YOLANDHE’S ISLAND

“Go on, boy!” Beryl flung the branch up the trail and Scorch gamboled ahead to fetch it. It might have been any outing with one’s dog, but Scorch was no dog, and no dog squashed swaths of brush and saplings the way he did when bounding through the woods.

He didn’t quite comprehend the “fetch” part of the game and so, predictably, did not return all the way with the branch, but instead crunched it to pieces with his powerful jaws. It was an improvement, however, over his trying to breathe fire on the sticks. She and Yap played with him on the rocky shoals near camp until he learned not to burn the sticks they threw, and the forest with them.

Spending time with Scorch made up a little for her not getting to see her horse, Luna Moth. She missed the mare intensely despite the fact she was often away from her. She’d found the most trustworthy stable in Midhaven to care for Luna while she was away. But what if she was never able to leave this island? What would become of her horse? Well, Ty knew where the stable was, and if she never returned, he would see to Luna.

She walked up the path toward Scorch, hunting for a good-sized stick to throw. Her plan to make her fellow castaways regard her as unthreatening appeared to be working. Amberhill and Yolandhe cared only for one another and whatever occupied them, and Yap didn’t seem to mind at all if she took Scorch exploring across the island. As for Scorch, he’d forgotten he was supposed to be her guard dog, and he’d become a grand companion as she searched the shore and island for answers as to how she might drag Amberhill back to Sacor City to stand before King Zachary. Though she got to know the island on these expeditions, the answers she sought remained elusive.

She bent down to pick up a stout branch and noticed a faint trail forking off the one she and Scorch were using. She’d never noticed it before, despite having been past this spot several times. It was little used and overgrown, but definitely there.

“C’mon, Scorch,” she said, and followed the path to see where it might lead. It rose upward, and she figured it must ascend the small mount. Her usual trail simply went around the base of it. She’d been to the mount’s summit using a different path and had gotten a good view of the other islands of the archipelago, and the billowing sails of distant ships on the horizon. To the west she’d been barely able to make out the landmass that was the coast of Bairdly Province.

The climb started gently enough and Scorch plodded beside her, but then they came to a boulder field and she had to hop from one rock to another, hoping none rolled beneath her feet, and that Scorch would not cause a rock slide as he bounded ahead, his claws scrabbling on granite and loosening stones. A few substantial rocks clattered down the slope, but fortunately not on her head. Scorch, for his part, found a ledge above the boulder field on which to sun himself.

With a little persistence, Beryl found her way up to the ledge and sat down next to him to catch her breath. From this spot she had a decent view of the ocean through the crowns of trees that fell away with the slope of the land. Was Amberhill somewhere along the shore, interacting with dragons? She could see none of that from here. Aside from Scorch, she rarely saw the others, which, she thought, was a good thing. Not much terrified her, but they did when they made an appearance, even at a distance.

She enjoyed sitting in the sun. Scorch snored away emitting sparks from his jaw with his exhalations. Fortunately, there was not enough vegetation on the ledge to catch fire. The scales of his neck glimmered with iridescence in the sunshine. She climbed carefully to her feet so as not to wake him, and after a nice long stretch of her back, she turned about. Behind them the path continued between a cleft boulder, and as she approached, a current of cool air laden with the scent of damp earth and stone issued between the two halves. The path, she discovered, did not lead up the summit of the mount, but into it.

She stood in the opening of a large cavern. At least it felt large. She could not make out its dimensions with her sight, even as her eyes began to adjust to the dark. The sunlight flooded through the entrance past her, revealing a series of stone steps downward. There were many shapes of various sizes down in the shadows of the cavern, and the glinting of metal. She removed her specs from an inner pocket of her coat—they had miraculously survived when her dory crashed upon the shore—and put them on.

Lines and shapes became more distinct, but she still wasn’t sure what it was she was seeing. There were some faint shafts of light beaming through other openings elsewhere in the cavern, but it was not enough to see details. If only she had some flint and steel. Then she remembered Scorch.

There was a pile of torches leaning against the wall of the entryway. From all appearances, they’d been there for a long time. Since they had been kept out of the weather, they might prove viable. She grabbed one and pulled the cobwebs off it, and sneezed at the dust that rose from it. She took it to Scorch and held it near his mouth as he snored. No need to even wake him up, she thought. It took some patience, but finally a finger of flame caught on the tip of the torch and flared to life.

She returned to the cavern and, with torch in hand, descended the stone stairs. The flame cast wild shadows about the walls and high ceiling, which actually made it harder to identify what she was seeing. She lit lard candles she found along the way, and only once she was on the floor of the cavern did she begin to discern the mysterious shapes she’d seen from above as barrels and chests. It was their contents that dazzled, however. Gold and silver and gems and pearls glittering in the dance of flame. Coins and jewels, and weapons with blades of shining steel and encrusted with gems like the knife Amberhill carried.

But for all the treasure, it was the ship that drew her breath away. Large and black with a dragon’s head, its red eyes blinked in the flicker of the torch. She followed a path between barrels and chests and pots and ceramic jugs, but ignored the treasures they held. She steered for the ship. Its square sail hung limp in the still cavern’s air. Her torch revealed it was decorated with the silhouette of a dragon, wings spread. Oars jutted from the hull, and the keel was carved with geometric interlocking symbols she did not understand. A ladder leaned against the hull.

“Come to see the remains of the great sea king Akarion?” a low voice rumbled like thunder in the cavernous chamber.

Beryl’s heart leaped, but she steadied herself. “Lord Amberhill?”

“Climb aboard,” he said, “but be careful. The ladder has seen better days. And leave that torch below. This ship is like kindling.”

She hesitated, not sure which Amberhill she’d find today, the genial lord, or the harsh commander. She shrugged. It didn’t matter which she faced, for he seemed willing to talk, and that made her curious. She placed the torch in a sconce, and taking his warning about the ladder to heart, she climbed it with caution. Once aboard the ship, she found him sitting on a chest gazing at a platform before the mast. Not just a platform, she realized, but a bier that held remains. Beneath dusty old furs lay a skeletal figure. Upon its skull was a helm engraved with symbols similar to those on the keel. It appeared the man had once possessed a prodigious head and beard of red hair.

“This is a sea king?” she said. There were those who hunted like mad for sea king treasure, and this ship burial was the mother lode.

“He is the sea king,” Amberhill replied. “The king of kings, Akarion.”

“Never heard of him.” The sea kings had marauded the shores of Sacoridia so long ago, little was known of them except that they’d been bloodthirsty warriors who loved beautiful objects.

“Neither had I, but according to Yolandhe, I bear his blood and am heir to all this.” He swept his arm out to take in the treasures of the cavern.

“You have come to survey your wealth?” she said. “Pity you’ve no place to spend it.”

He laughed. It was the first time she had heard him do so. He toyed with something in his hands that glinted, and she saw with surprise it was a fine silver chain with a crescent moon pendant. It did not look like it fit with the other items that filled the cavern, and she didn’t think the sea kings had worshipped Aeryc.

“I have grand fancies now and then of what to do with it,” he said, “but without a boat, a seaworthy boat, it is for naught. So, it is not so much the treasure I come for, but the quiet, to sit and think.”

“What sorts of things do you think about?”

“Oh, nothing important. My life back on the mainland, the family estate. My horse. My very stupid but well-bred horse. Goss is his name. I was planning he’d be the foundation stud of a breeding farm. But here I am, stuck on this island.”

“Your inheritance,” she said, “could buy you a fine horse farm.”

“Yes, but I am not sure it is an inheritance I want.”

Beryl was intrigued. This was the most she had heard him speak at one time since she landed on the island. “Why not? You could buy far more than a horse farm.”

“Because it really belongs to him.” He nodded toward the dead king. “I am not him as much as he and Yolandhe want me to be.”

The ship’s deck creaked beneath her feet as she shifted her weight. He was in an interesting mood without, so far, that sudden change of personality he was prone to. He remained the genial lord. At the foot of the king’s bier were a shield and sword. How simple it would be to take that sword and kill him. That would resolve the problem of him becoming the future despot ruling over Sacoridia. He watched her, and she wondered if he guessed her thoughts. She did not back down, but returned his gaze.

It had not yet come to assassination, she thought. She would not abdicate her duty if it came to it, but she also would not kill him out of hand. She needed to let this conversation play out a little longer before she made any final decisions.

“What do you mean,” she asked, “when you say you are not him as much as he and Yolandhe might want you to be?”

Amberhill sighed. “He was Yolandhe’s great love after his ship wrecked upon the shore, and she has awaited his return for many a year.”

“But he’s dead,” she said, pointing out the rather obvious.

“Would you believe me if I told you he isn’t, exactly?”

“Now that I have seen dragons, I am rather open to believing a great many unlikely things.”

He chuckled softly and said, “I suppose seeing dragons could do that.”

Dragons, she thought, that he could command if she made a wrong move, or said the wrong thing.

“Akarion might be dead of body,” he explained, “but he is often in my head, trying to take over. He is restless, full of need and conquest. He wishes to reclaim what was once his.”

“Ah,” she said, and it all came together. Karigan had described in her notes that there was more than just Mornhavon inhabiting Amberhill’s mind, but she did not remember more than that. It certainly explained his swift changes of personality. “And Akarion will use the dragons to achieve what he desires.”

He looked up at her. “Yes. They are his great weapon.”

A chill shivered down Beryl’s spine. “Great weapon” was how Karigan had described whatever it had been that caused the fall of Sacoridia in the future, although she had not learned what that great weapon was, but it confirmed Beryl’s thoughts on the matter.

“Why are you able to speak freely of this to me now?” she asked. “Where is Yolandhe, and for that matter, why is Akarion, if he inhabits you, allowing you to speak of this?”

“Yolandhe walks the far shore, as she will from time to time. It is a relief, frankly. And Akarion, I do not know. He is unpredictable, comes and goes.” He gazed at the crescent moon pendant now resting on his palm. “My cousin sent you to find me and to take me back.”

“Yes.”

“What cause has he to care if I am marooned on a distant island?”

“He has concern for your welfare.” That was part of it, she was sure, but not the main part.

“He sent you all the way for that, did he?”

Beryl could try to convince him that was all of it, but he and Yolandhe had known better from the beginning. She decided she would tell the truth, and depending on his reaction, she’d feel justified to take the dead king’s sword and slay him.

She sat beside him on the dusty old chest. “You know that Akarion and the dragons are dangerous, a great weapon, as you said.”

He nodded.

“Well, King Zachary is aware of that danger and what it means to Sacoridia.”

“I would never harm my homeland,” he replied.

“Not intentionally, I’m sure,” she said, “but Akarion is a different matter, and so is Mornhavon the Black.”

“Mornhavon? What does he have to do with it?”

She decided not to hold back. Telling him what she knew might, in fact, help. “One of our Riders was shown . . . No, not shown. She experienced the future of Sacoridia. It was a bleak, terrible, and ruined place, and you were the cause.” She went on to tell him what she learned from Karigan’s notes.

“Mornhavon,” he whispered when she finished. “It is very difficult to believe, but then I remember that I am the one carrying a dead king in my head and communing with dragons, which is beyond strange when you think about it. If not for Akarion, I would find the entire idea of myself as emperor laughable.” Then he stilled before turning to gaze at her with his gray eyes. “Zachary wishes to avoid that future by having you assassinate me.”

“That is not his, or my, preference.”

“Dear gods, what have I gotten myself into? I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be an emperor. All I ever wanted was my horse farm.”

“As long as we are marooned on this island,” she said, “you are not a danger.”

“That may be a problem,” he replied. “Even if I don’t know a way off this rock, I think Akarion does.”