The seven thunders, p.3
The Seven Thunders, page 3
“Wait, sir, Mr. Goodspeed!” Uncertain of the man and his intentions, Horace guardedly put his arms around his family. “I’ve been looking for you guys everywhere! Cutting it close, aren’t we? It’s a good thing I saw that black letter in your hand or the mayor might have sent bluecoats to find you. I’m surprised somebody didn’t try to take it! They’re quite valuable, the acceptance letters.”
“But it’s in Hermium’s name,” said Kehlia.
“Doesn’t matter! The Brotherhood Market will pay for anything Thunder!”
“Who are you?” asked Horace.
“I’m Ravius Trammel, executive assistant to Mayor Stroud. Mrs. Goodspeed, I presume? And you must be Hermium! Good, I see you have your things. The bluecoats have the pier blocked just before the ships, so we shouldn’t have to shout once we’re past them! Got to get you sorted before they let the sharks out anyway, if you get my meaning! All the newspapers are here! But don’t worry; they don’t bite—at least they haven’t yet,” Ravius said, snickering. “Out of the way, please!”
“I told you, no jumping the line!” said the man who wouldn’t budge. “Now I’m gonna have to take a pounding to ya!”
Ravius flashed his credentials. “Would you rather I call the bluecoats?” he said. The man relented, crossed his arms and grunted. “Official business, move please, coming through! Not now, madam! Inductee autographs after the ceremony, please!” Ravius led them on through the chaos, off the boardwalk and down the planks of pier five. Piers one through four were left of them, and six through nine right. Together, along with pier five, they jutted into the harbor like ribs to a spine.
“So many people!” said Horace.
“What’d you expect for a Send-off?!” said Ravius, a bit surprised by Horace’s ignorance as he answered him over his shoulder.
“Been ages! The lad’s never been one for crowds,” said Horace.
“You’re rare birds then! There are twenty-four acceptances this year,” touted Ravius. “Most was eight, and that was five years ago, hence the crowd! An egg on the plate compared to the other kingdoms, I grant you, but it’s a lot for Wey! Good press for the mayor too, with elections just over the bridge. You’re a quiet lad, aren’t ya? He’s a bit scrawny compared to the other boys,” he said to Kehlia. She smiled to be polite but ground her teeth in insult at the inference. “Must have been his noggin that got him in,” Ravius continued. “There’s the stage; we’re just over there! Now, your trip, Mr. Goodspeed,” Ravius said looking back, “is slated to take about two weeks. For others it’ll be shorter because they’re going to closer academies. That means some inductees will have induction dates sooner than yours. Not to worry. That’s planned. The Thunder schedules are staggered to accommodate the differences in travel. Understand?” Hermium nodded yes.
Ravius led them past the mid-point of pier five, which was the main and longest pier. The crowd thickened considerably. Hermium saw peddlers selling bobbles, another hawked pins and pennants for each Thunder. He smelled Acerbus Ale being poured from kegs. There was a hot-glazie eating contest. Kids ran around him with their Chocawackolickits on sticks. He even saw an old man open his box of special edition Jellie-Wellies in the form of the seven logos and give his wife the hidden surprise. And then he saw Mayor Stroud, readying for his speech behind a bizarre trolley made of large megaphones near the end of the pier. Reporters from the press pool drank their morning jolt of subavi, and quick-draw illustrators whittled at new pencils. Hermium blew out his cheeks and wished he was with Hargus at the Drunken Monk.
“Here you are, and not a minute to spare,” Ravius said in relief. “Mr. and Mrs. Goodspeed, if you’ll join the other parents over there, thank you . . . Hermium, that fine lady will lead you to the stand and instruct you on placement. Mayor Stroud will say some words to rouse the crowd. If there’s time, the press will ask questions. Now, when you hear the foghorns, they’re going to parade you and the others down the pier behind the marching band so you can board your ships and your parents can wave goodbye. And then that’s it. It’s blessings for fair winds and you shove off to your Thunder, in your case, the Hammerfeld. See that galleon flying the hammer? That’s your boat. The Selectery decided it was better for press if everyone left the same way. Can’t say I disagree. More dramatic. Plus, it’s faster. By the Queen’s Road you’d have to cut through the mountains. Excuse me. Senator Wuvain! I was told you were called back to the capital.”
While Ravius conferred with the senator, Hermium felt an elbow in his ribs and turned to see a smiling boy. “Goodspeed, right? Saw your name on the list. I met all the other hammerhands, so I figured it was you. Tayori Keelaroo, but you can call me Tay for short.” Tayori was bigger than Hermium by two heads, and by the thickness of his thighs he looked like he could take on a whole skaabash team.
“Hi, yeah, Hermium . . . Goodspeed,” Hermium said.
“Hermium, huh? We shake in Weathering County, where I’m from. That’s way up north near the other end of the Isle. You can see Echoes Reach from our farmhouse.” The boys shook hands. “Sorry for the sticky fingers—I love glazie,” said Tayori. “It alright if I call you Herm?”
“Herm, sure, yeah. I like Herm.”
“Oh, look, Horace. He’s making friends,” said Kehlia under her breath with a proud smile. “I was so afraid he was going stay to himself; you know how shy he is. Triunes, he is so much smaller than the other boys. His Woe Hammer is as big as he is. All I have to say is thank the Triunes he has a black letter. Anything but a red. I hate red, Horace.”
“I know you do. He’ll grow into it,” assured Horace. “We Goodspeed’s start off slow, but we shoot up like oaks.”
“I told you it would be so,” replied Kehlia. “This is what happens when a Weyean man marries a gypsy. The curse flows through the mother and the Triunes laugh as the Fates play with our string—his string, Horace. Just look at Hargus— he has no ambition; aimless.”
“Triunes help me then, because I love your Sarassii blood,” Horace said grabbing his wife and kissing her on the neck. “The boys are fine. Hargus will own the Monk one day, and Hermium will be a hammerhand.”
“Let go, you oaf! You’re embarrassing our son. Are you going to wear that hat all day?”
“Thinking about wearing it to the Monk tomorrow,” Horace said cheekily.
Hermium didn’t grimace long.
“Boys,” said Ravius, “this is Senator Vexus Wuvain. Senator, this is Hermium Goodspeed, going to the Hammerfeld, and, uh, Tayori Keelaroo—did I pronounce that right?—and Tayori is going to Glimmeroc like your son.”
“Wuvi,” urged Vexus, “come meet these boys.” Wuvi barely smiled and stood there by his father, skinny-nosed and brunette and with a noticeably athletic build, looking at Hermium like he was beneath him, just like his father. But when Wuvi looked at Tayori, he sneered. “Successful summer, boys,” said Vexus. “Wuvi . . . ” Vexus moved on while Wuvi stared at Tayori.
“Hayseed,” Wuvi said with disgust as he turned to join his father.
“Don’t mind him,” said Hermium. “He probably got dropped twice on his head when he was a baby.”
“Heh, I’ve had worse insults from my cousin Hibble on my birthday,” said Tayori.
“Is that . . .” Hermium pointed to what Tayori carried.
“Oh, my Aeriatis case? Do you want to look at it?” asked Tayori.
“Can I touch it?” said Hermium. Tayori opened the stiffleather, metal-cornered case like he was revealing a secret. The Aeriatis lay neatly folded inside. Hermium scrunched his face, touching it. “It feels . . . weird,” he said. “What’s it like on?”
“Uh, weird,” admitted Tayori. “A little tighter than I like, but the wielder rep says it’ll stretch over time. Wings are a good size. Case is cool. Can’t wait to learn how to use it. How’s your Woe Hammer?”
“Heavy,” Hermium said flatly.
“Goodspeed, Keelaroo,” waved the female aide, “time to line up. Stand there, yeah, the two of you. Not there, there,” she said placing them side-by-side, right near Mayor Stroud.
With the twenty-four inductees assembled around Mayor Stroud like a portrait, he approached his trolley of megaphones like an overstuffed, strutting flewepuffin, twisting his meticulously groomed, peppered mustache with a pasted smile. “Ahem,” he said working his jowls in doubt of the contraption in front of him. “Are we sure this thing is going to work?”
“Step closer, sir,” urged Ravius.
“Mmmm better work,” the mayor mumbled. “Dear people of the Isle, Weyeans, brothers, sisters, my friends!” he shouted. “Let us raise a glass to these young cadets-in-waiting!” The crowd erupted, hooting and hollering, down pier five and the eight others, to the bleachers, out to those watching from the hill, and the Queen’s Road. Hermium looked for his parents and found their proud faces as Stroud motioned for silence. People as far as the eye could see. Kids sitting on shoulders and pier posts. Clever vendors making ingots by renting the flat of their roofs as seats. A hush settled, and all Hermium could think of was home and Ajax, his Bremma Hound. He would have run away and become a clockmaker or smithy—he was pretty fair at tinkering—if he knew it wouldn’t absolutely destroy his mum and dah. Hargus’s voice popped in his head just then to remind him. Stupid Hargus.
Hermium’s mind trailed off there. At first, he thought it was rotten fish he smelled. But it wasn’t fish at all, or the normal odors wafting up from the harbor. Rotten, alright. But this rotten smelled of wet dog and came with something else . . . The only word he could think of was dread, the sort of dread you feel at night when you’re all by your lonesome and the werewolves are howling and the trees hitting your windows are goblins out to get you. That feeling.
Hermium’s heart raced. Things got fuzzy, for reasons he could not explain. His parents became a blur and so did everything around them. There, in the middle of the crowd, stood something . . . he couldn’t quite make out. Why couldn’t people see it? Why weren’t they running? His skin turned cold. He squeezed his eyelids shut, hoping it would vanish. But in the effort as he blinked, he saw a face. It was beastly, fangs dripping, with parts of its facial bones exposed. But it was the eyes, its milky-yellow eyes that gripped Hermium like shackles. He could not move or scream; he was utterly paralyzed. It lingered there, panting hoarsely, unnaturally, as you would imagine something gasping its last breath. Hermium felt it coming for him. The smell was thick with death and suffocating. This was his end.
“Hey, Herm,” nudged Tayori. “What do you think the Hammerfeld’s like? I bet it’s amazing. You’re going to be a hammerhand and I’m going to be an airjock. Has that hit you yet? Has me. Hey, you might see me soaring the skies one day.” Tayori beamed, and Hermium managed a wan smile. He looked back into the crowd, but the yellow eyes were gone. People laughed and ate and talked as normal. His parents waved at him. The only thing that stayed was the fear that he was now losing his mind.
“Ahem, settle down, please,” said Mayor Stroud. “As Mayor of Nis and Grand Marshall of Send-off for Rainbow Bay, it is my great honor to present to you today—on this day of days!—twenty-four of our brightest children. Our most brave. Our fastest. Our strongest. Our finest future leaders. I give you this year’s class of Thunder inductees from the Isle of Wey, and our gift to the security of our world. Ladies and gentlemen, will you put your hands together for . . . the first-years of the five-hundred and fiftieth induction of the Adjutrix Age! May the Triunes shine upon them! May they reach their Thunders with Triunespeed! And may we help them get there by casting our voices to the winds! Hip-hip!”
“Hooray!”
“Hip-hip!”
“Hooray!”
“Hip-hip!”
“Hooray!”
“Hah, yes, yes,” Stroud said following the applause. “They certainly deserve all our praise. Now, I think we have time for a few questions from our illustrious press.” Ravius signaled the mayor to keep the questions to two. “Um, yes, Lex! Lex and I just met each other today.”
“Thank you, mayor, Lex Burgis, Umbria Examiner. So, what do the good people of Nis think of them being chosen as one of the Selectery host cities for Send-off this year? Gotta be something, right, huh? Can’t imagine your quaint little town with its pink streetlamps is used to this kind of limelight.”
“Well Lex, I think you might be underestimating us Nis’ers. It’s true we Weyeans are typically quiet and reserved. We let the world turn and all, but our numbers do show that the Department of Adjudicators at the Selectery believes, quite ardently, I might add, that we have a lot to offer. We believe these twenty-four are the start of a new beginning. Yes indeed. And we expect that trend to continue. Folks around here, and all of Wey, know what we have on this isle. It’s the other kingdoms that are just now finding out. Yes, Napier, go ahead, please.”
“Napier Hotchkiss, Kingshire Post. Our readers in Sovereign City would very much like to ask a question of one of the kids, if you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” the shrewd Mayor Stroud said, retwisting his mustache. “Why Mr. Hotchkiss, what kind of mayor would I be if I assumed the fine members of the press corps were only here to see me? Your choice. Who would you like to ask?”
“Uh, you, the ginger one,” pointed Napier. “What’s your name?”
“Me, um . . .” Hermium turned his head to Senator Wuvain, who was standing smugly beside Mayor Stroud with his chin pointed upward, scrunching his nose at the smell of fish wafting off the harbor. The man made him uncomfortable; something about his demeanor reminded him of the way an owl would look at a rabbit. “Heh,” Hermium said nervously, “uhhh, my name is, uh, Hermium Goodspeed, sir.”
“And the color of your letter?”
“Black, sir.”
“What we the folks of Sovereign City want to know is: what’s it like to be you, a kid from the smallest kingdom in the Thunderlands, to be one of six-hundred and forty kids, out of hundreds of thousands across all the other six kingdoms that applied, and to have gotten a black letter from the Hammerfeld sitting in your postbox? What do you think about that?”
“Um . . .” Hermium loosened his necktie, ignoring his mother’s signal to stop. “Sorry. Uh, well . . . it’s a great honor to be of service to the queen and to be part of a Thunder. It’s every kid’s dream. I hope I make her proud . . . and my family,” he said.
Foghorns pummeled the air. The crowd of Weyeans went wild.
Ravius barked out orders. “The parents. Yeah-yeah, bring up the parents! Okay kids, we’re going to get you to your boats as soon as your parents or guardians are ushered up. Good. Okay, here they come.” He pushed them into single file. “Wuvi, Senator… Goodspeeds, next. Keelaroos, hurry, hurry, thank you. That’s right, the rest of you just follow in. Thank you. The procession is ready for you to lead, sir,” said Ravius, saluting Mayor Stroud as he searched for the band conductor to begin playing. “Yes, yes! Strike up the band already!”
“Balloon boat!” yelled an excited boy from the crowd.
“Dwarves on rigs!” yelled a girl, her eyes fixed on the craft in the sky.
“Balloon boat. There’s a balloon boat coming. Look how big it is,” went the whispers. “Are those Trog dwarves working the sails?” Person by person, the old, the young, men and women, pointed into the air. Bluecoats gathered in groups not knowing what to do. Keg keepers stopped pouring Acerbus Ale, hawkers put away their wares, others cursed the interruption as folks on the brink of making a purchase suddenly put their ingots back in their pockets. On every pier, out onto the boardwalk and beyond, word spread through the crowd of the balloon boat’s arrival like a contagious sneeze.
“Glorious Goodbye” petered out on a sour note as the balloon boat quickly descended.
“Get these people to stand back,” ordered Ravius. The bluecoats locked arms and strengthened their line and pushed everyone further back. The unexpected congestion forced some off the pier and into the water. All eyes were on the boat captain as he slowed the balloon boat over the main masts of the Thunder ships in a dangerous maneuver and hovered it with precision between where the parents stood and the stage. A pair of Trog dwarves working the deck hurried and tossed a long rope ladder over the rail, watching it fall the twenty feet until it dangled just off the board planks. A man wearing a gray uniform climbed down to the pier in a rush.
“Hermium Goodspeed!” he hollered. “Is there a Hermium Goodspeed here?”
“What’s this all about, soldier?” asked Mayor Stroud.
“Hermium Goodspeed, is he here?” the soldier repeated. Ravius shuttled Hermium and his parents forward on Mayor Stroud’s nod. “Are you Hermium H. Goodspeed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you his parents?”
“We are,” said Horace.
Senator Wuvain shouldered his way forward. “I am Senator Wuvain and I insist on knowing what this is all about.”
“I must agree with the Senator,” said Mayor Stroud. “This is very irregular. Do you realize the enormity of my obligation to our citizens to see that these children have a proper Send-off? You’ve put me in a terrible position here. These galleons are on a tight schedule. I insist you state your business, sir.”
The soldier huffed and stepped forward, keenly aware of the situation and the thousands of eyes that were on him. The harbor birds squawked. The breeze blew lightly. No one said a word. He approached Mayor Stroud to keep his answer private, not realizing how close he was to the man’s megaphones. “I’ve been sent by the Selectery to give a second letter to the boy,” he said.
Second letter. The phrase carried. “Two letters, the boy has two letters,” those closest chittered in shock, until it reached a man who made it his business to tell everyone. “The ginger boy has two letters!” he yelled.
Reporters instantly surrounded the Goodspeed family. Quick-draw illustrators worked feverishly to capture the unbelievable scene. “Mr. Goodspeed, what’s it like to have a kid with two letters?”
