The Third Craft Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by James T. Harris

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2012 by

  BPS Books

  Toronto and New York

  www.bpsbooks.com

  A division of Bastian Publishing Services Ltd.

  ISBN 978-1-926645-77-3

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from Library and Archives Canada.

  Cover: Gnibel

  Text design and typesetting: Daniel Crack, Kinetics Design, www.kdbooks.ca

  Printed by Lightning Source, Tennessee. Lightning Source paper, as used in this book, does not come from endangered old-growth forests or forests of exceptional conservation value. It is acid free, lignin free, and meets all ANSI standards for archival-quality paper. The print-on-demand process used to produce this book protects the environment by printing only the number of copies that are purchased.

  CONTENTS

  PARTONE

  THE THIRD CRAFT

  PARTTWO

  RISE OF THE ABISHOT

  PARTTHREE

  BROTHERHOOD OF THE TWO EARTHS

  APPENDIX

  PARTONE

  THE THIRD CRAFT

  IT IS SAID THAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN ADVENTURE AND A TRAGEDY LIES IN THE OUTCOME.

  CHAPTER1

  ELLIOT LAKE, ONTARIO, JULY 1982

  A staccato of throaty growls and whining screams shattered the silence of the forest. The bounding motorcycle tore through the thick woods as if chased by the devil himself. Young Joe Grayer grasped the Suzuki’s rubber handle grips as if his life depended on it. He wore a grin like a wraith. His enduro motorbike wobbled and shuddered, threatening to fling him crashing into the trees that lined the haphazard path. But Joe guided the Suzuki with an expert grip, and his bike responded as if alive to his wishes.

  He twisted the throttle sharply and lifted off the seat for balance, ready for the thrust to come. The soles of his scuffed leather boots gripped the foot pegs. The ring-ding-ding of the motor burst into a throaty growl as a gush of fuel jetted into the carburetor. With a burst of energy, the Suzuki was airborne, clearing a rotted log blocking the path. The rear wheel grazed the bark on the way down, throwing up a cascade of splinters. The knobby tires expelled chunks of tree like a grinder’s wheel.

  Evergreen, maple, and elm trees became a soup of blurred green as the bike dashed its way through the forest like a deer. The mosaic of the sun’s rays on the forest floor flew past in pencil-straight lines.

  God, it was great to be eighteen and feel so alive! The air was fresh, the sun was new, and the throbbing power beneath his body was intoxicating.

  Joe knew no fear. Barely past the peach-fuzz stage of maturity, he was lean and rugged. While there was not an ounce of fat on him, he was not Hollywood-hard or chiseled. He had the beauty of youth that most males share for a short period. Not a boy, yet not fully a man, Joe had always had one particularly outstanding feature: his eyes. They were an intense brown, so deep and dark that they often appeared black. Yet at times they seemed to catch the light and become almost luminescent, a hint of green buried deep within. This trick of the light was a startling offset to his tousled light brown hair and devil-may-care attitude.

  An effortless A student, he had found little to challenge him at school. No, to be honest, he struggled to find any real purpose for scholastic academics. He felt his destiny lay somewhere other than sitting in a lecture hall, even though he and his brother Hawk had been promoted two grades in advance of their age, leaving high school at fifteen. Now in the final year of his three-year course at university, Joe pondered his future.

  Joe raced his bike mercilessly along the overgrown footpath, inadvertently failing to gauge the path ahead for danger – a mistake he seldom made. The thrill of motocross was to push the limits, to explore and learn on the go. Plunging headfirst into the unknown was just part of the adrenalin rush. Throw some youthful inexperience into the mix, and you’ve got a dangerous cocktail of thrills and adventure.

  It had rained heavily the previous day. The surface of the ground appeared dry, but underneath, the pebbly soil was unstable. Joe rounded a cluster of thick bushes, only to discover that the path had abruptly disappeared. Actually, the entire side of the hill had disappeared. Joe stared into a void as he and the bike became airborne.

  “Oh crap,” he hissed through his teeth. He twisted in mid-air to regain control, but to no avail.

  The bike nosed down and plowed into gravelly, loose dirt. The front wheel dug in first, then the bike began to tumble nose over tail. Ass over teakettle was the expression that jumped into Joe’s mind. He went spinning cartwheel-style down the hill, followed closely by his bike, which flipped from side to side like a fish arching to work free of a hook.

  The machine twisted and turned as it tumbled down the slope. Then it stopped abruptly. So did Joe. The hill, however, did not – the disruption had triggered a mudslide. The hill began to move. Joe was lying on his back when he felt the earth give way beneath him. Like a lazy surfer, he rode the tons of muddy, pebbly earth flexing and rolling beneath him. He fought to stay on top of the flowing mass. His black nylon Suzuki jumpsuit was a mess of orange and brown mud. He cried out in pain as rocks dug into his shoulders and back.

  Miraculously, though a massive section of the hill had broken away, neither he nor his bike was buried. As the slide settled, he lay on his back still staring up at the cloudless pale blue sky. He began gingerly flexing various parts of his body to determine the damages. He would be bruised, he concluded, but there was no serious injury. He lay back and rested a moment, gathering his strength.

  Like a wounded soldier on a battlefield, he crawled over to the bike.

  The Suzuki was lodged in a most unusual manner. It was resting perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Its front wheel, pointing straight up at the sky, turned slowly. The bike had stalled during the crash. The only sounds were the ticking of the exhaust pipes and the engine fins as they cooled down at different rates.

  Wincing with pain, Joe hauled on the frame of the bike to roll it over and free it. The bike rocked laboriously from side to side, but returned to the center point each time, like one of those old clown punching bags with sand in the bottom.

  Joe just stood there and stared at it. Since when did motorbikes balance perfectly? He tried to tip the bike over, but once again it simply bounced back.

  A mysterious force seemed to be keeping the bike in this very strange position. Try as he might, Joe could not dislodge it. It was as if the bike had a mind of its own and had chosen not to move. Joe sensed a mild buzzing sensation beneath his feet, but all he could see was mud.

  Damn it, he thought. The mud’s not deep enough to embed the bike. Why won’t it move?

  After a few more attempts to topple the bike, he gave up. Kicking out at the yellow bike frame, he resigned himself to getting some help. He muttered and grumbled as he clawed his way up the hill.

  It was dusk by the time his walk was over. Hawk met him at the door with a concerned look.

  “God, you look awful. What happened?”

  “I wiped out on the hill out back. I lost it on the top trail. Some kind of slide. I couldn’t stop. I went over, big time.”

  “You OK?”

  “I’m all right. Helmet took most of the hit.”

  Hawk ushered Joe inside. Joe plunked himself down at the kitchen table.

  “The bike is stuck. I couldn’t move it. There’s something weird …”

  Hawk sighed. “With you there’s always somethin
g weird. Did you total the bike?”

  “Nope. But it won’t budge. Like I said, there’s something weird …”

  “Everything’s a mystery with you, Joe. Let’s worry about your weirdness later, OK?”

  It was no mystery how they got here, Joe thought. He had wanted to leave Toronto for the summer. He had no job. His friends were away. The prospect of a lonely, boring summer in the city did not appeal to him. And he had the feeling that his aunt and uncle felt likewise. That’s why he had jumped at the opportunity to join Hawk at his job site just north of Sudbury, Ontario, for the summer holidays.

  And what a summer it had turned out to be! Joe had nothing but time on his hands. It was too late to find a job for the summer and, to be honest, he hadn’t been trying too hard to find one. He chose instead to ride his motorcycle through the woods near Elliot Lake. The time flew by.

  Hawk’s job site was near Blind River, about five miles west of Elliot Lake on Highway 17. Elliot Lake had an interesting past. It was originally mined for uranium, but it had been abandoned for several years. It was Canada’s only official ghost town. Hundreds of homes were shuttered and abandoned. The downtown core was series of boarded-up retail shops. Five-story buildings were vacant. There was a magnificent four-lane highway, now empty, off the main Trans-Canada route into the downtown area. The highway was in surprisingly good shape after ten years of neglect, though grass now grew between its cracks.

  Frowning at the thought that his brother might have been hurt, Hawk urged Joe to clean up. Later, when Joe was back in the kitchen, Hawk said, “Sit. What do you want to drink?”

  “Just a soda, thanks. Look, my bike’s still there and it’s stuck. It shouldn’t be stuck, but it is. Something’s holding it, and it isn’t the mud.”

  Hawk raised an eyebrow.

  “Can you help me get it back home?”

  Hawk shrugged. “Sure. Why not? After work tomorrow. I’ll borrow the ATV. We’ll go see what’s so weird.” He grinned at his brother. “You sure you didn’t hit your head?”

  “Why?”

  “Because it sounds so weird.”

  CHAPTER2

  ELLIOT LAKE

  The next day was overcast but mild. Summers in this part of Canada were usually hot and humid, near tropical, with swarms of deer flies and mosquitoes. Not this day. There was a constant, determined wind off the cool lake that drove the insects inland.

  When Hawk returned home from work in the late afternoon, the sun was still high. He had a small trailer hooked to the back of his Corvette. On the trailer was a mean green John Deere 4x4 ATV, strapped down on all four sides to the black trailer frame. The trailer had a steel mesh flip-down ramp at the rear, slightly rusted from wear.

  It was unusual to see a Corvette being used to haul a trailer. The car’s outer body was fabricated primarily of fiberglass, which, like glass, tends to shatter. The vehicle was also too light to make a very good truck. None of this stopped Hawk from having a trailer hitch welded to the car’s wishbone steel frame. The Corvette’s 427 engine – once one of GM’s truck engine blocks – was very powerful, and its anodized steel frame was certainly strong enough to haul around a light trailer.

  Hawk honked the horn as he pulled up to the house. Seconds later Joe charged out and met him in the driveway. He had just pulled on a fresh gray T-shirt.

  Hawk was grinning. “The boss let me use the ATV,” he said. He jumped out of the Vette and lowered the ramp, then backed the ATV off the trailer. The Corvette’s rear lurched appreciatively upward when the burden was lifted off the trailer.

  “Nice machine,” Joe said, as he looked at the John Deere. “Nothing like traveling in style. Let’s bring some tow rope.” He went to the carport and retrieved two rust-yellowed half-inch white nylon ropes. Like a range cowboy, he slung the ropes over his shoulder and mounted the ATV behind his brother.

  The vehicle drove handily down the neglected paved roads of their small subdivision and roared along the same trails that Joe had taken the day before. Dust snakes skittered away from the balloon wheels as the vehicle charged along the trail. Joe tapped Hawk on the shoulder as they approached the slide area. He signaled Hawk to slow down. Hawk nodded and slowed the vehicle to a crawl. He stopped the ATV on the edge of the washout and looked over the fifty-foot edge.

  “Quite a slide,” Hawk said, shaking his head. “It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”

  Hawk began the descent down the hill in a crisscross pattern, like a skier coming down a steep mountain. He managed to direct the ATV to the spot where the Suzuki stood. It was a curious sight.

  Hawk killed the engine, jumped off the ATV, and walked up to the bike. Joe was right behind, rope in hand. Hawk bent down on one knee to examine the bike. He braced himself and shoved hard. The bike wobbled and returned to the same position. He tried pushing it several more times, finally glancing up with a puzzled look.

  “Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. What do you think, Joe?”

  “Something is holding the bike upright. I told you, this is so weird. Let’s use the rope and see if we can pull her free with the ATV. You drive.”

  Joe wound the rope around the frame to distribute the load, then hooked the ends to the ATV ball hitch.

  “Gently. Gently,” he told Hawk as the ATV pulled the rope taut.

  The ATV wheels struggled for a foothold in the soggy dirt. It slowly pulled away from the bike. The strap began to stretch. Then, suddenly, the bike broke free and was dragged sideways toward the ATV.

  “Like pulling a tooth,” Joe said. He walked toward the prone motorbike lying undignified on the ground. He stopped in his tracks. “Hey! Hawk, look at this.”

  Hawk unhooked the rope from the ATV and stowed it in the vehicle’s storage compartment. He came over to Joe and looked where he was staring. Where the bike had been, the dirt was roughed up, revealing a small patch of metallic surface. Joe bent down and brushed the dirt away, exposing more silver metal. It was so shiny it appeared backlit. Looking at each other in excitement, the two boys began to claw away at the ground.

  “Something big is buried here,” Joe said. “I wonder if it’s an airplane.”

  “Could be. Maybe an old crash site.”

  “Maybe there are bodies inside,” Joe said. “Let’s dig some more and find out.”

  “Why not? There’s still time to go back and get some shovels before nightfall.”

  “You go and get the shovels. I’ll stay and see if I can get my bike going. Don’t be long.”

  Joe always seemed to have an innate ability to understand things mechanical. So Hawk wasn’t surprised, when he drove up a half hour later, to hear the motorbike idling noisily, its throaty exhaust gurgling away.

  “Got her going, I see.”

  “There was some flooding in the carb, but yeah, I got her going.” Joe looked over at Hawk, then at the bike. “I had to be careful. You don’t want to fire up the engine without purging any trapped fuel. It could blow out the cylinder wall.”

  Joe’s face screwed up as he watched Hawk unload the gear from the ATV. “Nice shovels,” he said. “Who gets the snow shovel?”

  “Hold on now,” Hawk said. “I have been giving our little mystery some thought. I came up with a theory.”

  He pulled a metal spade from the ATV. Walking over to the object, he began a digging motion with the metal spade. He aimed the spade at a mound of dirt covering the silver surface. As the blade arched downward, it attached itself to the metal surface. The shovel seemed glued to the metal. It took their combined strength to wrestle the shovel free.

  “So we now know that our airplane here is magnetic,” Hawk said.

  “That’s weird. Since when are airplanes magnets?”

  “Beats me, but this one sure as hell is.” Hawk grinned directly at Joe and arched his eyebrows. “I have just the thing.” He nodded toward the other shovels. “These snow shovels are made of fiberglass. They aren’t metallic. They won’t stick. I say we use them for the close-in work and
save the spade for the other stuff.” He repeated the shoveling action with the other fiberglass shovel.

  The fiberglass shovel worked. “Then this thing does have some sort of magnetic field,” Joe said.

  “Exactly,” Hawk replied with a smile. “Here you go, start digging.”

  He tossed a shovel to Joe.

  “Hey, Hawk,” Joe said a few minutes later as he shoveled. “Did you notice something strange when you hit the metal wing with the metal shovel? What did you hear?”

  Hawk paused a minute, blue plastic shovel arched in mid-air. “Nothing. I heard nothing.”

  “Right! That’s the point. There was no sound, no clanging noise. How can that be?”

  Joe walked over, picked up the metal shovel, and swung it downward. There was perhaps a whisper of a thudding sound, as if from very far away. Absent was the familiar clang of metal on metal.

  “Now that’s just plain spooky, isn’t it?” Joe said.

  Hawk leaned on his shovel, looking back at Joe. “It’s a genuine mystery, Joe. It must defy all the laws of normal science. Well, any laws that I know. Let’s dig and find out what the hell this thing is.”

  They toiled for almost three hours before the light finally failed. Hawk mopped his brow into the armpit of his T-shirt. “I’m done for now. Let’s call it a night.”

  Hawk jumped up onto the ATV horseback style and turned the starter. The machine coughed to life. He flicked on the headlamp and observed their work. They had excavated a patch of ground roughly ten feet by ten feet, exposing a shiny metallic surface that reflected the light from the headlamp. It was still only a shallow hole, less than three feet deep. The mudslide had done most of the heavy uncovering for them.

  “How big is this damn thing?” Hawk asked.

  “Don’t know, Hawk. But life just got a whole lot more interesting.”

  Joe kicked down on the starter. The Suzuki engine gave a tenor roar. His right toe nudged downward and the bike clicked into first gear.

  Holding in the clutch with his left hand and the brake with the other, Joe leaned toward Hawk and shouted, “Leave the shovels. I’m coming back tomorrow.”