The Hickory Staff

by Rob Scott

  As they moved north Hannah, Hoyt and Churn were stopped several times a day and questioned about their destination and their business. They stuck to the same story: they were migrant workers who had finished the autumn tempine harvest outside Southport; now they were heading to Middle Fork to find scullery work for the winter season. Hoyt always gestured towards Churn and added, ‘Except for him, of course. We’re just hoping he’ll bring a few copper Mareks for hauling some firewood or shovelling snow.’ Frequently the Malakasian platoon sergeant would cast him and Hannah an understanding nod after taking in Churn’s vacuous expression.

  So far the trio had been permitted to proceed without additional delay. They were obviously law-abiding, hard-working Pragans, already burdened with caring for the simple-minded giant, hardly the sort to be out there killing armed soldiers with their fists, or burning Malagon’s galleons in late-night raids.

  Hannah remained silent during the interrogations, allowing Hoyt to work his special magic and gain them safe passage for the next leg of their journey. Every time they were stopped, she was conscious that she could get them captured, or even killed almost instantly: her underwear and her socks were a dead giveaway that she was not a local peasant. Hannah had initially made the decision to keep her bra, her panties and her socks because she had no idea what women in Eldarn wore beneath their clothing. She couldn’t face making a trip on foot without socks, and there was no way she was going to hike for untold miles in scratchy homespun wool without underwear. She decided that as long as she never disrobed where anyone could see her, there would be no problem.

  Now she was regretting choosing comfort over caution. Every time they were stopped her heart missed a beat: what if they were searched? What if some randy soldier decided to have a tug at her tunic? Whilst her underwear was not especially racy or provocative, it was certainly not from Eldarn. There would be no hiding it – especially not if it rained; Hannah was terrified that her breasts would give them away more than any verbal slip she might make as a wet tunic plastered against her body would display the unnatural ability of her breasts to defy gravity. They might not be especially large or cumbersome, especially not by American standards, but they did benefit from the support of her bra.

  Hannah, guessing Malakasian men were no different in that regard to any man in her world, began to hunch over and tug at the front of her tunic every time soldiers approached and as they moved through the checkpoints.

  ‘What in all the rutting world is wrong with you?’ Hoyt asked in a harsh whisper as a mounted platoon trotted slowly southwards. ‘Appearing to have one intellectually challenged individual is enough for us. We don’t need you playing at loopy as well.’

  ‘It’s my—’ Hannah struggled for the word as her boots made strangled sucking noises. ‘It’s my – my figure.’

  Trying not to laugh as the soldiers cantered by, Hoyt asked, ‘What’s wrong with your figure?’

  ‘What do you mean, what’s wrong with my figure?’ Hannah hadn’t intended to sound quite so indignant.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with your figure; that’s not what I meant. Bleeding whores! Do you see those soldiers? Are we having this conversation now?’ There was a slightly frantic tone in Hoyt’s voice. ‘I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with your figure. Your figure is fine … nice even … Demonpiss! What’s it got to do with you acting like a halfwit?’ He turned as the platoon lieutenant rode past and said, ‘Morning sir.’

  ‘It’s coming up now because, if you haven’t noticed, my figure has a way of presenting itself, especially in the rain, for any man’s enjoyment. Any soldier’s enjoyment. For God’s sake, Hoyt, look at my breasts!’

  Hoyt chuckled. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, but that is something of a neat trick. I know a few women in Southport I’d like you to teach it to.’ The last of the horsemen passed, their mounts churning the roadway into mud. ‘What is it, some kind of corset or something?’

  ‘Or something, yes, but it appears to work … better. I don’t know how, but it supports more completely than whatever Pragan women wear.’ Hannah was hideously embarrassed, fighting the flush rising in her cheeks.

  Churn grunted his amusement at the absurd way his friends were carrying on.

  Hannah made another self-conscious adjustment before going on, ‘So, until it stops raining or until I get to a town where I can acquire something more appropriate and throw mine away, I have to resort to rolling my shoulders and tugging a bit at the front of this deplorably hot and itchy tunic you provided me to stop it clinging in such a revealing fashion. So, if that means you have to spin a tale about travelling with two palseated lunatics instead of one, then I suggest you get creative, my friend.’

  At that Churn bellowed, a curious belly-laugh that sounded both joyous and somehow tragic, a fanfare blown through a broken tuba.

  ‘Fine,’ Hoyt gave up and started laughing himself. ‘You deal with your— er, “figure”, and I will come up with a convincing story as to why I’m travelling with a woman whose “figure” is so very pointed in the rain!’

  Hannah finally chuckled too, despite her fear that something as stupid and embarrassing as her underwear might get them caught. Then she changed the subject and asked, ‘Tell me more about Alen Jasper.’

  Hoyt was happy to comply; he too was blushing by now and the pair of them looked like twin victims of mild heatstroke. ‘Alen. He’s an interesting man. I’ve known him since I was young; I guess I know him as well as anyone. He taught me to read when I was a boy – that might not sound like much, but I was never very good at getting myself to school and without him, I probably would be illiterate; I certainly wouldn’t know anything about healing and medicine.’

  ‘Is he a doctor as well?’

  ‘No.’ Hoyt searched for an explanation. ‘When Prince Marek came to power, what, almost a thousand Twinmoons ago—’ He stopped as Hannah looked confused and started again. ‘When Marek took over, let’s say five or six generations ago, he closed all the universities, and over time, the idea of studying to be a doctor was lost. These days our healers all learn through oral tradition. We don’t officially call ourselves doctors, because we still have a sense of what doctors used to be. I’ve learned more than many, but even I don’t have nearly the education they did before the Grayslip family collapsed.’

  ‘That’s a tragedy. How can a ruler have let his land get so debased?’

  ‘I have no idea, but there isn’t much I can do about it now. Even if we could get the universities open again, we don’t have any practising doctors, proper doctors, to re-create the teaching programmes.’ He kicked a thick wad of mud off the toe of one boot. ‘There isn’t anyone left alive who knows what we need to learn.’

  ‘How did you learn?’

  ‘Alen helped.’ Hoyt gestured for Churn to turn around, then reached into the bigger man’s pack and withdrew a wineskin. ‘He taught me a great deal himself, but more importantly, he gave me books and told me where to find more.’

  ‘Are books that scarce?’

  ‘Apart from those we study in school, they’re very rare. I would probably be hanged for a full Twinmoon if anyone found the books I have stashed outside Southport.’

  Hannah’s head swam. It was all too much to believe – what kind of place was this? What kind of person was Prince Marek – how could anyone condone such a brutally narrow-minded policy? ‘How did Mr Jasper get so many medical books if he isn’t a doctor?’ she asked.

  ‘Alen,’ Hoyt corrected her. ‘That’s a great question, because the books he gave me are old. They’re jammed full of medical knowledge and procedures, and they’re eight hundred, maybe nine hundred Twinmoons old. None of them came off any underground or outlaw presses operating in Praga today.’ Hoyt took a drink and passed the skin to Hannah. ‘My guess is that he somehow found a way into an old university library and stole the books.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound so outrageous.’

  ‘Well, it is when you think that all our univer
sity libraries were razed to the ground when Marek came to power.’

  ‘They must have missed one.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Marek to me.’ Hoyt was doubtful. ‘But anyway, after Alen gave me the initial collection, he told me where to find more, all over Praga, hidden in dilapidated buildings, forest cottages, cabins along the seashore, all kinds of places. And can you guess what I discovered?’

  ‘They were all old?’

  ‘Right.’ Hoyt retrieved the skin and passed it back to Churn, who drank nearly half of what was left before corking it and stuffing it back in his pack. ‘They were all old texts, not illegally printed books or manuscripts from the Pragan underground, but rather, all vintage stuff. Medical journals and leather-bound treatises.’

  Hannah was looking forward to meeting Alen with growing anticipation. ‘Sounds intriguing. Did you ever ask him where they came from?’

  ‘I did and he told me he once worked in education and public health. I don’t know if that explains anything, but that was all he’d tell me.’

  ‘All right, regardless, go back to Mr— to Alen. Tell me about him. Why do you think he will know how to get me home?’ Hannah had already realised the strange tapestry rolled out on Steven’s floor at 147 Tenth Street must have been responsible for her improbable arrival on the hilltop outside Praga. Why was a different matter entirely.

  ‘On that you have to trust me,’ Hoyt said matter-of-factly. ‘If there is anyone in Praga who can get you back to Denvercolorado, it’s Alen Jasper. The breadth of his knowledge is colossal. I have yet to find something he doesn’t know or can’t speak to first hand – it’s as if he’s somehow lived everywhere and experienced everything. He will deny it, but I have seen him work actual magic. Only mild spells, mind you, playful tricks he learned as a child.’

  Hannah had heard and challenged the notion of magic so many times since the trio began travelling together that she didn’t even bother to argue with Hoyt this time. He spoke of impossibilities with such nonchalance that Hannah thought perhaps the word meant something slightly different in Eldarn – although given the uncommon way she had arrived in Southport, by way of Steven’s living room, the strength of her initial disbelief was beginning to wane. ‘When is the last time you saw him?’ she asked.

  ‘It must be fifteen, maybe seventeen Twinmoons ago. Churn and I haven’t been this far north in a while. Things along the south coast were good for us for a long time and we decided to stay on there.’

  ‘Does Alen not travel to Southport?’

  ‘I have never known him to be anywhere but Middle Fork.’ Hoyt stopped suddenly and turned to face Churn. ‘I’ve never thought of it before, but it’s true. I have never known Alen to leave Middle Fork. I wonder why.’

  ‘Is it much further now?’

  ‘No,’ he said, signing briefly to Churn, who nodded and answered with a turn of his wrist. ‘Maybe two or three days. It depends on the weather.’

  Hannah had seen nothing in Praga so far that made her feel confident anyone here had the means, mystical or otherwise, to send her back to Colorado. The land, people and culture were so archaic, almost mediaeval; it would almost have to be something supernatural to get her back to a reality she recognised, something able to manipulate the gears, locks and switches of this impossible place and all its impossible characteristics.

  What had happened still staggered her, still made her shake her head in disbelief and pinch herself and cry out, ‘Wake up, silly. This isn’t real.’ Yet here she was, slogging through thick mud, undoubtedly alive, undoubtedly awake, undoubtedly lucid, travelling through a fantasy land that shouldn’t exist but did, in search of the one man who might be able to offer both an explanation and help.

  The road wound its way over gently rolling hills, always heading north and Hannah imagined herself taking in her surroundings as the first settlers might have as they rolled into Virginia or Massachusetts. The landscape was green, the torrid green she had seen in films of rain forests or jungles. The grasses and rushes of the meadows, cloaked in a humid mist, gave way to the foliage of the forest underbrush, dense in spite of the interwoven canopy of leaves and vines. Shafts of sunlight intermittently broke through and lit the brush beneath the towering trees.

  It was beautiful, and pristine. The endless green was dotted with patches of the grey-white fog. Stuffed far too full to rain, the clouds came to rest for a moment on the soft meadow grass, where Hannah imagined they dissipated into ten thousand miles of dew. And everywhere she looked, the land itself cried out that this place was alive and this place was dangerous.

  Hannah wiped rain and tears from her cheeks and stared north along the muddy path, wishing she could find something familiar, anything, that might help her feel it was wise to maintain hope. Although her eyes rested for a moment on the mud-splattered mangy dog trotting past them, the sight of a stray wolfhound wandering along the road did not register as curious with the anxious young foreigner.

  THE NORTHERN SLOPES

  Eight days after sketching their rudimentary map inside Garec’s saddlebags, the company faced their first snowstorm, which began as a light dusting. The delicate snowfall reminded Steven of winter mornings waiting at the bus stop or playing with friends in the schoolyard. He welcomed the first flakes as a momentary trip home; as it coloured his hair and newly grown whiskers white, he mentally tallied how long he and Mark had been gone and the number of shopping days left to Christmas. He imagined his family would be struggling to maintain any semblance of normality or holiday spirit; he had no idea if they would be able to celebrate despite his unexplained absence. His mother would worry most, but she would also be the one making the greatest effort to help the others relax and enjoy the season. He saw her in his mind’s eye, apron-clad and scurrying from the kitchen to the living room, her face modulating between despair and encouragement as she carried tray after tray of home-baked cookies and pastries back and forth. ‘Remember that time when—’ she would call above the din each time she crossed the threshold, hoping to start up another two-minute conversation to keep everyone’s mind off where Steven had gone, or if he were even still alive. That’s how she would handle it. She would pass the holidays in two-minute increments as the oven roared on at 375 degrees for three weeks without pause, its insulated aluminium maw the one-way entrance to her own personal hell. He wished he could get some word to her that he was fine – well, granted, he was fleeing an occupation army and an array of homicidal demons, heading for the most dangerous place in Eldarn, but right now, here in the falling snow, he was fine. He wiped the flakes and tears from his eyelashes, gripped the hickory staff and continued trudging towards the tree line.

  They had spent days working their way north, using the mountains’ physical characteristics in place of a compass, assigning nicknames for easy memory. Over the first two days they had moved between Flat Nose and Kneecap while always keeping the southern face of Turtleneck directly in front of them. Passing through a valley the friends called Broad Belly, they had climbed Dog Tooth to the tree line before turning east towards Chubby Rump.

  Each night they had camped within the tree line. Winter was fast approaching, so each day without snow was a bonus. Sallax was a wellspring of determination, pushing them onwards. No one knew when the first storms would blow down from Falkan, and a sense of urgency permeated each day.

  Their first night in the mountains had taught them a valuable lesson; exposure to the altitude and elements had already sapped their strength and left them dangerously vulnerable. Now Sallax and Gilmour demanded they move into the relative protection of the forest each night before darkness made the footing uncertain.

  Mark taught them how to cross a glacier, and how to remain vigilant for crevasses and areas of thin ice unsupported from below. Their progress had been slow but steady: in eight days they had navigated three high-altitude passes and two long valleys.

  Reaching the highest point of their fourth mountain pass, Steven peered south. He felt encou
raged by the distance they had covered, until he looked ahead. Even making adjustments to their map he was beginning to feel certain the Blackstone range would stretch ahead for ever.

  ‘Eight days to get this far,’ he muttered as he closed his coat against the wind. ‘We have at least another twenty – and that’s just what I can see from up here.’

  ‘We need a string of days in which we don’t climb,’ Mark agreed. ‘We’re pushing the limits of what we can handle already and it’s getting colder all the time.’

  Steven pointed northeast towards an open tract of still-green valley. It looked as though the gods who assembled the Blackstones had forgotten a thin patch, or maybe they wanted a flat stretch for a foothold among the jagged peaks. ‘Look there, beyond those meadows. If we clear that pass tomorrow, we might be able to drop behind that range and run northwest along the valley for seven or eight days. It might be a hundred miles through there.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mark said. ‘I’m sure there’ll be some exposed areas along that valley floor, but at least we won’t be at altitude, or risking getting stuck out here overnight.’

  ‘And in a valley that long, we’re certain to find water.’

  ‘All right.’ He turned to the others. ‘My friends, it appears we can get away without climbing for a few days.’

  ‘Thank all the gods of the Northern Forest,’ Garec said, tightening the bandage supporting his swollen knee.

  ‘But we do have to cross this next valley tomorrow and clear that pass the following day,’ Steven said as he pointed towards the range of cruel peaks awaiting them in the distance. ‘With that done, the going should get easier.’

  They reached the tree line by early evening, and Gilmour suggested they continue moving down into the hollow vale before the snow accumulated. ‘We’ll have better footing now,’ he explained. ‘We should push on until it is too dark to see.’