With a groan, he pushed himself up on his knees. His muscles responded slowly, stiff and aching in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. He paused on his knees, as the visions the Anzuzu had shown him once more flooded through him. What the hell was that?
“You’re the first to awake.”
Surprised, he craned his head. His aunt was slumped against the ship’s railing. A silver goblet sat on the deck beside her, and she rubbed her finger slowly around the rim before taking a sip.
He forced himself to his feet, ignoring the protests of his still half-asleep leg as he limped over to her. “Clearly not. You’re awake after all.”
A wan smile crossed her lips as she lifted her cup again. “I didn’t drink the herbs. Just wine in this cup.”
Jasper eased himself beside her, resting his head against the railing. “Really? S̆anukkat said you were pretty devoted to the Anzuzu.”
She swirled the wine in her cup. “I was. Am,” she corrected herself, “but…”
“One of them showed you something you wish you hadn’t seen,” he realized.
The elf nodded glumly. “I’m not sure what’s worse: to know a future that will likely happen, or to be able to delude oneself with the sliver of hope - faint though it might be - that it won’t happen.”
“Hope can be a cruel mistress,” Jasper agreed. "Pandora's gift, and her punishment." His eyes drifted across the deck where three bodies were still slumped. “Why haven't the others woken up yet? S̆anukkat said the herbs were supposed to last only a short time.”
“I may have slipped a little something extra into their drinks. Into the crews’ drinks too,” she admitted. “Nothing much, just a little sleeping potion.”
Jasper furrowed his brow. “Why'd you do that?”
She sighed, taking another sip of her wine before responding. “I wanted the chance to talk with you alone.”
“And you have to drug people to do that?”
Her laughter drifted out over the stilled waters. “You are still new to this world, Yas̆peh, so you don’t get it yet. Back there, in the palace,” she jerked her head toward the mist-shrouded city, “You are never truly alone. The servants, the guards, hell, even the animals could be watching you, reporting everything you say or do. Spells, enchantments - those sorts of things can help, but they’re hardly foolproof. But here on the lake,” she gestured to the very gentle waves that lapped against the ship, “here you can be at peace. Here, only the gods are your witness.”
He waited for her to say what she wanted, but his aunt seemed in no mood to spill her mind. She stared intently at her cup, swirling the wine back and forth, until a few drops spilled over the rim and dripped onto her white dress. “Damn,” she muttered. As she rubbed absentmindedly at the stain, the fog above their heads begin to clear, allowing the silver shafts of the moon to fall on her head, somehow missing him completely.
The elf abandoned her efforts, turning her eyes toward the goddess. She closed her eyes, letting her face bask in the moonlight. As Jasper watched, the dark red stains on her dress faded into nothingness. The moment passed; again the fog covered the face of the moon, and they were left in the light of the lanterns. When she turned to face him, he saw the turmoil that raged in her eyes.
“You’re going to be asked to make a decision,” she finally said, her words thick with emotion.
“What decision?” He asked calmly, but Jasper already had a sinking feeling he knew what she was talking about.
“A choice of whom to save. Damn it,” she cursed. Draining the dregs of her goblet, she tossed it across the deck. With a clang, it bounced along the wooden planks, rolling to a stop next to the still-slumbering form of her daughter. “I was going to ask you to save…” she cut herself off, finishing the sentence awkwardly, “someone. But Selene has forbidden it.”
She leaned back against the railing, looking up to the heavens where the moon was once again obscured. Burying her face in her hands, her voice was muffled as it came through, but Jasper could still hear the tremors. “Just…promise me you’ll make the right decision.”
Jasper stared at his aunt, unsure what to say. Unsure what to do. Is my vision related to S̆anukkat’s and to whatever choice my aunt is talking about? Is the choice I have to make between my cousin and…someone else? He remembered the two bodies from the vision - one with pale skin, the other red. If one is S̆anukkat, who is the other? Annatta? Laylah? He felt queasy at the mere thought of being forced to choose who to save.
Reaching out, he awkwardly patted her hand. “I’ll do my best.” The words were wholly insufficient, but it was all he could say.
After a long moment, she lifted her head. Her cheeks sparkled in the light of the lanterns with suspicious wetness, and she glared at him, daring him to mention it.
He didn’t.
“I had another motive, too.” She rose to her feet decisively, banishing all signs of weakness. “Selene may have forbidden me to ask you what I wanted, but there are things I can do. Are you ready for a fight?”
Surprised by her sudden change of mood, he stared at her suspiciously. “A fight? What sort of fight?”
She ignored his question. In the space of a few strides, she took her place at the wheel of the ship and wrapped her hands tightly around it. The rest of their party, and the crew as well, were still slumped motionless on the deck, but the vessel responded promptly to her guidance. There was barely a breath of wind on the lake that night, the still surface suffocated by a thick layer of fog, but the ship still responded to her wiling, moving, albeit rather slowly, deeper into the night.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“What sort of fight?” He repeated impatiently.
The elf half-smiled, though it was not enough to hide the turmoil that still roiled in her eyes. “To get an ingredient that will improve your weapon. That, at least, Selene did not forbid me to do.” And no matter how much Jasper pestered her, his aunt refused to say anything further.
An hour slipped by in silence and slowly the wind begin to pick up. It was subtle at first, nipping at their cheeks with a playful caress, but it grew into a steady, stiff breeze that began to push the fog away. And as the fog lifted, Jasper caught his first glimpse of their destination.
A small island loomed before them, bathed in the light of the moon. It was a peculiar place, almost unnatural. Tall, alabaster cliffs rose in a shattered semi-circle, pocked with dozens of black dots that, as the ship grew closer, Jasper realized were doorways.
In the center of the island, enclosed by the towering cliffs, a forest sprouted. Hundreds of tall, thin cypresses reached their boughs toward the heavens in a thick tangle of roots that would have reached the shore if not for the small harbor whose three docks, built from the same alabaster that lined the cliffs, jutted out into the lake.
Guided by her steady hand, the ship came to a stop a few hundred feet away from the docks. A thunderous shaking gripped the boat as the anchor plunged into the depths of the lake, not stopping until it hit the distant floor.
“Why are we stopping her?” He asked, confused. “Why not use the docks?”
“If it was just you and me, we'd dock, but with the others passed out, it isn’t safe. They would be helpless before the utukkū and qebrū that swarm these shores.”
“Qebrū?” Jasper cocked his head. “Can’t say I’m familiar with whatever utukkū are, but I’ve fought qebrū before. How did a bunch of unburied corpses end up on this little island?”
His aunt smiled grimly. “No one knows. For thousands of years, this island was one of the most sacred possessions of the Marṣēru clan.”
“The Marṣēru clan?” He questioned, feeling a bit like an echo.
“One of the lesser tribes of Kubarru; not as much of a thorn in the side of the Royal House as most of the southern tribes are, though. They’re all about horses these days, but when the Djinn first came to the Harei Miqlat, the Marṣēru actually settled on the northern cliffs overlooking the lake - a fact they very much wish the other southern tribes would forget. But though they eventually migrated south, they never abandoned the island.”
“What was so special about the place?”
Kaṣîtūma shrugged. “Who knows what drew them to the island in the first place, but the reason they were unwilling to abandon it is simple enough. This is where they buried their most honored dead.”
“You mean their leaders?”
“Sort of. Their priests and nobles were indeed entombed here, but they were only a small number of those buried on the island. The honored dead I was referring to, the majority of those interred on the island, were children or women who died in childbirth,” his aunt explained. “If any among their clan lost a child, the elders would bury them on the island, to forever be honored and watched over.”
Jasper glanced at the unruly forest that threatened to consume the docks. Even if he didn’t know the shores were filled with the undead, there was a deeply unsettling feeling to the place that would've turned him away. “Clearly not forever.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “Not forever. It’s hidden by the forest now, but a commune of priestesses watched over the island at all times. They tended to the graves, presented offerings to the dead, and ran an inn for those who wished to visit their ancestors. For generations, they watched over the island with no sign of trouble.”
He leaned against the balustrade, his eyes fixed intently on his aunt’s. “So what happened?”
The elf frowned. “As I said, no one knows. Up until a few hundred years ago, around the time that the Empire was being ravaged by the Fey Wars, the temple was still in operation. The Marṣēru clan would send ships out to the island once a week, to bring new visitors and supplies, and ferry back those ready to return. And then one day, the ship arrived to find the island silent. Thinking nothing of it, they disembarked, only to be immediately attacked by a horde of undead - the qebrū and a new kind of undead, one they had never seen before, the utukku. The whole crew was slaughtered in a matter of minutes.”
“When the vessel never returned, the Marṣēru sent more ships to investigate, only then revealing the true extent of the horror. All the dead who had been buried on the island had risen as qebrū, while those who had been alive - the priestesses and the pilgrims - appear to have been transformed into the utukku.”
“To this day, the mystery of what happened to the island has never been solved. Those who had left the island on the last ship before the tragedy had noticed nothing unusual at all. No cause for the disaster was ever officially determined.”
Jasper was surprised that Djinn hadn’t tried to put the undead spirits to rest. “And they never cleared the island? Why not?”
“The Marṣēru wanted to, but the king at the time forbid it. Fearing that the tragedy was the result of either a deadly disease or a direct punishment by the gods for some blasphemy that was committed, all travel to the island was forbidden.”
He cocked an eyebrow. "So why are we here then?"
His aunt chuckled. “Forbidden for a minor clan and forbidden for the Royal House are two very different things, Yas̆peh, but regardless, the order no longer stands. It’s just that no one wishes to come here any longer. The amount of adventurers this island has claimed over the years is so high that even they are no longer willing to risk it.”
He swallowed hard, suddenly not eager to get a better view of the shore. “You’re not exactly selling this place to me. You said we came here to get an ingredient for my weapon. Can’t we get it somewhere a little less deathtrap-py?”
She shook her head firmly. “Nope. If I’m going to craft you a weapon, I’m going to make the best weapon I can, and to do that there is something I can only get here - the blood of an utukku. Now change into your armor, while I go inside and grab my gear.”
The elf vanished into the interior of the vessel, leaving him to change. Walking over to Ihra, he tried futilely to wake her up, but she wouldn’t budge. Damn it. The others were equally sound asleep. Giving up, he fished his gear out of Ihra’s bag of holding. Ripping out the strands of pearls Annatta had forced on him, he pulled the scaled royal armor over his head and bound Arutû’s shortsword to his hip. His aunt had not yet reappeared.
Suffocating a sigh, Jasper walked over to the ship’s railing. Leaning against the carved wooden balustrade, he felt the wind rustle through his hair, as his eyes were inescapably drawn to the island. Despite what his aunt had said, he couldn’t see any signs of undead swarms, but neither were there any other signs of life. The strange, towering cliffs lay empty, the docks silent and abandoned, and in the forest, there was no sign of movement, save for the swaying of the twisted cypresses in the wind.
But it was the silence that got to him. No bird songs were carried aloft on the swirling breeze; no crickets or toads conducted their ceaseless symphonies - even the whistling of the wind seemed muted and distant. An impenetrable wall of silence hung over the island, a suffocating quiet that inspired in him an almost palpable feeling of dread.
Maybe I could just make do with my short sword after all. Or buy a weapon at the market. Nothing wrong with that. With a shake of his head, he dismissed the ridiculous thought. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice, anyways. If his aunt, as he suspected, was trying to save her daughter, she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Oh well, he sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.