Sagaria

by John Dahlgren

As the twilight descended into full night, Flip grew morose. Under Sagandran’s prodding, the little fellow confessed what was troubling him.

  “I’m all for the idea of adventure – am I not the self-proclaimed Adventurer Extraordinaire, after all?” He sighed. “But adventures should have happy endings. The adventurer should be able to go home after he’s triumphed so that he can tell his friends about it.”

  “Including Jinnia?” said Sagandran wryly.

  “Especially including Jinnia.” Flip’s tone was wistful. “Oh, yes, especially including Jinnia.”

  As they chattered fitfully on, an idea slowly grew in Sagandran’s mind.

  “You know,” he said at last, “we could become traveling companions, two adventurers together, so to speak.”

  “Yes?”

  “As soon as I discover a way out of this forest, I’m going to search for the town called Spectram that I told you about. From everything Grandpa told me, Queen Mirabella is mighty wise and she’s also very powerful. I’m going to ask for her help to track Grandpa down and rescue him from the minions of the Shadow Master. If you come along, perhaps she’ll be able to help you get home to Mishmash as well.”

  “Do you really think so, Sagandran?”

  “It’s worth a try.” Sitting with his back propped against a tree trunk, Sagandran patted his stomach and wished he’d had something more appetizing than dry bread for his supper. Peanut butter sandwiches would have hit the spot just right. No, he shouldn’t think about peanut butter sandwiches. The last thing he wanted was make himself hungry again. “It’s a lot better than languishing in this forest waiting for Bolster to notice you and make a snack of you, anyway. You’re never going to get home to Mishmash and Jinnia if you’re inside a worg.”

  “True, true,” said Flip worriedly. “But maybe Spectram’s even further away from Mishmash than I already am. Do you truly think Queen Mirabella might help me?”

  “It’s worth a try, anyway,” replied Sagandran. “Besides, the distance you are from a place isn’t something that’s measured in miles, you know. The real measure of distance is how easy or hard it is to go to wherever it is you want to go. I think you’d find it a lot easier to reach Mishmash from Spectram than from here. Even if the queen can’t give you any assistance, there’s bound to be someone in Spectram who knows where Mishmash is.”

  Flip clapped his paws. The sound was so small Sagandran could barely detect it. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’ll pack my things straight away.”

  He vanished inside the cottage, and for the next half-hour or so Sagandran could hear, through the glassless windows, the sounds of busy preparation. They reminded him that he ought to be looking for somewhere he could spend the night. There was no real option aside from the forest floor and relying on the foliage overhead to be his umbrella if it rained. There was the stream for washing, and there were plenty of trees he could use as a bathroom.

  He piled a heap of dry leaves together and rolled up his anorak for a pillow. It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable bed he’d ever slept on, but it had been a very long day. More like a day and a half, to be precise, because it had been late when he left the Earthworld and noon when he’d arrived in Sagaria. He’d probably sleep soundly on a bed of nails, let alone a bed of leaves. By the time he’d had another long drink at the stream and “christened” one of the trees, as Grandpa always described it, Flip was waiting on the cottage doorstep.

  Flip yawned, a funny little sound that made Sagandran grin.

  “Dawn tomorrow,” said Flip. “That’s when we’ll start.”

  “Dawn tomorrow it is.”

  “Um, Sagandran?”

  “Yes, Flip?”

  “The forest makes lots of strange noises at night. Don’t be frightened by them. The only dangerous animal around here is Bolster. All the rest are either friendly or they’re too shy to come close.”

  “I’ll remember that, Flip. Good night.”

  “G’night, Sagandran.”

  Another of those minuscule yawns, then Flip vanished inside his house.

  Sagandran lay down on his bed of leaves, put his head on his anorak, and didn’t hear a single one of the forest’s strange noises all night long.

  Sagandran was roused by something sharp tugging at his ear.

  “Wha–wha—”

  “It’s me,” came the agitated voice. “It’s Flip. You’ve overslept. It’s long past dawn and you’re still snoring.”

  “Oh, bleurgh, not any longer I’m not.”

  “That’s because I’ve woken you up.”

  “I know that.” His mouth tasted of anorak.

  “Well, it’s time we got moving.”

  “Wanna go back to sleep.”

  “Sagandran, we’re about to embark on the most exciting quest of our lives – of anybody’s lives – and you want to stay here snuffling the day away?”

  “’Bout sums it up.”

  “Sagandran!”

  “Go ’way.”

  Flip went. Sagandran heard him go. He didn’t hear him come back though. The first he knew of his friend’s return was when Flip climbed up onto his face and poured an acorn cupful of icy-cold stream water into his ear.

  “Yow!” yelled Sagandran, along with some choice Grandpa-like expressions. A good thing Mom wasn’t here. He sat upright clutching his head. “What did you do that for?”

  “To wake you up, of course,” replied Flip primly.

  “Thanks.”

  Once he was on his feet, Sagandran felt the fog dissipating and within minutes he was moving about briskly, eager to get on the road. Flip’s various bundles of possessions fitted easily into an anorak pocket.

  Flip was another matter. It was obvious those little legs couldn’t keep up with Sagandran for more than a few dozen yards at a time before he was exhausted.

  “You could sit on my shoulder and hold onto my hair for balance. Don’t pull it, mind you, unless you really have to,” he told Flip.

  Perched by Sagandran’s head, Flip surveyed the world around him. “I’ve never seen my home from this angle,” he said sadly. “It looks so small.”

  Sagandran chuckled.

  “It’s been a very good home to me these past few months,” Flip continued, “and I’m going to miss it, especially with its nice new fence.” He paused for a moment. “Can’t be helped, I suppose.”

  Another pause.

  “But I can look forward to getting back to my home in Mishmash.”

  Yet a further pause.

  “Unless it’s been taken over by—”

  Sagandran refused to let his heartstrings be plucked.

  “Shut up, Flip.”

  “You’re right, I shouldn’t—”

  “Flip!”

  “Sorry, Sagandran.”

  “Are you ready? Holding on tight?”

  “I’m ready.”

  Sagandran pointed toward the trail that led away from Bolster’s domain.

  “Forward!”

  CHAPTER 6

  A PRINCESS ROYAL AND A FROGLY KNIGHT

  he path soon narrowed and before long it began to ascend quite steeply, which Sagandran regarded as a good sign: if they got high enough, they might be able to see a way out of this vast forest. The air was pleasantly cool and the footing firm, so climbing was no labor at all. The extra weight of Flip on his shoulder was trivial. The trees were more thinly spaced here, so more of the morning sunlight trickled through. All in all, there could hardly have been a better day for a stroll, and Sagandran’s spirits rose along with the pathway.

  Around noon, they came to a stream at the foot of a tall, moss-covered cliff, and he decided to take a break. Flip was keen to continue but, as Sagandran pointed out, Flip wasn’t the one doing the walking.

  Sitting with his bare feet in the stream’s sparkling water, Sagandran looked around him. He had the impression that they must be making their way up a long hillside, even though the forest had concealed the hill from them. He squinted up a
t the face of the cliff. With luck, it might lead to a plateau or at least a vantage point that was clear of the treetops. The trouble was that the face looked forbiddingly steep, and its covering of moss would be no help if he climbed it. He figured that the ascent wouldn’t be impossible as he cast what he wished were a more expert eye over the mossy wall, but he didn’t particularly relish it.

  “I wish I had a clue which direction to go,” he said idly.

  Flip was foraging around the bank of the stream in search of delicacies. “Your guess is as good as mine, Sagandran, but the forest can’t go on forever.”

  “Wish I could be so sure,” remarked Sagandran glumly.

  But the day was too cheerful for dismal thoughts to last long. He splashed his legs gaily.

  “You should try this, Flip.” He laughed. “Just the thing for weary feet.”

  His companion snorted. “Are you kidding? I know it’s just a little brook for you, you great monster, but for me it’s a raging torrent.” He made a curious squalling noise, and after a moment Sagandran realized that Flip was laughing as well. Then Flip suddenly became somber. “It’s true though. If I fell in there, I’d be carried off by the current, for sure. I do wish I were as big as you, Sagandran.”

  A thought came to Sagandran. “In fact, Flip, it’s the opposite. It’s a pity I’m not as small as you. Then the two of us could make a raft and allow the stream to carry us out of the forest. Even if it goes the long way round to get there, it must leave the trees eventually.”

  They both pondered this for a little while.

  “But you’re not as small as me,” said Flip eventually, “so the idea’s not worth thinking about.”

  “We could walk along beside the stream,” Sagandran observed. “Use it as a guide, I mean.”

  “It could take us days and days,” said Flip dourly, “and we’d be going back the way we came. Your grandpa might not have days and days, depending on what his kidnapers have in store for him.”

  The remark sent a chill up and down Sagandran’s spine. Sitting here with his feet in the water, the breeze playing with his hair and the sunlight all around them, he’d almost forgotten about Grandpa. How could he be so heartless? His mouth twisted guiltily.

  “Ah yes, well,” he said, knowing how inadequate that sounded.

  “We could climb that cliff,” suggested Flip.

  It was the obvious thing to do, but Sagandran didn’t like the prospect of the climb. “It’s pretty steep,” he said cautiously, “and I can’t see many handholds.”

  “But not impossible,” urged Flip.

  “Easy for you to say. All you’ll have to do is hang on while I do the work.”

  “What makes you say that? Climbing’s one of the things I’m very good at. Small creatures often are. Have you never seen a squirrel climb? Adventurers are usually pretty expert climbers too. As a small adventurer, I have the best of both worlds.”

  Flip stuck his furry brown chest out proudly and Sagandran couldn’t help but grin.

  “Race you to the top, then?”

  “Huh,” said Flip. “The result’s a foregone conclusion, big guy.”

  Five minutes later, hanging onto a crevice for dear life, Sagandran was forced to agree. Flip, scuttling up and down the cliff face beside him and squeaking encouragement, was light enough to climb the moss if he had to, and his tiny claws could fit into cracks that Sagandran could barely see. Sagandran was expending a lot of energy pulling up the moss and clearing the stone in hope of finding his next handhold, all the while clinging onto the rock face with his free hand and, if he was lucky, his toes. Every now and then, there was a bush growing out of the cliff, and these gave him a little respite. Otherwise, the climb was proving hard and hazardous work. A minute or two ago he’d chanced a look downward.

  Bad idea.

  “You know,” he grunted as his hand reached the base of a protruding bush, “you could have climbed this cliff on your own and just told me which way to go.”

  Flip paused in his playful scrambling. “I suppose I could,” he said, “but it wouldn’t have helped if I’d found that the route out of the forest lay on the other side of the cliff.”

  The roots of the bush were firmly embedded and the branches took Sagandran’s weight. He hefted himself astride them and looked up at the grim climb ahead.

  “I’d have been willing to take that chance,” he said once he’d got his breath back.

  “Oh, come on, Sagandran,” said Flip. “It’s not that hard.”

  Suppressing the urge to take a swipe at his little friend, Sagandran resumed climbing. At last he did make it to the top, where there indeed proved to be a plateau. Lying there on the short, dry-smelling grass, gasping and floundering like a newly landed trout, he could hardly believe that he’d not fallen off the cliff face to meet his doom on the stony ground below.

  “Never again,” he panted.

  “Oh, don’t be so negative.”

  This time Sagandran did aim a blow, but Flip scampered easily out of the way. “Touchy.”

  While Flip explored the plateau, all the while congratulating himself on his prestige as the Adventurer Extraordinaire, Sagandran slowly fought for calm. His exertions had drained him, but his terror even more so. Even after his breath had returned to normal, his hands still shook. He dug the last of the bread out of his anorak and chewed it, hoping that the act of eating would calm him. As he sat up, Flip returned to his side looking rather downcast.

  “The news is not entirely good, Sagandran.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Stand up and you’ll see.”

  Obediently, Sagandran got to his feet. He slowly turned a full circle. From this high vantage point the treetops looked like a great green ocean, and they seemed to extend in every direction forever. Here and there were small islands – clearings among the trees. He’d been slowly realizing that the forest was huge, but even in his wildest imaginings he hadn’t conceived that it could be as huge as it was. Why had it seemed so much smaller when he was coming down into the midst of it from the skies? His heart sank.

  “How are we ever going to find our way out of this?” he wailed.

  “Perseverance. Courage. Resolution. All of those good things,” coaxed Flip. When Sagandran said nothing, Flip went on. “I know. They just seem like empty words right now, don’t they?”

  Standing there, Sagandran realized that if it weren’t for the thought of Grandpa being held imprisoned – or worse – somewhere in Sagaria, the temptation to give up would be irresistible. Let Sagaria defend itself against the Shadow Master, if such a being existed. Sagaria’s welfare wasn’t any of Sagandran’s concern. Life in the forest couldn’t be all that bad, surely? He’d made one friend already, and there must be plenty of other friendships out there in the green ocean just waiting to be discovered – maybe even human ones. He could hunt small animals for food (though he had the sense that this wouldn’t go down well with Flip) or he could subsist on the fruits and nuts that must certainly be in the forest. He could live out his life happily in the woods, letting the world take care of itself so long as it didn’t interfere with him.

  But there was Grandpa. He couldn’t abandon Grandpa to his fate.

  “No, they’re not really just empty words, Flip,” he said. “I don’t think we can let them be.”

  Once again, he surveyed the ocean. One of the clearings was a lot larger than the others. Maybe people lived in it and they’d be able to tell him how to escape the forest. It was hard to judge distances from up here, but the “island” seemed to be no more than a few miles away.

  He lifted Flip onto his shoulder and pointed it out.

  “Why not?” said Flip. “It’s as good a chance as any. The whole of Mishmash and its environs could fit ten times over into a clearing that size, I’m sure. You ready for another climb?”

  “No need to be so cheerful about it,” grumbled Sagandran.

  But it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. In comparison with
the sheer cliff they’d climbed, the far side of the plateau was a gentle slope and Sagandran was able to trot down it unconcernedly, with Flip bouncing on his shoulder. In a couple of places, the gradient was a little steeper, but these were covered in loose scree. Sagandran slid down them on his bottom, caring nothing about the state of the seat of his trousers, whooping with excitement and paying no attention whatsoever to Flip’s fussy fears in his ear.

  Okay, he thought, so Flip’s right and I’m an idiot to be doing this, but anything that lifts the storm clouds of my mood when I was on the cliff top is worth doing.

  After the last exhilarating skid he lay on his back, just laughing with relief at the blue sky overhead.

  “Can we climb back up and do that again?” he said at last.

  “No fears,” said Flip, shuddering expressively. “Maybe you have got nitroglycerine for brains after all.”

  Sagandran knew that he was laughing more than was strictly necessary. He didn’t care. It was going to take plenty of laughter to banish the terrors and uncertainties that had been buffeting him the past few hours.

  Flip skipped ahead and clambered up onto a broken tree stump. He seemed to be listening out for something, his rather cute triangular head held up at a cocked angle, his round velvety ears pricked alertly.

  Sobering, Sagandran sat up and put his arms around his knees.

  “Hear something, little friend?”

  “Yes, I think so. Hush a moment.”

  Sagandran held his breath, as if that would make any difference.

  Flip stayed perfectly still a moment longer. “I thought I—yes, there it is again.” He jumped down off the stump and scurried to join Sagandran. “Perhaps we should find a place to hide.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen.”

  Sagandran listened, and then he heard what Flip had heard.

  A high, shrill scream.

  A very human-sounding scream.

  The cries were coming from further down the slope. Of course, it might not be another human being – who could tell, and in a world that was not Earth? – but to Sagandran, it sounded as if a woman or girl were in trouble. For a split second, he considered doing what Flip wanted him to do, which was run and find somewhere that they could conceal themselves, but then his mettle rose. If it was some other human being in difficulty, then surely it was his duty to see if he could help? Even if it wasn’t another person like himself, it was still what he ought to do. Besides, as much as he’d grown fond of Flip, it would be good to hear a voice that wasn’t a piping squeak.