PIRATIANS BEGONE

The hazardous roads and hard entourage of visiting this Islandes were legendary. It was not just the hostility of the “best” anchorage on the Islandes, nor the odd accidents known to befall ships and visitors. The whole Islandes was enshrouded in the most powerful and peculiar magic of the Others. Harod had felt it slowly tugging at him as he and Ragul followed the pathway that led from Maze cave to the Treasurers Beach. For a path seldom used, its white gravel was miraculously clean of fallen leaves or intruding plant life. About them the trees dripped the second-hand rain of last night's storm onto fern fronds already burdened with crystal drops. The air was cool and alive. Brightly hued flowers, always growing at least a man's length from the path, challenged the dimness of the shaded forest floor. Their scents drifted alluringly on the morning air as if beckoning the men to leave off their quest and explore their world. Less wholesome in appearance were the orange fungi that stair-stepped up the trunks of many of the trees. The shocking brilliance of their color spoke to Harod of parasitic hungers. A spider's web, hung like the ferns with fine droplets of shining water, stretched across their path, forcing them to duck under it. The spider that sat at the edges of its strands was as orange as the fungi, and nearly as big as a baby's fist. A grey tree-frog was enmeshed and struggling in the web's sticky strands, but the spider appeared disinterested. Ragul made a small sound of dismay as he crouched to go beneath it. This path led right through the midst of the outsides' realm. Here was where the neferious boundaries of their territory could be crossed by a man, did he dare to leave the well-marked path allotted to humans and step off into the forest to seek them. In Past times, so the legends told, heroes came here, not to follow the path but to leave it deliberately, to beard the Outers in their dens, and seek the wisdom of their cave-imprisoned goddess, or demand gifts such as cloaks of invisibility and swords that ran with fire and could shear through any barricade nor shield. Beast men that had dared to come this way had returned to their homelands with voices that could shatter a man's ears with their power, or melt the heart of any listener with their skill. All knew the ancient tale of Jake Longman, who visited the Outers for over a hundred years and returned as if but a day had passed for him, but with hair of silver and eyes like brass and true songs that told of the future in twisted rhymes. Harod snorted softly to himself. All knew such ancient tales, but if any man had ventured to leave this path in Harod's lifetime, he had told no other man about it. Perhaps he had never returned to brag of it. The Piratians dismissed it from his mind. He had not come to the Islandes to leave the path, but to follow it to its very end. And all knew what laid far ahead Harod had followed the chimneys path that snaked through the deep forested hills of the Islandes's interior until its winding descent spilled them out onto a coarsely grassed tableland that framed the wide curve of an open beach. This was the opposite shore of the tiny Islandes. Legend foretold that any ship that anchored here had only the netherworld as its next port of call. Harod had found no record of any ship that had dared challenge that rumor. If any had, its boldness had gone to hell with it. The sky was a crystal clear blue scoured clean of clouds by last night's storm. The long curve of the rock and sand beach was broken only by a freshwater stream that cut its way through the high grassy bank backing the beach. The stream meandered over the sand to be engulfed in the sea. In the distance, higher cliffs of black shale rose, enclosing the far end of the crescent beach. One toothy tower of shale stood independent of the Islandes, jutting out crookedly from the Islandes with a small stretch of beach between it and its mother-cliff. The gap in the cliff framed a blue slice of sky and restless sea. “That was a fair bit of surf and wind we had last night, sir. Some folk say that the best place to walk the Treasurer's Beach is on the gravel dunes up there , I've heard they say that in a good bit of storm, the waves throw things up there, fragile things you might expect to be smashed to bits on the rocks and such, but they land on the sedge up there, just as gentle as you please. ” Ragul panted out the words as he trotted at Harod's heels. He had to stretch his stride to keep up with the tall Piratians. “An uncle of mine-that is to say, actually he was married to my aunt, to my mother's sister-he said he knew a man found a little wooden box up there, shiny black and all painted with flowers. Inside was a little glass statue of a woman with butterfly's wings. But not transparent glass, no, the colors of the wings were swirled right in the glass they were. ” Ragul stopped in his account and half-stooped his head as he glanced cautiously at his master. “Would you want to know what the Outers said it meant?” he inquired carefully. Harod paused a bit to nudge the toe of his boot against a wrinkle in the muddy sand. A tiny glint of gold rewarded him. He stooped casually to hook his ringer under a fine golden chain. As he drew it up, a locket popped out of its sandy grave. He wiped the locket down the front of his rugged trousers, and then nimbly worked the tiny catch