Cloud Permutations by Lavie Tidhar Page B

themselves inside a rocky pool, with a stone arch for a roof, and an exit: a narrow tunnel that led, in short order, to what, as it turned out, was the other side of the island, and a covered sandy bay—and a waiting ship.
    ‘Got your message,’ Captain Desmon called cheerfully from the deck as Kal and Bani waddled through the shallow water towards the Sanigodaon . ‘Lucky, that. Where are the others?’
    There was, it had to be admitted, a little confusion. Kal left Bani to talk to the Captain and simply stood on the deck, feeling the sun on his face for the first time in what felt like days. He breathed in the air (and some fumes from the engine) and revelled in still being alive. He felt strangely dislocated, as if a déjà vu had taken hold of him and refused to let go. The time in the tunnels, the strange sea, the even stranger Other—they seemed as fleeting and illusory as the ghosts he had thought he’d seen in the corridors of stone, as unbelievable to him as his fight with Georgie had been. Was he even himself? Or did the ghost of—something—else take hold of him down there and make him do its bidding?
    ‘What message?’ Bani was saying.
    ‘The floating bottle. Came popping out of the sea. Clever, that. I thought you fellows must be diving nearby.’
    ‘What did it say?’
    ‘You should know,’ Captain Desmon said, though now he sounded a little uncertain.
    ‘Humour me,’ Bani said. He had got hold of his cane again and with it seemed to have recovered his cool.
    ‘To wait for you here. Gave me the coordinates. Quite a rough little bay, this one, actually. Well-hidden, and the rocks are a nightmare if you don’t know the path.’
    ‘But you know the path?’
    Captain Desmon removed his cap and rubbed his scalp. ‘It was in your message, Bani,’ he said patiently. ‘And the other one, too.’ He looked at him a little disapprovingly. ‘I thought we were only going to the island and back. I didn’t realise you wanted to go wokabaot. I’m not sure I have enough fuel, though I’m sure we could pick some up along the way, and there’s always wind. Still, it would cost you.’
    ‘What other one?’ Bani demanded. Kal stood on the deck and watched the island. It seemed peaceful and pretty and, to tell the truth, a little dull—not at all the place of conspiracies and death and promises of flight …
    ‘The other path. The map. Here,’ Captain Desmon said, and handed him a sheaf of bundled papers slightly smudged, by the looks of it, with oil and salt-water. ‘Now stop playing around. Where are the others? Are they staying behind?’
    It was all very confusing. Kal left them to it. Each seemed to have more questions than answers for the other.
    He gazed out on the island. Suddenly, he wanted very badly to be away from it. He felt restless. There were people pursuing him, and he didn’t know why. The tower remained for him what it had been since that first time: a patch of darkness, a sense of falling, something unknown and unexplained. And he wanted to find out what it was, and why he was going there.
    ‘Bani?’ he said now, laying down the coconut in its small depression in the sand. He stood up and dusted his short trousers, and ambled over to the fire.
    ‘Fish’s ready,’ Bani said. He crouched down and dug at the sand underneath the coals with bare fingers, extracting first one, then another yam. ‘Hot,’ he commented, dropping them.
    They sat down. Kal nibbled on the fish and took a fistful of hot yam. The sun looked like a burst blood vessel in the sky. Somewhere to their left, but far away, clouds were slowly gathering together high above.
    ‘What is the tower?’
    They had never really spoken of it before. It was as if there was a tacit understanding between them not to discuss that secret destiny that had bound them in twine. It was as if, by not talking about it, the future might simply go away.
    Bani looked surprised. ‘I thought you’d have figured it out by now,’ he