by Kyanna Skye
Tris looked around for some kind of weapon as drastic thoughts crossed her mind. Maybe throwing herself off the edge of the balcony wasn’t a sure-fire way to protect her from falling into madness. But an alternate thought also sailed across the front part of her brain and she felt she had the spine to attempt it.
Here she had the sons of the man who owned the island. Much as she hated to do anything violent the idea of taking either of these men as a hostage and demanding to be returned to… well… anywhere but here, suddenly held great appeal. If she could get down to the docks while holding a knife or something to either man’s throat… they would have to take her anywhere she wanted.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jon said.
Tris froze, fear overcoming her malevolence. “Excuse me?”
“You’re thinking that there’s no way out… that you feel like someone is standing on your chest… that you can’t breathe. It’s like suddenly the world should be a much bigger place but all you have is… this,” he said as he swept his arm across the room, encompassing the entire island.
Tris tried to gather her fortitude and stepped away from the balcony door and deeper into the room. She could not see anything that she could use as a weapon, not even an improvised one. Even though her mind was still pressed with desires of escape, there was something to this man’s words that had caught her attention. There was a note of sympathy inside of them. And despite her thoughts she had the strange feeling that these two posed no threat.
Not really.
Jacob held up a hand to keep her calm as he took one cautious step deeper into the room. “How much did he tell you?”
Tris, again, looked curiously at the pair of men. She was confused but thought it best to answer with the only truth she knew. “That monsters are real… they ate the people on a sightseeing barge… and I’m stuck here.” She felt herself leaning against a wall. “And I’m starting to think that I’ve gone bat-shit crazy.”
Jon smiled at the remark, Jacob chuckled.
“What?”
“There was a time when I thought the exact same thing,” Jacob said. “Both of us had at one point, I’m sure.”
Jon licked his bottom lip contemplatively. “He told us what he told you, Tris. And while he told you the truth about why you have to stay, he didn’t tell you everything. He left some of it up to us because… well, because we’ve been through it before. And believe me, you’re lucky. When I first came here I didn’t have anyone to help me adjust. I had to come to it naturally and it was harder for me. I didn’t have Jacob here to help me out until years later. But now… there’s something that can help you through it. You’ll understand everything a lot easier if you’ll just hear us out.”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Tris said, holding up her hands and hoping that the crazy flying around the room would keep away from her. “Wait… just… wait!” She took a breath and worried that the last of her sanity might be leaving her even now. “Just, tell it to me straight now. No more subtleties… no more half-truths… none of that shit. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”
Jacob nodded. “If you like… although, you might want to sit down.”
Tris didn’t move.
“Suit yourself,” he said indifferently, “you say you want the truth?”
“I’m all ears.”
Jon settled on the bed, the towel he wore hiking up a little and exposing a little more of his leg. “The truth is… I’m one hundred and seventy one years old. Jacob here is just a little over seventy. I came to this place just after the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. My father was a wealthy merchant in St. Louis and when the war broke out he was afraid for me. He didn’t want me to get inducted into the army so he packed up me and everything that he had and decided to make a quick run for the Bahamas on his private yacht… though we never made it that far. We saw the Sea Snags and we ran aground here on this island trying to get away from them.” He pointed at Jacob. “Jake here was a pilot… crashed here just before the Korean War got started. Snags tried to get him too, but they didn’t know he was a champion swimmer… he made it ashore before they got him.”
“Luke found us both, took us in, and eventually he made us into what we are. We’ve been here ever since,” Jacob said fondly.
Tris had seen enough bad television in her time to know a false story when she heard done. And there was nothing false about this tale. It sounded like something out of one of those corny soap operas, but she had seen evidence to the contrary that her mind was still trying to make sense out of.
“Bullshit,” she said simply. No other resolution came to her mind but that.
“It’s not,” Jon replied. “It’s a hard truth, Tris. But it is the truth.”
Tris shook her head. “Sea monsters… no way off this island… and you’re a hundred and seventy one years old? And you, you’re seventy?”
This time, the two men said nothing. All they did was wear an expectant look upon their faces. Tris could read that expression easily enough. They were simply waiting for her to accept it or to flatly ignore it.
“And what… you’ve survived all this time by sleeping in a coffin and drinking blood, I bet?”
Jon shook his head disgustedly. “What? Ewww! No!”
“I hate it when people think that’s the only way to live forever,” Jake added.
“That’s the other thing I need to tell you about,” Jon said.
Tris felt her legs tremble. “There’s more?”
Jon blew out a sharp breath. “Well, you saw us… our other halves, I mean. We can explain that a little. What do you know about mythology? Specifically what do you know about monsters… beasts… half-breeds… that kind of thing?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Jon went on, “not everything that you might have heard is untrue. There are… things… in the world that are real. Luke is one of them… and now you know that we are too.”
Tris took a cautious step backwards. The notion of hurling herself over the balcony might yet be a viable option if she did it just before the madness took hold of her. But curiosity stemmed her desire for a quick death. She wanted to hear what the nearly naked men had to say. She wanted to know how far gone she was so that she might know what kind of insanity she was in for.
“Luke himself never really knew what he was called. If his people ever had a name then it never made it into the history books… or the mythology books, come to that. He just always called himself a Scale.”
“A Scale?” Tris asked incredulously. “Somehow I don’t think that has anything to do with measuring weight. Does it?”
“No… it’s hard to explain. He was born that way. But he was able to share the gift with us.”
“I wouldn’t call turning into a… Scale… a gift.”
Jacob shrugged. “A hundred years ago nobody thought being turned into a werewolf or a vampire would be a gift either. But today, thanks to popular culture, people would be lining up around the corners to get their shot at immortality because they think it’s cool.”
“And if you’ll let us,” Jon said, “we can show you that you’re not in any danger.”
It took some small amount of coaxing, but the two finally managed to convince her to sit upon the bed. Her legs felt as if they were about to fail her so she had accepted. And faced by the two men, she waited for them to explain themselves on why she was being kept as she was and for benediction that she was not in any danger. She welcomed it. She didn’t feel the urge to vomit, fight, or scream. She simply felt… drained. If there was anything left inside of her of her old self, it was too weak to care what happened to her next.
Her eyes fell to a glint of metal in Jon’s hand. The small flask he had brought in was clutched in his fingers. “Drink this. It’ll help and it’ll make you feel better.”
She looked at the flask warily. “Will it help me forget?”
Jon shook his head. “No. But it will help you calm down.”
&nbs
p; Without hesitation and a desire to blunt whatever it was that was happening to her mind she took the flask and put it to her lips. She turned it upright and took a mouthful of whatever it was that inside.
She almost gagged as the kick it provided was nothing that she was expecting. It wasn’t alcohol that she had swallowed, she was positive of that. It was something more putrid, like a cross between foul tasting cough syrup and motor oil. How it could help her she was unsure, but it was something else definitely other than a stiff drink.
But it did have an effect. And it took hold of her almost immediately.
Her mind flooded with images. Images that somehow she knew were memories… but not her own. It was like standing on a cloud during a tornado and being able to stare down into the funnel before the winds eventually sucked her in. Image after image beat her, swooshing by at speeds she could not comprehend.
She tried to hang on to them as they passed her by.
She saw men… ancient men, dressed in chainmail or full armor plates, almost as if she were watching them through one of the nausea-making face cams from a reality TV show. The image seemed to swirl and wobble uncontrollably as she tried to hold the armored figures in her eyes. In her heart, she felt a sense of uncontrollable fear… fear of those men. Many of the pursuing figures were on horseback while others were on foot, waving medieval weapons around menacingly as they gave chase.
The images seemed to shift. She saw more men, droves of them as they chased down creatures identical to the ones she’d seen standing in the courtyard through thickets and swamps, forests, and even in towns or villages. The animals were overturned and slaughtered by spears and swords.
The images changed. She saw the same creatures, living inside hollow spaces of rock and damp caves. Several of them were larger specimens while the others were considerably smaller. They were huddled together, like newly born kittens around a sleeping mother. Light suddenly poured into the cave, stirring each of the creatures. Their – her – eyes seemed to turn upward just as something thick and smelling of oil came pouring in, covering the creatures. And a torch came in after it, igniting the pitch and the animals within screaming in their own language for… mercy.
She felt a sudden heat in her heart that had nothing to do with fire set before her eyes. It was the kind of emotion she would expect to see at seeing something – anything – being slaughtered. It was outrage.
A new scene was set before her eyes. This one was of a woman, dressed in an elegant blue gown. She stood face to face with one the animals. It stood upright on its hind legs, its body scarred with wounds that looked inflicted from arrows or wire traps. The woman was clearly not frightened… in fact, she seemed almost… saddened at the sight of the poor creature. She took hold of the creature as if she were embracing a giant teddy bear, weeping into its soft belly.
“I’ll not let them slay you… I’ll not! I couldn’t bear the thought of your death!” She stepped back away from the creature and tears rolled freely down her cheeks. “You’re the last of your kind… I swear on the graves of those that came before me, I shall protect you!”
The woman began to weave her hands in circular motions and she began to mutter in some language that Tris could not understand. Her eyes could not leave the sight as small flickers of blue flame began to dance in the air, fluttering upon the air as gently as butterflies. The small wisps of fire began to circle the creature, which stood firmly upon its ground, not moving, unafraid of what was happening to the air around it.
Tris felt her eyes widen at the sight. The monster… the creature… the animal… it understood her words. It somehow knew what she was doing and accepted it. It trusted her to do what she was doing. That was not the mark of an animal… or a monster. It was intelligent… and more than that, she could somehow feel the creature’s fear of the alternative and knew that this path was the better one.
Slowly, the beasts’ stubby arms grew into humanlike arms and legs. Its tail retracted into its body, its head and torso became that of a man’s. Its beardlike appendages extended into a black and bushy beard, its head spikes extended into a long and thick mane of hair. The glassy look of its skin became pale and human, and with the last rays of the setting sun that she had not noticed, she saw fractal patterns on this new man’s skin. Patterns that Tris knew she had seen before… and recently.
The strange form of the creature was gone. In its place stood a man, naked and shivering, but a man. And from the look of him, she saw features that were familiar. The man looked almost like…
The image imploded.
Tris jolted and opened her eyes, her fingers still clutched around the tiny metal flask and Jacob and Jon were still standing just where they had been when first she’d taken the proffered container.
Tris found that she felt calm. Panic had gone from her mind as had fear of insanity. Somehow, she understood what had happened here. She wasn’t sure how, but she did. She was able to comprehend… well, everything… that had had happened. It wasn’t just the story of Luke… it was the story of his ancestors. His words, and that of his son’s… hell everything that they’d said before, she understood it all now.
“My god,” she whispered, lowering the flask from her lips. “How long was I out?”
“You weren’t,” Jacob said, taking the flask back and capping it. “It happens instantaneously. The rapid progression of the memories makes it easier for you to understand.” He smirked, “We told you there was a way to help you understand. Though I must apologize, it was a little unpleasant to witness, wasn’t it?”
Tris rolled it all around in her mind, trying to make sense of it. “So… dragons then?” she asked, looking over to the two men in her room. Interestingly enough, she was no longer afraid of either of them. She knew that it wasn’t in their nature to hurt her… or anyone.
As if the question were benediction enough, both men smiled at her.
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call us ‘Dragons’. Dragons by all accounts and from every culture in the world that had such stories, breathe fire or fly… we can’t do either of those. And neither could any of our ancestors. If I had to guess I would say we were a cousin to the dragons,” Jacob said.
“And… the woman?” she asked curiously, though she knew that the two brothers would know whom she was speaking of.
“Luke’s great-great-great-something grandmother,” Jon replied. “People of the world tend to think that magic is something from ancient stories. I used to think so too. Back then, in the ancient days, it was a rule and not simply a flight of fancy like we think of it today. It’s become something for children to believe in, something that people grow out of as they mature. We’re happy to keep it that way. It keeps us from having to endure the same fears and fates as those that you witnessed.”
She thought it out and rose up to stand before the semi-naked men. “So… those things that I saw? The chases… the fire in the cave…?”
“Memories,” Jon confirmed. “Or at least, I assume that’s what they are, as seen through the eyes of those who survived them. That last was a bit wasn’t a memory exactly. It was a part of the original magic and it has endured through the generations so that we would never forget where we came from or why it’s so important that we hide as we do.”
Tris was able to put the rest of the mystery together for herself. “So… Luke… since he was able to look human he amassed enough wealth to buy this island where he and all of you could hide from the rest of the world. That much I get… but… the cleaning staff… the guards?”
“They all know what we are. That’s why you don’t see any armed guards here after you screamed today. Some of them might someday want us to share our gift with them if they ask for it. Some of them stay human, however. Their ancestors also served our father. They’ve formed their own family of sorts. They’re our protectors… our guardians… much like the sorceress in the vision was. And here, on this island, we’re safe.”
It felt as if her hold on rea
lity had been reaffirmed and anchored by unbreakable chains, though she had no measureable means of explaining how they’d gotten there. For a few heartbeats it felt as if she could have laughed at herself for thinking that there was no such thing as monsters. In a way, monsters had always been here. It was simply that no one else had had the ability to see it.
“So…” she asked, looking at the two men. “You can become one… and then what? You can live forever?”
“Well, not forever,” Jacob admitted. “From what we’ve learned the species is hardy… but even Luke won’t live forever. Luke and Simone simply age slowly, very slowly. Jon and I… well, we’ll age pretty slowly too, but our blood is kind of watered down since we were once human, so we won’t live as long. But Luke told us that his mother and father lived to be nearly eight hundred before they passed on.”
“But… the government?” Tris said, sensing a weak spot in this grand plan of seclusion. “Eventually they’ll see that you’re still alive and they’ll wonder how…?”
“To the government, all we are is names on a check that pays taxes every year,” Jon explained. “Money buys privacy. And as the years go on… well… maybe we’ll damage our sense of honesty a little and pretend to be my our owns sons… or grandsons… whatever it takes to ensure that we’re safe here. Nobody much cares to check in on us as long as we pay the taxes.”
She felt awed. There were no words to describe how her life had changed in the last twenty-four hours. Sea Snags… lost at sea… washed ashore on a rich man’s island… finding that he had two sons that were more than a little appealing to behold… and that they were some kind of dragon people living on an island that was reserved strictly for their own paradise.
More than simple understanding overcame Tris once she realized the power of the secrecy that she had now been entrusted with. It wasn’t cruelty that Luke had been intent on inflicting upon her, it was mercy and kindness. And his sons had come here to reinforce that point.