The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (5 page)

"We'll never find a place to stay. You can bet the whole town feels the same way." Higgins was still madly cycling through her Retrographs.

"Hig-" He choked on the words.

Higgins closed her Whorl, turning towards him. "Did you find something?" Her voice trailed off at the end. "Oh no." She seized his arm. "What did you see?"

"Ceremony. The drawings."

"What about them?"

"The drawings were face-down."

"What?"

"The Retrographs I recorded before we left Four Hills. I recorded at least one Retrograph of each drawing. And they've all been turned over." What did it mean? He opened his Whorl again and flicked through all the Retrographs of the drawings. Each drawing had been picked up and laid face down. The sense of violation overcame him once more. This Sorcerer was meddling with memories of his life, Retrographs that he could never get back. Sure he could look at the drawings again but what was to stop the Sorcerer from changing anything else? He went back and examined older Retrographs, looking for changes but also seeing them anew, as a stranger would see them. He shook his head as something occurred to him.

"Why me and the King?" he asked.

"We don't know for sure that you're the only two."

"True, although we'd hear about it soon enough of anyone else's got changed, I think."

Higgins nodded. "And why only the drawings?"

"Huh. I wonder which Retrographs of the King's were changed." He closed his Whorl. A vegetable cart trundled past, stirring up clouds of flies.

"He'll be wanting to speak to you anyway. Being Keeper of the Retrograph Vault and all."

Skyhammer sighed. "Did you see their faces in the Pit?" He twitched. "That Sorcerer has got a whole pile of hate coming his way. At least they'll never accuse me of changing the Retrographs."

"Well, of course. You don't have magic and you weren't even near the Vault when the changes were made. And why would you change your own?" She paused. "Although, no one else knows yours have been changed too."

"Higgins?"

She looked at him, her face open and concerned.

"Why the drawings? Why alter the one thing that's left to give me magic?" He could hear a whine colouring his voice and hated himself for it.

She struggled to keep a cheerful expression, he saw.

"Coincidence? I don't know," she said. "Until we talk to the King and find out if any other Retrographs have been changed, we should probably just not think about it."

"Oh sure that'll be no problem." Skyhammer stood up. They both knew he'd never be able to put it out of his mind. "It's getting dark. Let's stay here tonight, if we can find an inn that will admit the dastardly Keeper of the Retrograph Vault."

* * *

"Finally. An innkeeper with some sense." Skyhammer leaned his back and elbows on the front counter.

They had been to all of Edgeton's inns that day and this one, Whistlepunk and Daughters Inn of Grace, was the only one who agreed to take them. For a ridiculous price. He wrinkled his nose at the damp odour permeating the rickety inn. Located a few minutes' walk from the main road, it sat on the side of a hill, hidden by scraggy trees and bushes.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Whistlepunk." Higgins counted out coins into the innkeeper's hand.

Skyhammer watched as she re-counted the coins. "Do you know anything about the King's changed Retrographs, Mrs. Whistlepunk?"

The innkeeper of Whistlepunk and Daughters Inn of Grace shook her head, eyes fixed on the money.

Higgins argued they had no other choice but Skyhammer suspected there was more to Whistlepunk's agreement to take them in than the coin she was getting. The woman would not meet his gaze.

"Maddie!" Mrs. Whistlepunk bawled over her shoulder. "Take our guests to their room!"

A young girl scurried out from the back room and up the stairs. Skyhammer and Higgins followed her to their room on the third floor. They reached the top of the steps in time to see into which room the girl disappeared.

Tossing a grin at Higgins, Skyhammer raced down the hall and through the door, yelling, "Bottom bunk's mine!" He threw his backpack onto the lower bunk then stood still. What if the Retrograph Sorcerer was looking at his Retrographs right now and thinking how immature Skyhammer was? He straightened up.

Higgins sauntered in. "Get off. You had the bottom last time." Higgins threw her bag next to Skyhammer's then heaved his up top.

"Water hose is down there." The girl ran from the room.

What did the daughter fear, Skyhammer wondered. Besides her mother. He turned to Higgins. "Did you know they had a shower?"

She smiled.

He closed the door and looked around. A wooden table against one wall with a chair pushed beneath it. Bunk beds against the opposite wall and a window at the end. Everything shabby but clean. "Whistlepunk wouldn't look me in the eye."

"I noticed." Higgins wandered over to the window and peered out.

"Anything?" He opened his Whorl and examined the changed Retrographs again.

She frowned. "Some people are coming and they don't look pleased."

Skyhammer grinned. "That's one good thing at least!"

"On the contrary..." She scrutinized the road outside. "I think I know why she rented us the room."

Skyhammer moved to the window and watched the band of humans marching up the road to the inn, led by the thin man from the Pit's bar. Every man and woman in the group held a sword or a cudgel; some also carried bows and arrows. He opened the window a little, keeping the pane of glass between him and the crowd.

"Looking for me?" he shouted.

The group halted and they all looked up at him, scowling.

The thin man stepped forward, sober this time. "We know you're jealous of our magic powers, Skyhammer," he yelled. "But to sabotage the ceremony for the rest of us?"

Skyhammer's jaw dropped.

"We know what it means when all the Retrographs of ceremony drawings are being turned over. Not only those belonging to the King but also to Enchanters, Mages and even Wizards! We don't know how you did it but we can't allow you to ruin our chance to do magic outside the Royal Circle!" The leader waved his hand over his head and the crowd around him took off, running towards the Inn.

"Moksha's balls!" Skyhammer swore.

They strapped on their packs.

"Move fast." Skyhammer dashed into the shower room across the hall. "In here!"

Higgins squeezed into the tiny room with him and glanced around at the drainage hole in the floor, the single tap and the hose sticking out of one wall a foot above Skyhammer's head. "Not such a great hiding place, my friend." She wriggled past him to the window. "Ah!"

"You go. I'll be right behind you." The branches appeared strong enough.

Footsteps pounded on the stairs.

She unlatched the window and slipped out.

He hurled himself out the window after Higgins and onto a tree branch. She had already shimmied down the tree and was clambering up the steep hill behind the inn. An arrow shot past him and embedded itself in the tree trunk. The townsfolk had moved faster than he anticipated. Shouts erupted from outside the inn below. More arrows whizzed by. He jumped down the last few feet of the tree and took off after Higgins who was just disappearing over the top of the hill. Shouts and arrows fell off behind him.

Skyhammer caught up to Higgins on the riverbank. The trees ended and a great beach of white boulders stretched to his left and right. Water crashed around enormous stones in the river's bend to their right, then straightened out for a few feet and disappeared around another bend.

"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" Higgins bounded from rock to rock like a mountain goat.

"Floaters. Haven't used them since the repairs from our encounter with Aridizans at that lake a few months ago." Skyhammer hoped they'd found all the holes. Glancing over his shoulder, he exhaled in relief. No sign of them yet.

At the river's edge, both opened their backpacks and brought out six small sacks each. "Start blowing. They'll be here any minute." They stood back to back so they could keep watch, and blew up each of the sacks to watermelon size.

Higgins attached two of the sacks to the ends of her backpack on the outside and stuffed the other two inside the backpack at the ends, creating an X shape with her gear in the middle. While Skyhammer did the same, she scanned the trees.

"They're here!" An arrow flew by her head. "Get in!" she yelled, sliding backwards off the rock into the water and pulling her pack in after her.

Skyhammer followed suit, a hail of arrows clattering on the rocks behind him as he sank into the icy river. The cool water was a relief after the scorching sun. He kicked strongly to the middle of the river, catching up to, and then passing Higgins as arrows continued to rain down. With one hand grasping the bag as a shield to protect their bodies from the arrows, the current soon pulled them out of range.

Higgins raised herself on her bag. "They're still coming fast!"

"How are we going to get out?" Skyhammer had started shivering. His skin felt like it was growing a layer of ice. A low roar had started. "There's a waterfall around the next bend!"

"Let's just stay in the river, close to the bank, and float down a bit farther until we can get out and run from their arrows!" Higgins' teeth chattered.

They paddled downriver in the glacier-cold water, and when Higgins started turning blue, Skyhammer called a halt. He glanced upriver. No one in sight. The mob must have given up.

"I think we have enough time! Let's go!" He heaved his backpack onto the bank, then himself. He turned to reach a hand out to Higgins.

"Skyhammer!"

Higgins was past him, down the river, nearly at the bend, kicking frantically. The current had pulled her out into the middle again. He inhaled sharply. The waterfall! He bolted across the rocks towards her, but she had drifted beyond his reach.

"Kick, Higgins!" She was a good swimmer! Surely, she could. . .

She disappeared around the bend, too weak with cold to paddle. He raced back to his bag, tossed it in the water and paddled as hard as he could after her. Rounding the river's curve, he saw her head bobbing some ways ahead of him. The roar of the waterfall grew deafening. He kicked and paddled furiously until he was in line with her. But now the river dropped away and verdant land spread out below the waterfall's edge.

"Higgins, hold on to your bag!" he shouted.

She looked over and nodded, winding her hand into the pack's strap.

There was no fear on her face, he saw with pride, just a quiet determination to live through this next challenge. His heart lifted and together they sailed over the edge of the waterfall. His body dropped straight down. The roaring filled his head; eyes squeezed shut, he imagined he was hurtling straight into the screaming maw of a monster. He plunged into the maelstrom of liquid. Moving darkness surrounded him when he opened his eyes. Holding his breath, lungs aching, he let his buoyant pack take him to the surface.

* * *

Skyhammer scrambled out of the river and lay on the bank, panting.

There had been no sign of Higgins when he surfaced. He sat up, straining to hear over the rushing water. His eyes roved over the rocks.

"Higgins!"

She floated face up in a little eddy downriver, her upper body splayed limply across the pack. One hand was still tangled in a strap. She lay too still.

Skyhammer splashed through the water towards her, heart clenched with fear. Upon pressing his ear to her lips, her breath tickled him. Overwhelming relief made him grin. He stroked her cheek once, then lifted her out of the icy water.

As he rubbed her hands and feet, he thought about the mob that had just tried to kill him. And Higgins! Those damn short-sighted people, of course they would think it was him. Even though he had no magic powers. As Keeper, he was the only person with access to the Retrograph Vault. Proof enough for them. It galled him that they were right on one level - he was jealous of their powers. But thinking that he would sabotage the ceremony?

He had to find this Sorcerer and stop the changes. Moreover, he had to find out why the Sorcerer was only changing the Retrographs related to the ceremony. This person could be planning to sabotage the ceremony and he could not let that happen.

Chapter 6

Countdown to Ceremony: 15 days

The residents of Four Hills got fed up with explaining the capital's name long ago.

"Where's the fourth hill?" Tourists shaded their eyes in an attempt to spot it.

Locals always had an answer ready. "Now, there's a story! You remember the great Goblin War of 3040, don't you? The Goblin bodies were piled so high that they created a little hill. From that point on, the town was called Four Hills. Of course, the bodies eventually were buried but the name stuck."

Or, "The name has been pronounced wrong for thousands of years. Originally, it was 'heels', four 'heels', and this was because a beautiful princess came from a far-away land to marry the prince of Quasianti. The marriage was arranged, as all such are, and the prince's father had died while on his way back home. Luckily he had sent word ahead that the princess was coming so the people gathered to greet her. The carriage drew up in front of the palace and the princess's hand poked out of the dark interior. The prince grasped it eagerly and led her down the stairs. A gasp rose from the onlookers at her beauty as her head and shoulders emerged and then they gasped again as an exact copy of her body emerged backwards from the carriage. You see, the princess was a conjoined twin. The women were in perfect health and conjoined at the buttocks so they could only see the other's face using mirrors. Many doctors had offered to separate them but they loved each other so much that they did not want to be apart. They both adored beautiful shoes and so the prince had a pair of exquisite jade stilettos made for each of them when their first child was born. And thus, the people called the palace 'four heels', and those two women ruled benevolently with the King until the end of their days."