by Thomas Locke
“Dunnesend,” the chief said. “Few are shaped as earthen basins. It has to be Dunnesend.”
“A hill rose at its center, just like where we now gather.”
“That helps us not a whit. It is one of the traits of all those vales where our villages are located.”
The chief’s wife leaned forward and said, “Someday you must return and hear the lore that binds us to our highland world.”
“I would be honored.”
The chief waved that aside. “Describe!”
“There was a broad waterfall to my right. It plunged a long distance and thundered where it fell. A lake was formed at its front, the surface black from the surrounding landscape.”
The chief glanced worriedly at his wife, then called out, “Where is our lorekeeper? Come forward, Caleb.”
An ancient sage rose from his place and swatted away the hands that sought to help him. He leaned upon a tall staff polished by the years. The hall remained silent, watchful, tense. The only sound was the rapid tap-tapping of his stave.
“I live to serve, sire.”
“Can you think of such a vale?”
“May I be permitted to inquire of the forbidden?”
“Ask!”
The sage’s beard was long enough to be tucked inside the upper fold of his robe. But his eyes were clear and his voice strong. “Which way did you face, hero?”
“My name is Hyam. The sun touched the ridgeline to my right. But whether it rose or sank, I cannot say.”
“You dreamed at dawn. Let us say north for now.”
“A waterfall on the eastern ridge.” The chief sounded more worried still.
“Go on,” the sage said.
“Two towers rose from the highest peaks on either side of the waterfall. Or rather, their remnants. The stones were blasted with something so fierce they ran like wax. Turned to lava, they were. Only their stubs were left. One to the left and one to the right . . .” Hyam felt as much as heard the tempest that swirled through the hall, a whisper of something that might have been awe. Or dread. “What is it?”
The clan’s lorekeeper pulled his long beard from his robe and stroked its surface, down to the tip by his waist. If the elder was touched by the emotion that rippled through the clan hall, he did not show it. “You saw the remnants of a wall?”
“In places,” Hyam confirmed. “To either side of the towers.”
Caleb nodded. Satisfied. He turned to the chief and declared, “It is as you suspect, sire.”
“But . . . that vale holds no ash.”
“Who knows what era the dragon revealed to the hero of Emporis. It can be no other valley, sire. The hero was taken to Ellismere.”
The undercurrent had a voice now, a faint rustling and stirring. The chief looked at Hyam but directed his words to the sage. “What say you?”
“My grandson and I must journey with him, sire.”
“It is forbidden,” the chief said.
The old man’s beard jutted out as he set his chin. “Who are we to tell the hero of Emporis what should be done? Hyam has been summoned!”
Hyam asked, “What is Ellismere?”
All eyes turned his way, but no one spoke until the chief himself said, “It is the name we no longer utter, though all know of it. It is the vale of woe. The place where the wasteland begins.”
Caleb explained, “A thousand years ago, Ellismere served as the realm’s first line of defense. Beyond that stretched the desert wasteland. When the first dire beasts attacked Ellismere, the clan chieftains journeyed three times to Port Royal, asking the king to honor his pledge and come to our rescue.”
“The Milantian invasion,” Hyam breathed. “It started there.”
“No, hero. No. It began in the great forest that once rose north of Emporis. The glade known as Ethrin was the fabled home to the Elven king. First that vast forest homeland was defeated, and the green warriors were slain to the last man. Then the enemy attacked the highland clan guarding the only route connecting the trading empire of Emporis to Falmouth Port and the realm.”
“And the king did not heed your warnings,” Hyam said. “He did not honor his pledge, because he did not believe the invasion was real.”
“The first King Oberon did not accept that the fabled crimson wizards were leading an army of beasts the likes of which none had ever seen before,” the chief confirmed. “Not until the Earl of Emporis wrote to describe how his own troops had journeyed north and found that where Ethrin had once stood proud and secretive, now lay mile after mile of ash and death and woe. And by then Ellismere was destroyed, and the crimson foes led an army toward the realm’s heart.”
“Ellismere is our anguished legacy,” the sage declared. “The bitter roots that hold fast our distrust of lowland rulers.”
The chieftain’s gaze had gone distant, as though reciting lessons from his youth. “The lowland’s promises are forever stained by the ash that once was Ellismere.”
Hyam found himself drawn by forces he could neither name nor understand. But as he started to voice his confusion, he glanced down. Joelle met his gaze with certainty and love. They did not speak. They did not need to. Hyam found what he required in her gaze. “I must go there,” he said.
“You will not find it without us,” Caleb replied. “For three ruined vales lay between there and here. Nine years back, the crimson mage announced his arrival by attacking those valleys that surround what once was Ellismere. The trails are empty, with no living clans to aid your trek.”
Hyam nodded. And waited.
Caleb said to the chief, “Sire, again I ask your permission.”
The chief studied his elder scribe before asking, “You are up to such a journey?”
“I have spent my entire life waiting for this. When I was the age of my grandson, my own grandfather took me there. We stood within the ring of stones, and he described to me all that I have related and more besides. He made Ellismere live once more, at least for a single sunrise. It is time I take my own heir and help him make homage to that which is now gone.”
6
As the caravan prepared for a dawn departure, Hyam watched as Meda drew Alembord to one side. Hyam did not need to hear the heated exchange to know what was being said. The previous evening Meda had told Hyam that Alembord’s interest in the earl’s niece had reached an unacceptable level. Meda had taken Hyam’s silence as agreement. Now the guards captain was ordering the corporal to leave their group and join the merchant caravan. Hyam watched as Alembord protested in the strongest possible terms. In response, Meda took aim at Shona and spoke words that blistered the trooper’s face with shame. Hyam saw Alembord speak through a clenched jaw, and Meda reluctantly agree.
As Meda and the red-faced corporal joined Hyam on the rise, the chief emerged from the great hall, accompanied by the lorekeeper and his grandson. “The three valleys between here and Ellismere were once connected by a well-traveled road, as these were the vales closest to our own by blood and lore. Now the villages are silent and the road is cursed.”
Caleb went on, “Young men and women go hunting treasure. It is forbidden, but the pickings are rich. Those who seek a wife, a new field, or just adventure, they go and none can stop them.”
Meda asked, “Why does this trouble you?”
“Because recently some have not returned,” the elder replied. “Twenty-two days back, three of our strongest young warriors went adventuring. You understand?”
“They were not likely to be caught unawares by bandits,” Meda said.
“We suspected their disappearance was the work of another highland clan,” the chief confirmed. “In earlier days we would have trekked from hall to hall, searching out the culprits and challenging them to single combat.”
The sage continued, “But Caleb went looking for his friends and returned two days before your own arrival. Tell them what you found, lad.”
His grandson took up the telling. “They told me they were headed to the furthest vale destroyed by t
he crimson one. When we could not find them there, we followed the ancient road to Ellismere. Where the road crested the final ridge, it looked as though the rocks had been chewed.”
“Torn apart,” a woman from the chief’s guard said. “Deep gouges in the ridge, like claws as broad as I am tall.”
“And now you hear of my dream,” Hyam said, “and wonder if this dragon feasts upon the flesh of men.”
“You yourself spoke of being blasted by flames from its nostrils,” the chief said. “And of the beast’s frenzy.”
“Every dream has held a frantic urgency,” Hyam agreed. “But I do not think the beast means me ill.”
“We are speaking,” Meda reminded them, “of an animal that none have ever seen.”
“But it flies in legends and songs,” the sage said. “Old as mankind.”
“None have ever been proven to hold to truth,” Shona said.
“But other legends have come to life around us!” The sage pointed north and east, to the ridge that separated them from the desolation. “A crimson mage appeared and destroyed the peace of ten centuries. A hero rose from the ranks of humans and joined the crimson mage in battle. The sky was blasted with flame and magic, such that we ourselves witnessed the event, fourteen days’ hard march from Emporis!” Caleb’s beard trembled with indignation and certainty. “I, Caleb the Elder, tell you that a dragon has arrived! If it is a threat, the hero of Emporis will bring it down! And I, keeper of the Highland Lore, will bear witness to all the generations yet to come!”
Despite his advanced years, the lorekeeper held to an impatient pace. “One of those missing was my favorite nephew. A wastrel if ever there was one, but a fine warrior just the same.” Caleb rode a stubby mountain pony, not much larger than a donkey. The beast proved sure-footed and swift as they climbed the steep northeastern ridge. Caleb swung his staff at his grandson riding ahead of him, a handsome youth with a winning smile. “The one you see there is hardly any better. The pair of them claimed to be in love with a different woman every other week.”
“Terrible,” Joelle said, smiling at the youth. “How dare he.”
The youth carried his grandfather’s name and was known simply as the Younger. He possessed a crop of black curls that would have done a maiden proud. He winked at Shona and said, “How can I deny the ladies when they ask to taste the wine?”
The old man watched Shona snort in derision and urge her horse to greater speed. Then he noticed Hyam’s grin and snapped, “I suppose you think you are an expert on the subject as well.”
Joelle said from behind them, “Hyam knew next to nothing about love when we met. But he is proving to be an adequate learner.”
It was the old man’s turn to cackle. “Is he indeed.”
Meda asked, “How far to our destination?”
“Three days, if the weather holds,” the Younger replied, and sniffed the wind. “Which it should.”
“The highland fiefs encircle Emporis on three sides, like creases in a long ribbon,” his grandfather explained. “Sixty-one clans still hold to the highland ways. Some are little more than brigands. Others have inherited talents from the ancients and commune with all manners of beasts.”
“My latest lady is from such the northern reaches. We met when she was down trading with her father. She calls me her wolf cub.” The Younger howled at the blue-black sky.
The ridge did not fall directly into the next vale, as Hyam expected. Instead, they passed through a meadow turned yellow by the winter that seemed reluctant to release these high reaches. The wind carried a severe bite, and they halted long enough to pull traveling cloaks from their bundles. The meadows were shared by goats and coal-black sheep and stubby cattle that fled from them like half-wild beasts. The shepherds who exchanged greetings with the two Calebs spoke in voices that creaked from disuse.
They trekked for hours through a thick forest. When they emerged, they knew without being told that they were reaching the next valley. The silence was a blanket that stifled any will to speak. No one objected when they made camp, using the forest as a shield against the rising wind. They tethered the mounts where they could crop the golden grass, gathered wood, and started a blazing fire. No one spoke as they set two pots on the cooking stones, one for tea and the other for stew. Then they followed the lorekeeper along a path only he could see, and halted where the world fell away.
They surveyed a wasteland. Not even the grandson’s good cheer could defy the bleakness of that ash-covered vale.
Shona said softly, “The crimson storm assaulted first the Elven forests and then the highland world. In both places they left nothing but ash and bone. So read the scrolls from ten centuries ago. Three vales they demolished, one after the other, carving a swath of destruction along the border with the yellow sea. Then they vanished from the high vales, carried like smoke on the wind, straight into the heart of the human realm.”
The elder Caleb studied the young woman. “You are apprenticed to a lorekeeper?”
“My father is Timmins, scribe to the Earl of Oberon.”
“Your father is by all accounts a good man. You will carry a message to him?”
“I will.”
“Tell him that Caleb the Elder salutes him and the earl both. It does an old heart good to know the leader of Falmouth and his sage keep tribal lore alive in the generations to come.”
“You do me and my brothers great honor,” Shona replied. “I will tell them.”
Caleb turned back to the grey-black vale. “This was the second fiefdom attacked five years past by the crimson one. The first lay three days east and north of Emporis, a half-tamed clan that few will miss, if truth be known. When news came of that first attack, I discounted it as the work of brigands and those who scorn our legacy. This time I came to see for myself.” He scowled over the silent reaches. “The lorekeeper of this vale and I were friends.”
Caleb the Younger added, “Bayard came the instant he heard. He offered the clans his port city as a haven and gathering point. He lost hundreds of warriors keeping the roads open.”
“Time and again the Earl of Oberon has earned the clans’ trust.” The lorekeeper studied the vale, his gaze wintry and narrow. “Come. We must eat and rest.”
The wind died with the dusk. They ate without appetite and unfurled their bedrolls. Hyam awoke an hour or so later when Dama huffed softly. He opened his eyes to find Meda, Alembord, Shona, and Joelle standing by their blankets. He started to ask what it was, but Joelle motioned him to remain silent.
He pulled on his boots and followed them toward the ridge. They halted where the two Calebs came into view. The clan’s lorekeeper and his grandson stood in the moonlight, their arms lifted over the empty vale. Their voices were joined in a duet that was both lyrical and spoken, rising and falling in unison. Caleb the Elder droned a long verse, answered by his grandson’s warbling grief. The voices echoed out over the valley, far into the distance, into the night.
Hyam and the others stood and shared the lament for a time. Then they returned to the camp. The two lorekeepers were still chanting their highland dirge when Hyam fell asleep.
The dragon dream returned in the pre-dawn hour. But this time, Hyam did not travel to the island. Instead, the dragon came to him. The beast swept over the meadow that bordered their camp and drew Hyam up so that he flew alongside.
In one sharp, twisting swoop of its wings, the dragon turned and looked down over the ash-draped vale. Though the night was still black and the moon already set, Hyam was convinced the dragon saw the valley for what it was, a record of wizardly crime, a place of recent death and woe. What was more, the beast was mightily confused by what it saw. And troubled. The dragon swept over the vale, back and forth a half-dozen times. It chattered to Hyam in that deep drum cadence.
Finally the beast returned Hyam to his sleeping form, then stretched its wings and flew off. As it departed it continued the drumbeat cadence, calling back to Hyam, urging him to forge on.
Hyam knew
he would sleep no more, so he slipped from the bedroll and pulled on his boots. Joelle murmured and sent a hand drifting across the blanket, searching for him, then she quieted and went back to sleep.
Hyam stood there for a time, studying Joelle’s silhouette in the vague pale light. Her dark honeyed hair was pulled back from her neck, revealing a tattoo she had inked herself in the darkest hours of her own hard nights. Hyam would never confess the thought that rose then, not even to the windless dawn. But in such moments as this, when he marveled over the fact that such an amazing woman had gifted him her heart, he knew a vague gratitude over her imprisonment. For Hyam knew that Joelle’s love was an unspoken thanks for his rescue. He had freed her, and she had imprisoned herself again. She had chained herself with a love so fierce it scalded his very soul. Joelle was born to fly, to soar, to hunt upon the winds. He saw this too, when she opened herself to him and revealed the hawk’s fierce intent emblazoned far deeper than the ink embedded in her skin. At such times he felt almost consumed by her love. He had no way of thanking Joelle for the gift, except to do what he did now. Stand amazed and filled to overflowing by the gift of her wings.
He knelt beside Joelle, stroked her face, and kissed the delicate point where her neck met her hairline. She stirred and murmured, “Is it time?”
“Sleep, my love. Sleep.”
“Oh good. I thought it was . . .” Then she drifted away.
He pressed his lips to her ear and breathed, soft as the first hint of breeze on the dawn, “I love you, Joelle. With my heart and my days. I cherish you for all you are and all you are helping me become.”
She rose with a dancer’s grace, gripping her blanket in one hand and his neck with the other. She kissed him, a long and languorous closure. Then she led him barefoot into the soft rustling grass that led to the forest border. When they were hidden away from the camp, she found a space where the moss grew so thick it might have waited centuries for their arrival. Hyam felt the strength of her arms bind them together.
In the days to come, after the world was tilted to an uncommon course, Hyam would often think back to that velvet dawn. And be grateful that he had spoken the words while he still had time.
