‘Please.’
Their eyes shot to their sword lying next to them.
‘No one else has passed in two days. Please.’
The soldier’s face creased with pain and their breathing became hard and fast. Sawwse looked awkwardly at the sword. The soldiers were more fortunate than they knew. Not only was the first person to see them since their injury compassionate, she was also a pacifist.
‘That’s impossible, I’m afraid,’ Sawwse said, forcing a smile. ‘I can try something else though.’
Sawwse sat cross-legged between the guards and took hold of both their hands. She began to gently rub her thumbs into their quivering palms. Softly, she began to sing a lullaby about a young boy. Standing by the edge of a lake, the boy gazes in wonder at the reflection of the moon. It is so still that he can’t believe it isn’t actually in the lake itself. He goes to jump in the lake, but then thinks better of it: he doesn't want to disturb its stillness. Instead, he sits down facing the moon-lit lake and breathes in and out, slower and slower, until he is as still as the moon.
Sawwse looked from one motionless sleeping soldier to the other. A feeling deep inside told her that they might wake up with more strength. If they could just hold on until she found help, they’d be saved.
‘Sleep tight, friends. The rest will do you good.’
Silently bouncing back down the tree, the musical gnome left the soldiers holding one another’s hand. At the base of the trunk, she found Ruby, picking feathers out of her hair as she returned the cloak over her shoulders. She looked sheepishly at Sawwse as she slung her bag across her back, before coming to stand close beside the gnome. Slightly too close, as always.
‘I’m sorry about that. I could’ve sworn I saw something moving in the grass over there,’ she lied, nodding past Sawwse.
‘I thought so too,’ said the gnome, encouraging the lie. She smiled reassuringly, to put her companion at ease.
‘I didn’t find anything by the way… in the grass.’
‘Good, good. Listen, we need to hurry on to the village. Nothing to worry about, I’m just getting rather peckish,’ Sawwse added, not wanting to worry the anxious shapeshifter further.
Ruby offered a grubby handful of pocket morsels. The gnome merely laughed before clapping Ruby on the shoulder and walking onward. She wasn’t that desperate yet. Ruby looked up nervously at the tree before catching up to Sawwse.
As they made their way toward the village, Sawwse’s mind whirred with thoughts about the soldiers in the tree.
‘Who could do such a thing to people?’ she pondered.
Her mind hopped between memories of evil ones whose stories, the Gnomeopedia said, were infamous across the world. But were these not all caricatures of villains? Oonessa the Whale tried to steal the moon. Michael Hyena laughed as he set a city on fire. Xi the Untouchable enslaved a colony of geese. Yes, they were evil, but in a theatrical, elaborate way. They all wore capes, for goodness sake. Maybe she just hadn’t read the whole section on magic. For someone to choose to inflict such specific pain unsettled Sawwse.
‘I think that is the village.’
Ruby pointed to a low dry-stone wall leading to a small settlement. Sawwse’s stomach made a loud gurgling sound, and she was offered the pocket snacks once more. Unlike Marius, Ruby’s snacks consisted of a collection of edible flowers and leaves that Ruby had picked up along the way, and which left a perfumed aftertaste in Sawwse’s mouth. They quickly finished eating the snacks and continued their walk north to the village.
After a short walk they came across a human man sitting on a large flat rock, overlooking a thin stream. He wore simple clothes: a straw hat, a grey linen tunic and brown trousers, and looked as though he enjoyed simple pleasures. His bare feet dangled just above the water. Occasionally, a couple of large white and orange carp-like fish would stick their faces out of the stream and lick his toes.
He raised his head and waved.
‘Hullo there.’
The travellers made their way over to him and sat on parallel rocks across the stream. Ruby positioned herself slightly behind the gnome.
‘I am Sawwse, rhymes with grouse, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.’
She bowed and again added a flourish with her hand.
‘My name’s Greb.’
Sawwse took out the Gnomeopedia. She flicked to a page with the title ‘Human Names’ and scanned it. Circling the name Craig, she wrote Greb next to it and added a question mark.
‘Greb.’
She motioned to her head, and then exaggeratedly sung the name in an operatic style, drawing out the vowel and exploding the final ‘b’.
‘GreeeeB. Helps me remember,’ she said, smiling.
He smiled back and nodded, and then glanced over at an uncomfortable-looking Ruby.
‘This is my good friend, Ruby Schap,’ Sawwse intervened.
Greb chuckled. He either found the pair amusing or was currently being tickled by the fish.
‘So what brings you to Pettibeck anywho?’
Sawwse never missed an opportunity to entertain someone who seemed up for a short performance.
‘Pettibeck... holds the key to a mysterious source of power,’ Sawwse intoned in her best wary, wizened wizard impression. ‘No wait, it’s not that.’
Raising her chest, she took on the persona of a gruff army general.
‘The five legions converge as we speak and Pettibeck is where we shall make our last stand.’
Greb, always a good sport, joined in.
‘In that case, surely we need a hero?’
The entertaining gnome stood up and nodded coolly. She placed one hand inside her jacket, and another on the hilt of her imaginary sword.
‘Sawwse Bohge: rogue, assassin, rōnin. I’ll save your village,’ she paused dramatically, ‘for a price.’
Ruby and Greb both erupted in laughter, delighted at the image of the tiny gnome defending an entire village. Sawwse was pleased, although a little put out that it was such an unfeasible idea.
‘Well, Sawwse Bohge, here at the beck we’d be delighted to engage your services,’ Greb said, raising his hat. ‘Where are you both headed?’
The two travellers shared a glance. Sawwse didn’t want to offend the local, so she told a white lie.
‘To Pettibeck.’
It was more of a half-truth. She was technically going to Pettibeck, but only in order to get to Rhyddinas. Greb released another tickling-related giggle.
‘Yes, but no one stops here. Pettibeck is a through-village, a border town. Travellers come here to go somewhere else. I’d recommend a short trip,’ he added, suddenly serious. ‘Things are a little unsettled here at the moment.’ He began to whisper, conspiratorially. ‘Our kingdom’s missing a king. No one’s quite sure what’s going on. Awoooh!’
Greb flopped backwards, shaking his feet madly. A particularly feisty carp clung on to his big toe.
Sawwse jumped over the stream and yanked on the fish, falling backwards herself into the stream. The farce of the whole matter caused the three of them to roll about laughing. Even the carp looked amused.
After a while, Greb wiped the tears from his eyes and pointed to the village.
‘Over the bridge you’ll find the village. Go and get a hot meal into you at The Chalice. And then you can decide where you’re going.’
The gnome and the changeling thanked Greb, before Sawwse suddenly remembered the soldiers in the tree. In her haste to entertain, they’d completely slipped from her mind. She quickly relayed the information to Greb, whose demeanour sobered immediately. Greb clarified the location of the tree with Sawwse and then ran into the village. They followed him along the central path into the village, lined with dry stone walls, and watched as he darted into a house, emerging seconds later with a bespectacled man holding a heavy book of spells.
‘Sawwse, Ruby, you’ve done a great service by letting us know about this,’ said Greb.
He shook both their hands in turn, introduced the other man as the village’s cleric, and then, left at a surprisingly quick pace, leaving the cleric stumbling behind him.
As they watched them go, Sawwse breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers would be fine now.
‘That book of spells was bigger than the Gnomeopedia.’
She smiled, thinking about how much she would be able to add to the stolen tome during her adventure. Ruby was staring into the stream. The water seemed to meander alongside the walls for a short distance, before making its way underneath them and finally passing right through the centre of the village.
Ruby spoke in a hushed tone.
‘I wonder what he meant by unsettled?’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ she replied, sprightly. Upon seeing Ruby’s anxious expression, she added, ‘But maybe we shouldn’t linger here.’
‘Do you think the fish might know?’
The gnome paused.
‘I don’t-’
‘I was thinking about them. There’s something quite interesting about them isn’t there? I thought maybe we could ask them the best way to get to the conservatoire.’
Ruby grinned as she followed the stream into the village centre, completely forgetting the previous conversation.
‘Wait, what?’
Sawwse looked in disbelief at her companion, who seemed utterly mesmerised by the movements of the running water.
‘Let’s just focus on the hot meal for now. The Chalice, wasn’t it?’
The walls ended at the start of the village proper, so Sawwse followed Ruby, as Ruby followed the stream. Sawwse noticed that small troughs had been dug into the ground that channelled the stream into houses along the path. Intriguingly, these houses were raised up a foot from the ground. She stepped over one of these channels before turning to watch a large, pale brown carp bumble its way into one of the houses. Sawwse imagined the fish entering the house after working a long day in the fields, tired and ready for dinner. Giving it a name and some housemates, she thought about Tyson the carp having banal conversations as the meal was prepared.
‘How was your day?’
‘Oh fine, and yours?’
‘Fine, fine.’
‘Much happen?’
‘No, no. And you?’
‘No, no.’
She was almost to the point of making herself laugh when she became aware of the village taking shape around her. The stream cut the village in two leading up to a square: an incongruously ornate stone monument stood at its centre. It depicted some kind of powerful figure, clutching a book in one arm and a sword in another. The layer of grime covering most of the statue conveyed the village’s attitude. The plaque read:
To commemorate Pettibeck’s entry into the Dorienne Kingdom.
~ With wisdom and strength, we will protect you ~
‘Do you need transport?’
Sawwse hadn’t noticed the woman approaching. Her expression was pure business: either a transaction would happen during this conversation or she would find one elsewhere.
‘No, thank you.’
The woman walked back to the throngs of horses and carts about the square, each with their own driver. It took Sawwse a moment to realise that Ruby was no longer beside her. Glancing around, she saw her fellow traveller standing with a nearby horse, neighing and whinnying into its face, much to the befuddlement of the nearby humans.
Sawwse nodded an ‘excuse us’ to the horse, grabbed Ruby’s arm and led her away.
‘Now Ruby, I’m not one to put much stock in ‘normal’ behaviour, but I think you were maybe unsettling people there.’
‘He actually seemed pretty sound.’
Ruby smiled, waving back at the horse. Sawwse used her stomach’s excessively loud growling sound as an excuse to move them on.
‘This must be the place.’
She pointed up to a sign that showed a large silver cup, overflowing with some kind of red liquid, and a man knelt beside it, his hands cupped.
‘A real human pub,’ thought Sawwse excitedly. ‘Perhaps I’ll be offered a pint of ale.’
They walked past a crowd of mostly older human men, who stared at them as they made their way to the bar. A considerable amount of effort had clearly been put into polishing the rim of it, perhaps a job that filled duller moments.
Sawwse and Ruby hopped up onto one of the stools at the counter and sat patiently, looking around the room as they did so. Sawwse noticed that lots of the locals were still staring at her. Unfortunately, when she tried to meet their eyes, something she had read that humans responded well to, they averted their gaze.
She turned around in her chair to face the other side of the pub. A woman sat alone in the furthest seat along the bar. The woman looked back at her and smiled. She was the only person in the pub to meet her eye, but there was something else too. Something in the way she looked at her. Sawwse was immediately drawn to her, but before she could speak the landlord appeared behind the counter.
‘What’ll it be?’
Sawwse switched focus.
‘A pint of ale, if you’d be so kind,’ she said.
‘A pint?’ he scoffed, looking down at the tiny gnome. He was a large man whose lack of notable features was compensated by his unpleasant personality.
‘That would be nice,’ she responded, oblivious to the slight.
Sawwse smiled as he dubiously began pulling a pint.
‘Ruby, what would you like?’
‘Oh, I’ll just have a mug with boiled water in it,’ she answered, while pulling out pumpkin herbs from her pocket.
The landlord rolled his eyes. He pushed a tankard of murky brown liquid toward the gnome and moved into the back room. Sawwse sniffed at her ale, curious, whereas Ruby looked uncomfortable again, and shrugged her shoulders.
The landlord returned and slammed the mug down in front of Ruby, making her jump. The water was tepid at best. Ruby returned the pumpkin herbs to her pocket and smiled awkwardly at Sawwse. Meanwhile, Sawwse used both her hands to lift the pint of ale, and poured the whole thing into her mouth, enjoying its refreshing tang and gentle burn.
‘Those Sillip juice drinking contests were obviously useful for something,’ she thought.
Misconstruing Sawwse’s guzzling as a sense of bravado, the landlord looked at her with a little more respect. He fetched them two hot plates of stew, with potatoes and carrots. It took them no time at all to put the food away. Sawwse hadn’t eaten a hot meal since leaving the Blue Forest, and Ruby couldn’t remember the last food she’d eaten in this form. It was delicious.
The pair rubbed their bellies and thanked the landlord, who simply nodded before speaking.
‘That comes to ten in Dorienne or eight in Magnarrian.’
He rolled his eyes again, this time at the blank faces staring back at him.
‘Ten Dorienne coins, or eight Magnarrian pieces,’ he repeated in an overly slow voice.
‘Ah, one moment please.’
Sawwse reached into her pocket as though looking for the money. She pulled out her clenched hand.
‘Is this the correct amount?’
The landlord tutted and leant forward towards the gnome’s outstretched hand, his face turned to puzzlement. Sawwse blew a cloud of powder into the man’s face and tugged on Ruby’s cloak.
‘Let’s run.’
‘Was that some kind of magic Gnome powder?’ Ruby asked, as they barrelled back out of the pub.
‘No, it was just dust.’
They both started snickering while they looked for somewhere to run to.
‘Down here.’
They made their way down a ginnel tucked behind the buildings on the main street. A moment later the landlord appeared with two other men from the pub. They held torches aloft and peered into the ginnel. Fortunately, they didn’t spot the wispy hair peeking out from behind a bush in someone’s backyard. After a few momen
ts, the men returned to the pub.
The light had gone from the sky, the moon obviously playing coy behind a set of clouds. Although the square’s tall lanterns had been lit, the ginnels were almost pitch black, particularly after the torch-bearing pursuers had left. Gnomes tended to get by at high or low levels of exposure, but even they struggled when facing complete darkness. They sat in silence for a little while before Sawwse decided to admit something to her new companion.
‘Ruby, something’s been on my mind. I should’ve told you earlier but I didn’t want to spook you. The two soldiers in the tree. I didn’t go into all the details with Greb, but actually, they were in a really bad way.’
There was no response from Ruby. It was silent in the ginnel, the only noise being the general hubbub from the main square.
‘Greb mentioned the place is unsettled. I wonder whether it has anything to do with those two missing guards. They could hardly talk, and I have a bad feeling that whatever did that to them is somewhere in this village with us.’
A light breeze played with the strands of hair relaxing on Sawwse’s neck.
‘Ruby, do you feel that wind? Can you smell it? It’s reminding me of something-’
Sawwse felt the cold, sharp blade of a knife against her throat.
Chapter 6: Mirrah
The sharp blade felt cold against Sawwse’s neck. Fear trickled down her body, tingling her toes. An unfamiliar voice whispered in her ear.
‘Are you a foe?’
‘Look here, I’m nobody’s foe, and nobody is mine. Except maybe Findon Umlock. If that pesky excuse for a gnome hides my flute one more time-’
‘Why are you here?’
Sawwse noticed an urgency to the voice. She was shaken, but all the best performers know how to keep their cool under pressure.
‘I’m just passing through. Heading on to Rhyddinas. I’m a musical prodigy waiting to be discovered, don’t you know.’
In the Grip of Time Page 5