With no other choice, we decided to stay put and wait out the rest of the storm. No one caught a wink of sleep, though, I’m pretty sure. As a result, mostly everyone was varying degrees of irritable as we packed up in the morning. I say “mostly” because Nakoda still tried to make small talk. I could tell that our encounter with the flaming ghost had left my brother a little shaken. So, to distract himself, he chatted like maniac…about the ghost. “Soooo who do you think she was to him?” he asked no one in particular. “The lady in the locket.”
Surprisingly, it was Paco who humored him. “Well, he was probably a pirate,” he said. “So he probably kidnapped somebody who he found attractive or something.”
Nakoda’s shoulders slumped. “Oh. I was hoping for a happier story, Paco.”
“He’s a pirate!”
“Not all pirates have to be bad!” He raised a finger. “Being a pirate doesn’t automatically make you evil. It just means you want a different, uh, saltier type of freedom.”
“Yes,” Paco replied. “Which usually involves crime.”
“…I guess.” Nakoda’s brow knit together in thought. “My dad always said it was right to fight for freedom as long as your freedom isn’t hurting other people or yourself.”
“Pirates hurt people,” Belkross grunted, picking up the last of Lilian’s things.
“And steal things,” she added helpfully.
“And murder people,” Paco finished, looking smug.
Alton passed by and patted Nakoda sympathetically on the shoulder. “And that’s not even getting into all the rape-”
“Okay!” the little Rider groaned. “I get it!” Disgruntled, he shuffled back into the hut. The sun was up. Flies were buzzing around us, making the moist heat ten times more uncomfortable. “Hey!” Nakoda suddenly called out. “I found something!”
He hurried back outside, holding up an old, battered book.
“I think you were sleeping on it,” he informed Lilian and Belkross. He pulled the book open, and prepared to read-
“NO!” Paco snapped. “Don’t read it out loud, idiot!”
Nakoda glanced up at him.
“Why not?”
“It could be magic!”
“…Then, um,” he held the book out towards Lilian. “Should I give it to you?”
She hesitated before carefully taking the book from Nakoda. She flipped through its yellowed pages, eyes darting back and forth. She finally reached the end and then flipped back to the beginning. “Not a spell book,” she told the group. “More just a journal, I think. Full of fragmented entries.”
Paco shrugged. “Better safe than sorry,” he said to which Alton nodded in agreement.
Lilian handed it back to Nakoda. “Here, Nakoda. You found it, you do the honors.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.” He cleared his throat and read aloud, “Many survived, the Thrune’s Fang will never sail again. Sargava’s assimilation must proceed without…
“Fine hunting on the Shiv, but the bugs are a constant distraction. Nylithati’s skills at healing help fight the white sickness, but I fear she has…
“…a fine home. Fresh water nearby and I need to endure Nylithati’s ceaseless raving about…
“Will not be returning to that gray, silent island again. There is nothing there but horror…
“…crew lurking about the area. They seem strange, almost feral, with skin as white as bone. It has been almost a decade since the wreck. I wonder what strange beliefs Nylithati has…
“…changed. There was no sign of Nylithati in the camp, but the focus of their ceremony was a cauldron they must have salvaged from the Thrune’s Fang at the base of the ruined lighthouse. It was into this they threw the half-eaten body of the still screaming man…
“…all around. I can hear them chanting in the green even now. They call Nylithati ‘Mother Thrunefang’ now and promise me immortality. I know what their immortality consists of, and I’ll have no part of that corrupt life after-Why are you guys looking at me like that?”
“Sorry, mate,” Alton said. “But you ain’t much of a reader, eh? Struggling to understand half the things coming out of your mouth.”
“We should’ve had the donkey read, and then you’d translate,” Lilian told Nakoda with a smirk.
“Oh, I can’t understand him,” Nakoda said, using the book to point at me. “But we have a system. Ask him yes or no questions. One snort means yes, and two means no. Right, Don?”
I snorted once.
Looking a little defeated, he handed Lilian back the book. “Sorry. My Auntie Oli’s assistant, Ali, tried to teach me how to read once, but, um, I didn’t get very far before she disappeared.”
One by one, they all took turns flipping through the book and reading the fragmented journal entries. Afterwards, Lilian mused aloud, “Well, we now know where the cannibals came from.”
“So do you think the ghost from last night, was the guy who wrote this?” Nakoda asked. “Who was eaten?”
“Not necessarily,” Alton said, weighing the book in his hand. “Pezock did say there were entire crews of ghosts running about. The ghost and this guy could be independent of each other.” He touched at his stomach thoughtfully. “Though treachery is a common theme on the Shiv.”
“Pirates,” Lilian reminded him.
“Yep,” Paco agreed.
Alton gained a troubled look. “But my captain was a decent man,” he said, sounding more like he was speaking to himself. “Maybe being in the Shiv’s vicinity warped him…”
“Yeah!” Nakoda pointed in the direction we’d come, towards the sea. “Not all of those people had to be pirates or bad people. Probably just sailors taken under the island’s spell-”
“No, no,” Paco said, climbing onto Turtle’s back. “All pirates. Even the ones who didn’t know they were pirates were pirates.” He tapped his left breast. “In here.”
Unable (or not caring enough) to argue with that logic, we finally left the cannibal hut behind. Nakoda and I took the lead, per usual. Paco and Turtle took the rear, per usual. And everybody else clustered together in the middle, trying to look as threatening as possible to ward off potential predators. It worked for the most part. Well, except on another one of those red, flying lizards. It cawed and swooped in. Paco shot his rifle and Lilian flung a ball of black fire in near unison. The fire poured into the bullet hole between its eyes and cooked the lizard’s insides. After that, except for the flies, nothing bothered us.
Eventually, the jungle started thinning out and we entered into a grass-covered clearing that spanned one or two miles. As far as I could see, the trees encircled the clearing. At the clearing’s center was a tall hill. And atop that hill was a gigantic palm tree. Looking at it, a comforting warmth filled me up. Made me feel safe. Exactly like-
“A Guardian!” I gasped.
My body moved with my permission. I bolted across the clearing. Nakoda screamed at me to stop, or at least slow down, but that wasn’t happening. Not even as the ground began to incline. The legs in my muscles burned, and by breathing burst from my mouth in spurts. Yet I kept my eyes fixed on the tree. The closer I got to it, the more it seemed larger than life. Like a giant, welcoming god eager to reach down, embrace me, and truly make me feel for the first time since Mom’s kidnapping that everything I’d done and everything I was doing wasn’t in vain.
Finally, panting heavily, I slowed down mere feet from the tree. The cloth was still wrapped around my horn, hiding my true nature. But that didn’t matter. I bowed my head slightly, and very gently pressed my horn against the palm tree’s trunk.
You are safe here, little one, a woman’s voice promised in my mind. May I be struck down if I lie.
Fatigue replaced adrenaline. I collapsed to the ground, lying against the tree. Looking very concerned, Nakoda hopped off of me and hunkered down by my face. “Don?” he said gently, carefully cupping my face with his gloved hands. “…Is this place safe?”
I gave a very, very tired snort.
A warm giggle resonated from up above us. I glanced upwards just as a woman appeared from inside of the palm tree and dropped down to the ground. Her skin was tan, and she had long, green palm leaves for hair. She was naked except for pieces of bark covering up her breasts and genitals. Surprised, Nakoda stumbled back and raised his lance. The woman ignored him. She leaned over to scratch me behind the ears, and then called out to the rest of the group, who were fast approaching, weapons out, “Welcome! I mean you no harm!”
She turned to Nakoda. “Forgive me, little one. It’s been so long since I’ve had…”
“Company?” he offered, lowering his lance.
“No, no, I’ve had plenty of that. But most of them…attack on sight.” She gave a what-can-you-do?-kind of shrug. “They don’t like me.”
The others stayed a little bit away from the woman. Paco, Lilian, and Alton looked at one another and then lowered their own weapons. Belkross kept his sword out, though, eyeing the tree woman distrustfully.
“You all look thirsty,” she said. She snapped her finger. Coconuts rained down from the top of the tree.
“Yay,” Alton said dryly. “More coconuts.”
“Hey, hydration’s hydration,” Lilian said, looking to Belkross. The mercenary finally sheathed his sword and went to work on rounding up the coconuts.
The woman began rubbing her hands together anxiously. “You all look…weathered, I believe is the proper word,” she said, looking around at everyone. “I am Aycenia. I can’t say exactly how long I’ve been on this island, but it’s definitely been ages since I’ve had civil company. Good conversation-”
“Do you have any umbrellas,” Paco interjected. He’d taken one of the coconuts from Belkross. The mercenary had used a short blade to cut open the top so as to access the milk inside. “Tiny umbrellas. For these coconuts.”
Aycenia tilted her head, unsure on how to respond.
Nakoda came to her rescue. “Um, just so we’re clear,” he said. He clearly thought she was very pretty. He was struggling to look at her face for longer than a second, and his cheeks were going red. “…There aren’t any snakes around, are there?”
“Oh!” Aycenia threw open her hands. “There are snakes everywhere!”
Nakoda’s eyes bulged in terror.
“But they won’t hurt you,” Aycenia promised hurriedly. “Unless…Unless.” She plopped down. Wordlessly, I laid my head onto her lap, allowing her to pet me. She gestured with her free hand to the others to join in a circle around her.
“Aside from snakes,” Lilian said, “are there any other dangers nearby we should be on the lookout for? Because we’ve heard about the ghosts and cannibals.”
“More than that. We got real up and close with a ghost last night,” Paco said after a loud slurp from his coconut.
Aycenia frowned deeply. “Yes, you’ve heard true. So many lost souls, damned either by rage or grief to eternal torment upon this island’s shores. As for these cannibals. Descendants of the crew of a ship called,” her frown deepened even further with concentration, “Thrune’s Fang? They wrecked, and I watched them fall to madness. Now…now they consume all that they come across. Though, mercifully, the truly mad ones are locked underground where even I cannot see.”
“Are they anywhere near here?” Lilian pressed.
“Oh, no! They stay far away from my domain.” Aycenia chuckled nervously. “They seem to distrust me. Whichever ‘god’ they have now seen fit to worship has seemingly painted me out to be some kind of…devil?”
Belkross snorted. “Devil? You. Please.”
“Shush,” Lilian snapped. She gestured for Aycenia to continue.
“As I told the little ones, you are safe here,” she promised. “This being the heart of the island, I do have enough power over nature to ward off the majority of this island’s…anomalies.” Her shoulders sagged. “I say ‘majority’ because they Grays are…Well, the Grays.”
“I’ma volunteer to ask the obvious question here,” Alton said. He stood behind Nakoda, leaning with his arm’s crossed against the tree. “What’s a Gray?”
Aycenia’s expression darkened, becoming regretful. “I will answer your question by also making a proposal. I feel like you are all lost souls in need of stability. My domain-this clearing can offer that to you.” She looked away, looked north. “…I don’t want them to spread their rot to the rest of this land…There is an island, a sliver of this island that has been corrupted by a curse. It consumes and spreads. Making Grays. They are more than ghosts but less than human. They seem to operate under one consciousness, made into puppets by one singular…spirit?”
Aycenia placed a hand to her chest.
“Perhaps it best to compare it to me. I reinforce the ways of nature, this thing consumes it. So, in return for my aid and sanctuary, I beseech you to go and kill this Gray God.”
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