The Isle of Terror: Part 2

I didn’t sleep well that night. This expedition wasn’t just of utmost importance to the Kingdom, which was hoping to expose its rival’s secrets. Arthacyros was, after all, the one who sealed my soul in this new body, and I was excited and intrigued about the chance to learn more about how and why he did it.

As the dawn broke, I walked out of my tent. It was the crack of dawn. We were on the island’s western side, so the sun was not yet visible, but it was light enough outside. Rhombus was there, doing sword exercises. He turned at the sound of my tent door shuffling and greeted me.

“Up early, I see?”

“Hey, you know my story. This thing is important to me. I could barely catch a wink in anticipation. What’s your excuse?” I responded.

He laughed, “You can’t dump a delicate noble like myself into a cargo hold for an entire day and expect him not to come out stiff. I had to get some exercise in to get my body back in order. Speaking of which, how about a round of sparring?”

“Sure”, I shrugged. We grabbed a pair of wooden practice swords and got to work. Rhombus was as impressive a swordsman as ever, and in spite of my advantage in size and strength, managed to put me on the defensive with a rapid succession of strikes from multiple angles.

I lunged forward with one of my parries, instead of retreating, and knocked Rhombus off-balance, giving me a chance to mount a counterattack. As my opponent barely dodged my overhead swing, we both noticed movement from the corner of our eyes. Civet scampered out of Iocasta’s tent and dashed towards his own as silently as he could. He must’ve thought he was being very stealthy, but he wasn’t fooling anyone; their relationship was at this moment the world’s most open secret.

“They should get married already”, Rhombus managed to regain proper stance, fainted a side swipe, then quickly shifted into a thrust I barely avoided by jumping backwards, “This is getting ridiculous”.

“I understand them somewhat, though”, I responded, halting his advance by launching a reckless counterattack instead of attempting to defend against another onslaught and going on the offensive again, “Things are bound to change if they make it official. Maybe they’d give up on adventuring wholesale and settle down. And, I like to think, we’ve got something special going on here in the Treasure Hunters. I’d be reluctant to change it too”.

“True enough. I’ve also been dodging my father’s attempts at matchmaking for the past few years, but in my defense, I find all those pampered noble girls dreadfully boring”. He seemed to lower his sword slightly, which I knew was a sign he was running out of steam. I doubled down on the offensive, but it turned out to be a bluff; one swift strike later, and I was disarmed.

“You’ve improved”, remarked Rhombus upon my defeat, “I’m not sure I would’ve won without psychological trickery. Up for another round?”.

We worked up quite the sweat by the time the rest of the camp woke up. Soon enough, breakfast was prepared, and I had a brief respite with a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea.

After we ate, we split up into several teams, looking for any entrances to the underground. To our surprise, we didn’t seem to find any. I was teamed up with Annabel and several of the bodyguards. Reaching a particular stretch of rock, she halted.

“Let us take a break here”, she said, “I feel faint magic at work here. Maybe there is some hidden entrance around here”.

“Of course there is”, a voice came from behind us, “I felt it from half the island away”.

Professor Gorchin, a skinny man in his early fifties with thinning black hair and dressed in a simple brown robe, arrived from behind us with his own group. He was breathing heavily, not used to physical activity. His voice was heavily nasal.

Gorchin took a quick glance at the cliffside before pointing a finger, “That rock is fake”.

Annabel was impressed. “Good eye. There is no shimmer at all, and the shadows are correct. Sure, with enough time I would’ve found it, probably, but for an optical illusion it is nigh perfect”.

“That you would even expect shimmering or missing shadows speaks volumes about your ignorance. The spell cast here would be considered a bare minimum in my book. If only I were blessed with a body to match my intellect, I could’ve dispelled it in an instant. As it is, however, you will have to walk through what to your untrained minds must seem like common stone”, the Professor responded.

“No need to be rude”, Annabel did not appreciate Gorchin’s arrogant attitude. “You may be unable to cast a basic light spell, but I didn’t point my finger and laugh at you about it”.

The Professor was briefly taken aback – he commanded significant respect in academia, and was used to targets of his verbal attacks keeping quiet out of respect – but quickly regained composure. “If you were half as aware as I am of the dire lack of knowledge among Manean wizards, miss, you would not care about being polite one bit. Arthacyros could march an invisible army into Hieropolis tomorrow, with local sorcerers none the wiser! Total incompetents, the lot of you, and I cannot do a thing about it because the gods decided to play a little prank and put the greatest mind of the generation in an inept body!”

Continuing to mumble angrily, no longer addressing anyone in particular, he disappeared through the immaterial boulder. We followed suit, sending two of the men to gather the rest of our party. While waiting for our equipment, including lanterns and fuel, Annabel conjured a ball of light, and we observed the natural-looking tunnel we found ourselves in.

Within a minute, I noticed a faint feeling of unnatural dread creep its way into my heart. It reminded me unpleasantly of an unwilling dweller of an unfinished desert tower I had encountered some time back. Annabel came to a similar conclusion.

“There are demons here”, she whispered, as if merely mentioning the word would guide the hellish creatures to our location. “We need to tread carefully”.