Silverstone: Part Two: A Mage Revealed

by J. J. Moody

  "You have only been out of our camp for a few hours and already you're getting into danger. I was worried this kind of thing might happen." She shook her head.

  Ben didn't know whether he was flattered or annoyed by her concern. "You were worried this kind of magic-wisecrinkled-man-and-cave-collapsing thing might happen?"

  Eva detected the tone. "You came through a magic portal, so yes, it makes perfect sense that you would find a way to some kind of magical trouble."

  "Well I managed to get out of it all by myself without you holding my hand. Does that surprise you?"

  "Yes. I wouldn't have let you get into it in the first place Silverstone!"

  "Is that why you followed me then, to check up on me?" Ben asked. "Do you want to put me on a chain behind you to make sure I don't get into any more trouble?"

  Eva flushed, her eyes fell. "I just wanted to check you were alright. I thought we were friends, and I didn't like the idea of you wandering around by yourself."

  Ben felt like a fool again. "We are friends." He smiled. "Thanks for coming."

  Eva looked up.

  "Wildenberries are the little brown, smelly ones aren't they?”

  They chuckled.

  "Well your dad will probably be chasing you. And the rest of the Peregrine with him I suppose. Might as well wait for them here," Ben said.

  "No, they won't be coming after me. I told my dad I was going, and he knows I'm wise enough to look after myself now. As long as I send word from time to time and of course come back eventually, he'll be happy."

  Ben wasn't really that surprised. Eva might only be thirteen, but with all of her questions, and her responsibilities around the farm, she had probably grown wiser than many in that time. She would certainly fare significantly better out here in the wild than he would, and he would get a lot further with her help.

  "So are you... I mean, did you really want to... I mean, to come with me?"

  "Well how else am I going to protect you from eating digbok droppings?" Eva grinned. "Besides, I've been looking for an opportunity to get away from my chores, and now you're my excuse!"

  Ben grinned.

  Goldie purred his approval of their new companion.

  "So you found a friendly felion to help you get into trouble then eh?" She bent down and gave Goldie a scratch. "He looks a bit different from the ones I've seen before though; bigger and definitely scruffier.”

  Goldie play-swiped at her with a large paw as if to respond.

  "Agar said he must have been made rather than being born, because he could see through the mage gold magic. Perhaps that's why he looks different."

  "Maybe."

  Eva moved close and lifted Ben's new necklace for a closer look, and the casual air was suddenly cracked into the sharp focus of her hair in front of his eyes. It smelt of freshly cut grass.

  He tried desperately to act relaxed.

  She had come after him. She cared about him enough to do that. But how far did her motives go? Maybe she just wanted to protect him like one of her hayhoppers. Fireworks of possibilities burst in his head.

  He stared again at her dark curls as she looked down at the pendant. Something had changed in the colour, he was sure. In places there were lighter strands amidst the mahogany. He thought about asking her, but didn't want to admit to looking too closely.

  "This is what the old man in the cave gave you - this pendant," Eva asked, looking up into his eyes.

  They had never been that close before. The two sapphire explosions threatened to engulf him, like new portals leading onward to yet another world.

  "Yep." He freed himself. "Right before he vanished and the cavern collapsed. He said the treasure was mage gold, so this must be made of that too."

  "I've never heard of mage gold. We'll have to ask the mage about it when you find him. Maybe it's valuable enough to buy you the spell to get home."

  Ben nodded.

  "So where were you heading next?" Eva looked down the track.

  "The Bitter Falls. Alder said that I would find someone called the Blue Lady there, and that she might help me find one of the mages; her brother."

  "Well the falls should be in the woods another few miles further. We can follow the path as far as the river crossing and then follow along downstream to the falls."

  They set off downhill into the woods. Goldie occasionally sprinted off in chase of something he'd seen beyond a fallen tree, but each time rejoined them before they had travelled far.

  As the trees thickened around them, so did the sounds of creatures inhabiting them. The forest was the antithesis to the one Ben had climbed through on the southern side of the range; all life seemed to have fled here. Where it had been silent and deathly on that side, here it was as if a zoo had just exploded around them.

  Lines of insects scurried at their feet, crisscrossing the path like rush hour trains bearing commuters home at the end of their day. The trees cavorted in the end of the afternoon light above, while the bustle of a busy pub took place far up in the canopy as birds of all shapes and sizes jostled for prime perches for a sundowner.

  Ben gazed upwards in amazement as he trod along, and just as he was trying to work out whether one winged thing was a bird or a kind of bat, he tripped over a protruding branch and fell to his hands and knees. He brushed off his hands, and looked up to tell Eva there was no harm done.

  But he found himself staring at another face.

  The face was staring back at him. It was sticking out from beside a tree trunk, ten metres or so off the path as it wound a corner up ahead. It was a face with human eyes, but covered in a light brown hair. There were widely spread whiskers beside a human nose. The face ducked behind the tree.

  Ben looked at Eva, who stood waiting for him to get up. "There's something behind that tree over there. Some kind of person I think."

  Eva prepared to run. "Bandits! Where?" she whispered.

  Ben whisper-giggled. "I could be wrong, but I don't think it's dangerous. And I don't think Goldie would be so relaxed if it was a bandit."

  Goldie sat between them and where the face had been, licking himself unashamedly.

  "Well Goldie might be an outlaw felion leading us right back to his camp and into a trap."

  "Aw! Did you hear that Goldie?"

  Goldie was not distracted from his grooming by the accusation.

  If Ben had seen a whiskered, furry face popping out from behind a tree on the first side of the mountains he had been on that day he would probably have sprinted all the way back to Lake Kaidesh without so much as looking over his shoulder, and downed a couple of mugs of Ivor's vol. Sharing the road with Eva and Goldie was imbuing him with confidence. He had also survived the first obstacles of his quest, and was already stronger for it.

  The face reappeared.

  "There!" Ben didn't point.

  Eva jerked around and scanned the woods. It was obvious when she had seen it.

  "Is it... what is it?" she said.

  The face ducked out of sight again, reminding Ben of a video game he had once played.

  "Let's go and find out," he said.

  He stood up, and inched closer. "Hello?"

  The face did not respond from behind the tree.

  "Hello? I'm Silverstone. And these are my friends Eva and Goldie. We just want to say hello. You're not a bandit are you?"

  Eva's face crumpled with exasperation.

  "Is it gone?" She stayed on the path beside Goldie.

  The face popped out again. Its eyes blinked from Ben to Eva to Goldie. It was close enough for Ben to see clearly now. It was a person. It appeared to be a boy around the same age as Toby. But the boy was very convincingly masked as a squirrel.

  "Hello," Ben tried again. He smiled at squirrel boy.

  "Where are you going?" Another voice, older, male, from behind a tree further away from the trail. "What is your business?"

  Ben jerked his head toward the question and looked hard, waiting for someone to appear. Finally another
squirrel mask popped out, body concealed behind the tree. This face was larger, its eyes older.

  "We are travelling from the Peregrine farmers' camp over by Lake Kaidesh to the Bitter Falls," Ben answered.

  Squirrel man emerged from behind the tree. Squirrel boy stood out in synchrony without looking back. Then the man walked up behind the boy. They were wearing brown and grey fur hides, held tight at their waists by a knotted belt, and carried long thick, fur sacks on their backs that very much resembled a bushy squirrel tail.

  Ben rubbed his lip to hide a smile. It was an excellent fancy dress costume.

  "Who are you? Why are you dressed as squirlers? Eva joined them, with Goldie in tow.

  The man looked at the felion as it approached. Then he turned back to Ben and Eva. "Because we are squirlers."

  Ben wondered whether they had asylums in this world. Even if squirlers were not exactly the same as squirrels from his world, pretending to be an animal was an unusual lifestyle choice. He imagined the man and boy scurrying around the forest floor in search of fallen nuts, perhaps living in a nearby tree trunk.

  "Squirlers are animals. You're people," Eva said flatly. She crossed her arms.

  "We live among the squirlers here in the forest, share food with them, care for each other when we're sick, and share the reputation... You don't think the real squirlers could thieve barrels of silverdust escorted to Murdimore by one of the city garrisons do you, whatever the talk in the ale houses was?" Squirrel man grinned.

  Eva didn't answer.

  "And you also share their wardrobe?" Ben risked a joke.

  "The more rumours about a deadly breed of giant squirlers who live in this forest with their lethal weapons, the better." The man chuckled.

  "So you really live with them, in the trees?" Eva asked.

  He nodded. "We live a good life here. We are well hidden from outsiders."

  "It seems like everyone around here wants to hide from outsiders," Ben muttered. "Well we found you pretty easily!"

  The man shook his head. He looked around for a moment, and settled his eyes on a single, average sized tree just across the path no more than fifty metres from where they stood. He pulled something small and wooden from a pouch in his hide clothing, and placed it between his hands at his mouth. Then he made a kind of whistling sound through it. Only this was very much more - Ben couldn't think of the word – detailed, than any whistle he'd heard before. To anyone passing through the woods, the sound would have simply blended with the orchestra of birds, yet it was altogether more defined, with minute volume, tempo, and tone differentiation bundled into the short musical chirp.

  After a few seconds the man stopped.

  Ben and Eva followed his eyes to the tree.

  And then the tree began to move.

  There was a crack, like a branch had broken. From halfway up its core, the large main branches of the tree were moving in opposite directions and away from them, and the trunk was opening up to reveal something. Ben thought for a moment it might simply reveal a group of squirrels eating nuts.

  But inside was another man. Another squirrel man, Ben noted. A squirler just like the ones standing next to them. He sat on an uncomfortable looking seat, in what appeared to be a tiny control room, full of dials, knobs, levers and buttons. His arms were looped inside leather straps connected to cables and pulleys running away into the tree itself. His legs fed through similar bands, his feet resting on pedals.

  The man smiled.

  "That is Tifo, I am Podo and this is my son, Lano. Tifo is one of our treescouters. There are many like him watching the borders of the forest. So you see we found you. We have been tracking you since your loud argument up the hillside. If we had thought you a threat you would have simply passed through these woods completely unaware of us."

  Ben blushed.

  "But why hide from everyone here? Why not live together with the rest of the realm?" Eva asked.

  Podo smirked at the ground. "The rest of the realm belongs to the mages. And there can be no living alongside their kind."

  Ben hunched his shoulders. "Why does everyone despise them so much anyway? Aren't there any good mages around?"

  Podo laughed loudly and took a step towards Ben. Suddenly his squirler outfit was sinister. "Have you lived with the digboks under the earth all your years?"

  Ben flushed again, worried he had revealed too much of his own abnormality.

  Podo continued. "Besides I don't think it is a simple question of goodness. A mage is bound to act as he does - "

  "Bound by what?" Eva drew the man's attention away from Ben.

  "By his nature." He paused, then turned to squirrel boy. "Lano here understands that.

  “So Lano, why does a cavejaw eat something? Why does it eat a boy even?"

  "Because a boy is foolish and disturbs it." The boy's answer was clear and practiced, recited over many nut dinners.

  His father nodded, smiled. "Is the cavejaw a bad creature then?"

  Little Lano shook his head.

  He turned back to Eva. "The cavejaw is driven to survive. It will do what it must to achieve that. But everything it does to that end is good so far as it is concerned."

  "So the mages are just trying to survive, and we shouldn't disturb them? They disturbed us by meddling with their spells that have already begun turning the earth sour."

  "Who can say what nature these mages belong to, and what they strive for. I only say that we should stay out of their way as they struggle for it, and that what they seek might be something good for all of us, in spite of all the evil they do along the way. The evil they have already done to us. Their ways are beyond our knowledge, so perhaps their goal is also."

  Eva was silent.

  "Maybe they were just looking for a way to go home," Ben said quietly.

  Podo went on. "We lived in Chasisi, at the time of the golden age of the city, long ago now. Our skyships carried traders even to the Gigamirafructi Islands, extending the peaceful hand of our great Queen Abisha beyond any before her. My love worked hard in the mountain terraces picking edla leaves, while I served in our workshops, engineering many of our greatest machines. It was a peaceful, content kingdom.

  "One cold clear night, I was stationed at a watch post a day west of the city, repairing a longviewer there. The moon had swung low to more closely observe the majesty of Chasisi's walls. The men were boisterous in spite of the cold, singing thanks for the disappearance of Avadon the scourge, who had then not been seen for one year; the dark times of his mind-clouding were thought gone for good.

  "At midnight we heard the city clocktower strike. That is when he came. A cloaked boy, no older than you both, and smaller still. I remember his face was calm and cold. There was no need for a spell to declare what he was. The songs chilled into fearful whispers, and the frost of the night arrived in that moment and devoured the hope in our hearts in one bite. Slaughtered like a hayhopper fattened for a year."

  "What happened? Did you fight him?" Eva asked.

  "The garrison sounded the bells to warn the city. Then we stood before him. One spell was all it took to make us kneel. He snapped all of our ankles."

  Ben moved his weight uncomfortably.

  "The alarm had sounded, but when the new mage came to the mighty walls where hundreds had already manned the defences, the destroyed garrison crawled behind him, our cries waking the sleeping city to a harsh new dawn. And so he entered the city gates without war. Quietly claiming golden Chasisi."

  "You mean Thane, don't you? I've heard Alder say he is most powerful of all the five great mages." Eva's face, shaded by the dancing leaves, now turned darker still.

  He nodded once. It seemed all he could manage after the strain of his story.

  "We never saw Avadon again.

  "I don't know what Thane seeks, whether that is something good or evil. But I want to stay out of his way. Only magic can stand against magic." He shook his head, and laid a protective hand on the boy-squirler's shoulder. "So we
ran, far from him and the others. And found ourselves here."

  Ben was a statue. If the mages were so dangerous, what would happen when he found one? This was even more foolish than going into the pitch-black mountain tunnel. He was actually trying to disturb a cavejaw. His source of salvation seemed to be becoming a likely source of his demise. How much was he willing to risk to return home?

  "We should go," Ben finally said.

  Eva startled. She nodded.

  "Why do you travel to the Bitter Falls?" Podo asked.

  "We seek counsel there on matters of the Peregrine," Eva answered quickly.

  The man's eyebrows tilted and his mask twitched, unintentionally lightening the mood and easing Eva and Ben's forced smiles.

  "Very well then. Good luck to you."

  "May you remain hidden and safe," said Eva.

  They turned back to the path. Goldie jumped across the fallen branches with them.

  After he was sure they were out of earshot, Ben said to Eva, "do you think Podo's right about the mages? About them being destined by their nature to do terrible things, believing those acts are good?"

  "It's not just the mages who do awful things in the name of something good. And if the good outweighs the bad, then maybe it's ok. But if the evil acts go too far, or if the good intention gets lost..."

  "But the definition of good depends on who you're talking to. I wonder if the mages are evil people who think they are doing something good, good people who know they are doing bad things but in order to reach a good end, good people who have forgotten the good cause they were actually doing the bad things for in the first place, or just bad people doing bad things."

  "You've spent far too long talking to Alder. You're giving me a pain in my head."

  "A headache."

  "Yes, I like that word. You are giving me a headache."

  "Sorry."

  "Well you are a good person, I'm sure of that."

  Ben reddened.

  "And I have faith that if you ever did something nasty, it would never be too heinous, and it would always be in aid of a greater good that far outweighed it. And also that you would never forget the good ending."