Aster Wood series Box Set

by J B Cantwell

  “Now, here in the Triaden, a few hundred years back things were looking pretty bleak. The plants were all dyin’, people were hungry. The weather started doing some pretty strange things. We’d have hot sunny days during the winter months and snow during the summers. Right as the farmers would sit back to watch the baby sprouts start to raise up out of the ground, the snows would come and kill all the new growth. Some places had horrible droughts that lasted decades and drove the people from the lands. Some had torrential rains that turned the land to mush and drowned whole towns while they slept. People were scared.”

  I gulped and forced a large mouthful of stew down my throat. I had heard a story just like this before, but it was back in history class. That story, of course, had been about Earth.

  “But the problem went much deeper than just the weather,” he went on. “The sickness was affecting the people, too. Not all common folk know this, but the people were gettin’ as sick as the planets.”

  I stared at him, transfixed. The dog whined at my half-eaten bowl of stew.

  “Some died. Some of ‘em went mad. Some turned real nasty almost overnight. There was a sort of a shift in the feeling of the place. People went from being good neighbors to shuttering themselves inside every night. Ya just didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Did everyone get sick?” I breathed.

  “No, that was the thing. The sickness didn’t kill or change everyone, but everyone felt the effects of it just the same. That’s why Almara and the eight were so spooked. He was the high seer, ruled over the council of eight. They all kept court at Riverstone, the great castle in the far western lands on Aria. They were Sorcerers, all of ‘em, the biggest congregation of magical blood in a thousand years. But none of ‘em knew where to start. It wasn’t like they could just shout up at the sky and make it stop snowing. Nobody even understood what was happening. That was their quest, to discover the truth about why everything had gone haywire. And then figure out how to fix it. After a time, word got back to my folks that they were heading for the Fire Mountains. But no word ever came again. A few years after that, things started changing. The snows stopped coming so often. The suns in the winter clouded over like they should. The fruit started falling from the trees again.”

  “What about the people?” I asked. “Did they get better, too?”

  “A bit, I suppose.” He sipped at his tea, thinking. “Nobody knows what happened to Almara and the eight. Some say they died. Some say they found the magic they were looking for and set everything right. And it’s true; things are better now. But they never returned.”

  “But of course they must have died,” I argued, “if they lived hundreds of years ago.”

  “Not likely,” he answered. “A man with power as great as Almara, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still trekkin’ about. A talented wizard can live hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”

  He set down his mug and prodded the fire with the metal stick. “It makes me wonder, though, why you’re chasing Almara. Especially since nobody’s trained you up. And all the way from Earth, too.”

  “I’m not chasing anyone. I found this, well, this map in my Grandmother’s house. And I looked at it and read it out loud. And next thing I knew I was lying in grass, which is odd because on Earth there isn’t—”

  He choked on a sip of tea and stood up abruptly from his chair, his eyes wide.

  “Boy!” he exclaimed. “You must have found Almara’s first link!”

  “What?”

  “The map!” he bellowed. “I figured you found some old link of Brendan’s or something, came here by accident, but what you’re describing ain’t no ordinary link, and it ain’t no ordinary map. It was one of Almara’s. So you really are meant to follow him!” His face broke into a wide, relieved smile. “I was beginning to think that the maps were lost forever.”

  “Wait, what’s a ‘link’?”

  “It’s the connection between planets. It’s how you got here. And before Almara set out, he made a set of links for his son Brendan to follow. But these weren’t just links, they were maps, too. Whoever used ‘em could jump from place to place and follow the quest. The maps didn’t have nothin’ on ‘em when Almara left, but as he traveled they filled themselves in, keeping a record of where he went. Not just anyone could get their hands on the first one, it’s locked by a powerful magic, but you did.”

  “His son Brendan?” This conversation was quickly spiraling out of control, and a note of panic crept into my voice, the temporary comfort of the warm bed forgotten. “Look, I’ve never heard of Almara. He’s not part of my family, and I’m not looking for him. This is just a mistake. I think I should just go back home and—”

  “Listen, whether you know it or not, Almara is your ancestor. I guess, then, that whatever power Brendan had must have been passed down to you. It ain’t no mistake, believe me. You finding Almara’s map means that you’re destined to follow him. Though it doesn’t explain why Brendan didn’t come back, himself…”

  His eyes scanned the room and fell on the parchment I had found in the attic.

  “Ah!” he said and, crossing the floor, picked up the crumpled page from the chair next to the bed. “This was next to ya on the ground last night when I found ya. It’s the map, you say? Here, I’ll show you what I mean.” Then he stopped and stood still as a statue, his mouth wide with surprise.

  “Gold,” he breathed. He ran his fingers across the symbol at the top of the page.

  “Yeah, so what?” I said, too irritated to care about the look of wonder on his face. His wide eyes looked into mine, but only briefly before they were drawn back down to the page like a magnet.

  “Ain’t never seen gold,” he said.

  “You’ve never seen gold?” Gold was valuable on Earth, but still relatively common. I remembered the tangled ball of necklaces from back in the attic, carelessly tossed into a box.

  “Heard of it, of course,” he said. “Can’t make an interplanetary link without it.” He tore his gaze from the page and held it out to me. “This is here.”

  “It is?” I asked, reaching for the paper.

  “Look!” He brought the map over to the other side of the bed.

  He was right. On the parchment a detailed representation of the very room we were in had appeared, erasing the marks from the night before. And right in the center was that single, glowing ring of gold.

  “I can’t believe this is finally happening,” he murmured.

  I had had enough. Sickening twists of my stomach, magical inking maps, relatives from other planets. I slumped back into the bed and put the pillow over my head. This couldn’t be real.

  He was tugging at the ends of the pillow, but I fought to keep it over my face.

  “Boy, you’d better come to terms with this. Whether you like it or not, you’ll be questing to find Almara.” But I won the pillow battle and he stopped trying to take it. I felt him sit on the edge of the bed, and I could hear his muffled voice through the feathers.

  “When I was a boy, my father taught me all about Almara. About the quest, about the eight, everything I just told you. But when I got older he shared our family secret with me, the reason why we lived out here in the fields, waiting. It was the duty of my family to wait for Brendan Wood to return, and to help him along his way to get back to his father.”

  I peeked out from behind the pillow.

  “Now,” he continued, “you’re tellin’ me that Brendan Wood is long dead, that you’re his descendant, and that this map is the thing that brought you here. That means that you are the one meant to find Almara. You are the one who needs to find the other links and catch up with him. You are the one I’ve been waiting for all these years.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said stubbornly. “I’m from Earth, not Aerit. My great great grandfather Brendan Wood was from Earth.”

  Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

  He shook his head sadly, and the look on his face filled my stomach with lead. I didn’t know
if this was real, everything that was happening to me, but if it was, who was to say that he wasn’t telling me the truth? Was I really descended from this other world I was now walking around in?

  While I thought about this possibility, he stood up and began shuffling around the room, rummaging through papers and trinkets. From the shelf above the counter in the corner he took down several glass jars. They reminded me of Mom’s spice rack back in our apartment, but these held leaves and twigs that looked nothing like her basil.

  I sat up and swung my legs around the side of the bed. My socked feet found the wood floor and I walked over to the table.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Gotta get you ready to go,” he said.

  “I can’t go anywhere,” I argued miserably. “I’m sick.”

  He stopped his shuffling and looked me up and down.

  “You don’t look sick.” He retrieved a large, battered book from underneath the bed and heaved it onto the table.

  “Well,” I argued, “I am sick. Too sick to be following the trail of some lost sorcerer on some other planet. I need a doctor.”

  “Ha! You ain’t gonna find a doctor around here.” He began leafing through the tissue thin pages. “Anyways, you look fine to me.” He wasn’t even looking at me.

  “But,” I argued, “if I keep going like this I could have another cardiac episode and die. I can’t go on some quest. I can’t do anything.” I slumped back onto the edge of the bed.

  “Well, that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard! You have to go! Ain’t no one else gonna be able to find ‘em. It’s your job and your birthright.” A glint of mischief crossed his eyes, just for a moment. Then he looked back down at the book and said, “Besides, I don’t expect you have much of a choice. How were you planning to get home, anyways?”

  I studied the dark grooves in the floorboards. “Can’t you send me back? If you know so much about this traveling stuff, then you should be able—”

  “HA!” he laughed. “I can plot links, kid, but not links so far as Earth. If I tried to send you back you’d end up in deep, dark space more likely than not. Earth is unstable, out on the far reaches of the Fold. It’s constantly moving. No, you need a master cartographer to get you home. I mean, well, I done a spell or two in my day, and I’m a talent to be reckoned with when it comes to growing food and, you know, some other…essentials. But I ain’t got power like that.” He continued to read, his attention flitting between me and the book.

  “Well, how am I supposed to get back home then?”

  “The only way you’re gettin’ home is to find Almara. Sounds like you ain’t got a choice but to move on, don’t it? And it’s my job to get you closer to him.”

  “But I can’t move on, don’t you get it?” I said. “Even if I were related to Almara, I can’t keep running around like this. I’ll fall down dead before I ever find him.”

  “Hogwash!” he boomed. “Besides,” he peered down at me, “that stew wasn’t just plain stew. I knew you were in trouble when I dragged you in here last night. Worked a bit of my own magic over the pot before I let you slurp any of it up.”

  “You…drugged me?”

  “What? Nah! I gave you the medicine you needed to recover. And now you’re just fine, ain’t ya?”

  I stood there, partly angry, and partly curious. I did feel better, loads better, than I had yesterday. Here I was, standing, arguing with the old man. My heart rate had stabilized, and my chest didn’t feel tight with the panic of the previous day.

  “Well,” I said, “I guess I feel alright. But, you know, I really shouldn’t be going anywhere until I’ve—”

  “You’ll be goin’ whether you think you should or not,” he said. “If you want my help to get you to the next link, then you gotta do your part. You sure do argue a lot for a Wood.”

  He turned his back on me and rummaged around a bit more. Then his hunting stopped. “Yeah,” he said, “I ain’t got the acorns.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Ignoring my question, he grabbed a piece of parchment from under a stack of books on the table, retrieved a long feather quill and began to scribble on the paper. “You need to go…here.” He had drawn a rough map on the page, and pointed his finger now at a large X off to one side.

  I looked over his shoulder at the drawing.

  “What’s there?”

  “The largest oak in spittin’ distance. You need to go get me as many acorns as you can carry.”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I got real work to do, boy. You’ll see when you get back.”

  He finished writing, then walked to the door and picked up a large, woven basket that was fashioned to be slung on a man’s back.

  “Here,” he said, “put this on.”

  I hesitated to do as he said. My eyes peered through the small window that looked out over the garden. The afternoon sun shone on the vegetables out front.

  “I don’t know,” I began.

  “Kid,” he said, “do you want me to help you or not?”

  I did want him to help me. But I also wanted to stay alive.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Get over here, then.”

  I trudged over and he roughly strapped the enormous basket to my back. It was lighter than it looked, but awkward to wear, and I stumbled to the side as the back end of the thing stuck out, throwing me off balance. Then he stuffed the parchment in my hand. “This’ll get ya around the place, I expect.”

  I looked at the paper skeptically.

  “Gather every acorn you see or can get to; we need just the right one. When the basket’s full, you come on back. I got things need tending to around here before you can get movin’ on the next jump.”

  “But, wait, you know where I’m supposed to go next?” I asked.

  “You just worry about what I tell ya to, and I’ll worry about gettin’ ya on the trail. Alright?” He stood back and put his hands on his hips, clearly not interested in any answer but the one he wanted.

  I nodded, feeling dejected.

  “You’re sure I’ll be ok?” I asked. My hands folded over my chest protectively.

  I swear he practically threw me out the front door as he said, “Be back my sundown. Got it?” And he slammed the door in my face.

  Chapter 4

  I stared at the front door, trying to decide what to do. A little window was set at eye level on the wood. As I studied it in a daze, the door to the peephole opened and Kiron shouted through it.

  “Get out of here, boy!” He closed it with a snap, and I could hear him mumbling in irritation on the other side of the entry.

  This guy was crazy, no doubt about it. Here I was on some alien world, a world Kiron thought had produced my ancestor. Crazy. But as I looked up at the sky, a strange teal-blue, a tiny finger of doubt scratched at my brain. What if I was the one who was crazy? Or, at least, what if I was wrong?

  I turned and walked down the front steps, where I found my boots. Sitting, I laced them up and stared around at the tiny homestead.

  A large vegetable garden grew directly in front of the house. Surrounding it was a tall, mesh fence, but no plastic like at Grandma’s. The rains must be safe here, then. I remembered Kiron’s story about how the weather had returned to normal after Almara set out. But a lifetime of avoiding toxic rain had me looking skyward, and I was relieved that not a single cloud floated in the sky above.

  To the side of the house was a chicken coop made from an assortment of leftover pieces of wood. Five fat hens clucked their way around the yard, scratching and digging, and one enormous rooster kept watch over his girls. I had never seen a chicken up close before; farmed chicken and fish were the only foods that were grown outside the city and trucked in. I took a couple of curious steps in their direction. The rooster immediately puffed up his feathers and ran straight for me. Surprised, I simply stood there and watched him bear down upon me. He squawked and bit at the leather of my boots, the to
ughness of which I was quite thankful for at the moment. It would have been funny, but he wouldn’t stop coming for me, and I felt strangely alarmed at this small, vicious animal. I flailed my legs as he attacked, trying to get him to let go of my pant leg, but in the end he successfully chased me from the place outright.

  I swear I heard muffled laughing from inside the house.

  Once the rooster was convinced that I was far enough away from his brood, he stood and regarded me, blocking the path as I turned to look back. He allowed me scant moments to take in the little dwelling. The building was made entirely of stone save for a thatched roof. A wisp of white smoke curled up out of the chimney. Behind it a thick pine forest stretched out for miles. The adults back in the cities would long to see a place like this, to stay here, away from the cement forests at home. They would remember the feeling of green all around, of living things shooting up from the ground. But to me, this was the stuff of fantasy, a lost history never to be witnessed again.

  How was this happening?

  Quick as a flash, the rooster lost his patience with my delay. He screeched and thrashed at my clothing and fingertips until I was well down the path away from the little farm.

  My heartbeat slowed from the flight down the trail as I walked. Usually when I overexerted myself, the squeezing in my chest would linger for days, sometimes from something as simple as walking up a flight of stairs. But here, the pain had all but vanished.

  The technical term for my illness was Ventricular Septal Defect. Oxygen had trouble making it to the parts of my body where it was needed, leaving me weak and short of breath a lot of the time. The surgery I had to close the hole when I was five was partially successful, partially not. The hole had closed for a time and it looked like I might be home free, but then gradually it began to open again. Mom and I had talked about more surgery with the doctors back in fifth grade, but they were concerned that my heart might be so weak that I wouldn’t survive the stress of anesthesia.

  I wondered if Kiron was right, and if I really was well enough to be hiking along this strange countryside. I would take it slow, I told myself, just in case.