Clifford walked for three hours before deciding to stop for the night. According to the moon, there was about four hours of darkness left. He dug into his old travel bag and found a think blanket. Nestling against a fallen tree, he covered himself up and went to sleep. Schrodinger sat up as a watch against whatever animal or man might try to interfere in Clifford’s slumber.
Clifford stirred at first light. He brought out some of the remaining turkey meat he had, and ate that cold with some cheese, drinking water from the uphill-flowing river. He gathered his things, the guitar, old travel bag, and, with bundle shouldered, he started walking again. Schrodinger slept most of the time in the bundle.
Clifford walked, leaving Brigadier General Israel Putnam and the mysterious King’s Valley far behind. The land he traveled through gradually changed. The semi-desert-forest he’d encountered when he’d met Putnam (felt like days ago, was only the night before) gave way to a full-fledged forest. The Forest, after only an hour’s walk, became sparse and Clifford Jenkins, no longer sure if he was anywhere near as sensible as any man of 40 years, found himself in a meadow.
He crossed it at a brisk pace, wanting to reach Historia as soon as possible. Glancing behind him, toward the Mountains of Antiquity, he saw the snow-capped peaks rising above the forest. Somewhere back there was his family, wondering where he’d gone. Luckily he’d never married. Just never felt like it. He could see the sun glistening off the icy white tops of the mountains, and he was glad he’d come the way he had. The King’s Valley was infinitely easier to cross than the mountain pass would ever have been.
It was midday when Clifford tapped the bundle-stick and caused the mouse to scamper out, “What?”
“Look.”
They stood atop a high hill, and below them, in the dale, was a large farm, windmill turning slowly in the breeze, green grass turning to brown before their eyes. Schrodinger gasped. Clifford glanced at him, and then looked back at the farm.
The mouse jumped off the stick and onto Clifford’s shoulder, “This must be the farm of Pepperidge.”
Clifford unshouldered the bundle, dropped his old travel bag, and sat down in the grass, ready to play guitar for a bit and break the monotony of his journey, “You know, this land keeps getting stranger and stranger.”
Schrodinger settled onto his haunches next to Clifford and grinned (I know, I’ve told you that a sighing mouse is hilarious, a grinning mouse, though, is quite possibly the most serious thing ever seen. It’s anti-hilarity.) The mouse ran a fore-paw through his whiskers, “So what’re you going to play? Know anything Celtic?”
Clifford blinked, searching his own mind, “What’s Celtic?”
Schrodinger waved him off, “Nevermind. Play, my boy. Play.”
Clifford strummed once, a D-minor, and then began singing softly,
“Fill to me the parting glass,
And drink to health, what may befall,
Then gently rise, and softly call,
goodnight and joy be to you all.”
Schrodinger sat in silence until Clifford’s chorus was over, “You know that’s Celtic, right?”
Clifford leveled the guitar in his lap, “I know that it’s how we say goodbye to those we lose in Nostalgia. Tradition, I guess.”
Schrodinger laughed, “I think we should get going, Clifford. We can probably get some food at Pepperidge. Historia isn’t much farther.”
Clifford stood up, got up his things, and started walking again. His path took him to the farm, just as he knew it would. Somehow, he knew deep in his mind, he couldn’t avoid the farm. He could walk all the way around it, and over the next hill, and there the farm would be, waiting for him. Strange land.
On the porch of the farmhouse sat an older white man, “You need somethin’, boy?”
Clifford frowned, “Why does everyone keep calling me boy, I’m forty years old.”
The old man stood, grabbed a cane, and hobbled to him, “I’m Henry, but you can call me Hank if you want to. Some do, some don’t.”
“Clifford Jenkins, from Nostalgia.”
The old man grinned brightly, “Nostalgia, huh? Margaret, did you hear that? Nostalgia!”
A woman who looked to be in her late sixties came out on the porch, “You’re from Nostalgia? You have to eat with us tonight and tell us about it? Last I heard Nostalgia was a ghost town. That’s what Jamie said, and he’s a mail-boy from Historia, he wouldn’t lie.”
Clifford sat his travel bag on the porch, “The town isn’t deserted, trust me. I won’t say your mail-boy lied to you, though. He may have been told wrong.”
Henry looked at Margaret (Clifford assumed they were married) and said, “Go on and fix supper. I’m gonna show the boy around, then we’ll eat. Make some cookies too.”
She retreated back into the house. Clifford stepped back, leaving his travel bag and bundle on the porch, but keeping his guitar on his back. He looked up at the house, a two-story white building with little doghouses on the roof. Henry stepped off the porch and took Clifford by the elbow, “You didn’t run into Old Put, did you?”
“Who is Old Put?” Clifford, asked, realizing halfway through his question that Henry was referring to Israel Putnam, “Oh yes, I did.”
Henry stepped forward heavily, his cane sinking into the think grass, “He tried to recruit you for his war against the Valley, didn’t he? Took two of my boys out there. Said Historia needed them to fight back the outside, whatever that means.”
Clifford nodded, “We passed through the King’s Valley, and got no trouble while we were there.”
“Who’s we?” Henry asked.
Clifford suddenly thought of the bundle, and was about to move for it, when Schrodinger moved, revealing himself to be on Clifford’s shoulder. Clifford pointed up, “This is Schrodinger, the mouse.”
Henry offered a polite wave, then pointed to the guitar, “You play that thing, Cliff?”
Clifford nodded, “Yup. Been playing since I was nine.”
Henry smiled, “Great. That’s our after-supper music, then. Now, let me show you the rest of the farm. Oh, and you’re mouse may want to hide when we reach the barn. I got eighteen barn-cats would love him for dinner.”
Clifford chuckled and looked over at Schrodinger, who wore a horrified expression. Clifford lifted a finger and lightly poked the mouse on the side, “What’s wrong, Schrodinger? Cat got your tongue?”
Schrodinger’s expression went from horrified to downright offended, “That’s a horrible thing to say, Clifford Jenkins. A cat actually got my uncle’s tongue. It’s not a pretty sight. He can’t talk now.”
Henry was tapping his cane on the ground, “Did your mouse just talk?”
“He’s not exactly mine, if you take my meaning,” Clifford said, “And yeah, I was shocked when I found out. Turns out he’s pretty smart.”
Henry pointed to the barn, “Don’t I know it? All eighteen of my cats can talk.”
*****
The largest cat, a light-brown-dark-brown furred feline, stood on the hitch of a wagon, looking out over the other seventeen cats, “The Council is called to order. I am Slagthor the Great, hereby starting the meeting.”
Henry pushed open the barn door, “Mittens. Come here, Mittens.”
The cat on the hitch winced (not nearly as funny as a sighing mouse) and jumped down from the hitch, “I’ve told you, Mittens is my human name.”
Henry picked up the cat and stroked his back, unleashing a rather fierce purr, “Yeah, I know. But I called you Mittens before you talked, and I’ll call you Mittens till the day one of us dies.”
Mittens finally noticed Schrodinger sitting on Clifford’s shoulder, “You brought us a mouse, eh?”
Clifford spoke, “Actually, he’s with me, and no, you can’t have him.”
The cat glared at him, “I think you’ll find that we cats get what we want.”
Clifford shook his head, “I don’t think so.”
Mittens purred, “Okay, fine. He’s with you. Hear that, cats, no touching the mouse, no matter how delicious he looks.”
Henry motioned Clifford back to the barn door, sitting down Mittens, “They like to have ‘council’ meetings in here. I let ‘em, figure it can’t hurt.”
As they closed the door Schrodinger spoke up, “Actually, cats are rather devious. You might want to watch over them.”
Henry took up his cane and they started walking back to the house, “I’ll remember that, little mouse.”
They made their way back to the farm house just as Margaret was walking onto the porch to call them to dinner. The table spread was fantastic, by far the best food Clifford had seen since leaving Nostalgia, and probably better than most he’d had living in Nostalgia. Ham and Turkey, buttered rolls, carrots, peas, corn, and chocolate cake for dessert. After eating Clifford and Henry went back out onto the porch.
Clifford picked up his guitar and began playing “Old Man River” and singing “Yellow Submarine.” Henry was notably impressed.
As Clifford went to put his guitar down a gunshot rang out over the farmstead. Both men looked up immediately in the direction of the King’s Valley. Moments after hearing the first shot, a second shot rang out. Mere seconds after that Brigadier General Israel Putnam came running out of the forest and down the hill, followed shortly by his men.
“Hide! The King’s Valley charged us and we couldn’t hold them back! Hide!” Putnam yelled.
Henry was already up and moving toward the door. He walked past it, suddenly not needing his cane, but moving rather sprightly. Clifford remained seated, in awe of Henry’s change. Henry reached back, grabbed his cane, and then tapped it three times on the loose board on the porch, right at the base of the wall.
The wall parted, revealing a stash of guns and ammunition, “I’ve been waitin’ on this day,” he said, turning and tossing a gun to Clifford. “Margaret! Get out here! War’s a-coming!”
Margaret rushed onto the porch, tying a strip of cloth around her head to keep her hair back. Clifford looked at his gun, unsure of how to use it.
“Just point and pull that little trigger, the gun’ll do the rest.” Margaret said, tipping over one of the small tables that lined the porch and kneeling behind it, “Oh, and find some cover. You’ll need it.”
Clifford dove to the porch, and as he did an arrow pierced the wall where he was sitting. He tipped over his own table and leaned around, looking for the enemy. It luckily wasn’t dark enough yet to conceal the barbarians of the King’s Valley.
He heard gunfire erupt from the far end of the porch, and looking down, he saw Henry crouched behind a tipped table and blasting away at the oncoming enemy.
Israel Putnam reached the porch and began directing his men to take up positions around the farm, all guns pointed back toward the enemy. The men did as directed, and the hill west of the farmstead became a killing field.
Schrodinger reappeared on Clifford’s shoulder, “We shouldn’t be here.”
Clifford snorted, “You think I don’t realize that?”
“No,” the mouse said emphatically, “We really need to go. Bad things are about to happen here. I feel sorry for the cats.”
At the precise moment the barn door burst open and all eighteen cats charged out, Mittens, or as he called himself, Slagthor the Great, at their head, “Go, Cats! For the glory of Kittendom, our time has come.”
Clifford was mesmerized as the kitten brigade crashed into the oncoming enemy. Some cats were cut down almost immediately. Another arrow hit the table behind which Clifford knelt. He raised the gun and popped off three quick shots.
From what he could tell, Putnam’s men were holding back the charge, rather amiably. He moved as quickly as possible toward Henry, “What do we do?”
Henry pointed to the door, “Go inside, upstairs, and use one of the doghouses as cover. Try and take out as many as you can. They’ve never charged like this.”
Clifford did as he was told. He pushed open the upstairs window and looked out as the battlefield. Putnam was pinned down behind a water-trough, his men scattered across the field. The cats were down from eighteen to just five, Slagthor still leading them, directing them.
Schrodinger sniffled, “I feel sorry for them. This isn’t their war, and yet they’re dying.”
Clifford raised his gun, “I’m trying to keep us from dying.”
Schrodinger jumped down onto the windowsill, “I’m only going to say this once, Clifford. Don’t think about the enemy. Think about anything else, but not them.”
Clifford was so puzzled by Schrodinger that when he looked up it took him a moment to realize that the enemy was gone, as was Israel Putnam, “What happened?”
Schrodinger shrugged, “You’ve a gift, Clifford Jenkins. You never saw the enemy in the King’s Valley, and now, the moment your mind is taken off of them, they disappear. Interesting, eh?”
Clifford slumped down against the wall, “But what about the dead cats, the dead men? Are they still dead?”
Schodinger looked out the window, “From the looks of it, when you stopped thinking about them, everything went back to where it was before they charged, probably even before we got here. Meaning that Margaret and Henry don’t know we’re in their house.”
Clifford stood up and walked to the door, “So how do we get out?”
Schrodinger was ignoring him, “This could be a problem, you know? This gift you have.”
Clifford pointed to the closed door behind him, “Do you hear that? Footsteps. Someone’s coming.”
The mouse leapt out the window, “C’mon!”
Clifford followed him, diving out the window and stepping quickly around the doghouse to hide from view. Henry’s head appeared out the window, “Anyone there?”
When Clifford didn’t answer, Henry closed the window and walked out. Schrodinger climbed back onto Clifford’s shoulder, “There’s a haystack over that way,” he said, point to the south end of the house. “You’re stuff should still be on the porch. We can grab it and run. Oh, and you still have the gun. Good thing. We might need it.”
***********
The farm of Pepperidge was now a day’s walk behind them, the King’s Valley even farther. After retrieving his belongings from Henry’s porch Clifford had started once more along the westward path to Historia. Schrodinger had scarcely shut up about Clifford’s ‘gift,’ which at this point was causing Clifford a rather significant headache.
About two hours after leaving Henry’s farm, Clifford had found an old road, which made the walking that much easier. When night had fallen he’d camped out just off the road, under the low branches of a willow tree. Upon awakening Schrodinger began ranting once more about Clifford’s ‘gift.’
“Okay,” Clifford suddenly cried, “Now, I get it. I have a gift. Big deal. How much farther is it to Historia?”
Schrodinger had started back out the stick to the bundle, “Not too far. We just have to go through the City of Lithe.”
Clifford paused for a moment, “The City of Lithe?”
The mouse was suddenly back on his shoulder, “Yeah, have you heard of it?”
Clifford was walking again, “No, I don’t think so. But I’m scared of it for some reason.”
Schrodinger went back to his bundle. It was a matter of two hours walking before Clifford saw the city of Lithe.
It was a mountain, or at least part of it was. The city started low in a valley and worked it’s way up the mountain. Some of the buildings leaned at awkward angles, some seemed to have been built upside-down. Others looked like large trees that had been hollowed out and then splattered haphazardly with windows.
Smoke rose from chimneys all throughout the city, even though, as Clifford thought, it was rather warm for early winter. That is, if it was still winter, the Constellation Hendrix was in the sky the night before, so it was the winter months. Were the Historians up to something new?
Up ahead on the road Clifford could see a wooden sign, slightly dry-rotted, but still very legible. He maintained a rather leisurely pace to approach the sign, his own misgivings about going through Lithe growing stronger.
The sign read, in large, gothic print: LITHE, City of Hell
It had a skull a crossbones painted beneath it. On the ground was either a rock shaped like a skull or an actual skull.
“Schrodinger, is there any way around this town?”
The mouse spoke up, “You remember that feeling you had about the farm of Pepperidge? How that there was no way to avoid it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what this is. If you want to go to Historia, you have to pass through Lithe.”
The old road wound down the hillside toward the valley, and as Clifford could now see, toward the walls of the city of Lithe. The closer he got, the more the sense of dread began to weigh him down.
The leaves on the trees around him changed color as they walked toward the city. The gold-and-orange display that had dominated the hills around the farm of Pepperidge were replaced by dark browns and, in some cases, black leaves. The ground was harder, as well. Far to the north, though not so far as to not be heard, roared a waterfall. Clifford hazarded the guess that it was the uphill river from the King’s Valley. All things seemed to lead to Historia.
Schrodinger sat on his shoulder the whole time as the approached the city. The road narrowed as it pointed the way to the main gate of the city, a tall, barred gate with two sentries posted outside the wall and another six inside.
Clifford walked cautiously toward the wall, fearing the city (for some still unknown reason) and doing all he could to muster the courage to pass through the gate and not turn back and run away. He suddenly feared that his voice would crack when he answered the guards, and that just wouldn’t look right for a formerly sensible 40 year old man.
“Halt!” yelled the first guard, “Who are you?”
“Tell them your name,” Schrodinger said.
“Cliff... Clifford Jenkins, of Nostalgia.”
The guard looked to his fellow sentry, then back at Clifford, “And why, O Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, are you coming to the great City of Lithe?”
Clifford fought past the sudden urge to vomit, “I am seeking Historia.”
The guard flicked his hand high into the air and the massive steel gate began to swing open, “You may pass, Clifford Jenkins of Nostalgia, but beware! Few ever reach Historia from this point.”
Clifford maintained his poise as he walked through the gate. He even managed to turn the corner around a large building and begin walking away from the guards before he had to find an alleyway and purge his stomach.
He looked up and realized the industry of the city. What he’d thought were chimneys with fires going were actually smokestacks over factories. He walked on, looking around, and looking to the inhabitants like a tourist.
As he walked through a secondary city wall he found himself in what he could only figure to be a market. There were stalls throughout, each one selling various wares. Guns (which Clifford already had one, and no one had asked him where or how he got it, and frankly, he’d almost forgotten how he’d gotten it), knives, foods, drinks, women, men, all was for sale in the great market of the great city of Lithe.
In the middle of it all was a man wearing a small sign around his neck, crying out in a loud voice, “Repent! The end is nigh! Gods be praised, repent, ye sinners and ye saints alike!”
Clifford walked past the man and stopped at a stall selling knives. His Swedish Navy knife was getting dull and he needed a sharpening stone. He pointed to a medium sized stone, “How much?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.” The old woman working the stall said. She reminded Clifford of the ancient thing that had confronted him at Carnacabidos.
Clifford picked up a smaller stone, “And this one?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford leaned forward, “You realize that’s the same price right? How much is everything on the table?”
“Forty-five, no less. But I’ll haggle if you must.”
Clifford moved on, and it took him a moment to realize that he still had the small sharpening stone in his hand. He turned to give it back and the stall was gone. He was fast growing weary of this land. But thankfully his sense of dread over the city of Lithe was diminished by the ambience of the market.
“Flood!” Someone shouted, “The river’s overfilled. Get to a high place, quick!”
Clifford went to move, but he was knocked back and forth by scurrying patrons. He reached for the central pole, which looked rather well founded, and began to climb. He could now hear the rushing water, but he couldn’t remember which direction the waterfall was in.
It was at the moment that a wall of water crested the nearest building, slightly behind him and to the right, and slammed hared into Clifford, pressing him against the pole. He clutched tightly, riding out the torrent. Then it was over. The flood had lasted a mere moment. It was devastating to the market. Stalls were overturned, patrons were digging themselves out from under rubble and flotsam.
“Well, that as something, wasn’t it, Schrodinger?”
No answer.
“Schrodinger?”
************
The City of Lithe is an impossible dream. It has been flooded more times than the engine of a silly 1970s British Leyland automobile (preferably the Dolomite Sprint, 1976 version), and yet the inhabitants refuse to move. The ground is so soft that most buildings in Lithe sink on average six inches a year, and because of this the city council orders the roads and streets dug lower. The city was actually built atop a mountain, but because of this sinking and digging out process, they’ve gradually, over the course of a couple of hundred years, dug their very own valley, which directed the river even more so at them.
As the valley grew deeper, the people of Lithe came to depend more and more on the talking Beavers to dam the river and maintain the water flow. Even then, though, the water was still too much for a group of Beavers to control.
The floods came irregularly, and there was always a moments warning from watchtowers built along the north end, river facing, part of the city. Because of this warning, Clifford Jenkins survived the eighty-fifth flood to hit Lithe that year. The previous record for most flood in a year had been a paltry sixty-seven, but that had been before the Great Drought had decimated the lands around Historia and had brought ruin nigh to Lithe itself.
Now, a drenched Clifford Jenkins was busily searching through the desolation that had once been a market. Some vendors were out once again restoring their stalls. Some were talking. He was piecing together bits of news about the city without even realizing it.
“They said that the bank just sank eight inches with that flood. We’ll be digging it out soon.”
“I heard that the north wall was damaged this time. They said that the Rigger may fall.”
Clifford kept searching, but asked in the general direction of those talking, “What’s the Rigger?”
The man tapped him on the shoulder, “Look here, mate.” He pointed to the north wall where, framed against a graying sky stood four massive towers, “Starting from the left there’s The Garrison, The Helmstaad, The Rigger, and The Morii. The watchtowers of the city north, named for the gods of Lithe itself. No watchtower has fallen in five hundred years. Now The Rigger might.”
Clifford turned back to the fallen stalls, “Sorry to hear that.”
The other man, the one who hadn’t pointed out the watchtowers, walked up, “What are you looking for?”
Clifford continued moving things, pushing back pieces of wood, flaps of cloth, “I lost my friend in the flood.”
The man knelt down and began moving things around, mostly stuff that Clifford had already pushed aside, “The talking mouse?”
Clifford stopped, “How did you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know that in all that water, in all that chaos, I saw a talking mouse. It screamed out something as it rushed past me.”
Clifford grabbed the man’s shoulders, “What did he say?”
“Go west.”
Clifford sat back, “Go west? I’ve been going west. It’s the only way to Historia.”
“You’re going to Historia?”
“Yes.”
The man offered his hand to help Clifford up, “I am as well. Jaime Conner, post-boy, although I am twenty-seven years old.”
Clifford couldn’t stop thinking about Schrodinger, “You were the one who told the people at the farm of Pepperidge that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Jaime looked confused, “Well, I do go to the Pepperidge farm at least once a fortnight, and the last time I was in Nostalgia it was nearly deserted. Only about fifteen left there.”
“I just left Nostalgia about...” Then Clifford realized that he had no idea how long he’d been gone. He stood there looking at Jaime rather stupidly.
“I was in Nostalgia one week ago,” Jaime said, “That’s when I found out that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”
Clifford tried to reconcile the time difference in his head and found that he was completely unable to. He’d either been gone for far longer than he thought, or his “gift” as Schrodinger called it had conjured up an entire town.
Schrodinger. Poor Schrodinger.
**************
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