by Dan Davis
White Wind Rising
Gunpowder and Alchemy Book 1
By Dan Davis
Copyright 2014 Dan Davis
Smashwords Edition
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Contents
Title Page
Contents
Plot Summary
Chapter 1 - A Terrible Mistake
Chapter 2 - A Way Out
Chapter 3 - The Dragon Keeper
Chapter 4 - Stolen Name
Chapter 5 - Dragon Fire
Chapter 6 - Weaver
Chapter 7 - Writer
Chapter 8 - Don’t Touch Anything
Chapter 9 - A Fight to the Basket
Chapter 10 - Escape Plan
Chapter 11 - A Thousand Nights
Chapter 12 - Rising and Falling
Chapter 13 - The Wind’s Cold Embrace
Chapter 14 - Wind Blown
Chapter 15 - Crashing
Chapter 16 - A Long Way Home
Chapter 17 - In A Bad Way
Chapter 18 - Keeper on Fire
Chapter 19 - Wolf Dreams
Chapter 20 - The Outsider
Chapter 21 - Heducation
Chapter 22 - A Soldier’s Job
Chapter 23 - A Nasty Business
Chapter 24 - White Wind Rising
Chapter 25 - It’s Not You That Does It
Chapter 26 - Writer’s House
Chapter 27 - Home is Where Cobnut Forge Is
Chapter 28 - Smashing the Chains
Chapter 29 - Home Again
Chapter 30 - The Storm Rises
Back Matter
Plot Summary
The Vale folk have been cut off from the rest of England for a thousand years. Every aspect of their lives is controlled by the Alchemist Bede. To save the Vale and himself, young Archer must unleash the power of the elements.
White Wind Rising is the amazing first instalment in this coming of age historical fantasy series which will entrance readers of all ages.
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For Archie, again
No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
- Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth
It can be said that there are four elemental properties. These we take to be Wind, Water, Earth and Fire. Control any one alone and all shall rightly regard you as its master. But the alchemist who unites these four into one whole will have truly mastered himself, the Art and the very world itself. Of course, such a feat is hardly likely to ever be achieved…
Lord High Alchemist John Dee from Fasciculus Alchemicus
A Terrible Mistake
‘Alchemist!’ Archer called. His voice came out quietly and blew away on the wind. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder. ‘Alchemist!’
The Alchemist’s Tower stretched above him. Tall and white and silent but for the wind that whistled in his ears.
The Tower stood in the centre of the Vale upon a great rock plinth. The Vale was a long flat floodplain surrounded by hills and the Moon Forest.
There were no doors on the Tower and no windows either. The only way in had to be through magic.
Archer did not want to go in. The thought was terrifying. All he wanted was to make a perfectly reasonable request and then get home.
‘Alchemist!’ he called again. ‘I have come to ask a favour.’
Archer wondered how to ask it but, in truth, it was simple enough.
‘Please, this year would you allow my mother and father to keep more of their grain? Just a little more would make all the difference.’
When the grown-ups spoke of the Alchemist at all, they did so in whispers. They said that the Alchemist was all-powerful. He watched everyone in the Vale from the top of the Tower. There was a dragon inside. If you were naughty then the Alchemist would come and take you away. The Alchemist walked the Vale, hooded and cloaked.
When it was dark, they said, you might see his eyeball gleaming through the keyhole in your front door. Archer did not believe that was true but he could not walk by the door of the farmhouse at night without glancing at it.
‘Alchemist,’ he cried. ‘It’s me, Archer.’ Then he felt foolish because of course the Alchemist would surely have no idea who he was. He was just a farmer’s boy from up Vale way.
If the Alchemist were really up there, looking down, then Archer would look like nothing. He would be a speck. Like a flea on the back of a great white sheepdog. All Archer had was his bow and a few arrows. What defence that would be against the powers of the Alchemist?
His heart hammered at the thought of his insignificance compared to the Tower and to the Alchemist. He could not run away, not now that he had come all the way down the Vale. He had walked halfway to Morningtree!
Archer ran up and kicked the Tower.
‘Ouch!’ Archer danced back, holding his toes through his boot. He hopped around, shaking his foot.
‘Who do you think you are, anyway?’ Archer shouted, his voice louder than it had ever been. ‘You will never see me. Will you? You will never speak to me. You just sit up there forcing us to work but you know nothing of the troubles of the Vale folk. You force us to give you almost everything we grow or make, every year. My parents cart up our wheat and our wool. And what do you give us in return? Nothing, that’s what.’
A white anger gripped his heart.
‘You should not treat us this way. We deserve better.’ Archer struggled to find words for his feelings. ‘All you do is take. You are a bad person. We would all be better off if you were not up there. Why don’t you just go away and leave us all alone?’
The Tower filled his vision and stretched up into the blue sky above. The wind blew about his ears and kicked up a cloud of white dust underfoot. In the distance, a sheep bleated.
Archer opened his mouth to call one last time before he gave up and went home.
Then.
A flash of light. Purple and white sounds filled his head.
Everything went slow.
There was a rushing through his heart like a cold white wind, down in the core of himself. It was frightening, even terrifying but also good. It was new. It was familiar. The white wind made him feel strong. It made him feel connected to something. If he could reach out and touch it, then he would know....
The world turned blue.
Then yellow and green.
Red and orange sparks fell in a shower all around him. Archer’s body twisted and turned. He was lighter than a fletch and then heavy like a millstone.
He fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of him.
It was dark. He was on his knees. On flagstones.
He looked up. It took a few moments to adjust from the glare of the sunlight and the flashing, colourful lights. But there was the flickering of a large fire in one side of the room.
He was in a room.
Indoors.
Inside the Tower.
Archer leapt to his feet and his head swam. Bile rose up from his guts and he bent to his knees.
‘Blurgh,’ he said but he was not sick.
He wobbled for a moment until his head cleared. He dusted himself off. He had never had spell cast on him before and he was not sure that he like
d it all that much. He felt weak and shaky; the kind of feeling you get after you have vomited yourself empty or if you have not eaten for two or three days. Like last winter.
Taking a deep breath, he looked around.
He was near the centre of very large room, a room with a wall that went all the way round in a vast circle.
Light came from the fire in the vast fireplace against the wall. The deep orange-red light casting flickered shadows everywhere. It was hot. A good fire. Even though the room was so enormous he could feel the warmth of the fire on his face from the other side.
There was a solid old table by the fire with a jug and cups and bowls on it. The side of the room opposite the fire was dark. Up beyond the rafters it was too dark to even see a ceiling.
Around the wall to one side was hundreds of sacks of grain, on the other were vast stacks of logs. Hanging from the rafters on long strings were row upon row of dried herbs and garlics and dried vegetables.
It was a kitchen. A very large kitchen, ten times bigger and more than the one in his house. But it was still a kitchen.
Next to him, in the centre of the room there was a stone-walled well with a bucket and coil of rope.
There was no way out.
No door. No window.
He was alone.
‘Hello?’ Archer said, his voice echoing softly around the cavernous space.
‘YOU DARED APPROACH MY TOWER.’
The voice boomed out of the walls and ceiling so loudly that Archer clamped his hands over his ears.
‘Yes,’ said Archer, speaking up toward the dark ceiling. He cleared his throat and said what he had come to say. ‘I come to you humbly to ask if you would please stop asking for quite so much of our wheat and our wool. My parents give you almost all of it, every year. And then there is never quite enough bread to eat. And there is not enough left over to sell at the markets in Bures or Morningtree or to trade for the other things we need. I hope you will not think I am asking too much.’
‘NO.’ The voice of the Alchemist boomed out again. ‘YOU ARE A FOOL.’ The voice was thunder. ‘YOU DEMAND FAVOURS YET YOU OWE YOUR EXISTENCE TO ME. I PROTECT YOU ALL FROM THE WORLD BEYOND THE VALE.’
Archer realised then that he had a terrible mistake in coming to the Alchemist’s Tower.
‘I see,’ he said, his heart pounding in his chest, the voice so loud it hurt his head. ‘I am sorry. I will go back home.’
‘NO,’ the Alchemist’s voice hammered. ‘YOU ARE MY NEW BAKER. EVERY DAY YOU WILL BAKE FIVE LOAVES OF BREAD.’ The echo of the voice boomed round the small room. ‘EVERY DAY YOU WILL FILL FIVE JUGS OF WATER. NOW, MY LITTLE BAKER. GET TO WORK.’
The echo bounced around the walls and all was then still. The fire crackled.
‘What?’ The boy whispered to himself, then looked up at the distant ceiling. ‘No. Alchemist, please. I did not mean to offend you. Please, let me go home. My parents will not know where I am. You must let me go.’
‘GO?’ The voice returned, slamming into him, knocking him to his knees. The voice laughed a slow, deep, humourless laugh. Archer, on all fours on the floor, pushed his forehead against the stone floor and wrapped his arms around his head. ‘YOU WILL BAKE MY BREAD OR YOUR FAMILY SHALL KEEP NOTHING.’
‘But,’ Archer said. ‘I want to go home.’
‘YOU HAVE CHOSEN. YOU ARE MINE NOW.’
‘For how long?’ he asked.
‘FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.’
A Way Out
It was quiet again. Archer tried to stand up but his legs gave out from under him and he sat down hard on the floor and held his head in his hands.
What had he done?
Not only would his family keep no more grain this harvest time, they would also never see their eldest child ever again. The thing that made it worse was that the situation was his own fault.
Tears welled up in his eyes but he squeezed them shut and wiped his face with hands. There’s never any point in crying, he thought. It does not help to change the situation at hand. When you stop crying, everything is the same as it was before you started the crying so it is just a waste of time.
He sniffed and ran a finger under his nose and wiped the snot on his white tunic.
Archer was furious at himself for coming to the Tower at all. It had seemed like a good idea when it had sprung from his angry heart into his head. But now look where he was.
The Alchemist was right, he thought. I am a fool.
And now he was the Alchemist’s prisoner.
He had made a bad decision. He had gotten angry and then acted without thinking through the possible consequences of his actions. He would not make that mistake again, he promised himself, not ever. The anger would not get the best of him. He would plan things properly before taking action.
One thing was certain. He told himself that he was not staying here to be the Alchemist’s baker.
But that was easier said than done.
He got to his feet and looked around the room again, this time calmly taking stock of his situation.
There was no door.
There was no window.
So how would he get out?
He had only gotten in because of the Alchemist’s magic spell and the Alchemist was not about to magic him out again. He felt a panic rising up inside his belly. He almost sat down and cried again but he pulled himself together.
Think, Archer. How can I get away?
He walked over to the long strings of herbs and vegetables hanging from the rafters. Some of them hung right down almost to the floor. There was a short stepladder by the table for climbing up to collect the vegetables. But it was only half as high as Archer was so it was no route to freedom.
If I climbed up one of the strings, he thought, I could reach those rafters above. But then he would just be on top of them with nowhere to go. He would need to get up to the ceiling.
He walked over to the sacks of grain stacked against the wall and punched one. They would be heavy. Archer was small for his age but he knew that he could lift one up and drag or carry it around well enough.
He could pile them up to make a tower. Then he could climb up to the top of the kitchen.
It was dark, up there. So dark in fact that he could not see quite what he would be climbing into. Presumably, there was a ceiling.
He would have to chop his way through. And to chop through thick heavy wood he would need something much bigger than his pocket knife. An axe might do it, but he did not have an axe.
What else?
He came to the well in the middle of the room. This was quite strange. Wells are usually outside.
The Sweetwater River ran through the Vale but river water was not good for drinking. Animals and people fouled the river water upstream. The corruption entered the river and sometime even if you boiled it, it would give you the wet gripes. River water was only for watering the crops and the animals.
So you need to dig a deep well into the earth, down to where the ground was always wet.
He peered down into the blackness.
Archer listened to the water running down in the bottom of the well. That was strange, too. Most wells do not have running water underneath. The water usually just seeps in to the gap from the ground. Some wells did cut into underground rivers inside the bedrock. All rivers, even underground ones, flow into bigger rivers. So the water down there probably ran into the Sweetwater.
I could swim down the underground channel, Archer thought, until I come out in a river.
But there was no way to be certain he would fit down the channel all the way. He imagined what it would be like to get stuck and end up wedged underground in a tunnel with the water flowing all around him.
Even if it did not get too narrow, he would never be able to hold his breath for long enough to get all the way to the Sweetwater.
I cannot breathe underwater, he thought. I’m not a fish.
Sighing, he sat on the small stone wall around the well and tried to think. There
was no possible way he could get out through the well. Not unless there was no other choice.
On the far side of the room, the large fire crackled inside the fireplace. He stared into the flames as they danced and jumped high into the chimney. It must be an incredibly tall chimney to go up all the way up to the top of the Tower.
He jumped up, grinning, and ran over toward the fire.
A chimney is like a tunnel that goes up inside the wall. It goes right up to the top, to the roof and lets the smoke from the fire escape outside into the air.
If I can climb the chimney, he thought, I could get outside too.
The air around the fire was incredibly hot. It crackled and popped as it consumed the huge glowing logs. The fire had been burning for a long time. Although the flames were low and lazy, it was incredibly dangerous.
Water is the best way to put out a fire.
He drew a bucket of water from the well and heaved it onto the flames from as far away as he could.
It hissed and fizzled and a let off a huge cloud of steam.
Coughing, he waved away the smoke and stepped closer. The fire was not quite out. The embers glowed in most places so he filled another bucket and threw it onto the ashes in another cloud of steam.
Still, the blackened stones had been absorbing the heat for hours, maybe days or even years. It was still too hot to go into the fireplace. He went to the large wooden table and sat down on the bench that ran alongside it.
It was strange, he thought, that the Alchemist had told Archer to be his baker. After all what had happened to the previous baker? There must have been one. There was all the food hanging up. And someone had started that fire.
Perhaps they escaped, he thought.
Or perhaps they died.
That did not bear thinking about so Archer went back to the fire and this time got close enough to peer up inside the chimney. The wet ashes were still hot where they stuck to his boots and the air was dry and acrid.