XXI. The Eastern River
Thomas and his three companions walked a short way through the field
outside Palewater Bog. Despite the weariness in Thomas’s bones and the grime
that coated his skin and tangled his hair, he wanted to put some distance between
them and the memories of the bog before he rested. He enjoyed the feel of the
soft earth beneath his feet and the gentle touch of the wind on his face,
walking slowly, savoring each sensation and every deep breath of clean air.
Monday morning was warm and bright and welcoming. It drew Thomas along
as though he were a lazy tomcat following a string, wandering this way and that
without any real haste or aim. The grassy field dipped into a hollow with a
little brook lined by a few elm trees. Thomas saw the patches of shade made by
their broad rough leaves, heard the babble of the water trickling farther into
the hollow between the low hills.
Just like a tomcat finding his purpose in the aroma of a leftover dish
of fisherman’s stew, Thomas was drawn to the shady patch of grass beneath the
nearest elm. His feet carried him there swiftly. He threw himself to the ground
then, sprawling out on the grass. Cathán hopped into the grass immediately, and
Elwood bounded over to lap at the brook and sniff about its muddy bank. After a
moment, Avery squawked without words, and Thomas reached over to open the
satchel properly and allow the raven egress. Avery took a few careful steps
onto the grass and then sat, clearly enjoying the softness of his surroundings;
his eyes closed almost at once.
Thomas found that his hunger and thirst returned just as he was
beginning to get truly comfortable in his little shady grass-bed. He shuffled
through his satchel and pulled out the rest of his food: a few apples, a quarter-wedge
of sage-seasoned cheese, a few hazelnuts, and the last few swallows of
goatsmilk. Thomas tossed an apple to Elwood and set another beside Avery,
handed the rest of the cheese to Chatán—who accepted it gratefully and
eagerly—and kept the milk and the last apple for himself. He savored every bite
of the crisp apple. Its flesh was tart and its juice sweet.
After finishing his breakfast, Thomas washed his hands and face in the
brook, then drank his fill. He shifted in the shade to sit with his back to the
trunk of the elm tree and his legs outstretched onto the wet bank.
“Elwood seems happy,” Thomas noted. The dog was romping in the shallow
stream, splashing and dunking his shaggy head under the water, pouncing after
tiny fishes with paws that were too slow to do more than startle the brook’s
denizens.
“Aye,” replied Cathán, nearly buried in the long grass, with only the
twitching of his tail to mark his position, “he’s decided to remain with us for
a while. He says he likes our company and wants to roam about, to travel for a
while.” The Mouse Knight’s tone took on a contemplative edge. “I don’t think
Saf the changeling mistreated him, but I gather that Elwood wasn’t very happy
with him. The dog says he’s excited about the chance to stretch his legs.”
He certainly is, thought Thomas,
watching happily as the dog bounded toward the edge of the brook with more
enthusiasm than common sense. “I think he’ll like Mídhel, if that’s where he
ends up settling,” he said aloud. “I’d be happy to keep him forever. But that’s
up to him. In the meantime, I’m glad for his company on our journey. His nose
and presence and good spirits are all going to be useful.”
Avery’s beak poked above the grass-tips. “Where is it we’re headed
next, anyway?”
“The eastern river, I think,” Thomas replied. “The witch told me to
collect a shell from the eastern river. She said it was in a forbidden grotto
and that it’s blue and white and the size of a human heart. I’m not sure what
size that is, but”—Thomas cupped his hands together—“I’d imagine it’s a fairly
large shell, so hopefully it’s not too hard to find. I don’t know where the
forbidden grotto is, though.”
“What about your old friend?” Cathán asked. “The mystic, the wise
ancient? Didn’t he say something to guide you?”
“That’s right! He told me what order to find the objects, and he told
me I’d meet a few friends along the way.” Thomas recalled Dún’s words and spoke
them aloud, their cadence a delight on his tongue: “ ‘Haste and hurry, haste and hurry: bone and wood,
moss and home, and sprightly steps the father’s son whence the dark and
dreadful come.’ That’s what Dún told me. We’ve found bone, wood, and moss
already. I’m not sure why he called the forbidden grotto ‘home,’ though. Mídhel
is home for me, but I’m certain my parents will chain me to my bed-posts the
next time they see me, so that can’t be it.”
“And none of us are from the forbidden grotto,” Avery remarked.
“Unless the dog is?”
Elwood barked.
“He doesn’t think so,” Cathán translated. “So, that leaves us with an
exploration of the eastern river’s shoreline to find a forbidden grotto that
represents home somehow. Even with the mystery of it, that sounds like a bright
and merry task compared with some of our late adventures.”
Thomas agreed. The shade of the tree and the warm breeze and the sound
of the burbling brook had lulled away much of the fear and trepidation that had
seeped into his bones over the preceding night during his time in Palewater
Bog. He felt at peace for the first time in several days. He thought he could
perhaps stretch out and rest on the brookside until sunset, or perhaps for two
or three sunsets.
But that was a dangerous thought, for Monday morning had reached its
full strength, and time was precious still. Thomas sat up. “We should head to
the river now,” he said.
Avery made a squawking, chirping noise of protest. Even Cathán seemed
a little affronted by the suggestion. Only Elwood appeared to respond
positively, loping up to the patch of shade beneath the elm with tongue
lolling.
“I’d love to stay here for days,” Thomas told the others. “And that’s
dangerous. It’s Monday morning right now. We only have until Wednesday before
we have to meet the witch with all four items. That gives us today and tomorrow
to find the grotto and find the shell—and the eastern river’s a fair distance
away. I think we need to get moving now, while we have daylight and some energy
left.”
Avery stood up and flapped his wings experimentally, slowly. “Well, I
suppose I’d best lead us out by example. I know you’re all tired, but come! we
must press on. You may not have the stamina of birds, but I’ll try to set a
reasonable pace.” He hopped over to Thomas’s satchel and wriggled inside, then
poked his head back out.
Thomas stood slowly, lifting Cathán onto his shoulder. He looped the
satchel over his other arm, patted Elwood on the head, and trotted down the
hillside toward a shallower bend in the brook. After drinking his fill and
filling his water-skin, Thomas crossed over the brook and started through the
field, angling in a southeastern direction.
The way was easy and the landscape pleasant. Thomas walked on at a
steady pace while Elwood bounded before and after and all around, never seemed
to tire, always with a look in his eyes—beneath his shaggy mop—that suggested
he was curious, delighted, and startled by everything around him.
The dog’s presence did indeed keep Thomas and his companions in good
humor, as did the continuation of Avery’s increasingly fanciful tales. Thomas
asked the raven to resume his previous story about the sky-spirits and the
snake in the fire. Avery dismissed that suggestion with a noise that sounded
like an old man clearing his throat.
“You’ve confused my storytelling with someone else’s, Thomas, for I
would never relate such an obviously contrived and untrue tale such as that. I
know the story, of course; any decent entertainer does, and I am the foremost
in the land. But the details are trite and uninteresting, the sort you find in
history instead of in myth, and anyway I hardly remember them at all. No, I
shan’t continue my earlier tale of the sky-spirits and that burning snake. Far
better for me to tell you about the blight of the pixies and the hero’s
lantern.”
So began the raven’s tale of a disease that took root among a band of
pixies and spread to nearby crops, turning them to ash in the mouth; of an
angry badger and a cowardly owl that joined together to discover the cure for
the pixie-blight; of their escapades and blunders involving the Lantern of the
Sun, a golden cage that the great hero Lughea used to draw the sun across the
sky from dawn to noon to dusk. The badger and the owl unwittingly gave Lughea a
sleeping-draught, and for three days the sun neither rose nor set but slept
alongside the slumbering hero. Frantically, the badger and the owl crowded into
the hero’s sailing-ship in search of a potion to awaken Lughea and restore the
sunshine to the world.
Avery’s story had reached a most dreadful moment of peril for the
hapless animals—they were adrift in the night sky, lost without oar or paddle,
and surrounded by the tailinsi, fearsome eight-horned monsters made of
stars—when the companions came in sight of a dusty road to their right. Avery
fell silent, pointing with a wing. “Your village is in that direction, isn’t
it?”
“It is,” said Thomas, cutting across the field to the edge of the
road. He couldn’t see anyone in either direction, but he knew that this path
met up with the larger northern road and branched off into Mídhel to the south.
“Maybe we should go into town for a minute and get some provisions.”
“What if you’re spotted by your parents?” Cathán said. “We mustn’t be
stopped, not when we’re so close to collecting all four objects and saving your
dear sister.”
“I know, but I think we need more food and water for the journey. I
don’t know what we’ll find at the eastern river, and we’ve used up a lot of
what we bought at Alice’s Apothecary. I’d like to be prepared for anything.
Besides, we’re at the northeastern corner of Mídhel. I don’t even know anyone
who lives in this part of the village, and my parents rarely come here. If
we’re quick and quiet, I think we’ll be okay.”
Elwood barked, and that seemed to settle the matter. South they went,
moving quickly, following the road as it let past the outlying homesteads and
pastures toward the city proper. They passed a few other travelers on the road;
Elwood greeted each with a sniff and a wag of his tail, and Thomas nodded and
smiled at the travelers’ greetings; but otherwise they kept their focus on
retrieving supplies and leaving just as quickly.
At a small shopfront on the first large road they encountered, Thomas
filled his arms with provisions: more rope, water-skins, bread, and cheese, as
well as a small fishing-net and a small parcel of meat for Elwood. He also
picked up a charm that the shopkeeper promised would warn against selkies and
other devils of the water. Thomas wasn’t sure what they’d find at the eastern
river, but he wanted to take every precaution.
Only when he placed all his items on the counter and dug into his
pockets did Thomas realize that he had no money. All of the silver discs from
the strange rain were gone, most of them spent at Alice’s Apothecary, the rest
lost somewhere in the bog. Thomas felt panic welling in his breast. But Avery,
still hidden in the satchel, poked his hand with a sharp beak and inserted
something cold and hard into Thomas’s palm.
Thomas lifted his hand. Three gold coins rested on his palm. Their
insignias had faded, but the shopkeeper seemed more than willing to accept them
as currency all the same, and soon Thomas had stowed his new provisions in his
bag and was retracing his steps to the northern fields outside Mídhel.
When they passed from the road into the grass once more, Avery stuck
his head out of the satchel. “Snatched those from Palewater,” he said proudly,
“during the scuffle between those misplaced birds and the changeling. Thought
they were pretty. I don’t mind sharing my wealth, however. Thomas, would you
feed me a bit of that pear I just bought? Carefully now: I’ve little room to
maneuver in these confines.”
They turned eastward, crossing through the sloping hills and into
fields of heather and rustlegrass. Monday morning pressed warm hands against
the back of Thomas’s neck, drawing out a thin trickle of sweat that was
intermittently cooled by wind sweeping down from the direction of Briar’s Peak.
He kept walking, removing his shoes for a time when the ground became soft
piles of mulched earth, then replaced them to cut through a patch of rocky dirt
and brambles alongside a homesteader’s fence.
The grass gave way to fields of barley, some tended and others wild.
Thomas trailed his hands on the tops of the stalks, plucking some of the taller
plants and chewing on the pods until their hulls gave way to seeds. Halfway
through the stretch of barley, Cathán sneezed, the softest squeak of a sound, a
breath of air upon Thomas’s neck.
Elwood was just taller than the barley, and for a time he snapped his
jaws at the stalks in his way, trying to pull them aside. He didn’t seem to
like the taste of barley, and soon gave this up for charging through the field
in a blind wild path. Thomas beckoned him back every minute or two.
Avery began another story and another besides, jumping from one
character to the next with little regard for cohesion or sense. Thomas just
smiled and kept walking, covering the distance to the eastern river as quickly
as he could, content to walk with his friends under the Monday morning sun.
By the time the sun was high overhead, Monday morning had shaken all
of its cobwebs and sleep-fetters onto the land below, discarding the last of
the drowsy dawn and replacing it with bright, alert heat. The scraps of
sleepiness wafted to the barley-fields outside Mídhel, settling like dandelion
puffs on the boy Thomas. He tried to brush it away, rubbing at his eyes and
taking small sips of cold water from his skin, focusing all his attention on
Avery’s latest tale; but it was no use. Monday morning’s weariness—and indeed
the terror and panic and exhaustion of Sunday evening, Sunday night, and the
dead hours between the two days—had nestled between Thomas’s ears and robbed
the strength from his legs.
Thomas was half-tempted to throw himself on the next patch of
barley-stalks and let sleep take him. He forewent the urge and managed to press
on, plodding through the golden fields until the little company reached another
grassy stretch dotted with lavender and starflower. Then Thomas called for a
halt.
“I’m sorry, friends,” he said, leaning forward to place his hands on
his knees. “I know we have to keep going. Just give me a moment to rest my eyes
and my legs. Just a moment, and then on to the river—”
“Thomas,” said Cathán gently, patting the boy’s ear, “we all need some
sleep. My strength too is flagging, and Avery needs all the rest he can manage
to heal properly from his wounds. Only Elwood, perhaps, is fit to continue for
a time; and he can hardly manage on his own! You’ve been walking and running
and fighting, carrying more of the load of this quest than the rest of us. You
need your sleep as well. We’ll not reach the river any sooner by forcing on at
this pace, anyway. Let’s sleep.”
Thomas nodded, weary and grateful. “Just for a few hours.”
Elwood came back to them, sniffing and looking curiously at Thomas.
Cathán explained the situation to the shaggy dog. Elwood barked again, then
jerked his head as if to beckon them forward.
Thomas acquiesced, following the great dog down the leeward slope of a
small hill into a shallow ravine. The grass there was soft, and a tall oak swayed
with a rustle and whisper in the hollow of the hills. Thomas piled his satchel
and jacket and shoes into a pile, lay his head upon them, and closed his eyes.
He was dimly aware of Cathán instructing Elwood to keep an eye out and an ear
pricked for anyone passing by; then Thomas was asleep and dreaming the peaceful
shapeless dreams of a twelve-year-old boy.
#
Thomas awoke slowly. The waking world blurred into focus, mingling
with his dreams while he gradually became aware of his physical senses. The
smell of lavender was strong and pleasant around him. His head was cradled by
something soft that also tickled. There was a warmth upon his chest: Cathán.
Another, less definite warmth lay in stripes over his legs: the sun, Thomas thought, the nice bright sun in the sky, finding a
way through the oak-leaves.
Thomas opened his eyes. Everything was just as he remembered: Cathán
slept curled up on his chest, while Avery was nestled into the long grass to
Thomas’s left. Near his feet, Thomas saw Elwood sprawled out, the shaggy dog’s
chest rising and falling, his tail twitching. They were still beneath the oak
tree in the hollow, and the sun was still shining.
Thomas glanced around. There was something wet on his cheek, and it
lined the grass-tips and dampened his bare feet. Dew, Thomas thought, stretching out a little, turning his head side
to side, careful not to jostle Cathán. Morning
dew. We slept through the afternoon and the night? It’s Tuesday?
Thomas was surprised: surprised that the revelation didn’t send a jolt
of fear or panic through him. He supposed he recognized now the truth of what
Cathán had said the previous day. Thomas had been run ragged by his adventures,
had walked long and slept little, and without rest he likely wouldn’t have been
prepared to complete his quest at all. The delay for proper rest—close to
eighteen hours of it, Thomas thought, squinting toward the rising sun—would
surely enable him to persevere and undertake the tasks yet before him.
Thomas was satisfied with that knowledge but recognized too the danger
of remaining in his comfortable grass-bed for much longer. He carefully reached
out and stroked the soft fur along Cathán’s back. The little Mouse Knight
twitched once, then lifted his head, sniffing and twitching his whiskers as he
got his bearings.
“Good morning, Cathán,” Thomas said, patting the mouse’s head with a
finger.
“Good morning, friend Thomas,” replied the First Captain of the
Thistledown Kingdom. He stretched paws and limbs until they juddered and shook.
Wiping the dew from his whiskers, Cathán stood up on Thomas’s chest, took a
deep breath of the clean morning air, and hopped into the grass to wake Avery.
Thomas sat up and reached over to pat Elwood’s side. The dog looked
up, tongue lolling, and rolled over so that Thomas’s hand rested on his shaggy
belly. Thomas laughed at the wild playful sleepy expression on the dog’s face
and gave him a good scratch. When he was done, Elwood yawned until his jaw
creaked, then pushed up to his full height and shook the dew out of his fur.
“Good watch, Elwood,” said Thomas without guile. They’d slumbered
safely in the shade of the oak tree, and now they were ready to continue on.
They breakfasted while they walked, sharing some of the food purchased
the previous day. Tuesday morning promised a day even sunnier and brighter than
Monday. Thomas was glad for the rest and glad to be on his feet again, walking
through the fields and sloping hills toward the eastern river. Elwood led the
way as before, with Cathán in his usual perch and Avery safely tucked into the
satchel. The raven had experimented with his recovering wings for a few minutes
before they started out; Thomas was pleased with the bird’s recovery, but still
felt that Avery should rest as much as possible, and the bird agreed, having found
a great deal of comfort alongside Thomas’s other belongings with only his
feathered head poking out.
They walked with the sun in their eyes—except perhaps for Elwood,
whose shaggy shock of hair covered most of the upper half of his broad face—and
the wind at their backs. After less than an hour of walking, Thomas crested a
hill and came into full view of the eastern river. It glittered in the morning
light, a long lazy furrow of gold and blue winding through the lowland fields,
curving northward and cutting a sinuous line to the south, fading into both
horizons. Thomas knew that it formed an eastern border for Mídhel and that it
provided an avenue for trade and travel to other distant lands.
The eastern river was alive in the morning glow, boats dotting its
surface and wooden docks marching down either shore. Fishermen milled about on
the docks or reclined in the boats, their lines in the water and the brims of
their hats dropped low to cover their eyes. The river was larger than Thomas
had expected—not so wide that he couldn’t have swum across, but enough to make
it a challenge and enough to handle the slow traffic of fishing boats and
merchant vessels.
Thomas stood on the hilltop staring at the expanse of the eastern
river for a long minute. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
Elwood barked, but quietly, as though in appreciation of the blue
curve of water glistening before them in the cheery warm sunshine of Tuesday
morning.
