Hopskotch and the Golden Cicada

by Martin Vine

  But hidden somewhere deeper was a glimmer of memory, a simple truth frustratingly beyond reach.

  For the better part of the afternoon, Lisalle had ploughed his books in search of answers. What could be killing the river birches: moreover, a whole line of them almost thirty in number? The soils by the banks of the Shallowfrond were supposed to be the most fertile in all Broken Meadow. It had not been long ago Lisalle had fronted a movement to defend the land as a public park. An organisation of displaced farmers had lobbied to reclaim the strip for agriculture. They’d prepared their petition well, citing the rich riverside loam, potential for irrigation, nearby markets, and so on. He’d reviewed the application and measured its worth against the common good, as set down in the terms of his employment.

  In many ways it made a lot of sense.

  But Lisalle had fought those farmers with uncharacteristic passion. There was no way he would abandon Birchbarrow Park to a homeless rabble from the southern hinterlands. The river birches – ‘cicada trees’, as they were known to the children of Broken Meadow – were far too important to be displaced by grains and vegetables. The political battle had raged over weeks stretching into months, but eventually Lisalle had triumphed. The trees were saved; his trees were saved.

  Now it looked like all that effort had been for nothing. Unless he could find an answer.

  He turned to the bookshelf, but it only reminded him how incomplete his collection was. Now it appeared Lisalle had no alternative. He would have to travel to the library for answers, perhaps even turn to an old friend.

  Lisalle’s cowardice was locked in battle with his curiosity. The thought of seeing Isen again filled him with dread. Once the most powerful Sylt in Broken Meadow, his old mentor had been swiftly and brutally replaced, left to skulk about his hidden chambers beneath the library, a toothless dragon.

  Isen’s razor-sharp mind had grown twisted with paranoia; the secrets he’d religiously guarded for so many years now spilled recklessly from his mouth. It was disturbing to see how quickly a man’s life could unravel.

  Of course, Isen still held a great deal of knowledge about a great many things: histories of religion, politics, war and settlement dating back to the time of the Scouring. These were secrets locked away from the common folk. These were the secrets men like Lisalle dedicated their entire lives to uncovering, if only for themselves.

  If anyone knew what was happening to the cicada trees, Isen would. But would he understand what such a loss would mean? Would he care about what it meant for the children?

  Will he help?

  Lisalle’s eyes returned to the book. It was a relief to see his accident of yesterday had left no permanent mark. Isen would never know a drop of blood had touched the jacket. He clenched the offending hand and resisted the temptation to stroke the leather surface. Shadows cast by the sputtering candle flame danced across the illustrated cover. As he studied them, the sleep-deprived Sylt imagined the runes and patterns animating under the shifting light. The knowledge he’d paid such a hefty price for was as repelling as it was seductive.

  “Too much knowledge is dangerous!”

  The voice exploded in his mind unbidden, sending a shiver down his spine. Collecting his thoughts, Lisalle blew out the dying flame lest the spitting wax reach the book. He let the darkness enfold him and inhaled deeply, abandoning all senses save for smell. The pungent candlewick smoke summoned memories which drove the last remaining worries and doubts from his mind. A measure of calm returned to his soul.

  But Lisalle knew there’d be no returning to sleep.

  Eyes readjusting to the darkness, he slipped into a light jacket and headed to the landing. The best time to walk was after a good read, so he’d always believed.

  It was mild before the dawn, the long span of night having drained the heat and humidity from the air. High on the face of the Skillion’s south spur, Lisalle’s apartment was shielded from the perpetual spray thrown up by the Artery’s churning torrents. But even in the relatively drier air, Lisalle always felt the damp, always felt the cold.

  Bony arms hugging his torso, the reclusive public servant shouldered the door properly shut and headed up the path leading north. On his left, rows of terraces clung to the cliff face like fungus to a shadowed tree trunk. All the lights were out; his neighbours were still clinging to their sleep. It ought to have made him jealous, but now the world was his to enjoy in peace.

  Just the way he liked it.

  Lisalle halted at the main landing dividing the Skillion’s cliff-face communities, a wide wooden platform stretching far out from the rock ledge with views north to south. On a good day, one could follow the meandering path of the Shallowfrond River south to the vineyards of Fellriven Valley. Of course, with his eyes Lisalle was lucky to see as far as Frog’s Leap Crossing. It occurred to him he’d left his glasses behind again, but the idea no longer bothered him. He’d come for the air, not the view.

  Or perhaps just to escape the apartment.

  A cool breeze had blown in from the northwest, whistling high notes around the rim of the Skillion. Lisalle’s left shoulder twitched in response, an annoying habit he’d never quite been able to control. He shifted the entire arm inside his jacket and held it firm with his right.

  Clinging to the looming cliff of the Skillion’s slightly higher north spur was the towering bulk of Busker’s Tavern. The famous eatery was built upon – and in some places, burrowed right through – the overgrown root system of an ancient climbing fig. The tavern had long since closed for the night but someone was still up. A narrow window streaming candlelight from one of the upper windows caught Lisalle’s eye.

  Maybe it’s old Busker trying to balance his books, he speculated.

  Because of his position on Bridgetown Council, Lisalle knew the tavern owner was behind with his taxes. He suspected the business was now running at a loss, and had been for many years. Lisalle knew a great many truths kept from the public. He knew that commerce was suffering from Leveetown to Guildsheim.

  And he knew things were getting worse.

  For the first time, Lisalle noticed two of the lower decks appeared to have been abandoned to the climbing fig. The creepers had already begun strangling the abandoned railing, leafy shoots running over and through the splintered wood. If nothing were done, soon they would overwhelm the decks entirely.

  Has it been so long?

  Lisalle grasped for a recollection and pulled something from his childhood: his own parents taking him to dinner at Busker’s. Grilled cheese melts, he recalled. The best in Bridgetown!

  Lisalle’s stomach rumbled as he attempted to dredge the memory of exactly what he used to eat there, but all he could think of was the wonderful melted cheese: how it smelled; how it tasted; how he and his brothers would try to try to stick it in each other’s hair.

  In those days almost all the families from Sleeves would come to Busker’s on a Phaynesday evening. Now the nighttime crowds barely disturbed the reclusive Lisalle, even with his apartment within earshot. The food shortages were beginning to sting. Prices had gone up all over. The council had even been forced to intervene to subsidise vendors of the current festival, another initiative Lisalle was directly responsible for.

  Thinking upon it, he began to feel sorry for Jakob Busker. As a civil servant, Lisalle had always been rigid in his decision-making, a Sylt who believed in right and wrong, black and white. But outside the office in the lonely pre-dawn, he finally understood not everything could be measured in absolutes. Jakob Busker was no longer an account in his ledger, rather, a living, breathing Sylt. One with his share of problems, just like all the others.

  There would be fewer Phaynesday-night crowds for the old publican to serve, and Dellsdays promised even less. Once the most famous meeting place in Lower Bridgetown, Busker’s Tavern was no longer even a viable business. Those who wanted food stayed home and saved their coin. Those who wanted to drink went instead to the Tinker’s Tail, or the cheaper, seedier dens on the Arter
y’s north bank.

  When times were hard, restaurants were always the first to suffer.

  Though not a patron himself, the thought gave Lisalle no satisfaction. Wrenching his gaze from the crumbling lower decks, he cast his eyes east to take in the reflections of cloud light upon the Shallowfrond. The liquid silver trail glistened through the withered foliage of the birch row lining the west bank, such a view normally a privilege of the winter months. But there were more leaves on the ground than attached to the limbs this summer. It was hard to imagine the famous trees would live to see another.

  Thoughts of dying roots returned his eyes to the climbing fig, so robustly healthy in contrast to the riverside trees. Lisalle turned it over and around inside his head. Same soil, same climate, he reasoned.

  So why was one species dying while another thrived?

  Rocks and roots, roots and rocks.

  The light was poor, his eyesight imperfect, but Lisalle could clearly see the way the roots of the climbing fig writhed and twisted their way around the rock face. Small shoots erupted from the main stems, hanging like stalactites in a cave. In places so small they’d barely provide a toehold to a Syltling, fallen leaves had collected and decomposed: the perfect meal for the fig’s hungry suckers. It was how the plant survived.

  It seemed to be very good at it.

  The climbing fig’s peculiar feeding system unearthed buried memories: issues of council, unexplained orders for items not needed. And in contrast, important deliveries that went missing. Of such matters, Lisalle had taken little heed at the time.

  But what if—?

  He closed his eyes and his mind summoned an image of the teenage beauty from the forest, those unblinking amber eyes. A chill swept across the surface of his skin. His left shoulder began to jerk and twitch again. He could no longer hold it still.

  As he raced back to the apartment, Lisalle’s thoughts began tripping over themselves. Ideas erupted one after another, and he struggled to put a lid on them. Above the clamour, he heard a clear voice: only a memory, but loud enough as if someone had whispered the words right into his ear. It was the voice of his old mentor, a phrase of which Isen was particularly fond.

  “If you want answers, all you need to do is dig!”

  Excerpt From The Secrets Of The Ancients

  by Tulloch Greighspan

  Tribulations 5.7

  The First Blighted War

  On the advice of his military advisers, King Feldspur Delgard II did send the bulk of the Fellensian Army to reinforce Braythorn, while its navy sailed forth to guard and resupply the coastal settlements. And from all the northern provinces, the imperial call to arms delivered a steady stream of able-bodied volunteers south across the borderlands of Geldonia to the front lines. For the first time in history, a truce was made with the Corsairs to join resources to fight the new danger from the south. Delgardian frigates, transports and supply ships did move unhindered through Adensee toward the Swallowtail River to support Braythorn.

  The war raged for almost one year, but it was unlike any the world of Sylt had seen before. Converging in the Braythornian capital of Skeyne, the Imperial Forces did unite to stop the Blighted from crossing the shallow waters of the Redsands River. Through the dry desert heat and cool spring nights of 1104, those brave soldiers did tenaciously defend the east bank, time and again turning back the monster army and holding its advance a safe distance from the gates of the city.

  But for the coastal province of Tarador, there would be no such ring of steel. Held in low regard by the Fellensian elite, and seen by their military commanders as too distant and too small to be worth so much blood, the southeast rump of the Delgardian Empire was abandoned to its fate. To the horror of the remaining Tardorians, the token imperial units stationed in their territory were reassigned west to Braythorn. King Feldspur did understand that if his eastern front collapsed, the Blighted would surge unimpeded up the roads leading north into Geldonia. Such a catastrophe would bring the enemy into the breadbasket of empire, thereby threatening the very borders of the royal province.

  From a military standpoint, there was wisdom in King Feldspur’s tactics, but the decision to abandon the Tardorian Sylt – who themselves originated in the highlands of Fellensia before emigrating by sea to the warmer southlands – did thereafter redirect the loyalties of that tribe, even among those who had already fled north to safety. For in their hour of need, it was the combined forces of the outlaw Corsairs and the independent tribes of Florenmeer who did rush to their aid.

  By the end of the thirteenth day of the final month of summer, Year of Empire: 1105, the blood of the brave Flormeerian Dragonriders had mixed with countless thousands of Blighted upon the crystal-white sands of Crabcleft Bay. Many more of the enemy forces lay reduced to ash, incinerated in the dunes under the precision canon barrage of Targonne Whitecrow’s frigates. The Battle of Kettle Beach – The Dawn of Spears, as it came to be known among the ancestors of those Tardorian survivors – was as brutal as any that preceded it, but without question, more decisive.

  The First Blighted War was over, but the cost to the Delgardian Empire was incalculable. The province of Tarador had been amputated, abandoned to the fire and ash and ghostly whistling winds that rushed, now unheard, through the crumbling shell of Trapspur City.

  Those who did follow their brave Duchess onto Kettle Beach that cool summer morning henceforth renounced all imperial allegiances and swore fealty to the Corsair Primus. And these same refugees did resettle in the independent regions surrounding Adensee, and in the marshlands of Florenmeer, taking shelter with their saviours. The empire was reduced to four provinces, and they, all wounded in varying degrees.

  And it is known that one scheming Sylt would use that weakness to his advantage, aided by another who was not what she appeared.

  The Ancient Pact

  High above Lake Whispermere, on a grass-covered bank by a rope bridge spanning Saddleslip Gorge, a worried Sylt sat and waited for the dawn. His body was covered in a full-length velvet robe of dark green with a covering that concealed his face. It was the finest of garments.

  Trimming the sleeves, base and hood was an inch-wide black satin strip embroidered with a pattern representing the leaves of the sacred dreigh willow. A light pack rested on the ground by his right hip, and in his hand was held a narrow cylinder made of waxed card with a wooden cap at one end. Running the length of the cylinder – between the brass buckles that secured each end of the leather shoulder strap – were numerous small puncture holes. He clutched it as if it were the most important thing in the world.

  The Sylt known as Tannen had known only twenty-five summers, though he looked like he’d seen twice that many. His eyes were dull and he was dangerously underweight. On parts of his body, the skin had dried out so much it had formed scales. They itched and flaked, and felt even worse than they looked.

  On this day more than any other, he was grateful for the Padow cloak – the uniform of his order. Woven of fibre soft enough for his skin to tolerate, it also shielded his face and body from the outside world. Before the end of the coming day, he would have the opportunity to meet someone very important, and it was not his wish to expose his wretched appearance. Not after so much time had passed.

  Tannen wrapped the velvet around his body to repel the cool of night and nervously passed the smooth cylinder from palm to palm. His mouth felt dry and a dull ache worried his chest, the early signs of a cold he could feel preparing to assault his body. Through years of training, he’d honed his mind to become strong enough – determined enough – not to allow ill health to interfere with his work. There were far greater concerns this day than the catching of a cold.

  Tannen pulled back the hood just far enough to watch the low clouds drifting down the gorge. The rope bridge disappeared and reappeared through the dark mist that swirled about at the mercy of the wind currents. As if floating on air, the warm glow of the torches lining the span illuminated a path to the far side.


  It was the first thing he’d done upon arriving at the gorge in pitch darkness, lighting each brand one after the other. Tannen had used the good oil and it showed; the orange-yellow shone with a vibrancy one would never stumble across in Bridgetown after dark. The flames danced and flickered in the breeze, locked in an ongoing struggle with the water vapour attempting to smother them. The torches would not be needed once dawn broke, but he was glad for having lit them.

  It was almost like having company.

  But the pull of the firelight could not distract Tannen from his worries. His mind returned stubbornly to the warning Master Ganaweigh had left him with. It came as no surprise to Tannen that his mentor had tried to talk him out of this duty. Master Ganaweigh feared personal issues might cloud his judgement and jeopardise the entire plan. So the head of the Druhirrim had finally told him the truth about his heritage.

  “Dewbreck’s Curse,” Tannen whispered to himself, and the words left a foul taste in his mouth. He immediately regretted saying them out loud. Tannen was beginning to understand why his own kin had kept that secret from him.

  Well versed in the histories, the shadowy deeds of Albreck’s estranged brother and his infamous Seven were intimately familiar. Any Syltling past the fifth grade knew the tale, but in his wildest imaginings, Tannen never considered he might be part of it.

  Though The Blighted Wars were ancient history, Ganaweigh had explained that Tannen was, via his mother’s father, a direct descendant of the great Sol Mage Albreck. Already reeling from that revelation, he was even more astounded to learn his own grandfather was raised outside Broken Meadow and had journeyed here – purpose unknown – as a young man himself, many years ago.

  According to Master Ganaweigh, Tannen’s grandfather had failed in his mission, but his claim to be a direct descendant of Albreck had been upheld by the Druhirrim (though that truth was not for discussion outside the Order).