Reiffen's Choice: The Stoneways Trilogy - Softcover

Chapter One

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 the way 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...