The Isle of Eternal Happiness

by Kay Berrisford

  "You next, Cully," said a muffled voice.

  Oh yeah, she still had weird Ben and his magic-fried brain to deal with. He'd remained outside as the family departed, keeping a low profile. Only now did he make his way to the barrow, visor still down and with his sword drawn.

  "You next," repeated Ben, jabbing his weapon so the tip nicked the fabric over Cully's ribs. "And then me."

  "Ben," said Cully, unruffled, though focussing on the sword was forcing her eyes to cross. "I don't want to hurt you, if just for my brother's sake, so pop the sword aside. The magic is seriously messing you up, and Lyle is right. Now we've got everyone through the portal, you need to give it u—"

  He swiped the blade up with a preternatural speed, poising it at her jugular. "The sword is mine," said Ben, "and the magic is mine. It always was. You will not take it from me, and you are going through that portal, dragon, alive or dead."

  "Stop threatening me," hissed Cully, although a sudden realization congealed her blood. There wasn't enough space to shift into her dragon, and even if she did, Ben could smite a fatal blow in the split-second before her scales formed any armour about her throat.

  "Why would either of us want to go through there?" Her voice quavered as she stalled for time and a plan. "Personally, I'd die of boredom before I hit the water."

  "As I said," said Ben. "Your death is not a problem to me. Once I have recovered my full powers on Kern-Heliog, I will enslave its population and return with an army. All I need is a vial of your blood to escape. But it would be so much better if you came as my lover. If you spilled a little blood willingly, I could rule the world, with you at my side."

  "Uh, Ben, since when did you fancy me? Besides, I don't believe world domination is quite so simple. I mean, at a push, we might take the Isle of Wight for a period, but—"

  "I have heard of Trident, dragon. You and I will seize those mighty weapons first. So what will it be? Death or glory."

  Oh fuck. Ben really had lost it, unless…

  "No way are you Benjamin Miles," she murmured. "Who are you?"

  "I am your Prince."

  "Eh?" The sword nicked her flesh. She sensed its sting, then the warm ooze of her blood. She simply wasn't used to being scared, and fear made it hard to think. Still, she knew of only one magical prince. "Prince Clewell? But he's long dead."

  "I am very much alive," snarled Ben, or rather, Clewell. "Blood will drain beside this barrow before the next shower of rain. I have foreseen it."

  "Not on my watch it won’t."

  Cully couldn't shift any larger without the risk of being impaled. She could go small, though. She snapped into the form of a black cat, shot between Clewell's legs, down the tunnel, and into the open. It was a complicated shift, and reversing it dragged on even her mighty powers. Still, Clewell emerged from the tunnel to face a magnificent blue dragon rearing up to her full nine-foot height.

  "Ben," she growled, as Clewell staggered at the sight of her. "I don't know what the hell's going on, but if you're still in there somewhere, make the bastard drop the sword. If you can't do it for me, do it for Lyle."

  "Ben is too far gone," said Clewell. "He was never strong enough to resist me, and neither are you."

  "Oh yeah?" Cully's throat filled with fire. Her teeth hissed smoke, her main fear now being the destruction of Ben's body, thus of any hope for Lyle's marriage. Bearing her fangs, she readied to pounce, even as Clewell pointed the sword and lightning streaked from the tip. It blasted into her scaly chest and sent her flying. She struck a mighty oak and it snapped like a twig. At the unexpected setback, her dragon's anger and damaged dignity overwhelmed her. Scales singed and cracked, she rebounded on reflex, ready to unleash an inferno. A force even greater than before pushed her back down.

  The sword's power blasted, and this time it kept coming. A dozen streams of fire pinioned her to the earth, spreading her wings like a butterfly in a display cabinet. Clewell stood close enough for her to eviscerate him, if only she could move. She could scarcely whimper. The pain mushroomed in intensity, and her vision began to fog.

  "It seems I will have to settle for taking your blood unwillingly," said Clewell. The veil in front of Cully's eyes thickened, and terror tightened its grip. Desperately grasping for her magic, she shifted into her human form, hoping the change might throw him enough to abate his flow. Instead, he laughed nastily as his onslaught lanced into her tender limbs and fins. "Soft pink flesh. Delicious! So much easier for my sword to cut, although believe me, it can scythe a dragon's scales with ease if it must."

  This was it. Amid her pain-addled stupor, she realized was going to die. She'd still never truly loved, apart from…

  A dragon swooped into the clearing, the hurricane backdraft setting Clewell off balance long enough to break his attack.

  "L-lyle?" stuttered Cully, still too enfeebled to move.

  The multi-coloured dragon alighted on the top of the barrow then shifted into a more familiar version of Lyle. He clad himself in a suit of what appeared to be maroon PVC, which—so it turned out, when he skidded down the sides of the mound and sprinted forward—was so tight it squeaked when he moved. He also had knee-high leather boots on, and he looked magnificent.

  She gasped as Lyle squared up to Clewell, looming over him. Lyle's eyes no longer glimmered in amethyst blue. Instead, they were deep indigo and conjured a strange distant aura, something she'd detected before only when Lyle had taken his dragon form. She'd no time to ponder that now.

  "The family are safe," she managed to rasp. "But that's not Ben. It's Clewell… somehow. C-careful."

  Lyle offered an almost indiscernible nod, which baffled her. She'd expected some surprise at her mindboggling revelation. Lyle didn't rip his attention from Clewell, which turned out to be a wise move. Clewell raised his sword to unleash the streams of fire on Lyle. Lyle lifted his arms, as if ready to conduct a symphony, and slammed a spherical shield of white light down around himself. Clewell's lightning bolts rebounded as fizzling squibs and died among the wet grasses.

  Er, since when has my brother become quite so amazing?

  With effort, she lifted her head—to see Lyle seize the sword from Clewell's momentarily limp grasp. He hurled it away and then grabbed Clewell by his metal epaulets. Lyle shook Clewell with one hand, as if he held a shiny toy robot, and ripped off Clewell's helmet with the other. The face beneath was undoubtedly Ben's, although warped by Clewell into a malevolent leer she doubted Ben capable of.

  Lyle jostled Clewell so roughly the armour clanked. "Ben. I'm going to destroy the sword and you mustn't let him stop me. Fight him."

  "He can't fight me," said Clewell. "He's too weak, and you know it."

  "So be it," said Lyle.

  His grim resignation came quicker than Cully had expected. A sudden chill stabbed her and left her bereft, even as she rooted for his victory. Lyle had changed. This wasn't her lovesick little brother who needed looking after anymore.

  "You’ll never best me," drawled Clewell, despite the ignominy of being dangled by Lyle from a single hand. "You believe you’re strong—but at my peak, I could rain down lightning from a clear blue sky for hours and hours without faltering. I could divine the future."

  "I can do all that," replied Lyle, "and I'll kill you, if I have to." His laughter chimed out, jarringly fey. "It appears I'm your greatest heir after all."

  Chapter Eleven

  Ben screamed silently and in vain. His mouth, completely beyond his control, spewed poisonous words at the love of his life. He'd been unable to govern his actions for nearly a day now, since Clewell had bound him in some dark corner of his brain.

  "He can't fight me," Ben's own voice had said. "He's too weak, and you know it."

  Ben refused the words. He wasn't weak, and he'd fight for Lyle. He'd lay down his life for Lyle.

  Wishing it silently was one matter. Making it real, regaining control of his body from the most powerful mage in merfolk history, was another. For now, though, Lyle was doing fi
ne fighting Clewell by himself. He lifted Ben's body again, and with an astounding strength, hurled him a good six feet. Ben landed with a thud in a clump of bedraggled ferns, flesh bruising against his armour.

  Lyle nodded up at the ever-ominous sky. Lightning forked from the clouds with the accuracy of a high-tech laser, slicing into Clewell's sword. Lyle was going to melt it: obliterate it. All Ben had to do was let it happen and let Clewell be vanquished along with it. He willed himself to stay still, praying his body would obey.

  Clewell had other ideas. Ben found himself jumping up, launching forward. He'd rugby tackled Lyle to the ground, cutting off Lyle's precision assault, before Ben's consciousness caught up with events. Seconds later—still under Clewell's governance—he was rolling and grappling with Lyle. Clewell strove to scramble over Lyle to get to the sword before Lyle could start up his destructive flow of energy again.

  Don't let him win. Pull those punches.

  "Destroying the sword won't help Ben anymore," snarled Clewell, grabbing Lyle's hair and tugging viciously. "He's all but dead already."

  He's lying. I'm not dead. I'm not.

  Ben grasped for another tactic. Willing his body to be passive wasn't working, so he'd have to get aggressive. As Clewell reached for Lyle's throat, Ben focussed on taking control of his gauntlet-covered hands. For the first time that day, a message he sent to his body hit home. Ben froze his fingers before they could gouge into Lyle's neck, and Clewell snorted furiously. Lyle seized the chance, shoved Clewell off, then proffered a stunning left hook to Clewell's jaw. Ben felt his head snap back, and his mouth filled with the tang of copper. When the flashing stars faded, Lyle was pinning him to a patch of spongy wet grass, his face inches from Ben's.

  "Ben, if you're in there, hold him still for a moment, alright? It won't take long."

  Alright.

  Clewell attempted to head-butt Lyle. With a wrenching effort, Ben jerked himself back from the collision, but before he could register any triumph, Lyle's eyes intoxicated him. They weren't Lyle's usual lilac-blue eyes. They were the deep indigo eyes of Lyle's dragon. The distraction proved enough for Clewell to retake control of Ben's lips: "If I could shift this puny human body into a dragon," snarled Clewell, "I'd have torn your throat out."

  "I could shift and do that any moment," said Lyle. "I will if I have to, and then you will die. Please, Ben, fight him. We don't even need the sword anymore. I've got my powers back—all I ever had, and more. But you've got to let me destroy it before Clewell's magic grows to match mine."

  I'll try.

  Ben failed to vocalize his collusion, and Lyle punched Clewell again, harder this time. Ben blacked out. When he came to, blood trickled from a cut on his cheek. He managed a moan, but Clewell gained governance of their movements first. Lyle had unleashed a fresh barrage of lightning, which began warping the blade. Yet Ben found himself rolling onto his belly and wriggling toward it like a worm. He grabbed the hilt.

  "For heavens' sakes, Ben," screamed Lyle, cutting off the flow, lest he incinerate Ben's gauntlets. "Do I have to hit you harder?"

  Ben focussed on his love, and only his love. He recalled the vow he'd made to himself before he'd proposed to Lyle and broken the curse, which seemed so long ago now. He would never let Lyle down again. Never.

  The joints of Ben's fingers popped and every fibre in his hands burned, but he strained and struggled until he'd let the sword go. Lyle renewed his attack.

  "Finish it, love." Ben managed to say, then threw all his effort into keeping still, pressing his face to the mud. Clewell raged within him, his sore hands quaked, and the notion of losing his beautiful sword suddenly terrified him. Lyle is now a grand mage, and I'll return to being ordinary. How can we ever have an equal relationship?

  He dismissed the nasty doubt almost as soon as it'd occurred. The distraction had already proved costly. Ben's body was moving, smoothly and swiftly and beyond his control. Lyle yelled in frustration and cut off his assault. Pain lanced up Ben's arms as Clewell made him grasp the red-hot hilt of the sword, palms blistering through his gauntlets. Then, acting faster than even Lyle could avoid, Clewell leaped up, thrust the blade into Lyle's gut, twisted once, and withdrew.

  Blood coated the blade, dripping onto the trampled greenery. Lyle clutched his stomach and sank to his knees before slumping onto his side.

  Ben forced himself to drop the gory sword. He turned away and scrunched his eyes tight. That had not happened. It had to be an illusion, some kind of trick. A roar of triumph—Clewell's—rumbled in the bottom of Ben's lungs, igniting a volcanic backlash of fury in Ben. Get out of me. Get out. Get out!

  Somewhere nearby, Ben perceived a renewed rush of heat. Yes! Lyle was alright and he was finishing the job. Ben just had to get rid of this bastard inside him—and damn it, this time he would. He crumpled into a tight ball, fingertips gouging into his scalp, and fought Clewell's control with everything he'd got. Clewell's cries of triumph turned to terror and then to a death rattle, which quaked to the marrow of Ben's already tender bones.

  After an intangible period of hellish struggle, Ben slowly raised his head. On the spot where he'd dropped the sword, scorched earth lay. The sword was gone. His armour was gone too, and he shivered in his thin shirt sleeves. Even better, Clewell had vanished from inside him, and he could control his own body. He gingerly touched his injured face. For a fleeting heartbeat, he felt free and light.

  But it wasn't Lyle crouched over the charred ground. It was an enormous blue dragon. Lyle remained where he'd collapsed, his hands and all four fins pressed against his stomach in a futile effort to stay the blood that gushed from his wound.

  Oh. I did do that.

  Ben rushed to Lyle's side. "It's me. Clewell's gone." For a second, he daren't even touch Lyle, fearing that he'd somehow break him further. Then the elbow that Lyle was trying to prop himself up on gave way, and Ben launched to catch him.

  "I've got you," said Ben, cradling Lyle in his arms, striving to recall the other times he'd held Lyle like this. When everything had seemed lost but turned out alright. He couldn't accept this was real. He'd turned numb. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've fought harder and sooner, but I didn't realize what was happening to me. It'll be…" No. It wasn't going to be alright.

  Lyle stared straight through Ben, so lost he hardly seemed to know Ben was there. A mace of sorrow slammed down inside Ben's chest, an agony worse than anything he’d ever known. He pushed his emotions aside and reached out to Lyle with all the adoration in his heart. "I love you so much," he whispered.

  Lyle slowly slid his gaze to Ben, and his deep indigo eyes softened and faintly twinkled. Yes, the Lyle Ben had married was definitely here… dying in his arms.

  "I love you," repeated Ben, because it was all that mattered now. He planted a tender kiss on Lyle's forehead. "I always will."

  Ben went to kiss his lips but recoiled as a spasm shook Lyle and he cried out. Blood trickled from the corner of Lyle's mouth, and bands of panic tightened about Ben's throat.

  "Don't die," pleaded Ben. "Stay, please. Cully, help him." Cully had shifted from her dragon and was standing over them, fists clenching and unclenching, as rigid and impotent as he currently felt. "Do something!"

  Lyle spoke instead. "The c-cave. Wheal Dogger. Find me…maybe?" He inhaled, laboured and shaky, as the effort of speaking took its toll. His eyes rolled up. "Elhendrou," he murmured, "Elhendrou."

  He fell limp. Hugging Lyle far too tight, Ben gaped up at Cully. Only then did he notice the rain hammering from the heavens, although Ben understood all too well it was chiefly Lyle's blood that soaked him. The grief and resentment carved into Cully's tear-and-rain-drenched face might've devastated him had his heart not withered into a burnt-out useless husk.

  His love hadn't been enough, and Clewell had been right. Ben had proved too weak to fight, at least when it mattered. Lyle was dead. He was gone forever, unless…

  Elhendrou. Lyle's last word. It took a few moments for Ben to remember w
here he'd heard it before. Then it clicked. The Wise Ma had taught it to Lyle when they'd been imprisoned by Emmet.

  "Cully," said Ben, choked. "I-I think Lyle tried a mind-jump mantra, right at the end. There's a chance—"

  "Shut up!" screamed Cully. Storm clouds collided, thunder rolled, and a gale roared violently through the huddled trees. "You killed him! Just shut up before I fucking well kill you!"

  Chapter Twelve

  Cully refused to speak another word to Ben. Hating him, however, wasn't as easy as she expected, especially while mourning united them.

  She carried out the distressing task of burying Lyle beside the mound in silence. Once the job was done, she let Ben explain what he'd meant by "a chance," while maintaining her stony silence. Lyle had apparently used the mantra "Elhendrou" to help Ben's consciousness escape from Lyle's mind. Today, though, there had been nowhere obvious for Lyle to leap to. On the other hand, Lyle had mentioned Wheal Dogger with his dying breaths. Among his final words had been, "Find me."

  It was unlikely Lyle could've drawn on the magic required for any kind of spell while so badly injured. Then again, in his last fight against Clewell, he'd appeared more powerful than ever before. If anybody could trick death, it would be Lyle.

  "We have to get to Wheal Dogger," pleaded Ben, "as soon as we can. And please send for one of your healers, just in case."

  Cully dumbly obeyed, taking off in a furious whirr of wings to seek out the nearest colony of albatrosses. After having packed one off with a message for the Wise Mas, she and Ben headed to the mine building, if only because she couldn't refuse Lyle's last request.

  Ben slid off her back. He glanced into the dark tunnel, and then back at Cully, who'd shifted back into her Lycra-clad usual self. His battered face, bloodied lip, and obvious anguish chiselled the barrier of ice she'd erected between them. She breached any leak of sympathy by deliberately bashing his shoulder as she shoved passed him to enter the mine.