Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1)

by Cantwell, J. B.

  We slunk a few doors down to an empty vestibule, and he passed me my boots.

  “Kiron,” I tried again. Again his finger went to his lips. When my boots were tied in place he set off along the outskirts of the square. I strapped the invisible pack to my back as we walked. He led me down one of the side streets that fed into the square, and soon turned a corner, diving into the alleyways that snaked behind the streets of the city.

  Finally, after making so many turns that my head spun with trying to remember the way back out, he stopped at a wooden doorway and pushed it open, stepping inside. I followed him in, and a moment later a single candle flame pierced the darkness of the room. He closed and bolted the door behind me.

  The room was a mess and layered with a thick film of dust. A single chair sat against one of the stone walls, and the floor was littered with the decaying remnants of whatever had transpired here in the past. It looked like it had been years since anyone had set foot in this place. Kiron removed his own pack from his back with a groan, rubbing the base of his neck with his withered hands.

  “Kiron, what is going on?”

  “We’re done with that old fool,” he grumbled.

  “What do you mean? Chapman’s done nothing but help us since we got here.” I looked around the room hopelessly, suddenly feeling grateful for the comfort that Chapman’s floor had provided.

  “We can’t trust him. His story doesn’t add up. That, or he’s just an idiot. Either way…”

  “His story adds up just fine,” I argued.

  “I saw him at the tavern two days back. I’d been watchin’ him. Something about him didn’t sit right with me. So I took a corner table deep in the back and kept an eye out. He’s been meetin’ with those guards, The Shield, as he calls them. Almost every day I’ve seen him sittin’ side by side with one or more of them at the bar.”

  I thought about this. “But…that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I mean, if a guard of the Shield came and sat by you at the bar, and then you got up and left right away, wouldn’t that make the guard suspicious?” My stomach twisted with worry and confusion at this new information. Was it possible that Chapman was a spy?

  “Hmph,” Kiron replied. He sat down on the dusty floorboards. I stayed standing, unsure of what to do next.

  “Well, what are we supposed to do now?” I finally asked.

  “I’ve worked out how to get you down under the city. Tomorrow night we meet the boy and make the trade for the information.”

  I dropped my pack to the floor. “How to get me down under the city? What about you? I thought we were doing this together!”

  “Naw, that’s impossible. You’ll be posing as a servant. We’d never be able to get in together.”

  My breath caught in my chest.

  “But—I can’t go down to the dungeons on my own—” I began.

  He raised both of his hands up. “Just hold on,” he said. “I got a plan.” I stopped sputtering and he continued. “Use your brain, boy. The two of us, we make sort of an odd pair. If we were to try to break in together, we’d be caught for certain. But just one of us can maybe pull it off. There ain’t no reason for an old geyser like me to be wanting access to the dungeons, but there is reason for a kid like you.”

  “And that is?”

  “A job,” he said. “You’ll dress as one of the child servants who clean. We meet the kid tomorrow at the tavern on the other side of the city. Chapman won’t know to find us there.”

  All the breath seemed to leave my lungs and I sunk down to the floor, defeated. My brain wrestled with the impossible task in front of me: breaking into the dungeons on my own.

  “You’re wrong about him, you know.” I had grown to really like Chapman over the past week. He had a lighter personality than Kiron, though he did seem to be very frightened most of the time. But that didn’t mean that he was waiting for a chance to betray us.

  “Whether I’m right or wrong, it’s not wise for us to give away all of our information for free. Chapman gave us some of what he had, and we him. But he doesn’t need to know every single detail of our plans.” He paused, considering me in the dim flicker of the candle. “It’d be good if you’d learn to not trust everyone you meet. It’s common wisdom that those who should be trusted the least often appear the most trustworthy to unwary eyes.”

  “Well, who am I supposed to trust, then?” I shot back.

  Kiron sat silent for a long moment as he thought of his response. Finally, he spoke.

  “Trust no one.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Through his research and carefully worded questions to outsiders, it was determined that the dungeons were, in fact, inhabited. Kiron had gathered the tidbit, about the children working in them, from the woman who sold potatoes in the market. Apparently her sister’s son had worked for a time underground, and with some digging around Kiron was able to discover the entrance to the place. I was horrified at the thought of interacting with the prisoners, or whatever possible vermin might also reside in those chambers. But I was also starting to feel shut in, always hiding in tiny, stuffy rooms, and my newfound energy was making me fidgety and nervous without an outlet.

  I felt bad about leaving Chapman behind. I was sure he was alright, and that Kiron was wrong about him. He had taken us in, risking his own neck in the process. But, on the balance, it was Kiron I needed to stick with; he knew the most about Almara and how to find him. Though I was going to need to talk to him at some point about his trust issues.

  The next day we spent indoors. Kiron didn’t go out a single time. Maybe he was worried that I would run back to Chapman’s, but I wouldn’t have. I was too busy panicking about facing down an underground holding pen of prisoners all by myself.

  “The boy intends to run,” he said as the sun began to sink behind the buildings. “The abuse his family has undergone at the hands of Cadoc and his army have brought him to the edge. He’s agreed to tell us how to gain entry in return for a link for his family.”

  “A link?” I asked. “One of yours?” He nodded. “But, where are you going to send them?” I remembered the pain of traveling by Kiron’s links, and the mirth Larissa had shown of his linkmaking skills.

  “It ain’t interplanetary,” he said. “But this’ll get ‘em to the other side of Aeso.” He removed the long chain from his neck and chose a fat blue stone. He twisted the metal it hung from until it broke free from the chain.

  “But, Kiron,” I said, “how do you know where that will take them? I mean, didn’t you make it back on Aerit?” He looked up quizzically. “How do you know it will work on Aeso?” His eyes widened as he realized I was right. He hadn’t considered this unknown outcome, had forgotten that the link was an Aerit planetary link.

  He stared down at the stone, studying it, trying to decide what to do.

  “Well,” he finally said, “I don’t see that we have much choice.”

  “You mean you’re going to give it to the kid? But you have no idea where he’ll end up!”

  “I got a good idea,” he said. “And that’ll need to be good enough.”

  “Nice bargain,” I said sarcastically.

  “Look, do you wanna find Almara or not? This is the only way to get you down there. Our only other option will be to use it ourselves and hope that we can get free of Stonemore and then back to my farm. But I didn’t leave my whole life behind to help you and then have you back out on me.”

  “It’s not right,” I argued, shaking my head. “You have to tell him the risk.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ him squat.”

  “Well then I ain’t going,” I said.

  We stood glaring at each other, but I wasn’t backing down. He was calling all the shots here, and I was starting to think that he was only right part of the time. If I was going to risk being locked up in a dungeon, I at least wanted to have a clear conscience before they threw away the key.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell him. But after we get the information. You me
ss this up, boy, and it’ll be years before we find another way down there. You understand me? Years.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But if you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “Hmph.”

  It was settled.

  As night began to fall, we made our way through the alleyways out to the lane. Kiron turned in the opposite direction of Chapman’s, and together we walked for a time through the waning crowd. Kiron had found some charcoal and rubbed it into my hair, effectively disguising me from The Shield. I looked like a dirty, brown-haired kid, like any of the other kids around. I found great relief and being able to walk with relative freedom through the city. The cold air was refreshing as it bit at my cheeks.

  After fifteen minutes of walking, we reached a shabby, dimly lit building. Kiron opened the front door to the place and we went inside. A long bar dominated the space, and a few odd tables were scattered about. A large hearth at the far end of the room housed a crackling fire. Kiron nodded brusquely to the barman, who nodded in return, and made his way to the back of the room, where a dirty, thin boy sat huddled next to the fire. We both pulled out chairs and sat at the table across from him. Kiron held up three fingers to the barman, who nodded again, and then turned to the boy.

  He looked sick, as if he had been malnourished over a long span of time. He looked up at Kiron with the distrust of one who had long since quit believing in kindness.

  “Calder,” said Kiron, “this is Aster. Aster, Calder.” We nodded at each other.

  “Did you bring it?” Calder asked.

  Kiron produced the small blue stone and placed it on the table. Calder’s eyes widened and his bony fingers shot out to take the stone, but not before Kiron’s hand had grasped it again and pulled it away.

  “Not so fast, boy,” he said. “You have something for us as well, I think.”

  The barman approached the table, arms loaded with plates, and set our dinner in front of us: stew and a large slab of bread for each. Calder immediately turned his attention to the meal, dropping his attitude entirely at the sight of food, and began to eat as if he were starving. He scooped up the stew with the bread and his dirty hands. His spoon lay on the table, forgotten. I watched him, horrified, thinking of the hunger that must make someone inhale their food like that, as if it would disappear at any moment. I picked up my own spoon and took a tentative bite, but my eyes stayed on the boy, and the viewing made me lose my appetite. Kiron was not so moved as I, and slurped up his stew noisily.

  After several minutes, Calder finished his meal, all but licking the bowl clean. As he ran his fingers along the edges of the bowl to get each last drop of stew, he sat back in his chair and looked at me.

  “So, what do you want to know?” he asked.

  I looked at Kiron expectantly, but he was still eating and motioned for me to speak.

  “Uh, well,” I said, “I need to know how to get into the dungeons.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “There’s something I need down there.”

  His face cracked into a wicked smile, and suddenly I felt less sorry for him.

  “Like treasure?” he asked.

  “Um, of a sort,” I said.

  “You gonna eat that?” he asked, pointing at my mostly untouched dinner.

  “No.”

  His hand shot out and gripped the edge of the bowl, sliding it across the table towards him.

  “Well, getting in is easy enough,” he said through a large mouthful of stew. “It’s getting out that’s the trick.”

  “And how do I get in?”

  “There’s a house,” he said thickly, “just off the square on the south side. It looks like people live there but nobody does. They keep a single candle burning in the window every night; that’s how you’ll know it. The dungeons begin underneath the building. They keep the door unlocked. Don’t need a lock, since a sentry is posted behind the entrance twenty four hours a day.”

  I gulped.

  “Don’t worry,” he smiled at me as if I were much younger than he was. “Just tell the sentry that you’re taking my place. Then, go to the back of the building and down the spiral staircase. Yell out for the keeper when you get to the bottom. You might have to yell for a while. He’s usually passed out drunk most of the mornings I’ve gone.”

  I took a deep breath. “Ok, so then what?”

  “Then you clean,” Calder said simply, and winked at me. He bit off an enormous chunk of bread. “He’ll show you the mop and pail,” he continued over the mouthful of bread. “The keeper of the dungeons hates me. Tell him…tell him I broke my leg or something like that.” He smirked. “He’ll love to hear about me getting hurt. Explain to him that you’re the new boy sent to clean up the mess that I left before I fell down some stairs or something. Watch out for the keeper. He’s a mean old mule, and he won’t tolerate any lip. None at all. And watch your ears.”

  “My ears?” I asked.

  “He’s an ear grabber, the keeper. More than one kid has cried like a baby after a run-in with him.”

  My hands went up to my ears involuntarily, a gesture of protection from an unknown hurt.

  “So, how do I get out once I’ve…cleaned?” I asked.

  Calder’s smirk turned into a full blown smile. It made me nervous.

  “You actually do clean,” he said. “Be prepared for a long day, or days, of work before that guy will let you see the sun again. And a word of advice: do it right the first time. Once he kept me down there for four days because he didn’t think the floors were clean enough. I was almost starved by the time he finally let me out, and even then I think he let me go just cause he was sick of looking at me.”

  “So, I can’t just leave?” I asked.

  Calder looked at me with a mocking smile. “Kid,” he said, “it’s a dungeon. Everything is locked up, and the only one with the keys is the keeper.”

  My curiosity got the better of me, and I whispered, “What’s down there?”

  He leaned in and murmured conspiratorially. “Ghouls.” His eyebrows danced on his forehead like he was telling a ghost story to a frightened group of campers. “Men so old their souls have long since withered away. Keep back from the bars.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was serious or just trying to mess with me. He took the last bite of my stew and pushed the bowl away from him, rubbing his full stomach appreciatively.

  “Now, I believe it’s your turn,” he said to us both, his mocking, mysterious tone fading away.

  Kiron placed the blue stone on the table again, and Calder grabbed for it. Kiron’s hand landed on Calder’s before he could snatch the link away.

  “This ain’t no cheap trinket, boy,” he growled. “You gotta be careful how you use it.”

  “Ok,” he said, taking his hand back. “How does it work?”

  “Make sure you and your family, or whoever you’re takin’ along, are gripping each other tight. Then you point the link and give it the command. Horasha.”

  “And it will take us out of here?”

  “Yep.”

  “But there’s something you should know,” I said, eyeing Kiron. I didn’t like this kid, but it wasn’t fair not to warn him. “This is a link that was made on Aerit for travel on that planet. We’re not entirely sure it will work the same way here.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well, there’s a possibility it could take you back to Aerit. Or even somewhere else. Somewhere we can’t predict.”

  His demeanor changed, and his eyes, filled with arrogance a moment before, became soft and frightened.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, looking down at the stone. “I don’t care where it takes us. As long as it’s as far away from here as possible. As far away from him as we can get is all I want.”

  “From Cadoc?” I asked.

  He looked up and seemed surprised that I had guessed correctly. Then he nodded and lowered his head.

  “It’s yours, boy,” Kiron said. He stood up from the table, and I did
the same. As we turned to leave the tavern, Calder called after us.

  “I don’t know what business you have down under the city,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d forget it. You’ve got the power to escape Stonemore.”

  We stopped and turned back to him.

  “You should use it while you still can.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Late that night I lay on my back staring into space, trying to mentally prepare myself for the task that lay ahead. We had determined that I would head down to the dungeons the very next morning; it would look suspicious if nobody at all came to clean, and it seemed clear that Calder would be leaving Stonemore as soon as possible. Maybe he already had.

  Kiron and I had talked late into the night, going over and over the plan. He had found a set of dirty, worn clothing for me to wear: my uniform. Ratty as the shirt and pants were I was glad to note that they did not smell as bad as they looked. A moth-bitten coat would protect me against the cold down below.

  He had taken another link from the chain around his neck and given it to me.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “In case you can’t get out,” he said. “Only if all hope is lost.”

  “What about you? Then we’ll be separated.”

  “It doesn’t matter so much what happens to me. What matters is that you get your hands on the next link. Here, take it.” He dropped a thick, gray stone into my hand. “Command is Forasha. This is a short distance link. It’ll take you out of the city, but not too far beyond. Then there’ll be a hope of us finding each other.”

  I accepted the link, hoping that I wouldn’t need to use it, and concerned about what would happen if I did. Would it send me back to Aerit? What if I ended up floating in empty space?

  I was to give Kiron my backpack and ax before I set out. The close quarters of the dungeon, and the keeper’s reputation for brawling with the children who worked there, would make carrying anything with me far too dangerous. Kiron would leave my things behind the spot where the soup lady stood in the square, and he would watch the area to make sure they were not discovered before I was able to return. We would meet there after I found a way out of the dungeons and then continue on together.