Manipulator's War E-Book

Elise Carlson

• Herausgeber: Faraway Fiction Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

All roads lead to war.

Tarlah's first nonbinary heir, Ruarnon, is determined to prove their worth to Tarlah's perfect King. But when Ruarnon's parents are abducted, they're left ruling Tarlah alone, in the shadow of impending war, with absent allies.

Neighbouring King Kyura has no intention of invading. But his warmongering subjects long for the glory of expansion. When Kyura rejects their calls for war, assassins threaten his family and mutiny threatens his reign.

Across the ocean, lost Aussie and feisty history-nerd Linh seizes her only chance to get home; sailing with Ruarnon's allies.
Monsters at sea threaten everyone. Linh’s learnings could save Kyura's people and clear her homeward path. If she risks her life aiding Ruarnon.

But to secure peace with Kyura's unruly subjects, Ruarnon's ultimate test as heir risks betrayal and Tarlah's bloody defeat.

Leseprobe

Manipulator’s War is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locales and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. 

Content Warning: miscarriage, suicide, grief and loss, moderate battle violence.

First published in Australia by Faraway Fiction Press

Text © Elise Carlson, 2022

Cover illustration and interior art © Elise Carlson, 2022

Moral rights of the illustrator Judah Lamey ([email protected]) have been asserted.

Cover Design, map and illustrations by Judah Lamey

No part of this book may be re-produced in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book uses British English spelling conventions.

ISBN 978-0-6454633-0-9 PaperbackISBN 978-0-6454633-2-3 Second Paperback ISBN 978-0-6454633-1-6 Ebook

By Elise Carlson

Ruarnon Trilogy

Manipulator’s War

Secrets of the Sorcery War

War in Sorcery’s Shadow

Sythe Series

Walking the Knife’s Edge (mid 2025)

Countering the Hands of Crime (2026)

Skirting the Fires of Revolution (2027)

Waging Wars Beyond All We Knew (2028)

Dramatis Personae

Tarlahns

Heir Ruarnon (they/them)

King Urmillian (Ruarnon’s father)

Queen Corina (Ruarnon’s mother)

Prince Omah ((Ruarnon’s uncle)

Princess Telena (Ruarnon’s aunt)

Lenaris (Ruarnon’s best friend, she/her)

Companion Pamoran (Lenaris’ father)

Companion Tor (Ruarnon’s tutor, he/him)

Advisor Monin (Pamoran’s father)

Captain Arleath (of Ruarnon’s bodyguard, he/him)

Ethlin (Lenaris’ protégé, she/her)

Arlian (Ethlin’s lover, he/him)

Aza (First General, he/him)

Takanis (Second General, she/her)

Zaldeaans

King Kyura (he/him)

King Kyomi the Peacemaker (Kyura’s father, deceased)

Companion Karmarn (Kyura’s half-uncle)

Companion Armar (Ambassador to Tarlah, he/him)

Companion Aoran (Kyura’s friend, he/him)

Governor Syenne (Kyura’s sister)

Governor Kia (Kyura’s sister)

Governor Iomar (Kyura’s cousin, Aoran’s lover, he/him)

Governor Iagl (Kyura’s cousin and Iomar’s twin, he/him)

Governor Derlan (Kyura’s uncle, Iomar’s father)

Australians

Linh (Year 10 student, she/her)

Fiona (Linh’s best friend, she/her)

Troy (class clown and pain in backside, he/him)

Michael (other science class, unknown quantity, he/him)

Timbalens

Nuard (scholar, he/him)

Familon (archer and Nuard’s daughter)

Commander Imphin (he/him)

Captain Doorna (he/him)

Boormar (soldier, he/him)

Creator Gods

(All absent since creation.)

Mijora (earth goddess)

Esla (sea goddess)

Esira (sun god)

Erhmun (wind god)

Chaos (god of sorcerers)

Prologue

Ruarnon: the Zaldeaan Realm

Heir Ruarnon fought the corners of their lips, which tried to twist in distaste. They succeeded only in forcing their mouth into a neutral line, probably a grimace, the best they could do. Before them, floor-to-ceiling frescoes of wanton slaughter dominated the corridor. Zaldeaan warriors in bronze armour impaled enemies on spears, every foot of both walls declaring: “We will cut down every man who dares oppose us.” To Ruarnon it read more like, “We have big spears and big appendages and that puts us in charge.”

Ruarnon suppressed a smirk. They doubted their body parts would count for much here. Zaldeaan servants scurrying past eyed them with open curiosity, the servant’s gazes lingering on the kohl around Ruarnon’s eyes and the spiral on either end, marking them as midlun. Bronze armoured guards stationed at an intersecting corridor stared at Ruarnon’s trouser-covered legs, knowing both were clean-shaven beneath the silk. The Zaldeaan guards eyed Ruarnon insolently.

Ruarnon swallowed awkwardly. “Do you truly believe the body shapes the mind? That it determines gender?”

The largest, broadest man replied in Migryan, and one of Ruarnon’s guards translated.

“How else could gender work?” There was a pause before he added “Benevolence,” as his companion elbowed him.

Ruarnon slowed their pace. Companion Tor had warned them the Zaldeaans may be questioning, even disbelieving of their gender, but meeting a man who flat out denied the existence of midluns was still a shock.

A whisper from Ruarnon’s bodyguards cut through their thoughts. “His mind must be thick, then.”

Ruarnon glimpsed two men and two women smirking at the Zaldeaan guard before the captain’s stern gaze swept around, and Ruarnon’s entourage moved on straight-faced. Ruarnon breathed more easily knowing the men and women assigned to protect them had their back against more than just physical threats. The knowledge was a comfort while Ruarnon kept their chin up, striving to represent Tarlah well as its Heir, in their father, King Urmillian’s greatest test of their readiness to become co-ruler when they came of age.

The corridor stretched on forever. An unusual number of Zaldeaan palace officials stood about, rubbing their oiled beards in twos and threes as they eyed Ruarnon appraisingly. Ruarnon took a deep breath. Half the Zaldeaan court was here. And they were all men. Every man’s gaze was fixed on Ruarnon, weighing and measuring Tarlah’s youthful Heir. Ruarnon shivered, sensing an undercurrent of hostility that set their teeth on edge.

The soft pad of their bodyguard’s sandals’ on stone, trailing after them, no longer felt strange. Father and Companion Tor were right: Ruarnon’s safety wasn’t assured here.

At last, they turned into a quiet corridor. Ruarnon’s shoulders relaxed as they stepped beyond judgemental gazes.

“Do we stare so rudely at visitors at home?” Ruarnon asked.

“They are curious about how Your Benevolence compares to their new king,” Captain Arleath replied. “King Kyura is only a few years older than you.”

Ruarnon’s brow furrowed. “They don’t think much of me. Kyura must come off well in that comparison.”

Arleath’s brows furrowed, and he eyed Ruarnon pointedly. Ruarnon almost stopped in their tracks. The walls here would have ears and probably eyes. Ruarnon couldn’t say what they thought without it getting back to high-ranking Zaldeaans, or even King Kyura himself.

“Apologies, Your Benevolence,” a servant called, his well-pronounced Timbalen catching Ruarnon by surprise. “The oil barrel lid came loose, and the corridor is a mess.”

Ruarnon glanced at a stone floor so thickly coated in oil that it would ooze over their sandals and feet. “We will go another way,” they said, and the servant bowed again.

Ruarnon doubled back, feeling the unfamiliar drag of their long, Zaldeaan style tunic sleeves and trousers resisting the air as they walked. The cooler Zaldeaan climate demanded warmer clothing, but they missed the ease with which bare limbs and a short Tarlahn tunic let them move swiftly.

“Servants have their own corridors,” Captain Arleath told Ruarnon, his narrowed brown eyes scanning the corridor as he spoke. “And I wouldn’t expect many of them to speak Timbalen. Most speak only Migryan. They may have been refilling oil lamps along the main corridor, but they may not.”

Ruarnon tensed. What kind of trap was spilt oil? And would someone really teach a servant to pronounce two sentences perfectly in Timbalen just so they could tell Ruarnon to walk into a trap?

The corridor came to an end with a turning left and right. A folded wooden screen sectioned off the right, while daylight bathed the left. Ruarnon slowed as they turned left into a corridor that opened out to a terrace overlooking palace gardens. Ancient trees rose in all directions, creating a dark green canopy vaster than anything that could grow in Tarlah’s dry climate. Dense bushes tangled with flowering vines rose to Ruarnon’s height.

One of Ruarnon’s guards shifted. The man’s iron blade flashed as it hurtled towards the trees. Whom was he attacking? Another blade spun end over end towards Ruarnon. Ruarnon ducked instinctively. Iron rang against stone as the dagger struck the wall behind them. Battle alertness pulsed through Ruarnon’s body as their training kicked in, and they drew their sword. But this wasn’t training. It was attempted murder, and it set their heart thundering.

Sword in hand, Arleath stepped between Ruarnon and their attackers. Where had that dagger come from? Ruarnon scanned the trees.

“Archer!” their guards warned.

Arleath gestured. Ruarnon dived wide of a power-bow bolt that could have pierced the bronze disc tunic under their Zaldeaan linen.

“Keep moving, Benevolence! Guards! Follow!” Arleath commanded.

Ruarnon jerked their sword up. A second dagger clanged against their sword as they knocked it from the air. Then they ran, their heart pounding, eyes scanning the lawn on their left for more projectiles.

Leather slapped pavement ahead. Ruarnon raised their sword, anticipating an ambush. They and Arleath turned a corner. Before them, Ruarnon’s uncle’s eyes widened. Ruarnon gasped and lowered their blade.

Uncle Omah stepped aside. His blonde braid swished behind him. “Go to your aunt! Use the servant’s corridors!”

“You can’t stay here, Benevolence. We don’t know how many there are and we’ve too few guards,” Captain Arleath asserted.

Omah nodded, then ran alongside Ruarnon as they turned into a doorway and the dark, narrow corridor beyond. The flickering torches lining the walls were so spread out that Ruarnon could barely see the ground. They imagined someone following. What if someone had? What if they’d sent word to spill the oil and redirect Ruarnon to the terrace and the ambush? An ambush by who?

They hurried on in the cramped, confusing darkness, everyone’s footsteps echoing off the walls until a door burst open, and the corridor ahead filled with daylight.

Ruarnon followed Uncle Omah through a doorway into the sitting room of their guest chambers. Aunt Telena and two guards approached.

“What happened?” Telena asked.

Ruarnon’s gaze was drawn across the sitting room to green lawns stretching to more trees. They didn’t seem beautiful now. Ruarnon half-expected the grounds to conceal more attackers. They gestured to a guard and exhaled with relief when the man bolted the doors shut.

“Assassins,” Captain Arleath reported, his gaze sweeping the room, then fixing on Ruarnon’s aunt and uncle. “Armed with throwing knives, easy enough to conceal inside Zaldeaan sleeves.”

“I thought King Kyura supported his father’s Peace?” Ruarnon asked, their mind scrambling to make sense of reality while their heart raced. “So, who just tried to kill me?”

“He appears to support it,” Omah replied. “Your father isn’t certain —thatis why I am here— to find out and to persuade Kyura to uphold his father’s Peace. But even if he supports peace, others of rank may not. Now we know one of them is well-resourced enough to attack you inside the Zaldeaan palace. We need to get you out of here. Now. Dangerous times call for decisive action.”

“You intend to stay?” Ruarnon asked. If it was dangerous enough to send them back to Tarlah, why on Mijora’s earth wouldn’t their uncle accompany them?

Aunt Telena had opened Ruarnon’s trunk on the bed in the room opposite and was pulling out clothing. The sandy fringe which usually framed her face was tucked behind her ears and her elegant, pale fingers packed nimbly, as if used to servant’s work.

“You’ll need your plainest arms-training tunic,” she said. “Fetch yours, Arleath. And have a servant find our palace guide. I want Ruarnon out of the palace and halfway across Zaldeaa City before our supper with King Kyura is finished.”

“Someone just tried to kill me,” said Ruarnon. “We do not know who or why, yet you and Uncle Omah are staying for supper?”

“Kyura is only nineteen, and nine months into his reign. His wife is dead. His heir is dead. Do not forget that he is vulnerable. If he does approve of peace, now is the perfect time for those who favour war to twist his arm. I want to assure him he has our support, and to exert every influence I can in person.”

Ruarnon felt a flash of resentment at their father for their favourite uncle having to put himself at risk for their father’s plans. Then Ruarnon processed the rest. They were the child in the room sent to safety while adults did the work, at a time when they were supposed to step up and demonstrate that they could be Co-Regent.

“If the danger isn’t too great for you, why is it too great for me?”

They didn’t want to be skewered by a crossbow bolt, but they were tired of striving for their father’s approval. It seemed within reach, yet now that they were in danger, it was being pushed away again. What would Urmillian think of Ruarnon running back to Tarlah the first time someone tried to kill them? Urmillian had faced multiple assassins when he came to the throne at fifteen because his reign began when Tarlah threw off Zaldeaan rule. Could Ruarnon ever measure up to him?

Omah stepped closer, his gaze piercing. “Whoever opposes the Peace sees you as a more valuable target than me. You are heir to the throne and last of our family’s line. We cannot risk you by having you stay. Now that throwing knives in the garden have failed, perhaps it will be a crossbow in the theatre or a poisoned snack in the training grounds. Whoever tried to kill you, I expect them to try again soon. You must return to Tarlah. Once out of the palace, you will take a chariot to Edesinia and a private ship back to Tarlah City. When you return, your first task is to send your aunt and me word you are safe.”

Ruarnon turned to Aunt Telena as she stepped back from laying out a plain white tunic and worn sandals on their four-poster bed. Captain Arleath was already pulling a tunic over his muscled frame and small clothes. In front of Aunt Telena. The breach of propriety impressed the need to hurry upon Ruarnon.

They entered their room, tore their red silk tunic off over their head, and pulled on a white linen one. They slipped out of their trousers, hastily removed the solid gold ornaments from their dark braid and seized a washcloth to wipe away the kohl around their eyes.

Then they returned to the sitting room, where Uncle Omah and Aunt Telena were giving hasty orders to Captain Arleath.

“Are you sure you will be safe?” Ruarnon asked.

Uncle Omah smiled. “When I was two years younger than you, I slew two Zaldeaan guards who attacked our home during the uprising which won our independence. I can protect myself.”

Ruarnon couldn’t help asking, “How many did Father kill?”

Omah’s gaze darkened. “He wasn’t there. He snuck out to join our father in assaulting the Zaldeaan Garrison and was proclaimed king of Tarlah when our father died of his wounds. Urmillian expects much of you, but I doubt he expects you to brave assassins yet. He will think no less of you for returning home, if that is what you fear.”

Ruarnon’s gaze fell. No matter how impossible Urmillian’s expectations seemed at times, they found themself striving to meet them. But Omah was Tarlah’s ambassador and Urmillian’s brother, so if Omah thought their retreat was necessary, it should be all right. Omah smiled kindly, and Ruarnon knew their uncle had their back.

“Benevolences, we must hurry!” Captain Arleath urged. “If they intend another attack and predict our flight, it will come soon.”

Ruarnon started to walk away, but their aunt snatched them into her arms. They smiled and hugged her back. Omah gave them a quick hug as well, then Captain Arleath was ushering them into another dimly lit servant’s corridor and the door closed behind them. Arleath led the way through the quiet stone space, and Ruarnon wondered if, beyond the palace, they could step into the open and walk out of Zaldeaa City without being recognised, accosted, or attacked.

Chapter 1

An Unanticipated Destination

Linh: Australia, Two Months Later

Refugee Crisis Continues; Climate Catastrophe Looms; Misinformation and the End of the Age of Reason. Linh ground her teeth as she scrolled through news headlines on her phone. Was it just her, or were adults taking the headfirst down the toilet? And she couldn’t so much as cast her vote in protest for two more years. Her phone vibrated—a welcome distraction.

Have fun. Do not wander off!

Ba xx.

Her grandmother’s profile photo showed aunts and uncles who had died in the Vietnam War. Ba had immigrated from Vietnam to Australia over fifty years ago, yet she still worried. What did she think could happen on a science excursion? Linh shook her head. And if the Australian Government had airlifted refugees to safety fifty years ago, why didn’t they give a damn about refugees now?

Linh threw her phone into her backpack and buried herself behind the pages of Origins of Modern Democracy, retreating into the past to evade spending the bus trip in a bad mood.

“Ba worrying again?” Fiona asked on the seat beside her.

Linh rolled her eyes.

Fiona’s pale, freckled face split into a smile. Her lank brown hair slipped over her faded blue school uniform dress as boutique shops, cafes, and smartly dressed adults sipping coffee flashed past their window. Linh turned across the aisle and gazed over green slopes extending to a sea punctuated by windsurfers and a container ship sailing a distant channel across Port Phillip Bay.

Fiona slid Atlas of the Ancient into her bag as the bus turned into a car park, and Linh zipped her book into the front pocket of her backpack. The rumble of the bus quieted as it pulled to a stop, and Mr Gentile stood. “The ferry to Noriyong Island is for the public, and your behaviour on board will reflect on Kinnara High. We expect you to act as ambassadors for our school.”

“He says as if it’s a revelation,” Troy said, shaking his wild brown curls on the far side of the aisle on Linh’s left.

“From the way you behave, it is,” Linh asserted.

Troy’s broad, bronze face split into a grin. His friends glanced meaningfully from him to her as they stepped into the aisle, where Troy towered over Linh and his chubby form dwarfed her petite one. She glared at his friends, suspecting they were mocking her.

A short walk brought both science classes to the end of the pier, where pedestrians disembarked from a white, double-decker passenger ferry. A cool sea breeze played about Linh’s face and ruffled her black ponytail, as a crew member in a fluro yellow vest waved everyone on board. Troy and his friends rushed upstairs, and Fiona and Linh followed them into warm sunlight. They leant on the metal railing lining the deck, gazing across the deep blue water, inhaling the salty tang of the sea breeze.

The ferry’s engines rumbled. Small children waved enthusiastically from the lower decks to bystanders on the pier. The ferry left the whine of speedboats and jet skis behind, generating splashing waves as it sailed towards the open sea. Linh’s shoulders loosened as the crowded coastal street fell behind, and she turned to the vast blue horizon, enjoying the personal space of the upper deck. It was nice to get away from a that seemed increasingly troubled and too complicated to do anything about, even just for a day.

She sighed when Mr Gentile called them to the lower deck, and reluctantly followed Fiona down to the crowd of uniform pale blue dresses, navy shorts and pale blue t-shirts.

“We will reach Noriyong Island in five minutes. Please keep any valuables on you, get your observation sheets, clipboards, and pens ready, and get into your groups.”

Linh’s shoulders tightened again as people moved across the deck into the groups Mr Gentile had assigned. Working with Fiona and Troy might be all right, but Mr Popularity’s best friend from the other science class might spend the day mocking her for taking pride in her work.

Troy eyed her hunched posture, then said, “Mic’s all right. He won’t talk much.”

Students regrouped, and lanky, dark-featured Michael emerged from the crowd.

“Hey Mic,” said Troy.

Fiona smiled in welcome, and Michael nodded. From his dark brows, brown eyes, and broad nose, Linh assumed he was Aboriginal, but his serious expression gave away little about his personality.

“Can we trust you to be the brains of the operation?” Troy asked.

Michael’s lips twitched.

“Get ready to depart!” Mr Gentile called.

Linh gazed ahead. Noriyong Island was hilly and covered in short trees whose tangled branches cast strange shadows. The ferry slowed and manoeuvred against the island’s pier. Mr Gentile made both science classes wait while a crew member waved off families. “You have an hour to make your ecosystem observations,” he announced. “Collect your map from a teacher, carry your water bottles, and leave your bags with me. We will meet here at eleven for an early lunch. Don’t be late!”

Linh’s classmates spilt down the boarding ramp and pier, a sea of light blue shirts and school dresses, buzzing with conversation. Fiona collected a map from a teacher as they disembarked, and everyone dumped their bags with Mr Gentile, keeping hold of their water bottles.

“Which way do we want to go?” Troy asked as they stepped onto the sand.

Linh crossed her arms. “Not bush-bashing,” she replied, gazing sternly at classmates wandering into the trees. “I don’t fancy getting lost.”

“Where’s the fun in life if you don’t take risks?” Troy asked.

“What’s fun about exposing yourself to danger?” Linh snapped.

Troy’s smile faded.

Fiona stepped between them. “How about we walk along the beach?” she suggested, her blue eyes twinkling as always. Linh never understood how she did that.

They turned left over sandhills, and Fiona carried their equipment towards a rock pool in the shallows, opposite a shore lined with banksia trees. As they walked, a shadow loomed at the corner of Linh’s eye. She turned and glimpsed tree trunks towering above banksia trees on her right. Trunks that cut off slightly higher from right to left, peaking then cutting off lower on her left, in a vertical half-oval. It vanished. Linh stared, blinking at the clear blue sky. Her eyes must be playing tricks. This island was too small for trees like that.

Troy gazed at the trees too. Linh tensed and increased her pace along the sandy shore.

“Are you all right, Troy?” Fiona called from the rock pool.

“Fine,” Troy replied tightly, as he crossed the sand.

Linh tried to shake the image of vanishing greenery as her group noted the rock pool’s inhabitants. Her gaze fixed on a blue starfish distorted by the gently shifting tide, until Fiona turned to her and said, “I know you’re not keen on wandering through trees, but there isn’t much else to observe here.”

Linh blinked at the filled-in top section of Fiona’s observation notes on her clipboard.

“I can see a trail,” Michael added, nodding at the banksias.

Linh sighed, and her shoulders tensed. It would be faster than doubling back along the beach. “All right.”

Michael led them on a narrow dirt path winding between knee-length grass under a low canopy of white-backed leaves.

“So, you trust Michael to lead us into the wilderness,” Troy said, eyeing Linh pointedly but ruining the effect by smiling. “Because his grades are as good as yours?”

Linh glared. How could he be annoying yet make her want to smile?

Fiona stopped suddenly, and Linh eyed her in surprise.

Troy’s brows creased. “Do this hill and those trees seem bigger than they did a moment ago?” he asked.

“The wildflowers are gone,” said Fiona, looking around.

Goosebumps rose up Linh’s arms. She couldn’t see banksias ahead, just dark-barked tree trunks. When did the trees get so tall? Like the ones she thought she saw above the banksias earlier... And why was there an ancient-looking stone pillar on her left? Linh shivered.

She took a deep breath and looked up. High in the canopies above, pale branches extended from stringy barked trunks. Impossible. These trees were triple the height of anything on Noriyong Island! The smell of salt was gone, and the air was cool and fresh on her skin. She looked down at bracken mixed with grass, and panic bubbled within her at the complete absence of the path they had been walking on a moment ago.

“How come there’s blue between the trees ahead?” Troy asked. “The sea’s behind us...” He broke off, his face pale.

Linh blinked, but the bracken at her feet remained.

Troy pushed ahead, and Fiona and Michael followed him around tree trunks wider than themselves. Linh didn’t move. They had been walking on a small hill on Noriyong Island. Now they stood on a vast ridge carpeted with fallen gum leaves and ferns interspersed with mountain ash trees. How could an inland rainforest surround them?

She turned to go back and froze. There was no strip of sand or glimpse of the sea behind her. A stone column rose among tree trunks on her right, then across to the ridge’s end, at sharp cliffs. Beyond, the blue haze of a eucalypt gum tree-covered mountain range curved unnaturally towards her.

Linh blinked and opened her eyes to the same impossible scenery. They couldn’t be somewhere else. She turned and her feet crunched through leaf litter to the others, who stood on the far side of the ridge, peering through a downhill clearing created by a fallen forest giant. Beyond the thinning canopy, grassy plains extended to more hazy blue mountains curving unnaturally towards them. She blinked again, hoping against hope the impossibly shaped range would be gone when she opened her eyes. It wasn’t.

“Can you all see it this time?” Troy asked weakly, the knuckles gripping his water bottle turning white.

“Yes,” Fiona whispered, repeatedly blinking at the surreal landscape, seemingly unaware of shuffling back from it. Linh didn’t have the heart to tell her it wouldn’t do any good.

“I’m not sure that’s reassuring,” Troy said, his face going slack as he shook his head.

Beside him, Michael stared at the symmetrical mountain ranges with a dull gaze and his mouth open. “Impossible,” was all he had to say.

Linh flinched, as Troy seized a fern and tore it up by the roots. He ripped it in half, frowned, then dropped it and shoved a tree trunk, which didn’t budge.

“It’s real...” he murmured. His features scrunched in bewilderment.

Fiona still stared at the clearing. Linh followed her gaze and spotted something she’d missed, a blocky stone castle on the grassy plains, ringed by mountains on three sides.

“We’re somewhere else,” Fiona whispered.

Linh’s heart thundered against her chest. Ba had told her not to wander off...

“We can’t be,” Troy objected. “The beach is just—”

“It’s not,” Linh cut him off, hugging herself to suppress the dizziness rising within her. “It’s gone.”

Troy gaped. “You mean the universe just folded up on itself and let us walk to God knows where?”

“We can’tstep from one location to another... but I don’t think we’re on Noriyong Island anymore,” Linh replied, her knees becoming weak. She sat in the bracken, as dizziness washed over her. Fiona gripped her shoulder with a trembling hand, gasping for breath.

Troy stomped away, and Fiona cried, “Be careful!”

Linh pressed her hands firmly against the ground, taking deep breaths and trying not to exhale too quickly. She looked up when the worst of her dizziness cleared and Troy’s footsteps approached.

“We’re surrounded by mountains,” he said softly, his features wide with surprise. “This is somewhere completely different.”

“It’s like this place was sitting behind Noriyong Island. I saw the small hill we were walking up vanish, and this ridge was beyond it.” Michael eyed Troy and Linh sharply. “Did you see something strange on Noriyong Island?”

“I glimpsed these trees,” Troy replied.

“Rising semi-circle shaped above the banksias,” Linh added. She turned back, searching between the trees for the stone column she’d seen earlier. It wasn’t a column. She traced the round pillar up into the trees, until it curved overhead and down again, in a giant, familiar shaped arch.

“We walked through that?” Troy asked, crunching through the undergrowth behind her.

Linh rushed under the archway. The landscape didn’t change. She still stood on dried leaves, ferns brushing her legs.

“It was here!” she insisted, wringing her hands as the others caught up. “The space between wherever the hell this is and Noriyong Island, the connection, or wormhole, or whatever the hell we just came through, was somewhere here!”

Fiona stopped beside Linh and traced a strange script spiralling up the arch in rounded letters ending in a spiral or two with a shaking hand. Her features narrowed with uncertainty as she said, “This script isn’t in my Atlas of the Ancient . The letters are nothing like cuneiform or hieroglyphs, and they orient differently to English and don’t look like any modern language descended from the scripts in my book.”

Troy moved closer and probed bits of the pillar with his fingers.

“I can’t see any buttons or levers,” Michael told him.

“Then how does it work?” Troy asked, his voice rising. “How the hell did a stone archway get us here?”

Linh turned, scanning the forest for signs of technology, people, anything that could answer Troy’s question. But there were just leaves, ferns, and forest giants. “There’s nothing here.”

“So it’s self-operating?” Troy asked sceptically. “How are we supposed to get back?” he added, his voice rising.

“I doubt that,” Michael replied, scratching his bristled chin. “My mob have been visiting Noriyong Island for thousands of years. If people have been disappearing from it now and then, there’d be stories, and I’d know them. Someone must have done something to bring us here. I don’t think the universe has glitches like this.”

Troy cracked a nervous smile, but Linh heard nothing reassuring in Michael’s words.

“There’s someone down there!” Fiona called from the far side of the ridge, pointing beyond the clearing to golden grassy plains. “A man in a red cloak walking towards the castle.”

Linh tensed.

“I’m asking him what’s going on,” Troy said, and he walked to the edge of the ridge.

Linh blinked. They potentially stood in another , and he wanted to approach the first stranger they saw? She ran after him. “You can’t just walk up to him! He could be dangerous!”

“Then I’ll take a good look before I say hi,” said Troy.

Linh gazed through the clearing. A long, thin object hung from the red-cloaked man’s hip. “He’s carrying a sword!” she objected. “What if he attacks you?”

Troy tripped on a tree root protruding from the leaf litter and fell. He cried out as he hit the ground. The man in the red cloak turned to face them, and Linh’s entire torso tensed. The man raised an arm in greeting, then turned and kept walking towards the castle.

Troy stood and called out, “Hello down there!”

The man kept walking.

“Hey! Can you hear me?”

Anyone without a hearing impairment should have heard him, but the man in the red cloak didn’t acknowledge a word.

“I wonder if he’s reporting to someone at the castle,” Michael said as he stepped beside Linh. “He may’ve been close enough to see us arrive, if he left this hilltop as soon as we got here.”

Linh ground her teeth. “With what intention?”

“We won’t know unless we go down there,” Troy said, gazing after the man.

“And risk walking into an ambush!” Linh objected.

“Or we could watch what he does next and stay close enough to go back, in case the archway turns on again,” Fiona suggested.

Linh sighed and tried to rein in her anxiety. She had no idea how Fiona was always so calm, always offering solutions. But Fiona was good at both, and when her best friend offered solutions, Linh listened.

Eventually, they all agreed to wait. Troy stood with both fists stuffed into his pockets. Linh divided her attention between the archway and the plains, while Fiona and Michael watched the man and the castle. As the shadows grew shorter and the sun moved directly overhead, the man continued walking. Then he disappeared inside the castle. After that, there was neither sight nor sound of people, just the damp forest, leaves rustling in the wind, and stomachs rumbling.

“I’m going down there,” Troy said finally. “Waiting isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“What if the archway does activate when we’re not here?” Fiona asked.

“I wonder if someone activated it to test if they could bring us through,” Michael replied. “If that man told someone at the castle that it worked, and they used us as guinea pigs. It’s the only logical explanation I can think of.”

Troy shook his head but didn’t seem phased by Michael producing a theory so quickly. Linh wished it wasn’t a chilling one.

“We can’t wait forever and we should stick together,” Fiona said, stepping beside Linh.

Fiona’s logic did nothing to counter Linh’s powerful urge to wait, just in case. But their lunch boxes were in their backpacks with Mr Gentile. And it was warm, and they had all started drinking from their water bottles. Dehydration would set in soon, and they had no reason to expect the archway to activate.

“Are you coming?” Michael asked Linh and Fiona.

Linh nodded, and she and Fiona reluctantly followed the boys, as they snaked around tree trunks and bush-bashed downhill. The smell of grass, the sound of leaves rustling in the wind, and soft ferns and grasses brushing against her legs all seemed real. Time passed, and they remained dwarfed by mountain ash trees, crunching through dried gum leaves with each step. Linh’s heart rate gradually slowed, but her senses remained alert to any sign of danger.

They left the forest giants behind, passing smaller gum trees and yellow grass. The trees gradually thinned, and Linh gazed across rolling hills sprinkled with wildflowers. She glanced reluctantly back at the ridge, but the slope obscured the archway.

Troy ploughed through grass up to his chubby thighs, and everyone followed him uphill towards the grey stone castle. Linh shivered. “We should cross these plains slowly,” she cautioned. “We’ve no idea who’s in that castle or what’s in the grass.”

Michael nodded and slowed. But Troy maintained a restless pace that made Linh nervous. Her clothes stuck to her sweaty skin under the hot sun, and she took small sips from her water bottle, emptying it by the time they neared the castle. She scanned the battlements carefully, but Troy’s long legs carried him to the front door before she spotted anyone.

Troy paused, gazing up at doors rising twice his considerable height, and Linh wondered why they were so large. Then Troy knocked on the double doors, and Linh and Fiona hurried to catch him and Michael up.

Troy shifted restlessly as they waited for someone to answer.

“Is Red Cloak ignoring us?” Fiona asked.

“I’m not giving him a choice,” Troy replied.

Linh shuddered as he pushed the door open. Late afternoon sunlight shone through an archway with golden luminescence spiralling up it, in the far wall of a large, empty room.

“Hello?” Troy called, his voice echoing through a vast marble chamber.

Linh peered in at empty corridors running left and right. Before her, a white marble floor spread towards a balcony lined with stone arches, including the sunlit arch. The room was the size of a cathedral, with unadorned walls and a high ceiling, consisting only of bare marble. There was no sign of Red Cloak.

“Where is everyone?” Troy asked, looking around.

Linh hesitated as Fiona entered the room, until she saw the inscription Fiona was approaching on the wall on their left. It was the same round script carved into the archway on the ridge, with many letters ending in spirals of different sizes. As Linh moved closer, Fiona gasped. Most of the spirals vanished. The words became: Welcome, visitors from afar. There was no room for us in your world, but with our retreat to Umarinaris’ warmest locations, Umarinaris has room for you. It lacks the wars you fled around the inland sea, and it shall be what you make of it.Use your chariots for transportation, knives for food preparation, bows and spears for hunting, and axes for chopping firewood. Umarinaris can be the refuge you seek, if you make it so.

Fiona gaped.

“No one’s used that combination of weapons in our world for centuries,” Linh said, bracing herself for more impossible revelations as the history-loving part of her mind engaged.

“The Near East?” Fiona suggested.

“It can’t be,” said Linh.

“The ‘inland sea’ could be the Mediterranean,” Fiona added. “We’ve read about centuries of war around that area, and the Hittites and Egyptians both used chariots in battle.”

“What’s up?” Troy asked as he approached.

“We’re wondering if people from our world settled here a few thousand years ago,” Linh replied.

“No way!” Troy objected. “Who wrote that?”

“Giants, by the look of it,” Michael called across the room. “Have you seen how high the stairs are? Each step’s twice the height of ours, and the railing’s almost up to my elbows. Maybe humans settled this place too. And learnt how to activate the archways and bring us here. What I don’t understand is why, if someone brought us here, they’re avoiding us.”

Linh shivered at the suggestion of giants, but she couldn’t hear any movement beyond the hall-like room, and when she turned back, there was no sign of anyone.

“That archway is glowing,” Fiona whispered, pointing with a shaky hand to the day-lit archway in the back wall. “Maybe Red Cloak’s still here.”

Troy rushed up the balcony stairs to investigate, followed by Michael, but with their short legs, Linh struggled and Fiona fell further behind. The archway was triple the height of an average human. Linh squinted against the glaring sunlight shining through it. This archway was also made of circular, mortared stone blocks, encircled with a yellow glow. As her eyes adjusted, Linh gazed through it over rocks, a thin strip of sand, and open water, to an island across a channel fenced with stone. Further right, open water stretched to the horizon.

“Where’d the mountains go?” Troy asked, looking around. “And the giant trees?”

“I think that’s somewhere else,” Michael replied. “Another island.”

Hope flared inside Linh, then swiftly dissipated. There wasn’t enough sand for it to be Noriyong Island, and there was no sign of the mainland, or her classmates or teachers.

“I wonder if this is where Red Cloak went,” said Michael.

“Well, I’m not following him,” Linh insisted. “Does he think he can lead us down a rabbit hole and we’ll just follow?”

She heard footsteps as Fiona caught up. Linh turned back. Fiona stumbled. Linh reached for her too slowly. Fiona fell, and her forearms hit a sandhill on the far side of the archway, sending her skidding down the slope, her clipboard and notes flying, her empty drink bottle rolling ahead.

“Fi! Can you stand?” Linh called. She hesitated, not wanting to step through the arch. But when Fiona didn’t answer, she bit her lip and ran after her.

“I feel dizzy,” Fiona croaked as Linh knelt in dry sand beside her.

“She’s dehydrated,” Michael said, leaning over her. “We should get her out of the sun.”

“Is she ok?” Troy asked.

Linh turned back as Troy approached the arch, his wide-eyed gaze on Fiona. “Don’t!”

She was too late. He stepped through onto the sandy beach, and the yellow glow spiralling around the arch vanished, as did Linh’s view of the balcony and the castle’s interior. She stared through the arch across a few sandhills and rocks, then at the sea. The new island was small, consisting only of sandhills and stunted trees, the waves lapping its low-lying shore in every direction. Across the channel, on her right, lay a larger island fenced with stone. But there was no Red Cloak, and they were cut off from the archway which had apparently transported them out of their world.

Chapter 2

The Guardians

Linh: Unknown Island Far From Earth

Are you all right, Fi?” Linh asked.

“I need to sit,” Fiona replied, leaning against a sandhill.

Linh took deep, calming breaths, letting them out slowly and trying to ignore how being cut off from home made her stomach churn.

“How did that arch turn off?” Troy asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Maybe someone did something at the other end,” Michael replied.

“But we didn't see anyone in that hall,” Troy objected. “They'd have to be invisible!”

“I doubt both archways switched off the moment after we stepped through by coincidence,” Michael added.

“It's not... magic?” Fiona suggested.

Linh turned to her friend with concern. She and Fiona loved history. They'd read enough to know that magic served as a logical explanation for natural occurrences in the absence of scientific knowledge. But instantaneous travel was impossible. As were mountain ranges forming a perfect oval. What was possible here? She shivered.

“Hello!” a male voice called.

“Who the hell was that?” Troy asked, his fists clenching as he turned around.

Linh looked up across the sea.

“Is anyone out there?” the voice added.

A small sailing ship with a single mast glided towards a channel between the island they stood on and the larger, stone walled island opposite. The people on board were tiny, distant figures, but Linh made out arms waving and muffled calls.

“Could they be talking to us?” Troy asked.

“How could anyone know we're here?” Linh objected.

“They're looking for someone,” said Michael. “They might be able to tell us what's going on.”

“Do you think it's safe to ask them?” Linh couldn't see any weapons, but that didn't mean the people on board weren't dangerous.

“We're stranded, dehydrated, hungry, and we've no way home,” Michael asserted. “Sometimes, you need to trust strangers.”

Linh disliked knowing nothing about the people on board, but if they were going to get home, they needed help. Besides, Fiona was faint, and Michael had given her the last of anyone's water, but she still wasn't steady on her feet. She needed water and food as soon as possible. They all would soon, and there was none on this island.

Linh and Troy helped Fiona stand, then followed Michael to the small waves lapping at the shore.

“Hello!” Troy called as the ship came closer, cupping one hand around his mouth.

The ship turned, but stayed on course to sail past. Troy waved his arms. The figures on deck showed no awareness of him.

“Anyone got a mirror?” Michael asked.

Linh remembered the old-fashioned cosmetic mirror Ba had given her, oblivious to selfie-mode on modern phones. Linh took the mirror she always carried — to avoid hurting Ba's feelings — from her pocket and handed it to Michael. He tilted it, sending flashes of sunlight across the water. The ship didn't alter its course.

Troy reached for the mirror, saying, “I'll see if getting closer helps.”

“Watch out for strange currents,” Linh cautioned. She wasn't exactly fond of Troy, but she didn't fancy him drowning.

Troy nodded, taking the mirror and tossing his empty bottle in the sand. He kicked off his runners, stripped off his polo shirt and waded into the waves, where he swam with steady freestyle strokes. Then he treaded water, raised the mirror, and sunlight flashed again.

“Man overboard!” a voice cried from the ship's deck.

The man spoke English. Did that mean they weren't too far from home? Hope flared inside Linh.

The ship changed course towards Troy.

“Is anyone with you?” a man's voice called.

“They're on the beach,” Troy replied, treading water.

“What beach?”

“On the island behind me.”

“Ghost Island!” another voice cried.

“Don't worry, lad. We'll bring you aboard,” the first voice assured.

“What about my friends?”

“They'd best swim to you, lad. Ghost Island is cursed. I'll come no closer.”

“That sailor wants us to swim multiple Olympic swimming pools’ length because he's superstitious?” Linh asked incredulously.

“If he thinks this island is cursed,” Michael replied, “we're lucky he's willing to take us on board after visiting this place.”

Linh's hands balled into fists.

“We're coming, Troy!” Michael called.

Linh threw down her bottle, then wrenched her shoes off. This world didn't make any sense, but Michael was swimming to Troy, and she would have to help Fiona swim if they didn't want to be left behind. She helped Fiona take her runners off, then kept a careful eye on her as they waded into cold water. Fiona floated on her back, sitting her runners on her chest, and did lifesaving backstroke slowly but well enough.

Linh dragged her runners across the surface with one hand, paddling with the other, and turned back to the shore. Open water lay behind her. Michael appeared in it suddenly, swimming with his head above water. Linh trembled. There was no sign of the archway island, just green waves to the horizon. The island was invisible from the channel. What was wrong with this place?

“What in the name of Chaos?” a voice said from on deck.

“Myths of Strangers indeed!” another exclaimed as Fiona and Linh swam after Troy.

The ship reached Troy. “Climb the ladder!” a sailor called, and others waved him to a rope ladder hanging down the starboard side.

Sailors passed their shoes up to the deck, turning them over and eyeing the coloured rubber soles with bemused looks. It was a short climb, as the ship sat only a couple of metres above the waterline, but Linh's muscles ached as she heaved herself up the ladder. Calloused hands helped her onto a small, crowded deck, where a sailor draped a blanket over her shoulders. “There you are,” he said with a smile.

“Thanks,” she said.

A single sail flapped from the mast overhead, which had no rigging or crow's nest. Sailors crowded around the edges of the deck while a wooden bench occupied its middle, a white-haired man seated on it. What kind of ship was this?

She stumbled towards Troy and the older man, whose pale blue linen toga and white hair ruffled in the wind. He smiled in welcome, creasing many wrinkles around his face. He seemed kind, but Linh wasn't sure how to interpret the enthusiasm sparkling in his eyes. Why was he wearing a toga? The crewmen weren't wearing clothing she recognised either, just pants of earthy colours and leather sandals.

“Welcome, children,” the old man said warmly as Fiona and Michael dripped across the deck and sat down.

“How come you speak English?” Troy asked.

The man's eyebrows climbed towards his flyaway hair, then he smiled. “I speak Timbalen. Welcome to the south-eastern border of the Timbalen Empire!”

Linh's eyes widened. The castle inscription mentioned only one migration from Earth, centuries before English –let alone modern English– came into existence. Timbalen and English couldn't be the same. How on Earth could they understand the man? Or he them?

“I am Nuard,” the man continued eagerly, utterly unphased. “I am delighted to meet you. It has been nearly two hundred years since our Umarinaris Book reported the arrival of Strangers to anywhere on Umarinaris.”

“People have come here before?” Troy asked.

“Does that mean you know how to activate the archways?” Linh added.

“I only know what the Umarinaris Book and our myths tell us,” Nuard replied.

Linh slumped. All myths were likely to give them was vague clues, probably dependent on people, places, creatures, or artefacts that never existed, if Umarinaris’ myths were anything like hers.

“A book told you we were here?” Troy asked, his mouth hanging open.

“How can a book tell you anything about us?” Linh asked.

“It was created and written by the Guardians,” Nuard replied reverently.

Linh shook her head, sagging against the bench. Instantaneous travel across time and space. Invisible islands. Gods spying on them. It was all too much, on top of hunger and dehydration, and it made her head spin.

Nuard studied her and the lines between his brows deepened. “Perhaps I should explain what I know at dinner. His Greatness maintains the former watch castle on Myleth Island as a second home for scholars like myself. You are welcome to join us there. We have already crossed the channel and shall reach the village soon.”

Linh turned. Myleth Island's stone wall ran alongside golden grain fields, with an orchard and forest beyond, until the wall branched off, framing a sandy coastline and running inland before wooden houses. A small pier extended opposite double gates in the village wall.

They handed their blankets to a crewman as they neared the pier and Linh made a face as she pulled her soaking wet runners back onto her feet. The mainsail was reefed, rowers manoeuvred the ship, and men leapt the railing to secure it to its berth. Others positioned a gangplank. Linh helped Fiona to her feet and supported her as they squelched after Nuard to the pier, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Then their feet sank into dry sand before the village wall, beyond which a hilltop and castle rose.

“Welcome to Myleth Island,” Nuard said proudly.

Linh admired the castle's grey stone walls and four narrow towers rising from a hilltop.

“Anyone else worried what the toilet's going to look like?” Troy asked quietly.

Linh shook her head. Of all the things they had to worry about, how could he worry about that?

“We should be,” said Michael. “I'm pretty sure the shower is a bucket of cold water.” He spoke seriously, but Troy grinned.

“Ah, well, we won't have to wait all day for the girls to finish with the bathroom.”

“You'll be showering fully clothed if you don't watch it!” Linh retorted.

Troy smiled, and Linh shook her head, refusing to admit that his teasing made her feel more at home.

“Does he ever worry about important things?” she asked Fiona as they fell behind and she linked her arm in Fiona's.

“He likes a laugh,” Fiona replied quietly. “And he's right. We can wash here. And we won't need to dig our own loos.”

Linh froze. Dig their own toilets? Fiona smiled weakly, and Linh caught her gaze and smiled back, trying to push down the worry about whether Nuard could help them get home.

They followed Nuard through timber gates down a dirt road, weaving haphazardly between log cabins with thatched roofs and front verandas, under which fair-haired men and women sat mending fishing nets. A group of children took turns aiming stones between houses at a distant white rock, while wizened women gossiped as they scrubbed washing in a bronze tub beside a cottage. Smoke and the smell of fried fish drifted through holes in several roofs. It was primitive, yet somehow normal. Children laughed, adults talked, and the smell of cooking hung in the air, like evening anywhere.

They climbed steps up a creeper covered hillside beyond the village. The guard at the castle entrance inclined his head to Nuard, opening the double doors as they approached. His armour and bell-shaped helmet shone golden. Was that how bronze looked when it wasn’t tarnished and centuries old? Judging by the colour, the sword belted at his hip was iron.

Nuard gestured them to a room with a washbasin. Servants brought water, rough sheets of fabric which appeared to pass for towels, and dry, pale blue robes for them all. Linh and Fiona changed in an adjoining room. Then Nuard led them down a corridor and into a dining hall with a long table at its centre. The pottery was glazed clay ceramics, the cutlery bronze spoons, the serving utensils wooden, and the glassware looked fragile and pre-industrial, like museum pieces in Fiona's Atlas of the Ancient World. Linh stared. Hadn't civilisation changed here since humans arrived during the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age?

Nuard motioned them to sit, and Linh helped Fiona into her chair. They didn't have to wait long before servants entered, carrying platters wafting the enticing aroma of meats and pastries across the hall. Linh's mouth watered.

“Take what you wish,” Nuard said, serving himself pastries and vegetables.

Linh pursed her lips at the sight of foreign food, but she was too hungry to be fussy. Troy didn't hold back on his servings, and Linh copied. Nuard blinked politely; Linh waited for him to start eating first, and everyone tucked in. Troy grimaced at the discoloured water in one of two delicate glass jugs, and everyone helped themselves to the pink juice in the other.

“What do you know about our arrival?” Fiona asked Nuard.

“Beyond the Umarinaris Book reporting it a few hours ago, I have a theory as to who brought you here and how. When the Creator Gods made Umarinaris, they granted humanity the potential to become worthy of learning their ways. Humanity became numerous, so a fifth god was created to preside over us, but he misunderstood our potential and tested us by bestowing divine powers upon some humans. In so doing, he created power-hungry sorcerers who plunged the Far West into the Sorcery War.

“Chaos' sorcerers overran an entire continent, and many refugees fled east, here, until the Gods sent their servants, the Guardians, to restore order. I presume the Guardians enchanted and utilised the archways and Oval Island to deploy their forces. After the war, I believe they watched over the Far Western Land, using the archways to send strangers to aid it in times of calamity. In those times, the Myths of the Strangers refer to vanishing islands, archways, and strangers appearing.”

But the inscriptions at the castle on Oval Island said nothing about the Sorcery War. They made it sound like the castle was built by climate refugees seeking a new homeland. Was Nuard mistaken?

“Can we speak to Guardians?” Michael asked.

“Alas, like sorcerers, the Guardians vanished within a generation of the war. Guardian-human children remained here in the east, serving the Timbalen emperor after the Wars of Unity, but no pure Guardian has been seen for centuries. But I can write to Imperial City to see if the Guardian's descendants, the Elite Guard, can help you.”

Fiona thanked him but Linh worried that if the Elite Guard didn't operate the archway to bring her and her classmates, they might not know anything about the archways, or how to use them to send anyone home.

“Nuard,” Fiona said, “when we arrived on Oval Island, there was a man in a red cloak. He was the only person we saw, and he entered the castle we travelled to this island through before us. Do you know who he might be or how we can contact him?”

Nuard froze. “Knowing what I do of the archways, I can only explain that man's actions if he is a Guardian.”

“Get out!” Troy said. “Mythical dudes lured us from our science excursion to save the world? Are they insane?”

“Can you tell us more about the Myths of the Strangers?” Fiona asked.

“One myth tells of strangers arriving when a Far Western king bred a dragon army. The strangers attacked dragons with bows of metal, firing metal arrow balls with a bang and a flash like Chaos himself. They eradicated the dragons, and such was their deed that traders carried word of it across an ocean to our colony, Tarlah, from which it made its way across a second ocean to our empire.”

Linh shivered. “That sounds like early guns. But the only weapons we've seen so far are swords.”

“No weaponry this side of Umarinaris resembles the weaponry of that myth,” Nuard told her.

Linh blinked. “Does the Western Land have bows and arrows like that?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said Nuard, his eyes bright.

“What does it matter?” Troy asked.

“It matters because the cutlery we're eating with is bronze or wood, the guard we passed coming in had bronze armour and an iron sword, and if there's no steel or guns in Umarinaris, then the people in that myth might have come from our world. And if they got home, we can too.”

A description of possible guns and bullets from perhaps nineteenth-century Earth was little to go on. But as Linh and her classmates had come here, and the inscription in the castle on Oval Island mentioned migration from the Mediterranean world, perhaps the slayer myth contained some truth. It might have clues as to how they could get home. If it was all Nuard could offer them, it damn well better do that much.

“The Slayers set sail for the invisible island they arrived on,” Nuard continued, “and their ship vanished. Witnesses said the forecastle disappeared first. Then the main and rear decks moved into nothing. The ship was found weeks later, tossed by a violent storm. Its sails were bound, and it was empty.”

In Linh's mind, Michael appeared suddenly, swimming into view. “They might have gone back home through an archway,” she suggested. “But who brought the slayers? Who returned them?”

Nuard eyed them intently. “Whoever sent you, someone wrote in the Umarinaris Book: They have arrived. Four youths of another world. The gateways are open once more. I have studied the Umarinaris Book and the history and mythology of my people for over forty years. No new entry has appeared in my lifetime. One of my colleagues leaves the book open to the blank pages after its last entry just to tease me, but today, they were not blank.”

Michael turned to Linh. “If you saw the rainforest from the beach, then it opened twice, the second time close enough for us to walk through. And the archway that led us to Nuard was open. And both archways closed the moment we passed through them. Maybe someone brought us here. But why lead us by the nose to you, Nuard, and tell us nothing? Why avoid us?”

Nuard sighed.

“You theorise that the Guardians brought us?” Michael asked.