Through enshrouding haze over his mind, Jhoran realized a very crucial detail as they fled the ledge, the sirens, and the rocs. They were fleeing with the remaining Meiltha. The venerable Captain Tonar among them. That being the same Captain who had had such a lovely discussion with him earlier. He winced, and gripped his scimitar hilt with his left hand, his right arm hanging limp and broken from the part in the discussion when they had brought out several rods that wear specially made for such events.

Following Merrin, Kendath, and the little girl, Jhoran kept a wary eye on the four Meiltha. Their party of eight was less than unified, and he was afraid that the Meiltha were better off--he and Kendath were both in rather bad physical shape, and Merrin looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Would the Meiltha try anything? It was certainly worthy of being concerned about.

He limped along at the rear of the group, where he could keep an eye on the Meiltha; though what he would do if they attempted something was something that he would have to decide whenever they tried. Tonar kept shooting glares at him, doubtless angry at having to work with his former prisoner in order to survive.

At last, however, they passed out of the wooded area, and onto...desolation. It had to be the most forlorn and uninviting beach that he had ever seen. Rocks, high waves, and choppy waters. And sea dragons. That last bit, though, wouldn't be a problem unless they went into deeper water, hopefully.

The little girl ran off, and Kendath ran after her. Since they were trying to stay together, everyone else headed that direction as well.

A sound of trepidation escaped Jhoran's lips as he saw Kendath, Merrin, and the little girl wading through the water to reach a group of rocks where stood a man. There was very little choice except to follow them.

The crashing waves beat against his side, impacting on bruised ribs and his broken arm, and on injuries he didn't even know he had. The treacherous current tugged at his feet, and threatened to pull him under, and Jhoran was afraid that if it managed to, he wouldn't be able to break the surface again.

Struggling on and reaching the rocks took almost all of his remaining strength, but he had only time to pant for a few seconds before following Kendath and Merrin inside.

He reached them just as something vanished out of sight. It reminded him of a snake. His sharp intake of air echoed in the enclosed space.

"What was that?" he whispered, while trying to work moisture back into his throat. In his condition, there was no way he could fight at all.

_________________

There was another exhalation of stench, like the breathing of some monstrous leviathan, the fumes of which propelled around the corner and blasted them full in the face. It brought to mind the not so pleasant aromas of Port Dragonhelm's open market, minus the whiff of decaying corpses. Whatever lurked around the corner wouldn't be a pretty sight. Perhaps Merrin was right. They should have never ventured in here.

Not for the first time lamenting his impulsiveness, Kendath was just considering turning back when a voice, sibilant and suave as poisoned honey, echoed down the tunnel: "Vissitorsss, hmm? Come, come, my sweetsss. Misstress doessn't bite, you know...." Kendath would have begged to differ. Falchion unsheathed, he backpedaled through the knee-deep water, bumped into Jhoran, and continued going for hope that they'll make it out before -

Dulcet, amused laughter drifted around the corner. The tentacle, suckers pulsing, circled around behind them, cutting off retreat. Another tentacle curled around the first and lifted into the air, swaying like a charmed snake, before extending to teasingly nudge the victims. It slithered, wet and slimy, along Kendath's cheek. He resisted the urge to shudder. Equally tempting was the urge to hack both tentacles off, but he couldn't possibly do so without incurring the wrath of... of the thing lurking deeper inside.

"Come inss, my sweetsss, come inss..." The tentacles contracted, tightened around them, drawing them down the narrow tunnel and around the corner to fully behold...

Well, he was right on one account. It wasn't pretty at all.

At first glance, it looked like a squid or kraken of some sort, with its web of tentacles that waved slowly in the dim light, a mesmerizing dance. At second glance, its glistening scales and sinuous neck suggested a sea serpent, though it contrasted starkly with the mushy mass of tentacles. Whatever it was, the spiked head that bumped into the ceiling one moment, then inclined to greet them was distinctly reptilian. It bared its fangs in a grin, causing all three visitors to clamp hands over their noses against the noxious exhalation.

"Ssoft, two-legged loveliesss. Misstress Ssmalysx hassn't sserved ssoft, two legged loveliesss in many, many yearsss, hmm?"

It took a bit for Kendath to realize she was talking to someone, not merely to herself. An crack in the stone above filtered a trickle of light that fell upon the stagnant pool beside her. Quivering by the water were a half dozen translucent rocks, fluorescent in the darkness. Closer inspection revealed them to be larvae, their fragile bodies stirring within protective membranous sheets.

Noticing his stare, Mistress Ssmalysx crooned deep in her throat and raised a tentacle to caress them. Her slitted eyes blinked, their green irises glowing as she appraised her visitors. "You likess my little pearlss, hmm? Sswift to grow, they are... sswift to feed..." Another honeyed chuckle. "But that'ss not what you're here for, isss it? You desstroyed the birdiess, destroyed the womensss. Ssoft, two-legged loveliess don't like my pretty island. You wantsss to get offss...."

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A tentacle, slick with water and making a moist sucking sound as it moved over the wet stone, reached to curve around Merrin's ankle and twine further up her leg. She recoiled instinctively, shrinking against Kendath, with a quickly smothered sound of dismay. What sounded like a coughing hiss but could quite possibly have been laughter echoed eerily, and the same tentacle detached itself to slide wetly over Merrin's shoulder and tip her chin up just as the thing finished its hissing sentence - "...you wantsss to get offss."

The sight, which she'd been cringing from, was truly ghastly. Maybe the creature could have passed for an impossibly large squid but for its reptilian, almost dragonlike, head - and no squid Merrin knew had the power of speech. Quite suddenly she recalled waking in this grotto and thought with a surge of terror - had this monster of the deep been there then? Surely not...but even so Merrin fought to turn away, pushing futilely at encroaching tentacles with something approaching panic. Involuntarily she put her hand, palm down, directly on the face of one pulsing sucker. It stuck there for one morbidly fascinating moment until Merrin wrenched it free. Foul breath hissed past her, and that strange head lowered to examine her while she fought to escape encircling tentacles. Merrin's eyes flashed white for a moment, the effect involuntary, but it made her half-collapse, held upright only by the creature's coiling appendages, which were suddenly tighter. Through a temporary haze of confused thought Merrin realized - too much power. The barest use could make her faint dead away, now. The thought was less than comforting.

"Godss," it hissed sibilantly, tone now distinctly hostile. "The Godss favor youss, they doess...Misstress Ssmalysx hatess the white firess..."

Feeling the grip tighten suffocatingly, Merrin struggled frantically for a moment until it loosened. The tentacles receded, leaving her shivering and thorougly spooked. The monster's attention shifted once more, this time back to Kendath with a cursory examination of Jhoran. "You killed the womensss, sirensss...but perhaps Misstress can helpss loveliess leave isssland...what will loveliess give Misstress Ssmalysx?"

_________________

Kendath reflexively shifted to defensive stance and raised his falchion when the tentacles came creeping along, slithering around Merrin, suffocating her until he came within a hairbreadth of simply hacking the slimy things off - rather large sea monster or no - before they receded once more to curl around Mistress Ssmalysx like fawning lovers. The slitted emerald eyes taunted him, as if she'd known his intentions the entire time and had been simply goading him along.

The game was one-sided, and Kendath didn't feel like playing it. Forcing himself to look away from the mesmerizing tentacles and focus on the reptilian face instead, he sheathed his falchion. Despite his best efforts, his voice still didn't sound overly confident when he reiterated, "Give Mistress Ssmalysx...?" What could the bloated monster want... other than soft - No. Don't go there.

His uncertainty must have flitted across his face, for Mistress Ssmalysx bared her fangs - this time not in suave encouragement, but in exasperation. It took a while for him to register again the fumes, which he'd somehow become inured to. The notion sickened him. "Killed sirenss, killed birdiesss... loveliesss musst have somethingss, or loveliess not worthy..." Letting her words hang, she narrowed her eyes in sudden contemplation. A sinuous, gleaming appendage struck the stagnant water beside her. In the geyser of spray that resulted, Kendath caught a glimpse of a spiked tail.

Then she smiled. This was not reassuring.

"I havess jobsss for you, my loveliess, my sweetsss. Dangerousss job, yesss, but you musst. You musst, if you wantss to get off my pretty island." Something about the way she said it, or perhaps the way her grin widened to reveal a maw of glinting teeth, engendered less than positive thoughts. Kendath braced himself. "Loveliesss know the pheersome, the ssuffering wretch of a ssnake that sstinksss these waters, yesss?" Mistress Ssmalysx looked a far cry from any snake he'd ever seen, but he wisely kept the comment to himself. Especially considering her sudden convulsion of fury. Tentacles writhing, tail lashing, she shrieked, "Dragonsss, she callss hersself! Dragonss of the pheersome deepss! There'ss only one - ONE - misstresss of these waterss, and she isss not the one!"

Dragon of the deep. He understood. And he felt like puking up his esophagus.

The next instant, the tentacled monster was calm, as though her outburst of fury had never happened. Inclining her head to stare down her visitors, she whispered, "A portal there iss, underneath her lairsss. Kill her... kill her... and loveliess getsss away...."

_________________

As if to illustrate her point, the self-proclaimed mistress of her waters gathered her tentacles around her, leaving the threesome standing on stone awash with stagnant, foul water. "Loveliess getss away," she repeated, as if suggesting that they make good their escape before she changed her mind. A tone tentacle danced, writhing sinuously in the air, simultaneously mesmerizing and revolting.

Merrin's hand closed on Kendath's sleeve and she didn't let go until they'd fled the place entirely. Her knuckles were white on the hilt of her rapier, the only indication of abject terror, and when again they stood outside she took one long, shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around herself, trying with all her might to forget the feel of slick tentacles around her.

Pundy swept the three of them with one startled glance, his eyes eventually fastening on Merrin. "You're white as a sheet, lass! What did you see - ?" the question was directed rather more at Kendath and Jhoran, it being evident that Merrin would not answer. She gulped down the desire to lose what little content remained in her stomach and managed to evince a smile for a worried-looking Kiril, but was otherwise unhelpful, perhaps understandably.

The sky was lightening, and however Merrin looked she couldn't see a ship on the horizon - and she looked desperately, hoping against hope that there wasn't cause to accept Misstress Ssmalysx's offer. The prospect loomed threateningly. It appeared to be the only one.

_________________

Mistress Ssmalysx. And the sea dragon. Both were impediments towards getting off of the island, since in their current conditions, trying to kill either would be roughly equivalent to contemplated suicide. However, by killing the latter, they might be able to get off of the island with the aid of the former.

It looked like they were going to be staying for a while.

As they scrambled back towards the front of the cave, Jhoran's mind was working as furiously as possible through the slowly-lifting haze. Unfortunately, that did not say much.

At the mouth of the cave, Jhoran was certain that his face had only marginally more colour in it than Merrin's. In all of his travels, he had never come across anything--anyone--like Mistress Ssmalysx. There were no precedents to draw upon.

At the older man's exclamation and consequently, question, Jhoran managed to come up with an answer. "There's....something, in there. Tentacled, predatory, and aware. And it wants something from us," he managed.

He gave the young girl a cautious glance. Too late. Obviously, it would have been better for her nerves if he had said that differently. He had never been good with children, though. He sighed, sinking down to the ground to rest, every muscle in his body screaming for it.

"I'm afraid I will not be of much use, Kendath," Jhoran said, deciding that although Merrin was the Chosen of the gods, Kendath was the planner and strategist between the two of them. "I can only use my left arm, and not very well at that, right now. Courtesy of our beloved Meiltha, Captain Tonar," he added, with a derisive glance in the direction of said captain.

_________________

Merrin looked back once again at the yawning mouth of the grotto and seemed to hold Kiril more tightly. "We'll talk - elsewhere," she said, sounding strained. Quite suddenly the irony of the entire situation struck her and she couldn't decide whether to laugh hysterically or cry. Four less than friendly Meiltha, Kendath, and her - neither of whom were in anything approaching good physical condition - and this new addition, who was likewise anything but hale. Against a sea dragon. The odds were laughable.

With a deep breath that was becoming habit, as it accompanied the forced smothering of emotions that Merrin seemed to be encountering cause for at every turn, she raised her eyes to Pundy. "C-can you walk? We have to get back, camp somewhere - not here. Not close to here." A violent aversion to even remember this encounter was somewhat evident in her voice. The Meiltha were no longer visible, hidden by the curvature of the stark rocky cliffs that stabbed up at the sky between cove and beach, and she couldn't help but worry about what they might be doing.

His response was, thankfully, a shrug and a grunt. "'S been worse. Aye. Let's go, then."

The tide was slowly receding, enabling the five of them to slosh along the edge of the cliffs in hip-deep water. Kiril was ahead with her uncle, and Merrin concentrated on watching her step for a few silent minutes until, happening to find herself again approaching the mystery of their newest Renegade companion, she stopped and waited for him to catch up. When he had, she fell into step, somewhat tentatively, beside him. "You...remind me of someone," she started. "Have we met - ?"

_________________

Jhoran smiled ruefully. Obviously, amid the events of that memorable night, meeting one Dragonrider didn't stand out very much. He had met the Chosen of the Gods--apparently, though, she'd seen another faceless comrade.

"I was there on the night that you returned to Vryngard," he said slowly. "I met you and Kendath in the foothills immediately around the city. I only saw you for a few minutes before a Meiltha dragonflight parted our ways, but it seems that the gods have twisted them back together. As long as I feel that I am meant to aid you and Kendath, I shall stay."

He grunted when he realized he had said more than he had meant to. And it hadn't even pertained to her question, at least not entirely.

"Perhaps I remind you of myself," he said, trying to puzzle out the first part of her question. "Or perhaps you have seen another member of my family. We are not that unknown among the Dragonriders--the House of the Seeker was, so I thought, actually well known, as it is the oldest line, dating all the way back to the Seeker himself--Adanil. Surely you have heard of him?"

Jhoran watched her expression. Many tales were told of Adanil among the Dragonriders, but few were in the true state that they were kept in within his own House. To the average Renegade, he was a half-mythical hero with amazing powers who could single-handedly defeat any Meiltha army. To his descendants, he was merely one courageous man, driven by a passion for vengeance and justice, and filled with determination sufficient to surmount all odds. And, unknown to all but a few, he was a man who succeeded in spite of a curse.

The water surging around his waist gradually receded, and Jhoran stepped out onto dry land, grateful to Merrin for having slowed her pace considerably to allow him to feel like he was keeping up.

_________________

Merrin had never been masterful at concealing her emotions, and this was no exception. She stopped several paces behind him, astonishment written across her face. "Adanil? Of the - " she broke off. Images of a peasant with a scimitar flashed through her mind, of a village demolished by a horde of the living dead, and Merrin caught her breath. The remnants of guilt she still carried from that unfortunate encounter lessened by some amount. How might events have been altered if Adanil had remained the peasant he'd been when they met him? It was difficult to even comprehend, the strange ways time had twisted itself to their presence.

Realizing she'd fallen silent, Merrin sloshed the last few steps onto stone again. "Oh, aye, I've heard of him," she responded, smiling with a queer sense of pride.

The brief interlude, which had carried with it emotion other than panic and fatigue and therefore had felt a great relief to Merrin, dissipated along with the arrival of Captain Tonar. He folded his arms across his chest, which still bore a battered breastplate that looked much the worse for wear, and managed to sneer without changing his already disapproving expression. "Does the Chosen have a plan she'd like to share?"

"The Chosen has a name," snapped Merrin in return, and was somewhat startled at herself. She fought down the impulse to return his sneering jabs and folded her arms in turn. She had no plan besides the obvious option that she desperately wanted to find an alternative to, and even that she felt unsure about revealing. Wind gusted across the bare beach and she shivered, being wet making her feel doubly cold. Her pride protested faintly, but Merrin finished as coolly as she could manage - "As for a plan - no. I do not." What she did have was a keen want for a fire...warmth...and to sleep and not have to formulate any plan. The first two were doable, but the last decidedly not.

_________________

Hearing a promise from a hissing squid adorning a rock in the middle of nowhere was not his idea of reassurance, but Kendath could see no other option. Saving the world or not, why did it always seem like they were at some superior power's mercy? First Sage, then the Shadowers, then Prince Feldwar, and now this... Oh, the irony.

He was still sloshing a little ways behind Merrin and Jhoran when he heard the latter mention something about the House of the Seeker. And Adanil. And then there was the swan-hilted scimitar he'd noticed earlier. Well, no surprises. He'd expected as much - but nonetheless the realization froze him for all of three seconds until a vindictive breaker almost knocked him over. Less than gracefully, he climbed onto the rocky shore in time to meet Captain Tonar's glare, adroitly sliding from Merrin to Kendath without the slightest attrition in intensity. The man seemed to have mastered the art.

"I don't suppose you have a plan."

A blink. A scowl. Another glare. "You would let me hand out orders?"

"On second thought, forget I ever said anything." Shivering in the bites of howling wind, he squeezed out the front of his tunic. In his haste to escape the water, he'd forgotten how equally frigid the wind could be. He vigorously rubbed his shaking fingers. How long had it been since any of them had slept? Or eaten, for that matter? No, that was antiheroic. Sleeping and eating didn't come with the whole, neat package of saving the world.

"One of my men and I will gather firewood," Tonar went on anyway. "The remaining will stay with my casualty. The lot of you may do what you like, but do make yourselves productive. We can't have the precious Chosen freezing in the night, can we?" He turned to give more specific orders to his men but was most rudely interrupted.

"Fine with me, as long as you place yourselves out of our fields of vision."

The result was a few choice words, a few hands groping for their respective swords, and - ultimately - two campfires on opposite ends of the beach, separated by a hundred feet of crashing surf and craggy boulders.

Kendath tossed more wood onto the feeble campfire and shifted closer, salvaging whatever warmth he could. Though shielded from sea spray by an overhang of rock, the flames flickered without ardor, the wood - however brittle and dry it appeared to be - reluctant to burn. Wind reminiscent of sirens' piercing wails whistled through cracks in the stone. It could have been noon, or afternoon, or even near nightfall. The misty gray limbo revealed nothing, though the night before had been characterized by impenetrable black velvet.

He shivered and uncorked his water skin, dribbling a few drops down his throat before passing it to Merrin. It was more than halfway full, but they may be trapped on this gods-forsaken isle for a long time yet. "You should sleep," he suggested, without much conviction.

_________________

Merrin handed it back without drinking and edged closer to the fire. Something that hung in the air, silent but for eerie shrieks of wind through cracks, made her stomach tight with uneasiness. It complained vaguely of hunger, too, but food seemed almost an afterthought at the moment - as did sleep. Something in Merrin made her shrink from the escape into subconscious. Enough had assailed her in the waking world to bode ill for the sleeping one. Idiot. You wanted sleep not an hour ago.

Closing her eyes, Merrin rubbed them with the heels of her hands. How could she be weary beyond belief yet not want to sleep? Even protesting that she wasn't tired was a lie. The thought of admitting to being afraid of nightmares, like the little Chosen the Meiltha sneered at, was if possible more unwelcome than the idea of sleep. "Aye," she said into the silence, and glanced once up at him. "So should you."

Her cloak was still damp with seawater and stiff with salt but Merrin curled up under it anyway, and attempted the proposed slumber. She dozed off once, not quite asleep but not awake either - a blissful feeling until the blur that had been the fire changed, blurring in her mind to a great sea of flames, shadows moving through it like shades of those long dead. Black and flickering vermilion and orange assaulted her vision and Merrin shielded her face from the heat with one forearm. When she lowered it, one of the black shapes was reaching with skeletal fingers, the barest haunting suggestion of a matching visage under its dark cowl.

She woke up, throat dry with fear, and buried her face in her arms to appear asleep still. Panic welled up and she forced it down. No sleep, then - not now. Not till they were away from this place. Merrin clung to the thought, perilously aware of how close she was to tears.

_________________

Kendath shrugged the suggestion away, knowing that sleep would evade him no matter how hard he tried. The wind nipped stubbornly, painfully at his numb ears and froze the rest of his body. All the comfortable positions weren't the warm ones, and all the warm positions weren't comfortable. At length he managed to draw his knees halfway to his chest and stare broodingly into what remained of the campfire. Without conscious thought his hands began twirling a dagger, flickering vermilion dancing like phantoms along its edge.

His gaze slid to Merrin, curled in her cloak across the campfire. She murmured and stirred in her sleep, but evidently she was asleep - fortunate, considering what she'd done today. The dagger turned, and for an ephemeral instant he thought he caught white fire flashing across its blade. Surprise - the illusion was gone. But what surprised him even more was the emotion accompanying it. Relief? That made perfect sense, of course, considering how the holy magic had saved his life.... Closing his eyes, he let his head drop against the damp boulder behind him and his mind replay the events on the volcano's ledge. He didn't understand himself. Or emotions, for that matter. Shouldn't he be damned grateful to the higher powers for coming to his aid? Not once, not twice, but multiple times. Instead, he was... afraid? A sneer twisted his lips. Afraid of what? Merrin?

Well, that worked out fine. If he feared her, he'd feel more inclined to distance himself, which was what he'd intended all along. Ironic, ironic, ironic...

Fingers of velvet darkened the skies to the east. He tossed the last of the wood onto the campfire, before slamming his dagger against the stone beneath him with a curse. Here they were, cold, miserable, hungry, trapped on an island, and forced to trust the word of a slimy squid. To the abyss with it all! If the altruistic, omnipotent gods wanted them to save the stupid world, couldn't they have made it slightly easier? Altruistic, omnipotent gods! Why, then, were the Shadowers rampant? Why were the Meiltha multiplying like weeds? Why were Gyre and Wyvern dead? Why was this weak, insecure, pathetic excuse of an assassin accompanying the Chosen of the Gods when she could have had a knight, a wizard, any number of protectors more formidable than he?

Perhaps they didn't care. Perhaps no one cared. Perhaps they were on their own, abandoned to watch their own backs, teased by divine aid only because the gods were bored and lacking entertainment.

A tinny, sharp inhalation from across the campfire. Merrin was stirring again, burying her face in her arms. Kendath considered going to her - wanted to, actually - but discarded the temptation just as quickly. The acerbity of his conclusion surprised even him: The gods could care for their own.

"Where be you going?" Pundy looked up blearily at the younger man's passing. One arm was hooked protectively around the sleeping Kiril, the other was raised to his squinting eyes, trying to adjust to the darkness.

Kendath walked by without comment. Only when he heard a shuffle behind him - Pundy getting up to follow - did he shoot over his shoulder, "Gathering more firewood." He did gather more firewood, but that wasn't all. After depositing the pile of brittle twigs under the outcropping, he straightened and, with a final glance backward at Merrin and Jhoran, started off down the beach.

His sole intent was to stretch his legs and clear his thoughts, keeping the campfire in sight the entire time, but the farther he walked, the more he didn't feel like turning back. The shoreline steepened, the scattered rocks hardening into a line of cliffs that plummeted to the unforgiving breakers below. Baying like vengeful hounds, the wind smashed against the jagged palisades and tore at his thin tunic and breeches, until his very flesh felt numb to all but its icy needles. The moon ventured once from its nest of clouds, crowning the waves and stone in cold silver, then retreated as though fearful of rebuke. Behind him, the flicker of light that marked the campfire grew fainter and fainter until it vanished, obscured by the trees lining the island's curvature.

Alone. Foolhardy, he knew, especially after the encounter with the sirens. Even the wind seemed to chant it: Turn back. Turn back.

He didn't. He kept right on tracing the shoreline, letting his thoughts drift. They meandered against the current of time, backward to Demon and Evlyn and the Star Crystal that had started it all. Had it really been that long? Months ago? Years ago? It might as well have been a lifetime since that night he'd bound the wrists of a Renegade girl and tossed her like a sack of bricks over his dragon's back. Captain Tonar seemed so familiar, such a tangible link to that long ago night. Had Kendath really catered to the whim of officers like Tonar all his life?

Meiltha, dragons, Cloud Crystal, Druids... They all clashed into each other in a melange of uncertainty and adrenaline. His mind turned to their current quest and the words of the Seeress - another superior power whose words they were forced to trust. Her instructions turned over in his head as another thornbush they had to untangle. Within the Four Winds you will need... Easy enough. Thyrault, as Merrin said. As always, they could figure out the part about the obsidian key when they got there. It was the next line he didn't want to contemplate, the next line which he wasn't even certain he'd interpreted correctly....

The island itself saved him from that chain of thought. The island... and the foothold fronting the toe of his boot. Or the lack thereof.

The land fell away - just like that - into a sheer ravine slashed by water churning in from the connecting ocean. Easily twenty feet wide, it went on into the trees, seeming to slice through the island all the way to the cinder cone in its center or probably even past it. A strait, perhaps, cutting the island in half. But what kind of strait, he asked himself, was marked by a pile of silver at its mouth? Silver-green, more accurately. Turquoise blue, whatever shade that was supposed to be, when he sidled and regarded them from a different angle. Scales. They were scales, heaped and twisted in a sinuous chain, like a coat lacking its wearer. No, not a coat. Molt. There it was. The spoor of this dragon of the depths.

_________________

Merrin lay rigid and very awake, too afraid of what might follow to let herself relax, drift off into the slumber that beckoned so tantalizingly. Waking or sleeping, she felt trapped in a nightmare that never ended. With a start she realized - had it really only been two days, three days ago that she'd listened to an innkeeper regale his audience with fantasies, stories like colored ribbons on a wind. Ephemeral, fleeting...but so captivating in the moment you experienced them. How had that night changed to this one?

She was bleakly aware of the forbidding rock that half-sheltered, half-loomed over them, the Meiltha at the opposite end of the beach, the dread that clenched in her stomach upon even considering what they must do next. Merrin turned her face to the fire, head on her arms, and tried to remember that feeling of utter contentment, of warmth and safety and love. Her thoughts visited the common room, dwelled a wistful moment in the feel of Kendath's embrace, and wandered off into further reaches of time. She remembered coming back to Vryngard, Star Crystal in hand...and again, his presence just beyond that circle of light, just beyond where she could catch his hand - in a place where she forever wondered and never knew - but strangely her mind kept going, drowsily going back, and back, and back...

Warmth. Firelight. Merrin stirred and opened her eyes. The coals of a dying fire glowed faintly a few feet away. Blinking, she half-raised herself to look around, wrapped in blankets as she was. An evergreen tree stood in one corner of the room, snowflakes cut of precious, rare paper adorning its branches, faintly orange in the firelight. Candles, which had been lit but were now dark, were carefully placed at intervals.

Remembering, she sprang to her feet and went to look underneath it, at the carefully laid row of shoes - boots for Da, softer shoes for Mama; another two pair of boots, different sizes, for Jayen and T'mor; Merrin's own small, worn pair; and then the twins'. Adasin and Liand hadn't quite grasped the idea of setting their shoes out for the Yule Elves to leave presents in, but Merrin had been shocked that they didn't want to. Her own had been rearranged half a dozen times. Dropping to her knees, she reached inside the first one in the dark beyond the faint glow of coals, and came out with something wooden, carved. Reaching into the next one, she came out with something like it and went back to the fire to see what they were.

The first one was a beautiful little dragon with its wings spread, painted emerald green, every scale detailed on its elegant, streamlined body, with the tiny figure of a knight astride it. The other was alike, only the scales were vibrant red and its mouth stretched open in a snarl, the figure astride brandishing a weapon. Merrin lifted them, enchanted, hardly able to stop looking. "When you're ten summers," Jayen had said mysteriously, "the Shoe-Elves always bring something special." Merrin had been ten summers near the beginning of the year, and dreadfully disappointed - though of course careful not to show it - when all she received was a pair of mittens...stockings...a new scarf. Jayen had been sick, very sick. She remembered that, too. But the Shoe-Elves had remembered now.

Drowsy again, she climbed back into the roll of blankets, a toy in each hand, and drifted off into happy sleep, faint tales drifting past like dreams of dreams, with red and green and blue and gold dragons...every color...

Merrin sighed in her sleep and turned over, not quite smiling but for the tiniest lift of her lips.

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Waking up without recalling ever having fallen asleep was a strange sensation. Thus it took a while for Kendath to fully puzzle out why his muscles ached, why his head was twisted at an odd angle against a boulder, and where in the world this expanse of gray water known as the ocean had come from. Grunting and rubbing his arms, he sat up to stare at the smoldering embers of the campfire and dig through the cobwebs in his head. A nagging feeling told him he'd found out something last night, something important, but for the life of him he couldn't...

Oh. Something important indeed.

He climbed to his feet and stretched the warmth back into his limbs. Any optimist would say that the day actually looked brighter than yesterday, as evidenced by the lonely shafts of sunlight spearing the clouds. Merrin was still dozing, a half-smile teasing her lips, but a glance down the beach confirmed that the Meiltha weren't. Only two of them remained by their camp. The other two darkly clad figures, blurred by the mist, were moving down the shoreline - scouting, by the looks of it. As if they expected to find a boat tied to the rocks.

"Still on this confounded rock?" Pundy grumbled, bracing himself against the boulder and pulling himself up. He rubbed his eyes and squinted at Kiril, prancing at the edge of the breakers as though she hadn't spent the previous day running for her life.

Kendath knelt beside Merrin, curled in the cloak that now looked more flint gray than silver. He put a hand on her shoulder to shake her awake.

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Merrin murmured in her sleep, expression changing vaguely. The wistful smile that came and disappeared like a ghost on her lips, but never quite made itself entirely evident, flitted across her face one last time. "Jayen," she said, one hand going to Kendath's on her shoulder. She'd half-grasped it, fingers curling trustingly around his, when a gust of chilly wind swept in from the rolling breakers and she shivered and woke. For one ephemeral second, there was the tiniest glimpse of laughter in her eyes - like a child with a gift - and then, waking fully, her face fell.

She let go his hand, pushing herself up on one arm and fighting back a wave of crushing disappointment. One look at the forbidding scenery, the dying campfire, and the overcast grey sky provoked an involuntary, somewhat distressed "Oh..."

By way of explanation she looked up at Kendath, expression once again trepidatious and full of tense anxiety. "I'm sorry - I was...I was dreaming." Jayen's face, wry and somehow full of that fond quality that had made her adore him so, burst clearly into her mind and Merrin shut her eyes against it - just for a moment - and pulled her cloak once more around her shoulders. When she opened them she'd managed to fight off the urge to escape once again into a happy past, where the only threatening dragon was a wooden one, painted red, and offered Kendath a tentative and somewhat halfhearted smile. "Did you...did you sleep?"

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Kendath nodded and rose to his feet. Squinting against the sea spray that persisted in coating his face with a fine sheen of mist, he stared down the shoreline in the direction he'd wandered the night before, searching for a glimpse of silver - reassurance that he hadn't dreamt the entire thing. He almost wished it immanent. Challenging a sea dragon was not a battle he welcomed.

"No breakfast. None. Not even a confounded slice of cheese. And if that confounded girl kills herself drowning - What are you staring at?" Pundy flicked Kendath a glare even Tonar would have envied. Perhaps the other man's influence was rubbing off.

Kendath ignored him. Or tried to. It could be the lack of food, but the incessant glares from multiple personae were waxing increasingly annoying. If he concentrated hard enough, he could even feel Captain Tonar's glare waving from the other side of the beach. "About the squid's suicide proposal," he said, in a tone one would employ when discussing the weather. "We should look around a bit..." He bit himself off before his mouth could quite rattle off, what say you? "This direction looks like an excellent start!" Smiling encouragingly - and blissfully unaware of the lockjaw effect - he set off in mentioned direction.

At least Meiltha weren't following. Optimism wasn't such a bad endeavor after all.

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