The Hickory Staff e-1

by Rob Scott

  Hannah made another self-conscious adjustment before going on, ‘So, until it stops raining or until I get to a town where I can acquire something more appropriate and throw mine away, I have to resort to rolling my shoulders and tugging a bit at the front of this deplorably hot and itchy tunic you provided me to stop it clinging in such a revealing fashion. So, if that means you have to spin a tale about travelling with two palseated lunatics instead of one, then I suggest you get creative, my friend.’

  At that Churn bellowed, a curious belly-laugh that sounded both joyous and somehow tragic, a fanfare blown through a broken tuba.

  ‘Fine,’ Hoyt gave up and started laughing himself. ‘You deal with your- er, “figure”, and I will come up with a convincing story as to why I’m travelling with a woman whose “figure” is so very pointed in the rain!’

  Hannah finally chuckled too, despite her fear that something as stupid and embarrassing as her underwear might get them caught. Then she changed the subject and asked, ‘Tell me more about Alen Jasper.’

  Hoyt was happy to comply; he too was blushing by now and the pair of them looked like twin victims of mild heatstroke. ‘Alen. He’s an interesting man. I’ve known him since I was young; I guess I know him as well as anyone. He taught me to read when I was a boy – that might not sound like much, but I was never very good at getting myself to school and without him, I probably would be illiterate; I certainly wouldn’t know anything about healing and medicine.’

  ‘Is he a doctor as well?’

  ‘No.’ Hoyt searched for an explanation. ‘When Prince Marek came to power, what, almost a thousand Twinmoons ago-’ He stopped as Hannah looked confused and started again. ‘When Marek took over, let’s say five or six generations ago, he closed all the universities, and over time, the idea of studying to be a doctor was lost. These days our healers all learn through oral tradition. We don’t officially call ourselves doctors, because we still have a sense of what doctors used to be. I’ve learned more than many, but even I don’t have nearly the education they did before the Grayslip family collapsed.’

  ‘That’s a tragedy. How can a ruler have let his land get so debased?’

  ‘I have no idea, but there isn’t much I can do about it now. Even if we could get the universities open again, we don’t have any practising doctors, proper doctors, to re-create the teaching programmes.’ He kicked a thick wad of mud off the toe of one boot. ‘There isn’t anyone left alive who knows what we need to learn.’

  ‘How did you learn?’

  ‘Alen helped.’ Hoyt gestured for Churn to turn around, then reached into the bigger man’s pack and withdrew a wineskin. ‘He taught me a great deal himself, but more importantly, he gave me books and told me where to find more.’

  ‘Are books that scarce?’

  ‘Apart from those we study in school, they’re very rare. I would probably be hanged for a full Twinmoon if anyone found the books I have stashed outside Southport.’

  Hannah’s head swam. It was all too much to believe – what kind of place was this? What kind of person was Prince Marek – how could anyone condone such a brutally narrow-minded policy? ‘How did Mr Jasper get so many medical books if he isn’t a doctor?’ she asked.

  ‘Alen,’ Hoyt corrected her. ‘That’s a great question, because the books he gave me are old. They’re jammed full of medical knowledge and procedures, and they’re eight hundred, maybe nine hundred Twinmoons old. None of them came off any underground or outlaw presses operating in Praga today.’ Hoyt took a drink and passed the skin to Hannah. ‘My guess is that he somehow found a way into an old university library and stole the books.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound so outrageous.’

  ‘Well, it is when you think that all our university libraries were razed to the ground when Marek came to power.’

  ‘They must have missed one.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Marek to me.’ Hoyt was doubtful. ‘But anyway, after Alen gave me the initial collection, he told me where to find more, all over Praga, hidden in dilapidated buildings, forest cottages, cabins along the seashore, all kinds of places. And can you guess what I discovered?’

  ‘They were all old?’

  ‘Right.’ Hoyt retrieved the skin and passed it back to Churn, who drank nearly half of what was left before corking it and stuffing it back in his pack. ‘They were all old texts, not illegally printed books or manuscripts from the Pragan underground, but rather, all vintage stuff. Medical journals and leather-bound treatises.’

  Hannah was looking forward to meeting Alen with growing anticipation. ‘Sounds intriguing. Did you ever ask him where they came from?’

  ‘I did and he told me he once worked in education and public health. I don’t know if that explains anything, but that was all he’d tell me.’

  ‘All right, regardless, go back to Mr- to Alen. Tell me about him. Why do you think he will know how to get me home?’ Hannah had already realised the strange tapestry rolled out on Steven’s floor at 147 Tenth Street must have been responsible for her improbable arrival on the hilltop outside Praga. Why was a different matter entirely.

  ‘On that you have to trust me,’ Hoyt said matter-of-factly. ‘If there is anyone in Praga who can get you back to Denvercolorado, it’s Alen Jasper. The breadth of his knowledge is colossal. I have yet to find something he doesn’t know or can’t speak to first hand – it’s as if he’s somehow lived everywhere and experienced everything. He will deny it, but I have seen him work actual magic. Only mild spells, mind you, playful tricks he learned as a child.’

  Hannah had heard and challenged the notion of magic so many times since the trio began travelling together that she didn’t even bother to argue with Hoyt this time. He spoke of impossibilities with such nonchalance that Hannah thought perhaps the word meant something slightly different in Eldarn – although given the uncommon way she had arrived in Southport, by way of Steven’s living room, the strength of her initial disbelief was beginning to wane. ‘When is the last time you saw him?’ she asked.

  ‘It must be fifteen, maybe seventeen Twinmoons ago. Churn and I haven’t been this far north in a while. Things along the south coast were good for us for a long time and we decided to stay on there.’

  ‘Does Alen not travel to Southport?’

  ‘I have never known him to be anywhere but Middle Fork.’ Hoyt stopped suddenly and turned to face Churn. ‘I’ve never thought of it before, but it’s true. I have never known Alen to leave Middle Fork. I wonder why.’

  ‘Is it much further now?’

  ‘No,’ he said, signing briefly to Churn, who nodded and answered with a turn of his wrist. ‘Maybe two or three days. It depends on the weather.’

  Hannah had seen nothing in Praga so far that made her feel confident anyone here had the means, mystical or otherwise, to send her back to Colorado. The land, people and culture were so archaic, almost mediaeval; it would almost have to be something supernatural to get her back to a reality she recognised, something able to manipulate the gears, locks and switches of this impossible place and all its impossible characteristics.

  What had happened still staggered her, still made her shake her head in disbelief and pinch herself and cry out, ‘Wake up, silly. This isn’t real.’ Yet here she was, slogging through thick mud, undoubtedly alive, undoubtedly awake, undoubtedly lucid, travelling through a fantasy land that shouldn’t exist but did, in search of the one man who might be able to offer both an explanation and help.

  The road wound its way over gently rolling hills, always heading north and Hannah imagined herself taking in her surroundings as the first settlers might have as they rolled into Virginia or Massachusetts. The landscape was green, the torrid green she had seen in films of rain forests or jungles. The grasses and rushes of the meadows, cloaked in a humid mist, gave way to the foliage of the forest underbrush, dense in spite of the interwoven canopy of leaves and vines. Shafts of sunlight intermittently broke through and lit the brush beneath the towering tree
s.

  It was beautiful, and pristine. The endless green was dotted with patches of the grey-white fog. Stuffed far too full to rain, the clouds came to rest for a moment on the soft meadow grass, where Hannah imagined they dissipated into ten thousand miles of dew. And everywhere she looked, the land itself cried out that this place was alive and this place was dangerous.

  Hannah wiped rain and tears from her cheeks and stared north along the muddy path, wishing she could find something familiar, anything, that might help her feel it was wise to maintain hope. Although her eyes rested for a moment on the mud-splattered mangy dog trotting past them, the sight of a stray wolfhound wandering along the road did not register as curious with the anxious young foreigner.

  THE NORTHERN SLOPES

  Eight days after sketching their rudimentary map inside Garec’s saddlebags, the company faced their first snowstorm, which began as a light dusting. The delicate snowfall reminded Steven of winter mornings waiting at the bus stop or playing with friends in the schoolyard. He welcomed the first flakes as a momentary trip home; as it coloured his hair and newly grown whiskers white, he mentally tallied how long he and Mark had been gone and the number of shopping days left to Christmas. He imagined his family would be struggling to maintain any semblance of normality or holiday spirit; he had no idea if they would be able to celebrate despite his unexplained absence. His mother would worry most, but she would also be the one making the greatest effort to help the others relax and enjoy the season. He saw her in his mind’s eye, apron-clad and scurrying from the kitchen to the living room, her face modulating between despair and encouragement as she carried tray after tray of home-baked cookies and pastries back and forth. ‘Remember that time when-’ she would call above the din each time she crossed the threshold, hoping to start up another two-minute conversation to keep everyone’s mind off where Steven had gone, or if he were even still alive. That’s how she would handle it. She would pass the holidays in two-minute increments as the oven roared on at 375 degrees for three weeks without pause, its insulated aluminium maw the one-way entrance to her own personal hell. He wished he could get some word to her that he was fine – well, granted, he was fleeing an occupation army and an array of homicidal demons, heading for the most dangerous place in Eldarn, but right now, here in the falling snow, he was fine. He wiped the flakes and tears from his eyelashes, gripped the hickory staff and continued trudging towards the tree line.

  They had spent days working their way north, using the mountains’ physical characteristics in place of a compass, assigning nicknames for easy memory. Over the first two days they had moved between Flat Nose and Kneecap while always keeping the southern face of Turtleneck directly in front of them. Passing through a valley the friends called Broad Belly, they had climbed Dog Tooth to the tree line before turning east towards Chubby Rump.

  Each night they had camped within the tree line. Winter was fast approaching, so each day without snow was a bonus. Sallax was a wellspring of determination, pushing them onwards. No one knew when the first storms would blow down from Falkan, and a sense of urgency permeated each day.

  Their first night in the mountains had taught them a valuable lesson; exposure to the altitude and elements had already sapped their strength and left them dangerously vulnerable. Now Sallax and Gilmour demanded they move into the relative protection of the forest each night before darkness made the footing uncertain.

  Mark taught them how to cross a glacier, and how to remain vigilant for crevasses and areas of thin ice unsupported from below. Their progress had been slow but steady: in eight days they had navigated three high-altitude passes and two long valleys.

  Reaching the highest point of their fourth mountain pass, Steven peered south. He felt encouraged by the distance they had covered, until he looked ahead. Even making adjustments to their map he was beginning to feel certain the Blackstone range would stretch ahead for ever.

  ‘Eight days to get this far,’ he muttered as he closed his coat against the wind. ‘We have at least another twenty – and that’s just what I can see from up here.’

  ‘We need a string of days in which we don’t climb,’ Mark agreed. ‘We’re pushing the limits of what we can handle already and it’s getting colder all the time.’

  Steven pointed northeast towards an open tract of still-green valley. It looked as though the gods who assembled the Blackstones had forgotten a thin patch, or maybe they wanted a flat stretch for a foothold among the jagged peaks. ‘Look there, beyond those meadows. If we clear that pass tomorrow, we might be able to drop behind that range and run northwest along the valley for seven or eight days. It might be a hundred miles through there.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Mark said. ‘I’m sure there’ll be some exposed areas along that valley floor, but at least we won’t be at altitude, or risking getting stuck out here overnight.’

  ‘And in a valley that long, we’re certain to find water.’

  ‘All right.’ He turned to the others. ‘My friends, it appears we can get away without climbing for a few days.’

  ‘Thank all the gods of the Northern Forest,’ Garec said, tightening the bandage supporting his swollen knee.

  ‘But we do have to cross this next valley tomorrow and clear that pass the following day,’ Steven said as he pointed towards the range of cruel peaks awaiting them in the distance. ‘With that done, the going should get easier.’

  They reached the tree line by early evening, and Gilmour suggested they continue moving down into the hollow vale before the snow accumulated. ‘We’ll have better footing now,’ he explained. ‘We should push on until it is too dark to see.’

  ‘Let’s keep moving then,’ Steven encouraged.

  ‘Wait here a few moments,’ Garec said, ‘then follow me down. I’ll see if I can find us some dinner.’ He slid the rosewood longbow from his shoulder, drew an arrow and sidled quietly into the trees.

  An aven later, Garec stoked the fire and rotated a large chunk of meat one-half turn above the flames. He had killed a large boar with one shot through the neck; he could have felled another, but didn’t believe he and his friends would be able to carry so much meat over the pass. They were having problems enough with what possessions they had. And if tonight were any indication, he expected to find rich hunting grounds and ample game in the valley just beyond the next ridge.

  As the snow continued to fall the travellers found shelter in a grove of evergreen trees. The aroma of pine and cooking meat mixed in the fresh mountain air, nearly making Steven swoon. The idyllic setting made him grin despite his exhaustion.

  ‘Garec, that smells so good, I might need to you to go out and kill another just for me,’ he said as he inhaled deeply, savouring the scents.

  ‘I’m sorry we’re out of wine,’ Garec answered, adding redundantly, ‘It would taste much better with a skin or two.’

  While Garec cooked, the others made camp. Sallax hung their cloaks and blankets near the fire, hoping to dry as much as possible. Keeping dry was as important as eating well; Sallax was determined to make it through the remaining mountain pass in as much comfort as possible. He motioned for Garec to unwrap his damaged knee and hung the makeshift bandage near the flames. He was worried about his friend and vowed that he would carry Garec over the next rise if necessary.

  Sallax turned to listen as Gilmour and Mark pored over the map sketched inside Garec’s saddlebag. Their breath clouded, then dissipated in the frigid air; Sallax imagined two ancient dragons facing one another, their nostrils a smoky warning of incipient firestorm. Then Gilmour exhaled and the cloud hung in the air, a diaphanous mist floating between the two men. Strangely, it did not fade, or disappear on the breeze. When Mark’s breath joined it, the cloud began to take shape: buttons first, then a shirt, a leather belt. Startled, Sallax drew his rapier and shouted, ‘Rutting lords, it’s the wraith!’

  Mark stood, looking about anxiously, and demanded, ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Right there, right in front of yo
u.’ Sallax approached, holding his rapier like a lecturer’s pointer.

  Seeing the misty apparition take shape before him, Mark fell backwards into the snow. Gilmour stood slowly and, inches from the mysterious intruder, reached out one hand and felt his fingers pass through the old banker’s gossamer torso. ‘Sallax, stay there,’ he ordered, firm but calm. ‘It’s all right. He’s not here to harm us.’

  Steven rose to join the others. ‘Can you feel it, Gilmour?’

  The old sorcerer waved his hand back and forth through the wraith, but if his violation irked the ghostly visitor, it showed no sign. ‘It’s cold,’ he told them. ‘Much colder than the air.’

  ‘What does it want?’ Brynne asked. She put down the bundle of firewood she had been collecting and edged closer to Mark.

  ‘It’s taking news of our position back to Malagon,’ Sallax answered. ‘You said we were being followed. This thing has been in contact with Malagon since we left Estrad. That’s why Lessek warned Garec about them. That’s why Malagon has been able to send the almor, the Seron and the grettans out for us. Steven Taylor, use that staff, kill it like you killed the almor.’

  Steven looked at Gilmour, but before the old man could respond, the wraith lifted one translucent arm and pointed at Sallax.

  ‘What?’ the angry Ronan asked defiantly. ‘What is it? I’m right, aren’t I? You’re here spying on us, you horsecock.’

  They stood, almost frozen, waiting to see how the wraith would respond to Sallax’s anger. Gilmour realised his hand was still extended inside the spirit visitor and quickly retracted it. Around them the forest was deathly quiet, save for the falling snow and the crackling fire. Slowly, the former bank teller lowered its arm and floated across the camp to face Steven. Its features came slowly into focus and Steven clearly recognised the man from the lobby display case. As before, the wraith tried to communicate, moving its lips exaggeratedly, but before it could complete its first words, Sallax was moving.