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Earendil laughed and picked up Senka, setting the cat on his shoulder so that she could see above the rail. "Just ahead there," he grinned, pointing. "See? It's not much right now, but we'll be closer by ..." He looked to Leyenda to see when they would be closer. He knew his distances, sure, but as for the speed of the ship ... well, that was a variable that he couldn't account for.

Leyenda grinned at him. "Give it a few hours, it will become clearer," she told him. "Galleons don't move as fast as caravels, especially in natural wind, so it will be a while."

She looked towards the island again. "Still," she murmured wistfully, "it sure is nice to see land again."

But as the hours slowly passed and the island grew nearer, Roydon's uneasiness only grew. The island was not green, as it should have been, but everything ... the ground, the plants, everything in sight ... was black. There was no movement, but that didn't make him feel any better about it.

He consulted with Arwen and Earendil and a few of the crew members, and when they had finished discussing, the news was grim.

"Everyone," Roydon said after having gathered everyone together on deck, "I am truly sorry ... but it appears that we will not be going ashore on this island. We are only a few miles off now, and we can see much of it form here ... and what we see is not good."

He motioned towards the island, which was clearly visible in the afternoon sky just to the starboard side of the ship.

"We can't tell if it's dead, destroyed, or still inhabited by demons," he said grimly, "but we will not be setting foot there. We will sail around it for now, weigh anchor for the night, and in the morning, we will see what course to follow."

Roydon nodded, hearing Lin's comment. "It is," he said softly. "And it's not worth the risk to check it out. So unfortunately, this is all the news that we can give Rigel."

He turned and looked back at the island, then called out orders for them to sail around it, giving it a berth of one league.

Roydon nodded. "When I asked him for the coordinates, he said he would tell me only on the condition that I tell him what the island is like now," he said softly. "He said that once it was a paradise, a true paradise ... more beautiful than the most beautiful place in the Four Lands ..."

He shook his head sadly. "No one knew where the demons had come from, but they multiplied and massacred everyone ... even the land ..."

He looked at the island again. "He just wanted to know if it had been purged yet."

"You mean uninhabitable," Roydon corrected Lin gently. "No one could live there now. I wouldn't call those plants alive ... if anything, they're infected with the evil of the creatures that live there ... or lived there, if indeed they have died off. Which I doubt."

He smiled faintly at Lin. "Evil is so hard to get rid of completely."

"We'll ask Earendil what he thinks," Roydon told her, looking back at her. "He's been studying the currents as we've been going, he might be able to project the approximate direction, if not location, of another island. Everything is connected. The wind, the currents ... and if we pay attention to everything, we may be able to find what it is we're looking for."

He smiled warmly at her. "Don't worry. We won't get lost or run out of food. After all, there's an endless supply in the ocean itself, if it comes down to that."

Roydon smiled. "If all else fails, there is always Rhea," he winked. "She has Aragost's gift, and Aragost has been to other lands ... so it stands to reason that Rhea, having spent a lot of time around him - growing up around him, really - would have gleaned a bit of insight in that matter. At least," he amended, "that's what she claims. Though I know the currents are also indicators."