Greystone Valley Page 7

  Sarah squinted at the creatures, looking so hard that she could even see the six buggy legs and antennae of one of the creatures that flew too close to her. The lights were certainly pretty, but she didn’t see anything else that was particularly special about the insects.

  “They’re just bugs,” she whispered back. “If they weren’t glowing all pretty like, we’d probably be swatting at them.”

  “No, no, you’re looking at it the wrong way,” said Kay. “Try not looking at them.”

  “But you just told me to look closer.”

  “Try just glancing at them. Look out of the corner of your eye, or don’t look directly at them at all. Don’t watch—notice.”

  “Now you’re making even less sense than usual.” Despite her protest, Sarah tried to follow the boy’s instructions. She unfocused her eyes and watched the shadows of the rocks and trees instead of the fireflies themselves. That was when she noticed something strange.

  The fireflies weren’t insects at all. They were slender people, whose limbs were no thicker than toothpicks, and who could have fit in the palm of Sarah’s hand. But when she looked directly at them, their appearance changed—they seemed to be bugs again.

  “Do you see now?” Kay asked.

  “Sort of. Either that, or my eyes are playing tricks on me.”

  “Oh, these people love their tricks,” Dax said. The old man sat cross-legged, looking at the dirt rather than at the small flying creatures around them. “They like to think they’re more clever than everyone else, just because they’re six inches tall and know how to fly.”

  “What are they?”

  “They’re fey, of course,” Kay answered. When Sarah looked at him with a blank expression, he began to rattle off other names for the creatures. “Fairies, nixies, pixies, sprites, grigs, brownies, elves, redcaps—”

  “I get the idea. I just didn’t expect to see them here. I guess I should have, though.” Considering the other things that had happened to her today, she realized how foolish it would be for her to think of anything as impossible right now.

  “They’re special creatures—some of the only beings who know all the ways in and out of Greystone Valley,” Kay explained. “They find their way into just about every world, even if people don’t believe in them. When you see something move out of the corner of your eye and you’re not sure what it is, it’s usually them.”

  “They like making mischief,” Dax added. “They’ll steal socks from you when you wash your clothes, or move things around when you’re looking for them. I suppose they get their laughs from my misery, just like everyone else does.”

  “So they might have taken the spellbook?” Sarah asked.

  “It seems like something they would do,” the old man responded. “There aren’t many footprints or hoof marks on the ground near here, so it doesn’t seem likely that Baelan sent his forces in to investigate yet. He was probably planning on torturing the information out of you. So that leaves just these little buggers… not that they’ll be much help, either.”

  “Well, let’s find out,” Sarah said. Turning toward the fey, she blurted out, “Excuse me, could any of you help us? We’re trying to find a book. . .”

  The creatures buzzed and darted away as soon as Sarah started talking to them. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw one of the fey stick its tongue out at her. Naturally, when she looked directly at the creature, she saw nothing but an insect flitting away into the night.

  “They won’t listen to you, of course,” Dax said. “They won’t talk to anyone who doesn’t speak their language, usually.”

  “Don’t you have them where you come from?” Kay asked.

  “Of course not,” Sarah replied. “Well, I mean, we have stories and fairy tales about them, but only little kids actually believe in them.”

  “That’s the way it is everywhere,” the boy said. “As far as I can tell from my father’s writings, the fey are the only creatures that exist everywhere, inside and outside of Greystone Valley. But not even people in the valley believe in them.”

  “Then why do you?”

  “Um… hello!” Kay gestured at his oversized purple robes. “I’m a wizard, or, at least, I will be once I get my spellbook back. It would be pretty hypocritical of me to believe in my own magic but to automatically assume the fey aren’t real.”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders, conceding the point. “That’s all well and good, but if we can’t talk to them, we’re no better off than we were before. The spellbook is as good as lost.”

  “Again, it’s probably giving you both more false hope than is good for you, but I might know someone who can help,” Dax said. “That is, if you can tolerate her. She’s something of an annoyance sometimes.”

  “That’s great,” Sarah said, eagerly jumping to her feet. “How do we find her?”

  The old man sighed. “Why do I get the feeling I shouldn’t have brought this up? Well, if you’re really eager to meet her, we’ll probably have to wait until morning. She doesn’t like the dark and usually isn’t up at night. We should head back to the village and get ourselves some rest. We’ll find my associate first thing in the morning. That is, if she hasn’t already skipped town.”

  Ten

  Unfortunately, none of them had any money for a room at the inn that night. Plus, the townsfolk probably still held a grudge against Kay from earlier in the day. Dax had a solution to both problems, though not one that Sarah appreciated. The trio waited until well past nightfall before sneaking into town. Relying on darkness to keep people from recognizing them, Dax led them around back of the inn toward the stables.

  Some empty patches of straw made their bed for the night. Sarah wrinkled her nose at the smell of dirty horses and wondered what sort of insects or other surprises waited for her under the straw. All told, she started to wonder if maybe she was better off locked in Baelan’s dungeon. At least there, a careless horse couldn’t accidentally kick her in the head.

  “We’ll have to make do here for the night,” Dax said with a sigh. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but it’s all we have. You’ll both need as much rest as you can get. If we’re at full strength, we might be able to stave off death tomorrow for seven or eight hours. Oh… there I go, getting your hopes up again. I have to learn not to be so blasted optimistic.”

  Sarah’s foul mood didn’t last very long. The more she looked at the patch of hay, the more she realized exactly how much she had gone through in a single day. Falling out of windows, fighting horse-men, escaping from prison… to say nothing of getting whisked away to a whole other world in the first place. While Dax kept moaning on about the dreary conditions, Sarah flopped down on the hay and closed her eyes.

  Despite how tired she was, though, Sarah had trouble getting to sleep at all. The straw itched, and the dirt floor underneath was hard as stone. Kay lay silently to one side of her, but Dax snored so loudly that Sarah worried that the old man would wake up the entire village.

  Even her clothes felt uncomfortable, as her pajamas had been stained and sullied with a day’s worth of adventuring. She wondered how Kay managed to get by wearing the same purple robes all the time. Then again, if she asked him, she was sure he’d make up some story about how his father had enchanted them to never get stained or something along those lines.

  It wasn’t just the uncomfortable surroundings that kept her awake, though. Sarah found that the main reason she couldn’t sleep was because she didn’t know if she wanted to or not. The last time she had fallen asleep, she had woken up in this strange land called Greystone Valley. At first, everything had seemed so much like a dream that she didn’t think it was real.

  But this adventure was real, for good or ill. If she fell asleep now, would she wake up in the same place? Would the adventure continue the next day? Or would she wake up safe and sound at home, making this place and everyone she had met in it disappear like a forgotten dream? And then, if she did manage to get home, was that really where she wan
ted to be?

  Home was dreary and sad, with an empty house that seemed too big for just Sarah and her mother. But Sarah’s mother, for all her stern rules and discipline, had kept her safe for twelve years. One day out on her own, and Sarah had almost gotten herself killed a dozen times over.

  Eventually, she gave up on sleep entirely and opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. The rafters were dull, brown, splintery wood that looked older than any wood should be. The horses were quiet for the most part, except for the occasional snort or pawing of the ground. Every once in a while, Sarah would breathe in too deeply and then wrinkle her nose. Was there anywhere in this valley where she would be safe from the smell of horses?

  “Kay,” she whispered finally. “Kay, are you awake?”

  Kay lay still for a moment, his arm draped over his eyes. Eventually he shifted, moved his arm, and looked at Sarah. “What is it?” The boy’s voice was quiet, but had no sleepiness in it.

  “Do you think Baelan will come looking for us here?”

  Kay gave it some thought and then shook his head. “No. Baelan doesn’t want to make too many enemies in the valley. If he beats up on this village much more, the commoners will form an army of their own, and there will be open war. It’s harder to push around an army than it is to bully individual people. Besides, what could he possibly get from me? I don’t even have the book anymore.”

  “But Baelan doesn’t know that. If Dax is right, the book is hidden just as well from the warlord as it is from us.”

  Kay pushed himself upright and sat cross-legged in the hay. “Yeah. Good thing the fey took the book, since I’ve done such a miserable job of taking care of it.”

  Sarah sat up, too, and pulled her knees up toward her chest. “You managed to keep it away from Baelan. That should be worth something, shouldn’t it?”

  “It should, but it isn’t. Not to me, at least. In the past day, I’ve lost my spellbook, my hat, and my staff. I’ve basically lost everything that made me a wizard in the first place and everything I have to remind myself of my father. So far, I’ve been nothing but a failure.”

  Sarah kicked at the hay until she could see the dirt underneath. Then she looked at Kay again. “There’s more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s got to be more than a book and a stick to make you a wizard. And there’s got to be more to your memories of your father than a few items he used to own. Look at me. I’ve been running around the countryside in nothing but some torn pajamas. But I’m still me, and I still remember my father, even if I don’t have the things he used to own.”

  Kay nodded grudgingly. “I guess you’re right about that. If nothing else, I have my memories. You do, too, I suppose.”

  Sarah said nothing.

  “What happened to your father?” asked the boy. The question came so unexpectedly that Sarah almost jumped. “You said you understood about mine. What did you mean?”

  Sarah swallowed and looked at the floor. When she spoke, she did so very carefully. “There was an… accident, of some sort. I wasn’t there for it. He was on the road all the time because of his job. One day, he just didn’t come home.” She blinked, and she turned the last words over in her mind. “And me… if I stay in this world… I won’t come home, either. My mom will be looking for me, waiting for me, but I won’t come home. I’ll have just… disappeared.” Tears started forming in her eyes at this realization.

  Kay put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I might not be much of a wizard, but I’m sure Dax and I can help you get home. We’ll find the book, for starters. If there’s any way for you to go back to your home, I’m sure it’s somewhere in there. We’ll even find a sage who can read it better than I can, if we need to.”

  Sarah blinked, and then she smiled crookedly at her companion. “Thanks. There’s a lot of adventures to be had in this place, but I’ll feel better when I know that there’s going to be an ending to the story, where I can go home and curl up in my own bed.”

  “I know how you feel.”

  “I guess even spending the night in the stables isn’t that bad.” Sarah felt a ridiculous little laugh build up inside her, and she let it slip out through her mouth. “It’s like a sleepover, I guess.”

  Kay grinned in response. “Sort of. But I won’t be sleeping. My father trained me well. I can stay awake for three or four days if I need to. A wizard has to have discipline, after all.”

  Sarah just rolled her eyes and shifted around in the hay until she was relatively comfortable. Before she closed her eyes, she looked next to her to see Kay slumped over, eyes closed and a small bit of drool coming out of his half-open mouth. “Discipline, indeed.” She chuckled quietly. She spent the next few minutes listening to the sound of Dax’s loud snores mixed with Kay’s quieter ones—a strange symphony, but one that somehow helped her get to sleep nonetheless.

  Dax woke them early the next morning. Kay grumbled and begged for a few more minutes of sleep, but Sarah grinned and jumped to her feet immediately. Even though she wanted to get home eventually, it was nice to wake up in the same place as she had fallen asleep.

  Dax had managed to sneak into the inn before sunup and get them a bit of food and some supplies for a journey, although he didn’t seem too happy about either. “The meals are, naturally, the worst they had on hand,” he said. “I’m sure at least one of the cooks spits into the porridge on a regular basis. And the supplies will only last us a little while. We’ll probably run out halfway through our journey and starve to death before we even find the fey. But we’d best make the most of what little time we have left in this sad little world of ours.”

  The porridge was, naturally, much better than Dax said it would be. It was a bit bitter for Sarah’s liking, but the cook had added some honey to it to sweeten the flavor. Likewise, the supplies were enough to last them for well over a week. Had they received anything more, they might have needed to steal one of the horses out of the stable. Unfortunately, Dax hadn’t managed to get them any new clothes, so Sarah was still stuck wearing her pajamas for the trip.

  “So where do you think we’re going?” she whispered to Kay as they snuck out of the stables and started following Dax through the village’s morning bustle.

  “Well, from what I’ve read about the fey, they live in pretty hard-to-get places. We could be looking through an abandoned mine or even the bottom of a lake.”

  “The bottom of a lake? How are we supposed to do that?”

  Kay shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll figure out a way. Maybe I’ll be able to remember some magic words from the spellbook somehow.”

  Sarah shot him a skeptical look. Knowing Kay’s luck with spells, he’d probably light them on fire in an attempt to allow them to breathe underwater.

  “Neither of you have to worry about going underwater or trekking through dreary old caves,” said Dax, holding his stomach as though his breakfast had given him indigestion. “We’re going somewhere much worse than that. We’re going to a circus.”

  Sarah and Kay exchanged wondering glances.

  “What’s so bad about a circus?” asked Sarah.

  “What’s so—” Dax’s face grew paler and more wrought. “Unbelievable. Have you ever seen a clown? Prancing all about, with that ghastly makeup and all that noise? Give me Baelan’s armies any day.”

  The more Sarah thought about it, the more she became convinced that Dax was dreadfully afraid of anything remotely fun. “I wonder if he’d be happier eating bugs,” she muttered to Kay.

  The circus was not what Sarah had expected at all. She was used to amazing spectacles, with loud noises, elephants, and magic tricks. The folk of Greystone Valley didn’t seem to have the money for magicians, dancers, or even a tightrope act. Instead, the circus, which lay about a mile outside the village, only had a few tents. Unused to walking and still worn out from yesterday, Sarah arrived red-faced and puffing behind Dax and Kay.

  “I’d offer you my staff,” Kay said with only a hint
of sadness in his voice, “but I don’t even know where it is.”

  The circus, despite being much smaller than Sarah was used to, had its share of fun, too. From inside the large canvas tents, crowds of people gave cheers and gasps at the acts. Outside, the grounds were alive with jugglers, storytellers, and singers. Other merchants were selling exotic spices and silks from the many lands outside the valley. Sarah found herself slowing down more than once to enjoy the sight of a juggling clown or a minstrel telling tales in tune with his harp. It was only at Dax’s urging that she moved along.

  “Don’t tarry too long with any of these people,” he warned. “They’re mostly just looking to steal hard-earned money from you. And the clowns… never, ever trust the clowns. Who knows what they’re plotting behind those painted smiles?” The old warrior looked at one of the white-faced juggling jesters and shuddered.

  “Do you think he had a bad experience with clowns once upon a time?” Sarah whispered to Kay out of the side of her mouth.

  “I think he’s had a bad experience with just about everything,” the boy answered. He seemed almost as distracted by the events of the circus as Sarah was.

  Finally, they entered the largest of the three tents at the grounds. Dax brought them to the front row and sat down. His leg shook as he waited, and he kept mumbling and patting his sword.

  “What’s the problem?” Sarah asked. “And why are we here? Who are we going to find that will lead us to the fey in this place?”

  “The person we’re looking for is in this act,” Dax answered.

  Before Sarah could ask any more questions, a dwarf-like man with a long waxed mustache stepped into the ring. Holding a paper cone in front of his mouth, he bellowed for the crowd to be silent. “If I may have your attention, please! We are now ready to introduce our star attraction! Please welcome to the arena Noron the beast tamer!”