by Martin Vine
It was hardly a knockout blow, but the shot was powerful enough to upset Grandpa Rand’s precarious balance. With a cry somewhere between fear and outrage, the old Sylt teetered on the wet wood of the raised bow. Arms windmilling, he held his position for a fraction of a second before crashing into the icy waters of Lake Whispermere.
Reflections
The raven was gone and with it, the boat’s last surviving paddle. Hopskotch was no match for the monster bird, but the eleven-year-old had fought a brave tug-of-war. He might have held on even longer, but the sound of his grandfather hitting the water saw Hopskotch’s priorities shift. Like Dobbin before him, he gave no thought to the consequences of losing a paddle so far from land, not when his grandfather so desperately needed him. It simply wasn’t done to let a beloved relative sink to the bottom of a cold, dark lake.
Using what felt like his last reserve of strength, Hopskotch grabbed his waterlogged grandfather by the shoulder and heaved. Bartrem moved to help but his weight tilted the vessel alarmingly. Hopskotch sent him back with a warning glare.
Dobbin, meanwhile, remained sheepishly glued to his bench at the stern, a look of genuine concern across his face. But he made no move to assist.
It was neither an elegant rescue, nor a particularly quick one. After much heaving, straining and cursing, Hopskotch eventually succeeded in dragging his grandfather over the side. The exhausted old-timer brought a good share of the lake with him. Soaked-through clothes clinging to his body, Grandpa Rand looked as if he’d shrunk to half his normal size. Hopskotch was especially shocked to see how frail his grandfather appeared, though he was relieved enough to have him out of the frigid waters.
With the glide-boat finally stabilised, Grandpa Rand returned – dripping and shivering – to the bow. Hopskotch took the opportunity to shake the water from his own forearms. Cripes, that was cold! A shudder rippled across his skin as he imagined what it must have been like to go under to the neck.
Realising he could do no more for Grandpa Rand, the breathless Syltling collapsed back onto the middle bench seat, bracing his bodyweight against the curve of the hull. Hopskotch tilted his head over the side and lost himself in the reflections of light on water. It had become very hard to move.
Huddled on the bow bench, Grandpa Rand began sneezing a trumpet-like chorus. Dobbin cringed with every blast, as if he were still expecting an earful for his crime.
But Grandpa Rand acknowledged neither the presence of Dobbin, nor the grandson who’d just rescued him. In between sneezes, he slowly peeled off his soaking fishing jacket and wrung the water out over the side. The bedraggled Sylt seemed quite relieved to discover the inside pocket had not emptied its contents into the lake. In between sneezes, he retrieved a small item, hid it within a tightly-balled fist, and spread the garment out to dry on the bow platform. With his free hand, Grandpa Rand began rummaging through his rucksack, which lay damp against the hull by Hopskotch’s feet. With a disappointed sigh, he took out a small cloth, little more than tea-towel size.
“If you only ever take one piece of advice from me, Skotchie,” Grandpa Rand wheezed, between short, shuddering breaths, “let it be this: whenever you go on an adventure, always pack a towel.”
A towel? Hopskotch groaned at the understatement. A giant raven had almost had his eyeballs for lunch; Grandpa Rand had nearly drowned; their boat was floating lost and helpless in the middle of nowhere, and here was a reminder of the importance of towels!
Towels are handy enough, thought Hopskotch to himself, his eyelids growing heavy, but next time I’ll pack a sodding scarecrow!
Though no sign of land presented itself, the cicadas could still be heard humming a powerful chorus from the distant hills. A breeze had swept in, just strong enough to push the skiff across the water, sideways and backward and totally beyond their control.
Dobbin busied himself fighting it tooth and claw. He tried his own walking staff, then the one Hopskotch had retrieved from the Whirlpool, but neither had enough surface area to displace water in the manner of a paddle. He thought about asking for help, but Hopskotch appeared to be giving his eyes a rest.
Grandpa Rand sat huddled into the bow section, arms wrapped around himself, shivering and useless, while Bartrem had returned to bury his nose in his notebook. It annoyed Dobbin no end that he couldn’t see exactly what the secretive fellow was scribbling, and doubly so that everyone around him seemed to have assumed the danger had passed. He wondered where they all got the idea the raven had actually left for good.
“Up to me, I guess,” Dobbin whispered under his breath. He saved one final suspicious glare for the back of Bartrem’s head before leaning gingerly over the edge of the hull. Cupping his palm, the determined youngster plunged his right forearm into the lake, and immediately yanked it back out with a yelp. It felt like liquid ice.
“Got another idea, Captain?” the voice in his head mocked him.
With the stabbing cold worrying his arm, it was frightfully hard to think of one. In the absence of anything remotely paddle-like, Dobbin could do nothing to change their course, and had no idea of their bearings. His stomach growled – a reminder of how dire their situation was – but he refused to be distracted by hunger pangs.
Then he had another idea.
The unexpected attack had left Hopskotch badly shaken, and not just because he’d been singled out (though that counted for much of it). First the cadets; then Bellows and the smokehouse rescue.
And the crusty old-timer from Ravens Sweep. All served as a reminder of how far he’d strayed from the safety of home. Out here, anything can happen, he realised, and the grim reality sank into the pit of his stomach, leaving him with the feeling he’d just swallowed a large river stone.
As his body dealt with the exhaustion, Hopskotch’s mind took sanctuary in that place somewhere between the waking world and sleep. Though he’d never admit it, the raven attack had awoken in him that familiar, yet dreadfully embarrassing, instinct that exists secretly inside every boy Syltling: he longed for his mother.
As a small child, Hopskotch’s sleep had been plagued with night terrors, the episodes being noticeably worse in the winter months. Many a cold night he would wake up screaming, pointing at things that weren’t there, tormented by nightmares he could never recall.
There was only one who could chase the fear away.
Without speaking a word, his mother would lift him from his sleeping pouch and carry him downstairs to sit by the fire. Once she’d settled into the armchair, Cordella Pestle would hum a soft melody, stroke down the crests on the top of his head and, with a power only a mother possesses, nurse him back to sleep on her lap. For as long as he could fight his eyelids, Hopskotch would stare into the dying fire, mesmerised by the crackling and spitting embers. The dreams would vanish from his mind, but he never forgot those drowsy moments: the heat of the fireplace radiating against his face; the smell of wood-fire smoke mixed with the rose oil on his mother’s dressing gown. Even now, not two years shy of becoming a teenager, the smell of rose petals could still summon a yawn.
Hopskotch painted a picture of his mother in his head and slipped inside the comfort zone, returning to a time and place from earlier in the week. It was evening, just after dinner. His mother had finished the washing up and the whole family had settled in the mess room at the back of his house. Because it was summer, the skylight illuminated the wooden interior in shades of warm bronze. Nightfall was close.
His parents had joined him at the card table, upon which were scattered hundreds of pieces of jigsaw puzzle. It was a favourite of his mother’s, the picture: a country farmhouse with a water wheel and narrow stream running along its border. In the background, fattened shorthorns grazed the fields behind curving rows of trimmed box hedge. Looking at it always made Hopskotch long to step into the scene. He imagined the folk who lived in that world must be perfectly happy.
Even half-asleep, Hopskotch smiled as he recalled the family tradition when doing jigsaw puzzles
. Each time they began a new one, his mother would give him a single piece to keep separate. He had to hide it somewhere in the house, then his parents would look for it when the rest of the puzzle was complete. Only if they failed to uncover the hiding spot could Hopskotch claim his right to complete the puzzle.
On one occasion he’d chosen to tuck the jigsaw piece – pasture green with vertical slashes of rushweed from the cottage stream – into the inside hem of his sleeping pouch. He was certain neither parent would ever find it there. Of course, Hopskotch had never lost a single piece. He was beginning to suspect his mother and father often let him win, and secretly knew all his hiding places. But that would not be the case this time.
In his mind, Hopskotch was back in his mess room. I bet we could finish it in one sitting, he thought, and the unfinished pieces of the jigsaw swirled together on the table’s surface, joining up one after another to rebuild the remaining section. The vision made him dreamily content. More scenes of home life danced upon the inside of his eyelids. Lulled by the gentle rocking of the boat and the slapping sound of water against wood, he drifted into a full, deep sleep.
Hopskotch began to dream.
It all felt very familiar. Somehow he knew it to be his house, but it was not the one he lived in presently. He wondered if it were a wardrobe he’d wandered into. The room was cramped – almost too small even for a slight Syltling like himself – and very dark. There was just enough light to make out something directly in front of him. He was still indoors but he knew he wasn’t supposed to be in this room. The soft edges of the scene shimmered beyond reach and reason.
He tried again to focus. The blurred outlines began to form into a small wooden cabinet with five wide, shallow drawers. Each had a small keyhole in the centre, all rusted beyond repair.
All except one.
On the second drawer from the bottom was a keyhole that reflected silver light so brilliantly it was as if it alone was polished daily. Somewhere there is a key to this drawer, he remembered with building excitement.
Someone called his name in a voice achingly familiar. It was a child, though much older than himself. He knew the voice like his own mother’s, and it belonged to someone just as close. Strangely, he could not put a name to its owner. It called out to him again.
“Check it out!”
Dobbin’s words wrenched Hopskotch from his dream. Through foggy eyes, he turned to look at his best friend.
“We have a paddle!”
While he was dozing, Dobbin had combined Hopskotch’s walking staff (as if he’d consider using his own) with his own slingshot. By binding its handle to one end at an angle – using a length of waxed string he’d dug out of his rucksack – the industrious youngster had made something that looked vaguely paddle-like.
It would not win any design contest, but there appeared to be enough mass bound at one end to resist water. Plunging his makeshift paddle into the lake, Dobbin set about testing its worth.
Much to Hopskotch’s surprise, it kinda worked. A few strokes to starboard, then a quick swap to port and the vessel actually moved.
Sideways.
It was not ideal, but to the surprise of both Syltlings, the binding held. They would not be going anywhere with speed, but it was certainly an improvement on floundering idle.
If only they knew which way to go.
Dobbin’s plan was to have Hopskotch throw river pebbles – from the same batch he’d hit Grandpa Rand with – in all directions around the boat. The results of that experiment were conclusive: the glide-boat was not within a stone’s throw of land.
Then Hopskotch had an idea of his own. Extracting the brooch from his inside pocket, he brought the crystal to his eye and began scanning the surrounding fog, waiting for something magical to appear through the grey.
“Oh, it’s a telescope now, is it?” Dobbin teased.
“Mmm, guess not.” Hopskotch sighed out his disappointment. “It’s got me beat, Dob, but at least we lost the—” his eyes darted heavenward, before he mouthed the word, “raven.”
Finally conceding the brooch could not, in fact, see through fog, Hopskotch reluctantly allowed Bartrem to take a look. Under Hopskotch’s watchful eye, the large Syltling tinkered with the rings a little and peered through the crystal. When Bartrem suggested he try returning it to its original setting, Hopskotch snatched the brooch back and tucked it quickly away inside his vest pocket. The weight reminded him of something important.
“Dob, your compass?”
Dobbin was showing it off the previous evening, a handcrafted disc of polished maple with a slender metal pointer. It reminded Hopskotch of something he might see in a museum, the circular glass cover sealing it seamlessly into the smooth-wood frame.
“Well?” Hopskotch probed, noticing the look of horror creeping over his friend’s face.
Handing his makeshift paddle forward to Hopskotch, Dobbin lunged for his sling-pouch. He clawed at the buckles, rummaging through the separate compartments one after the other. Dobbin’s face morphed through a variety of expressions – horror, anger, through a few instances of what looked like real physical pain, before settling back into anger.
Anger at himself.
He backhanded a fist into the inside edge of the hull. “Damn it all!”
Hopskotch handed the paddle back. “Guess that means—”
Dobbin set the wooden handle across his knee. Lowering his head, he began rocking from side to side. “Snagbelly’s rule of travel, number 2.”
He spoke so softly Hopskotch could barely make out the words.
“No matter how carefully you pack, when setting out on an adventure, you will always forget one thing!”
An elbow jab from Bartrem turned Hopskotch from the pathetic sight.
“Oi, what was that for?” he cried, elbowing back.
Bartrem barely flinched. He was pointing silently into the distance, eyes wide.
Still shivering up front, Grandpa Rand reacted to the expression on Bartrem’s face. The old Sylt raised himself up on his knees and spun around.
In that moment, it felt to Hopskotch as if time had slowed, his grandfather’s head turning as if through molasses. As the three other passengers followed the path of Bartrem’s index finger into the mist, their eyes settled on something quite extraordinary.
Hopskotch took a sharp intake of breath. “By the Absent God!” he whispered.
Excerpt From The Secrets Of The Ancients
by Tulloch Greighspan
Tribulations 5.1
Skyfire Blight
From the Night of Skyfire, not a single province from sun-scorched Braythorn and Tarador to snow-covered Norsteigh did escape unscathed. All tribes of Celestia Gar were weakened in varying degrees, including the reclusive Adensians and Florens, who retreated deep into the mangroves to escape the floods and storm surges that followed.
But in short time, it would not be natural disasters the Syltian would grow to fear.
Within months of the Night of Skyfire, even before reconstruction work could begin, a mysterious sickness swept through the empire. Swift and deadly, the pestilence would first assail its victims with high fevers and a drying out of the throat. In a span of mere days their hair would fall out in patches and their skin turn ashen grey, as if the very blood were draining from their bodies. Few there were who survived beyond the first week.
The rural folk of Southern Braythorn were the first to suffer, outbreaks occurring in the ranch towns west of the Swallowtail River, before spreading to the larger settlements beyond the east banks. When the first cases were detected in the Braythornian capital of Skeyne, panic took hold. The people turned against one another; loved ones were quarantined upon the slightest rasp or cough. Violence and lawlessness erupted across the city as terrified citizens gathered their possessions and fled north, unwittingly carrying the blight further into the empire.
And when the Druhirrim called out to their god for help, they heard only the muted voice of angels in response,
and theirs was the voice of panic and despair, for they could aid them not in this fight.
Instead, selected priests of Druhirrim did leave their High Grove sanctuary and cross the land to tend the sick and the abandoned. Yet, all too often did they find themselves praying helplessly over the bodies of the dead, and the wailing of the bereaved did torment them, and serve as a constant reminder that the greatness of their power could serve them not in this war.
And it is known that many of the Guardian folk did themselves take ill, for they had put themselves selflessly on the front line against the disease that came to be known as Skyfire Blight. Despite all their wisdom, with years of study behind them, those exalted servants of Aethelron had no greater defence against the mystery virus than the common folk.
It was in this time of great turmoil and despair that an old woman of unknown origin first walked out of the Kardacian wastelands to join with the healers of the Druhirrim. And the grey hag – as she came to be known – with the crooked back and pale eyes did work alongside those volunteers and, through her skills with medicine and tireless dedication, rise to influence among them.
And the more she gained the trust of the Druhirrim, the more the grey hag did speak directly against their god, and question their faith in his power. And though a great many of the order did feel repulsed by her, and suspicious of her intent, so too did a small number begin to absorb the merit of her logic, and see wisdom in her words.
And it is known that in their wanderings with the hag, some of the Druhirrim did fully turn from their god and, forsaking Aethelron, swap their green robes for grey. No longer did they take orders from the leadership on the high plateau, but followed instead a bent old crone with a voice as chill as a Norsteigh winter.