On the Isle of Sound and Wonder

by Alyson Grauer

  “Don’t move until I give the signal,” she whispered, and touched his chest briefly to plant him in place with her own spell, intending to cut him loose as soon as it was safe. Ferran looked startled at the touch, but then exhaled softly and nodded again. Mira moved quickly to undo the holding spells on each of the other prisoners, glancing over her shoulder at her father and Karaburan as she did so.

  Dante looked up at the ceiling of the cavern, his cheeks pale in the torchlight. His eyes were cold and dark, his mouth a grim line, but otherwise, he seemed as though nothing had happened. The hole in the roof showed the first glimmer of moonlight beginning to peep through, brightening the spot on the floor, and he stood carefully.

  He retrieved the bone ladle, moving away from the corpse on the ground as though it were not even there. Karaburan half-crawled away from the corner where he’d been thrown, limping awkwardly, as if hurt. A second glance revealed that Karaburan clutched something under one arm, trying to hide it by hugging himself tightly as he made his way back toward the tunnel exit.

  Ferran shifted his weight, and Dante looked over at him before getting to his feet. “Be still, poor prince. We are all destined for the same dark end, all of us—except for myself, of course.”

  “You can’t cheat or conquer death,” Ferran croaked. “Postponing it isn’t the same thing. A wise man would know that.”

  “Then I suppose I am not a wise man,” Dante replied bitterly, gathering up the bone instrument from the floor and checking to be sure it had not cracked or leaked.

  Moonlight shone more brightly through the ceiling now, and Karaburan was almost to the passageway when Dante turned toward Ferran with the bone’s sharp edge.

  Almost done, Mira thought at Ferran as she unbound the last of the men. Keep talking!

  “What will you do with our blood?” Ferran demanded, wincing as the instrument moved closer to his skin.

  “It’s very technical.”

  “Humor me,” insisted Ferran, balling his hands into fists.

  Mira dashed toward Karaburan, her bare feet light and silent over the stone floor, her heart pounding in her ears. The book, the book, the book, the book!

  Dante sighed through his nose. His gray eyes were dull as he looked at the prince. “The blood of my betrayers to counterweight me. I am to call upon Death, and when He comes, I will barter for my wife . . . and now my daughter, too. I will try to retrieve them both, but if I must choose, I will choose my wife.” He glanced over his shoulder sadly to where Mira’s body lay on the stone floor.

  It was gone.

  “A trick!” Dante whirled, his eyes flashing. “What’s this?” he hissed, and looked toward Karaburan. “What have you done?”

  Breathless, Mira reached Karaburan just in time. Right here, she told him silently. Karaburan’s blue-gray scales gleamed in the moonlight as he turned, lifting the book up to hand it to her.

  “Stop!” commanded Dante, lunging at him, but it was too late.

  Mira took the book with her free hand and the invisible glamour melted away, revealing her in plain sight to the others’ eyes. She stared defiantly at her father, feeling the staff pulsing with energy in her hand, the glow from the runes pouring into her arm and spreading throughout her body. The sensation filled her with sudden strength and power and her knees nearly buckled in surprise, but after a moment, she caught her breath and the magic began to settle within her like a bird upon a perch, ready to take flight when ordered.

  Her father seemed frozen to the spot, his jaw slackened in disbelief. She lifted the staff and slammed it down; an earsplitting clap of thunder shook the walls of the cavern, snuffing out several torches. Dante staggered, thrown off balance by the force of it. Ferran and the other prisoners dropped down to the ground, released from the temporary binding spell.

  “Mira,” breathed Dante, his gray eyes wide. “You’re alive!”

  “I am,” she answered.

  “Daughter,” he swallowed cautiously, eyeing the book, the staff, and the cowering Karaburan at her side. “Whatever you think you’re doing . . . Give me my things back. Now.”

  “Or what?” Her voice was amplified by newfound power, rippling throughout the cavern and echoing back again. She held the book close to her chest and tipped her head to one side. “You’ll punish me, Father? You already have.”

  “Obey me,” stammered Dante, his entire body trembling like a leaf in autumn as anger seeped into his voice. “Give me my book. And my staff. You will obey me!”

  “I will not,” Mira replied curtly, and felt a surge of new power wash through her. She drew a deeper breath, exploring the feeling of control. “I wondered why you never let these old things out of your sight for all these years. They’re filled with your anger, your hunger for success, your sorrow. Was that how you were planning on courting Death’s favors? By bullying her?” Mira shook her head, her heavy plait swinging. “Hardly politic of him, don’t you think, Aurael?”

  “Quite rude, indeed,” agreed the spirit, stepping out of thin air behind Dante and grasping him about the throat and by the hair. His eyes were dark as pitch, and when he smiled, it was both happy and terrible. Dante gasped for air, clutching at his throat where he was held tight. “Don’t struggle, you’ll only make it better for me,” crooned the young man.

  “Aurael. Not yet,” Mira warned him.

  The spirit rolled his dark eyes and sneered down at Dante. “I will wait only a little longer,” he promised, through gritted, gleaming teeth.

  Mira walked toward the pattern painted on the ground and shook her head. “Even if you brought my mother back,” she said coolly, “what good would it do? What would you say? How would you excuse yourself to her for sending in so many other lives so that she might live again?” She gestured at the prisoners on the floor about the cavern. “Perhaps you should have used me to start with. Surely my blood is strongest in this case, being both yours and hers. If you had trapped me instead, you wouldn’t have lost your precious book.” The harshness in her own voice surprised her for a moment, but the thrumming flow of light and warmth from the staff made Mira hold her ground. “Either you stop this spell now, or I will.”

  “Please,” begged Dante from the headlock. “I did it for you, my daughter, I did it for us. They took everything from us because they were frightened of my power. They are nothing more than cowardly, backstabbing animals. You deserve a mother and we deserve to be a family, Mira, please . . .”

  “Please,” echoed Mira coldly. “Stop. Your lies are useless now. I heard you tell Ferran you’d choose my mother over me.” A light went out in Dante’s eyes, his breathless expression turning to a sneer for a split second before being overwhelmed by tears. “You went mad long ago, Father, and there’s no changing that now. I have to end this. You will gain nothing from this path, and yet you would lose everything.”

  “But I protected you!”

  “From what?” She frowned. “From the world? Yes, you did well to keep me hidden away on this island, using your magic to sow seeds of vengeance instead of new beginnings. You could have brought us a ship years ago, but you would rather have stayed here and played a god over me, over Karaburan, over Aurael.” Anger slithered through her limbs, making her tremble, and she swallowed back the curse that crept up the back of her throat. “You felt nothing when I needed you. You would not even so much as comfort me after Karaburan attacked me.”

  Dante’s voice was gentle and sickly sweet. “You were unharmed, and I needed time, Mira, sweet girl. And look at you now! So grown, so strong and intelligent. You would be a fine duchess. Your mother would be proud of you . . . she will be proud, when she arrives.” His gray eyes were pleading. “Please, let me do this, daughter. It is my fate to see her once more, to bring her back. Don’t you want to see her, too?”

  Mira hesitated, fighting for control of her nerves. “And murder all these people for one small chance?” she asked. “No. Destroy the spell, Father. Now.” She shifted her grip on the staff.

/>   “If she lives,” Dante vowed, “I will set things right.”He held her gaze, and Mira felt a twinge in the back of her mind. She almost wanted to believe him.

  “Mira,” Ferran coughed, but she did not look at him, her eyes fixed on her father. “He’ll kill us all! Your mother isn’t coming back!”

  “It will work,” said Dante, his voice calm and powerful. Aurael squeezed him tightly in his arms, but Dante did not struggle, staring at his daughter. “It will work, Mira, I promise you. I learned my magic from the very best. I will not fail to bring your mother home to us.”

  “Learned your magic? Or stole it?” Mira inhaled deeply and felt storm clouds brewing inside her. The staff and the book shook in her white-knuckled grip. “You learned your magic from a woman who you later banished to slavery.”

  Dante’s expression changed, his eyes darkening. “That’s not true.”

  “I hold the book. I have the staff you took from her,” Mira went on, fueled by her disgust, “and I have since had visions of my own. You betrayed her. You took what you wanted from her and left her to die . . . but she didn’t die, not right away. She was raped on that slave ship, Father. Raped, and shipwrecked on an island. This island.”

  Dante was shaking his head, slowly at first, but more and more emphatically, his eyes glassy with denial. “No,” he muttered, “No, no, no . . .”

  “She had a child as a result of that rape. Have you guessed what became of it?” Mira tilted her head sadly. “He’s here now.”

  Karaburan crouched near Mira, staring at Dante, his expression contorted with pain and anguished memory. Mira felt the echoes of the tiger’s feelings in her heart, emotions swelling and coiling tightly again.

  “You have woven your web too tightly, Father, and now it chokes you. Give this up, let them go, and use what power you have left to restore their health.”

  “If your mother had done her duty and kept my wife alive,” Dante snarled suddenly at Karaburan, “we would never have been in this mess! You would never have even been born!” He strained as though to lunge for the creature, but Aurael had wrapped him up tight as a python.

  Karaburan recoiled, making a sound of anguish.

  “Damn you!” Dante snarled furiously.

  “If you will not fix it, I will destroy the spell myself,” Mira warned her father again, taking a step closer.

  Dante laughed—a bitter, raw-throated sound. “You may have the book and the staff, but you’re hardly capable of wielding them properly, child. I studied for years to master their powers and strengthen my own. You’ve held them for mere minutes and have no inherent magical ability.”

  “Doesn’t that frighten you? Anything could happen if I try to stop the ritual.” She narrowed her eyes, pointing the staff at him levelly, frustration blossoming in her chest. “And how exactly can you be so certain I have no power? Am I not your daughter?”

  “I’m certain,” spat Dante, but his voice wavered as he eyed her suspiciously. “I would have known when you were young if you’d inherited anything at all.”

  “Did you test me or study me? Did you even try? Or was it worth nothing for you to even find out, since my mother was dead? From what I hear, you could focus on little else.”

  Dante narrowed his gaze. “You would not hurt me,” he whispered. “I am your father, and I am all you have left in this world.”

  “You’re right. I won’t hurt you,” Mira replied and swung the staff toward the ground, where the pattern smeared against the stone and dust. “But I warned you, and I will end this now!”

  The runes shone brightly, and Mira’s heart leapt. Break this ritual, she thought, focusing her mind. Blast it clean away. Lightning shot out from the staff, clawing at the floor of the cavern. When the crackling light faded, there were thick black scorch marks and cracks spread across the floor, shattering the pattern and the spells it contained.

  “No!” Dante bellowed with rage, struggling, but Aurael laughed in a shrill voice and held him tighter.

  “Everything you have done has been to hurt and destroy. It ends now,” declared Mira, leaning on the staff. Euphoria from destroying the spell rushed through and around her like a floodgate opened wide, but after a few moments, it ebbed, tempered with a shuddering exhaustion that built in her legs. I don’t know how much longer I can do this, she thought, her hands shaking.

  There was a rumble from deep within the rock. Mira looked around, the staff trailing streams of blue light in the air as she moved. Karaburan gave a little moan of worry, whirling about in search of the sound’s source.

  “What was that?” Mira demanded, turning to her father.

  “There are wards in place in case my conjuration is broken by another’s hand,” raged Dante, his gray eyes wild and angry. “For your insolence, the cave will swallow us all!”

  “I warned you to give this up!”

  Another rumble from deep within the cave shook the floor beneath them. Karaburan howled with fear, but Mira tapped the staff against the ground, already thinking fast. “Be still!” she commanded him. “I will make the men light so that you can carry them all at once. We must go before the walls come down. Now!”

  Mira threw her energy at the men’s bodies on the ground—only as heavy as a bundle of firewood—and little flares of light danced out from the staff to envelop each man. Karaburan lurched forward like a startled racehorse and gathered the fallen bodies in his large arms as easily as if they had been rags. Aurael scooped the struggling Dante up off the ground and soared toward the exit. Ferran clambered to his own feet, limping toward the exit after the others.

  “Go now!” Mira commanded. Aurael and Dante vanished down the passageway. Karaburan followed after them, carrying the men draped over his shoulders and in his arms. Ferran staggered forward like an ungainly colt, his legs like rubber as he ran, and Mira came after him.

  The rumbling and shuddering of the ground grew more violent with every step they took, and the darkness of the long passageway seemed to stretch on forever. Rocks broke apart and tumbled over one another, crashing like waves in their wake. Ferran cried out in pain, struggling to keep pace.

  “Faster!” Mira grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him along with her. Her grip was strong, and her strides made faster by the magic within her, so Ferran let himself be swept forward by her momentum. Dirt and rocks tumbled down from the ceiling ahead of them as they ran. Cracks ran through the walls like shattered glass, threatening to cave in as they raced onward.

  “Go!” bellowed Aurael from somewhere up ahead. “Run, mortals, run!” The ceiling shuddered wildly and began to crumble, even as the exit loomed ahead.

  “We won’t make it!” Ferran gasped, stumbling. Aurael and Dante vanished through the cave’s mouth, and Karaburan, with the men, followed. “Mira, we’re trapped!” Rocks began to fall, filling up the darkness ahead of them.

  “No, we’re not! Shut your eyes,” Mira said sharply, and Ferran obeyed. Through the wall as softly as though it were water. Mira leapt forward, yanking Ferran with her, and felt her stomach drop as they met the barrier. There was a brief pressure, like squeezing through a partly-closed door, and then they were out the other side, running down the open beach, away from the cave and the forest.

  “You can open them,” Mira panted, ecstatic that it had actually worked.

  Ferran did, and they both glanced back. Dante’s magic illuminated the cave as it dissolved inward on itself like quicksand. The destruction spell sucked the stones, the trees, and the landscape down into the sinkhole with a hungry rumbling sound. Bluish-white magic snapped and flared like hot coals, barely lighting the way down the beach, away from the disaster.

  “It’s disappearing!” Ferran gasped. “The whole thing is vanishing!”

  Mira did not answer, dragging him onward, still sprinting after Karaburan, who, in turn, huffed and puffed alongside Aurael, flying low in his harpy form, carrying Dante like prey in his claws. One of the men—Stephen—slipped from Karaburan’s shoulders and A
urael doubled back, snatching the body up in his talons.

  Mira pulled Ferran onward until they reached a spit of beach where the sounds of the cave-in were faint and far-off, and there they finally stopped. Karaburan crouched on the damp sand, depositing his cargo and gasping for air. Aurael lowered Stephen and Dante to the ground and sat over them, his claws trapping them on the sand as firmly as bars on a prison cell.

  They all looked back to watch the last of the rubble churn downward into the hole, which at last seemed to have filled itself in, leaving only a few trees and a small hillock where the outer entrance of the cave had been. It was all gone. They panted in silence for a few moments, shaken and breathless.

  Mira let go of Ferran, carefully lowering him to the sand, where he winced and pressed his hands to his sore sides.

  “My work,” moaned Dante, trying to get up. “My work! You’ll never know how long I labored,” he snarled miserably.

  “How long you labored?” demanded Aurael, tightening his claws around Dante’s ribs. The old man cried out and writhed, pushing at the talons with his trembling hands. “I did all the work! I did your every little errand and bent to each of your stupid, delusional whims. You were a slave driver! A madman!” His harpy’s wings flared and ruffled, the iron-sharp feathers shining in the pre-dawn glow. He ground his sharp teeth together in rage. “You made my life a living hell, all because you couldn’t have a couple of things that you wanted. Did it never occur to you that you were exiled for being a complete—”

  “Aurael! Stop this.” Mira slammed the staff down on the sand. “It’s over.”

  The bushes along the tree line shifted and rustled. A tiger stood at the edge of the trees, watching them. “Mira,” Ferran hissed, spotting it. “Mira, look!”