CHAPTER 24
OVER THE CLIFFS
We stood in the clearing a moment longer, Warvold with his arm around me, Murphy jittering on his shoulder. Warvold had a troubled look in his eye and I could guess that our rest would be short-lived.
“We must move quickly. I’m afraid our work has only just begun.”
Armon picked up Catherine again and we raced around the wall, hip deep in the lake. On the other side we found Balmoral, who Warvold also seemed to know.
“So nice to see you, Balmoral,” Warvold said. “You look as though you’ve had a mighty good evening.”
“That I have, sir, made all the better by the sight of you and Catherine.”
“Balmoral, if I might ask a favor, could you bring the longest and strongest rope you can find to the cliffs right away? We’ll meet you there and make our departure. Oh, and find John. He’ll be coming along with us.”
We all looked at Warvold hesitantly, unsure how to proceed. It was an awkward moment, and then Catherine spoke the words that nobody else would say.
“He’s dead, isn’t he? He died trying to save us.”
Nobody could find the right response; we all just looked at Catherine and Warvold and nodded our heads. But then Balmoral stepped forward.
“No, ma’am. That’s not exactly right. He died trying to save more than the two of you alone. He died trying to save Castalia. And by the looks of that tower, he’s done it.”
Balmoral paused a moment, then continued. “I’m afraid Grindall has taken Mr. Yipes as well, and we don’t know whether he’s alive or dead.”
“He’s alive,” I said. “Grindall told me he would keep him alive if I brought the last stone to Bridewell in three days.”
Warvold was always composed and calm as a leader, but my statement alarmed him.
“We must move quickly,” he said. “More than our little friend is in danger. If Grindall means to take Bridewell, the walls that remain around it won’t be enough to hold him back.”
“There’s one thing more I should tell you,” I said.
Warvold raised one eyebrow, listening carefully.
“Grindall said something about Ganesh working for him.”
“That comes as no surprise,” said Warvold.
“Yes, but after that, after he’d told about Ganesh, he said something that made me think there might be someone else working for him. Someone in or around Bridewell.”
Warvold furrowed his brow and seemed to think this over while the soft wind blew his white hair back and forth.
“The thought had occurred to me,” he said. “But I can’t imagine who it might be. We’ll have to be careful about who we trust in the days to come.”
Warvold looked at Balmoral as if to say, Shouldn’t you be going?
Balmoral stood a moment more and then all at once he seemed to remember what he was supposed to be doing.
“I’ll be getting those ropes for you now,” he said and then turned and ran away.
The rest of us walked quickly along the edge of the broken tower and spoke briefly to a few of the Castalians.
As we moved along Warvold kept looking at me, his bright green eyes blazing like I remembered from my childhood. He had such authority and grace. I felt no fear, only anticipation of what was to come in the days that followed.
Then I asked him a question that had been puzzling me.
“Warvold, why are we going to the cliffs? Won’t we chase Grindall through the Dark Hills?”
“Too much work for a man of my age,” he answered, though he seemed perfectly able by the way he kept up with Armon’s pace.
Odessa, Scroggs, and Piggott came alongside us. Odessa had gained their respect and she was the biggest and strongest of the three by a healthy margin. Piggott and Scroggs seemed to have accepted her as the leader.
“It looks as though we’ve met with some success today,” she offered.
“Not as much as we might have hoped for,” I replied, and then I told the dogs about Grindall’s escape and the unfortunate circumstances with Yipes.
When we arrived at the cliffs, the mist hovered as it always did a few feet below the rocky edge. We were not long in waiting for Balmoral, who arrived with two of his men carrying a long, thick rope between them.
I looked out over the edge. At every locality where ocean meets land there are the cliffs of black jagged rocks. If you look over the edge there lies a mist a few feet below, so thick you can’t see the water. As far as the eye can see, nothing but white, puffy mist, as if we hang in the clouds and to step off the edge would leave us falling for days. If not for the violent sound of the waves against the rocks somewhere far below, one might suppose our lands were an island in the sky.
“There you are, then. Enough rope to tie up a herd of sheep,” said Balmoral, interrupting my thoughts.
“Tie it to that rock, and make sure the knot is as tight as can be,” Warvold ordered. He was pointing to an enormous stone jutting out of the ground about twenty feet back from the edge of the cliff.
Balmoral and his guards, with the help of Armon, did as they were told. A few minutes later they walked over to the rest of us, a few feet from the edge of the cliff and the mist below.
“Now throw the rope over the edge,” Warvold continued. Balmoral looked at him as if he’d gone mad, not sure what to do.
“Throw it! We’ve got no time to lose,” Warvold insisted.
Balmoral threw the rope over the edge. It was very long, maybe a hundred feet, and it fell into the mist to places unknown, places none of us had ever seen.
“What’s everyone standing around for? Down we go! Roland is waiting!” said Warvold. “Armon, you go first with Odessa under one arm and Catherine on your back. We must get you out of sight before the bats return.”
The largest and wildest river in The Land of Elyon was the River Roland, so named for the only person who had ever tried to sail it. Roland spent twenty years building a boat he called the Warwick Beacon, then disappeared down the pounding waves of the river into the Lonely Sea before I was even born. Nobody had seen or heard from him since. Everyone assumed he’d failed in the attempt and died long ago, the Warwick Beacon smashed into pieces against the rocks.
“Roland?” I asked. “Roland and the Warwick Beacon? Is he really down there waiting for us?”
“Well, he’d better be,” answered Warvold. “I told him to be there waiting on just this kind of day. If he’s not there, I’ll be awfully disappointed.”
And then, quick as you please, he walked over to the rope, grabbed hold of it, and was gone over the edge with a smile, not another word spoken.
Catherine held up her arms to Armon as soon as Warvold was out of sight. Armon picked her up and placed her on his massive shoulder. He looked down at the two dogs and Odessa.
“Odessa, this could be a little uncomfortable. I apologize.” The giant reached down with one arm and grabbed Odessa around the middle, pulling the wolf in close to his side. Then Armon took the two of them to the edge of the cliff, grabbed the rope with his one free hand, and disappeared into the mist, leaving the rest of us standing dumbstruck.
“I don’t know about this,” said Balmoral, shaking his head. “How can we be sure Roland is down there?”
Murphy shrugged, twitched his tail back and forth several times, and scampered down the rope. Piggott and Scroggs peered over the cliff, the jagged rocks jutting in wild directions, and watched as Murphy slid out of sight.
I looked at Balmoral and he looked at me. We stood on the lonesome cliff with the two dogs and contemplated what to do. I could see in Balmoral’s eyes that it wouldn’t be long before I was standing at the edge of the cliff alone. He looked back at the lake and the wharf, and I can only imagine the flood of emotions that overtook him.
“These years with Grindall ruling over Castalia have been hard going indeed,” he said. “We have to stop him. We’re the only ones who know how dangerous things have become. Nobody else will believe us.”
He shuffled his feet back and forth in the grass.
“Warvold said it would only take a few days. I’ll probably be back in a week.” He looked at the two men who had stepped back and were waiting a stone’s throw away and yelled to them.
“Tell Mary and Julia I had to go save the world with Thomas Warvold. I’ll be back in a week’s time.” The two men ran off in the direction of the wharf. Balmoral turned and grabbed hold of the rope. He slithered down along the cliff’s edge and vanished into the white puffy mist like the others.
I stood on the cliff alone with Piggott and Scroggs. It was oddly quiet as I looked back toward the lake, the sun up and the heat coming on quickly.
“I think this is what they call a leap of faith,” said Piggott, and then he motioned to Scroggs and the two of them wandered off in the direction of the City of Dogs. I wondered what would become of them in this new Castalia, what would happen to the rest of the dogs. They’d fought with courage, but how long would the Castalians remember what these sick creatures had done for them? It seemed more likely that the City of Dogs would remain their home.
A leap of faith. All at once I was terribly tired. When would my duty be through? Could I ever hope to sit by a fire and talk with Catherine and Yipes and Warvold? The Land of Elyon was a much bigger and scarier place than I’d thought it would be.
The Lonely Sea is the only way to the Tenth City.
The voice on the wind was the only assurance I needed. I held my Jocasta in the safety of its leather pouch and looked one last time at the fallen Dark Tower. The people were celebrating, free from Grindall and the ogres. It was time to go.
I crawled down, took hold of the rope, and lowered myself slowly into the white fluffy haze.
CHAPTER 25
THE CHASE BEGINS
It was wet and slippery against the cliff, so my feet kept sliding off, knees and elbows banging against the hard surface. The mist was also wet, covering my hair and face with a soft layer of moisture that felt cool and made my lips taste salty. The mist was so thick I could hardly see the rope in my hands as I descended farther, more aware by the moment that I would never have the strength to turn and go back.
I heard voices from below, muffled by the quiet but constant slapping of water against rocks, the foamy sound of liquid seeping back into the earth. As I continued my slow descent the mist began to clear, and then all at once it was gone entirely. I looked up and saw a thick white layer that seemed to go on forever out into the open sea, a ceiling of misty wet clouds hovering fifty feet off the water. Then I looked down, and to my astonishment there was a vessel, a rather large one, bobbing on the surface of the water. It was impossibly close to the edge of the cliff, so close that it seemed to me it must have crashed against the rocks, water flowing into its belly.
As I approached the deck of the boat I realized that the cliff fell away into an open cave, the boat sitting halfway inside, perfectly safe on the waters of the sea. Armon bid me to jump with fifteen feet remaining, and how could I resist the chance to jump into a giant’s arms?
A man appeared from the front of the boat, a man I’d never seen but knew without hesitation. It was Roland. He looked salty from the sea: tattered clothes, long yellow hair and beard, leathery skin, and piercing cobalt eyes. He wore an odd leather hat on his head, and the sleeves of his shirt were neither short nor long but somewhere in between. His feet and ankles were bare and looked as though they had lacked cover for a very long time, the white curly hairs of his lower legs fidgeting in the wind as he came. He held a platter in his hands with dried fish and bread. He stood among us, and I got the feeling that he was the only crew member left.
“Sorry to hold things up, Thomas,” he said. “I had to check the anchors, make sure we weren’t going to swerve into the cliffs. She’s a good vessel, but the Warwick Beacon needs a bit of babying to keep her afloat.”
“I completely understand,” said Thomas, looking more energetic by the moment.
“Roland has kindly prepared some food for us, and none of us are more excited to get to it than Catherine and me. Shall we eat, then?”
Roland set down the tray in the middle of us. Armon was the first to grab for it. He took bread and fish and presented the food to Thomas and Catherine. I found out later that Roland had been at sea for thirteen years, periodically drifting right near the place we were. For the past year he’d been waiting around the very cliffs that rose above us. In the cave he’d found a fresh spring for water, and he’d always had plenty of fish to eat. The bread was a treat, the flour and oil taken from holdings he’d stored in the boat before departing. There is much to tell of the making of the vessel, the long years at sea, and the adventures Roland enjoyed. But those tales are for another time.
Warvold began to speak and told a great many things, the most important of which I will share with you now.
First he told us something that should come as no surprise: Roland and Warvold were brothers — one the great adventurer by land, the other by sea. There were many secrets between these two. They had managed to send messages to each other by choosing places where Warvold would drop a rope with a bright red flag, meager supplies, and word of what was happening above. Roland also sent messages to his brother, but Warvold mentioned little of these, preferring to keep them a secret.
The very last message Roland had received had come at the bottom of the cliffs at Lathbury, my own hometown. The message instructed Roland to be waiting a year later beneath the cliffs at the farthest western tip of The Land of Elyon, where another red flag would be hanging near the water’s edge. The hanging of the flag was a task Armon was sent to accomplish when Warvold left on his journey to rescue Catherine. At the same time Warvold left the letter for me with Yipes, telling him to wait a year before giving it to me. It was Warvold’s hope that he could subdue Grindall on his own without help. As it turned out, Warvold was captured and sent to the dungeon, where we eventually found him.
I was, of course, curious as to why he’d been so bold as to attempt this mission on his own without help. To that he replied matter-of-factly, “What are you talking about? I planned for all sorts of help, as you can see by looking around you. Roland, Armon, Murphy, Yipes, Balmoral — and you, Alexa. I hoped I wouldn’t need anything more than my own ingenuity, but Grindall proved more clever than I had expected. Still, I was realistic about my chances. I thought I might need help from each of you, but I only wanted to have it when I was absolutely sure I would need it.” Once again I was struck by the brilliance of this man. Only he could have planned how each of us would become involved, keeping us out of harm’s way until he knew he’d failed in his attempt to save Renny.
Then Warvold told us how he’d managed to fake his own death on the night when he’d walked out to the wall with me. He was aware of Ganesh and his plot to overthrow the walled cities, but Warvold had larger problems to deal with. Catherine had been taken, and he was determined to go to her, to reveal all he knew to the right people at the right time, to free his wife and the Castalians from the hand of Grindall.
And so he’d created an elaborate plan that started when Ganesh attempted to poison him. Warvold recognized the danger and instead took a potion, a potion of his own making that slowed his breathing and his heart to almost a stop. Only Grayson was in on the plot, the trusted librarian and dear old friend. In the days after Warvold’s so-called death, Grayson was the one who took care of the body and placed it in the burial box. While everyone else was mourning, the two of them ate toast and strawberry jam and sipped tea in the secret places of the library. When the time came for the funeral, Warvold took the potion again and slept through it all. And finally, when Grayson prepared the body for burial, he replaced Warvold with a long bag of dirt, and sent Warvold on his way.
“I have only a little more to tell you, and then we can put up the sails,” Warvold said, that hopeful look on his face, the one that could put human and beast to work on whatever he wished them to do.
“We have struck a great blow to Abaddon on this day, but there is much left to complete. Grindall runs free and we are the only ones who can stop him. He carries with him one of our dearest friends. We are the only ones who can rescue Yipes.
“In the coming days, we will sail the sea beneath the mist and make our plans. We must be as crafty as foxes, for Grindall and the ogres live only to destroy us. The only thing Grindall cares about is the stone and the devastation he can leave as he goes looking for it.”
Warvold stopped a moment and measured his next words carefully.
“Nicolas, Grayson, and Pervis — if they read the letter you left for your father, they’ll be expecting Grindall and the ogres. And your father, too, Alexa. There is much you still don’t know, and I had my reasons for keeping things secret. The fate of The Land of Elyon hangs around your neck, and this burden must be carried with the help of your friends if we are to succeed.”
Warvold picked up a loaf of bread and tore a piece out of it, then he said the last of what he needed to say, which was something I already knew.
“With the help of the last stone, we must find the Tenth City.”
I felt then that none of us, not even Warvold, knew why we had to go there. Some duty awaited us beyond the Sly Field in this secret place, but we could only guess at what it was.
When Warvold was finished, Roland raised the anchor and Armon got into the water and swam, pushing us away from the cliffs and into the soft wind. The sails went up next, and we were on our way to new adventures, ones I didn’t have the strength to even consider until a new day. As the breeze carried us on blue waters I’d only imagined in my past, I curled up on the deck with an old blanket beneath my head. It was cooler under the mist, still warm, but nice. Murphy curled up in a ball at my side and I gently ran my hand across his body.
I whispered words into the wind.
“Don’t give up, Yipes. We’re coming for you.”
Beyond the Valley of Thorns Page 15