The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (3 page)

Bernice looked into Skyhammer's eyes. "If you want that glove, leave now. And for
some
reason they've got it out for you especially, Skyhammer."

Skyhammer saw Higgins' puzzled face and spoke before she could ask any controversial questions. "They know I want it and what I'll do to get it. Thanks, Bernice."

The informant nodded and zipped away on her carpet without another word.

"Why would they have it out for you?" Higgins asked him as he seated himself on the carpet, leaning against his backpack.

He shrugged. "Relic protectors always have it out for me. I'm the best Relic hunter on Pingala which means I deprive them of Relics
they
think they should be protecting." Relic protectors believed in a ridiculous theory, to his mind. Apparently the Moksha were planning to return to Pingala - if indeed they'd even left, no one knew - and the Relic protectors possessed an almost religious fervour to ensure the Relics stayed exactly where they were found. Why the Aridizans thought an intelligent species like the Moksha couldn't find their own Relics again was beyond him.

Higgins sat cross-legged facing him. "That's nothing new. But Bernice gave the impression that this was more than the usual protector versus hunter competition." She blew on her slate, lifting them into the sky.

Skyhammer stared down at his feet, determined not to look over the carpet's edge as they rose higher and higher above Market Hill. Damn her curiosity! His toes wiggled in anxiety within his boots. He couldn't reveal the murder to Higgins. It wasn't a murder, exactly, but he'd given his word to keep the Aridizan female's secret and so of course it looked to the Relic Protectors and everyone else as though Skyhammer had killed the Aridizan. He hadn't anticipated this complication when he'd met the Aridizan. "They know the glove is the Relic that will give me magic and the only one I will do anything to possess."

Higgins' lips pressed together in a resolute line. "Then let's claim that Relic and get you some Moksha-damned magic!"

* * *

Twenty days later, Skyhammer flicked a giant scorpion, dead, off the tip of his longsword and back into the jungle before joining Higgins on the ledge overlooking a long-sought valley. They exchanged excited grins.

She passed the telescope to Skyhammer.

"That knoll on the other side of the ravine. Dead center of the valley. . ." She waited.

Skyhammer jammed the scope to his right eye. He moved the lens to the left. The glove came into focus. He gasped. The mesh glove was right there in front of him, glittering silver in a sunbeam. He squinted, puzzled. The glove appeared to be stuck on a stick, swaying in the wind. Not a stick, he realized as he examined the whole area around the glove. A bone. An arm bone. On a little stone table that looked like the same stone as the platform. Whoever had worn the glove last had died here. He thanked the gods that claims wore off after a hundred years. His hands shook. Magic power was finally his. He felt ready to burst with excitement.

"We still have to claim it, my friend." Smiling, Higgins pulled the scope from his hands and returned it to her backpack.

With its sheer sides and flat middle, the valley looked as if it had been created when an enormous coin had been hewn out of a mountaintop. A ravine ringed the stone platform that held the glove but the rest of the ground was covered in bright red grass. Skyhammer imagined it seen from the sky as a red eye peering straight up amidst the green of the surrounding mountains. "So how do we get down?" His fingers itched to grab the scope again and stare at the glove.

"I'm all for rappelling." Higgins strode to the edge and peered over.

Skyhammer's jaw clenched as he pictured the distance from the ledge to the valley floor. "Are you sure we couldn't find a path?" His eyes scanned either side of the ledge then he pointed to the right. "Stairs! I'm sure there are stairs right there."

Higgins chuckled.

"You knew they were there all along, didn't you?" Skyhammer glared at her. "Imp." He took a deep breath and surveyed the terrain.

"I see..."

"They're coming..."

Skyhammer nodded for Higgins to continue.

"...trouble," she finished. To their left across the valley, three figures in grey clambered down the cliff face.

"The Aridizan Relic protectors." His hand gripped the hilt of his sword.

Higgins grimaced. "We've got some running to do then." She started towards the staircase.

He followed, a broad smile spreading across his face. "Nothing like a race to make a hunter's day. We've never been beaten by protectors before and we certainly aren't going to start now. Come on!"

* * *

As Skyhammer ran across the valley floor, he alternated his gaze between the space just ahead of his feet and the three Aridizans who were a third of the way across the valley, streaking towards the ravine. Two-thirds the height of a human, with deeply wrinkled black skin and grey robes, the Aridizans looked like old men but could run like the wind.

Higgins ran a couple of feet to his right. "Not slowing down back there, are you?" She grinned, pulling ahead.

Skyhammer ploughed after her. The woman could run. Even at five feet eight inches tall, with larger hips and thighs than was currently fashionable, his colleague moved with ease and grace. The wind pushed at his back, carrying a cinnamon scent from the red grass crushed by their feet.

The lip of the circular ravine was fast approaching. He glanced one last time at the Aridizans. They were almost at the ravine as well. The protectors would be prepared for the crossing and fuelled by anger about how he had killed one of their own. He forced his legs to move faster. After a lifetime of wanting magic powers and three years of searching for the glove, it now sat less than fifty feet away. He not only deserved to claim the glove but
needed
it. To them it was just another Relic to protect. For Skyhammer, the glove would change his life.

At the ravine's edge, he halted next to Higgins and stared down, frowning. The top of the ravine was about 30 feet wide all around, like a moat surrounding a castle. Smooth and steep sides drew closer together at the bottom where frothy white water tumbled in a ten foot gap. The water must have originated in an underground river on the far side of the ravine. He could see it disappearing into a dark hole in the outer wall, farther to his left, closer to the Aridizans.

Skyhammer shrugged off his backpack. He pulled out a long length of rope and a grappling hook. Higgins removed her own rope from her bag.

"I'll throw the hook as close as I can get it to the left of the table," he said. "Then we'll pull to the right until it hooks around one of those stone legs."

Higgins nodded. "Get on with it." She glanced over at the Aridizans.

He swung the hook in a circle over his head a few times to build up momentum. The first throw landed too far from the table. He hauled the hook back, yanking it across the ravine so it wouldn't get caught in the current.

Cheers erupted from the Aridizans. He didn't bother to look at them, just raised his arm and swung the hook again. This time it landed right next to the table. He risked a glance at the Aridizans. Two of them stood on opposite sides of the ravine's outer wall, securing a rope across the ravine and the central area. The third Aridizan had divested himself of his grey cloak and was hopping from foot to foot as his partners adjusted the rope.

A burst of rage exploded in Skyhammer's chest. Why hadn't he gone and killed the Relic protectors before they could cross the ravine? He had focused on the glove so much that his desire for it commandeered his strategic planning. Too late now.

Skyhammer ran to the right, Higgins close behind him. After about 10 feet, he felt a tug on the rope. It had hooked onto the table.

"Can you hold it?" He looked at Higgins.

She shook her head. "Not without something to brace me. I'll hold the end while you climb down and back up the other side. You're fast." She gave him a smile of encouragement and tied her rope to the end of his.

One last time, he looked over at the Aridizans. The naked Aridizan hung by both his hands from the rope, nearing the middle of the ravine. He moved in a steady progression, hand over hand towards the glove. No time for Higgins' plan. He had to get across faster than that.

Skyhammer secured his longsword across his back. He took a deep breath, tugged the rope one more time, then dropped it. Higgins pulled it tight, holding it at waist height.

He took off, running towards the ravine, beside the rope. This was his only chance to catch up to the Aridizans. At the edge, he jumped.

In mid-air Skyhammer grabbed the rope with both hands. Higgins released the rope. As he dropped like a rock down to the water far below, momentum carried him towards the inner wall of the ravine. During the few seconds he soared through the air, he bent his legs and pulled himself another couple of feet up the rope, towards the glove.

It was enough.

First his feet, then his forearms slammed into the rock wall, just above the water on the inner side of the ravine. His forehead smashed into his wrist. Elation filled him, covering up the pain. Relief that the rock hadn't split his skull open followed. His hands began to slip and his body dropped towards the frothy water. He looked down. Now that he was closer, he could see fish with more teeth than body swimming just below him. One jumped out of the water and snapped at his backside. He hauled himself up, stretching out his legs. A voice called out from behind him, far away. He couldn't hear the words over the rushing water. Hand over bleeding hand, Skyhammer pulled himself up the rope. Ignoring the ache in his knees, the scrapes on his arms and the burning in his hands, he fixed his mind on a vision of the glove, sitting on its platform, waiting for him.

At the top, he lifted his right leg over the lip of the ravine, swung his left leg over and rolled onto his stomach. He had made it. The glove was his. Next time he wanted to fly, he'd just be able to cast a spell and rise into the air. He grinned.

A flash of black over to his left.

Inhaling a deep breath, he sat up and looked over at the platform.

The cloak-less Aridizan grasped the mesh glove with both hands, happiness suffusing his wrinkled black face. A wave of dark gray spread like ripples on a pond over the glove, changing its sheen from silver to gray.

Skyhammer rose, staring at the Aridizan holding
his
mesh glove. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
He
needed the glove, had searched for it ever since he and Spark had read about it in that ancient book. He hated the little Aridizan with a sudden, dark fervour. With the glove, and thereby magic, out of his reach, Skyhammer would remain sub-human. He had never realized how certain of success he had been, how the rest of his life had depended on this one moment. He staggered, disappointment hitting him like a physical blow to his chest.

The Relic protector cackled. "Too late, Skyhammer. No magic for you. Did you really think we wouldn't find out that you murdered her?" From a fold of skin, he produced a knife, its blade polished to a blinding brightness. "She was innocent, Skyhammer. Not only that, she was my wife," he hissed. "You will not leave this valley alive." He dropped the glove and bore down on Skyhammer.

Skyhammer fumbled to unsheathe his sword from its inconvenient location on his back. He retreated left. The Aridizan lunged and Skyhammer twisted right as his sword finally came free. Then Skyhammer was upon the protector, slashing and skewering like a madman.

"He's dead. Skyhammer!" Higgins' shouts cut through the haze of anger and defeat that enveloped him.

He looked up. Higgins and the two Aridizans were staring at him in shock. He fell to his knees, eyes locked on the glove. His forehead bowed to the ground.

* * *

Minutes or hours passed. Skyhammer heard a voice calling his name but he couldn't bring himself out of the darkness that blanketed his soul. Bitterness squeezed his heart. His one chance-

He raised his head. The ceremony. Higgins. Climbing to his feet, he looked around. The Aridizans were gone. No, not quite. They lay motionless at Higgins feet. She was watching him, shouting at him.

"They attacked me! Are you coming back?" Concern coloured her voice. "Climb across their rope. It can hold your weight."

He began to walk, like a wooden doll, with jerky movements. Each time his foot hit the ground, the word 'ceremony' resounded in his head. His eyes did not leave his partner's face. He reached the rope and swung out over the ravine. Straight towards Higgins he climbed, hand over hand, until he reached the outer wall and swung himself over the edge.

"Sit down," she told him in a sharp tone.

His legs obeyed, collapsing, before his mind had a chance to process the order. "The ceremony." Now it was his only hope for magic power.

Higgins smiled, sympathy filling her eyes. "We'll be back in time for the ceremony." Her smile disappeared as she sank onto her knees beside him. "What did the Aridizan mean when he said you had 'murdered her'?"

Chapter 4

Countdown to ceremony: 35 days

He couldn't tell her the truth. She would never speak to him again, never forgive him for killing an innocent for a chance at magic powers. He couldn't forgive himself. "I'm not sure what he meant. When I left the Aridizan female, she was alive. Why would they think I murdered her?" She knew him so well. He could only hope that since they'd just been through a fight, she was not as sensitive to his emotions as usual.

Higgins rubbed her eyes. "Perhaps they just wanted to blame someone for her death and you were the last person to see her. I guess they couldn't know that you'd never do something like that." She gave him a tired smile.

Skyhammer looked down, ashamed yet relieved. "Yeah, they don't know me as well as you do," he muttered. "I don't deserve a friend like you."

"Don't say that!" Her smile dropped away. "You deserve the same as every other human on this planet. I hate those people who say that you are sub-human. Makes me crazy."