Reiffens choice, p.1
Reiffen's Choice, page 1
Reiffen's Choice
The Stoneways, Volume 1
S. C. Butler
Published by Mutable Books, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
REIFFEN'S CHOICE
First Mutable Books edition. August 31, 2020.
Copyright © 2006 S. C. Butler.
Written by S. C. Butler.
MENNON’S RIDE
Copyright © 2020 S. C. Butler.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Also by S. C. Butler
Contents
VALING
Chapter 1 | Bear and Boy
Chapter 2 | Skimmer
Chapter 3 | The Feast
Chapter 4 | Inside the Rookery
Chapter 5 | The High Bavadars
Chapter 6 | The Standing Stones
ISSINLOUGH
Chapter 7 | Ferris and Giserre
Chapter 8 | The Three
Chapter 9 | The Road to Grangore
Chapter 10 | An Underground Evening
Chapter 11 | The Sun Road
Chapter 12 | The Upside-Down City
Chapter 13 | Molio
USSENE
Chapter 14 | Balloons Below Bryddlough
Chapter 15 | The Northway
Chapter 16 | Durk
Chapter 17 | Bugs, Burns, and Bones
Chapter 18 | Carrot and Stick
Chapter 19 | Redburr’s Reason
Chapter 20 | Redburr’s Rage
Chapter 21 | Losses in the Dark
Chapter 22 | Thimbles
Mennon’s Ride
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About the Author
For my parents and my children. And thanks to Daniel Dos Santos for the marvelous covers.
Also by S. C. Butler
The Stoneways Trilogy:
Reiffen's Choice
Queen Ferris
The Magicians’ Daughter
Watch for more at www.mutablebooks.com.
“For down within the caverns blind
The mansions of the Dwarves are mined;
The lamps of Uhle glow undefined
From deep within cut hearts of stone...”
Contents
Valing
Chapter 1: Bear and Boy
Chapter 2: Skimmer
Chapter 3: The Feast
Chapter 4: Inside the Rookery
Chapter 5: The High Bavadars
Chapter 6: The Standing Stones
Issinlough
Chapter 7: Ferris and Giserre
Chapter 8: The Three
Chapter 9: The Road to Grangore
Chapter 10: An Underground Evening
Chapter 11: The Sun Road
Chapter 12: The Upside-Down City
Chapter 13: Molio
Ussene
Chapter 14: Balloons Below Bryddlough
Chapter 15: The Northway
Chapter 16: Durk
Chapter 17: Bugs, Burns and Bones
Chapter 18: Carrot and Stick
Chapter 19: Redburr’s Reason
Chapter 20: Redburr’s Rage
Chapter 21: Losses in the Dark
Chapter 22: Thimbles
* Mindrell’s Ride *
VALING
Twelve years since Dwarves broke the rule
of dark below and, led by Uhle,
emerged to moon and sun.
Twelve years since the Wizards fled
and left behind so many dead
beside the torrent’s run.
Twelve years since a princess fair
brought forth in joy wed with despair,
from widow’s weeds, a son.
Twelve years since, in one boy’s life.
Now Wizards rise with fire and knife.
The Three shall seek the one.
- Mindrell the Bard
Chapter 1
Bear and Boy
One warm spring day in Valing, a large, fat bear sunned himself on the gray stone of the Neck. His russet coat gleamed, sleek as a nokken’s: the long mountain winter didn’t seem to have bothered him at all. Half-asleep or half-awake, he lay comfortably between the orchard and the top of the cliff, where the scent of the apple blossoms was almost as lovely as the hum of the bees. Behind him the lake glistened a deep and sparkling blue. Except for a long plume of spray from the falls to the west, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Beyond the orchard, however, the Manor was much more active. It was First Feast that night and everyone was busy with three more tasks than usual. The kitchen was filled with the bustle of crockery and cooking; men and women darted like bats on a summer evening across the long porches that looked out over the orchard. In the schoolroom, the children squirmed hopefully as tantalizing smells drifted in through the open windows from the scullery below.
Avender watched from his seat at the window as one of the undercooks rolled a barrel of slops into the yard. The pigs in the pen next door poked eager snouts through the fence and grunted at the fresh stains on the undercook’s apron. But, when Tinnet returned to the kitchen without feeding the hogs, Avender switched his attention back to the front of the schoolroom. Nolo was seated on the desk before the class that morning instead of their regular teacher, and Avender was paying complete attention. He always listened when Nolo spoke, no matter how many times he had heard the story. That was because Nolo was a Dwarf, and Avender, along with everyone else in Valing, was always interested in anything having to do with Dwarves.
Sunshine streamed through the windows, brightening even the dull iron circlet Nolo used to hold back his wild gray hair. The younger children in the front row, not used to seeing the Dwarf so closely, stared at his broad, bare feet. Each toe looked like a knob of gnarled stone. But they were still quite clearly toes because every once in a while Nolo wiggled and stretched them,or, if he had an itch, scratched between them with his equally stony fingers.
“Then what happened?” asked little Atty Peaks from the front row. Avender knew the younger boy was very much in awe of the Dwarf’s toes, because that was how he had felt at Atty’s age. Probably Atty had heard that Nolo could squeeze pebbles to dust between them, and was desperate to see him do it.
Nolo glowered good-naturedly at the small boy. “If you’d pay attention, lad,” he said, “and stop asking so many questions, you might hear what I’m saying.”
Half-smothered laughter swept through Atty’s classmates. The Dwarf looked up. Raising his heavy eyebrows at the older students in the back of the room, he warned, “None of that, now. Atty’s doing the best he can. He’s not heard the tale before. What he knows about Mennon or Wizards wouldn’t half-fill an ore car.”
The younger children, safe in the schoolroom on a beautiful spring day, shivered delightedly at the mention of Wizards. Avender and the older ones pretended not to care.
Away in the orchard the bear lifted his snout to sniff the breeze. Something much more delightful than the scent of apple blossoms was now drifting his way. His black nose wiggled. His small eyes opened. Heaving himself up from his comfortable rock, he began sniffing the air with real interest.
“Of course,” Nolo was saying back in the classroom, “Mennon was very interested in Issinlough when he woke. Only we Bryddin had ever seen our shining city before, or the Abyss, for that matter. When Mennon first learned to speak he went with Uhle to the bottom of the lowest tower in the city and pointed at the blackness below. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Why, that’s the Abyss,’ Uhle answered. ‘How far is it to the bottom?’ Mennon wanted to know. ‘There is no bottom,’ said Uhle.”
“Is there really no bottom?” asked Atty.
Nolo shook his head. “No, lad, no bottom. Issinlough hangs on the underside of the world, and beyond Issinlough there’s nothing. Whatever’s left of Brydds himself might lie down there in the deep dark, but there’s no bottom to the Abyss.”
“And no sky, either?”
“No, no sky either. We Bryddin never knew about the sky till Mennon told us, nor about the sun and moon. But once Uhle heard about them, nothing could keep him from finding the surface. ‘Brighter than the brightest of your lamps,’ was how Mennon described the sun to us. ‘Brighter than all your lamps rolled into one.’” Nolo stroked his long beard thoughtfully for a moment before he went on.
“Uhle had always dreamed of such a light. He and I searched for it for years. But once he knew it existed, Uhle knew right away how to reach it. We might not have been able to go up the way Mennon had come down, but we could certainly dig our way to the surface once we knew it was there. As all of you know, we Bryddin are very good at digging.” He wiggled his fingers and stubby toes. Atty’s eyes widened.
“Was that the Sun Road?” asked a girl Avender’s age from the back of the class. Avender rolled his eyes, knowing she already knew the answer as well as he did.
“That’s what it is now, Ferris,” answered Nolo. “But when we first built it, it was hardly more than a long tunnel. We were in a hurry, at least those of us who took up the work. There are still some in Issinlough who wonder what we need with the sun and moon, let alone trees and flowers.”
“Or ale, right Nolo?” teased a boy who sat to Avender’s left. Avender grinned. Teasing their regular teacher would have been unthinkable, but Nolo was a much easier master. The Dwarf himself laughed at the joke, his beard rolling in little waves across his chest.
“That’s right, lad. Mennon hadn’t told us a thing about ale yet. Perhaps if he had, we’d have dug a lot quicker.”
The whole class laughed. While they were laughing, a lumbering shape appeared in the yard below. The bear, following the scent he had sniffed out on the back of the breeze, had found his way from the orchard to the side of the sty. The pigs rushed back to the fence as soon as they saw him, to snort and squeal at their old foe. They knew what he was up to as soon as he appeared. The bear, however, ignored the pigs completely.
But their squealing did attract the notice of the students closest to the windows above the yard. There was a quiet rustling among the desks as they shuffled about for better views. Avender poked his neighbor with his foot.
“Reiffen,” he whispered, nodding toward the window. “Redburr’s at the slops again.”
The other boy’s eyebrows rose with interest. Carefully he stretched across the desks for a better view.
At the front of the room Nolo continued his tale, completely unaware of the activity at the windows. “Can anyone tell me,” he asked, “where we Bryddin were when we finally broke out onto the surface? No, not you Ferris. You can’t answer every question. Let’s hear from one of the younger lads or lasses who haven’t heard the tale before. All right, Nell, why don’t you tell us.”
Nell stood up straight and tall at her desk beside Atty, very proud of her opportunity. “Um, was it Grangore?” she asked.
“Absolutely correct!” Nolo slapped his thigh hard, almost causing the legs on the desk to give out below him. Nell beamed.
At the pigsty, the great bear rested his forepaws on the rim of the slops barrel and stuffed his heavy head inside. The barrel wobbled, but didn’t fall. On the other side of the fence the angry pigs began digging furiously as they tried to get at the thief beyond the railing. Contented grunts echoed from inside the wooden barrel.
“It was a beautiful evening,” the Dwarf was saying to the class, “the first evening I ever saw. We came out on the middle slopes of Aloslocin, and the sun was just beginning to set behind Ivismundra. Uhle came out first, but it was a while before he returned for the rest of us. We were afraid of coming up beneath a lake or a river, you see, and had dammed off the upper end of the tunnel. Then we had to take another minute after Uhle pulled down the dam to put on our goggles, just in case the sun was too bright for our eyes. Here, I brought mine in to class today so everyone could have a look. Cut the lenses from a large topaz, I did.”
He handed a pair of heavy goggles to Atty, who dropped them, he was so overwhelmed by the honor. Meanwhile the bear had snuffled down all the easy pickings at the top of the barrel and had twisted around on his hind legs to improve his leverage into the tub. Several times he came close to losing his balance, but each time he shifted to the side at the last second and caught himself before the barrel tipped.
“That’s real batwing.” Nolo pointed out the goggle straps, while those pupils still paying attention to him carefully handed them around the classroom. “Very soft and strong, batwing. No lighter leather to be found, under sun or ground. There’s a little stretch in it too, so they fit tight around your head. Say, what are you all looking at out the window there? Avender? Reiffen?”
Nolo had finally noticed that most of the class was gathered around the windows and no longer even pretending to pay attention to him. Not wanting to miss out on whatever was happening in the yard below, he hopped off the desk and hurried across the room.
“Not again.” He groaned when he saw the backside of the bear sticking up out of the barrel. Leaning out over the sill on his tiptoes, he called down to the alley, “Hey there! Redburr! Get out of there, you overgrown raccoon! You know better than that!”
By this time the bear had climbed all the way up onto the top of the barrel, his head and shoulders crammed greedily inside. He was in no position to hear anyone’s scolding. The barrel was very strong, but the bear was very heavy. Both rocked back and forth precariously as the bear shoveled through the dainties within. But that balancing act was too delicate to last more than a moment. The tub teetered, then toppled with a crash. Several smaller barrels nearby were also smashed as Redburr was thrown crashing on top of them and through the fence around the sty. A pair of fish heads and half a moldy cabbage flew high into the air. Shining in the sun, they floated for a moment right in front of the schoolroom windows, then splashed back down in the dirty alley below.
Briefly the bear lay stunned in a pile of slops, barrel staves, and fencing. Flecks of broccoli and yesterday’s gravy speckled his ruddy coat. Then the pigs were on him. He rose up with half an old cheese in his mouth and clubbed a few of the more vicious sows with a swing from each of his heavy forepaws. Piglets squealed as they streamed through the hole in the fence. The alley was filled with guzzling hogs and slippery bear, all fighting over the same hunks of grease and filthy vegetables. They careened back and forth in the buttery mess, bashing fresh holes in the fence and sending the rain barrel at the corner of the kitchen flying. The water sluiced out across the ground beneath them; everything was soon churned to mud by their scuffling.
The door to the kitchen flew open. Hern herself stormed out, her stoutest broom in hand. Her first shout brought Redburr immediately to his senses. Hastily he scrambled to his feet and shouldered the heaviest sow aside. Then he took off back down the alley toward the orchard with all the speed he could muster, a rotten pumpkin bumping on his backside, his prize cheese still dripping from his mouth.
“That’s right!” called Nolo from the window, barely able to contain his laughter. “You run away! As if we haven’t all seen you at your work already!”
Hern shook her broom and shouted in turn, “You great fat rug! I’ve told you a hundred times to keep out of the slops! How’re we supposed to get any bacon! I’m going to ban you from the feast tonight, I am!”
She turned and stared at the rest of the kitchen staff, who had come out behind her to enjoy the show.
“And what are you all gaping at?” she demanded. She stood with hands on hips, even though she was still holding her broom. “Get these pigs back in the pen! We’re behind as it is! We’ll never be ready for tonight! And which one of you put that cheese in with the rest of the garbage? Was that you, Tinnet? You know that fool of a bear can’t control himself when he gets a whiff of spoiled cheese! You’d better get to work cleaning up this mess before I really lose my temper!”
Plowing straight into the middle of the hogs, she kicked left and right and batted at them with both ends of her broom. The sows fled in terror, grunting as they scrambled back to the safety of their pen, but a few of the piglets managed to escape. They tore off into the orchard with the kitchen staff chasing behind, the children cheering them on.
Hern looked up at the schoolroom. Her eyes narrowed. Every student in sight ducked back inside before she could light into any of them in turn. Nolo wisely followed their example.
He retrieved his goggles from where they had been dropped on the floor and said, “I guess that’s the end of this lesson.” The students gave another cheer. “Maybe you should all report downstairs to Hern. I think she’s going to need all the help she can get catching those pigs.”
A final cheer went up, even louder than the others, especially from the younger children. Much as everyone liked hearing the Dwarf tell them stories of the Stoneways, chasing pigs was even better. No one waited to be dismissed; they fled through the desks and out the door in a clatter of shoes and shouts of glee.
Avender, however, wasn’t so lucky. Nolo caught his arm as he was on his way out the door. Reiffen and Ferris saw it all, and ducked away before they were stopped as well.
“I need you,” said the Dwarf.
“You let everyone else go!” Avender knew what was coming, but Nolo’s grip was far too strong for him to twist away. “Reiffen and I are supposed to go get mussels from Longback.”
“The mussels can wait.” Nolo’s eyes twinkled beneath his bushy brows. “The Shaper needs you more. Someone has to help him clean up before the feast, lad. And you’re the one to do it.”
Avender groaned. Grooming a filthy bear was the last thing he wanted to do.
