by Martin Vine
Instead, the Sylt took a deep lungful of air and turned the handle of his front door. Lisalle Tulson stepped out from his apartment and onto the wooden walkway into the brightness of day.
It’s All Uphill
It was nearing midday and Hopskotch and Dobbin had left the built-up quarters of Bridgetown far behind them. Following Bellows’ directions, they’d taken the second trail after the first bridge to Twainquarry, sticking obediently to the western side of the gorge known as Ravens Sweep. Between them, the pair could not recall passing through any landscape quite so ugly.
Hugging the gorge’s east face, Dobbin led the way uphill along a steep and treacherous path interrupted by steps carved out of solid rock, each fractionally too high for a pair of fifth-grade Syltlings. On the opposite side, mountains of enormous grey boulders cascaded down the gulley to a rushing stream. The rundown work shacks of the quarry had just come into view, rising in rusting glory from across the far side of the valley, and a little way north. Whatever spell Bellows had cast over Dobbin had clearly run out of mojo.
“We’re not going to Saddleslip Gorge!” he announced loudly – and for the umpteenth time that morning – in response to another none-too-subtle hint from Hopskotch. Since leaving the city, the moody youngster had made it very clear that the only plan for Team SnapTalon was a swift return to Curmudgeon’s Gulch as soon as the map was safely back in their possession.
Hopskotch was of another mind. Reflecting his teammate’s boar-headed stubbornness, he voiced his preference for Saddleslip Gorge. By his reckoning, even if they did catch up with Grandpa Rand at the lake, they’d be hard pressed to get back to Finches Forest before nightfall. Hopskotch argued that they’d never make it as far as Stonecutter Falls, factoring in the distance and the cadets, many of whom would be scouring Bridgetown for any sign of them.
And it was no secret between the good friends that Hopskotch had an unbending hatred of backtracking.
Of course, none of that meant a thing to Dobbin. “How much money you got on you?” he asked.
Hopskotch’s hand darted into the pouch on his hip and retrieved a small leather purse. The sound of the jingle suggested it wasn’t all that full. With a flick-flick-flick of his fingertip, he began counting. Dobbin didn’t even bother turning to watch.
“Two silvers, one quarter and three coppers,” Hopskotch eventually replied, pulling the purse string and slipping it back inside his sling-pouch.
Dobbin rolled his eyes. “And I’ve got not much more than that! What kind of lodgings d’ya reckon that’ll get us when we’re so far from home we have to overnight in Witherness?”
Hopskotch knew his friend had a point. He tried looking over Dobbin’s shoulder as if searching for a shortcut, but in the gloom of Ravens Sweep there was nothing but towering grey rocks and more of the same shacks he’d spotted earlier (they looked even less inviting).
A wildcard thought popped into his head. “What about Braedle’s Law?”
“What?” snorted Dobbin.
“Pa Rand told us about it once. All boys in the cicada hunt are s’posed to get special treatment – food, lodgings and all – from Thornsday till Elronsday.” Hopskotch ran his fingers through the crests on his head. “For four days and three nights: wasn’t that it?”
Dobbin pulled up before a particularly steep incline of the rock steps. He turned around to face Hopskotch with a sigh. “You mean Baradel’s Law, you ninny. Lived about four hundred years after Braedle.”
Dobbin put on his thinking face. He stared back toward Bridgetown and began to rub his chin. “Baradel,” he sighed, as if digging the name from some long-lost file of memory. “The man who founded the Cicada Festival. His law might still exist, but I wouldn’t rely on it.” Dobbin returned his eyes to Hopskotch. “Look, your grandfather was talking ancient history. I just don’t reckon many folks would remember that kind of thing.”
“Not in Bridgetown, maybe,” Hopskotch countered, “But in Witherness, they’re more into that olden-days stuff.”
Dobbin shook his head and showed Hopskotch his back, huffing and puffing his way up the rock steps with the aid of his walking stick. “You wanna overnight in Witherness? Try that and you’re likely to wake up in the morning hanging from a hook in a lake-side smokehouse!” Though part outsider himself, Dobbin had absorbed the typically Bridgetown prejudice against Withernessians. He distrusted and feared them in equal measure.
“Well, I’d probably wake up well before morning if that was the case,” Hopskotch joked.
Dobbin appeared unimpressed. As if determined to change the course of the conversation, he asked, “So what do you think ol’ Blackpaw had locked up in that hidey hole of his? Hidden treasure, kidnapped Syltlings, pet birdie?”
The latter jolted a memory. Hopskotch stopped mid-step and stared into the distance, eyes glazing over. “Swallows!” he replied, finally.
“Bellows lives with swallows?” Dobbin snorted.
“No, I mean that’s what I saw through the open door, just before he flew out, remember. It was a stamp on a box; I’m sure I’ve seen it before.” Hopskotch scratched his chin, grasping for the recollection.
“Chalk sticks!” Hopskotch blurted suddenly. The picture appeared in his head as clear as morning dew. “He had boxes of ’em stacked against the wall. It was dark but that’s what they were, for sure.”
“How do you know they were chalk boxes? Were they open?”
“No, they were packed and stacked. Remember that time we got caught throwing rotten eggs over the wall of the girls’ bathroom?”
Dobbin sniggered at the memory. “You know, we could’ve got outta that, if you’d just let me do the talking.”
“Yeah, right,” Hopskotch scoffed. “Anyway, after we got caught, while you were cleaning the blackboards, Mrs Dunbar sent me to the storeroom to unstack the boxes. The chalk ones must all come from the same place. They all had the same picture on them.”
“You mean a logo?”
“Yes, a logo, that’s it! It must belong to the company that makes them. A swallow inside a circle. I saw the same boxes inside Bellows’ room.”
Dobbin tilted his head. “Which means?”
“Which means, Bartrem was right about ol’ Blackp—um, Bellows!” Hopskotch’s voice began rising in pitch as the mystery unravelled in his head. “He’s the one behind the street drawings, the pictures, the patterns! It’s him, don’t you see!”
Shaking his head, Dobbin took his walking staff in both hands and stamped its capped end into the hard-stone track. “Only thing that proves,” he said, “is that I was right about Blackpaw. He really is a thief!”
Hopskotch couldn’t believe Dobbin still had it in for Bellows: not after everything he’d done for them; not after saying such nice things when they’d farewelled. Sometimes he found his best friend intolerable. Worse still, Dobbin’s negativity was beginning to feel contagious. Hopskotch felt wholly deflated by it.
Slumping his shoulders, he said, “There are worse things to be called.”
Dobbin looked confused. “Whaddaya mean?”
Hopskotch lowered his head. “Well, I know what they call me—”
“Who you talking about?”
“Gavel, Cal—maybe even Pommers.” Talking to the ground, Hopskotch kicked a stone off the path. “I know their nickname for me.”
“What, when—” stuttered Dobbin. “What you on about?”
A spark of anger flashed across Hopskotch’s face. “‘Average!’” he spat. “That’s what they call me: ‘Average’.”
Dobbin mouth twisted into a strange shape. It looked like he was chewing on words unspoken. After a long awkward silence, following a few false starts, he made a confession of sorts: “Okay then, per-haps, err—maybe Gavel called you that once or twice. But it never took! Not for Cal; not for Pommers; definitely not for me. And I wouldn’t stew over it; that’s just Gavel being Gavel; he’s a right pot stirrer and everyone knows it.”
Hopskotch noticed Dobbin�
��s tone sounded defensive. A little too defensive.
“And let me tell you,” Dobbin went on. “There are a lot worse names he’s used for me, and right to my face.”
“Nothing’s worse.”
Hopskotch’s comeback was barely a whisper, but it affected Dobbin like he’d been slapped across the face.
“Nothing’s worse than being called ‘Average’,” Hopskotch repeated, lifting his head. He stared directly into his teammate’s eyes, daring him to say otherwise.
Dobbin kept eye contact, but kept his thoughts behind sealed lips.
“Let’s just forget about it,” Hopskotch sighed, signalling Dobbin to keep moving. “I know I shouldn’t stew – in fact, I won’t – I mean, I don’t, as a rule.” The youngster glanced ahead where the cliff had collapsed in a two-yard wide section, partly blocking the track.
“It must be this place. It’s just making me edgy, making me think about, you know, stuff.”
“Well, that’s why no one comes here,” Dobbin agreed.
He took a pause before the jagged rock pile, then climbed up and over, skirting the downhill edge with both arms held wide for balance. Beneath his breath he whispered, “except idiots like us.”
It continued to be a slow and unhappy journey for Hopskotch, and likewise Dobbin, who had slipped and grazed his knee on some splintered shale coming off the far side of the rocks. Following another drawn-out argument – the discussion had returned to the subject of Bellows, and the possibility of him being Bridgetown’s infamous street artist – the boys eventually agreed to disagree, for the moment. As far as Hopskotch was concerned, it was altogether too hard to argue and climb at the same time.
At the top of a shallow-cut ladder of steps that took the pair through a narrow tunnel carved into and through the cliff face, the path finally began to level out. The distant cries of quivertail gulls signalled they were nearing the lake. Hopskotch was delighted to hear the water birds, so quiet and lonely had their surroundings been since leaving the city. He’d had more than enough of walking uphill for one morning, and now even his good leg was beginning to cramp.
Having polished off two whole ginger cakes on his own (his earlier idea about rationing apparently forgotten), Dobbin’s attitude toward Ravens Sweep had evolved into paranoia. Known for his hypersensitive hearing, he began carrying on about strange noises echoing from the far side of the valley.
“It’s just the gulls, up by the dam,” Hopskotch explained. “We’re almost at the lake, you know.”
“I know what a fleepin’ gull sounds like,” Dobbin snapped. “But I heard something different.” He nodded to the opposite wall of Ravens Sweep – much closer now, for the gorge narrowed the higher up they travelled – and pointed to the high ridge. “Sounded like it was coming from—well, up there.”
Hopskotch stared across to where the rock face disappeared into grey sky (he imagined the clouds to be sitting much lower than normal). No one knew exactly how high were the cliffs bordering Ravens Sweep, but for a nervous Syltling travelling far from home, it wasn’t hard to imagine that they simply went on forever.
“You know, Dob, Finley and Graves both reckon they’ve seen thunderbirds, taller than a grown Sylt beak-to-tail,” Hopskotch blurted.
“Pah! Nonsense!” spat Dobbin. “Ravens? Well, I haven’t seen one from memory, but I know they’re real, but thunderbirds? Puh-lease!”
“Not saying they didn’t make it up, or see something else entirely, but Bartrem interviewed them both for his book. What’s it called—Broken Meadow Book of Oddities.”
Hopskotch was quietly chuffed at remembering the name. “Anyway, he’s got some chapter called Hidden Beasties or some such, and he reckons thunderbird sightings are common north of the Artery.”
“Oh, really?” yawned Dobbin. “Well I’ve known Bartrem since he was seven, and in that time he’s started writing five books that I know of, and you know what?”
Hopskotch knew what was coming.
“He’s never finished a single one!”
“Well, I’m not saying he’s always right,” Hopskotch replied. “But he can be interesting to talk to, especially when you get him going, ya know.”
“Maybe in small doses,” Dobbin grudgingly agreed. “Very small doses.”
“Half-pint doses?” suggested Hopskotch.
“I wouldn’t go that far. More like baby-bottle doses.”
“Medicine cup?”
“Walnut shell.”
“Peanut shell?” finished Dobbin. “Half-full. That’s more than enough Bartrem dosage for anyone.”
Hopskotch began to giggle, and for a moment at least it made the shadows seem less dark.
“So he’s adding a chapter about animals?” asked Dobbin, catching his breath.
“Hidden ones,” replied Hopskotch, still grinning. “Ones that are rare, and others which aren’t supposed to exist at all.”
Dobbin appeared to be reconsidering Bartrem’s theory. “Hidden Beasties, eh!” he said. “Well if I were writing such a chapter, in such a book, I’d start with the strangest thing I’ve ever seen—”
“What, you’ve seen something?”
“Bellows!”
The laughter that followed was a welcome break from the gloom. Since crossing the Artery, Hopskotch had leapt constantly to the defence of Bellows, but it felt like no betrayal to let loose. And secretly, he knew the joke was Dobbin’s way of raising a flag of truce.
As they approached the upper ridge of Ravens Sweep’s northwest fork, Hopskotch and Dobbin had prepared their own addition to Bartrem’s book, the subject: Bellows. By the time they’d finished sub-chapter 2.6, Dietary and Eating Habits, both boys had tears streaming down their cheeks as they bounced ideas around, each one sillier than the last.
For the first time since they’d left Curmudgeon’s Gulch, Hopskotch felt upbeat and cheerful. All thoughts of thunderbirds, lost maps and wayward grandfathers retreated to back of mind.
Neither Syltling noticed the great winged shadow cross the cliff face on the far side of the gorge.
Excerpt From The Secrets Of The Ancients
by Tulloch Greighspan
Realms 2.6
The Sacred Stone
Resting at the foot of the Solshade Mountains, the imperial capital of Sanufell was a castle city gleaming with white marble and mosaic-covered minarets soaring skyward to the glory of Aethelron. The political and religious heart of the Delgardian Empire, her foundation stones were planted deep into the rich earth of the upper Fellriven Valley, a union as deep and unbending as her people to the lofty principles that did first evolve her from humble beginnings of mud to wood and stone.
And behind her great walls and towering gates, behind locked doors beyond the public face of the city, did thrive in abundance a great many secret societies, some who served the throne and some who did the opposite. And of them all, none were as knowledgeable or as powerful as the Druhirrim.
In direct service to the angels – then secondly to House Delgard – the high priests known as Druhirrim were the gatekeepers of the words and wisdom of Aethelron. Among other sacred knowledge, the Druhirrim possessed the secret of harnessing magical energy through their mastery of an ancient form of plant magic known as Baumensighre.
For the Druhirrim possessed a great secret regarding the sacred willow trees: those that could only be identified in that they were attractive to cicadas above all other beasts. The learned alchemists of the Druhirrim knew how to transform fresh sap from the ancient willow branches into stone-hard amber, a process nature could mimic only with the passing of countless thousands of years. The finished gemstones – named ‘dreigh amber’ – had the ability to absorb and harness magical energy as a sponge to water.
After much discussion and debate within the inner council of Aethelron’s high priests (and some say, in consultation with the angels themselves), the Druhirrim did eventually agree to share the secret of the dreigh amber with the Whisper Mages, who likewise served and studied
inside the castle grounds of Sanufell. With the flow of such knowledge among the city’s wisest and most industrious, the dreigh amber came to be used as a great power source in service to House Delgard.
Throughout Fellensia, from the Solshade Mountains to the cliffs of Calverslope, the dreigh amber was put to use fuelling sail barges that did navigate the province via networked canal and aqueduct, and likewise the caravans that took journeymen and storytellers out into the furthest corners of Empire. Though even a novice Whisper Mage or Druhirrim could draw upon the power held within dreigh amber (its nature being remarkably stable), it was encouraged that years of training should precede such an undertaking.[1]
The Tantrum
“You see, most people don’t know it, but the Corsairs had a very strict command structure of their own.”
Polite to a fault, Hopskotch acted as if he hadn’t heard this story fifteen times already. He’d known Bellows’ parting words would eventually set Dobbin off, and now they’d both run out of jokes, it came gushing out his best friend’s mouth like water through a Bridgetown sluice.
“It all began with old Targonne Whitecrow,” Dobbin continued, “but it was his son Calef who really put things in motion: set up Adenstatt as a properly governed town; made an alliance with the neighbouring provinces of Braythorn and Geldonia. By that point you could hardly call them Corsairs at all, let alone the pirates most folks still think they were. You see, Targonne was always looking to trade with the eastern isles. Yes, I know what Bartrem has to say about that, and it’s certainly fair to say the Corsairs might’ve actually come from there once upon a time.”