Emily Rodda: Isle of the Dead

Scattered everywhere were small, polished tables surrounded by comfortable chairs. On some of the tables there were decks of cards. On others there were dice. Still others carried game boards and wheels, games of skill, games of chance. In the centre of every table was a gold-edged card explaining the rules of the game, and a tall glass container filled with gold coins.

An open treasure chest brimming with many more gold coins stood to the left of the doorway where Lief and Barda stood. A large notice was fixed to the inside of the open lid.

‘It is all an illusion,’ Barda said, edging away from the chest and drawing his sword. ‘It must be!’

Lief put his hand upon the topaz. He had learned long ago that the great gem had the power to banish illusions. But nothing in the room wavered or changed appearance.

He crouched and touched the carpet with his fingers. It felt soft and warm. As he straightened, he saw that steam had begun to rise from his wet clothes. They were already drying.

‘This is no illusion,’ he said slowly. ‘It is real. Somehow, it is real!’

‘If we keep our wits about us and touch nothing we should be safe,’ Barda said. ‘The moment our garments are dry, we will go back on—’

He broke off, his eyes widening in shock. He glanced down at his feet, then rapidly up again.

‘What is it?’ Lief hissed. But as the words left his lips, he felt it too.

Something about the ship had changed. It was no longer simply rocking gently in the tide. It was moving, moving purposefully forward.

And the hair rose on the back of Lief’s neck as he heard the sounds that even the thick carpet could not muffle. The rhythmic, creaking sounds of oars.

Without a word he and Barda spun back to the door. The glass panel above it seemed to glow. And now the words etched there could be read easily.

A cold weight seemed to settle in the pit of Lief’s stomach. Slowly he looked down.

There was no handle on this side of the door.

Barda snatched his dagger from his belt. He tried to push the point of the dagger into the crack of the door, but the weapon stopped abruptly just short of the carved wood, as if repelled by an invisible barrier.

Barda grunted in surprise and tried again. Still he could not touch the door.

And neither could Lief. For long minutes they both struggled vainly to break through the shield. Whatever they tried, their hands, feet and weapons bounced back without making contact with the door or the glass panel above it.

‘This is useless,’ Barda panted, at last. ‘The shutting spell is as strong as the barrier that seals the mountains in the Shadowlands.’

‘Why not?’ Lief said bitterly. ‘The Enemy provided it to The Lady Luck, no doubt, in return for Laughing Jack’s useful services.’

They both looked up at the glass panel. During their vain attack on the door, the ominous message seemed to have grown larger and brighter.

Barda turned his back on it. ‘If this door is closed to us, we will find another!’ he said, and determinedly began to survey the long room.

Lief turned too, but his heart was heavy. ‘Barda, I do not think—’ he began.

‘Just look!’ Barda muttered fiercely. ‘There must be another way out. We have only to find it.’

The mirrors winked back at them, reflecting chairs and tables, game wheels and boards, coin jars and candles and their own figures.

But at the far end of the room, directly ahead of them, there was something that the confusing reflections had disguised at first glance.

It was a painting, the same size as one of the mirrors, and framed in exactly the same way. It was difficult to see clearly, because it gleamed in the light, but it seemed to be a view of land and sea.

‘There!’ Barda exclaimed. ‘That painting marks our way out, I am sure of it.’

He hurried forward. Putting his doubts aside, Lief followed, dodging through the maze of tables and chairs so as not to touch or disturb anything.

They moved on and on, their boots sinking into the thick carpet. Their reflections walked with them, multiplied over and over again in the mirrors so that it seemed that the grand room was filled with bedraggled wanderers.

‘I did not realise the room was quite so long,’ Barda called over his shoulder. ‘The mirrors are deceiving.’

He began to walk a little more quickly. Lief followed in silence, trying to shield his mind from images of the rotting corpses bending and straightening as they plied the oars. But with every step he became more aware of the relentless sounds of movement below his feet and the faint, unpleasant odour drifting in the warm air.

The minutes dragged by. But their reflections in the mirrors at the end of the room did not grow larger, and the tables ahead never became less.

At last Barda’s firm steps faltered, and he stopped. He turned to Lief, his face grim.

‘The first line of the rhyme was, “If you enter, you must play”,’ Lief said reluctantly. ‘I fear that we will not be able to leave until one of us at least plays a game.’

Barda clenched his fists. ‘We cannot play!’ he almost shouted. ‘From what I have seen, the games must be played with gold coins, and we do not have a single one between us!’

For answer, Lief glanced over his shoulder at the treasure chest gaping beside the room’s entrance.

‘No!’ Barda shook his head violently. ‘We would be mad to fall into that trap, Lief! What if we lose? We will not be able to repay the loan!’

Fail to pay and down you’ll go…

‘We will not lose,’ said Lief, ignoring the tightness in his chest. ‘And in any case, we have no choice.’

‘You have seen for yourself what happens to people who borrow from Laughing Jack, Lief!’ exclaimed Barda. ‘How can you even think of it? Ah, what fools we were not to divide the gnomes’ gold between us! It is all with Jasmine, and who knows where she—’

‘If you have a better plan than mine, Barda, pray tell me what it is and stop wasting time!’ Lief cried furiously.

He did not want to think about what might be happening to Jasmine. Jasmine, who could not swim. Jasmine, pitching dangerously over the raging sea in the pouch of the smallest and most fearful of the Kin.

He saw Barda eyeing him, and wondered if his companion guessed the reason for his anger.

With a muttered apology he turned away and began hurrying around the polished tables, searching for a game he thought he could win.

It was soon clear that most of the games depended far more on luck than skill. Despite the lapis-lazuli glowing on the Belt, Lief did not wish to trust his and Barda’s safety to chance. Yet every game of skill he saw cost two or even three gold coins to play while promising only small winnings, while the games of chance cost only one coin, and success paid well.

‘Laughing Jack encouraged his guests to trust their luck rather than their brains,’ he murmured.

‘Of course,’ Barda said sourly behind him. ‘That way, he had far more chance of stripping them of everything they had—and more.’

Trying to ignore the chill running down his spine, Lief went on looking.

At last he came to a small table at which there was only one chair. On the table, as well as the coin jar and the printed card, was a gold cloth about the size of a handkerchief. The cloth was plainly covering something, but it was impossible to tell what it was.