by Paul Stewart
For a moment, Cade hesitated. But only for a moment.
Kicking off his own boots, he sprinted down the jutting rock and dived into the cool, dark water. He grabbed Celestia’s legs and pulled her down. And Celestia – who was at least as good a swimmer as he was – shoved his head down under the water. Writhing and splashing, the pair of them ducked and dived and dunked one another over and over. They swallowed water when they were pushed down, and spluttered and gasped for breath when they resurfaced.
Celestia’s skin was blushed red with the setting sun. Cade couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He had never felt so happy before. And when Celestia joined in his laughter, he almost dared to believe that she felt the same way.
· CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR ·
‘I’VE GOT TO hand it to you, lad,’ said Thorne, licking the grease from his fingers, one by one. ‘You certainly know how to roast lakefowl.’
‘You like it, then?’ said Cade a little bashfully.
‘Like it?’ said Thorne. He took a piece of blackbread and mopped up the juices on his wooden plate, then looked up. ‘Finest cooking I’ve tasted since back in Hive, when . . .’ The grey goblin hesitated and his expression darkened.
‘When?’ Cade prompted him.
But Thorne was frowning now and looking down at his empty plate. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly.
‘Let me get you some more,’ said Cade, breaking the awkward silence that followed.
He pushed his chair back and, taking Thorne’s plate, crossed the small cabin to the stone hearth where two more plump birds sizzled on a spit above a crackling log fire.
That morning, he’d shot three of the waterfowl that grazed the meadowlands with the phraxmusket Gart Ironside had lent him. The creatures were slow and awkward, and Cade had felt a twinge of guilt each time one of the musket-balls found its target. But he’d consoled himself that each of the ungainly birds had met its end quickly and painlessly – and would make good eating.
Back at his new cabin, he had sat on the veranda overlooking the lake and plucked and gutted the birds as Rumblix looked on, his wide mouth open and tongue lolling. Cade tossed the giblets to the prowlgrin pup, who gobbled them down greedily before leaping onto the veranda rail and begging for more, his whiplash tail a blur of movement.
‘That’s all for now, boy,’ said Cade. ‘Got to save some for our guest.’
Entering the cabin, Cade crossed to the stone wall and ducked through the small doorway that led down into the storeroom. He took down a string of glimmer-onions from a hook in the low ceiling, then selected other vegetables from several sacks on the floor.
Cade had been busy in the last week. Besides the forage sacks full of polderbeets and strings of glimmer-onions from the meadowlands, there was a bucket of salted lakefish, a box of drying field mushrooms, and bundles of sweet lake-kale hanging over by the far wall. The storeroom wasn’t full exactly, but it was a good start. And soon, Cade told himself as he climbed the rock-cut steps back up to the cabin, as he grew more confident, he’d start foraging in the surrounding forest.
Cade sat down at the beautifully crafted copperwood table that Thorne Lammergyre had made him and set to work on the polderbeets and glimmer-onions, peeling and chopping and dicing. Then, after searing the pieces in sizzling oil, he tossed the whole lot into a stewpot of water, which he set to boil over the hearth. He added sticks and split logs to the fire, then blew long and hard into the embers until the whole lot burst into flames.
The aromatic smells of cooking soon filled the cabin as Cade cleared the table and then set two places for supper. He put chairs out on either side of the table: two high-backed lufwood seats that he and Thorne had made together only a week earlier, but already looking as if they had always been there – much like the cabin itself.
Cade looked around his new home – at the hammock in the corner, beside a log night-stand; the veranda, with its floating sumpwood bench and magnificent view of the distant Five Falls, and the ironwood mantelpiece above the blazing hearth. At one end of the mantelpiece was the brass spyglass, his uncle’s initials – N.Q. – glinting in the firelight. At the other end stood the vial of perfume that had belonged to his mother, Sensa. In the middle, pinned to the log wall above the mantelpiece, were the four parchment scrolls that Thadeus, his father, had entrusted him with.
Cade swallowed as the memory of his father’s face came back to him. The careworn lines that furrowed his brow when he was lost in concentration; the greying hair at his temples, grown whiter with the worries of his position in the academy. And yet, despite it all, his father had always made him feel safe, protected from the plots and intrigues that were rife in the Cloud Quarter. His eyes filled with tears . . .
Cade stood back as the flickering firelight illuminated his precious objects. They were all he had from his old life, and here, in his new life, it was these that made his little cabin in the wilds of the vast Deepwoods feel like home.
Thorne had arrived at dusk, a casket of freshly made sapwine under his arm and a couple of newly turned goblets in his pocket. And as the lakefowl roasted over the fire, they had toasted their friendship.
The wine was strong and sweet, and one gobletful had been enough to make Cade feel distinctly light-headed. But as he served up roast lakefowl and beet-stew, Cade noticed that Thorne was drinking freely and deeply. And as he did so, the grey goblin began to talk.
He told Cade about his childhood in Hive, living in one of the bustling districts below the central falls, where his father had owned a modest tallow-candle store. At twelve years old, Thorne had won a scholarship to the famous academy on the Sumpwood Bridge. And as he spoke of his days studying the extraordinary properties of phrax crystals, Thorne’s eyes had lit up with pleasure. But at sixteen, his career as an academic was ended when his father died and Thorne had to return to run the candle store.
‘Those were dark days,’ Thorne said, refilling his goblet, then draining it in one draught. ‘The High Council of Hive was corrupted by greed and the lust for power. They trebled the militia, turned the city into a vast military camp, and they barrelled any who raised their voices in protest . . .’
‘Barrelled?’ said Cade, placing a second helping of roast lakefowl in front of Thorne.
The grey goblin didn’t seem to notice it. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his voice low.
‘They were put in barrels and dropped over the falls – smashed to pieces on the rocks below. For weeks, the waters beneath the Sumpwood Bridge flowed red . . .’
Thorne helped himself to more sapwine. Outside, the sun had set and, through the open door, the sky above the lake was a riot of oranges, purples and reds. Cade lit a lantern and placed it on the table between them. There was a look of pain in the goblin’s face. He was pale, and his hands had begun to shake. He looked up, his eyes sunken and dark and fixed on Cade.
‘I had the nightmare again last night,’ he said breathily. ‘About the Battle of the Midwood Marshes . . .’
He took a slurp of wine, shook his head. Rumblix, who was curled up at Cade’s feet, fast asleep, whimpered softly as though he sensed the goblin’s distress. Outside, the sunset colours slowly faded.
‘It always starts the same way,’ Thorne began.
Cade swallowed.
‘The war with Great Glade has begun, and I’ve been pressganged into the First Low Town Regiment of the Hive Militia, along with my friends, Grablock and Grasp, and Chafe Sireswill . . . We’re dressed in uniform. Burnished copperwood helmets. Dark grey breeches. White waistcoats. And heavy overcoats with embroidered patches on the sleeves.’
He paused. Closed his eyes. Cade saw his hands tighten round the bowl of the sapwine goblet in an effort to stop them from shaking.
‘We’re marching through the Deepwoods. Dappled sunlight on the forest floor. Laughing, joking, trying to keep our spirits up. Then the sky darkens.
‘It starts to rain. Hot, torrential rain that hisses and steams and turns the ground to a quagmire.
There’s crashing thunder and blinding lightning. Except it isn’t; it’s phraxfire. Explosions of phraxcannon. The dazzle of exploding shells. White-hot leadwood bullets are cutting through the air like buzzing woodwasps . . .
‘We fall to the wet ground. The order comes to load, to take aim, to fire . . .
‘All at once a shell explodes just to my right. The air – it’s filled with mud and blood and body parts. And it stinks. Burning hair. Flesh. Grablock and Grasp. Gone. Ripped to shreds.’ He swallowed. ‘Then . . . then I hear a voice. Weak. Whispering. I roll over to see . . . to see . . .’
Thorne paused to take a gulp of sapwine, then a deep breath – and then another gulp. Cade watched the goblin’s face twitch with pain.
‘It’s . . . It’s Chafe Sireswill. Known him since we were both young’uns, I had. And he’s lying in the mud . . . Or rather, what’s left of him.’ Thorne closed his eyes. ‘One arm is missing . . . There’s a gaping hole in his stomach . . . The left side of his face is smashed in. Jaw crushed. Cheek smashed. One eyeball torn from its shattered socket . . .
‘ “Thorne . . . Thorne . . .” he’s whispering . . .’
Thorne opened his eyes again and fixed Cade with a wild-eyed stare. Cade trembled.
‘I crawl towards him. All around me, the ground is littered with the dead and the dying. I seize Chafe’s hand, whispering promises and reassurances I know are untrue. He won’t be all right. He won’t pull through . . .’
Thorne paused and drained his goblet once more, before filling it from the casket. It was almost empty, and Thorne had to tip the small barrel upside down to drain the last of the fiery sapwine from it.
‘I . . . I see a flicker of recognition pass across Chafe’s face. He knows who I am. And then . . . then . . .’ Thorne lowered his head and rubbed his eyes with a finger and thumb, slowly, kneading them, as though trying to squeeze the memories away. ‘Then it’s over. He’s gone. Earth and Sky take his spirit,’ he added reverently.
‘Then I hear a squelching thud. I look up to see a Freeglade Lancer on prowlgrinback standing before me. His lance is raised. I want to tell him that I am no enemy of Great Glade; that I have been pressganged into fighting for the Hive Militia. That I hate the Grand Council’s warmongering as much as any Great Glader. But I know there is no point. His face is twisted with hatred for his enemy . . .
‘For me.’
Thorne put down his goblet and held his head in his hands. Cade waited for what seemed like an eternity until finally the grey goblin lowered his hands again. He stared back at Cade.
‘It’s him or me, you see,’ he said. ‘Him or me. I raise my phraxmusket and I fire . . .’
Cade held his breath.
‘It clicks. Uselessly. I fire again. Same thing. There must be mud in the firing chamber. I see the look of triumph in the rider’s eyes as he raises his lance . . .’
The grey goblin’s eyes welled up.
‘I grip the phraxmusket by the muzzle and swing it. Desperate. The stock hits the side of the lancer’s head hard. There’s a splintering crack. Blood. He tumbles from his prowlgrin and falls to the ground and I’m on him, knife drawn, and I’m stabbing and stabbing and stabbing . . .’
He looked up at Cade. The tears had spilled over and were streaming down his face.
‘And then I wake up.’
Thorne Lammergyre fell still. Apart from the sound of the lake lapping softly at the jetty, the air was silent.
‘That dream has plagued me for years. I returned to Hive after the war. The High Council were overthrown and a new, fairer one elected . . . But the dream wouldn’t go away.’
He wiped his face on his sleeve, sniffed.
‘You see, there were just too many memories in Hive. And then there was the fear. Fear that greed and power could corrupt the city again; that the dark days could return. I couldn’t live like that.’ He shook his head. ‘Which is the reason I came here to the Farrow Ridges, as far away from the great cities and their politics as I could get,’ he said. ‘To set up a new life. A good and simple life. I have tried to cut myself off from the past.’ He shuddered. ‘But sometimes, even after all these years, it comes back to me . . .’
By now the moon had set, and though the sky was ablaze with twinkling pinpoints of light, the inside of the cabin was cloaked in shadow. Cade leaned forward and turned up the lantern, raising the wick until the yellow light flickered on the fisher goblin’s face. He looked calmer now.
‘Is it me, or is there a chill in the air?’ Thorne asked, shivering. Getting to his feet a little unsteadily, he crossed to the hearth and warmed himself by the fire. ‘What have we here?’ he asked, looking down at the mantelpiece.
Cade followed his gaze. ‘Oh, the spyglass belonged to my uncle. Nate Quarter,’ he explained. ‘And the perfume—’
‘No, not them,’ said Thorne. ‘These.’ He squinted at the scrolls that Cade had pinned to the wall. He turned. ‘Where do they come from?’
‘My father did them,’ Cade told him. ‘He was a phrax-scientist in the Cloud Quarter . . .’
‘Was?’ said Thorne.
‘He . . . he died,’ said Cade sadly. The reality of his loss was still painfully raw. ‘He left me the scrolls,’ he added. ‘They are part of my past. I put them there to remind me of him.’
Thorne turned back to them. He pored over the annotated diagrams and spidery calculations, his fingers tracing over first one, then the next, then the next scroll. When he turned back to Cade, his eyes were wide with excitement.
‘It’s not the past you have here, lad,’ Thorne told him. ‘It is the future!’
· CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE ·
CADE OPENED HIS eyes. Yellow sunlight was streaming in through the cabin windows. He lay back in his hammock, his hands behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling beams above his head.
Thorne Lammergyre had studied Cade’s father’s diagrams late into the night, making page after page of notes in the small tilderleather-bound book that he kept in his waistcoat pocket. The diagrams were about phrax crystals, but when Cade pressed him for details, all Thorne would say was that it would be easier if he demonstrated what the diagrams meant, rather than trying to explain them in words. And that this would ‘take a little while’.
‘Maybe a week or so,’ he’d added.
Unable to keep his eyes open, Cade had left the grey goblin to his note-taking, and stumbled off to his hammock. Now, in the morning light, Cade saw that Thorne had pinned the drawings back on the wall above the mantelpiece, and must have let himself out.
Cade sat up and was just stifling a yawn when Rumblix woke up from his perch at the end of the hammock and leaped onto his chest. The pup began to lick Cade’s face furiously.
‘Whoa, boy! Easy!’ Cade laughed, pushing the enthusiastic prowlgrin pup away. ‘If I wanted a wash I’d jump in the lake!’
And as Cade tousled the pup’s fur, Rumblix licked at him all the more eagerly, his tail flicking back and forth. Cade climbed to his feet and Rumblix jumped down after him, wide-eyed and yelping.
‘Hungry?’
Cade crossed over to the stewpot which, now the fire was out, was resting at an angle above the hearth. Inside it were the congealed remains of the beet-stew and the second helping of lakefowl that Thorne hadn’t eaten the night before. Cade carried the pot out onto the veranda and emptied it into Rumblix’s feeding trough. The pup barged him out of the way and devoured the leftovers greedily.
‘Hey, city boy!’ came a voice.
Cade looked up from the trough to see Celestia mounted on her prowlgrin, Calix, standing on the cabin roof. Beside them was a second prowlgrin, black with flecks of orange in its beard; bridled and saddled – but riderless. Celestia’s green eyes sparkled mischievously as she gazed down at Cade.
‘Burrlix, here, is for you,’ she said. ‘Quick, put some clothes on and we’ll go for a ride.’
Cade pulled the top of his nightshirt closed and shivered as he gazed at the two prowlgrins perched on
the lufwood shingles above him. Both creatures were snorting, puffs of white steamy breath billowing from their flaring nostrils into the chill early-morning air.
The black prowlgrin looked big, his powerful hind legs quivering and his blue eyes swivelling round to gaze at Cade. As Cade stared back, the prowlgrin drew back his lips to reveal two rows of sharp white teeth, then pawed at the roof shingles with his long, sensitive toes.
‘Don’t keep Burrlix waiting,’ Celestia urged him. ‘He’s looking forward to his morning gallop.’
Cade swallowed. ‘But I’ve never ridden a prowlgrin before,’ he confessed.
‘There’s nothing to it,’ Celestia laughed. ‘All you have to do is hold on. Burrlix will do the rest.’
Cade looked at the creature uncertainly; at the bridle secured round his great head, the narrow saddle with its stirrups, the reins . . .
‘Besides,’ Celestia continued brightly, ‘it’ll be good for that little pup of yours. It’s high time he was introduced to the forest. He’ll learn branch-leaping from the others – just like pups do in the wild. Now, come on!’
Cade had planned to clear a plot in the meadowlands that day; pull up the coarse meadowgrass, remove the rocks and stones, till the soil ready for the planting of a vegetable garden. Hard, back-breaking work . . .
‘I did have plans,’ he said. ‘But I suppose they can wait.’
He ducked back into the cabin, and a few minutes later returned in jacket and breeches, a canteen of water slung over one shoulder and a rolled blanket over the other, together with his phraxmusket. He’d noted the phraxpistols holstered at Celestia’s side, and the bedroll strapped to her saddle. And Thorne was always telling him to be prepared at all times . . .
Celestia looked him over with approval. ‘You’re learning,’ she said, and Cade was pleased she hadn’t added the teasing words, ‘city boy’.
She twitched the reins in her hand and Calix jumped down onto the veranda, followed by Cade’s mount, Burrlix. Rumblix ran in circles around the adult prowlgrins’ legs, chittering excitedly.