The Warlock of Hymal, Book I: A Boy from the Mountains Read online

  When he finally reached the square again, Fodaj and his two sons were securing the loads on their ox carts. Most of the villagers were busy toting home their exchanged goods to their farms, there to inspect them thoroughly in peace and quiet. Nikko found himself practically alone with the traders on the muddy square.

  “Well, kid. A new order?” Fodaj asked when he saw Nikko approaching.

  “Yes. Here it is, sir,” Nikko replied, and he handed the man the list and the little sack of coins, at which Fodaj smiled warmly. After a pause, Nikko worked up the courage to ask, “Are you going to Hocatin?” He hoped, at least a little, that he might be able to move on with the trader.

  “That comes later, kid. First, we're heading over to Skingár. Ever been there?”

  “No,” Nikko answered. “How long will it take you to get there?”

  “To Skingár? A good three days with these heavy carts. But now we've got to get going.”

  Fodaj said goodbye with a smile, and set his heavily loaded wagon into lumbering motion. His sons followed with the other two.

  What a coward I am! thought Nikko. He had almost asked the trader—who seemed to like him—whether he might go away with him. But only almost. As so many times before …

  Later that evening, after he had driven the goats back down from the meadows, he joined his family for dinner. As usual, they had mostly goat cheese to eat. Cheese! How he hated the stuff! He couldn't stand the stink of it, nor could he choke it down without it making him feel sick. His big, blue eyes scanned the table, desperately searching out some edible alternative, and he was able to snatch the last wizened apple. Apart from that, there was only dry bread. As usual, he had come back from the high meadows too late. And as usual, his brothers and sisters had not left much for him.

  He tried to enjoy the unsightly piece of fruit and the bread, but it was a tough task. On top of that, the others at the table just shook their heads at him in disbelief. “What's the matter with our good cheese?” his mother needled him.

  Nikko did not reply, and tried to ignore the snickering of his siblings. Yet again, he felt out of place at the dinner table, because all the talk revolved around goat cheese, as it always did. The year was still young. There were plans to be made, a lot to prepare. Fodaj had left an even larger order than the year before: Vyldoro cheese was increasing in popularity in Hocatin, apparently. But Nikko didn't really listen to any of it, because he didn't really care a damn about the cheese—nor the farm, for that matter.

  He was lost in thoughts that had nothing to do with cheese when, without warning, someone elbowed him sharply in the side. “Are you deaf now too, dolt?” Gimu, his detested older brother, barked at him.

  “What is it?” Nikko bleated, pressing a reproachful hand to his side.

  “Simoj for you,” Gimu replied gruffly. Apparently, Nikko had not heard the knock on the door.

  Simoj, an annoying little red-haired runt with a face covered in unprepossessing freckles, was the youngest son of the westside farm, not far from Thorodos's ramshackle hut. No doubt the old man had sent for Nikko again.

  The little, red-haired mischief maker puffed himself up importantly when Nikko finally went to the door. But before Simoj could trumpet his message, Nikko, unimpressed, asked, “Thorodos?” at which the boy stuck out his tongue at Nikko and ran away, laughing childishly.

  It was almost dark when, a little later, Nikko once again knocked at the old man's door. Naturally, he got no answer. So Nikko, feeling rather dispirited, opened the door cautiously and immediately saw Thorodos sitting comfortably in his armchair in front of the blazing fire, drawing thoughtfully at his pipe. The heavy crate that Nikko had delivered earlier that day had obviously contained some new pipeweed as well: Thorodos had not smoked anything for weeks.

  “There you are,” the old man remarked offhandedly. “Brew us both a cup of hot tea, then come and join me.”

  The order—which sounded more like a request, in fact—surprised the lad. He had made tea often enough, to be sure, but he had never before joined the old man in drinking a cup. Thorodos was acting more strangely than usual. But he didn't think too much of it; he was already familiar with a number of the old man's quirks.

  Silently, he set to work filling the copper kettle with water, then hung the kettle on a bar inside the fireplace. While the water slowly heated, he began to prepare the tea. The tea canister was fuller than usual: apparently, the delivery from Fodaj had also included a new packet of tea. Nikko took two clay cups and put one of the aromatic leaves into each. Now, as the water began to simmer and stir, he observed the old man, who was still staring into the fire, and now and then puffing at his pipe.

  When the water finally reached a good boil, Nikko used a hook to remove the kettle from the fireplace and set it down on the table. Then he took a ladle and scooped hot water into the two cups before returning to the old man. Handing him the steaming cup, he pulled a chair over by the fireplace and sat down.

  Inhaling deeply, Nikko took in the spicy steam rising from the tea. Tea was not something he had drunk often; in the village, the herb was unknown. But from time to time, he had had the opportunity to sample it there in the old man's house. How far to the south does the land lie, where these leaves come from? the lad wondered, waiting for a reaction from the old man.

  “What are you planning to do with your life?” Thorodos said, finally breaking the silence. He sipped at his cup, then went on in a calm, almost grandfatherly voice, “Do you want to be a farmer, or a shepherd perhaps?”

  “Huh?”

  “It wasn't such a difficult question, was it?” the old man asked in response to Nikko's less than eloquent answer.

  “No, I don't want to be shepherd. Nor a farmer, no thank you,” the lad answered, trying to speak with conviction, despite the fact that he was only telling the truth.

  “Then you have to make a decision. Here and now,” said Thorodos calmly. “I'm going on a short journey. Come with me, if that's what you want.”

  “A journey?” Nikko was instantly enthusiastic. “Where to?”

  The old man nodded with satisfaction, and said, “To … Skingár. We leave tomorrow, at the crack of dawn.”

  “I'll have to ask my grandfather first,” the lad replied excitedly, and hoped very much that his grandfather would agree to his going away, and not raise any objections. Nikko did not understand what had just happened, but the thought of going on a journey electrified him. To leave the village … it was something he'd been aching to do for a long time!

  “Good,” the old man said. “Bring food, warm clothes and blankets.”

  “How lo—” Nikko tried to ask.

  But Thorodos grew surly again and cut him off in a gruff tone, “Enough! Go home and prepare yourself. Tomorrow at daybreak we leave!”

  Nikko knew perfectly well that he would get no further information out of Thorodos then. All he could do was say goodbye and head home again. Perhaps the old man would be more talkative the next day.

  On the way home, his head was filled with questions. The old man was behaving even more strangely than usual. Why this sudden departure? Did it perhaps have something to do with the coded letter? Why was Thorodos suddenly being so friendly with him? Why was he eager to have Nikko accompany him? What did any of it have to do with whether he wanted to be a farmer or a shepherd?

  Skingár, as far as he knew, was a mining settlement in an offshoot of the long valley that ended at Vyldoro. Fodaj, the portly merchant, had just set off for Skingár. Maybe the old man had simply forgotten to add something important to his order. Yes, that had to be it!

  When he arrived home a few minutes later, he found most of the others already in bed. Only his grandfather Vikko, a man marked by years of hard toil, was still up, sitting as he always did in the evenings, in the large kitchen on the ground floor, gazing into the dying embers of the fire, lost in thought.

  “Grandfather?” asked Nikko meekly; he didn't want to upset the head of the family and the
farm by startling him. The fact that he would not be able to tend to the goats for the next few days promised to cause enough trouble, and Nikko didn't want to add to that unnecessarily.

  “What is it, lad?” asked the old man absently, his eyes still on the fire.

  “Thorodos,” Nikko replied shyly. “He wants me to go to Skingár with him. Tomorrow morning.”

  His grandfather looked up, somewhat perplexed, but after a brief moment asked, “Is there a problem?”

  “The goats?” Nikko said, almost reproachfully, feeling that his work as a herdsman had just been unjustly maligned, as mundane as he himself found it to be.

  “If Thorodos wants you to do something, then you do it!” the family patriarch replied, in a voice that brooked no objection. “It's as simple as that.”

  Then, at Nikko's incredulous expression, he added more gently, “Don't worry about the goats. Both of us know that you are no shepherd. Now off to bed with you!”

  When the old man said those final words, Nikko could almost have believed that he heard an unaccustomed quavering enter his grandfather's voice, a voice that was normally so firm. But “Good night, grandfather,” was all he said in reply. Most of all, he felt a great sense of relief that the unplanned journey would not cause him any trouble on the farm.

  It was only in their communal bedroom, upstairs in the wooden upper floor of the house, that Nikko began to wonder what his grandfather might have meant when he said that Nikko was no shepherd and that both of them knew it. It had not sounded like an insult, which would have made it easy to explain. And he wondered, too—not for the first time—why the services he did for Thorodos mattered so much to his grandfather. He hadn't even objected to the unannounced journey to Skingár, although it meant that Nikko could not tend to his farm work for several days.

  When Nikko had finally nestled into his creaky bed, all of these questions were forgotten. He was too tired to let himself be robbed of sleep by the events of the day. Or by the dreadful chorus of snores from his siblings, led by Gimu.

  The night was short, but the sleep good, and Nikko rose with the rest of the family before sunrise. But he had no time that morning for breakfast with the others; he didn't want to risk getting back to old Thorodos too late. Instead, he helped himself from the breakfast table, quickly putting together a small supply of bread and sausage and a few juicy apples. On the way out he packed two blankets, and grabbed his hooded cloak last of all.

  “Here, take this too, lad,” his mother said abruptly, making Nikko jump just as he was about to leave the house. With a motherly smile, something that he had not been granted for a long time, she handed him a small parcel. “Stay well, my boy. Be careful!” she finally said, her eyes misty.

  Only then did it really come home to him that he would soon be further away from home than he had ever been before. Every day of his life had been spent close to the village, and every night he had slept at the farm. But he quickly banished such thoughts from his mind. His joy at finally leaving was too great.

  “Goodbye, mother. Don't fret. We're just going after fat Fodaj,” he said to ease his mother's fears, although he was beginning to doubt himself that the merchant truly was their goal. He would have liked to exchange a few words with his grandfather, but the old man was nowhere in sight, so Nikko set off along the path to Thorodos's cottage.

  Just on sunrise, he knocked at the door of the old man's small hut. To his surprise, Thorodos immediately opened the door and asked excitedly. “Did you tell them we were going off to Skingár?”

  “Who?”

  “Whom do you think? The village idiots!” Thorodos snapped.

  “I only spoke to my grandfather and my mother. But yes, they know that we want to go to Skingár,” Nikko reported.

  “Old Vikko? Good, then everybody in the whole cursed dump will know about it by this evening,” Thorodos said, and laughed a hoarse laugh. “Here, take this.” He threw a backpack to Nikko that could hardly be described as light. “Now let's be off!” he ordered. “We have a long journey ahead of us, after all.”

  At least Nikko now knew why the horrible old geriatric wanted to take him on this trip: as a pack mule, obviously!

  They left the village along the road heading north, and after a few minutes came to the fork in the road, where the paths led either eastward, over the mountains, or westward toward Hocatin, down into the valley. Nikko had only the vaguest idea of how long the march to Skingár would take. Fodaj had talked about three days. But on foot they would no doubt be faster than the trader with his heavy ox carts.

  So lost in thought was Nikko that he almost failed to notice that the old man, just a few steps ahead of him, did not turn to the west, but followed the road to the east instead. Of course, he thought that Thorodos had taken the wrong direction by accident. So he said, rather smugly, “Wrong way,” and made as if to turn back to the west.

  “How fortunate for me that I brought you along,” the old man teased him, without even turning around. “I almost went the wrong way. What would I do without you?”

  But Thorodos made no move to change direction, and went on following the dusty path to the east. When Nikko at first hesitated to follow, Thorodos shouted back to him, “Come on! I want to make it over the pass before sundown. Or would you rather spend the night up there?”

  Chapter 2: A Horrible End

  It must have been around midday when the two travelers finally reached the top of the pass. It was impossible to say with any certainty, though, for they had been walking in thick fog for many hours. At the top, Nikko could only see the sun as a wan shimmer that occasionally showed itself through the ponderous, drifting fog. It was an eerie atmosphere, and it cast the events of the previous two days in an even stranger light.

  Thorodos had not spoken a single word during the arduous ascent. The aging man had strode through the series of switchbacks that climbed the mountain with ease. Many times, Nikko had found it hard going just to keep up with him.

  Despite the hard slog, the lad had found the climb an opportunity to organize his thoughts. A lot had happened since the day before: first came the letter that he could not decipher. Then their sudden departure from the village. They were supposed to be heading for Skingár, but the old man had changed his mind at the last moment. Or was Skingár just a feint, a red herring designed to throw others off their true track? It would certainly fit. If old Thorodos was on the run, then everything would fit, in fact. Had the letter been a warning? A threat?

  Now that they had reached the pass, Nikko hoped that they might finally take a break. The long ascent had taken it out of him, and besides, he was hungry. He hadn't had any breakfast that morning, he reminded himself. Thorodos had not stopped once on the way up, and Nikko, exhausted, wondered how such an old man could muster up such surprising endurance.

  And, in fact, Thorodos did stop. He looked around, weighing up their situation. Wisps of fog filled the hollow between the two mountain ridges to the north and south, through which the ancient mountain path led eastward. Up here, at the summit of the pass, the winter snow still lay almost knee deep. It would still be several weeks before it melted down to the rocky ground beneath, where nothing but moss and lichens grew. Even the half-collapsed stone hut that crowned the crossing up there promised little respite. The roof had already fallen in on side, and the entrance was blocked by deep snow.

  “We should not stay up here long,” the old man finally said, and drank from his flask.

  “I'm tired and hungry,” Nikko protested. “I need a rest.”

  “Why not just make yourself comfortable in the snow and wait for nightfall?” Thorodos mocked, then reached out his flask toward the lad and ordered, “Here, take a good mouthful!”

  Nikko sniffed at the bottle tentatively. “What is it?” he asked, not bothering to hide his revulsion.

  “Drink!” the old man commanded disdainfully. Nikko sipped a few drops. To his surprise, however, the liquid tasted considerably better than it smelled.
When he swallowed the concoction, he immediately felt a pleasant prickling sensation that spread through his entire body. Suddenly, he was full of energy again, all the way down to his toes. Every trace of his exhaustion vanished.

  “Take another dram. The effect will last longer,” Thorodos said. “And eat something.”

  “What is this stuff?” Nikko asked enthusiastically.

  “Give me the bottle! Poor old men like me need it more than you,” the old man said, ignoring Nikko's question.

  Thorodos stuffed the flask back inside his jacket and immediately set off again at a march. Nikko quickly dug an apple out of his backpack, and then, with new energy and with fresh courage in his heart, he trotted after the old man.

  At least one riddle was solved. No wonder the old man had completed the difficult ascent so easily. But the drink threw up more questions than it answered.

  They made only slow progress through the knee-deep snow in the hollow between the ridges. It was hard enough to make out the trail at all, but on top of that the way east seemed to descend more gradually, making it even more unlikely that the two travelers would be able to put the snow behind them quickly. In fact, after a short distance, the path actually began to climb again.

  When they reached the top of what Nikko hoped would be the last rise, the two travelers were rewarded with a sweeping view down into the valley in the east. Hymal. There it was, the unknown land, about which so many stories were told in the village. What would be waiting for them down there? From where they stood, they could make out little, for in the east the sky was already growing dim.

  “We have to get out of the snow before night. We move on!” the old man finally urged Nikko, and he took another draught from his flask.