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Seven
------------Xephos is glad to escape from Honeydew's house.
   He still doesn't know why the man bothers him, but he does. He cannot work out why, when he's been nothing but kind and helpful.
   Xephos straddles his bike at the intersection of Homeway and Crossways, and studies the map.
   He decides to start again, at the beginning, and to head back north to the quay. From there he will cycle south, methodically exploring every lane and path. If they are producing some elixir here, they must be growing large quantities of the Dracula Orchid, which means a field, or maybe a series of greenhouses. He doesn't know much about orchids, not even if they can be cultivated en masse, but he knows they are rare and delicate things, that tolerate only very finely balanced conditions in which to grow. In any case, it's an incredibly rare variety that grows so far north.
   He sets off, and suddenly he is smiling again.
   Much of his life is spent traveling, investigating stories all over the world. Most of the time he's on his own, and sometimes the trips he has to make are hard, dangerous even. With no one waiting for him at home, not even any truly life-long friends, he often feels like a ghost, drifting over the face of the earth, rootless. If he died, it would be weeks before anyone even knew, let alone cared. Just for once, his journey has taken him somewhere lovely, somewhere warm, and beautiful. He starts laughing.
   He laughs at the fact that he's able to free-wheel the whole way to the quayside. He whizzes along, the bees humming around his head and around the flowers that burst with life on every side.
   Birds call, and his bike picks up speed. He sticks his feet out sideways and feels the joy of the simple pleasure of free-wheeling in the sunshine. He plays a little game, seeing how long he dares shut his eyes for, and as he does, the image in his mind is, inexplicably, Xevphera's soft neck. And his lips brushing it.
   He snaps out of it, reminding himself he is here to work, but nevertheless, as he arrives at the quay, there is still a smile on his face.
   The smile gets bigger when he sees Xevphera approaching.
   "How is your article coming?" she says brightly.
   "Everyone is so concerned for me!" He says, laughing.
   Xevphera seems puzzled.
   "And why wouldn't we be?" she says. She tips her head to one side and Xephos swears he can feel his heart swell.
   "I'm sorry," he says, "It's just that the rest of the world is different from here. People aren't so thoughtful. So generous. It's all rush-rush, and no time for please and thank you. It's . . ."
   "I understand," Xevphera says. "It's different."
   "Well, so it is," he says. He stops, trying to think of something to say to keep the conversation going. He looks down. "Honeydew lent me his bike."
   Inwardly he groans at another stunningly ineloquent conversation piece. But it doesn't matter. Ever so gently, Xevphera puts her hand on his forearm.
   "I found you," she says. That's all.
   Before she can say any more, something distracts her and she looks over his shoulder.
   "Forthwith the devil did appear," she sighs, "For name him and he's always near."
   "Pardon?" Says Xephos, but Xevphera does not reply. He turns to see Honeydew standing behind him.
   "You got here quickly," Xephos says bluntly.
   "I strolled up from the Cross House," Honeydew replies. "You forget, it is a small island. It doesn't take so very long to get anywhere. Even on foot, and even for an old man, as I am."
   Again, Xephos wonders how old Honeydew is. How old anyone really is on Blessed.
   "I have some business to discuss with Xevphera," Honeydew says, smiling.
   He waits. Fixing Xephos with one good eye.
   "Oh, of course," Xephos stammers, and nods. "Well, I must get on. See you later."
   His eyes are on Xevphera alone as he says this, hoping for some reaction from her.
   For the briefest of moments there is a look of such trembling intensity on her face, and in that moment, he realises he was wrong. He looks at her lips and her eyes, the curve of her eyebrow, and realises she is beautiful.
   "Bye, Xephos," she says.
   He nods, backs away, and cycles off.
   I found you.
   Was there some deeper meaning behind what she said?
   He wants to believe there is.

Eight
------------Xephos explores late into the afternoon.
   He finds nothing, at least, nothing that he is looking for.
   The orchids, or a production facility maybe, a homespun lab of some sort. He supposes he will know it when he sees it. That's how it is in his job, he has always quietly thought to himself that that is why he has been successful in his work. That, and something less easy to admit, that maybe he is never satisfied. Neither in life, or work, nor in love - he always wants more. It has made him a good journalist, this desire in him to search for more, but although he knows it deep inside, he has never admitted to himself that this same thing has left him alone, with a heart that nervously beats for fear of never finding. But something just clicks when he's on the right track of a story, something just clicks. Like something clicked when he saw Xevphera's face.

------------He finds himself back at the Cross House, and pulls out the map again, trying to decide where to look next.
   It is getting late, but that does not matter, because it will not get dark. The flower moon is rising above the hill. He studies the map that Honeydew gave him.
   It looks hand drawn, but he can see it is printed, and there's a title and a price on the back of it. There is something about it that nags at him, but he's finding it so hard to think. He wonders if he's getting ill, it's twice now that his mind has felt like this. Cloudy.
   With an effort, his head clears, and into his memory comes the image of the map of Blessed, the one that he's saved on his device.
   He realises that the map in front of him is not the same one he had recorder back at his office.
   That one had two halves, a very distinct shape, like the two wings of a butterfly, though the western half slightly smaller, giving it a lopsided look. The two halves were joined by a narrow strip of land.
   Xephos looked at the paper map in his hand. Only the eastern half of the island is printed. Half the island is missing.
   Now why, he thinks, would they print a map of only half the island?
   That would be stupid. Unless, unless, unless you wanted to keep half of it secret.
   He knows he's on to something.
   And he knows his journalist's mind is working well, when he immediately makes another connection.
   The path, up the hill, last night.
   It was a path that went nowhere, or at least, seemed to.
   The path was somewhere off Crossway. He turns his bike, and begins to pedal.

Nine
------------He is half way up the short but ridiculously steep hill when he stops, for two reasons. First, the slope is just too steep to cycle up, even standing on the pedals in lowest gear. His thighs scream at him to stop, but there's something else. The exertion on the bike makes him think about the cycling he had done so far that day.
   He remembers free-wheeling all the way to the quay. And then he remembers coming back again, but he can't remember cycling very hard to do so. In fact, he's pretty sure he free-wheeled much of the way back. If not all the way. He thinks about all the other places he's been to and now that he comes to think of it, he cannot remember actually having to push the pedals at all, anywhere, not until he came to this ludicrous hill. It doesn't make sense, and for a second he wonders if this is all some extended dream.
   The only other possibility is that the bike is possessed.
   He looks down at it, then shakes his head.
   "Well, well," he says, giving up trying to understand. "So it is."
   Bending his head low he pushes the bike to the top of the hill, near to the point where he'd scrambled up to the outcrop the night before. He leans his bike by the rock, and starts to explore. The path, such as it is, seems to stop right by the bush.
   It is a dense thicket, shrubs and trees, and low ground coverage. He tries to lift a branch and force his way in, but it is hard work going.
   The branches push back at him with thorny spines, and he thinks that even a barbed wire fence would be easier to deal with. A branch whips him in the face and he's angry. Putting his head down, heedless of the pain, he shoves through the bushes.
   He lands on his hands and knees, in a tiny clearer space.
   There is a face looking at him, right in front of his nose. Only it's not a face. He's looking at a rock, upon which is painted two blue dots, each surrounded by a white circle, like eyes. Now he looks more closely, he sees that the dots are painted on either side of a protrusion of the rock, making it look like a primitive creature of stone, a lizard or a dragon, with an eye facing each way.
   His gaze drifts into the woodland, and he almost jumps when, a little way off, he sees another of the rock faces, with just one eye this time, looking sideways.
   He hears voices, and freezes.
   Looking back through the undergrowth, he can make out figures standing by the bike. Two or three people. He cannot make out what they're saying; they speak quietly, but then he sees their legs moving from the path to his lookout point, up on the outcrop.
   He decides that he doesn't want to get caught here, and taking his chances, pushes his way quickly back, which, it turns out, is easier than forcing his way in.
   Glancing to his left, he grabs the bike, and he's free-wheeling fast before they have a chance to return to the path.
   At the bottom of the hill, he turns right and finds himself outside the Cross House.
   He looks at his watch, and it's late, but he decides he's too tired to care about offending Honeydew.
   He leans his bike at the gate, and walks up the path. It's another hot evening and the windows are open. He about to knock on the door when he hears voices coming from inside. Raised voices.
   He hesitates, then slips round the side of the house, on a veranda that runs round the corner.
   He stands by the kitchen window, trying not to look as if he's spying, in case anyone sees him.
   He hears Honeydew's voice, and another that he thinks is Lalna. There are female voices too. Kim and Minty presumably. And is that Xevphera?
   Yes, He's sure of it.
   "We will do everything as we always do."
   That's Honeydew. The man he thinks is Lalna speaks next.
   "But will it do any good? We have tried for so long!"
   "We will do everything as we always do," Honeydew repeats. He sounds angry. "We will do as our ancestors did."
   There is a confusion of voices then, everyone talking at once.
   Then Xevphera says, "I agree with Lalna. We ought to try something different."
   A pause. Then Honeydew again, more softly.
   "Xevphera, my child. You are speaking of things you do not understand. You are our treasure. You are the youngest of us, and for that alone, we treasure you and respect you. But you do not know all there is to know."
   The youngest of us?
   Xephos remembers that he's seen no children on the island. Not one. And Xevphera, a young woman, certainly is the youngest person he has seen since his arrival.
   "You do not know anything!" Honeydew repeats.
   "And you do?"
   He can hear Xevphera's sudden defiance, and he can feel the terrible rage that springs into Honeydew right there and then.
   "Enough! I have spoken. I am the Ward of Blessed Island, and I have spoken. You all have your duties. See that you do them, and do them well. Now go!"
   Again a babble of voices, and then Honeydew must have beaten the table of the floor, for there is a loud bang, and silence is restored.
   Honeydew's voice comes again, but so deep and so low that Xephos cannot decipher his words.
   He's had enough, and walks quickly round to the front of the house, he knocks, and without waiting to be invited, opens the door and walks in.
   He almost bumps into Xevphera, who is in he hallway.
   She opens her mouth in surprise, but before she can speak, Honeydew appears in the doorway.
   "Do you usually enter people's houses without being invited, Mr Seven?"
   His voice is steady and firm, there is none of the anger Xephos has just heard.
   "I . . . No, I . . ." he stops, tried again. "I heard raised voices. I came to see that everything is all right."
   Honeydew pauses.
   "That is thoughtful of you, but we are quite well."
   "You have been so kind to me," Xephos says, smoothly. "It was the least I could do."
   "But I think you are mistaken," Honeydew says. "Quite well. You are well, Xevphera, are you not?"
   Xevphera nods. Without a trace of worry or fear she smiles at Honeydew.
   "Yes, very well, Ward. Very well."
   "So there. You see. There is nothing to concern yourself over. Xevphera, you had better got on home."
   Without another word, without looking at either of them, Xevphera leaves, slipping through the front door and closing it behind her. Xephos watches her disappear through the doorway, noticing her height. She is tall, he hadn't noticed that before.
   "Now, Xephos. How is your article coming along? You've had a long day."
   Xephos is caught, not knowing what to do. Having stormed to Xevphera's rescue, he now finds himself being offered another cup of tea by the enemy.
   He follows Honeydew into the living room, and vaguely notices that the others have melted away into the evening. He sees the comfortable old sofa, and suddenly feels very tired again.
   "Tea?" asks Honeydew.
   Xephos looks at Honeydew.
   "Yes, please."
   "Milk?"
   "Oh, no, thanks," says Xephos. "You were right, it's much better without."
   Honeydew nods, and backs off into the kitchen.
   "I'm so glad you agree," he says.
   When he comes back, he watches quietly as Xephos drinks the tea. Tiredness washes over him, but somehow the bitter taste of the tea makes it a pleasurable feeling.
   All he has to do, all he has to do now, he thinks, is make the short journey home, and then he can sleep.

Ten
------------Xephos sleeps late.
   It's the curtains, the blinds, he tells himself.
   "Nothing to wake me up," he says.
   He decides to set an alarm for the next morning, not remembering his device is dead, nor that his charger is missing.
   He showers, for a long time, then goes downstairs to eat another huge and delicious breakfast. At the back of his mind is a vague thought, a mere feeling, like an itch that wants to be scratched. But it's so faint and he's soon able to ignore it. There are firm fresh raspberries in a bowl on the table. He takes a mouthful, then a few mouthfuls more, until the whole bowl is finished.
   He sits back, and sighs happily.
   Only then does he see a short handwritten note leaning against a vase of flowers in the centre of the table.
   It's a lovely day for a swim. The south pier is the best.
   He picks the note up, slowly.
   "So it is!" He says.
   After breakfast he rolls up a towel from the bathroom and sets off, to the south.
   As far as he can remember, he hasn't been to the far south of the island yet, and it doesn't even occur to him why he can't remember if he has or not. Nor does he realise that he has lost track of time, though he only arrived a few days ago.
   Homeway twists and turns past more colourful houses, until he reaches a junction, where a tiny wooden sign points the way to the pier. He follows this smaller path for a few minutes more, and then he sees the sea in front of him.
   It's beautiful. It's so beautiful, it takes his breathe away. It's not spectacular, it's not jaw-dropping, it's simply a lovely sight, that makes the heart glad that such places exist. The greys and browns of the rocks, the trees and the wild grass, the sea, waiting for him, and only for him; the place is utterly deserted, he can see neither people nor houses.
   He goes down to the pier and, taking his shoes off, sits with his feet in the water for a while, then undresses and slides into the water, swimming far out away from the jetty.
   He turns and looks at the island, and feels that little itch at the back of his head again. He swims closer to the pier, ducking under water for long spells.
   Suddenly, as he surfaces, someone is there in the water with him, an arm's length away.
   All he sees at first is a splash as they dive in, but moments later, a head and shoulders break the surface in a tumble of water.
   It's Xevphera. Her blonde, wet hair is drawn back, and down her neck.
   Neither of them say anything, and as Xephos treads water, Xevphera edges closer.
   There's that gentle intense look on her face again, that's something he does remember, something that is pushing through the clouds in his mind.
   She reaches out a hand, treading water, and their fingertips meet.
   She whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the shushing of the waves.
   "I followed you."
   Xephos hesitates for a moment, wondering, but then he's laughing, and Xevphera is too.
   "You."
   They swim together, far out to sea.
   They duck under the surface, twisting and turning hand in hand where they can, and gliding through the deep, Xephos' lips brush her neck, just once. Finally, they come up for air. And when they do, they do so laughing.
   "This is ridiculous!" Shouts Xephos, and Xevphera shrugs, and smiles, as if to say, so what?
   Xephos tries again.
   "Have we done this before?" he calls.
   Xevphera is a few strokes away. He pulls his way over to her, and tries again.
   "Have we done this before?"
   Xevphera shrugs again.
   "I feel like we've done this before," he says, intently. "But a long time ago. A very long time ago."
   She's gone, under the water again.
   Xephos thinks about his life, something he usually avoids, because it has not always been an easy one. He wonders if a few moments of utter and total joy can be worth a lifetime of struggle.
   Maybe, he thinks. Maybe, if they're the right moments. They swim some more, and finally, exhausted, climb onto the rocks to dry in the warm sun.
   Xephos turns and holds Xevphera's hands. He looks at his hands, a little older than hers. He looks at her younger ones. What if it were the other way round? What if his were the younger hands? Would it matter?
   He asks himself why this hand, is his hand. Could it have been someone else's? And why is that her hand? Does it matter? And what if she were different? No, he thinks, as these strange and somehow foolish questions roll around in his head. No, it wouldn't matter. Even if she were different, she would still be she.
   "This is ridiculous," he says again, and she sits up, and gently takes his head between her hands.
   "Why?" she says. "Why is it? Why is it any more ridiculous than a thousand things? That the earth spins round the sun, that water can eat a mountain away, that a salmon can swim a thousand miles across the ocean to find the very stream it was born in. It's not ridiculous. It's just . . . how it is."
   Suddenly, she fumbles in her clothes, spread on the rocks, and finds a watch.
   "I have to go."
   "But, stay . . ."
   "I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head.
   She will not be persuaded otherwise, and Xephos watches her clothe her naked skin and then, like a dream that drifts out of reach when waking, she is gone.
   He dozed on the rocks, the sense of Xevphera around and inside him, seeing her slender limbs, smelling the salt in her hair, imagining that the warmth of the sunshine is her hands on his skin. He realises that for the first time in a very long time, his heart is beating slow and calmly. Peacefully.

------------He wakes some time later, with that itch once more.
   Something starts to rise to the top of his mind.
   He walks home, trying to get a hold of it, whatever it is. He's sure that it's something he's supposed to be doing.
   As he enters the house, he thinks he hears the back door, the kitchen door, shut.
   He shrugs.
   Maybe just the door slamming in the wind, though he doesn't get as far as noticing that there is no wind.
   He hangs the towel over the balustrade to dry in the sun, and comes back into the kitchen, where he sees that someone has left him a jar of that tea, ad he decides the best thing to do is have a drink, to think about whatever it is he's supposed to be thinking about.
   He brews the tea, not really noticing that it has a slightly different taste, that it has become a little stronger.
   And so he drinks, and the forgetting begins again.

Eleven
------------The days pass.
   The island is so beautiful, Xephos thinks. every day as he wakes up, and every night as he goes to sleep. He's had Honeydew bring him some more of that tea in a tall glass jar, and he's quite proud of the little ritual he has created for himself every evening.

------------
The days pass.
   The sun burns strongly, the summer is young and fresh, the leaves and the grass bright, and vivid.
   Xephos passes his time walking round the island. He nods at people he's getting to know, and smiles. From time to time he snoops and sniffs at a flower in this garden or that.
   Xevphera comes to see him sometimes, and he is just as happy to see anyone else as her. There was something about her, that's all. That's how the thought forms in his head. There was something about her. But it doesn't matter. Not really. She seems a little distracted frustrated at times, and Xephos starts to wonder what the cause might be, but he decides that that doesn't matter either. She ought to be like everyone else on the island. Sometimes she seems to look at him almost accusingly, but he can't fathom why, or what he might have done. He hasn't got the energy, his mind is too slow, and he soon gives up worrying about it.
   The people are smiling and beautiful, and Xephos feels happy and beautiful too.

------------
His only other visitor during that time is not a person.
   One morning he finds a cat sitting in the middle of the path to his door. He looks closely and realises that its not a cat but a fox, long and lean. It's sitting side on to him, but is clearly watching him. Waiting.
   He moves forward, expecting it to startle and bolt, but it does not. Puzzled, he makes a jump at it. It still stays exactly where it is. He is about to go right up to it, but something about its stare is unnerving, and in the end it is Xephos who gives way to the fox, circling around it to go for a walk.
   When he comes home that afternoon, the fox has gone.

------------
The days pass.
   One day melts into the next, the endless sun smoothing the journey round the calendar into one long chorus of joy. Of beauty, of joy, and of forgetting. Always forgetting.
   The days pass.

Twelve
------------
It is the middle of what should be the night, when Xephos suddenly wakes up, dreaming he is drowning.
   He throws himself upright and out of bed, and cannot understand why there is actually liquid in his mouth. He falls onto the floor, choking, spluttering, retching some water that he has sucked into his windpipe.
   The bedroom door is ajar. Does he hear, or does he imagine footsteps on the wooden staircase? He stumbles downstairs and finds the front door wide open, but there is no one there. He scans up and down the lane, and across the meadows. But there is no one there.
   Warily, and still spluttering, he shuts the door, and makes his way back to bed.
   His blinds are drawn, ad as he switches on the light in his bedroom, he sees a piece of paper on the floor, right in the middle of the rug by his bed.
   It is a little damp from his choking, but the words on the paper are clear enough.
   Wake up and remember. You were right. The answer lies beyond the hill.
   He looks at it blankly, and shakes his head.
   "Well, so it is," he says.
   He stares at the note for a long time, trying to think that to do, trying to think. He's so tired, though, so tired, and another wave of lethargy sweeps into him.
   He gets back into bed, deciding the only thing is to forget all about it, and switching off the light, he shuts his eyes.
   About five seconds later, the liquid that has made its way into his stomach gets to work, and then he's out of bed again.
   He doesn't have time to get to the bathroom before he is violently and repeatedly sick on the floor.
   His body heaves and shudders, aches and wails, and when it is over, he crawls back into bed, where he spends a grim night, half awake, half dreaming.
   Is it this living nightmare, or is it whatever he was forced to drink in his sleep, that triggers a flood of memories, memories from long ago, of other nightmares?
   Nightmares that terrified not just him, but his devout and strict parents too. Blood-soaked dreams that came night after night as a teenager, dreams that upon waking seem more real than the drab surroundings of his mundane room, his grey house, his ever more distant mother and father. His life.
   Blood-soaked nightmares. Of another time. Of another place. Another life.

Thirteen
------------

It is the middle of the day when Xephos finally feels he has enough energy to stagger from his bed, but when he does, something has cleared in his head. He has a long hot shower, trying to think, think more clearly.
Automatically, his hand reaches for the shower controls. He turns the power up, and reaches for the temperature control, and slowly, fighting the urge not to, he takes the temperature down, and down and down, until he is showering in what feels like ice water. It's agony, but he forces himself on, until his whole body is shaking with the cold, then heaving in great spasmodic shudders. He looks at his hands. They are virtually blue.
He falls backwards out of the shower, and shaking on the bathroom floor, everything comes back to him.
Images swim through his head - they are the broken pieces of fractured memories; the journey to Blessed, the flowers, his device. Xevphera.
He lies for an age on the floor, holding a picture of her face in his mind. Xevphera.
The answer lies beyond the hill.
He looks out of the window. It's very quiet, he guesses it's a Sunday, though he's not sure anymore.
This is the perfect time. In five minutes, he is whizzing fast on his bike, fully aware that he is having to pedal hard, as he makes his way up the steep, steep hell that he knows leads to the western half of the island.
As he cycles, he repeats her name in his head, using it as a mantra to keep his mind clear. Xevphera, Xevphera, Xevphera.
At the top, he takes time to look behind him, checking to see if he has been followed, and satisfied that he has not been, forces him way back through the undergrowth, looking for the eyes on the rocks.
He finds the first quickly, and crawls on hands and knees to the second and then the third.
By the time he gets to the fourth pair of eyes, he is able to stand, and at the sixth, he is in open country again.
The land slopes down in front of him, a mixed terrain of grasses, rocky patches, clumps of purple heather, and marsh. He follows the eyes, and very soon, he turns a corner, cresting a large outcrop, and there lies the narrow causeway that will take him to the western half of Blessed.
Again he glances behind, and seeing no one, hurries on, half running, half stumbling over the uneven ground.
The causeway could be man-made. He's not sure. It looks natural enough now, but it's not much more than a jumble of large boulders and smaller rocks, against which a small beach of sand has formed. It seems that there are really two islands here, the one severed from the other in some geological moment millions of years ago.
The distance between them is short, and in a dozen strides he's across and into a very different landscape.
There are no trees here.
He follows the eyes on the rocks, a series leading him on, painted who knows how many years ago, and within moments he discovers the first secret of the western half of Blessed.
He sees just one at first, then a couple. He stumbles on and sees a dozen more, and then, turning a corner in the rocks, hundreds. Thousands.
He knows it must be the Little Blessed Dragon Orchid. It is as mysterious as its name. A tall stem, with odd, curly star-shaped leaves clinging to it, and the flower itself, a dark purple-black thing, weirdly contorted. He looks closely, and can indeed imagine that it is a dragons head; there are even little bumps on the upper petal that look like horns, and a long black tongue protrudes from the mouth of the upper and lower petals, like that of a dragon, black with poison and evil.
He goes to pick one, but something stays his hand. Even the scent of the flowers makes his senses swim, and he stands up, deciding to move on.
The ground dips and rises again, and the eyes pick up once more. It seems obvious to follow them, and after a short scramble along the rocks, he sees something that takes his breath away.
There is a church in front of him.
It's like no church he's ever seen, but he knows it can't be anything else.
It is wooden, of a single, high storey, with a pitched roof, which he is looking at side on. He is open-mouthed as he makes his way around the building, where a small tower of portico frames the entrance.
The place is in ruin, he can see that, and has obviously not been used for years.
Like a traveller from another time, he staggers towards the waiting, gaping mouth of the building, and enters.
It feels like walking into the jaws of a huge wooden whale, and, if it is, he is swallowed whole by the beast.
The building itself is just a prelude.
What he sees next is the real surprise.
Where the altar should be, there is something massive, hidden.
A large cloth is draping something, hiding a long rectangular shape, which stands upright in the vast space of this temple.
He walks forward, feeling this is more unreal than any dream he has ever had. As he puts his hands out to the corner of the old, grey, tattered cloth, and pulls it away from whatever is underneath, it is as if he is hovering above himself, looking down, watching himself act.
What is underneath the cloth is a painting.
It is absolutely huge.
Dazed, Xephos steps backwards again, trying to take it all in.
What he sees is a painting of such realistic horror, and yet at the same time such dreamlike variety, that his mind cannot comprehend it all at once.
There is a click on stone somewhere behind him, and he turns.
Honeydew stands in the doorway. Behind him Xephos can see the other Wards.
Honeydew approaches, and immediately, Xephos knows the game has changed.
"It is appropriate," Honeydew says, "that you should have seen it. You should know why the gods brought you here, to help us."
He turns to his followers, and calls out instructions.
"Cover that up. And take him. The door, please!"
Suddenly the interior of the church fills with people through unseen doors on either side of Xephos.
While hands wrestle with the job of hiding the painting under the cloth once more, other hands close around Xephos' wrists.
He tries to struggle, but there is no point. There are too many of them, even if he could wrestle free from their grasp for a moment, more hands would seize him.
The most frightening thing is their silence.
Their eyes do not even meet his, they just hold him firmly, three or four on either side.
"The door!" Honeydew cries again, and now real fear stabs Xephos.
He has been taken beyond the painting-alter, and beyond, in the far wall of the church, another door is swung open.
Framed through the doorway, he can see the short distance to the sea, which burns brightly blue, but his eye is caught by what lies between the door and the sea.
It is a stone table.
Now he begins to struggle, quietly at first, then desperately.
Sheer fear surges from his stomach, into his mouth, making him want to be sick. He fights harder, but the more he struggles, the tighter the silent hands hold him.
He is steps from the stone table, and there is Honeydew at his side, as he is pulled backwards towards it, kicking and now screaming, screaming.
They rip his shirt from his back, cast him onto the table, still pinning him fiercely. The stone rips into his skin, the sun almost blinds him, but his wide terror-staring eyes have time to see Honeydew draw a massive curved knife from somewhere.
He hands it to Lalna, who steps forward.
In another corner of his tunnelling vision, he sees a face he knows. A face he has known for always.
Xevphera looks down at him, tilting her head.
She whispers to him.
I followed you.
Xephos screams, and though his mind has largely stopped working already, a final thought bleeds into it, following on from so very many strange thoughts.
I, Xephos Seven, have lived this before.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

Seven
------------Xephos is glad to escape from Honeydew's house.
   He still doesn't know why the man bothers him, but he does. He cannot work out why, when he's been nothing but kind and helpful.
   Xephos straddles his bike at the intersection of Homeway and Crossways, and studies the map.
   He decides to start again, at the beginning, and to head back north to the quay. From there he will cycle south, methodically exploring every lane and path. If they are producing some elixir here, they must be growing large quantities of the Dracula Orchid, which means a field, or maybe a series of greenhouses. He doesn't know much about orchids, not even if they can be cultivated en masse, but he knows they are rare and delicate things, that tolerate only very finely balanced conditions in which to grow. In any case, it's an incredibly rare variety that grows so far north.
   He sets off, and suddenly he is smiling again.
   Much of his life is spent traveling, investigating stories all over the world. Most of the time he's on his own, and sometimes the trips he has to make are hard, dangerous even. With no one waiting for him at home, not even any truly life-long friends, he often feels like a ghost, drifting over the face of the earth, rootless. If he died, it would be weeks before anyone even knew, let alone cared. Just for once, his journey has taken him somewhere lovely, somewhere warm, and beautiful. He starts laughing.
   He laughs at the fact that he's able to free-wheel the whole way to the quayside. He whizzes along, the bees humming around his head and around the flowers that burst with life on every side.
   Birds call, and his bike picks up speed. He sticks his feet out sideways and feels the joy of the simple pleasure of free-wheeling in the sunshine. He plays a little game, seeing how long he dares shut his eyes for, and as he does, the image in his mind is, inexplicably, Xevphera's soft neck. And his lips brushing it.
   He snaps out of it, reminding himself he is here to work, but nevertheless, as he arrives at the quay, there is still a smile on his face.
   The smile gets bigger when he sees Xevphera approaching.
   "How is your article coming?" she says brightly.
   "Everyone is so concerned for me!" He says, laughing.
   Xevphera seems puzzled.
   "And why wouldn't we be?" she says. She tips her head to one side and Xephos swears he can feel his heart swell.
   "I'm sorry," he says, "It's just that the rest of the world is different from here. People aren't so thoughtful. So generous. It's all rush-rush, and no time for please and thank you. It's . . ."
   "I understand," Xevphera says. "It's different."
   "Well, so it is," he says. He stops, trying to think of something to say to keep the conversation going. He looks down. "Honeydew lent me his bike."
   Inwardly he groans at another stunningly ineloquent conversation piece. But it doesn't matter. Ever so gently, Xevphera puts her hand on his forearm.
   "I found you," she says. That's all.
   Before she can say any more, something distracts her and she looks over his shoulder.
   "Forthwith the devil did appear," she sighs, "For name him and he's always near."
   "Pardon?" Says Xephos, but Xevphera does not reply. He turns to see Honeydew standing behind him.
   "You got here quickly," Xephos says bluntly.
   "I strolled up from the Cross House," Honeydew replies. "You forget, it is a small island. It doesn't take so very long to get anywhere. Even on foot, and even for an old man, as I am."
   Again, Xephos wonders how old Honeydew is. How old anyone really is on Blessed.
   "I have some business to discuss with Xevphera," Honeydew says, smiling.
   He waits. Fixing Xephos with one good eye.
   "Oh, of course," Xephos stammers, and nods. "Well, I must get on. See you later."
   His eyes are on Xevphera alone as he says this, hoping for some reaction from her.
   For the briefest of moments there is a look of such trembling intensity on her face, and in that moment, he realises he was wrong. He looks at her lips and her eyes, the curve of her eyebrow, and realises she is beautiful.
   "Bye, Xephos," she says.
   He nods, backs away, and cycles off.
   I found you.
   Was there some deeper meaning behind what she said?
   He wants to believe there is.

Eight
------------Xephos explores late into the afternoon.
   He finds nothing, at least, nothing that he is looking for.
   The orchids, or a production facility maybe, a homespun lab of some sort. He supposes he will know it when he sees it. That's how it is in his job, he has always quietly thought to himself that that is why he has been successful in his work. That, and something less easy to admit, that maybe he is never satisfied. Neither in life, or work, nor in love - he always wants more. It has made him a good journalist, this desire in him to search for more, but although he knows it deep inside, he has never admitted to himself that this same thing has left him alone, with a heart that nervously beats for fear of never finding. But something just clicks when he's on the right track of a story, something just clicks. Like something clicked when he saw Xevphera's face.

------------He finds himself back at the Cross House, and pulls out the map again, trying to decide where to look next.
   It is getting late, but that does not matter, because it will not get dark. The flower moon is rising above the hill. He studies the map that Honeydew gave him.
   It looks hand drawn, but he can see it is printed, and there's a title and a price on the back of it. There is something about it that nags at him, but he's finding it so hard to think. He wonders if he's getting ill, it's twice now that his mind has felt like this. Cloudy.
   With an effort, his head clears, and into his memory comes the image of the map of Blessed, the one that he's saved on his device.
   He realises that the map in front of him is not the same one he had recorder back at his office.
   That one had two halves, a very distinct shape, like the two wings of a butterfly, though the western half slightly smaller, giving it a lopsided look. The two halves were joined by a narrow strip of land.
   Xephos looked at the paper map in his hand. Only the eastern half of the island is printed. Half the island is missing.
   Now why, he thinks, would they print a map of only half the island?
   That would be stupid. Unless, unless, unless you wanted to keep half of it secret.
   He knows he's on to something.
   And he knows his journalist's mind is working well, when he immediately makes another connection.
   The path, up the hill, last night.
   It was a path that went nowhere, or at least, seemed to.
   The path was somewhere off Crossway. He turns his bike, and begins to pedal.

Nine
------------He is half way up the short but ridiculously steep hill when he stops, for two reasons. First, the slope is just too steep to cycle up, even standing on the pedals in lowest gear. His thighs scream at him to stop, but there's something else. The exertion on the bike makes him think about the cycling he had done so far that day.
   He remembers free-wheeling all the way to the quay. And then he remembers coming back again, but he can't remember cycling very hard to do so. In fact, he's pretty sure he free-wheeled much of the way back. If not all the way. He thinks about all the other places he's been to and now that he comes to think of it, he cannot remember actually having to push the pedals at all, anywhere, not until he came to this ludicrous hill. It doesn't make sense, and for a second he wonders if this is all some extended dream.
   The only other possibility is that the bike is possessed.
   He looks down at it, then shakes his head.
   "Well, well," he says, giving up trying to understand. "So it is."
   Bending his head low he pushes the bike to the top of the hill, near to the point where he'd scrambled up to the outcrop the night before. He leans his bike by the rock, and starts to explore. The path, such as it is, seems to stop right by the bush.
   It is a dense thicket, shrubs and trees, and low ground coverage. He tries to lift a branch and force his way in, but it is hard work going.
   The branches push back at him with thorny spines, and he thinks that even a barbed wire fence would be easier to deal with. A branch whips him in the face and he's angry. Putting his head down, heedless of the pain, he shoves through the bushes.
   He lands on his hands and knees, in a tiny clearer space.
   There is a face looking at him, right in front of his nose. Only it's not a face. He's looking at a rock, upon which is painted two blue dots, each surrounded by a white circle, like eyes. Now he looks more closely, he sees that the dots are painted on either side of a protrusion of the rock, making it look like a primitive creature of stone, a lizard or a dragon, with an eye facing each way.
   His gaze drifts into the woodland, and he almost jumps when, a little way off, he sees another of the rock faces, with just one eye this time, looking sideways.
   He hears voices, and freezes.
   Looking back through the undergrowth, he can make out figures standing by the bike. Two or three people. He cannot make out what they're saying; they speak quietly, but then he sees their legs moving from the path to his lookout point, up on the outcrop.
   He decides that he doesn't want to get caught here, and taking his chances, pushes his way quickly back, which, it turns out, is easier than forcing his way in.
   Glancing to his left, he grabs the bike, and he's free-wheeling fast before they have a chance to return to the path.
   At the bottom of the hill, he turns right and finds himself outside the Cross House.
   He looks at his watch, and it's late, but he decides he's too tired to care about offending Honeydew.
   He leans his bike at the gate, and walks up the path. It's another hot evening and the windows are open. He about to knock on the door when he hears voices coming from inside. Raised voices.
   He hesitates, then slips round the side of the house, on a veranda that runs round the corner.
   He stands by the kitchen window, trying not to look as if he's spying, in case anyone sees him.
   He hears Honeydew's voice, and another that he thinks is Lalna. There are female voices too. Kim and Minty presumably. And is that Xevphera?
   Yes, He's sure of it.
   "We will do everything as we always do."
   That's Honeydew. The man he thinks is Lalna speaks next.
   "But will it do any good? We have tried for so long!"
   "We will do everything as we always do," Honeydew repeats. He sounds angry. "We will do as our ancestors did."
   There is a confusion of voices then, everyone talking at once.
   Then Xevphera says, "I agree with Lalna. We ought to try something different."
   A pause. Then Honeydew again, more softly.
   "Xevphera, my child. You are speaking of things you do not understand. You are our treasure. You are the youngest of us, and for that alone, we treasure you and respect you. But you do not know all there is to know."
   The youngest of us?
   Xephos remembers that he's seen no children on the island. Not one. And Xevphera, a young woman, certainly is the youngest person he has seen since his arrival.
   "You do not know anything!" Honeydew repeats.
   "And you do?"
   He can hear Xevphera's sudden defiance, and he can feel the terrible rage that springs into Honeydew right there and then.
   "Enough! I have spoken. I am the Ward of Blessed Island, and I have spoken. You all have your duties. See that you do them, and do them well. Now go!"
   Again a babble of voices, and then Honeydew must have beaten the table of the floor, for there is a loud bang, and silence is restored.
   Honeydew's voice comes again, but so deep and so low that Xephos cannot decipher his words.
   He's had enough, and walks quickly round to the front of the house, he knocks, and without waiting to be invited, opens the door and walks in.
   He almost bumps into Xevphera, who is in he hallway.
   She opens her mouth in surprise, but before she can speak, Honeydew appears in the doorway.
   "Do you usually enter people's houses without being invited, Mr Seven?"
   His voice is steady and firm, there is none of the anger Xephos has just heard.
   "I . . . No, I . . ." he stops, tried again. "I heard raised voices. I came to see that everything is all right."
   Honeydew pauses.
   "That is thoughtful of you, but we are quite well."
   "You have been so kind to me," Xephos says, smoothly. "It was the least I could do."
   "But I think you are mistaken," Honeydew says. "Quite well. You are well, Xevphera, are you not?"
   Xevphera nods. Without a trace of worry or fear she smiles at Honeydew.
   "Yes, very well, Ward. Very well."
   "So there. You see. There is nothing to concern yourself over. Xevphera, you had better got on home."
   Without another word, without looking at either of them, Xevphera leaves, slipping through the front door and closing it behind her. Xephos watches her disappear through the doorway, noticing her height. She is tall, he hadn't noticed that before.
   "Now, Xephos. How is your article coming along? You've had a long day."
   Xephos is caught, not knowing what to do. Having stormed to Xevphera's rescue, he now finds himself being offered another cup of tea by the enemy.
   He follows Honeydew into the living room, and vaguely notices that the others have melted away into the evening. He sees the comfortable old sofa, and suddenly feels very tired again.
   "Tea?" asks Honeydew.
   Xephos looks at Honeydew.
   "Yes, please."
   "Milk?"
   "Oh, no, thanks," says Xephos. "You were right, it's much better without."
   Honeydew nods, and backs off into the kitchen.
   "I'm so glad you agree," he says.
   When he comes back, he watches quietly as Xephos drinks the tea. Tiredness washes over him, but somehow the bitter taste of the tea makes it a pleasurable feeling.
   All he has to do, all he has to do now, he thinks, is make the short journey home, and then he can sleep.

Ten
------------Xephos sleeps late.
   It's the curtains, the blinds, he tells himself.
   "Nothing to wake me up," he says.
   He decides to set an alarm for the next morning, not remembering his device is dead, nor that his charger is missing.
   He showers, for a long time, then goes downstairs to eat another huge and delicious breakfast. At the back of his mind is a vague thought, a mere feeling, like an itch that wants to be scratched. But it's so faint and he's soon able to ignore it. There are firm fresh raspberries in a bowl on the table. He takes a mouthful, then a few mouthfuls more, until the whole bowl is finished.
   He sits back, and sighs happily.
   Only then does he see a short handwritten note leaning against a vase of flowers in the centre of the table.
   It's a lovely day for a swim. The south pier is the best.
   He picks the note up, slowly.
   "So it is!" He says.
   After breakfast he rolls up a towel from the bathroom and sets off, to the south.
   As far as he can remember, he hasn't been to the far south of the island yet, and it doesn't even occur to him why he can't remember if he has or not. Nor does he realise that he has lost track of time, though he only arrived a few days ago.
   Homeway twists and turns past more colourful houses, until he reaches a junction, where a tiny wooden sign points the way to the pier. He follows this smaller path for a few minutes more, and then he sees the sea in front of him.
   It's beautiful. It's so beautiful, it takes his breathe away. It's not spectacular, it's not jaw-dropping, it's simply a lovely sight, that makes the heart glad that such places exist. The greys and browns of the rocks, the trees and the wild grass, the sea, waiting for him, and only for him; the place is utterly deserted, he can see neither people nor houses.
   He goes down to the pier and, taking his shoes off, sits with his feet in the water for a while, then undresses and slides into the water, swimming far out away from the jetty.
   He turns and looks at the island, and feels that little itch at the back of his head again. He swims closer to the pier, ducking under water for long spells.
   Suddenly, as he surfaces, someone is there in the water with him, an arm's length away.
   All he sees at first is a splash as they dive in, but moments later, a head and shoulders break the surface in a tumble of water.
   It's Xevphera. Her blonde, wet hair is drawn back, and down her neck.
   Neither of them say anything, and as Xephos treads water, Xevphera edges closer.
   There's that gentle intense look on her face again, that's something he does remember, something that is pushing through the clouds in his mind.
   She reaches out a hand, treading water, and their fingertips meet.
   She whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the shushing of the waves.
   "I followed you."
   Xephos hesitates for a moment, wondering, but then he's laughing, and Xevphera is too.
   "You."
   They swim together, far out to sea.
   They duck under the surface, twisting and turning hand in hand where they can, and gliding through the deep, Xephos' lips brush her neck, just once. Finally, they come up for air. And when they do, they do so laughing.
   "This is ridiculous!" Shouts Xephos, and Xevphera shrugs, and smiles, as if to say, so what?
   Xephos tries again.
   "Have we done this before?" he calls.
   Xevphera is a few strokes away. He pulls his way over to her, and tries again.
   "Have we done this before?"
   Xevphera shrugs again.
   "I feel like we've done this before," he says, intently. "But a long time ago. A very long time ago."
   She's gone, under the water again.
   Xephos thinks about his life, something he usually avoids, because it has not always been an easy one. He wonders if a few moments of utter and total joy can be worth a lifetime of struggle.
   Maybe, he thinks. Maybe, if they're the right moments. They swim some more, and finally, exhausted, climb onto the rocks to dry in the warm sun.
   Xephos turns and holds Xevphera's hands. He looks at his hands, a little older than hers. He looks at her younger ones. What if it were the other way round? What if his were the younger hands? Would it matter?
   He asks himself why this hand, is his hand. Could it have been someone else's? And why is that her hand? Does it matter? And what if she were different? No, he thinks, as these strange and somehow foolish questions roll around in his head. No, it wouldn't matter. Even if she were different, she would still be she.
   "This is ridiculous," he says again, and she sits up, and gently takes his head between her hands.
   "Why?" she says. "Why is it? Why is it any more ridiculous than a thousand things? That the earth spins round the sun, that water can eat a mountain away, that a salmon can swim a thousand miles across the ocean to find the very stream it was born in. It's not ridiculous. It's just . . . how it is."
   Suddenly, she fumbles in her clothes, spread on the rocks, and finds a watch.
   "I have to go."
   "But, stay . . ."
   "I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head.
   She will not be persuaded otherwise, and Xephos watches her clothe her naked skin and then, like a dream that drifts out of reach when waking, she is gone.
   He dozed on the rocks, the sense of Xevphera around and inside him, seeing her slender limbs, smelling the salt in her hair, imagining that the warmth of the sunshine is her hands on his skin. He realises that for the first time in a very long time, his heart is beating slow and calmly. Peacefully.

------------He wakes some time later, with that itch once more.
   Something starts to rise to the top of his mind.
   He walks home, trying to get a hold of it, whatever it is. He's sure that it's something he's supposed to be doing.
   As he enters the house, he thinks he hears the back door, the kitchen door, shut.
   He shrugs.
   Maybe just the door slamming in the wind, though he doesn't get as far as noticing that there is no wind.
   He hangs the towel over the balustrade to dry in the sun, and comes back into the kitchen, where he sees that someone has left him a jar of that tea, ad he decides the best thing to do is have a drink, to think about whatever it is he's supposed to be thinking about.
   He brews the tea, not really noticing that it has a slightly different taste, that it has become a little stronger.
   And so he drinks, and the forgetting begins again.

Eleven
------------The days pass.
   The island is so beautiful, Xephos thinks. every day as he wakes up, and every night as he goes to sleep. He's had Honeydew bring him some more of that tea in a tall glass jar, and he's quite proud of the little ritual he has created for himself every evening.

------------
The days pass.
   The sun burns strongly, the summer is young and fresh, the leaves and the grass bright, and vivid.
   Xephos passes his time walking round the island. He nods at people he's getting to know, and smiles. From time to time he snoops and sniffs at a flower in this garden or that.
   Xevphera comes to see him sometimes, and he is just as happy to see anyone else as her. There was something about her, that's all. That's how the thought forms in his head. There was something about her. But it doesn't matter. Not really. She seems a little distracted frustrated at times, and Xephos starts to wonder what the cause might be, but he decides that that doesn't matter either. She ought to be like everyone else on the island. Sometimes she seems to look at him almost accusingly, but he can't fathom why, or what he might have done. He hasn't got the energy, his mind is too slow, and he soon gives up worrying about it.
   The people are smiling and beautiful, and Xephos feels happy and beautiful too.

------------
His only other visitor during that time is not a person.
   One morning he finds a cat sitting in the middle of the path to his door. He looks closely and realises that its not a cat but a fox, long and lean. It's sitting side on to him, but is clearly watching him. Waiting.
   He moves forward, expecting it to startle and bolt, but it does not. Puzzled, he makes a jump at it. It still stays exactly where it is. He is about to go right up to it, but something about its stare is unnerving, and in the end it is Xephos who gives way to the fox, circling around it to go for a walk.
   When he comes home that afternoon, the fox has gone.

------------
The days pass.
   One day melts into the next, the endless sun smoothing the journey round the calendar into one long chorus of joy. Of beauty, of joy, and of forgetting. Always forgetting.
   The days pass.

Twelve
------------
It is the middle of what should be the night, when Xephos suddenly wakes up, dreaming he is drowning.
   He throws himself upright and out of bed, and cannot understand why there is actually liquid in his mouth. He falls onto the floor, choking, spluttering, retching some water that he has sucked into his windpipe.
   The bedroom door is ajar. Does he hear, or does he imagine footsteps on the wooden staircase? He stumbles downstairs and finds the front door wide open, but there is no one there. He scans up and down the lane, and across the meadows. But there is no one there.
   Warily, and still spluttering, he shuts the door, and makes his way back to bed.
   His blinds are drawn, ad as he switches on the light in his bedroom, he sees a piece of paper on the floor, right in the middle of the rug by his bed.
   It is a little damp from his choking, but the words on the paper are clear enough.
   Wake up and remember. You were right. The answer lies beyond the hill.
   He looks at it blankly, and shakes his head.
   "Well, so it is," he says.
   He stares at the note for a long time, trying to think that to do, trying to think. He's so tired, though, so tired, and another wave of lethargy sweeps into him.
   He gets back into bed, deciding the only thing is to forget all about it, and switching off the light, he shuts his eyes.
   About five seconds later, the liquid that has made its way into his stomach gets to work, and then he's out of bed again.
   He doesn't have time to get to the bathroom before he is violently and repeatedly sick on the floor.
   His body heaves and shudders, aches and wails, and when it is over, he crawls back into bed, where he spends a grim night, half awake, half dreaming.
   Is it this living nightmare, or is it whatever he was forced to drink in his sleep, that triggers a flood of memories, memories from long ago, of other nightmares?
   Nightmares that terrified not just him, but his devout and strict parents too. Blood-soaked dreams that came night after night as a teenager, dreams that upon waking seem more real than the drab surroundings of his mundane room, his grey house, his ever more distant mother and father. His life.
   Blood-soaked nightmares. Of another time. Of another place. Another life.

Thirteen
------------

It is the middle of the day when Xephos finally feels he has enough energy to stagger from his bed, but when he does, something has cleared in his head. He has a long hot shower, trying to think, think more clearly.
Automatically, his hand reaches for the shower controls. He turns the power up, and reaches for the temperature control, and slowly, fighting the urge not to, he takes the temperature down, and down and down, until he is showering in what feels like ice water. It's agony, but he forces himself on, until his whole body is shaking with the cold, then heaving in great spasmodic shudders. He looks at his hands. They are virtually blue.
He falls backwards out of the shower, and shaking on the bathroom floor, everything comes back to him.
Images swim through his head - they are the broken pieces of fractured memories; the journey to Blessed, the flowers, his device. Xevphera.
He lies for an age on the floor, holding a picture of her face in his mind. Xevphera.
The answer lies beyond the hill.
He looks out of the window. It's very quiet, he guesses it's a Sunday, though he's not sure anymore.
This is the perfect time. In five minutes, he is whizzing fast on his bike, fully aware that he is having to pedal hard, as he makes his way up the steep, steep hell that he knows leads to the western half of the island.
As he cycles, he repeats her name in his head, using it as a mantra to keep his mind clear. Xevphera, Xevphera, Xevphera.
At the top, he takes time to look behind him, checking to see if he has been followed, and satisfied that he has not been, forces him way back through the undergrowth, looking for the eyes on the rocks.
He finds the first quickly, and crawls on hands and knees to the second and then the third.
By the time he gets to the fourth pair of eyes, he is able to stand, and at the sixth, he is in open country again.
The land slopes down in front of him, a mixed terrain of grasses, rocky patches, clumps of purple heather, and marsh. He follows the eyes, and very soon, he turns a corner, cresting a large outcrop, and there lies the narrow causeway that will take him to the western half of Blessed.
Again he glances behind, and seeing no one, hurries on, half running, half stumbling over the uneven ground.
The causeway could be man-made. He's not sure. It looks natural enough now, but it's not much more than a jumble of large boulders and smaller rocks, against which a small beach of sand has formed. It seems that there are really two islands here, the one severed from the other in some geological moment millions of years ago.
The distance between them is short, and in a dozen strides he's across and into a very different landscape.
There are no trees here.
He follows the eyes on the rocks, a series leading him on, painted who knows how many years ago, and within moments he discovers the first secret of the western half of Blessed.
He sees just one at first, then a couple. He stumbles on and sees a dozen more, and then, turning a corner in the rocks, hundreds. Thousands.
He knows it must be the Little Blessed Dragon Orchid. It is as mysterious as its name. A tall stem, with odd, curly star-shaped leaves clinging to it, and the flower itself, a dark purple-black thing, weirdly contorted. He looks closely, and can indeed imagine that it is a dragons head; there are even little bumps on the upper petal that look like horns, and a long black tongue protrudes from the mouth of the upper and lower petals, like that of a dragon, black with poison and evil.
He goes to pick one, but something stays his hand. Even the scent of the flowers makes his senses swim, and he stands up, deciding to move on.
The ground dips and rises again, and the eyes pick up once more. It seems obvious to follow them, and after a short scramble along the rocks, he sees something that takes his breath away.
There is a church in front of him.
It's like no church he's ever seen, but he knows it can't be anything else.
It is wooden, of a single, high storey, with a pitched roof, which he is looking at side on. He is open-mouthed as he makes his way around the building, where a small tower of portico frames the entrance.
The place is in ruin, he can see that, and has obviously not been used for years.
Like a traveller from another time, he staggers towards the waiting, gaping mouth of the building, and enters.
It feels like walking into the jaws of a huge wooden whale, and, if it is, he is swallowed whole by the beast.
The building itself is just a prelude.
What he sees next is the real surprise.
Where the altar should be, there is something massive, hidden.
A large cloth is draping something, hiding a long rectangular shape, which stands upright in the vast space of this temple.
He walks forward, feeling this is more unreal than any dream he has ever had. As he puts his hands out to the corner of the old, grey, tattered cloth, and pulls it away from whatever is underneath, it is as if he is hovering above himself, looking down, watching himself act.
What is underneath the cloth is a painting.
It is absolutely huge.
Dazed, Xephos steps backwards again, trying to take it all in.
What he sees is a painting of such realistic horror, and yet at the same time such dreamlike variety, that his mind cannot comprehend it all at once.
There is a click on stone somewhere behind him, and he turns.
Honeydew stands in the doorway. Behind him Xephos can see the other Wards.
Honeydew approaches, and immediately, Xephos knows the game has changed.
"It is appropriate," Honeydew says, "that you should have seen it. You should know why the gods brought you here, to help us."
He turns to his followers, and calls out instructions.
"Cover that up. And take him. The door, please!"
Suddenly the interior of the church fills with people through unseen doors on either side of Xephos.
While hands wrestle with the job of hiding the painting under the cloth once more, other hands close around Xephos' wrists.
He tries to struggle, but there is no point. There are too many of them, even if he could wrestle free from their grasp for a moment, more hands would seize him.
The most frightening thing is their silence.
Their eyes do not even meet his, they just hold him firmly, three or four on either side.
"The door!" Honeydew cries again, and now real fear stabs Xephos.
He has been taken beyond the painting-alter, and beyond, in the far wall of the church, another door is swung open.
Framed through the doorway, he can see the short distance to the sea, which burns brightly blue, but his eye is caught by what lies between the door and the sea.
It is a stone table.
Now he begins to struggle, quietly at first, then desperately.
Sheer fear surges from his stomach, into his mouth, making him want to be sick. He fights harder, but the more he struggles, the tighter the silent hands hold him.
He is steps from the stone table, and there is Honeydew at his side, as he is pulled backwards towards it, kicking and now screaming, screaming.
They rip his shirt from his back, cast him onto the table, still pinning him fiercely. The stone rips into his skin, the sun almost blinds him, but his wide terror-staring eyes have time to see Honeydew draw a massive curved knife from somewhere.
He hands it to Lalna, who steps forward.
In another corner of his tunnelling vision, he sees a face he knows. A face he has known for always.
Xevphera looks down at him, tilting her head.
She whispers to him.
I followed you.
Xephos screams, and though his mind has largely stopped working already, a final thought bleeds into it, following on from so very many strange thoughts.
I, Xephos Seven, have lived this before.