The captain found a sheltered cove on the western side of the island, out of the wind, and dropped anchor there. Almost immediately, the crew set about repairing the ship -- untangling the rigging, sewing the sails, and fixing the broken mizzen-mast and that portion of the deck it had damaged when it had fallen. The ship's carpenter finally decided that the old mizzen-mast was beyond repair -- it had a long, lengthwise crack running through it -- and so sent some of the crew out into the island to cut down a tree to make a new one. Fortunately the island was full of tall conifer trees, and they had no trouble finding a suitable replacement.

The island, which Arai suspected to be at least three to five miles across, was heavily forested, and extremely lush -- an untouched, pristine wilderness, buzzing with insects and bursting with wildlife. It did not appear to be inhabited.

"Are you familiar with this island?" Arai asked Twine. "Do you know where we are?"

"I've never been here before," he said. "But it's probably one of the little islands north of Junglass, on the edge of Marta's Strait. There's a lot of little islands in these seas. No one lives on them."

"Why not?" The little island seemed like a paradise; the weather was excellent and the curl of land encircling the cove looked like the perfect place to construct a village.

He shrugged. "Taboo, maybe? The Islanders -- that is to say, the people of the Island Republics -- are superstitious about little islands like these, and they're too out-of-the-way for the Galleans to have any interest in them. Besides, they're right in the middle of the Phantic Gates. I told you before, the storms here are nasty, and they last all summer."

Shell, who had never quite gotten over her seasickness, was anxious to get off the ship and stretch her legs on the island. In the end, all three of them -- Arai, Lillandra, and Shell -- got into the ship's boat and rowed to shore, disembarking on a sandy beach littered with driftwood and seashells.

"It's so pretty here," Shell said, and then she asked the same question that Arai had asked Twine earlier: "I wonder why no one lives here?"

"There's a lot of magia in the air," Lillandra noted. "There's probably more than a few monsters hiding in these forests."

"What kinds of monsters?"

"Man-traps, perhaps. They're fairly common in magia-dense forests. But this is an island as well, which means there could be sea monsters off the shore, or fish-men like those we fought in the Dwellmer back in Kingsaile. It's hard to say. Monsters aren't like animals, you know; you can't really classify them in the same way. There are certain commonalities, but every monster is different."

"Man-traps," Arai muttered. He had never actually seen one of these, but he had spoken to people who had -- they were large, dead-looking trees, with writhing branches, which ripped apart any living thing which stumbled too close to them. He didn't particularly relish the idea of running into one of these things here.

But Shell was unafraid. "Let's have a look around," she said. "It'll take days from them to finish repairing the ship. We might as well get some exercise."

Arai glanced Lillandra, who shrugged. She had been in an unusually pensive mood these last few days -- spending much of her time staring out to sea -- and he wondered what was on her mind.

At any rate, Shell was determined to explore the island, and Arai thought it might be a welcome diversion as well, and so together, the three of them set out. None of them wanted to risk running into any monsters in the depths of the forest, so they stuck to the shores, circling the island's perimeter. The entire western side of the island was all beaches and sandbars, which made for an easy walk; Shell, running ahead of Arai and Lillandra, examined seashells and chased after scuttling crabs.

Arai turned to Lillandra. "You've been awfully quiet these last few days," he ventured.

"Have I?"

"Is something troubling you?"

She snorted. "What do you care?"

He could have taken offense, but he refused to be ruffled. "I thought we started over," he reminded her. "I thought we were going to try to be friends from now on."

"So?"

"So, as your friend, I'm wondering if something's troubling you, and if there's anything I can do to help."

"To help?" She gave that a sarcastic laugh. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?"

"I told you I was," he said.

Her laughter died away. "I don't understand you."

"What's bothering you?" he asked again.

She sighed. "Nothing in particular. I've just been doing a lot of thinking...about the past."

"About Julien?"

She gave him a sharp look, but when she saw that he was not jesting or teasing, her expression softened. "Yes," she admitted quietly. "About Julien."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Who was he?"

"The only human being, in the whole of Iona Magister, who ever really cared about me. The only man I ever loved. But if not for him, I never would have become the Night Queen."

Now this was interesting. Lillandra had always been extremely reluctant to talk about herself or her motivations; this was the most backstory he had gotten out of her so far.

"What happened to him?"

"He died," she said. "Years ago."

"Tell me."

But she shook her head, and said nothing after that. Arai, not wanting to upset her, especially now that she had finally begun to open up to him -- if only just a little -- did not press her, and they walked on in silence, Shell still skipping ahead of them.

By the early afternoon they had arrived on the easternmost part of the island -- the part of the island opposite the cove where the Cockatrice was being repaired. Arai was just considering stopping for a few minutes -- they had been walking for over an hour -- when Shell suddenly called out: "What is this?" And she came running up to them holding a stone figurine, which she had apparently found on the beach.

It was a carving of some hideous monster, a dragon perhaps, or a demon, with a huge, toothy mouth and bulging eyes. It had been carved out of some kind of soft stone, and was badly weathered.

"What the hell is this?" Arai asked, turning it over.

"I thought this island was uninhabited," Shell said. "Where do you think it came from?"

"It must have washed up on the beach," Lillandra suggested, taking it from Arai and examining it.

But Arai didn't think that likely; the figurine was at least five pounds, too heavy for the waves to have brought it ashore. Perhaps it had arrived on a wrecked ship, or perhaps this island was inhabited, or had been in the past.

Whatever it was, and whatever its origin, Arai didn't like it; it was an ugly thing, and something about it made him uneasy. "Could it be a zemi?" he asked Lillandra.

"It could've been," she said, "but there's no trace of magic in it now. If it was a zemi, there's no way to know what kind of spells might have been contained within it." She shrugged and handed it back to Shell. "It's probably just an ugly art piece."

"It looks like a monster," Shell noted. "Why would anyone make a carving of a monster?"

"Good question," Arai said. "I..." He paused there, trailing off, because something had just caught his eye -- a strange stone pillar, near the edge of the beach, just where the trees began. At first he thought it might have been a natural rock formation, but when he went up and examined it, he saw that it was made of brick, and was obviously man-made. It was about five feet tall, and like the stone figurine, badly weathered.

And then he spotted another pillar, within the trees. This one was a little taller.

Curious, he entered the forest, following the pillars, which seemed to have been spaced about thirty feet apart. He had no difficulty finding the first four pillars, but it took him several minutes to find the fifth, which had been all but swallowed up by the forest; it was covered in creeping vines and moss. He found no more pillars after that, but there seemed to be a kind of trail running between them -- an old footpath, perhaps, but now an animal trail -- and he followed it deeper into the woods.

"People did live here once," Lillandra said. "These pillars must be hundreds of years old."

Following the trail, they eventually arrived at a clearing, where they found the ruins of two or three large stone buildings. Some architectural features were still visible: arches, canopies, and even a few monstrous gargoyles, similar in appearance to the stone figurine which Shell had found on the beach. The buildings were arranged in a circle around an open area -- a kind of courtyard, Arai supposed -- and in the center of the courtyard was a big stone slab, which might have been some kind of altar.

"A village?" Shell asked, approaching the altar.

"It wasn't a village," Lillandra said. "It's not arranged like one."

"What was it used for, then?"

"I don't know. It might have been a shrine of some kind. I wonder about that altar."

"Look at the craftsmanship here," Arai said, pointing out one of the weird gargoyles. "No, this definitely wasn't a village."

Lillandra closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "There's a lot of magia here," she warned. "Can you feel it, Shell?"

The elf girl nodded slowly. "I can feel it."

Arai knew what that meant. "We should get out of here, then. We don't want to run into any monsters."

"Good idea."

They started to leave...but just as they were making their way out of the courtyard, the ground began to tremble beneath their feet. "What in the world?" Lillandra asked, using Arai's shoulder to steady herself.

"An earthquake?" Arai wondered. The shaking grew more intense...and then, suddenly, the ground gave way beneath them, and Arai and Lillandra both were swallowed up by it, tumbling together into the earth, along with a mass of dirt and paving stones. Arai had the presence of mind to hold on to Lillandra, but there was so much dirt and dust in the air that he could barely see her. They finally rolled to a stop about fifteen feet later, landing on some kind of muddy substrate, but partially buried in the dirt that had fallen with them. Fortunately Arai still had one hand free, and he was able to lever himself, and Lillandra, out of the mess.

"What...what happened?" Lillandra asked, dazed.

Arai shook the dust out of his hair and looked up. They had fallen through the ground and into an almost perfectly circular hole, about fifteen or twenty feet deep. The bottom of the hole was wet with groundwater. "We must have fallen into some kind of old well," he said. "Are you hurt?"

"I don't know," she said. She struggled to her feet, but then fell; fortunately Arai was there to catch her. "My ankle," she said, wincing.

Shell, who was still up on the surface, was now peering down at them. "Are you two all right?"

"I'm all right," Arai called up to her, "but Lillandra's hurt." He turned to her. "Is it bad?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. But how are we going to get out of here?"

Arai frowned at the situation. The edges of the sinkhole were almost perfectly vertical; there was no way he could climb out of it on his own, and Lillandra probably couldn't do any climbing at all. Damn.

The earth began to shake again, but less violently than before, and it was over in a moment. "This island must be prone to earthquakes," Arai muttered. "Just our luck."

"What are we going to do?" Lillandra asked again.

Arai called up to Shell: "You're going to have to run back to the ship," he told her. "Find a couple of crewmembers and a length of rope. Can you do that?"

"Sure thing. Will the two of you be all right here until I get back?"

"Yeah. Just make it quick; I don't want to be stuck down here all day."

Shell nodded and ran off, leaving them alone.

Arai took a breath and looked around. They were stuck in the bottom of this dark, muddy hole, and they were likely to be stuck here for a couple of hours, at least, because they were at least an hour's walk from the ship. He wasn't terribly worried at the moment, but if a monster were to show up, or if there were any more earthquakes...

And what if it started raining? The rain might fill up this sinkhole and drown them.

"Just our luck," he muttered again. "Just our luck."