The Dark Hills Divide Read online

  THE LAND OF ELYON BOOK 1

  The

  Dark Hills

  Divide

  P A T R I C K C A R M A N

  For Karen

  Contents

  Title Page

  Map of Elyon

  Epigraphs

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1 WARVOLD

  CHAPTER 2 THE ROAD TO BRIDEWELL

  CHAPTER 3 BRIDEWELL

  CHAPTER 4 PERVIS KOTCHER

  CHAPTER 5 THE LIBRARY

  CHAPTER 6 MORE TROUBLE WITH MY SPYGLASS

  CHAPTER 7 JOCASTAS

  CHAPTER 8 THE FIRST JOCASTA

  CHAPTER 9 ALONE IN BRIDEWELL

  CHAPTER 10 CABEZA DE VACA

  CHAPTER 11 THE GLOWING POOL

  CHAPTER 12 DARIUS

  CHAPTER 13 THE TERRIBLE SECRET

  CHAPTER 14 THE FOREST COUNCIL

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 15 AN UNEXPECTED ENEMY

  CHAPTER 16 PERVIS RETURNS FROM HOLIDAY

  CHAPTER 17 THE CHESS MATCH

  CHAPTER 18 A NIGHT ERRAND IN THE LIBRARY

  CHAPTER 19 MY MOTHER’S LETTER

  CHAPTER 20 THE MEETING ROOM

  CHAPTER 21 THE DARK HILLS DIVIDE

  CHAPTER 22 A SECRET PLAN

  CHAPTER 23 A MYTHICAL CREATURE

  CHAPTER 24 THE PAPER STORM

  CHAPTER 25 A TIGHT SPOT

  CHAPTER 26 SEBASTIAN

  CHAPTER 27 BEYOND BRIDEWELL

  EPILOGUE

  Preview

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright

  At every locality where ocean meets land, there are the cliffs of dark, jagged rocks. If you look over the edge, there lies a mist a few feet below; so thick, you can’t see the water. As far as the eye can see, nothing but white, puffy mist, as if we hang in the clouds and to step off the edge would leave us falling for days. If not for the violent sound of the waves against the rocks somewhere far below, one might suppose our lands were an island in the sky.

  Beyond the Valley of Thorns,

  ALEXA DALEY

  Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

  What I was walling in or walling out,

  And to whom I was like to give offense.

  Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

  That wants it down.

  “Mending Wall,”

  ROBERT FROST

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  WARVOLD

  “Stop that chattering or we’ll have to go back and sit by the fire,” said my companion. He removed his large, thick cape and draped it over my shoulders. I had to hold it up to keep it from dragging on the street, but it felt good, and my last few shivers quietly subsided.

  The sun had set, and the lamps glowed above the streets with sharp yellow spears, one every twenty feet on both sides along our way. Illuminated by the soft light, the cobblestone paths made for a dreamy stroll. As we rounded each new corner we were greeted by another twisting row of lamps, houses, and small storefronts. Some of the doors were painted bright blue or purple, but the houses themselves, crammed tightly together, were all whitewashed stone.

  We walked together, not saying a word. The town was quiet except for the occasional distant hoot of a perching night owl atop the wall as it searched for rats and other vermin. Down at the end of a darkened footpath we arrived at a locked iron gate. He produced a golden key from his pocket and drew it to a small oval container hanging from a chain around his neck — a locket I had seen many times. I watched as he opened the container and removed another key. He was our leader, the man who had ventured farther than the rest of us into the mysteries of the outside world. It made sense that he would be the keeper of a hidden key. He was the keeper of so much of our history and so many of our deepest secrets. I watched as he inserted the key into a lock on the gate and swung it open on its rusty hinges.

  He disappeared into the darkness, calling me to follow quietly. I groped for his hand, which he took in his, and we walked farther, his cape now dragging behind me. He stopped, took my hand out of his, opened it full, and pulled it forward until I felt the smooth surface of rock still warm from the day’s cooking. Reaching as high as I could, I felt a seam and then more rock.

  “It’s the wall,” he said. “I thought you might enjoy touching it.” Except for his breathing, I heard nothing. After a while, he continued. “I spent my youth building this wall to keep dangerous things away. I sometimes wonder now if I’ve kept them inside.”

  “Why would you say that?” I could make out his features as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. He was deep in thought, staring at the wall as he moved his delicate fingers across the seam. Lines ran all along his weathered face, and the hair from his head and beard tangled together into a fluffy, white mass.

  “I tell you what, Alexa — why don’t we sit a spell and I’ll tell you a tale. We need to stay low or old Kotcher will get his dogs to come looking for a nibble.”

  He had a reputation for conjuring up frightening tales about giant spiders crawling over the wall to eat children, so naturally I was concerned. “What sort of story are you going to tell?” I asked.

  “Actually, it’s more of a fable. I heard it a long time ago, during my travels, before all this.” He swept his hand in front of him, a far-off look in his eye. “Most people don’t know how much I traveled when I was young. I walked for miles and miles in every direction for months on end, all alone.

  “But Renny and then Nicolas came along, and I grew more and more protective. I had terrible fears of being away from them, so I stayed closer to home. Before long I was building these walls to protect my family and everyone else.”

  Both of us were sitting now, and he looked me in the eye as he continued. “You remember one thing, Alexa. If you make something your life’s work, make sure it’s something you can feel good about when you’re an old relic like me.” He paused, either for effect or because he had forgotten what he was going to say next — I wasn’t sure which. Then he resumed.

  “When I was on one of my far-off journeys, I heard this fable. I liked it so much I memorized it.” And then he told it to me, and it went like this:

  It was six men of Indostan

  To learning much inclined,

  Who went to see the Elephant,

  Though all of them were blind,

  That each by observation

  Might satisfy his mind.

  The First approached the Elephant,

  And happening to fall

  Against his broad and sturdy side,

  At once began to bawl:

  “God bless me! But the Elephant

  Is very like a wall!”

  The Second, feeling of the tusk,

  Cried, “Ho! What have we here?

  So very round and smooth and sharp?

  To me ’tis mighty clear

  This wonder of an Elephant

  Is very like a spear!”

  The Third approached the animal,

  And happening to take

  The squirming trunk within his hands,

  Thus boldly up and spake:

  “I see,” said he, “the Elephant

  Is very like a snake!”

  The Fourth reached out an eager hand,

  And felt about the knee.

  “What most this wondrous beast is like

  Is mighty plain,” said he;

  “’Tis clear enough the Elephant

  Is very like a tree.”

  The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,

  Said: “Even the blindest man

  Can tell what this resembles most;

  Deny the fact who can,

  This marvel of an Elep
hant

  Is very like a fan!”

  The Sixth no sooner had begun

  About the beast to grope,

  Then, seizing on the swinging tail

  That fell within his scope,

  “I see,” said he, “the Elephant

  Is very like a rope!”

  And so these men of Indostan

  Disputed loud and long,

  Each in his own opinion

  Exceeding stiff and strong,

  Though each was partly in the right

  And all were in the wrong.

  “Not bad for an absentminded old man,” he said.

  “Stop being so gloomy. I think you’ve got a fine memory.”

  “A lot of secrets are held inside these walls; a lot more are roaming around outside,” he said ominously. “I think the two are about to meet.”

  He mumbled something else about “them being right all along,” but he was quieter now, muttering to himself.

  We continued to sit and listened to the soft evening wind blow in. Something about his words — something about the night — crept under my skin and made me shiver even harder than before. Something felt very wrong. Something much bigger than me.

  “I’m getting cold, can we go now?” I asked.

  He gave me no reply, and as I glanced up at him on that clear, cold night, it was obvious at once that Warvold was dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE ROAD TO BRIDEWELL

  I was twelve years old, short for my age, with skinny arms and knobby knees. My father often joked that he could run my forearm through his wedding ring (sadly, this was only a slight exaggeration). I had sandy-colored hair, which I kept in a braid nearly all the time.

  A few hours before Warvold’s death, I was traveling with my father from our hometown of Lathbury to Bridewell. Being a girl of twelve and lacking adventure, our annual trip there was the most anticipated time of the year for me. It had been a quiet day on the road, though hot beyond belief for so early in the summer.

  In Bridewell there was a building that at one time had been a prison. A work camp, really, where the vagrants and convicts from our towns used to be kept. During the day, the prisoners would go outside the wall, doing the hard labor their sentences required.

  When I say wall, I do not mean the prison wall, although that wall did exist. The wall I am speaking of is the one that surrounded all of Bridewell, which encircled not only the village and the old prison, but stretched out along each side of the roads leading to the three cities of Lathbury, Turlock, and Lunenburg. Our kingdom was a wagon wheel made of stone. Bridewell sat at its hub, with the other three towns on the end of the three spokes. On the afternoon before Warvold’s death, we were traveling on the Lathbury spoke on our way to Bridewell.

  The walls loomed above us on both sides of the road, holding in the heat like a long, skinny oven. I was hot and bored.

  “Father?”

  “Yes, Alexa?”

  “Tell me the story of when they built the walls.”

  “Haven’t you grown tired of that old legend yet?”

  Of course, I knew very well he enjoyed telling it. My father had a great love of storytelling, and this was one of his favorites. I didn’t have to wait long for him to begin.

  “Thomas Warvold was an orphan. On the day of his thirteenth birthday he wandered off from his hometown, all of his belongings stored in a single knapsack. For years no one knew or cared where he’d gone. A seemingly worthless child with no parents and no future to speak of; it’s doubtful anyone even noticed he had departed. But he was a spirited boy, smart and full of adventure. Much later, after he became famous, there were those who speculated he was an aimless wanderer for twenty years or more, gathering treasures from far-off places in The Land of Elyon. Others suggested he lived in the wilds of the enchanted forests and mountains beyond these very walls. In any case, it would seem that he grew to be a forceful leader, for eventually he persuaded others to join him in a place most everyone believed was haunted, dark, and dangerous.”

  The sound of horse claps echoed off the towering walls as we advanced on Bridewell, and my father paused to scratch the golden stubble on his chin. He was a big man with red hair, long and twisted and tangled. In the winter he wore a beard, but the summers proved too much for him and he took solace in the cool relief of a shaven face.

  “As Warvold began to thrive and prosper, more people became convinced that the area was indeed safe to live in, and so they came. The valley where Warvold first settled, which is now called Lunenburg, eventually filled up to capacity and provided no room for growth. High mountains rose on either side. On one end of the tight valley was the already established town of Ainsworth. On the other lay the uncharted dangers and scary legends of the wilderness. When yet more families moved into the town, Warvold decided it was time to expand.

  “The north held giant mountains, the east a thick forest; the west was covered in what came to be known as The Dark Hills. The people of Lunenburg were afraid to venture out past the valley and into the wild.

  “It was then that Thomas Warvold had a most wonderful idea.”

  My father stopped talking as a cart passed ours, kicking up dust with its two horses.

  “Dear me, so sorry, Mr. Daley. I didn’t realize —” the driver stammered as he went by. He was upset about carelessly overtaking the mayor of Lathbury and his daughter.

  His carriage was almost past ours when my father whipped our two horses and yelled out, “Hya! Hya!” We quickly came neck and neck with the other cart, leaving about three feet between us, and three feet at either side of the wall. My father gave the rival driver a wicked look and proclaimed, “I’ve not lost a race on the road to Bridewell in five years!”

  I was almost thrown from my seat by the thrust of the powerful horses as the race plunged into action. Our opponent, frothing with excitement at racing someone as important as my father, stayed with us for quite a long time. Dust filled the air and the furious sound of hooves and wheels churned down the road.

  The walls flew alongside us, stretching into the sky for what seemed like miles. In reality, they were forty-two feet tall and made of three-foot-square stone blocks.

  I thought about the wall extending all the way to Lathbury and to Turlock, which were butted up and walled in against The Lonely Sea, where fierce, mist-covered waves break against the soaring cliffs. The River Roland also ran through our land, so named for the only man known to have crossed it (a man whom no one had seen or heard from since). The river was a wide and powerful mass of fast-moving water, fed by mountains in yet-uncharted lands.

  Lost in my thoughts, I had taken my attention away from the race. When my father pulled hard on the reins to slow the horses, my slight frame nearly flew forward off the cart.

  “What a pleasant diversion,” my father proclaimed as the challenger trotted his horses up beside us, covered from head to toe in a thick coat of dirt. “A shame about the dust.”

  “Quite all right, sir, quite all right. My horses are not what they used to be, but they gave it all they had,” the man said. He was doing his best to shake himself off while we continued down the road.

  “What brings you to Bridewell on this wretchedly hot day?” my father questioned.

  “Actually, I’m off to Turlock, delivering the weekly mail from Lathbury.”

  “Have you a name?”

  “Silas Hardy, at your service.” He had finished dusting himself off and smiled back at us with bright, white teeth against a darkly tanned face.

  “Well, Silas, how about you escort us the rest of the way to Bridewell? I wouldn’t want to leave you behind with those unreliable animals dragging you into town. Besides, I’m just telling my daughter about the wall and how it was built. An enjoyable story you might as well sit in on.”

  Silas looked up at the walls on both sides and the hot sun above, beads of sweat running down his temples.

  “I’ve heard it many times, sir, but I’m hot and bored and my ho
rses are too tired to outrun you. Let’s hear it again.” He wiped the sweat from his temple and rested his elbows on his knees, holding the reins loosely in his large, meaty hands.

  Father resumed the story. “As I was saying before our new friend Silas joined us, Warvold had a problem. More people were immigrating to Lunenburg: pioneers, miners, merchants, and families. Many came to the valley looking for a better life, and the poor little town quickly became overcrowded.

  “Then one day Warvold had an idea. A tremendous idea. He would build a walled road out into the unknown, and at the end of it he would build a new town. As long as the wall was in front of the people, the enchanted dangers that lurked about could be kept away.” And then with a comical dark look, Father added, “Only, who would build the wall? Surely the people of Lunenburg were too afraid to stand outside, or near the edge, which is what would be required to build such a thing.

  “No, Warvold needed other people to do the work. And so he met with the leaders of Ainsworth, the large city from which he had originated.

  “Ainsworth had a prison that was overcrowded with the most terrible brutes and thieves in the city. In that place, if you were a convicted man, you were brought before two justices, branded with a C for criminal, and sent to the prison to perform hard labor.”

  A red-tailed hawk flew low overhead, and another sat upon the top of the crusted wall to my right. This was a common sight, as hawks were always about the walls, and more appeared as we drew nearer to the city gate.

  “Warvold made a deal with the leaders of Ainsworth,” my father continued. “He was building a prison in Lunenburg, had been for some time, and he was willing to take three hundred of the foulest criminals Ainsworth had to offer. There was but one condition: After ten years, Warvold could return the convicts to Ainsworth, no questions asked.