by JM Coombs
"Probably," she whispered back.
The five mages raised their hands, something shifted in the fabric of reality, and suddenly the wind changed direction, blowing straight into the boat's sails, filling them, and pushing them out to sea. A massive cheer went up from the assembled passengers.
Richard leaned back on the railing and laughed. "You know, this is going to be awesome. We don't have to hide anything here. No worrying about non mages spotting us, no always looking out for video cameras or stuff like that. We can just go around doing magic like there's no tomorrow."
Elizabeth nodded, drew a long, stray straw coloured hair around her ear, leaned over the railing, and stared out to sea.
As the boat moved onwards towards the next island, unnoticed by anyone, the tiny crack between Richard's side-trunk and its lid started, faintly, to glow.
CHAPTER FOUR
Nikolo's Interference
Back on Earth, all the way up Creakylid's entrance ladder, and deep within the mountain temple, Nikolo Spinner finished the final report from his 'most important' pile, picked up the customs report, and started reading.
His eyes widened. Trunk Expansion! Alarm bells rang in his head. Just like Creakylid itself! He quickly scanned the rest of the report, shot to his feet, flung open his door, and rocketed down the hall, passing several startled aids as he went. He bolted through the customs queue, rushed past the surprised documentation ladies, shoved past the line waiting to climb into Creakylid with the strength of an ageing but still fearsome bull, and, with the assistance of the guards, scrambled down the ladder and onto the beach below.
"Grand Mage?" asked a shocked dock master.
Nikolo didn't pause to catch his breath. "Richard Struggle. Has he left yet?"
The dock master checked her papers. "Yes, Grand Mage. He caught the boat twenty minutes ago."
Nikolo tutted, ran a frustrated hand through his shoulder-length red hair, took a deep, recovering breath, and turned to an aid who'd had the presence of mind to follow his breakneck dash across the temple. "Make me out a top priority letter to be sent to Samuel Peterson, dock master of The Second Island."
The aid produced a clipboard.
"Samuel," Nikolo started dictating, "Please see to it that Mister Richard Struggle doesn't leave The Second Island until I've had a chance to speak to him. I will be visiting the island for business next Thursday. Signed Nikolo Maximillian Spinner."
The aid looked up. "Should we give Mister Struggle a reason for his waylayment?"
Nikolo tugged thoughtfully at his short beard. "No… I don't think so, just keep him there."
"As you wish, Grand Mage."
"Mmm… and do we have any good woodworking tools or anything of that nature lying around?"
"Oh, yes, Grand Mage, many."
"Then please see to it that a care package is made up for our hopefully soon-to-be new friend."
"Yes, Grand Mage." The aid finished the letter, folded it up, and waved it at a nearby, cheerful-looking female mage.
The mage deftly plucked it from the aid's fingers, shoved it into a waterproof satchel strapped around her body, ran to the end of the pier, took a running jump off the edge, and transformed into a dolphin mid-dive, hitting the water with a splash and a series of delighted dolphin clicks and whistles.
"Dolphin!" Elizabeth pointed over the railing, causing an interested murmur from the other passengers.
The dolphin shot out of the water, clearly displaying the satchel it carried, did an enthusiastic double jump aside the boat, and surged forward again, passing the boat's helm and vanishing into the water ahead of them.
The passengers clapped and cheered around them. One man hoisted a little girl onto his shoulders for a better look.
"Oh," Elizabeth said, looking slightly disappointed. "A whisperer."
Richard chuckled. That explained the letter-holding dolphin sign back at the village. He watched the trail in the water made by the retreating mage. "Still awesome though."
Elizabeth nodded then drew back sharply, apparently startled by something. She leaned in towards him. "Richard," she whispered urgently, "your trunk is glowing."
Richard jerked his head down. There was indeed a faint glow coming from his trunk. His stomach lurched.
"Is it supposed to do that?" she asked with narrowed eyes.
"Err… it's probably nothing," he said, opening up the trunk and rummaging around inside. That glow was familiar. He'd seen it once before, three years ago, and hadn't thought he'd see it ever again. His fingers closed on 'the book' and withdrew it from the trunk, focused now on nothing else.
Somewhere near him, someone said something.
Another message from his mother? He opened it up and found that a new page had been filled in.
Dear Richard,
You should now have left Earth and entered Creakylid. Well done! Creakylid has so many amazing things to discover. I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. You know where might be particularly interesting to explore? North! I hear there's a lot going on that way. Why don't you go in that direction? :)
- Mum
What the fuck? Richard stared at the words in confusion. North? His mother wanted him to go north? He wasn't going north. He was going east. He wasn't even sure you could go north. He hadn't even heard of any boats that went in that direction. It was supposed to be un-navigable.
"Richard?" Elizabeth's voice finally filtered through to him. He looked up to see her looking at him with mild suspicion.
Opps. He must have looked quite troubled to get that response. "It's nothing," he said, putting the no-longer glowing book back in his trunk.
She didn't look convinced, but didn't pursue the matter.
Richard tried to put the strange request out of his head, but found it difficult. Really, who did his mother think she was? Well, his mother, obviously, but she'd never even been in his life before. He didn't know anything about her. All he had were two small messages written in a magic book. On the other hand, her first message had been incredibly helpful and he was grateful for it. But he already had plans and going north was not in them. He really wanted to meet Susie and see the dragons. That was what he wanted.
The boat continued to plough through the water, gently rising and falling to the waves and the wind. The island, previously only faintly visible in the distance, was much closer now. Exotic trees covered the gently sloping land, rising all the way up to a small hill top in the island's centre.
"Oh, look there." Elizabeth called.
Richard glanced at her before following her pointing finger. "A ship wreck?" he asked. What looked like a half decayed shell of a boat lay tilted on its side, stuck on a much smaller patch of rock now distinct from the main island. He looked questioningly towards the nearest nitrogen elemental — a brown haired woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties.
"Yeah," the woman said, her hands still held up in the air, "We messed that up a bit." Her expression looked somewhat sheepish. "Not that it was my fault."
"Oh, was it not?" called a playful voice from the other side of the boat. The elementals' one male mage grinned at his colleague. "So, it wasn't you that was hungover?"
"That had nothing to do with it, and you know it!" She looked back to Richard. "Ignore him. I just happened to have had a long night beforehand. It was the captain who didn't call out the correct directions."
Richard nodded and leaned back against the railings again. That was exactly the sort of reason why heading north would be a bad idea.
Soon enough, they left the shipwreck island behind and sailed around the tip of a long peninsula. He couldn't help notice that as soon as they hit the peninsular's tip, the tree line stopped as abruptly as the wrecked ship must have, to be replaced by flat fields filled with waving wheat.
His gaze slid from the untouched forest to the now visible bay.
A murmur of appreciation sounded around them.
"Wow," Elizabeth said.
Wow was right. The bay stret
ched off in a long graceful curve, white sanded and dotted with wood buildings and small piers. Most of the buildings lay towards the centre of the bay, and, at the very middle, stood a tall wood building with a bell tower. It looked like something from a fantasy painting.
The bell tower bell donged five times as they neared. The sun was starting to fall.
"Welcome to The Second Island!" shouted the lone male nitrogen elemental. "Please enjoy your hopefully short stay!"
Once down the gangplank, Richard offered Elizabeth his hand to help her off.
She looked away again. "I have working feet and hands, thank you."
He withdrew the hand and smiled politely instead. Was that a faint blush on Elizabeth's cheeks or was she just hot from wearing so much?
"Right," he said, once they stood on dry land. "What shall we do first? Find out about tickets out of here?" He remembered the glowing message from his mother. "Tickets going east," he added in a firm voice that caused Elizabeth to give him an odd look. All around them, their fellow passengers bustled off in different directions.
"Yes." Elizabeth nodded her head. "Let's do that."
Just to make life easy for them, the ticket office was located all the way on the other side of the docks. Several boats apart from theirs were also unloading cargo at the piers scattered along the waterfront — mostly food by the looks of it.
The town appeared to be laid out like a large T. The docks ran along the coast and a single long street speared into the island from the middle, possibly all the way to the island's central hill. Along the way they passed all sorts of interesting things — inns and taverns by the dozen, the large wooden bell tower that had welcomed them to the island, a dozen young mages all helping to carry a long wooden beam to one of the unfinished buildings, and a large open space with all manner of stalls set up — a market.
After three years of hunting vintage tools in such places up and down the country, Richard couldn't help but drag both his eyes and his feet as they passed.
One stall sold metal cutlery. Another seemed to sell nuts and seeds of every type imaginable. Yet another happily took old Earth money and converted it to Creakylid's new currency — the chad — at rates that made Richard insanely thankful he'd only brought trade goods.
Richard spotted the man from the boat with the dolphin watching daughter haggling with one of the stall keepers. Much like many of the other stall keepers, he held himself like a big fish in a small pond — puffer fish, in his case — round like a sphere of polished stone, much like some of the bosses Richard had worked for back at the builders yard. All around the man lay all manner of wooden objects — spoons, bowls, coffee tables, and many others, all immaculately carved into works of art that took Richard's breath away. One object in particular drew his appreciation — a chair with a sleeping dragon carved all along the back rest, looking eerily like the dragon he'd seen in Susie's crystal ball memory. Around the back of the stall, Richard noticed a middle aged woman wearing a red, long-sleeved shirt that had been rolled up to her shoulders, whittling away at a block of wood with a wickedly sharp looking knife. Was she the one who did all those carvings? Maybe they could have a chat about them… he'd always wondered about—
"C'mon, Richard." Elizabeth called impatiently back to him. "We can do shopping afterwards."
Richard reluctantly tore his gaze away from the stall and back to the dockside. Elizabeth was right, of course, and quickly proven even more so as, by the time they got to the ticket office, there was already a small crowd surrounding it.
They examined the large sign outside.
Priority tickets to Ophelia Island [East] and Coral Island [West] — 150 chad.
Please note: Once you have left The Second Island, you may NOT return until after the great migration is complete. Tickets are NON refundable.
If you cannot afford a priority ticket, you may sign up to the daily lottery. Seats not yet sold will be awarded to winning individuals at 10:00am each day at the ticket office.
Richard frowned. That made no sense.
"A lottery?" Elizabeth asked next to him. "Why? Why not a waiting list instead? Having a lottery is just dumb."
Richard shrugged. "I guess they must have a reason."
Elizabeth caught his eye. "Are you getting a priority ticket?"
Richard chuckled. "Sure am. I'm not waiting around here for who knows how long. Besides, I've got places to be." He made to head back to the market — the one place they could get money for the tickets, but hesitated. "What about you?"
Elizabeth sniffed and turned to catch up with him. "As it happens, yes, I also intend to buy one."
Richard smiled.
On closer inspection, most of the market stalls were little more than aluminium frames covered with rough cloth. The throng from the boat had grown since they'd last past, but it still had the feel of a lesser known country fair back on Earth. Richard and Elizabeth stood at the entrance over which a banner had been hung which proclaimed, 'The Second Island Market — Buying all Earth goods! Selling all Creakylid wares!'
They made their way through the stalls until they found the one that changed money — the one that Richard had spotted before. Above the stall was a large symbol of a tree surrounded by a circle.
"Pounds, dollars, euro, or other?" asked the woman behind the counter.
"Pounds," Elizabeth said.
Richard then watched in pain as Elizabeth forked over several thousand pounds and received a bag of just under one thousand chad in return, along with a much lighter bag filled with their new smaller currency, the wick.
"Well, not all of us can carry a literal crate of stuff across their shoulder," Elizabeth grumbled, clearly catching his pained expression.
Richard nodded in sympathy. It couldn't be helped, of course. Earth money had to be all but useless to everyone except the council, and would be useless even to them, once the great migration was over.
They made a quick tour through the market, making notes on the prices of various goods, before finding their way to one proclaiming itself as, 'The Creakylid Trading Company.'
"I wasn't aware the council had set up laws for limited liability companies," Richard said to the man standing behind the stall's counter.
The man grinned a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of his head. "Ah — they haven't — not really — not yet, anyway — just a nod to Earth really. I was an accountant — but hey." He rubbed his hands together. "This is a new world, yes?" He grinned another wide grin that seemed just a bit too eager and leaned towards him and Elizabeth. "My name is Amid Mastafud. Do you have goods to sell?"
Richard and Elizabeth glanced at each other before Richard answered, "Cigarettes."
The man rubbed his chin. "I can buy cigarettes, certainly. Two chad a pack is what I can do."
Elizabeth scowled. "That man over there sells them for ten."
Amid's smile faulted somewhat before he continued, a little more tired and a little less jubilant. "Four then."
The back and fourth continued for a while until they'd nailed Amid down to eight chad a pack. Since each chad was supposed to be equivalent of one US dollar, that put Richard at a little under double his original investment — not bad.
"And how many do you have to sell?" Amid asked.
"125," Richard said, and at Amid's look of mild confusion, added, "125 packs."
Elizabeth shot him an appraising look.
Amid whistled. "Did you bring nothing but cigarettes?"
"Oh, no, I brought quite a bit more." Richard grinned as he opened his trunk, stuck his hand in up to his elbow, found what he was looking for, and withdrew a large eight pack of cigarettes.
Amid's eyes widened in shock. "How did you do that?"
"Blood bound spell."
"Blood bound… you make these?"
Richard nodded.
Amid's eyes narrowed. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "You might want to talk to a man called Mister Offwood. He's at the front of the market. You can't
miss him. He's the large round man who sells carved wood items. He'll be very interested in this."
"Was that the guy selling the dragon chair?"
"Yes, that is him. He also supplies all the trade wood for the island."
Richard whistled and nodded. He wasn't sure if anything would come of it, but he certainly remembered the large, round man from when they walked past the market earlier. It sounded like this Mister Offwood was also who he'd need to talk to about buying wood for his trunk project if he had time before leaving.
But it didn't seem like Mister Offwood was the only one who might be interested in his work. As they finished up their business with Amid, many people had gathered around, most if not all pointing excitedly at his trunk.
"We should be going," Elizabeth whispered. She'd been watching the reaction of the crowd and trader with a thoughtful expression that Richard hadn't yet seen on her.
Richard nodded.
"Maybe you should be a bit more careful showing off that trunk," Elizabeth said, as they made their way back to the ticket office. "You wouldn't want it stolen. It would be a tempting target, considering just how much stuff you must have in it."
Richard nodded. "Yeah." One of his hands firmly grasped the trunk at his side as though someone might run off with it right there and then. Suddenly having a lot of money made the threat seem a lot more real — even if losing his tools and books would be far more devastating. "Yeah, that wouldn't be good."
Elizabeth's countenance had changed since they'd returned from the market. She seemed slightly less quick to glare, slightly more willing to catch his eye. Despite his sudden worry over his trunk, that, at least, felt kinda nice.
A friendly looking man wearing a faded baseball cap ambled up to them from the direction of the ticket office. "You couldn't spare us a coin, could you? Only need a few more to get out of here."
Elizabeth snorted. "Oh, I'm sure."
Richard shot his new friend an amused look before flipping the man a two chad coin, still careful to keep his hand on his trunk. The silvery coin sparkled green and blue in the sun, landing in the man's grateful outstretched hand.