by Ember Lane
The wizard peered through a gap in the barn door’s slatted wood. “I count six, could be more. But there are horses in there too. They look terrified.”
“Then we gotta,” Merl said, nodding furiously to buoy his courage.
“Yeah, we gotta.” Frank looked around and hollered, “Billy, there’s a brand-new scythe in there, just half a dozen zombays to get through.”
Billy darted out. “Open it up!”
Frank flipped the locking bar off and the three of them stepped back. They each had their weapons primed. Each had the look of a seasoned zombay hunter, and each nodded knowingly as the zombays pushed the great, creaking barn doors open, and a waft of terrible stench drifted from the barn.
The zombays burst out. Merl let out an involuntary scream, startled by the speed and ferocity of their attack. He stepped sideways, narrowly avoiding a lurching bugger, and just managed to chop its belly and empty its foul guts. The zombay’s rage scattered his bravery. He looked to Frank to steel his resolve.
Frank was on the defensive. He had clearly been surprised by the zombay attack too. He chopped and fended the lurching buggers off, then stepped back some more. Billy cursed his puny sword and wrestled the zombays away before stabbing out at them. Desmelda’s screamed spell sent shivers down Merl’s spine, but almost immediately, a whole bunch of tangling thorns burst from the earth and wrapped around the putrid zombays’ legs. Frank, Merl and Billy slid away from the cart and stared in ill-concealed admiration as the witch’s spell held the undead beasts at bay.
“That’s some spell, witchy witch,” Billy crowed, advancing on the closest zombay to him and chopping its noggin off with a swift elfen-sword stroke.
“Timely too,” Frank agreed, holding Scaramanza high and readying the magnificent sword to add to its deadly toll.
The zombay heads exploded like rotten pumpkins as they fell to the ground. They sprayed their foul brains around in a stench so vile that all four started gagging.
“Looks like the level of their rage gets worse tha’ farther they rot.” Merl was using his usual technique of grab, yank, and slit, at least until he grabbed and the top of the zombay’s head came off in his hand. He yelped as a dome of throbbing black brain presented itself to him. “That’s bloody gross,” he spat, taking a step back and bringing his cleaver to bear.
Before long, all the dread things had been dispatched, and Billy rushed into the barn, soon emerging with a shining scythe. “Nice find, Frank.”
Merl couldn’t be sure, but he thought Frank was more surprised than Billy was chuffed and began to doubt whether Frank had actually seen the scythe. “Right,” the wizard said, turning to Desmelda. “Next set of zombays, you do the thorny thing before we rush in. How long does it last?”
Desmelda pushed herself up onto the cart and plucked a straw of hay. She sat there, moving it from one side of her mouth to the other.
“Well?” pressed Frank.
“Well,” Desmelda said, pointing the straw at him like a magic wand. “Well, Wizard of Quintz, it costs me fifteen elixir and each elixir lasts half of one turn, so you tell me.”
“What’s a turn?” Billy asked.
“Four hundred and fifty taps, or seven turns and thirty taps,” Frank replied, somewhat smugly.
Desmelda cocked her head. “Seven turns and thirty taps. Perhaps you are a wizard after all.”
“What’s a tap?” Billy asked.
Merl thought something had passed between Frank and Desmelda but was unsure quite what. Whatever it was, the witchy witch from Falling Glen had probably saved them again.
“It’s a measure of time,” Frank explained. “A tap is the amount of time it takes you to lift yer foot up and slam it back down again. Sixty of them is the length of a turn, and sixty turns is a thing called a phase. Apparently, there are twelve phases in an essgeedee, which is gobbledygook for a daytime, but we don’t need that because morning, noon, afternoon, and dusk do it just as good and sound a whole lot better.”
“And night don’t matter because you’re a’kippin’” Billy added, but Frank gave him a look, and that look was quickly snuffed out as if Frank was ashamed of it. Merl decided Frank definitely didn’t want the world to see that Frank feared some nights, and he wasn’t surprised by that. He swapped glances with Desmelda, and knew she’d seen it too. Merl was in no doubt that taps, turns, and phases had meant an awful lot to some of Frank’s nights, and that those nights had been very long indeed.
As Frank always did, though, he recovered in the blink of an eye and strode toward the farmstead. He pulled on its wooden handle, and then skipped back a few steps. As he did, he drew Scaramanza up and readied himself to kill anything and everything. Merl dashed to his side, and Billy flanked the other.
Desmelda ambled over. “I think it’s empty,” she said, separating them and waltzing past.
“How would you know?” Billy said. His words sounded like a rist hinge opening. “We’re the zombay hunters.”
Desmelda turned, a delightful smile gracing her ruby lips. “No groaning.”
The farmstead was thankfully unaffected by the zombay plague. No blood stained its planked wood floor. No slivers of ripped flesh had been splattered against its wattle and daub walls, and no guts lay on its grand dining table. Like the farm’s fields, it merely looked like time had stopped at some point during a normal day. It had a small stove, and best of all, a tin bath raised upon a brick warming hearth.
“This,” Desmelda purred, “will do for the night. “Frank, you make sure upstairs is clear. Billy, go harvest some wheat with that scythe of yours and feed them starving horses. Merl, fill the bath up with well-water.”
All three of them stood dead still, staring at her. Merl wondered when she’d become the leader.
“Look,” she said. “Have any of the three of you ever run a house before?”
One by one, they shook their heads.
“Well, I ran my cottage, and before that—” She hesitated. “Before that, never mind. Chores, a house works on chores, and that’s what’ll give us a nice warm bath, beds to sleep in, and fresh horses to carry us tomorrow.”
Merl scooted to the well, while Billy hopped to it and raced to the fields. Frank darted upstairs, and Desmelda lit a fire in the hearth and one under the bath. Before long, Merl, Frank, and Billy were all waiting for their turn in the bath. While they waited, they sat around the table and Frank explained time.
“It’s like this, time is important.”
“Why?” Billy asked. “What does it matter? As long as afternoon follows mornin’, I know where I am, like.”
“Because it does matter. Well, no offence, Billy, but it probably doesn’t matter to you. But it does matter to Merl.”
“Didn’t think it mattered to me,” Billy said, all chuffed, and he sat back and began picking at his nose. “Don’t need to know the time to bash someone’s head in, do you?”
“Why’s it important to me?” Merl asked.
“Because, if you’re going to learn magic, you need to know how long things take. So, how long’s a tap?”
Merl furrowed his brow. “Can’t see as it matters, but as long as it takes to tap your foot. Daft, if you ask me.”
Frank glanced over at Desmelda, but immediately turned away and blushed.
Desmelda laughed a little, like she enjoyed Frank’s discomfort. “Put it like this, Billy, Merl,” she called from the bath. “Billy kills a chicken, plucks it, guts it, and drops it in the pot. He asks me, ‘How long ‘till it’s ready—perfect, like—fer me ta’ gobble up?’”
Merl burst out laughing. “That’s Billy, that is. That’s exactly how Billy chatters.”
Billy didn’t look too happy but asked anyway. “How long, then?”
“It would take three phases to boil good and soft, Billy. So, you know there’s twelve phases in a day. Half of that is six, and half again is three. So, the chicken takes up most of the afternoon.”
“Why don’t you just say that, then?”
Billy asked.
Desmelda scratched her head and got back to her bathing. “Not rightly sure. Carry on, Frank.”
“When you’re casting spells and mixin’ potions, time matters. Sometimes you gotta tap thirty times while you stir a brew, and sometimes you gotta tap twenty times while you chant a mantra, that’s why.”
“Then I’ll be no good at magic. I can only count up to twentyteen, and that was all my dad taught me.”
“That’s where we’ll start, then,” Frank said.
“But not tonight, Merl.” Desmelda got out of the bath and wrapped herself in a blanket. “Tonight we’ll eat, drink some wine, and Frank can tell us all about Quintz while we warm ourselves by the hearth.”
And that sounded mighty fine to Merl.
12
Merl knew a few things about Quintz. He knew it was huge, yet small as an ant’s toe. He knew it was hidden in a grassy vale, and at the head of that vale, two giant stone birds stood eternal guard. Also, the river ran red to herald summer’s arrival, and that Arthur14579 was its creator. But the most curious thing that Frank had told them about was the Vision Pool.
Merl was still mulling over that as they trundled through the countryside bound for the seaside town they’d seen from the top of the escarpment. They’d stolen a cart and three horses from the farm. Desmelda and Frank rode a little way ahead, and Billy and Merl sat on the cart. Billy seemed mighty happy with the reins in his hands, like he’d missed bossing horses about.
“What do you make of it all?” he asked Merl.
Merl mulled over the question, because he’d made very little of anything. It was all too… big… for him to truly understand, and not just the land itself, though that was big enough. No, talk of wizards and wars, of magic and hidden cities, and sailing across a sea. It was too big, too much, and it scrambled his head.
“Befuddled,” he told Billy after a long pause. “The whole thing confuses me. I wish I didn’t see the numbers, and I wish I was back in Morgan Mount with you, my dad, and the sheep.”
Billy nodded. “I can see that, but look at it this way, if you had stayed, like, you’d have ne’er met Frank.”
“But—”
Billy raised his hand. “No buts. You’d have never met Frank, Desmelda. You’d have never met Portius, an’ I know yer sweet on her. You’d have grown into an old’un, an’ that woulda been that fer you. Before ya know it, you’d’a been pushin’ up daisies next to yer pa, and tha world would have fergotton about Merl Sheepherder before the worms had eaten yer eyeballs.”
“Bugger. I’d’a led a shit life, Billy.”
“Zombays saved you. Frank saved you. He saved us, Merl, an’ now we gotta pay him back by doin’ what he says. We gotta ferget everything and fall into the adventure, like we did up at tha’ falls.”
“The falls?” Merl asked the question, but he knew already. “Three Face Mountain,” he whispered. “I used to think they were the biggest falls in the whole land, even bigger than tha ones in my dreams, but lookin’ at all o’this I ain’t so sure no more.”
“But.” Billy shifted around on the cart’s bench. “I’m not talkin’ of all tha times we jumped off it, coz that’s not important. I’m talkin’ ‘bout tha first time.”
Merl thought back, and his memories were as clear as spring water even though Billy was talkin’ about a long time ago. He remembered the clenching fear of him teetering on the rock’s very edge, and the fall, the endless fall. Even now he remembered the first time he’d stared down at it. Billy had cajoled and bullied him, crowing about how many times he’d done it. Merl knew now that those jibes were all big fat lies.
“You pushed me off, yer bugger,” Merl grouched. “The fall must have been half a mountain high, and the lake beneath only looked as big as a bucket. No way would I ‘ave jumped without you pushin me.”
“An’ I’m pushin’ you now, Merl, coz we spent all of summer jumpin’ off that waterfall, an’ it was the best summer of my life.”
Merl flicked Billy a sideways look. He was right, that was the best summer of their lives. “I’m jus’ scared, Billy, scared t’me spine, and not of tha’ zombays, not of the dreadnails, or mad bloody elves or filthy goblins. I’m scared of tha unknown, of all tha shadows.”
Billy stared straight ahead. He hmphed a few times. “But you got Frank and Desmelda to light the way, an’ me to stand by yer side. The lake’ll always catch you, Merl, it’ll always catch you, and if it ain’t there one day, then I’ll save you, or die tryin’, like.”
Later that day—some phase or the other if you were learned, midafternoon if you weren’t—they crested the final slope and looked down upon a coastal town. It spread across a bay like a crab, its claws reaching two mountainous bluffs that stood like erect guards and sheltered its sandy beach. Jetties protruded into the sea on one side, where its water was a deeper blue, and a couple of ships bobbed on the waves, tied to their moorings.
“Them ships?” Billy asked. “Only they look…”
“Burned,” Frank said. “They look strange because they’re burnt out an’ useless. See those poles sticking outta the water a bit farther out? They’re masts—sunken boats. This place is as dead as the farm. We go in quiet. We go in slow. There’ll be more zombays.”
Frank took the lead. Scaramanza saw the light of day, flashing with the afternoon sun. Desmelda dropped behind the cart, ready to cast her heals or weave her magic. Billy nudged the cart horse forward, and they trundled down the hill.
“This is Harrison’s Reach,” Frank called back. “I remember it now. We stopped over here once while trying to flank The Dark Ones.”
“Harrison’s Reach—see, Merl, it’s not unknown anymore. It’s just a big ‘ole town.”
“What’s that?” Merl asked and pointed to the middle of the bay.
Frank pulled his horse to a stop. “Well seduce my ancient footwear, that there’s a giant ship.”
“Sure looks a biggun’,” Billy added.
“No, no,” Frank said quickly. “It’s a ship of the giants. A giant ship sailed by giants. If we could catch a ride on that, we’d be the luckiest folk in the whole damn land.”
“Don’t look particularly hard to be luckier than tha’ rest,” Merl pointed out.
Frank spurred his horse on. Billy flicked the reins. All of a sudden, they appeared to be in a hurry. They raced toward Harrison’s Reach, soon coming to its surrounding stone wall and very open gates. Its watchtower was abandoned. Its battlements were empty. Harrison’s Reach appeared deserted.
“If its dead, then how comes there’s smoke coming up over there?” Merl asked.
“And there’s that groan again…” Desmelda pointed out.
“No flies,” said Billy. “Same as the farm, no flies. Remember the flies in Three Valleys?”
“Eww, gross.” Desmelda retched a little.
“Tells us that the dead guts have been cleared again.” Frank nudged his horse forward. “This place is odd.”
“Perhaps the flies ate all the entrails an’ then died of starvin’,” Billy mused.
The town’s gates told Merl that the zombay fever had hit Harrison’s Reach as hard as any other place they’d traveled through. It was splattered and smeared in crusted, blackened,-crimson blood, and like every Three Valleys, once Merl had seen one speck or one smear, a whole load more appeared and painted the town all gruesome and bloody. It made entering the place even more scary, especially when they crossed its threshold and the daylight was swallowed by overhanging buildings as tall as a wizard’s tower.
Merl had never seen the like of the buildings. They certainly never had any in Three Valleys, let alone Morgan Mount. The second level overshot the first, leaning into the sliver of daylight that mirrored the path of the road. Even without flies and rotting flesh, the place stank like… Merl couldn’t put his finger on it. Like… Not like the country. It smelled of lingering, lingering everything: last night’s food, yesterday’s ale, stale bread and what not. A central open sl
uice ran along the road, and that, Merl guessed, was where the stench began. It was that or the rotting straw that was strewn around like it was worth nothing.
Another curious thing was the number of windows. Nearly every dwelling had several, like they didn’t have to worry about monsters reaching in or bugger bees stinging you while you slept. He instantly decided he didn’t like cities, if indeed Harrison’s Reach was one. Cities were too big, and they smelled like the poo-hole out back of his croft, and that wasn’t a place you’d choose to live in, so why live here?
The road wound down the last stretch of the hill, zigzagging along it until they came to a little square. A pile of charred bodies lay in its middle. Frank jumped off his mount and kicked at the ashes and bones. The square had two roads running in and out. The one they were following ran across the slope and the other went straight down. A temple reared up and took all of one corner up.
“The groaning’s coming from there,” Frank said, pointing.
“Not just there,” Desmelda said. “It’s coming from everywhere.”
Merl scratched at his noggin. “I think someone’s been clearing up. They’ve trapped the zombays and burned the dead ‘uns. Why not jus’ kill ‘em all?”
“Coz somethin’s up,” Frank said. “Somethin’ we’re not seeing or understanding.”
Frank moved toward the temple.
“Hold on!” Desmelda shouted. “You’re not going to…”
“Just a little look,” Frank called back.
Merl and Billy sprang off the cart, readying their weapons as Scaramanza appeared in Frank’s hand. Frank wedged his foot against the temple’s door and inched it opened.
“Now just why are you doin’ that?” a voice boomed across the square.
Merl froze. Billy froze. Frank let the latch drop and whipped around, holding Scaramanza across his body and ready. Desmelda’s jaw was gaping wide.
A giant stepped into the square. Merl gasped and shook at the same time. The giant was as tall as the buildings either side of him. He had scruffy blond hair that cascaded to his shoulders, and a big face, a hearty face that looked like it had been beaten by a gusting wind ever since time began. Merl shuddered as the giant’s intense gaze fell on him.