TRAVELLER (Book 1 in the Brass Pendant Trilogy) (26 page)

“The local children used to jump into the ocean from up here,” he said, and I frowned as I stepped closer to him and looked straight down to the waves which swelled against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

“Why on earth would they do that?” I asked him, as I shuddered.

“To prove their bravery. They tried to get me to jump too, but I decided they could call me a coward as many times as they wanted. There was no chance I was jumping from up here,” he said with feeling. I smiled.

“You’re not a coward. I heard you kill giants with your bare hands,” I said, and Morgan grinned.

“That’s true,” he agreed cheerfully, and I laughed as the ocean breeze blew my hair away from my face. Morgan’s smile faded suddenly and he took a step away from me.

“We’d better go,” he said quickly, and I watched him jump from the bare rock back to the sandy path before I followed him back down the headland track…..

Travelling through time dried my hair and, when we arrived back at the Quest house a few moments before midday, the air patterns blew the long strands of my hair wildly across my face. I tucked my hair hastily behind my ears and, as soon as the pain faded and the temperature rose, I walked quickly out of the centre of the marker without looking at Zurina at all. She stood waiting for us beside the marker with her arms folded.

As soon as I entered the Quest house, the strong smell of antiseptic herbs hit me suddenly and as I walked past the first aide room on the way to my locker, I paused. Evangeline was sitting on the table in the middle of the room and I caught a glimpse of her through the half open door. Marko was attending to a wound on her hand and Caspian stood patiently beside her. He still had his pack over his shoulder. For once, Caspian didn’t look deep in thought though. He looked concerned instead and he spoke to Evangeline who half smiled at him before wincing in pain. I continued towards my locker and Morgan followed me into the locker room. Dominic and Seth followed us into the room too, and Erin and Imogen joined us just a few minutes later. It was quiet, but crowded, at the lockers and only Erin and Imogen spoke softly together. Morgan and I cleaned, waxed and replaced our bows before returning our quivers of sharpened arrows, and Dominic and Seth left the room just before I placed my emergency cylinder back on the shelf in my locker. I had to shake some sand off my backpack before returning it to my locker and I glanced around me guiltily as it sprinkled onto the floor. I had to shake sand out of my boots too and Morgan watched me and grinned. We went upstairs together then and, when I entered my dorm room, I only had time to comb and braid my hair, and wash my face and hands before I ran downstairs to sit beside Morgan in the dining room. Everyone else, except for Caspian, was already there.

Evangeline had a thin strip of thick cotton wrapped expertly around her hand now and we’d all automatically sat down in the same chairs we’d sat in during orientation. Everyone looked weary, and as we waited quietly at the table, I could hear Marko setting meal dishes onto the trolley in the kitchen.

“Who’s missing?” asked Dominic impatiently, as he glanced towards the kitchen too. He was obviously hungry and he knew Marko wouldn’t serve the meal until everyone was present at the table. Seth looked at Evangeline impatiently.

“Is your servant partner ever on time?” he asked her, as he frowned. Evangeline looked at Seth and narrowed her eyes slightly.

“Caspian is never early, but he’s never late either. Don’t fret. He’ll be at the table on time,” she said waspishly, and I smiled to myself. I guessed Caspian had proven to be useful to Evangeline when it came to surviving the dangers of challenge quests and it was Evangeline’s way to give him some respect in return for whatever it was he’d done for her.

Sure enough, Caspian joined us right on time and, just as he fitted his wad of parchments into his inside jacket pocket, the midday meal was served. As we began to eat, to break the awkward silence, Evangeline told us she’d been injured by a flying glass bottle. She and Caspian had been dropped into one of the looting riots which were common during the time of the meltdown. Imogen and Erin told us they’d found themselves in the middle of an earthquake and had narrowly missed being swallowed by a crack in the earth. Dominic and Seth had been dropped into the middle of a desert and it sounded like it was their good fortune that a camel caravan had passed by their marker in the early hours of this morning and given them some much needed water to drink. I noticed they both drank several more cups of water with their lunch.

“So, what happened to you two? You don’t look like you’ve suffered too badly,” asked Imogen, and by the slightly scornful edge to her tone, I guessed she presumed I’d been given an easy quest since I was the daughter of the King. I smiled at her sweetly.

“The town at our marker was in the process of being attacked by giants,” I said, and everyone at the table stopped eating and stared at us.

“What did you do your Highness?” asked Seth worriedly, as he frowned.

“Livia took down three of them at a time with her arrows.” Morgan spoke before I could reply and I could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“And Morgan killed the rest of them with his bare hands,” I added cheerfully, and I grinned at him while everyone continued to stare at us.

“Oh….ah……well……good for you, your Highness,” stammered Seth, and I could tell by the glances between them that Erin, Imogen, Seth and Dominic weren’t sure whether to believe us or not.

Across the table from us, Caspian took out his wad of parchments and his writing stick and I watched him make a note on one of his pages. He looked deep in thought again and I guessed he hadn’t heard a word of the conversation, and I doubted he was interested in where any of us had been dropped.

After the midday meal, Morgan went next door to play handball with the off duty marker guards. He’d introduced himself to the two guards who’d eaten the midday meal with us and they’d told him the other guards were playing and he’d be welcome to join them. I went up to the dorm room and unpacked my clothes, and I folded them neatly as I placed them into the wooden chest at the end of my bed. Evangeline, Erin and Imogen all dozed on their beds and I guessed they hadn’t had much sleep last night. I frowned to myself as I wondered, for the first time, if Morgan had slept at all or if he’d stayed awake all night trying to think of a plan for us while listening to the giants. While the other girls slept, I took the opportunity to slip Josh’s music cartridge beneath my mattress and, when I’d finished unpacking, I went down to the dining room and wrote a message to the King and Queen of Aldiris. I let both my mother and father know that I’d passed my first challenge, but I doubted they’d care. My mother would wonder why I’d sent a message to tell her something that was simply to be expected of me and my father would probably never read his. It would become lost beneath the battle plan parchments which, as far as I knew, always littered the surface of his desk.

I gave my message parchments to one of the marker guards in the courtyard and he bowed slightly before stashing my messages in his jacket pocket.

We were supposed to meet Zurina in the sitting room at set four, but when Morgan finished playing handball against the guards, there was time for us to go for another walk together around the neighbourhood. This time, the front door opened to Morgan’s voice command and I think he was a little disappointed that he didn’t get to play with the house control panel again.

“Dante and Shania are still in that cave,” I said, as we walked slowly along the street. Morgan looked at the row of silent houses behind their tall fences and then up at the neon mist that covered the sun.

“Yes, but, unlike these people, they get to come out in a week,” he said quietly, and I nodded slowly.

“We get to stay here for a whole month,” I said, and Morgan grinned.

“We should fail a few challenges when we get close to the end and then we can stay here longer,” he said, and I smiled.

A silent delivery vehicle sped past us and I watched it pull up outside a house and deposit a plastic wrapped box over the top of the fence. We looked at each other and shook our heads. These people needed a day at the beach.

We walked almost to the gate of the fenced estate and we passed only one other person. A few times I saw blinds move out of the corner of my eye and I wasn’t surprised. Some of these people had probably never heard laughter before. When Morgan pulled his pendant from beneath his shirt to check the time, we were disappointed that we had to turn back. On the way home, we tried to guess the nature of our next quest and Morgan made me laugh as he pretended to be Zurina.

“You will go to the Discovery Era, to the year of my birth, and you will try to find my sense of humour. It was lost there, many, many centuries ago and if you return with it you will fail, as will your partner and every quester from this day on who dares to visit my house,” he said, in an exact copy of Zurina’s commanding tone.

Not long after this, at exactly set four, we waited for Zurina in the sitting room and when she marched into the room, I couldn’t look at Morgan at all because I was trying hard not to laugh. Zurina glared at all of us and, when she folded her arms, my urge to laugh disappeared suddenly. She walked slowly around the room, as was her way, and when she was sure she had our full and undivided attention, she spoke to us in her usual, brisk manner.

“Tomorrow you will travel to the Ancient Era year of 1433 for a partner graded challenge. The marker will be in herd dragon territory and your quest will be to retrieve an egg from a dragon’s nest and return with it to this house. Bows will be allowed but, as I’m sure you are aware, you are forbidden to kill or injure a dragon. The bows are for self defence against the other ancient animals known for their aggression in that part of the world. These animals include common unicorns, tawny skinned tigers, giant ground lizards, and running birds. Your challenge will be to take care of the egg you have retrieved overnight, before returning the dragon’s off spring to the same nest the next day. I will mark your eggs tomorrow night and I will scour the area tomorrow afternoon to check the dragons’ off spring have been returned to their nests. We will know this has been the case when we see the off spring have not been rejected,” said Zurina, and I glanced at Morgan. I recalled he’d heard a rumour about this particular challenge.

“May your quest be short, and your rewards be ever long. You’ll all leave together at rise nine; straight after the morning meal and you will return with your egg by sundown. Good set,” finished Zurina briskly, before she strode from the room. I looked at Morgan as the others began to discuss the upcoming quest.

“Come with me, Liv,” he said quietly, as he indicated towards the hallway and I followed him out of the sitting room and back to the dining room.

“Good; there’s still plenty here.” Morgan sounded pleased as he picked up some parchment from the stack in the basket, and a writing stick as well, from the glass jar.

“You need to send a message to Mirren,” he said to me quietly, and I frowned. The message service was to Aldiris, not to +2013. Morgan saw my frown and he grinned. “One of the guards here will take it to her tonight, and they’ll wait for a reply. Marker guards travel whenever they can find an excuse. They need to relieve their boredom and they love to catch up on the gossip at other markers,” he said, and he was still speaking softly. “I have some coins from a few different eras which might help persuade them as well,” he added cheerfully. I shook my head.

“What’s the message?” I asked him, as I took the parchment and the writing stick from his hands and sat down at the table. He sat down beside me and leant towards me as I addressed my tutor formally at the top of the page.

“Ask Mirren if she knows how to tell when a dragon egg is close to hatching and ask her what else she can tell about dragons and their eggs. I know dragons begin to nest during the summer and I know their eggs hatch during autumn, but we need to know more because this challenge won’t be easy. I’m almost positive it’s impossible to return an egg to a dragon’s nest, but I definitely don’t want to babysit a live dragon overnight,” Morgan said with feeling, and I agreed with him wholeheartedly on that.

“Do you think Mirren will know anything about dragon eggs?” I asked Morgan doubtfully. He nodded.

“Mirren obviously spent her spare time at the city zoo when her students were attending school in +2013, hence the relationship with the local zoo keeper. I’m guessing she has an interest in animals, and she was first in her community class of scholars, so I hope she’s a good chance of knowing some obscure facts about dragons,” he said, and he read over my shoulder as I wrote the message on the parchment. I handed it to him when I was done and he raised his eyebrows and grinned again as he left me to do his thing with the marker guards. I had no doubt he would get this message to Mirren tonight, and probably a reply too. I shook my head again as I replaced the writing stick and wandered back into the sitting room.

The others had taken the Ancient Era parchment scrolls from the cupboards and they were looking through them for dragon facts. They’d found a section about herd dragons but it only outlined basic facts about them, which most of us already knew. I listened to Dominic telling Imogen his father had told him a dragon can’t smell anything but the smoke in its nose. I’d heard that too, but, as far as I was concerned, it didn’t hurt to be downwind of a dragon. You could never be too careful when it came to dragons. Herd dragons were cumbersome and didn’t move fast, but their claws were sharp enough to cut through tree trunks and their teeth sawed through wood with no trouble at all. Normally, herd dragons were docile but, while nesting, a mother herd dragon would attack anything she decided was a threat to her nest.