Black Sun Rising

Chapter Fifteen

"Where's Sam?" Julia Rose rubbed her eyes. Only a sliver of morning light had made it through the tent flap, but it fell right across her face, making her blink hard. "I didn't think early mornings were his thing. Nina, have you seen him?"

Half awake and not yet thinking straight, Nina looked to Purdue to see whether he could inspire an answer. She could think of no plausible lie, but she did not want to tell anyone that she was worried about Sam until she had had the chance to look for him. Unfortunately Purdue was still sound asleep, sprawled on his back on the reed mat, so no help was forthcoming. "Er… " Nina began, somewhat inauspiciously. "I think he's… he might have… " she trailed off into silence. "I don't know. Sorry. I'm going to go and look for him." She fumbled around in her backpack, looking for her clothes.

"I'll come with you," said Julia Rose, kicking off her blanket. "Just let me get out of my PJs."

Nina wanted to put her off, but in her bleary state she could think of no good reason why Julia Rose should not come with her. Turning her back, she quickly stripped off her nightshirt and threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top, then pulled on her hiking boots and aimed a few swift sprays of sun cream at her pallid limbs. By the time she turned back around, Julia Rose was already dressed and ready to go.

"He's probably dead."

Both women whirled round to see Hunter, flat on his back and staring at the roof of the teepee. Both had completely forgotten that he was there. Nina mentally kicked herself for not being more aware of everyone else in the tent as she changed, and hoped that she had not given him an inadvertent eyeful.

"If he went out in the desert, all by himself, in the middle of the night," Hunter droned, "yeah, he's dead. There's probably a whole pack of coyotes snacking on him right now. Or maybe like a rattlesnake or something. Or maybe he saw something he shouldn't have seen and someone dropped him at the bottom of the canyon."

Nina stared at him, somewhere between bemusement and disdain. "Well, aren't you just a little ray of sunshine? Come on, Julia Rose. We've got better things to be doing than hanging around cheerful bastards like this one."

"Don't be hateful just because I'm right," Hunter said, apparently unperturbed. "See you at breakfast — unless you're dead too by then."

"What the fuck is his problem?" Nina raged, as they walked away from the tent. "Who says things like that?"

"Douche bags, mostly," Julia Rose replied. "Don't worry about him, he's just an ass. I'm sure Sam will be fine — he probably just couldn't sleep or something." She followed hard on Nina's heels, striding across the campsite. It was still early, and only a couple of people had emerged from their tents. Sensing Nina's growing concern, Julia Rose searched for the right thing to say. "For what it's worth, I think it's great that you two still care so much about each other. Were you together for long?"

Nina stopped in her tracks and looked round. "Sam and I weren't together. Why does everyone think that? There's never been anything between us — well, one brief moment, but that's it — and another brief, brief moment on the last trip. Hasn't anyone else ever had a short-lived attraction to a friend? Why does it have to be such a big deal to these people who aren't involved and never were? He's my friend, that's all — don't people usually care about their friends?"

Before Nina's eyes, Julia Rose's confidence crumbled. "I'm sorry… " she said. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Nina sighed, pressing the heels of her hands against her hot, sore eyes. "Of course, you didn't. I'm sorry. It's just… it's hot, I didn't sleep much, I'm in desperate need of caffeine and there's a lot that I'm struggling to get my head around just now. I shouldn't have taken it out on you. It's just… a lot of people ask me that kind of thing about Sam."

"Yeah," Julia Rose half smiled, "I kinda got that. So where are we going? Where do you think he is?"

"I've no idea," Nina admitted. "I wish I had. He was outside the connection tent last time I saw him, so I was thinking that he might have come back down to the river for another cigarette and maybe fallen asleep down here. Or that… " she fell silent. The mental images of Sam's possible fates that were currently tormenting her did not bear mentioning. Deep in the pit of her stomach, she could feel the grip of the irrational fear that speaking those possibilities aloud might somehow cause them to come true.

They walked down to the river and Nina paced the bank, scanning it for any possible places where Sam's sleeping form might be concealed. For the briefest of moments her eyes strayed downriver, alert for any sign of him in the water. I'll give it a few more minutes, she thought, and then I'm going back to the campsite to get help.

As Nina searched, Sam was emerging from the underground facility with Cody escorting him. His eyes were covered by a thick blindfold, leaving him feeling vulnerable and ill at ease as he entrusted himself entirely to Cody's guidance. He was still not convinced that the blindfold was really necessary, but Sara had insisted that this was the policy — only initiates and officials were allowed to know the location of the entrance to the facility, therefore Sam would have to be led out blindly and his eyes must remain covered until he was a safe distance away.

Stumbling after Cody, Sam felt the change from steps to sand under his feet. He heard the soft thud of the door falling shut behind them, and the swish of sand as Cody covered it over, concealing it from view.

"This way, Sam!" The twangy, nasal voice set Sam's teeth on edge even more than usual. There was something about being reliant on Cody that made him even less bearable than Sam had previously found. He felt Cody's hands on his shoulders, steering him away from the door, walking him around in large, looping circles so that Sam would have no chance of finding his way back to the place from which he had been released.

When the blindfold came off, Sam was back outside his own teepee. "There you go, buddy," said Cody. "You've still got time to get yourself cleaned up in time for breakfast. See you in the connection tent!"

Still in a daze, Sam crawled into the tent. Only Hunter was there, apparently asleep. Sam rifled through his backpack in search of clean clothes. He had a vague memory of rolling around on the sand, and it clung to his hair and hid under his fingernails. Changing his clothes was not going to be sufficient for making him feel less grimy. He dug out his towel and headed down toward the water.

"Sam! Oh, god, Sam!" Nina waded toward him as fast as she could, splashing madly. She threw her arms around him in a sodden hug that nearly overbalanced them both. "Where were you? I thought you were dead!"

Sam spluttered as he got a mouthful of Nina's drenched hair. "Dead?" he laughed. "Why would I be dead?"

"Why wouldn't you? I didn't realize you weren't following, and then when I came back you weren't there. Where were you?"

As always, Sam's first instinct was to tell Nina everything. It was not in his nature to keep things to himself, he enjoyed having a partner in crime. Despite his promise to Cody, he made up his mind to tell her later. It's just Nina, he thought. Telling her hardly counts. For the moment, in front of Julia Rose, he kept the secret. "Cody found me," he said, preferring a half-truth to a lie. "He took me into one of the other tents. If truth be told, I'm still a bit out of it. Excuse me a minute."

He gulped down a deep breath and plunged under the water, where he ruffled his fingers through his hair to shake out the sand. A quick scrub down later, he was ready to pull on his clean (though wet) clothes and follow the two women in search of breakfast.

"What the hell is this?" Sam scowled at his plate. Kneeling among the reeds on the floor of the connection tent, his bamboo plate in one hand and wooden spork in the other, he reminded Nina of a moody schoolboy.

"Breakfast," she said. "Didn't you listen when they were telling you what was what?"

"No," Sam harrumphed. "Enlighten me, then — because I take it you did."

"Nope." Nina scooped up a mouthful of the alien food and shoveled it into her mouth. "I didn't listen to a thing. All I needed to know was that it's breakfast. This is the important bit." She held up her tin mug in a cheeky salute, and then took a deep draft. As soon as the liquid hit her tongue she gagged and barely forced herself to swallow. "What the hell is this?" she demanded. "That's not coffee!"

"Nope," said Julia Rose, "it's chicory and carob or some shit like that. Look." She pointed back toward the long table where breakfast was being served. At the far end, up by the loaves of bread waiting to be cut, there hung a sign which read "All foods are organic, and free of gluten, meat, soya, sugar, milk, eggs, caffeine, and animal derivatives."

"No caffeine?" Nina stared at the treacherous contents of her mug in dismay.

"That's right," Cody appeared beside them, walking around with a jug to offer more of the wretched coffee substitute. "I know it's a culture shock, Nina, but you'll get used to it really fast. It's a lot better for you, and it'll help you unblock your energies. You can't connect with the divinity when you're full of caffeine! Oh, by the way — if you want your cigarettes back at the end of the Mind Meld, don't forget to reclaim them. You probably won't need them by then, but some people prefer to throw away that last pack for themselves. Sort of a symbolic thing, I guess."

Before either Sam or Nina had time to reply, Cody had moved on, weaving his way through the cross-legged diners. Nina's face was a perfect study of horror.

Neither Sam nor Nina was impressed to learn that the second day of their FireStorm experience would involve climbing the ancient rock that was said to have been the home of the fire giant. After their sleepless night, neither was in the mood for physical exertion in the desert heat, and Nina was still outraged by the loss of their cigarettes. She sulkily trailed along at the back off the group, kicking at the tumbleweeds that occasionally rolled past.

"What I want to know is how he got our cigarettes in the first place," she ranted. Sam was paying scant attention by this time. He had heard these words two or three times already, and while he shared her anger, he was more concerned with sizing up the other delegates and trying to figure out whether any of them were likely to have a packet stashed away. He did not fancy the prospect of spending his remaining time out here smokefree any more than Nina did.

Just behind them, huffing with the strain of keeping up, was Hunter. He was dragging himself up the hillside with the aid of two walking poles, his T-shirt and ponytail already drenched with sweat. "Are you talking about your cigarettes?" he asked, a malevolent smile creeping across his doughy face. "Yeah, I told Cody where to find them. He came around this morning when you were all out and said he had to collect any drugs that anyone had." He turned to Sam. "So if you're looking for those miniature bottles of Scotch, you know where they are. Nice job of not sharing, by the way."

The effort of walking and talking simultaneously became too much for him, and with a hacking wheeze, he came to a halt and fumbled in his pockets for an inhaler. Sam and Nina walked on, picking up the pace to leave him behind. "If I get through this trip without smothering him in his sleep, I'll be doing well," said Nina. "Why did we have to get stuck sharing a tent with such a tosser?"

Despite their objections to the hike, neither Sam nor Nina could deny that the view from the top of the hill was stunning. By the time they caught up to the group, everyone was gathered around Jefferson, who was standing on a boulder pointing out the things they could see in each direction. The Havasupai Indian Reservation lay to the east, beyond Mount Trumbull and its wilderness. To the north was Utah, and to the west they could see Nevada, where a shimmer of smog hung high in the air, marking out the location of Las Vegas. In the distance, far to the south, the craggy beginnings of the Grand Canyon were just visible.

The ground dipped slightly toward the center of the hilltop, betraying the hill's volcanic origins and offering a little bit of shelter from the clean, chilly wind that took the edge off the desert heat. The sky was clear and blue, and the sun beat down intensely. There was little shade to be had — the only vegetation on the hilltop was sagebrush and pinion pine, nothing that grew high enough to offer an escape from the heat. The legend, according to Jefferson, stated that plants would only grow as the fire giant's heart healed, which would only happen when he saw true connections forming between living creatures. "So tonight should go some way toward covering this place in greenery!" he finished enthusiastically. "Find a place to settle down, ladies and gentlemen, and let's get started on your Vision Quests!"