On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (3 page)

4

A Stranger Named Esben

T
he door swung shut behind Tink as Nia pulled up a chair between Podo and Janner.

“Lad, do you know I love you?” said Podo.

Janner nodded, then added, “Yes sir.”

“I know I'm not your father. He was a good man. A brave man. He fought well and died well in the Great War, and it's my duty to raise you children as near as I can to what your father would want.”

Janner stole a glance at his mother. She fought back tears as she stood and busied herself with clearing the plates from the table.

“Now lad, you're getting long of leg and yer voice is getting thicker. I expect you figure you're nearing manhood, do ye?” Podo looked at Janner with one white bushy eyebrow cocked up and the other eye squinting at him. “Speak up, lad.”

“Well, I'm twelve! I know that's not old, but…” He broke off, unable to think of what to say.

“Sometimes ye feel like yer brother and sister might weigh ye down like an anchor, is that it? Sometimes ye feel like this little town's too small for the notions in yer head?”

Janner stared at his hands. With a deep breath, he pulled the picture from his pocket. Nia stopped her cleaning as Janner unfolded the picture and spread it flat on the table. He could hold his tears back no longer; they dripped from the end of his nose onto the picture, mingling with the spray of the sea.

Nia hugged Janner's head to her chest and smoothed his hair for a long time. “I wondered where that picture had gotten to.”

“It's him?”

Nia nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“And he drew it?”

“Yes.” Nia dabbed the tears from the picture with her apron. “That was a different time. A different world.” She was quiet a long moment. “Before the Fangs. Your father would want nothing more than for you to sail your own seas, and one day you will. But if he were here he would tell you the same thing your grandfather is telling you. There's a time to sail and a time to stay put.”

“Laddie, I understand more than ye might know.” Podo's voice was softer. “But hear me: I was there when your pa died. I didn't see it, but I was there all the same.”

Janner looked up sharply. “You were there? What happened?”

“Aye.”

“Papa, no—” Nia said.

“It's time he knew something of where he's from, lass.” Podo pointed at the drawing, then at Janner. “Look at 'im. He's the spitting image—”

“I don't see what that has to do with anything. Raising Esben's memory from the dead will do no good.
No
good.” Nia's voice trembled.

Janner hated seeing his mother so upset but desperately wanted to hear more. “His name was Esben?” Janner hoped to keep Podo talking.

Podo and Nia looked at him with sad eyes.

Nia kissed Janner's hair. “No more. Please,” she said to Podo and left the room.

Janner was silent.

Podo was silent.

The thwaps in the bag were silent.

Finally, Podo cleared his throat. “Well, you must trust me. I see your father in you. He was a great man. He fought for us.
Died
fighting for us. Your wee sister and brother are treasures, same as you, and we wouldn't have our treasures lost.” The old man leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Blood was shed that you three might breathe the good air of life, and if that means you have to miss out on a Zibzy game, then so be it. Part of being a man is putting others' needs before your own.”

Janner thought of Tink and Leeli. The idea of always having to look out for them still galled him, but he did love them. He wanted to be a good, brave man like his father—whose name he had just heard for the first time. “Yes sir. I'll try,” he said, not quite able to meet Podo's eyes. Janner folded up the picture and looked at Podo questioningly. Podo gave his permission with a nod, and Janner placed the picture back in his pocket with care.

“So, lad, since you're so old now, why don't you and your brother and sister head over to the festival without yer mother and me for a while. We still have some chores to mind. You're in charge.”

“But, mama said that Leeli couldn't—”

“Hee,” Podo laughed. “I'll see to yer mother. Just keep yer sister close. Your mother and I'll be along directly. Can you handle that?”

“Yes sir,” Janner said, suddenly unsure that he could.

Podo clapped his hand on the table. “Right, then. Now. There's something I need you to do for me before you three head out to the festival.” He handed the sack of thwaps to Janner and lowered his voice. “Would you mind dumping these stinkers over the cliff for yer dear Podo?”

Janner's eyes widened. “What?”

“Aw, I'm foolin',” Podo said with disappointment. “I couldn't do that after Leeli's little performance.” Podo reached into his pocket and handed Janner three grayish coins. He took another bite of hotcakes, swallowed and burped. “Buy yerselves some munches.”

5

The Bookseller, the Sock Man, and the Glipwood Township

T
he Igiby children raced across the cottage lawn, though that was only as fast as Leeli could hobble. Janner resisted the urge to offer her his help. He had learned long ago that his little sister was capable of getting around on her own and that if she wanted help, she'd ask for it. He also knew that while she was fiercely independent, she fiercely wanted them to wait up for her.

Even with a crippled leg, Leeli was remarkably fast, and her brothers moved at a trot as they wound down the shady lane that led to the town of Glipwood. Nugget padded along beside Leeli, wagging his tail, and if the Igiby children had had tails they would have wagged too. They could already hear the uncommon sound of laughter from the direction of town, and wisps of happy music lifted over the tops of the oaks.

Janner suddenly felt pleased to be entrusted with the care of both of his younger siblings. He laughed at how quickly his feelings had changed. Only minutes ago he felt chained down by his responsibility—now he was proud of it. Going to town alone with Tink and Leeli was a far song from sailing alone in the open sea like his father had done, but it would have to do.

Janner wondered what his friend, old Oskar N. Reteep at the bookstore, would say when he saw the Igibys with no parents in sight. Would Oskar give him more work in the store or let him take home more books? Maybe he'd finally allow Janner to read the books reserved only for older folks, the thick ones on the top shelves with the ancient binding. He smiled to himself.
Responsibility might not be so bad after all.

“So what happened back there?” Tink asked as they jogged down the lane.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” Tink sounded disappointed. “No spanking?”

“No. No spanking.”

“So when you're twelve you can be a stinker and not get whomped?”

“It's complicated,” Janner said, thinking again of his father. He wondered when he'd show Tink and Leeli the picture.

“I can't wait to be twelve.” Tink grinned deviously, and they rounded the corner onto Main Street.

Janner smiled back at his brother, but inside, he was troubled.
Esben. Esben Igiby,
he thought. Knowing his father's name made Janner think of him as a real person, not just a happy shadow from his dreams. Many days he didn't think much about him, but whenever the other children in Glipwood spoke of their fathers, or when they asked Janner why he lived with his old grandfather, he felt like an oddity. He knew that Leeli and Tink felt it too. Everyone else in Glipwood had grown up there, or somewhere nearby. But whenever Janner asked Podo or Nia where they had come from, the answer was always silence. All he knew was that Podo had grown up in the cottage, and that his great-great-great-great-grandparents (Janner's great-great-great-great-
great
-grandparents), Edd and Yamsa Helmer, had built the cottage two hundred years earlier, when Glipwood was little more than a cluster of buildings.
¹

Now Glipwood had one main street with several buildings on either side. Shaggy's Tavern stood on the left, its dark green shingle bearing a picture of a dog with a pipe hanging from its mouth. Beside it was the biggest building in town, Glipwood's only inn. Its sign read,
THE ONLY INN
at the top and below that, in smaller letters, “Glipwood's Only Inn.” The Shoosters, a kindly old couple, kept the inn warm and clean, and the smells that floated out of the kitchen made the whole township hungry. Across the street was a barbershop called J. Bird's, where Mr. Bird usually could be seen sleeping in one of his chairs. Next to the barbershop squatted the town jail, where Fangs lounged on the stoop and hurled insults at passersby.

Wide, mossy oak trees stretched their boughs over the streets, offering welcome shade from the summer sun. Children with sticky faces straddled high limbs, munching on various desserts. Everywhere Janner looked were men and women of different shapes and sizes. The women wore long, flowing, brightly colored gowns, and the men who strolled beside them puffed pipes and sported silly round-topped hats. Occasionally a horse-drawn carriage would squeak by, its occupants peeking smugly out the window.

Janner, Tink, and Leeli, with Nugget by her side, made their way through town, past the inn (always full this time of year, being Glipwood's only inn), past Ferinia's Flower Shop and the old rickety building that housed Books and Crannies. A sign hung in the window:

Oskar N. Reteep, a round man with a short, white beard and very little hair on top of his head, waved at them from his front porch where he sat in a rocking chair puffing on a long pipe. He had combed long wisps of hair over his freckled brown egg of a head in a vain attempt to hide the fact that he was bald. The breeze was stirring a long tendril of hair about as if it were waving at the children too.

“Ho there, Janner!” he called, smiling and beckoning to the children.

“Hello, Mister Reteep,” Janner hollered over the noise of the crowd.

From the window behind Oskar, a little man with pointed ears watched them. Zouzab Koit was a ridgerunner,
²
whom Oskar had adopted six years earlier upon opening a crate that was supposed to have been full of books from Torrboro. Instead, Oskar had been shocked to find a starving, frightened Zouzab cowering inside.

Ridgerunners were a little people, and little known in Skree, but Oskar, a self-proclaimed Appreciator of the Neat, the Strange, and/or the Yummy, decided that Zouzab most certainly qualified. Zouzab's descriptions of his homeland and harrowing life in the Killridge Mountains were very Neat, as were his stubbly hair and pointed features. His dress and behavior were quite Strange. He wore leather breeches and a patchwork shirt of many colors that billowed around him like a hundred tiny flags. Strangest of all, he couldn't help climbing on everything taller than himself, which was most things. As for his being Yummy, Oskar didn't care to speculate.

Janner thought how they looked rather silly together—Oskar round as a pumpkin and Zouzab short and thin as a shorn weed.

Leeli waved at Zouzab. His beady eyes widened and he ducked out of sight.

“Where's Podo?” Oskar asked wiping his glasses on his vest.

Janner tried to sound nonchalant. “Back at the cottage. Said we could come alone today.”

“Ah-ho.” Oskar eyed Janner through the spectacles perched back on the end of his nose. Janner beamed. “Come bright and early day after tomorrow, eh? I found an absolute trove of books on my last trip to Dug-town. I'll need help loading them in.”

“Yes sir, I'll be there.” Janner began to think of all the books he would read next.

Oskar squinted one eye at Tink and looked him up and down. “And bring that skin and bones brother of yours too. We could use the extra hand, and by the look of it, he could use the exercise.”

Tink's eyes widened. “Really, Mister Reteep?”

“That's right, lad.” Oskar smiled down at Leeli. “What do you think of all this fuss, lass? Glipwood is a different town for a day, isn't it?”

Leeli looked around at the folk milling past them, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells that were so foreign to the sleepy little township. She smiled. “I like it. But after a day of it, I'll be glad when things are back to normal.”

Janner rolled his eyes. “Well, I wish Glipwood was like this every day. I wish The Only Inn was always full of travelers and merchants with news from Torrboro and Fort Lamendron or tales from explorers who've gone beyond the edges of the maps. Did you ever think about the fact that there might be whole continents that no one from Skree has ever seen? That no one
anywhere
has ever seen? We've never even been to Fort Lamendron, and Podo says it's only a day's ride from here. All these rich people from Dug-town and Torrboro get to really
see
Aerwiar, not just shovel hay all day…”

Oskar raised his eyebrows at Janner, whose speech trailed off at the quizzical reaction of his friend. Oskar then wiped his brow and pressed the single waving lock of Reteep hair back to his forehead. “So. Glipwood is too small for Janner. What say you, young Tink?”

Tink sniffed the air. “I want some sugarberry pie.”

“Janner,” Oskar said, “there's more to the world than just seeing it. If you can't find peace here in Glipwood, you won't find it anywhere.” Oskar gestured at a carriage rolling by. “These folks may appear wealthy, but no one really is anymore. If you look close enough, you'll see the suits and dresses these so-called rich folk are wearing are tattered and patched. No earrings or necklaces adorn the women. No rings sparkle on the men's fingers.”

Janner saw that it was true.
Why hadn't he ever noticed that before?
Annoyed, he nodded to Oskar and toed at the dirt.
It was his day to be corrected by the grownups,
he thought.

“Lad, it's one thing to be poor in pocket—nothing wrong with that. But poor in heart—that's no good. Look at them. They're sad in the eyes, and it's a sadness no amount of money could repair. Why, they hardly remember what it's like to laugh from the belly anymore.”

“But they seem to be happy, Mister Reteep, don't they? We could hear the laughter and music from up the lane,” Leeli said.

“People come to Glipwood to see the dragons because it's one of the only freedoms they have left. Sure, they sleep under their own roofs with their own families, and broken though it is, this is still their own land. But this is a far fling from freedom, young Igibys. Some of us still remember what it was like to stroll through town after dark or to ride a horse through the forest without fear.” Oskar's voice grew angry, and it seemed to Janner that he was no longer talking to them but to himself. “It's beginning to feel like the Fangs have always been here, that Gnag the Nameless has always ruled us, taxed us, and stolen our young.”

Janner looked at the half smiles on the people's faces. He saw the way the people cowered away from the sneering Fangs on the jail stoop. There was sorrow underneath all the merriment, and for the first time Janner was old enough to feel it.

Oskar came back to himself and smiled at the children. “Ah. But it's a fine day, is it not, Igiby children? There's a time to think hard and there's a time to ease up. Now you run along. As the great Thumb of the Honkmeadow wisely wrote, ‘The games are starting soon enough.'” Oskar waved them on with a wink while he puffed his pipe and palmed his hair back to his bald pate.

With somber hearts, the children made their way down the crowded street. Janner was deep in thought, staring hard at Commander Gnorm, the fattest and meanest Fang in Glipwood. Gnorm's feet were propped on an old stump, and he was gnawing the meat from a hen bone, his long purple tongue slurping noisily. Gnorm hurled the bone at an old man walking by and the Fang soldiers hissed and laughed as the man bowed and wiped the grease from his face. Janner found it hard to believe that there was a day when no one in Skree had ever heard of the Fangs of Dang.

Past the jail, in front of the little building that housed the printing press, a cluster of people stood in a circle laughing at something. Above the heads of the onlookers, two ragged boots were kicking around in the air.

Janner and Tink grinned at one another.

“Peet the Sock Man!” Tink pointed and took off running. “Come on, Leeli! Let's see what he's up to.”

They pushed through the crowd and saw the strange fellow walking on his hands in the middle of the circle. He was chanting the phrase “wings and dings and purple things” over and over, kicking his feet to the rhythm. His cheeks were sunken, his eyes were shadowed, and the creases around them gave him the look of having just finished crying. He wore ragged clothes and was filthy, as were the dingy knitted stockings he wore on his arms up past his elbows.

Onlookers tossed coins, but to the residents of Glipwood, this was normal behavior for Peet. Earlier that summer, in fact, Peet crashed into the street sign at the corner of Main and Vibbly Way (which was quite innocent, as it was standing still and in plain sight). After insulting the sign's mother, Peet challenged it to a contest, though it quite stoically showed no sign of retaliation. He took a hard swipe at it, missed, spun in a circle like a circus dancer from Dugtown, and collapsed into the dirt where he snored noisily all that night.

Janner applauded with the crowd as Peet flipped back onto his feet, adjusted his hair with a flourish, and skipped away with one eye closed and a socked hand in his mouth, leaving the coins in the dust. Janner grinned after Peet, whose bushy head bounced up the dusty side street and around the corner.