Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

by Obert Skye

  Clover tisked affectionately. “That’s my little human.”

  Geth smiled at Clover. “Keep trying.”

  The fire sang softly and the windows dimmed nicely as Leven experienced his first dream in a place where there was nothing but.

  Glossary

  Who’s Who in Foo

  Leven Thumps

  Leven is fourteen years old and is the grandson of Hector Thumps, the builder of the gateway. Lev originally knows nothing of Foo or of his heritage. He eventually discovers he is an offing who can see and manipulate the future. Lev's brown eyes burn gold whenever his gift kicks in.

  Winter Frore

  Winter is thirteen, with white-blonde hair and deep evergreen eyes. Her pale skin and willowy clothes give her the appearance of a shy spirit. Like Sabine, she is a nit and has the ability to freeze whatever she wishes. She was born in Foo, but her thoughts and memories of her previous life are gone. Winter struggles just to figure out what her purpose is.

  Geth

  Geth has existed for hundreds of years. In Foo he was one of the strongest and most respected beings. Geth is the head token of the Council of Wonder and the heir to the throne of Foo. Eternally optimistic, Geth is also the most outspoken against the wishes of Sabine. To silence Geth, Sabine trapped Geth's soul in the seed of a fantrum tree and left him for the birds. Fate rescued Geth, and in the dying hands of his loyal friend, Antsel, he was taken through the gateway, out of Foo, and planted in reality. Geth is one of the few beings who knows the location of the gateway.

  Sabine (suh-bine)

  Sabine is the darkest and most selfish being in Foo. Snatched from reality at the age of nine, he is now a nit with the ability to freeze whatever he wishes. Sabine thirsts to know the location of the gateway because he believes if he can move freely between Foo and reality he can rule them both. So evil and selfish are his desires that the very shadows he casts seek to flee him, giving him the ability to send his dark castoffs down through the dreams of men so he can view and mess with reality.

  Antsel

  Antsel is a member of the Council of Wonder. He is aged and fiercely devoted to the philosophy of Foo and to preserving the dreams of men. He is Geth's greatest supporter and a nit. Snatched from reality many years ago, he is deeply loyal to the council and has the ability to see perfectly underground.

  Clover Ernest

  Clover is a sycophant from Foo assigned to look after Leven. He is about twelve inches tall and furry all over except for his face, knees, and elbows. He wears a shimmering robe that renders him completely invisible if the hood is up. He is incredibly curious and mischievous to a fault. His previous burn was Antsel.

  Jamoon

  Jamoon is a Sabine's right-hand man as well as a rant. Being a rant, half of his body is unstable, transformed continually into the form of the dreams being entertained by humans. He is totally obedient to Sabine's wishes. Jamoon believes Sabine’s promise that if he and his kind can get into reality, the rant's unusual condition will be healed.

  Hector Thumps

  Hector Thumps is Leven's grandfather and the creator of the gateway. When fate snatched him into Foo, he fought to find a way back to the girl he loved in reality. His quest nearly drove him mad.

  Amelia Thumps

  Amelia is old. She is the woman Hector Thumps married after he returned to Foo a second time. She is Leven's grandmother and lives between Morfit and the Fundrals of Foo. She is the protector of the gateway to Foo.

  The Order of Things

  Cogs

  Cogs are the ungifted offspring of nits. They possess no great single talent, yet they can manipulate and enhance dreams.

  Lithens

  Lithens were the original dwellers of Foo. Placed in the realm by fate they have always been there. They are committed to the sacred task of preserving the true Foo. Lithens live and travel by fate, and they fear almost nothing. They are honest and believed to be incorruptible. Geth is a lithen.

  Nits

  Niteons, or nits as they are referred to, are humans who were once on earth and were brought to Foo by fate. Nits are the working class of Foo. They are the most stable and best dream enhancers. They are given a powerful gift soon after they arrive in Foo. A number of nits can control fire or water or ice. Some can see in the pitch dark or walk through walls and rock. Some can levitate and change shape. Nits are usually loyal and honest. Both Winter Frore and Sabine are nits.

  Offings

  Offings are rare and powerful. Unlike others who might be given only one gift, offings can see and manipulate the future as well as learn other gifts. Offings are the most trusted confidants of the Want. Leven Thumps is an offing.

  Rants

  Rants are nit offspring that are born with too little character to successfully manipulate dreams. They are constantly in a state of instability and chaos. As dreams catch them, half of their bodies become the image and imagination of what someone in reality is dreaming at the moment. Rants are usually dressed in long robes to hide their odd and unstable forms. Jamoon is a rant.

  Sycophants (sick-o-funts)

  Sycophants are assigned to those who accidentally step into Foo. They are there to help those who come in adjust and understand. Their entire lives are spent serving their assignments, who are called their burns. There is only one way for sycophants to die, but nobody aside from the sycophants know what that is.

  The Want

  The Want is the virtually unseen but constantly felt sage of Foo. He lives on the island of Lith and can see every dream that comes in. He is prophetic and a bit mad from all the visions he has had.

  Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret

  Visit us at leventhumps.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Skye, Obert.

  Leven Thumps and the whispered secret / Obert Skye ; [illustrations, Ben Sowards].

  p. cm.

  Summary: While Leven, Winter, and sidekicks Geth and Clover battle

  fantastical creatures in Foo, contrary forces in Reality plan to reconstruct the

  destroyed gateway between the mythical Foo and their own land.

  ISBN-10 1-59038-490-3 (hardbound : alk. paper)

  ISBN-13 978-1-59038-490-9 (hardbound : alk. paper)

  eISBN 1-60641-673-1 (eletronic)

  [1. Fantasy.] I. Sowards, Ben, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.S62877Lew 2006

  [Fic]—dc22 2005035572

  Printed in the United States of America

  R. R. Donnelley and Sons, Crawfordsville, IN

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To the few who let me fall and then

  offered me a way of redeeming myself.

  May my words help the cause.

  Prologue

  Taking Charge

  Jamoon stood still, as stiff as a petrified plank in the dead of winter, the blood in his veins pulsing slowly. The air inside the cave felt brittle, like paper-thin glass that the slightest movement would crack and split. He closed his gray right eye and exhaled slowly, his frosty breath forming a foggy wreath around his robed head. In his right hand he held a long, wooden kilve, a weapon that harnessed power from dreams. He looked about but could see little in the darkness of the rocky cavern.

  Still, Jamoon waited. He inhaled deeply, drawing the frozen fog back into his lungs.

  “It’s been hours,” Jamoon complained. “Many hours.”

  Sabine and his shadows had left long ago to visit Amelia and to try to find the gateway. Jamoon had been ordered to remain in the cave and wait. He shifted from leg to leg and muttered to himself.

  “Always second,” he grumbled.

  A Lore Coil had rippled over Jamoon hours before, filling his head with images and information. The explosion that had destroyed the gateway into Foo had created the Lore Coil—a wave of noise and images that radiated outward, traveling across Foo, feeding bits of information to anything it passed over. When the coil reached the borders of Foo, it would rebound and reverberat
e back to its epicenter, the clarity of its information weakening with each diminishing wave. Most inhabitants of Foo would not consciously perceive anything after the second pass—except for the Sochemists of Morfit, who spent their days listening for coils and debating the meaning of the information that continued to ripple across Foo.

  Jamoon had detected the new Lore Coil on its first pass. He had heard the coil chattering about Leven Thumps, and Jamoon had seen an image of Winter. Jamoon had known Winter from before, and even though she appeared somewhat different in the static waves of the coil, there was no mistaking her green eyes. The coil had also spoken of Amelia Thumps and how she was now harboring Geth. The ripples of the Lore Coil hadn’t clearly shown Geth’s condition, but they seemed to indicate that he had somehow become small and vulnerable. Jamoon scowled, his half-heart filled with anger and fury. The hatred Sabine had felt for Geth was equally strong with Jamoon.

  Jamoon had heard the waves of the Lore Coil exposing Leven’s condition, whispering that Leven and his band of friends had become susceptible to death. Leven had cheated fate by slipping into Foo through the gateway. Because of that, he could be killed.

  That was good news. Unlike so many others who couldn’t be killed in Foo, Leven, Winter, and Geth were vulnerable and could be eliminated.

  “Foolish child,” Jamoon said aloud, thinking of Leven.

  The Lore Coil had also let Jamoon know that Sabine was still alive. Jamoon was both frightened and relieved by the news. He now stood still, dutifully awaiting his master’s return.

  Jamoon was a rant and very tall—well over six feet, with the right half of his body in the form of a strong and muscular human. His left side, however, was unstable, continually morphing into the shape of the dreams that someone in Reality might be experiencing. As a rant, Jamoon lacked the ability to resist or shape those dreams, and his constantly changing half was in perpetual conflict with his normal self. At the moment Jamoon’s left-hand side had assumed the shape of a Brazilian soccer player, expertly dribbling a ball with that one foot. However, Jamoon’s entire form was shrouded in a black robe, and the conflict he was experiencing was visible only in the constant gyrations underneath the thick fabric.

  Jamoon was extremely uncomfortable, and as his right and left sides strained against each other, his body creaked in the frigid air. He shivered violently, the cold of the cave having seeped into the marrow of his bones.

  His frosty breath ascended to the ceiling of the cave. “Come, Sabine,” Jamoon whispered. “Where are you?”

  In the distance a mournful howl sounded. It grew louder. Alarmed, Jamoon raised his kilve as if to fight. The noise became clearer, but the darkness kept it a mystery. Jamoon lifted his kilve higher and scratched its tip against the ceiling like a match. The friction made a shrill screech and caused the end of the kilve to glow. Jamoon quickly used the white-hot tip to draw a circle around himself on the floor of the cave for light. The completed arc glowed brightly, illuminating the walls and ceiling of the cave with pale images of old dreams that had been held in the kilve. In the light of the glowing circle Jamoon could see bits of black as they rippled across the ground. The blackness stopped outside the glowing circle, hissing and screaming as though tormented. Jamoon looked on in disbelief and shivered for a whole new reason. At his feet writhed the surviving pieces of Sabine.

  “Master?” he questioned.

  The black bits did not answer. The explosion of the gateway had blown Sabine apart, leaving nothing but a few hundred tiny specks of him in Foo. Those bits recoiled from the circle of light, back toward the entrance of the cave, compelling Jamoon to follow. Reluctantly, he stepped out of the light and dumbly obeyed, watching as the remains of Sabine snaked through the long, thick neck of the cave, weaving and sliding as though being controlled by some magnet below the soil.

  Jamoon followed.

  Sabine’s dark remains exited the cave and swirled out into the open. The bright, square sun was just beginning to sink in Foo, and in the rapidly diminishing daylight, the surviving bits of Sabine were screeching angrily.

  Outside the cave, just twenty feet away from its entrance, stood a fantrum tree whose branches were filled with nihil birds. The ugly fowls were frantically pecking at and devouring specks of old dreams. Those dreams had entered Foo, but upon leaving they had dusted the leaves and the ground surrounding the tree. The nihils were incredibly dirty birds. Black as rot, they did nothing but consume the residue of once-good dreams. They would peck feverishly at trees and soil until the branches were devoid of leaves and the ground was barren. Their call sounded remarkably like a wet cat being wrung out by someone with very large hands. As pestlike and insignificant as they were, this particular gathering of nihils was about to become something much more bothersome and significant.

  The leftover bits of Sabine screamed and writhed on the ground, the noise attracting the attention of the nihils. Instantly, every last filthy bird swooped down and began to feast greedily upon the few remaining tidbits of Sabine.

  Jamoon gaped in horror at the frenzied sight, his good right eye twitching uncontrollably.

  “Foul!” the soccer half of him hollered.

  Jamoon stamped at the ground and swung his kilve, but the nihils were not afraid. The birds simply scattered and immediately took to the sky, circling Jamoon in the dusky light of fading day. In a few moments all the nihils had finished eating and were soaring high overhead, their raucous calls creating an ugly din in the gathering darkness.

  Jamoon looked to the soil but could see nothing remaining of Sabine. He shivered as the disappearing sun withdrew its warmth and the nihils continued to circle, swooping lower with each pass. Soon the birds were inches above Jamoon, hovering around his robed head. Jamoon looked up as the ugly birds began to falter in their flight, losing control of their wings and fluttering desperately. The birds belched and screamed in pain. Apparently they had eaten something that didn’t agree with them.

  The Sabine in them was taking a toll.

  One by one and ten by ten the nihils plummeted to the ground, landing with dusty thuds. Jamoon covered his head as the flock of dead fowl rained around him. In a couple of minutes every last one of them had collapsed, heaped around Jamoon like a pile of matted fur.

  Jamoon brushed one of the soiled carcasses off his head and shoulders. His breathing was heavy, and he could smell the stench of the dead nihils. He looked around.

  “Sabine is dead,” he whispered, and a thin smile appeared on the right side of his mouth.

  The soil beneath the dead nihils hissed.

  “Goal!” the left half of Jamoon yelled.

  The soil hissed again, and the dead bodies of the nihils began to flutter and twitch. The spastic motion continued for a few moments, after which the dead birds began to rise. The nihils were very much expired, but thanks to their fermenting final meal, their dark bodies were moving.

  Slowly at first, then more rapidly, hundreds of dead black birds rose from the ground. They beat their wings and took to the air, screaming and swirling in a dark cloud about Jamoon’s head and hovering over him. There was no soul in them, but the final evil traces of Sabine caused their muscles and wings to still burn and react.

  Jamoon pointed toward the birds and moved his right hand forward. The nihils moved as instructed. Jamoon lowered his hand, and the dead birds swooped to the ground and began to tear at the soil with their talons, furiously clawing at the earth.

  Jamoon raised his hand, and the nihils rose and circled in a large black cloud behind him.

  Jamoon liked the feeling of power. His right side smiled. Sabine was dead, but in his dying he had given Jamoon a powerful tool in the fight to merge Foo and Reality. Jamoon had the loyalty of the many armies of rants and those who fought to escape. Jamoon also possessed the secrets and traditions Sabine had instilled in him. He was a rant, but Sabine had shown Jamoon great things. Sabine had trusted him more than he trusted any other, and Foo knew this. Those in dark power would have
no trouble aligning themselves with him. Jamoon could continue the battle to mesh his world with Reality, to take the power and gifts of Foo and rule the physical world, a world that wasn’t even aware of Foo’s existence or of the sacrifices of its inhabitants. Jamoon believed that if Foo and Reality were merged he would finally be whole.

  “No longer second,” Jamoon breathed.

  Jamoon turned back toward the cave, motioning the dead nihils to follow. The hordes of tattered and filthy-looking birds obeyed his will and swirled about him. Their obedience gave Jamoon a feeling of great confidence and power. It was as if he were soaked in the wicked essence of Sabine.

  Jamoon moved into the cave and down toward the deeper tunnels and caverns where the roven farms were. He needed to send the rovens to take care of Leven and Winter. He also needed to rally the Ring of Plague to help him find and destroy Geth.

  The battle for Foo was far from over.

  Chapter One

  Let ’er Rip

  A thin, yellow light trickled through the window, lighting the room like a funeral parlor or like a restaurant wanting to hide its uncleanliness and save on electricity. Framed by the room’s only window, a giant cube of sun melted in the purple sky and large, oval-shaped flocks of Tea birds cawed and whistled through the air as they returned to the Swollen Forest. In the distance, Morfit’s highest mountain jutted above the horizon, its twin black peaks ringed by thinning patches of marsh-colored hazen, looking like two burnt fingers wrapped in dirty gauze.

  Most residents in Foo were settling into their homes and hideaways, preparing to receive the incoming dreams night would bring. The air was quiet and dry, and the last whistle of the Tea birds