If anyone had told both Elisheva and her little brother Zev last year that they'd be sailing on one of those old ships across an entire ocean accompanied by a Royal family, an ex-pirate, a worldly scholar and a young prince turned into a wolf creature, they'd have called you crazy.
But that is exactly the circumstances.
Elisheva had filled in her little brother about her entire journey from escaping the prison camp into the wilderness to cross the Warren Downs to Glipwood Township where she'd met the Wingfeathers and their other friends. This also included her making enemies there too, and how she'd lost Zev's necklace – which proved to be a clue for the Fangs to identify her as the fabled Key.
From what those obscure Annieran legends tell, the Key is a visitor from another world who upon discovering the seal (usually someone with a heart of gold) is imbued with the ability to open and/or close portals to other worlds at will. Eventually, they are presented with the choice of either remaining home or leave their own world behind by choosing to remain in the world of their choice.
It sounds like the plot of some old 80's Fantasy novel. But here Elisheva was, at sea with Zev and their friends trying to put some distance between themselves and Gnag the Nameless.
Currently, she and her brother were sharing a bunk and blanket, having fallen over into slumber after sharing one of many stories with the Wingfeathers, Oskar Reteep and some crew members the previous evening to pass the time.
Elisheva shifted her position slightly, her heavy eyelids fluttering open as she gradually became aware of the dawning day.
Zev curled up beside her, lost in peaceful slumber. His arm was gently flung across her abdomen in a pose reminiscent of a freefalling leaf, limbs tucked in cozily. Turning her head, she saw Zev's face relaxed in repose, chest rising and falling softly with each breath.
As for Elisheva, she lay starfished out, limbs splayed in a less compact position. Even sleeping, her role as protective elder sister meant keeping close watch over her charge. She roused herself, assuming an upright posture, shaking off the remnants of sleep that clung to her weary frame.
Softly, a stray beam of morning sunlight peeked through a porthole, illuminating Zev's growing curls with a warm glow. Though dangers lurked abroad, in these private moments of rest between siblings, all seemed right in their little world.
Elisheva smiled, grateful for these small blessings amidst troubling times. With Zev nestled close, she felt bolstered to face whatever challenges each new day might bring.
"Hey, Slugger. Wake up, sleepy head." She sat up, gently shaking her younger brother.
"Huh? What?" Zev's eyes popped open.
"It's morning, let's check out the view."
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Zev followed her up on deck. An eerie quiet hung over the ship. That's weird. Exchanging a puzzled look, they went to the rail.
The ship creaked and fell silent again. Since the day they had sailed away from the Ice Prairies, the ship had seemed like a living thing. It groaned like an old man sleeping; it coughed when the sails lulled; it sighed when they tacked into a happy wind. The crew shouted and laughed at all hours of the day, and even at night the slapping of waves against the hull and the murmur of sailors keeping watch kept anyone from feeling lonesome.
And then there was the heartbeat of the ship: Podo Helmer, peg-legged grandfather to the Wingfeather children, he marched from fore to aft, starboard to port, the steady tap-chalk, tap-clunk of his footsteps beating deep into the night, keeping the ship alive and all its passengers with it.
But now the ship's heart had stopped beating.
"So why's it so quiet?"
Neither the odd calm of the waters, nor the silence of the crew, nor even Kalmar's absence was as troubling as the utter stillness of Podo Helmer.
Everyone was looking out at something. That's when Elisheva spotted it - a hazy plume in the distance, rising up from the horizon. "What is that billowing out there?" she wondered aloud.
For a moment, it looked like fog.
"It's smoke," Janner replied solemnly from beside Podo.
Elisheva gasped. "Smoke? But from where?"
All the maps Janner had ever studied sped through his mind. He saw continents and countries fly past, with their rivers and borders and forests. He saw Skree and the Phoob Islands and the wide expanse of the Dark Sea of Darkness, and then he saw in his imagination their ship approaching the Green Hollows in the east. There, just to the south of where Janner guessed they might be, was a little island off the northwestern coast of Dang.
Janner recalled the maps in his mind's eye, tracing their course. Coming to a realization, he uttered two words that made Elisheva's blood run cold.
"Anniera. The Shining Isle."
Elisheva had heard the legends, but to think the ill-fated kingdom still burned after nine long years left her stunned.
"Aye, lad. Nine long years," Podo said to Janner, "And it's still burning."
"To this very day?" Zev's eyes widened.
The Shining Isle was more than just a story to Nia. It was a memory. She'd actually walked there with the man she loved and had given birth to her three children there on that Shining Isle.
What evil could cause destruction so absolute, its scars refused to fade even with time? Elisheva felt her hand squeeze Zev's tightly, taking what small comfort she could in his presence. Some memories, it seemed, never truly died.
"Mama, how could it still be burning?" Leeli asked.
Nia's lips stiffened and her eyes filled with tears. When she didn't speak, Podo answered for her. "I don't know, lass. I suppose if you were determined to cinder everything in the land, it could take years."
"Nine years?" Kalmar asked.
Nia wiped her eyes. When she spoke, there was a tremble of anger in her voice. "Gnag has hate enough in his heart to melt the very foundations of the castle, down to the bones of the isle itself. He won't rest until Anniera sinks into the sea."
"But why?" Janner asked. "Why does he hate it so much? Who is he, even?"
"Good questions. I just wish we knew the answers." Elisheva said, her face in her hand. "Maybe then we can stay just a few more steps ahead of him."
"Who knows? When hate rages long enough, it doesn't need a reason. It burns for the sake of its own heat and devours whatever, or whomever, is set before. Before the war, rumor came to us about an evil in the mountains—but Throg is a long way from Anniera. We never imagined it would come to us." Nia closed her eyes. "By the time we realized the Fangs were after Anniera, it was too late. Your father believed the Syrian Strait would protect us—or at least give us time to mount a defense." She shook her head and looked at the children. "The point is, Gnag seemed to come from nowhere, like a crash of lightning. He wanted Anniera. He wanted us dead."
"But he doesn't want us dead, Mama," Leeli said. "We only got away because he wants us alive."
Zev gulped nervously. On the day the ship had sailed away from the Ice prairies, he'd listened intently as his sister and the Wingfeathers had caught him up on their journey. Gnag, the Nameless, it seemed, was some mysterious tyrant intent on taking over all of Aerwiar.
Elisheva's little brother shuddered to think of that malevolent force still raging after so long. But what unsettled him most was the memory of Elisheva confiding how Gnag now sought her too - the mysterious "Key" from legends.
What's more, it was this nutcase who had ordered the Fangs to drag the Bennet family right out of their homeworld and trapped them.
Zev grasped Elisheva's hand tighter.
His sister was in more danger than he'd imagined. Not only did Gnag seek the Jewels of Anniera, but he especially lusted for Elisheva's new gift most of all.
Nia sighed. "You're right. I can't make sense of it, except that he knows what I've known since you were born." She dropped to her knees, turning her back on the smoky sky and looking up at her three children's faces. "He knows you're special. You're more precious than you can imagine. It seems that Gnag built his army of Fangs out of people."
"That part still gives me the creeps." Zev said uncomfortably. Elisheva trembled, hugging herself.
Kalmar looked away. His wolf ears lay back like the ears of a frightened dog, and Nia pulled him closer.
"But when he attacked Anniera, I saw monsters so awful I can't describe them. Gnag has uncovered old secrets. Secrets about the stones and songs, secrets I think Esben—secrets I think your father knew something about." She said.
Every time Janner heard the name Esben, his stomach fluttered. It was still hard to believe his father had been a king. But all this talk about power and secrets and stones was frightening.
It was true that the three children could do things no one could explain. When Leeli sang or played, Janner had heard the sea dragons in his mind. Their words had buzzed in his head like bees in a hive. Sometimes Leeli's song connected the siblings even when they were miles apart, and Kalmar seemed to be able to see- to really see-what no one else could, especially when Leeli sang.
Elisheva could only manage to hear and see what they did whenever she was in close proximity to the Wingfeather children, which could be attributed to her status as the Key.
Several times now something had awoken within them, something they couldn't explain. Nia had told them it was a gift of the Maker, something they couldn't—and shouldn't-control.
But if they couldn't control it, how could Gnag? And why did he want to? How could he know something about them that was mysterious even to their mother?
"How do we know the Green Hollows is still safe?" Janner asked.
"The Hollowsfolk are strong, and they've never liked outsiders. If anyone has kept Gnag and his armies out of their country," Nia said with a smile, "it's my kinsmen."
"And once Gnag figures out we're there?" Janner asked. "What then?"
"I don't know. But the more Gnag seeks you, the more convinced I become that he's afraid of you. Afraid, children. So take heart. After the battle in Kimera, I have a feeling Gnag might have finally learned to leave the Jewels of Anniera alone."
"And if he isn't finished with you," said Oskar, "he'll look everywhere but right under his nose. If I were Gnag, I'd imagine you three ran west, past the edges of the maps, or south, past the Sunken Mountains-as far away from Dang as possible. But here we are, slipping right into his own backyard."
"The Green Hollows is Gnag the Nameless's backyard?" Kalmar asked.
"The southern border of the Hollows is the Killridge Mountains, where they say Gnag sits among the peaks in the Castle Throg and broods on the world's destruction," Oskar said.
This clue made both Elisheva and Zev's ears prick up. Most likely that's where Gnag the psycho held their father captive.
"But the mountain range is huge," Nia said. "And treacherous. There's no way through. The only people crazy enough to live there are the ridgerunners."
"Ridgerunners! Pah!" said Oskar, trying to sound like a sailor. He spat, but instead of a nice, dense, seaworthy glob plopping into the sea, it was a spray of white spittle, some of which landed on Podo's arm.
"Keep practicin', old friend," Podo said, wiping it off. "Make sure ye get the bubbles out before ye spit. And remember, it helps if ye snort. Improves the consistency. Watch."
Podo reared back and snorted so long and loud that the whole crew took notice. They watched with admiration as Podo launched a dollop of spit that sailed an astonishing distance before splooshing into the waves. The Kimerans nodded and murmured their approval.
Podo wiped his mouth. "Sorry, lass. Ye have to seize the teachable moments, you know. Carry on."
"As I was saying," Nia said with a withering look at Podo, "the ridgerunners are the only ones who live in the mountains."
"But the ridgerunners serve Gnag the Nameless, don't they?" asked Leeli. "Zouzab does."
"The ridgerunners serve themselves," Nia said. "The only reason Zouzab was in Skree at all was because Gnag captured him. Or maybe bribed him with fruit."
"They do have a thing for fruit," Oskar said.
Janner thought about Mobrik, the ridgerunner in the Fork Factory. If it hadn't been for three apples, Janner would never have been able to bribe the little man, and he and Zev would probably still be covered in soot at the shearing station with Sara Cobbler and the others.
The thought of Sarah Cobbler made Janner's heart skip a beat. Every day since he had escaped the factory, he had thought of her bright, courageous eyes. He was haunted by the memory of her trapped behind the portcullis, in the clutches of the Overseer and Mobrik, while he clattered into the night on the carriage. But what could he do? He was on the other side of the world now. Even if he were still in Dugtown, he wasn't sure he could help her.
Zev then piped up, with a gesture akin to a referee signaling for a time-out. "Whoa, whoa. Wait a sec, what are ridgerunners?"
Janner then addressed Zev, "You remember Mobrik back in the Fork Factory? That's what he is. A ridgerunner. They're a human-like race that live mainly in the Killridge Mountains."
Elisheva pursed her lips, "Zouzab's one too. They're small, only about 4 feet tall, with pointed features. They move really quickly - climbing, jumping, sneaking around. It's like they're squirrels or klipspringers in human form."
Nia then explained, "They have a quite sweet tooth too. Every year Ridgerunners swarm down from the mountains to steal fruit from the Green Hollows orchards."
Zev frowned, "They steal all that fruit? Why?"
Elisheva answered her little brother, "Ridgerunners just love fruit. Any kind, anyway - they'll eat it. It's like their favorite thing. Even to the point of betraying anyone who was once nice to them like Mr. Reteep was to Zouzab. Take it from someone who knows, Slugger." she said with a glower at the memory.
Zev raised an eyebrow. "So basically, they're thieves but they only want fruit."
"But couldn't Gnag just go around the mountains?" Kalmar asked Nia.
"You don't have to worry about that either. The rest of the Hollows is surrounded by a deep, twisted forest. They call it the Blackwood. As far as we know, no one's ever survived it. It's thick with ancient trees, and terrible things live there. The sheepherders who wandered close enough to see the forest's edge always returned with the most awful stories. Stories about monsters."
Leeli shuddered.
"What kind of stories?" Janner asked.
"What kind of monsters?" Kalmar asked.
"The Hollowsfolk call them the cloven. Split and twisted things. The scarytales said that Ouster Will was a cloven." Nia shivered.
"What are the odds of the monsters being new animal species?" Zev wondered.
"Weirder things have happened." Elisheva shrugged. "But they could also turn out to be some lethal predatory animals dating back to..."
Nia reassured. "The point is, Gnag won't come through the Blackwood, either. Not even Fangs would be so foolish. The Green Hollows is as safe a place as we'll ever find."
"If there's anything left of it, lass," Podo said. "Maker knows you're right-the Hollowsfolk are a wiry bunch and more than capable of keeping the Fangs at bay. But it's been nine years. The world has changed. No one ever thought Anniera would fall, either." Podo looked south with a surly eye.
From the look on his face, Podo was troubled by memories of Anniera, where Wendolyn - the Wingfeathetr children's maternal grandmother had been killed by the Fangs of Dang.
One of the Kimeran crewmen shouted, "Captain! Something's coming!"
To be continued…
Author's note: Told you I wanted to get started on this as soon as possible. Expect a couple twists and turns for this Arc, some which may surprise you.