On the Isle of Sound and Wonder

by Alyson Grauer

  It was a funny thing, that feeling; it happened from time to time. There would be a cold shift in the air and an odd, musical sound, and then it always made him feel as though he were squeezed into a narrow space between two unyielding rocks, claustrophobia creeping into the edges of his mind and paralyzing him. No matter how hard he tried to pass through the strange pressure, it would not budge, and he found himself frozen in place until the peculiar thing passed.

  Karaburan paused, sniffing the breeze that fluttered through the stray, dry dune grass nearby, his hands and toes tingling as though they’d been numb a moment ago. Then he took a step toward the forest, resuming his previous mission of foraging for his guests.

  The invisible barrier took him completely by surprise. His momentum brought him face first against an unseen wall and flung him unceremoniously backward. Karaburan grabbed at his head in agony, howling in surprise and anger. As he fell to the ground, staggered by the uneven earth and the shock of the obstacle, he heard laughter like wind chimes, delicate and irksome.

  “Leave me be!” cried Karaburan, scooting backward from the wall. “I’ve done nothing wrong!” His heart pounded, anxiety clouding his mind as he looked about for the source of the laughter. The island made strange noises sometimes, and stranger things had happened on his walks than an invisible wall springing up out of nowhere; but in general, Karaburan did not fear the island that was his home. Now, though, dread bubbled in the pit of his stomach like tar, slowing his speech and constricting his breath.

  “Say ‘please,’ ” a lazy voice trilled from a nearby tree. Karaburan swung about, searching for the owner of the voice, but saw no one. “Go on then,” the voice prompted. “Say ‘pretty please.’ ”

  “Please,” murmured Karaburan, frantically looking for the face that matched the voice. I’ve heard this voice before, he thought, his heart pounding like cannons in his chest. I don’t know who it is, but I’ve heard it before.

  “No,” giggled the voice daintily. “You didn’t say ‘pretty.’ It’s ‘pretty please,’ these days.” It erupted into peals of laughter, which echoed back at Karaburan from off the barrier before him, cutting him off from the rest of the forest.

  Karaburan tried to catch his breath, but panic rose in his mind, and it became difficult to focus. “Who’s there? What do you want?”

  “It’s me,” answered the voice, “I’m here. And I want to make you suffer.”

  A great gust of air rushed at him, and he found himself completely bowled over backward, the sand and grasses whipping at his skin as the wind raged about him. Karaburan cried out in pain as rocks and sticks flew at his body, bouncing off of him and scattering across the ground. He crouched, covering his head with his arms, and waited for the whirlwind to pass, praying that it would not carry him away. The voice on the air roared about him, its chiming laughter echoing in his ears, until at last the rushing air faded away, dust settling on Karaburan where he lay on the ground.

  His heart pounded. He had never been attacked like this before. He had heard strange things and seen peculiar visions, but he had never physically been harmed. It almost frightened him more than his nightmares the eve before: that endless, horrifying loop of hunting, finding, and ravishing the struggling girl in the dark.

  Karaburan banished the memory from his mind, his skin prickling with uncertainty and revulsion as he sat up on his knees and tried not to weep at the vision. He had a light welt on his arm where a branch had struck him, and his body stung in fifty places where small stones had bit him as they passed by. Karaburan felt the terror trembling in his hands and face, and every nerve in his body screamed to run back to his hovel in the rocks, but he hesitated, recalling his guests who waited, who depended on him for coconuts and other sustenance.

  Karaburan looked about, his large eyes watery, and sniffed. The bag of coconuts was on the ground a little ways off, so he got to his feet and lumbered over to them. As he reached for the canvas bag, it slid across the dirt several feet so that it was just out of his grasp. Not understanding, Karaburan moved forward to reach again, and again the sack slid a few feet out of reach. The third time, Karaburan bellowed in frustration, slamming his hands against the hard earth. That infuriating laugh danced through the leaves, mocking his anger and hurt as easily as a fish mocks the clumsy fisherman’s bait.

  “What do you want?” roared Karaburan. His heart thumped in distress; he only wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. There was a rustle to his left, and he turned to look, sniffling.

  Mira came walking out of the trees, her expression pitying and somber. Karaburan’s heart caught in his throat, and he felt as if he might never breathe again. Dante’s daughter was lean and long-legged, but her hips sloped with the early touch of Nature’s growth, and she wore a man’s old tunic wrapped tight at her waist with rope. Her long hair flowed and shone in the sun, dark honey-colored locks laced through with paler gold. Everything about her seemed bright and newly washed, her lips parting in a shy expression of apology as she looked down at him with her cool green eyes. She moved slowly, as though she did not want to frighten him, and he trembled in her presence.

  “Karaburan, my poor friend,” Mira murmured, her voice like downy feathers on a baby bird. “It’s been so long since I last saw you.”

  “M-m-mistress,” stammered the monster as he shivered, “your father bade me never look on you again, and never have I seen you ‘til now.” He hesitated, lingering between covering his eyes with his hands and not wanting to look away from her radiance.

  “My father is an evil man. He separated us when we were meant to be together always.” Mira knelt near him, peering into his face with her bright eyes and concerned brow. “You and I were such friends once, and now we are strangers. Would you rather it remain so?”

  “No,” croaked Karaburan, reaching out to her with one hand. “I long to serve you and be near you again. Please, please forgive me, Mistress.”

  “Forgive you? You are already forgiven.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it gently. Karaburan’s eyelids fluttered shut for a moment, so gratifying was the feeling that swept through him.

  “I did not mean to hurt you,” he whispered, large tears swelling in the corners of his pale eyes.

  Mira tipped her head at him. “Do I seem injured to you?”

  He shook his head fervently. “No, Mistress, you are perfect and well and very beautiful.”

  Mira gave him a little smile. “Then you have nothing to be sorry for.” She leaned in a little more. “That night when everything went wrong . . . I was young and not ready. Now I am ready. What you dreamed of will be yours—if it is what you still wish,” she added with a rosy blush creeping over her cheeks.

  Karaburan thought his heart would burst. “I do, I do wish it,” he confessed, voice barely above a whisper.

  “There is only one thing that must be done before we are together at last,” Mira breathed, inching closer.

  “Say what is to be done, Mistress, and your Karaburan will do it!”

  “My father must die, and then his spells will break. You and I will have the island to ourselves. It will no more be a prison to us both, but a paradise for our joys combined. Kill my father, and we shall both be rewarded.”

  Karaburan’s heart skipped a beat. He did not wish to kill anyone, for he believed, as his mother had, that all life was precious and should at least be respected, if not actively defended. But Dante was a cruel ruler of the island. Karaburan thought on how his childhood had been saved by the sudden arrival of Dante and Mira, but then how, a mere few years later, Dante had begun to treat him as a lesser creature to his own daughter. Then, when Mira was fourteen, Karaburan had made the big mistake, and Dante had banished him to servitude, forcing him to gather food and firewood for them and act as their slave. Since the night of that mistake, he had not seen Mira face to face ‘til now. To kill Dante and be free—his own man—would be a blessing.

  “Your servant shall do this,” Karaburan growle
d softly. Mira smiled brightly and squeezed his hand.

  “After he is dead, we will be free to do as we please,” she promised him, and leaned forward. Karaburan closed his eyes hopefully, and waited for her lips to brush his own pebbled skin.

  The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air, thrown by a blast of heat as though from the mouth of a volcano. He landed hard, the wind expelled from his lungs so roughly that he gasped for air, and scrabbled his hands and feet at the ground to try and right himself. His ears rang from the impact and he struggled to sit up; as his mind cleared he could hear the glass-shattering laughter from before, echoing all around him.

  “Mira!” Karaburan choked, trying to get up, to protect her from the wicked thing that tortured him. “Run! Run away!”

  The laughter sputtered and guffawed. “That wasn’t her, you shell-scraped primordial sandwich,” sneered the voice. “That was me! I am sent to torture you so long as you are a slave, Karaburan, and you are still a slave.”

  “I will kill him and be free!” he bellowed. He was outraged and heartsick and tired. Little stones began to rain down on him, thrown by unseen hands, as the voice cackled and giggled. Karaburan’s anger flushed hot on his face, his body almost numb to the rocks, so great was his distraction. “I will kill him, and I will be free of you, of all of you!” He slammed his hands on the ground in frustration, then hobbled to the coconut bag and snatched it up before it could run away again.

  I will feed these men, and I will tell them the sadness of my story, and they will help me kill Dante. Karaburan turned and ran toward the woods, determined to gather as much food as he could to better woo his guests to his purpose. When he is dead, I will find Mira and tell her I love her. And I will be free.

  * * *

  As the monster lumbered off into the woods, his mission fresh and furious in his mind, Aurael let his laughter dull to a smug chuckle. He smiled as he landed on the spot where Karaburan had howled with anguish, pleased at how well that had gone and how refreshed he felt.

  It’s been ages since I made him hallucinate like that, he realized fondly. Lovely to finally stretch that muscle again.

  The monster would plot a horrible murder, Aurael suspected; not horrible in the sense of being gruesome, but horrible in that Karaburan would probably not be very good at scheming. But he’d found some castaways, and perhaps he would be all the better for their help.

  Need to stay busy, in case his nibs calls me again, thought Aurael with a scowl. Then the spirit stretched and yawned, sated from the encounter, and took to the air again to continue his search for survivors.

  Ferran felt sunlight on his face and opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep, but it felt like it had been years. He inhaled slowly, feeling his joints creak. Birds sang in the trees above him, strange calls that he’d never heard before. The sun was warm, but he lay beneath a particularly shady set of trees, and although the light fell dappled from above, he was mostly protected from the heat. It was somewhat muggy, and the occasional strange insect buzzed by his head as he lay there, but for the greater part, he felt quite alone and unbothered by nature.

  He sat up slowly, propping his back against the nearest tree trunk, letting himself adjust to the greenery, the sunshine, the strange sounds around him. After a few moments, he thought he heard music—some sort of reedy instrument—from somewhere far off, but it faded quickly. The birdsong in the canopy and the peeping of unseen frogs in the underbrush drowned out even the sound of his own breath. It was enchanting, how warm and golden everything looked, how relaxing the sounds were. The solitude of the moment was overpowering, and Ferran let his eyes close again for a moment, relishing the sudden feeling of peace with the world around him.

  In his mind’s eye, he remembered the flash of lightning, an explosion; he saw rain and storm and choppy waves; he felt the cold slap of the water, the darkness that swallowed him, and the bleak loss that followed.

  Ferran gasped and his eyes shot open, startled by his own memory. I’m dead, he realized. How could anyone have survived that? We are all dead. He thought about the disapproving looks his father had given him at dinner that night, before the ship went down. Ferran’s stomach lurched and he dropped forward onto all fours, retching, though nothing came up.

  Something shifted in the trees nearby, and his head snapped up. The pace was too decisive to be an animal wandering through the green. Ferran sat still in the leafy undergrowth, looking around for the source of the sound.

  A girl came walking up the gentle hill through the trees, and she was entirely unlike any girl Ferran had ever seen. He could not see her face very well, her eyes hidden as they were by strange, boxy goggles. She had strong shoulders, and from the look of her long legs, stood some inches taller than himself. Her skin was a warm, golden olive—darker than his own skin. There was a softer, more feminine shape to her firm mouth and sharp chin than found in the lines of her arms. There was something womanly beginning in the curve of her hips, but she did not saunter or stride the way the courtiers did back home; she carried herself the way an animal does, without sense of age or gender, and no pretense.

  She stopped several yards off and stood still, as if in a moment of reflection, looking down at something she held in one hand. Her other hand was clasped around a stick—no, a spear—almost as tall as her. Her wild and untethered appearance was more than a little intimidating, her hair a ratted, tangled plait of brown and gold that seemed to have never known a comb or brush. She wore a ragged, sun-bleached man’s shirt and strange scraps of leather, all of it bound up with rope in the most peculiar but utilitarian sort of way. I’ll be damned, Ferran thought to himself. I’m not dead after all, and the island has natives!

  A bright, strange beetle flew buzzing past his nose, and Ferran recoiled sharply in surprise. The shrubs around him rustled and shifted, and the girl looked up sharply in his direction. Ferran froze, unsure what to do. The girl began to move again, taking long strides toward his hiding place. I could run, but where to? This is her home, she’d find me out sooner or later.

  The girl was nearly upon him, spear hoisted, when Ferran leapt to his feet, hands in the air to show empty palms and nothing to hide. “Please! Don’t, don’t do that, I’m unarmed!”

  He must have startled her, for she made a terrible noise and stumbled mid-stride, dropping the small thing in her right palm to take the spear with both hands now, her body crouched uncertainly in wary defense. The spear point was level with his sternum, steady and well-aimed.

  “I’m sorry, sorry to startle you,” he went on, his voice suddenly dry and ragged. “I didn’t mean to. I’m rather lost. Wondering if you could help me . . .” He swallowed helplessly as she continued to aim her homemade weapon at his chest. I’m no threat, he thought, hoping she at least understood his body language. She didn’t move. “I only speak Italesh, I’m sorry . . . I don’t know your language. Whatever it is,” Ferran added miserably.

  “You assume much,” the girl said, her voice rough and bemused. Ferran felt his eyebrows shoot upward as she relaxed her stance, planting the butt of her spear into the soil and peeling back her dark mask of steel and glass. “I speak your tongue.”

  “You . . . do?” Ferran felt disoriented. This indigenous girl had a face that was more the shape of one from his own country than any foreign stranger, and her eyes were an utterly strange and brilliant bluish-green.

  “Yes, clearly.” Her gaze narrowed in study of him. “How do you feel? You seem much improved.”

  “I . . . how so, improved?” His head felt fuzzy from standing up too quickly. The sun bore down on him now that he was not hidden by shady trees and close to the damp ground.

  “Who do you think pulled you onto the beach?” She leaned on her spear, peering into his face. “Or do you not remember? We spoke then, though briefly, and you were much exhausted from the waves and sun.”

  Ferran felt his head begin to throb. “Who are you?”

  “I wanted to
ask you that myself,” said the girl, and grinned at him. “I’m called Mira. And you?”

  “Ferran,” he answered, leaving out the titles and surnames for now. He did, however, offer her a slight bow, and his hand. She did not take it right away, and he looked up, already feeling foolish for having done so out of habit. She squinted at him. “It’s a handshake,” he told her. I must sound pathetic, he realized. First contact with a stranger on a desert island and I expect her to know a courtly gesture? Stupid.

  “Handshake?” echoed Mira, staring at his upturned palm. “You aren’t shaking it.”

  “No, you have to clasp it with your own, and then we both shake them,” he explained. “Here, like this—” He reached for her hand to press it against his own.

  Before he knew what had happened, Mira snatched her hand away and checked him upwards on the jaw with her elbow before backing up several paces into a ready stance, the spear held aloft with the unsharpened end pointing down at his pate. Ferran’s hands flew to his jaw and face, and he blinked several times.

  “Ow!” he groaned. “What was that for?” Ferran stepped back to look warily at her.

  Mira stared back at him a moment, then appeared to relax bit by bit. She lowered and righted the spear. She seemed to have a hard time choosing the right words, her expression growing more frustrated as her jaw worked in silence.

  “I am sorry if I startled you again,” he said more gently. “I ought not to have tried to touch you. I’m sorry.”

  His guess had been right; Mira’s expression cleared and became neutral, and then, after a moment, softened again altogether. She nodded, her mouth a thin line. “Fine,” she replied. “You are thirsty and hungry, I’m sure. Come with me.”