3. Lena #2
I learned a lot about Isla Varyx over the next two days, most of it from the guests.
They ranged from the absurdly mundane to the strange and monstrous.
Greg and Thalassa were the perfect example—an accountant from Ohio enjoying a vacation with his sea-serpent wife. I’d met cuter couples, but not many.
Gwenhild, the vampire I’d seen at the karaoke, enjoyed the opportunity to go out in the daylight, rarely leaving the beach during the day.
Whatever took the place of the sun in this artificial world didn’t burn her, though it wouldn’t tan her either.
Her partner, Markus, said he enjoyed the freedom from turning into a wolf—though I wasn’t quite clear on whether he really was a werewolf.
The only single guest apart from myself, Rebecca, was more interested in the island’s magic than anything else, and overjoyed at the chance to talk about it. I doubted any of it would get into the article, but her enthusiasm was impressive even when I only understood one word in ten.
Despite the obvious joy Isla Varyx brought its guests, the resort was only about half-full. It had to be tricky advertising a resort that only catered to the paranormal.
An article in the Gossamer Veil might help.
I hoped so, but something was missing. An interview with the resort’s mysterious owner would be perfect.
Or was I just making an excuse? Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the strange violet eyes full of falling stars again.
Felt a connection to someone on the nameless black mountain looming over the island.
Were those the eyes of the owner? A guest of his?
Had some other monster taken up residence?
After two days of interviewing cheerful, happy lovers, of watching them laugh and play in the blue water, and of trying to ignore the ache in my heart, I snapped. After one too many of Rook’s amazing margaritas, I decided I had to know who was up there.
I set out in the late evening, though beneath the glowing nebula sky it never got too dark to see.
The path toward the mountain was narrow and neglected, as though unused for years.
I cursed the uneven paving and the occasional ambitious weeds growing up through the cracks.
They were, I decided, conspiring to trip me.
Before long, the forest gave way to unwelcoming rocky ground. Sharp blades of stone so black it seemed to radiate darkness jutted out of the ground. The path continued, though narrower, winding between the rocky spikes.
When I reached the resort’s edge, the boundary was obvious and boring. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t a fence with a sign. The sign itself was unambiguous and blunt: DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THIS POINT. Underneath, someone had added a note by hand: Here be Dragons. I frowned at it.
“This,” I said to myself, “is a stupid idea.”
Not that I let it stop me. Perhaps if I’d been sober, I’d have listened, but pissed off and buzzed, I wasn’t in the mood to take advice from anyone, even myself. I climbed over the fence, glad that no one was watching my undignified scramble.
A chill around the stones despite the warmth of the tropical night, and I shivered as I walked past them. Maybe that should have turned me back, but stubborn determination carried me onward. I’d come this far.
Unlike the other paths on the island, this wasn’t an easy walk.
Narrow and twisting, it skirted close to the cliff edge, leaving a sheer drop on my left.
To my right, the cliff rose into the multicolored sky.
What I’d do if the path didn’t lead to the top?
Would I dare to climb it? A stupid question—I’d have to be a lot drunker to try free climbing a mountain without backup.
Across the bay, the resort’s subtle lighting was visible.
So was a bonfire on the beach, people dancing around it, and the strange glowing patterns under the vermillion waves that crashed onto the rocky shore far below.
Above, the nebula covered the sky in strange, beautiful patterns.
A pity no one gets to see these amazing views.
I guess the owner likes to keep them for himself.
My legs started to tire, and there was still no sign of a destination.
I was on the only path I’d seen. The only options I had were to keep going or to give up, so I pushed on, grumbling and cursing the owner under my breath.
That he didn’t want visitors was irrelevant.
Yeah, I was being unfair, but the steep, winding, dangerous path eroded my sense of fairness quickly.
Should I have turned back? Probably. I refused to fail in my self-appointed quest, though, and stomped on.
The end of the path took me by surprise. I edged around a narrow turn to find the path running through the mountain, following a crevasse which led from the bay to the ocean. There, the path opened up into a flat area, large enough that I could finally stop worrying about falling.
The view was spectacular, but it was stone arch that caught my attention.
It reminded me of the portal I’d arrived through, but larger and formed in one piece from the ink-black stone.
And inside the arch was… nothing. Emptiness that somehow stood out against the black.
It made my brain itch to look at, and goosebumps rose on my skin.
Instinct screamed at me to turn and run.
Stubbornness and curiosity won out, and I fumbled out my phone. The camera refused to focus on the weirdness, but I snapped pictures anyway. My real camera waited back at the cabin, and I cursed myself for not thinking to bring it.
The pictures were a messy blur, useless. I tried again, focusing on the arch. It made no difference. The archway refused to be photographed.
I stepped closer, trying other angles, trying video, black and white, all kinds of things. Someone smarter would have given up. Not me—stubbornness isn’t so much a personality flaw as a way of life in my family, and I wouldn’t let this stupid magic gateway get the better of me.
Up close, the air seemed to fizz against my skin, and everything else looked distant, unreal. The crash of waves hitting the cliffs below faded away, the world dimming. This was nothing like the friendly, inviting feel of the witches’ portal that brought me to the island.
Despite what Rook said, it didn’t seem constrained. I raised my hand, the itching, fizzing sensation getting stronger the closer I got. Touching the thing would be stupid, I knew, but I couldn’t resist the urge to experience it.
It felt like nothing at all. Like the absence of everything, even air. Even vacuum, which made no sense. Before I could pull my hand back, something boiled through the portal. The impact sent me tumbling back, knocked free of the sticky air with a thunderclap.
I yelled in pain, panicking and flailing to catch hold of something, anything. No luck, I was too near the edge. Before I could recover, I tumbled over the cliff. Black stone flashed past, then the nebula-filled sky, then the sea as I spun over and over. I didn’t even have the breath to scream.
The ocean rose toward me, waves slamming against jagged rocks, promising to shatter me on the cliff if I survived the impact with the water. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for impact.
I hit the water hard enough to knock what little air I’d breathed in back out of my lungs. The impact stunned me, and I couldn’t make my limbs obey as I tried to swim. My entire body stung, my lungs burned, and I knew I wouldn’t make it back to the surface.
Above me, the water exploded into white chaos. Something plunged through, diving fast down at me. Black scales on a massive body, wings swept back behind a head large enough to swallow me whole. It reached for me, gigantic talons carving through the water, and that was when I fainted.
A dragon? The world faded to black as I stared at the awe-inspiring creature. I’ve been caught by a fucking dragon?