Greystone Valley

by Charlie Brooks

  Sarah watched as Keeley continued flying around Dax’s head, bombarding the cynical warrior with question after question. “I’ve got to admit,” she said to Kay, “when we first met, I never expected you to be the most normal person I’d see.”

  Kay smiled and actually blushed a little bit. “Yes, well, I can be surprising, you know. When I’m not transformed into a frog, that is. Once we get the book, we’ll look through it together. There’s got to be something in there for you, you know. There’s something for everyone else, it seems. We’ll find a way for you to get home. Then you can… well, I guess you can go back to your old life and pretend this is all a dream, can’t you?”

  Kay suddenly seemed very glum. He looked at his feet instead of Sarah and walked very quickly ahead of everyone else. Sarah wrinkled her brow at the boy’s sudden change in mood, but that didn’t help her figure out what was wrong. Maybe Kay was the strangest of the group, after all.

  They made their way up the hill and found the spellbook’s disturbed hiding place with ease. Since it was past lunchtime by now, Dax passed out some stale bread and salted meat to everyone. “They’re not much,” he said, “but they’re a great deal better than the worms and lice I had to live on in Baelan’s dungeon. Ah, but that’s just me looking on the bright side as usual. I apologize for getting your hopes up, since they’ll almost certainly be dashed to bits any moment now. I just hope the meat was cooked well enough that we don’t all get food poisoning.”

  Naturally, the food was much better than Dax had made it out to be—although it certainly made even the simplest sandwich made by her mother seem like gourmet cuisine. Sarah ate her meal quietly. The food wasn’t as valuable to her as the chance for some rest was. She hoped to finally get a chance to collect her thoughts and figure out what she would do once the book was found and the adventure was over. She’d have to go home eventually, of course, but who was to say she couldn’t have just a little more fun in Greystone Valley first… ?

  Dax was quiet, too, but only in his own weird way. He didn’t talk, but he made such ghastly grunts and groans while chewing his food that it seemed like he was dying. To go along with those noises, his facial expressions made every bite seem like a chore. He rolled his eyes and pulled at his thinning hair the whole time, looking as though he were being forced to eat mud and rocks.

  Keeley, on the other hand, ate her small portion of food with a great deal of joy—smacking her lips, licking her chops, and complimenting the meager fare with every bite she took. Her cheerfulness managed to penetrate Kay’s gloomy mood, and the young would-be wizard soon went back to being his cheerful but scatterbrained self.

  “So, you need Keeley to track down the great spellbook of the Valley Wizard,” the dragon said before burying her face in a loaf of bread.

  “That’s pretty much the score of it,” Kay answered between bites. “My father trusted that book to me, and Baelan’s been hunting for it ever since he came to the valley. I might have lost my hat and staff, but I won’t lose my spellbook. I wouldn’t be worthy to call myself a wizard if I made that mistake.”

  “Well, then, Keeley is happy to help. But the fey don’t come around during the day, so we’ll need to wait until sundown. In the meanwhile, Keeley will need to hear some stories to pass the time.” She hopped into the air and with one flap of her wings, landed in front of Sarah. “Keeley would like to hear some interesting stories from the girl in the strange blue clothes, please.”

  Sarah had never thought her own world was very action-packed, but Keeley seemed to hang on her every word. She told stories about her life, about the games she played and the classes she took. She talked about her mother. She talked about her friend Carrie, who would be having a birthday party soon. Even though she had just eaten, her stomach grumbled at the thought of hot dogs and ice cream cake. Dax had lain down in the shade for a short nap, but Kay and Keeley both seemed fascinated by Sarah’s stories.

  “So, wait a minute,” Kay said, interrupting her in the middle of one of her tales, “you’re telling me you have a box at home that has people in it?”

  “Well… not really,” she said. “A TV shows pictures of people on it. The actual people aren’t really there. They’re just images coming from somewhere else.”

  “And you use the TV to play something called Nin-ten-do?” Keeley asked.

  “Well, that’s a bit more difficult to explain.”

  Kay leaned against a rock and scratched his head. “And here I thought my father’s spellbook had every kind of magic there was.”

  “It’s not really magic,” Sarah insisted. “It’s just electricity.”

  Kay stood up and pointed at the sky. “Around here, the only electricity we have is lightning in the sky. You’ve got something that creates that lightning, then passes it through wires into your home. From there, it keeps your food cold, runs the microwave, whatever that is, and powers your TV, just for starters. If you asked anyone here in the valley what could possibly do that, they would either say magic or nothing at all.” The boy crossed his arms and looked at Sarah with a strange admiration. “No wonder you could read the words in my spellbook. I don’t think even the Emerald Enchantress knew about TV.”

  On one hand, Sarah was flabbergasted that Kay and Keeley kept thinking of her as a magician. On the other hand, she felt a certain sense of pride when she saw the obvious respect on their faces. She started her stories again and had her two-person audience hanging on her every word. She didn’t even have to stretch the truth to make her world seem miraculous. Both of her listeners marveled when she talked about cars, airplanes, and movie theatres. Eventually, though, she ended up mentioning Dr. Goldberg and suddenly stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Kay asked.

  “Nothing,” she lied. “But it’s getting dark out. Keeley should be able to track the fey soon, I think.”

  “Oh, yes, yes! Now is the time for Keeley to find them,” cried the dragon. She took off on her short wings and began sniffing the air like a bloodhound. Kay shook Dax awake, and the companions began following the tiny dragon as she zigzagged into the woods.

  “I imagine this is all a waste of our time,” Dax said. “Even if we do find them, chances are they don’t even have the book anymore. At best, we’re just wasting our time.”

  Sarah and Kay ignored Dax’s worries. Even the old warrior himself seemed to pay little attention to his words, since he moved just as quickly and energetically as the others. Keeley’s wings bore her forward at surprising speed. Even running to keep up with her, the larger companions couldn’t follow the dragon through the brush without pushing branches and weeds out of their way. Eventually, they lost sight of her entirely. That was when they heard a startled squeak up ahead.

  “Keeley? What’s wrong?” Sarah pushed forward through some brush to find the dragon. As she did so, she felt something brush against her leg. She tripped and fell head-first into some bushes. Behind her, there was a creak and a snap. She looked back just as a hidden net sprang up from the ground, sweeping up Kay and Dax and leaving the startled pair swinging from the trees.

  “What the—?” was all Sarah managed to get out before more movement distracted her. The firefly-like fey darted from behind a tree up ahead. This time, they didn’t move calmly and peacefully. Instead, they rushed at Sarah, buzzing around her like angry hornets. They stung just like hornets, too—or, at least, it felt like they did. Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah saw the miniature men and women raise small bows and fire at her. By reflex, she raised a hand to swat one of them. That’s when she noticed that something was wrong.

  Where the tiny arrows had hit, she suddenly felt warm. That feeling spread quickly, and soon her entire body felt warm and heavy, like it was made of iron. She stumbled forward and tried to say something, but she couldn’t hear her own words. The fey fired another volley of miniature arrows at her, but she was already falling to the ground. In an instant, she was unconscious.

  Thirteen

  When Sa
rah came to, she found herself lying on the ground with her hands and her feet tied. Kay and Dax were lying nearby, similarly tied up. They were deep in the forest—deeper than Sarah had expected the tiny outcropping of woods to go. The tiny winged fey darted to and fro in the clearing around them, but they weren’t the only creatures around. Many other strange beings, some large and some small, gathered in a circle around the bound companions, talking to one another in a strange language that Sarah didn’t recognize.

  “What happened?” she asked. She started trying to break her bonds, which were wispy silk cords, but they were stronger than they looked.

  Kay squirmed closer to Sarah so she could hear his whispering. “The fey seem to be a bit more violent than we’d expected. They thought we were hunting them, and they attacked. They got you with their arrows. You’re lucky they didn’t shoot you with a few more. I’ve heard of some people who got shot with fey arrows and fell asleep for years at a time.”

  “Where’s Keeley?”

  “She’s over there in a silver cage… near the leader.”

  Sarah squinted across the fire. Indeed, there was a silver-barred cage sitting opposite her, with bars so closely spaced that even the tiny dragon couldn’t squeeze through. At first, Sarah assumed that the creature next to Keeley was one of the beast-men. He had hairy legs and hooves, but his head was human—save for a small pair of goat horns that protruded from his forehead. He wore a crown of leaves, colored with the many bright colors of autumn foliage. When he saw Sarah looking at him, he got out of his throne of brambles and called for the other creatures in the forest to be quiet.

  One by one, the other fey fell silent. Sarah marveled at the strange creatures around her. In addition to the tiny sprites she had seen before, there were many other creatures that seemed familiar to her only from the books she used to read. One hairy being with tusks protruding from his lower jaw stood twice as tall as any person she had ever seen. She guessed that it was an ogre, or possibly a troll.

  Another woman standing at the forest’s edge wore a thin silk robe. Her skin was a dark brown and seemed to have the same texture as tree bark. Sarah guessed that she might be a wood nymph of some sort. Two other creatures had human torsos and heads, but they each had the lower body of a horse. Sarah knew right away that they were centaurs. Other members of the gathering were strange beings she had never seen or read of before.

  One of them looked like a shambling mound of vines only roughly in the shape of a man. Another flew through the air with a long serpentine body, though its scaly skin was covered in bright peacock-like feathers. Looking at the many strange creatures, Sarah tried to remember as many details as she could. At the very least, maybe she could write a story of her own about this place when she got home.

  Unfortunately, the leader shouted loudly, tearing Sarah’s attention from her surroundings and forcing everyone to look at him. “Attention!” he cried. “We must hear out the humans before determining their punishment.”

  “Punishment? Punishment for what?” Sarah asked.

  If the hoofed man heard Sarah, he didn’t show any sign of it. He walked around the fire and stood in front of his prisoners. The tiny glowing fey whose arrows had put Sarah to sleep darted about him, giving his body an eerie green glow.

  “Humans, I am Pan, master of the fey and guardian of the valley’s forests. And you three have brought a grave danger into our midst. You have willingly teamed with our natural predator, a dragon, and brought her hunting for us.”

  “Oh… now I remember why I was worried,” Dax said. “The reason dragons can track fey so well is because they eat them.”

  Now that Sarah noticed it, Keeley was looking around with a hungry glint in her eye.

  “You could have told us that a little earlier,” Kay snapped.

  “I’m sorry. My memory must be going. It happens in old age, you know, along with aches and pains and a beastly tiredness that I can’t seem to shake.” The old warrior let out a self-pitying sigh, despite the peril the rest of the companions faced. “But, really, how was I supposed to remember something like that? Keeley’s so small and playful, she doesn’t seem like the type to go stalking for food. If anything, she’s usually hanging around the circus, eating the scraps left behind by the other performers.”

  “That’s right,” said Sarah, twisting her body so she could speak directly to Pan. “Keeley wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone a fey. We were just looking for a lost spellbook, and we hoped Keeley could help us track it down.”

  “Indeed,” Pan said. He whistled, and one of the fey stepped forward. She looked human, except that she was very thin and had fine pointed ears. The woman looked so frail that Sarah thought a stiff wind might blow her away. She bowed before Pan and offered him up a book she held in her hands. Both Sarah and Kay shouted, because the book was unmistakably familiar. It was, of course, Kay’s missing spellbook.

  “My people found this tome carelessly buried under a rock,” said Pan as he opened the book and flipped casually through its pages. “It is quite a treasure, and it is too valuable not to be in our hands.”

  “That’s mine!” Kay shouted. “It was handed down to me by my father.”

  “And where do you think your father got it, boy?” Pan glared at Kay and stamped his hoof impatiently. “The secrets contained in here are as old as the valley itself. Your father, or one of his ancestors, stole it from our treasure troves many years ago. Now we’ve found it again, and it will stay with us now.”

  “It’s mine, and I won’t let you keep it from me any longer!” Kay struggled against his bonds. When they didn’t yield, he tried another tactic. Closing his eyes, he began concentrating on a spell and started speaking magical words. “Abeo… no, um… duo inga… darn it, how did that spell go?”

  Pan only chuckled. “Give it up, child. You’re human. You may have been born in this valley, but you don’t belong here. Without this book, you have no gift for magic.”

  Kay’s face fell as he realized how helpless he was. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and remained silent.

  Seeing her friend so downtrodden by Pan’s words, Sarah couldn’t help but get angry. “Who are you to talk like that?” she shouted, pushing herself up straight. “Kay here has been on the run from an entire army because of that book. He’s put his life at risk to keep it out of Baelan’s hands, and he hasn’t thought twice about his own safety. He’s definitely more deserving of his father’s spellbook than you are. All you’ve done is tie us up and bully us for nothing.”

  Pan turned a glittering black eye toward Sarah. “And who are you? Do you consider yourself a native to Greystone Valley, or are you one of the many people trapped in our little world?”

  “My name is Sarah. What’s it matter whether I was born here or not? The important thing is that I’m here now, and I don’t appreciate being treated like a villain when I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  A murmur ran through the fey as Sarah spoke. Pan held up his hand, and the creatures fell silent again. “You look familiar, girl. Have we met before?”

  The angry look never left Sarah’s face. “No. I think I’d remember a bully like you.”

  Pan started to answer, but he was interrupted as a hunter’s horn sounded nearby. He looked startled, and the other creatures of the forest buzzed with worry. “That horn came from too close,” he said. “No one should be able to find their way this deep into the forest without one of the fey to guide them.”

  He turned away from the bound companions and started giving orders to the other fey in that same strange language Sarah had heard before. He didn’t even get halfway through his orders, though, before he was interrupted again.

  A burst of flame tore through the forest, sending burned leaves and scorched branches to the moss-covered ground. The flame was followed by a pair of massive winged lizards—dragons, but not nearly as harmless as Keeley. The creatures were the size of small horses, with dark orange scales and fangs like knives. They looked at the fey
hungrily, licking their chops with forked tongues.

  Each of the dragons wore a collar and a long leather leash. What could hold something that powerful back, Sarah didn’t know—or, at least, she thought she didn’t. In another moment, a familiar figure stepped over the broken trees and into view. He stood tall, a giant even compared to the dragons he held. His head was not that of a person’s, but instead that of a ram. “Pan,” he rumbled as he looked upon the surprised fey. “I should have known you would be keeping the boy’s book safe for him.”

  Pan’s face grew serious he looked upon the hunter. Like Sarah, he knew who he faced. “Aries,” he said grimly.

  Baelan’s general smiled cruelly and raised an ivory horn to his lips. He gave one more blow through it, sending a signal to the rest of his troops. The dragons snapped at the air and roared hungrily as dozens of beast-men stampeded toward the forest clearing. The ground shook as though it were being wracked by an earthquake. Then the beast-men leapt into the clearing, their weapons drawn. The battle had begun.

  Fourteen

  Some of the fey stayed to fight, preparing oaken staves or magical power in response to Pan’s orders, but most of them fled as the army of beast-men closed in on them.

  Aries let go of the dragons’ leashes, allowing the monstrous lizards to take to the air. They breathed fire through the trees, blackening the bark of ancient oaks and turning the canopy of leaves overhead into a ceiling of flames. They grinned wickedly as their fangs and claws found the flesh of their favorite food, the fey.

  Pan tucked the book under his arm and turned to face Aries. The massive beast-man grinned and lowered his head for a charge. Pan kicked at the ground with one of his hooves. Then he, too, lowered his head. The two creatures ran full speed at one another as the battle began to unfold around them. They met with a crash that shattered the air and made the ground shake.