Isle of the Dead

11 – In the Dunes

Afterwards, Lief and Barda remembered nothing but that desperate leap into the sea, and black water closing over their heads. When they regained their senses, they were lying on a golden shore in a tumble of shells and seaweed.

They could see by the sky that it was early dawn. Dimly they could hear waves rolling in, regular as a great heartbeat. But where they lay, all was still. The sea had cast them up in the night, and left them to sleep.

Stiffly they sat up, staring around them, then at one another. They could not believe that they were alive.

The shore stretched away on either side of them, marked only by the shells and weed of the tide line and the stick-like tracks of birds. Before them was the open sea. Behind them were sand dunes, rising one behind the other as though mimicking the waves.

‘We have been swept south, I think,’ Barda said after a moment, his voice rough with salt. ‘Far south of Bone Point—beyond the Maze of the Beast, beyond the mouth of the Tor. How could this be?’

‘Before we leaped into the sea, the ship was moving,’ Lief rasped in reply. ‘It was moving for quite a time. It…’

He scrambled unsteadily to his feet. Now that he was fully awake, he was aware of an uneasy, prickling feeling—like a warning of danger. Perhaps he had felt it even as he slept, he thought. He seemed to remember the scraps of dreams, urging him to wake.

He scanned the sea, but saw no sign of The Lady Luck. He looked left and right. The shore was deserted. He turned towards the silent dunes. And at once the uneasy feeling grew stronger.

But it was not warning him away from the dunes. It was calling him towards them. Calling him…

Quickly he glanced down and even in the half-light saw red and green gleams in the Belt at his waist. The ruby and the emerald were undimmed. They sensed no danger.

And the call was urgent.

‘We must go,’ he muttered. Without even waiting to make sure that Barda was following, he almost ran to the base of the first dune, and began to climb.

The dry sand slipped beneath his feet with a squeaking sound as he struggled upward. By the time he reached the top of the dune, his legs were shaking.

There was nothing ahead of him but another hill of sand, even higher. He ran awkwardly down the first dune and began climbing the second, again not stopping till he reached the top.

Bewildered, he stared ahead.

Dunes, nothing but sand dunes, pink, mauve, deepening to purple, rising against the brightening sky. There was no sign of movement anywhere. But the call was even stronger.

A wave of dizziness swept over him. His knees buckled and he half fell, half stumbled down the side of the dune, tumbling at last into a heap at the bottom.

He lay there, his head swimming. Sand showered over his legs as Barda slipped down after him. Then he felt a hand lift his head and a water flask was pressed to his lips.

He drank gratefully, then opened his eyes. Barda was crouched beside him, replacing the flask’s cap.

‘Tell me what you are doing, Lief, and I will follow you more willingly,’ Barda said wearily. ‘These dunes remind me unpleasantly of the Shifting Sands. Who knows what lurks within them?’

‘I am sorry,’ Lief muttered, pushing himself up so that he could prop his back against the base of the third dune. ‘I… I felt a call. Very strong. I thought of—Jasmine.’

Barda shook his head. ‘Jasmine could not be here. The wind that swept the Kin away from the lighthouse was blowing west, not south. If Jasmine and the Kin survived the storm, they would have returned to Bone Point, to search for us there.’

‘If they survived,’ Lief repeated dully. He turned his head away to stare sightlessly along the shadowed cleft that lay between the dunes.

Barda’s own heart was very heavy, but doggedly he pressed on.

‘We can do nothing for Jasmine. Our task is to take care of ourselves now,’ he urged. ‘This call you feel—it may be a trap. The Shadow Lord…’

His voice trailed off as he saw that Lief was no longer listening. Lief’s eyes had widened. His mouth had dropped open.

Into the sudden silence came the soft sound of falling sand. Barda’s scalp prickled. He put his hand to his sword and slowly turned to follow Lief’s eyes.

Something was rising from the shadows of the cleft—a huge and terrible head, swaying on a twisting, grey-scaled neck that was still half-buried in the third dune. The beast’s fangs were bared in a silent snarl. Its eyes opened—dull, flat dragon eyes.

‘Do not move,’ Barda heard Lief breathe, his voice almost as soft as the whisper of the falling sand.

The dragon’s head swayed. Sand showered from its murky scales, and poured from between the sagging spines around its snarling jaws.

‘Come closer, king of Deltora,’ it rasped.

Lief climbed to his feet, his face haggard with shock.

‘No, Lief!’ Barda whispered. ‘Keep back! This is no real dragon, but a copy, like the false, twisted beast at Dragon’s Nest! Its colour is proof of it.’

Without speaking, Lief looked down at the Belt of Deltora. Following his eyes, Barda saw first the bright gleams of the ruby and the emerald. But then, just before Lief’s hand closed over it, he saw that the great amethyst, gem of truth, was flaming like purple fire.

Astounded, he watched as Lief moved forward, one hand on the amethyst, one hand outstretched.

The dragon’s eyes seemed to widen as Lief drew closer. Slowly its neck bent, until its head was resting on the sand.

And as Lief’s outstretched hand touched the cold, grey ridge of bone above its eyes, the eyes closed, and the dragon gave a great, shuddering sigh.

‘You have almost been the death of me, king,’ it murmured. ‘Often, in my suffering, I have cursed you in my mind, I confess it. But you have come at last. Now I can only hope that you are not too late.’

Hours passed before the dragon spoke again. Lief remained by its side, his hand upon its brow.

Slowly, as the amethyst worked its magic, the dull grey of the dragon’s scales changed to mauve, then to purple. Slowly the spines beside its jaws stiffened, and its snarling jaws relaxed. Every now and then it struggled, as if trying to free itself. But still only its head and part of its neck were visible above the sand.

At last its eyes opened. Lief saw that they were no longer dull, but gleaming like pale violets.

‘You are better,’ he said.

The dragon snorted faintly. ‘I am better than I was,’ it said. ‘But that is not saying a great deal. Now I know what it is to be as weak as prey. It is not enjoyable.’

‘No, it is not,’ Lief agreed.

He hesitated, then decided to take a risk.

‘What happened to you?’ he asked abruptly. ‘How did you come to be so near death when we found you?’

‘HOW?’ thundered the dragon, lifting its head. Lief and Barda shrank back. The dragon coughed, and lowered its head to the sand again.

‘I felt you in my land,’ it said. ‘I felt the amethyst call me, from far away. It was just as Dragonfriend had said it would be. My oath to him swam into my dreams, and I awoke in my hiding place beneath the sand.’

The scales on his head and neck seemed to quiver.

‘But the dune had grown since first I buried myself within it,’ it went on. ‘The sand was heavy and I was weak with hunger. I began to struggle upward—then, suddenly, you were gone and I was left stranded, without the strength to free myself.’

Its eyes burned reproachfully.

‘Just after we crossed your border, we were swept out to sea, through no fault of our own,’ Lief said.

‘It was the Shadow Lord’s doing,’ Barda put in fiercely, as the dragon gave a low growl. ‘We nearly died ourselves, as a result of it, dragon. And it is as well you know it!’

The dragon barely glanced at him. ‘Dragonfriend said that I would wake at your coming,’ it said to Lief. ‘He did not say I might die in the attempt.’

‘Dragonfriend—Doran—believed, I think, that if the Belt of Deltora was worn constantly by Adin’s heir once more, this would mean that the Shadow Lord had been destroyed,’ Lief said reluctantly. ‘But, sadly, this is not so. Deltora is free, and the seven Ak-Baba no longer patrol our skies. But the Shadow Lord is still powerful. Even in exile, he tries to destroy us.’

‘Ah!’ The dragon nodded its great head. ‘Yes. And—I seem to remember that I thought this would be so. I seem to remember telling Dragonfriend that the Enemy would never give in.’

Its mouth twitched. ‘But, of course, Dragonfriend would not listen. Dragonfriend was fiery and impatient. He was intent upon his plan, and did not want to hear objections.’

‘He wanted to save you,’ Lief said quietly, then recoiled as the beast’s eyes flashed.

‘Do not think you have to make excuses for Dragonfriend to me, young king!’ the dragon hissed. ‘Dragonfriend was the best of his kind! He had the heart of a dragon, and he was my true friend. But only fools refuse to see the faults in those they love.’

Lief swallowed, and nodded, feeling young and clumsy.

Slowly the spark of anger faded from the dragon’s eyes.

‘Dragonfriend is dead, no doubt,’ it said, after a moment. ‘If he was alive, he would have come with you, to find me. And the weight of sand I feel upon me tells me that many years have passed since we said our farewells.’

‘Yes,’ Lief said awkwardly. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Ah.’ The dragon grew very still. ‘And are his bones shut up in some grim place of honour in a human city? Or do they lie beneath a mossy stone in a wild place, as he always hoped they would?’

Lief hesitated. He saw Barda open his mouth to speak, and shot him a warning look.

The dragon was weak, and grieving. Now was not the time to add to its burdens. He did not want it to know that Doran had not been honoured, but had been thought mad by all his people at the last. He did not want it to know that its friend had died in a frantic, doomed search for proof of the Four Sisters—and died, horribly, no doubt, at the Shadow Lord’s hands.

The upstart has the fate he deserves…

Lief’s stomach churned at the memory of that cold voice hissing from the dying crystal on the forge in Del.

‘We do not know where Doran lies,’ he said at last. ‘He never returned from—from his last adventure.’

The dragon nodded without surprise. ‘Then, in a way, his wish was granted,’ it said.

It tilted its head and looked at the sky. ‘It is strange to think of a world without Dragonfriend in it. Strange and lonely, for after the last of my tribe was gone, he was the only friend of my heart.’

Sighing, it lowered its head on the sand once more. ‘But I will see him, very soon, and hear his laughter, where my ancestors fly above the wind,’ it murmured. ‘He will be with them, I am sure, for he always said that dragons were more his kin than those of his own kind.’

‘But—but what do you mean?’ Lief exclaimed.

The dragon looked at him with what seemed to be surprise. ‘I am dying,’ it said simply. ‘Do you not understand? You came too late, king of Deltora. Even the amethyst cannot help me now, it seems. I thought perhaps… but it is no good. My time of struggle was too long. I cannot find the strength to free myself, and so my place of refuge will become my tomb.’

‘Do not say that!’ Lief cried.

‘Why?’ the dragon asked. ‘It is the truth.’

‘But you have been imprisoned only for a single night, dragon!’ said Barda, in the tone he might use to encourage exhausted troops. ‘Surely you are not so feeble!’

The dragon’s eyes slid in his direction for the briefest of moments, then moved back to Lief. ‘Your friend’s ordeal in the sea has addled his brains,’ it said. ‘Does he—?’

Abruptly it broke off. It lifted its head, and its forked tongue flickered in and out, tasting the air.

‘Arm yourself, king!’ it muttered. ‘We are invaded.’