by Ember Lane
Great Crested Newt – Level 1
The Great Crested Newt can only be found high in the Red Mountains in the Kingdom of Irydia.
Status – Neutral
I sat back. So, I was more than likely in a kingdom called Irydia in the Land Of Barakdor. I was also among the Red Mountains, though they didn’t seem too red. Fine. Bit by bit, I was learning about this place; bit by bit, I was understanding where I was. Feeling quite pleased with my discoveries, I jumped up, bid the newt a good day, and set off farther into the forest. I didn’t get very far.
It didn’t add up at first. One minute the forest was just rank upon rank of conifer trunks, and then there was a jaspur tree right in my path, its bloom of mauve leaves bulging out like a large, button mushroom. How I could have missed it was beyond me. As I walked around it, I swore its thin branches tried to trip me up, tried to grab my legs, but decided I must be seeing things, until I walked straight into another.
Soon, they were everywhere, behind me, in front, by my side, under me. I tried to dash through them, tried to sidle past, duck under, but they surrounded me, pressing ever closer. And then I felt myself lifted up, passed from one tree to the next. I fought them, screamed, shouted, kicked out at their tangle of branches—but more kept sprouting up, grabbing me, strangling me, shoving me around and around, bundling me along. I could see nothing but their mauve leaves as they slapped my cheeks, stifled my breath, and I thought I was done for—thought I was on my way to meet Billy Long Thumb.
Then, out of the blue, I was unceremoniously dumped back on the grass by the jutting rock at the top of the vale, and all I could see were the conifers of the forest, and the stream emerging from them. Scratching my head, I wondered if I was going mad, and scrambled back up, edging forward, slowly poking my head into the forest’s shade.
There was no sign of the jaspur except a single mauve leaf by my boot. I stooped and picked it up, cupping it in my open palm. The leaf was long and thin, much like the shape of the vale itself. As I stared at it, I felt immense love emanating from it, not the bustle and hostility of just a few moments before. It was almost like it was trying to tell me something, like a mother who drags her child away from some danger, and then tries to explain why.
As I looked down at it, it appeared to shimmer and fade, losing its form as it melted into my skin. Brushing my palm with my fingers, I realized it had vanished, and just the stain from its sap was left. There was no doubt in my mind that the tree was special—in an odd way—and I understood that it had merely ushered me back into the vale. I was both thankful and afraid. On one hand, it could have been protecting me—that was the sense I had gotten from its leaf. On the other hand, maybe it didn’t want me to leave the vale, maybe it was another spell—maybe I was actually a prisoner here. I shivered at that thought, and tried to discard it as fast as I could.
Getting up, I ran down the valley, back to the hourglass, back to my spot, and I drank some water from the stream, and I tried to scrub my palm clean, but to no avail. Sitting, wondering exactly what had just passed, I felt loneliness creep into me for the first time since I’d come to the land. It was a fleeting feeling, and I knew I was not truly alone, just with folk that were different. I wondered how little Pog was faring, and Lincoln, and the girl—even the man, Brandon. Mostly Pog though—I was worried about him, and wished he was in the vale with me.
Greman’s call came soon after I’d sat, and pulled me from my thoughts. He’d made me another hearty soup, and as I spooned it in, I decided it was about time I repaid him for all his kindness.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Greman?”
He looked up, his forehead wrinkled in thought. “I don’t know. I’ve been doing the same chores now for so long that I’m not sure they’re even chores anymore. How about I think on it?”
“But surely there must be something I can do?”
He smiled, like a father to an eager child. “A birdie told me that you asked a wizard to teach you magic, that you asked them if you could stay. Wizards, Alexa, have a habit of keeping folk very busy—especially those with low levels of intelligence.”
I beamed. “I worked out his tricks.”
Greman nodded. “Let me give you a piece of advice. When it comes to wizards, especially a pair such as those two; take care where you follow them. Shylan may well have no fear of the caverns under the Ethmiall Carafore, and the monsters that hold sway in the seas surrounding The Five Isles may not tempt him to alter his course, but mere mortals would be wise to. Those two would turn and see your corpse and merely wonder why you died so easily.”
Greman’s goggle-eyed gaze settled on me, and I tried to digest the importance of his words. “So, I shouldn’t learn from them?”
The old beggle laughed. “Now, I never said that. I said be careful. Dangerous as they may be, it’d be a mighty adventure if you could just hang on to their coattails—a mighty, mighty venture. If only I had one more left in me.” He sighed.
And then it struck me, as plain as day, that was what I could do for Greman.
“If I learn real fast, like real, real fast, I’ll take you on a venture. I’ve already promised Billy Long Thumb that I’d look him up.”
Then Greman really did laugh. “That old swine,” he said. “He wants you to judge him.”
“To what?”
“To find out his life story and work out if he was mostly good, or mostly bad, so he can rest, so he can finally die.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Oh indeed, it is a quest beyond quests.”
“Why? Surely it’s just a story.”
Greman’s eyebrows arched in mock shock, “I’m sure the Legend of Billy Long Thumb is anything than just a story, and don’t forget, it isn’t just a quest for a lost trinket—a man’s eternal soul is at stake.”
“Then we should leave right away,” I announced.
“I think, my level two hero, that you need to become stronger before you accept any more quests. Did he pretend he didn’t hear you and make you promise three times?”
I nodded.
Greman reared and frowned. “I shall have words with Master Long Thumb, that is very underhanded.”
“Why?”
“Thrice said and so promised, that is how to accept any quest. Take care not to be caught off guard again.” He wrapped his knuckles on the table. “Now, I’ve got a lot of unhappy jaspur trees to calm, they’re upset about something, though what, I can’t quite fathom.” Pushing himself away from the table, Greman stood. “I’ll think of some chores for you later. Perhaps I do need a hand—my bones ache more and more with every passing day.” He sighed, turned and left.
I spent the rest of the afternoon running and then breaking to practice my new perception skill. I leveled up my running once more, but only right at the end, didn’t manage to get to the next perception level. I had no clue about when I’d gain another stamina point—that seemed to be getting harder and harder. But in the end, the light finally faded, and the night drew in.
It appeared my day was over. Just dinner with Greman, then no doubt he’d have his pipe and nod off by the fire. My gaze was drawn to Shylan’s tower and all the secrets it held, and a few times I wished I was living among its chaos.
I’d just settled down for the night when there was a knock on Greman’s front door. I nudged Greman awake.
“There’s someone at the door,” I hissed.
He opened one bulbous eye. “Then get up and open it,” he replied. “They rarely open themselves. Though, I heard tell there was a door that did. House of Reavers, Shyantium—I think that was where it was, though I can’t be sure.”
Another knock rang out, and just as I was about to get up, the door opened and Cronis’s head poked around it.
“You there?” he called.
“Who?” I called back.
“You.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Good.” And then he bowled in, walking straight up to Greman, shaking him awake
. “Greman!” he barked.
Greman spluttered awake. “Cronis?”
“Yes, I know, I know, I rarely leave the tower, but I need a favor. I want to borrow your whelp.”
“My what?”
“Her!”
“Well ask her nicely,” Greman huffed.
Cronis looked like he was going to explode. Curiously, he smelled like he already had. Then, he seemed to deflate and a withering smile graced his blistered face. “Alexa,” he said, his head tilting slightly, as if pained. “Would you please accompany me back to the tower.”
I looked from Greman to Cronis and back, but the old beggle was asleep again, and so, without disturbing him, I got up and crept over to Cronis. He spun around and walked back out. Just as I followed him, drawing the door closed as quietly as I could, Greman’s voice rang out. “He’s the worst of the two. Whatever you do, don’t trust him.”
Making to follow Cronis down the path, I stopped in my tracks when I looked up at the star-filled sky. “Wow,” I muttered. Barakdor’s moon was so close, much closer than the Earth’s, and the stars seemed to hang low against the sky’s deep, blue backdrop.
“Come on,” Cronis grumbled, as he shuffled toward the tower. “We’ll miss it if we’re not careful.”
“What?” I asked, but he didn’t reply.
The vale was quite enchanting by moonlight; the grass had a ghostly glow to it, and the stream was like a silver streak. I saw what I assumed were fireflies darting around, and once or twice, the reflections of small pairs of eyes.
“Still haven’t mastered it?” Cronis asked, but more as a statement.
“What?”
“Perception—you haven’t mastered it because if you had, they would be bursting to tell you what they are.”
I ran to catch up with him. “How do I get them to do that?” I asked.
He huffed and walked into the tower. Jumping the steps two at a time, he didn’t answer until we came to the curving corridor. “You’ve got to be more natural. At the moment, you’re fighting the world—still seeing it as a noob. Once you truly accept your place here, maybe they’ll accept you.” He turned and entered the chaotic room we were in earlier. Shylan was bent over its central table, his nose in a vast book. He looked up briefly.
“So you did it, you really did it,” he accused Cronis.
Cronis strolled over to a horizontal barrel and filled a mug with what looked like ale. An owl was perched on top of the barrel. I tried my perception on it, but it just scowled at me and flew onto the highest window’s sill.
“You ignored me, so I had no choice,” Cronis eventually replied.
“Pour me one of those,” Shylan responded, but Cronis did not move.
Shylan looked straight at me. “You, Alexa, would you pour me one of those ales?”
I glanced from Cronis to Shylan and back, it seemed there was some kind of standoff going on, and I was smack-dab in the middle of it. I dithered, and then walked over to the barrel, grabbing a mug from a hook on the wall beside it, and filling it.
“He should have gotten it himself,” Cronis stated, puffing himself up. “He’ll not thank you.”
Shylan sighed a vast breath and slammed his fist on the table. “Do you want this manuscript unraveled or not?”
“I do,” Cronis stated.
“Then I can’t do that, help you with your stargazing, and get an ale all at the same time.”
“But you—” Cronis made to say.
“Yes I do.”
“Don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t,” Shylan said, his voice softening. “What’s the point? It happened so long ago, and still my heart is wrenched. Go, go watch, and Alexa, thank you for the ale.” Shylan smiled, but it had no heart in it, and he turned back to the book. Cronis refilled his mug, and marched to the door. “Come on,” he growled, and then tempered it with a false grin.
“Back in a bit,” I told Shylan as I left.
“I highly doubt that,” he mumbled, and looked up, clearing his draping hair away from his face. “Take a…” He looked around. “Take a mug of ale with you. Just in case… Stamina and all that.” He looked back down, once more appearing lost in his study. I grabbed a mug, filled it full of frothy ale and dashed after Cronis.
He’d gone farther along the corridor and was now at the bottom of another set of upward steps. Though he looked ancient beyond years I thought possible, he took the steps briskly. I gulped on my ale to prevent it spilling, and set off after him. After the fourth corridor, and halfway up the fifth set of steps, my energy was a little over half empty, and I thanked Shylan for my ale—remembering just how high the tower was. We climbed and climbed, Cronis didn’t say a word, and I didn’t have the breath to ask him a question. Every five floors, I took a sip of my ale. Just a sip was all that was needed to get my energy back to 100% full. Every single floor had a shut door in it, and I wondered what was behind each one. Just when I thought the tower endless, I felt a cool breeze on my face, and soon, I was out in the open and on a cobbled roof surrounded by a stone parapet. It was empty apart from two telescopes, both pointing up to the sky by means of a wooden stand. At least, that’s what I assumed they were, as I never seen a pair like them.
They were at least twenty feet long, and looked a little like six or seven beer barrels all glued together and getting progressively smaller as they tapered to the tower’s roof. Both telescopes were lashed to an H-frame stand by an old, gray rope, and then I noticed the H frame itself was fixed to a wooden disk about ten feet in diameter.
“What do you think?” Cronis asked.
“Is it a telescope?”
He took a swig of his ale. “Shylan said you showed promise—he assured me you weren’t a dimwit,” Cronis replied, through clenched teeth. “Of course it’s a telescope, what else would a vast pair of tubes on top of a tower and pointing at the sky be?”
“Why two?”
Cronis rolled his eyes. “Scholl, help me,” he berated. “Come around here.” He vanished behind the contraption.
I followed him around. He was crouching down pointing at two cogs, both with handles on them and attached to a series of other cogs and pulleys.
“This one, this one turns the table around, and this one changes the pitch of the telescope. I’ll look through the telescope and give you directions—easy enough?”
I nodded, and he skipped away, jumping behind the first tube and looking into it.
“Four turns to my left,” he called out.
Grabbing the first handle, I turned it four times.
“Half a turn back,” he then instructed.
I wound half a turn back.
He grunted, which I took for approval.
“Now pitch.” He cleared his throat and spat a gob out onto the tower’s roof. “Three turns up…no…three and a quarter.”
This I dutifully did.
“Perfect,” he announced. “Though we’re a little early now.” He scratched his patchy hair. “Thought it’d take longer than that, somehow. Don’t know why. Ah well, a pipe, we shall have a pipe—did you bring yours?” He dumped his self down against the parapet.
“I haven’t got one,” I replied. Cronis made to raise his eyebrows; it was then I noticed he had one missing. “What happened to your face…your hair?” I asked, sitting next to him.
“Haven’t got a pipe? How do you smoke?”
“Erm, I don’t. Your face?”
“I got… I got something slightly wrong and it blew up,” he said, rather sheepishly.
“What?”
He puffed his chest out. “Are you familiar with alchemy?”
“Nope—I know what it is, but have no real idea what it does.”
“Then, pray, what is the point in telling you?”
“Try me.”
He grunted and took a blast on his pipe. “I was trying to make Azoth, but I must have gotten something wrong—and boom! Hair gone, face blistered, clothes singed. I’ll get it right someday.”
“Gold what?”
“Isn’t it gold that alchemists normally make?”
He threw his head back and barked a laugh. “To what end? As soon as you can make mountains of it, it’s worth nothing.”
He had a point.
“Why don’t you change your clothes, cut your hair, put a poultice on your skin?”
“I’m waiting,” he grunted.
“For what?”
“Marista to come home—she’ll know what to do.”
“But that could be…” And then I rolled my eyes and wondered why I was wasting my breath. “So, what are we here for?”
At that question, his eyes lit up with intrigue. “To see if it’s true—I’ve suspected it for a little while.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” And he touched his nose with his finger. Looking up at the sky, he muttered: “Must be about now.”
We both got up and stepped onto the circular platform. I bent down and looked through the telescope. It was pointing directly at a star.
“You see it?” Cronis muttered, hunched over his own telescope.
“I can see a star.”
“What level Astronomy have you got?”
“I haven’t.”
Cronis scoffed. “Sorry, I forgot you were such a noob. Well, you don’t need it any way, it’s the same star I’m looking at. It’s the same star I always look at. Watch, if my calculations are correct then we’ve got a few minutes—though I could be way off, and we could be here for years.”
He was mad—was Cronis, I decided it there and then. As if to disprove my theory right away, the star started to pulse. I blinked, sure I’d gotten it wrong. Looking back, the star had settled again, then it pulsed once more, then again, and I noticed its hue had a yellow tinge.
