Ruby Morgan Box Set: Books 6-10

by LJ Rivers

  Chapter Six

  Halwyn’s words lingered in the small cottage, as if they didn’t quite want to enter my head. Or the heads of my friends, judging by the looks on their faces.

  As so many times before, Charlie’s thirst for knowledge made her break the silence. “Uhm, what time period is one of your moons? Or, for that matter, how do you tell time here? I see no timekeeping devices on your walls.”

  Halwyn had filled his mouth, so Charlie waited patiently for him to finish chewing. It was almost comical how this Goblin out in the middle of the countryside, living in a medieval-styled cottage, wouldn’t speak before he had chewed and swallowed. I had already decided I liked this man, and somehow, that unexpected touch of refinement moved him closer to my heart.

  When he finally finished his mouthful, he went to a cupboard in the sitting room part of the cottage. “Goff brought me this from his last journey to Avalen. Made by the queen’s personal timekeeper, according to him.” He scoffed but kept his smile. “My neighbour might not be one to charge thrice for his grains or herbs, no matter what the buyer is willing to pay, but he’s no stranger to embellishing a story. I have no faith in this being the handiwork of the royal timekeeper himself, but that doesn’t diminish its quality.”

  He bent down to pull out the drawer beneath the double doors. When he straightened, he held an hourglass in his hand. It wasn’t big, maybe only two inches in height and one in width, but even from across the room, the intricate carvings looked magnificent. He carefully placed it on the table next to his bowl and sat looking at it for a few seconds, seemingly in awe of the whole thing.

  The almost theatrical scene made me forget about Morgana for a moment, but her name lurked in the back of my mind. I kept quiet while Halwyn admired the wonder of the hourglass. It must have cost him a lot, or be very rare on either Avalon or Crochan Island from the way Halwyn was looking at it.

  “The moon is big and dark every twenty-eight rising,” he said. “And one moon is twenty-four awrs. In Avalon, they might use the word day instead of moon.” He held up his left hand, putting his right index finger on the tip of his pinky. “Each finger has three awrs on it if we don’t count the thumb. Now, we are on the seventh awr.” He moved his index finger to the tip of his left middle finger. “The seventh link.”

  “So, this is an awrglass?” Charlie asked.

  Halwyn held it to the yellow light of the oil lamp. “Indeed, it is.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice as if there was a large crowd listening, not just the people around his dinner table. “To speak the truth, the build itself is not better or worse than most awrglasses, no matter who made it. What makes this one so special is what’s inside.”

  He turned it and placed it on the table again. Minuscule grains of sand flowed from the upper part to the lower, through a neck so narrow it almost didn’t look open at all.

  “It takes one-half awr for all the grains to move from this bulb to this.” He pointed his crooked finger at the translucent pieces of glass inside the dark-golden wooden frame. “But old Halwyn of Crochan doesn’t use ordinary sand like the rest of them. Oh no, he’s much more clever than that.” His gaze shifted from Charlie to Brendan, and then to each of us in turn, ending on Charlie again. “Dried seeds of arnofiol is the secret.” He leaned back, ready to bask in our awe and amazement.

  “Arnofiol?” I asked. “That’s a herb that makes you sleep, right?” I spoke from personal experience, recalling how I hadn’t remembered anything after the Hopkins wolves had spiked my drink at Mum’s Essencebearing only a few days ago.

  Halwyn looked disappointed. “Well, yes, but that’s not its purpose here.” He sighed. “I guess you outsiders don’t know about—oh, pay it no mind. I have seen to it that the grains will never sink too fast or too slow, is what I’m trying to tell you. If you buy a thousand awrglasses from a thousand timekeepers, you will never find one that drops its last seed precisely on the final moment of the awr. Or half, like this.”

  I had run out of patience. Again. “I’m sorry that we are not familiar with your ways, Halwyn, and I appreciate that this is something only you can manage. That makes you a powerful Goblin, and I would bet that is why the queen has chosen you to be her cropkeeper.”

  His disappointment faded, and contentment crept back on his lips. “It does. And not only that but—”

  “I’m sorry to be rude, and hope you can forgive me, but you said it has only been eighteen dark moons since Morgana defeated Auberon? And that Morgana herself is still on the throne. This simply cannot be, Halwyn.”

  His rounded ears pricked up, and his eyes narrowed into slits. “The next words exiting your lips should carry a strong apology, or you are bordering on treason.”

  Realising I had to watch my step, I rubbed my temples. “I do not mean to offend or betray anyone, least of all you and your queen.”

  And my queen, I thought, even though it couldn’t possibly be her.

  “But you’re right. We are outsiders, from the Land of Eternal Sand, apparently. There, it has been one thousand five hundred years—harvests, I suppose—since Morgana opened the portal to our world. I hope you can understand how this is confusing to me. To us.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Well, Ruby the Outsider, or perhaps I should call you the Wingless Fae?”

  “I—I suppose you could.” He had already pegged me for a Fae, but the wingless comment caught me off guard. Could I never catch a break? Even here, the actual place from which I originated, I was an outsider.

  An abomination.

  “You have the disadvantage of being the only—” Halwyn counted us with a tiny gesture of his hand “—six to whom this is confusing. There are several hundred thousand who find it perfectly reasonable.”

  Kit hopped on my lap, and this time he actually felt heavier than before.

  “Seven,” the Goblin said, nodding at my cat. “Forgive me, strange animal.”

  Kit responded with a purr and curled into a ball.

  I drew a deep breath, and before letting it out, I looked at my friends. Each of their faces was as puzzled as I felt, with the amusing exception of Charlie. She was grinning, drinking in the whole situation and all the information it contained. My heart swelled at the sight of the beginning of tiny crow’s feet at the edges of her eyes when she smiled.

  “You’re the clever one, Char. What do you make of this?”

  She leaned forward, and just like she always did when she was about to share an exciting discovery, she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose with a finger. “Time moves at a different pace here relative to back on Earth.” She said it so matter-of-factly that I thought it was just the lead-in to a more profound explanation. But none came.

  Halwyn also leaned forward and was staring intently at Charlie, tilting his head. “Peculiar.”

  She shrugged. “You could say that.”

  “No, I mean those discs on your nose. They make your eyes look bigger.”

  “Oh, I forgot about those. They’re called glasses. My eyesight isn’t great, and these help.”

  The Goblin sat up. “How?”

  Charlie took the glasses off and handed them to him. “Here, try them on and see for yourself.”

  Halwyn held his hands out, cupping his palms as if he were to receive the most precious gift ever. And in a way it was precious—a sign of trust from them both.

  He put the glasses on, struggling a little with getting the temples to fit behind his rounded ears. The bridge was much too narrow for his Goblin nose, but Charlie helped by pushing it gently down, so it stuck.

  Halwyn’s narrow eyes widened, and behind Charlie’s plus three lenses, they were comically large. I had to focus hard not to giggle as I had no wish to offend him. He shifted his gaze from side to side and up to the ceiling.

  “Everything is blurred,” he said. Then he held his hand up in front of his eyes. “But not my hand. Strange.” He looked at the ceiling again. “And it makes me feel unsteady.”

 
Charlie reached for his nose, fumbling for the bridge of her glasses. As she lifted them off him, Halwyn blinked and shook his head quickly. “And you say those things help?”

  “My eyes don’t work as well on close range. Doesn’t people’s sight deteriorate over time here?”

  The Goblin scratched his head with a long fingernail. “With age, but it doesn’t happen for all. Children of Tala have excellent vision, just like the eagle Changelings. To them, not even the Fall of Light seems to hinder their vision.”

  I glanced at Jen, who wiggled her brows back at me.

  “Takes more than an overcast night to stop us.”

  “This Fall of Light sounds like a little more than an overcast night,” I said, nodding at the front door. “I noticed there was no sunrise.”

  “Not for many harvests. Ever since the Fall of Light, the sun has but a faint shimmer left.”

  “What happened?”

  “That is the question many have tried to answer. Not even the queen’s erudites have managed to agree upon an explanation. One morning, the sun rose over Rhina’s Peak but didn’t throw its brightness over my barley. That’s all I know. My crops have suffered, but not as much as those of the Avalonians. Or the Northerners, for that matter.” He sat back, smiling wryly. “But old Halwyn has a few secrets. And that’s why my crops are the most yielding in all of Gwyn Fanon, and why Queen Morgana has named me her cropkeeper.”

  Much as I would like to know more about how it was possible that the sun simply stopped shining, I simply couldn’t grasp how Morgana was still alive, much less queen. “So, Charlie. About the time moving slower here. That’s it? It just moves slower?”

  “More or less.”

  “How can that be?” As I said the words, I knew what Charlie’s response would be, so I joined her:

  “Magic.”

  “Interesting, amazing, and precious as that may be,” I continued, “that means this land—the whole realm of Gwyn Fanon, I presume—has just been through a giant battle.”

  “Not a battle,” Halwyn said. His eyes moved ever so slightly upwards. “Hundreds of battles. A war.”

  I followed his gaze and gasped. “Oh, no!”

  “What is it?” Brendan asked.

  I pointed at a necklace hanging from one of the hooks. It looked like silver, with a pendant shaped into a four-leaf clover. It was predominantly white, but the flickering flame of the oil lamp brought out dozens of other shades, from the darkest blue to the brightest red.

  “Your wife’s?” I whispered.

  Halwyn’s jade-green eyes broke away from my gaze to stare at his bare feet. “Corlai was my life, my every heartbeat. She was my song and joy, and the colour of all days and nights before and after.”

  There were audible gasps from all around the table. Kit raised his head to see what was happening, but lowered it the next instant. I could swear the fur on the tip of his ears had grown longer. Bushier, somehow.

  Jen stood, hunching to avoid the ceiling, and studied the pendant. “Would I be right in guessing her beauty is reflected in this?”

  “You would, wolf. And you would not. There is nothing that can truly reflect her grace and allure. Ever since I laid eyes on her, more than forty years ago, I knew she was the only one that could shine in my heart. There were other girls, of course, even among her sisters, but none like my Corlai.”

  “Do you have a likeness of her?” I meant to say picture. “A drawing, perhaps?”

  He waved a hand. “Oh, my crooked lines could never do justice to her beauty. And to have a skilled painter make one? Only the rich can afford such luxuries. Besides, Corlai is here all the time.” Halwyn tapped his temple. “And here.” He moved his hand to the left side of his chest.

  Brendan cleared his throat. “May I ask what happened to her, if that isn’t too forthright?”

  “Auberon happened,” the Goblin muttered. “Not himself, but his Collector. Bellion the Satyr and a group of twenty soldiers was all it took. Had I been home, they would never have taken them.”

  “Taken?” Brendan sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Do you know where?”

  Tears flowed down Halwyn’s wrinkled skin. He swallowed and bore his gaze into Brendan’s. “To the Nethers.”

  “Sorry,” I began. “Did you say them?”

  “Corlai and Wadyan, our son.”

  Erica sobbed. “By the Lady, no!”

  “If the Lady had anything to do with it, I would not sit here mourning my wife and son. Bellion and his men dragged all the women out to Rhina’s Deep and made the children watch as they threw them to the Serenae. One by one.” Halwyn ground his teeth, tears still flowing in steady streams. “My Wadyan had to watch as that son of the Nethers murdered his mother.” He slammed his hand on the table, punching the edge of his bowl of stew. It flew across the room, crashing to the floor by the entrance, the remains of his meal splattering the floor and walls.

  Brendan put his hand gently on the Goblin’s shoulder. At first, it seemed Halwyn was going to pull back, but his tiny flinch was just an immediate reaction. He wept but stayed put as Brendan moved his arm around him. My boyfriend looked like a giant next to the short, stocky Goblin, and on most other occasions, the scene would look comical. Now, it gave me warm fuzzies, and it seemed to calm Halwyn, as well.

  “What happened to Wadyan?” Brendan asked after a short silence.

  “Bellion took him to the mines of Dewmas. The Goblins of the north are the only ones who know how to mine Enchantium, but I reckon they can teach other Goblins the same. When I came home, my house was empty, and all that was left was Corlai’s necklace. Goff told me what had happened; he barely survived himself, the poor fellow. Jumped into the black water and stayed under for longer than he should have been able to.”

  My throat was dry, but I didn’t want to offend Halwyn by eating, even if it was only a spoonful of broth. “This Bellion, he uses prisoners to work the mines, then?”

  “Slaves. You can use the word, Fae Ruby. Wadyan is a slave and will remain so until the day he is no longer able to mine. Or breathe. The latter tends to come first.”

  “It pains me to hear this, Halwyn,” I said, meaning every syllable. The initial sorrow had already turned to anger, as I was very much aware of who this Bellion bloke worked for. “When did Bellion come for Wadyan?”

  As if he had read my mind, or maybe he had noticed the dryness of my voice, Halwyn stood and went to the kitchen corner. It struck me that the cottage seemed bigger within than it looked from the outside. And the long hallway was still a mystery, but not one I could think of solving now.

  Halwyn returned with a tray of mugs and a tall, brown clay pot. He proceeded to pour from the pot, and a golden, almost syrupy liquid filled the mugs. The smell reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  Jack received the first serving and nodded a silent thanks. Smelling the contents, his eyes hooded. He leaned forward, and his lips curved up when he took a swig. “Fantastic,” he whispered and took another swig.

  “Best barley ale south of the Ygrenya Plains,” Halwyn replied, sadness and pride mixing in his voice. He finished pouring, giving Brendan the biggest mug.

  As I tasted the ale, the memory from its scent became clear. It tasted almost like the beer I had had with Duncan in The Forge.

  “Three nights after Queen Morgana banished king Auberon to the Realm of Shadows, I was still in Avalen, helping her divide responsibilities for the various crop fields. Here, on Crochan Island, which holds the largest fields by far, she wanted me to remain in charge. She told me—face to face, I might add—to choose any Goblin I wanted to be my second. I could not wait to get home and tell my wife and son the good news. And Goff, for that matter, as I wanted him to join me as second on the island.”

  There was still contentment in his voice, and he had straightened his back. Now, the words seemed to flow out of him like water through a broken barrel, and he slumped forward. Brendan, ever the caring one, held t
he Goblin close.

  “Bellion had been here only awrs before I returned. If I hadn’t accepted Queen Morgana’s invitation to dine with her, I could have saved them.” He began sobbing again, his body jerking up and down as he gasped for air in between.

  I leaned forward and put my hand on his. Kit jumped down as I moved, only to jump up again, settling on Halwyn’s lap. The Goblin didn’t seem to know what to make of it, but eventually started stroking the little—or not so little, anymore—cat.

  “All that would have happened if you came home earlier,” I said, “was that you would have been either killed or taken to the mines. And only after you too had been forced to witness your wife’s murder.”

  Halwyn looked at me, the pain written all over his face as if in capital letters. “I would have killed the Satyr first.” His words rung no more true in his mind than in mine, based on his expression. “I have secrets the Satyr would not have defences against.”

  I said nothing, as there really was nothing to say. We sat in silence, all seven of us—eight, counting Kit—for a long while, each of us contemplating Halwyn’s story our own way.

  “You will need to turn the awrglass once, as the walk takes one full awr,” Halwyn suddenly said.

  I almost dropped my mug, which I had held ever since my first mouthful. Before I could reply, he handed me the small hourglass.

  “It will not run the wrong way if you turn it too early like normal awrglasses do. So you can keep it in your satchel, as long as you remember to check it now and then.”

  To demonstrate, he flipped it on its side and sat back. Although the grains in the upper half, now pointing to my left, were lower than the narrow neck separating the two halves, the grains still moved to the right half. Slowly, meticulously, and seemingly at the same pace as before.