Everflame (19 page)

“Yes, Uncle.”

“Good, now go ahead. You’ll need as much time as possible.” Evercloud stood and began to walk toward the village. “Oh, and Evercloud,” Whiteclaw called after him. “Make sure to use a human name. Don’t use your real name.”

“Yes, Uncle,” Evercloud
called out.
Well
, he thought,
this is it.

Chapter 17:
Poor Ale and A Fine Bear

Evercloud tried to keep his head down as he walked into the village. It was just about midday and the streets of Hendrick were full of people tending to their daily business. Evercloud had never seen so many humans before. He felt alien. Everything was so foreign about these people who looked just like he did. The way they dressed and the way that they walked and even their smell seemed so exotic. He was unable to keep his head down for very long and before he knew what he was doing, he began gawking at people as they passed him on the street.

“Whatchoo lookin’ at?” said a man Evercloud was staring at. The man startled Evercloud. He wasn’t aware that he had been doing anything wrong.

“Sorry,” he uttered, turning his head back to the path in front of him and walking quickly away from the man.
They’re going to figure you out,
thought Evercloud.  He vowed to keep his head down until he reached the village authorities, but it wasn’t long before his senses and curiosities betrayed him again. A woman with long, blonde hair and a violet dress was coming toward him as he walked. As she came closer, he noticed that she smelled of the most wonderful fragrance. He wondered what it might be. As she began to pass him, he turned his head toward her and sniffed at her, intoxicated by her fragrance.

“How rude,” the woman said and slapped Evercloud on the cheek. Many villagers who had seen what happened began to point and laugh at Evercloud. His face turned bright red and he shuffled away from the scene as quickly as he could, enveloped in the heat of embarrassment.

The slap to the face had been enough to remind Evercloud to mind his business, and it wasn’t long before he had found what seemed to be a village officer. The man was standing outside of the bakery, looking around at the crowds, doing everything that he could to seem imposing and important. Standing tall, arms folded, eyeing suspicious characters. He wore a little hat that had a star upon it. He reminded Evercloud of the castle guards back on Gray Mountain. The fellow was taller than most, but he was also rounder than most and had a funny, little growth of hair on his upper lip. Evercloud laughed to himself that this man was counted on to protect the villagers. He gathered himself and approached the man.

“Excuse me,
Sir,” said Evercloud. The officer looked at him and twitched his mustache, squinting his eyes.

“Yes. What is it?”

“Sir, I was traveling this morning from Yorebrook when just outside of your village, I was ambushed by a group of bandits. They stole everything I had, except for my clothes.”

The officer squinted even more. “Yorebrook, eh. Well that explains why I don’t recognize you. What’s your name, lad?”

Evercloud searched his mind for a name. He’d forgotten to come up with one.
What is a man name?
he thought. Then he remembered that the game he and Riverpaw played so often, Johnball, was named for a man.

“John. My name is John. I’m from Yorebrook.” Evercloud was beginning to sweat a little.

The officer tilted his head sideways and twitched his mustache again. “And your last name?”

Last name?
thought Evercloud.
What’s a last name?
Evercloud was beginning to panic now and blurted out the first thing he thought of.

“Ball.”

“Did you say Ball? John Ball?” asked the officer.

Evercloud’s head shrank back to his shoul
ders as he tentatively answered, “Yes?”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” laughed the man and patted Evercloud on the shoulder. “Didn’t know Old George had a boy. How’s Old George doing these days?”

“He’s…well,” choked Evercloud.

“He won’t be too happy to hear you’ve been robbed by bandits, now will he?”

“No, Sir.”

“Well don’t you worry, John,” the man said, twitching his mustache and hefting up his girth. “We’ll get those bandits. How many did you say there were?”

Evercloud tried to come up with a number that would get all the officers out of the village. “Ten?”

“Ten, you say? Well, this is serious. You done a good job coming to get me, boy. It’ll take all the officers to get this job done. You stop by the jailhouse later
, and we’ll have ’em, you’ll see.”

“Thank you,
Sir.”

And with a final twitch of the mustache
, the hefty man waddled away faster than Evercloud had thought anyone could waddle. Evercloud smiled, he couldn’t believe his luck.
Johnball. Wait till Riverpaw hears this.

Evercloud walked through the village trying to find a pub or a tavern where people were gathered. He felt a bit more confident after having successfully tricked the officer. The first tavern he came across took the name of the village, Hendrick Tavern. He went inside and looked around. The tavern was rather dingy and there were not many windows. He wondered why anyone would want to come into such a morose place on such a nice day. There were a few groups of people sitting at tables, but they were seated facing each other, backs to the rest of the tavern. Evercloud thought that it might be difficult to engage them in conversation. Toward the back of the tavern
, there was a bar where a few men were seated alongside each other. They seemed friendly and were in a conversation with the barkeep. Evercloud thought that this looked like a good opportunity. He walked up to the bar and took a seat to the left of the man sitting on the end of the group. The man briefly looked over as he sat down but then returned to his conversation. The barkeeper, however, stopped the conversation and came over to Evercloud.

“What’ll it be?”

“I’ll have an ale, please.”

“Ain’t you a bit young for ale?” asked the barkeeper.

“I’m served ale all the time,” responded Evercloud, forgetting where he was.

“Oh
, really?” said the barkeeper. “That’s funny, cause I ain’t seen you in here before.” Now all the men at the bar had turned to look at Evercloud. He looked back at them, realizing that he might be too young to drink ale by human standards.

“Well, that’s because I haven’t been here before,” said Evercloud, trying to recover from his slip. “I meant that they serve me in Yorebrook. My name is John, John Ball.”

“From Yorebrook, eh?” said a man with a red beard, two seats down from Evercloud. “I got a sister in Yorebrook.” Then the man turned to the barkeeper. “Give him an ale, Gene. It ain’t gonna hurt him.”

The barkeeper shrugged his shoulders and turned around to the tap. He poured Evercloud a mug of ale and placed it down in front of him. “That’ll be three gold pieces, young man.”

Evercloud thanked him and handed over the money.

“So,” continued the man with the red beard. “Tell us news of Yorebrook, my boy. How goes it there?”

Evercloud took a sip of the ale and struggled to stop himself from spitting it out.
That’s horrible,
he thought. Bear ale was much finer than that which was brewed by men. Evercloud swallowed and answered the man.

“All is well in Yorebrook,” he said, nodding. “Nothing of any excitement to speak of…although,” Evercloud saw this as his first opportunity. “There have been rumors of a return of the Ancients…have there been such rumors here in Hendrick?”

The tavern went dead silent and all of its inhabitants now had their eyes pinned down on Evercloud. A sinking feeling worked its way into his stomach and he wondered if it were the ale. The man with the red beard pushed his stool away from the bar and stood up.  He walked over to Evercloud and put a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Evercloud looked up at the man, who now had a very stern look upon his face, and swallowed hard.

“I highly doubt,” said the man with an edge in his voice, “that anyone in Yorebrook talks about Ancients
, and I guarantee that no
good
person in this village does so either. So, friend from Yorebrook, why don’t you just tell us who you really are and what unholy place it is that you come from?”

At this moment, Evercloud desperately wished that Whiteclaw and Riverpaw were
there. He slowly moved his hand down his side and felt the golden claw that he had concealed inside his baggy trousers. He knew that revealing the claw would mean the end of his inquiries in this village and ultimately, failure of his objective, but he was no longer sure that he was going to have a choice in the matter.

“There he is,” came a voice from across the tavern.

“I told you that waiting at the tavern was a good idea,” came another.

Two men walke
d over to Evercloud and the red-bearded man, and stood directly between them. The first man was tall and thin, with an olive complexion and large, dark eyes. He placed a hand on Evercloud’s shoulder. “There you are, cousin.”

“Been drinking again, have we?” said the other man as he put his hand on Evercloud’s other shoulder. He was of the same complexion as the taller man. In fact, they looked like brothers. Howeve
r, this man was much shorter, had longer hair and had more handsome features. He turned to the red-bearded man. “Says some funny things when he drinks, doesn’t he?”

“Very creative imagination,” added the tall man. “Well, we better get you back to Uncle,” he said, turning to Evercloud. “Don’t want him to get angry.”

“Scary man when he’s angry,” said the short man, shaking his head at the red-bearded man. And with that, the two men grabbed Evercloud under the shoulders and ushered him out of the tavern.

“Who are you?” asked Evercloud once they were outside of the tavern. The two men didn’t stop walking and continued to usher Evercloud down the busy street.

“Keep your mouth shut and keep walking,” said the tall man.

Just then, the man with the red beard burst out of the doors of the tavern and hollered after them as they walked away.

“I don’t want to see him back here again!”

“Yes
, Sir,” called the short man brightly. “Have a lovely day.” Then he muttered under his breath, “ugly bastard.”

After walking quite a distance away from the tavern, the men turned down a narrow alley between two houses and entered a side door at the end of the alley. The room was very dark, as there were no windows, and
it seemed empty with the exception of a chair. However, there were a few candles lit that provided some light. The men sat Evercloud down in the chair and began asking him questions.

“All right,” said the tall man. “Who are you and why are you here?”

“My name is John Ball and I’m from Yorebrook–”

“Don’t play with me!” the tall man pointed his finger and shouted. “Do you think we’re stupid? Your pants don’t fit, you’ve recently shaved your head and you strike up conversation with strangers about things that could get a man killed. Another ten minutes and they would have had you up the stake as a heretic. Now
, I’ll only ask you one more time, who are you?”

Evercloud didn’t know what to do. These men had seemingly helped him out of a precarious situation, but how could he be sure that he could trust them? He looked around the dark room. Only the tall man could be seen
, hovering over him. He couldn’t see the short man any longer.
What would Whiteclaw do?
he thought.

“Well,” came the short man’s voice out of the darkness. “We’re waiting.”

“How do I know that I can trust you?” asked Evercloud.

“We just saved
your life,” said the tall man.

The man was right. These men didn’t know Evercloud, yet they had helped him. Besides, there wasn’t much alternative unless Evercloud wanted to fight them.

“My name is Evercloud and I am from the Kingdom on Gray Mountain.”

“You think this is funny, don’t you?” The short man was beginning to become irritated. He stepped forward into the dim candlelight and Evercloud could now see the large knife that he held in his hand. “This is not a game.”

Evercloud was now beginning to get frightened. He again placed his hand upon the claw concealed in his trousers and prepared himself for what he might have to do.

“Please,” he said. “I’m not lying. I swear it. I come from the Kingdom on Gray Mountain.”

“There is no Kingdom on Gray Mountain!” yelled the short man.

“There is!” pleaded Evercloud. “The Kingdom of Bears.”

“You come from a kingdom of bears?” chuckled the tall man as he turned to the short man. “Maybe this one is a drunkard.”

“I’m not drunk!” yelled Evercloud. “I was abandoned in the forests around Gray Mountain when I was a small child. The bears took me in and raised me as their own. I am now on a quest to find the Ancients and stop the Great Tyrant.”

The short man paused and looked at Evercloud with a genuine curiosity. “Where did you learn of the Ancients and the Great Tyrant?”