Young Writers Society

Prince rolled the word around his tongue before speaking. 'N—nobody. My father brought me here last year, to see—to meet Quixa, on account of ... business. Right?' He looked askance at the Ixister, who nodded.

'Business,' Quixa said sombrely, 'of the gravest kind.'

'Er, right. Right,' Prince said. 'I can't tell you why my father came to Quixa—out of respect for him, you see, he's a shepherd, and we have few secrets. But—but I remembered the path, and when Father settled in the Meare for the season, I met Arlene.'

'And you come here every year?' Kelm had tossed his beard over his shoulder and was now going through the tomes he had arranged in a semi-circle around him. Loose pages flapped around his head, and a book whacked itself against the ottoman, releasing a cloud of dust from its spine. Prince sneezed.

'Every year—yeah. That is, Father's been coming, ever since ... well, a long time. I've only accompanied him for the last two years.'

'Hm.' Kelm peered at Prince from atop Caves and Caveats. 'It's a bit odd.' He did not elaborate, but focused his attentions on the book in his hand. 'Odd,' he repeated.

'What is?' Prince asked, leaning backwards almost subconsciously. His shoulder scraped the rocky wall, and he grimaced.

'Odd,' Kelm said, 'that a shepherd knew the path to here. Not many people seek Ixisters out of their own accord; there is a certain hesistance, I think they find us intimidating ... or unless a severe calamity has befallen them. For most people, the Ixister's Meka remains the link—Arlene's uncle, Elborn Radagel, is mine. For Quixa—you had a Meka once, didn't you?'

'Yes,' Quixa said vaguely. 'But the last one fell down the shaft—or my tunnel, as I have heard people call it. I had to scrape him off the floor. The Council did not assign me a new Meka after that. Strange.'

Kelm lowered his head, his moustache twitching. Prince did not bother to hide his smile.

'But yes—it's not many people that come to Ixisters directly, and not many who remember the path to this cave even after making the journey countless times. Where does your father hail from?'

'The south,' Prince answered promptly. 'He worked as an assistant to an apothecary in Durthnõt for a time, then he moved towards the village of Lias, where I was born.'

'An apothecary?' Kelm looked up. 'Gunder's Apothecary?'

'No—I mean—I ... maybe.' Prince cringed at his mistake. 'I don't know. I don't remember. Father never said.'

There was a moment of silence, punctuated by the sound of fluttering pages and Quixa's tuneless humming. Kelm's eyebrow had disappeared into his vivid hair, which was now changing colour—from bright red to a pale shade of grey. He looked at Prince scrutinisingly, even as his hands were busy sorting through the paper birds that pecked at his beard and settled into his hair.

'You are not a good liar,' Kelm said, 'but one with a good memory. Even if you are unaware of the exact content of the prophecy...' Prince twitched unwittingly at the word 'prophecy', and Kelm gave a sudden, short burst of laughter. 'But you do know about the prophecy! Is not fate strange this way? That you happened upon Arlene for a friend? But it is lucky, because she needed to be brought here. Although you did fall a tad off the mark with that,' he commented, returning to his dissection of /Caves and Caveats/.

Prince squirmed guiltily in his seat. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but certain things—I can't tell you ... my father...'

Kelm waved his hand. 'And that is perfectly fine.' There was a pause. 'You are aware of what it means—Tryal's curse pertaining to Arlene? A girl with dreams of walking across the river, linking hands with smoke...?'

'She will walk through the foghorn of silence,' Prince recited. 'She will bring Tryal's vendetta to an end. Yeah.'

Kelm 'hmm'ed. 'The king's sickness has been a lengthy one. With Arlene breaking the curse, I hope he will regain his health.'

'And the Blacksmiths?'

Kelm snapped the book shut. He looked at Prince sharply. 'What about the Blacksmiths?'

'Even if King Trent gets well—which—which I hope he will, er...' Prince seemed to shrink under Kelm's iron gaze. 'Even if—won't the Blacksmiths have advanced enough?'

Kelm shook his head. 'We can fight back,' he said, but the helplessness on his face was unmistakeable. 'Once Tryal breaks the—but, yes!' He straightened up. 'We must convince Tryal to help us.' He attacked the books again, with greater fervour.

Quixa chuckled. 'Policies,' he said, 'tricks, plots, schemes, cajolery—all on a massive playground. You remain as ambivalent as ever, Kelm. As childish.' He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a small tub of paste, which he handed to Prince. 'Rub that on your arm,' he instructed. To Kelm, he said, 'Back to Caveats.'

Kelm stopped his feverish perusal of Trails of the Past Century to look at Quixa in exasperation. 'I looked through that twice.'

'Again.' He picked the book up from the ground and knocked on the cover. 'I remember putting it in here.'

Kelm took the book from Quixa's wrinkled hand, flipping through it once with disinterest. 'Nothing,' he said.

'Check the cover.'

Wearily, Kelm tapped at the cover. A minute passed by, and Prince wondered dimly how long Kelm would keep it up. Then, impulsively, Kelm ripped the cover clean off.

A thin slip of paper fell out of the book's faded cover. 'Ah,' Kelm said. 'I've found it.' He waved the sheet of paper in the light—Prince thought it looked like a piece of white muslin, except that someone had drawn on it. Careful, precise squares covered its surface, but he could not make out what they could possibly mean.

Quixa clapped his hands gleefully. 'And does it say where she is?' He bounced to his feet and plucked the paper gracefully from Kelm's hands. 'Oh—I see, you need to manipulate the lines as such'—he swiped a finger across the paper's flimsy surface—'and such.' Prince watched as the lines grew darker and more intricate, webbing into a thousand different directions across the page. Two red dashes appeared on opposite ends of it. Quixa pointed at them. 'In the caves, your friend's niece. Toward the north—Tryal.' He nodded at Kelm and Prince. 'Shall we be off?' he asked Prince. 'Can your arm stand the exertion?'

'Yeah,' Prince said, getting to his feet. 'Let's find Arlene.'

'Then Tryal,' Kelm added. 'Quixa—do you have any messenger orbs I can use? There is someone at Durthnõt I need to speak to...'

-

The Blacksmith's cave was like the Adreitian Underground, but with more grime lathering every available surface, and without the corpses of trains gracing every corner. Arlene had not bothered to hide her disgust as she had walked in, the stench of rotting plywood cutting into her nostrils. The Blacksmith—Blacksmith Tenor, as he had introduced himself, Father of Blacksmith Gairon, Bearer of the Strong Arm and Iron Grip—did not seem bothered by the state of his cave. His teeth gleamed as he turned to Arlene, and his bulbous nose seemed to catch the little light that flooded the cave, from the gaslamps that hung on the wall.

'Clean,' he said, 'then I can get to business with you.'

If it had not been for the dagger that hung menacingly at Tenor's hip, or the fact that he was so wide and large that he could have crushed her with one hand, Arlene was fairly certain she would have run.

But as it was, she scuttled into a corner and began to rub at one of the Blacksmith's work surfaces with her hand. Sledgehammers, chisels, tongs—all sorts of tools were strewn on the floor, while a couple of crooked swords had been driven straight into the wall. The Blacksmith sat heavily near the cave's entrance, and began to croon to his dagger.

Arlene shivered. She rubbed at the grime harder. Sweat trickled down her face.

Make it last, she thought. Make it last. He'll fall asleep, and I can run. I can run. She calmed herself by repeating the sentiment in her mind, but as the Blacksmith's voice grew louder, the walls seemed to press down on her. They hinted, she thought, at how she might never escape.