YOLANDHE’S ISLAND

“Oh?” Beryl said. “Has he a ship stashed around here somewhere? One that isn’t a burial ship, that is.”

“I—I don’t know,” Amberhill replied. He absently swung the crescent moon pendant on the end of its chain. “It is only an impression I have. He does not allow me to know everything.”

“That is unfortunate.” She stood. If Akarion had a way off the island and was bent on conquest with those terrifying dragons at his command . . .

Amberhill gazed up at her, and his face blanched. “I know you are more than a Green Rider.”

Of course he did. He’d been in the Teligmar Hills during the rescue of Lady Estora and the capture of Immerez, a captain of Mirwell’s provincial militia who’d thrown his lot in with Second Empire. She’d been Immerez’s interrogator, and torturer, had it come to that. Was he going to plead with her to spare him?

“Please help me,” he whispered. “I don’t want Akarion in my head anymore. And the dragons. . . .” He shuddered. “I keep trying to give his ring back. Watch.”

He stood and Beryl spread her feet as if to take a blow, but he didn’t seem to notice. He walked to the side of the bier and removed the gold ring from his finger. It was fashioned like a dragon consuming its own tail, its eye a ruby gem that shone blood red in the dim light. He pushed it onto the skeletal finger of the king. Then he stepped back.

“See?” he asked.

“See what?”

He showed her his hand. The ring was on his finger, but she had so clearly seen him place it on the skeleton’s finger.

“It won’t let me go,” he said. “It claims me as Akarion’s heir. This ring is how I—he—controls the dragons.”

Beryl shook her head. It was looking more and more like she’d have to kill him. She hated to do so for Amberhill seemed an unwitting party to all this, a victim of his own blood. If there were a way of sparing him without endangering Sacoridia, she would, but she wasn’t seeing it. He wanted her to help him, to free him from Akarion’s grasp, but there was only one way she knew how to do so.

“Tell me how I can help you,” she said.

“I—I don’t know. You can’t exactly kill Akarion. He’s dead.”

He wasn’t helping his case. “You do not know what allows him to . . . continue?”

“This ring, but as I showed you, I can’t get rid of it. I even threw it into the ocean once, but then it was on my finger again.”

It sounded an awful lot like the persistence of Rider brooches. Green Riders did not lose their brooches, and they always found their way home, even after a Rider died. Arcane devices were like that, taking on lives of their own. In any case, he was not helping her to find a way to spare him. She regretted the necessity of killing him for she rather liked the Amberhill part of him, but Akarion had his hooks in him and was too much of a threat.

He turned away as if deep in thought, and she took up the dead king’s sword. It was a heavy, clunky thing, more like a cudgel. The blade was rusted and pitted. She raised it for a killing blow, but he whipped around and jumped out of the way.

“So this is it, then,” he said, “how you plan to help me.”

Damn, Beryl thought. She hadn’t moved quickly enough, and now it would be all the more difficult to kill him.

“It is not personal,” she told him, “but a matter of protecting Sacoridia.”

“I daresay it’s personal to me!” He backed away.

Beryl advanced. The decking bowed beneath her feet.

Catlike, he bounded onto the bier, then leaped to the mast and shimmied upward. “Do you care to follow?” he called down.

She did not, nor was she interested in waiting for him to tire and come down on his own. There was no telling when Akarion might make an appearance or when Yolandhe would come looking for him. She set the sword aside and swung her leg over the top rail of the ship, and descended the ladder.

“Giving up?” he called down to her.

Not hardly, she thought. The torch she had placed in a sconce still burned. It snapped and flared as she removed it. She returned to the hull.

“What are you doing down there?” Amberhill demanded, a note of alarm in his voice.

“What does it look like?” She lifted the torch to touch the hull.

“Wait!” he cried.

She paused and craned her neck to look up at him.

“You don’t want to do that!”

“Seems as if it would solve all our problems.”

“You would likely create an even bigger one,” he said.

“Oh? And what might that be?”

“The dragons. They are awake. How will you control them when I am gone? Only I can, through Akarion.”

“Damnation,” she muttered. He could have said something earlier. She’d spent enough time around liars to know this was no lie.

“You kill me,” he said, “and they go berserk. They might even go berserk on the mainland without someone to control them, and they’re probably not easy to kill. I know this from having Akarion in my head.”

She lowered the torch. “All right, then come down and we will discuss our options.”

“You won’t kill me?”

“I believe what you said about the dragons. So, no, I will not kill you.”

He lowered himself down the mast, bounded over the rail, and dropped all the way to the ground, landing neatly in a crouch. He had to be half cat.

“Very impressive,” she remarked.

He stood and dusted off his hands. “Had lots of practice in Sacor City.”

She wondered about that, but had more pressing concerns to address, like how she was going to prevent Akarion from taking him over completely, and then getting him to Sacor City. She placed the torch back in its sconce. It was starting to sputter out.

“I wouldn’t hurt my home,” he said. “I need you to help me, not kill me, so we can avoid this future you spoke of.”

“I don’t know how,” she said, “except on the end of a sword, which would eliminate the threat of both Akarion and Mornhavon. You are the one element they share in common. But, I do believe you when you say killing you could have consequences, as well.”

“I would like to think I am of some importance in this matter,” he replied. “Trust me when I say I don’t want either of them in me. I want to be my own man again.”

“Somehow you have to block Akarion,” she said, “to stop his influence over you.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?”

“It will take patience and persistence, and repetition.” She paced back and forth thinking about a time when someone else wished to control her mind and how she survived it. “Marching cadences.”

“What?”

“Marching cadences,” she said. “They helped me withstand Grandmother’s attempt to break me when I was her prisoner.” Grandmother had placed a spell on her that caused her pain if she so much as twitched an eyebrow. Gold chains . . . Only reciting the cadences in her mind had gotten her through it, but it had been a near thing.

“I don’t know any marching cadences,” he said.

“It doesn’t have to be that. Just something that gives you focus, like a children’s song, or a series of numbers. Something with a repetitive pattern. Recite it in your mind when Akarion makes himself present.”

He looked thoughtful. “Hmm, all the jewels I—” He stopped abruptly and cleared his throat. “I’ll come up with something.”

“You need to practice it. And also see if you can find out how Akarion intends to get off the island.”

“Is that all?”

There was a subtle change to his voice, a mocking tone. She stared at him. He held his body differently now, and his eyes had darkened.

“Is that all?” he repeated.

Beryl stepped back. Amberhill—or was it Akarion?—smiled.

“Let him go,” she said.

“He is me,” he replied. “My blood reborn. I am Akarion the great sea king, and you should bow to me.”

“Lord Amberhill,” she said, “fight him!”

“He can do nothing,” Akarion said. “Dragons are not easy to command, but I can do it, and if I can command dragons, do you not think I can control a lordling and petty thief?”

Petty thief? she wondered. Quickly she scanned her surroundings for a weapon. There was the hilt of a longknife jutting from the top of a treasure-filled barrel. If she could get to it . . .

“I cannot allow you to threaten my plans to reclaim my lands,” he said.

She edged toward the barrel. “You are mistaken if you think the people of those lands are quietly going to give them over. Even now they fight to preserve them against an ancient enemy that would claim them.”

“I am not stupid,” he replied. “That is what the dragons are for.”

His smile was not at all like Amberhill’s. It chilled her. She lunged for the barrel, but she was not quick enough. Akarion whipped his knife from his belt and threw it. At first she did not feel the pain, only the shock of impact. She looked down at the knife’s hilt jutting from her mid-section and blood pouring through her fingers. Her legs lost all strength and she collapsed to the ground.

Amberhill was a shadow that hovered over her, but when she gazed up at him, she saw not Amberhill, but the king with his red beard and hair. He watched her with piercing black eyes.

As darkness overcame her vision, she thought it ironic it was all ending for her now, she who had been the one to hold the lives of others in her hands. She who held the power, whether as spy, interrogator, Rider, or assassin. It had all been turned around and perhaps in the afterlife, she’d be tormented as she had tormented others. She hoped, however, to ascend to the heavens, to be reunited with her brother.

“Riley,” she whispered.

Was that Westrion’s wings she heard upon the air, or the last feathery beats of her heart?

---

“No-no-no!” Amberhill cried as he watched the light leave Beryl Spencer’s eyes. “What have I done?” He dropped to his knees. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Akarion made me, damn him. I’m so sorry.”

“Did he?” It was Yolandhe. She had silently come up behind him.

Curse them both, he thought. “I would not have harmed her.”

“Are you so sure? You had much to lose had she been successful in returning you to her king.” She gestured at the riches that surrounded them. “Perhaps even your life, which she was prepared to take.”

Yes, he had wanted to preserve his life, but not like this. “I am not Akarion. And yes, I am avaricious and value my own skin, but not at the expense of others. Not in this fashion.” And yet, he wondered, was he blaming Akarion for his own actions? No, no, no.

“My love,” Yolandhe said, “ambition and conquest is in your blood. It is the way of your people. You are the sea king.”

“They are not my people. Those people are dead.”

“They live in your blood as the ocean tides have risen and fallen for many a millennia.”

There was the scratch of claws on stone, and Amberhill looked up to see the dwarf dragon that Yap called Scorch waddle by. It looked down at the body of Beryl Spencer and warbled. It then snuffled and prodded her shoulder with its beak. When Beryl did not respond, it lay down beside her and crooned. The mournful sound thrummed through the cavern.

“Dear gods,” he muttered. It was like a sword through his heart. “Can’t you bring her back?” he asked Yolandhe.

“She is gone. It is not my place.”

“Not your place to preserve life? Then we make a good pair, for it seems my place is to take life.”

“It is your instinct.”

He stood and whirled on Yolandhe. “Did you know that in the future I am not just influenced by Akarion, but also by Mornhavon the Black? That a terrible future awaits the free lands?”

“I did not.”

He pointed at Beryl’s body. “Well, that’s what she was here to prevent.”

“By killing you, or making you her prisoner.”

He wanted to shake Yolandhe out of her complacence, her unflappable disregard for the lives of those who were not her or Akarion. “She was going to help me until Akarion . . .” He shook his head. There was no use in arguing with Yolandhe. She would defend Akarion to the end of days, no matter what. He knelt once more beside Beryl, reached for her specs that had fallen askew on her face. Scorch growled and snapped at his hand. Amberhill used his ring, focused on the ruby, the heartstone, as Akarion had always done through him, and thought into it. He felt Scorch there, the dragon’s simple mind and sorrow. He’d not have given credence to the beasts having emotions. He’d never felt it with the big ones, but then he’d never tried. Akarion wanted to send Scorch away with a harsh command. Amberhill pushed Akarion away and sent a calming wave into the dragon’s mind, reassured it that he would not do anything untoward to Beryl, and then he broke contact. He marveled that Scorch seemed to understand Beryl was dead.

This time when he reached for her specs, Scorch made only a sad whining sound. Amberhill folded the specs and carefully tucked them into the pocket of her coat. It was then he saw the glint of a gold brooch on the lapel. He couldn’t quite make out its design, but he thought it was in the shape of a winged horse, the sigil of the Green Riders. Not knowing why, he unpinned it, and stuck it in his pocket.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her from the cavern, out into the light, while Yolandhe and Scorch looked on. He descended the mount until he found a likely place facing the west. She was from Mirwell Province, and so it was appropriate that she be placed thus, facing the way of the sunset. He then built a cairn over her in the Sacoridian fashion. It took all afternoon and into the evening, even with Scorch helping to pry stones out of the earth and rolling them to him.

When he finished, he stretched his aching back and shoulders. Akarion had remained absent, much to his relief. He gazed up at the stars, thinking Beryl must be among them by now.

Yolandhe extended her hand to him. “Come, my love. Let us not dwell here among the dead, but look to our future.”

“A moment. I will catch up to you.”

Yolandhe nodded and left him.

When he was sure she was gone, he said to the cairn, “I am sorry, Beryl Spencer. You have my promise that I will oppose that terrible future you described. I will fight it with all I have. You have my oath on it.” Then he took another moment before adding, “I should have liked to have known you better.”

With that, he left behind the cairn and the sorrowful dragon curled up beside it to keep silent vigil.