and released it. "We've come away from home. It feels good to be getting old again."
That must have been it. Time had moved back in. I was growing up once more, and though I was tired, I was glad of the change. After some water, we kept on, and soon enough we were on the other side of Mount Laythen, looking down on the cliffs and the cloud-covered sea. Both were nestled closer than I'd expected.
"Alistair," I said, feeling that we'd come far enough without questions to try once more, "how many lost children has Armon brought to you?"
"Seventy-one," Alistair said without the slightest hesitation. "Usually in groups of three or four, though he once carried six up the way of yesterday. I don't know how he managed it. Though I suppose it's just the sort of thing a giant would try to do."
There was a pause as he shifted the mighty load on his back, then he went on.
"They never aged, never grew up. It was good they didn't have to stay too long."
"Where have they all gone to?" asked Thomas, picking up my line of questioning as we came to a narrow, trickling stream that crossed our path. We leaned down for a drink, cupping ice-cold water in our hands.
"Somewhere safe," said Alistair. That was all he would tell us -- there was no more -- but I got the
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feeling we were going to find out soon where this safe place was.
Hours later, when we'd finally wound our way to the bottom of Mount Laythen and walked to the cliff's edge, it was late afternoon and we were all tired, but we didn't stop to rest. Alistair slipped the huge pack off his back and dropped it on the ground with a dusty thud. He breathed a sigh of relief, then surveyed the edge of the cliff, searching for something.
"There it is," he said, gazing a few feet off to one side. There was an iron ring sticking out of the rocks. A thick rope was attached to it.
"Can the two of you pick up that load and bring it over there?" He pointed to the iron ring, walking toward it. Thomas and I each stood on either side of the pack and found cloth handles to grab hold of it. We lifted together and discovered the load was unbelievably heavy. Alistair was even stronger than we'd imagined.
"What do you think he put in here?" I whispered. "A stack of rocks?"
"Or maybe some of Armon's old boots," Thomas ventured.
I laughed and grunted picking up my side, and straining, the two of us hauled the pack over to where Alistair stood. He was pulling the rope up, winding it carefully in loops at his feet. When we
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arrived beside him, I saw that it was more than just a rope -- it was a rope ladder to the Warwick Beacon below. When Alistair had the rope ladder all the way up, it was carefully stacked in a tall pile beside him. At the very end there were loops and extra lengths of rope, which Alistair tied to the pack. When he was satisfied the load would not come loose, he asked us to push it over the edge. He held the rope ladder firm and we did as we were told. Then Alistair slowly let the rope ladder all the way out again.
"The pack will help keep it steady from the bottom as we go," he said. Then he pointed to me. "You first, Roland. It will be a little disorienting getting through the clouds, but after that it's easy. You'll be fine."
My heart raced at the thought of climbing down the side of the cliff, but not for the reason one might think. I wasn't afraid. I was overcome with the thought of standing on the Warwick Beacon and of sailing the Lonely Sea. I raced to the rope ladder and started down -- faster than I should have -- and Alistair scolded me from above.
"Slow down, Roland! The Warwick Beacon isn't going anywhere!"
I paced myself then, taking each step carefully until I was surrounded by clouds. The rope ladder was a little moist, but it became dry again once I
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made it through. I stopped in midair and looked down ... and there it was! The Warwick Beacon sat bobbing on the water. It was the first time I'd ever seen it, and it was without hesitation the most magical moment of my life. Looking out over the Lonely Sea for the first time and seeing that boat, I knew my destiny lay on the water.
The farther I went down the rope, the more I found myself in open air. The cliffs, it seemed, did not go straight up, but rather pointed in like the right side of a V. The pack sat on the deck of the anchored Warwick Beacon as though someone had carefully set it there. Touching my foot on the wooden planks of the deck filled me with a sudden, consuming emotion. I've found my home at last. It was all I could think of. In many ways the first leg of my journey ended in that moment, on the deck of the Warwick Beacon, gazing out onto the vast Lonely Sea.
"What do you think of her?" said Alistair. Both he and Thomas had come on board while I was lost in my own world.
"She's perfect," I answered. "And so is that." I pointed off the side to the endless water before me. When I looked back, both Alistair and Thomas were smiling, but they were sad smiles, as though they knew something heartbreaking in that moment that I hadn't yet come to realize.
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"Take a good look at the cliffs," said Alistair. "You won't be seeing land for a while."
"How long?" asked Thomas. "I have projects half finished back home. When will I get back to them?"
It was the first time I'd heard the slightest bit of animosity in his voice, as if my training were taking precedence over his own.
"We'll be gone about thirty days," said Alistair. It was a shockingly large span of time, and came as a surprise even to me. Thirty days at sea? It was unimaginable for Thomas.
"But that's too long!" he shouted. "I'd rather be left behind than be gone from my own things for weeks and weeks."
He looked back at the rope ladder, still attached to the pack.
"Don't you want to know where your brother is going?" asked Alistair.
Thomas looked back from the rope and his eyes passed over Alistair to me. There was a lost hope in his expression, but he seemed to accept the idea of a long time on the water. He nodded, smiled awkwardly, and asked just the right sort of question.
"Can you show me how to sail this thing?" And then I smiled too, very happy to have such a good brother. "I can show you," I said. "It's not as
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hard as putting together a wall or a building like you're used to. This will seem easy."
Alistair had given me untold hours of instruction on the lake in what I now realized was a miniature version of the Warwick Beacon. The boat on the lake was much the same, only it had been a third the size. Thinking back on it now, I felt like I'd had years and years of instruction in the skills of sailing, reading maps and compasses, and studying weather. Maybe I had. It was so hard to tell how long we'd been with Alistair. As the sails rose and fdled with air, I felt a surge of energy in my chest and cried out, "Whooohoooooo!!"
"You take the wheel," Alistair told me. "Thomas and I will unpack everything I hauled over here. There's already a lot stored belowdecks -- water and dry goods - but the bag has more things we'll need. Head directly north, and don't bother to call for me unless you're in a real jam. I feel the rare and wonderful opportunity of a nap coming on."
"Where are we going?" I asked, taking hold of the wheel, feeling the wind-worn knobs of wood in my hands.
"It would be foolish to think ours the only world," said Alistair. "Elyon is much bigger than that!"
And so it was that we sailed across the Lonely
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Sea for many days and were told a great deal more about our lives. We learned that we'd stayed a while longer than we might have imagined at Alistair's home when we'd first been brought there at the ages of two and three. Indeed, we'd stayed a good long time -- seven years -- before he took us to the orphanage in Ainsworth. He'd taken me on the boat on the lake countless times in that seven years, shown Thomas how to draw little pictures and build with blocks. But in the end he knew that we couldn't stay two and three forever. We had to grow up, and that could only happen somewhere far away from Grindall, where we could not be found.
He'd already set about crea
ting the Wakefield House and placing the iron doors in our path before we arrived -- all guided by what he continually called "the unseen hand of Elyon." It was a dangerous way, set out but not chosen by Alistair, and I felt a great satisfaction in knowing the challenges had been so big and we'd overcome them all.
There was only the matter of the markings on our knees to lead us back home when the time was right. He had, in fact, planned to make our way a little more direct, but found that once again he was compelled to set our course and let nature do the rest. He had wanted to come get us or to send a sign, but something had compelled him against it.
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And so he looked - day after day - in the direction of the Wakefield House, wondering if it would ever fall over and our presence would be known.
He surmised that our path was one set out by hands not our own, and that there must have been some learning we'd needed in the journey itself. He told us over and over to remember every detail of how we came to be in his home on Mount Laythen, to search for those things that seemed to be put there for our knowledge and benefit.
We also learned that Alistair had taken this journey at sea before -- many times, in fact. After Grindall and the giants left him, Alistair's first task had been to build the terraced home he lived in. Shortly after its completion he was at work on the Warwick Beacon (with the occasional help of Armon), and soon after that he began sailing it in search of a secret place. It took many years to build the boat and more years still to search the Lonely Sea, and all the while he was away from his home, getting older.
There had been an image in his mind that haunted him - an image of looking up at five pillars of stone shooting high and thin and jagged out of the Lonely Sea. At the top the pillars gently mushroomed out, but he couldn't say what might be at the top. He had attached a name to the vision in his mind -- The Five Stone Pillars.
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On the morning of our fourteenth day at sea, Thomas and I awoke to find Alistair at the wheel. The wind had picked up in the night and drawn us quickly to the east. The fact that I knew this upon waking was unusual, but I simply knew it was so. It was as if I had a compass and a map inside me, so I could feel where I'd been and where I was going. I looked at Thomas rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and reaching immediately for his book and paint box, and I wondered if it was the sort of feeling he got when he was painting a picture or building something. Those sorts of things had always come hard to me -- like they were a foreign language -- but the language of the sea was not like that. It was my language. And in this way I learned to appreciate my gift and the gifts of others. I stopped coveting the unattainable talents Alistair and Thomas enjoyed, and started embracing my own way.
"Thank you for coming along," I said to Thomas. "I know you didn't want to."
We both stood and started for the wheel where Alistair waited.
"You seem happy here, on the water," my brother observed as we walked the wooden planks of the Warwick Beacon. "It makes me think our paths might not always be the same."
I felt a terrible, deep sadness when he said that. It had never occurred to me that we might not
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always be together, that a fork might come in our shared path where he could walk away from me. It was the sort of thought I was in the habit of dwelling on, and I was thankful to come alongside Alistair and have him change the subject.
"There," he said firmly, pointing straight off the front of the Warwick Beacon.
Before us lay miles of rolling blue water, but way off in the distance, almost beyond our sight, something had appeared. I knew what it was before Alistair named it, and my heart leaped at the idea of having found this secret place in the vast openness of the Lonely Sea.
"The Five Stone Pillars," said Alistair. His gaze turned squarely on me, and he waited until I took my eyes off the five black pillars in the distance and looked at him instead. He bent down on one knee and put his hand on my shoulder.
"Do you know how to get here?" he asked.
I looked at the Five Stone Pillars, then out to sea in another direction, then back at Alistair. It was a funny thing, but I absolutely did know how to find the Five Stone Pillars. I nodded slowly. Then Alistair stood and guided me by the shoulder to the wheel of the Warwick Beacon.
"This ship is yours now, Roland. I'm growing too old for adventures such as these."
I put my hands on the wheel, shaking with fear
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and excitement at the thought of having the Warwick Beacon for my own. And then Alistair said something almost as surprising as his offer of the ship.
"You'll soon come by this way again, but we're close enough for today. It's time you took us back home."
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***
CHAPTER 25
In the Shadow of a Giant
There were a few times -- when I got very tired -- that I relinquished the wheel of the Warwick Beacon to Alistair on the way back to Mount Laythen, but I did most of the sailing and all of the navigating. It took seventeen days to find our way back over the Lonely Sea, plus another day to make our way up and around the mountain to the home of Sir Alistair Wakefield. The last bit of evening light sparkled on the lake as we finally arrived at the foot of the terrace. We were still on the ground - about to start up the stairway of tree stumps -- when a voice came from above.
"I was starting to wonder if you'd ever come back."
It was the unmistakable voice of Armon. He came slowly into view, leaning his huge shoulders and head over the terrace into the twilight. "Where have you three been hiding?"
"Alone, are we?" Alistair skipped the usual pleasantries of welcoming an old friend.
"They've gone to sleep," said Armon. "Three of them -- two boys and a girl."
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"How long have you been here?" asked Alistair. The three of us were making our way up the stairs now while Armon moved around on the terrace to keep us in view.
"Five days, I think. You know how this place is. It's hard to know for sure after a day or two."
We reached the top of the stairs, and Alistair nodded with some concern.
"And how long were you gone this time before you returned?"
"That I can tell you without worry of getting it wrong," answered Armon. "I've been away a little over two years."
I looked at Thomas and saw that his head was swimming just as mine was. We'd been living with Alistair for two years. It didn't seem possible at first, but thinking over all I'd learned and done, it seemed almost not long enough.
"Where were you?" asked Armon. Alistair moved over to the table by the terrace where we always sat together and everyone followed. It was a relief to slump into one of the chairs and look across at the shadowy mountain. The sun was down and little light remained.
"Showing them the Five Stone Pillars," said Alistair. He looked at me with great pride and something else -- some sort of deep longing. "We have ourselves a new captain, as I'd hoped."
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Armon set his gaze on me from above, pretending to look me over with some concern as to whether or not I was fit for the task.
"1 suppose you'll do," he said at length, but it was clear to everyone he was very pleased. Then he added, "You'll have more trouble keeping the children under control than making the trip. They're spirited, if you get my meaning."
Thomas, who had been quiet until then, broke in.
"Alistair, how many will fit on the Warwick Beacon?"
Alistair scratched the white hair on his forearm and considered the question. He had settled into his chair and had the look of someone content with his surroundings.
"I've never taken more than six at once, but I suppose it could hold a dozen or more if the need arose."
"Why do you want to know?" Armon asked, bending down on one knee and staring at my brother. "You've got something on your mind. I can tell such things."
I knew what Thomas was thinking, that keeping a promise he'd made was important to him.
"Would you be willing to make a slight detour on your way back to Castalia?" Thomas asked,
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returning Armon's gaze. "I think Roland will want to come -- so you might have to carry us both awhile."
"Where is it you'd like to go?" asked Armon. Thomas looked at Alistair briefly, then set his eyes on me. "Madame Vickers's House on the Hill."
There were some very brief introductions the next morning in which Thomas, Alistair, and I became acquainted with the three lost children. They were -- as Armon had said -- spirited. I was dumbfounded by the endless number of questions they posed -- When can we see our parents? Can we play in the lake? What's this? and Can I have that? and on and on and on. Then the three of them would go running off down the terrace chasing one another or playing at hide-and-seek.
"You must be gentle with them," Alistair said to me. "Endure their questions. You can give them a future at the Five Stone Pillars -- a good home -- but it won't include their parents, and this will hurt them."
And I was, from then on, always kind and gentle with the lost children. They were prone to crying at night and getting into mischief during the day, but these are stories for another time, for on the first night after our return from the sea, Armon
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took Thomas and me to a place from our past where we had a duty to fulfill.
We spent a good deal of the journey from Mount Laythen to Madame Vickers's House on the Hill telling Armon about the owner of the home, her son Finch, his two dogs, the wretched conditions, and all we'd had to endure. Armon, being a virtuous creature, walked through the night with great speed -- such was his enthusiasm to come face-to-face with this terrible woman and her loathsome son. It was just breaking dawn when we arrived, the three of us walking side by side with Armon in the middle. We crept up the side of the hill until the house was in view, and then we told Armon to remain hidden until we called for him. Both Thomas and I had a flair for the dramatic, and we weren't going to miss our chance to make the most of our circumstances.