The Other of One: Book Two

by Brian G. Burke

  Without their maps they would surely be damned; all depending on whether they managed to escape this jump or not.

  Mid fall, they glimpsed down to find the mountain had grown high above the very fjords below. The once vast Lough Moyne seemed now to be but a pond, and the adjoining forests were no bigger than clods of broccoli.

  They screamed, and blubbered, and panicked as they soared. Khrum even tried flapping his arms to keep up with a stray sparrow who’d just fluttered past him. Down, down, down they spun, with the mountain shooting up past them like a geological colossus after awakening from eons of dormancy. All hope was at a loss, until, all of a sudden, they landed with a thud onto something very large, soft and bristly, and it sailed off into the wind like a kite.

  “What the…” William blurted out with a jolt, after unexpectedly landing on his rear end.

  Convinced his number was up, he soon realised that luck had blessed them yet again, just in the nick of time.

  They were sitting on some manner of palmately lobed leaf, just like one from a chestnut tree, only this one was absolutely gargantuan. In fact, it was big enough to fit all of them comfortably and still glide like a feather.

  “Oh! Oooh!” panted Khrum, on his back, gasping. “It’s times like that when ya swear ya’ll never have another bit o’ badness in ya again as long as ya live. Thank you, God! Thank you!”

  The others were just as relieved, if not more. Wren, strange to say, simply sat there with her head back, panting lightly and smiling, with her elbows propped up on the brim of the leaf.

  “What are you so happy about?” William scowled, still half-traumatized.

  “Mountain?” she chuckled in silly voice.

  He didn’t take too kindly to being ridiculed under the circumstances, so he went into a mood and slouched himself against the leaf.

  “Hmmm, I don’t wish to alarm any of you,” said Icrick, who was surveying over the edge, “but we’re still miles away from the ground, and we’re stuck up here on some rogue leaf! All we need is a bit of a funny gust and we’re off flying again!”

  “No, no,” said Wren. “There’s nothing to worry about. For there’s only one tree on Lythiann that has leaves like this one.”

  “So?” said The Head.

  “So, we’re off to see Percy!” she smiled.

  “As in…the gardener?” Icrick asked.

  “None other!” said she.

  “Good aul’ Percy!” the leprechaun said, laughing. “Caught us right in the nick o’ time! Do ya know him well, lass? Never met him before, myself. But I heard he’s fairly decent…unlike some o’ the other weirdos ya’d find livin’ ‘round Lythiann nowadays.”

  “Ahem,” Crosco interrupted, “and what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?”

  Acting all innocent, Khrum raised his hands, and repealed, “Nothin’ at all, Crosco, ya big legend ya!”

  But when The Head looked away again, Khrum turned to Icrick and began doing a screwy motion, which made the Grogoch chuckle.

  “Well,” Wren interrupted, putting an end to their mean carry-on, “to answer your question, Khrum, whenever I’m around this side of the country, and Jimzin takes off by himself, I simply visit Percy. He really is very nice, feeding me and giving me a bed until Jimzin returns. As a matter of fact, that’s how I first met Percy. He found me wandering about outside his house one day, so he invited me in…out of harm’s way.”

  “His…house?” William repeated, he presumed that everyone had taken refuge from the evil of the land.

  “You’ll see.” She winked.

  Away they soared, upon a cushion of wind; past Iywék and then over The Craoí. They were so high up that the imperial river of Tamànois looked like a mere rivulet. Following its course, they sailed on, south of The Elders. Khrum was a smidgen disappointed for not getting to see Iywék properly, but he also had the feeling that he may well see it again before he was ‘dead ‘n’ gone,’ as he put it.

  The leaf rocked back and forth in a soothing sway as they travelled through the day. William kept wondering about how they were going to get down when the time came, or if they were even going in the right direction in the first place. Wren reassured him that all would be okay. But he just turned his cheek and acted like he didn’t need her assurance; a sour huff spawned from her jeering of late, I’d expect.

  Come what may, the day moved merrily along. That is, until the clouds drew a dull shade over the sun. Not long after that, the sky became guised by a ruthless, blinding mist and black reverberating clouds, and it was then that they started to worry. Even Wren, who was very composed up to now, was very much on edge.

  “What is happening now? Is it a storm? Oh, tell me it’s not a storm!” quivered The Head.

  Meanwhile the leaf started to rock more aggressively, while the wind picked up dangerously.

  They clutched on so tightly that their fingers were almost piercing the flesh of the leaf. With a startling crack, a streak of orange lightning then split the heavens and bolted into the glen far below. Then rain came bucketing down, with no consideration for the lonely leaf.

  “We have to hold on!” Wren cried, over the wind. “This storm won’t let up. Let’s just hope Percy sees us before we get roasted by one of these bolts!”

  Another green bolt shook the leaf before driving itself deep into a wide oak forest, causing a small fire in the middle of the canopy.

  “What kind o’ storm is this?” William yelled, referring to the tints of lightning.

  “It’s the beginning of the tempest…the three-day nocturnal fall!” replied Wren.

  “Oh, the tempest,” the moaning Head realised, slumping down. “Of course!”

  “Nocturnal fall? What?” William yelled.

  All of a sudden, the leaf went into a sickening twirl that spun them all right around. They yelled and groaned as their stomachs went into knots, when it levelled itself out again.

  “Whoooa! That was close,” Wren gasped, somehow managing to smile.

  The rain blew in from the sides in great sheets and she continued to explain, as best she could through the commotion, “Every year we get three nights of torrential rainfall! It usually comes in before dusk, while during the days we get roasting sun! It was a spell forged by the creator they say…to nourish the land. Only, I don’t think much thought was given to our current situation when the spell was being brought about. Just our luck to run right into the middle of it. Of all the days to be stranded on a flying leaf; the beginning of the tempest. Typical, yes? We’re just going to have to hold on and hope for the best.”

  Having turned a nauseating shade of pale green, Icrick was wheezing away in one of his anxiety fits. Thankfully Khrum was on his shoulder, trying his utmost to console him. Crosco, on the other hand, was holding on tightly to Ifcus and The Head. William and Wren were gripping on for dear life too, bracing themselves for whatever chaos the storm was about to deliver.

  Several minutes passed by; each like an hour of torment and strain to both their bodies and their minds. They could hardly see a thing through the misty rain, not to mention being deafened by the howling winds and battling thunder. Nauseously they wailed as the leaf rose and sank through the air like a galleon through rough seas. At one point, Wren even spotted her dragon flying closely through the storm, but it turned out even he was having terrible trouble trying to fight the gale. That flight was so demanding that he could barely control himself, so he banked leftward to find someplace to shelter until the tempest had moved on.

  From out of the unexpected, they heard a sharp pop in the bottom of the leaf. It rattled them horribly. A hook was sticking through the fleshy base by their feet. A grappling hook of some sort. When Wren saw it, she nearly jumped for joy.

  “It’s Percy!” she shouted with delight. “He’s rescuing us. I know it!”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked The Head. “I have seen dirty Bidìcks with such implements. They use them to scale towers and such! How do you know we are aren’t get
ting lured into some Bidíck hive?”

  Glancing at The Head with a lofty eyebrow, Wren replied, “Oh, try not be so pessimistic all the time, Crosco. Nothing vexes me more than having a good mood spoilt by some Moanin’-Mick. It’ll be fine. Trust me!”

  “A simple ‘I’m sure’ would have sufficed.” The Head muttered, going into a sulk.

  The hook reeled them steadily in, and not a moment too soon, because the wind was really throwing them about now, like a quill behind chariot dust. Likewise, the mist was still dreadfully thick, although William could yet see something through it, but it was rather indistinct. It was gigantic, as that of a structure, only bigger than anything he’d ever encountered before.

  Sure enough, it slowly came to being through the shroud of cloaking mist.

  A titanic oak tree—so implausibly immense that it was indeed one of its smaller leaves on which they were, in fact, sitting—manifested itself from behind the mist. It was so monumental that, all about its colossal branches were hundreds of tiny windows. Some were lit, others were not. Even the twigs were speckled with them, together with quaint balconies built around their tips. It was a tree palace.

  Astonished by this, Khrum said, “How, in the name o’ Saint Mickaleen ‘n’ his hairy pyjamas, are ya suppose ta keep this place a secret?”

  Something of a valid point, had you seen the size of it. Drevol would had to have been stone-blind to overlook such a sight.

  A long terrace, wound round and round the trunk for a considerable distance. And as the mist thinned, and they moved ever closer, they noticed—upon its main platform—a large contraption of some sort; sitting inside of which was a person wearing a lime-green rain hood. The contraption appeared to be some manner of spear launcher. It was reeling them in, at a descending angle, like an old mountain gondola to stream level.

  They were being lured in and in, until all that they could see before them were great rugged walls of bark. The tree was otherwise far too broad to comprehend from that close up.

  They came right up to the lip of the terrace where the platform awaited them to disembark. Oh, they were overjoyed to feel firm ground beneath their feet once again. Dashing to the hooded man, Wren draped her arms around him and gave him a big wet kiss on the cheek.

  “Ara! Now, now, young Wren. Old enough to be your father, I am!” he laughed.

  The man was clearly old enough to be Wren’s great, great-grandfather, but that little kiss frustrated William a little, for reasons unknown even to himself. He then coughed and cleared his throat as means of making himself known.

  “Thank you so much, Percy!” she smiled. “We would’ve popped our clogs for sure, had you not seen us. You’re a true saint, you know that?”

  “It’s lucky for you that I did see you,” he said, patting the launcher like an old friend.

  “How did you see us…out o’ curiosity?” William interrupted.

  The old man inquired, “And who might this be?”

  “This is William,” Wren said. “And this here is Icrick, Khrum, Crosco, and his steed, Ifcus.”

  Eccentrically, Percy giggled. “Pleasure to meet you all!”

  He then laughed with such a sudden unprovoked howl that it caught them all off guard, thereby stoking their doubts about his sanity. But by the looks of him, it would have been a docile insanity from which he suffered, if at all.

  “Come over here and I’ll show you, me lad. Come on!” he said to William, waving him closer.

  The others didn’t care much for the contraption because they were still very shaken from the storm. They just wanted to get in out of the downpour. But William just desired a quick gander, now that they were safe on solid ground again.

  It was assembled mainly from wood, save for the barrel, which was of copper. The seat was padded with feathered cushions, and on the side was the reel itself. A circular frame was mounted on top of the launcher; assembled out of supple branches. In the middle was a liquid window, which wobbled in the breeze like a bubble as it changed all different colours in the light. When William gazed through it, he could see ahead for miles and miles, like a telescope. Even the bad weather didn’t interfere with it all that much. It was like a clear day out there, and William deemed it quite an impressive machine.

  “Did you make this?” he asked, remembering what Glorgan had said about Percy inventing clever things.

  “Indeed I did, me boy! One of me very first. I was just checking out the going’s on in the south there, minding me own bee’s-wax, when I caught sight of your mountain sprouting up in the west. I love to watch the mountains grow sometimes. Any road, that’s when I saw you lot, so I deployed one of the leaves to come fetch you. Of course, I’d forgotten all about the tempest too, so that was a bit of a mishap.”

  “Impressive!” said the boy, squinting through the window.

  “Why thank you, me kind chum.” smiled Percy. “Now, let’s get inside before we all catch our deaths!”

  Through a small, arched portal they wandered, inside, out of the rain. This led to a wooden platform suspended by some ropes, wheels, and two great cogs. They appeared to be in a large shaft of some sort, with many doors above and around them which went up and up (and down and down) until their little lights dimmed into darkness. This could only have meant that the platform was some manner of elevation device which would ascend or descend in whichever way they so wished to go.

  Yanking back on a large wooden lever, Percy said with a toothless grin, “Down we go then!”

  With a rusted mechanical clatter, they moved steadily downwards, while Percy removed his drenched hood and shook off the wetness.

  A very gaunt, bow-legged man was old Percy. Short, too, and bald, bar the sides, which grew with curly, silvery hair down to his shoulders. He wore a dark-green waistcoat, boots, and a grey tunic with the sleeves rolled up, and he also had on a pair of heavy-duty brown gloves. Then, lying upon his workman’s apron, (which was also pocketed with all kinds of tools and pencils) were dozens of pairs of glasses. Yet, the most and bizarre aspect about him—that they knew of at the time—were all the small translucent spiders that were scuttling all over him, and they didn’t seem to bother him in the least. There was about a dozen of them, all scurrying in and out of his clothes, around by his ears and even up his nostrils, heedless of which, Percy continued to yap away like normal. Ifcus and Khrum were trying their very best to seem polite by listening to whatever he was trying to say. But their grotesque expressions gave away their revulsion entirely.

  Percy decided to tutor them on the tempest as they moved downward, and how it wouldn’t let up for some time. He insisted they stay there with him until it passed on; otherwise the risks of those violent gales propelling them into serious injury would have been too great for comfort. Wren accepted his offer on the behalf of all. William wanted to discuss it first, but Wren insisted on it.

  She then suggested that William tell Percy about his situation, as he might’ve been able to help in some way. Trusting her word, William told him the bare facts of his dealings. The old man was very interested to hear all about it, for he too was a studier of the prophecies, and was widely accustomed to the legend of Mysun.

  He was thrilled to have William in his home after that, and wanted to give him the finest treatment possible. But William being William, wouldn’t hear of it. Just some shelter and, at a push, a fresh bed was all he would accept, so Percy vowed to oblige. Taking a keen interest in the Symphogram, the old chap started rummaging through his pile of glasses until he found a pair with long, telescopic lenses. He then swivelled Icrick in circles as he examined the sacred tool.

  He was mumbling things like, “Hmmm, very interesting! Very interesting indeed! Well, holy God. Oh, me word. Well now, would you look at that. Well I never!”

  “What’s so interesting?” William asked, glancing over Percy’s shoulder. “Can you tell us anything about it?”

  Percy turned to William and said, “Well. At first glance, all I can really tell you
is that its fundamental design was well ahead of its time. I’ll wager it’s even more complex inside. It would have to be, in order to accomplish its purpose. But I’d need to dismantle it entirely and study it for many hours before I could properly clarify its mechanics, and I dare not chance such a thing in case I botched it up. And that wouldn’t be very good for anyone. No, no! Still, it’s uncanny to finally see Mitzel’s work in real life. Amazing. Truly amazing!”

  He studied the Symphogram for another minute or two, and then went back to his chitchat.

  William expectations weren’t very high anyhow, so he let the old man carry on with his natter. Besides, he was still worried about staying there till the storm blew over.

  He wondered if it’d be all that wise to dawdle in one place when they could probably press through the storm and find adequate shelter as they needed it, say in a wood or a cave or what have you. Yet after conveniently stumbling upon the subject of time anyway through his own ramblings of timescales and lunar equations, Percy ended up reassuring him otherwise, and how it’d be highly unlikely for the eclipse to arrive during the nocturnal fall.

  “No, no, there shan’t be any eclipse coming through the nocturnal fall.” he said, with supreme confidence. “The night sky needs to be cloudless for that to happen, you see. And the moon can tell. No, no, there shan’t be any eclipse, for the ecliptic light needs to find the touch of earth to take effect…and that’ll never happen when the storm’s about. No, no, there shan’t be any eclipse. Nor is it even likely that it’ll happen even around the tempestuous season, for that matter.”

  On and on he raved, every so often including those consoling words, “No, no, there shan’t be any eclipse.”

  So by the time Percy was done explaining the entire history of the moon, as well as waffling on about the stars, the nebulae, and the solar systems, William had accepted his word wholeheartedly, and so relaxed a touch. Besides, those nightly tempestuous winds were truly merciless, and there was no honest part of him that wanted to contend with them.

  Percy continued to drone on without a trouble in the world. Despite their boredom, they accommodated his tales without fuss. That should give you some idea of just how deep that tree actually was. It was so abysmal that, by the time they’d reached their destination, their clothes were practically dry, which was nice, considering how little they cared for wearing damp, itchy garments. There was also a lovely balminess in the air, seeping out from beneath the doors of the cosy, fire-lit rooms as they passed by them.