Hopskotch and the Golden Cicada

by Martin Vine

  Lying on his back, Hopskotch realised he was somewhere familiar. This scene, he recognised; there was no doubt in his mind that he’d been in this place before. The trees were a little different, but the play of shadow through the leaves; the heart-shaped hole in the canopy spilling cloud light onto his face was identical to the vision replaying in his head. He went to speak and felt a cool hand touch his own. The skin felt dry; the fingers were all bone and claw. A dark hood swallowed his vision and Hopskotch stared straight up into it.

  “Shriven?” he whimpered.

  The man shape hovering over him made a small sound, but he couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or sneer.

  Through blinking eyes, Hopskotch saw something that magnified his sense of déjà vu. A tiny sphere of liquid glistened within the shadows of the Shriven’s hood. Adjusting to the darkness, he began to draw the outline of the face framing it. The droplet held itself in place for what seemed like an impossibly long while. The Shriven blinked and the sparkling sphere detached.

  Hopskotch watched it fall toward him in slow motion and a building sense of horror rose in his gut. When the tear crashed upon his face, it was as if somebody had doused him with iced water. Hopskotch’s eyes snapped open. He battled to free himself from the stupor.

  Hopskotch tried to propel himself backward but his limbs would not obey. He began to wonder if some kind of spell had been cast upon him.

  “Shriven?” he repeated.

  “Aye,” replied the man shape. “There are those who would call us that.”

  The stranger lifted his hood. Hopskotch gasped. The face was still lost in shadow, but outlined against the cloud light he observed three ragged crests of hair.

  “But you, dear Hopskotch,” said the Shriven, and a crack appeared in his voice. “You may call me brother.”

  To be continued.

  Epilogue

  All you need to do is dig!

  Lisalle repeated the words inside his head and tried to ignore the splintered wood shredding the tender skin of his palms. His muscles were beginning to cramp; his lower back was ready to buckle under the strain; the shovel felt like it was made of lead, and yet he drove it again and again into the pebbly soil of the riverbank.

  The pain was like a tonic. The harder he pushed himself, the less he had to deal with the dark thoughts. In many ways, Lisalle wished he’d never seen the book.

  A jolt of pain whipped his shoulder back on the forward thrust as the shovel met something rock-hard beneath the surface. Lisalle scraped the blade edge along the object, releasing a tinny noise into the night.

  He glanced about nervously. Hidden in the shadows of the river birch trees, Lisalle’s eyes had long since adjusted to the darkness, but he couldn’t shake the feeling someone else might be lurking nearby: someone who might be watching him.

  It was past midnight by his account. A thin blanket of fog was already beginning to form above the parched surface of Birchbarrow Park, from the water’s edge all the way to the embankment separating it from the school. His heart was pounding inside his chest, one part fear, three parts exertion. Lisalle poked his head around the nearest trunk and scanned a one-hundred-and-eighty degree circuit, north to south. A full minute passed before he felt safe enough to resume his digging.

  Slinking back into the shadows, Lisalle set his feet wide apart, rolled up his sleeves and plunged the shovel back into the grainy soil. Though his shoulder and pectoral muscles protested, he began clearing around the hard object, wedging the shovel blade in just below the surface roots. The noise was unnervingly loud, but he gritted his teeth and persisted, cautiously and quietly as he could manage.

  In little time, the committed Sylt had gouged a channel wide enough for the dappled cloud light to enter, revealing a strip of grey-white hidden beneath the darker soil.

  Hard concrete! he realised, testing it with the blade of the shovel.

  Lisalle knew if he dug all the way around the trunk he would eventually find the edge of it. Not that he needed further evidence of what he was looking at.

  He’d found the first slab below another dying tree at the northern perimeter of the park. Lisalle had been surprised to discover the concrete laid in a circle, its radius mirroring the canopy above. It was enough to confirm his suspicions as to what was killing the cicada trees of Birchbarrow Park.

  “Great Aethelron!” he whispered to himself. “What have they done?”

  And what did it mean for the future of Broken Meadow?

  If the trees were dying, what fate awaited the cicadas – the cream of the hunt – brought here by the children to breed and replenish? What would happen if someone really did find a Golden Duke? It may well end up the last of its kind.

  Or maybe that has already happened?

  Lisalle buried the question before it could take root in his mind. He didn’t care to weigh the possibility, nor waste further time agonising over decisions made when he was but a child.

  Instead, he took one last look at the grey-white scar, and set about covering the evidence. Once the trench was refilled to his satisfaction, he padded down the soil just as he’d done with the other. Eventually, the breaths came slower and deeper. Leaning on the shovel’s handle, he took a moment to stare across the still waters of Whiskey’s Waddle.

  He found it not entirely unpleasant to be alone with his thoughts in the outdoor night, but this knot would not be an easy one to untangle.

  Lisalle had already formed an opinion as to who was behind this terrible crime. The how was intriguing, but it seemed of lesser importance.

  What he really wanted answered was why?

  Why would anyone do such a thing?

  This was not about killing birch trees, which could be achieved in simpler ways than laying concrete beneath the topsoil. The real objective here was more sinister, and his subconscious whispered it to him in the voice of his old mentor.

  “Because it will stop the cicadas spawning.”

  Of course it would.

  When the eggs hatched from the river birch branches, each nymph would drop to the ground and burrow into an impenetrable wall. Lisalle wondered how many of this season’s could bypass the concrete barrier to feed on the root sap; how many would survive long enough for nature to summon them from hibernation?

  Whoever did this wanted that not to happen. Whoever did this wanted the cicadas extinct.

  How long has it been like this?

  The question sent a shiver up Lisalle’s spine. How many years?

  The more he tried to ignore the thought, the more relentlessly it tormented him.

  Could it have been there thirteen years ago?

  “Ah, but you knew from the outset!” The voice in his head sounded like a long-lost friend. “You always knew.”

  A slow-burning anger kindled deep in his gut. His eyes narrowed and he began to grind his teeth. If he’d any strength left in his limbs, Lisalle would have hurled the shovel far out into Whiskey’s Waddle.

  Instead, he took a few measured breaths. This matter was too important to surrender to childish impulses. Now he’d read the book, Lisalle knew how high the stakes were.

  If the golden brood vanished forever, what future for Broken Meadow? What future for the world of Sylt?

  What kind of place would the children grow up in?

  He closed his eyes for a moment and saw their faces, beaming mindless adoration through wide, innocent eyes.

  And that face! Lisalle brought to mind a recollection of the youngster from the commencement ceremony. How could I forget that face?

  It would be easy to slink back to his apartment and pretend he’d never seen the sabotaged nesting grounds; never unlocked the truth behind the Golden Dukes. It would be easy to simply go on pretending Broken Meadow could survive without them.

  Wasn’t that the path he’d taken his entire life?

  Only now, alone in the shadows of a late summer night, did Lisalle Tulson finally accept he’d been travelling in the wrong direction this past thir
teen years. That was all about to change.

  No more fear, he spoke inside his head, and the words carried a razor’s edge.

  No more games. Isen, old friend, you owe me the truth.

  A few miles away on a wedge-shaped balcony overlooking Bridgetown, another man sat alone and anxious. Drawing a draught of tabac smoke from his clay pipe, he stared with vacant eyes across the distant skyline.

  It was uncommonly bright above the city. The cloudbank sat high in the night sky and there was little spray in the air to blur the view. He could clearly see the outline of the Skillion piercing the eastern horizon like a great, broken tooth.

  But this night he could not see the beauty in it.

  A yawn rose inside his lungs and he stifled it with a hand to the mouth. His eyelids were growing heavy. Every time they drooped, he saw their faces. Exhausted though he was, the man could not free his thoughts of the two youngsters he’d guided to an uncertain fate.

  Exhaling the tabac smoke, he watched it snatched away upon a sudden gust of wind. The weary Sylt raised his nose to the air and gave it a good sniff. A hint of pine hitched a ride on the westerly drifting down from the timber country uphill. Nothing more could he sense beyond Lake Whispermere. The forests had gone quiet, as if someone had thrown a blanket over Mother Nature. It was a most troubling sensation for one of his kind.

  If they fail, everything falls apart, he realised.

  “And if they succeed, history will damn your part regardless!”

  He grinned at the cold logic of his inner voice. If we succeed, who cares what they think of me?

  Raising a small earthenware mug to his lip, he tipped one final shot of gin down his throat. The fiery spirit warmed his belly, even as the cool breeze whistled through the rooftops above and around him. He inhaled another draught of smoke from his clay pipe and prayed to an absent god that history would not repeat itself.

  Appendix

  Calendar

  Broken Meadow uses the calendar inherited from Imperial Delgard, yet measures its span of years from the resettlement of the Fellriven Valley. Under the leadership of a great Sylt named Baradel, the descendants of those refugees of the defeated empire were led from their highland sanctuary down into the fertile lowlands east of Lake Whispermere.

  A fresh start was made when the founders of Bridgetown came together with their counterparts from nearby Witherness and agreed to reset the calendar at Year of Foundation (YF): 0.

  As it was then agreed, the calendar year is divided into four seasons, each season into three months, and each month into four weeks. The seasons and months are named thus:

  Winter – Winterfrüh, Winterhoch, Winterfells

  Spring – Springfrüh, Springhoch, Springfells

  Summer – Summerfrüh, Summerhoch, Summerfells

  Autumn – Autumnfrüh, Autumnhoch, Autumnfells

  Of weekdays, there were seven, all but one (Dellsday, for none cared to be reminded of Belzeel) named after the siblings of the God of Small Things: Aethelron.

  The working week: Aniellsday, Baraday, Fennasday, Thornsday, Phaynesday

  The weekend: Dellsday and Elronsday.

  The author invites you to continue the adventure—

  and share your journey with an online review.

  * * *

  [1] Sanufell was ruled by a succession of kings and queens of the Royal House Delgard, a bloodline of Sylt blessed with the authority to rule by Aethelron himself. But the monarch’s power was never absolute, the political system so arranged that any law could be overturned by a unanimous vote of the Greater Imperial Senate: a council of powerful mages. Four there were, representing the elemental magics: water, fire, air and earth. With authority over the four was a fifth mage who bore the circular symbol of Sol. The Sol Mage had the strength of all elements in equal measure, therefore could be bested by none, and it was said that only two so gifted might ever walk the land at any given time. Also included in the Greater Imperial Senate was one representative of the Wilden, and one of the Druhirrim, which brought the total number to seven.

  [2] Regarding this knowledge, much was gleaned from the oral records of the nomadic Ardentii tribes who hail from the far south coast of Celestia Gar. Their shamans were the first to sense the Other God and foresee what her presence foretold for the future of Sylt. Their stories of this time always begin with the words, “In the beginning of the end—”

  [3] The Braythornian records of this time speak of a suspicious event prior to the deadly barrage that came to be known as the Night of Skyfire. In the flatlands of Braythorn’s southwest border, many of the imperial outposts make record of a great explosion sounding just before the dusk of that fateful night, from deep inside the Kardacian Desert. Many later speculated that this was Belzeel’s battered body striking the earth, though it is understood that no Sylt ever survived to chronicle a first-hand account of such an occurrence.