him was stiff and unmoving.
Kai stood and walked back into the chalet.
They were out of farmland now and into station country. The dirt was dark red and the plant life dull green and brown, as if all the luminescence of the world had been sucked into the bright blue of the sky.
Makani started to get more lively the nearer they drew to the place Kai had marked on the map. He suddenly seemed intensely interested in the view out the window, although Arcady had been staring at it for several hours now and frankly hadn't found it that interesting the first time.
"So here is where we have to break the law a little," said Kai, pulling off the road and stopping the car abruptly at the edge of a fence.
"Cool," said Arcady, scrambling out of the car and stretching long and hard.
Kai opened the boot and pulled out a sheet dyed roughly the same colour as the dirt around them. "Help me put this on the car so it's less obvious from the road." The scrub in front of the vehicle barely reached the top of the wheels.
"If you'd let me grab my laptop I could have set up the illusion program for it," he said, conversationally. He was really starting to miss his laptop. And airconditioning. And not being outdoors.
"The what-now?" said Kai, as he unfurled the sheet.
"Oh, there was a brief period where I was considering becoming a sneak thief," said Arcady, taking the far side of the sheet that Kai threw at him. "I wrote this program, it basically takes input from a camera and makes a hologram of it. We could put the camera behind the car and project the illusion in front of it." He was pretty proud of that program, actually, although he'd never been able to figure out how he could use it to get past cameras on the far side of doors.
"And, what, you'd just sit in the car channelling magic whenever another car came by?" said Kai, pulling the sheet down over the bonnet.
Arcady sighed. "Fine, never mind. You have no imagination."
Kai paused. "Were you really considering becoming a sneak thief?"
Arcady snorted. "Nah, it was mostly just a 'fuck you' to my father. But I decided it wasn't worth it." Which was a lie, it totally would have been worth it. He'd had grand plans of leaving a post-it note on his father's computer as proof that it was easy to break their super-duper new expensive security with magic. But in the end it just hadn't been practical.
"I have to admit, I'm not convinced that being able to use it to commit robbery is going to convince your father that magic is more than just a toy," said Kai.
Arcady rolled his eyes and followed Kai back to the car tracks. He felt Kai gathering magic together to smooth them out, returning the desert floor to its natural state.
"Don't you think you're being a little paranoid?" said Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "If someone sees the car they may stop to check it out, which might lead to them following us. I just want to reduce chances of that happening."
Arcady shrugged in return, and pitched in to help.
"Not like that," said Kai. "Make it look natural. We do it like that we may as well have just used a shovel. Try to be like the wind."
"You have no idea how great it is to be with somebody whose only reaction to my magic is correcting my technique," said Arcady, furrowing his brow in concentration as he tried to copy Kai's method.
Kai laughed.
"So where are we going?" said Arcady as they turned away from the road.
Kai shrugged a shoulder at Makani. "Ask him."
Makani licked Kai's cheek and flew off. Kai hurried to catch up, grabbing Arcady by the arm when he hesitated. Arcady groaned and said goodbye to his nice, white sneakers.
Walking was much slower going for the humans than for Makani, from whom Kai was receiving the impression of excitement and anticipation. The sand wasn't so soft that it was difficult to walk on, but the spinifex grew in thick clumps and scratched at their shins. Kai occasionally called out for Makani to wait.
"I have sand in my shoes already," muttered Arcady. "How long will we have to walk?'
Kai was amused at how quickly he'd remembered how to tune out Arcady's whining, although after half an hour it began to get on his nerves. "This isn't easy for me either, you know," he said, tartly. "I don't think I've been less than twenty kilometres from the ocean in my entire life, and certainly not in the last five years." His throat felt dry, and when he wiped sweat off his brow his fingers came back muddy. His hair felt like it was on fire, the dark colour absorbing the heat far too well.
Arcady flushed. "I'm sorry."
Kai sighed. "Don't apologise, just... try to put up with it. It shouldn't be too much longer."
He was wrong, it was about an hour before Makani stopped them at an outcropping of boulders.
"Is this it?" asked Arcady, sounding disappointed.
Kai frowned. "He thinks so." His own feelings mirrored Arcady's. The rocks were large, but not particularly impressive, just red rock half buried in red sand.
Makani disappeared behind the boulders. Kai followed carefully.
"Makani?" he called, when the other side of the boulders showed no sign of Makani.
"Where did he go?" asked Arcady.
Kai shook his head. "I'm not sure."
Arcady stepped backwards and let out a sudden cry as he disappeared in a cloud of red dust.
Kai swore and scrambled to the hole that had appeared in the ground. "Arcady?"
Arcady coughed roughly. "I'm all right, I think," he said. "I didn't fall far."
When the dust cleared, Kai looked over the edge. "What is it? Some kind of cave?"
"Yeah," said Arcady. "There's water down here."
Kai took a deep breath and clambered down the hole, landing lightly on his feet next to Arcady, who was sitting in a hummock of sand.
"You're completely red," said Kai, amused.
Arcady snorted, and thwapped at his t-shirt ineffectually.
Kai sneezed at the sudden influx of dust and walked to the edge of the water. As his eyes grew used to the gloom, he began to pick out details. It was an underground lake. He squinted, but he couldn't see the bottom more than a metre or so ahead of him. Water dripped slowly from the roof of the cave with a gentle plop.
"Maka?" he called, softly. Somehow this place seemed to call for quiet.
Maka appeared from beneath the water without disturbing the surface with so much as a ripple. Behind him, Kai felt Arcady shiver.
Behind Maka he began to pick out another form. Larger, much larger and thicker around the body, with fins that shimmered in the dim light of the cavern.
"Oh my god," Arcady breathed.
The creature looked like Makani, only many, many times larger. Its frill was easily the length of Kai's entire body and Kai didn't think he could have circled its breadth with his arms. It was coiled up, far too long for Kai to even begin to guess its length. Translucent fronds lined its back, two wavey fins jutting out a little way down its body. The creature fixed Kai with a beady eye.
Kai glanced at Makani, but he didn't get an impression of fear.
Makani coiled himself around Kai's neck, licked his cheek, then dived back under the water. The creature followed, utterly silent.
"Oh my god," said Arcady. "That thing was huge." He shivered again. "I think it would be less scary if it actually made a sound."
"Or if it actually disturbed the water," murmured Kai.
They sat in silence for a moment, but Makani and the creature didn't return.
Once he'd stopped freaking out, Arcady got to his feet. His ankle felt a little sore, but he didn't think he'd actually done it any damage. The world blacking out around him was probably just a result of standing up too fast.
He toed off his shoes and walked over to the water's edge. He hissed at the cold as he dipped his toes in, but somehow managed to bear it long enough to slide his feet under the water.
It felt nice, cool against his hot feet.
"Tell me about Sebastien," said Kai, suddenly.
"Pardon?" said Arcady.
"Your boyfriend. Tell me about him."
"You met him on Sunday," said Arcady. "Briefly, anyway."
"I don't even know how you met," said Kai.
Somehow it'd never come up. Even when he and Kai haf exchanged the occasional email it had always been about technomancy or other programming, never about their personal lives. "He works at a late night coffee shop," Arcady mumbled.
He cringed, waiting for Kai to laugh, but his friend just walked over to slide his own feet into the water. "A match made in heaven," he said, wistfully.
Arcady flushed. "Something like that." He picked up a handful of sand from beside his leg and let it trickle softly through his fingers. "You wouldn't think we'd have anything in common, but... Somehow we never run out of things to talk about." He grinned. "Back in high school I never thought I'd end up in a relationship before you did, though." Kai was the friendly one, the one everybody loved.
Kai smiled. "The funny thing is," he said, "now I'm the one who feels out of place."
It took him a moment to figure out what Kai meant. "Just because I have Sebastien now doesn't mean I'm any less awkward," said Arcady. Arcady wore his nerddom like a badge of pride.
"Yeah," said Kai. "I don't know, I just feel like the world's moved on and I... I haven't."
"Did something happen?" asked Arcady, hesitantly. "While you were away?"
"Sort of," said Kai. "It's nothing, really - well, it could have been something, but I managed to get out of it. It just reminded me of... of where I came from."
Kai didn't talk about his childhood much, but Arcady knew enough to wince in sympathy.
"Out there, around the archipelago, there are boats. They scavenge shipwrecks, maybe do a little legitimate fishing, but mostly they engage in gang warfare. I kind of got involved when one of them stole my boat right out from under me."
"God," said Arcady.
Kai shrugged. "Another one picked me up, but of course the gangs are full of magic users, so they found out about Maka, and, well... they didn't want to let me leave." He sighed. "I got away, with Maka's help, but... I don't want that to be my life. I'd rather be here, where magic is just a silly academic pursuit."
"Maybe you should keep away from the archipelago," said Arcady.
Kai's laugh was small. "I should, but... in a way it's home."
Arcady nodded.
The pool of sunlight provided by the opening in the ground above them slowly shrank as the day moved on.
"We'd better start walking," said Kai, quietly. He estimated they had a little over an hour until sunset. He got up, stamping to get some feeling back into his numb feet.
"My feet are filthy," said Arcady.
Kai glanced back at the pool, then turned to look up at the sky. "I'll give you a boost," he said. "Then you help pull me out."
"What about Makani?" asked Arcady, hesitantly.
Kai blinked rapidly. "I guess he's staying."
Arcady gave him an even look, then turned away. "All right."
On the surface, they collapsed in the sand to catch their breath for a few minutes before getting back on their feet.
"I might go back to uni," said Kai, as they walked. "Study metereology, marine biology, something like that." He glanced back at the cave. "Maybe some anthropology."
Arcady nodded. "There has to be some kind of legend about this place," he said.
"Yeah," said Kai, quietly. "Maybe I can finally get some answers." He turned back in the direction of the road. "Come on, we don't want to be trying to find the car in the dark."
The sun was just slipping below the horizon when they reached the car. They pulled the sheet off together, and Kai leant back heavily against the passenger side door.
"I think there was a tiny caravan park attached to that last service station," said Arcady. "That was only a couple of hours away."
"Yeah," said Kai. "We should get going."
When he opened the door, Makani was asleep on the driver's seat.
"Hey," said Kai, softly. "I thought you were staying behind."
He had the distinct impression that Makani thought he was an idiot.
Kai smiled. "Come on. Let's go home."
the end