Moonstone

by Jake Allen Coleman

  Stretching, he looked out out over the valley. Lush and green it had the appearance of an untamed wilderness. He traced the path of the river that began here in these mountains as it meandered across the valley, leading to a crystal blue lake. Another range of snow peaked mountains lining the far side of the valley reflected in the glass stillness of the water. It occurred to him that he did not know the name of either the river nor the distant mountain range. He was a long way from home.

  Cenric lay curled next to the smoldering embers of the fire, still deep in slumber and Sebastian thought he could just hear the soft sound of breathing from Krystelle over the constant roar of the waterfall. If he were honest with himself, he knew there was no way he could hear her, but it was a nice thought. Checking the clothes they had laid out the previous night, he found them mostly dry, enough to put on at least.

  Trying to dispel the images that rose up in his mind of the mostly undressed Krystelle just on the other side of his makeshift barricade, he pulled his breeches back on and added several logs to the dwindling fire. “Now what about some food?” he said to no one. Rising to his feet he could see a path leading down from the beach just by the waterfall. Walking over, he snuck a quick peek back to the shelter where Krystelle slept.

  Reaching the trail-head, he peered down the steep path. It appeared to be carved out of the mountainside as it switched back and forth to the wide valley below. Water from the river dropped hundreds of feet into a wide pool at the bottom. He could see signs of the wreckage from their boat along the shore. They would not have survived that drop. He shook his head at Eimhin’s choice of escape routes. Thinking about their quest and all that had happened during the council in the Aodhan Bret, he walked part way down the trail looking for signs of recent travel before turning back toward their camp.

  At the top he found Krystelle awake and in the final stages of dressing herself. Lacing her vest, she turned to see him coming up the trail. “I wondered where you had gotten to.”

  Walking to the campsite, he added one more big log to the fire. “Just taking stock. We won’t find much to eat here at this camp. There is a switchback trail leading down to the valley below and it should be rich hunting there.”

  “Then we should be on our way as quick as we can. Wake Cenric and we can begin our trek down.”

  “The map first. Where do we go once we reach the bottom?”

  Wallet in hand, Krystelle pulled the smallest cloak from the makeshift lean-to and walked around the shelter to drape the cloak over Cenric’s sleeping form. She sat just there and motioned Sebastian over as she pulled the map out of its covering. Smoothing it out, she laid it in the sand.

  “I believe we are here at the Falls of Eutimio. See how the map shows the switchback trail from the top of the falls? We’ve come a fair way south of the Dazhberg through the mountains.”

  “I don’t see Ha’vehl’on anywhere on this map though,” he said. “How do we find it?”

  “The city of Ha’vehl’lon was their capital and is supposed to be a sort of bridge between worlds, not truly belonging to either, but accessible from both. When the Ban was put into place, the elves left this world and went to…another place. One that only they could access. They exiled themselves as a sacrifice. Ha’vehl’on is not on any map because it’s not truly of this world.”

  “If it’s not on the map, then how do we find it?”

  “The city is not on the map, but the gates are.” She pointed to a spot on the map, “It should be here, the Ansetl-lea, or woodland gate. The elves left certain places, like the Ansetl-lea, as anchors giving them a return path should it ever be needed. The locations of the anchors were closely guarded. If we can get to the gate we should be able to get to the city.”

  “A lot of ‘shoulds’ there…why would we not? It seems simple enough.”

  “If it were simple, many would have gone to Ha’vehl’on before now. Indeed there have been many attempts to enter the city. As far as I know, none have been successful. Elven magic can be tricky and unpredictable at times, yet the Council believed we could pass through. We must trust their wisdom.”

  “There’s something I don’t understand about all this. It’s been bothering me since we left Aodhan Bret, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on in until this morning. The council seemed so confident that we could reach Ha’vehl’on and find the Moonstone. Why us?”

  Krystelle turned away, gathering her few belongings that had survived the drenching, “We really should get moving.”

  “Don’t change the subject. I want to know. Why us? Why me? In the council…it seemed like they were all talking around me. Arch-mage Philon said something about ‘bloodlines’ and that they were unstable, but it was like there was a connection to me…to us. Do you know anything about that?”

  Krystelle shrugged, “A little. But its really not my place to tell.”

  Sebastian considered that for a moment, “I think I have a right to know.”

  She shook her head, “Not now, Sebastian. Please.”

  He decided to try a different tack, “When I was younger I thought about my family, my real family a lot. But it was something my aunt and uncle never wanted to talk about. It always made them uncomfortable when I brought it up. Eventually, I learned not to say anything and pushed it all down inside. But I still wondered. Anything you can tell me would be more than I know today.”

  She looked at him with watery eyes, “I can promise this Sebastian. Once we find the Moonstone, I will tell you everything I know. But not until then. That’s the best I can do.”

  It would have to do. He could see she was not going to budge. “I’ll hold you to that. Now, how do we find this Ansetl-lea?”

  Tracing her finger on the parchment, Krystelle mapped out their route. “From the base of the falls, we travel due east until we come to this river. We will turn south there and follow the river to this bend. We go east again from there about a day.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we just have to search until we find the Ansetl-lea.”

  It did not sound like much of a plan to Sebastian, but he supposed they did not have any other choice. It was not like their map was very detailed. “That’s going to be some rough country between here and the river, if I’m reading this map right.”

  She only nodded, leaning over to shake Cenric to wakefulness, “Time to go.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  With the sun rising into the morning sky, Sebastian, Cenric, and Krystelle made their way down the switchbacks to the base of the falls. Sebastian brooded over his conversation with Krystelle as they hiked. He felt that he deserved more and did not understand Krystelle’s reluctance. She obviously knew more than she was saying. He was grateful that Cenric was more subdued than normal. He did not think he could stand much of the boy’s chatter this morning.

  It took them the better part of half an hour to reach the bottom of the falls where they discovered the wreckage of their boat from the night before. Hopeful they would find supplies to salvage, they searched through the remains. All the supplies Eimhin had stocked were ruined or washed away; however, they did find their weapons. Krystelle’s daggers and sword had settled to the bottom just off the shoreline. Sebastian’s own sword was a bit further out and he stripped back down to his small-clothes to retrieve it, conscious of Krystelle standing on the shore.

  It was a longer dive than he expected and he sputtered back to the surface with a gasp of inhaled air, dragging the sword behind him. Hauling himself back out of the water, he pulled his clothes back on his wet body, trusting the warmth of the day to dry him out. He wished he still had his bow, but even if he could find it the soaking would have ruined the strings. Without a bow, hunting would be much more difficult.

  With their weapons drying, he turned back to the pools surrounding the base of the falls. “I’m going to see if I can catch us some fish.” Wading into the shallows, he set himself to wait with both hands dangling in the water. It was not long before a
good size fish swam by. Closing his grip with both hands, he scooped it out of the water on the first try.

  Struggling to get to shore without losing his grip on the slippery creature, he found Krystelle staring at him, jaw open. “I am impressed,” she said.

  Sebastian grinned, “Uncle Kaleb always said you had to be able to make do with your own two hands. He taught me how to catch fish by hand once upon a time.”

  Cenric turned from the small fire he had kindled, “Wow, Sebastian,” he said, his voice muddy. “Can you teach me how to do that? I’ve never caught a fish before. Not with my bare hands anyway.” Cenric looked as though he was going to say more when he interrupted himself with a mammoth sneeze.

  They made a quick breakfast of the fish, along with several handfuls of berries Krystelle had seen nearby. They had no sooner finished when Krystelle stood, “Let’s get moving. I want to put some distance between us and this place before night in case the Krenon manage to track us through the underground river.” Cenric let out another massive sneeze in response as they started their trek.

  Their progress was slow as they traversed cross-country through the untamed wilderness. They struggled along an overgrown old pathway through the forest, up hills, and across deep ravines. To make matters worse, there was not a hint of game that whole first day. Even without their supplies, they had counted on being able to hunt. They would not survive long enough to reach the city without food of some sort. Thankfully, there was plenty of water as well as the chance of catching more fish as they followed along the river.

  The exertions of the previous day caught up with them in the late afternoon and Cenric’s mammoth sneezes had become more frequent as the day wore on. Physically drained, Sebastian called a halt late into the afternoon as they reached a small clearing. “We need to make camp here for the night. We are not going to find any game if we keep traipsing through this forest. I need time to do some real hunting.”

  Leaving Krystelle and Cenric to gather wood for a fire and set up their meager camp, Sebastian moved off into the forest. He had seen signs all day of deer and other game, it was just a matter of taking the time to hunt them down and figure out a way to trap them. His conversation with Krystelle that morning had filled his thoughts throughout the day and he wanted some time to himself to think things through. More though, he needed time to figure out what had happened the previous night with Cenric and the fire. The thought that he might have tapped into some kind of magical power had plagued him all day.

  He wanted to believe that Cenric had started that fire all on his own. The alternative was unthinkable. He had never used any sort of magic without the Sunstone present and he did not want to think that perhaps he had done just that with the fire. That would mean there was something about him that made magic possible. That was a possibility that seemed entirely foreign to him.

  All his life, Sebastian had dreamed of swordfights and battles against evil forces, but in all those imaginary stories the wizards and mages were always the villains. That was the belief in which he had grown almost to manhood. Not once had the heroes been the ones using magic. They were like Quiren Adelwolf and Lord Teoma, soldiers and warriors. It occurred to him that Cenric and the other wizards all seemed to need to cast spells of a sort to use their magic. If he knew anything, he knew that he had not cast any spells.

  That thought comforted him and he turned his full attention to the task at hand, procuring dinner of some sort for the three of them. In the end it took him less than an hour to track and kill two wild game-hens. He decided that would do for the night and turned back to the camp.

  Walking back into the clearing, he found that Krystelle had a small cook-fire burning and ready for his catch, along with a small pile of branches and twigs to keep it burning well into the night. Cenric sat on a log near the fire, arms wrapped around himself with Krystelle’s cloak around his shoulders. His head hung, all puffy eyes and swollen nose, a slight hint of green to his face.

  Krystelle looked up at Sebastian, concern in her eyes. “He is getting worse. I had thought this morning that his sneezing was a result of the dunking and that it would get better as the day wore on. There is no fever, not yet at least.”

  That was good. Fever out here could turn deadly fast. “Is there anything we can do?” he said.

  “We can get him fed and rested, but not much else. I am hopeful that a night of rest will restore him to health. We need to keep moving.”

  Sebastian busied himself preparing the hens for roasting over the fire. The familiar motions were a comfort to him. Separating the feathers along the back of the first bird, he pressed his thumbs in hard, splitting the skin so that he could pull it off along with the feathers. With a smooth motion, he flipped the bird over to cut through the neck, removing it and the head. Pulling hard, he stripped out the gullet and windpipe and then flipped the bird over to remove the innards. Before long both birds were on spits above the flames.

  It had been a long day and the three of them made themselves as comfortable as possible on the hard ground after dinner as the light failed. Cenric’s coughing and wheezing made it hard for Sebastian to fall asleep and, after a while, he gave it up. Positioning himself across the fire from his friends, he leaned against an old oak tree to keep watch the first part of the night, alone with his thoughts.

  To Sebastian, it seemed only a few minutes had passed when the first light of day peaked through the trees into their little glade. He realized he must have finally fallen asleep. Looking back toward his companions he found Krystelle checking on Cenric. “How is he?”

  That worried look was back on her face. “Not good,” she said. “He will not wake and has come down with a fever. There is nothing but wilderness ahead of us and I do not think he has the strength to continue. Not as he is.”

  Sebastian’s aunt had always shooed him away when any of the hands had come down sick growing up. He was out of his element dealing with any kind of sickness. “What do we do?”

  “Either we wait here for him to recover or we press on. I see no other options.”

  “Well, what do you think we should do?”

  She looked down at the unconscious boy, “As much as I hate to say it, I think we have to continue on to the Ansetl-lea. We must return with the Moonstone before the Arch-mage’s spell fails. Can you carry him?”

  Sebastian considered that for a moment. Cenric was not a big lad by any stretch, but carrying him through this forest would slow them even further. Looking around the clearing, he saw a pair of branches Krystelle had collected the previous night, but had been too long to use in the fire. They gave him an idea. “I don’t know about carrying him, but I think I know another way. We’ll have to sacrifice our cloaks, but we should be able to make good progress.”

  “Alright then, what do we do?”

  Taking the long branches and their cloaks, Sebastian fashioned a makeshift drag-sled and they laid the slumbering boy in the contraption. Lifting the branches, Sebastian set off into the forest, dragging the boy behind him. True to his word, they did make good progress, if not as good as they had the previous day. For Sebastian, this was not much harder than tilling a field and he had Krystelle to help him lift the boy when the terrain got bad.

  Krystelle and Sebastian struggled all that day and the next, dragging the sled behind them. Waking the morning of the third day, they found Cenric’s fever had gotten worse. “We cannot keep going like this,” said Krystelle. “We are exhausting ourselves and he is not getting any better. I’m afraid that another day will kill him.”

  Sebastian knelt down next to the boy and placed a hand on his forehead. The skin was clammy and cold and had taken on a greenish tinge. “I think you’re right. But what about the Moonstone? We have to get it back to the Aodhan Bret before the Krenon can break through whatever those wizards were doing.”

  She had already thought about that and had a quick response. “I was looking at the map. We are not far from the remains of an old village. There should
be some kind of shelter there. We can wait there the rest of the day and tomorrow. You will hunt so that we can be sure he gets enough food to fight this off. If he is not well, or at least much improved, by the morning after we will have a decision to make. We might have to leave him.”

  “Leave him!” Sebastian could not believe she would consider such a move.

  She pierced him with those green eyes, “Yes, leave him.”

  “How can you even say that?”

  “I say it because it is the truth. We are at war and war has casualties. What is more important, Sebastian? This one boy or fending of the Krenon and saving Gabirel? I am here to see Gabirel saved. I may not like it, but that is how the world works.”

  He could not believe she could be so cold. It was a side of her he had not seen before, but he could tell that she meant what she said. If Cenric was not improved by morning, she would leave the boy behind. Seeing the steel in her eyes as she looked down at the sick boy, Sebastian realized that she just might be serious. He wondered what Adelwolf would have said? The old knight had done what was necessary. He would have said to complete the mission, too much depended on them to fail. “Lead on to your village,” he said. “And let’s hope this works.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Still rested from the night before, Sebastian and Krystelle made good time hauling Cenric on his sled through the woods. About an hour after setting out Sebastian began to notice signs that this area had once been settled. A row of hedges too straight to be natural. A rusted piece of metal from some discarded farm implement. The clues became more frequent until they emerged onto an expanse of packed earth, broken in places with weeds and emerging growth.