Jade Crown Preview, Pt 2

I am nearly finished with the first half of the Jade Crown. It grew into such a long story that I decided to just cut it into two novels, and wouldn’t you know it, I’m nearly done with Part 1 - The Hidden City - now. But Mark, I ask myself since no one else will, what inspired you to begin writing, then stop writing, then start writing and ultimately finish this/these book/books? Great question, me!

I had been reading a biography of Lewis and Clark entitled Undaunted Courage by historian Steven E. Ambrose. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I also wanted to then write something about an expedition that set out on a voyage of discovery, not unlike the titular explorers of old. So I started writing this!

But then I got stymied on the direction of the tale, and took a break to work on other stuff. Two years later a subscriber to my bimonthly newsletter emailed me, reminding me that, since I claim to be a writer, I really maybe ought to actually write a bit more. And after I destroyed nearly half of pillow in an uncontrollable fit of rage, I figured she was probably right. So I got back to work to finish this story.

So thank you, reader whose name will be kept private. (It’s Val). And also you’re welcome…

Even though I am releasing The Jade Crown in two parts, I’m kind of trying to structure them to fit together into a single whole, as well. What does that mean? I don’t know. I’m new to this, just like you are. But the previous preview posted nearly 2 years ago is now the Prologue of The Jade Crown Part 1: The Hidden City. And this one that is forthcoming is the first chapter of the same book. I hope you enjoy it; but if not, too bad. You’re criticisms, whether constructive or otherwise, are too late: I’m not changing it anymore.

Chapter I

“I tell you, three more days through these mountains, and you’ll see.  Just through this next pass,” Djoram Mercado insisted with fervent optimism.  “It can’t be much further now.”

 “It’s already been leagues further than we ever thought it would be,” Katt argued.

 “And weeks longer than we planned for,” Mikha agreed with her sister.  “As it is, even with close rationing, we won’t have enough food to make it back.”

 “We can replenish our stores when we find it,” Djoram countered.  “Once we find the city-“

 “We don’t even know if there is a city, Djoram!”  Mikha almost shouted at him.  “For all we know, it might not have ever existed.”

 “And even if it did, it might have died off so long ago that there’s nothing left of it now but ash,” Katt tried to persuade their stubborn, impetuous brother.

  But Garruth knew that it wouldn’t work.  It hadn’t ever worked before, why would this time be any different?  The mercenary had signed on to the expedition nearly a year ago, and had then spent half of that time waiting around – on contract, of course – while the three-headed, familial brain trust that was leading, and more importantly funding the excursion had gathered all of the particulars which they had deemed necessary.  They brought with them a large trunk full of maps, charts, and documents describing the regions through which they would pass – regions through which they had now already passed.  They also ported another chest full of complicated gadgets and machinery with which to chart their course in the wilderness.  He hadn’t seen the need for the box; he had always gotten along just fine with just a simple map and a compass.  But then, I’ve been traveling back and forth across these lands for longer than we care to admit.

 “But we’re so close,” Djoram tried to persuade them.  “You’ve read Father’s journals.  His letters stopped miles west of here; we’ve come so much further than he ever did.  We’re probably the first people since the Old Empire to make this far into the mountains.”

 “The Vathirians were much further north of us,” Mikha reminded him with a scholarly adjustment of her spectacles that even a tenured professor would envy.  “There were never any records of civilized people this far South-East of Rheone.”

 “We’re actually West of Rheone,” Katt corrected her absently.  “We’ve been heading South West along the edge of the mountains to this pass.  For all we know, it’s nothing but mountains for thousands of miles.”

 “Or ten leagues,” Djoram said.

 “That’s the whole point,” Mikha said.  “We don’t know anything about the terrain once we start this climb.  We don’t even know how much of it there is.”

 “Which means we can’t rely on foraging to replenish our food, because we don’t know what sorts of food we might be able to scrounge.  We don’t even know what the weather will be like if we ever make it out of these mountains,” the engineering master said, shaking her curly head. 

 “We might have had more money for food if we hadn’t wasted so much of it on your damned canoe,” the brother muttered spitefully.

 “Don’t blame this on my canoe!”  Katt nearly shouted back at him, jumping up to her feet.

 “Easy,” Garruth finally said calmly, gesturing with his head to the door of the tent.  His three employers glanced fearfully at the entrance as if it would tell them whether or not their bickering had led to the incipient mutiny they increasingly feared was coming.

  There had been twenty of them at the beginning: most of them professional explorers, trappers, and adventurers.  A handful of mercenaries for protection, and then the three-headed hydra of hereditary wanderers who were paying them all.  The other mercenaries had been the first to leave.  They had only been hired to help ferry them through the certainly dangerous lands of Andul and Rheone, anyway.  A pair of the trappers had left a few weeks after that, as they had never planned on going any further than the eastern passes into Sireel, where they believed the less-populated lands would gross a higher percentage of beaver than their trapped-out lines in the North.  Now it was just Garruth, the Mercado siblings, and ten other mountain men.  Professionals at this sort of thing, and not the kind to be overly inspired by their employers’ almost daily disputes.  Garruth knew that many of them agreed with Katt and Mikha.  And it’s only a matter of time before they start heading back on their own.

  Up until the point of departure, it had been one of the easiest contracts Garruth had ever taken, and he had nearly convinced himself before then that they would never manage to set out at all.  Katt had designed a special sort of foldable canoe that she had hoped to bring with them.  They would be traveling the first few hundred miles along a swiftly moving river, she had explained, and a light-weight, portable watercraft would be worth double its weight in gold, should they find need for it again.  The mercenary had to admit that, with an expedition of this size, she was almost certainly right, at least in theory.  It had been in actual practice where her favorite invention failed to hold back the water. 

  The manufacturers of the frame had botched their first attempt at forging it, but had managed to succeed in the second.  Unfortunately, Katt had failed to take into consideration how much tar the leather-and-canvas skin from which the body of the canoe was formed would require to make water-tight.  She had assumed that a few passes with a brush over the joints of the stretched-out materials would hold back the voracious waters.  She had underestimated the pernicious, insidious liquid’s ability to undermine the structural integrity of so conservative a helping of pitch, however.  In the end, they discovered that they would have to cover nearly the entire canoe to keep it afloat.  But they could not spread it out over the surface of the little boat beforehand, because folding it back up would ruin the water-proofing, and it would have to be fully apllied again before setting sail.  Which would have meant that they would need to carry at least a full barrel of the noxious, flammable stuff.  Which they hadn’t the space for.

  The young engineer had not been defeated so easily, however: she just returned to her labor and began working on a substitute which they might be able to concoct from just honey, sap, and various chemicals which she always seemed to have about.  She had even been near to success, she claimed loudly, and often, when her brother and sister had finally had enough of her tinkering.  They had determined that six months spent paying a team of explorers to sit around in taverns that had already been well discovered for centuries, was more than enough.  They would set out by the end of the month, with or without her and her experimental canoe.

  So they had passed the river on regular boats, all twenty of them.  Djoram, Katt, and Mikha were financing this voyage of potential discovery, but they were not the only seekers of the fabled Hidden City buried deep behind the Ulmeriel Mountains.  Hundreds before them had tried to find the legendary, lost civilization therein; tried and failed, usually spectacularly and almost always at the cost of their own lives.  Their own father had perished in the attempt to find the city, and it was upon his ill-fated records that Djoram had based his present theories.

 “If you want to turn back, then turn back,” Djoram issued his usual ultimatum.  “But I will see this through to the end.  For all we know, Father did find the Hidden City; and it was so wondrous that he never wanted to leave again.”

  His sisters responded as they always did: they looked at one another with anger, but also with a bit of chagrin.  Ultimately, they said nothing. 

  It was not the first time they had had this exact conversation, and Garruth usually got to be present for it.  He was, he had decided, growing rather tired of it.

  And then a voice came to them through the tent flap.  “Captains, camp’s almost broke.  Probably ought to start breaking your tent down as well, so’s we can be on our way.”

 “Thank you, Johan; we’ll be out in just a moment,” Mikha responded.  Then she looked at Djoram with a serious expression on her face.  “How far do you intend to go with this?”

 “As far as we can.”

 “Even if it gets us all killed?”  Katt pressed.

 “We’ve still got months of rations,” he defended himself. 

  Garruth chose to intrude himself upon their discussion again; why not?  It’s why they bring me in here for them anyway.  “You don’t need to worry about your food stores,” he began; Djoram shot him a grateful look.  He thinks I’m on his side of the debate.  He shouldn’t.  “Assuming you can at least find a supply of running water, with careful rationing you’ve got maybe six weeks before you all starve to death.  But you’ll never last that long.”

 “What?”  They all three asked in near unison.

 “It’s the men.  They’ll probably kill you and take all the food back with them. If you’re lucky, they might decide to just abandon us in the middle of the night and steal what they need to get back home.”

 “Surely it’s not as bad as that,” Djoram insisted.

  “It’s probably worse,” Garruth disagreed.  “I’ve been warning you every day about this.  The mood out there is growing dangerous; and these are men who are used to living under their own command.  They won’t hesitate to leave once they’re convinced the expedition has failed.”

 “Are you sure?”  Katt asked, a worried frown on her learned face.

  The mercenary nodded.  “Just look at their faces.  They’re growing restless, disgruntled.  I give them three, maybe four days before they seriously consider mutiny.”

  Silence.  The three siblings each sat in deep, ponderous thought, worrying over the ill tidings.  It was Mikha who finally broke the sullen quiet.  “What can we do to prevent it?”

 “Give them what they want,” Garruth answered with a shrug.

 “And what is that?”  the brother asked.

 “Take them back home.”

 “But we’re so close!  I tell you, within two days we’ll find the evidence we need.  How can we turn away from that?”

 “We don’t have the funds for a second trip,” Katt said, agreeing with her brother now.  “If we go back empty handed, we’ll never make it this far again.”

 “Maybe no one ever will,” their sister agreed.  “The city could remain undiscovered forever.”

 “Forever is a very long time,” Garruth answered with calm, precise logic.  “And getting knifed in your sleep is a matter of days.”

 “Is there anything we can do to persuade them?”  Djoram asked, his face afire with earnest concern.

 “We could offer to pay them more,” the engineer mused aloud.

 “All the coin in the world won’t matter to a man who’s convinced he’ll never live long enough to spend it,” the mercenary answered.  “My advice?  Set a day, right now, when you’ll turn around and go back.  With an end in sight, they should be more likely to suffer through a couple more days.”

 “What do you think?”  The cartographer, Katt, asked as the Mercados all looked at one another.  “Two more days?”

  They nodded their heads.

 “Two more days,” Djoram agreed.

 “We’ll make a general announcement of it before we set out today,” Mikha said.

 “That should help,” Garruth approved.  “Just keep in mind: they might not be willing to go even that much further.  If they disagree; if they insist instead on turning back right now…don’t argue.  Just go with them.”

 “But-“ Djoram began.

  Garruth cut him off.  “There are still a dozen of them; and none of you know how to fight.  Most of them wouldn’t think twice about slitting your throats and rolling your body off a cliff, if it means they get to go home alive.  When they finally turn, it won’t be because they’re bored, or miserable, or hungry.  It will be because they think that killing you is the only way to save their own lives.  So, if they’re still considerate enough to ask to go back at any point within the next two days, go with them.  Otherwise, you’ll never make it out of these mountains.”

  It was a sobering thought, which the siblings all seemed to consider separately, for they did not speak.  Garruth was just on the verge of excusing himself to go and pack up his own things, when another voice came from outside the tent.

 “Young masters?”  It said respectfully.  “I think you’ll want to see this.”

 “In a moment,” Djoram called back absently.

 “…I really think you’d rather come look now.”

  It was the confusion in his voice which piqued Garruth’s interest.  If they were planning a coup, he wouldn’t sound like he’d just seen a two-headed calf.

 “All right, Nealon” Djoram answered, intrigued.  “Wait here,” he told his sisters – his concerns clearly written all over his face.  He, at least, had not come to the same conclusion that Garruth had.

  The mercenary didn’t have a chance to calm those fears before the young man had left the modest pavilion which he shared with his two sisters.

 “Do you think they’re trying to rebel?”  Katt asked.  She was the youngest of the three, barely in her twenties.  She was understandably frightened. 

  But, Garruth thought, needlessly.  “No.  This is something else.”

 “What?”  The elder sister asked him.  She was just as concerned as Katt, but was trying to hide it from her.

 “I don’t know,” he was forced to answer, with another shrug.

  A moment later, Djoram’s voice called out to him.  “Garruth?  Would you mind taking a look at this?”  He sounded just as confused as Nealon had, not a moment before.

  It did not take long to discover why.

  Garruth exited the pavilion and saw the entire company gathered around a tree.  Someone was slowly letting themselves down from the considerable height which he had climbed, which was no great surprise: often they would hang a portion of their food stores to prevent attracting large predators into their camp.  But what the mercenary noticed immediately was a large, gaping wound high up in the trunk.  It had clearly been cut out with a knife, and bled a considerable amount of sap.  There was a general murmur of excitement as Garruth approached them, and Djoram pushed his way out of the huddled adventuers to meet the mercenary.

 “Do you see it?”  He asked with uncontained excitement, both hands extended with an object cradled reverently in his palms.  “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

  Garruth suspected that Djoram’s infatuation with the object was due more to what it represented for his family’s continued enterprise, than he was with its actual shape.  Yet still, the mercenary had to admit that it was, even then, of objective interest.  It was familiar to him, of course; just as it was to all of them.  The company had brought hundreds of similar ones along with them, for both defense and to gather game from the wilderness.

 “It was up in the tree?”  He asked, frowning as he looked down at the mysterious new development in his employer’s hands.

 “Not just up in the tree,” Djoram said.  “It cut down the bag of food that we hung up there last night.”

 “Where’s the bag now?”

 “Right here,” Nealon said, holding it up over his head.  “All present and accounted for.”

 “Do you know what this means?”  Djoram asked with excitement, handing the newly discovered article to the mercenary; and then he began to jump up and down and shout with glee.

  His sisters, obviously intrigued by this unusual display of excitement, came rushing out of the tent, and ran straight to Garruth.

 “What is it?”  Katt asked him eagerly.  The fear that they might soon be dethroned by their own, albeit temporary, employees had been replaced with an intense, uncontrollable curiosity.

  Wordlessly, Garruth handed it over so she could examine it herself.

  The youngest Mercado sibling stared down at it in wonder.

  It was obviously not one of their own, and had to have been fired by someone outside of their party.  Which meant that someone, at least, lived in these mountains.  And whoever it was had cut deliberately cut down their bag of supplies, but taken nothing.  Which means it was meant as a warning.  It was long and made of a finely crafted shaft of wood, with a peculiar fletching which the mercenary had never seen before.  Since he had seen pretty much every fletching on the continent, he was willing to bet that no one else recognized it, either.  It was, indeed, a mystery.

 It was an arrow.