Ilse Of Illusion

10 - The Dome

Lief was paddling towards the island of Auron, his mind filled with music. His shoulders were aching, but he was no longer aware of it. He could only think of the sound, which was growing stronger every moment.

‘Lief, what is the matter?’ asked Jasmine. Lief glanced at her. Her familiar face wavered in front of his glazed eyes like a face in a dream.

‘He feels the magic of the Pirran Pipe,’ Penn said from the front of the boat. She leaned forward and tapped Lief sharply on the knee. ‘Lief! Wake!’ she commanded.

The tap, and the piercing voice, went some way towards cutting through the dreamy haze that clouded Lief’s mind. He blinked and murmured. Penn put her hand over the side, scooped up some water and threw it at him.

Lief gasped as the cold drops spattered over his face. Suddenly he was fully conscious again. Conscious, but confused and furiously angry.

‘Why did you do that?’ he shouted, glaring at Penn and roughly shaking off Jasmine’s restraining hand.

‘It was necessary,’ said Penn calmly. ‘I have not brought you all this way to have you miss your first sight of Auron.’

Breathing hard, Lief wiped the water from his eyes. Slowly his wild anger died. He realised where he was, and what had happened.

‘I am sorry,’ he mumbled, filled with shame.

‘The fault is mine,’ said Penn, still in that same calm voice. ‘I should have warned you, but I was taken by surprise. The Pipe’s spell is more powerful than I have ever felt it, no doubt because of the mouthpiece you carry. I have been struggling with it myself.’

Only then did Lief see that her own face was wet, and that her small, tattooed hands were bleeding where she had driven her sharp nails into the palms.

‘There is something ahead,’ Jasmine exclaimed, pointing into the gloom.

For a few moments there was silence. Then Lief and Barda cried out at the same moment as they saw what Jasmine had seen. A faint glow showed through the dimness.

‘That is Auron,’ said Penn, her voice trembling a little. ‘Go gently, now. We must not cross the line.’

‘The line?’ cried Lief. ‘But can we not land? Penn, we must land. We must see …’

‘You will see enough, do not fear,’ Penn muttered.

The boat crawled forward. A strange, unpleasant odour began to creep into the companions’ nostrils—a thick smell of decay that seemed to stick to their clothes, to sink into their skin and cling to their hair.

Then they began to hear the gentle sound of lapping water. Other sounds, too. Soft, squelching sounds, and a sort of clicking, like the creaking of stiff joints.

The glow grew a little brighter. It spread until it was almost filling their view. Lief squinted at it, trying to see through it to the island. He saw nothing but a vast, high dome of dim light. And, to the left of the light, just where he would have expected to see it, a rugged cavern wall jutting out into the sea.

‘There is the line,’ breathed Penn. ‘Stop!’

The companions tore their eyes from the light and looked down at the water ahead.

A broad band of bright pink and yellow seaweed floated directly in front of the boat. The band stretched away to left and right, curving to encircle the glowing dome and the odd, milky sea that surrounded it.

‘You plant this weed as a warning?’ exclaimed Barda. ‘Ah, if only we had known this before!’

But Penn was intent on Jasmine and Lief. ‘Turn the boat so its side faces the island,’ she ordered. ‘And, for your life, do not let it drift into the warning zone.’

So urgent was her tone that Lief did not even think of disobeying her. And the glaring pink and yellow of the weed, clearly visible even in the gloom, brought back memories that were their own warning.

‘Now, look,’ Penn said quietly. ‘Look carefully, and understand.’

Lief stared. And as his eyes grew accustomed to the light, as they searched vainly for the shapes of rocks, hills, or anything he could recognise, his spine began to tingle.

There was nothing to be seen beneath the dome. The dome was a barrier of shimmering energy that hid everything beneath it.

Oily, shallow water, lightly steaming, lapped the dome’s base, where pitted lumps of some thick substance moved sluggishly in the tide and unseen things squelched and chewed. Everything seemed covered by a milky haze, like mould. The foul smell rolled over Lief in waves.

He heard Barda curse softly, and Jasmine murmur in disbelief. Despair settled over him like a dull grey cloud.

He twisted in his seat to look at Penn. She was staring fixedly at her hands folded in her lap.

‘The dome is sealed by magic,’ she muttered. ‘It cannot be penetrated.’

She raised her head. ‘Do you understand?’ she said softly. ‘We of the rafts are exiles. Our ancestors were expelled from the dome long, long ago.’

‘Why?’ Barda asked bluntly.

Penn hunched her narrow shoulders. ‘They were dangerous. They were sick of pretence,’ she muttered, speaking haltingly as if every word was being forced from her. ‘They wished—to make a life outside, in a place that was not what they were used to, but which had its own savage beauty.’

Lief, Barda and Jasmine looked around uncertainly. It was difficult to understand how anyone could find beauty in this overwhelming gloom.

Penn looked around also, her eyes glazed with sorrow. ‘When first the rafts were made, the cavern walls shone like stars of a thousand different colours,’ she whispered. ‘The eels danced in a glittering rainbow sea. The writings say that it was beautiful beyond words.’

She sighed deeply. ‘Even when I was a child, it was still a shadow of what it had been. I well remember the colours. But now, they are gone.’

Lief, Barda and Jasmine thought of the exquisite opal beauty through which they had sailed when first they left the territory of the Plumes. The dazzling colours that had faded as the Plumes’ light failed.

Then, they had thought that the Aurons had dimmed their own light for some evil purpose. Now they knew differently.

‘What happened?’ Jasmine asked.

Slowly, almost unwillingly, Penn took out the two scraps of parchment she had brought from the hut. She handed them to Lief, with the lantern.

‘Part of the story is here,’ she muttered. ‘I wrote it, in simple form, for the children of the rafts. I brought these because—because I knew you would have questions, and it would give me pain to answer them.’

Again she looked down at her hands. Her body was rigid, and her mouth was pressed into a hard line.

Lief and Jasmine looked at the first piece of parchment. Barda crept forward to look over their shoulders.

How the Rafts Came to Be

When the three Pirran tribes fled their ancient land after the coming of the Shadow Lord, they found refuge on islands in an underground sea. The Isle of Auron was well separated from the enemy islands of “Plume and Keras. It was large, had natural water, and was covered by fast-growing fungus trees from which boats and dwellings could be made. When fit by the magic of the people, the cavern in which it lay shone with every colour of the rainbow.

Some Aurons found a strange, wild beauty in the island and the shining caverns. But most saw only ugliness, and at once began creating illusions of the lost beauties of Pirra. After a time, they went further. They wove a great spell, creating a dome which covered the island, containing the magic and making the illusion complete.

But there were those who did not agree with what had been done. These Aurons, our ancestors, wanted to live in a world that was real, however strange, rather than to exist in a dream created by their own minds.

Lief put down the first piece of parchment, and took up the second.

And so our ancestors were stripped of their magic and cast out as traitors. Eeran, the Piper of those days, swore that if they went in peace, so blood would not he spilled inside the dome, the caverns would always be filled with light. And our ancestors believed him, and left without a murmur.

They made rafts of driftwood lashed together with ropes of dried weed. They built mud houses, learned to live the fife of the shining sea which was their home and were happy.

For many years, Eeran’s promise was kept. But then, not long after the coming of Doran, the bringer of fire, the fight began, very slowly, to dim. Now, centuries later, our realm is as you see it.

The dome-dwellers continue to expel all things that threaten their idea of Beauty, including their dead. Thus they feed the creatures which breed around the dome. And those creatures are hunted by the Arach, those monsters of nightmare which once hid deep in caves, away from the fight, hut now nest in the warmth and dimness of the dome sea.

The dome is protected fry the magic of the Aurons within it, and the stem of the Pirran Tipe. We, who are without magic, cannot penetrate it. Many have tried and died in the attempt.

We must all prepare for a time when the fight is gone altogether. We must learn to find our way in dark water, and to know by touch the warning lines which must never he crossed. We must continue to save every scrap of wood, to mend the rafts cleverly, and to hate waste.

Then we will survive.

Lief looked up to meet Penn’s grave eyes. He handed back the parchments, saying nothing. What was there to say?

But Jasmine’s eyes had narrowed. ‘What are these Arach?’ she asked abruptly.

At the sound of the name, Penn stiffened and glanced from side to side. With a stifled cry she half rose from her seat, then fell back.

‘What have I done?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, Auron forgive me! In my distress I forgot to watch. We are drifting over the line!’

The companions looked down. Pink and yellow weed was all around them. It was lush and thickly branched, floating just under the surface of the water. Before they could gather their wits, the boat’s prow had nudged out of the weed, and into the milky water beyond.

And by the dome, something stirred. There were sounds. Sucking, creaking sounds that chilled the blood.

‘Back!’ muttered Penn, her eyes wild with panic. ‘Make haste! Oh, make haste!’

Lief and Jasmine began back-paddling frantically. Their paddles splashed uselessly, snagging on the ragged blanket of weed. The boat swayed awkwardly from side to side, but did not move.

Without another word, Penn threw herself into the water and began clawing at the weed, flinging great trails of it aside, trying vainly to clear a path.

Two huge shadows, two vast, lumpy bodies each swaying on eight thin, jointed legs, rose dark against the glow of the dome. Red eyes gleamed as the beasts sprang forward and began running towards the boat, running with terrifying speed over the surface of the water.

‘Over the side!’ Penn shouted. ‘Swim! Swim for your lives!’