by Perrin Briar
“It appears he has managed to get himself caught by our police forces in the town of Crossroads,” Richard said.
Startled, Gregory missed a step and Richard’s end of the plank began to flip up, but Richard was nothing if not fast, and raised his foot by six inches and slammed the plank back down.
“Crossroads?” Gregory said. “However did he get there?”
“We don’t know, but after having been missing for a month he has now surfaced.”
“Tell the authorities there to keep him in a cell and not to engage him. Keep a pair of guards outside his cell door at all times. We can’t afford to let him escape. Is there any word about Jera?”
“Not yet,” Richard said, “although after a few hours’ questioning, I’m sure his tongue will be loosened.”
“You’re right,” Gregory said, “and you’re the one to do it.”
“Me? Why don’t we let those in charge question him?”
“Do we really want someone learning all the secrets Stump knows? We have come too far to risk losing everything now.”
A wide-hipped lady with a tiny umbrella that took up most of the walkway came toward them. Gregory and Richard performed a duet of movement, managing to move around the woman, turn, bow while removing their top hats, and turning back and continuing on with their walk. They came to a set of stone stairs that led down to the harbour. They stopped and faced one another.
“Can you handle all the preparations here by yourself?” Richard said.
“I should think so. They’re only small town folk. They won’t be hard to manage.”
A train of trade carriages with an escort of white uniformed constables came to a stop outside a large warehouse that backed onto the dock. The constables stopped and saluted Gregory who nodded in reply. The thick black sheet that covered the cart was tossed aside and the men began carrying the large crates into the warehouse. No sooner was the cart unloaded than another cart pulled up. A third was turning a corner and approaching.
“I shall leave immediately,” Richard said.
“Good,” Gregory said.
Richard turned to leave, and then hesitated and turned back to his elder brother.
“Brother,” he said, “why did you send for our top scientific minds to administer to the clocktower? It requires a clock maker, not a scientist.”
“Because there’s something about this clock that is not like others. The former clock master here said he was from another place, another time… and all his body parts were metal. We’ve been having these time skips, and he said the clocktower has something to do with it. I realise how this all sounds, but imagine if this clock truly can control time, and we can control it. We could anticipate everything, and our endeavours would always be successful.”
“Fine,” Richard said, “but don’t get distracted by it. Stay focused on our main objective.”
“I shall.”
Gregory clapped his hand on Richard’s shoulder.
“Don’t fail the family, brother,” he said.
“I shan’t,” Richard said.
They embraced, and Richard left.
Gregory descended the stone steps down to the harbour front. He looked out at the dock. He breathed in the salty sea air and let it fill every corner of his lungs. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon. It hung there big and round and bright. The water rippled with tiny dimples, lapping against the hulls of huge war galleons and the tiny hulls of fishing trawlers. Huge cargo ships filled the harbour to either side. Most were inactive, the crew no doubt on shore leave. There were three cargo ships at dock now, being loaded from the large warehouse.
“Excuse me, Lord Ascar?”
Gregory turned to find a fat man with a clipboard and pen. He wore the dark green suit and peak cap of the port master. He pushed his glasses up on his nose with an index finger stained with black ink. Gregory groaned, but forced a smile onto his face.
“Good morning, Port Master Matthews,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to move some of your ships out of the port,” Matthews said.
“There’s lots of space,” Gregory said, waving his hand at the harbour. “I’ll tell you what, if it starts getting busy I’ll move some of my ships out of the harbour, how about that?”
“How will it get busy if your boats are obstructing it? No, I’m sorry but I must insist-”
“Please remember they aren’t my ships, but Lord Wythnos’s,” Gregory said. “A man, I believe, who holds considerable sway over the inhabitants of Time, and soon to be my father-in-law.”
“He does hold sway,” Matthews said, nodding, “but only because he always follows the rules like everyone else.”
Matthews took a dog-eared book out of his front shirt pocket and flipped through the pages. Before he even found the correct page he started to recite from it.
“According to the Charter, rule 27b-1,” he said, “‘No single shipping company may occupy more than ten percent of the total dock space’. You’re taking up over twenty, and it will not stand.”
“But these are not trade vessels,” Gregory said. “They are wedding tribute vessels. My father has sent a large number of items, food, clothes, and other merchandise, to give to the inhabitants of distant cities in celebration of the Ascar-Wythnos wedding. How else do you suggest we get everything on board in time?”
“A systematic approach will solve all problems.”
Gregory’s chin jutted out.
“Are you saying you won’t allow us to celebrate our marriage?” he said.
“No, sir,” Port Master Matthews said. “What I’m saying is, you’re taking up too much dock space and you need to clear it.”
Gregory reached into his pocket and extracted his handkerchief. In doing so, his wallet fell out of his pocket.
“Oops,” Gregory said. “I must try to be less clumsy in future. If anyone were to find it, I’m sure I wouldn’t ever see it again.”
Gregory didn’t make a move to pick it up. Matthews looked down at it, and then back up at Gregory again. Matthews narrowed his eyes. He bent down and picked up the wallet. It was heavy with gold coins. He handed it to Gregory.
“You should be more careful,” Matthews said.
“Indeed.”
Gregory frowned, perplexed by the motives of this strange little man.
“I’m aware of your current difficulties regarding your missing betrothed,” Matthews said, “so I’m going to overlook this little episode and chalk it up to grief. However, you must have the ships removed within the next two hours.”
“And if they’re not moved?”
“The offending vessels will be confiscated and forcibly removed. Good day.”
Chapter Three
The walls down both cliffs were steep and blocked almost all the sunlight from entering the bottom half of the crevice. Nothing grew down there but fear, a fear that the large round boulders at the top of the precipice might fall. Over the centuries they had been fashioned by the wind and rain into bulbous balls perched on thin struts like golf balls on tees.
Footsteps echoed up from the depths, dislodging dust granules from the tee of a boulder and sending them skittering down the cliff side. It was this unusual sound that grabbed the Goleuni’s attention.
He was tall and graceful, with a snake-like neck, arms and legs, his scales the blue-green of mottled seawater, smooth, except where he had taken a blow, or been bitten by another Goleuni’s sharp fangs from a rival tribe, plucked out like chicken feathers.
He moved to the edge of the ravine, clawed hands clutching the boulder, and peered down into the darkness below. He could make out two figures clambering amongst ancient smashed boulders at the bottom of the ravine.
The Goleuni’s thick lips drew back. He hissed, and his forked tongue extended out between his sharp teeth. He pressed his clawed hand against the boulder and began to push.
Chapter Four
“When we get to Rumble Jungle,
what do you suppose we’ll have to do?” Jera said, clambering over a rock that had been snapped in half.
“We won’t know till we get there, I suppose,” Elian said.
He repositioned his hat to keep the build-up of sweat off his forehead.
“It won’t be hard though, will it?” Jera said.
“Based on the skip we experienced, I wouldn’t count on that. We’ll get chased by those strange snake-like creatures, don’t forget.”
“How could I forget?”
Elian hadn’t shaved in a few days. The stubble on his chin gave him a devil-may-care appearance. His clothes were wrinkled and slept in. Jera wore a smart blue dress that was a bit roomy in the hips. She was pretty, but not a beauty. Puca shifted into the guise of a rabbit and hopped with ease over the rubble. Jera looked up at the dark opening at the end of the crevice. Broad leaves and foliage protruded from it.
“Is the entrance to the jungle in the distance ever going to get any closer, do you think?” Jera said. “We’ve been walking for ages and it’s not getting closer.”
“If we keep going we’ll get there eventually.”
“I can’t wait to get out of this crevice,” Jera said. “I don’t like how those boulders up there look, and I get the feeling someone’s watching us.”
“Oh yeah?” Elian said. “Maybe it’s them.”
He pointed to a boulder that had a face carved into it. There were two deep holes for eyes, cloaked in shadow, and a wide mouth like it was screaming.
“That’s very welcoming,” Jera said.
Upon seeing the rock, Puca morphed into his original puca shape, climbed up Jera’s leg and perched on her shoulder. Jera clutched him close, and peered along the cliff edge where there were dozens of the boulder faces lined up, one after the other. They all looked a little different. One had a skeletal nose, another only two front teeth, another was missing an eye.
“Let’s go back,” Jera said.
“The end’s just ahead.”
“I don’t care. I don’t like this.”
“If we don’t go in this way we’ll have to find another way.”
“Another way might not have scary heads.”
“But there might not even be another way in, Jera. And with the Force on our tail, I’d sooner not turn back.”
“Getting captured by the Force has got to be better than getting squashed to death.”
“Speak for yourself,” Elian said. “If they catch me, I’m dead anyway. They’ll welcome you back with open arms. I’m going.”
“Fine,” Jera said, following him. “Just so long as it’s on record that I protested again this.”
The crevice grew narrow. There was no way around the boulders, so they climbed over them. Elian hopped down off a boulder and landed on something that snapped beneath his feet. It was a femur bone poking out from beneath a rock. The arm bones were held up on the boulder as if trying to push it off. Puca curled up in Jera’s hands, shaking like a new born lamb.
“Puca doesn’t like it here either,” Jera said.
“That makes three of us. We’ll be out of here soon.”
“I’ve never been to a jungle before. What’s it like?”
“The same as anywhere else that has an animal under every rock that can kill you.”
“That’s a relief. I thought it was going to be dangerous.”
There was a deep rumbling sound. The ground shook, and loose stones on the steep cliff sides shifted and slid down into the crevice.
“Do you suppose that’s the rumble from the Rumble Jungle?” Elian said.
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Jera pointed a shaky finger up at a crevice wall. A huge boulder, its carved face turning end over end like it was rolling its eyes with a serious case of exasperation, headed straight for them. Jera and Elian dashed forward, tripping on loose rocks, and hit the ground. The rumbling grew louder. Jera pulled up her legs, drawing them to her chest. The rock rolled past, missing her by inches.
“That was close,” Jera said.
“It’s about to get even closer,” Elian said. “Look!”
The rock that had almost squashed them rose up the opposite side of the crevice, reached its apex, and then began to descend back down toward them.
“Run!” Elian said.
Elian and Jera got up and ran deeper into the crevice. There was another deep rumble as another boulder rolled down the crevice wall – one from the left, the other from the right. Elian and Jera sped forward, slipping past them as the rocks met in the middle and smashed together, stopping them dead in their tracks. Another rumble grew deeper and louder as it bore down on them. Jera grabbed Elian’s jacket and pulled him back.
“No!” Jera said. “Wait!”
Elian felt the wake of the boulder as it slammed into the ground at his feet. It skimmed across a nest of rocky outcrop, disrupting its murderous rampage and came to a stop. The boulder stood upright.
Elian stared into the empty eye sockets. They seemed to convey a deep sadness, of a forgotten injustice lost to the sands of time.
Elian and Jera ran through the remaining open ground and into the darkness of the jungle beyond. Somewhere, Elian thought he heard a hiss of frustration.
Chapter Five
“That was bad luck, wasn’t it?” Jera said, placing Puca on her shoulder so she could brush the dirt from her dress. “Back there in the crevice, I mean. Just think how many hundreds of years those rocks have been sitting there, poised and ready to fall, and then they fall at the exact moment we walked through.”
“I don’t think they fell,” Elian said, shaking his head and releasing a cloud of dust. “Not by accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think they were pushed.”
Jera’s expression turned ashen. Then she broke into a smile.
“You’re joking,” she said. “Why would anyone do that?”
Elian shrugged.
“Maybe they don’t want us to come here,” he said. “Although I’d have thought they’d be a bit more hospitable considering we’re here to save them all.”
“But they don’t know that. They might just be scared.”
“Scared? What have they got to be scared about? Puca?”
Puca had his back leg up high in the air, busy grooming himself.
“I’m the one who’s scared!” Elian said. “This was a bad idea. Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
“How can we get out of here?” Jera said. “They’re probably waiting for us. If we try to get around the rocks in the crevice they’ll just kill us.”
“You’ve changed your tune! A few minutes ago it was you saying we should get out of here!”
“That was when we could have. Now it’s too late, and, like a typical man, you want to do the impossible.”
“Wait,” Elian said, holding up a hand. “Do you feel that?”
Tiny pebbles on the ground jittered toward one another as if they were magnetic. They kissed, moved apart, and then touched again. Then they juddered with greater ferocity, shaking in place. They danced and moved away from each other.
“Uh, Jera…” Elian said.
“I don’t know,” Jera said in response to his unasked question. “I have no idea. I don’t see any boulders.”
Giant broad leaves fell from the trees’ upper boughs. Jera moved to one side. Elian was too slow and it struck him over the head. There was a deep grumbling, like the entire jungle was angry. Jera moved to a tree and hugged it. Puca dashed inside Jera’s top, forming a lump on her chest. Elian stumbled back and tripped, landing between tree roots jutting up from the ground. Elian looked up to see the birds take flight, hovering over the jungle canopy to avoid the worst of the quake. After a few minutes the shaking reduced and the jungle became still again.
“At least now we know why it’s called Rumble Jungle,” Elian said.
“Indeed,” Jera said.
Elian tried to stand, but he
was jammed between the tree roots and couldn’t get his arms free.
“Can you give me a hand up?” he said.
Jera approached him.
“Hey,” Elian said. “Will you look at that.”
He pointed to a tree. Brightly coloured birds sat with confidence on high branches and called into the wild, most getting heated responses.
“It’s a bird,” Jera said. “So what?”
She grabbed Elian’s hand and pulled him out between the tree roots.
“No, not the bird,” Elian said. “What the bird’s standing on.”
Jera peered closer. Vines wrapped tight around the tree, covering it from branch to root, not showing any part of the tree’s bark. It would eventually strangle the tree to death, she knew. She turned to Elian to say, “So what?” when she noticed something out the corner of her eye.
Unlike the other trees smothered with vines, which leaned over in the grip of death, one stood upright, as if unperturbed by the doom wrapped around it in deadly embrace. It was a single trunk with a single branch that stretched out at a ninety degree angle. In the centre of the branch was an empty circle with a triangular protuberance pointing into the centre.
“This must be the entrance to the old city,” Jera said. “It’s covered in vines, that’s all. Visitors would be welcomed into the city here. We’re standing at the entrance to the City of Goleuni! Can you believe it?”
“One problem,” Elian said. “There is no city. It’s all jungle.”
“Of course it is. The city was destroyed over two hundred years ago.”
“What! And you were going to tell me this when?”
“I didn’t think I needed to. Everyone learns it at school.”
“I didn’t go to school.”
“Oh. Then I’ll tell you the story. Two hundred years ago, during a time when science was just beginning to take its first baby steps-”
“Spare me the arty farty world building stuff. Just give me the facts.”
