Arai was lifted off his feet and thrown high into the air -- at least thirty feet high. The pit was about fifteen feet deep, which left another fifteen feet for him to fall; he landed on the surface, but near the edge of the pit, and just barely managed to avoid sliding into it again. His flight had been almost vertical; it had felt as if a giant had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hurled him up.

He caught hold of something, somehow, and managed to scramble to his feet. That landing had been very hard; he thought he might have broken a rib. It could have been worse, though; Lillandra's spell could have blown his head off, or worse.

"Are you all right?" Lillandra called out from below, worried. "The spell only started to break up at the end--"

"I'm fine," he said. "Good work." He drew his sword again and looked around for the monster that had apparently materialized in the area, but he didn't see anything. "Are you sure about this monster?"

"I'm sure," she said.

"All right. Try to keep quiet. I'll see if I can find it."

Alert to the slightest sound, he started walking around the shrine, searching behind columns and peering into the shadows beneath the trees. He began to grow tense. Where was this thing? He suddenly noticed that the birds in the area had gone quiet, which only made him more uneasy.

Monsters, of course, could take just about any form. They might resemble fish, lizards, trees, bears, and giant earthworms. They could dig under the soil; they could fly through the air.

Fly through the air...

He looked up just in time to see a shadow blotting out the sun, and suddenly the creature was right in front of him, hovering in the air, flapping its wings madly, nearly knocking him off his feet with gusts of wind. Arai was forced to shield his eyes from the debris the monster was blowing his way; it was only after the creature landed that he got a better look at it.

Monsters were not typically pleasant to look at, but this one was exceptionally ugly; in fact it was one of the strangest and most hideous things he had ever seen. It was shaped like a man, and covered in a gown of black feathers, but it had a grinning, leering skull for a head and two leathery bat wings affixed to its back. It arms ended in sharpened, skeletal claws, and its feet were bird-feet, with huge, raptor-like talons.

It wasted no time; it immediately attacked him. Arai had the presence of mind to slash at the thing's arm when it reached out for him, but the monster, with a birdlike quickness, quickly jumped out of reach. It then took to the air again, pumping its wings furiously, circling the area, while Arai, clutching his sword, waited for it to land.

But it didn't land; instead, it flew at him, trying to rake him with its talons. The monster kicked up a tremendous amount of dust when it flew, and once again Arai was momentarily blinded; he tumbled out of the way and only barely managed to avoid the monster's claws.

He only needed to strike the thing once or twice to destroy it with Silus, but the monster was fast, and unpredictable, and it was careful to keep out of his reach. He gritted his teeth, waiting for it to come at him again.

But then, while circling in the air, it suddenly looped around, near the hole they had fallen into, and began to descend.

It must have spotted Lillandra, and determined that she was easier prey than Arai. Cursing, Arai ran to it, waving his arms and yelling at it to try to get its attention, but it ignored him and, still flapping its wings, began to drop down into the pit. He heard Lillandra shouting at it, but the monster's fluttering wings were loud, and her voice sounded distant.

He was still ten feet away when the monster entered the pit. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he closed the distance and threw himself into it. He landed on the monster just as it was about to land on Lillandra, plunging Silus into the center of its back, where its wings grew out of its shoulder blades. The monster's skull-face twisted around grotesquely, trying to get a look at him, and it clawed at him desperately, but already it was beginning to disintegrate, its body decohering into starlike particles. When there was almost nothing left of it -- nothing left to hang on to -- Arai fell the remaining distance into the bottom of the pit, splashing into the mud and only narrowly avoiding Lillandra, who scrambled to get out of his way. Pieces of maginite fell into the mud as well, some of them landing on Arai's head.

"Are you all right?" Lillandra asked.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Arai, his mouth full of mud, sputtered out a response: "I've been better."

"You destroyed it."

"Yeah."

"But now we're both stuck in this hole again."

"Yeah." He climbed to his feet. He had hurt his ribs when she had thrown him out of the pit, and hurt them again when he had landed in the mud just now, but the injuries didn't seem to be anything serious; his armor had probably protected him from the worst of it. He was, however, completely filthy now, covered in mud from head to toe. "Are you all right?"

"Fine." She looked up at the distance he had fallen. "What you did just now...that was crazy. Jumping on to that monster's back..."

"Crazy," he agreed. "But I had to protect you."

She studied him carefully. "You know I hate being indebted to people."

"Especially me?"

"Especially you."

"Lillandra..."

She put up her hand, stopping him. "You can call me Lill. Lillandra is such a mouthful."

* * *

It was two more hours before Shell and Twine arrived with a length of rope. After tying it to a tree, they were able to haul both Arai and Lillandra out of the pit with it. They had to be extra careful with Lillandra, though, whose ankle had now become very swollen indeed.

Shell stared at Arai. "How did you get so dirty?"

"Long story," he muttered. "What took you so long?"

"Captain Burt moved the ship out of the cove when the earthquake struck," Twine said. "He was afraid a big wave might come up and throw her into the rocks near the shore. We stayed out there for a couple hours. When we got back we found Shell waiting for us on the beach."

"I came as fast as I could," Shell said apologetically.

"You did fine," Arai said. "Thanks, kiddo."

She smiled...but then she glanced at Lillandra, and the smile faded. "She can't walk, can she? How are we going to get her back to the ship?"

"I'll carry her," Arai said. He motioned for her to climb up on his back. "Hop on."

She hesitated for a moment, but finally agreed. "Oh, all right," she said, and she allowed herself to lifted onto his back. He was sore from his fight with the monster, and tired, but fortunately Lillandra didn't weigh much. They did have to stop several times to allow Arai to catch his breath, but they eventually made it back to the cove, where they found Captain Burt waiting for them on the beach.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, looking them up and down.

"Long story," he said again. He set Lillandra down on the sand. "What's the situation?"

He shrugged. "The repairs are going well. We'll need at least another day, though, maybe two. Hopefully we don't get any more of those earthquakes."

"Hopefully," Arai echoed.

They spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach, listening to the cries of seagulls and the sound of the waves lapping against the shore. Late in the evening, Twine discovered a small freshwater pond a few hundred yards inland, which Arai used to clean himself up. When he emerged from the darkening forest, he found Lillandra waiting for him. "My turn," she said.

"Your turn?"

"I want to take a bath, too."

"But...your ankle..."

"I know. You'll have to carry me there."

He sighed. "I guess I will." She climbed up on his back again and he marched her off into the foliage, setting her down at the edge of the pond.

"Turn around," she told him primly.

He did as she asked, propping himself up against a tree while she bathed and cleaned her clothes. He heard the sounds of her splashing around in the pond, faintly, and tried not to let his imagination run away with him.

When she was done and dressed, she called for him again. He got up and went to her...and started, for when he saw her sitting there in that coppery evening light, her black hair wet, her pale skin clean and unblemished, her eyes dark and lovely, he found himself taken aback by her beauty. This had never happened before.

"What are you staring at?" she complained.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Let's get going." She climbed up onto his back again, and they started off for the beach. Strands of her hair touched his face, tickling his cheeks. And she smelled nice, something like grass and flowers.

He breathed it in. The Queen of the Night.

* * *

The crew finished the repairs ahead of schedule, and the next day, the Cockatrice set sail, leaving the island's sheltered cove and venturing out once again into the larger Bay of Vandals. Shell promptly got seasick again, but Lillandra's ankle healed quickly, and within a few days she was able to limp about on it. She returned to the ship's railing, and spent most of her time looking out to sea.

Arai joined her one afternoon. It was a beautiful cloudless day, the blue of the sky almost blinding, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits -- all but Lillandra, who was still wearing that pensive expression.

"You're thinking about him," Arai guessed. "About Julien."

"I think about him a lot," she said. "He's been dead a hundred years, but it doesn't seem that long to me."

"You've been asleep."

"I know." She smiled sadly. "This is the longest I've been awake since I conquered Velon, you know. These months I've spent with you, with Shell...it's strange."

"What's strange?"

"It's just...I'm beginning to feel like all those years I spent at the Nightfall were just a long dream. And now I'm awake, and thinking clearly again, and I'm not sure that I..." She trailed off, uncertain of herself. "I don't know."

Arai wasn't sure what she was trying to communicate, exactly, but he knew that she needed reassurance. He put his hand on her shoulder. "You'll figure it out," he said. "Maybe the world will start to make sense again after we've returned to Velon."

"Maybe. I don't--" But she was interrupted here by one of the crew, up in the crow's nest, suddenly screaming at his fellows down below. "Black sails!" he shouted. "Off the port bow!"

The crew hurried to the railing, and a few moments later, the ship he had spotted came into view: a long, sleek sailing vessel, with black sails and a black flag fluttering from its main-mast. "That's a Skirrish ship!" someone shouted.

"Pirates!" someone else cried.

Arai exchanged a glance with Lillandra. "It figures," he muttered.