Chapter 5 - Flight into the Mountain
“Chalice … Chalice …”
Chalice opened her eyes and squinted, not recognizing the face in front of her. Jeremiah stood above her, nudging her shoulder. For just a moment, she had no idea where she was. Then, suddenly, the memory of the night before came rushing back to her. She nodded, brushed the sleep from her eyes, and sat up in bed.
He smiled. “Hey sleepy, time to get up. I woke you a little early. We’ve got to get going soon.”
Still drowsy, she glanced over toward the window. The day was just creeping in. Although, when she took a closer look, she noticed that it was still fairly dark outside. She realized then that the peak of Mt. Vaassa blocked much of the morning sun as it loomed over the Auramont Vale.
She peered around the room. It was large, with a soft, warm décor and plush carpets. She felt a rush of gratitude when she saw her saddlebags and cloak lying on the flowered divan in the west corner.
Jeremiah must have brought them up, she thought. She was happy that they had been reunited. What would I have done without him?
She pulled herself reluctantly from the blankets. She was stalling. She wanted to stay wrapped in their warmth forever. Stretching, she made her way to the divan and groped in her bags for her other riding dress. She removed a darker blue, un-embroidered garment that she slipped on quickly. Then, she placed the dirty dress she had worn the day before into the bag.
She looked down at the dark blue cotton on her body. She liked this one. It was simple and plain, but very comfortable and fit her curves to a perfection. She slipped on her boots and broach and began to do the buttons on the front of her dress as she walked to the window on the north side of the room. She was on the last button when her fingers stopped. In between two willow trees stood black sails. She moved closer to the window and glanced down toward the dock. At the end of the pier floated a huge brigantine. A flag was attached to a halyard on the mainmast. It was jet black and flashed a bright scarlet flame as it whipped in the wind.
“Jeremiah!” As soon as she had called for him, he burst into the room, breathless.
“Yeah, I know. I just saw it, too.” He rushed to the window next to her and opened it a crack to hear what was happening. Peering through the drooping branches of the trees, they saw two men lowering a wide plank onto the end of the pier from a tall hatch in the hull of the ship. Two others were securing the hawsers onto bollards. A large man dressed in a black cloak and mail strode casually down the plank onto the pier. The same sigil on the ship’s flag stood out brightly across his chest. He turned and glanced up toward the others who were leading horses carefully down the plank. Jeremiah and Chalice remained as silent as they could and listened. They could barely hear the faint words in the distance.
“Remember Ivan, no mistakes this time. The Fierain wants him alive,” the man in black shouted to the men. Him? Who are they looking for? Chalice wondered quietly as she glanced at Jeremiah. Just then, a red falcon flew from the main mast and came to settle upon the man’s outstretched arm.
“Hey! I know that bird. It tried to attack me yesterday when I was walking to the house,” Chalice said angrily. Apart from its color, there was something unusual about the falcon, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“We’ve got to get out of here, Chalice,” Jeremiah said as he bolted for the divan to collect her bags.
“I can fight!” she said defiantly. She wasn’t about to run like a coward.
He shook his head. “Not these guys. They are deadly and there are too many of them. Let’s go. Follow me.” He tossed her cloak to her and she threw it on as they rushed out of the bedroom.
She stayed close behind him, flying down the stairs, through the hallway, and out into the sitting room. Jeremiah stopped abruptly right before the homemade rug that she had seen the day before. She wasn’t expecting this and crashed right into him at full speed. It was much like smashing into a brick wall.
“Here.” He handed her the saddlebags and picked up his own that were lying on the table. Then, he threw a large, thick rucksack over his shoulder and grabbed a lantern. “Step back,” he commanded as he lifted up one end of the rug and folded the corner over. Underneath was a trap door with a latch carved into the wood. He clicked the latch and threw open the door, laying it back onto the rug. A series of steps descended downward steeply into the darkness.
“You go first, Chalice. Watch your step,” he said as he reached into his bags for his flint and steel to light the lantern. She descended in careful haste, holding onto the rail attached to the wall. She had to grope with her feet along the stairway, but she finally found the bottom. The place had an old, musty smell and she wondered if it was some sort of basement. Jeremiah handed her the lantern. Light flooded the wooden staircase and gave shape to the underground room. To her right, she could see a long corridor that stretched into the darkness. She looked up to see if he was following and saw that he was struggling to get through the narrow door.
“Throw me the bags, Jeremiah,” she said and he tossed hers down to her. She caught them and laid them to the side. He carried his own as he descended. Concerned about him falling, she positioned herself at the bottom of the steps. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he fell. He was much bigger than she was.
Please don’t fall, Jeremiah, she thought. She watched as he pulled the door, along with the rug flap back into position and descended the first few steps. Then, she stopped worrying. He appeared very sure-footed and careful, as if he had done this many times before.
“What is this passage? Where does it go?” she asked.
Jeremiah stepped down onto the ground and collected his bags. “You’ll see,” he said. “Father built it in case we ever had unwelcome visitors along the river. Follow me,” he said and took off at a full run into the darkness. “We’ve had to use this corridor in the past. It comes in very handy.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that someday,” she panted as she scurried to keep up with him. The hallway wound around in dizzying directions. They passed a couple of staircases until finally careening around the last corner and arriving at the end. Finding themselves at the bottom of the last staircase, they ascended quickly. Jeremiah unhooked the latch of the small door at the top of the stairs and pushed it open. He set his bags to the left outside of the door and crawled out.
When Chalice arrived at the opening, out of breath, she saw immediately where they were. It was the stable where she had been the evening before. The low-lying cupboard, which she had thought was so strange, was actually a doorway to the underground path. She handed him the lantern and her bags and scrambled out.
They gathered the provisions they needed from the tack room, and in just a few short moments, had the horses bridled and saddled. Chalice glanced over and noticed Jeremiah’s leather belt that held a small pouch and sheath for his carving knife. She also noticed his yew bow and leather quiver strapped to his back. She knew he was an excellent archer and that he crafted his own tools. He had shown her how to make a bow and arrow when they were young.
That must be what he uses to hunt, she thought.
Excited to leave, Sunny let out a low grumble. Chalice turned quickly and laid a hand on his muzzle to silence him. She looked over and saw that he had polished off all the food and water she’d given him the night before. Stroking his neck, she said in a quiet voice: “Good boy. That should hold you until tonight.”
“Chalice,” Jeremiah whispered. “Quickly, this way.” Standing next to Banner, he motioned toward the door in the back of the tack room. Jeremiah’s horse, a beautiful, dark brown Thoroughbred, was taller and stronger than Sunny, but not quite as nimble. Jeremiah had told her during dinner the night before that the Maehbecks raised Thoroughbred horses. They were racing horses and were very valuable. She wondered for a moment about the other horses that would have filled the s
talls.
As quietly as they could, they led the horses through the door and out onto a small, narrow trail behind the stable. “This path will lead us into the mountain. The southern section leads to the Carion road. It meanders a bit, though. It was originally a game trail. I blazed it during my hunting trips.”
“What’s the Carion road?” she asked as they mounted.
“It’s the main route that leads to Branbury through the mountain. You probably used it on your way here.”
“Oh yeah. Well, I don’t know much about this area. It’s my first visit,” she said. So much for staying off the main roads, she told herself. She thought about her encounter with the Chinuk the day before. No wonder that little creature could find me so easily. “Has it always been called the Carion road? I didn’t see the name on my map, but then again, it’s an old map. It marked the trail as unknown.”
“Well, it was named fairly recently, when my father was a kid. Back in the day, it was virtually unknown.” This new piece of information made her feel better.
They heeled the horses into a slow trot. Jeremiah was right. The path led them back and forth so many times that she lost all sense of direction and had no idea where she was in relation to the stable. For that matter, she had no idea where she was in relation to the road. In places, the horses had to slow to a fast walk because there was simply no room for speed.
Chalice could feel a sense of overwhelming dread as it took them what seemed hours to find their way. Finally, they emerged from the thicket onto the sloping surface of the Carion road and found themselves just a few paces from the crossroads connecting the three routes that led to the high passes, to Branbury, and around to the middle passes of the mountain, exactly where she had been the day before.
“We made it!” She sighed deeply. The relief lasted for only a moment, however, as a faint sound of hoof beats echoed down the slope in the distance.
“Great! This is just what we need!” Jeremiah growled. “I thought we’d lost them. We’re gonna have to run for it. You ready?”
Chalice grabbed his shoulder. “No, let’s hide up there!” she said, pointing to a high outcropping that lay on the right side of the path. Located along the trail that led up to the high passes, the outcropping consisted of bedrock that was sheer, sleek, and grey, and topped with thick vegetation.
“Good eye, Chalice!” They dismounted and stealthily led the horses to the top of the outcropping. Once behind the brush, they were perfectly hidden, completely out of view of the road.
Chalice felt her skin prickle. She looked up, and squinting in the noonday sun, spotted the red falcon from the docks circling menacingly overhead. Then, she suddenly knew what was so peculiar about the bird. She glanced down to the ground below it and saw that it had no shadow.
“What the …?”
“What’s wrong?” Jeremiah asked.
She pointed to the sky. “That red falcon. I’ve been wondering what is so odd about it.” Jeremiah arched an eyebrow. “Okay, besides being red. It doesn’t have a shadow! Look!”
His eyes fell to the ground. “You’re right. That’s weird!”
She was going to tell him to shoot it, but he had already unlaced his bow and was nocking an arrow before she could get the words out. With a soft THUP, the arrow loosed and whistled through air. It flew true, right to its target, but the falcon deftly shot back the way it had come.
Since the day before, Chalice had grown increasingly suspicious of the bird. “I bet it’s going back to report our location,” she said.
“How can it do that?”
“I don’t know, but now that I think about it, after it saw me yesterday at the house, it flew out toward the sea and this morning, that ship arrived. You can’t tell me that that’s a coincidence. Besides, how can it not have a shadow? We’re dealing with things we don’t understand.”
“You’re right,” he admitted.
“From now on, we’ll have to keep a close watch on the sky, especially since it’ll be impossible to spot from the ground.”
He nodded, then placed his index finger over his mouth. “Shh. You hear that?” he whispered.
She did. The riders that they had heard in the distance had arrived. Jeremiah tied their horses to a branch and crouched low into the underbrush, motioning for her to follow. Shimmying warily, they wriggled toward the edge of the outcropping where, still hidden from view, they could see the two men. The men had halted their horses at the crossroad. Both were large and dressed in black mail and cloaks. One was a touch thinner and younger than the other. Just like Jeremiah, he had a bow and quiver strapped to his back.
“Did you hear that, Ronaan?” he asked. He spoke with a strange, lilting accent that Chalice didn’t recognize.
“Aye, it came from there,” Ronaan spoke with a deep, commanding voice that carried the same accent as the other. With hands covered in black leather gloves, he pointed to the outcropping that concealed Chalice and Jeremiah. He was a large man, with wide shoulders and dark hair, streaked with whitish silver near the temples.
Chalice stayed very still. Please don’t come up here, she prayed.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
Jeremiah turned to reply when suddenly, to their immediate right, something brown and furry tore out from the brush and flashed across the trail. It scampered to the top of the nearest oaden tree and disappeared in its leaves. The branches swished and swayed back and forth from the creature’s movements.
“Hey, that’s the Chinuk I saw yesterday!” she said as quietly as she could.
They saw Ronaan turn his mount to leave. “It was just one of the mountain creatures, Rhys. Kill it and let us be off. I am sure he did not come this way.” Rhys loosed an arrow into the treetop and the leaves immediately ceased their rustling. Satisfied, the two men resumed their search down the trail, back toward Branbury.
“Oh, no!” Chalice felt her heart sink. Poor thing, she thought. She hadn’t known the little creature, but she had still liked him, as strange as he was. Then, Jeremiah nudged her.
“No … look. There he is. He tricked them. Very clever!” They watched as the Chinuk shinnied down the tree carefully. When he reached the road, he looked down the path to make sure the men were gone, crossed back over, and headed for the outcropping.
“I think he’s coming this way,” Jeremiah said. “Here, let’s get out of this brush.”
Just as they pulled themselves from the last bush, Chalice could hear the patter of small feet issuing from around the side of the huge rock. She straightened and began brushing off the leaves and twigs from her hair and clothes. Jeremiah rummaged in his rucksack and removed the small, leather-bound, Chinukan notebook. The little creature approached them cautiously as Jeremiah proffered it.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is yours. Are you Master Bunejab Bea?”
At that, the Chinuk smiled broadly. With a twinkle in his eye and a grand flourish of his hand, he bent down low in a majestic bow and quite thoroughly fell right on his face.
Chalice rushed forward to help him. “Are you alright?” she asked as Bunejab grabbed her arm to steady himself and flushed with embarrassment.
Jeremiah let out a loud snort. “That must be him. He’s just like you said.” He extended his hand and the Chinuk gratefully accepted the book, placing it in his own brown rucksack. Then, the little creature turned toward Chalice and suddenly began to make the strangest noise. It was unlike anything she had ever heard in her life. It was a strange sort of chittering sound with an occasional deep, throaty growl that seemed to follow pure, uninterrupted notes in singsong fashion. She remembered what Jeremiah had taught her the night before about the Chinukan language.
“Is he … talking?” she asked in astonishment.
“Yeah, isn’t it cool?”
“Do you know what he’s saying?”
“Sort of. I can’t make out all of it, but I th
ink he wants us to follow him.” This made sense as Bunejab was now motioning to the trail leading to the high passes. “He keeps saying ‘bad bird.’ I think he means the falcon.” At Jeremiah’s words, the Chinuk nodded. “He says they’ll come back. You were right, I think, about the bird going back to report.”
Chalice looked at Bunejab. “My name is Chalice. This is Jeremiah.” The creature nodded again.
“Uh, I think he knows that, Chalice.”
Turning to Jeremiah, she smirked. “You hush.” She continued to address the Chinuk. “You know, Bunejab, we can’t survive in the high passes. That’s where you want us to follow you, right?”
Bunejab began to chitter and gesticulate wildly, this time very rapidly and his insistence became bolder. He moved to hold her hand and pull her in the direction of the road. She didn’t resist, but asked Jeremiah to translate.
“He says not to worry about it and that we have to hurry. He wants us to trust him.”
She thought about it for a second. Chalice was slow to trust, but she remembered that he had just saved them from discovery a minute ago. She also thought about the notebook he had dropped near her the day before. It was the notebook that gave them the answers to the questions they had had about the village.
Did he do that on purpose? she wondered.
She looked down into his beady black eyes. “Alright, we’ll come with you, but it will go faster on horseback. Can you ride?”
He nodded.
“Chalice,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll mount Banner and you can place him in between Banner’s mane and the pommel of my saddle.” Chalice nodded and then Jeremiah turned to Bunejab. “Bunejab, you and I will ride in front and you can direct our path.” He untied Banner, placed his foot in the stirrup, and threw his leg over.
Bunejab held his arms up to Chalice and she reached down to lift him. It was much like picking up a toddler. His size allowed him to fit comfortably in the small space Jeremiah had indicated. Once settled in, the little Chinuk touched her on the nose and spoke again in the strange language.
“What did he say?” she asked.
Jeremiah’s cheeks grew slightly red as he smiled. “He said that you’re pretty.”
Chalice tilted her head in surprise. “Why, thank you!” Then, she untied Sunny, mounted, and followed them back down to the road.
They rode for hours at a fast walk. It was all the horses could manage given the slope of the trail, which grew dangerously more narrow with altitude. Occasionally, it was so steep that the trail zigzagged, creating flat sections, which allowed the horses some respite from the grueling climb. What started out as a warm, autumn morning, grudgingly turned into a chilly afternoon, made even cooler with the ascent. The only warmth blew in periodically with a westerly breeze from the base of the mountain.
As they climbed, the sequoias loomed taller, the trail slowly darkened, and the forest came alive with the sounds of wildlife. The farther up they went, the more astins and oadens they saw, which grew darker until they were almost an unnatural dark green. The forest was vibrant as the wind whistled through the branches and a strange sense filled the air. It was almost like a presence that whispered tales of things long gone and breathed life into the inanimate objects around them.
At the beginning of the journey, Bunejab chattered constantly, but later his speech tapered off as everyone began to grow weary. While the Chinuk was talking, Chalice saw Jeremiah listening intently to the sounds he made so she decided to remain silent.
This must be a rare treat for him, she thought.
Then, memories that she had been fighting to suppress sprang into the forefront of her mind. They were of events of the past few months and how the secure world she had known in Canton was so suddenly thrown into chaos. The more she dwelt on it, the more confusing it became. So, she decided to clear her mind and focus on more pressing matters like where they were headed and how they were going to get there. When the trail plateaued, Chalice caught a sparkle of sunlight off the surface of a small brook to the left and felt her stomach rumble.
“I think it’s a good time for a late lunch. What do you think?” she said, patting Sunny’s neck.
“Good idea. I’m starving!” Jeremiah agreed.
They stopped at a grassy spot near the water where the horses could eat and drink as much as they needed. The brook was a few paces wide and a couple of feet deep. The water cascaded slowly over the scattered pebbles and round rocks in a gentle trickle. Chalice pulled some bread, cheese, and dried meat from her bags to share with Jeremiah. They were silent as they ate ravenously and drank from the water skin.
Then, she saw them. A family of elk a couple of spans down the stream. They were watering themselves and basking in the warm sunlight. One standing midstream lifted its head and glanced in her direction. It was enormous, with a thick, reddish-brown coat and expansive antlers that branched in almost every direction. She should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. It had a peaceful, knowing look in its eye. It was an intelligence she could feel in everything around her.
“Jeremiah,” she said, nudging him. “Look.”
The moment Jeremiah turned toward the elk, Bunejab scuttled up the path, panting heavily. He had been watching down the mountain from the edge of the trail’s steep slope. He stopped near Jeremiah and chittered loudly at the animals downstream. They immediately bolted across the water and into the trees.
“Bunejab, why did you do that?” Chalice asked.
Jeremiah put a hand on her shoulder. “He told them we have unwanted company following us. He asked them to buy us some time. Apparently, the King’s men are still following us.”
“They understand him?”
“Yeah, they seem to. Probably better than I do.”
“What was he telling you along the trail? He was talking nonstop.”
“He was telling me where he’s taking us and what his plan is. He knew we would be headed for Chainbridge. He was also telling me about the Chinukan villages, so that when we get there, we’ll know what to expect.”
She was about to ask him what that was, when Bunejab’s frantic chittering cut her short. His impatient hand gestures were urgently motioning for them to move on. After quickly packing their things, they were back on the trail. Bunejab, it seemed, was in a hurry to get up the mountain. She listened carefully to his continued instruction to Jeremiah, hoping in vain to glean something from his chatter.
Hours passed. At first, random patches of snow and ice could be seen dotting the trailside. It wasn’t long after that, however, that everything around them glittered in white. The landscape was wintry and the air, thin. The sun had not yet set, but the sky was growing darker and the evening’s first stars began to emerge out of the deep azure.
“You hear that, Jeremiah?” she asked and noticed that her breath steamed thickly in the freezing air.
“The waterfall, yeah. I think it’s just up ahead. You want to stop?”
Breathing proved difficult and she suddenly found herself lightheaded and weak. “Yes, I do! I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling strange. I really don’t know how we’re going to make it up this mountain.”
A few minutes passed and Jeremiah pulled off the trail to the right, down a small slope that led to a flat area. It was a small moraine that ended at the edge of a large lake of water, pooled by the rugged land meeting the waterfall. She could see it in the far distance as she halted Sunny near the water’s edge and dismounted, the snow crunching beneath her boots.
Sunny immediately lowered his head and drank deeply from the cold, fresh mountain water. Banner did the same. She reached into her saddlebag to place her dark lambskin gloves inside. They were just like her cloak, dark suede on the exterior and soft fur on the interior to keep in body heat.
“Let’s make a camp here for the night,” Jeremiah said, sounding exhausted.
“You read my mind,” she replied in relief. “It
’s safe enough, I think. It’s guarded from the trail by the trees. What do you think, Bunejab?” she asked as she held up her arms to lower him from Banner’s saddle. He nodded and jumped into her arms. She almost fell, swaying a little before setting him down. She hadn’t realized how dizzy she was.
She helped Jeremiah out of the saddle as well. He was weak and shaky. It was strange. Bunejab didn’t even seem to be affected by the altitude at all and immediately scurried into the woods.
“You feeling it, too, then?” she asked Jeremiah.
“Yeah, let’s tie the horses and sit down for a moment. I’m so cold.” Regardless of the thick cloak he wore, he was shivering violently, his hands and face almost blue.
Chalice was more concerned for him than she was for herself. Her lambskin cloak, boots, and gloves, she knew from experience, could fend off the biting cold from the cruelest of winters. Treated with a special ointment that Grandma Naelli had made, they were waterproof and soft and kept her very warm. Jeremiah did not have the same luxury. So, she rubbed her warm palms together firmly to generate more heat and placed them over his cheeks.
He drew in a deep, relaxed breath and closed his eyes. “Thanks, Chalice. That feels good.”
Taking a seat on a small boulder near the horses, they covered themselves with her woolen blanket and waited for Bunejab to return. She put her arms around Jeremiah’s torso to transfer some of her body heat to him. He was still shaking. A rustle from the brush brought a small bundle of kindling with small furry legs.
Oh, she thought, he was gathering firewood.
Her thoughts were slow. She watched as he waddled over to their spot and worked swiftly, bringing more firewood, clearing the snow, digging a fire pit and lighting the kindling. She was amazed at how fast he moved for such a small creature.
Before they knew it, he had a small fire crackling and a pot of piping hot liquid that he poured into small cups for them. He placed the steaming cup into Jeremiah’s trembling fingers, telling him something that Chalice couldn’t understand. Jeremiah sipped it gently and a rosy color began to flush his cheeks. She gave him a puzzled look.
“He says it will make us feel better,” Jeremiah said.
She took the cup from Bunejab and nursed it slowly. The flavor was like that of green tea, but with a touch of mint. The effect was immediate and incredible. With every sip, she could breathe easier and felt much stronger. The sense of vertigo she had experienced earlier completely disappeared and the biting frost no longer stung her. She could feel warmth spread throughout her entire body, from her stomach to her limbs. After a few minutes, she was too hot and had to remove the blanket and her coat. Soon they were both up, helping Bunejab set up camp for the night.
They dug a small area in the snow around the campfire from the horses’ spot to another boulder a few paces away. Although it was thick, the snow was a fine, champagne powder that twinkled in the firelight and proved to be easily displaced. Bunejab laid out a pan of water next to the horses into which he poured the rest of the contents of the pot and then departed into the trees to continue his search for more kindling and firewood. Chalice prepared their bedding while Jeremiah busied himself making dinner over the fire. By the look of the ingredients he placed in the pot, she guessed that they were getting stew again. She glanced over at the horses drinking from the pan.
“What was in that drink he gave us?” she asked as she laid out their blankets on a soft stretch of warm ground. The ground, she discovered, was surprisingly temperate after they had cleared the snow. In between that and their blankets and cloaks, they would be sufficiently warm for the night.
“He said it was tea made from an herb that grows on Mount Taluqua. That’s also the name of the herb, Taluqua. It will wear off by morning, so we’ll have to drink some during breakfast tomorrow. The Chinuka are skilled in the healing arts. Their knowledge of herbs heal everything from the common cold to altitude sickness. They know things about the indigenous plants of the Trui’Quirré that no one knows. I’m really looking forward to learning more about them.”
She smiled to herself. He was such a scholar. “So, what was he saying along the trail?” she asked, grabbing their water skins and stepping toward the edge of the lake.
“Oh, right, that’s what I was going to tell you.” Frowning slightly, Jeremiah stuck his hand into his saddlebag and rifled around for something. After a moment, he pulled out a small box of seasonings and herbs. Adding them to the pot, he continued: “He knew we would be headed for Chainbridge. The only way for us to safely get there from Branbury, where we couldn’t be followed, was through the high pass. Having made it this far, I’d say he was right.”
Chalice nodded. “True. We probably wouldn’t have made it if he hadn’t been there.” Although she agreed, she still thought his behavior was a little odd. “Did you ask him why he hangs out in the trees and studies people the way he does?”
“Uh … well, no. I didn’t want to ask him that. In my opinion, if he wants to stalk people, that’s his business. He may be strange, but he is definitely helpful.”
She laughed. Then, exhaling, she straightened from laying the bedding and knuckled her back. The beds were set and the water skins filled. She sat down on the blankets, crossed her legs, and watched him. “You mentioned that he was teaching you something we would need to know. What was that about?”
A lock of his soft, chestnut hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it back. “Oh yeah, well, you know that the Chinuka cut off all communication with our world after the Second War of the Realm, right?” She nodded and he continued: “I asked him why, but he sort of danced around the question, so I didn’t press it. I assume, as does everyone, that they grew tired of the fighting. Anyhow, he said that the other Chinuka will not be thrilled that he is leading us through the villages and over the mountain regardless of the danger we were in. They won’t try to harm us, so we don’t have to worry about that, but we shouldn’t expect a warm welcome either.”
“Sounds serious.”
“I think it is. He said the main village is located at the top of the mountain, in a large, inactive caldera, settled around a frozen lake where they ice-fish. Their diet’s main staple is …”
“A caldera?” Chalice interrupted. “Mount Vaassa was volcanic?”
“Yeah, all three of the Trui’Quirré were enormous volcanoes at one time. They’ve long since lain dormant, though.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, I know. Learned something new today. Anyway, their diet’s main staple is fish, fruits and vegetables.”
“How can they grow fruits and vegetables living in snow and ice?”
“I don’t know. That’s one reason why I am looking forward to getting there. I’m curious about how they do many things. I wanted to ask him a ton of questions, but I had a hard enough time just listening and understanding. Although it would’ve been difficult even to get a word in edgewise. Little chatterbox.” He threw something from the small box into the pot and stirred it. “Anyhow, the smaller villages are scattered along the outskirts of the outer ridge. They are mainly there for scouting and protection of their main settlement, but they’re also used for trade with the other Chinukan tribes that live on the other mountains. Bunejab and his wife, Quinta — I think that’s her name — live in one of the smaller villages. He described it to me. He said we would be stopping there first.”
“Other Chinukan tribes?”
“Yeah, there’s a tribe on each mountain. Each tribe has an Âwásöt and an Âwásötah, the Chinukan equivalent of a King and Queen, but they’re actually more like clan leaders. What’s interesting about Chinukan society is that it is largely matriarchal. All inheritance, rights, and property stem from the female line. The male members of the tribe make decisions and laws, but they are not put into effect until the female members approve them.”
“Yep, that’s the way it should be,” Chalice said s
arcastically and the side of Jeremiah’s mouth quirked into a crooked smile. “You realize that we are the first people to learn this for hundreds of years, right?” she continued. “You should write this stuff down. Keep a record of it.”
He nodded. “I intend to as soon as I have a chance. I brought my notebook with me. Luckily, I had time to grab it before we rushed out.” He stirred the contents of the pot and extracted a spoonful to taste. “This is ready. Is he back yet?” he asked, glancing around for the little Chinuk.
At that moment, Bunejab came waddling out of the trees again. As soon as he smelled the aroma coming from the direction of the fire, he threw down the firewood, grabbed a cup from his bag, and handed it to Jeremiah with a ravenous look on his face.
“Hungry, aren’t you?” Jeremiah said as he scooped out several large spoonfuls into his cup. Bunejab smiled broadly and sat down to eat.
“He’s got to be. I don’t think he’s had anything to eat all day,” Chalice noted and she was right, because by the end of dinner, Bunejab had gone back for his fourth helping.
After they were all satisfactorily fed and watered, the little Chinuk curled up in his blankets and Chalice bent down to tuck him in. “Good night, Bunejab. Thank you for helping us,” she said quietly as she pulled his blanket up to his chin. He chittered something incomprehensible and was soon fast asleep.
Jeremiah handed her a steaming cup of tea and they sat down in their bedding next to the fire. They sipped while admiring the surrounding mountainside. It had just occurred to Chalice how gorgeous the waterscape was. The air was crisp, clear and very cold. It made her think of the nights in Canton leading up to the winter holiday.
At the other end of the lake, next to the falls, the water emptied into a gorge that sloped gently downward and grew into a small canyon. She guessed that it was a body of water that eventually flowed into the Canterine. From where they were seated, they could hear the faint patter of a million splashes echoing into the gorge and beyond the canyon.
At the end where they had made camp, the lake was a calm pool of crystal water that reflected everything above it in shimmering detail – the waterfall, the trees, the stars, and the moon. The crescent moon was halfway in its monthly cycle and peeked over the distant sequoias just slightly, just enough to bathe the landscape in radiant moonlight. It was Chauma, the bright moon, Chalice noted, when suddenly in the water’s reflection, she saw it: a multi-colored moonbow arching boldly over the falls.
“You see that, Jeremiah?!”
“Sure do.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a moonbow.” He looked over and smiled at the unasked question on her face. “A lunar rainbow,” he said. “I see them sometimes when I go hunting. You can only see them during certain times of the year, usually during spring, but the conditions have to be right. Most rainbows are caused by sunlight refracted through the moisture in the air after a rain, but sometimes they can appear as refracted moonlight. It usually happens near a waterfall where there is a lot of moisture lifted into the air by the falling water. If it were Maana’s cycle this month, it would need to be a full moon to produce enough light and even then the moonbow would be faint and last only for seconds. Since this month’s lunar cycle is Chauma’s, it doesn’t have to be a full moon.”
“I’m glad it’s Chauma’s cycle this month. It’s beautiful!”
“It is. We’re lucky tonight. I’ve always wondered why Chauma is so much brighter than Maana,” he said as he took a sip from his cup.
“I think it has to do with a certain material on its surface. It was introduced to Naeo’Gaea during the Ice Age. Of course, it wasn’t Naeo’Gaea back then. Our world was called something else. Nobody knows what that name was, though. Papa said that most of the knowledge from that time has been lost, but what has been remembered is really interesting. Did you know that before the Ice Age, there was only one moon?”
“That’s weird!”
“I know. I thought it was weird, too.”
“How does he know all this?”
“I guess the same way your father knows what he knows.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded. “Which moon was it?”
“Maana. Chauma appeared later, sometime during the Ice Age.”
“How did it happen?”
She took a drink from her mug and tilted her head back to face the stars staring down at them. “That’s the mystery. We don’t know because people were living underground at the time. Most believe that it has to do with some kind of Perseid shower that brought the strange material to Naeo’Gaea. It is the same material that makes Chauma shine so brightly. At least, that’s the theory anyway.”
“So, did Sebastian teach you all about our history, then?”
“A little. During our nightly firesides he taught me what he knew, or at least what he was willing to teach me. I asked him a lot of questions. When he didn’t want to answer, he told me that I was either too young or wasn’t ready to learn.”
“Hmm, that sounds familiar,” Jeremiah mused. “What did he teach you?”
“Well, he said that before the Ice Age, the Ancient World was peopled by sapient beings, like us, of many different races who spoke and wrote many languages, and lived in different lands separated by the sea.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah. It’s very different than our world now. The face of Naeo’Gaea has completely changed. Some of the races developed into high civilizations. They were civilizations of skywatchers and builders, of artists and scholars and seafarers. They were great thinkers. They had a form of knowledge that aided them in survival and advancement. Their knowledge wasn’t like that of the Terravail, of which I know little anyway. It was different and they used it in many different ways, mostly to build tools and crafts that improved their lives. Unfortunately, Papa said that this knowledge, too, has been lost.”
“So, what happened to them? How’d they die?”
“Not all of them did. We are proof of that because we’re their descendants. Many of them did die, though. The majority, I think.” She paused to sip her tea, then continued: “They started dying because, suddenly, during the height of the Golden Age — that’s what it’s officially called — their world was struck by unpredictable and volatile weather. It changed frequently and violently, killing many of them regardless of their advancements that kept them alive. Like us, they had been accustomed to four seasons that came and went in a constant pattern. Then, the land plunged into a deep ice age. Entire civilizations collapsed, mostly those in warmer areas because they either couldn’t adapt physically to the cold or their economies couldn’t function or both. The survivors decided to build a network of underground cities with tunnels connecting them. They used their knowledge to survive underground. It was the only other option they had besides extinction. It all happened in a matter of decades, too. Many of those who escaped underground still died, though, because adjusting to life without sunlight was too difficult.”
Jeremiah stared at her intently, drinking in every word. “Are the cities still there?”
“I asked Papa that same question and he said that he didn’t know.”
“Hmm, I wonder. So then what happened? How long did they stay underground?”
“For thousands of years. In any case, enough time went by for all of the different races to form into one civilization. It was a civilization that sort of fused together all the different cultural aspects of each race. One common language also evolved. It was a mixture of all the remnants of the different living languages spoken at the time. We now call the language of old—”
“Angaulic?”
“Yep. At one point during their time underground, there was a major landquake. It collapsed some of the tunnels and there were cities that were lost to the rest of the civilization. Some of the tunnels were inundated with water and so had to be walled up. Many associate the quake with the arrival of Ch
auma, but they can’t be sure. In any case, they know something cataclysmic occurred that wiped out most of the ancient world above. Some think there may be structural remains left underwater, but we have yet to find them. Anyhow, it was sometime after the quake the three races that we know today began to evolve.”
“The Terravail, the Naeon, and the Lost Ones?”
“That’s right.” She sipped her tea. “The three races began to develop radically different abilities and traits. The Terravail, of course, began living longer lives and developing their unique powers and physical strength. The Naeon, us, developed longer lives and a special talent for building things. The Lost Ones, however, didn’t really demonstrate much of a change and resemble the ancient people more than any other race. The people of the ancient world didn’t live very long lives, at least not to our standards. They lived about one third the life that we do. So do the Lost Ones.”
“Why are they called the Lost Ones?”
“Their real name is the Quaie’Miren, but they are called the Lost Ones because they’re nomadic. They constantly move around and never settle in any one place. No one outside their circle really knows why they do that, but they’ve been doing it ever since the Haeliad.”
Jeremiah frowned. “Ever since the Haeliad? That’s a holiday.”
Chalice laughed. “Yes, it is, but it is also the name that was given to the day that people decided to leave the underground world and settle on the land again. It was sometime after the three races developed into what they are now that the land became warm and habitable. It took them a long time, but they eventually decided to come out and the Haeliad is the celebration of that — the Coming Out or the Egress.” She paused to reflect. “I think that’s what Papa called it anyway. The Egress wasn’t easy. People’s skin and eyes had to adapt to the weather and sunlight again, but obviously they managed it. The first thing that they noticed was the existence of the two moons and the inverted path of the sun from west to east. Apparently, in the ancient world, the sun’s path used to be east to west. They also noticed that the length of the day and night was longer and that the oceanic tides were different. So they had to change their calendars and clocks to adjust to the differences.”
“And they remembered all of these things about the Ancient World after spending all that time underground?” he asked, finishing the rest of his tea in one gulp. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“I agree. It’s hard to believe. Papa said that it was passed down from parent to child through bedtime stories.”
“You know, there’s something that doesn’t make sense to me about all of this,” he said, setting his empty cup to the side. “If all of their knowledge has been lost, then how does anyone know anything about these ancient people?”
“That’s just it!” she said in frustration. “I don’t know. It’s uncanny because all of their knowledge and the fruits of it are gone. We have no record of them. No history. There are no provable traces left behind. Granted, it was eons ago so I can see how time has wiped away any mark of their civilization, but if that’s the case, how can we even prove they existed and that these stories weren’t a fabrication? It doesn’t make sense to me either. I’m not saying that I doubt what Papa taught me, but where did he get his information and how does he know?”
“This is something I’ll have to ask my father when we see him. He’ll probably know,” Jeremiah said as he stared off into the distance.
Thinking of his father and the others at Chainbridge, Chalice said: “So, Jeremiah.” He turned his head in her direction. “Have you given any thought to Chainbridge since this morning and what we’ll do after we get over the mountain?”
He nodded. “Yes, I have. We’ll need to be careful. By the time we get down the mountain, they may still be looking for us. My guess, though, is that they’ll expect us to either come back down the mountain on the east side and head through the middle passes or return to Branbury. Of course, this is assuming they’ll be that persistent. We still don’t know who they’re looking for.”
“That’s true,” she agreed.
He looked at her intently, his dark eyes burrowing into her and she knew what he was thinking. “Have you given any more thought to the book we found yesterday?”
She rolled her eyes. She had been hoping to avoid this topic. It had been the culmination of an anxiety that had haunted her ever since she left Canton. “I thought you might ask that. Yes, I have and did you notice something this morning?”
“What’s that?”
“The man in black said they were looking for a ‘him’.”
Jeremiah’s eyes lit up. “That’s right! ‘The Fierain wants him alive.’ I remember that. So, you’re right. It’s not you, then. I’d still like to know what that passage means and who the King is looking for.”
She studied him as the shadows from the firelight danced around his face. Is the King looking for Jeremiah? she wondered. She didn’t want to continue on the subject, however, so she said: “Well, eventually we’ll get to the bottom of it. As for now, we should get some sleep.” Then, she stretched out like a cat and let out a wide yawn.
Chalice looked up toward the moonbow and spotted a shooting star that streaked across the dark sky, disappearing over the falls. “Did you see that?”
“Make a wish,” he said.
“You make a wish.”
He smiled at her knowingly. “I already have.”
“What was it?”
He winked. “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.”
“Tell me,” she pestered him.
“Good night, Chalice,” he said quietly as he lay down to sleep.
She sniffed loudly. “You’re not telling me. Alright, well, whatever. Good night,” she replied sassily, set down her empty cup, and curled up in her blankets. A deep sleep took her, filled with dreams of a white corridor, a staircase, and a pulsating gem. By the morning, however, she had already forgotten them.