by J. J. Moody
Ben smiled weakly. There wasn’t much of a choice.
“Ok, so I am just a schoolkid…” he began.
“I’m sorry?” Alder frowned.
“A student, at a school, where children learn”
“Ah, like a city academy, go on.”
“Well my academy is in the land of Hulstead. Hulstead is not beyond any mountains. Well maybe it is, I don’t really know where it is from here. But I am beginning to think it is a very long way somewhere else. I’m not sure how I got here from there exactly, but I do remember swimming in a pool at the academy, and there was something very odd about this particular pool, and during a lesson it sort of sucked me down under the water and then spat me out again here. On that lake.” He pointed in the direction of the lake.
Alder listened intently.
Ben went on. “When I came out on top of the water again, I found myself right in front of Liam and his row boat.
“I really have to get home. My parents will be having a heart attack!”
“A heart….?”
“They’ll be very, very worried,” Ben quickly clarified.
“I see.” Alder rubbed his chin quietly for a moment, and Ben began to worry he was about to be sent out to the mob to be hung.
“Please. I’m just an academy student, and I just want to get home,” Ben pleaded, almost in tears. “Can you help me?”
Alder squinted at Ben. He looked him up and down, and then side to side, examining him like a piece of meat for his stew. “I think you are a friend, Silverstone. At least for now.”
Ben kept quiet.
“And I believe your story.
“Let me tell you something of these lands you have found yourself in.” He adjusted his seat, as if about to recount a long tale.
Ben waited patiently.
When Alder was comfortable, he began. “We are a wandering farmspeople, called the Peregrine after our first leader. Long ago we landtended happily in the lands of King Elmer, a few weeks’ journey to the north from here. But after the great plague we journeyed from there in search of fresh lands.
“Elmer rules from the beautiful city of Norchand. He is a good king. He does not curry favour with the mages like the rulers of Chasisi, Murdimore and the other cities; he seeks only what is right for his people, and rules them fairly. Once in a while his taxmen come to us, but they ask for a fair tribute, and in return we have refuge behind his city walls if we should need it.” He stopped to stir the stew.
“But the mages are becoming more and more powerful, and a great war between them will soon come, spilling over into the lands and forcing all people to choose their sides. The storms come more and more now, and the lands become more barren as they cast their spells and experiment. It is an omen of the doom to come I think.” He looked at the ground.
“The mages are outsiders; magicians; devil charmers. They came into this land from another, through great gateways between their worlds and ours. I do not know why they come. I do not know whether they come from the lands beyond the Amyntas, or from somewhere else. I do not know how many there are, trespassing unseen in our lands. But there are five who have risen to power above all the others. These five exist outside our laws, outside our societies. They do as they please because they have the power to crush armies with a single spell.” His face was fixed in deep creases.
“It is only the balance of power between the five that prevents one from dominance, as none will allow another to assert his power over the lands. But all the while they secretly study, building up their might until one can overcome the others and rule this world completely.” He had become more animated as he spoke, and slightly breathless now.
“But all of them once came to us, as you have just done, Silverstone, through a gateway. All are foreign in our lands, as you are.” He looked hard at Ben. “I do not know how they learned their spells, if they did not bring them. Perhaps each was taught by another. But I expect in time, that you will find that outsider magic also. And when that time comes, you may become a friend no longer.”
“I am not a mage,” Ben protested. “There’s no such thing as magic anyway. And I told you; I just want to get home to my family. As soon as I find another one of those gateways that is open I will go back through it and you’ll never see me again.
“Not that I didn’t really enjoy the stew. It was delicious.”
“Hmph,” Alder chortled. “The gateways are a greater mystery than even the magicians who came through them. Unless you have a spell to open them, I don’t know how they are used. It seems there is one within the lake, but I would not swim around in it trying to find it if I were you. There are strange creatures within the water there, and people tell of old ruins and ghosts beneath the surface. No, I think you are stuck with us for now, my young friend.”
Ben became angry. “I am not stuck here. I can’t just forget everything back home!”
“I understand. But I cannot help you. I am just a farmer. Wisest, some say, of the Peregrine people, but wise enough to know that we are not such a greatly wise people. There are many in the realm that are a great deal wiser than I.
“But do not lose hope. The good King Elmer has great knowledge, and would no doubt help you. I have heard tales of some folk disappearing from our lands also, perhaps to journey to others. And perhaps some of the mages themselves have come and returned to your world. Who is to say what is possible with their spells after all. Perhaps one can open the gateway in the lake for you even.”
“Yes, yes that’s it. I need to find the mages, and ask for their help getting home.”
Alder paused, rubbing his chin again. Ben began to eye the stew.
At last he spoke. “I will help you of course, if that is your choice. We cannot stand in the way of the great tide.
“But I advise you to first seek the counsel of King Elmer, before revealing yourself to a mage. The magicians always search for superiority over one another and I fear whichever you reach first may try to use you for his own ends.”
“I will be careful then. But I have to go. I must find a way home to my family and if that is my best chance, then I’ll take it.” Ben felt suddenly strong again, as he had before in the midst of the battle.
Alder rose, and gripped Ben’s shoulder. “Very well young warrior Silverstone, your path is set, and I will send you on your way with ample provisions from the grateful Peregrine. But first and foremost you must rest with us here a few days, and allow your injury to heal.” He pointed to Ben’s arm. “Besides, the people will want to greet you as a new friend is always greeted; with good Peregrine stew and vol, and plenty of dancing with the young girls if you are lucky!” He laughed heartily.
Ben stood up eagerly at the mention of more food and drink, and followed Alder as he walked out of the little tent. They moved back around to the central shelter, and Ben’s stomach jumped again at the sight of so many people massed in front of him.
The crowd fell silent as they approached. The tension was as thick in the air as the smell of stew cooking.
Sensing Ben’s hesitation, Alder slowed and walked beside him.
They entered the shelter and stood beside the central fire. The skies had darkened as night fell, and the light of the flames illuminated them for the crowd like a golden spotlight.
Ben didn’t know where to look.
“Welcome croppers of Peregrine!” Alder began. “Beside me stands our newest friend; Silverstone!”
A cheer went up from the warriors, loudest of all from Ivor.
“He is a citizen of Norchand; a travelling wanderer seeking knowledge.”
Ben decided not to protest the lie.
“He has fought bravely today alongside our warriors in the defence of our home, and must be given our warmest welcome. He will stay with us for just a few weeks while his war wounds heal.”
Ben blushed. He didn’t feel very brave. After all, all he’d wanted to do was escape. And what was this about staying for a few weeks?
Ald
er smiled widely at him. “He will put down with Appleby, helping tend the farms and learning our simple ways.” With that pronouncement, he took a short bow, and moved to one side, leaving Ben standing alone in the spotlight.
Ben flushed brightly, and looked back to Alder for help.
“Say something,” Alder said cheerfully. “They don’t bite.”
Ben frantically racked his brain. What could he say to this group of strangers amassed in his honour, no doubt expecting him to deliver something funny yet bold and inspiring. He felt like Tim Wisecroft during the English lesson when Mrs Greenleaf had asked him a question. He glanced around at the faces of the crowd. He certainly didn’t feel brave now.
The crowd stared at him curiously. A young boy near the front of the group shouted out, “do you have trousers?”
The crowd roared with laughter. Ben stood paralysed, wondering whether he could run away.
“Quiet!” Liam suddenly stood and joined Ben. The crowd quickly silenced.
“This lad swam through that cursed lake, and saved my life today, through his bravery in battle. So I for one will welcome him with the respect he deserves.” He slapped Ben on the back.
The crowd bustled into life, and a group of the men came up to welcome Ben. One of them handed him some trousers, which he gratefully received and put on. Ivor hustled him back to the seats as music began to play. He handed Ben a heavy mug of something that smelt like the alcohol Ben’s parents had drunk the night they’d finally bought the house, but was a horrid purple colour.
Ben tested it timidly. It felt as if he had swallowed one of the red-hot coals from the great fire, and that it was slowly winding its way down his throat into his belly, setting everything alight as it went. He coughed hard, which seemed to only encourage Ivor, who whacked him on the back encouragingly.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” Ben stuttered, at least happy to have finally warmed up.
“You must drink vol Silverstone! We’ve brewed this here batch from the plants at the edge of the lake and I think it contains the strange secrets of the weird water in it! It is delicious, ain’t it? And besides it will help you sleep well and ease your bruises!”
Ben tried to avoid the purple vol as best he could that evening, carefully dribbling it from his mug onto the ground beside him when nobody was watching. He listened to the tales the fighters told of their travels with the camp from place to place, of their skirmishes with bandits and other strange peoples, and of their simple lives tending the farms with their families.
One by one the men moved away to their families, slumped off to their tents, or simply closed their eyes and snored where they sat, so that Ben marvelled at how they balanced on their tree trunk stools. Ivor energetically entertained the rest with his stories, which Ben suspected had drifted from recollections to fantasy as the night wore on. He wondered just how much of Ivor’s latest tale about the tall-necks of the Edustus desert was fanciful. It didn’t matter. He enjoyed it anyway, and felt the calmest and warmest he had done since he had left for school that morning, a whole world away.
Suddenly Ben felt something touching lightly on his back, and he turned to find a young girl around his own age smiling at him. She was very beautiful, with long, dark curly hair, and bright, wide eyes. He began to feel uncomfortable.
“Hello. I’m Eva,” she said.
“Erm. Hi I’m B… I mean Silverstone.”
She giggled a little.
An older man appeared behind her, also smiling at Ben. “My name is Appleby. You are to be my guest for the time of your stay with us. It’s my honour to welcome you.”
Ben felt ashamed at imposing on this man he hardly knew, when all he’d done was try to survive a battle. Everyone was treating him like he’d won the battle of Waterloo. He stood and introduced himself.
Appleby explained that the family was now turning in, and Ben was very happy to follow him. He patted Ivor on the shoulder as he left, but the man was not distracted from the climax of his story. Ben felt sure he’d hear it another time.
The Appleby tent stood towards the outer edge of the circle, near the animal fences, and was one of the largest in the camp.
As they entered, Ben saw soft rugs scattered on the floor. To one end of the tent were colourful cushions and a coal basket very similar to the one in Alder’s tent. At the other edge was a row of thick woolly rugs that looked like a cross between a mattress and a sleeping bag. They were covered in patchwork blankets. Ben felt sleepy just looking at them. It had been a big day.
Eva’s aunt Lea was also in the tent, rocking her sleeping baby. She smiled at Ben and he nodded back to her.
Appleby silently waved a hand toward one of the sleeping mats at the far side of the row, and Ben understood it was to be his. Before he could jump in to it, Appleby insisted on tending to Ben’s wound. He extracted a pot of a kind of herbal ointment from a bag, and dabbed it gently on the bloody scar on Ben’s left arm. It stung, but Ben was too tired to protest.
Finally when Appleby had finished, Ben thanked his host again quietly, stumbled towards his bed, and fell into the blankets. His mind quickly turned to his parents, and to Toby, Paddy and their crumbling old house, and he missed them terribly. That morning he had shouted goodbye from the doorstep before he made his way to Hulstead College, and now here he was, going to sleep on a woolly mat in a farm camp, next to Lake Kaidesh. He silently whispered goodnight to his family, hoping somehow that his words would find the way back to them, far away in his own world. Then he fell asleep.
Chapter Three
The Birthday Party
Ben spent the next few days in the company of Appleby, Eva, Liam, Ivor, Alder and others of the Peregrine farmers.
The people were good-humoured and the camp was often filled with laughter. They had suffered greatly during the plague, and in their travels with the tented village from one place to the next, but rather than break their spirits, it had made them hardy to most day-to-day problems. Even the latest bandit attack was treated with a good sprinkling of jest, and the warriors’ heroism exaggerated ever further at evening meals, which the camp ate together in the main shelter.
“If those marauders want to take my best blucumbers they’ll have to do better than a few bows and arrows and sneaking up at them through the forest. Why, I’ve more to fear from the snails and brownfly than them!” he’d heard one lady shout.
“My turnapples’d turn sour and poison the land for that foul behooded lot if they laid a hand on them anyways!” another chimed in.
On Appleby’s farm plot, Ben tried to assist as best he could. On the first day as their guest, Eva showed him around to get him familiarised so that he could help with her chores.
She began with the pomp-hens. “Pomp-hens lay us big, rounded eggs, like these beauties.” She held up a black-shelled sphere the size of a tennis ball from the laying tables inside the wooden hutch. “If we’re lucky, they each lay three a day, and that’s plenty for us and leftovers to barter with. But Pomp-hens need to be treated carefully,” she said, as she placed the egg carefully in a grass-cushioned tray and directed Ben outside to the day pen.
“Pomp-hens are very majestic and like to be treated with respect. You have to stick to the same time going into their hutch so as not to surprise or interrupt them, and if you’re looking at one and catch her eye you should bow and show her lots of humility, or she will get very grumpy and peck and scratch at you till you’ve learned your lesson. When you feed them it’s best to keep your eyes down and carefully spoon the feed into neat piles; they’re a very particular about that as well.”
Ben stared at the strange things. They were a lot like the chickens he knew, but bigger and prouder, and with bright, multicoloured feathers more like he’d expect to see on a parrot. One of the birds strutted towards him, and he noticed a bright yellow crest on its head, swept upwards and to one side like Jordan’s blond quiff. It looked boldly back at him, and he suddenly realised that Eva was bowing next to him. He hastily ben
t over, hoping he had been fast enough. After a minute the pomp-hen pivoted like a catwalk model and swaggered away confidently.
Next, Eva moved them along to the digboks enclosure. As Ben walked towards it he thought it might be empty, as he couldn’t see anything moving within the fence perimeter. All he noticed were some muddy mounds, and near them a few short posts, which had wide, flat metal bases.
“Digboks are very difficult animals to keep,” Eva began, “because they love to burrow. If we let them, they would dig their way to the great open plains west of Murdimore, and I bet the one or two we have lost are there right now, feasting on the green grasses.” She chuckled.
Ben looked more closely. At the top of each post there was a taut rope, leading straight down into a little hole in the ground. The mounds must be everything they had dug up already, he realised. “So you keep them from escaping with those heavy anchors in the field?”
“Yes, exactly. The land anchors hold them. But we keep them well fed so I think they’d miss us if they escaped anyway.” She picked up a bucket of yellow pellets from near the gate, and motioned to Ben to follow her inside.
They approached one of the holes, and Ben leaned over to see how deep it went. It dropped steeply for at least five metres and then ran off towards one of the other openings.
“I think the tunnels probably connect with each other down there in a big underground cave where they all sit, planning how to overthrow us and make their escape,” she said as she shook the feed bucket.
For a minute or so nothing happened. Then the rope on the anchor twitched.
Ben took a step back, slightly apprehensive about what creature might emerge.
The other ropes began to slacken, and Eva kept shaking.
After a few more rattles of the bucket, a short legged, pale haired creature the size of a lamb sprang out and looked around. It shook off the dirt to reveal a pair of large ears, baby horns, a hairy beard, and a snout covered in long whiskers. A tongue hung from its open mouth, and it looked very much like it was smiling.