The Finders Keepers

by R.G. Strike

  They crashed in the middle of a rocky mountain with nothing else to see than gigantic hills and tall trees; the sun hung in the middle of the sky, its supernatural heat was scorching the sharp gray rocks that appeared like they had spontaneously grew out of the ground. They could barely see anything aside from the barring brightness, which seemed almost blinding in the open.

  Godfrey and Alex stood from being sprawled on the ground, outbalanced, just in time to see that travelling notebook popped out in the mid-air out of nowhere, dropping right on Mrs. Luciens’s hands. She removed her ragged, scarlet head ribbon and wrapped it around the notebook, tautening so the binding would not fall apart.

  “Roughly done,” she said. “Where is this place, by the way?”

  “Elcid Mountains, that’s the name,” said Alex jerkily. “But I don’t get what’s happening with this empire when it’s just winter, then the sun is high in an instant.”

  “Magic, it’s a work of magic,” Godfrey supplied. “That’s what your mother told us.”

  “Better discuss it somewhere,” Mr. Luciens suggested darkly as he walked on both of his hind legs into the descending weedy trail.

  They could not smug any brighter idea or oppose what he had just said. They groaned from the heat and followed Mr. Luciens down the trail which was, at least, overwhelming because there were lost trees that grew out to provide insufficient shade. Not so long, they were intensely panting and irritated avoiding unprecedented stones and native roses that were making their reddening skins scruffy.

  Hardly any of them could breathe, especially Mr. Luciens who was leading, as they were certainly aware that the nearest adequate shade was at least a mountain away, and still knowing that fact was irritating and depressing like there was less hope that they would actually reach it. The sun burned harsher as they hasted their footsteps in extreme eagerness to arrive there.

  In what seemed to be a tiring half an hour trekking, Godfrey had thought to better divert his exhaustion into rethinking what had just concluded in their session with the souls of Lara Dogworth and Emily Meadslev. If Emily was his fatherly sister, then Alex was his nearby nephew!

  Then how could it have happened that he was being so rude to Alex? It was presumably his first time to console his nephew, understanding how utterly Alex was deprived from the truth when he was just kept on a normal orphanage in the human world. But it looked politically wrong on Godfrey’s point of view that he actually had a nephew.

  The big fact seemed struggling to sink inside Godfrey’s mind. He was an uncle – and yet he and his nephew were at the same age. It looked rather inappropriate than unbelievable. All he could do was gape at what he thought was right.

  The shade was half a mountain away now as Godfrey had approximated. The distant portion was that an archway had opened, revealing the cool cavity under the gnarled trees. The wind somehow howled at diverse directions.

  They had reached there after some time, and Mr. and Mrs. Luciens were the first to collapse on the bed of fallen dried leaves, scratching their furs against the ground. Alex momentarily looked around before settling himself on a lazily cobbled stone.

  “This place is horrible,” said Godfrey, looking over at the thick barked trees ranging different heights.

  “What do you expect in a forest?” Mr. Luciens snarled, which was just a big joke.

  “Well, it seemed different,” Alex groaned.

  Mr. Luciens sighed and raised his head to look over the blazing sunlight dousing through the canopy of leaves.

  “Give it a rest,” he told them. “After which, we’ll set off –”

  “Again?” Godfrey complained.

  “– to the forest to find other useful things for our camping,” Mr. Luciens continued. “Sylvana and I’ll be off to see the stream down the mountain for any victual.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Luciens vanished after a short while into the spaces behind the parallel tree trunks. The silence that broke except for the melodious chirping of budgerigars was excessively piercing to both Alex and Godfrey. Being unable to stand the silence, Godfrey stood and strolled the nearby surrounding, his foot crunching the floor of dried leaves.

  Alex stared blankly on the floor, watching his young uncle wander under the fierce noon sunlight. He seemed not to have expected clearer perception of the truth he had never anticipated to exist. So that was the truth, he thought. He was pondering and yet unable to sip or bear any of it.

  One day, he was just an ordinary, skinny orphan with no promises of the life after school; excelling for what he thought he was meant to do. He had been, and had always suffered under the hands of his haters. For a few seconds he asked himself how they were doing now: How could John have savored the life Alex was supposed to have with Mrs. Suzette, Sandra, and Melody? Maybe he had requested Denarius Fleer, the pig-looking best friend of John, to join him. . . .

  It was as though everything had twisted to a form of a very horrible fairy tale or maybe even a nightmare. Everything – Alex, Eliezer, Mr. and Mrs. Luciens, Alfrendo, Masefield, Lara, Flynt, Emily, and Nolfavrel – it seemed so unreal; the very life he had once dreamt inside his shabby bed room turned out to have crazily come true, but deep inside his anticipation was a dark addition to his desires.

  Then he suddenly remembered Zeejay, the only friend he had treated as his brother, and what might have happened to him. Alex knew, for sure, about his cousin Fulminana. Had she succeeded in reclaiming Zeejay? Though she could have, Zeejay would find alternative ways to resist falling on Fulminana’s help.

  For over the years they had lived together, Alex never heard Zeejay talking about his past except for the reason of his parents’ untimely death. Nothing has ever come close to details describing Fulminana, which was something private enough to trespass. But being his best friend, Alex could not just leave it that way; he needed to find out the best masterstroke to help him.

  And now that everything had twisted oddly, Alex was not sure if he could still see his home; his home at St. Mayleboune’s Orphanage. Now he had a brand-new task to do. He finally realized that it was not accident that brought him here, it was destiny. He was meant to do something, to accomplish something, and to give meaning to his mother’s death and his father, wherever he was.

  Alex remembered he was called Jether, but he does not know where he might be – where he could find him. At least that was the next big thing that he was planning after things at stake were solved.

  The reason for which he was here was to help his uncle avenge the ultimate deaths of the countless people who have failed in their attempts in steering this empire to the right path.

  Mr. and Mrs. Luciens came back carrying a strand of thick vine in which ten or more black fishes were hanged. They laid it on the floor of dried leaves and sat down without any word. Godfrey appeared out of the gloom of the trees.

  “Have any of you found food?” he asked them dryly. “Anything at all?”

  “They did,” said Alex. “Mr. and Mrs. Luciens did find food.”

  Godfrey averted his eyes into the silky strand of black fishes. It seemed to have satisfied his longing because he turned his back against them and continued muttering his thoughts.

  “I hope this will work, but I don’t guarantee a very perfect outcome,” he said. “I’m talking about the wand.”

  From his back, he drew out the meter-long stick as they turned to watch him. Mr. and Mrs. Luciens seemed to have predicted what Godfrey was about to do because they bowed their heads restlessly as though they were about to forestall his lot.

  “What can you say,” he said, “about erecting a tent while we are all at certainty of what is supposed to happen?”

  “Do what you want and what is necessary, dear,” said Mrs. Luciens. “That way you could practice handling magical objects.”

  Godfrey smiled; Alex just stared at him as he directed the wand at the open space before them. He closed his eyes and murmured vague words for at least a minute or so.

  Nothing happened.r />
  “You need to say the right words,” said Mr. Luciens. “I just wonder . . . a wand has never been choosy to the words of command before.”

  Godfrey absorbed his suggestion. He closed his eyes and said, “We are at need of a tent for tonight.”

  Nothing happened.

  “Try not to be particular,” Mr. Luciens advised.

  Godfrey flicked his eyes and closed them again, then said, “We need somewhere safe to sleep.”

  Nothing happened still, and Godfrey was turning madly worried.

  “Maybe,” he said, “maybe it needed recharging. I mean – I’ve been using it for so long and I just thought that maybe it should rest.”

  “It should rest?” Mr. Luciens blustered. “Wands never need rest. That’s the reason they were created: To help people at their time of needs.”

  Alex scrambled from the cobbled stone. “Let me,” he said, “try doing it. . . .”

  “What?” said Godfrey. “Like you’ll arrive at dead hocus-pocus castle remains?”

  Alex stared at him blankly. Then, ignoring Godfrey’s behavior, he pointed his own wand at the open space. He drew out a sigh and spoke in a clear, overwhelming voice.

  “Let there be tent!” he said, an edge on his tone.

  The fallen tree branches snapped and slithered; the leaves waved away so that the ground was bare once again. They scurried off a few meters as the nearest pine tree was uprooted and was divided into several boards. The boards stumbled together, a veil had dropped from above, and not a minute or two had passed and there stood a tent.

  Alex had not looked like a braggart at his masterpiece although he thought it could be a solution to Godfrey’s greedy face. He looked at Alex with enormous trace of disdain as though he was portraying that Alex (only his nephew) was not worthy to receive glorious praises from the Luciens.

  Despite his flagrant emotion that he was sure Alex had seen from the corner of his eyes, Godfrey stood pleasantly, as though nothing had happened. He placed the wand back on his side and faced them like he was excited.

  “So, we’re gonna get inside?” he asked them.

  “Oh, yes, please,” said Mrs. Luciens kindly.

  As the afternoon pounded off the corner of the forest and as it sank hidden on the horizon, all four of them stepped in the tent with much delight of Alex’s newly-discovered ability to perform magic and it was only Godfrey who looked, if anything, aloof. He had kept himself silent even during the blinding nightfall. And as they grilled the river fishes on the crackling fire beneath a screened tripod, he barely spoke.

  Even on the following days, it seemed to have been his unpleasant habit not responding whenever someone had the curiosity to ask whether he was okay or not. And soon, as more days passed, their curiosity had gradually developed to a fixed knowledge that they would never squeeze an answer from him.

  Days after days came and went, but the foe that was meant to be finished never sloped on to challenge them; even Godfrey was silently worried and anxious at some point. He had eavesdropped the Luciens and his nephew talking about that maybe Nolfavrel had sent them here to avoid any harm from the center of the empire, but deep on his core he knew that there was something. . . .

  If it was true that Nolfavrel had only sent them here for safety, then why had he not managed to think and include Eliezer? Was she not worthy to be saved, or was she bound for something else? Godfrey remembered his sister for a moment: How did he make it, living with other people and not bothered about her absence? Was he being numb now?

  The following dawn, they were woken by a continuous rattling on the wooden entrance. All of them jumped from their own small bedstead and stared at the dark space of tent, drawing close attention to the knocking sound, pausing every five seconds or so.

  “What’s that?” Alex said under his breath.

  “Someone’s been knocking from the outside,” Godfrey finally replied in an undertone. “Do you think it’s Alfrendo –”

  “Shhh!” said Mrs. Luciens warningly. “Let’s be careful. He might hear you.”

  “I have an idea,” said Godfrey brightly. “Alex – draw your wand at hand and open the door at my count of three!”

  Alex nodded; he knew he could not argue the sudden fact that his uncle had finally talked. He took out the wand under his improvised pillow and gripped it ready while Godfrey rapped his meter-long wand. And to his surprise, it enlarged into a silver sword which was softly glowing in the darkness. It was the same sword he had used when he and the Luciens had rescued them from Alfrendo’s nest.

  “Okay,” Godfrey uttered. “One . . . two . . . .” There was an exclusive dead silence that followed on the pause he had made. “. . . three!”

  “OPEN!” Alex blustered immediately.

  “Don’t move!” Godfrey complemented.

  The wooden board covering the opening was shredded into ashes. A figure of a man on cane and a band of indistinguishable creatures were visible through the blurring fission of the ashes.

  “Don’t move!” Godfrey repeated.

  The man coughed and the ashes subsided at once.

  Mrs. Luciens’s face was wonderstruck as she came to see the three Allimans. She crawled swiftly towards the entrance, but a scrawny man with gray hairs and rumpled skin stomped his cane to bar her from succeeding.

  “Are they yours?” the man breathed in a low, croaking voice.

  “Y-yes . . . please,” Mrs. Luciens said.

  The three Allimans softly squealed inside a small cage that was grotesquely crafted from cut out branches of ancient trees. There was less space inside and Worf, Meow, and Tweet were merely crumpled to fit inside; their wings were folded tightly on their back. When they saw Mrs. Luciens, they seemed not to halt from squealing.

  The man took his cane back. He grunted heavily and looked at Mrs. Luciens.

  “You promise not to leave them unattended next time,” he said.

  “Yes, I p-promise . . .” Mrs. Luciens breathed softly, touched enough that she was almost crying.

  The man tapped his cane against the top of the cage and it quickly split away. The three Allimans fled to hug with Mr. and Mrs. Luciens.

  “You should . . . you should not stay here any longer,” he bluffed them. “The mountains are fatal – highly unadvisable for leisure.”

  “We’re,” said Godfrey rudely, “we’re not here to enjoy ourselves. We are here, for your information, on purpose. By the way, who are you?”

  He puffed a snigger after Godfrey had talked. “Funnily enough how Bravy talks like he’s a seasoned grown-up. For your information, too, my name is Millicent Igono. I’m a Look Out here, and I work for the Palace. And as I’ve said, you should leave now – what I mean is you should return now. . . . These two rabbits, of course, must await their very own verdict. The king is really angry for kidnap dramas. . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” barked Alex.

  “Ah, you too,” Millicent continued. “I wonder how you happened to be . . . so they kidnapped you too.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Alex snarled. “Go away!”

  Millicent smiled nastily.

  “Go away! Go – MAIM!”

  Millicent rotated his cane counterclockwise and no harm was done to him except a blistering smoke for Alex’s deflected spell. Again, Millicent smiled and suddenly pummeled his cane, but Godfrey stabbed it just in time.

  The impact of the sword and the cane’s contact was nothing as ordinary as a bolo chopping woods. An electric had sparkled on the meeting point and abruptly hit both of them. Millicent and Godfrey had ruefully ricocheted at different corners.

  “You ought not to do that!” Millicent bellowed. “The next time we meet, I don’t know if there will still be next time, I won’t think twice if you’re the prince. . . .”

  He stood from the piling heaps of dried leaves and disappeared with a tap of his cane on the ground.

  “Uncle!” Alex called when he saw Godfrey sprawled on the gro
und. “Uncle, are you all right?”

  Godfrey looked up. “Do not,” he said, “call me ‘Uncle’ unless we’ve known each other for so long.”

  And since, Alex did not talk to him. The day had finally fallen and Mr. Luciens announced his plan of changing camp location since someone had already seen them settling there. Just before noon, they flew off with the three Allimans around another mountain and dropped at yet denser woods. Alex did the tent again, and while he did it, Godfrey looked away, disliking to witness how Alex really made it.

  As the afternoon progressed, Mr. and Mrs. Luciens had sniffed off the downward slope for another stream. The three Allimans fled away to hunt their own prey. Godfrey, as usual, had scuttled and strolled the new place, as though there were unique things that distinguished every wilderness, leaving Alex squatted in front of the tent.

  An hour later, as he was sitting there by himself, he had heard a female voice echo from somewhere at the peak of the mountain. It was a scream and he was not sure whether its familiarity had sounded when he was still at St. Mayleboune’s Orphanage or with his cronies now that he was at Switzarnel.

  He let it pass because Godfrey returned with his normal stern look; his hairs were brightly blond under the sun as he walked towards the tent. And when he did, he never spoke as he proceeded to rest on his own bedstead.

  Just before sunset, Mr. and Mrs. Luciens arrived with the three Allimans. There was the usual strand of black fishes and the silent atmosphere that seemed to have added the certain flavor.

  The dead silence continued until night fell gently over the space behind the mountains. Godfrey and Mrs. Luciens had solemnly ignited the campfire and toasted the fishes, still without any sound of talking heard.

  When they had finished, Godfrey roamed the tent and called them one by one. When he had come to Alex, he said, “Just looking. . . . You don’t expect the food to come over to you.” And he walked away.

  All four of them had squatted in circle around the campfire as they ploughed their food. The mortal silence was only broken by the crackling of the fire that was getting louder and larger; it seemed to have been fortifying the size of the tent.

  “What did you do?” Godfrey impatiently demanded when he saw Alex grab his wand.

  “I didn’t do anything! I was just eating and th–”

  A bass roar and hissing erupted and the fire had shaped itself into a man’s head with creatures like worms twitching on his top – vipers!

  The man continued laughing haughtily and the vipers kept hissing loudly. All four of them kept frozen as he moved defiantly, looking around at them; blitz of fires falling off his head like drops of water.

  “The valiant lord Alfrendo has sent me to challenge you to a battle,” the fire-man said; his mouth hollowing. “The defeat shall be total surrender. Tomorrow afternoon. Mountain peak.”

  The man cackled once more and the fire shut out in an instant, leaving nothing but darkness all around them.

  “Who was that?” Godfrey quickly questioned in the gloom.

  “He is a gorgon,” Alex supplied. “His hairs were vipers.”

  Godfrey stared at him.

  “I know,” he said. “The question is: Who is he? What’s his name? That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “No one knows,” said Mr. Luciens. “All that we’re sure is that he is one of Alfrendo’s followers.”

  “And he’s seeking war,” Mrs. Luciens added.

  “It’s battle that he wanted,” said Alex coldly. “Then let’s give him what he seeks. Now we know what Nolfavrel meant.

  “We’re not sure if we could defeat them,” said Mrs. Luciens truthfully. “Only us four and it’s not enough.”

  “What do you mean by ‘not enough’?” asked Godfrey. “Are there loads of them?”

  “Dear, yes, there are many of them,” Mrs. Luciens answered. “Seeing how powerful Alfrendo is, we can end up knowing he’s got countless runners after him. Millicent the Look Out may be even one of them.”

  “Look Out – what are those?” Alex croaked.

  “They are people allotted to various places maintaining safety and peace,” Mr. Luciens answered informatively. “Their main purpose is to capture criminals, bad people, and sometimes citizens on grave purposes masquerading under the eye of the Palace.”

  “There are many of them too, then?”

  “Oh, yes, there are. The only effective way left to start with is planning, knowing how dangerous this quest is. . . .”

  Alex stared at Mrs. Luciens; Mrs. Luciens stared back.

  “I don’t know how much I could praise that man,” she said, slightly ethereal. “Nolfavrel . . . no one I know has ever been smarter than he was. If he could just have lived, I don’t know how easy he could have handled this.”

  “He believed in us,” Godfrey screeched. “Therefore we also need to believe in ourselves, that’s the thing. We’re lacking self-belief. If we don’t have faith that we can do this, then there is no point hoping for triumph.”

  “Amazing, uncle, that was –” said Alex, but he stopped shortly after he realized he was not supposed to talk to him.

  “What?” said Godfrey impassively. “Go on.”

  “That was illuminating!” Alex rapped on.

  “Well,” said Godfrey. “That’s cool.”

  “I was just wondering,” said Mr. Luciens. “Why are we talking here in the darkness?”

  All of them laughed ferociously; some of the resting birds on the overhanging branches flew a few distances to the left and right.

  “Hey – it was the gorgon’s fault!” Alex bellowed happily. “Let me replace it, then, if you won’t m–”

  “No,” Mr. Luciens objected. “Let’s better sleep now, we’ll be heading to a battle tomorrow. I don’t think we still need to worry wasting energy for overnight talks. That’s enough for now.”

  The point of disappointment was visibly painted on each of the faces after Mr. Luciens had dropped his sufficing statement. Now they stood and stepped inside the tent with sepulchral emotions, smelling out the exhausting heat from the ground.