Sky Elf: The Anti-Matter Chronicles (The Matter Chronicles Book 2)

by P. G. Thomas

  Seeing Eric in the kitchen, John went over to him, asking him to retrieve two bags from the office. When John returned, he was carrying three mugs of bean juice, which he passed out. Eric returned shortly, placing two bags of gold in Pintar’s lap.

  John set down his mug, “The first is your signing bonus for taking the job. The second is the first month’s pay.”

  Alron thought John had gone crazy with power, “It does be too much.”

  “No, it should be enough. If Lauren’s right, in one month’s time that room full of gold will be worthless.”

  “I never said that I would take the job,” advised Pintar.

  “I can go check with Lauren if you want,” began Eric, “but I don’t think that option is open to you. She has a no refund policy of her own.”

  “Your inn is still busy,” replied John, “and now you can afford to hire somebody. I saw the other mayor’s house earlier today. There’s a large room on the second floor, so I want you to build the largest table that you can, making a map of the west.”

  “I have not said—”

  John continued, “We’re also not going to call it the Earth Scouts, as that’ll only make people talk. You’re going to start a postal service. There are many displaced people in the west, and they’re all probably wondering where their friends and family are. Your business will be to deliver letters to them.”

  “I do not have a choice, do I?”

  “Pintar, this service will help to save thousands of lives,” advised John, “probably more. The Royal House is coming, and if we don’t stop them, they’ll take what they want, including your inn. In the process, a lot of people will die, so which future do you prefer: death or fighting against them?”

  “Okay, I am starting a postal service. I build a large map room. Then what?”

  John then went on to explain the various elements that Pintar would have to bring together; the hubs, the riders, and more. When he left, his mind was heavy with the issues of the Post, and his hands were heavy with gold.

  When John, Eric, and Alron went back to the dining hall, Lauren came over to ask if Pintar had accepted the position. Eric smiled, “He was quite speechless that you had thought of him. He gladly accepted.” John and Alron both nodded in agreement although they might have phrased it differently.

  “We’re not going to call it the Earth Scouts,” advised John, “we’re going to call it Pintar’s Postal Service. Earth Scouts will cause too many rumors.”

  “That’s a good idea. Where did you get it?” asked Lauren.

  “From you, when you said we should just mail the black-clad army our plans if we cannot secure Newtown.”

  It was after the last meal of the day. Zack, Alron, and Lauren met in the office. Lauren was still on edge, “Zack, you said that you could still smell black-clad in the town, right?”

  “Yes, but unless you concentrate, it’s like somebody dropped a clove of garlic in a rose garden, Dudette. You can smell the garlic, but because there are too many roses, the scents are all diluted. I tried to follow a few at night, but when they cross, the scents just meld together, and neither can be followed.”

  “If Hoyle was unaffected by my Earth Bond,” replied Lauren, “he must not be one of Mother’s children, so he must be a Royal House spy. We need to get evidence on him that we can show in a court, putting him on trial, and getting him to admit the invasion is real. If I just keep screaming ‘invasion,’ everybody will think I’m crazy, but if we wait for an army to show, well, then it’s too late. While we might be able to find a lower level spy, we need the ringleader, and we need him to talk. He has to be pissed that we live beside him, and as sure as pigs like mud, it has to be cramping his style. He knows we’ll be watching him.”

  “So, Dudette, you’re saying to keep an eye on him. What happens if he leaves town? Do I follow him?”

  “You are more able than others. If he tries to leave in the day, we shall wake you. I do not know what he can arrange with us so close, but I know that he shall make plans,” advised Alron.

  *******

  The following days were quiet, compared to the recent weeks. John was working on the town books and taxes. Lindo and Brook were sitting behind their desks, and when John needed information, they would find the right person to get him what he requested. Logan was running interference on the clerks, making sure they were unable to harass the mayors. Eric was helping with the watch, finding undesirables and weeding them out, and Ryan had hired a staff of twelve, none of which Zack objected to.

  On one of the quiet days, Lauren and Gingaar went to visit the Earth Mothers, but upon their arrival one day, Brook advised that Arora was suffering a minor episode of depression. “She tires from these walls, and like most elves, she prefers the forest, as she feels closer to Mother there. While we have a backyard that is nice, it is not the same. If we had one of our forests, we can find gifts that will lessen her anxiety.”

  “Well, there are forests here in the west, why don’t you visit them?”

  “Earth Mother, it is not a forest we miss, it is Mother’s forest that all miss, where the plants embrace her gift. We have looked for such places, but we have not found any.”

  “There’s one a half mile outside of town on the south side of the road. I thought you knew?”

  Brook set down her tea.

  “I’m serious. I felt it the first night we rode by it. Mother is present there or at least her plants.”

  “Prepare the carriage,” Brook called out, “and get Earth Mother up. Have the cook prepare a road lunch; Mother calls.” An hour later, the six, with their Earth Guards, left the town heading east, and after a half mile, Lauren instructed the driver to turn to the south. After a mile or so, they came to the edge of a forest, stopping the carriage.

  Exiting, the Earth Mothers scanned the area. Arora spoke, “I do not see any Iron Wood trees. Are you sure Mother is present?”

  “I’m positive. It begins about a hundred yards ahead.”

  The Earth Guards spread out, advancing into the forest, and after a hundred yards, they all could feel the power, the presence. The plants started to change as the forest thinned out. Arora walked up to an Iron Wood tree that was no taller than she was, stroked it, and thanked Mother. While all of them wandered for hours through the large young forest, Gingaar was the most delighted, walking barefoot through the forest. Dozens of different odd plants, flowers, berry bushes, and more filled the forest, including some never seen before. When they found a new one, they would call to Lauren, and she would explain what its gift was, using the knowledge gifted from the Sage Wood, and shortly before the first sun began to set, they headed back to the carriage.

  Arora looked at the captain of her Earth Guard, “Send somebody out here to make a road, and post the land so nobody will log or injure it.” Smiling, she turned to Lauren, “Thank you, Earth Mother.”

  In the future, when Gingaar was absent, all knew she was in the forest. When the other Earth Mothers found out she was making trips by herself, they would insist that some of their Earth Guards should accompany her.

  *******

  John with Alron watched Riblo’s old house quickly transform into the headquarters of the new post office. Pintar had a crew in the next day to remove any unnecessary furniture, hastily throwing up a sign over the front door: the bright red paint announcing the Post Service to all. While any items of value were taken to the town hall for storage, less valuable items were stacked into one room. On the second day, Pintar had carpenters bring all the wood they could find, and two days later they had finished the map table. John visited him that night, advising on the map: the scale, placement of features, and the next day, they saw the paint delivered. In between those activities, numerous people arrived to visit Pintar, who he felt would be able to handle the challenges that he was going to give them. Several were from the town watch, being men that had followed him out to Newtown. On the fifth night, John and Alron wandered over with a bottle of honey wine and thr
ee glasses. Even though the suns had set an hour ago, all of the windows on the lower levels still had oil lamps lit with people trying to do a month’s worth of work in a week.

  Pintar was just climbing off the table when Alron and John walked in. The table was huge, measuring twenty-four feet wide, being one hundred feet long. Wondering if he had made a mistake with the table dimensions, when John saw it with the painted features, it actually looked small. When Alron saw it, he just whistled in amazement. The painted mountain range ran down the middle, having some sections of the range measuring nine feet wide. On the bottom of the map, was the south port town where they assumed the Royal House had an outpost. Paralleling the mountain range, the north-south road that started at the south port settlement, ending at the north pass town. Following the road north, it ran twenty-one feet, the equivalent of a week’s travel, before intersecting with the road that traveled from the burnt down fort to the east, or Newtown, three feet to the west. Forty-two feet north of that intersection was the town beside the mountain pass. Knowing the map and details were larger than necessary, with limited information of what lay beyond them, there was no need for a different scale. If John’s worst fear came true, an intense battle would rage around the insignificant town, making the map look much smaller. Even though the top forty feet of the table was blank, it had enough space to paint the town of Newtown—for their final stand if necessary.

  “So what do you think?” asked Pintar.

  Alron started to clap his hands, “I applaud you. Art is your true talent as this is a masterpiece.”

  “John, you’re the mother of this map. What do you think of your child?” asked Pintar as he picked up his glass of wine.

  We are so screwed. He wondered how big the map would have to be, at this scale, to show the Ironhouse Mine, realizing it would probably stretch to Pintar’s Inn. As he began to talk, both picked up on the subtle change in John’s voice, who sounded defeated. “Well, beyond being bigger than I imagined, it’s what I expected. This scale will allow us to enhance sections once we have better information.” Scanning the north-south road, he looked at the representative marks for the hubs, which would take three weeks or more to build. By the time we have those built, it could all be too late. John grabbed his glass of wine, drained it, wishing he could handle stronger.

  Having not understood the significance of the map until he saw it, Alron was surprised at his subdued reaction, “What troubles you?”

  Grabbing a piece of charcoal that was lying on the table, testing the paint to make sure it was dry, John climbed onto the map. He marked the various spots they had encountered the enemy: the fort, the south bank, sections along their southern journey, including an estimate of the numbers they had seen or heard. Jumping off, he started writing on the wall, “First, our numbers. The dwarves. Let’s say that thirty clans are close enough with 10,000 in each, but only a third can fight. That’s all, so let’s call it 100,000. While Newtown has maybe 50,000, the shantytown has over a million, but none of them are soldiers. Even if you include the other two settlements, it might look like we have superiority in numbers, but only ten percent might be able to fight, Even then, they’ll be using shovels and wooden swords. If we are lucky, we might be able to stage 100,000. Now there numbers. There were close to 100,000 in that fort alone, 100,000 on the south bank, and from the look of those forest fires stretching east another 500,000. Then add in everything we slipped by, which was probably another 500,000. The conclusion: 1,000,000 against 200,000. Any guesses on who wins.” John walked over to the bottle, filled his glass. He wondered if this was similar to what the generals who fought the first world wars went through, but they would at least have aerial photographs to know where the enemy was staging. All we have is a damn painted map. He just shook his head, “It serves its purpose.” Grabbing the bottle, he filled his glass again before once again draining it, “So how does the hiring go, Post Master?”

  Picking up a piece of paper, which listed the various steps that John had provided earlier, Pintar updated each point.

  Alron was awestruck with the speed of assembling such a large intelligence force in such a short time, “Pintar, you truly excel in position such.”

  “If the first message we receive is ‘invasion,’ then all means nothing,” advised John.

  Pintar was holding out open hands in frustration, “John, I …”

  “I know. You can’t make it happen any faster. I understand the size of the challenge and the logistics of the operation. Has anybody questioned you?”

  “The men who followed me, I trust them, and they trust me. Some have thought me mad, especially when I offered them the wage I did. Some I have working based on their performance. Others had special talents that I needed, paying them accordingly to get them to work for me. Everybody is happy to have gold in their pockets, being able to spend it on decent food and drink, but I have heard there is a wager on when it will all end.”

  The answer was too inconclusive for Alron, “So not any suspect anything, other than Pintar loses his mind?”

  “His mind and bank account. You both know this is going to be expensive.”

  John pointed to the large charcoal smears he had drawn on the map, “If those forces make it here, gold will be worthless. It’ll only weigh us down when we flee, but I’ve no idea on where we’ll go.” Pouring the last of the honey wine into his glass, John sipped it, “Where do you run when you’re at the edge of the earth?”

  Alron was surprised to see this side of John, as he was normally the optimistic one, “We have Eric and Tranquil Fury. We have seen the devastation that the prophecy unleashed. Earth Mother, her Sister Chosen brother, and dwarf fights as ten. Elf we shall find also, so all does not be lost.”

  “Ask me about chaos theory one day. Ask me about that which cannot happen but which does.” Drinking the last of his honey wine, John threw the glass into the corner of the room where it exploded, “I have a long day at the town hall tomorrow, and I need to get some sleep. Pintar, you’ve done a great job, thank you. Alron, we need to show this to Lauren because she’ll want to see it.” Pushing himself up from his chair, he wandered down the stairs just shaking his head. Pintar and Alron had come to know and trust John, as his stability balanced the dynamics of their small group. To see him so disheartened caused them both to wonder about the future.

  *******

  Lauren had spent the day with Gingaar and Arora in the forest. Even though it failed to deliver the same level of serenity to her that the others received, it took her mind away from other matters. After the last meal, Alron and Panry escorted her and John over to the post office, specifically to the map room.

  When Lauren walked in, it astounded her, “Pintar, I don’t understand.”

  “John’s explanation was simple: if we are going to war, we need a map room. I had similar when I looked after my watch. It just was not this big, but then again, neither was the settlement that I protected.”

  With her jaw going slack, Lauren sat down on one of the chairs.

  Alron pulled a bottle of the honey wine out, filling a glass for her. I do not know where they come from, but dwarf related they must be. Handing the glass to her, he waited for her to drain it and then refilled it. Mayhap dwarf is related to them?

  Lauren drank the second glass of wine, “Please give me some details.”

  Alron refilled her glass, mayhap three bottles I need.

  Taking a sip from his glass, Pintar started to point to the features as he talked, “You can see Newtown. To the south, there is the port town, which is a one-week ride. To the north, we have the next largest settlement, which is a two-week ride. The small X’s on the north-south road are where we will be building the ‘hubs,’ to expedite the postal delivery. We hope to be sending out the actual ‘Earth Scouts’ within a couple of weeks. The other details, I will provide for you in a report, Earth Mother.”

  “We’re so screwed,” advised Lauren as she looked at John.

  Alron had
given John his own bottle, who was already on his third glass.

  “It isn’t that bad, Lauren. We made the features larger so that we could fine-tune them once we had better information, like the routes to the dwarf mines or the paths to the elf forests. We could’ve made it smaller, but then we would lose that intricate perspective. It’s this large to help us plan and not to make the problem look bigger.”

  Standing, she started to walk around the table, trying to imagine their journey south, including the places they had passed. The map magnified the main issue with the black-clad army; they had so many places to hide, so many routes they could utilize, so much unknown, unseen. Taking thirty minutes for Lauren to wander the perimeter of the table, when she was back to Alron, he had a new bottle open waiting for her. “We need to get the dwarf clans up here to provide details of the mountains and their mine locations, so we can…Screw it. Alron escort me home, please. I don’t want to…Just escort me home, please.” Setting her glass down, she headed for the stairs, followed by Alron.

  “What is the problem?” asked Panry.

  “You saw the black-clad armies,” began John. “You know how many allies we have. How do you defend the west? Not a year from now, not a month from now. Instead, a week from now. How do you stop an invasion when you don’t know where they are, or where they’ll attack? If they attack in the south, we won’t know for a week. If they attack in the north, it could take two weeks for us to get the news. In fact, either could already be in black-clad hands right now. If not, with so much unprotected road, they could easily capture our riders, and we would never know. Mother may as well ask Lauren to stop the suns from rising.” Chugging the last of his drink, he threw the glass into the corner before heading down the stairs. I need to get a broom.

  *******

  Hearing a knock on his bedroom door, Zack rolled over.

  “Hoyle leaves in his carriage, and you must follow him!”