The man nodded absently, shifting the long piece of straw from one corner of his mouth to the other. “Alista, eh? I’m not sure about any Alista…what does she look like?”
“She’s about our age, with short yellow hair and blue eyes. She’s a powerful sorceress,” Jake told the man. “She would have been wearing robes and carrying a magical staff.”
“Sorceress?” echoed the man with some alarm. His jaw opened wide and the straw nearly fell out. “No, we don’t see many of those type around these parts. I’m sure I’d remember if a sorceress came through here.”
Something about the act struck Jake as being off-key. He noticed the stable-hand peering at him from the corner of his eyes, a speculative look on his face. Sighing, Jake reached into his pouch and fingered one of the obsolete coins. It was worth a shot. He pulled the coin free of the pouch, holding it up for the stable-hand to see.
“We’re not from Everheart,” Jake said. “Is gold valuable here?”
The man’s eyes lit up, reflecting the gold’s luster. “A bit,” he hedged. “Depends.”
“In Leiner Hills…our home kingdom, that is…all we use for trade are gold coins like these. But I’m told they’re worthless in Everheart.”
The man leaned forward, studying the gold in Jake’s hand. His eyes darted to the heavy pouch at Jake’s belt, gauging how many more of the coins might be hidden within. “I’ve seen coins like these in the museum,” he said thoughtfully. “I don’t know that they’d be good as money, but maybe for jewelry…real gold, you say?”
“Yes,” said Jake. “Solid gold.”
“Hm.” The man reached out a hand to take the coin, but Jake quickly closed his hand.
“About the Lady Alista…” he prompted the man, who eyed him thoughtfully again before finally nodding.
“Young girl, robe and staff? Seems like I may have seen someone of that description after all.” He scratched his head as if trying to remember.
Taking another gold coin from his pouch, Jake rubbed them together with his thumb and forefinger where the man could see. “What color were her shoes?” he asked.
“What?” The man’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Her shoes?”
“That’s right,” said Des, catching on. “Our friend is very particular about her shoes. Did you happen to notice them?”
The stable-hand leaned back his head, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment with his brow wrinkled. At last, he answered. “Red. She was wearing dainty, red slippers.”
“That’s her!” blurted Des. “That’s Kari, alright.”
Jake nodded, pleased. But he was not ready to hand over the coins just yet. “Do you have any idea where she might be now?”
“Well, now, it’s been awhile since she came through. At least a couple of years, I think.” The stable-hand shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? She was traveling with a group. I heard one say they were headed for Yeir’s Grotto, off to the north. But surely they’ve long since gone.”
Ignoring that last part, Jake pulled out his map. “Can you show me on the map?”
“Maybe,” said the man, his eyes going once more to Jake’s closed fist. With a sigh, Jake handed over the two gold coins. “One for the information,” he said, “and one for the map.”
“Fair enough.” The man indicated a sport north of Everheart, marking an imaginary X with his pointing finger. “Yeir’s Grotto beneath Vista Falls. But I doubt you’ll find your friend there after all this time.”
“Maybe not,” said Jake. “But it’s somewhere to look, and that’s a start. How much for two horses?”
“Ah, you’ll need real coin for those,” the man said, no longer so friendly. “The stable master won’t trade, not even for gold.”
“Well…” Jake couldn’t think of any way around that. “Alright. Thanks anyway.”
Chapter 12
“It’s going to take forever to get there on foot,” complained Des. They had only been walking a few minutes, and the walls of Everheart still loomed behind them.
“Too long,” Jake agreed. “We need horses.”
“That guy’s not selling.”
“Yeah. We’ll just have to get them some other way, I suppose.” Jake stopped in the middle of the road, turning to Des with his arms crossed. Des returned the look blankly, and then understanding spread over his face.
“What, you mean…steal them?”
“You are a thief, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but…” Des shrugged. “That’s just, like, my reputation. In the game. I’ve never actually stolen anything.”
“Tough,” said Jake. “We’ve got to have those horses. If nobody’s going to sell them to us, it’s up to you. So, are we going to find Kari or not?”
Des scowled at Jake, but then his face fell and he heaved a sigh. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll steal the horses. But we’re going to leave some money behind, even if they don’t want it. Okay?”
“But then they’ll know who took the horses,” reasoned Jake.
“They’ll know it was us anyway. Who else has been asking for horses today?”
“Fine. Leave the money if it makes you feel better about stealing imaginary horses,” conceded Jake, rolling his eyes. He handed over some coins to Des, who pocketed them and then looked up at the sky.
“It’s just an hour or two until sundown. Let’s wait until then.”
The spent the time in an isolated hollow not far from the city, working out their plan for stealing the horses. Jake used his magical map, zooming in on the area just outside Everheart so they could get a good idea of the stable layout. By the time the sun fell below the horizon, the would-be thief and the make-believe knight were ready. Returning to the area outside the city gates, they crept into the shelter of a small copse of trees near the stable.
“We’re lucky,” said Des, peering around at the night. “It’s getting foggy, and that will help. I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes. Stay out of sight, okay?”
Jake hid behind a large tree trunk and watched his friend creeping up to the darkened rear window of the stable-house He held his breath as Des slipped through the window, disappearing inside. The haze thickened as the minutes ticked slowly past – ten minutes…fifteen…twenty, and then thirty. Jake started to worry. He wondered if Des had been caught, and uneasy thoughts chased one another through his mind. Des was just one thief against who knew how many stable-hands? And what about the stable master? What if the guards had been roused somehow? Des might be injured, or he could have been captured and carried off to some dungeon beneath the pristine, white marble city.
What if what happened to Kari had happened to Des?
Dread gripped Jake, and he stepped out from behind the tree determined to find out what was going on. He started purposefully toward the stable, intent on finding answers.
“Hey, get back!” Des hissed from somewhere nearby in the darkness. “Are you crazy, they’ll see you!”
Jake ducked behind another tree just as his friend emerged from the misty gloom with two dark horses trailing behind him. Des shook his head at Jake.
“You gave up on me,” he accused.
“That was a lot longer than fifteen minutes,” Jake pointed out.
“Yeah, well…” Des nodded toward the horses. “It took me a while to pick the best ones. I chose darker colored ones so they’d be harder to see.”
“Good thinking,” Jake told him. “Did anyone see you?”
“Nope.” Des grinned, proud of himself. “They’re all playing cards in the back room.”
“Perfect. Then let’s get out of here.”
“Sure, hang on. Take these.” Des handed Jake something cold, hard, and jingly. Looking down at his hand, Jake recognized the coins he’d given Des earlier.
“You didn’t leave them?”
“Nah, I figured you were right about the imaginary horses.” Grinning, he added, “Des the Hand strikes again!”
Shaking his head, Jake chuckled softly in spite of hims
elf. “Whatever, Des. You can do a good deed to make up for it later on. Right now, we’d better get going.”
Chapter 13
They rode north, urging their horses in a soft canter while keeping as quiet as possible. No one pursued them and they were soon far enough from Everheart that Jake felt safe in making a little noise.
They spurred the horses on to greater speed, galloping over the increasingly rugged terrain. Rocky hills and jagged valleys replaced the rolling meadows around Everheart, and the boys carefully stuck to the road and relied on the weak light of the moon to spot hazards before their horses could stumble over them.
An hour or so passed, and the boys reined in their horses as they heard the rumbling of a waterfall in the near distance. It sounded like it was coming from just around a large, stone outcropping perched over a bend in the road and blocking their view of what was ahead.
“We must be near Yeir’s Grotto,” said Jake, guiding his horse toward the sound. “The stable-hand said it was under a waterfall.”
“I hear it. Let’s get on with it,” said Des.
They worked their way around the outcropping and saw the tumbling waters. The sound intensified, roaring in their ears like endless thunder. Jake reined his mare to a halt where the ground dropped away abruptly. Ten feet away, the surging wall of water plunged violently over a craggy cliff.
“Down there.” Des pointed down to the opening of a wide cavern near the base of the falls. A water-slicked stone path trailed down the cliffside near them. Jake nudged his horse forward and began a careful descent with Des close behind. Loose stones littered the narrow ledge, making the slippery footing especially treacherous in the feeble moonlight. Jake’s heart pounded in his ears with each sliding step, but he fixed his eyes determinedly on the path in front of him and refused to look over the edge until at last they reached the bottom. He had to find Kari.
The sky brightened in the east. Dawn approached as Jake and Des dismounted and tied their horses to a nearby tree. Jake watched the golden glow of sunrise and shook his head. It should have still been dark for hours.
Des shrugged when Jake pointed it out. There was nothing they could do about it, so why worry? Leaving the horses behind, they followed the stone path around behind the falling water. As they passed beneath, a strange stillness filled the air. The sound of the falls was suddenly and inexplicably muted. Before the two boys, no light shone from the cave. It was dark and apparently abandoned.
Jake peered into the blackness, not trusting his senses. “Hello?” he called tentatively into the shadows. “Is anyone there?”
“No!” answered a crackling, cranky voice. “There’s no one here!”
Jake fell back a step. He and Des looked at each other in surprise. “Who…who’s there?” Jake called.
“No one! No one is here.”
“Are you‘no one,’then?” Jake ventured a guess.
“No! No one is no one. That’s why it’s called no one rather than someone!”
Jake frowned and opened his mouth to retort, but Des stopped him with a hand on his arm and a smirking wink. Jake closed his mouth, waiting to see what Des had in mind.
“We were looking for someone,” Des said in a friendly, conversational tone. “The young and powerful Lady Alista. But you can’t be her, since you’re no one.”
“That’s right!” The cantankerous voice cackled with ill-humored laughter. “No one is here.”
“Right,” agreed Des, still in the same friendly tone. “Well, like I said, we’re looking for our friend Lady Alista. We asked after her in the city, and in the countryside. Everybody told us the same thing: no one knows where she is.”
There was silence from the cave.
“So, since you’re no one…” prompted Des, casting a helpless look at Jake when his plan did not seem to be working. “Well, has she been here? Do you know where Lady Alista is?”
The silence from within the dark cave continued.
“Well?” Des tried again, growing frustrated with the unseen speaker in the cave. “Has someone been here or not?”
“Yes!” cried the voice. “Someone has been here.”
“But not Lady Alista,” Jake said, realizing the voice hadn’t answered Des’s first two questions because they conflicted. His heart sank, thinking what else that meant. “Someone else was here, but not Kari.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” whispered Des, leaning closer to him. They had no idea how well the creature in the cave, whatever it was, could hear. Des spoke quietly, hoping only Jake could hear. “Maybe Kari’s not Lady Alista anymore.”
“Kari!” cried the voice from within the cave, then burst into an excited fit of giggling. The tittering laughter sounded girlish in contrast to the grouchy voice that had been speaking to them, and if it did not sound like Kari exactly it did sound like someone trying to sound like her. “Kari,” the voice said again when the giggling stopped. “Someone was here.”
Des’s hand tightened on Jake’s arm. “She was here!”
Jake nodded, feeling elated that they were getting somewhere at last. But how valuable was this information? Kari hadn’t been seen in Everheart for two years or more. Cautiously, Jake stepped forward and called a new question in the darkness. “How long ago was this someone here?”
“The sun shone twice upon the blue rock since then,” the voice told him at once.
“And it was Kari?” Jake pressed, ignoring the baffled look Des turned on him. “Was Kari the someone who was here before the sun shone twice on the blue rock?”
“Kari!” the voice repeated, growing cranky again.
“I’m not sure what that means,” Jake muttered, turning desperately to Des.
“Was one someone here?” asked Des. “Or some someones?”
“Some someones,” answered the voice, sounding delighted. Whomever – or whatever – they were talking to, it was a strange creature indeed. Jake got the feeling they were trying to solve a riddle, and he did not appreciate being played with when his friend could be in danger.
“Kari someones,” the voice added slyly.
“She was with a group, then,” Des said. “But how long ago? That bit about the sun shining on the rock, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“There must be a particular stone and the light has to be at a certain angle to hit it,” Jake mused. He glanced deep into the darkness of the cave, then spun around in place as inspiration struck. He peered around the edges of the curiously silent but still pounding waterfall. “It has to be visible from inside that cave, and if the light only reflects from the rock to the cave when hit by a certain angle then it probably only happens once a year.”
“Great,” said Des with a groan. “So, two years ago. Doesn’t seem to help us much.”
Jake tended to agree, but he turned back toward the cave for a final question. “Thank you for your help,” he started, hoping to butter up their mysterious helper. The voice could be delighted and amused, but it had mostly been cantankerous and ornery. “Say, can you tell me one more thing? Was Kari someone hurt?”
“No.” The reply sounded bored.
“Was Kari someone afraid?” Jake pressed.
“Yes,” said the voice with returning interest, drawing the word out in a sibilant hiss.
Both boys drew a sharp breath. Des turned to Jake, his face anxious. “We’ve got to find her,” he said. “She’s in trouble.”
“Where did the someones go when they left here?” Jake asked, feeling just as anxious as his friend but knowing that even when it was just game-time, two years was a long time.
“To the sun! They went to the sun!” The voice cackled at that.
As Jake puzzled over the meaning of that, the first sliver of the sun rose over the horizon. Sunlight sparkled and danced in the falling water behind the two boys, creating a brilliant prism of light the flooded into the cave. What in darkness had seemed a deep cavern was revealed as a shallow depression in the cliff behind the waterfall. Barely ten feet deep, the r
ising sun illuminated it with its fractured bands of multi-colored light, throwing overlapping shadows but revealing nothing of the creature they had been speaking to.
“There’s no one here,” whispered Des, who shuddered at the idea that they must have been speaking to a ghost or maybe even imagining the whole thing.
The cave was not entirely vacant, however. The shining obsidian of the cave’s rear wall was smooth and unbroken save for one enormous sapphire crystal embedded around the height of Jake’s shoulder. From the rainbow created by the sunlight passing through the waterfall, a solid beam of blue light fell directly on the massive gemstone, causing it to flicker and gleam.
Jake swallowed hard before he spoke, and even as he forced himself to remain calm his voice cracked. “Okay. Okay…whatever that was, it said Kari went to the sun.” He turned back toward the waterfall, pointing around the edge of the crashing water toward the distant, breaking dawn. “To the sun: they went that way.”
Des considered and then nodded agreement. “Great. So now we know where to go.”
As the boys climbed out from behind the waterfall, Des glanced toward one corner of the horizon by keeping his face straight and looking through the corner of his eye. A faint and shimmering digital clock hovered in the sky, ticking off the minutes that passed in the real world. “It’s getting late,” Des observed. “Let’s pick up here tomorrow right after school.”
Jake sighed, looking at the same time display. He could hardly believe so much time had passed, and he regretted every minute they had spent lying low and biding their time just to get this far. Still, they had made progress. He had hoped they would find Kari today, but…
“Right,” he gave in sadly. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“Log out,” Des said at once.
Nothing happened. Jake watched, expecting Des’s image to dissolve or simply wink out, but Des remained firmly in place. Their surroundings wavered briefly and then solidified, but there was no other noticeable effect.
Game Alive: A Science Fiction Adventure Novel Page 8