Riven Isles

Epilogue | The Next Adventure

Simon circles in the overgrown thicket ahead, trampling the smallest of the shrubs as he steps, gaze flicking from the map to the moon to the land to the lagoon. His lips pinch tightly together. Dorian dives into the bush and disappears. Elian looks back at me.

"All right, Walt?" he calls.

I lower myself carefully to sit on the overhang, touching the end of my crutch in the firm dirt concealed beneath the greens below. It feels so far to jump on one leg. Before I can give a good answer—an answer at least better than my immediate, wary thoughts—Elian's hand grabs onto mine. I exhale with relief. He kindly helps me down.

"Keep your lame leg out of the vegetation, Walter," Simon quips, stepping further into the thicket.

"Mind your own business, Simon," I return, scowling. Sharp twigs and brittle leaves attack my injuries, but I bear it stubbornly.

Simon plants his feet and looks all around, head swiveling like an owl's and craning like a wolf's. He adjusts his glasses and rolls up the painting, holding it out at his side expectantly. "This is the spot. Trade me the map, won't you, El?"

Elian continues to help me through the thick, stinging grass and gnarled shrubs. They scrape against my breeches and my bandages, small and hardy branches clawing at my legs and holding me back like an undertow.

"Elian!" Simon shouts.

Elian blinks and looks up. "Did you say something?"

Simon waves his scroll and points to Elian's map. "Trade."

Elian leaves me to fight the bushes myself and stumbles through to his friend. He takes the painting and hands over the map and Simon throws his arms around him before he can step back again. Simon gives him a moment of his time that I am sure that he would spare for no other and murmurs closely into Elian's one ear. In the quiet of the lonely night, I am just able to hear, "It will get better. We will figure it out."

Dorian leaps from the shrubs below them in a flash of fluttering tunic and fur, soaring between them and splitting them apart, sending each in a different direction in surprise. They both cry out. Simon falls over while Elian regains his balance and holds his freshly bandaged earhole protectively.

The fox resurfaces, snickering, just as Simon blinks away the shock of it and turns from white as sheets to red as roses. He raises his fist to the fox, whose shoulders at his full height barely pass the top of the thicket. Hank's wisp glows bright under his scruffy chin, illuminating his bared, grinning teeth.

"You are foul. You are an amoeba, you are a nuisance and a trickster," Simon rattles, pushing himself up. He pats himself down and smooths out the wrinkles in his clothes, then picks his way back to where he had stood before, shaking his head all the while. "The map says ten paces forward and twenty-one paces right, so let's get on with it."

"Yeah, let's get on with it," Dorian mimics snidely. He sticks out his tongue and flattens his ears and dives back under the thicket once more, disappearing with stealthy movement. His tail bobs over the brush, moving quickly away.

Simon, lips pursed sourly, steps forward ten long paces. Elian, rubbing the back of his neck, follows. Then they turn and pace in a different direction, as given in the map's instructions.

I sigh and wearily lift my crutch to vault along with them, unable to keep up and resigned to it. Ahead, Dorian feigns sleep on a marvelous bridge of white stone. It gleams in the moonlight, sparkling through a layer of mist. Each near-square stone of the bridge's base is carved with intricate patterns, all different. The broad railings display swirling patterns of their own.