The Secret of Ka (7 page)

"Ha! The boy is finally learning to be diplomatic."

"Don't call me a boy."

"How old are you really?" I asked.

He did not answer and I thought he was embarrassed to admit that he had lied earlier. I couldn't see him very well in the dark. I certainly couldn't read his expression. But I saw his hand shaking.

"Sara!" he cried. "It's spinning!"

"The pointer?" I asked, checking my own compass, which was still pointed north.

"Come look." He stopped and swung the compass around his body. He took a step back. "It's strongest here."

I ran to his side. Studying his compass, I saw that he was not exaggerating—the arrow was all over the place. Then I realized mine was spinning, too.

The carpet fluttered against my chest!

"I think we've found one!" I exclaimed.

"But we just started looking. How is it possible?"

I did not answer, but since I had found the carpet—especially since it had begun to jump around the hotel room—I had wanted to take it down to the beach. To this beach in particular, almost as if I knew the spot was special.

We wasted no time spreading the carpet on the sand. Then ... nothing happened, it just lay there. I could hear the disappointment in Amesh's voice when he said, "Maybe it needs a spell to work, after all."

"Not so fast. We were about thirty feet apart and walking parallel with each other when your compass began to dance. But my compass didn't react until I moved to where you were standing."

"So?"

"What if this ley line doesn't run toward the water? For all we know it runs down the beach. It might be important to find exactly where it's headed and align the carpet in that direction."

Amesh nodded. "Good idea. We'll scan the area."

Leaving the carpet as a focal point, we walked up and down the beach, trying to find where our compasses spun the most. We finally decided that the ley line led farther down the beach—away from the hotel—but at a slight angle that would eventually take it out over the water.

We hurried back to the carpet and aligned it as carefully as we could. The change was instantaneous. I felt a magnetic charge in the air.

Yet the carpet—although it quivered on the sand—did not float into the air. Amesh and I knelt beside it, and for the first time I took out a small flashlight. In the light we saw that the central three tassels were standing straight up. The same was true of the rear of the carpet, which meant all together six tassels had come alive.

I stared at Amesh across the carpet.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked.

He nodded. "They look like controls."

I turned off the flashlight—I did not want to disturb the carpet's reaction to the stars—and sat on the front of the carpet that faced the water. My taking charge annoyed Amesh.

"I think I should be the first one to fly it," he said.

"Why?"

"I know how to drive a car."

"So do I." My dad had given me a few illegal lessons. "But I don't think that's going to help us fly this baby."

"Sara, you have no right..."

"Amesh, get on the back and relax. I know what I'm doing."

"How can you know?" he asked, reluctantly obeying.

"It's just a feeling I have."

I pulled back on the front middle tassel—one of the three on my end of the carpet that were standing up—and the carpet immediately stiffened and gently bobbed off the sand. Still, it went no higher than an inch, not even when I pulled all the way back on the tassel. It was only when I pulled back on the tassel to its right that we began to gain altitude.

"Glory be to Allah!" Amesh gasped.

I laughed. "Amen!"

When we were six feet above the sand, I eased the central tassel forward, but nothing happened. It made me wonder if the tassels worked together like the clutch and gears in a car.

I experimented a minute and discovered that the central tassel was the clutch. It caused the tassels to the right and left of it to work. The right tassel was for lifting the carpet. And the left tassel...

I pushed the left tassel slightly forward.

Suddenly we began to glide!

"Whoa!" Amesh cried.

We were flying at maybe ten miles an hour, a fast run.

Laughing, I pushed the left tassel further, and we picked up speed.

"This is so cool!" I screamed.

The sensation of speed was exhilarating, of course, but even more striking was the feeling that I was one with the carpet. I was an eagle, the sides of the carpet were my wings. I felt so powerful.

"Can we go higher?" Amesh asked.

"Do you want to go higher?"

He looked down. "Not if we're going over the water."

I had my back to Amesh, and to the circle of stars as well. I asked if there was any change in the star field. "You won't believe this. I think they're moving," he said.

"Moving? How?"

"Around and around," he said.

I twisted my neck to see. "Around what?"

"I don't know. Maybe you shouldn't sit on them."

"I'm not," I protested.

"Your butt is."

I shuffled forward and tightened my crossed legs. The carpet was long enough for me to easily avoid the star field.

"Can we go faster?" Amesh asked.

"Just a second," I replied, giving the left tassel a shove. In an instant our speed doubled. That scared us both; there's a huge difference between twenty miles an hour and forty. As the dark sand swept beneath, the wind blew in our faces and roared in our ears. I pulled back on the tassel and we quickly slowed.

I suddenly noticed the tassels on the far right and left were standing straight up. Now five on my side appeared to be active.

"This is fast enough!" Amesh called.

"I hear ya!" I shouted.

In a minute our course took us away from the sand and over the water. Fortunately, the sea was calm. The swells beneath us were less than a foot. The air was thick with moisture—a huge change from the dry desert air that gripped the city.

"Have you tried turning right or left?" Amesh asked.

"No. But I'm pretty sure the tassels at the edges will let us do that."

"They're standing up?"

"They are now."

Amesh glanced toward the shore. Already we were more than a quarter of a mile from the beach. If we were to get dumped now, it would be a long swim back, although not an impossible one. For me. With his missing hand, he might not make it.

"Try it, before we get too far out," he said.

I hesitated. "If we jump off this ley line and there isn't another one beside us, we might end up in the water."

"The ley line should be wide enough to let us turn," he said.

"I checked it on the beach. It was only ten feet across."

Amesh sighed. "We're going to have to turn around at some point."

"Do you know how to swim?" I asked.

"Yes. But I'm not a fish."

I understood. With each second we allowed the carpet to take us away from the shore, we increased our risk.

"There's another set of those things, the tassels, sticking up behind me," he said. "I'll try to use them to take us back to the beach."

"Don't you want me to try to stop the carpet first?"

He hesitated. "I'm not sure. If we stop, we might sink."

"It beats flying away from the ley line."

"All right, give it a try. But be careful," he said.

Slowly, I pulled back on the left tassel. We immediately began to lose speed, until we came to a dead stop. The carpet felt less stable floating above the water than it did flying over it.

Behind me, Amesh turned so his back was to me.

"You just pushed the central tassel forward?" he asked.

"No, it's more complex than that." I explained how the three central tassels worked together. Then I left him alone to try to make it work.

A few minutes went by. We continued to hover in place. Below, the surf lapped with a soothing hypnotic sound. Overhead, more stars became visible. I turned sideways so I could watch the stars at the center of the carpet move. They appeared to rotate around an invisible point.

"It's not working," he finally said in disgust.

"Maybe only women can fly magic carpets."

"Or maybe your controls got locked in place because they were the first ones we used."

"I suppose," I said, although I thought that sounded silly.

Amesh turned to face me. "Now that we've stopped, we might be able to turn the carpet around without leaving the ley line. Grab that tassel on the right and bend it to the right. See what happens."

"We might tip over."

"We have to try. We can't float here all night."

I reached for the tassel. "We should have experimented more with the controls while we were still on the shore."

"We should have done a lot of things. Turn us around."

He knew I was stalling. The sense that the carpet didn't want to go back plagued me. I could not explain why. Still, I did what he said, and slowly the carpet rotated. In seconds we were facing the shore. Far off, the lights of Istanbul beaconed. There lay safety, I thought, security. But out here on the carpet was magic, and I didn't want to give that up so soon.

"Take us back at a slower speed," Amesh said.

"Aye, Captain." I reached for the central left tassel to restart our silent engine. But the second I did so the carpet rotated back out to sea. I wondered if it was responding to what I wanted, instead of obeying what my hands were doing.

"Why did you do that?" Amesh demanded.

"It did it on its own. Maybe it wants to keep going."

"You talk about it like it's alive."

"What if it is."

"Don't be silly."

"Amesh, I feel something coming from it. Like you can sense another person's feelings. It's like it's telling me it wants to go farther."

"Where? All we have in front of us are miles of ocean."

"Aren't there islands off this coast?"

"Well, technically, we're in a really huge bay. But everyone calls it the Sea of Marmara. If we keep going, we'll either run into the Gallipoli Peninsula or fly through the Dardenelles Strait. That's a narrow strip of water that connects this bay with the Aegean Sea. But no way are we going that far."

"Why don't we go just a little farther, then make up our minds. I don't think it's going to dump us in the water and run off."

Amesh was not happy with the plan. "You can't be sure of that."

"I have faith in the carpet."

The words just popped out of my mouth, but they were true. Not only did I feel the carpet was alive, I felt it was a friend. An ally, at least.

I bent the left tassel forward until we reached a speed of about fifteen miles an hour, which proved to be easier on our nerves. The night air continued to brush my face but it was a gentle breeze.

To my surprise, the farther we went, the calmer the ocean grew. Soon the sea was as still as a mountain lake and utterly quiet. The lights of Istanbul faded to a faint glow. We were able to see the band of the Milky Way, along with a million more stars. Glancing over my shoulder, I could see the center of our flying machine was thick with stars.

And my friend's breathing had grown long and deep. He was out cold! At first I was stunned. Who could sleep at a time like this? I pulled him away from the carpet's edges so he wouldn't fall off, and he still didn't wake up.

My thoughts turned to what Amesh had told me in the hotel, the story of how he had lost his hand. It had happened only a year ago, the previous summer. He was still healing from the blow, he admitted, emotionally as well as physically. But losing a hand—maybe that was something he would never get over.

He had described the accident to me briefly, almost as if he were reading from a prepared card. He was working a circular saw that was used to cut long steel cables that provided a framework for the tons of concrete the company poured daily. The machine was a powerful band saw—it had the power to reshape diamonds. He wore goggles while he worked to protect his eyes, and a mask to block out the fine particles of metal the saw threw into the air.

One day a smoldering shard of metal flew off a cable he was cutting and struck his goggles. Ordinarily that would not have been a problem, but the shard was exceptionally large and hot. It melted through the goggles and filled the interior with scalding steam. Afraid the metal was going to reach his face and maybe put out an eye, he panicked and fought to get the goggles off. Unfortunately, in his haste, he swept his right wrist in the path of the band saw.

He said he didn't feel his hand get cut off. There was just a sharp tug, no pain, followed by a wave of dizziness. He probably fainted; he was never sure. Fellow workers picked him up and took him to the hospital, which was where he woke the next day.

"Why weren't they able to sew your hand back on?" I asked.

It sounded to me like it could not have been removed more cleanly. But he shook his head and said his hand had landed on a pile of recently cut cable that was still smoldering. The flesh was too badly burned. The doctors could do nothing with it.

"Why don't you wear a prosthesis?" I asked.

The question troubled him. He told me the hospital kept offering him lots of prostheses, but he couldn't find one that was comfortable. He would get sores and blisters where the synthetic material touched his skin. He was beginning to think he was better off without one.

"Did you sue the company?" I asked.

He didn't sue anybody; his boss had convinced him that the accident was his fault. They covered his medical expenses and paid his salary while he was at home healing. But he was never given money for his pain and suffering.

"Why didn't you hire a lawyer?" I asked.

The question angered him. This was Turkey, not America; people did not go around suing each other. He was lucky the company gave him another job. It happened; it was an accident, he said. It was Allah's will.

I did not know what else to say, so I gave him a hug and told him he was very brave. That, at least, made him smile. Why was he brave? For being clumsy?

"No," I said. "Because you're not a whiner."