The Quest of Narrigh (The Other Worlds Book 1)

by S. K. Holder

  A man with a blotchy complexion and a tangled mane of blonde hair hoisted Amelia from the trap. Once he had set her down, he reacted swiftly. Drawing his curved blade from the belt around his waist, he rammed it into the snake’s open mouth. Its head split in two and it hit the bottom of the pit with a sickening squelch.

  Before Connor knew what was happening, a pair of meaty hands had seized him under the arms, lifted him into the air and onto the hard earth.

  He squinted up into the face of a man with bronze skin. His face was streaked with dirt. His dark eyes exhibited bewilderment and disbelief.

  Connor slumped against the man’s broad chest. He had not one ounce of strength left in his body. The man briefly put his arm around him. He then took Connor by the shoulders and looked into his eyes as if he were trying to find some light in a dark fathomless tunnel. He then broke away from Connor to address the blonde-haired man. ‘Get them on the cart Bel.’

  The man Bel, grunted. He wiped his blade clean on his grubby trousers and peered into the sky, one hand over his brow.

  Connor staggered about like a newborn lamb. His heartbeat started to slow. He saw faces - the grimy, sweat-streaked faces of half a dozen men and women.

  A tall pock-faced woman with bright red hair approached him. ‘Dear oh dear,’ she said. Putting an arm around his waist, she helped him onto a wooden cart, which looked as if it were being pulled by a long black shadow.

  Connor’s feet were sliding away from him. Feeling as he was about to suffocate, he wriggled free of the woman’s truncheon-like arm, only to find himself clutching the empty air. His eyelids slammed shut and the ground rushed up to meet him.

  FIFTEEN

  A weary traveller may choose from one of five inns in Undren village to lay their heads for the night, fill their bellies with a warm meal or revive themselves with a cool energy drink or beer. The inns have a large dining area, a fireplace and an adequate number of chairs and tables. The upstairs sleeping quarters are furnished with cosy feather beds, a chest of drawers and a small closet.

  Hospitality varies from inn to inn and the clientèle can be less than gracious…

  Barnabas had given Skelos the name of an inn that would welcome him without question. The innkeeper, Hans Runick was a man, who according to Barnabas Spinks knew how to keep other people’s business to himself.

  Skelos bundled up Barnabas’s cloak and stuffed it into his bag. Better to dazzle the man with colour, than to spook him with sorcery.

  He had wound a strip of linen around his right hand to hide his Status Mark. It was late and Skelos wanted to lie down on a cosy bed for the night with no quibble. He took a short-cut down by the cobbler’s yard, walking as quickly and as quietly as he could.

  The Runick Inn was a two-storey building constructed of white stone and black timber frames. It had lattice windows and a hanging basket above the door. The inn was situated two doors away from the Gleary bakery. The smell of stale bread and sour milk turned Skelos’s stomach when he pushed the inn swing-doors open.

  He found the innkeeper on the cellar steps struggling with a beer barrel on the cold stone floor.

  ‘Here let me give you a hand,’ said Skelos, seizing one end of the barrel. Hans looked up half-startled, half-weary. He did not protest.

  Together, they pushed the barrel up the steps. Once at the top, they rolled the barrel up to the bar.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hans. ‘Don’t know how I would have managed.’

  Hans Runick had acquired a bristle-tooth stubble from having not shaved for the past five days. The sides of his face were red raw from scratching it. He rubbed at his long pinched nose and took a rag to mop the sweat from his brow. It was the third barrel he had rolled out that morning, and he was the worse for wear on account of it. His camel trousers and waistcoat were ashen from clearing the fireplace and washing down the floor and walls.

  Hans regarded Skelos sternly from head to toe. His blue-green eyes were sunk too far in their sockets to have any imposing effect. ‘You one of them performers from that festival in Pevistan?’

  Skelos nodded. He gave a small bow and a slight swirl of his wrist. ‘Indeed I am. The name’s Gyan Sputsworth. Barnabas recommended me to you. He said you have some rooms. Best in the village.’

  ‘I have rooms.’ Hans busied himself with wiping down the tables that his wife had thoroughly cleaned the night before. ‘You’ll be wanting one I take it?’

  Skelos perched himself on a stool. He threw a gold coin on the bar and helped himself to a flagon of root beer from one of the barrels. He cupped the pale brown liquid in his hands. ‘Hope you don’t mind, I’ve come a long way.’

  Hans stopped wiping. ‘It’s all right. I should have offered.’

  ‘No problem. I can see you’re very’ He was going to say busy, but the bar was empty and how many times did a table need cleaning? Polish it anymore and the table will be aflame.

  Hans sneaked a glance at him. ‘It’s funny, Barnabas never mentioned you. What’s the name of that festival?’

  So much for not asking questions. ‘The Chatville festival. Barnabas visited there once. He said that if I was ever in the area, he knew of a great inn.’

  Perhaps, he had overdone it. The dull pink paper was peeling off the walls. The tables were so rickety, Skelos was surprised they were still upright and the floor had more stains on it than a baby’s bib. He took a large swig of root beer and swilled it around in his mouth before swallowing.

  Hans brushed his rag over the same stretch of table for the twelfth time. ‘I have to ask, what with the current threats.’

  ‘What current threats are these?’

  Hans regarded him as if he were a half-wit. ‘Why the threat of a northern invasion of course.’

  ‘There’s always a threat of a northern invasion.’

  Hans wrung out the cloth. ‘And none of them should be taken likely. There’s been talk of Northern spies in all the villages and a new resistance formed in the north. And there have been more sorcerers about than normal. Always a bad omen. I’ll talk to sorcerers if I have to, but I don’t want them anywhere near my Merriam or Fife.’

  He went on exasperated. ‘You know the Shardner’s men are here. The last time they visited was the night of the windstorm. They wandered up and down for half an hour. Patted a few babes on the head. Their last stop had been the Rabbits Burrow where they stayed until closing.’

  Skelos nearly choked on his root beer. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘They want to - how do you say it? Allay folks fears.’ He started wiping down the backs of the chairs. ‘I’ve heard the Shardner’s men are going to be at Braystay church this very night. You could go there if you want to find out more. Most of the villagers are going.’

  ‘Will you be going?’

  ‘No. I’ve no one to watch this place. But my wife and son are.’

  Dear Meriam and Fife, I suppose.

  Hans flopped into one of the chairs, smacking his cleaning rag across his lap.

  ‘You originally from Pevistan are you?’

  ‘No. I’m from Heverstock, but I have friends in Pevistan.’ It was times like these that Skelos was glad there was no technology. He didn’t have to worry about Hans undertaking a fast-paced identity check on some cutting edge machinery. The innkeeper had no way of knowing whether he was from Heverstock or not without a lot of extensive digging about and a great deal of aggravation.

  ‘Now about that room, do you think you might take me up? I’m ever so tired. And if you can see your way to providing me with a change of clothes. I didn’t think to bring any.’

  ‘I have room in my barn and some old farmers clothes out there that may big enough to fit you if you’re not too fussed.’

  Skelos brought back up the last of his root beer into his flagon. ‘The barn? You said you had rooms.’

  ‘All the rooms are full. I have space in the barn. Best I can do at this late hour, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ll pay whatever you ask for a ro
om here.’ He took out his drawstring purse and placed it on the bar top.

  Hans didn’t look at it. He was staring once more at Skelos’s robes. ‘I can’t kick someone out of their bed. Not this late. I have a reputation. I’ll leave the horses outside for the night if that will make you feel more comfortable.’

  Since when did the offer of gold surpass reputation? Is the man so suspicious of my intentions, he would put me in a barn? Should I kill him? ‘I don’t sleep in barns.’

  ‘Festival folk will sleep anywhere, even in pig-sties, I hear. I may be able to offer you a room tomorrow, but not tonight.’

  Skelos put down his flagon and surveyed his attire. There was a bloodstain on it from when he had cut his hand on Barnabas’s dagger. A Citizen’s violet blood did not look like blood to an Unmarked One. But it did look odd. Sloppy. He shrugged. He had been in worse predicaments than this. I shall rise to the challenge and Hans shall pay for his insults later.

  He offered a grimace that almost passed for a smile. ‘I’ll take it.’

  SIXTEEN

  Connor came round to find his head tilted. A tin cup was pressed to his mouth. He took a few tentative sips. Cool water trickled down his throat. His eyes hovered at half-mast. He saw the blurry outline of someone bending over him.

  ‘Mum?’ His voice sounded unlike his own, deep and rasping.

  ‘Your mother is not here.’

  He felt a dull burning sensation in his right hand. He clenched his fist and forced his vision into focus. He blinked around at walls of splitting rock. A puddle of light poured, from some orifice, into the small cave. The bronze-skinned man he had seen by the snake pit, sat not far from where he lay, his coal-black eyes blazing like opals in the dimness.

  Amelia sat in one corner with her legs bent under her, her face swathed in shadow, her expression blank, her eyes wide.

  The bronze-skinned man placed the tin cup on the ground and helped Connor sit up. ‘How are you feeling?’ He took up a bowl and stirred its contents with a stick. Tendrils of steam rose from it along with the smell of decomposing fish.

  The throbbing and tugging in Connor’s temples had gone, but he still felt groggy. His throat was dry and scratchy, his limbs heavy. The smell rising from the bowl made him feel nauseous. ‘I’m - okay.’

  ‘Drink this,’ said the man, setting the bowl in his lap. ‘Rogghorn soup. It’ll give you strength.’

  Connor took up the bowl. His stomach instinctively growled. It had been a long time since he had had a proper meal. He closed his eyes and drank. The soup slid down his throat. It tasted of unsalted overcooked pasta: soft, tasteless and slimy.

  He wiped his mouth and staggered to his feet, feeling the blood rush to his head. The walls leaned in on him. He swayed. His head was reeling.

  ‘Careful,’ said the bronze-skinned man, catching his elbow. ‘You’re not to go wandering about. You’re still weak. Rest some more.’

  ‘I can’t rest.’ He wobbled forward. ‘I have to get home.’

  ‘All the more reason for you to rest then.’ The man let Connor regain his balance and then released him.

  Connor’s eyes pierced the darkness. He stood motionless. The walls whispered to him. Voices rose from the dark labyrinth of winding tunnels.

  He smelt tar, tasted salt on his tongue and heard the gentle lap of the ocean waves. He rested his hand on the rock. ‘Where am I?’

  The bronzed-skinned man sank back against the wall. ‘The Great Northern Crater, home to the Sighraith Band. It’s full of caves, tunnels, waste, and ruin. Now sit down before your legs fall out from under you.’

  Voices rang out. Connor heard urgent, pounding footsteps. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘I hear them all right,’ replied the bronzed-skinned man. ‘Day and night I hear them. Now come away.’

  Connor ignored the man. He teetered towards the entrance of the cave and peered out. The wall across from him glistened with water. The ground was slick with mud. To his right lay a draughty passage, skinny and winding. There was no way of telling how far down it went. Slow-burners were clamped in brackets on the wider passage to his left where men, women, and children, scurried about like ants in their dirty clothes.

  The Sighraith folk disappeared into walls beyond Connor’s line of sight, all but one lone figure, who hobbled up the dim passage towards him on wooden crutches that thumped and squelched in the mud. One of the stranger’s legs was heavily bandaged with a dry-bloodied cloth.

  Connor slid back against the wall.

  The stranger cried out, ‘Hey wait up!’

  Connor swung out from his hiding place. The stranger’s head bobbed into the light of a slow-burner. The light sparked clean across the figure’s face. He had a leather patch over one eye and a sprinkle of freckles on both cheeks. His hope mounted. Riley had freckles on his cheeks, too many for Connor to count.

  As the figure drew nearer, he saw it wasn’t Riley. It was a man, full grown. The man saw the dismayed look on Connor’s face and grinned. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks lad. One of them Dal-Carrion almost had me for supper. I gave it a swift kicking. I hope it choked on my boot strings.’

  The bronzed-skinned man sneaked up behind Connor, clutched his shoulder and wheeled him around. ‘You shouldn’t be out here,’ he growled. ‘Get inside!’

  Connor found himself gawking at a bloodstain on the top of the bronze-skinned man’s thigh. He wore a knitted vest, a pair of patched trousers and ragged leather boots upon his feet. A knife with an ornate wooden handle hung from the broad belt he wore around his waist. He wore his long greasy hair in a ponytail. He looked to Connor like a warrior without armour.

  ‘Aye,’ said the man on crutches, hobbling past. ‘Do as the Sentinel says.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Skelos sat on his bed of straw with his wrists perched on his bended knees. He tried to recall when he had had a pleasant life. It was a very long time ago before he had responsibilities, commitments, and regrets.

  Darkness had fallen. Crickets chattered in the grass. Church bells pealed. And every half an hour or so, there came the vague echoing cries of some strange beast.

  He hugged his cloak about him. He could have sworn he smelt some remnant of red dust when the rough fabric grazed his cheekbone. Specks of red dust floated before his eyes. He found it hard to get the red dust out of his mind once it had invaded it. His hands had stayed red for weeks after leaving the caves. He was convinced that it would turn him into one of those monstrosities that dwelt there. The nightmares had kept his mother, and occasionally his father, at his bedside for months. The red dust was the first thing he saw when he closed his eyes and when he opened them.

  That was where the real horror lay, in the dust. The red dust was everywhere…

  Reminisce Part 1

  Stealth Quick

  It was the summer of Skelos’s thirteenth year. The sun scorched the grass. The soil cracked. Plants shrivelled up and died. Fires broke out in what little forests that were left on the continent of Pareus, in the south of Odisiris.

  When the temperature dipped below seventy degrees Fahrenheit and the summer clouds had emitted a brief spattering of rain, Skelos’s father had allowed him to go into the city with his two best friends, Eron and Osaphar.

  They were not allowed to go far. Eron was the son of the vice-chancellor. His father had a hold on his son as tight as any manacle in those days and he would not let him go anywhere without two part-humanoid guards in tow.

  It was not that Pareus was a dangerous city - far from it. It was simply the nature of First Status Citizens to go about their business unseen. They entertained the Second Status Citizens (of green and yellow blood lines), and humoured the Third Status (of orange and red), who they believed were beneath them. The Third Status Citizens were even known to bow to the First Status Citizens whenever their paths crossed.

  No, they did not mingle freely with lower Citizens, which would have them travelling about the city proper, chatting to merchants, purchasing
goods and procuring business face-to-face. They preferred to conduct their business, social and otherwise, utterly concealed. This heightened their regard; elevated their importance to that of their esteemed ‘Maker’.

  Skelos’s father was extremely over-protective of his son. This had more to do with his abilities and less to do with his concern at having his child mix with Statuses so low they ‘scrapped at one’s feet with begging bowls’. His protection of his son had augmented as he grew older and Skelos soon grew to resent being cooped up day after lustreless day.

  When Skelos suggested they give Eron’s minders the slip and escape the city, in the base of a lightweight spacecraft, neither of his friends had protested. They were as eager as he was to make the most out of what was fast turning into the most boring summer of their lives. Naturally, they talked of the Red Caves, what Status boy and girl their age didn’t? The one place they were forbidden to go, alone or accompanied, was the one place they dreamed of going.

  The rumours surrounding the Outsiders who dwelled in the Red Caves were numerous and varied, from the plain to the outright astonishing. But the Pareusian children were no different from any others in the rumours they wished to divulge. They were the ones that made the hair stand up on their necks and sent a thrill-chasing ripple from their heads down to their toes.

  And so the stories went that the Unmarked Ones went about heavily disguised so that they might pass themselves off as human and venture out into the light. Their skin was covered in flaky scales and boils the size of small apples. They lived on snakes and locust, drank dust as if it were water and slept in their own excrement. Their brains were far too inept for standard logic. Their speech was impeded and their movements as slow as the red dust that lingered in their midst. There were talks of cannibalism and gross mutations among the diseased cattle.