Gieaun looked over at Rhudedth and rolled her eyes.
“You boys and that stupid race!” she moaned.
“Ready?” Jahrra asked excitedly, ignoring Gieaun’s complaint.
“GO!!” Pahrdh shouted as he kicked his horse into full speed.
The five horses and one semequin struggled for a short while to claim the lead, but Phrym was much too fast for all of them. After ten minutes of full-out galloping, the six companions slowed their horses to a walk and began glancing around at the changed environment, their breathing labored from the effort of keeping their mounts confined to the narrow dirt path. The lane had gently climbed for most of the way, but now it started to decline into what looked like a redwood grove up ahead. The hills to their right had also gradually crept closer to the coast, creating a small shelf of flat, wooded land between the cliffs and the base of the hills.
“If I remember correctly, we go downhill through those trees. On the other side there’s a trail leading down to the base of the cove,” Pahrdh said to the group as they came to the edge of the trees.
He and his sister were the only two who had ever been to the coves before.
“As long as you know where we’re going,” said Gieaun, sounding weary.
The group led their horses through the redwood grove for another half mile or more, feeling grateful for the dappled shade protecting them from the burning sun. Jahrra began to wonder where the start of the trail was, but once they came upon a small bridge arching over a tiny creek running across their path, she knew they must be close. She stopped Phrym for a moment and took a deep breath, letting the air fill her lungs. It smelled of pine oil, dust and ocean. Such a lovely combination, she thought as she smiled, urging her semequin on once more.
The six riders eventually came to a small clearing in the woods. Scede spotted the trailhead right away; perched on the edge of the cliff before disappearing down its side. Jahrra walked up as close to the edge with Phrym as she dared. The fresh leather of her new saddle squeaked as she stood up in the stirrups, first to peer over the cliff’s side and then to glance behind her. Her five friends stood back in a line on their horses, a look of patience on their faces, as if waiting for her to give them the all-clear sign.
Jahrra smiled as she turned to survey the breathtaking view ahead. To her left, the land curved around, creating a giant hook of towering earth that eventually pointed to the north. The land was like a ridge on the sea, its height adorned with a dusting of trees, acting like a great arm that gathered the pale blue water of the cove below into a great, rocky bowl. A narrow footpath led up the hill and most likely to the edge of the point, but dead ahead of Jahrra, and just on the other side of this enormous jetty, sat the ocean, the endless western ocean. Great, towering rocks, some as tall as fifty feet and just as wide, were scattered beyond the shore as if they’d been tossed there by an enormous hand. Far below, the small, pebbly beach welcomed the glittering turquoise-blue surf of the sheltered cove, and a ribbon of water purled down from the edge of the cliff to meet the shore beneath it. The small cascade was flowing quite profusely, and when she made an effort to listen, Jahrra could hear its light, almost melodic crash upon the gravelly sand below.
Jahrra reluctantly pulled her eyes from the veil of water falling over the cliff and scanned the rest of the beach. She smiled broadly when she noticed the pock-ridden shelves of rock that littered the shore, imagining what kind of sea life might be lurking within those pores.
“Jahrra! Are you going to sit there all day ogling those tide pools or are we going to go down there?” Scede called from behind.
Jahrra turned and saw that her friends had moved to the outskirts of the clearing where the creek made its final curve before falling over the cliff. They were already off their horses and were in the process of tying the reins to nearby branches. Jahrra gently turned Phrym around and walked him over to join them. He nickered lightly in disappointment. She jumped from his back and walked him over to where all the other horses stood.
“Don’t worry, I won’t leave you here for long,” she said, patting his cheek.
“Who wants to go first?” Gieaun called from the edge of the cliff. She was staring over the side with a look of dread on her face.
“I’ll go,” Jahrra volunteered.
After several minutes of careful scooting and clinging along the cliff wall, and after receiving a plethora of scratches and bruises from the rocks and brush, Jahrra, Gieaun, Scede, Mahryn, Rhudedth and Pahrdh finally made it down to the beach.
“That was fun,” Rhudedth said facetiously, picking dead vegetation out of her hair.
The tiny pebbles littering the beach radiated the mid-day heat from the sun, so the group of friends decided to make use of the abiding water. Jahrra sat down on a nearby rock and took off her deerskin boots, promptly rolling up the legs of her pants while Gieaun and Rhudedth followed suit. The boys joined them and in no time the six companions were running through the surf, kicking up salt water and laughing merrily.
“Quick, let’s jump through the waterfall!” Gieaun shouted.
Mahryn led the way as they ran towards the cascade of water. Each of them darted through it several times, screaming as the chilled water cooled their sun-baked skin. After they grew tired of chasing each other around the shore, they stopped and sat in the shade to catch their breath.
“I’m worn out, let’s go look for starfish,” Rhudedth suggested after awhile.
“Oh, I want to see the hermit crabs!” Jahrra said, forgetting about the cool water splashing down upon her feet.
For the next several minutes, the children foraged among the slick, algae-covered boulders searching for urchins and anemones. Scede found a very large hermit crab, big enough to fit in his opened palm, and Jahrra, Mahryn and Gieaun found several orange starfish.
“Hey, I have an idea! Let’s play tag!” Rhudedth piped up after looking at what felt like the hundredth sea snail. She was standing in the shallow water holding up her green skirts, the pale crystal water swirling around her ankles.
“Good idea,” Gieaun said, returning the hermit crab she was playing with to its tide pool. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything else.”
“Tag! You’re it!” Rhudedth reached out and roughly poked her cousin, then took off in a flash.
“Hey!” Mahryn rubbed his arm where she’d jabbed him and watched as everyone scattered away from him, laughing.
Jahrra ran through the waterfall in order to avoid Pahrdh, who was the next to be tagged ‘it’, and then paused to rest as he took off after Scede. She bent over and put her hands on her knees, shivering a little in the cool shade of the rock wall that towered above her.
Deciding that the water provided a sufficient veil to conceal her, Jahrra took the opportunity to look for a good place to hide later when they would play hide-and-go-seek. As she scanned the beach she noticed an obvious depression in the wall of earth further down several feet from where she stood. Jahrra stood up and moved closer to the shore, curious to investigate this strange landmark she hadn’t noticed before. It appeared to be the entrance to a tunnel, carved into the small rock mountain forming the point. The tide happened to be just low enough to reveal a strip of solid ground running under the archway. The space beneath the land bridge was probably twenty five to thirty feet high, and Jahrra had a sudden urge to see where this new discovery led.
“Jahrra! What are you doing, Scede is going to tag you!” Gieaun called out to her friend.
Jahrra turned her head just in time to see Scede flying at her. She reacted quickly and was able to dodge him, sending him careening into the waves.
“Come see what I’ve found,” she said, acting as if no one had just tried to tackle her.
“Oh great, Jahrra has found something,” Gieaun said to Pahrdh and Mahryn in a knowing tone. Jahrra finding something always meant trouble.
“You’re just trying to trick us into getting tagged!” Rhudedth yelled good-naturedly.
When Jahrra started walking towards the opposite end of the cove, however, the entire group slowly made their way over.
“Here we go again,” Gieaun groaned.
“What have you found now?” Scede asked, still dripping from his tumble into the ocean.
“Look,” she said, pointing off to the left. “The beach continues on under that ridge. Let’s go see what’s in there.”
“I don’t think so,” Gieaun said uncertainly.
“There can’t be much, can there? What harm could it do in checking it out?” Rhudedth offered lightly in Jahrra’s defense.
“You’ve never been on an adventure with Jahrra, have you?” Scede asked boorishly, shaking his dark hair out and splashing them all with water.
Jahrra shot him an annoyed look.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Pahrdh put in for Jahrra. “Who knows what we might find?”
“Yeah, maybe we’ll find pirates’ treasure!” Mahryn said sarcastically, thinking about his childhood days at the coves with his cousins. He dropped his eyes quickly and blushed when he caught Jahrra’s irritated glance.
“I’ll go first if it’ll make you feel better, Scede,” Jahrra said in a mocking tone.
“Sounds fine to me,” he sniffed.
As the group entered the depression in the wall, they discovered that the arch was really a series of several tunnels zigzagging through the solid rock.
“Alright, we’ve checked it out,” Scede said shortly. “The path is obviously longer and more complicated than we thought. It’s like a labyrinth! What if we get stuck in here and the tide rises?”
He was right; the cave was more convoluted than Jahrra had thought. It had five different tunnels branching off in five different directions.
“How about we explore for fifteen minutes, then we can turn back,” Jahrra pleaded. “We’ll leave a pebble trail so we won’t get lost.”
Gieaun and Scede knew that Jahrra would go on without them even if they refused, so they reluctantly agreed to look around for awhile, grumbling as they did so. They were all very curious, however, despite their apprehension.
Jahrra led her friends through the tunnel directly in front of them, the one that eventually curved off to the left. The passage was cool and somewhat suffocating with the muffled echoing of the churning ocean playing against their ears. Five minutes later Jahrra, Gieaun, Scede, Pahrdh, Rhudedth and Mahryn stepped out onto a small secluded beach that was riddled with tide pools.
“Wow!” piped Rhudedth. “Look at those!”
She ran over to the closest tide pool and peered in to get a closer look at the brilliant life within. There were anemones painted in vivid color combinations Jahrra had never seen before, and some of the sea stars, in the deeper pools, were simply enormous, close to four feet across.
Jahrra and her friends carefully jumped and climbed over the many cracks and crevices of the rocky shelf laid out in front of them before dropping down onto the beach below. As they looked around, they realized that the tunnels had led them to another tiny cove, a cove maybe only a third of the size of the one they had just been in. It looked much like the other inlet, only this one had no waterfall, and it was well tucked in behind the sea rocks. Jahrra wasn’t surprised she’d never heard of it before today and she began to wonder if anyone had ever been here before. So few people came to this part of Oescienne to begin with, and the beach was blocked off from any access from the ocean, so maybe she and her friends were the first to set foot in this new place. She wagered that it probably wasn’t even marked on Hroombra’s maps. She made a mental note to check when she got home.
Feeling a fresh burst of excitement, Jahrra allowed her eyes to wander around this unfamiliar world. The rocks a few yards out in the ocean were just as rugged and dangerous looking as all the others off this part of the coast, but there was a newness and freshness to this minuscule bay.
“Jahrra, are you coming?” Mahryn asked, staring up at her.
She’d been lost in thought once again and hadn’t noticed she was the only one left standing on the stone shelf covered with tide pools.
“Yes, I’m coming.” Jahrra took Mahryn’s outstretched hand and jumped down to join her friends on the beach.
The Resai boy released her hand and Rhudedth smiled and winked, nudging Jahrra slightly as she walked by. Jahrra gave her a bothered look and brushed past her.
“There’s nothing too interesting about this place,” Gieaun remarked tiredly as she scanned the beach.
“Hey, over here!” Pahrdh yelled. “Come see what I’ve found!”
The group headed in Pahrdh’s direction, but Jahrra felt a sudden urge to look up at the cliff behind her. She traced the ridge above with the tip of her finger and let her eyes wander over the tall, rough wall. It was mottled with stray wild grasses and flowers, lichens and mosses. This face of rock looked exactly like the wall on the other side of the giant hill jutting out to sea, but there was something different about it, something that made Jahrra want to study its surface. Then, about halfway down the cliff on the opposite end of the cove, she spotted something. It looked like a depression in the rock, perhaps just another anomaly along its rugged face, but she had to go and see for sure.
“Jahrra! Come and see the crab Mahryn found!”
Jahrra looked at her friends, bent over observing something in the sand, but she felt more compelled to head towards the base of the cliff.
“Hold on, I think I see something,” she said quietly, heading down the beach as if entranced.
Gieaun and Scede watched her for awhile, but soon returned their attention to the irritated crustacean at their feet.
Once Jahrra reached the point below the depression, she discovered that it was more than just a mere pockmark in the wall; it looked like a cave. She stared up the side of the cliff, searching for any way to climb up it. After a few minutes, her mouth broke into a wide grin. A few yards away there was a set of primitive steps carved right into the side of the cliff, starting at its base and stretching up at an angle. Jahrra began climbing, oblivious to what her friends were doing further down the beach.
Gieaun looked up at that moment, expecting to see Jahrra where she had been a few minutes ago.
“Jahrra! What are you doing?” she shouted.
“I think there’s a cave up here!” Jahrra called down from halfway up the staircase.
“Wait for us!” Rhudedth called as she quickly left the group to join her adventurous friend.
“A cave? Maybe we will find a pirates’ treasure!” Pahrdh called out hopefully.
Soon Mahryn was left alone on the beach, and even he eventually joined the rest of the group.
As soon as Jahrra reached the top of the steps, she realized that she’d been right. It was a cave, and a fairly large one too. She peered in over the lip of the dark cavern cautiously, trying to get a better view of its interior. It looked to be about fifteen feet tall at its highest point and continued on past her range of vision. She stepped up into it and was hit with a stale, musty smell of cool, damp earth and ocean. A magnified dripping resounded nearby and somewhere towards the back of the cave a dusty beam of light cut through the soft darkness. Jahrra looked up to locate the source of the light; a small hole in the roof of the cavern. There was a large shelf directly beneath the beam of sunlight and another set of short steps leading up to the top of it. Jahrra approached them just as Gieaun’s and Rhudedth’s silhouettes appeared at the mouth of the cave.
“Now where are you going?” Gieaun breathed, her voice echoing strangely in this enclosed space.
Jahrra looked back at her friend, the bright ocean glaring crystal blue behind her.
“There’s another set of steps leading up further,” Jahrra answered as quietly as she could. “I want to see what’s up on that ledge.”
“Oh, alright,” Gieaun exhaled in exasperation. “But be careful! There could be poisonous spiders up there.”
It didn’t take long for Jahrra to reach the top
and when she peered over the last few steps, she gasped and almost lost her balance. Basking in the filtered glow of the natural skylight was a fully dressed skeleton. The fine clothes were now mostly rotted away and moth eaten, a great, broad brimmed hat sat wilting on top of a smiling skull. A cold chill played down her spine as she crouched low on the edge of the shelf, only her fingertips and her face from her eyes up peering over the top.
Despite her fear, Jahrra couldn’t help but stare at the remains of the poor soul. Something gleamed in the corner of her eye and she refocused her attention onto the end of the skeleton’s arm. When she squinted to get a better look, she noticed an old book and something small and disc-shaped clutched in its left hand. It was this object, imprisoned in his skeletal fingers, which had reflected the light and caught her eye.
“What did you find up there Jahrra?” Scede said impatiently.
“Go get Mahryn,” she replied with wide eyes. “I think I’ve found a pirate!”
Before long everyone was crowded around the long-dead man, jammed close together on the small rock ledge.
“Do you think he’s really a pirate?” Mahryn whispered, his eyes glued on the costumed skeleton.
“Don’t you think this is a little spooky?” Rhudedth added slowly.
“Yes, but doesn’t it make you wonder who he was?” Jahrra said in quiet awe.
She had her eye on the book pressed to his side and the disk that was caught in his bony hand.
“Look!” said Pahrdh, pointing to a small pouch that Jahrra hadn’t seen before. “A coin purse!”
Pahrdh went to reach for it, but Rhudedth shrieked and grabbed his arm. “You’ll curse us!”
“Don’t be absurd!” he scoffed, jerking his arm free. “We’ll only be cursed if we don’t leave something in exchange for what we take.”
Jahrra glanced around at her friends and Scede nodded somberly.
“Our parents used to tell us, in the old stories of pirates’ treasure, that you must never rob a pirate, dead or alive, or he’ll come back for revenge. But if we trade, we should be alright.”
The Beginning Page 24