The Vanishing Isle

"What kind of something?" asked Bromm, but he had his answer straight away. Suddenly, from the trees burst a band of huge, hulking creatures that walked on two legs like men, but had the heads of bulls. Their bodies were covered in rags over coarse hair that ranged in color from russet to dark gray, and their eyes shone red with infernal fire. With two hands each, they hefted broadaxes or long cleavers, bellowing terrifying war cries from their monstrous maws.

"To arms!" someone shouted as the minotaurs bore down on them and Bromm tore his saber free from his belt. In his other hand he drew his ornate, ivory-handled pistol and took aim at the attackers. The weapon sounded with a crack and a gust of white smoke, and one minotaur fell face first in the grass. But the others clashed steel against steel with his crew. Their terrible appearance and towering height made up for the lack of numbers, for there were barely a dozen minotaurs against a score of Bromm's men.

Nevertheless, they quickly evened the losses as a gray-haired minotaur clove through the head of one of Urgan's men. The monster roared in triumph, the bleached skull that hung from a chain around his neck shaking as it did. Bromm blanched and nearly dropped his saber.

The dwarf burst from the house, sword in hand and barking orders. "Form up on me, firelocks inside, shoot from the windows! Pikes, brace yourselves!"

Bromm ran to him, spurred on by the screams of another man who died under the blade of a minotaur. He slid under the boarding pikes to take a space at Imre's side. The other man was loading a firelock, his hands unsteady.

"Where's Pyet?" Bromm demanded, but Imre's white-knuckle grip on the musket had all his attention. Bromm cast a look about and spotted Pyet rushing up from the side of the house, axe in hand. The minotaurs came rushing forward and a barrage of shot met them. Two fell, thick red blood spurting from their mortal wounds, but the rest hurtled forward heedless of their losses. The bloodlust was in them. Bromm thought back to tavern tales of minotaurs who ate their kills, and to one pirate captain who kept a quartet of them as his personal guard and disciplinarians aboard his ship. He clutched his saber tighter in his hands and fumbled for the extra pistols in his belt.

The minotaurs thundered to a halt just in front of the outstretched pike points, unwilling to mindlessly impale themselves on the crew's weapons. Bromm felt his courage return. He yanked his runed pistol from his waistband and cocked the hammer in one motion. The crack of the pistol jolted his men to life, and a minotaur fell dying.

"Forward!" he cried, his saber raised overheard. "They're wavering!" his men surged ahead on the attack and tangled with their foes in close quarters. A minotaur's legs were cut from beneath him; Pyet stabbed him in the neck as he fell. Nyvald made good on his earlier boasts and split the chest of a minotaur with his axe. The beast roared in pain as it went down, but the tall Wildman paid it no mind.

The others had had enough and turned to flee. A shot from the upper window of the house felled another, and Bromm's men on the ground attacked their fleeing foe with merciless ferocity. The lumbering minotaurs were easily caught in the forest undergrowth beyond the bowl-shaped dell, and soon enough, they all lay dead.

But it was not without loss, for two more of Bromm's men were slain. Their bodies lay bloody and broken in the grass as the minotaurs retreated. Moving closer, Bromm saw that one of them was the sea rat Geitan. He lay facedown in the grass, and when Bromm turned him over, he found that the man's chest had been split open by an axeblow.

"Kanaron have mercy," Urgan breathed from behind. "I hope the poor bastard didn't suffer."

"It would have been instant," Bromm agreed, though he had seen men with worse wounds take their time dying. "Bring the dead together, we must give them their rites before we move on."

They brought the four men together in a pile and built cairns for them from the house. Pyet, who had once been an acolyte before he abandoned the temple for a life at sea, said the words as best he could remember, and they left the men to their eternal rest. Bromm hoped the rituals had been done right, for he did not wish for any of his men to be cursed to endlessly wander this strange isle.

"It's fortunate that the minotaurs attacked when they did," he murmured to no one in particular. Urgan was close, and shot Bromm a hostile look. Bromm tried to explain. "We were about to split up, and they could likely have overwhelmed half of us in an ambush in the trees."

"Four of us are dead, and you think we were fortunate?" Urgan growled.

"Better four than twenty," Bromm replied. The dwarf's eyes narrowed and he stalked off.

"Pfft," Pyet muttered as he watched Urgan go. "You think he was fucking one of them, too?"

"All he ever wants is treasure," Bromm complained. "Finally, we give him treasure and he complains about the cost."

"He'll get over it. There's nothing a dwarf likes more than gold, women included."

"We should get moving. The funerary rites cost us valuable time, and I don't want to be in the forest when the sun goes down."

They gathered up their things and dispatched half their number back toward the base camp before Bromm led the others in the opposite direction. In addition to himself and his two friends, he was accompanied by Urgan, Nyvald, and Heyne, the dwarf's lover, along with the sea rats Jeraw and Pikmin. They headed past the ruined house toward the rising crags, which they could sometimes glimpse through the tree canopies ahead of them. It was midday now, and he began to worry about making it back to camp before dark. But there was treasure to be found out there, and Bromm was a captain whose crew expected him to deliver the rewards. He had won his ship through a mutiny and so knew the fate that awaited a captain who left his crew unsatisfied.

Banishing the thoughts of mutiny from his mind, Bromm forged ahead with his reduced party. He was confident that the minotaurs had been banished, at least for the moment. The entire ambush party had been annihilated, and so none of them could summon reinforcements. Still, there was surely a camp somewhere on the island, and surely there were more than a dozen. But all of those were problems for later, he decided.

The forest was proving to be both obstructive and bountiful. They passed beneath trees heavy with fruit, though clearly not part of any orchard. They climbed the trees with ease enough and found that fruits were sweet and juicy. After eating their fill of a midday meal, they picked the rest and stuffed their packs with them before continuing.

Twice they startled pigs rooting through the underbrush, but it was only when the second went squealing off that Bromm thought that they would make for a nice dinner when the time came. When he heard another pig grunting ahead of them, he stopped in his tracks and signalled for the others to fan out. Slowly and quietly, they encircled the pig and Bromm readied his musket. He crept forward until he could see the beast snuffling about at the base of a tall, moss-encrusted tree.

Bromm shouldered the musket and took aim. Past the pig, he could see Nyvald doing the same, while Pyet readied a pistol. Bromm pulled the trigger, and the flint struck the frizzen with a snap, but the action produced no sparks. Bromm swore. The flint was insufficiently knapped; it must have been damaged in the fight with the minotaurs.

The pig lifted its head, suddenly alerted to the danger it was in. With a frightened snort, it bolted. There was a cacophony of shots and the forest suddenly filled with smoke. Somewhere in the smoke, Bromm heard the pig squeal, and he cast aside the insubordinate firelock and rushed forward with his sword readied.

He found the animal flailing about, wounded by a pair of shots to its legs. The beast sported a pair of nasty tusks under its snout, and as Bromm approached it wheeled on him with fury in its eyes.

"Look out!" Pyet cried, drawing near with a second pistol raised. The pig charged Bromm before Pyet could shoot, and he threw himself aside before the tusks could tear him open. Pyet fired the pistol and struck the pig in its side. Shrieking in pain, it toppled to the ground. Its thrashing legs threw up a storm of dried leaves, further obscuring it even as the gunsmoke began to dissipate.

Bromm scrambled to his feet and rushed the wounded animal. He plunged his saber into its neck and leaned on it until the pig stopped kicking. The others came rushing up as the pig breathed its last.

"Ohoh!" Urgan crowed, "he's a fat one!"

"Aye, he'll make a good meal for the whole party," Nyvald agreed."

"Pity you couldn't put him down by surprise," Urgan went on, "his meat will be tough now. Always maintain your flint." Bromm shot him an annoyed look, and the dwarf added "captain" out of deference.

"Cut down a branch and let's bring him along," Bromm ordered. He walked back to his musket and knapped it while the others strung up their kill. Urgan's chastisement aggravated him, but not as much as his overly familiar attitude. He would need a reminder of who wore the captain's hat. Soon enough the men were done, and they continued their march, now in even higher spirits.

The ground rose faster and rockier toward the crags. Tall boulders stood out between the trees and from the high boughs Bromm could hear birds calling. Where the tree canopies grew thin he could see the winged shaped of great long-tailed birds circling overhead.

"I hope they aren't hungry," Imre muttered, "they look big enough to carry one of us off."

"Or all of us," Heyne added.

"They won't find me an easy meal," Nyvald vowed. He hefted his broad axe and stared skyward. Another shadow passed overhead and he scowled. "They'll stay in the skies if they know what's good for 'em."

Bromm paid them little mind and urged the party forward. Ahead of them was a rootbound slope that led up into the crags. Using the roots as hand and footholds, they made their way slowly to the crest of the slope. Bromm hauled himself over the edge and looked around.

To either side towered the granite faces of the crags, great gray teeth jutting up into the sky. At their center lay a placid tarn that reflected the clear blue sky on its flat surface. The edge of the little valley was ringed with flowering plants and dense thickets. Beneath one such thicket, Bromm saw a pair of white-furred rodents with just their heads poking out. They flitted their gaze from one end of the valley to another in the manner of such small creatures, then fixed their gaze on Bromm and promptly retreated into their burrow.

The others clambered over the lip behind him and stopped just as he had. Their slain pig was momentarily forgotten on its pole as they stared about the valley in awe.

"This must be a holy place," Pyet mumbled.

Urgan did not wait to find out and went straight to the tarn. Bromm caught up to the dwarf at the water's edge, where they both knelt and dipped their hands into the water. It was cold but clear and Bromm happily gulped down a handful. The water coursed down his throat and he felt a strange, cold sensation come over him. Suddenly concerned, he looked to Urgan who wore a similar look.

"What has happened?" the dwarf demanded. "Are we cursed?"

"Look!" Pyet cried, his finger pointing across the water. On the opposite shore, where the water grew thick with reeds, a cluster of flowers floated on the water's surface. They were in bloom, wide and dark, with petals of dark violet ranging to black and blood red stamens in the middle. Bromm's heart grew cold as he recognized the infamous black lotus.

"Has the water been poisoned by the lotus?" he wondered aloud.

"Nay," Urgan replied, standing to his feet. "I should think not. I am no stranger to the lotus and it has never made me feel like this. This is sorcery at work."

Bromm had heard rumors that the dwarf liked to smoke petals of the black lotus, but had never put much stock in them. The flower was rare, and alchemists who could distill its essence into a powerful drug instead of its usual form as a deadly poison were rarer still. He stood up as well, and felt the coldness of the water fading fast.

"I feel as if we are not threatened by whatever was in the water," he said. The others drew near, looking to the water with suspicion and the lotuses with interest.

"We should take some with us," suggested Imre. "The lotus petal is worth its weight in gold to the right man."

"Where would we find such a man?"

"Torvuls," answered Bromm. "Everything can be found in Torvuls, for the right price."

"Aye, but we'll be the ones setting the price," Imre said with cheer. "Does anyone know the right way to cut them?"

"Do not cut my flowers!" called a silvery voice, and the sailors all turned in unison. Emerging from the trees was a young woman, fair of skin and fair of hair, with eyes like the clear blue sky above. She was barefoot and clad only in a sleeveless moss-green dress that exposed her shoulders and reached just past here waist and a garland of flowers. Another ring of flowers crowned her head, and she wore lively green vines around her forearms. She was maddeningly beautiful, and Bromm could feel the famous sailor's lusts rising all around him.

But the woman advanced unafraid on dainty feet, her steps leaving behind no trace in the soft grass. As she drew closer, Bromm could smell that she was cloaked in a fragrant perfume of the most delightfully scented wildflowers.

"Who are you?" Pyet breathed in wonder. The woman smiled coyly and brushed a golden lock back from her beautiful face.

"My name is Oromeia," she replied in her enchanting, silvery voice, "and this is my home."

"These are your flowers?" Imre asked, and Oromeia nodded.

"I have raised these lotuses from their seeds, as I have raised everything else here, from sparrow to oak."

"You raised the oaks?" Bromm asked. He looked to the nearest one, which towered nearly a hundred feet over his head, and understood. "You are a dryad."

Oromeia smiled. "I am. Erchasos is my father, and I tend to his earth as a loyal daughter. You are welcome here, though I ask merely that you treat the tarn and its valley with the care that I have."

"My lady," Bromm began, unsure of exactly how to address an immortal but determined to carry on, "When we drank from your waters, we felt something change in ourselves. What has happened to us? If it is some curse for fouling your waters unbidden, I must humbly beg your forgiveness---"

Oromeia smiled, her eyes dancing with delight. With one dainty hand, she covered her mouth and laughed to herself. Then she steadied herself and dropped her hand away. "It is no curse, you have drunk from the Fountain of Fortune! Apliss, Lady of Luck, is my mother, and has blessed my pool such that all who drink from its waters will carry her blessing until the moon's turn."

Bromm thought to his star charts and frowned. There were only two days until the new moon rose. It would be a short-lived blessing, but that was the way of the Lady of Luck, who gave with one hand and stole back her gifts with the other. He wondered if her daughter was any different.

"I thank you for your hospitality, my lady," Bromm said. He bowed stiffly and the dryad laughed again.

"I am no queen, you flatter me so."

"Your father is a god, and your mother too," Bromm protested, "I would not dare impugn your station."

"My father is a temperamental soul, and my mother a fickle mistress, but I am neither of them. This is my garden, and you are my guests. Seat yourselves and drink of my water. I see that you have slain a pig and I will not begrudge you that, but I will not allow a fire to be made in my hollow."

Bromm nodded solemnly and gave a stern look to the others to be sure they understood the importance of obedience. His companions and Nyvald nodded with him, but the sea rats and Urgan had eyes only for the dazzling beauty in front of them, while Heyne looked at her with poorly disguised jealousy.

Oromeia turned toward the far side of the grove. "There I grow many fruits that you will not find wanting. Eat of them as you will, for I will not let it be said that I am not a gracious host."

The sailors pushed past each other toward the trees, taking their time as they passed Oromeia to look her over close up. She smiled sweetly at them and Pyet blushed a deep red. Bromm remained where he was and soon he and she were alone.

"My lady, I must inquire," he began, and she turned her gaze to him. The sight of her dancing green eyes staring into his soul made him weak in the knees. "This island... I..." he stammered, her eyes were piercing. "What is this place?"

"It is an island," Oromeia replied, "what else would it be?"

"I have never heard of such a place, nor is it on any of my charts."

"My father is master of the wilds, and his domains defy the efforts of mortals to pin them to any sheet of paper or roll of vellum. He commands the land to be wild, and it obeys."

Bromm thought to press further, but decided that was as much of an answer as he was going to get. Together they walked to the fruit trees and joined the others, who had already begun devouring the fruit. Even though they had seemingly sated themselves on the fruits in the forest, the men and Bromm alike found themselves unable to resist the delicious fruits before them. They were round and tan, with tough exteriors but sweet and starchy white insides that the crew devoured without shame. The thick rinds began to pile up at their feet until Oromeia picked them up and threw them into the thickets out of sight.

Smiling proudly, she sat cross-legged in the grass with them and watched them eat.

"This fruit is divine," Urgan said around a mouthful of the stuff. "Does this only grow in your garden?"

"In my garden or the gardens of my sisters, who are most numerous, though still hard to find." Oromeia took one of the fruits from the pile they had picked and dug her fingers into its rind. With some effort, she tore it in half to expose the fleshy interior and held it before her soft, pink lips. She bit into it and the fruit's sugary juice spurted forth and ran down her chest.

The sailors watched, enraptured, but Oromeia merely laughed at the mess she had made. She devoured the rest of the fruit and threw the rind aside, then stood up.

"This needs a wash," she declared and then, to the stunned delight of the eight sailors, she pulled it over her head and stood naked before them. Bromm nearly choked on a mouthful of fruit. The dryad was slender yet buxom, with two smooth, shapely breasts topped by pale pink nipples. She was hairless between her legs in the manner of elves and immortals that mortal women could only imitate by shaving. The dryad tossed aside her dress and it gently floated to a rest on a mossy stone beside the tarn. She flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder and looked to the men who stared open-mouthed at her.

"What's the matter?" she asked, her silvery voice tinged with a hint of teasing. "You are surprised to see me in my natural state?"

"Not surprised," Bromm answered quickly, "we are awed. Never in all the world have I seen such beauty."

"You are too kind, mortal," Oromeia said, her white cheeks turning just the slightest bit rosy. "It is so rare that I look upon a mortal that I forget how handsome you can be. My only male company on this island are my bastard half-brothers, the minotaurs, who are most ugly and savage."

"My men may be ugly," Bromm replied, "but we are far from savage."

"And much easier on the eye than my brothers," the dryad replied. "But no more of them, I have no taste for minotaurs. I find myself with some taste for you, mortal."