Everdark

by Abi Elphinstone

  Every child in Crackledawn was supposed to choose between being a Sunraider or a Sunsmith when they turned sixteen, but Smudge couldn’t help wondering whether she was born to do something completely different. Something that might involve her sketches of the diamond-shelled turtles she had discovered on Littlefern Island, or the imagined maps she had drawn of the unexplored lands beyond the Northswirl, the legendary stretch of ocean and the boundary of Crackledawn that nobody had managed to sail beyond and return.

  But, when Smudge had tried to raise the idea of an alternative path for her future, Crumpet had dismissed the notion and her classmates had dissolved into giggles. And so, little by little, Smudge’s hopes and dreams of one day achieving something – anything – dried up and she came to accept that being lonely and a little bit useless was just part of her everyday life.

  And then the Rising didn’t happen.

  Smudge knew she’d noticed something important. Greyhobble hadn’t mentioned anything during his speech, so did that mean he’d missed it? The elf had promised that no harm would come to anyone, but if he hadn’t seen the winged creature heading towards Lonecrag, or felt sure of the darkness in its soul as Smudge had, how could he know that everything would be okay? Perhaps Smudge could be the one to help the Lofty Husks come up with a plan to rid the kingdom of this creature. Perhaps this was her chance to do something right for once.

  Smudge made to jump from the last rung of the ladder, but her foot caught in a vine and she landed face down in the bushes. The monkey, used to Smudge’s clumsily executed midnight excursions round Littlefern Island when she was supposed to be asleep, didn’t peer over the edge of the hammock just yet. And so, unnoticed, Smudge hurried through the undergrowth, crossed the sandy beach, then tiptoed over the wooden walkway towards Wildhorn.

  She paused when she came to the cliffs encircling the island and peered round them into the bay. The elves’ ship, Dragonclaw, was one of the nearest dhows, just a stone’s throw from where she stood now and moored to a pier leading out from the beach. It was lit by lanterns and Smudge could see the Lofty Husks clustered at the bow. She stalled a moment longer. Was she really just going to stride aboard and start poking her nose into the elves’ plans? Back in her hammock it had seemed like a good idea to let them know what she’d seen, but now, listening to Greyhobble’s words, Smudge couldn’t help feeling that this situation was far bigger than she was.

  ‘An evil has risen from Everdark. Nothing like this has ever happened before so we cannot know how much time we have before the magic that protects the Unmapped Kingdoms disappears, but, without a phoenix, my guess is that we don’t have long.’ Greyhobble paused. ‘You all heard the greed and power in that creature’s cry. It sounded hungry and, if it’s out to steal Crackledawn’s magic, we must act fast.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Without magic, our seas will dry up, our lands will shrivel and every last drop of sun-chatter we have will vanish. Rumblestar, Jungledrop and Silvercrag will suffer a similar fate – and, without our magic, the Faraway will once more become a series of dark, empty places, as they were before the first phoenix sent the deep magic out into the world.’

  The other elves exchanged anxious whispers.

  ‘We must capture this creature, whatever it takes,’ Greyhobble continued.

  ‘But . . . but without knowing what it is,’ Timberdust stammered, ‘how can we brew the right enchantments to stop it? And we don’t even know which direction it went – is it still here in Crackledawn or has it made its way to one of the other kingdoms?’

  Smudge’s heart quickened. Her suspicion had been right: the Lofty Husks hadn’t noticed what she had. So here it was at last, an opening for her to do something right – to say that she had seen the creature, that she knew it was a large, winged beast and that it was heading towards Lonecrag! And suddenly she didn’t feel quite so small and stupid – the elves needed to hear what she had to say!

  She rushed round the cliffs on to the beach, but as she did so something caught her eye: something fine and glinting falling from the sky beyond the bay. It was like rain, only there wasn’t a single cloud in sight, and this strange substance looked black against the moonlight as it moved closer and closer to the elves’ ship.

  Smudge nipped behind a cluster of palm trees, watching as one by one the elves looked up at the sky. A look of horror washed over them as tiny droplets fell over the bow of the boat leaving stains as dark as oil.

  ‘Nightdaggers!’ Greyhobble cried, rushing towards a large silver bell hanging from the rigging. ‘Sound the alarm for the Unmappers! The creature is most definitely still in Crackledawn!’

  Smudge huddled behind the palm trees, too terrified to move. Although she couldn’t always remember what she’d learned in class, she knew about dark magic. Every Unmapper did. Nightdaggers could turn you into a shadow, then hold you still, and the curse could only be lifted if the one who had conjured the dark magic in the first place undid it – or was stripped of their power.

  Smudge’s insides clenched as she stared at the scene aboard Dragonclaw. Greyhobble hadn’t made it to the alarm bell in time. Nor had any of the other elves for that matter because the Nightdaggers were falling too fast and Smudge could only watch, shaking, as the rulers of her kingdom faded – first their cloaks, then their wrinkled skin and white hair – until all that was left were a dozen shadows clustered round a silent bell.

  Pushing down her fear, Smudge scrambled back over the sand. She had to make it to Littlefern Island to warn everyone. ‘Wake up!’ she screamed. ‘WAKE UP!’

  But the Nightdaggers were drawing back from Dragonclaw now and spreading out over the islands. Smudge started down the walkway towards Littlefern only to realise that the cursed rain was gathering above it so she doubled back on herself and ducked inside a small cave at the foot of the cliffs.

  ‘No,’ Smudge breathed. ‘No, no, no!’

  But the Nightdaggers drummed on. Smudge’s head spun. Had the curse been sent by the creature to stop those in Crackledawn who might try to come after it? Smudge watched as the Nightdaggers moved away from the islands and drifted out to sea, as silently as they had come. Then, when she was sure that the last of them had vanished from sight, she scampered out from her cave, ran across the walkway and peered up at the hammocks strung between the palm trees on Littlefern Island.

  Shadows. In all of them. Dark, mute shapes where Unmappers should have been. Smudge scurried up the rope ladder to her own hammock, but there was no sign at all of the white-nosed monkey. She knew that magical beasts were immune to many of the curses that could harm Unmappers, so she hoped that meant the monkey was all right, but she couldn’t help feeling that he could have at least stayed to check she was okay. It wasn’t as if they were friends, though Smudge had secretly entertained the idea that he might become a companion of sorts when the Lofty Husks presented him to her at the beginning of the year.

  Every first-former had been given an enchanted gift to mark the start of their formal lessons: Amira had received a telescope that whispered the names of the stars as you looked at them; Jago had been given a cutlass with a jewel in the hilt that glowed if danger was nearby; and Zeb got a pebble that predicted the weather. But Smudge had ended up with a white-nosed monkey that did nothing but follow her around in a grump. The elves had insisted the creature had an enchanted element, like all the other gifts, and Smudge had hoped that perhaps the monkey might speak or tell her future or produce something exciting from the impractically long suitcase he had arrived with. But he did nothing of the sort and seemed to be slightly cross with Smudge from the moment they met. Even so, she would’ve welcomed his company now.

  Smudge climbed down once again and ran across the walkways between the other islands – Sandshell, Oldbark, Longvine, Driftwood – in case another Unmapper had escaped the Nightdaggers. But it was the same everywhere. Hammocks full of shadows.

  ‘Somebody?’ Smudge cried. ‘Anybody!’

  But nobody else, it seemed,
had been somewhere they weren’t meant to be that night. And, with a growing sense of dread, Smudge walked back to the bay and slumped down on to the sand in front of Dragonclaw. She had felt lonely for most of her life, but that was nothing compared to knowing that she was the only Unmapper not held by the Nightdaggers, a curse that had come in from the very direction the creature she had spotted had flown off towards.

  She thought back to the ancient decrees and warnings that held her world and the Faraway together. But without a new phoenix rising how would the magic in her kingdom last? And how could they promise to pass it on to the Faraway if it wasn’t here in the first place? Smudge tried to imagine Crackledawn without its magic – without the velvet sloths and glass-beaked toucans on Littlefern Island and without the whispers, giggles, hiccups and melodies that made watching a sunrise or a sunset feel like hearing a ninety-piece orchestra if you listened carefully. All that wonder, all that magic – gone; The Faraway plunged into darkness again.

  Smudge let the horror of her thoughts sink inside her. Why hadn’t the phoenix risen? What kind of creature had flown across the moon in its place? And who would capture it now the elves were bound by Nightdaggers? Would the Lofty Husks from other kingdoms work out a way to cross over into Crackledawn and rescue it? Or were they, too, enduring a similar fate?

  Smudge swallowed back her tears. And it was then that the rock goblins inched out of their burrows. Smudge watched them whispering to one another on the beach. Several magical creatures lived alongside the Unmappers in Crackledawn – like the sand sprites, water pixies and cockle imps who spent their days frolicking in the shallows and eating puddleberries – but the rock goblins were the only ones who could talk. They kept to themselves, though, only ever speaking to Unmappers when brewing and selling Swigs, exotic fruit juices that made your bottom wiggle, in the Cheeky Urchin.

  But the goblins didn’t slope off into their burrows on seeing Smudge. Instead, they hobbled closer in their seaweed waistcoats and palm-leaf shorts until they were surrounding her. They were much smaller than her, but what they lacked in height they made up for in noses, which were so very bulbous it was surprising any of them could see where they were going.

  ‘It’s up to you to save the kingdom!’ one goblin squeaked.

  ‘Crackledawn needs you!’ another piped up.

  ‘You’re the only hope!’ a third squealed.

  ‘Please can everyone stop shouting!’ a fourth goblin, with a nose the size and shape of a very large potato, cried. She straightened her waistcoat and looked down at Smudge. ‘You’re pretty young to have been left in charge, aren’t you?’

  Smudge choked. ‘Me? Oh no. I’m here by accident. I’m not in charge!’ She looked at the shadows frozen round the alarm bell on Dragonclaw and welled up again. ‘I don’t think anyone is any more . . .’

  The goblins dissolved into a frenzy of sobbing – all except the potato-nosed goblin who leaned closer to Smudge and said, in a whisper, ‘Please don’t ever say that again. Rock goblins fall apart under sloppy management.’ She picked up a piece of driftwood and rapped Smudge on the knuckles with it. ‘So keep it together and tell us what on earth you were doing out of bed tonight and how you are going to single-handedly save Crackledawn and the rest of the Unmapped Kingdoms from disaster?’

  Smudge gulped. ‘I . . . I saw something earlier when we were waiting for the Rising,’ she stammered. ‘Something large and winged and terrible and it was flying towards Lonecrag, so I got out of my hammock—’

  ‘Then what on earth are you doing chit-chatting with me here now?’ the goblin cried. ‘If you know that an evil creature is heading towards Lonecrag, why aren’t you captaining a ship in pursuit of it?’

  Smudge winced. ‘I don’t know how to steer one. Not properly anyway.’

  The goblin waved her hand. ‘Nonsense. What did you score in your Sunraiding tests?’

  Smudge reddened. ‘Um—’

  The goblin rapped her on the knuckles again. ‘Don’t be modest – now’s not the time.’

  ‘I failed the tests,’ Smudge mumbled.

  ‘FAILED?’ the goblin hissed, trying not to let the rest of her kind overhear. She grimaced, then she hauled Smudge up and marched her past Dragonclaw and on to the second pier until she was standing before the ring of boats moored there. ‘Pick a boat – any boat.’

  Smudge backed away from the edge of the pier, the steering incident still fresh in her mind. Besides, Unmappers weren’t suppose to board dhows without being in possession of a watergum, the magical sweet which gave you gills to breathe underwater while diving for sun-chatter or acted as a safeguard against drowning if the seas got rough. But the goblin pushed her forward again regardless.

  ‘A bit of pre-voyage nerves never hurt anyone,’ she said ‘Now choose a boat.’

  ‘But even if I do try to sail after the creature – which will be a disaster, by the way – what about the sun scrolls? How will the Faraway get sunlight if no one’s writing the symphonies?’

  ‘We’ll do our best to take care of that while the other Unmappers are under the Nightdagger curse,’ the goblin replied. ‘You just focus on capturing the creature, demanding the release of the Unmappers and restoring order to the four kingdoms.’

  Smudge gawped at her. ‘But—’

  The goblin turned to her friends and clicked her fingers. A bunch of bananas was bundled down the line of goblins towards her which she thrust at Smudge, saying: ‘In case you get peckish on your trip’ – before pushing her off the edge of the pier.

  Smudge clattered into the hull of a boat and looked up see a crowd of goblins peering down at her over their noses.

  ‘What did she say she scored in her tests?’ one squeaked.

  ‘Full marks,’ the potato-nosed goblin replied, patting her friend on the back. She shot Smudge one last look over her shoulder as she hurried away. ‘Try your utmost not to mess all this up, please – a change in management here in the Unmapped Kingdoms would be most distressing for us goblins and, though we’re happy to help in the short term, we like an easy life, so we don’t want to be left with the responsibility of writing the sun scrolls forever.’

  Smudge didn’t have the heart to tell her that there wouldn’t be any Unmapped Kingdoms if the creature wasn’t stopped, so she just smiled weakly until the rock goblins left and once again she was alone. She looked the boat up and down and then frowned. She recognised this boat. It was The Coddiwomple. The little dhow that had once belonged to the legendary Sunraider, Nefarious Flood, Smudge’s all-time hero and the only person brave enough to have sailed beyond the Northswirl. She didn’t remember much from her lessons in the Warren, but she remembered almost everything about Nefarious Flood because it wasn’t really his sunraiding that people talked of but his adventures – his explorations in far-off places – and these were very much the sort of things that interested Smudge.

  For a brief moment, Smudge considered Nefarious’ fate: ‘sailed beyond the Northswirl,’ Crumpet had told her, ‘and promptly drowned.’

  His ship had been found adrift almost twenty years ago now – and it was only from his diaries on-board that anyone knew Nefarious had made it past the Northswirl because his body had never been found. The Lofty Husks had moored his boat here to remind Unmappers of the dangers of going beyond the Northswirl.

  Smudge ran a hand over the dhow’s hull. Even though the wooden sunshade erected over the stern had been battered by storms, the handle of the sunraiding net was chipped, the lantern hanging from the bow had a missing pane of glass and there were barnacles covering the benches, there was still something magical about the boat.

  She imagined Nefarious Flood climbing aboard and sailing beyond the Northswirl. How brave he must have been to venture out into the unknown! And, though Smudge still felt horribly, horribly out of her depth, she knew that now was not the time to let her fears get in the way of doing the right thing.

  She stood up, eyes glittering. ‘I might be a little bit useless,’
she muttered, ‘but I’m not a coward!’

  Smudge busied herself with the sail while, unbeknown to her, the white-nosed monkey watched from behind the cluster of palm trees on the shore, holding a suitcase in one hand and a trilby in the other. It did seem to him that this under-aged, underqualified and deeply underwhelming eleven-year-old was indeed about to embark on her first solo voyage – and that was just as well because he had waited an awfully long time for this. He hurried across the beach towards the pier.

  Meanwhile, Smudge eyed the dragonhide sail. It was rolled up, but as soon as she placed a hand on the mast she felt the boat’s magic shiver through her. She untied the sail and as it unfurled – a brilliant, shimmering gold sheet of leather covered in black-ink scribbles – she gasped. Because these were the destinations Nefarious Flood had visited on his last voyage.

  ‘The Gaping Gulf, Endless Falls, Ghostwreck . . .’ Smudge murmured. But when she came to the name in the middle of the sail her toes began to tingle. ‘The Northswirl.’

  Smudge ducked beneath the wooden canopy at the stern of the boat, opened a rusty trunk beneath it and rummaged through the contents. No watergums, annoyingly, but there was a penknife, several battered books – An Insider’s Guide to Catching Sun-chatter by Peregrine Fingertwitch, A Sunsmith’s Manual (includes tips on blending magical ink and writing memorable symphonies) by Augusta Prattle, Where to Glimpse a Sea Dragon by Algernon de Peep – a feather quill and an inkpot filled with black dye.