The Shadowlands

2 – Keras

When Lief came to himself, the voice of the Pipe had faded and a great weight was pressing down on him. He pushed violently, and at last struggled into dazzling emerald light. Then Barda and Jasmine stirred beside him. As they sat up, the boat tilted under the shifting weight of millions of dead leeches.

The boat was rocking gently in shallow, pale green water that lapped on a sandy shore. Beyond the shore was a forest of fungus trees in soft greens and browns.

‘We are on Keras!’ Barda said slowly. ‘We must have reached the end of the Forbidden Way. We came out into the light, and all the leeches died.’

Suddenly shuddering, he scrambled out of the loaded boat, Jasmine and Lief close behind him. They plunged their arms and faces into the shining green water over and over again, as if to wash even the memory of the leeches away.

When they felt clean again, they waded to shore, heaving the boat after them. They pulled the craft onto the gently sloping sand and upturned it, emptying it of its vile cargo. Then Lief reclaimed his cloak and they moved on, into the green shade of the forest.

A sandy path wound through the trees. They began to follow it. Now and then there was the sound of a creature scuttling in the sand, but there was no other sign of life. The silence was eerie.

‘So, we are in the territory of the emerald,’ Barda said, in a casual but very loud voice. ‘Above us is Dread Mountain, where our friends the Dread Gnomes live.’

Lief realised that Barda was telling any unseen watchers to be wary of attacking them. Barda sensed, as he did, that the forest was not as deserted as it seemed.

They reached a clearing closely hemmed in by trees. Here the silence seemed thicker. The back of Lief’s neck prickled. He looked rapidly around, but nothing stirred.

Jasmine’s eyes flicked down to the great gems that studded the belt at Lief’s waist. The ruby and the emerald were undimmed.

‘The gems cannot be relied upon to give warning down here,’ Barda muttered.

‘So you have told me,’ said Jasmine. ‘But why is it so? The gems first came from deep within Deltora. Surely they should be more powerful here, not less.’

‘Who are you? Why are you here?’

The companions jumped back, drawing their weapons. The whispering voices seemed to have come from all around them. But the clearing was empty.

‘Answer!’

Jasmine drew a sharp breath and nudged Lief. Following her eyes, he looked up. A fiery sword hung above his head, point down. Two more swords hung over Jasmine and Barda. Sweat broke out on Lief’s brow. Clearly, the questions had to be answered, quickly and carefully.

‘I am Lief, king of Deltora, the land above,’ he said clearly. ‘My companions are Jasmine and Barda. Many of our people are enslaved in the Shadowlands, and only the magic of the Pirran Pipe will save them. The Plumes and the Aurons have each lent us their part of the Pipe. We have come to beg the people of Keras to do the same.’

There was a moment of great stillness. Then, abruptly, the swords vanished, and a large group of people appeared out of thin air.

Like the Plumes and the Aurons, the people were small, with pale eyes, long noses and large, pointed ears. Their garments were shimmering green, and a few, strangely, had yellow hair on their heads.

One of these, a woman wearing a Piper’s tall head-dress, moved towards the visitors. Green moths with glittering wings fluttered about the head-dress like a moving crown. A boy with a bony, eager face and a mass of spiky fair hair crowded close behind her.

‘Greetings, cousins!’ the woman said in a low, musical voice which held a hint of amusement. ‘I am Tirral, Piper of Keras. Please lay down your weapons.’

As Lief hesitated, there was a soft, rushing sound. The next moment his sword, Barda’s sword and Jasmine’s dagger were all lying at Tirral’s feet.

Jasmine and Barda lunged forward, but Lief flung out an arm to hold them back. He had seen what they had not. At the moment they moved, the green moths fluttering around Tirral’s head had changed to shimmering arrows, pointed at their hearts.

Tirral, who had remained utterly motionless, smiled.

‘Forgive our caution, cousins,’ she said. ‘You claim that the parts of the Pirran Pipe you carry were given to you, but it is far more likely that you took them by force.’

‘It may be more likely, but it is not true,’ said Lief, slowly dropping his arm. ‘Keep our weapons, however, if it makes you feel safer.’

Barda and Jasmine, their eyes on the hovering arrows, stepped back reluctantly.

The arrows shrank and changed back into moths. ‘Thank you,’ said Tirral calmly. ‘It would have troubled us to injure kinsfolk. Especially kinsfolk who have done what is proper, and brought with them a fine gift.’

‘Gift?’ growled Barda suspiciously.

‘Such a great quantity of bait, heaped on the shore!’ the eager-faced boy cried. ‘Ah, thanks to you we will have fresh-caught Seawing for weeks to come!’ He smacked his lips. ‘Seawing are delicious! And there is nothing they like better than leeches from the entrance to the Keras sea. If only we could—’

‘Gathering the leeches is a dangerous task, and we do it rarely,’ Tirral explained, cutting him short.

‘If we lit the tunnel—for just a few moments—’ the boy began.

‘We cannot light the tunnel, Emlis,’ said Tirral wearily, as if they had had this argument many times before. ‘The darkness and the leeches are our protection from the Aurons. Are we to risk daring our enemies to attack us for the sake of a little bait?’

‘I am surprised that you need bait for fishing, Piper, since your magic is so powerful,’ said Jasmine pertly.

Tirral smiled. ‘There are many ways to catch a fish,’ she said. ‘And if the fish you want rises to a simple bait, so much the better. Please follow me.’

She turned on her heel and moved away, ushering Emlis firmly before her.

‘I hope that we are not the fish in this case,’ muttered Barda as he, Lief and Jasmine followed, with the other Kerons close behind. ‘Are we guests, or prisoners?’

‘It is not far to go, cousins!’ called Emlis, craning to look at them over his shoulder.

‘Why do they call us cousins?’ said Jasmine, rather too loudly. ‘We are no kin of theirs!’

‘But you are!’ said Tirral, stopping where the path ended in a dense clump of trees. ‘Do you not recall your history?’ She turned to face them, and touched the wisps of fair hair that showed beneath her head-covering.

‘The Girl with the Golden Hair!’ Jasmine exclaimed, astounded. ‘Alyss and Rosnan! You mean…?’

‘Certainly,’ said Tirral. ‘After they settled on Keras, Alyss and Rosnan had many children. Those children grew up to marry Kerons, and have children of their own. And so it went on through the generations.’

‘Most of us have some above-worlder blood running in their veins,’ Emlis broke in. ‘Even those who do not bear the sign of the golden hair as I do.’ He ran his fingers through his wiry hair with obvious pride.

Tirral sighed. ‘And so we greet you as distant cousins, as our ancestors greeted Doran the Dragonlover, long ago,’ she said. ‘Doran was not surprised. It was the tale of Alyss and Rosnan which had brought him to the caverns in the first place.’

‘We were led here by the same story,’ Lief murmured.

‘And of course Alyss and Rosnan stopped on Keras!’ cried Jasmine. ‘The emerald cavern is the last before the grey place where they feared to go.’

‘But who would have thought that after so long there would still be a trace of them here?’ Barda exclaimed.

Tirral shrugged. ‘Blood is blood, no matter how thinly it is spread over the ages,’ she said. She raised her hand. The trees blocking the path vanished to reveal a large group of startled, guilty-looking children.

‘Bad little fish! Did we not tell you to remain hidden in the fruit store?’ scolded Tirral. ‘What if we had been a band of savage Aurons, come to eat you alive?’

She sounded very fierce, but hid a smile as the children scattered.

Now the companions could see that the clump of trees had concealed a village. Without speaking, Tirral led the way through the broad, tidy streets.

The village was large, light and pleasant. The houses were made of green fungus wood, thatched with dried seaweed. Fish swam lazily in ponds in almost every garden, and the children who had been shooed from the village entrance peeped from behind the garden walls.

At last they reached a large open space, in the centre of which a fire burned brightly in a deep cradle of stones. Woven mats were spread on the ground around the fire.

‘This is our meeting place,’ Tirral said, sitting down on one of the mats and signalling for Lief, Barda and Jasmine to join her. ‘Here Alyss and Rosnan told their story to our ancestors.’

‘Doran sat here too, in his time,’ put in Emlis, throwing himself clumsily down beside her. ‘It was Doran who brought the fire that burns here still.’

The other Kerons who had been gathering by the fire were all whispering and watching the visitors with interest. But none was as eager as Emlis. Quivering with excitement, he gazed at the visitors, drinking in every detail of their appearance. ‘That is the Belt of Deltora, is it not?’ he breathed, leaning closer to Lief. ‘Doran said much of its power.’

Tirral glanced at him with affectionate irritation. ‘This is my son, Emlis,’ she said. ‘He has more above-worlder blood than most of us, I think, for he longs to travel, and knows Doran’s tales by heart. Your arrival has pleased him greatly.’

The young man blushed and he ducked his head, muttering awkwardly.

‘Now!’ Tirral raised her voice slightly. ‘You are our kinsfolk and, according to Keron beliefs, it is our duty to help you if we can. Our part of the Pirran Pipe is precious to us, but we can well survive without it if we must. Our own magic is sufficient for our needs.’

The people around the fire murmured solemn agreement. Lief’s heart began to pound with excitement.

Then, with a stab of dismay, he saw Tirral’s face hardening.

Whatever she says of Keron beliefs, she does not want to give up her treasure, he thought. She has found a way to refuse us. A way her people will accept.

‘The Pipe will not be lost,’ he said quickly. ‘It will be returned to the caverns, I swear it!’

Tirral went on as if he had not spoken. ‘But also according to our beliefs,’ she said, ‘if you borrow something from us, swearing to return it, I may demand something of you to keep as a token of your oath. A thing that is as close to your hearts as our treasure is to ours.’

She smiled broadly, showing all her white, pointed teeth.