He slowly gained his feet.

Where am I?

PART TWO

6

STRANDED

Jake turned in a slow circle and surveyed his new world. He shaded his eyes against the stinging brightness, while the heat threatened to beat him down. The air smelled oddly of burned cinnamon.

As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he spotted a few spiky bushes and a scattering of tall green plants that might be in the cactus family. Hopefully that meant he could find water. Off in the distance, a few towering pinnacles of reddish black rock stuck out of the sand dunes like boats riding a rough sea. Farther out, a strange haziness blurred the horizon. It was odd enough to draw his eye, but he had more important concerns at the moment.

He stared up. The blue was so bright, it made his eyes ache. The sun was halfway up the sky—or maybe it was halfway down. He had no way of knowing.

All he knew for sure was that he needed to find shade, to get out from under this blazing sun.

“HELP! IS ANYONE OUT THERE?”

Jake touched his lips, thinking the shout had come from his own mouth. He was certainly thinking those words. He turned in the direction of the voice. It sounded like someone in trouble, which pretty much described Jake’s condition, too.

Happy for company, he climbed the ridge and called out. “Hello! I’m coming! Hang on!”

Another person shouted to Jake’s left, this time a girl. “ PIN? IS THAT YOU?”

Jake crested the ridge and spotted a gangly figure sheltered behind a red boulder below. The boy was all limbs and neck. His curly, mud brown hair was long in the back and cut straight across his brows like some Roman centurion. He was also soaking wet—and buck naked.

The boy turned toward Jake, cringing in fear and covering himself, then he straightened in shock and recognition.

“Jake?”

Jake could not believe it himself. “Pindor!”

Despite the impossibility of it all, this was indeed his friend from Calypsos. Pindor Tiberius, second son to Elder Marcellus Tiberius, both descendants of a lost Roman legion stranded in Pangaea centuries ago.

Jake trudged down the far slope to meet his friend, filling his boots with hot sand. “What are you doing here?”

Before he could answer, a gleeful shout erupted to the left. He turned to see another familiar figure come running down the slope. Her dark hair flew behind her like a pair of raven’s wings. She wore a richly embroidered shirt and a long skirt tied at the waist and slit to mid thigh. In the sunlight, her eyes flashed a brilliant emerald, matching the jade necklace bound around her neck.

At the sight of her—of both of his friends—the hopeless despair that had settled over Jake’s heart receded.