by J. J. Moody
SILVERSTONE
Part Two: A Mage Revealed
J.J.Moody
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
First published July 2016 by James Moody
Copyright © James Moody 2016
ISBN 978-0-9946112-1-5 (EPUB)
www.silverstonestory.com
CONTENTS
Chapter Four
The Wisecrinkled Man
Chapter Five
The Blue Lady
Chapter Six
Evander
From the author
Q&A
Chapter Four
The Wisecrinkled Man
Ben had been walking for more than an hour.
At first he had walked north for a mile or so from the Peregrine camp, following a well worn road between the gentle green hills. The birds had chirped a merry morning greeting to him as he went.
Then when he'd reached a path turning east and up hill, he had followed it, entering the denser woods that shaded the foothills to begin the climb up to the ridge of the Drumald range.
The woods were thick, and the air dense and cold. It smelt of moss. The light from the morning sun did not penetrate much through the canopy, and there were no more birds cheering him onwards. It felt like he had stepped from a bustling street into a somber cathedral.
Ben remembered what Alder had said about bandits in the foothills. He tensed, and slowed. His eyes searched around the trunks and branches. He listened for anything stirring amidst the soggy leaves, or between the fallen twigs that sank like bones of fallen trees, slowly receiving their burials.
Nothing moved. A bird whistled far away.
He edged forward along the path, every crunch or whistle making him freeze, while he looked around carefully for signs of a bandit attack. He was a fawn, watched by hungry predators. Besides outlaws, what sharp toothed, red eyed, dark furred thing lived here?
The pace was slow.
Ben stopped mid stride, hearing a cracking somewhere in the distance.
He thought of the hooded man he had fought off with the Peregrine. There would be cruel laughs when the group found him and carried him away to their base deep in the darkest forest for a proper fate. Since he had injured one of them they would no doubt treat him with ingenious savagery. He would be tortured sadistically first, and then – he stopped himself.
He should have just hidden in the boat under the pile of oars.
His thoughts moved on to the Peregrine. If only they could see their celebrated battle hero now, he thought. Barely able to move he was so convinced disaster waited for his next step. He felt terribly ashamed.
Ben’s body was as still as the forest, while his mind ran for miles in all directions.
But finally he completed his step.
He managed another stride forward, then another. Movement might ease the dread, soften the ache. But the lifeless air pressed. Stale trees surrounded him, fixed in hushed stares. He looked ahead to a turn, and scenarios played out like horror shows, his heartbeats punctuating like channel switches.
Every step plodded fanned his fear.
The panic was unbearable. His breaths were shallow and fast.
Finally he came to the bend.
Nothing was there.
Nothing but the same stupid silent forest.
He sighed a deep breath, and almost laughed.
He was too young to have a heart attack, wasn't he? He felt his chest for the heartbeat.
He looked up ahead to the next corner. Plodding up to it would just result in the same awful anticipation. The torture he would exact upon himself just by walking along would be worse than any bandit devices.
He adjusted his sling over his back, wiped his brow, and broke into a steady jog.
It wasn’t long before he was feeling much calmer. He breathed heavily up the steep path, and sweat dripped from his brow. But he was confident he was fit enough to manage the pace, and pressed on, pushing himself harder and harder.
The turns came and went, and soon he was barely noticing them.
Finally the woods began to clear, and thick beams of sunlight breached the canopy further up the hill in the distance. The forest grew lighter, and sounds of life returned. The ridge was not far away.
He emerged from the trees and onto the grassy high slopes. The peak was up ahead in the distance, beyond a rocky section of the ascent. Its outline was sharp against the clouds.
But almost immediately the wind picked up.
At first Ben slowed to a jog, but was soon forced to a walk by the power of the wind. Gusts swept over the ridge and tumbled down against him like the ghosts of a great avalanche. Soon he could move only sideways, probing for a softening in the mass of wind that might let him through.
He clutched his shirt and sling close, and bent over almost double to force his way forward. He angled his body, trying to reduce the surface the wind could catch.
Although Ben made some advances, progress became ever more difficult. Grass gave way to large boulders atop unstable gravel. The smaller pieces leapt against him, stinging like a stony hailstorm.
As he climbed an especially large boulder a strong gust caught, and his stomach lurched as he struggled to avoid toppling backwards, down to the trees. He bent low and looked back, down the rock-strewn slope.
What had Alder been thinking? This way was obviously not the least bit easy. Not unless you happened to be a very streamlined mountain goat. Had he been right to trust him? What had Alder said that first day they'd met in that tiny tent, and Ben had told him the truth about where he'd come from? About what would happen if Ben found a Mage and learned magic. That then he might become a friend no longer. An enemy of the Peregrine, and an enemy of Alder. Was it such a stretch to imagine him sabotaging Ben's search and sending him up here to his doom, to be murdered by brigands or blown off a cliff? The old man was probably chuckling in to his bowl of stew in delight at the success of his scheme.
Even if Alder hadn't tricked him, could he have simply missed a turn somewhere in the woods, or amongst these rocks? In the forest he had been worrying more about ambushes and a slow and tortured death than minding his way, and beyond them he'd been concentrating on fighting the violent wind. He peered back to the point where the path broke out from the tree line, and retraced its snaking route up to where he crouched. It was clear that the road led to his position. And back in the forest - well it was possible he'd missed another path, but Alder had only mentioned one, and he didn't like the idea of retracing his footsteps to make sure anyway.
Then again perhaps this was simply what the Peregrine farmers defined as an easy path up a hill. After all, they tended their herds in the hills around the camp, and had migrated from place to place after the great plague, so they would probably have scaled much worse mountain tops than this one, in worse weather, and with their homes on their backs as well.
He turned back to the climb ahead of him. The slope seemed to be steepening as it reached for the summit. It was so impassable, a giant granite palm dismissing him.
His mind bolted again. What if he couldn’t even make it over this first hill, just a few hours from the start of his quest? What chance did he then have of finding a mage and making it back home?
It seemed so hopeless. He was just an eleven year old boy, alone in wild lands in an alien world, trying to clamber up a precipice. How could he have been so foolish to thin
k he could get anywhere at all?
Slowly, painfully, the terrible prospect of never making it home to his dear family forced its way into his head. His heart had leapt from his chest and was bouncing away down the hill, tearing and bruising as it went. He'd never see Tim or Lucy or Sylvie again. Or hear Mrs Greenleaf raving on about King Oedipus. Or see Mr Lomonosovsky rip Jordan or Freddy apart.
Maybe he should have just stayed with the Peregrine, with Eva. But she wasn’t interested in him; she'd made that very clear at her birthday party when she'd treated him, well just like everyone else. She didn't care. Besides, he couldn’t go back there now, not as such a failure.
The cold wind drew breath again, gathering a wild storm.
Ben didn't know where to go, or what to do. Ahead were the cliffs and the wind. Behind were the outlaw riddled woods, humiliation and failure. And the winds beat him mercilessly where he sat; even indecision was impossible.
He thought of his family again, and their little home on Pickall Road. His parents would be distraught by now.
There had to be a way back. He had to find it.
He turned and gazed back beyond the path and the woods, over the valley he'd set off from that morning. In the distance, he could see Lake Kaidesh; a sun blazing from the earth. Flocks of water birds like those he had watched waking from the reed beds with Eva orbited like satellites. The green hills rippled away, topped by swells of trees, leaves cresting.
There was the forest from which the bandits had attacked, and the clearing in which he had fought alongside Liam. Beside it was the camp. Fires burned, and smoke rose up. He imagined Ivor laughing off his hangover, picking up his stories right where he had passed out. Whoever was around would have to listen.
Eva would be finishing her morning chores. Perhaps she was sitting on the other side of the camp on their hill right now, thinking about him and looking this way for a sign.
It had been ten days since he had appeared through the lake, and so much had happened since then it might just as well have been ten years. He had survived so much already, just to get here. He was tougher than he had ever known. Nothing would ever change that.
And here he was, sitting on a boulder high up on the Drumald mountain range, admiring the view. It was a beautiful sight after all. He was pleased to have noticed it while he had the chance. He breathed a deep mouthful of the crisp air in satisfaction.
The wind had fallen away, and was now just a pleasant breeze on his face as he looked around, contrasting the warm morning sun.
What views would the other side of the ridge yield? He was about to find out.
He took out his water flask, and took a gulp. Then he turned back to the hill, and scanned the path. It ran in a zigzag shape, crossing a few boulders here and there, but generally avoiding larger obstacles as it found its way to the summit.
But there was also a more direct route, which travelled over a rocky face of fallen boulders, peaking and falling in sharp serrations as it climbed to the top. If he could scale that way, perhaps he could shorten the journey and pick up his pace.
He tightened the sling strap, deciding to attempt the shortcut.
The first fallen rock face was twice his height, but he found a side which had ample cracks and holes where he could place his fingers and feet, and was not so steeply sloped that he would break anything if he lost his footing.
He placed his right foot into a gap a few feet up, and looked for somewhere he could grab onto further up after he had jumped that first step upward. A piece of the boulder jutted out far enough to grab, and nearer the top there was another hold. He felt confident he could reach them and from there pull himself over the top of the rock.
He launched off with his right leg, and grabbed the jutting rock face above him with both hands. Then he placed his left foot slightly higher in another small crevice, and pushed further up. He reached for the second hold and pulled himself up to the boulder top, crawling over it carefully to make sure he didn’t fall into any larger holes on the other side. He had done it!
He looked up ahead. The boulders formed a steep cliff, but he mapped out a rough route from where he stood, tracing in between where the smaller rocks had fallen and left gaps to exploit. He could certainly save time by staying on this course, and as long as he kept climbing in the direction of the ridge, he would stay on the right track.
He grabbed the next ledge.
Before long, Ben was within a few metres of the ridge.
He pulled himself over a final boulder, and then crawled through a gap in the rock face, coming back onto the path. He took the final steps to the summit, taking in the views emerging ahead of him.
The valley of Lake Kaidesh was now out of sight on the southern side of the peaks, obscured by the rocks Ben had just clambered over. But new lands were visible from the north west around to the east.
The summit road descended quickly on the northern side to a pretty little clearing pressed into the hillside in the midst of more boulders, where a handful of vivid trees and flowers sprouted in the fresh mountain air.
Beyond the clearing to the north west and north direction, the Drumald hills descended into a mass of trees very different to the forest he had trekked through earlier, and unlike any he had seen before. Deep ochre trunks pierced the clouds, breaking into tiny heads of yellow foliage like burning matchsticks.
To the north east, the matchstick forest halted neatly at a great river which flowed toward the Drumald range, joining its path to the south east. Beyond the river far to the east green lands gave way to drier plains.
From the clearing, the path moved east towards the river, passing through lush forest where he could make out birds circling the treetops.
There were no signs of civilisation anywhere.
He decided to stop in the clearing just below and eat some of the smoked fish he had taken with him for lunch. He walked the short distance, cheered by the success of his climb.
At the clearing Ben made his way to a shady patch under one of the trees. He took off his sling bag and dug around inside it for his rations of the fish.
The Peregrine ate smoked fish they caught from the lake as a snack between their stewy main meals. Ivor had made him try some once, helping to distract his taste buds from the essential sip of vol from his hip flask that followed, and while Ben probably would never have asked his mother to buy anything like it from Hulstead supermarket, he had found it reasonably tasty. Then again, contrasted with vol anything was reasonably tasty.
The smoky, salty taste satisfied his hunger now, as he relaxed against the tree trunk in the warmth of the day, sheltered from the chilled breeze by the rocky perimeter of the clearing. He gazed around at the beautiful flowers speckling the ground, and felt content to have found his way here.
There was a soft chirping sound, and Ben looked up into the branches above. Perched on the lowest branch was a small black and white ball of feathers, with a blood red tail and the hint of a yellow beak somewhere in the ruffles. The bird wagged its bright tail from side to side like a happy dog as it reviewed Ben, chirping an assessment.
“Hello little fellow!” Ben said, happy for the company.
The feather ball conversed back, moving its red tail cheerfully.
Ben looked around the clearing. There were plenty of other birds of different shapes and sizes gathered in the other trees, but they were silent and quite still. Were they looking at him too? Or did they watch the red tailed bird?
He reached the end of his smoked fish, and offered some small scraps to the little creature. It seemed very tame. Rather than fly away when he stood up, it simply hopped up to a higher branch just out of his reach, and continued waving its red tail at him.
He balanced the scraps of fish meat on the lower branch, and sat back down.
The bird jumped down and investigated.
“It’s ok birdie, its just fish,” Ben said.
The red-tail snapped up the pieces with its yellow beak, chirping as it ate.
He dreamed of finding the portal, arriving home just in time to perform the lead in a costumed presentation of Oedipus The King. Lucy played Jocasta. Her hands brushed warm like the rays through the branches.
Awaking with a start, he rubbed his eyes and looked around. He remembered where he was.
The bird was gone. And so was his sling.
He jumped to his feet.
The red-tailed feather ball couldn’t have taken it, not unless it had either been concealing its strength, or had returned with a flock of its friends while he was asleep. And he would surely have awoken with that much chirping going on right beside to him.
He looked around the tree trunk, and walked cautiously about the clearing, searching for signs of another person.
Nothing.
He cursed himself. The swimming goggles his mother had bought him were in that bag, not to mention all of his supplies including food rations for the journey. There was no chance of making any progress now. He would starve unless he could find something edible in the forest below, or someone to feed him. And people didn’t seem very friendly to mage-potentials around here.
But who had taken the sling?
He turned back to the tree. Why would a bandit come so close while he slept, take his worthless bag of a few pieces of smoked fish and other meagre rations, and leave him unharmed? It didn’t make sense.
Could it have been a thief? It seemed an odd place for an opportunistic theft, and an unlikely site for one to be waiting given the absence of other travellers coming past.
He stood under the tree looking around again.
There was a flicker of movement at the north eastern rocks that bordered the clearing. Ben waited for something to reveal itself, but there was nothing more.
