The Ariadne Connection

He took a deep breath and stepped over the tiller, ignoring the sail flapping louder now, and touched Ariadne’s shoulder. “Easy, Despoina.” He squeezed gently. “I’m here. I’ll help if I can.”

“Thank you, Petro.” She touched his hand, her sapphire ring catching a spark of fading light.

He cleared his throat. “So what’s with this family ring, anyway?”

She tugged it off and handed it to him. “You see the inscription inside?”

He turned it to make out the Greek letters. “Lithos athanatos kai akinetos. Like on the flag.”

“Immortal and unyielding stone.” She shook her head. “My family’s motto. It used to represent our gem trade, but now my father applies it to his regime. He wants to extend his control, keep us all in his grasp. . . .”

He studied her downturned face. “There’s one way to get free of the Tyrannos.” He tilted his head toward the sea and lifted his eyebrows.

She hesitated, then nodded quickly.

He flung the ring far out over the swells. “There. You’re a free agent.”

“Peter!” Voice sharp as she grabbed his arm.

“I thought you wanted—”

“Get down!” Her eyes had gone wide, startled, staring past him.

A whoosh of wind. He wrenched around, losing his footing as the boat heaved beneath them and the boom came flying across in a crack and snap of billowing sail. He managed to throw himself sideways, pulling Ariadne out of the way as it crashed past against the shrouds. He scrambled for the lines, cursing as he slipped in a slosh of water, full sail dragging the boat heeling to starboard. He pulled it in, regaining the tiller, straightening her out just in time for another howling gust out of the south. She rode it out, shuddered and skittered over the suddenly churning sea, canvas and rigging straining.

“Christ!” He shot a look over his shoulder to the south. A dark miasma had churned up out of nowhere, gaining on them. To port, the sun dropped into a reddish haze over the rising chop.

“Ariadne!” The wind screamed, stealing his shout, lashing cold spray. “Ariadne!”

Hunched beneath the popping dance of the boom as the boat crashed and plowed through the sea, she bailed with cupped hands. More water gushed over the low gunwale as a furious blast caught them.

Peter fought to bring her back up. “Ariadne! Get forward and secure the supplies. Careful! And get some line to tie us down.”

Squinting against the wind, she nodded. She crawled forward over the ribs and open decking, fighting the weight of her drenched skirt and hair. The storm whipped in gusts now, wild eddies. The boat floundered, boom crashing over again as the rigging shrieked and groaned. Peter strained at the tiller. He couldn’t let go to try and pull the sail in.

Through the hazy twilight, Ariadne clung like a bit of dark flotsam in the bow. The boat levelled out again, shivered into another skating plunge over a steep swell.

Ariadne reached for the flapping edge of the tarp he’d rigged as a makeshift shelter. It took forever, tiller wrenching his arms, wind flaying him and the stays shrilling. The canvas wouldn’t take much more, or maybe the mast would go first. Finally Ariadne was crawling back aft, a coiled thin line between her teeth. She fell once against the mast, but gripped the ribs and hauled herself toward his feet.

“Good! Tie yourself off with some slack to the thwart. That’s right.” His bellow was sucked away in the howl, but she wrapped the line around her waist and tied it off, fumbling in the drenching spray. “Got to try to reef in some sail. See if you can hold the tiller.”

She scrambled up next to him, gripped beside his hands, braced her legs and leaned back against the force. She nodded choppily. He slowly let up his hold, watching her. She gasped as the full weight hit her, then clenched her teeth and held steady, arms quivering.

“Hang on!” He slithered forward to the mast, frantically loosened the halyard, line screaming out burning his palms. He swore and got a wrap on his hand, wrenched back as it leaped up and he bit down on the pain. He cleated off the slack. The sail was going crazy now, flapping and tearing against the grommets. “Christ!” It almost got away from him, but he managed to reef it down. He tied the last knot just as another wild gust caught the canvas and ripped the boom out of his hands.

“Shit!” The boom cracked over to port. He staggered, suspended over empty air. Then he crashed down against it, head ringing, stars dancing. Howling mocking laughter swirled around him in the drenching flood as he rolled slippery and nothing to grab over the side. The sea closed over him, black depths sucking him down—

“Petro!” He couldn’t have heard it, but somehow her hand was there, in the water. He grabbed it. She tumbled against the dipping gunwale, pulled over after him, but then her line caught her. A sharp gasp in his ear as she strained, gripping his hand.

He groped, floundering, swallowing seawater. Grabbed the gunwale in his free hand. Kicking against the waves, he got one leg over. He wrenched free of her hold and shoved her back uphill in the tilted boat. “Get the tiller!”

Another wild dip, wind howling, and he was still dragging half submerged. Then under again as the boat broached. He popped up gasping on the slope of a towering crest, the boat canted above him, shit shit she was going over on him! The old black horror swam up out of the abyss to spin him drowning down.

He gasped, choking on stinging salt. A sodden dark shape, Ariadne flung herself onto the tiller. Christ, she couldn’t do it. Desperate heave, and he was somehow back over the gunwale inside and throwing his weight against hers. They drove the tiller back shuddering in an ominous splintering groan. Jesus if it broke now—

The boat shot upright over the crest and sprang forward, riding the wind.

Ariadne slid down into the puddle at his feet. He dropped to sit against the tiller, holding it now against the reduced force on the reefed-in sail. The wind howled, no sign of letup. All of a sudden it was night, only a suffused glow over the sea, ghostly glimmer of the sail and the wind-chopped crests.

He leaned down to Ariadne’s ear. “You all right?”

She nodded in the gloom.

“This is crazy, came out of nowhere.”

She mouthed something the wind caught. He leaned close and she repeated, “The African wind.”

“Too early!” Those desert storms could whip northward without notice, real widowmakers, but they weren’t supposed to kick up until late summer. She was right, though. World gone crazy, rhyme and reason were things of the past.

All they could do was ride it out as the storm drove them where it would. After a while he was past thinking, just a floating speck in the darkness, two numb hands on a tiller as the boat climbed and dropped, climbed and dropped before the wind, cleaving the phosphorous gleam of spume through the canyons of the sea.