by Rob Scott
There was something the old man was holding back, though. They had been staying with him since Churn had carried him out of the Middle Fork Tavern. Hannah shuddered as she recalled Alen’s wailing plea to let him die. Hoyt had tried to make light of the situation, telling him, ‘If I looked and smelled like you, old man, I would want to die, too.’
But they had realised it was more serious when Alen had replied desperately, ‘No, you don’t understand: he won’t let me die.’
‘Who won’t?’ Hoyt asked, worried now. ‘You have to help me understand, Alen. Tell me what’s happened.’
‘Of course you don’t understand. You don’t have any family,’ Alen growled, suddenly angry. ‘But he won’t let me go. He won’t let me die, the mad stinking rutter. I lost my Jer. It finally happened. My baby.’
‘Your son?’ Hoyt asked, ‘what happened?’
‘My grandson. My last grandson. He died. That’s the end of me, the end of my family. There may be children of cousins somewhere, but they don’t count. My babies are all gone.’
‘What happened? Was there a plague or something? How did they die?’
‘Old age… but they were my babies.’
Hannah tugged at Hoyt’s sleeve. ‘What’s he talking about? He’s drunk as a very drunk skunk; we’ll not get anything sensible out of him until he’s sobered up. Let’s just put him to bed – or better, burn his clothes and then put him to bed.’
Hoyt agreed, but when he tried to tell Alen what they were doing, the old man surprised him by lashing out, crying, ‘Don’t call me that! My name is Kantu. Call me Kantu!’ He gripped Hoyt by the ankle.
‘All right… Kantu.’ Hoyt kneeled beside him and smiled in an effort to calm him down. ‘Let’s back up. Why do you want to die?’
‘My Jer died.’
‘When?’
‘What Twinmoon is it?’
The old man had obviously been out of it for a while. Hoyt swore quietly. ‘It’s just past mid-autumn.’
‘Last summer; so, twelve Twinmoons ago… give or take.’ Alen waved his hand back and forth to imply an estimation, and Hannah was momentarily comforted by something so simple and familiar. ‘That’s when I started drinking.’
Hoyt tried not to sound surprised. ‘So you’ve been drinking for twelve Twinmoons?’
Again the gesture. ‘Give or take.’
‘A year and a half,’ Hannah whispered to no one and shook her head in awe.
‘ Every day?’
‘I think so.’ He released Hoyt’s ankle. ‘It’s good to see you, boy, one last time.’
‘You said someone won’t let you die.’ Hoyt took the bony hand in his own.
‘The stinking rutting horsecock,’ Alen agreed.
‘Who?’ he tried again, ‘ who won’t let you die? And why?’
‘Lessek.’
‘Who’s Lessek?’ Hannah ventured softly, not wanting to interrupt the conversation, even though her hope was waning with each unintelligible remark.
Hoyt looked at Churn, who shrugged and shook his head. Without looking at her, Hoyt answered, ‘A magician, a scholar, a sorcerer, a legend. Our history talks of Lessek, but that was many, many Twinmoons ago – many generations ago. I think he was supposed to be the founder of a famous research university in Gorsk, the Larion Senate.’
Alen nodded. ‘He did.’
‘But the Larion Senate hasn’t been around for more than a thousand Twinmoons,’ he continued.
‘Give or take,’ Alen added, and this time Churn waved his own hand back and forth, mimicking the gesture.
Alen had had enough of the conversation. Still holding Hoyt’s hand, he fell backwards onto the floor, muttering, ‘It is good to see you again, though, my boy, even in these sad circumstances. And someday, when you have your own children, you’ll understand. I wasn’t supposed to live this long. None of us were. So you go now, Hoyt. Take your friends and leave me here.’ His head rolled limply to one side.
Dropping the old man’s hand, Hoyt moved to stand next to Hannah.
‘That’s him?’ She failed to control the tremor in her voice. ‘That’s the one man who can get me back home? Him? We walked for – for I can’t remember how long, to get here to meet this – this disgusting, drunken sot, because he is the best Eldarn has to offer? This wino, this stinking pile of horseshit? He’s my only hope? ’ With each word her voice rose until she was shouting.
Hoyt pursed his lips and gave a half-shrug. ‘He wasn’t always-’
‘Wasn’t always what?’ Hannah felt the tears come, tears of fury, and decided not to fight them. It was a fine time to cry, stuck here in a world that shouldn’t even exist, weeks and miles away from the grove where she’d entered this dreadful place. It was a perfect time to cry. ‘Wasn’t always what, Hoyt? A foul-smelling, babbling idiot with fungus growing on his clothes?’ She kicked at one of Alen’s outstretched feet. ‘Ah, shit, Hoyt… shit.’ With that, the tears came on in earnest and she sank to the floor, sobbing unrelentingly.
‘What? What did you say?’ Alen sat up suddenly; he appeared determined to bring the room and its occupants into focus, if only for a moment.
Somewhat surprised, Hannah forcibly swallowed a sob and looked down on him. ‘I said you were a drunk, a dirty, smelly, grumpy old drunk.’
‘No, no, after that.’
Irritated, Hannah went on, ‘I don’t know what the f-’ She stopped, bemused. ‘You speak English. That was English, just now.’
‘And you said “shit”. I heard you.’
She looked at Hoyt and Churn. ‘What is this? How does he speak English? Where did he learn English?’
Hoyt took Hannah’s arm. ‘Hannah, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
Ignoring him, she kneeled beside Alen. ‘Where did you learn English?’
Obviously still quite drunk, Alen joked, ‘In a place where nice young girls don’t say “shit”.’
Grinding her teeth together, Hannah reached out and grabbed his cloak. Pulling him up, she spat, ‘Don’t fuck with me, old man. I have had just about enough of this godforsaken place. Now, where did you learn my language?’
Something moist trickled between Hannah’s fingers and left a trail of dull orange across her knuckles.
‘In England,’ Alen slurred matter-of-factly. ‘And you, I suppose you learned somewhere in America, right?’
‘South Denver,’ Hannah whispered, and let him go. ‘South Denver, Colorado, where I was born. In the United States of America. My world.’
She turned to Hoyt. ‘All right. You have my attention.’
‘I’m sorry, Hannah, but we don’t speak this tongue.’ Hoyt and Churn had not understood a word.
She switched back to Pragan. ‘Sorry.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m sorry for what I said. It looks like you were right.’ She rubbed her hands together nervously. ‘This was the right place to start.’ Despite his pitiful appearance and his rancid smell, Alen had changed. He had moved slightly, shifting his entire being in a way Hannah couldn’t even begin to describe, but whatever he had done, he was suddenly a different person, a more confident person, merely draped in the carnage of eighteen months of drunkenness.
Alen tugged at the hem of Churn’s leggings and, suddenly polite, requested, ‘Churn, old man. Please take me outside to the trough. Dunk my head beneath the water repeatedly for half an aven, or until I throw up and start crying for my mother. Will you do that?’
A grin split Churn’s face. Hannah guessed he would set about his task with enthusiasm.
‘I need to wake up a bit. We have a great deal to discuss, young lady. I will be back momentarily. Please make yourselves comfortable.’
THE CAVERN
For the next twelve days the travellers aboard the Capina Fair lived and ate well. Although they never spoke of the wraith attack, Mark and Brynne grew strong once again, and any sign they had ever been invaded by the spirits soon faded. Similarly, Garec and Steven quickly recovered from
their ordeal at the hand of the homicidal river creature. The staff had saved them both from drowning, and there appeared to be no other lasting physical effects of the attack. Garec swore he would never venture near water again: he would find Renna, return to Estrad and remain comfortably dry among the rolling hills of the forbidden forest for the rest of his days.
Brynne reminded him he was still spending the better part of every day and most nights aboard a raft in the middle of a river, which was decidedly wet.
‘Okay then, after this trip, I’m never going back in the water.’
‘So, you’ll never bathe?’ she teased.
‘Not often, no, and never in water deeper than my ankles,’ Garec shot back.
‘Imagine the stench.’
‘That’s fine,’ he joked, ‘I suppose I won’t have many friends, but then again, I won’t have strangely dressed foreigners dropping through the Fold, or thousand-Twinmoon-old sorcerers dragging me off on wild adventures in which invisible psychic creatures try to drown me before adding my body to their makeshift underwater sculptures, either.’
Steven chuckled and corrected him. ‘I think you mean psychotic,’ he said with a grin. The English words sounded strange, but sometimes there was no local equivalent. In spite of his smile Steven didn’t feel much like laughing. As they poled the Capina Fair downstream, he found himself periodically struck by bouts of insecurity and depression. The others noticed the gloominess that took hold of him whenever he considered the now-familiar length of hickory. Its failure to free them from the river’s grasp was the first time the magic had fallen short of Steven’s needs: the Seron, the grettan, the wraiths – even the almor – they’d fallen easily beneath its apparently endless reserves of power.
Now Steven was worried: he could no longer rely on the hickory staff. The magic might fail again, and next time the dwindling company might not be so lucky. He felt responsible for the others’ survival, and the magic’s failure on the riverbed sent his confidence reeling: what would happen when they came up against the enormous military and magical force awaiting them on the shore of the Ravenian Sea?
Grimacing, he tried to thrust the problem from his mind, telling himself he had never understood how the staff’s magic worked anyway, so he had no right to question or complain if it began to fade now. It had saved their lives several times, so he should just be grateful.
It wasn’t working. He wanted to have the staff’s power with him, to wrap himself in the sense of security it brought him. Defeating the wraith army had given him a sense of invincibility, a self-confidence he had never before experienced; at that moment he had been sure no force in Eldarn could stand against him. He supposed he was lucky that he and Garec had survived their first encounter with a power strong enough to render the staff useless.
Try as he might to push it away, there was something else troubling Steven. He had wielded a power greater than anything he could ever have imagined, and he liked it. He wanted it with him always – and he was certain it wanted him, that it had chosen him that evening in the foothills of the Blackstone Mountains. He was sure it had responded to his needs because it understood that compassion was right: terror and hatred had ruled Eldarn for generations, and the land was teetering on the brink of collapse. Compassion and caring, brotherhood and a sense of unity and understanding could save this beautiful, strange land; Steven was sure of it.
He could feel a memory of the magic, tingling through his arms and legs, as if the staff had read his mind and was responding to his reflections, encouraging him to believe that he was its rightful wielder, and that all would be well if he remained true. The desire to test it grew within him for a moment, but Steven forced the need back within the confines of his mind. It settled there, among his darkest desires, in a place he was certain everyone had but no one discussed: a cordoned-off section of himself where all his ugliest thoughts were trapped: the desire to feel the thrill of robbing a liquor store at gunpoint, to be a voyeur, to have desperate intercourse with a complete stranger, or to crash through mind-numbing rush-hour traffic and watch as rude commuters burned in a fiery conflagration – all lay sublimated in this do-not-enter region of his consciousness. They would be joined now by the desire to wield the world’s most powerful force, to consume it and become indestructible, confident and powerful – and, most of all, free from fear.
Steven fought his almost overwhelming need to embrace the magic, to let it take him and make him into the instrument of Nerak’s destruction. That might be his eventual end, but until he knew that for certain, he would keep it at arm’s length. He didn’t understand the magic, and after his failure on the river bottom he knew he couldn’t always control it, but it was there, lurking patiently until it was needed.
He felt the power run along his forearms and out into his fingertips, prickly and stinging; it flickered briefly and then faded. All at once he was less-than-himself again.
The journey downstream from Meyers’ Vale through the rolling hills of southern Falkan had been marked by good weather, unlimited fresh fish, wild fruits and nuts, and even a large game bird Garec had brought down, a gansel; it tasted not unlike turkey to the Coloradoans, but Garec’s uncontrollable bellowing laughter when they named it in English was enough to convince them to abandon any further comparisons.
It was too late: throughout the following day, Garec continued trying out the word, as if he were going to perform for an audience. ‘Turkey, tur-key, turk-ey,’ he repeated over and over again, trying different inflections until Brynne was ready to throw him into the river herself. ‘What a strange language you speak. I’m amazed you can understand one another at all.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard,’ Mark said, ‘and other times, we drink.’
‘That always makes communication easier.’
‘No, only sometimes,’ Brynne chimed in.
‘Yes, but those are the best times,’ Garec stated firmly.
‘Listen!’ Steven interrupted.
‘That helps too,’ Garec agreed, ‘but so few of us are any good at it.’
‘No, no,’ Steven chided, ‘ listen.’
As they ceased chattering, they could hear the sound of the river had changed. Ahead in the distance, they could hear a low, grating, hollow roar, as if warning travellers to come no further. The sound, although unfamiliar, was somehow unmistakable: they all understood in a moment that they were fast approaching a stretch of white water, maybe even just beyond the next bend.
Suddenly serious, Garec regained his wits and ordered, ‘Everyone tie down the packs. Use the centre loops.’ He moved to secure his bow and quivers.
‘I thought the centre loops were for us,’ Mark asked. ‘Where will we be?’
‘Here.’ Garec motioned towards the four outer loops, loose coils of rope forming handholds in each corner of the Capina Fair’s upper deck. ‘We’ll be here, holding fast-’ He paused, then continued, ‘Maybe even tied fast, while we pole ourselves away from rocks or dangerous shallows along the way.’
‘Out near the edge? Have you lost your mind?’ Brynne scolded. ‘We should stay here in the middle and hang on to these coils. We’ll be safer.’
‘I wish we could,’ Garec answered, ‘but listen, do you hear that? That roar?’ Again he paused. ‘That’s not just a few rapids; that’s powerfully rough water. There will be rocks large enough to ruin us, not just to capsize good old Capina, but to smash her to splinters.’
‘He’s right,’ Mark agreed tying down his pack, ‘and Steven, you shouldn’t pole with that staff. If it gets torn from your hands as we go we’re stuffed. We’d never find it again.’
Steven hesitated an instant before securing the length of hickory between two packs in the centre of the raft. This left him without a pole, but he gripped the fourth corner line anyway. ‘So I’m just along for the ride.’
‘Be grateful, lad: you’re at least forty-four inches tall, otherwise, my friend, you’d have to sit this one out.’ Garec and Brynne looked at Mark quizzically,
but Steven laughed.
Steven felt the familiar pang of insecurity ripple through his stomach and fought the urge to hold the staff close through the coming ordeal.
As the Capina Fair rounded the next bend, Garec exhaled sharply, then stood upright and stared disbelievingly into the distance. ‘Great demonspawn,’ he cried, ‘it’s a rutting canyon!’
It was a canyon, a narrow gorge just a few raft-widths wide, carved deep into the bedrock over countless Ages. The deep water of the river was squeezed into the inadequate space with the force of a cavalry charge. Rocky bluffs loomed above and save for a few stunted pine trees, all they could see in either direction were the towering cliffs and the boisterously turbulent water. The bright hues of Falkan’s countryside faded quickly; their world became stark black granite and foaming white water.
The Capina Fair slammed into the first of thousands of rocky outcroppings awaiting them and they knew they had only one choice: navigate well, or drown.
Throughout the day their sturdy craft was battered and buffeted fiercely by the brute force of the rapids. Back and forth across they jounced, over rocks, down short waterfalls, and in and out of swirling eddies, with no rest for the drenched and weary travellers.
After a while Steven motioned to Brynne and she tossed him her pole. The constant thrusting and jabbing that was necessary to keep them from being run aground or, worse, broken apart on the rocks was exhausting. Brynne collapsed on their packs, looping her arms through the coils of rope that secured their belongings to the deck. With his first few thrusts Steven realised all they had was the illusion of control over the Capina Fair’ s trajectory downstream. At any moment the river might decide it had had enough of being poked with sharp, pointed sticks and cast them effortlessly into the granite wall of the canyon.
Still they fought on.
After a brief rest, Brynne spelled Garec, then Garec relieved Mark, and they fell into a pattern. Despite the incessant pounding, the Capina Fair held together well. Steven and Garec grinned at each other briefly, proud of what they’d built.
