Hopskotch and the Golden Cicada

by Martin Vine

  Where the meadow met the city, Hopskotch felt the energy multiply itself one thousand-fold, weaving through the houses, shops and factories of the stone-and-timber town. Relentless was its path, branching and burrowing and expanding into a deafening choir that filled the air with the whispers of thousands. A revelation struck Hopskotch: the power is coming from the people!

  The eagle swept its wings back and dived toward Bridgetown’s rooftops. The closer they got to the city, the louder grew the whispers. It felt like an entire population was awakening as one from a long, deep sleep.

  He could not pinpoint single thoughts. The sensation was more like a wind-rush of ideas, dreams, hopes and fears, entwining and overlapping to form a slow-circling cyclone of energy over the city.

  The eagle no longer beat its wings. It did not have to. Hovering above the Bridgetown skyline, the power pouring out of the population below pooled into an updraught that held them steadily aloft.

  When the full force of it struck Hopskotch, his body reeled. It felt like liquid lightning was pouring into him, surging through his veins to electrify his body from limb to limb. He felt higher then he’d ever felt before, larger, stronger, wiser —

  Super!

  But it was overwhelming; he could not contain such energy. Surrendering to dizziness, Hopskotch collapsed backward between the eagle’s massive shoulder blades. Its wings flexed effortlessly against the unnatural wind. Hopskotch never doubted the bird would protect him. Sinking deep into the soft brown feathers, he began to lose his grip on the lucid dream.

  Just as he thought he might drift away from it all, the updraught surged with renewed force, launching Hopskotch skyward to unimaginable heights. His eyes were closed now and he was no longer sure the eagle was still beneath him. The beautiful background song grew louder. The music was known to him. There were no recognisable words, and yet he found himself singing along. It was as if in his bones he remembered.

  Cradled in mid-air, high above the town, Hopskotch basked beneath the great light in the sky. From a place somewhere beyond, it continued to radiate a penetrating warmth that melted into his skin like butter into hot toast. He felt happier than he’d ever known; his contentment was absolute.

  With newfound courage, Hopskotch slowly and deliberately opened his eyes.

  He awoke to see the face of an angel.

  Something was blocking the light. No, someone.

  Hopskotch blinked in confusion and the blurry outlines slowly sharpened into a Sylt not much older than himself.

  A girl!

  Still drowsy, Hopskotch stared straight up and tried to make sense out of what he was looking at. The girl was not pretty in a feminine way like the popular girls in school, yet nor could she be called ugly, and certainly not plain. Her nose was narrow and delicate, complementing her jawline which tapered into a sharp chin, giving her a regal look that brought to Hopskotch’s mind the statues outside Bridgetown Town Hall. He was immediately struck by her unusual hair – cut in a short, boyish style – which was the colour of fresh cream spattered with tiny dark-brown flecks. The effect was as if someone had shaken a pepper grinder over her head.

  In all his life, Hopskotch could not recall seeing such an unusually beautiful girl. She leaned in close and he thought for a moment that she might kiss him.

  I must still be dreaming! he thought.

  But if it were so, he didn’t care to awaken just yet.

  A violent shake rattled his shoulder, snapping the final threads of sleep inside Hopskotch’s brain. The girl’s eyes were wide, her regal features marred by an all-too-recognisable emotion.

  Fear!

  With surprising strength, she hauled Hopskotch to his feet. “Get up! We’re getting out of here,” she said.

  Rising so quickly left Hopskotch dizzy and disorientated. The sound of cicadas flooded his ears, and it took a moment for him to realise it wasn’t just inside his head. The refreshing lake breeze that had lulled him to sleep was gone, replaced with a mugginess that seemed to thicken the air and make breathing a chore. He couldn’t believe how much time had passed since he’d first lain down. Daylight was already beginning to retreat from the ridge.

  So where is Grandpa Rand?

  Hopskotch straightened his body on wobbly legs and tried to play catch-up. Before he could ask a single question, the girl showed him her back, marching across the ridge toward the same opening in the forest his grandfather had disappeared into earlier.

  In a flash, Dobbin was at his side, fear and tension etched into his face.

  “They say we’re in danger here,” he whispered, nodding to the far side of the ridge where Hopskotch saw not one, but two girls, the taller one who’d just woken him alongside an infant who couldn’t have been a day over six years old (by his reckoning). It was obvious from their features they were sisters.

  Hopskotch couldn’t help but stare. “Who the mittens are they, Dob? And how’d they find us out here?”

  Before Dobbin could answer, an image of the girl’s worried face replayed in Hopskotch’s head. Dobbin’s warning finally registered. “And what do you mean, we’re in danger?”

  “Fire ants!” Bartrem interrupted, joining the pair from the side. With shoulder bag already slung, the largest of the three boys looked very much ready to leave.

  “You were both snoozing when they arrived,” Bartrem explained, his voice a mix of excitement and fear. “Appeared from the same path we came up. Might’ve been tracking us, I don’t know.” He dared a sideways glance back at the girls. The older one glared right back.

  Bartrem flinched and quickly returned his eyes to his teammates’. “Anyway, they said something about an ant swarm, fire ants, no less! I’ve read of them in the older encyclopedias in the library. Unpleasant.”

  “It’s true, fire ants,” added Dobbin, screwing his face up. “That’s what she said, but they don’t sound so scary to me.” He rattled his rucksack and the sound of terracotta clinking together echoed from inside. “I say we light up some of these globe lamps, and then just chuck them into—”

  The girl loomed suddenly before them. Hopskotch wondered how she’d closed the distance in between so quickly. Fists on hips, she glared into Dobbin’s eyes as if he were some kind of bug, himself. Though only slightly taller than Hopskotch, and an inch or two less than Bartrem, the impression was very much that she presently towered above all of them.

  “Listen up, little boys,” she spat, the no-nonsense tone bringing everyone snappily to attention. “Now I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing out here—”

  Dobbin’s eyes narrowed. Hopskotch feared his short-tempered friend might fire that one right back at her. Thankfully, Dobbin held his tongue.

  “But you definitely don’t want to be here right now. Two swarms of fire ants are on the move!”

  Hopskotch shivered. It took all his courage to keep eye contact with the strange girl. He’d never heard of a fire ant, and had little desire to see one close up.

  But the greater mystery stood right in front of him. Who was she and where did she come from?

  “We’ve been one step ahead of them since midday,” the girl continued. “One went right through our best hives, left nothing.” She glared at each member of Team SnapTalon in turn, as if it were somehow their fault.

  “You hear that? Two colonies acting as one, eating everything animal that gets in their path. Right now, that’s us!”

  Hopskotch gulped in fear. As he went for his gear, the girl barked at him.

  “Take only what you need!” Looking at their packs and pouches, she shook her head in disgust. “We’ll be going aloft. Safer in the trees.”

  The girl dropped to one knee and swept her hand through the grass, stirring up the damper crumbs. “If you’ve any food left, leave it here; leave it open, whatever you’ve got. It won’t stop them but it might slow ’em, some.”

  With a nervous glance into the forest, she stretched to her feet and returned to her sister. Both girls disappeared
into the brambles on the spur side of the ridge without so much as a backward glance.

  Dobbin nudged Hopskotch. His eyes scanned the looming hillside, which had taken on an unmistakable air of menace. “D’ya think she’s serious? I mean, what can it all mean?”

  “I think it means,” Bartrem observed, “that the ‘command structure’ just changed.”

  Dobbin didn’t know who to be angrier with: the girl for assuming leadership of the group, or Bartrem for pointing it out. Not that it really mattered either way, particularly if what she’d just said were true. The command structure would correct itself in due course, but now was not the time for words. Even if the girl was only half right, now was the time for action. And her plan made sense in every objective way. Escape. Evade. Regroup. A sound military tactic for dealing with threats unknown.

  As an act of good faith, Dobbin carried out the order, working alongside Hopskotch to empty the leftover food from his pack into one great sticky pile of ginger cake, raisin loaf and honey, an irresistible temptation for a ravenous ant colony. When they were done, the boys hastily resecured their gear. Not another word passed between them.

  Of course, Dobbin was yet to form an opinion as to whether they should actually follow the strange girl or not.

  Hopskotch left his best friend to fume quietly for a spell, before departing the ridge in pursuit of the girls. It was reassuring to hear Bartrem’s footfalls echoing his own, but he dared not look over his shoulder.

  The uneven trail demanded his full attention. Through the bramble thicket (one grasping branch had nearly taken his left eye out), the forest rose up taller on each side of the path and closer by far overhead. Although he was the forward-most boy of the group, Hopskotch struggled to keep the girls within eyeshot. He had never seen female Syltlings move so fast, and with such agility. Now almost thirty yards ahead, he could just make out flashes of the taller one’s leather patchwork short jacket. If only it didn’t blend so well into the bushes.

  Hopskotch’s rucksack felt considerably lighter now (he’d obediently obeyed the girl’s order to empty all non-essentials) and the short kip seemed to have refreshed his body. A mix of fear and excitement fuelled his footsteps. Powering along the narrow path in his trademark rolling lope, Hopskotch felt more energised than ever, riding a wave of adrenalin and fear. But it was a fear reserved for his missing grandfather, rather than his personal safety.

  Though Grandpa Rand’s absence had him rattled, Hopskotch found it difficult to accept their situation was truly life and death. Compared to bully cadets and giant ravens, the tiny insects seemed an unlikely threat. Of course, Hopskotch knew absolutely nothing about fire ants, and even less about girls.

  Leading the group through and beyond a prickly gorse grove, the pepper-haired girl finally pulled up at the base of a huge spiral fig. Hopskotch thought they must have travelled well inland, for it had been a long time since he’d heard the familiar cry of water birds. The cicada chorus still echoed reassuringly off the hills, but deep in the forest it was a darker world, and growing increasingly so. Hopskotch wondered how many hours of daylight they had left.

  At his back towered the tree’s enormous buttress roots. In all directions surrounding it, the undergrowth grew thick, almost impenetrable. He made a mental note of the terrain, preparing escape routes in his head. Scanning a full one-hundred-and-eighty degree circuit left room for only one remaining thought inside Hopskotch’s brain.

  Where the fishmitts is Dob?

  Excerpt From The Secrets Of The Ancients

  by Tulloch Greighspan

  Sedition 7.4

  The Violet Stone

  That geolyte quartz originated from another world entirely, brought down by the sky rocks that fell over Celestia Gar during the Night of Skyfire, was only a half-truth. For the geological processes that gave rise to the quartz seams running beneath the greater Fellensian Plateau preceded the history of Sylt, harking back to a time long before the coming of Aethelron.

  And yet it was only proceeding that cataclysmic Springfells night, Year of Empire: 1101 that the stable and inert properties of this quartz were changed, and only then when it came to be in direct contact with the molten cores of the sky rocks.

  The Fellensian archivists committed a great many hours of study to the most famous geolyte shard of their age, that which came to be known as the Sword of Sanctuary. And only through their science and alchemy did they eventually conclude that the mineral was neither native to Dellreigh, nor uniquely alien, but a fusion of two stones from two different worlds, both sharing properties of the other, yet evolving into something greater than the sum of its parts.

  And this knowledge did prompt those in power to seek out more samples of the rare stone for their research, for it was obvious to them that here was something that could transform the empire, lifting her up to unimaginable achievement, promising wonders unforetold.

  But where to find it?

  Although the sky rocks fell the length and breadth of empire, the greatest smashed deep into the great Calverslope ridge – a natural barricade separating the Fellensian Plateau from the coastal plains – where the native quartz seams run close to, and in many places break, the surface. And here, as the Fellensian archivists presumed, did the heat and pressure of impact first give birth to geolyte quartz,– the violent coming together of two unique elements by nature in opposition to each other.

  And when the new stone did solidify in the cool beneath the earth, it began to glow with an inner light blending violet and pink that did pulse and hum with untapped power. So great was its energy that it was said that but a palm-sized fragment could hold and harness the whispers held within all the dreigh amber in the world: that which the Druhirrim so cherished and revered.

  And yet many years before the ruling elite of Sanufell could make their move, before even the Druhirrim did fully grasp the potential of this new and unique mineral, one woman of origins unknown had already sensed this subterranean power. And in advance of the greatest minds of the Delgardian Empire did she walk the lands of Sylt to answer its call.

  And many years later, when a tired old scholar did finally stumble into her lair, it is said that sleeping Aethelron did dream the first nightmare of the end of Sylt.

  Dobbin vs Ant

  He hadn’t stayed behind to be deliberately troublesome, but unlike his best friend, Dobbin was not about to flee on the words of a complete stranger: a girl, no less.

  On the flipside of that coin, he had little desire to be left behind on the ridge.

  Such had been Dobbin’s dilemma, and so had the conflict raged inside his head, even as he’d watched Bartrem follow Hopskotch into the brambles. A short, few, torturous seconds later and he’d decided upon joining them, after all. Before re-entering the forest, however, Dobbin’s ears had picked up a familiar noise that froze his feet in place.

  It had taken him only a short while to zero in on the cicada’s whereabouts, for its song was loud, clear and very distinctive. He’d been forced to backtrack a little – how Hopskotch would’ve hated that! – following the sound along the trail leading back to the iron-bar tree.

  At first Dobbin had set his line of sight too high. Then he remembered the advice Grandpa Rand had given the previous evening: “Never trust yer ears when it comes to finding a cicada. Little tricksters throw their voices. Just one of their defences to throw off would-be predators like birds, lizards, Syltlings!”

  The message had sunk in. Don’t trust your ears!

  Grandpa Rand’s advice had proved invaluable. When all his instincts told him to raise them, Dobbin had lowered his eyes. And there it was, a flash of reddish-bronze against the deeper browns of the damp timber.

  He’d left the trail smartly and, with no small effort, hauled himself on top of the fallen tree. Flat out on his stomach, Dobbin was filthy with dirt and decaying bark.

  And couldn’t have cared less. The key to glory lay just a few yards up-trunk.

  He was so close now. The t
hought of actually bagging the cicada – just a shuffle and a wriggle out of reach – had Dobbin’s undivided attention. Of course, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking at. The motionless insect was just a tad under palm sized, which made it a perfect match to the legendary Golden Duke. But this creature was surely not bright enough.

  Was it?

  Dobbin dismissed the idea as wishful thinking, while still acknowledging his prey was by far more exotic than any cicada he’d ever seen (and he’d been to every festival since second grade). The colour was closer to bronze with a metallic-red sparkle. Between its deep black eyes, a smattering of gold flecks reflected the broken cloud light. A similar pattern danced across its transparent wings.

  As he stared transfixed, Dobbin recalled one of the names Bellows had rattled off the previous day: Spackled Cinnamon!

  A rare find indeed. Possibly enough to win Team SnapTalon their first ever badge.

  Dobbin was getting ahead of himself. The cicada not yet in his possession, he was already fantasising ahead to the Elronsday’s Award Ceremony.

  Distracted by the excitement building inside his head, Dobbin forgot entirely about the custom cicada net he’d constructed specifically for the hunt. The youngster’s prized hunting accessory remained out of sight and out of mind, wedged between his back and rucksack.

  Edging himself cautiously up the trunk, Dobbin raised his head and propped himself up on his elbows till he was within snatching distance. The cicada still had not moved.