Into Eden: Pangaea - Book 1 (26 page)

Jesse awoke with a terrible headache. He tried to sit up, but when he did something smacked him back down again. He could feel a trickle of blood on his forehead. No matter. It would heal. Where was he? He would need to open his eyes to find out, but he could tell from his brief attempt to rise that wherever he was it was light and the light hurt his eyes. He tried to sit up again. Again something hit his head or his head hit something—impossible to tell with his eyes closed.

Jesse opened his eyes to discover that he was lying on a bottom bunk and above him was the culprit that had bloodied his forehead: the top bunk. Why would they put him in a room at the inn with a bunk? he thought. What kind of inn has bunk-beds, anyway? He rolled over and opened his eyes. Across the hall he could see another man laying on a bunk-bed in a cell. Why would they have a cell at the inn? Wait-a-minute. Jesse was starting to sober up now—a little. He sat up, banging his head on the bunk above for the third time.
He
was in a cell. And this most certainly was
not
a room at The Gray Knight. Celebrity, it seems, can be short-lived.

Jesse wiped the blood from his forehead and tried to stand. He was still a little warbly on his legs. As he rose he could feel a wave of nausea coming over him and in desperation he looked around for a pot. Fortunately for him, the jailer had left one and he stumbled over to it, dropped to his knees and wretched until he could wretch no more. Exhausted, he lay on the floor of the cell and prayed that the gods would take him. This was worse than his ninetieth birthday celebration. Way worse. And at that moment he swore to himself that his drinking days were over. An occasional beer at the White Moose, maybe. But no more celebrations by alcohol consumption. As he lay on the stone floor contemplating his new life, the prisoner across the hall began to yell.

“By the gods, man! Did you have to go ahead and do that? It already smells bad enough down here without you adding to the fragrance.”

Jesse mustered all the strength that he had and muttered, “Shut up!”

“I’ll say what I want! You just come over here and make me!”

Brave words from somebody locked in a cell, Jesse thought. But wait a minute. That voice sounded familiar. He rolled over, sat up, and leaned against the cell wall. He could see the man sitting on the edge of his bunk. He was leaning forward with a mop of blonde hair obscuring his face, but yes, there could be no mistaking it. He
did
know the voice.

“Perez?”

Perez looked over and stared at him, “Jesse?”

“Yes. What are
you
doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

“It’s a long story, but I asked first. Besides, I’m a little weak at the moment. You tell me your tale of woe and then I’ll tell you mine. Agreed?”

“Okay,” Perez replied. “You see, it’s like this. While you were recovering from your wounds I decided that I’d ride down to Mountain Shadows and find the guy responsible for Dad and Josiah’s death. I never did believe that nonsense about lions on the road.”

Jesse began to snicker.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’ll tell you when it gets to me my turn. Go on.”

“Well, as I was saying, I rode down to Mountain Shadows and the day after I got here I’m sitting in an inn and I’m trying to impress this serving girl. She was real-cute. Dark eyes. Full lips. Big…”

“Perez?

“Yeah?”

“Skip the details. Get on with the story.”

“Okay. So anyway, I’m sitting in the inn trying to impress this girl, and I’m telling her about all the an-nef that I’d killed and...”

“You’ve killed an-nef?”

“Well, not really. But the girl didn’t know that. So I’m telling her about all the an-nef that I’ve killed. How I fought off three of them at once, when all of a sudden this big bull-head comes over and says, ‘Hear you like to brag about killing an-nef.’ ‘No brag,’ I said. ‘Just fact.’ Before I know it this oversized bovine whacks me in the head, and I’m lying on the floor looking up at him and telling him that if he does it again he’ll be sorry and this big guy steps between us and tells the bull-head to back off and so I said thanks and he said that he’d buy me another beer and I said sure and he said, ‘So I hear you’ve killed a lot of an-nef’ and I said, ‘Not really’ and the girl gets up and leaves and I said, ‘Wait a minute’ and she never even looks back so I kept talking with the big guy and he keeps asking me all these questions. Questions like, ‘What’s your name, which house are you from, where are you from and why are you here?’ Seemed like a real nice guy. Kept buying me beers. So I thought that I could trust him. So that’s when I told him.”

“Told him what?”

“Why I was really in town.”

“Now let me guess: your big new best friend turned out to be the local sheriff, right?”

“Yeah. How’d you guess?”

“Perez, our stories begin and end the same. But what’s in between will take some time to tell.” Jesse told Perez everything that had happened from the time that he had first asked Enoch to help him kill Anubis to his getting drunk in The Gray Knight. The parts about Castor-Pollex and father-daughter highwaymen team fascinated him the most. Jesse even showed Perez the scars on his chest that Castor had left when he killed his host.

When Jesse concluded retelling his long adventure he asked Perez, “So how long do you think that they’ll keep us here?”

“Only the gods know. Sheriff Tubal says that he’ll personally escort me to River Bend to see that I’m safely on the first boat that goes to Whitehurst. But if the an-nef fouled the river with sunken riverboats then there’s no telling how long that will be! But…if Enoch knows that you’re here maybe he can find a way to get us out.”

“Maybe,” Jesse agreed, “or maybe not. Enoch was not in favor of me coming here. It’s possible that he’ll just let us sit here until we’re both deported. However long it takes there’s sure to be snow on the ground—and more importantly—in Prophet’s Pass. I won’t make it to Eden until next year unless we’re released soon.”

Help from Enoch, however, was not to be soon in coming. Time passed slowly as Jesse prayed for Enoch’s arrival with some plan for his release. Jesse didn’t care if he came with a lawyer or a plan of escape. The cells where he and Perez were kept were below ground-level, and Jesse would keep an eye on the alley-level barred window high up in his cell. It was too small for a man to escape through, but it did let in light and Jesse hoped that one day Enoch would show up and whisper his plan through the bars.

Jesse and Perez passed the time reminiscing of their boyhoods in the Foothills. Sheriff Tubal made sure that both of them received two meals every day, and that one of the jailers came and gave them empty pots daily. At the end of the first week the weather grew decidedly cooler and the sheriff even provided his two guests with wool blankets to keep warm. For the most part, Jesse and Perez had the cellblock to themselves. There were a couple of nights that one of the jailers locked up a drunk for the night, but besides that things were quiet. Perez did get upset when Sheriff Tubal informed him that his horse had been sold to cover the charges of feed, and let him know that the remaining denari from the sale would be left with his things to be picked up when he was released.

“You have no right!” Perez yelled at the sheriff. “That was MY horse! I’ve had him for over twenty years!”

The sheriff ignored Perez and walked back down the hall. Perez abandoned his tirade when he heard the barred door down the hall clang shut.

It had been two weeks since Jesse had been locked up. He had given up waiting on Enoch to come to the rescue, and was growing steadily depressed as the late summer turned into early fall with no sign of his uncle. Nothing had gone as he had planned. It seemed as if the gods were determined to block him at every turn. First the lion. Then the highwaymen. The sandstorm. Now this. Soon the Fog Mountains would be impassible. Soon he would have to abandon any hope of making it through Prophet’s Pass before the snowfall blocked passage until the next summer. At a height of five-thousand paces, the snow on the mountains would not melt until the mid-summer. On this particular evening Jesse had fallen asleep watching a spider as it worked its way across the bunk above him. Boring as it was, it was the best entertainment that he had all day. Sometime after ten bells Jesse was awakened by a voice.

“Jesse!”

Jesse hurriedly sat up in his bunk, banging his head on the bunk above him.

“Jesse!”

“Who is it?” Jesse asked in the darkness.

“It’s me! Enoch! I’ve got the keys! But you must hurry! The sheriff is on the way! He’ll be here any second!”

Now Jesse was fully awake. Ignoring the new wound on his forehead, he rolled out of the bunk and climbed up to the top one where Enoch stood holding the keys just outside of the window. Enoch flipped the key-ring through the bars (no glass in jail-cells) and Jesse caught them and jumped from the bunk and ran to the cell door. He was able to locate the right key on the third try. By now Perez was awake and urging him on.

“Hurry up, Jesse! Hurry up!”

“I am! I’m going as fast as I can.”

Jesse released Perez and jogged down the hall to the remaining barred door. In a moment it was open and Perez demanded, “Give me the keys!”

Jesse tossed the keys to Perez then asked, “What are you doing?”

“Got to get our stuff!”

“No time for that!”

Perez ignored Jesse and ran back to the cellblock where an empty cell had been turned into a storage room for confiscated prisoner’s belongings. In a moment he re-emerged with an armful of stuff that included Jesse’s backpack, sword, bow, quiver as well as Perez’s saddle.

“You don’t need that!” Jesse said, pointing to the saddle. “They sold your horse, remember?”

“It’s
my
saddle!”

Outside they could hear Enoch starting to yell. He sounded panicked.

“Get a move on! We don’t have all night!”

With all the shouting going on, it was fortunate that this small lockup was unmanned at night. Jesse opened the front door and looked in both directions. Down the street on the right he could see the sheriff running towards the jail. The big man was nearly out of breath. Jesse turned left, and then left again, turning the corner into the alley where Enoch impatiently waited.

“C’on!” Enoch yelled. “Follow me!”

The two boys did as Enoch urged, and Enoch led them down a series of winding alleys, and then stopped in front of an inn, “The Mountain Rest.”

“I’ll stay outside with Perez,” said Enoch. “Jesse, you go in and see the man at the table by the hearth.”

“But who? How will I know what to say?”

“Just go, Jesse. You’ll know him when you see him.”

Jesse entered The Mountain Rest and walked across the busy common room toward the hearth. Off to the right a man on a stage played a very pleasant, but very unusual instrument that Jesse was later to learn was called a harpsichord.

As he approached the table by the hearth, a white-haired man with a ponytail and neatly cropped beard looked up at him and smiled. “Nice to see you, again, Jesse.”

“Good to see you, too, Seth!” Jesse exclaimed.

Seth got up from the table and putting a hand on Jesse’s shoulder said, “Come with me.”

Seth and Jesse exited the inn where Enoch and Perez were waiting outside.

Jesse introduced Seth to his half-brother and the four of them crossed the street to a stable. Seth eyed the saddle closely and said to Enoch, “You didn’t say anything about a riding horse. All I brought was a harnessed mare and a wagon.”

“That’ll do. Why don’t you hang on to the saddle until we return?”

“But that’s my saddle,” Perez protested.

“Do you intend to carry it all the way to New Sodom and back?” Enoch asked, sarcastically.

“No but…”

“Then let him have it. He’s loaning you a horse and wagon. The least you can do is let him have the saddle as collateral until you return.”

They harnessed the mare quickly and threw their belongings in the back of the buckboard. Enoch jumped up into the back, as Jesse and Perez rode in the seat with Jesse taking the reins.

“Follow the road until you hit the city’s boulevard. Then turn left and take it all the way until you pass through the city gates. As soon as you do, take a right on what they call the River Road. It’s called that not because it runs along the river, but because you’ll be able to see the Elmer as you ride toward Prophet’s Pass. After you pass by the cherry orchard take the road to the right. It’s steep, and you’ll need to move slowly. But don’t let yourself get caught on the mountain at night. There are things that live there, boys. Things that you do not want to run into. Remember that! You have to make it to the summit and back down to the Pishon in one day! Now get out of here before the sheriff finds you!”

Seth gave the mare a slap on its hindquarters and it started off down the street, headed toward the boulevard, the city gate, and the mountain.

Chapter 13
The Mountain

Once they were outside the city gate Jesse turned the buckboard down the River Road and they headed east. Within an hour they could see the lights of Mountain Shadows behind them, and Jesse thought that it would be good to give the horse a break. He stopped the wagon, and rummaged through his backpack for his cloak. The night was turning cold. Perez had already donned his cloak and Enoch—typically—was snoring in the back.

Perez looked up at the mountain. It was a starless night with a heavy cloud-cover, and that just made the mountain more foreboding.

“I don’t know what ‘things’ your friend thinks are hiding on that mountain, but I surely don’t want to come across them in the night. I hope that we can make the foot of the mountain by light,” said Perez.

“So do I, Perez,” Jesse answered, and gave the reins a shake.

The three of them rode through the night, and as the sun was beginning to come up in the east Jesse looked down to his left. Far below was the Elmer, winding its way to the Eastern Sea. Ahead of them, perhaps a mile distant was a large object that Jesse couldn’t quite discern in the early light. It looked perhaps like it might be some high, narrow rock formation. As they drew closer, however, Jesse could see that his initial assessment was wrong. The sun was most up now, and they could now see that the trees that they had been passing in the darkness was, in fact, a large cherry orchard—the ancient cherry orchard at which the pivotal battle of the An-nef War had been fought. At the center of the orchard stood a large statue of a man in full Atlantan armor like the one of Herculous I in Mountain Shadows. This one, however, was much taller. Jesse estimated that it stood an amazing thirty paces tall—three times the height of the one in the city. As the buckboard pulled in front of the statue Jesse brought the horse to a halt. For a long time Jesse sat motionless staring up at the face chiseled in stone. Enoch was awake now, and stretching. When he was done, he too saw what Jesse—and now Perez—were staring at, for the face beneath the winged helmet was that of Jesse and Perez’s father.

“Did you know about this?” Jesse asked Enoch.

“No. The citizens of Mountain Shadows must have erected it after the war.”

“But surely Father knew.”

“He must have. Someone must have told him,” Enoch replied. “But Nashon changed in his later years.”

“How so?” Jesse asked.

“As the years passed he became less and less proud of his service in the Atlantan legion. It was almost as if he had become ashamed of it. One day I told him that if he really felt that way that he should paint over the mural of him killing the jackal-head. Know what he told me?”

Jesse and Perez shook their heads.

“He said that he was thinking about it! Can you imagine that? Erasing the reminder of what would have been to most men the crowning achievement of their lives! Yes, Nashon changed, and was still in the process of changing when death caught up with him. I have thought from time to time what type of man that he would have become if the gods had given him more years. I know for certain that I am not what I was in life. And I still have a long way to go.”

“C’on, Jesse,” Perez said. “We need to be going. There’s no telling if Sheriff Tubal is trying to find us. And we must start our assent as soon as we can.”

Jesse urged the horse on and they hadn’t gone far past the cherry orchard when a road veered off to the right, leading straight up the mountain. The sun was now fully up, but fog enveloped the mountain.

“Fog kills,” Jesse said aloud.

“Let’s wait till it clears,” Perez recommended.

They unhitched the horse and let her graze while they waited for the fog to clear. Jesse rummaged through his backpack, but all that he could find was some moldy biscuits that hadn’t been moldy when he had picked them up at the Nara way-station three weeks earlier. He shared them with Perez who was hungry enough to eat anything, and gave Enoch some well-aged salt-pork that no human would dare eat, but Enoch gobbled it up like he had just been offered the god’s nectar.

By mid-morning the fog had gone away, but with its passing it revealed dark, gray clouds that surrounded the mountain’s summit. The air was damp, and whether they’d be snow or rain Jesse couldn’t tell, but he knew that if they didn’t go now they wouldn’t be able to for another day, and perhaps another year, so they hitched the horse back up and began their upward trek.

The first few miles were slow, but they made steady progress despite the fact that the Mountain Road, like the Southern Highway, was little more than a trail through the forest—a trail littered with boulders. They hadn’t gone far when they realized that the foliage had changed completely from pines with an occasional maple or oak, to just pines. A couple of miles more and the pines gave way to huge cedars whose tops were shrouded in the clouds that now covered the mountain. Once when they were winding their way upward a large deer-looking animal with a huge rack of antlers walked out in front of them.

“What is that?” Jesse asked Enoch.

“It’s called an elk. Very common in these mountains.”

By noon the summit was still far above them hidden in the clouds, and the first drops of rain were starting to fall. Within the hour the rain turned to snow and with it a cold wind blew down from the mountain peak. The horse was now having trouble sliding in mud and so Jesse and Perez agreed that Enoch would be the only one to ride and they would lead the animal. The snow was coming faster now, and the accumulation was starting to make finding the road difficult.

“Jesse, don’t you think that we should turn the wagon around and head back?” Perez asked.

“If we can just make it through the pass then it will be all downhill. We should still be able to be at the Pishon by nightfall.” Jesse hoped that this was true, but he was almost certain that he was going to fail. It was just a matter of how long that he was going to be able to push forward before he admitted it. Enoch said nothing. He knew that if he urged Jesse to stop he would be even more determined to go on. He even considered telling Jesse, “Go on, you can do it!” just so he would turn around before they all froze to death. Jesse could be very contrary.

The snow was now drifting on the trail and Jesse was finding it increasingly difficult to tell where the trail left off and the forest began. In front of him the wind and the snow made seeing impossible, and the air was getting very thin. He stepped into a drift over a pace high and then the reality of the whole situation sunk in: he had to turn back.

“Perez!” he shouted through the storm. “Help me turn the wagon around! We’re headed back down!”

Perez said nothing, but the two of them began the laborious task of backing the buckboard into a clearing by the side of the mountain that was drifted high with snow. They had to turn the wagon around so that they could lead the horse back down. Horses don’t like to back up under ideal conditions, but this one whinnied and shook her head as Jesse coaxed her backwards. They were just about to start forward again when suddenly the ground beneath the wagon gave way and the buckboard disappeared down the side of the mountain with a “whoosh” and a huge cloud of snow.

“Enoch!” Jesse yelled, but it was too late, the wagon was gone and with it his uncle’s spirit host. The two boys held on to the horse for just a second as the animal struggled to keep its footing, it’s eyes were wild with fear, but a second more and the horse was tumbling backwards over the precipice dragging the two boys with it.

Jesse felt himself free-fall for several paces before he plunged into the snow. He hit hard, knocking the wind from his lungs. His head was hurting, he found himself gasping for air that wouldn’t come, and in the distance the neighing of the horse, then all went black.

“He’s coming to!” It was Perez’s voice. But it seemed as if at a great distance.

“Jesse’s too tough to kill.” That sounded like Enoch.

“The boy will live. Of that I am certain.” A stranger’s voice, deep and kind. An older man. The voices were getting closer now.

Jesse opened his eyes to see Enoch staring down at him. The dog’s nose was almost touching his. Enoch smiled a pointy grin and then said, “Okay, guys, Jesse’s awake, let’s eat!”

Jesse could smell food cooking: meat and onions. He sat up from a couch, pushing aside a blanket, but immediately felt dizzy and realized that he had a huge knot on the back of his head. Looking around he could see that he was in a cabin built of stone. A fire roared in the fireplace, which had a cooking pot in it, and an Atlantan Shepherd was curled up on a bear-skin rug in front of it. The room was warm—bordering on hot. Outside it was dark, but Jesse could see through a window that the snow was still coming down hard, and the wind made a howling noise as it blew across the eaves of the cabin. Sitting at a table a few feet from Jesse was Perez, and an old man with shoulder-length white hair, and a white beard that went down to his chest.