The second eldest wizard brother, the Isle of Desires itself, was projecting its human avatar on the island's surface. Appearing as a distinguished middle-aged man, he smiled as his latest batch of victims descended the gangplank of their cruise ship. He kept smiling as the cruise ship departed, vanished through a sudden thick curtain of fog, and then faded into nothing, leaving the tourists stranded, though they wouldn't realize it just yet.
His smile only faltered when one of the tourists approached him. A short man in a rumpled tan raincoat with disheveled dark hair, looking like the human equivalent of an unmade bed and walking an ancient basset hound on a leash.
"Sir?" he called as he approached. "Sir? Excuse me, sir? Are you in charge here?"
"I suppose you could say that."
"Is there a store or something on this island? It's just that my wife, Mrs. Columbo, she... Would ya look at that?" The man had turned his head mid-sentence to look out at the purple sky and purple water. "I never seen anything like that before. Does it always look so purple? That's beautiful, sir. Just beautiful. Say, where are we, anyway?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Where are we?" the man in the rumpled raincoat said, one eye squinting while the other remained wide and unblinking. "What's the name of this island? What's it by? I've been lookin' up and down every map I can find, and I just can't seem to figure it out."
"The island has no name, and it's not on any map."
"But why is that, sir? It's not exactly a small island. It must be about three times the size of Japan."
The basset hound started sniffing the other man's shoes and legs. He pulled back as the disheveled man gently pulled back on the animal's leash.
"I'm Lieutenant Columbo, by the way."
He held out his hand. The other man briefly hesitated before giving him a quick, cold handshake.
"You can call me Mr. Lust."
"And this is Dog."
"I can see that that's a dog," Mr. Lust said drily, looking down at the animal and rolling his eyes.
"We just call him 'Dog.' Me and Mrs. Columbo, that is. We call him Dog, 'cause that's what he is. Oh, yeah! Mrs. Columbo. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. You see... Do you mind if I smoke, sir?"
Columbo had fished a cheap cigar out of one of the deep pockets of his raincoat and was waving it around questioningly.
"Go right ahead. This is paradise, after all."
"Thank you, sir."
Columbo took his time searching his pockets for matches, chomping down on the cigar and lighting it, then puffing on it a few times to get it started.
"So, my wife, Mrs. Columbo. She's been feeling seasick ever since the boat ride over. Won't leave the hotel room. Told me to go ahead without her. I was just wondering if you could point me to a pharmacy where I could pick her up a pill or a powder or something?"
"This island has everything you could desire," Mr. Lust said. "If only you care to look for it."
"Yeah, but do you think you could give me some directions or draw me a map or something, sir?"
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