Fountain of Secrets

CHAPTER I Summer, 1837 In the midst of pulling his boat above the tide line, Gavin Hawkforte straightened and glanced around. On a deserted shore, miles from any habitation, he was struck by the sense that someone was watching him, a sudden awareness that put his instincts on alert and sent his hand to the hilt of the short sword at his waist. Yet there was no one in sight, not in either direction along the strand of beach glittering in the midday sun. Bare-chested, wearing only the pleated white kilt of an Akoran warrior, he finished securing the boat and stood to stretch, letting out the kinks of the long row over from the neighboring island. There was no wind this day. The air hung still and heavy on Deimatos and beyond it over Akora, the Fortress Kingdom wreathed in legend and mystery. Home to him for all that he was heir to a great title in England. Thoughts for another time. The beach was a curve of gold, lapped by the azure waters of the Inland Sea. Palm trees were separated by low scrub grass and bushes bursting with scarlet hibiscus flowers. It was a pretty sight, belying the fearful history of the place. Barefoot, carrying the canvas bag that held his equipment and a pair of wooden poles too large to fit in the bag, Gavin moved up the beach. At the tree line, he paused to put on his sandals, then continued. The ground quickly turned rocky, dotted by outcroppings of coarse black stone that looked as though it had been poured directly from the earth, as indeed it had. He turned briefly, hazel eyes scanning the beach. The shore of Phobos, from which he had come, was just visible in the distance, and beyond it he could make out the vague thickness along the horizon that was the island of Tarbos. The three small islands of the Inland Sea were all that remained of the drowned heart of Akora, remnant of the night of fire and terror thousands of years before, when a volcanic explosion ripped the island apart. A disaster and a tragedy, yet from it had come the world he knew and loved. The world beneath his feet, within the grasp of his hand. The world he feared to lose. Again the strange, disquieting sensation of being watched swept over him. He paused and looked around, but saw nothing. Annoyance drove out unease. He was worried, had been for several months, but that was no excuse for his mind playing tricks on him. The sooner he got to work, the better. If the map was right, the closest entrance to the caves lay along the overgrown path ahead of him. It looked as though no one had used it in years, which did not surprise him. Deimatos was uninhabited. No one had a reason to go there, at least not until now. Caves were common on Deimatos, but many were no longer accessible, the entrances to them destroyed in the conflict that had raged there a quarter-century before. His parents and others of his family had been involved in that struggle and were lucky to have survived it. If his information was right, only a handful of entrances remained usable. He had to hope he was headed for one of them. A little farther along, the path diverged, a fork cutting away sharply to the west. He glanced down the side path but kept going in his original direction, only to stop suddenly and turn back. The grass growing over the fork of the path showed evidence of having been trampled. It had rained three days before, great bands of water and wind sweeping out of the west. Whatever he was looking at must be fresher than that. An animal? He bent down, seeking any hoof or paw prints that might be present, but if they were, he could not make them out. Perhaps he should have paid better attention to the men in warrior training who were master trackers, instead of spending all his time wrestling and building siege engines. Mindful that there might be something fairly large and not necessarily friendly on the island, Gavin went on. He was well armedLitton, Josie is the author of 'Fountain of Secrets' with ISBN 9780553585841 and ISBN 0553585843.