Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) (14 page)

Chapman spluttered with indignation. “No one holds all of the pieces to Almara’s puzzle. I, myself, have studied the lore of the Stone of Borna for many years. You may choose to believe as you wish, but it is unwise to discount every piece of information that others present to you. Especially those who let you into their shops in the dead of night.” He let the vague threat hang in the air.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to recover the friendly mood. “My friend here is very old…and
cranky
,” I glared at Kiron. “We are very appreciative of the shelter you’ve given us. Thank you.”

“I figured we’d end up in Stonemore at some point,” Kiron said, ignoring both of us, “but I didn’t think it would be so soon in our journey that Almara would bring us to a place so full of hostility.” He turned to Chapman. “How do you get by here, and with your head still attached to your body?”
 

 
Chapman gave an involuntary shudder. “Most of the true believers of Almara fled with him after the battle, but a few remained in secret. My ancestors were among them, and they passed the story down generation after generation so that someone here in Stonemore would always know what had really happened. The silver scope in the window is many hundreds of years old. It has never, not once, called attention to itself until tonight. I am the last in the line, and I know of no other in Stonemore who serves Almara.”
 

“Who rules Stonemore now?” I asked.

His eyes immediately filled with fear, and he leaned in close, whispering quickly. “The Shield runs the city now. They are led by Cadoc, the general of the army.”
 

“And the Shield…they are the men in black? The ones on horses?”

“Yes,” he answered, his face falling into a grimace of dislike. “But Cadoc, he is not who he claims to be. Zarich disappeared, and Cadoc appeared to take his place.” He was talking faster and faster. “But there are…similarities between the two men…if you know what to look for. The crook of a nose, the manner of the way he holds his sword. His eyes. I believe they are the same dark eyes that Zarich once looked out from behind.”

“You mean they’re the same person?” I whispered, looking back and forth between the two men. Kiron sat quietly, silently nodding his head.

“I do not know for certain,” Chapman said. “It certainly sounds mad. The fight was hundreds of years ago. But the similarities between them are too great for any Almarian to ignore. He shows no mercy to those who oppose him. He is known, among the few who whisper, as the Dark King.”

I had a feeling I knew exactly who this Cadoc was.

“Why did Zarich hate Almara so much?”

“Oh,” said Chapman, relaxing a bit, “men of power seem to always hate other men of power, don’t they? Like little boys they always want more and more. I suppose Almara flaunted his power somewhat, and it was just too tempting for Zarich to resist trying to wrest it from him.” He peered at us over his narrow glasses. “But tell me now, how did you come to be in Stonemore?”

It was our turn to talk, but neither of us did. Clearly, Stonemore was a dangerous place for us to be. Was the mark in the window enough for us to trust this Chapman?

“I’ll tell the story,” Kiron said, answering my silent pleas for help. It would be a delicate task, telling this man only what was necessary for him to know.

“We thank you, friend, for takin’ us in at such peril to yourself,” Kiron began formally. “But we can’t tell you all you might desire to hear. We come to Stonemore to find one of Almara’s maps. Do you know of these?”

Chapman laughed. “Why, yes of course I know of the maps. But straight off you are telling me that you wish to accomplish the impossible. The maps are lost, as you, yourself must know.”

“It’s our purpose to find ‘em,” Kiron said. “We’ve charted a course to the link already, but searchin’ for it for the day and night has led us nowhere but to you. Tell me, what lies beneath the square?”

It was as if Kiron had smacked Chapman on the top of his bald head. Chapman’s eyes bugged.

“Why do you ask this, man?” he said, his breaths immediately quickening. He looked terrified.

Kiron held out his hand to me. “The link, please.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the map of the city, handing it to Kiron.

“I ask,” he said, “because we hold one of the lost maps. I’m its keeper and its guard, and have been for most of my life.” He unfolded the map and spread it out on the table between us and Chapman. Chapman stared at the page in stunned silence. Kiron pointed to the shimmering golden ring at the center of the square. “This is where our treasure lies,” he said. “But cobblestones are all that greet us out there. I ask you again. What lies beneath the square?”

Chapman continued to stare at the map, and then sat back in his chair, eyes still wide.
 

“The dungeons.”

“Then that’s where we’re headed,” Kiron said.
 

“But, you’re mad!” Chapman said. “Anyone who has ever been known to descend below Stonemore has never resurfaced alive. It is said that a treasure hold lies beneath the city. Within the dungeons lie the silver and gems of Stonemore. But, of course, once there you would have no hope of escape. Others have tried before you to gain the treasure. Their heads have been displayed in the square for all to see.”

I shuddered.

“It is the safest place for both criminals and treasure alike. There, the guards patrol in constant motion, and there is no hope for breaking either in or out. If any artifacts from Almara remain, that’s where they’ll be. But it would be suicide to attempt breaking in.”

“How do you know this?” Kiron asked.

“Everyone knows it. Fear and desire govern this place.”

I sunk back into my chair.

“What is the matter, son?” he asked. “Why do you need this map so badly? I mean, aside from the obvious reasons? You’ll never get to it, I’m afraid. It’s too well guarded.”

“That map,” I said slowly, “is my only hope of ever making it back home.” His face fell with concern and I put mine into my hands. It was true. Now that I had been face to face with Cadoc, the man from my dream, I felt sure that the item I was looking for was a book. And without it, I would be stuck here in Stonemore. And Cadoc already knew my face. I would have to live out the rest of my days within the walls of this city, in hiding. Or on the run, forever trapped in Maylin. Maybe Kiron would take me in. I could be a sort of helper on his farm.

“We’ll get to the link, boy,” Kiron growled. “I ain’t no master, but I have a few tricks that even this Cadoc won’t expect. I didn’t wait my entire life to be thwarted by the small issue of a locked door.”

The three of us sat in silence for a time. Kiron finally relented and sampled the cheese from the plate, smacking his lips appreciatively, as if all this had been normal dinner conversation.
 

I couldn’t stay here, that was certain. Whether I ever made it home or not, I would have to get out of Stonemore. I thought about all Chapman had told us, the Shield, the fear that the citizens here had to constantly endure. And for what? So that Cadoc could enjoy the feeling of power while everyone else suffered? It wasn’t right. It was sick. And because of this man, or whatever he was, I was stuck here in the middle of it, under his thumb.

Well, I wasn’t going to tolerate it. I wasn’t going to just sit here and hide like a little kid. If I needed to break into the vault then that’s what I would do.

I was going
home.
 

Courage began to rise in my core until it filled me like a balloon and I stood from my chair.
 

Two things became clear to me in that moment.
 

First, somebody needed to make things right.
 

And second, I was about to become a thief.

That night, after Chapman had propped his eyes open for as long as he could, I lay awake and listened to the little man snore. The small apartment where he lived, tucked into the back of the shop, was more like a furnished closet than it was a real home. But I suppose he spent the majority of his time out on the floor of the mercantile. He clearly wasn’t prepared for visitors.

Kiron rested silently in his corner of the room, awake or asleep, I didn’t know. We had all stayed awake long into the night, occasionally nibbling on whatever scraps Chapman could find in the single, sad cabinet. It wasn’t a noble’s life, he’d told us, running a little shop here in the square. With no wife to care and cook for him, he would often take his meals down at the local pub and didn’t keep much in the way of food in the place. He wasn’t poor, exactly, but the city life left him with only what he could buy from the money his trinkets earned him. Sometimes he would get lucky, he said, making a deal that would keep him in bread and ale for weeks. Other times were lean. But he patted his round belly and told us, “I’ve had a good run of late.”

As we talked and traded bits of information, we discussed the possibility, or rather the impossibility, of stealing Almara’s book from the hold below the square. He took easily to my story of travel; apparently such things were, while not the norm, not unheard of in this place. After all, Almara himself had been such a traveler. But when I showed him the powers the Kiron had brought forth and instilled in my backpack, his mouth dropped open and stayed that way for some time.
 

“Never, in all my years, have I seen such a work,” he finally said.
 

This seemed to soften Kiron’s edge.

“You’ve never seen magic before?” I asked.

“Baubles, yes,” he replied. “Things that shine and twinkle, a potion that brings peace to the ill of heart. But an object like this,” he gingerly touched the edges of the pack and lifted it, light as a feather despite its ample contents, “this is extraordinary.” He laughed as he raised it up and down with a single finger.

“But the battle between Zarich and Almara…” I replied. “Certainly you’ve had experience with magical spells in the past.”

His eyes widened as they fell on my face. “No, child!” he exclaimed. “I wasn’t even a twinkle in my great-great-grandfather’s eye when that battle took place. And in the days since, magic has been a dangerous trade in Stonemore. No,” he looked back at the pack, “this is something the likes of which I, and probably anyone in this city, have never seen.” He turned to Kiron. “How did you manage this?”
 

Kiron’s eyes betrayed the pride he was trying to conceal.
 

“My pa,” he said. “He passed down knowledge of the spell to me when I was still a boy.”

Chapman marveled at the pack for a while, but eventually his eyelids began to droop. Finally, when he could barely manage intelligible speech any longer, he set out mats and blankets for us and then shuffled over to his own bed. He muttered himself into sleep, and Kiron stayed silent, leaving me to contemplate the task ahead on my own.
 

The last thing I wanted was to end up in some sort of jail or, my stomach knotted at the thought, a dungeon. How in the world were we supposed to get down there, much less back out again in one piece? I was no idiot, but I was still just a boy. Hatching such complicated and dangerous plans was surely the realm of some genius, not a kid. And what if the book wasn’t even there? Or worse, what if I had it wrong and it wasn’t a book I was supposed to be looking for at all?
 

Another threat floated into my mind as I chewed on these problems: Cadoc. I had seen Cadoc in my dream and here he was, alive and real. Could I be sure that the book I ran with in that dream was the very same I must seek now? I was going to have to trust that it was; the similarities between the dream and what had happened yesterday were just too great. It’s not every day that your dreams literally become reality, and I would just have to accept that the other parts of my dream were becoming real now, too.

I rolled over and tried to find sleep. But I couldn’t erase Cadoc’s dark eyes from my mind. That man, he wasn’t right. No light of kindness or humanity lay behind that black glare, and when I closed my eyes all I could see was his stare looking back at me. Every inch of my body was tensed, ready to fight him, but now, at the wrong time. I needed to sleep now, not prepare to battle. I rolled over again and again on the hard mat. Eventually, I tried an old trick my mother had taught me: counting sheep. She had described it to me one night in the hospital where I lay, scared and agitated, waiting for surgery.
 

“Just imagine them,” she had said, “one by one. Close your eyes. Can you see their white fuzzy coats? Are they jumping the fence, one by one? Watch the sheep, love, and count them as they each take their turn.” Her cool hand rested on my forehead as I watched the imaginary sheep behind my eyelids.

My chest hurt with the memory of her, but in a different way than when I overexerted myself. I turned over again and tried to see the sheep in my head. I imagined each individual sheep readying himself, and then clumsily jumping the fence, pushed forward by the flock behind him. I could start to feel my body relax, distracted by keeping count of the silly creatures. Slowly they made their way across the rickety fence, one by one, until I lost count.
 

As my thoughts changed to dreams, the sheep morphed into other animals. First, a buck with a full rack of antlers. Then a horse who whinnied and jumped without hesitation, his long tail fluttering out behind him. The last beast I saw before I finally faded away was a slight, white wolf, very unlike they vicious faylons that had chased me. He gazed at me for a long moment, as if we were old friends, and finally leaped the barrier to follow the other animals into the darkness. I stared over the fence into the black forest all of the animals had disappeared into and watched the glow of the wolf fade away. I saw no more creatures that night.

When I woke the next morning I was alone. Dusty light filtered in through the tiny window of the room, and I lay for a time watching the little bits of it dance around in the beam, happy to be safe and hidden. On the other side of the door I could hear Chapman milling around in the shop. I sat up and took a look around the tiny space in the light of day.