Beyond the Valley of Thorns

by Patrick Carman

  He looked at my pleading face and saw how much I wanted to hear about Catherine and Laura.

  “There will be plenty of time to address our plans after I tell you what became of the girls,” he said.

  And then he spoke of what Warvold had left untold, a steady breeze in our faces as we went.

  CHAPTER 14

  WHAT REMAINS OF THE STORY IS TOLD

  Everything changed for me in the passing of that hour. Armon spoke with an incredible authority, in such a way that all the story’s pieces fell delicately into place. As we walked I knew nothing of the fearful things that awaited us — Victor Grindall and his line of sons, the torches I’d seen on the hill, the wild dogs of Castalia’s dumping grounds. For that hour Armon’s commanding presence was all my world could hold.

  “Not long after Catherine and Laura arrived in the clock tower, it became clear that the three of us would need to leave the region,” he began. “We needed to travel far away, to a place where we could not be found. We had to take the stones with us and protect them from Grindall and the evil forces that guided him.

  “Already Grindall was sending out his men and his giants to search for me and the stones. Soon enough their searching would lead them into the City of Dogs, and our hiding place would be found.”

  Murphy scurried down from his perch on Yipes’s shoulder and landed on the ground. He took two quick strides and leaped into my arms where I held him against my chest, glad to have him near me.

  “Two days after arriving at the clock tower, at the darkest point of moonlessness, we ventured into the night. We encountered one of the packs of wild dogs, twenty or more in number, and I placed the girls high on my back, out of danger.”

  Armon set his hand on the butt of his sword, a weapon more than six feet in length, the end dangling at his ankles in its sheath.

  “My sword was of much use on that night,” he said. “The first pack of dogs relented, but others crept in as we traveled the length of the old city and its piles of debris. On that night we counted over a hundred dogs, some in packs as large as thirty, others in groups as small as five, all of them ravaged with disease and rage. A single bite from one of these sickly creatures would surely bring illness, madness, and eventually even death.

  “At the edge of the City of Dogs is a large forest that runs for several miles along the western shore of the lake. As we made our escape, the forest was crawling with giants and men in search of me and the stones. But Grindall made a grievous error, for at that time giants were in service to both Grindall and those of their own race. There in the forest, two men saw us. These two called a warning with a horn, and help arrived in the form of three giants. The giants took hold of the men and threw them against a tree, dashing out their brains in the process.”

  “This story keeps getting better and better,” said Yipes, a grin hiding his lips beneath his mustache as he looked down at me on the ground.

  “I spoke to the three giants,” continued Armon. “And it was agreed that they would set us free of Castalia to roam the wide reaches of The Land of Elyon in search of a new home, and that we would keep the remaining stones with us and protect them. We were taken to the Valley of Thorns, a place where only giants roam, and we were each of us seen by yet more giants who agreed to set us free. Over the great hill into the Dark Hills we ventured, with no idea where the journey might end.

  “We had no food or water and precious little time to escape. So I took the girls once again on my back and ran through the night into the Dark Hills. In the morning I slept an hour and then continued in the same way until night fell once more. In two days’ time we stood at the base of Mount Norwood, a place we would call home for many years thereafter.”

  “You lived on the mountain near Lathbury?” I asked, astounded at how close he’d been.

  “The very one,” Armon answered. It struck me then how I might have walked right past places Armon had been while I was on my first journey with Yipes outside the walls of Bridewell.

  “We traveled high into the lush green of the mountain and made for ourselves a home there where we watched and waited. On very clear days, far across the Dark Hills, we could see the outline of the other great mountain that stands upright to the east of Castalia.”

  It was Mount Laythen that Armon spoke of, a mountain much taller and wider than Mount Norwood, not so different in size than Armon was to Yipes. Mount Laythen was the highest peak in The Land of Elyon, with a fat round bottom fifty miles wide.

  “Catherine developed a deep fascination with all of the stones that remained,” said Armon. “Especially the one that she took herself. She was completely obsessed with protecting it and understanding what she could of the rest. Soon she took advantage of their power and befriended all sorts of wild animals, one of which was an exquisite mountain lion. In the past Catherine had been unwilling to show the remaining stones to her animal friends, but something about the lion was different, and so she took him to where the stones were hidden. Together they examined the remaining twenty stones, and the lion was able to see something Catherine could not. Some of the stones were different, inscribed with an ancient language. With the help of the lion, Catherine separated the stones and found that only six were marked in this special way. The fourteen that were not marked were taken to a small pond near the base of the mountain and left at the edge for those who might find them, while the other six were taken to a secret pool high atop Mount Norwood, mixed among ordinary stones, and left to be found by those who might stumble onto them as Elyon had ordained.

  “Catherine and the mountain lion spent much time together, and the lion told Catherine all that he had seen in the stones, what the ancient language looked like, and how he was able to understand what was written. From this knowledge, Catherine made a habit of finding objects and carving patterns on them with secret hidden messages and pictures. In time she would learn to do such things with intricate tools on smaller and smaller items, until finally, much later, Catherine was able to do these etchings on items as small as a stone that might be carried around the neck of an ordinary library cat. She liked to call them Jocastas.”

  “It can’t be so,” I said.

  “Catherine was Renny Warvold,” said John, not as if he’d known all along but as though he’d figured it out just then, as I had.

  Armon looked at us both with kindness and nodded slowly, a strange, sad hope in his eyes.

  “Some time after she etched Elyon’s words on each of the six stones, it came to pass that a young adventurer, many years of wandering behind him, came to rest on Mount Norwood. He had explored the land to the farthest cliffs, beyond Ainsworth to the northern side, and to the heights of Mount Laythen where he looked down on the plight of Castalia. He had traveled through the Dark Hills, the magnificent forests, and even into the haunting lair of the Sly Field. He had visited each of the two cities along the northern cliffs and the one to the west. In all his travels he never found a place more peaceful and joyous than Mount Norwood, and it was here that he returned after Catherine, Laura, and I had already been living there for a dozen years.”

  “Thomas Warvold,” I whispered, the pieces of the puzzle coming together now.

  “As Elyon would have it, the young Warvold stumbled onto the pool of Jocastas, quite sure that he had found the greatest treasure in The Land of Elyon. The girls were now grown women, and together with them I met Warvold for the first time at the edge of the pool. Warvold had seen giants before, but I was very different from all the others. Having had quite a lot of experience with seeing all manner of oddities, he was not so startled as you might suppose. Very quickly the four of us became acquainted. We went about the ritual of presenting Warvold with a Jocasta, and spent a time enjoying one another’s company in the surrounding beauty of Mount Norwood.

  “As you might have guessed, Catherine and Warvold fell in love, and soon thereafter the two of them began to tire of living alone in the mountains. It was decided that Warvold would go to Ainsworth
and find those among the city that he might recruit into building a new kingdom past the Great Ravine, a city surrounded entirely by walls, which would afford protection from the dangers of the wild. It was further decided that before accompanying him, Catherine would change her name to Renny, in the event that anyone within the settled world knew of her and the legend of Armon.”

  I was at once astounded by all that Renny had been through. I tried desperately to remember her, but I had been only a small child when she passed away, and I could dig up no images to remind me of her. I only knew that I missed her more than I thought I should. I wished she were still alive.

  “In the years that followed, Lunenburg came into being, Nicolas was born to Renny and Thomas, and the kingdom of Bridewell surfaced in The Land of Elyon.”

  Armon stopped then and knelt down so I could see his expression clearly.

  “Shortly after the walls were completed, I began to feel a terrible dark presence from the distant land of Castalia. So I traveled there — or here, I should say — to where we now find ourselves. In the dead of night I crept to the top of the hill. What I saw there I must now, unfortunately, share with you.”

  He motioned everyone closer, and we stood before the kneeling giant.

  “From the very beginning there have been stories among the giants — sacred stories, many of which have become more fable than truth as the human side of us dominates more and more. Our former home — the Tenth City — has been forgotten in the passing of time.”

  Armon paused, digging up the past in his head. He seemed to be weighing what he should and shouldn’t say.

  “Humans are a forgetful and doubtful race of beings,” he continued. “To remember things of a distant past is something of a difficulty for them, and so it is with my own kind in the tenth reign of Grindall, our memories of the Tenth City washing away.”

  Armon stopped again and looked at the great hill, searching for signs of life in the moonlight. Then he turned back to us and went on, his face downcast.

  “Do you know about the bats?” he asked.

  He was surprised to find that we knew of them and had even encountered them in the Dark Hills. He seemed concerned about this.

  “Where did you see them? Was it near?” he asked.

  “No, it wasn’t near,” said Yipes with a soothing tone. “It was many miles back, closer to Bridewell than here.”

  Armon seemed to listen very carefully, still agitated.

  “I can never be seen by them,” he said, and then he told us why.

  “There is a swarm of a thousand bats, sent by Abaddon from where he dwells, and these bats have but one purpose — to peck and tear at the heads of the giants, to infect them with Abaddon’s will.

  “Imagine a giant the same size as me with its skull emptied of hair but for clumps and strands growing sickly around the rim and over the ears. Imagine the head and face marked with scabs and open sores that never run dry, the teeth rotted out and missing or blackened — a hideous, disfigured creature answering to Abaddon’s will.”

  Armon stood up then and towered over us.

  “That’s what happens to giants who are found by the swarm of bats.”

  He closed his eyes, letting the words sink in. I got the feeling things were about to get even scarier.

  “I am the last of what remains of my race. The rest have already been found by the swarm,” he said, opening his eyes. “What lies beyond the great hill is not more of my kind, but the darkest evil in The Land of Elyon — ninety-eight gargantuan monsters with but one goal before them: to destroy us so Elyon can never return.”

  “The swarm has narrowed its hunt to only one?” John asked, his worrisome question hanging in the air like thick black tar until Armon gazed into the Dark Hills and spoke once more.

  “They move in the night, forever searching until they discover me and infect me like the rest.” He looked at us then with a glimmer of hope. “We must win the battle before they find me.”

  He started walking again into the darkness, and I found myself running to be near him and find comfort in his presence. I was happy when Armon started talking again, his peaceful voice pushing my visions of dreadful beasts away.

  “There is some good news among all the bad,” he began again. “I have not quite finished with the story. The infected giants are no more powerful than they were before, and although forceful, they can be defeated if one knows how. Further, and of far more importance, to kill all the giants would be to destroy Abaddon’s vast army and leave him exposed, furious, and reckless.”

  “But ninety-eight of them?” I said.

  “It is a bit daunting,” said Armon. “But you must never forget that Elyon, in his own mysterious way, a way which we cannot understand, is on our side. The creator of both human and Seraph has chosen us, and I can only hope that in his vast wisdom he will show us how we might prevail against all odds.”

  We had been walking for a while. Armon looked around in all directions.

  “This will do,” he said. “I’ve brought some food and water. Set out your things and eat if you like. You will have only a short while to sleep.”

  We were still out in the open and the great hill lay before us.

  “Isn’t this more exposed than we’d like?” asked Odessa, which I in turn translated to Armon.

  “There’s no other place to be had, I’m afraid. I’ll watch through the night, but I don’t expect to see anyone near here.”

  I set my small pack on the crusty dirt and took a handful of nuts and berries out from the stash Armon provided.

  “If you’re not too tired I’d like to tell you the last of the story. I believe it may help to properly motivate you in the coming days.”

  Armon sat down among us and gathered his thoughts to speak a final time about the things of the past. While he considered what to say, I watched the night sky with its countless stars and its moon, and I wondered about the universe and all that had been created, why the stars and the moon rose at night and the sun in the day, how vast it must be, how I could never understand the infinite measure of its size.

  Odessa rarely chose me when it came time to rest, but on this night she did, and she lay down along my side with her head next to mine. Murphy hopped onto her back and made a bed of her soft gray hair, and the three of us were comforted by one another.

  “The tenth reign of Grindall came into existence not long after I departed Castalia,” Armon began. “I know this prince of darkness, this tenth Victor Grindall. His reign began through trickery and murder, and immediately he focused everything on finding the remaining stones.

  “But in all his efforts Victor Grindall failed to recover the missing treasure. This greatly displeased Abaddon. So it came to pass that Grindall sent the giants beyond the Dark Hills to find the stones, to places they’d never searched before.

  “Before long the giants were within reach of the wall at Bridewell. Pervis Kotcher, the head of the guards, was the first to see them from his tower at the Lunenburg gate. This was a moment he understood might come, for Thomas and Renny had told him if giants were ever seen in the Dark Hills, he should hide the fact and send all the guards off the towers. If other guards had seen, Pervis was to collect them and bring them before Warvold, and the rest of the kingdom was to remain unaware of the horrible danger beyond the wall.

  “Renny was the first person Pervis found as he searched the lodge for either of the Warvolds, and he told her of the giants approaching in the distance. Renny instructed Pervis to find Thomas. Then, without delay, she ran to the library and entered the secret tunnel that leads under the city and into the mountains.”

  Armon leaned back on his mighty hands while the rest of us sat wide-eyed before him.

  “Once in the tunnel, there is a hidden door that, when opened, leads the short distance out into the Dark Hills. This door Renny opened, and not long after that the giants arrived at the wall. She stood alone and unprotected among them.”

  “Why, Armon? Why
would she do such a thing?” I asked.

  “She thought, quite rightly, that if she could offer herself it might appease the giants. Capturing the one who had taken the stones might be a good enough reason to return to the Dark Tower. It would certainly be a noteworthy find. And so Renny offered to go with them, insisting that she would only tell what she knew to Victor Grindall himself.

  “About this time, Warvold and Pervis arrived at the Lunenburg tower. The giants, who Warvold would later say were already possessed by Abaddon, were big enough to break through the wall if they wanted to. But they only wanted the remaining stones, and this they demanded of Warvold. They would have the remaining stones or the whole of Bridewell would be overrun and everything within the kingdom would be destroyed.

  “Weaponry was not advanced in Bridewell, and the city relied almost entirely on archers for defense. The giants carried two things that worried Warvold greatly — large metal shields and bags filled with stones the size of watermelons, which he rightly guessed they could throw with great accuracy. The hideous giant heads dripping with sweat and open sores, the shields combined with great black armor — these things conspired against Warvold and the armament he possessed. These were huge creatures, well armed and adequately protected. A hundred of them would wipe out everyone in Bridewell and move on to Turlock and Lathbury when they were through.”

  Armon looked at Yipes, who was sitting upright, eyes almost comically wide, completely enthralled by the story. Like so many of us from Bridewell Common, our little friend simply loved to hear a good tale. I’m not sure he fully grasped that the story included us, the dangers looming larger every time Armon opened his mouth.

  “Thomas saw the moment for what it was,” continued Armon. “A pivotal encounter in the fight over which forces would control The Land of Elyon, forces of evil or good. But the price was higher than he had imagined it could be. His own life he would have gladly given, but he had great difficulty sacrificing those of his people or his beloved wife. He knew where the six stones lay hidden in the secret pool on Mount Norwood. He could lead these awful creatures there and they would disappear once again into the Dark Hills. But what evil would overcome the land if he allowed this to happen, and how quickly would an even darker force return and bound over the walls if he gave away the secret?