“By Jorren…” muttered Friedrich, looking directly into the giant brass-coated eye that he found himself before. It pivoted in its casing and stared at the young man who had spoken to him.

“What do we do?” whispered Marina, terrified of the odd creature. Was it even a living creature? She could not be sure.

“You…” came a voice.

“You can speak?” asked Friedrich, putting his fingers in his ears and wriggling them around.

“No,” said Teleri, her pointed ears not twitching. “He is speaking to us within our own heads. He’s a telepath.”

“You…” repeated the eye. “Why do you come before me?”

Friedrich and Marina looked at each other, not sure what do say. The eye had not attacked them and they wanted to ensure that they kept it that way. If he could communicate to them through their minds, that may only be the tip of the iceberg of his powers.

“What are you?” asked Teleri, much more brashly than the two Mercians would have liked.

“I…am the Sentinel of the Sands,” spoke the eye. “Locked away, was I. Never to fulfil my purpose…forever trapped in this tomb.”

“And what is your purpose?”

“I was to watch over Kai’roh…to rest upon the highest peak. I was to be the guardian against all invaders.”

“Before we keep talking to you,” said Friedrich. “Do you have any intention of harming us?”

“I…do not understand you. Are you invaders?”

“No! Not at all. That’s not what I’m saying, Sentinel.”

“Then why…would I harm you?”

“How about we don’t ask him about that anymore?” Marina said to Friedrich, who nodded in agreement.

“I am sorrowful,” said the Sentinel of the Sands. “My life force is running out…and I have never left my home. Am I to simply fade away and my carcass to decay without ever seeing the outside world?”

“That is a cruel fate,” said Friedrich quietly. As horrifying as the large eye had been, he felt a lot of sympathy for the trapped creature. “Is there anything that we can do?”

“The only way to replenish my life force is to feed souls to my core,” he said. “Any souls will do. I need them…or I will be gone within the decade.”

“Just how old are you?” asked Marina.

“I forget how long exactly,” said the eye, “yet I believe I am almost five hundred years old. It is difficult to track time here.”

“We will not feed you souls,” said Teleri. “We will not deprive others of their lives so that you may go on. Every creature in this world has its time and yours is coming soon. I believe that you should make peace with that.”

“Such cruel words…” said the Sentinel. “Yet I understand them.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Friedrich, “Kai’roh is fine. Just recently, there was some trouble in a nearby town and we saw to it that the trouble was sent away to never return.”

“This pleases me. You are…guardians of the island as well. Is that so?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Marina, cocking her head to the side. “Truthfully, we are not from Kai’roh.”

“I am aware of that. I can see that your complexions do not match those of the Asterrans.”

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Friedrich suddenly had an idea. “Give me a second,” he said, transforming into a fox and bolting down the corridor.

Marina and Teleri looked at each other, unsure what his goal was, but he returned no more than a minute later as a human. For reasons unclear to them, he brought a large chunk of stone with him and a handful of sand. He set them on the ground in front of the Sentinel and then stepped back, looking rather pleased with himself.

“This is…from the outside,” said the Sentinel, his eye fixated on the odd gifts that Friedrich had placed before him.

“Yep,” said Friedrich. “You may not be able to leave here, and we are certainly unable to move you to somewhere more pleasant, but at the very least you can see something from outside up close.”

“Sixty thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two grains of sand,” said the Sentinel. “Is there a reason you chose this number?”

“Nope. I probably lost half of it trying to run back through the entrance before that lightning gem of yours struck me.”

The Sentinel rotated upwards to stare at Friedrich. “That gem was to protect me while my master completed me,” he said. “It has killed many who would have stood a chance at freeing me. It is my second greatest curse.”

“If it would make you feel better, we can get rid of it and leave the doors open. It’s possible that people or creatures less kind than us will show up eventually, but at least until the end of your days you will be able to see the sky and a sliver of sand from here.”

“Yes,” said the Sentinel. “That would be most welcome. I thank you.”

“On that note…” said Friedrich with a smile. “Would you have any objection to us taking the pots and vases lining the entrance chamber? If you can’t make use of them, we certainly could.”

“You may take them. They matter not to me.”

Marina stuck the tongue in the side of her cheek and shook her head. Friedrich’s friendliness to this bizarre entity suddenly made a lot more sense to her.

“Thank you, Sentinel of the Sands,” said Friedrich, bowing to the eye. “Perhaps we will see you again.”

“You are welcome to visit any time, strangers.”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Friedrich. “Before we leave Kai’roh, we will come see you one more time.”

Marina raised an eyebrow. She knew Friedrich was being truthful. Perhaps he wasn’t being nice to this abomination purely for selfish reasons.

“I would like that very much,” said the Sentinel of the Sands. “Farewell.”

The trio bid the eye farewell and then Friedrich led Marina and Teleri back down the corridor towards the entrance chamber, but they hung back when they reached the end. They could feel the eye’s gaze upon them without even looking, but it was not the eye that they were concerned about.

“What should we do about the gem?” asked Friedrich.

“I will take care of it,” said Marina, walking out as Friedrich leaned around the corner and watched her while Teleri stood patiently by with her arms folded.

Marina caught one of the bolts in her hand, squeezing it into a tiny orb and then dissipating it. She held the tip of her staff to it, amethyst to amethyst, and unleashed a lightning bolt of her own. Her magic overloaded the gem and shattered it into tiny fragments, rendering it completely useless.

“Finished,” she called to an impressed Friedrich.

“So, I didn’t need to risk getting my hand blown to pieces?” he asked her.

“I did call after you, but you were dead set on your own plan.”

“Huh,” said Friedrich, wrinkling his nose. “Ah well, at least there was no permanent harm done.”

He retrieved a sack from his pack and walked around the room, scooping as many of the vases and pots as he could into it. He had a large grin on his face the entire time, glad that Adajun’s map had led to something useful. If he was being honest, he had expected it to be a waste of time.

As Friedrich, Marina and Teleri stepped back outside with their sack full of looted vases and pots, they all breathed in the fresh air. Until they met the Sentinel, they did not truly appreciate how free they were on this island. They could come and go as they pleased, take in the sights surrounding them and even leave whenever the boat returned.

“I feel terrible for the Sentinel,” said Marina, looking back through the doorway as the trio stepped out onto the cliff.

“Likewise,” said Friedrich, pulling out the minotaur and goblin masks. “Truth be told, I feel for the souls trapped within these gems.”

“Indeed,” said Teleri. “To have some level of awareness and no control must be stifling. It is now wonder that the minotaur vies for control over you. Five minutes of unrestricted freedom would be the greatest blessing after what would feel like an eternity of being trapped in stasis.”

“It makes much more sense to me now,” said Friedrich, tapping the goblin’s gem. “I don’t believe that the time limit is solely due to the magic running out, although that may be part of it. I believe it’s also because without any restrictions, mask wearers would be taken over completely if the trapped souls are powerful enough.”

“It makes you think, doesn’t it?” asked Marina. “We don’t have it too bad, do we?”

“We all have our histories,” said Teleri, “but things could be much worse.”

Friedrich stashed the masks away. “Come on, let’s get back to Port Balsia.”

“Lead the way,” said Marina, gesturing towards the sands below.

Friedrich winked at her and transformed into his fox form. He skipped across the sand effortlessly while Marina laughed and Teleri sighed. In spite of what she said about things being worse, that did not take away her disdain for the intense heat of the desert.