Hexult

by Perry Aylen

  Elya hurried to move the kettle and the pot of stew back onto the heat while Jacob peeled off his extra layers and settled himself in front of the stove.

  ‘The dogs fly over the ice!’ he told his sister, his eyes shining. She realised her face must have reflected the disappointment she felt over missing the thrill of the sled trip because he changed subject abruptly, and went on instead, ‘We sold every single one of the magic strikers! We could have sold them ten times over! People were almost fighting over them! I had to promise we’d bring another delivery in the next few days.’

  Elya’s anxiety evaporated. She sat down opposite Jacob and leaned in eagerly to hear more. He had a leather pouch in his hands and he pushed it at her, still grinning with undiminished excitement.

  The bag was much heavier than she had anticipated, but as she opened it and realised what was inside, she gasped. Money! A deep glinting heap of coins! Jacob saw her shock and laughed again. ‘Well? What do you think?’

  She shook her head, unable to think of a suitable response, for a moment entirely overwhelmed. To her own surprise, tears welled in her eyes and spilled over down her cheeks. Jacob stopped laughing and looked suddenly anxious.

  ‘What’s the matter, Elya?’

  She shook her head again, and gathered herself back together. ‘It’s nothing,’ she reassured him. ‘I’m fine, really. Just relieved. I’ve been so worried about what we were going to do to survive here, and now, I think we’re going to be all right. We can pay back Grim and even do something to thank Aulf and Ingar and Ma.’

  Jacob’s face relaxed. ‘I thought I’d upset you again,’ he confessed, and Elya brushed her tears away with the heel of her palm. ‘No,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘You’ve done brilliantly.’

  Over the next two days they worked with renewed purpose to make enough wizard steels to fill three more boxes, and also a small number of compasses, using the needles that Elya had constructed and the lodestone that Aulf had helped Jacob carry aboard the Aurora, from Ma’s barn.

  Grim watched mesmerised as Elya stroked a needle repeatedly down the lodestone, then threaded the central hole onto a pin set into a small flat wooden plate. Jacob inscribed sixteen points onto the plate, using a folded template of paper. Whenever the needle was spun, it always settled to point in the same direction, which Grim could not understand.

  ‘Wizard hands!’ murmured the big blacksmith, astounded at how Jacob and Elya could create something so inexplicable out of a few everyday objects. ‘I suppose that’s not magic either,’

  ‘No, this really is magic,’ admitted Elya, grinning, ‘Only, it’s not our magic. This is the earth’s magic. Anyone can do it if they have a stone like this.’

  Aulf and Ingar arrived back late the second afternoon and were as intrigued by the wizard hand compasses as Grim had been. Over supper, they caught up on each others’ news. Aulf and Ingar had sailed back via Quayven, to drop off and collect more mail, and to deliver the eagerly awaited boat spares to a delighted Tomas and Noah.

  ‘How are they both?’ asked Elya, with genuine affection for the brothers who had gone out of their way to help two strangers.

  ‘As lively as ever,’ Aulf said with a smile. ‘In fact, more lively than ever! Dying to tell us the news that Thorold and Ector were attacked by raiders. Apparently, they’re fine, but their boats were more or less match wood.’

  ‘Thorold and Ector,’ considered Elya, casting her mind back. ‘Weren’t they the ones who attacked you?’

  Aulf nodded. ‘That’s right. Ivor’s sons. Two chips off the old block, unfortunately. Well, apparently, they were attacked by raiders the same day I was attacked here.’

  ‘The same raiders?’ Jacob looked doubtful.

  Aulf shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure they were attacked at all.’

  Jacob frowned. ‘What do you think happened?’

  Aulf and Ingar exchanged a glance that clearly said this was a subject they had already discussed in detail.

  ‘Ingar and I called in at Wellspring with some mail – that’s the island next door to Jakir Chine – and they told us there’d been people from Quayven asking after us a couple of times. The last time was the morning we left Jakir Chine to come here. Said they were trying to trace some missing children and needed to talk to us.’

  ‘You think that was Thorold and Ector?’ asked Elya.

  Aulf shrugged. ‘Could well have been. The description fitted. They could easily have got word that we were at Ma’s, missed us there, and followed us across to Pelago. They certainly hold enough grudges against both me and Ingar!’

  ‘So, you think it wasn’t raiders tried to snag you on that trip line, but Thorold and Ector!’ Elya was aghast.

  Aulf laughed. ‘They’ll need to be a lot sharper than that to catch the Aurora!’

  Elya couldn’t understand how he could be so unconcerned.

  Ingar gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be a hot day on the ice before they can catch Aulf!’

  There was other news from Quayven, too, that Jacob, particularly, was eager to hear.

  ‘Apparently, the tower building is finally under way on Quayven,’ said Aulf, relaying the gossip he had heard from Tomas and Noah. ‘It took a while, but Noah says the builders are definitely back at work. Ingar went up to the top of the mount to have a look for herself.’

  ‘It’s about this high at the moment,’ said Ingar, holding her hand at knee height and grinning. ‘I wanted to find out from the builders what the plans were for setting up the mirrors and shutters, and whether they had worked out where the signal from Pelago would be.’ She had been captivated by all Jacob’s plans and explanations, and now she turned an earnest gaze on him as she spoke. ‘Unfortunately, Gabriel’s had the whole area cordoned off, with sheriff’s men keeping an eye on everything, so I couldn’t speak to anyone who really knew anything.’

  ‘Everyone’s talking about it, though,’ Aulf went on. ‘I think Gabriel is making the most of his sudden popularity revival.'

  Jacob prodded at the pudding in his bowl, and pulled a face. ‘I hope he doesn’t mess it all up,’ he said, and they all detected the note of wistfulness in his voice, though he tried to look as if it wasn’t important to him.

  ‘There’s always Orking Do,’ Aulf reminded him, and Jacob looked up with a flash of hope.

  Elya said, ‘We’ve got the strikers and the wizard hands to think about.’

  Grim, who had been very quiet up to that point, said, ‘It doesn’t need three of us to take care of those. These wizard towers are going to be a real asset to Hexult and they were your idea, after all. Why should Gabriel get all the credit for them?’

  Everyone was quiet for a moment, looking at Jacob and Elya for their decision.

  Jacob faced Elya. ‘What do you think?’

  Elya considered in silence, her face giving nothing away. She turned to Jeremiah. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind managing without us?’

  ‘Mind?’ Grim’s big pock-marked face was creased with amusement. ‘Why should I mind? I’m a blacksmith, after all! I’d be honoured to be entrusted with the wizard strikers, and the hands. And don’t worry,’ he added quickly, as a glimmer of concern flickered across Elya’s face, ‘the secret of how to make them is safe with me. I’ll take the latest batch of strikers across to Pelago tomorrow, and if they still want more, I’ll make some more.’

  ‘We should take some with us to Orking Do, as well,’ Aulf said, cheerfully. ‘And when you’ve made some more, we’ll take them to Quayven when we next pass through with the mail. It would be good to remind the people of Quayven who the real wizards are around here! I can think of two people who would do a great job of selling them, and would really appreciate the extra work.’

  ‘Tomas and Noah!’ Elya laughed.

  ‘So it’s off to Orking Do tomorrow, is it?’ Aulf asked. Elya drew a deep breath and nodded.

  Chapter 28

  As they left Smithy Island behind them the
next day, and sailed back past the small, featureless islands of outer Pelago, Elya, who had been noticeably quiet and distracted all morning, finally asked the question that had been troubling her for so long.

  ‘This prophecy that everyone says refers to us, what does it say?’

  Ingar gave her a hard look. ‘It doesn’t refer to you.’

  ‘People seem to think it does.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t,’ said Ingar, firmly. ‘Where does it mention you or Jacob?’

  Elya shook her head. ‘I don’t know, because I don’t actually know what it does say. Please tell me.’

  Ingar looked at Aulf. He shrugged. ‘It’s just nonsense!’

  Elya was not going to be put off easily. ‘Please, Aulf,’ she insisted.

  He looked as if he might refuse, but after a moment’s hesitation, he relented, reciting flatly:

  ‘“In the days of the brooding, a light from afar will scatter the mists, and all the lands will prosper.

  But night follows day; born of the same. Fear the cold shadow. In darkness is death.”’

  There was a stunned silence, then Elya’s dismay erupted.

  ‘Fear the cold shadow!’ she burst out, mortified. ‘Darkness and death! No wonder the people don’t like me!’

  ‘It’s not important,’ put in Jacob swiftly, in an effort to placate her.

  ‘So, because I’m dark haired, I’m evil, is that it?’ demanded Elya, her voice rising.

  ‘It’s just words, a silly superstition,’ Jacob assured her. ‘It’s not worth getting worked up over it.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ snapped back Elya, incensed, her green eyes flashing. ‘You’re the one that everyone thinks is wonderful. What would you know about it?’

  None of them had ever seen Elya so agitated, not even Jacob.

  Wishing now that he had pretended to be ignorant of the prophecy, Aulf said, ‘It’s just superstition. What’s a prophecy, after all? Most of the time they’re deliberately vague so that events can be made to fit them, or otherwise they’re twisted to fit what’s already happened. We never thought for a moment it had anything to do with you or Jacob.’

  Ingar cast a sideways glance at Aulf. He caught the meaning of the look, and dropped his gaze to hide his guilt.

  Elya intercepted the exchange. Her face flushed red with fury. ‘Obviously, you did!’ she wailed, glaring at Aulf. Hot tears sprang to her eyes.

  It was too late to deny it. ‘We talked it over, when we first knew you, but we both agreed it was all nonsense,’ Aulf admitted.

  ‘But you didn’t have the decency to tell me about it?’ Elya fumed. ‘You knew all along why people were shunning me, and you didn’t say anything!’

  Aulf held his hands up, defending himself. ‘We didn’t realise it was that much of a problem.’

  ‘It’s not a problem that everyone on these islands thinks I’m evil?’ Elya’s voice trembled with pent up rage. The scalding tears she had been fighting to hold back spilled over, and she swept them away furiously.

  ‘Elya, the prophecy could mean anything,’ said Ingar, in an effort to calm her. ‘Nobody who knows you would believe it has anything to do with you. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks.’

  ‘But don’t you see?’ Elya glared at them all, frustrated by their lack of comprehension. ‘It does matter! Why can’t any of you see that? It’s happening all over again, and I don’t know why!’

  Nobody knew what to say. Jacob tried to comfort his sister by putting his arm around her, but she shook him off, still fuming, and flung herself into the cabin, slamming the door behind her.

  An awkward silence gripped the deck. Jacob looked down at his feet, and Ingar and Aulf looked at each other, then at Jacob. Finally, Ingar said, ‘What did she mean, Jacob? It’s happening all over again?’

  Jacob sighed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s the reason we had to leave Snawdon – our island – in such a hurry. That’s what she means. You see, our father always had his own way of thinking.’ He looked up at Ingar and Aulf with pained eyes. ‘He was amazing, our father, don’t get me wrong. He was clever and brave, and he had so many ideas and theories, but not everyone agreed with him. When a new governor took over the island, he thought Dad’s ideas were subversive, that he was trying to make trouble, which simply wasn’t true. Then some of Dad’s friends - people he worked with, other scientists – they began disappearing mysteriously, and my dad got worried, mainly, I think, because of me and Elya. He didn’t want anything to happen to us. I think he was shielding us from some of the things that were happening because he didn’t want to frighten us, but some of the other people in our region began cold-shouldering us - people who supported the governor - calling us names, writing threatening letters, things like that. And we knew there were people watching us all the time. It was all horrible! Then, one night, Dad woke us up and told us to grab what we could carry because we were leaving. Someone had tipped him off that there were men coming to get him. So we threw some things together – food and clothes and whatever else we could think of – and fled, in the middle of the night. Elya and I had no idea how we were going to escape because the authorities had long since confiscated our boats, and all the harbours were closely guarded.

  ‘My father always had a theory that there are places in this world that are not frozen, where the seas are made of flowing water, not ice. When Elya and I were younger, he and his friend Marcus used to spend whole evenings planning expeditions to find these places, and he always promised that he wouldn’t actually do it until we were old enough to go with them. When all the troubles started they didn’t talk about the expeditions any more. Then Marcus disappeared too. On that night we ran away, Dad took us across the island to where the coast is wild and rocky, and empty, and there was an old barn near the shoreline, and inside was Gem. They’d secretly been preparing to leave, at least until Marcus vanished. They’d kept the boat hidden all that time. So we managed to escape, but we were very ill-equipped. There were some stores on board, but not enough.’

  Jacob’s voice trailed off.

  Aulf glanced at Ingar, then back at Jacob. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I guess Elya has a point then.’

  Ingar shook her head. ‘It doesn’t have to stay that way. Look at me. Nobody ever thought I’d amount to anything but a thief and a scamp. But then, Aulf gave me this job, and now the same people who used to spit in my path, give me a polite good day. Things can change. Somehow we’ll make the people of Hexult realise they’re wrong about Elya too.’

  Chapter 29

  ‘We’ve brought you a gift,’ said Jacob to Mayor Potts as he handed her a steel striker and a flint.

  The mayor was once again ensconced in the cabin of the Aurora, her trusted sheriff at her side. The cabin seemed smaller than ever with six of them squeezed inside, but the mayor didn’t seem to mind the cramped conditions. She looked with interest at the ornate piece of metal, and the chunk of stone, then at Jacob with an expression halfway between bafflement and amusement.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, what is it?’

  Jacob reached out and took the flint and steel back again, and struck them together with a practised flourish. The mayor looked startled, and the sheriff alarmed.

  ‘Magic wizard strikers, for fire lighting,’ Jacob informed her, passing the steel back to her.

  ‘I’m impressed!’ She examined the gift more closely. ‘You made these?’

  Jacob nodded at his twin. ‘Elya did.’

  ‘Elya.’ The mayor turned her shrewd gaze on the girl. ‘The dark wizard. The trouble bringer.’ She sensed the protest that rippled silently through the little cabin at her words.

  Ingar stuck out her chin. ‘It’s others who have made the trouble, not Elya.’

  The mayor cocked her head to one side and regarded Elya thoughtfully. ‘I must say, you don’t look very much like wizards.’ She switched her lively brown gaze from Elya to Jacob. ‘All sorts of stories
have reached my ears from Quayven about you two, and I don’t know what to believe. I don’t generally hold with wizards or magic, myself. Magicians, in my experience, are long on talk and short on action, like that old fraud, Gabriel.’ Once again, she was quick to sense the reaction to her words. ‘This,’ she announced, holding up the wizard striker, ‘this is my kind of magic. Something solid and useful, not all those vague, airy-fairy procrastinations and prophecies.’

  They all regarded her with a new interest; only the sheriff remained wary.

  ‘Like these wizard towers I’ve heard about. Now that sounds like an extremely interesting proposition to me. A radical idea to improve a rapidly deteriorating situation. That’s a project I am eager to invest in, if you would be willing to take it on, here in Orking Do?

  She looked at Jacob for an answer. He hesitated a moment, looking first at his sister, then at the mayor. ‘We would be very happy to build a tower here on Orking Do,’ he replied, with unusual reserve, ‘as long as the mistakes that were made on Quayven aren’t repeated here.’

  The mayor raised her eyebrows.

  Jacob drew a deep breath. ‘Mayor Potts, I can draw up the plans and make sure the light tower conforms to those plans. However, that’s only the beginning. The light towers are only as useful as the messages that can be sent. You’re going to need people trained in using the light code to signal between islands. That’s a skilled task. The only person on Hexult with that skill is my sister, Elya. On Quayven, they chased her from the island. Without the code, there’s little point in building the towers.’

  Mayor Potts continued to regard Jacob with the same measured expression. After a long pause, she asked, ‘What about Gabriel? How is he addressing this issue of teaching the code?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jacob admitted. ‘Obviously, I haven’t spoken to Gabriel in a while, but it’s my opinion – based on what I’ve heard – that since I left, Gabriel’s struggling with the whole thing. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to use the towers once he finally finishes them. I suspect, with all the other challenges, he hasn’t given the signalling code much thought yet. The crucial thing, if these towers are going to work, is that everybody knows how to use the same code.’