Joshua was twelve years old. This was something of an awkward age according to his mother. Joshua himself was undecided on the issue though he was beginning to agree that she might have a point.
At the moment he was working his way through a large old wooden chest in the attic of his Uncle Richard's home. To be more precise, his Uncle Richard was in fact his great uncle, though he seldom bothered to use or even think about the “Great” part.
The rambling structure had been; until twenty years or so before an Inn and important meeting place. This had been prior to the primary trade route between Portun and Lowden being moved a half day's ride to the east. This occurrence was still a point of great bitterness in his mother’s family though in reality it had had little impact on them financially as they had their money invested in many other places by that time.
Many generations of the Bunch clan had grown up or spent time at the Inn though and if a family could be said to have a soul, and if that soul were to need some place to live, this would be the place.
There were still farms in the area and a stone quarry as well but these were primarily served by a small village at the crossroad a few miles hub-ward. Much of the old Inn was boarded up though his Uncle did make an effort to keep the roof from leaking and the basic structure sound.
The oldest part of the complex dated back nearly three hundred years and, according to legend the stone it was constructed from had once been part of the legendary King George's summer castle. His Uncle was of the opinion that this was rubbish. Joshua didn’t feel informed enough to have an opinion, but he enjoyed thinking about it..
On the one hand he liked the idea that the Knights of the Round Table might have at some point in the distant past spent a significant amount of time within walls made up of the very same stones that he spent his summers inhabiting. On the other there was the fact that his Uncle Richard was one of the foremost experts in the history of the Misty Arc. If he didn't know then who did?
There were in fact many different attics in the old inn though each shared a common trait. They were places where things had been deposited but seldom ever removed. Joshua had found stacks of newspapers over a century old. If not for a bit of yellowing he could have easily taken them for having been printed just the week before. The headlines were of the sort he was used to seeing in papers of his time and even the Queen's name was the same though the woman currently in charge was the great great granddaughter of the Queen in the old papers.
He would often spend his morning rummaging around in one of the attics before going outside to explore the forest with the children who lived in the area year round.
He'd been working at his task for six years now and when he considered the subject he estimated he'd be able to continue on until he was eighteen and still not be finished. This was in part due to the haphazard way in which he approached his task.
When he was younger he would climb up into an attic with a lantern, make his way more or less to the middle, close his eyes, spin around several times and then come to a stop. After he had regained his balance he would strike out in whichever direction he faced and start exploring the first thing that caught his eye.
There were chairs, old silverware, books, magazines, newspapers, clothes, knick knacks and outright rubbish. Occasionally he would turn up something of interest and take it to his Uncle. Early on the stories his Uncle told him in regards to these objects had tended to the fanciful but he always mixed in whatever real information he knew or guessed at. More recently his uncle’s stories were more history than fiction but they still held enough entertainment value to keep Joshua interested. Before retiring his Uncle Richard had been a Professor of History at the University of Carambee. He still spent a semester there during the winter teaching whatever struck his fancy. Winters at the Inn could be harsh. Carambee was near the coast which moderated the weather.
As Joshua was going through an old wooden chest he heard the sound of someone approaching from the direction of the ladder. The cadence of the steps told him that it had to be Penny. His Uncle's steps were heavy and precise on the rare occasions when he would come up to see what Joshua was doing. Penny's steps were light and somehow managed to impart a feeling of impatience. She was a month younger than Joshua. The children of the area had taken to calling her “'Half Penny” several years earlier as she had appeared to stop growing at the age of six. When Joshua arrived a week earlier his biggest shock had been how much Penny had grown since he had seen her last summer. She was nearly as tall as him and he had an uncomfortable feeling that she might be taller by the end of the summer.
“Joshua Bunch, you have the entire summer to dig through this junk. We'll need to hurry if we're going to make it to the hill by ten.” She said by way of greeting.
Joshua got up off his hands and knees. “I'll only be a moment more. I don't think I've ever been through this one before.”
“Are you sure it can't wait?”
He nodded in mock seriousness. “Quite.”
She shook her head in exasperation “Oh, very well. Please hurry though”.
It turned out that this particular wooden chest contained a large inner compartment that was locked. Joshua had developed a knack for opening the locks that occasionally held the contents of the old chests, dressers and boxes hostage. He pulled out two small bits of metal and fiddled with the lock for a minute before managing to get it to open.
“This one was awfully stiff. I bet it hasn't been opened in a century or more.”
Penny snorted and thought to herself “If I had five pence for every time Joshua has said something similar about the junk he is always digging through I'd be a very wealthy young lady indeed.”
Inside the inner compartment was a box about sixteen inches cubed with an old piece of rope knotted and looped through a small ring on the top as a handle. The box was made out of some sort of very dark hardwood with a satin finish. Given its size and weight when Joshua lifted it off the floor it was unlikely to contain a long forgotten hoard of gold and silver coins. Old Moth eaten clothes or ancient bits of paper with impossible to fathom hand written bits of text seemed the most likely contents based on his experience.
"Lack of context is your problem" his Uncle had noted when he had complained about a particularly obscure piece of writing he had been trying to understand the year before. "You don't know who wrote that letter or really anything about what was happening when it was written. How can you expect to understand what is being said? In my field we call that 'source material'. It's just one piece of a puzzle. Though from the sounds of it not an especially interesting one."
Penny had come over to take a closer look by now as well as encourage Joshua to hurry up. When he opened the lid it wasn't what he was expecting. Instead of clothing there was a leather bound book sitting atop a hand drawn map and a small wooden box about six inches to the side and three inches thick. The box appeared to have three small drawers though they wouldn't open.
While he'd been fiddling with the box Penny had pulled out the book and was looking at it. She had become interested in spite of herself.
“It's a diary of some sort" she said. Picking a page at random she began to read.
'June 3rd, the dawn brought the threat of rain. I quickly doused my fire, ate some dried fruit and got back on the road. By the time the rain began to fall I was already most of the way into Collard’s crossing and arrived only slightly soaked. My rain slick is in need of a new coating. I'll see about getting that done tomorrow'.
“It’s not very interesting based on that bit.” She noted.
Joshua paused for a moment in his examination of the box. “Isn't Collard’s crossing hub-ward of here?”
“Yes, it's about a day’s travel left hub-ward. It’s just an hour or two beyond where they hold the county fair. It’s not too far from the edge of the woods. Papa says its an OK place to visit if you don't mind the smell of goats.” Penny looked at the box in Joshua's hand. “It looks like a Faranese puzzle box.” she noted.
“Faranese puzzle box? What’s that?
“My Great Aunt has some. When we went for a visit this spring she showed them to me. You have to press on the right bits to get the drawer or drawers to open. If there is more than one drawer then it usually requires different combinations to get each one to open. See that bit of inlay there?” she said pointing at one corner of the box. “I'll bet that’s one of the parts you can manipulate. Joshua fiddled with the bit of wood she had pointed to and it did seem to move a tiny bit. Nothing interesting happened though. “What about the other bit of paper?” she asked. “It looks like a map of some sort.”
“It is. At least I think so. I don't recognize any of the place names though.” The two examined the map for a bit. Joshua pointed to a feature. “Look at that. It looks like a skull. And over there is a chest. It looks like some sort of pirate map.”
Penny shook her head in dismissal. “Pirates indeed, we're too far from the sea for pirates. Brigands are rare enough.” The two perused the map for a bit longer.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“It's all very interesting but we're supposed to meet Bert soon and we've a ways to walk. Put that stuff in your duffel if you want to examine it some more later so we can get started.” Having pushed his luck far enough Joshua did as she suggested and followed her down the ladder and out of the Inn.
The forest around the Inn always felt strange to Joshua when he first arrived for the summer. They had a large park full of trees near the flat his mother and he lived in but the trees there were manicured and tame. To his mind the trees around the Inn were trees as they were meant to be, unkept, free and with the hint of danger. The ones near his home lost their leaves in the winter, but these trees were evergreens. They had been cut back and were kept a good fifty yards from the old inn.
As they walked Joshua fiddled absently mindedly with the box. There were several bits that seemed to be a bit loose when he tried to move them. So far he hadn't been able to find a combination that would open any of the drawers.
They had walked most of the way in silence when Penny asked him a question. “Which do you like best Joshua, the City or the Country?”
Her question which on the surface seemed simple enough caused him to stop in his tracks. It wasn't a question he'd given much thought to.
“I'm not sure. When I come here for the Summers I don't have any school so it’s not really a fair comparison.”
The answer was apparently important to Penny. “But if you HAD to choose?”
Joshua thought for a moment longer. “I don't know.”
“Oh.” was all Penny said in response. She seemed disappointed for some reason but Joshua couldn't understand why.
Bert was Penny's cousin. He was a year younger than the two of them but bigger than either. Joshua's Uncle Richard had once noted “Bert is a good boy who should grow up to be a fine man, which is a good thing as he's going to be a very large one. A poor temper in such a man would be a very bad thing for those around him.”
Joshua wasn't prone to fighting though he had had his nose bloodied a couple of times in school yard skirmishes. He was glad to call Bert his friend and would be more than happy to have him around if any trouble started.
“There you two are. I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it.”
Penny gave Joshua an accusatory look. “Somebody was digging around in their attic again”. She said.
“Really, did you find anything interesting?” Bert asked.
Joshua grinned. “How about a pirate map, is that interesting?”
“Could be, can't see what they would be doing this far edge-ward though.”
Penny nodded “That’s what I told him”.
Officially Bert and Penny were cousins. They were as close to brother and sister as you could get without actually being so though as both their mothers were sisters and their fathers brothers. To make the whole situation even more unusual, both sets of parents were identical twins. After eight years of summers spent around them Joshua still had trouble telling the parents apart.
In spite of not being twins themselves, Joshua and Penny would sometimes communicate by means of a gesture or a glance, things that took most people several sentences to get across. Having known them as long as he had he could generally figure out the gist of what they were saying when that happened, but it was still disconcerting.
“We'll get to the map later. Right now I want to show the two of you what I've been working on.”
Joshua had a knack for coming up with odd ideas and somehow managing to turn them into functional prototypes. Though to be more accurate it would have been fair to describe many of his efforts as “mostly” functional.
He bowed briefly to both of them, like a circus ringmaster and began his spiel.
“You see before you a long grassy slope, which in the winter would be covered with snow and thus a perfect place to go sledding. It being early summer now there is of course no snow present; I have however come up with a device that will allow us to enjoy that experience in the here and now.” He paused briefly and looked off to his right.
“I've hidden it behind these trees over here so as to have time to give the two of you the proper introduction. Hold on a sec and I'll bring it out.”
Fitting actions to words Bert jogged off and soon returned with something that looked mostly like a normal sled with one notable exception. Along each side where the blades would normally be were several wheels. A dozen on either side, each about three inches in diameter. Bert held it up proudly. “What do the two of you think?”
“Very impressive Bert” Joshua responded. “How do you steer though?”
“And where is the brake?” added Penny.
“Well, as to the first question, you steer it just like any other sled. In regards to a brake, the same holds true. I've given it a fair amount of testing and it seems to hold up fine for me. I'm a fair amount heavier than either of you so I don't see why it wouldn't work for either of you as well. Now who wants to give it a go first?”
Penny pulled a coin out of her pocket. “I'll flip you for it Josh. Heads or Tails?” she said, tossing the coin high in the air.
Joshua called out “Tails”. The coin came down and he closed his hand as it landed neatly in his palm. He opened his hand and looked down. “Tails it is, I'm first” He smiled and handed the coin back to Penny.
“OK, come over here both of you and I'll give you a quick explanation on the controls. First things first. The brake is a bit touchy. The wheels don't have as much traction as I'd like frankly so you'll want to ease on the brake gently or you'll quickly lose control. The same is true of the steering. I've designed some spikes that can be fitted over your shoes. If you use them carefully they provide either supplemental breaking or aid in steering. I imagine that you can also break your leg if you're not careful so use them sparingly at first.”
Joshua adjusted the straps on the foot spikes. There was one spike for each shoe and they were about an inch or so across and extended two inches beyond the end of his shoes. Bert handed him the sled and Joshua walked gingerly to the top of the slope. The open expanse of grass was about forty five feet wide and nearly a half mile long. He put the sled down and eased himself onto it. “Would somebody please give me a shove?”
Penny snorted in exasperation. “You're supposed to get a running start first, or use your hands. Don't they ride sleds in the city?”
The truth of the matter was that it seldom snowed in Lowden and when it did his mother insisted that he stay inside “because of his health”. So far as Joshua knew he was perfectly healthy but he'd learned from long experience not to argue with her when she said things in that tone of voice.
“Maybe we're just more sophisticated in the way we go about it.” he replied..
Bert walked up behind him. “You'll have to explain to me later precisely how this is more sophisticated” he said as he took his boot, placed it squarely on Bert's back side and shoved hard. Even with this help Joshua got a slow start. This was probably for the best given his lack of experience.
The slope had been nearly flat where he'd started but quickly grew steeper over the first fifty yards or so. Before he knew it he was moving at a speed which seemed from his vantage point so close to the ground to be well in excess of what any carriage he'd been in had been capable of. Being a level headed sort he didn't panic right away. Slowly he lowered his feet until the spikes made contact with the ground. Almost at once he felt a jarring and his feet bounced up. Any loss in his momentum had been minimal at best so he gave it another try with the same result. Next he carefully applied the brake. At least he had thought he was being careful. The next thing he knew the wheels were locked up and he was skewing rapidly towards the right and towards several larger trees that looked capable of affecting his health in ways that he knew his mother would not approve of. It was at that moment that he began to panic. He lifted his lower legs up quickly and shoved his spike clad feet into the ground as hard as he could. Almost instantly the sled flew from beneath him and he found himself tumbling across the ground end over end. Eventually he came to rest on his side gasping for breath. After several steadily more successful attempts he was able to take a full breath. Almost immediately he wished he hadn't. His ribs ached on his right side where he normally carried his duffel bag. And now he realized that the bag was missing along with his shoes.
He painfully rolled over onto his back just in time to see Bert arrive.
“You've never ridden a sled in your life have you?” were the first words out of his mouth. Joshua didn't see any reason to deny it given his recent showing. Penny came running up soon after.
“Joshua Bunch, you had better not be seriously hurt, I shall not forgive you if you are.” she said in her most cross voice.
He decided to take a careful inventory of his various body parts to assess the damage. He was happy to find that he could in fact wiggle his toes and move his feet about though his ankles were slow to cooperate. His left shoulder was scraped and numb as well. He guessed that must have been the side that had hit the ground first. Nothing seemed to be broken so far as he could tell but he wasn't going to have a very enjoyable walk back to the Inn.
“I'm OK.” he finally said.
Bert helped him to his feet and he limped around for a bit before sitting down again to rest. Penny and Bert each took a couple of turns riding down the hill on the wheeled sled which had apparently survived the accident much better than him. Neither seemed to have any trouble using it which left Joshua feeling more deflated then he already had. By then he was feeling well enough to hobble back towards the old Inn . They were most of the way back when he realized that he'd never recovered his duffel bag.
“We'll have to go out tomorrow then and have a look for it.” Penny replied when he brought this up.
He'd been planning on showing the book, puzzle box and map to his Uncle Richard but decided not to mention them until the items had (hopefully) been recovered. He feigned fatigue to explain his stiffness and pain that evening at dinner and managed to avoid having to describe his embarrassing accident.
Generally he liked to leave his lantern lit and read into the wee hours of the morning during his summer breaks. On this particular evening he simply crawled under the covers, extinguished his lamp and fell immediately to sleep.