Day 7, June 5th 703 CR
The first thing Zyn did upon waking the next morning was to check for the snake.
It didn’t matter that the incident had been several hours before and the snake had likely moved on; he wouldn’t be caught dead with that thing around. However, the others were likely to taunt him about it as it was without further paranoia on his part, so he made sure that he looked around discreetly. Having failed to locate any sign of the reptile or its ilk in his vicinity, he was not content but satisfied that he wouldn’t meet up with it again. As he roused himself to take in the morning air as the light of the morning lit up the cave, he noticed Xayk in the corner. The thirty foot long beast was not asleep or in the process of waking as were the others; instead he sat there on his haunches staring with an intense, piercing curiosity.
Trying to take his mind off the dragon for a moment, Zyn took a good long look at the island vista that spanned out from the cave entrance. They were a good sixty feet up from the ground, giving a view that in daylight could be described as nothing less than stunning. Immediately below the shadow of the central mesa receded and gave way to ever brightening and lush green. Surrounding this lay pristine white sand of the beach circling the entire island, indented by vivid blue-green lagoons. The surface of the water around the island appeared glossy and smooth in contrast to the sea beyond the coral reef, which he could now spot with striking clarity. In a ring some hundreds of yards from the island itself beneath the water sat the coral reefs themselves, lying placidly under the waves in a lazy pattern that belied their deadliness, as the wound on Zyn’s arm and one certain makeshift grave on this island attested.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The sudden voice of his mentor made Zyn jump, and turning he saw him smiling wryly. “Damnit old man, I have half a mind to push you off this cliff right now.”
“I always wanted to fly, you know,” was the non-intimidated response. “But assuming that there’s some way to fix a problem involving certain fickle pseudo deities, we all might have a chance to ride on our serpentine friend.”
“Gah!” Zyn spat in disgust the choice of words, “you couldn’t resist.”
“Resist what, I might ask,” Lorian asked innocently.
“Damnit old man, quit being evasive! Besides, you really want to call him a ‘friend?’”
Letting loose a sigh, Lorian stared at the island vista before them. “I call lots of people ‘friend,’ Zyn, you know that. It’s simply being polite.”
“For some reason I get the feeling that that thing in there won’t really care if we’re polite or not.”
“Perhaps,” Lorian said, brushing his beard with his one hand. “Then again, he might appreciate such things.” Upon Zyn’s sarcastic look, he continued, “No, I am quite serious, he might very well respond to them.”
“He’s insane,” Zyn responded, as if this explained all there was to the dragon.
“Perhaps, but there might be more to him on top of that,” Lorian said.
“What in Eli’s name is that supposed to mean?”
“We’ll see,” came Lorian’s cryptic response. “So, how did your grilling of Mr. Scolastin go last night?”
“How’d you—” Zyn began before cutting himself off. “Wait, nevermind. He’s... he’s the firstborn son of a well placed family in Yesulam.”
“The Motesta family,” Lorian suddenly added.
The sudden interjection caught Zyn off guard. “What?”
“His mother’s family is from the Motesta family which at one time was in unquestioned dominance of much of Yesulam’s politics.”
“No, no, back up. How’d you know he’s from that family? That not even the family of his name, that’s his maternal side.”
“I looked into it when I saw the passenger manifest before we left port.”
The response was stunned silence from Zyn who sat there flabbergasted at his one armed mentor. “You... You... I... That was... Damnit old man. You knew this whole time?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
Zyn sighed in disgust. Figured that the old curmudgeon would have everything worked out ahead of time; before Zyn could even breath he’d probably had every single man on that shipped profiled and all figured out.
“It wasn’t as hard as you think it is, Zyn” Lorian chided. “The Motesta family is quite famous and well known in many circles, in the past for its glory, and nowadays for it stubborn clinging to that glory in the absence of other things.”
“Like Biathan?” Zyn asked.
Lorian smiled, a look that would have befitted a predator sensing a prey’s profound weakness. “Ah, yes, him. Apparently he is quite the crowning example for them, something they always point to, an Ecclesial insider if there ever was one.”
“So what? They just believe that because this one ancestor was so great that makes them and grand and such too?”
“You’re doing it again,” Lorian said with mild distaste.
“Doing what?”
“Responding to everything with a question; you did it throughout your conversation with Parn last night.”
“That’s only because I didn’t have to do anything more; he easier to crack than a broken egg,” he said with a wave of his hand. Lorian folded his arms unconvinced. “What does it matter? He’s a simpleton.”
This elicited a slight chuckle from the older man. “I think you will find that this young man is anything but a simpleton. Socially inept and easily cowed and intimidated, perhaps, but he is no simpleton. Just look behind you.”
Doing so, Zyn found the mage hunched over the smoldering remains of the previous night’s fire, staring intently and rubbing two stones together. What was he thinking, that he’d somehow get the fire restarted or something? “What? He’s probably just staring at his bane. It’s ‘not his specialty’ you know,” Zyn said, repeated Parn’s oft quoted protestation.
“Perhaps,” Lorian whispered. Of course he was letting that ever slight smile loose as well, making it clear that he thought more on the subject than that.
“Alright then,” Zyn said turning back to his master. “If you know so much about his family’s life story and everything already, then tell me how the Scolastin side of the family fits in.”
“Elevation of prestige,” Lorian replied as he tossed a rock out of the cave opening and watched it plummet below. “They’re a relatively minor nobility that only became prominent by the marriage of one Corsa Scolastin to one Murxine Motesta.”
Parn’s mother. “Is that what’s causing trouble for the family now?” Zyn asked.
“Oh no, the family’s troubles are far more myriad and complicated than that. It is a relatively minor note in a much larger song. Far much more has to do with self perceived status compared with that which is perceived by others.”
Zyn nodded. “Parn seemed to intimate as much. Said his mother was a very pushy one who seemed to relish in the center of attention.”
“Mmmm,” intoned Lorian, gazing out to the islands shoreline and stroking his beard. “Relishing in the glories being from such a prestigious family.”
“Ok,” Zyn sighed, “I’ll bite, what’s the big dichotomy?”
“You asked another question,” Lorian chided.
“But I’m trying—” Zyn began before being cut off. He opened his mouth again only to silenced by Lorian imitating a mouth closing with his hand.
“Less direct. Last night you sounded like a drunk overexcited city-watch guard interrogating a prisoner for the first time with your repeated awkward questions,” he said with a passive tone that was completely undercut by the sharpness of his words. “I realize that this island is a stressful place, but you will encounter many stressful circumstances in life. And yes,” he continued over Zyn’s imminent objection, “I am making the assumption that we will eventually leave this island, if for no better reason than there is no real harm in doing so. Now, think back, flow into the conversation. Bring something up that the person you are questioning can respond to in their own way.”
Fighting the urge to make a snide comeback, Zyn tried to exhale and relieve some of his tension. Despite the nine years Lorian had taught him, he still forgot some of the basics, such as not always asking direct questions. While he knew that he could just ask such questions to get his answers, especially from someone like Parn, and on this island there wasn’t a terribly pressing need for much else, he had to admit he saw the wisdom in it. He took a deep breath and forced his way back into the discussion he had been having with Parn, when he remembered something. “However forceful a woman this Murxine is, she has some hold of Parn. When I asked him his eyes darted to the floor and he shrunk sheepishly,” he said, before adding, “More than usual, that is.”
“But Parn is a spineless worm, is he not?” Lorian said lightly, “How much could it really take to make one such as him avert his gaze?”
“There... There was more to it, he slumped and cowered in a way I haven’t seen him do with any of us since this crazy trip began.”
“Mm, good observation, but still, how can you be sure that you know the inner workings of his soul from a few days contact?”
“Maybe I picked up a few things from my mentor,” Zyn said with an ever so small bit of placating snide.
“Perhaps, but quite frankly I don’t think you’ve picked enough up to be up to my level of competence,” he said dismissively and without any evidence of the humor that lay behind it. Zyn just casually sneered in response.
The younger man watched Lorian chuck a few more rocks out the cave before he made up his mind. “Ugh, fine, maybe I made a random guess on that one.”
“Perhaps. Do not dismiss your observation, just do not rely on it. Remember the first rule I taught you.”
“Hear all, trust nothing,” Zyn recited.
Lorian nodded in approval. “And this applies to more than just words. But in any case, your stab in the dark is correct. Murxine Scolastin is a force of nature unto herself,” he smiled ruefully. “It’s been several years since you’ve been to Ainador, but travel among its circles of power and it is inevitable you will hear her named. Not someone most are dying to meet. She relishes in whatever attention she can get her hands on.”
“Speaking of that, there’s something that’s been bugging me. I know that there was a Patriarch named Biathan two hundred years ago, but I can’t recall anything more than that.”
“Indeed?” Lorian asked in a passing sort of way.
Picking up on his mentor’s odd tone, Zyn continued. “Aside from gaining the position of Patriarch, just what is Biathan known for?”
Lorian’s smile spread out so wide it seemed to threaten to tear his face apart. “Nothing; he was in the office for 35 days before he died.”
Zyn stared at his master before bursting out in sardonic laughter. “Oh, oh, that’s good. That is priceless.” His laughter aroused some of the others from their sleep at long last, but the one they were actually talking about, Parn, barely cast them a glance as he continued whatever it was he was doing.
Any and all thoughts were immediately put on hold, however, when Xayk suddenly stood up. “Alrighty then, who wants some breakfast? You,” he said, pointing at a slowly rousing Pols, “Stinky, can we eat your leg?”
“Uh, ex-excuse me?” Pols asked nervously. Zyn couldn’t help but note that the sailor was certainly not dead from snakebite.
“Your leg, Stinky, I’m wondering what it tastes like. Come on, just a teensy weensy little bite?”
Zyn turned back to Lorian. “You sure he’s anything but insane?”
Xayk had insisted on flying them down to ground level from his cave. Despite their collective reservation about trusting the dragon with their lives to any degree, he was adamant, saying he had a serious discussion that he needed to have with Steve the coconut in private.
The ride down, which he did in threes by making two trips, was surprisingly not a trip to instant death. True, he did rather brusquely shove them off several feet above the ground, just a bit high for comfort, but they came through without any real injuries (aside from Lum’s shin and Grumiah’s toes).
As such the six cast aways were left to themselves to do whatever it was that needed doing, though come to think of it, they weren’t quite sure what exactly that was. With Xayk having revealed himself, it was suggested that they wouldn’t really have to worry about food or shelter until it was pointed out that this was Xayk they were talking about. His mannerisms and habits, from what little they had observed, were entirely unpredictable excepting they could have been put forth by an over exuberant six year old (granted a six year old who was thirty feet long and weighed Eli knew how much, not to mention could fly and perform black magic and probably squash them into mush with hardly any effort).
Meanwhile, Parn continued carrying his stones around, running around at random, to and fro all over the place. “Hey, mini-mage,” Pols yelled (a description that caused Lum to cross his arms in ironic amusement), “What are doing? The dragon’s crazy rub off on you or somethin’?”
Instead of answering or even giving a weak shrug or some sort of meager placating gesture, Parn actually ignored Pols’ jeering and kept running around seemingly haphazardly until he arbitrarily stopped in the brush. “Ok, that’s it,” Pols complained. “This place is nuts; that dragon’s wacko and now the mage has lost it too. How ‘bout we just jump into the ocean and start swimming?”
Suddenly a bright flash lit everything up briefly like another sun before snapping back down, leaving everyone blinded and dazed. “Great Yahshua, what are you doing Parn,” Lum yelled, “trying to blind us?”
“Oh, bother,” Parn muttered before turning back to the others. “Uh, sorry about that, it kind of... overloaded. I did not mean to do it like that.”
“Well I should hope so!” Pols cried in indignation before storming off to pout, or something, Zyn personally didn’t care so long as he deigned to grace them with his absence even for a short while. Shaking his head and trying to rid himself of the glare that still overwhelmed his vision, he tried to make out just what the timid mage had done. He was still holding the two stones that he had obtained from Xayk’s cave, only now they were glowing.
“What... why are those rocks glowing?”
“Hmm? Oh! Oh, yeah, these... these... these?” Parn fumbled.
“Glowing rocks?” Zyn finished for him.
“Yes! Yes, I was investigating a way to trap ambient magical energy and attune it in a synchronous manner to the pyro-directed properties of the fire in the cave and I needed a sufficient focus of currents to magnify it all so I could roughly duplicate all of it.”
Zyn blink in a totally noncomprehending manner. “You wanna run that by me again in Common?”
“Hmm? Oh, oh, sorry, I was not thinking about your ineptitude an- no, no, oh Abba, sorry, I did not mean to suggest... That was not was I attempting...”
Zyn rolled his eyes. “Just tell me what you were trying to do.”
“I was, uh... trying to imbue these rocks with... fire starting abilities?” Parn put forward meekly.
“Wait, I thought none of this fire crap was your specialty?”
“Oh no, it is not. My specialty is in enchantments and... well, just few side hobbies. I was just trying to rig some spells together in a way that would help me get around that... a little.”
Zyn blinked. “...So your study in enchantments helped you with this then?”
“Er,” Parn said, scratching his head. “Not really. I have worked more with fixed line and deep effect enchantments; working with trinkets is something I have never really done before.”
“So then how did you just ‘infuse ambient pyro ambience’ or whatever it is to make a pair of glowing rocks that can start things on fire?”
“I, uh... made it up?” Parn shrugged placatingly.
Zyn was about to say something when the sounds of shouting were heard in the direction of the beach. He stood for a moment wondering what was going on before he took off to investigate. “Wha- Uh, Zyn, Zyn wait up!” Parn shouted from behind.
However, upon reaching the beach, Zyn found himself at the head of one of the lagoons that pocketed the island’s perimeter, a lagoon that now contained a crashing and splashing Lum and Pols as they dashed to and fro in the water.
“What were you doing, trying to take a two second nap?” Pols demanded, “They were right where you’re standing and you’re telling me you missed them!?”
“I didn’t miss nothing midget, you pointed them out in the wrong place!” Lum shot back.
“Well I was just judging off where you threw the spear!” Pols yelled, brandishing one of the spears they had crudely fashioned over the last few days. “If there was any real mistake here it started with you!” he said with an accusing finger.
At that moment Parn stumbled, literally, onto the beach with a great fwomp. “Wha-what is going on?” he asked panting as he attempted to lift himself from the sand.
“Nothing,” Zyn chuckled, “Just crabs.”
“There!” Pols shouted, “To your left about twenty feet!”
“How the hell can you see anything, that water’s neck high!”
“I saw something, damnit! I saw it with my own two eyes!”
“I’m gonna make it one eye if I don’t find something over there,” Lum complained as he began trudging his way through deeper water.
“It’s there, idiot,” Pols complained. “There’s something there, I saw movement!”
“Yeah, that would be the waves in the water,” Lum responded.
“Not that, idiot! There was bubbles and junk. And something solid.”
Lum stopped and shot his fellow sailor an exasperated look as he stood in well over chest high water. “Yeah, like crabs float!”
“I saw something!” Pols screamed.
“And I say that you’re full of shit! Look!” Lum shouted, holding his arms above the water and pointing at the water that was lapping under his chin. “I’m right here, I’m feeling around all over with my feet; there’s nothing here!”
“Look harder,” Pols demanded.
“Screw you midget! How many times do—” Lum began, only to start and spurt momentarily. Zyn immediately took, notice, getting the distinct impression something was wrong.
“Lum?” Pols asked concerned, only for Lum to suddenly scream out in pain and disappear, no, be dragged under the waves. Pols stood absolutely stiff, face ashen white before screaming out a long string of expletives.
“Xayk!” Zyn yelled out, instantly suspecting the dragon was at work. “Xayk, this isn’t funny!” to which he received no reply, only the sounds of the wind and waves and a still petrified Pols who, apart from the cursing, remained rooted in place, apparently unable to decided whether to go forward and find Lum or to hightail his butt out of there.
All of which was disrupted by the sudden burst of Lum breaching the water’s surface. It was strange, one moment the entire lagoon was glossy as could be, with not even a hint of any struggle under the waves, then suddenly it was frothing and foaming with Lum’s frantic flailing of limbs. And his screams. Apparently this was enough for Pols who rushed forward to help his friend. Zyn took a moment, searching for whatever monstrosity had done the dragging before deciding that getting Lum out right that moment was the most pressing concern. As he splashed headlong into the water, he couldn’t help but think of Bresan, who hadn’t survived his last trips under the waves. The water, already dark from the night, had been made black as pitch from the blood. Now, once he splashed his way to about twenty feet away, he saw the thin, wavy flows of blood, now a deep red in the turquoise lagoon.
“Gah! Ahh, great Eli!” Lum screamed as Pols helped him up and Zyn rushed to his side.
“What is it? How bad is it?” Zyn asked, unable to see clearly under the waves due to the splashing and the seeping blood.
“My, arg!” Lum clenched his teeth. “My leg, left one, feels like a lion ripped it apart.”
Zyn thrust his hand under the water to feel around, expecting the worst. He felt the leg, and then the warm gooiness of exposed flesh. Suppressing the ill sinking in his stomach he felt around more, but much to his surprise there was leg under it. “Well, it’s not torn off or broken or anything, just a great big gash.”
“Oh, right, just a gash!” Lum shouted derisively as Zyn and Pols helped him back to shore. All the while Zyn kept look out for whatever had caused Lum’s sudden disappearance and injury, not wishing to fall into its sights as well.
“Shut up you idiot,” the other sailor said, “wait until we get you onto the beach then you can curse and scream all you damn want to.”
This is precisely what Lum did when Zyn and Pols dropped him onto the sand a minute or so later. The wound was pretty much what Zyn had felt; there was a great big mass of red on his left leg on the inner side of his calf. It was better than what he had been expecting, a leg broken and ruined or altogether torn off, but still, as it was it could seriously impair Lum’s ability to walk.
“Parn!” Zyn shouted to the mage who had followed them up to meet them on the beach, “I... you wouldn’t happen to know anything about healings, would you?”
“Hey,” Lum said, “I’m for some pagan magic if it starts some fires or kills something, but I draw the line at it messing with my own flesh and blood.”
“Uh...,” Parn fumbled for words, clearly embarrassed by the association of his skills with pagan practices, “It... it does not matter anyway, I have never studied such things.”
“What’s going on?” a commanding voice rang out, to be followed by the sight of Grumiah and Lorian emerging onto the beach.
Lum pointed at the lagoon. “There’s monsters in that lagoon! I felt like I got stabbed with something, then I just got dragged down and somethin’ damn near bit my leg off!” As an afterthought he added, “It wasn’t that dragon, was it?”
Lorian shook his head. “No, he only flew out of the cave a few minutes ago and was with us until just now... talking.”
“Are you suggesting I’m not interesting?” an unseen voice demanded before Xayk literally dropped from the sky. “That’s what Steve always says. It gets really annoying.”
“Um,” Zyn said, unable to keep from noticing an absence, “Does... Steve usually stay up in the cave or does he come... out?”
“What are you talking about? He’s right here.”
Responding to the nothing that Xayk seemed to be pointing at, the men looked around confused. “And,” Lorian said, “where would ‘here’ be exactly?”
“Right next to you silly little man!” They looked, and saw nothing but palm and coconut trees. “He’s invisible,” Xayk explained.
...Ok Zyn thought warily.
Lum groaned in pain (though probably some of it was brought on by reminder of their “captivity” on the island with this dragon), causing Xayk to cock his head sideways like a curious dog. “Ooh, have you now given into the despair of your fate on this island and resorted to the cannibalism already? Well don’t stop on my account, by all means, continue!” he said gleefully.
“Um... uh, sorry,” Lum said placatingly to their draconic host, “it wasn’t cannibalism...”
“But I wanna see cannibalism! We’re only a hundred or so miles from the Lypomese islands; I was on my way to see them when I got stuck here you know.”
“Look, er, Xayk,” Pols said in the most diplomatic fashion Zyn had ever heard the sailor speak in, “we’d love to talk about cannibalism some other time, but... my... friend here was just sort of... attacked by some kind of crazy monster in the water.”
“Impossible,” the dragon firmly declared. “I’m the only one allowed to be crazy on this island. It’s my island you know. Hmm, well, that stuff that bit you, um... Silly Sailor, yeah, that’s your name, the one with the gimpy leg. That stuff. I happen to think to suspect to have a clue as to where they might live!”
“So, it wasn’t you doing anything?”
“Oh no, no, no,” Xayk shook his head vigorously, “If I wanted to do something to you I’d think up something much more creative than simply biting you of course. No, you got bit by a Blorg.”
“A what?”
“It’s a big freaking crab that I made up a name for, you like it? Anyways, they live in these big underwater caverns through the coral reefs. And they’re poison by the way.”
The color in Lum’s face drained like water. “Oh, yeah, you got bit so you must have gotten a little poison too! Why did I forget that?” Xayk said, slapping himself upside the head. “Don’t freak out to much, you big baby, it’s easily fixed.” With that he placed one of his massive taloned hands on a petrified Lum’s body and snapped his claws with the other. “All better, you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything for another few minutes, though you’d have been pretty paralyzed by then. You’d be an invalid by then of course, so THEN the others could eat you.
“But I digress. The Blorgs, though aren’t the only things out there. There also happens to be groups of outcast deadric worshiping merfolk and some wereorcas in the water too.”
“You... What?” Grumiah said, taken aback by the sudden revelation.
“Aw, what’s the matter? Aren’t you supposed to be the fearless leader? The one that always goes in like he belongs on some painting or something? Besides, there’s only a hundred or so of them all total, so not too much to worry about.
Great Eli, wereorcas and demon worshiping merfolk in the waters? Zyn almost didn’t believe what he was hearing. In fact, thinking about it he didn’t. This was probably just another insane scheme by Xayk. Had to be.
Grumiah seemed to be doubtful too, and despite their host’s utter unpredictability (and threat of crushing) spoke up. “I’m no real expert, but don’t those two groups hate each other?”
Zyn himself knew a little of what Xayk was talking about. Merfolk, the half fish people who lived beneath the oceans, had a somewhat adversarial with killer whales, or orcas as they were otherwise called: big, huge, mean black and white oversized dolphins. And apparently, as humans had to occasionally deal with problem of werewolves, merfolk had to deal with mer who became wereorcas.
“Well that’s what makes it interesting! That’s what I want to find out in the first place, and now that you guys are here we can do just that. Come, follow me nowith in the present timeframe type position!” he declared before swinging himself around (and knocking Parn down with his tail in the process) and heading up the beach.
“Wait a moment, where are we going?” Zyn asked.
“I told you,” Xayk said, craning his head back with his characteristic grin, “We’re going to find out why those guys can go five minutes without killing each other!”
Realizing that they were going to be left behind in the dragon’s wake, the six men scurried like mice to catch up alongside the massive beast. “Have-have you not investigated this in your years here already?” Parn asked.
“Well, that’s just the thing. Just wait and you’ll see for yourself,” the dragon advised.
Unsurprisingly, Xayk talked the whole way. Maybe it was just the fact that he finally had company after all these years of solitude. Or maybe it was simply because he was insufferably insane. Not that any of them could decide not to suffer it, or at least they wouldn’t live much longer if they refused to do so. So, they dealt with Xayk’s ramblings about many things, like paper masks, wax, court fratricide, goat testicles and the like. Zyn was getting so sick of (and from) the conversation that he almost didn’t notice that the dragon had led them to a place he was more familiar with than he would have liked.
Lum caught it too, and shot Zyn a look chock full of apprehension and concern. Pols, apparently knowing his friend well, edged in trying to ignore Xayk’s ramblings. “What’s wrong?”
Trying to keep his fear down, Lum pointed at the cave entrance they were now approaching. “This is that cave.”
“What!?” Pols shrieked.
“Oh yes, this is the cave...” Xayk suddenly intoned in a dark, ominous voice. Then, unnaturally his voice resumed its light, chipper quality as he smiled balefully. “Let’s go inside!”
Zyn considered the possibility that the dragon was once again royally screwing with them, only this time with a slightly more fatal punch line. Lum apparently thought along the same line. “Uh, how about you tell us what’s inside first?”
Xayk’s entire body came screeching to a halt, and instinctively Zyn tensed, waiting for the dragon to snap back around madly and cut the impudent sailor in two. Instead, they were rewarded with an ever so childish ingenuousness. “But that would make the surprise not a surprise. That would make it… a Not Surprise!” he gasped in horror, and for the life of him Zyn honestly couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. “We can’t have Not Surprises! That’d be not fun!” Lum gulped, bewildered and confused, unsure of what to do, and then the dragon was belly on the ground, begging, “Please? Pretty please with chocolate and cream on top?” he pleaded like a lost puppy. Zyn never imagined that it was possible for a dragon, a massive fire breathing reptile more from myth than reality, to look so abominably pitiful. “Pleeeeeeeeease?” he asked with trembling lips and wide eyes that seemed to hold back a torrent of tears that could burst forth at any moment.
Lum, for his part, stood there like a mute idiot, mouth hanging open in a perfect position to catch flies, which it did in fact. Startled, the sailor smacked at his mouth and spit, but paid no more attention to the offending insect.
Xayk, however, took Lum’s silence (or used it so) to mean he acquiesced. “Yay! Oh thank you, thank you!!” he exclaimed, and jumped forward to capture the sailor in an overwhelming embrace. The sight of the massive dragon hugging tiny Lum so enthusiastically was one that would have made Zyn want to laugh, though he obviously didn’t.
Stepping back and letting Lum stagger to remain on his feet catching his breath, Xayk grinned wildly. “Ok then, now we get to go exploring!” Without further preamble their draconic host proceeded into the mouth of the cave and disappeared into its dark maw. The six men stared mutely at the cave and each other before a call rang out, “Hey you silly cast-aways, we don’t have all day!”
Zyn sighed and was the first to step forward to follow Xayk, and slowly the others followed. “Hey, how are we supposed to see anything down there?” Lum suddenly asked. “It was pitch black when me and Zyn went down there.” Zyn grimaced; it had been pitch black in more ways than one. Xayk’s antics or no (and how did any of them know that all of it hadn’t been the dragon’s fooling around in the first place), the feeling that he had been hit with the first time in this cave had been one of overwhelming darkness and foreboding. Come to think of it, the previous night on the plateau Xayk hadn’t exactly been roses and sunshine either. It had been different, but it sure felt dark and even somewhat evil. If Xayk could produce such feelings once, couldn’t he have done it earlier too? And, thinking more on it he had been somewhat quiet the previous night when that snake had crawled up onto his leg. Even during the jeering and joking of all the others, the dragon had been calm but intensely curious the whole time, and had been equally silent but intense when they had awakened in the morning only to spring into his happy-go-lucky “self.” Zyn rolled his eyes, as if they could tell just what Xayk’s true self even was.
Suddenly the dark cave was filled with a warm orange glow from its depths. “All better, see?” A loud chuckle followed, “Get it, see? Heheha!” Great Eli, the dragon’s insanity was bad enough, but now puns?
Slowly and cautiously, the six men descended into the dark cave, a cave that last time had chased them out with a wave of unfathomable darkness, but was now comfortably illuminated, illuminated better than most buildings in fact. At first Zyn thought the dragon was using a witchlight or something, but there was no concentrated point of light in sight. It was almost as if it was just popping out of thin air and illuminated the cavern completely spontaneously. Fortunately, this light made it far easier to descend into the cave than it had been the first time when he and Lum had been fumbling around in the dark, even though they had only ventured some yards into it before running out. It was enough for Zyn to see the floor was far from even and was littered with rocks that jutted up randomly; it had been a miracle that the two of them hadn’t sprained themselves or at the very least stubbed a toe on the mad scramble out.
Expecting to see Xayk waiting for them, Zyn was surprised to see just more empty cave. Apparently the ambient light spell that the dragon had cast was limited in its effect; it probably only worked in proximity to him, but then where had he disappeared to?
Turning around, he bumped into someone. At first he thought it was Grumiah but looking at him he realized something was amiss. “What the hell?” Grumiah, who was only now descending into the cave blurted. There before them, was a complete stranger who hadn’t been there a moment before. The short haired man simply raised an eyebrow. Soon they were all standing in shock at the sudden appearance of the stranger, who stood stoically and mutely.
Impatient, apprehensive and altogether agitated, Zyn stared back with ire. “Who the crap are you?”
“I am a figment of the imagination,” the man said.
“...Huh?”
“A figment,” the man repeated.
“Where did Xayk go?” Grumiah demanded.
“He’s busy with something,” was all that the newcomer said, and without further ado proceeded to venture down further into the cave. “Shall we not continue?” he asked without turning back. The six men looked at each other before they realized that the ambient light spell was moving along with the “figment” and rapidly leaving them behind in the cave’s gloomy dark, prompting a speedy pursuit of the strange man.
“This is bull,” Zyn whispered harshly to the others. “Where did this guy come from?”
“Uh, a figment of our imaginations?” Lum weakly offered.
“Yeah,” Pols snorted, “and now a figment’s leading us down to Eli-knows-what in this dark cesspit? Isn’t a figment supposed to be, you know, not really there?”
“Who says I am?” The Figment asked up ahead, fading translucently as he did so.
“Alright damnit,” Pols hissed, “That’s it. I’m getting out of here right now.” He turned around to do just that when he suddenly bumped into someone else. As Zyn snapped around, he saw before them another man in his late thirties or so with wild frizzled green hair.
“Holy great Yahshua!” Lum shouted.
The green haired man shook his head insistently. “Why do you want to leave?” he asked, “The thing I wanna show you guys is still down here.”
Zyn blinked before coming to his senses. “Xayk?”
The frizzled green haired man nodded enthusiastically. “Yup, in the flesh! Well... sorta. It gets kind of narrow up ahead you know, I couldn’t exactly fit through normally, I’d get stuck!” he said, making motions with his body imitating him getting stuck. Zyn grimaced briefly at the idea of the dragon getting stuck in front of them blocking the way... or even worse, behind them. He of course remembered that the stories often had something about dragons changing form and whatnot, but he hadn’t quite expected to see it demonstrated so vividly before. Then again, he had never expected to meet a dragon in the first place, let alone one as colorful as Xayk.
“So are you guys coming or what?” Xayk asked, then pushed his way past the others to follow the Figment.
“So, wait a moment,” Zyn said as they more or less fell in step with Xayk. “Just what is that thing that’s supposed to be leading us?” he began, not able at all to put into words the situations they were being put into by their host.
“Well, he is a figment of the imagination” Xayk shrugged.
Zyn couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Yeah, but who’s imagination are we talking about?”
Another shrug. “Dunno, maybe you, maybe Stinky, maybe the Silly Sailor, maybe me, could even be Steve. He’s evil by the way,” he added offhandedly.
“But... how’d that happen? How did this ‘figment’ start walking around? Did you have something to do with it?”
“Hehe, silly little human, you really think I’m that powerful?” Then suddenly his face hardened like sharp glass. “Yes, you did, didn’t you now? You did!” he spat.
“Um, I...”
“Well I suppose now’s the time to tell you that when I said I was Xayk I was lying. Or maybe I was lying when I made myself appear as a dragon. I’m actually an evil cursed frog out to steal all your souls. Bojaam!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air as if proclaiming some kind of curse. Upon the sudden backpedaling the startled cast aways, he lifted his hands up again. “Bojaam...,” he said in a whisper before trailing again after the Figment.
“Are... are we going to die?” Parn asked.
“Come on you silly little people, I’ve got to drag you all to your doom at the bottom of this cave!”
“Yeah,” Zyn whispered. “I get the sort of certain feeling that we’re going to die.”
“So what are we going to do then?” Parn asked, his trembling terror evident.
“I vote for running.” Lum declared. With that he and Pols were the first to start going backwards and then quietly bolt for the cave entrance, and soon they all were proceeding to get the hell out of that cave. The cave was nearly pitch black now, but the light coming in from the entrance, even though blocked from their line of sight, was plainly visible against the black behind them. Aside from the oddly placed rocks that caused more than a few toe-stubbings they faced little in the way of obstacles.
This changed, however, when in front Lum came screeching to a halt, followed quickly by Pols who crashed into his back, followed by Zyn as he careened into their fallen forms and tripped head over heels on top of them, who felt the pile of men shaken by Grumiah crashing full force into them with his hefty well built frame, nearly wrenching Zyn’s left arm from its socket and seeming to impact right on his coral wound. Lorian managed to screech to a halt before being plowed into by a panicking Parn, reducing the men to a tangled mess of limbs.
The reason for this sudden stop was sitting square in the middle of the entrance;
perched upon a crude but perfectly symmetrical cot was coconut with a crudely
carved face with a look that could best be described as confused and on the
fritz. Steve the coconut stared blankly at them as they untangled themselves
with caution and apprehension, nervous at the coconut’s sudden appearance.
“Nobody move; don’t do anything sudden,” Lorian cautioned.
Steve stared back at them as confused as ever.
Pols looked incredulously at the one armed man. “It’s just a stupid coconut.”
“Yes, but this is Xayk we’re talking about. When has anything been ‘just’ since we have met him?” It took Zyn a moment to remember that they had only been introduced to the dragon... er, whatever, the previous night, though it may as well have been a week for all it felt like. “It wasn’t here when we entered.”
Pols snorted. “So that’s his fiendish plan? Leave a coconut to guard us and keep us from leaving?”
“Um, this is Steve we are talking about,” Parn added.
“It’s a coconut, chubby boy,” Pols retorted in annoyance.
Apparently deciding to test the coconut’s resolve, Lum jumped forward a bit then immediately back. Steve did nothing in response. This was followed when he extended his foot to within spitting distance and held it there for a long moment. The coconut did nothing.
“Are you going sit there and pansy foot all day with that thing or are we going to do the smart thing and hightail ourselves outta here?” Pols demanded.
Grumiah snorted, annoyed at Pols’ impatience. “You wanna go ahead and go past that thing, you’re welcome to.”
The squat sailor shut his mouth for once, but paced back and forth, staring at his intractable nemesis. Zyn sighed, growing impatient himself, and grabbed a small rock and tossed it at the tropical fruit. Steve did nothing.
“What in the Pagan Hells are you doing?” Pols demanded.
“You’re the one that wants to get past this thing.”
“But that could have made it... react,” Grumiah said with a grimace, reluctant to even give voice to the ridiculous idea.
“Fine then, then we’d at least know instead of sitting here having a staring contest with it.”
The standoff ensued for what had to be minutes, but each one added an immeasurable amount of tension. Every few seconds one of them would turn look back over their shoulders, looking for any signs of a certain green haired individual or anything odd or sinister. They had to be running out of time; how much longer could they honestly expect to have before Xayk discovered that they had left?
“Alright,” Pols declared hotly, “I’ve had it up to hear with the dragon’s wacko antics. Let’s just go right past this thing.” In response to the squat sailor’s declaration, there were more than a few nods of agreement. Noticeably lacking, however, were the announcements of anyone volunteering. Scowling, Pols shock his head. “Zyn, you go first.” Weird
“Me?” Zyn asked incredulously, “It’s your idea, you go.”
“You’re the one who decided to chuck some rocks in the cursed thing’s face!” Pols retorted.
“That’s one thing; getting up into its face is something else entirely,” Zyn said. “You do it!”
“I ain’t touching that!”
“Fine, fine,” Lum said, waving his hands down trying to calm Zyn and Pols down. “It doesn’t have to revolve around just you two. There can be another way.” He smiled placatingly at them both, trying to keep some semblance of civility to the group. “Grumiah, you go first.”
Lum was rewarded for his attempted group conciliation with a hard stare from the grizzled quartermaster and sharp expletive to go and commit an indecent act with his mother.
Sighing, Lorian stepped between the quarreling cast aways. “Alright children,” he said with the slightest audible twinge of ire. “Since we can’t just pick someone, or volunteer,” he added sharply, “we can just determine—”
“Hey,” Zyn interrupted, “You could always volunteer yourself, you old goat.”
“We can just determine,” Lorian repeated, unflappingly ignoring Zyn, “who’ll go with a quick match of Rock, Paper, Shears. So, let’s do this quick so we can get out of here like we should have done five minutes ago.”
“Fine,” Grumiah assented. “But if Pols cheats again he automatically gets picked,” referring of course to the match they had held on the raft days before.
“I did not cheat!”
“Shut up midget!” Lum and Grumiah said simultaneously.
Grumbling and griping like an old woman, Pols grudgingly joined the circle for the game as the others followed suit, the first round of which ended ever helpfully with all six of them choosing Rock. Ever mindful that at any moment Xayk could come roaring back up the cave in pursuit, they started again, ending with Parn choosing Rock and all five of the others choosing paper. Marveling at how quick that had gone, they all looked to a now hyper-nervous Parn who’s eyes shot back from them to Steve, and back and forth several times. Beads of sweat began to race down his forehead, and Zyn swore he was going to pass out. Instead, Parn shouted in stress and suddenly bolted around and ran, back into the cave. The five men were too stupefied to stop him as he ran back into the darkness, back towards their draconic captor.
“Well, this is just swell,” Zyn muttered, glancing a look back at Steve as he watchfully (or not) barred their exit from the cave. In that moment he considered just bolting past and knocking over the coconut right then and there, but its stupid, crude faze just stared back confused, and...
“You know,” Lorian finally said, “This is really rather ill thought. How far could we really get on this island without Xayk catching us?”
“Um, yeah, yeah, I suppose he could just do that anytime,” Lum heartily agreed.
“He can fly and all,” Grumiah added.
“And use all that magic and stuff,” Pols joined in.
After a moment of awkward silence and Steve’s continued glaring, Zyn took a step back to the cave. “Well, there’s no really reason for us to stick around doddering then is there?” he said as he quickly but quietly retreated back into the cave, immediately followed by the other four, leaving Steve to keep his watch on the cave’s entrance.
Avoiding the obstacles on the rock strewn floor of the cave, they tried to get by without the ambient light they had had on their way down, and stumbled frequently as a result. On one occasion Zyn crashed into Pols and they nearly tore each others’ heads off, but both seemed to sense a need for quiet and not attracting attention to themselves in the vain, futile, ridiculous hope that somehow Xayk had not noticed their departure.
Amazingly, against all odds and as sure a sign as any that Eli had not completely forgotten them all on this island, when they finally crept up behind the green frizzle-haired Xayk he was focused entirely on conveying some story or another and was completely oblivious to their absence (they had run into a huffing and puffing Parn shortly before he had caught up with the dragon himself).
“...I told the stupid monkey that he shouldn’t do it, but by the Great Purple Rocks I don’t think he listened to me. Then again, he probably didn’t have much of a mind to think with given that he was a monkey and all, but... still! You can’t take everything for granted.” The human-form Xayk continued blithely as they fell into step behind him.
“Curses be upon you!” he suddenly screeched and snapped around pointing at them.
Zyn about had a heart attack at that moment, and even his normally unflappable mentor was sent back with a shock, clutching his chest in shock. “You,” Xayk began accusingly, shaking his finger, “Your skin isn’t purple! Curses be upon you! Curses! Bojaam!” With that, however, he promptly turned around and continued as if nothing at all had happened. “But yeah, the monkey was pretty stupid, and he certainly wasn’t going to...”
Catching his breath for a moment, Zyn realized that they were off the hook... at least for the moment, and at least he thought they were. Whether Xayk had caught on to their attempted escape he honestly couldn’t tell, but with Steve waiting for them there... But why then didn’t Xayk punish them? Did he really know about their absence or had he just had that set up to catch them as he left? But then he was walking down the cave with them the whole time; how could he have put Steve up there? And speaking of strange happenings, where had the “Figment of the imagination” gone to? Zyn rubbed his head as it started to physically hurt. Perhaps it was better not to think with this dragon around. Yeah, better not to think.
Xayk continued on, filling their ears with crushingly mindless dreck about monkeys that didn’t seem to the understand the concept of magical traps and one bit about a fat Irombi prince that made little to no sense when by chance Zyn looked up to see their way forward had a huge stone door sitting in the way. Lorian to his left bugged his eyes wide like a startled child for a moment, catching Zyn’s attention. “That... now that must be quite old,” the old man mused.
“It’s old as dirt,” Xayk affirmed, waltzing right up to the door’s entrance before spinning about on his heel to give them all a disturbingly warm smile. “Old as a lot of stuff. Older than me, actually, if you can believe it.” Somehow I sort of do have a hard time believing that or anything you say, Zyn thought to himself.
The seven of them basted in the silence until Grumiah raised his head. “So you brought us down here to see... a door?”
“No, no, you silly sailor type person thing,” Xayk giggled as though he were a child talking to a toy, “I brought you down here so we could open it.”
Now that the light had fully settled on them all Zyn got a better look at the door in question. Fairly old, just as Xayk claimed, it seemed heavily worn and eroded, which seemed odd considering that this was deep down in a cave where wind and rain couldn’t possibly get to. Then again, they were deep down below the surface, so there was the distinct possibility that this place had flooded in the past. Suddenly Zyn felt crushed by a sudden feeling of claustrophobia as memories of the storm that brought them here and his near permanent descent into the ocean’s deep abyss. Taking a few deep breaths of air, not water, helped to relieve this problem, but part of him couldn’t help but dwell on it.
Aside from its worn and smoothed out features, there was little to determine anything at all about the strange door aside from the fact that it was down here at all, which told him quite a lot in and of itself. If Xayk was in fact telling the truth, and there were other things on this island besides himself that could perform what he and Lum had felt before... Zyn suppressed a shudder at what could be behind this door. And the dragon now seemed to want to open it. Maybe he had brought them down here to steal their souls after all...
“You want us to open a door?” Zyn blurted out. “Couldn’t you do that yourself?”
Zyn braced himself as he half expected another explosive outburst, but was met instead with a sort of sad shaking of Xayk’s head. “Nope, the door’s mean and doesn’t wanna work that way. You see these two slightly raised platforms on either side of this door?” Glancing at where Xayk was pointing, he saw to next to each side of the door a large raised stone tablet of some sorts that didn’t seem to be quite the same as the surrounding material. “Someone needs to step on each one and deliver some hocus pocus chanting and stuff to make the door open.”
“Chanting,” Grumiah repeated warily. “That wouldn’t be any... evil kind of chanting, would it?” The toleration of Parn’s ability as it was by the Follower cast aways was somewhat stretched by their circumstances; the fact that he had been crucial to their survival at several points made them tolerate him without complaint, but there were limits to what they would comfortably allow. Of course, Xayk didn’t apply to those rules; he was a massive, flying, magic-using reptile and could do whatever he pleased. It wasn’t like there was much stopping him. Still, the thought of any magics that were less palatable than Parn’s limited repertoire set them all on edge, or at least... more on edge than they already were.
“Just stupid nonsense words that the people who built this ascribed some meaning to. ‘Course, we can’t ask them what any of it meant to them personally seeing how they’re dead and all, so yeah, nonsense words,” Xayk said as he gave the door a thorough check.
“Did you say that two people would be required to chant?” Parn asked nervously, knowing that there was only one person here besides Xayk himself who could perform any kind of magic.
“Yup, I say that,” Xayk responded.
The boy faced mage visibly gulped. It was clear he was apprehensive doing anything more than breathe around the dragon, and now he was being asked to cooperate with him in casting Eli-knew what of a spell.
“Please?” Xayk asked; though he wasn’t going for the abominably pitiful look he had gone for earlier he certainly tried to make himself look pleading and wounded. Considering his green frizzled hair, the effect was... well, Zyn just didn’t have words for it.
“Um... Ok?” Parn acquiesced to the dragon’s pressure
“Excellent! Now then, you’re going to have memorize a bunch of stuff to even get this door to notice us.”
The dragon continued blithering on for some time; it had to be close to an hour if Zyn was keeping track of time at all reasonably, though in this dark cave that was pure guesswork. Xayk was talking about “entanglement” this and “asymmetrically oriented effects” and other horribly complicated stuff that he didn’t even bother to try and figure out, though Parn seemed to be having an easy enough time. More than that, he seemed rapturously intrigued and engaged by Xayk as he went on describing whatever it was he had in mind.
While those two carried on their strange magic talk, Zyn and the sailors just stood around and waited, occasionally exchanging a few words before contemplating the silence and the strange door. Its barren, worn façade betrayed little of what lay behind, but it spoke of secrets forgotten, a dark history buried beneath the earth and waves. Perhaps it was best that its last remaining face to the world of this place was so blank; there was no way to discover, by accident or intention, what lay beyond. Except for Xayk, obviously, who for whatever reason was able and willing to breach it. Why he was doing it, none of them had the courage to ask. Besides, he’d probably come up with some nonsense answer and make them go along with him no matter how ridiculous it was.
“You get all that?” Xayk asked, rubbing his hand across the door as he finished explaining some mechanism behind it.
“Um, yes, yes, I believe I do,” Parn said, even though he was clearly still digesting everything he had heard.
“Good, ‘cause if you didn’t I’d have to disembowel you and eat your spleen with coconut milk.”
Of course, Parn didn’t respond to that, merely the color drained from his face and he nodded placatingly.
“So,” Zyn began, unable to help but notice one thing. “Where, um, did you get all that information on how this door works?”
“Oh that’s easy,” Xayk replied, “The invisible script on the walls.”
Zyn raised an eyebrow as he glanced at said walls. “Invisible... script?”
“Well of course! You can’t see it, so obviously it’s got invisibility spells on it!”
Next to him Parn shifted uncomfortably. “This is... this is a lot of information. We are... not going to try this now, by chance?” he ventured anxiously.
“Oh no no, I wouldn’t expect your little mind to catch all of that by heart. We’re going to be memorizing it.”
“Memorizing what?” Zyn demanded.
“The ritual stuff to make this door open of course!” Xayk explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the universe. It was then that Xayk declared that said memorization would take several hours to complete and that he’d have to help Parn do so until nightfall. The upside to this, or so he said, was that the others could do whatever they wanted pretty much. It took precisely two seconds for them to decide to head topside again, but this prompted a most distressed frown from Parn. Lorian shrugged his shoulders and said he’d keep him company so the mage wouldn’t have to be all alone with Xayk, who replied that it wouldn’t be too much of an issue as he wasn’t going to rape Parn or anything... probably. This prompted the flight of Zyn and the sailors even faster. Of course, after taking the first step they belatedly realized that it was pitch black all the way back up to the mouth of the cave and that it twisted and turned several times. The green haired Xayk said nothing for a moment, then shouted a curse upon them for not believing in cannibalistic monkeys, and then promptly ignored them.
At this point they were all rudely shocked by the return of the Figment who’s only line was “Follow me then,” and at that moment another ambient light spell lit up the cave and the Figment went on his merry way. Exchanging apprehensive looks with the sailors, Zyn shrugged and followed on.
“Whatever happened to this guy when we caught up with Xayk earlier?” Lum wondered aloud. “He just... disappeared by that point.”
“Well, he is supposed to be a figment of the imagination,” Zyn ventured.
“Yeah,” Pols snorted, “walking ‘figments.’ And this is just what the dragon’s doing. Can you imagine what could be waiting for us on the other side of that door? This is insane, blasted insanity, the whole lot of it. That dragon’s going to kill us all before it’s all said and done.”
Avoiding a rock he nearly tripped over, Lum caught up with the two of them. “Hey, if we go through that door, at least we’ll be doing something.”
“Yeah, yeah we’ll be doing something,” Pols agreed. “We’ll be dying, that’s what we’ll be doing. I saw the look in your eyes when you two came out from this cave the first time, and I tell ya Lum I ain’t never seen you as scarred pissed as you were then. That was what came up through the door and through the cave to hit you just as you were entering.”
“You’d prefer to sit on your ass and let death take ya?” Lum challenged.
“Well I’m sure as hell ain’t going to waltz into that pit the dragon wants to drag us into. You lookin to die Lum? Just because you’re bored?”
Before, Lum could reply, Zyn interrupted. “What if some of us are?” he interjected.
Naturally, Zyn took great pleasure from the startled look that appeared on the sailor’s face. Though of course, it disappeared and was replaced with a scowl almost instantly. “Then you’re stupid, landlubber. Just plain stupid. Grumiah, would you go through that door?”
The quartermaster stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “That wouldn’t be my first choice, no.”
“Of course not; it wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice,” Zyn said, leaving unspoken the thought that it might be Xayk’s first choice. “My first choice would be getting off this island and back home. But I can’t exactly do that now, can I? Besides, if Xayk wants to go through and he wants us to go with him, how, exactly, are you going to tell him no?”
This at last silenced the short sailor, though not for lack of trying. It was evident that he was trying to come up with a comeback but also had to suppress a shudder, probably thinking of the dragon’s hold over all of them.
“The answer to that’s simple,” Grumiah answered at long last. “You aren’t. None of us are going to do much of anything in telling that dragon what he doesn’t want to hear.”
“Bah,” Pols spat, “the beast’s insane, that’s what he is. There’s a way to get inside his skull; it’s gotta be all broken up inside there. There’s gotta be some way of getting through the crazy that’s around that, we just gotta find it.”
Zyn scoffed at the sailor’s childish logic. “Well then, you go ahead and try. I’ll laugh when it all comes to nothing.” Predictably, Pols glowered at him, looking as though he wanted to pound him into the dirt. Good, let him get angry, that was exactly what Zyn wanted. If he got angry enough to try and prove Zyn wrong with regards to the dragon, so much the better.
For whatever reason, Steve the coconut was not waiting for them when they came to the entrance. The four of them took it in stride, or at least they didn’t outwardly speak of the extreme unease they felt at the supposedly inanimate object’s spontaneous disappearance. They saw nothing else to warrant further suspicion, aside of course from the fact that this was Xayk’s island and he could do whatever it was that he wanted to do... and whatever happened to pop into his mind at any given moment.
Finding himself a nice quiet area to work, Zyn sat down and started fashioning spears alone. They needed more as the ones they had all made had the unfortunate tendency to snap into pieces if someone so much as breathed upon them, necessitating the fashioning of more. They of course argued over why that was so, Pols kept grumbling it was because they had selected crappy wood, Lum insisting that there was something wrong with the wood itself that was causing it to be so brittle and unwieldy. Whatever the case, Zyn let them argue amongst themselves; it was not so much the work he was doing as it was getting away from the others, something he needed so desperately.
He had spent the past several days with these men, and truth be told he was having a hard time dealing with them, near death experiences shared with them notwithstanding. He could feel the animosity lurking just below the surface; with any of them it could just burst forth at any time. Well, except for Parn of course; he was too much of a wiener. And Lorian; he had been through too much with the man to suspect him of losing his cool without a deliberate reason.
Some hours passed, the sun nearing the horizon, when Lorian emerged from the cave. “They won’t be long behind,” he said, “They’re just finishing up on some details before they call it a night.”
“You sure you wanna trust that dragon with the mage alone?” Lum asked.
Lorian shrugged. “I figure if he wanted to do something to any of us, whether we’re alone or not, he’d just do it. It’s not like we’re going to stop him,” he said, repeating the now familiar excuse they all put up whenever it came to what the dragon might do at any given moment.
As Zyn continued working, through the obscuring brush he could see his mentor prowling about, pacing and studying the others as they worked, giving them an inordinate amount of discreet attention before moving on to the others. It was a subtle thing, something that could only be gleaned by knowing the man, but there was a familiar gleam in the older man’s eyes as he watched the others. Zyn, of course, knew what it was.
Lorian was lonely, no doubt. It had been some time since he had had “close” companionship with anyone, and it came as no surprise that he was probing among the sailors for it. It would be restricted to them of course; Parn was too innocent and gullible. Lorian would never take advantage of anyone like that in such a way, it just went against his character. The only other choice was Xayk, and something small in the back of Zyn’s mind told him that was somewhat out of the question.
Zyn naturally didn’t consider himself, for that question had been resolved long ago. Not long after the one armed man had taken the young vagrant Ainadorian under his wing, he had hinted to him in confidence that such a relationship was possible, if it was what he wanted. Zyn, however, had told his mentor in no uncertain terms that he would not “be anyone’s plaything.” Their relationship was professional, a master-apprentice affiliation that was built upon respect first and foremost, and Zyn made it clear that was only by respect that it had any grounds at all; nothing else could possibly substitute itself for that. Lorian was in no way offended, and never again broached the subject. It was one reason that Zyn, despite everything, had the highest level of respect for his mentor.
As he carried some of the newly fashioned weapons to the camp’s pile, he saw Grumiah and Pols busy trying to procure pitch, or at least equivalent from some of the coconut wood, no doubt to use in torches in the cave. Lum was off in the brush relieving himself and complaining that the “damn coconuts were giving him the runs.”
“Of course they’re giving you the runs,” a voice that could only be Xayk declared from behind them, with the men nearly throwing themselves to the ground spinning about to face him, “they’re evil, you know. Coconuts are evil so they do evil things.” He was perched right there, sitting on his haunches with an exhausted Parn stumbling forward to catch up.
“Er, I take it Steve notwithstanding?” Zyn ventured.
“Nononono, Steve’s a prime example of why coconuts are evil. Isn’t that right Steve?” He asked to his left, where in the sand sat a coconut with a new face carved into it, a face that Zyn hadn’t seen before, this one looked slightly more giddy than before but just as confused. “Right back at you, you slime ridden whore.”
As night settled in they decided to sleep on the ground in their camp rather than in Xayk’s cave as it seemed a nice enough night. They did their best to ignore Xayk who helped somewhat by sitting in the corner and remaining silent, though truth be told he actually seemed creepier that way. His piercing orange eyes studied them intently, and however long Zyn watched he never once saw him blink. Instead, they concentrated on building a fire and just relaxing.
“No, no, I never said somethin’ like that,” Pols insisted.
“Yes, you did,” Lum insisted right back. “We never would have gotten thrown in jail if you hadn’t gone and insulted the barkeep’s mother.”
“So?” Pols demanded, “She was ugly, and she was a whore. Believe me, I of all people would know!” he said with a hearty laugh.
“So? It still left us broke by the time we got out of there. Had to take whatever ship and haul we could take and look where that ended us up!” Lum declared, waving his hands on the island around him.
“Hmm,” Grumiah mused thoughtfully, “Bad circumstances. I almost wish I had an excuse like that.”
“Why, how’d you get saddled with that piss brain captain?” Pols asked, in an assessment that both he and Zyn both heartily agreed on.
Grumiah took a long drink from their crude half-cut coconut shells they used as cups. “Bad luck, just plain bad luck. I was supposed to ship out with someone else, someone I knew was good at the job, but I caught a sickness and was bedridden for a week. I needed the work badly, so I had to take whatever was available. Hence, I’m here now.”
“What did you come down with?” Zyn asked.
“Who knows,” Grumiah answered. “Something or another, the healers had some weird name for it that I’ve never heard of before. It made for a pretty miserable week or so, but I got over it well enough.”
“Did it involve heaving and reddish-purple spots on your arms?”
The quartermaster gave him a look. “Something like that.”
“Galigan collywobbles,” Zyn said. “That’s the simple name for it.”
“How would you know something like that?” Lum asked curiously.
Zyn smiled humorlessly. “It was spreading in the area before we left for a while, and I had it when I was a child. Pretty rare, but pretty nasty all the same.”
Lum nodded to himself, taking another sip. “So, the mage got here because he’s someone’s poor errand boy,” he said. Zyn wasn’t sure how he knew that, though it seemed likely that somewhere during the voyage the sailor had asked some questions. “There’s us, and then there’s Grumiah there, but what are you two doing here?”
“What, is there something unusual about two men booking passage on a ship?” Lorian asked innocently.
“Well, no, except you seem to be the type who can tell if someone is the competent sort, even if they’re in a completely different profession, and I didn’t meet anyone on that ship who didn’t think that the captain was a worthless sack of piss. There wasn’t a single person on board who was there entirely by choice.”
Lorian chuckled. “The trip was a... spur of the moment thing, if you will, though we have been wondering around the Southlands for some time and desired to return north. But in any case, just how would you know what my profession would or wouldn’t be?” he asked with a smile.
“You ain’t sailors, that’s for sure,” Lum said. “Come to think of it, I ain’t sure what your profession is. You wouldn’t be some kind of artisan, by chance?”
“Indeed,” Lorian said as he stoked the fire. “I work principally as a painter. A fresco painter, actually.”
Grumiah’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Fresco painter... Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Moeb, by any chance.”
The one armed man just smiled in response.
“Are you serious?” Parn asked in awe. “You are Lorian Moeb, the Lorian Moeb?”
“Who’s that supposed to be?” Pols asked with typical ignorance.
“You never heard of him?” Lum asked. “Even I’ve heard of him, Pols. He’s only one of the most famous fresco painters of our time.” The other sailor merely growled slightly.
“Well tickle me pink,” Grumiah mused, “Lorian Moeb on our boat. Why didn’t you say anything? We could have at least given you some better meals or somethin.”
“I get more than enough of that from my clients, sometimes a little too much. And yes, there is such a thing as too much high society and politeness. Sometimes a little jocular informality is good for the soul.”
“Amen to that!” Lum lifted up his coconut in a toast.
They all raised their coconut cups in unison and took a long swig. “Damnit, wish this was actual beer or something else decent,” Pols muttered.
“Just pretend these shells are some wench’s tits or something,” Lum suggested.
His sailor buddy laughed. “Yeah, we’re cuttin up wenches and groping their tits as cups!” he said as he juggled two coconut shells up and down as if he were displaying them.
Grumiah sighed and shook his head. “You two are incorrigible.”
“So Zyn,” Lum said at long last, “How goes your painting then?”
The question had been asked of him more times than he could count, and Lorian had had many different answers for him to give. “Halfway decent, I guess. I do some, but that’s not what he keeps me around for.”
“That not... what?” Lum asked confused. “You’re his apprentice, right.”
The fresco painter laughed and stroked his beard. “If you count my imparting of knowledge to him, than yes, you could very much call him that. As far as fresco painting is concerned, no, that’s not to be Zyn’s path in life.”
“I don’t understand,” Grumiah said, “I thought you artisans had to pass stuff on to apprentices, or else your art dies with you.”
This elicited a chuckle from the elder man. “Perhaps, though in this matter I’m content to let it be Eli’s concern. I myself am not worried.”
“I’m worried,” Xayk suddenly cut in. “I’m worried about the coconuts. They’re evil you know. You can’t break them open without completely smashing them.” His massive chipper form hopped into the middle of the camp and promptly sat himself right on top of the fire, instantly squelching it.
As they watched the fire they had worked so hard to get started smothered out of existence into tendrils of smoke, leaving the camp dark except for the embers and light of the slowly waxing moon. At first they did nothing lest it provoke the dragon, but as he started droning on about coconuts and their various evils Zyn and Pols got sick of it and started rekindling the fire as soon as Xayk moved his massive posterior off of it.
Fortunately after this the dragon ceased his endless ramblings, and the men rebuilt the fire and slowly started building up conversation among themselves whilst doing their best to ignore him. Unfortunately Xayk now wanted to play, which he announced by suddenly shoving Grumiah causing him to roll for a good ten feet. “Come on, guys, it’s a game!” the dragon insisted, “See, I shove you, and we see how far you roll when I do!”
Xayk’s mischievous rantings began anew as he randomly shoved some of the poor cast aways around; he started talking about lemons, ancient civilizations, and then goat testicles. And then more about goat testicles. They were really odd. They were extra “squishy.” And they made a great ingredient in soup. Parn upchucked what remained of his dinner, and the others tried unsuccessfully to keep the dragon’s blithering monologue out of their heads. Finally Xayk changed topics, though his new one was a demand that one of them should cut off their own manlihood so that he could have it in a soup. “I need soup! If I don’t get it I explode, it happens sometimes... There’s lots of goo when that happens, but it’s not the good kind like in ‘testy’ soup.”
“Xayk!” Grumiah, Zyn, and Pols all shouted at once, in the vain hope that the dragon would realize how ill he was making his guests. Xayk didn’t pay attention though, or far more likely he did but didn’t care in the slightest, and quickly grabbed Lum and Parn and shot into the air with both his prizes dangling precariously from his clawed hands. Screaming and yelling commenced in quantity, to which the dragon responded with a nonchalant shrug and a casual admonition not to let go.
Flying aimlessly around for a few more minutes, Xayk finally let down his passengers with a plop from about six or so feet, resulting in a couple of sore bones. “Play, Play!” the dragon insisted.
Pols was next on the list of people to be annoyed as Xayk stood still over him and hung his jaw agape for no apparent reason other than to let saliva drool out of his mouth and drop square onto the top of the sailor’s head. This proved to be the breaking point.
“Alright that’s it!” Pols screamed as he launched himself onto his feet. “I’ve had it up to here with you, you crazy dope! I don’t care how nuts you are, just SHUT THE HELL UP!”
Against all odds in the universe, the dragon stopped talking. There was silence, a very noticeable and very welcome silence that saw Xayk march over to the corner of the encampment and plop himself down, pouting and muttering to himself. This of course wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible, could it? After all the grief he had dished out, was it really just so simple?
Pols, now so full of himself that it practically oozed from his face, seemed to think so and sat back down as the conquering hero, and of course could not resist giving Zyn a few snobbish looks of vindication. Something told him, though that this wasn’t quite the end, not with this dragon.