The Beginning (13 page)

“You were right, Gieaun,” Jahrra said with a grin on her face. “This would be the perfect place for a group of robbers to attack!”

“Not funny!” she retorted hotly.

Suddenly, a bird cawed from a treetop somewhere above and Gieaun let out a blood-curdling scream. The horses jerked their heads up in surprise and Jahrra and Scede had to pull Phrym and Bhun around in small circles to calm them as Aimhe reared.

“Good one, Gieaun!” Scede growled. “It was only a crow!”

“Sorry! This place gives me the creeps!” Gieaun answered angrily.

“Let’s keep moving then,” Jahrra added as calmly as she could.

By the time they left the tangled trees behind, it was already well past mid-day. The three riders picked up their pace so they could reach the crossroads before sunset.

After another several hours of baking heat and blinding sun, Jahrra slowed Phrym to a stop and held her hand up to shade her eyes. She gazed into the heat-tainted distance, spotting the great Oorn River winding up from the south and curling down from the tall hills far ahead. To the south and east the mountainous landscape continued as far as the eye could see, and perhaps much further than that. The hills and gentle, rolling land that stretched all around the three riders was the dry and brittle color of fired clay.

After getting her fill of the scenery, Jahrra sat back down in the saddle and contemplated the scene just ahead of her. The sandy ribbon of road stretched far into the distance, intersecting another similar path that ran south across the river and north into the southern Longuinn Hills. The crossroads were no more than a half mile away, and it looked very lonely out here in the middle of this barren wasteland.

Jahrra clicked her tongue at Phrym and he obediently trudged onward, taking on an easy pace in the sweltering heat. Once they finally reached the point where the two roads met, Jahrra stopped Phrym completely and let the suffocating silence engulf her. She gazed up with pinched eyes at a sign post holding heavy wooden planks etched with the words of their possible destinations. The sign pointing east read
The Cohn Forest – Oorn Lake
, the sign pointing west, where the children had come from, read
The Lakes – Lensterans
. The sign pointing north read
The East Hills – Longuinn Valley
, and the sign pointing south said
The Little Oorn Plain – Rhoorn Valley
.

Jahrra reached into one of her saddle bags and pulled out her small spyglass. She stood up in the saddle and held the instrument up to her eye, focusing on a small patch of green up against the eastern hills in the distance.

“What is it?” Gieaun asked, waving her hand limply at a cloud of small flies.

“It looks like a small wooded canyon with what might be a creek running into the Oorn River,” Jahrra answered, spyglass still held up to her eye. “I suppose that’s the best place to make camp for the night, and we should be doing that pretty soon. We still have to find something to eat before it gets dark.”

It took the children half an hour to reach the gully, but once there they tied their bedraggled horses up to an oak tree overlooking the stream. The trio then went out to hunt, returning with a few wild fowl and a basket full of berries. Jahrra started a fire and Scede prepared the birds, roasting them on a crude spit over the sweltering coals. They ate and went to bed early, eager to get moving before the heat swelled up in the morning.

Jahrra stared up at the glittering stars as her friends dozed quietly next to her. She sighed inwardly and closed her eyes, trying to rest her mind. Her conscience had been grinding on her the entire day. She knew that she should tell Gieaun and Scede the truth about Ehnnit Canyon. What was the big deal anyway? It wasn’t like the canyon was dangerous or anything like that, right? All she was going to do was gather some apples, how hazardous could that be?

It’s because Denaeh wanted me to come, and they wouldn’t approve of me doing any favors for Denaeh
, she thought miserably. She knew that her friends had never really trusted the Mystic, and they wouldn’t be happy if they found out they’d been dragged along on this strange mission.
Oh well. What’s done is done. Hopefully they’ll never suspect anything at all.
Jahrra tucked these feelings away and after another few deep breaths, she was fast asleep.

***

Jahrra was sure she had just shut her eyes, but that didn’t stop the familiar morning sounds of birds singing and the shuffling of someone next to her packing up.

“Wake up you two! Let’s get a move on before it gets too hot!” Scede snapped as he tied his sleeping mat onto Bhun.

Gieaun simply moaned and pulled her pillow over her head.

“Ugh, you and that wretched pillow!” he said in disgust.

After much coaxing and a few threats, Scede finally got the two girls to get up and pack. Just as the sun was starting to peak over the eastern hills, the trio had their horses cantering down the road leading south. The hills to the left of them cast a great, looming shadow over their heads and onto the Little Oorn Plain, which seemed to stretch on forever into the west. Before long, they came to a wide wooden bridge that spanned the Oorn River. The river was running low this time of year, and Jahrra noted many copses of willows and sycamores growing like thick tufts of green and silver fur along the river bank. Once on the other side of the bridge, the horses picked up their pace with everyone hoping to cover as much ground as possible before the sun breached the hilltops and began to roast them.

As they rode, Jahrra inched her map out from the small front pocket on Phrym’s saddle. She’d been secretly glancing at it every so often for the past several hours, and in the process had discovered that Ehnnit Canyon, the small ravine where she was to collect the apples, had a distinctive fan-shaped wash that spilled out onto the Oorn Plain. Jahrra quietly tucked the map back out of sight, trying to fight the excitement and apprehension that was making her nerves grow taut.

“At last, some shade!” Scede was saying thirty minutes later.

The horses picked up their speed once they spotted the patch of trees and soon Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede were throwing down blankets and stretching their tired muscles. To everyone’s delight, Gieaun discovered a hidden spring bubbling out from behind some rocks. The three friends filled their water skins and then tied the horses up near the small pool below the spring, finally sitting down to eat once everything was in order. While they ate, Jahrra took out her journal and began sketching a few of the animals and plants she’d seen that day. After she was done with that, she pulled out her map to check and see how far their destination was from their current location.

Only an hour or so away, according to this map
, she thought. Now all that remained was to convince her friends that it was a good idea to explore Ehnnit Canyon.

“Are we anywhere near those hidden canyons you were talking about?” Scede’s question startled Jahrra, but she remained cool.

“Well,” she replied, trying not to sound too anxious, “the closest canyon is about an hour from here, but we could always keep moving if it looks boring once we get there.”

She bit her cheek and scoured the map once more to distract herself as she waited for a response.

“Is there anything written next to it, like a name?” Gieaun asked lazily as she finished up some wild berries, licking her fingers clean.

“I don’t know. It’s not labeled on this map, but when I copied it from one of Master Hroombra’s maps, I copied this symbol next to it.”

Jahrra pointed to the intricate ‘x’ painted on the map. “I asked him what it meant and he said it stood for a place of interest, like a famous landmark or a historic battle site,” she lied.

“It’s not labeled? How’s that?” Scede stood up and was now coming over to look at the map.

“It’s, it’s labeled,” Jahrra quickly stammered, tripping over her own tongue. “It just isn’t in the common language. It looks like some kind of ancient runes or something, but you can try if you like.” Jahrra handed the map over as Scede knelt down beside her.

He scrutinized the map for a few moments, then handed it back. “Why didn’t you bring the other map?”

“I was in a hurry when I packed. I grabbed this one without reading it closely,” Jahrra lied again, trying hard not to sound irritated. She had purposely brought the map written in Kruelt. She could read just enough of it to know where they were going without enlightening her companions.

Scede was glaring down at her suspiciously.

“Look,” Jahrra said, “we’ve made it this far without getting lost, the map isn’t totally worthless. The worst that can happen is we’ll get to this canyon place and there’ll be nothing there. If that happens we can just turn around and come back the way we came. Sound good to you?”

Jahrra looked at Scede with raised eyebrows, and then she looked over at his sister. Gieaun was splayed out on the blanket, using her arms to prop herself up. She seemed to be reveling in the coolness of the shade and the satisfaction of a full stomach.

“Sounds alright to me,” she answered. “She’s right, Scede. We’ve followed the map easily so far; why not check this place out? If it were unsafe there would be something drawn to warn us off, right? And Jahrra said Master Hroombra told her that the symbol meant it was a good place to visit. You need to stop acting so suspicious. Jahrra isn’t up to anything.”

Jahrra cringed inwardly and lowered her eyes. Scede simply nodded and sat down next to his sister, his face dark in skeptical contemplation.

The three friends stayed within the grove for another half hour. They then returned to the spring to fill up their canteens once more and to retrieve their horses, dousing themselves in the cool water before leaving. The sun was now blazing hotter than ever, and Jahrra only hoped that they would have enough water to last them until they reached the canyon. She breathed a sigh of relief as Gieaun and Scede led the group southward. So far she had managed to trick her friends into following her, but she was also aware that they still had several miles of travel left and Scede could uncover her secret plans at any moment.

The final length of the trip took a bit longer than Jahrra had anticipated, the heat of early afternoon as real and daunting as fire. Jahrra, Gieaun and Scede slowed their horses to a steady walk as Jahrra checked the map. Below the symbol marking the entrance to the canyon was the familiar fan-shaped wash with a dark entry way painted in.

“This must be the mouth of the canyon,” she said, showing the image to Gieaun. “We must be close.”

Jahrra squinted and shaded her eyes from the blazing sun, looking into the distance, trying to spot the canyon’s entrance. Just as she felt she could take the heat no longer, she saw it, about a mile off. Stretching for leagues upon leagues in front of them, the bronze foothills met the flat, sun-seared lowlands in an almost perfect conjunction. Jahrra could just make out a small, irregularity against the smooth curve of the hills in the distance. She knew that this had to be the entrance to Ehnnit Canyon. She pulled Phrym out of his slow walk, causing him to start and snort irritably. He had had his head down and was concentrating on blocking out the swelter. Stopping only meant standing in the sun even longer. Jahrra reached back into her pack and fumbled for her spyglass.

“What’s the hold up?” questioned Scede.

“I think we may be nearly there. See that wash spreading from the hills in the distance, just to the east?” Jahrra held the spyglass up to her eye with one hand and pointed with the other.

Scede and Gieaun held their hands to their eyes and they too squinted to make out the landmark.

“Here, the map shows it.” Jahrra pointed to the spot on the map and moved to hand it over to Gieaun, but something stopped her short. She hadn’t seen it before while they were resting in the shade. The writing was faded and was now just visible in the light. Above the fan wash on the map were a multitude of Draggish words.

Jahrra narrowed her eyes and concentrated very hard, doing her best to translate what words she could read:
Ressehn epit edth Oehm Ceyvhe, cloess edth findell epit rissen desset dodthe hrechteh . . . Illiehs yhndth worrghe veieh mommreh drothe. Chirehm litt boisciehn, heileh dohedth kitthe. Savior of the Olden Race, at the end of this path you trace . . . Truth and danger may lie here. Beyond this point, embrace your fear.

That much Kruelt Jahrra understood, and after deciphering it, she shivered, despite the scorching heat. She now remembered writing these words in, but that was long before she knew any Draggish, and she had never asked Hroombra what it had meant before.

“What is it?” asked Gieaun, urging Aimhe closer.

“Nothing. Thought I might have been mistaken for a moment, but this must be it,” Jahrra recovered quickly, expertly moving her thumb over the words while still exposing the silt pile below the mouth of the canyon.

Gieaun glanced at the map sleepily, not thinking for once that her friend might be trying to deceive her. All that she cared about was getting out of the glare of the sun for awhile.

“That has to be it,” Jahrra insisted. “If that isn’t it, I say we turn around and camp out where we stopped for lunch.”

Gieaun and Jahrra both looked up at Scede with questioning eyes.

“Alright,” he said indifferently, wiping away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead.