Aster Wood and the Lost Maps of Almara (Book 1) (7 page)

“Yes, they
did
,” I replied, annoyed. I poured a cup of water from the jug on the table and gulped it down. “You might have told me what was out there.”

“Well, you mighta listened to me in the first place and been back before sundown. Anyways, you made it back in one piece, didn’t you?”

That was the weird part, I
was
still in one piece. And I felt better, healthier, than I could ever remember feeling in my life.
 

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I feel, well, I feel pretty good.”

“That don’t surprise me none,” he said. “You’re Triadesh, I told ya. You belong here.” He picked up my pack and dumped its contents onto the table.
 

I stared at the pile of acorns. I belonged here? In a place where the ill can outrun monsters in the night?

Kiron studied each acorn carefully, his face hovering just an inch off the tabletop.

“Ah, here we are,” he said after a few minutes, selecting a clean, fat nut. He held it up to the light and turned it around and around, inspecting it from all sides. Then he turned back to his pot. “Come look at this.” He walked to the fire and plunked the acorn into the brew unceremoniously. The contents of the pot sizzled and spat.

I looked down at the large pile of remaining acorns, abandoned. Not good enough, apparently. Then I pushed back the chair and stepped over to the edge of the fire. Now that I was closer, I could see that the pot was lidded with a strange dome, almost like a huge soap bubble. Inside the pot a clear liquid boiled, dissolving the acorn almost instantly. The liquid looked like melted glass, clear as a diamond. Next to the fire was a raggedy canvas backpack, stiff an cracked. Kiron motioned to me to look into the cauldron, as he was doing.

“That was it,” he said, “the last ingredient.”

“What is it?”

“This,” he said, “is a brew of
veiled truth
.”
 

I peered in at the liquid. “Um,” I said, “what’s it for? Do we drink it?”

“No! No!” he exclaimed. “Never drink a brew of veiled truth! Once taken, you will be invisible for life. There is no going back!”

“Alright, ok!” I said, taking a step backwards. Invisible for life? “But what’s it for?”

“The brew,” he said, “is for this.” He picked up the backpack and, spearing the handle onto a long branch of wood, slowly dipped it into the pot. As the fabric touched the liquid it gurgled and fizzed. When he raised the stick out of the pot again, half of it was gone and the backpack had vanished. I looked into the pot and saw nothing but the clear, shining liquid.

The dog growled. My jaw dropped. Kiron looked at me expectantly. It took me a minute before I could finally speak.

 
“How did you do
that?”
I asked.

“Years of practice, my boy, years of practice. There are all sorts of treasures around this farm that ain’t visible to the naked eye.” He moved the stick away from the cauldron and the brew dripped off the bottom of the invisible pack onto the floor, where it hissed on the wood planks. He held the stick out to me.
 

“Touch it,” he said. “Go on!”

I held out my hand and felt around in the empty air where the pack had been moments before. Hot, wet canvas met my fingers, though I could see nothing. I pulled my hands back abruptly and inspected my fingers, half expecting them to disappear, too.
 

“It will only vanish what’s within the dome,” he said, inclining his head towards the pot.
 

I grabbed with both hands and slid the pack off the stick, amazed.
 

“And the best part,” Kiron said, “is this!” Setting down the stick, he picked up two apples from the hearth, took the bag from my hands and proceeded to drop them into it. They instantly vanished. I gasped. The dog was on his feet and gave two warning barks, alarmed.
 

“Oh, shut it, you!” he said to the animal. The dog whined and growled, and finally retreated back to his napping spot, groaning as he settled himself back down on a heap of blankets.

“Now,” Kiron said, “it ain’t limitless. You can only carry what you can fit into the bag. But whatever goes inside it’ll become invisible, and the pack will never weigh you down while you travel, not even with the heaviest ore in the land packed to bursting within it.”

“What happens if I take it off?” I asked. “What if I lose it? How am I supposed to find it again if it’s invisible?” I felt a little panicky being entrusted with such a prize.

“Calm down! You ain’t gonna lose it. You can’t. I’ve tied the pack to your aspect.” His eyes sparkled; he was clearly proud of himself. “A tricky bit of enchantment, if I do say so myself. There are two commands that only you can give to make the pack disappear and reappear. Speaking the command
obscure
makes the pack invisible, and
reveal
is the command to, well, to reveal it. Go on!”

My heart was still racing when I said, “Uh, ok.
Reveal
.”
 

The now familiar diamond and star symbol appeared, floating above Kiron’s hand, and came to life. The symbol didn’t just glow, it positively burst with light. The pack then materialized all at once with a “pop.”

“Obscure!”
I said, smiling and eager now.

The pack rotated in midair and then collapsed inward on itself, like the spiral of a tornado. It disappeared again.

I gaped. This was
insane
.

“But why didn’t it appear and disappear when you said the commands?” I asked.

“I told you, I’ve joined it with your aspect,” he answered.

I looked at him blankly.

“Your aspect! The energy force that surrounds you. I used a piece of the bed linens you slept in last night to tie it to you. It held your vestige.”

“Right,” I said slowly, trying to hide that I had no idea what he was talking about. “Well, that’s great! It’s amazing.” And it was, whether I understood it or not.
 

Seeming satisfied by my response, he hung the pack over the mantle to dry and poured us both mugs of tea. I accepted the one he held out to me, but when I took the first sip I almost spit it out, it was so bitter.

“Ugh!” I couldn’t help but exclaim. “What is that?”

“Mulberry tea. Here, put some honey in; it helps with the flavor.” He handed me a jar with a spoon stuck fast in golden sugar. “Keeps me young!” His eyes had a manic glint that shone in the firelight.

I’ll bet
, I thought. But I didn’t argue. Whatever this guy was feeding me was at least partially responsible for my surviving this day. I stirred two large spoonfuls of honey in the mug and took another tentative sip.

He brought out the now cold pot of stew from this morning. The dog was up again, wagging and drooling, as we dug into our meal. The temperature didn’t much matter; I was ravenous, and the stew was still delicious. My body felt oddly empty as I dug in, like I hadn’t eaten in several days.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked between mouthfuls. I was still feeling exhilarated by my escape from the faylons, and worries about my heart were getting further and further from my mind.

“You ain’t ready yet. Tomorrow I’ll start teachin’ ya what I know. Depends on you, I guess. We’ll see what you can do.”

“Where am I going? I mean, after that?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he answered gruffly. “I ain’t never followed no maps of Almara. Nobody has! That’s the whole point, ain’t it? You’re the first.”

I stared hard at the bowl as I scraped up the last bits of meat. Why me? Why hadn’t it been Brendan? I wondered what my life might have been like if Brendan had made it back home to Aria, if Brendan had followed the path I was now on. Would I have ever even existed? And if so, would my body have been so weak and sick, like it had been on Earth? Or would I have felt, from birth, this strange strength that was now coursing through me? I felt better now, trapped in a world that I didn’t understand, than I had ever felt back home.

I shook my head as these thoughts swirled around inside it. I needed to stay focused and get home. The fact was that Brendan had stayed on Earth, and that I was born on Earth, not here. My mom was back there, probably worried beyond belief that I had disappeared. And Grandma, too. I couldn’t just leave them there, alone and frightened, while I stayed here on Aerit. My dad would be no comfort to them. He probably wouldn’t even care if he found out I was gone. I grimaced at the thought of him. No, he would be no comfort to my mother.

I had to go back.
 

I contemplated the task in front of me: to either find Almara using the maps he had left behind, or find someone else powerful enough to send me home.
 

I tried to stifle it, but a large yawn escaped from my throat. Kiron put the remains of his stew on the floor for the dog. “Time for you to sleep,” he said.
 

I looked around. Yesterday he had let me sleep in the bed. Would I be on the floor tonight? I couldn’t help looking at the thick blankets longingly.
 

“Go on,” he said. “I’m a night owl anyways. Don’t often sleep much at all anymore, come to it.”

I handed him my bowl and removed my boots, gratefully climbing into the big bed. Peering over the top of the covers, I watched the fire crackle and pop. The dog jumped up onto the bed beside me, and tucked his wet nose underneath my hand. I scratched his ears.

“You’re a good boy,” I crooned at the mutt. “What’s your name, anyways, boy? What a good dog.” The dog sighed loudly through his large, wet nostrils.
 

“Crane,” Kiron said, watching the fire. “Dog’s Crane.”

“Crane,” I said softly in his fuzzy face. I continued to scratch him, but my eyes drifted to the images hung on the walls.
 

“What are those pictures of?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said. “They’re just an old man’s musings. Memories. Bit prettier than the real thing was in a lot of ways. And also not, not so wonderful as it was to actually see it. You can change a memory all you want, pretty it up in your head after the fact. But you ain’t never gonna get to experience it for real again.”

“So those are places you went? Animals you saw?”

“Mostly, yeah,” he answered. “The horses, yeah. The winged horse and the dragon I seen for real. Some of the others I just heard tale of.”

The dragon peered down haughtily from the canvas, terrible and menacing. It was no storybook creature, that was for sure. Tales of boys riding on sleek, sparkling beasts did not compare to this, the account of what Kiron had seen with his own eyes.
 

I rolled over and rested my cheek against the cool pillow. Kiron was astounding, at least by my standards. Traveling between worlds, tracking dragons and who knows what else. Making backpacks invisible and impossibly light. If I told tales like his back on Earth they’d all think I was crazy. And these weren’t just stories he’d made up.
 

Dragons
. As my eyelids drooped the thought occurred to me; to witness a real, live dragon, however horrible, would be quite a memory to have, indeed.

I was running.

My feet slammed hard into the cobblestones that lined the village paths. The small book was clutched in my left hand, the backpack in my right. I could hear them behind me. Shouting and panting, the men pursued me through the square. I dared look back only once; they were too close! In the front of the pack, the angry face of the dark-eyed man made me gasp in panic. His strides were huge as he barreled down on me, his black clothing whipping in the wind he made as he ran. I would need to get farther out. I sprinted between two of the dwellings, turning my body as I ran to avoid scraping my shoulders along the sides. I hoped that the men were too broad in the chest to make it through this way.
 

I broke through to the outer barrier of the city, breathing hard. I made for the main gate; the guard stationed at the entrance hadn’t yet figured out what was going on and he fumbled and stuttered as I approached and then blew by him. He would soon join the others on my trail. It would have to be now.

I made it to the top of the first small hill outside the gate and turned around. My eyes caught the looming shape of the horde of villagers bearing down upon me. I thrust my hands up, both hands gripping the book, and…

“Hey,” Kiron said, shaking me by the shoulders. I was back in his little cottage, the bedsheets tangled around my legs. The light from the rising sun was barely starting to creep into the black night sky.

“Come on, boy, you can’t sleep the entire day away.”

I blinked in the dim light, trying to keep my eyes from closing again, but breathing hard from the force of the dream. He walked to the remains of last night’s fire. I looked at his back as he worked over it, coaxing the flames back to life. He must have slept a little, then, to have let the fire go out. He pulled his suspenders up one at a time, and dropped them into place on each shoulder with a snap. When he turned back around to face me, the fire burned brightly behind him.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked him blearily.

“Eat,” he commanded, pointing at the table. “Then we train.”

I dragged myself out of the bed and hobbled over to the long wood table. The bowl was full of some sort of cooked grain. I peered into it and examined the mush skeptically.
 

“How will we get the next link?” I asked, picking up a spoon..

“I got the link already,” he said. “I had it my whole life, but you ain’t ready to go yet. You may be feelin’ better, but you’re gonna have to learn a lot more if you want to survive a quest to find Almara.”

“Wait a minute,” I protested. “You already have the link?”

“Of course I do. My pa left it for me before he died.” He looked up at me from his mug of tea. “Course, now it’s you I gotta look out for instead of Brendan. Bit more complicated than we planned. You don’t know nothin’ about Maylin or Almara. You’ll be lucky to survive the quest to find him.”

“What do you mean, I’ll be lucky to survive?” I asked.

He fiddled with the business end of a heavy looking ax that rested on the table, picking at the blade with his fingernail.