The Beginning

by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  He scrutinized the map for a few moments, then handed it back. “Why didn’t you bring the other map?”

  “I was in a hurry when I packed. I grabbed this one without reading it closely,” Jahrra lied again, trying hard not to sound irritated. She had purposely brought the map written in Kruelt. She could read just enough of it to know where they were going without enlightening her companions.

  Scede was glaring down at her suspiciously.

  “Look,” Jahrra said, “we’ve made it this far without getting lost, the map isn’t totally worthless. The worst that can happen is we’ll get to this canyon place and there’ll be nothing there. If that happens we can just turn around and come back the way we came. Sound good to you?”

  Jahrra looked at Scede with raised eyebrows, and then she looked over at his sister. Gieaun was splayed out on the blanket, using her arms to prop herself up. She seemed to be reveling in the coolness of the shade and the satisfaction of a full stomach.

  “Sounds alright to me,” she answered. “She’s right, Scede. We’ve followed the map easily so far; why not check this place out? If it were unsafe there would be something drawn to warn us off, right? And Jahrra said Master Hroombra told her that the symbol meant it was a good place to visit. You need to stop acting so suspicious. Jahrra isn’t up to anything.”

  Jahrra cringed inwardly and lowered her eyes. Scede simply nodded and sat down next to his sister, his face dark in skeptical contemplation.

  The three friends stayed within the grove for another half hour. They then returned to the spring to fill up their canteens once more and to retrieve their horses, dousing themselves in the cool water before leaving. The sun was now blazing hotter than ever, and Jahrra only hoped that they would have enough water to last them until they reached the canyon. She breathed a sigh of relief as Gieaun and Scede led the group southward. So far she had managed to trick her friends into following her, but she was also aware that they still had several miles of travel left and Scede could uncover her secret plans at any moment.

  The final length of the trip took a bit longer than Jahrra had anticipated, the heat of early afternoon as real and daunting as fire. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede slowed their horses to a steady walk as Jahrra checked the map. Below the symbol marking the entrance to the canyon was the familiar fan-shaped wash with a dark entry way painted in.

  “This must be the mouth of the canyon,” she said, showing the image to Gieaun. “We must be close.”

  Jahrra squinted and shaded her eyes from the blazing sun, looking into the distance, trying to spot the canyon’s entrance. Just as she felt she could take the heat no longer, she saw it, about a mile off. Stretching for leagues upon leagues in front of them, the bronze foothills met the flat, sun-seared lowlands in an almost perfect conjunction. Jahrra could just make out a small, irregularity against the smooth curve of the hills in the distance. She knew that this had to be the entrance to Ehnnit Canyon. She pulled Phrym out of his slow walk, causing him to start and snort irritably. He had had his head down and was concentrating on blocking out the swelter. Stopping only meant standing in the sun even longer. Jahrra reached back into her pack and fumbled for her spyglass.

  “What’s the hold up?” questioned Scede.

  “I think we may be nearly there. See that wash spreading from the hills in the distance, just to the east?” Jahrra held the spyglass up to her eye with one hand and pointed with the other.

  Scede and Gieaun held their hands to their eyes and they too squinted to make out the landmark.

  “Here, the map shows it.” Jahrra pointed to the spot on the map and moved to hand it over to Gieaun, but something stopped her short. She hadn’t seen it before while they were resting in the shade. The writing was faded and was now just visible in the light. Above the fan wash on the map were a multitude of Draggish words.

  Jahrra narrowed her eyes and concentrated very hard, doing her best to translate what words she could read: Ressehn epit edth Oehm Ceyvhe, cloess edth findell epit rissen desset dodthe hrechteh . . . Illiehs yhndth worrghe veieh mommreh drothe. Chirehm litt boisciehn, heileh dohedth kitthe. Savior of the Olden Race, at the end of this path you trace . . . Truth and danger may lie here. Beyond this point, embrace your fear.

  That much Kruelt Jahrra understood, and after deciphering it, she shivered, despite the scorching heat. She now remembered writing these words in, but that was long before she knew any Draggish, and she had never asked Hroombra what it had meant before.

  “What is it?” asked Gieaun, urging Aimhe closer.

  “Nothing. Thought I might have been mistaken for a moment, but this must be it,” Jahrra recovered quickly, expertly moving her thumb over the words while still exposing the silt pile below the mouth of the canyon.

  Gieaun glanced at the map sleepily, not thinking for once that her friend might be trying to deceive her. All that she cared about was getting out of the glare of the sun for awhile.

  “That has to be it,” Jahrra insisted. “If that isn’t it, I say we turn around and camp out where we stopped for lunch.”

  Gieaun and Jahrra both looked up at Scede with questioning eyes.

  “Alright,” he said indifferently, wiping away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead.

  The horses picked up the pace, straining against their fatigue to reach the canyon’s base. Finally they reached the great pile of stones that betrayed the entrance to Ehnnit Canyon. The travelers slowed the horses to a stop and glanced up at a massive stone arch, standing against the afternoon sun like a brave knight facing down the fiery breath of a dragon. Jahrra’s face fell and her stomach dropped when she saw what was carved into the thick stone entrance to the canyon. She braved a glance at Gieaun and Scede, sitting silently on Bhun and Aimhe, looking up at the Draggish symbols etched deep into the arch.

  “What on Ethoes could that say?” Scede said aloud, a confounded look gripping his face.

  “I don’t know, probably some gibberish someone wrote long ago,” Jahrra said, shrugging her shoulders.

  “What about that?” Gieaun asked in a quavering voice, her finger pointed rigidly towards the gaping mouth of the canyon. Jahrra looked up at the arch once more, her heart threatening to stop beating. She had seen the Kruelt warning, but she had missed the words written in the common language just below. Painted in a panicked, scraggly fashion were the black words: Beware this canyon.

  Scede spoke aloud as he read them, and then he glared over at Jahrra. Don’t panic, she thought as his eyes shot daggers at her. As far as Scede knows, I had no idea this canyon might be dangerous.

  “Jahrra,” the calm, controlled tone made her even more nervous, “did you know about this, this warning?”

  Jahrra looked up and tried to appear as innocent as possible. Scede’s face was slightly red, and she convinced herself it was the result of being in the sun too long, not the side effect of anger.

  “No, I didn’t, how could I know? I’ve never been here before, and the symbols on my map are in some strange language.”

  Jahrra floundered with her answer, but for once she was glad that Hroombra had insisted she not teach her friends the dragons’ tongue.

  “Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me you just so happened to want to go on a long camping trip, you just so happened to want to travel south, and you just so happened to notice this neat little canyon that might be interesting to visit!?” Scede spat, his voice slowly rising to a shrill hiss over his barrage of questions.

  Jahrra had rarely seen Scede so angry, and she attributed most of it to the influence the heat was having on him.

  “Scede, calm down, Jahrra didn’t know that this place was dangerous, you saw the map!” Gieaun said, sounding slightly perplexed. “It just shows an unmarked canyon, remember?”

  Scede led Bhun over to where Jahrra and Phrym stood.

  “Give me the map,” he demanded blankly, thrusting his hand out in expectation.

  Jahrra knew that he would now see the other words in Kruel
t, and she feared his anger and suspicion would only grow. Yet, refusing him would only make matters worse. She reluctantly held out the map, flinching when Scede snatched it away from her. He hastily opened it, spreading it across the back of Bhun’s neck so he could read it in the full sunlight. He looked it over for a few moments and then thrust it out in Gieaun’s direction.

  Gieaun looked confused, and when she didn’t take it right away he barked, “Look!”

  He was pointing directly at the Draggish words on the map. Then he turned to Jahrra, his green-brown eyes looking like a forest consumed by a wildfire.

  “I know you know what that says. Hroombra has taught you!”

  Jahrra gaped in astonishment. She had never, ever mentioned anything about the secret language she’d struggled with for the past several years to either Gieaun or Scede. However, when the shock of his statement passed and she truly thought about it, she wasn’t all that surprised. Almost everything Hroombra owned had Draggish characters inked upon it. Scede was only right to think that he would teach their meaning to Jahrra.

  Gieaun brought Aimhe closer, all the while looking at Jahrra in a suspicious and disturbed manner. “Is it true?” she asked her friend feebly. “Do you know what that writing says?”

  Jahrra took a deep breath and dropped her eyes, choosing her words carefully.

  “I honestly didn’t see that until we got into the sunlight, and I don’t know what all of it says.” she half-lied. She continued on, improvising where she needed to, “I can only make out the words “canyon” and “truth”. The rest I don’t know.”

  Jahrra hoped this part-truth was good enough for her suspecting friends.

  “But Master Hroombra taught you, I know it!” Scede breathed heatedly.

  Jahrra shot Scede a poisonous glance and murmured, “Just because he’s teaching me doesn’t mean I’m any good at learning it!”

  “Jahrra, how could you?” Gieaun cried. “Why did you lie to us? Why did you really bring us here?”

  Jahrra was crestfallen to see that Gieaun had suddenly lost trust in her too. It’s your own fault, her conscience reminded her. You did lie to them after all.

  Before she could answer Gieaun’s question, Scede cut in.

  “I know this place now,” he said in a low, harsh voice. “This is Ehnnit Canyon, the one we were told about as children. The very place that leads into the mountains where the Crimson King’s men fear to go, the same place that is said to be the home of a monster far more terrifying than any boarlaque or goblin, or swamp witch. This place is cursed and haunted, and Jahrra has led us here.”

  Scede’s voice was an eerie monotone and despite the heat, Jahrra felt goose bumps prickling her arms. Scede looked very angry, and Jahrra now knew that it wasn’t the sun’s heat causing his anger, but her own stubbornness and deliberate dishonesty.

  As she sat burning under the glare of the sun and the scorn of her friends, Jahrra allowed her emotions to sort themselves out. She felt that all too-familiar pang of guilt surging up inside of her. She’d been utterly unfair to them, but she also felt a burning need to follow through with her promise to Denaeh. Besides, she had come this far already, hadn’t she? They couldn’t turn back now, not without looking for the apple tree Denaeh had told her about. Jahrra’s conscience was chastising her for being so selfish, but with some effort, she managed to ignore it.

  “Jahrra! Why did you bring us here?” Gieaun said again, a little more forcefully this time.

  “I didn’t know about the words on the arch until just a few minutes ago when we looked at the map again,” Jahrra insisted. “I swear. I couldn’t see the faded writing in the shade at the grove!”

  Jahrra looked desperately between her two friends. Gieaun’s eyes told Jahrra that she wanted to believe her, but her brother’s eyes were stony and untrusting.

  “Why are we really here Jahrra?” Scede’s calm question was sudden and cold and Jahrra felt all of her efforts to hide the truth slowly melt away.

  “What do you mean?” she tried to recover. “We’re here because we wanted to take a camping trip.”

  “No, that’s your cover up story,” Scede pressed. “Why are we really here? This whole trip was planned by you, and we’re just the unsuspecting pawns in your little game. You have a reason to be in this very place, to be here at the entrance to Ehnnit Canyon, and it’s not because it looked like an interesting place to visit. You knew how to get here, someone told you how. Who was it? Was it Eydeth, or was it Ellysian? Was it another stupid dare that you felt you just had to take?”

  Jahrra was taken aback at the disdainful spite that seasoned Scede’s speech.

  “No, it wasn’t a dare,” she answered automatically.

  “Then what?” Scede’s frustration was building, and Phrym moved nervously under Jahrra’s tense weight.

  “Jahrra,” it was Gieaun who spoke next, sounding calmer than before, “just tell us why we’re here, you owe us that much.”

  Jahrra took a deep breath, looking first at Gieaun and then back at Scede. When she spoke it was in a low voice, her eyes glued to the parched earth below them, “Denaeh asked me to get something for her, something from this canyon.”

  She risked a glance at her friends, frightened of what she might read from their expressions. Gieaun still had that look of disappointment on her face, but Scede’s expression, if possible, had grown angrier.

  “What?!” he hissed. “We wasted two days’ travel in blazing heat to do a favor for that old want-to-be-seer?!”

  “Hey!” Jahrra snapped. “She is not a want-to-be-seer, she’s a Mystic! You are just angry because I led you out here unknowingly!”

  The moment the words tumbled from her mouth, Jahrra knew she shouldn’t have spoken them.

  Scede, now a horrible shade of red, looked absolutely livid.

  “That old bag has you wrapped around her finger!” he growled. “You would do anything for her, just look where you are right now! You’re at the foot of a canyon that no one we know has ever visited; a canyon where people go and never come back. She wants you to go into this canyon, you, a fourteen-year-old girl, to fetch something for her. It had better be some great treasure or the key to eternal life. Don’t you see? She’s just using you Jahrra, using you to get what she wants.”

  Scede’s angry words poured from his mouth like ash spewing from a volcano. Bhun, sensing his master’s agitation, began stepping nervously beneath him.

  “How dare you?!” Jahrra breathed, yanking back on Phrym’s reins in her anger. “You’re just jealous because she sees potential in me!”

  Jahrra knew this was a weak response, but it was the only way to dull the sting of Scede’s words. She had never before been on the receiving end of Scede’s wrath, and now that she was, she found it to be very painful.

  “Jealous! Are you kidding me? You should take a good look at yourself. You would do anything to fit in, wouldn’t you? Especially with someone older and wiser like Denaeh. Do you think if she likes you that it won’t matter that no one else in our class does?”

  Scede had lost control of his temper long ago, and it was only getting worse, “You’re lucky to have us as friends! Imagine how we’d be treated now if we had ignored you that first day of school! Do you think Ellysian and Eydeth would be treating us as outcasts too? Why don’t you think about someone other than yourself for once!”

  “Scede!” Gieaun gasped in horror. “Stop it right now! You know none of that is true!”

  Jahrra blinked back the burning tears that had been forming in her eyes. She was shocked, angry, humiliated and hurt, but what hurt the most was that it was all true. She gathered her tangled nerves and tried not to let her emotions show.

  With a raw voice she said, “If that is how you see it, I’m sorry. But I made a promise to a friend of mine that I would try to get what she needed, and I’m going into that canyon with or without you.”

  Jahrra shot a vicious glare at the two siblings and kicked Phrym towards the incli
ne that led up to the great stone arch, looming overhead like the cavernous mouth of a great beast waiting to swallow her whole.

  “Jahrra! Don’t be ridiculous!” Gieaun shouted frantically after her. “Scede is just suffering from heat exhaustion, plus he’s a stupid boy! He didn’t mean it!”

  Jahrra heard Aimhe trot up beside her and Phrym, but she was determined to look straight ahead. Her tears had subsided and now she was running on pure fury. Fury aimed mostly at her own stupid, selfish actions. She was finally seeing the situation from her friends’ point of view and Scede was absolutely right. She had only been thinking about herself and how best to please Denaeh. She’d used her friends horribly and was ashamed of herself, but she was too proud to admit it. Jahrra turned her head away from Gieaun and clicked Phrym onward.

  “Jahrra! Stop! This is madness, you can’t go in there!” Gieaun sounded slightly out of breath.

  “It’s alright Gieaun, Scede is right. I shouldn’t have deceived you two. I’ll go on alone; you don’t have to come.”

  “Jahrra! That canyon is evil! Didn’t you hear what Scede said? I remember those stories too!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous; those stories aren’t even half true,” Jahrra said angrily. “That’s why they’re stories. Adults tell them to us just to scare us so we won’t get lost in the wilderness. We’re old enough to find our own way now. I’m sure there are no monsters to capture us and eat us alive. Remember the hag that was supposed to live in the Belloughs of the Black Swamp? Remember what that came to? And the lake monster? This is the same exact thing.”

  Jahrra continued leading Phrym toward the base of the canyon mouth as Gieaun reluctantly fell back. Phrym climbed the steep incline of the rock pile, pushing many of the loosely piled stones noisily down the slope. As each small boulder clattered down the fan wash, the racket of the falling rocks seemed to echo off the dome of awkward silence that had enveloped the three friends. Jahrra tried not to let her anger at Scede’s words overwhelm her, but the long journey and hot sun only grated at her temper. She fumed inwardly, determined to defy him and his sister. Yes, she had lied. Yes, she was being selfish. But now she had a task to complete, and focusing on that task would distract her from the hurtful words that had been traded today.