Caleb wrapped his arms and legs tightly around Big Ben’s neck as the dinosaur began to bob and drift in the raging river. Caleb felt as though he were trapped on a hellish amusement park ride as Ben paddled desperately through the water, his shoulders jolting Caleb back and forth while his continuing cries vibrated every bone in the young boy’s body. Up ahead, Ellie disappeared around a bend with a mournful wail as Ben swept past Boss. Ben collided with the larger dinosaur, nearly knocking Caleb loose and causing Boss to loose his footing. Shockingly cold water splashed across Caleb’s legs and arms as Olga and Boss were drawn along in the current behind Ben.
The water continued mercilessly, rising higher and higher, until it was only a few feet from the top edge of the riverbed. Caleb lost all sense of direction as Ben rocked and swayed in the raging current. Several times, Ben grunted in pain as his huge body smacked against the rocky riverbank, nearly knocking Caleb loose each time with the force of the impacts.
The last collision was followed almost immediately with another jolt. Before Caleb could tell what was happening, he felt a sudden pain in his ankle and found himself yanked viciously from Ben’s neck. Caleb managed one quick gasp of air before being sucked underwater, then popping back to the surface again. He could feel something wrapped around his foot—he was dangling from it in the current like a cork on a string.
String… he thought. The rope! It’s the rope for the tent! He strained against the force of the water and just managed to get his fingers around the rope. With a solid hold on it, he could hold his head above water long enough to look around. After a moment of blinking, he saw the remains of the tent caught on a jagged rock at the edge of the riverbed. The rope had obviously been pulled loose from Ben’s neck, and Caleb’s foot had gotten caught in one of the loops.
With a rumbling moan, a large form loomed out of the darkness to the right—Olga. The dinosaur was paddling madly to keep her head above water, but she couldn’t fight the current and was quickly whisked out of sight.
Caleb took a shuddering breath, then started hauling himself upstream along the rope. After only a moment, his hands stung and his arms burned from the exertion of pulling himself against the current, but he didn’t dare stop. When he reached the tent, Caleb’s frantic efforts nearly got him tangled in the fabric—where he surely would have drowned—but a moment of calmness allowed him to free himself. He continued pulling himself up toward the edge of the river, more carefully now.
Only a foot away from reaching the edge, Caleb thought his arms might pull loose from their sockets. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, closing his eyes and clinging tightly to the tent. At that moment, a particularly loud splashing caught his attention. Caleb’s eyes popped open just in time to see Boss’ huge neck looming up over him.
With a rush of adrenaline, Caleb screamed and pulled himself up out of the water, reaching for a grip on the slippery mud and rocks. Boss’ colossal shoulder filled Caleb’s vision, seconds away from crushing Caleb’s tiny body against the jagged rock. Caleb launched himself upwards onto the muddy ground, just as Boss slammed into the embankment with a grunting roar. As quickly as he had appeared, the dinosaur vanished downstream, still bellowing and paddling fiercely against the current.
Moments later, Caleb heard a strange sort of zipping sound, and saw that the tent had pulled loose, drawing the rope back into the water. He pulled spastically at the rope around his foot, tugging it loose before he could be dragged back into the river.
Tears blended with the rain running down Caleb’s cheeks as he collapsed in the mud. Downstream, he could just make out the fading calls of the titanosaurs. Caleb pulled his pack off and hugged it to his chest, curling into a ball and shuddering with exhaustion.
Minutes later, Caleb fell still as a strangely familiar sensation came over him. His eyes widened in fear as he recognized the strange, tingling buzz ringing in his head. Caleb propped himself up on one elbow and looked all around, expecting at any moment to see the sinister red glow of the trilobite ships on the horizon.
Instead, he saw only occasional flashes of white lightning, followed by slow rumbling booms. The buzz began to fade, but Caleb was filled with a persistent sense that he had missed some tiny detail somewhere. He continued staring out into the dark rainy night for several minutes, until his eyes watered and his vision began to blur. He finally sank back down into the cold mud and slipped into unconsciousness.
The first thing Caleb noticed upon waking was the intense, chilling cold that spread throughout his entire body. He was vaguely aware of the sound of his own teeth chattering, as well as the fact that the rain seemed to have passed. A lingering sheet of black clouds still hid the moon from view, blanketing the surrounding terrain in inky darkness.
Gradually, Caleb began to make out the sound of the river still flowing nearby, then something that sounded like hooves, clomping slowly over the wet dirt and rocks. A dim reddish light played across the ground, throwing Caleb’s shadow into a flickering dance on the rocks in front of him.
Caleb’s heart began to pound furiously in his chest. He tried to roll over to see the source of the light, but his chilled muscles refused to budge.
As vivid images of the terrible trilobite ships and the clicking-clacking claws of the dino-soldiers played through his mind, a gravelly old voice called out from the darkness.
“Good God,” it gasped. “What happened here?”
Caleb heard the soft snorting of a horse and the crunching of footsteps, then a pair of gnarled hands pulled him gently into a sitting position. Caleb tried to focus his eyes on the man in front of him, but he was just a silhouette against the light of the lantern in the background.
“Kid?” the man said, sounding frightened. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?” He wiped some of the mud from Caleb’s face, then gasped in surprise. “Caleb? Is that you, boy?”
“Uncle Bill?” Caleb groaned.
“No, no Caleb,” the man said. “It’s Carlos—Charlie’s Grandpa.”
A SPRAY OF SALTY MIST BLEW in through the small window, moistening Chuck’s horned snout. Her sensitive nostrils flared, taking in the complex blend of ocean scents that mingled with the smell of fresh fish stored in the hold. Caleb shifted beside his friend, reaching up to scratch at her neck. The dinosaur turned from the window to nudge him affectionately, nearly knocking him over into the fish.
Outside, the late afternoon light played across the waves of Schenectady Sound, transforming them into shimmering sheets of orange and gold. To the north, the lush peaks of Adirondack Island loomed above the waters, its brilliant green reflection dancing across the rippling surface. Gulls wheeled and drifted over the water in the warm breeze, while pterosaurs soared on lofty thermals high above them. Above decks, the muted conversation of old-bloods could be heard, punctuated intermittently by shrill gull calls and pterosaur honks.
Caleb rose from his seat at the sound of approaching footsteps echoing down the ladder and into the shaded cargo deck. He quickly recognized the distinctive, delicate clicking of Tess’s claws on the worn flooring.
“I thought I’d find you down here,” she said, smiling. “How’s Chuck holding up?”
“Better than I expected,” he answered, glancing back at the ceratosaurus. She remained crouched by the window, sniffing the air and watching the gulls hungrily. “She’s tired of being cramped up in here, but that stop on Catskill Island this morning helped a lot. She hasn’t had a chance to stretch her legs like that for over a week.”
Tess moved to the window and patted Chuck’s shoulder.
“She’s awfully loyal to you,” she said. “This trip has been rough on her, but I don’t think she ever would have forgiven you if you’d left her behind.”
“Yeah…” Caleb said, growing somber. “But what’ll we do with her once we get there? We don’t have any idea how to find this underwater fortress anyway. I don’t even want to think about how we’re all going to get down there. Or what we’ll do after that.” Caleb
could feel weeks of doubt and fear begin rising to the surface as the words flooded from his mouth.
“Krezahu and Ksogiasu said it would all make itself clear as we went along,” Tess said gently.
“I know, I know,” Caleb said, pacing impatiently in the crowded hold. “I just wish I never dragged Chuck into all this mess.”
Tess looked at him curiously, as if expecting him to say more.
Caleb stopped his pacing abruptly and turned to face Tess. His eyes were suddenly filled with a mix of pent-up emotions.
“I wish I never dragged you into it either,” he said, his voice cracking.
“Caleb,” Tess began, “don’t…”
“You didn’t have to come, you know,” Caleb blurted, sounding panicked and desperate. “You could have stayed. None of you had to come along, but now it’s too late—and I don’t know what we’re going to do!” Caleb turned to the window, his breath short, shoulders trembling. “After all we’ve survived, to risk your lives on something this crazy… It’s… it’s just so…”
“Hey,” Tess said, her voice stern. She moved forward, staring intently into Caleb’s eyes before he could turn away. “You’re right. I didn’t have to come. Not me, not Garner, not Chuck—not any of us. And you didn’t have to help me find the others when the Ne Shaazi took them. Or go rushing into a Destroyer after them, or fight Pollard, or help us find Carnival. Or even care enough about the rest of us to lead this crazy mission!”
Caleb had turned to look at her now, struck by the intensity of emotion in her voice.
“You didn’t have to do any of it. But you did. Not because some crazy old Awaru said you should, but because you wanted to and because you cared. You cared about a bunch of dino-freaks that nobody else cared about, and you risked your life for us, over and over. Now you’re risking yourself again, for all of us, maybe even for everyone everywhere, and we’re sure-as-hell not going to let you do it alone. We’re going to back you up on this—for ourselves and for you, because we care too. Because I care. I love you, Caleb.”
Caleb stood silently for a moment, eyes wide.
“I love you too,” he said, taking a step forward. “But that scares me so much. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been losing almost everyone I ever cared about. First my parents. Then Uncle Bill and Aunt Carol, Nina, Theresa—everyone!”
Tess’s face became suddenly distant, as if remembering something long past. Her eyes looked out over Caleb’s shoulder at the glittering waves.
“Caleb,” she said, her voice strange. “What are those?”
Caleb turned to see a number of sleek, dolphin-like shapes leaping and diving in the foaming waves.
Caleb was momentarily thrown by the sudden change of subject, but still responded, the name coming to mind automatically.
“Those… those are ichthyosaurs,” he stammered, “marine reptiles from the Jurassic period. Why do you—” Tess interrupted before he could finish.
“Do you remember a while ago, you said you owed me one, and I said that maybe I still owed you?”
Caleb nodded slowly, recollecting. “You said you’d tell me about it another time.”
Tess nodded silently, taking a deep breath. “When I was a little girl,” she said, still staring out the window. “I met a boy who knew the names of every kind of dinosaur there was.”
A sudden lump lodged itself in Caleb’s throat, and he thought for a moment that his heart might have stopped.
“That boy saved my life, at least three times,” Tess continued. “I wanted more than anything to stay with him, because he kept me safe and told me things would be all right. And I believed him, even when we got separated, and I had to find my way alone. I knew that if we could, we would find each other one day, and everything really would be okay again.”
Caleb’s legs swayed beneath him as though they were rubber. He opened his mouth to say something, but found no words.
“It took us a long time to finally find each other, Caleb. I got strong while I looked for you. And tough. So tough, that when I finally found you, I didn’t even let myself believe it. But you have that boy’s name, and his face, and you know all the dinosaurs’ names.”
She stepped forward, taking Caleb’s shaking hands in hers. “I’m stronger than you now, and I really don’t need some big tough hero to rescue me anyway. But I still remember that boy who helped me, and cared about me. And I still love him for caring—now more than ever.
“So you see, Caleb, you haven’t really lost everyone. You’ve still got me.”
Before Caleb could find his voice, Tess pulled him close, wrapping her soft-feathered arms around him and kissing him deeply. When their lips parted, Caleb just stared at her with a look of wonderment. A giddy grin crept across his face.
“Theresa,” he breathed. “I can’t believe it’s really you. It’s been you all along.”
Tess smiled back warmly, then burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Caleb asked, still reeling from the revelation.
“Come on,” Tess said, “you have to admit it’s ironic. You’ve got a brain like some kind of super-encyclopedia and it still never occurred to you that ‘Tess’ is short for ‘Theresa?’”
.
.
The billowing sails of the Freewind glowed a ghostly white in the moonlight, echoing the shapes of the small clouds drifting high above. The wind was blowing steadily, and the sound of it in the sails was like the roaring murmur of some unseen crowd. Caleb stood at the bow of the ship, leaning against the old and weathered rail and watching the patterns the wind made as it danced across the darkened waters. He smiled at the reflected light of stars dancing in the waves. Tess’s revelation the previous day had had a profound effect on him. Despite the closeness of their destination and the stark danger of their quest, Caleb felt a kind of boldness within him now, tempered by a strange sense of calm.
A flicker of movement and a distant splash drew Caleb’s attention to the port side of the ship. He watched the dark waves for several minutes, then gasped in surprise as he spotted the movement again. A small school of fish leapt from the water, reflecting silver moonlight off of their bright-scaled bodies. Before the last of them fell back beneath the waves, a long serpentine neck flashed up from the water like a flicker of lightning. One of the fish disappeared down the creature’s needle-toothed maw; then, almost as quickly as it had appeared, the head and neck vanished.
“Elasmosaurs,” Caleb whispered to himself. He watched the waves with wide eyes, hoping to catch another glimpse. Although he had seen the animals from the shore several times, he had seldom seen them this close, and never while hunting. He barely noticed the sound of feet approaching across the gently rolling deck as another neck flashed above the waves.
“Ah” a rough voice muttered. “The nessies are out tonight.”
Caleb turned, then looked down to see the small, hunched form of Captain Chaney. Even under moonlight, the old-blood’s bizarre features stood out dramatically. He had the traits of the species of pterosaur known as dimorphodon, with a particularly large, blocky head balanced ridiculously on top of a scrawny, stunted body. The body itself seemed to be made of little more than brittle limbs, leathery wings and soft black fur. The striking crimson bands that marked his neck and toothy beak were dimly visible in the soft light, but his huge, sparkling blue eyes gleamed brightly, reflecting the colors of the moon and the sea. He moved closer to Caleb, shuffling oddly on bowed, bandy legs and supporting himself on the knuckles of his folded wings. His hunched, wizened appearance caused many to assume an advanced age. In reality, he was only a few years older than Caleb, a fact that became more evident when he took to the winds, circling his ship in nimble swoops and dives.
“I didn’t know they hunted at night,” Caleb whispered, turning back to stare at the darting necks. There were now at least five of them, flashing in and out of view amid the waves.
“Seems to be the moon that draws them,” Captain Chaney mused. �
��See the dark backs?”
Caleb nodded as a slick, rounded back briefly broke the surface.
“White bellies, black backs. Like the old killer whales,” the Captain said thoughtfully. “Means they can see the fishes’ shadows from underneath by the moonlight, but the fish don’t see their black backs against the deep water. Nights like this; it’s good hunting. Quite a sight—those sea serpent necks under the moon.”
Caleb smiled and scanned the waves for any others.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, eyes glued to the water, “how was it that Garner knew you?”
“Oh, well,” Chaney said, “that’s sort of a long story. We go way back, Garner and I. He was one of my first real friends after the change hit me. For a while there, he almost had me convinced that there really was something to this Carnival rumor. I followed him around for a few years, helping him look for it and gathering others to do the same. Oh, I never believed it, myself, mind you. Just clung to the idea of it, the way a kid will cling to the idea of an imaginary friend. I never really thought he’d find it, but we made some good friends, and that was more than enough to keep me involved for a while.”
“What made you give it up?” Caleb asked, still staring at the elasmosaurs.
“It wears on a person—looking for something you don’t even believe in. After a few years I just couldn’t pretend it was real anymore. I was sick of talking about a place where everyone was equal while we slept in damp alleys and ran from angry mobs. I decided that if I couldn’t find a perfect paradise, I’d find the next best thing. A few like-minded old-bloods from Garner’s group went with me to the coast. After a few wrong turns, we finally found a ship that was willing to hire. For a reasonable captain, it’s hard to turn down crewmen who can lift five hundred pounds over their heads or fly ten times higher than the crow’s nest. After a few years of running up and down the Mississippi Sea, we had enough saved to get a ship of our own. Captain was damned sorry to see us go, too. Had to replace us and half of his regular crew when they decided to come along. That was what made the dream real for me; normals and old-bloods working together, living out on the sea. It’s just one ship, not much room for that many, but it was as close to Carnival as I ever thought I’d get.”
Carnival of Time Page 24