Ray threw a plea into the air, much like Kerry’s own, though he wished for a different thing that he hoped would come true. He would have to wait and see, but he hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer. The stone land was calling to him, and in his dreams the wizard seemed somehow closer than he’d ever been before.
CHAPTER TWELVE: DISCOVERY AND ESCAPE
Kerry awoke first, before the sun even considered appearing in the distant east. She was gripped with stark, real fear and a mundane, unhappy task lay before her.
During the long night, she hadn’t slept much. The floor was hard and ungiving. Ray had offered her the bed, but she had refused. The rocker—which was now broken—was the only place she could find sleep anyway and one of them needed to have coherent thoughts come morning.
Ray would wake soon. She knew this and so she hurried. In the dark, she followed the long path from her home, raising the call to all listening ears, though her Waring was not to be found.
Sorrowfully, with the arrival of dawn she returned, her one chance banished. The meat was plentiful though. The trees had produced as she had asked, for which she thanked them. She couldn’t tell the trees though that what they produced was not enough to satisfy the tithe.
She began to gather the meat and soon had enough to last Ray and her many days. She would be sad if she had to give it away to those who wouldn’t appreciate it. As she entered the storehouse to empty her pack in the storage bins a final time, she saw Ray. Ray’s pack lay in the middle of the floor, appearing more full than usual. Kerry took note of the blankets and bedroll perched on top of it. Two canisters sat beside it, canisters that she knew had been empty the day before and were now filled. Ray was hunched over tidying seals, almost ready to lift the pack to his shoulders as he heard her enter.
“We are going. Your things are stowed,” was all he said. Ray shouldered the pack, adjusting under the heavy weight awkwardly until it was settled.
“But Waring,” lamented Kerry, “I cannot leave him.”
Ray looked her in the eye. “Apparently, he is well enough to fend for himself.”
“You don’t understand. If he returns and I am not here, he will never come back and I will lose him.” Unhappily, Kerry gazed around the room. “If we go, where will we go to?”
His retort was simple, “To Adalayia.”
Kerry stopped him from passing through the door. “No, Ray. You can’t go to Adalayia. You don’t understand what will happen to you if you go there. The people there will not understand you or your kind. You will not like it.”
Kerry urged Ray to hide everything in the empty storage bins. After he did this, Kerry returned to the main house. He followed.
They set to arguing. Her inventing reasons why she must stay and him countering with reasons she must go with him. To him leaving was a thing that must be done, and her going with him was also a thing that must be done. He decided right then though that he would tell her nothing of his latest dream—the dream which she was a part of, the dream in which she rode upon the back of a dragon lizard and the skies were full of great flying beasts.
A scratching at the door startled them both. Instant silence followed. Ray quickly reverted to the ways of the In, seeking both to defend himself and to get distance between himself and the thing that had startled him. He was scarcely more than a few steps away before he returned to Kerry’s side however. She, for her part, didn’t move. Ray thought her bold but perhaps foolish. Anyone who was foolish enough to stay in the path of a bull was swept away and pulled down to the depths.
A shrill call sounded, followed by a rough tapping. Ray was certain the soldiers had returned and it was now too late to run. What would they do? How would they defend themselves? Could they defend themselves? They had no weapons, no protective clothing.
Both were spellbound, frozen in place, waiting for impending doom. The window, thought Ray, they would slip out the window. The scratching returned, there was the call again.
A curious grin crossed Kerry’s face. A fire returned to her downtrodden eyes. Ray was trying to move her to the window but she refused. She moved instead to the door and when she swung the door open, he mistook her startled gasp of wonder as horror.
He dropped from the window to the floor with a thud, and whirled around, staff in hand, ready to strike. A strike he nearly followed through with when confronted by the wary beast. The falkish had returned, almost as if on cue. Kerry’s calls and Ray’s prayers had not gone unanswered.
The falkish seemed to take an instant liking to Ray, as he did to it. Ray had never seen such a beast, clad in gray, black and brown feathers. Waring did not remain still for long, quickly returning to his high-pitched calls, then just as suddenly settling onto the crossed stave planted before the door. As Waring swept across the room Ray got full view of the immense wingspan for the first time and was undeniably awed.
“Where were you, you naughty boy?” asked Kerry, stroking the falkish’s head. “Go on, tell me?” she repeated, “No need to be shy with company and all.”
Kerry soothed Waring’s ruffled feathers. “Is that so,” she responded. “Well you’ll just have to tell her, you are mine and I will not let go of you ever again.”
Ray was hesitant to interfere, doing so only after allowing a short period of silence to follow. “You can speak to it?” he asked amazed.
“Of course, silly,” Kerry said.
Ray thought it unnecessary to remark on this. “We had better be off. There is no telling when they will come. Do you know which way they will come from?”
“Don’t you think we ought to think this through? This is so sudden. I’m not so sure I want to go anywhere, Ray.”
Kerry struggled with inner demons. In her mind’s eye she saw Stirling urging her to stay. The Country was her home; the City was no place for her and it certainly wasn’t a place for Ray. She started to tremble and a quiver set to her cheek as she heard voices far off, echoing down from high up in the hills. Surely these were the voices of the soldiers returning and without a moment’s hesitation she pulled Ray from the house. Ray could never be found by the soldiers; their kind held only hate in their hearts for those from other lands.
Within minutes as the two looked on from the storehouse where Kerry kept the meat of the trees, the soldiers arrived. A large brute of a man rapped once on the door, the sound of which had barely faded when he ordered the door bashed in. Kerry stood as soldiers swarmed into her small home. The first soldier through the door was greeted by Warring’s claws. As Warring burst out the door screeching, his talons dripping, he shot high into the air.
Ray pulled Kerry down to safety before she could do anything then hurriedly checked the bundle at his side to ensure True was in the enclosure. He sighed with relief as True’s cool tongue flitted against the back of his hand.
“Search the grounds and down the hill,” the leader ordered a group of men. To a second group, he commanded, “Destroy everything!”
Kerry struggled against Ray’s grip, fighting to break free to save her home. Ray held on with all his strength. “You can do nothing but get yourself killed,” he told her, begging her with his eyes to stop struggling.
“My home,” Kerry whispered, her voice weak, tears in her eyes.
“Home is where and what we make it, Kerry,” Ray told her, “I know this as I know no other thing. The land beyond is there, I know it. My father saw it in his dreams and so have I—and I cannot rest until I try.” He hesitated for a moment, then he told her of his latest dream, the dream of which she was a part. “You mustn’t be afraid to try, Kerry. … We must go now before it is too late.”
In her mind’s eye, she saw it then: the land beyond the beyond. She saw the rain wash and the great washfalls that Ray had told her about. And then strangely, she saw Stirling standing tall, holding her mother’s hand, pride showing in his eyes. The sense of pride was fleeting though as his eyes and face betrayed concern, anguish.
Kerry stopped struggling and turned to
Ray as he released his hold on her. As she spoke, she seemed to be considering her own words. “If I go, there can be no turning back. No turning back and I will lose everything I’ve ever known.” Her vision then became the embodiment of her fears and the very reality of the voices both near and far fell upon her. “Do we make a pact?”
Ray asked, “A pact?”
“An agreement to stand by our word: no turning back, Ray. Once we start there can be no turning back. If you can’t agree to this, I can’t go. I would sooner remain here. You always have a home to return to. For me, if I leave there will be none, only that which I make for myself.” Kerry spit into her hand and held it out to Ray. “Do you understand?”
Ray spit into his hand, touched it to hers. “Yes, I understand,” he started to say but Kerry stopped him mid sentence, thrusting a hand over his mouth as she pulled him deeper into the storehouse. In the same instant, he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps just outside the storehouse door. As the door jerked open, Kerry was pulling Ray behind her into a storage bin. Ray pulled the door of the bin closed behind him.
The space within the bin was cramped and quickly became stuffy and hot. Ray could scarcely think as his heart pounded in his ears. Quiet minutes passed. Kerry slipped her hand into his, saying in a whisper, “There are few trails from this side to Adalayia and none past it as you wish to go. We must go through the city. There is no other way. Are you prepared for that? Do you understand what might happen?” Kerry was being rational.
“Don’t worry, I will find a way through the city. We will find a way, together.” He believed his words, for he had seen them both in places far off and away from Adalayia. He added, “Don’t forget where it is that I come from—”
“How could I?” cut in Kerry, “How will you get through? They will see you?”
“We will worry about that then and not now,” offered Ray, eager to be off.
Kerry read his agitation. “They returned to the city trail yesterday. We must take the other one.”
As a sign of agreement, he opened the bin door a sliver. He listened and waited, preparing to ease out of the hiding place. Kerry said quietly behind him, “It is the longest and hardest way to go through the stone land and to the city. It wraps and winds its way through many twisted trails. I have never been that way, Ray.”
Ray slipped out of the bin, wiping away the sweat dripping down his face with the back of his arm. True, who had wrestled his way free from the cage, came to a rest beneath Ray’s feet. The slither’s eyes were fixed on Ray; its tongue flashing in and out. “We must leave now. Hurry!”
“Did he talk to you?” Kerry asked, intrigued.
“No,” whined Ray, yet as he thought about it, he wasn’t sure. Why had an alarm sounded in his mind? Regardless, True knew enough to return to the confines of the cage and Ray knew enough not to trouble himself needlessly.
It was then that they heard voices that seemed to come from behind them—voices that came from the other side of the nearby wall—and then that they smelled smoke and saw fire. Before Ray could get his pack on, Kerry had her own pack on, the front shoulder pack she used to carry the meat to winter market. From the doorway as Ray scouted out the best way to make a run for it, Kerry sang a wordless song to her trees, a solemn song of parting and remembrance. Someday I will return, she promised them in her song, though she did not tell Ray this.
A quake shifted through the trees and Ray swore he saw the great boughs of the trees bend and shift, waving a goodbye as he and Kerry raced out of the burning storehouse. The meaning of the wordless song was lost to Ray, though he did not need to comprehend it to understand its beauty. The song was captivating and Kerry sang during the entire frantic race to get clear of the soldiers. Even if Ray had asked about the song, Kerry wouldn’t have been able to explain exactly why she sang it—though she did see Stirling in her mind’s eye and there in that special place where the two sometimes met he was singing the same song.
Ray was glad the song occupied Kerry’s thoughts, for the first steps into the open brought them to the burning house and it seemed that for a time afterward everything around them was ablaze. The fire and black smoke hid as well as it illuminated. Ray and Kerry used this to their advantage as they fled. From time to time, they heard Warring’s piercing calls—calls that seemed to be moving further and further away in the opposite direction.
Soon a land rougher and tougher than Ray had ever fathomed spread out before them. The path they followed was narrow and old, yet Ray was unafraid as he took Kerry’s hand and they raced hand in hand, deeper and deeper into the stone land.
This was the path his dreams had spoken of and though he had not seen the outsider girl in his earliest dreams, she was part of his dreams now. He was optimistic that together they would reach the land beyond and that he return one day to tell Tall, Keen, Isaac, Ephramme and the others about his journey. He was confident too that when he did, Kerry would be beside him.
With the voices chasing behind them in the distance, Ray and Kerry hurried away, hoping against hope to escape safely into the wilds, to make passage to Adalayia, through Adalayia, and eventually beyond. There could be no turning back now and they both knew it. Their fear of the unknown was their shield, making them more aware of their surroundings, and perhaps, even giving them awareness of their greatest hope of all—that such a far off place existed and that they could reach it.
Ray’s thoughts swam. In his mind’s eye he pictured the stronghold perched atop Mount Lar, the stone canyon where dragon lizards roamed, and the far away land where the undermountain men dwelled, knowing that somewhere in the dark beyond the Great High Wizard of Adalayia—the wizard of his dreams—waited as well.
End of Book One
The Story continues with:
Into the Stone Land
Magic Lands #2
INTO THE
STONE LAND
ROBERT STANEK
Chapter 1: Out of the Depths
Tall fought to catch his breath and still his racing heart, but the baritone moan of a watching bull came again to his ear. The large beast with its thick scaly hide, powerful jaws and long tail was close, much closer than Tall was comfortable with. Worse still was that the beast feasted on wetland horse flesh—a prize the bull would defend from all comers.
Tall took quick study of his surroundings as he cursed himself for taking the fast path through the bull’s residence. He had seen the tracks and trails, had known the bull was near, but had not known how near. It was too late to backtrack now, too late to try to work his way around the bull and its feast.
His ears were full of the echoes of voices, mostly that of his mother and father, but also of the village elders. He heard the village smoot’s warning in his ears, “Old Bull and Mother Slither wait for you out there in the great beyond. Too quick, too fast, too soon. These are not good things. Leave this village a hasty boy if you must, but return a man unharmed by moving slowly, methodically, warily.”
Sweat dripping into his eyes burned. Tall wiped it away with the back of his left hand. His right hand gripped his staff as he pushed it into the wet mud and leaned his weight into it. He knew every inch of the straight length of arbor. It was both an aid and a defensive weapon, and its length of six feet two inches matched his height exactly.
His staff was an integral part of his journey, as was the container secured to the bottom of his pack. He and the other 12-winter boys had worked for many moons on their staffs. It was only as spring approached that they began work on the containers that would hold the earliest beginnings of their life companions.
As his father was a crafter, Tall was accustomed to working with wood. He could craft almost anything of wood and so the task of crafting the container was an easy one. He had hollowed out a log, sealed one end with webbing, and made the wooden cap for the other end in half a moon.
Most of the other boys weren’t as fortunate. Their fathers were gatherers or growers mostly, and they were still hollowing
out their logs when he finished. Not one to gloat, he set to helping each in turn. Ray was the last he helped, but only because Ray refused help the first time he offered.
Thoughts of Ray sent his mind spinning. He missed Ray. With Isaac gone to Second Village to win a bride, Keene exiled, and Ephramme busy learning the speaker’s trade, the hope of Ray’s return to the village was all Tall clung to some days. That and hope of winning Ellie’s attentions, even if the girl with the bright eyes and long curly hair had no idea he was even alive.
A life with Ellie was secondary to his pursuit; he must prove himself before he could think of such things. He must reach the place lost and deep. He must perform the appropriate rites. He must choose a life companion. Most chose a slither or a bull.
His father’s companion was a slither. Slithers were a practical choice for crafters because they could aid in the gathering of goods the crafter wanted to work, and also could wrap and twine to hold goods the crafter worked in place. Much as he liked slithers, he also fancied bulls. Almost every grower and gatherer in the village had a bull. A bull’s powerful jaws and sharp claws aided a grower’s every chore from planting to crop protection to harvesting and in the great beyond bulls kept gatherers alive.
Complete Magic Lands Books 1 & 2 Omnibus Page 10
