by A. Evermore
There was no path but it was fairly easy walking along the shore, although she had to clamber over a boulder now and again and wade through knee-deep wetland. She scanned the horizon for other islands but saw none, and neither was there any shelter. The only sound was the waves and the crying gulls circling above trying to get a better look at this strange human visitor.
In an hour she had walked around the whole island and came abruptly back to her boat. All of a sudden she felt hairs rise on the nape of her neck as if someone was watching her. The gulls had ceased their cries and no longer circled the reddening sky; the only sound was the waves lapping the shore.
It started as a low hum, like the sound of a potter’s spinning wheel, and seemed to come from everywhere at once. Then the noise swiftly grew to a high screech. Issa clasped her hands to her ears as the noise tried to tear her apart, driving all sense from her mind. Her eyes darted from the sea to the sky half expecting it to be the cry of a Dread Dragon flying towards her but there was nothing.
Instinct drove her towards what little safety the trees might offer and she hid behind the twisted trunk of a pine tree, praying for the screeching to end. It dropped to such a low hum she thought it had gone but for the vibrations in her chest. The blood rushed back into her ears as she lowered her hands. The sea was dead calm and still as a mirror perfectly reflecting the red-tinged clouds above.
Issa stood up, her heart thudding loudly in her chest. The sound seemed to be coming from the ocean, not the sky. She stepped forwards out of the safety of the treeline. The low hum vibrated in pitch and settled upon a higher note. Intrigued, she stepped slowly towards the boat and the hum grew and fell in pitch as if spurred on by her movements.
She should go back to the trees where it was safe, she thought, and stopped walking, turning back to face the trees. The vibrating hum quivered and her chest quivered with it. No, she had to find out what was making that noise. Her feet moved of their own accord and turned her around to face the ocean. The sound was now quite soothing and if she went a little closer to the shoreline she might see who was making the noise.
Perhaps a fishing boat was passing; it could take her to the Main Land. She smiled at the dreamy thought, the seawater now lapped at her galoshes. But this wasn’t far enough; she would have to go further out to see past the rocks. The water now lapped knee-high to her fisherman’s waders. The hum became a dance of music in her ears that calmed her tortured soul and told her that beyond the rocks lay her greatest desire, beyond the rocks was freedom. The water now lapped up to her waist but she had to go further.
She was only dimly aware of the loud splashing, as of someone crashing through the waves, and paid it no heed. Then she saw a white shape under the water, moving towards her in the distance, like a great sunken ship just under the surface. Yes, that was freedom; she smiled and reached towards it.
The noisy splashing coming from behind was followed by a terrible scream. In a daze Issa turned to look but then there came a noisy thwack and everything wobbled. Just before everything turned dark she felt an explosion of pain on the back of her head and a flash of searing indigo blue light.
I know that light, Issa thought, it’s the colour of magic. She fell forwards into cold darkness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bound By Secrets
Asaph skidded to a stop, closed his eyes, and sunk back against a tree trunk with a sigh. His heart raced with more than exertion. Helpless frustration and the burden of his Dragon secret weighed him down to the ground. He felt the Dragon within stirring restlessly, as if unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in. He had kept it bound by silent lock and key but he knew it was a wild creature and it would not be bound forever. Keeping it locked up was making him sick, physically and mentally.
‘I have to get away from here!’ he hissed, clasping his palms to his temples and trying to rub the ache in his mind. ‘What does the Dragon Door mean?’ he asked aloud. ‘Am I going mad?’ No answer came. He dropped his hands with a sigh and stared blankly up at the snippets of blue sky dancing above the canopy of green leaves.
Asaph dropped his gaze and looked about him, willing the Dragon Door to reappear but there was nothing, there were no answers to his questions, not any of them. Who the girl in his dreams was; what the Dragon Door meant; what to do with the Dragon inside that was trying to tear him apart; how he was ever going to leave; and how he was ever going to find his place in the world.
He sunk down to squatting, arms resting on knees. If I stay here I will go mad, he thought, I have to leave, I have to try to return to the Old World. I don’t care if I die trying. I’ll only die of insanity if I stay anyway. He chuckled at the thought, Who ever thought of dying of insanity?
His eyes fell upon the familiar spread of tiny dusky grey-purple flowers spreading like a blanket over the roots and earth. Their petals were closed during the day but at night they sprung open, giving them their name: greynight. He stared at them for a long while. I should tell Coronos about the Dragon within. I should always have told him. He shuddered, the thought of telling his father his secret was somehow worse than facing goblins.
As he fumbled for his pocket-knife, his hand brushed the ring again but no door came. Instead her face flashed in his mind, her hair was the colour of fire and bright blue eyes gleamed like the eyes of the Dragon within him. He closed his eyes to keep the vision there and vivid.
‘What is it I am supposed to do, Mother?’ he whispered. ‘Why aren’t you here?’ His hand settled on his pocket-knife and the vision disappeared without any answers. With a sigh he reached down to the flowers, roughly cutting the wiry stems.
‘It is a gentle hand that harvests the best.’
Asaph jumped and spun around at Coronos’s words. The older man eyed him peculiarly as he leant on his staff. His pale grey cloak was flung back over his shoulders and there was perspiration on his face.
Asaph felt his cheeks grow hot, suddenly feeling like a guilty child and really hoping Coronos had not heard him speaking. Asaph looked at the squashed leaves in his palm apologetically. ‘Yes, I am careless, my mind is on other things…’ he mumbled. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, I fancied a walk,’ Coronos replied and came to stand next to Asaph. ‘I felt all cooped up and stuffy,’ he shrugged uncomfortably, ‘and the children were driving me mad.’ Asaph rolled his eyes and nodded. ‘I thought you would forget the greynight since you seem preoccupied of late, and then I bumped into your friends who told me you had run back to get it,’ Coronos smiled warmly.
‘You know you are not the only one that feels restless, Asaph,’ Coronos looked off into the forest, his face pensive. ‘There are changes coming, it troubles me…’ he trailed off.
‘Yes father, I feel it too, a terrible restlessness deep inside, it’s the... it’s the…’ Dragon within. But he couldn’t say it. ‘It’s in the wind,’ his shoulders slumped and he felt sick to his stomach. The secret bound him tightly and would not let him speak the truth!
‘Yes it is,’ Coronos agreed as his grey eyes settled upon him. But Asaph saw there were questions in them. Asaph looked away.
‘I do not belong here, Father,’ Asaph said quietly, desperately trying to stop tears filling his eyes. ‘I know I have to leave someday, maybe sooner than later. I have to try to return to the Old World, or die trying.’ To Asaph’s shock Coronos nodded and did not disagree as he always did. Instead, he looked at Asaph but now his gaze was unreadable.
‘Our homeland calls to us,’ Coronos nodded, this time dropping the gaze first. ‘I knew since that treacherous day, when we left Drax to its terrible fate, that we would be called to return. But how we will return I know not.’
Asaph’s heart leapt for joy in his chest, the hope and relief knowing his father felt the same was as sunlight falling through the storm clouds of his soul. But as he looked upon the worried face of his father the joy lessened.
‘Such a journey I vowed never to repeat again, Coronos said. �
��The Great Goddess only knows how far the Shadowlands have spread…’ he trailed off, his eyes looking into the past.
‘We have to try,’ Asaph pleaded, ‘please let us try.’
‘How do we?’ Coronos said, his seriousness washing away Asaph’s excitement, ‘The Kuapoh do not sail, their boats are for the shallow reef and rivers. It’s a fool’s thought to build our own ship.’
Asaph was silent for a moment, he had not really thought much about how it could be done, only that it must. ‘We’ll find a way. We could try to build a big boat, maybe you could remember what the one you came on looked like and we could draw it.’
Coronos snorted, ‘Fool boy! Building a ship takes even a skilled boat-maker many years.’
Asaph took a deep breath, overwhelmed by the impossible logic of their task. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he murmured, but the world suddenly shrunk again and the thought of never being able to leave settled upon him like a chain about his neck.
Coronos’s frown had softened and he spoke less chidingly, as if sensing the young man’s pain. ‘We can always talk of it, of course. We can always try,’ he gave a half smile.
Asaph reached down and carefully cut a few more stems of greynight. Then the two men walked slowly back home speaking only of what the day had brought them and the birds and animals they had seen. Asaph kicked himself for missing his chance to tell Coronos his long-kept secret but he vowed to try again when the time felt right. He didn’t need to mention the mysterious Dragon Door, feeling foolish enough after his friends’ laughter.
That night sleep was a long time in coming as Asaph obsessed about the Dragon Door and how on earth they were ever going to build a boat big and strong enough to carry them across Maioria’s most treacherous ocean.
Slowly he slipped into torturous dreams in which he made a boat and sailed upon a calm ocean under blue skies. But a raging storm whipped up out of nowhere and the waters frothed dark and murky. An incessant wail rang out louder than the howling wind and piercing through to his soul, setting madness loose upon his mind.
Through the waves a white monster ploughed with terrifying speed. It careened into his boat and then raised its bulbous head. A great red maw lined with hundreds of shining teeth grinned up at Asaph and coal black eyes began to drain his soul away.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Zanufey The Goddess Of the Night
Issa moved in a constantly changing world where she could not see anything yet was completely aware, as if her eyes were closed and she could not find her eyelids to open them. It was freezing cold and there was an unfamiliar female voice speaking soothing words that she couldn’t quite make out. The voice floated around her then faded away and Issa wondered if it were in fact her own consciousness that was fading in and out and not the voice. She tried to move out of the dark and open her eyes, but it was very difficult and only made her sink further into darkness.
When next she came around her world had changed completely; the cold was replaced by warmth; the smell of the sea was gone and replaced instead by the warm cinnamon smell of sweet bread cooking; the soothing voice was gone and the recognisable crackle of a log fire, wood cracking and splintering in a hearth, filled her ears.
Issa raised her arm, to her surprise found it responded, and rubbed a sore lump on the back of her head. Slowly she opened her eyes, pleased to find that they now worked and her senses had not deceived her. She was wrapped in a thick blanket lying on a long faded-cushioned chair before a fire. Her clothes were drying on a rack on the other side of the small hearth, all clean and fresh smelling. She lay still trying to piece together how she had gotten here.
Suddenly a cat jumped up onto her blanketed legs. Issa blinked in surprise for the cat was sky blue and its face distinctly looked like it was smiling. It, however, stared at her unblinking and purred loudly as it massaged and clawed her knees, creating a bizarre mixture of pleasure followed by pain. Its golden eyes gleamed like orbs and its tail flicked back and forth playfully.
‘Ahhh, she wakes!’ an excited voice came from somewhere over the back of the chair and a plump old woman hugging a large wooden bowl came to stand before her, a warm smile spilling over her deeply lined face.
She was not yet stooping and her long grey hair was tied back loosely, her red cheeks were like well-ripened apples and her eyes the rich green of spring leaves; full of life and a certain mischievousness reserved only for the truly wise.
She wore a long-sleeved pale pink dress that fell to her feet, covered by a crisp white apron with a deep pocket that held an array of wooden spoons. Her ample bosom shuddered heavily as she vigorously stirred the contents of the bowl. The cat looked up at the woman and purred faster with half-lidded eyes.
‘Where am I?’ Issa asked, her voice groggy with sleep, her hand reaching again to the lump on her head.
‘Well that’s not an easy question since you are no-where that you know but you are in my home, a tiny house on a tiny island far from the confusion and corruption of the modern world.’ The old woman looked into the middle distance with a forlorn sigh and then something caught her attention from behind the chair and she waddled off swiftly. There came the dull clang of oven doors closing and a stronger smell of sweet cakes followed by approving murmurs.
‘You were shipwrecked,’ the old woman called, ‘and then that foul beast was trying to lure you to him like he does all his victims.’ She had a slight tang in her accent but not one that Issa recognised. Maybe she came from the Main Land, yes, it was Frayonesse.
‘Foul beast?’ Issa murmured, remembering the wailing sound, ‘it made me go into the water,’ she said with a gasp, the cat’s eyes went wide as if mimicking her fear but continued to purr and kneaded her leg.
‘That’s right,’ the old woman said. Issa marvelled at her acute hearing for she had barely whispered. ‘I saw you wandering around the island. I had decided to leave you to it, being wary of people after the Dread Dragons passed overhead, but then he came and I knew I had to do something.’
‘You hit me,’ Issa said, somewhat indignantly.
‘Yes,’ the old woman said simply, ‘it was the only way to break his spell, a sharp physical jolt.’
‘There was magic… I saw a flash of vivid blue light.’
‘Yes, magic to snap the cord, that was necessary too and I only just did it in time. No being, once their toe leaves the land, can ever escape the White Beast. As skinny as you are you’re a heavy one to lift when unconscious!’
‘The White Beast?’ Issa ignored the last comment, her attention caught up in thoughts of the fabled monster. ‘It is not real, he is just a myth come out of the tales of the far away Shadowlands,’ Issa scoffed.
‘Oh no,’ the woman came to stand in front of her again, this time with a glass and a pitcher. ‘No no no, he is real all right, most folk don’t want to believe it but he is. And the Shadowlands, I am sad to say, are not far away at all. Every night I watch the dark mist creep closer, clawing at my lantern’s light, only to recede again under the pure light of the sun. It has been growing and growing and now its filthy fingers reach not a mile away. The Lost Ones and the Forsaken walk close, you can see them in the night moving atop the still waters,’ the old woman shuddered.
Issa looked away wondering if this strange woman was mad. ‘You can use magic?’ she asked, laying back with a sigh and struggling to take everything in.
‘All Witches worth their wick can,’ the old woman said proudly as she poured water from the pitcher and passed Issa the cup. Issa drained it noisily and took another glass, the cool water soothing her throat.
‘I did not know the Monster was real,’ Issa whispered. ‘Had I known I would never have left.’ She stared blankly at the blue cat, recalling those frightening children’s stories of the “White Monster of the Deep”, and the Cursed Dead of the Shadowlands, a place of terrible sorrow inhabited by lost souls and wraiths of the damned from which no sailor or fisherman could ever escape once shipwrecked there. The very tid
e carried ships to their doom for once they entered the current towards it they could never get out of it. ‘I could not control my boat…’ she breathed and dropped her eyes from the cat’s glowing orbs to stare into the hearth.
‘Indeed my dear,’ the old woman frowned in understanding, ‘I am sad to say the world is changing faster than we. The Land of Shadows grows larger by the day and with it the White Beast’s power. But I will fight the Shadowlands to the end, I shall not leave my home.’ The woman’s face was set. ‘No boat can hope to get out of the current that flows fast from here to the Shadowlands. Thank the Goddess you even made it to this island, I think you have luck on your side,’ she winked.
‘Really?’ Issa blurted and arched an eyebrow. ‘Do you know what has happened? Do you know what befell the Isles of Kammy, my home? If that is luck then I want none of it!’
The old woman was silent; her face paled as she nodded. ‘Yes,’ her voice was a whisper, ‘yes I know.’ Her eyes flashed distinctly blue as she spoke, like the sky but glowing.
‘Your eyes, they shone blue!’ Issa gasped and stared wide-eyed at Edarna as the woman’s eyes lost their bright blue shine and became green once more.
Edarna looked at Issa as if wondering what she spoke about. ‘Ah yes, I had forgotten about the Blue of Insight, so long have I been away from humankind. All Witches and Seers and some Wizards have the ability to see into the past or future to varying degrees and when we do so our eyes turn a bluish hue.
‘When the attention is properly focused I can see what is happening, or has happened, to things close to this island, but beyond that is only shadows. I cannot see more than a week into the future though and it has been a long time since I met anyone who could. The future is dark,’ she mumbled the last, and Issa didn’t hear it.