On the Isle of Sound and Wonder (6 page)

They’re dying,
thought Mira.
My father’s storm will kill them
.

If she could just reach the book, she could find out what her father had been doing all these years, hiding away in the caves and ignoring their little island life. The book never left his side, and she was certain it contained words and incantations of great power. If she could just get the book, she might finally figure out why her father kept her here, away from the rest of the world she knew must surely be out there. Her gut clenched with the weight of the decision; it was so close, the closest it had ever been, but if she didn’t make herself known, the people on that ship would certainly die. Whoever they were.

But the book . . . 
she thought longingly.
The book will wait.
She tightened her grip on the spear and slid down from the tree, stumbling forward out of the bushes.

“Father!”

He did not turn to look at her; indeed, Mira would have thought that he had not heard her, except that she had encountered him in such a trance before and knew what he could and could not do while casting a spell.

“Father, stop!” she commanded, her voice raw from lack of use. She sounded squeaky and small, but she held her ground. “Those people are dying!”

He turned his head toward her slowly, as though it were an enormous strain for him to do so. For a moment, she did not recognize him, his face was so changed from the last time they’d spoken, some time ago. He certainly was not the same man she remembered from her childhood. His eyes had a gleam of lightning in them, and the strange, sleepy expression on his face was almost that of ecstatic release. Mira could not quite place it, but it seemed to her to be something like bliss.

“Mira,” Dante said faintly, as though he could not bear to speak any louder. “My daughter . . . I must have woken you.” His words slurred slightly, as though he were sleepwalking.

Mira squeezed the spear more tightly. “I know it’s you, Father. I know you’re making that storm. That ship must have passengers. There are people inside it . . . people who will die if you don’t stop. I don’t know why you’ve made this storm, but you have to unmake it!”

“Go back to sleep, my little girl,” her father answered in an almost singsong tone, his eyes flashing brighter as the lightning surged again. “It’s just a little rain.”

“Wake up!” she screamed, as thunder shook the trees around them. “You don’t know what you’re doing! You have to stop!” He turned his face away, achingly slow, and resumed staring out toward the sinking ship. A light patter of rain began to fall over them. “They’ll drown!” Mira shouted. “This is the closest anyone from beyond the sea has ever been to our island, and you’re killing them!”

“Yes,” agreed her father, raising his hands to the sky. “I am.”

The ocean swelled, rising up like a snake poised to attack the ship, and Mira lunged for her father. He turned suddenly about to meet her, hands raised, his eyes masked in bright white-blue light, and the force of his mind threw her to the ground. She knocked over the book as she tumbled backwards onto the rocks, cutting her chin.

“Why are you interfering?” wondered her father, his hands claw-like. “Even if there are people aboard, why should it matter if they live or die? You are safe, Mira. That’s what matters.”

“Safe?” Mira spat, touching the back of her hand to her chin and wincing in pain. “Safe and isolated. You’ve never let anyone get this close to us before. You’ve kept the entire world beyond at bay to keep me safe. But you don’t have to go killing people! They don’t deserve to die simply because you don’t want visitors! Why are you doing this?”

Something in his face changed, and the light went out of his eyes. “You’re bleeding,” Dante said softly, lowering his hands, muscles beginning to relax.

Behind him, beyond the shoreline, the lightning began to fade, the clouds untangling themselves and smoothing out again. The waves began to lessen, though the vessel still continued to sink.

Mira stared as her father knelt before her, the sleepiness fading from his expression, which melted into one of concern and anxiety.

“Mira, sweetheart, are you all right?” He looked at her bleeding chin, reaching for her tenderly.

She met his concerned gaze. The weathered lines of his face spoke of how tired he was, and how sad. He suddenly looked much more like the father of her memory, and for a moment, Mira considered letting him draw her into his arms and comfort her the way a father should. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d come close to her. His beard was prickled with silver now, and his body was thin.

“You haven’t been eating enough,” she observed warily.

“My wondrous girl,” Dante went on as though he hadn’t heard her. “Let me look at your cut.”

There was no apology, no acknowledgement that he was the one who had caused the injury, no admission of guilt or responsibility. Mira recoiled and scrambled to her feet, looking past him to where the fires of the wrecked ship were dimming.

“I hope they have life preservers,” she said fiercely. She pointed her spear toward the wreck. “Or their blood is on your hands. How could you do this?”

“Their blood is on my hands?” echoed her father, unfolding himself to his full height again, his brow darkening in anger. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I may not know all that you know,” Mira retorted angrily, “but I’m not a murderer. And I never thought you would be.” She turned and fled into the woods.

* * *

Dante sighed in frustration, turning to pick up the enormous, weathered book from the ground where it had fallen. He reached with an open hand and beckoned the staff, which leapt into his grasp, then turned again to look out at the ship as it slowly descended in pieces beneath the choppy waves.

Dante narrowed his gray eyes. Something had gone terribly awry, but at least the ship still sank. “Come back to me, my dainty spirit,” he murmured, leaning on the staff. “Come and obey in all things, Aurael.”

The light rain began to fade as the clouds moved swiftly by overhead, and the air folded and shimmered before him.

“I did perform this tempest as you bade me, my lord,” yawned the spirit as he solidified into pale, translucent skin. His hair was wild from the winds, and his eyes had an iron heaviness to them. “Was there some problem that made you call it off before the Big Finale?” Although his words were courteous, his tone had a touch of steel to it, cold and sharp-edged.

Dante shook his head slowly, pulling his gaze from the wreck to stare at the spirit. He pursed his lips. “Did you hear me order you to call it off?” he asked, dangerously soft.

Aurael squinted at him, hovering and hesitating. “No,” he answered slowly, “my lord, I heard you not . . . It seemed to me out there that you took control of the spell yourself and made the storm calm again.” His brow wrinkled. “Was that not so?”

Dante looked darkly at him. “No, Aurael, I did not send the storm away. I had rather hoped to see the ship split into a hundred pieces in mid-air, and watch their bodies drop like stones to the sea below. Needless to say, I am disappointed.”

“Wait just a second!” Aurael demanded. “I didn’t do anything except exactly what you told me to do! But if you didn’t stop it, and if I didn’t stop it, then who did? My lord, I cannot even begin to fathom a guess, unless they had a sorcerer on board. More importantly, the deed is done. The ship is sunk, and all souls will surely perish, by shark or salt water or both.” Aurael threw his hands up in childish exasperation.

“You dare make light of this?” Dante growled.

“My lord,” replied his servant through gritted teeth, “I have done you great services and served you most loyally for these long fifteen years since you arrived. You promised me one thing for my loyalty back then, and you promised me this very morning that you would deliver it to me if I brought down their stupid ship with fire and brimstone.” He swung a shimmering arm wide at the wreckage. “And look! I have done so.”

“Yes, but there is so much more to be done.”

Aurael seemed wild with anger, as though he would twist himself up into a cyclone at any moment. “I would like what is due me, my lord,” he insisted, jaw tight. “I just want my freedom.”

Dante burst out laughing—a dry, brittle laugh that faded away as quickly as dead leaves on the wind. “You’ll have it when you’ve earned it. Bring me the king, his brother, the duke, and any of the other live men ashore, but scatter them about the isle so that no more than two are together at a time. Let them wonder at their friends’ demises, and despair their own fates. Go now, lighter than air and faster than thought. Will you do this?” The question was a mockery, as though Aurael had any sort of say in the matter.

Dante watched Aurael seethe for a moment, steam curling up from his pale brow and vanishing into the air as he began to fade from view. “Yes,” he growled.

“Yes . . . ?” prompted Dante.

“Yes, my lord,” hissed Aurael, and then he was gone like breath upon glass.

With a grunt of faint satisfaction, Dante turned away from the wreckage and began his slow walk back to the caves on the south end of the island, his book under one arm, his staff in hand. If Mira wanted to meet people from beyond their island in the sea, she might meet these castaways, and then she would know the true depth of his purpose. Then she would know why he sought revenge.

In his dream, Karaburan was hunting a man. His dream—like most of his dreams—was dark and full of smells and uncertain noises, like that of a blind creature of the earth that burrows and sniffs and growls to see its surroundings with its ears rather than its eyes.

Karaburan crawled forward into the darkness on his belly, scenting the man he sought. The earth was velvety cool against his rough skin. Some parts of the ground were warm from where the sun had shone down, and some parts were cool from shade. He could hear the heartbeat of the island all around him, pulsing as quietly as though he were underwater. Far off, he heard the chime of birds singing, the faint whispering of old magic, and the gentle hum of the ocean.

He stopped, smelling the soft earth, the world around him gradually growing more and more quiet. He inhaled deeply and moved forward along the ground, still sniffing and turning his blind head this way and that, as a mole does deep within its tunnel.

His hands touched something warmer than the dirt. Skin? He hesitated, almost drawing back, but could not help himself. He moved forward, closer, feeling long and slender legs along the ground in front of him. His eyes traveled over faint shapes in the dark, his vision a limb that had been asleep and now tingled with new feeling.

Delicately, he brushed his hands along the smooth, lush skin of the legs he’d found in the dark, moving up, along the curve of what must have been hips, to a slender waist. It had not been a man he had been tracking at all, but a girl. He trembled, disbelief and anxiety blurring together as he slowly regained his sight and began to make out the vision of the girl before him, lying asleep on the ground.

She was so beautiful, her hair spread wildly out like seaweed. Her breathing was steady, her clothes utterly missing, though she was still much concealed by shadows in the darkness.

Karaburan breathed heavily and shivered, ashamed of how close he was to her and of how desperately he wanted to hold her, to crawl over her, to do something terrible that his brain could not quite understand. He wanted to press his skin against hers, but he did not know why.

The girl stirred, making a faint sound in her sleep, and he moaned in reply, terrified of his impulses. He clapped his hands over his mouth in fear, all six fingers of each hand pressing together as if to take back the sound, but she had heard him. The girl woke as suddenly as an animal, her impossibly blue eyes flying wide open in the dark and a hoarse shout issuing from her throat.

“No!” she cried out, scrambling back, but he reached his huge arms to her and yanked her close to him. “No,” she repeated, louder and louder. “No! No!”

Karaburan squeezed her against himself, a strange mixture of sorrow and desire blossoming within him, as she struggled and screamed, beating at him, her eyes wider than a fish’s, her mouth flapping as she begged him to stop. Just a moment more, just a little longer . . .

Then the girl’s eyes went white-hot, like sunlight refracted sharply on the sea. The brightness blinded him, and he felt his entire body pierced by lightning. He recoiled, howling and burning, and the girl was gone. He was blind once again, weeping and shuddering in the darkness.

Thunder rolled loudly somewhere nearby, and Karaburan woke from his nightmare with a start, tears pouring down his uneven, bulging cheeks. He bolted upright, still shaking from his dream, and found himself in the small outcrop of rocks near Dante’s cave where he had lain down the night before. He was glad to find himself in the same place—it meant he hadn’t walked in his sleep. But the dream . . . The dream was one he’d had over and over for years, and every single time, it brought him to weeping shamefully in the darkness for what he’d done.