Translated From Sarconain Highway

Jasper brought his ax down on the block of wood.  It split in two, and he threw the pieces in a wheelbarrow.  Life with the Breakers had been good.  John and Mary were kind to him, Alethea helped him cope with his grief the best she could, and the little twins, Anna and Stephen, accepted him as a big brother.

He wiped sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and saw a figure approaching.

"Alethea?" he called.

Alethea stopped flinging seed to the flock of chickens gathered about her feet and looked up.  "It's Jack!" she cried.  "My cousin!  He left with his parents and sister a few weeks ago and he's coming back...alone?  With their mounts?"  Alethea tossed the feed bag into Jasper's wheelbarrow.  "Jack!!"  Hiking up her long skirts, she ran towards her cousin, Jasper on her heels.  "Jack?" asked Alethea as she came up to him.

Jack slid from his saddle and fell against her.  Alethea staggered as the force of her tall cousin's collapse nearly knocked her from her feet.  She was a strong girl, but supporting most of Jack's weight was nearly beyond her.  "Jack."  Alethea put her hand under Jack's chin, lifting his  drooping head and searching the anguished blue eyes.  Jack was not crying, but Alethea could see the tracks tears had made through the dirt on his face. Getting nothing from the boy but a look of overwhelming sadness, Alethea pulled his head to her shoulder, hugging him.   Looking over his shoulder, Alethea saw blood on the saddles of the unicorns.

"Jasper," said Alethea, "Take Jack to the kitchen and get him something to eat while I put up the unicorns."

Jasper pulled Jack's arm around his shoulders, allowing the other boy to lean against him as they walked to the house.  Jasper had heard about Jack from Alethea and knew that Jack was about his age, although Jack was taller than Jasper by a few inches.  There were bits of grass in his black hair, and his vividly blue eyes were still downcast and filled with misery.  They entered the kitchen where Jasper deposited Jack in a chair.  Jack slumped like a rag doll.

Jasper put some food on a plate and set it down in front of Jack.  Jack pushed it away; Jasper pushed it back to him.  This silent battle continued for a few minutes before Jack even noticed Jasper. 

"Who are you?" asked Jack.

"I'm Jasper," Jasper replied.

"Jasper," said Jack, "I don't want to eat."  He pushed the plate away.

"I don't care," said Jasper, shoving the plate back under Jack's nose.  "Eat.  It'll do you good."

"How do you know?" asked Jack, looking at the food with as much craving in his expression as there would be if he was regarding a bowl full of mud.

"When I lost my parents and sister," said Jasper, "Starving myself didn't do me any good.  Now, eat, before I pin you to the floor and cram this meal down your throat."

Jack may not have looked very alive, but his appetite was flourishing.  After the first few bites, he attacked the food like the starving youth he was, much to Jasper's satisfaction.

 

Alethea came into the kitchen a few minutes later.  "What happened, Jack?" she asked gently.

"There was a rockslide," said Jack. "I don't want to talk about it, but I think it was started by the Aranara."

"What makes you think that?" asked Alethea.  She asked the question only to draw the events of the rockslide out of Jack.  It came as no surprise to her that the Aranara might target a Sarconian family, for they did such things frequently.

"There were signs of a few boulders being pried into place and tracks.  Melissa could have made more sense of it than me, but she wasn't there.  I tracked her north for a while, but she hid her trail and I couldn't find it.  A Scout might be able to, but not me."

"Wait," said Alethea, "She's alive?"

Jack nodded.  "But out of her mind, I think."

"How come she didn't know you were alive?" asked Jasper.

"I was knocked unconscious during the slide, then woke up for a little while before I passed out again.  I found out that Melissa was alive when I was awake for the first time, and she must have mistaken me for dead when I was passed out."

Alethea nodded.  "That sounds plausible, especially if she wasn't in full command of her senses."

"But why'd she hide her trail?" Jack lamented.

"Well," said Jasper, "If she woke up and saw the Aranara tracks, she would get away as fast as possible, believing that they might come back and dispatch any survivors they might find."

"I guess I'm blessed that they didn't come back, and I suppose that people will tell me that I'm lucky I"m alive, but I don't feel very lucky."  Jack folded his arms on the table and rested his chin dismally on them.

"You, know," said Alethea, "your stories are remarkably alike: parents taken by events beyond your power to alter and sisters living in unknown locations."

"This happened to you?" Jack asked Jasper.

"More or less," said Jasper, shrugging.  "Just replace the rockslide with a plague."

It has often been said that misery loves company, and Jack's expression lightened at the news that he was not the only one who knew the pain of losing a family so quickly.

 

John Breaker was a farmer and more than pleased to have two capable boys to help with the large harvest.  Jasper had earned part of his family's bread by fishing, and he had grown strong from pulling the oars of his little boat when it was loaded with fish, so while Jasper was visibly muscular, Jack, though strong, had trained for combat and long-distance running.   The boys complimented each other, however. 

John walked into the barn one morning and smiled at the sight of Jack and Jasper wrestling on the floor, Stephen standing nearby and watching with delight at the contest of strength.  It was always a pleasure to watch the boys contend with each other in a friendly way, as they often did and were doing now.  Grunts and short bursts of laughter punctuated their heavy breathing as they each sought to pin the other to the ground.  Dust swirled as they grappled with each other, boots occasionally bashing into walls and shoulder blades sliding against the floor.  Jasper finally managed to pin Jack for long enough to decide the contest, and was promptly tackled by Stephen as soon as he made a motion to rise.  Jasper good-naturedly let the younger boy pin him to the ground while Jack climbed to his feet and dusted himself off.

"Alright, Stephen," said Jasper, "let me up.  You're getting big and heavy to be sitting on me for that long."  Jasper tousled Stephen's hair. 

Grinning with delight at having vanquished his adopted big brother, Stephen scrambled off Jasper and allowed the older boy to get to his feet.  Jasper slapped at his pants, sending clouds of dust into the air and making the three boys sneeze.

Anna came in with a basket lined with a cloth and filled partially with feed for the chickens.  "You boys are dirty," she said solemnly.  "Why do you roll in the dirt like that?"  She gave the barn floor a disdainful glance.

"Because we enjoy it," said Jack, grinning wickedly at his young cousin.

Prim Anna shook her brown curls at the strangeness of boys and tripped delicately to where the chickens were waiting for their breakfast, the shoulder-length ringlets bobbing under the little red kerchief she wore over her head.  They watched her, smiling.  She was only seven, and her attempts to mimic the feminine graces of her mother and older sister both amused and charmed the four males in the household.   

 

Jack and Jasper lived in the attic of the farmhouse with the squashes, pumpkins, and a cat.  Strings of dried fruits and vegetables hung from the ceiling along with herbs, giving the large room a spicy smell.  The bed was a crackly pile of hay and corn husks covered with a huge sheet.  Blankets stacked on a nearby pumpkin were grabbed throughout the night as they were needed.  Jack snored sometimes, and would occasionally be awakened in the middle of the night when a half-asleep Jasper hit him over the head with a gourd.  The black furred, green-eyed cat, Ezmeralda, awakened them more often with gifts of mice and rats, which she presented with great dignity.   Ezmeralda was often confused by the boys lack of interest in her vanquished prey, but would finally give up trying to get them to eat it and take her catch off to the corner and have her own midnight snack.  The boys did appreciate the cat's toils, however, and Ezmeralda was, in truth, quite spoiled with attention.  

 

Soon the crops were harvested and stored away, the excess sold or used to barter for things the family needed.  The leaves of the aspen trees had turned yellow, and the Sarconians celebrated the fall festival.  Jasper was familiar with the festival, but it came earlier in the mountains than on the plains.  That morning, Jonathan Carzim, his brother Joshuel, and their family came to the farmhouse.  The Carzim family and the Breaker family always celebrated the fall festival together.  Both Jonathan and Joshuel carried bows.  Jack got his bow and Jasper his fishing pole, and the four boys set out to bring their own contributions to the feast that was being prepared at the family home.   Agreeing to meet by the stream where Jasper was fishing, they split up.

Joshuel was the first to return.  "How is it going?" he asked Jasper softly.

Jasper grinned and pointed to a bucket filled with water and fish.  "I think I'll stop soon.  How did your hunt go?"

Joshuel proudly held up a few dead turkeys.  "Very well."

Jonathan came up slowly, a deer over his broad shoulders.  Jack followed him with another, smaller deer.  "I'm so hungry that I could eat this whole deer," said Jonathan.

"Tell me about it," said Jack.

They ate lunch by the stream, then cut two long poles.  They hung a deer from each one.  Joshuel's turkeys were also hung from the poles along with Jasper's fish.  Resting the poles on their shoulders, they were able to carry the deer with relative ease.  Jonathan and Jack carried Jonathan's deer and the turkeys; Joshuel and Jasper had Jack's deer and Jasper's fish.

They stopped in sight of the farmhouse to butcher the deer.  Joshuel and Jasper took the fish and turkeys to the kitchen, then returned to help Jonathan and Jack, who were bleeding the deer.  After this, they gutted the  creature.

"You know," said Jasper to Joshuel, "You're a lot less intimidating when you are not wielding that thing in my face."  Jasper gestured to the bloody knife Joshuel held in his hand.

"Yeah," said Joshuel.  "Sorry about that.  I saw Leila's horse and overreacted."

"And then you wonder why I don't let you graduate from your Junior Scouthood," said Jonathan, who was up to his elbows in gore.  "You overreact a whole lot more than you should."

"I don't know what I did to make the council mad," said Joshuel to Jasper, "but they put me under my brother for the duration of my Junior Scouthood."

"You didn't make them mad," said Jonathan.  "I volunteered to be your instructor.  I don't know what I was thinking."

"He's that bad, ay?" asked Jack.

"And worse," responded Jonathan, though there was a joking note in his voice.

The butchering process was gross, but at last they completed it and took the meat to the kitchen.  The carcasses were left for the wolves and the hides put aside to be scraped and tanned.

 Dusk was growing, and they joined John and a few more men in dragging fallen trees into a large pile for a bonfire.  The had all been hard at work, and they grew hungry.  The smells drifting from the kitchen drew them like bees to honey.

For all the fun and action, however, Jasper noted that Jack seemed somewhat depressed.  "Melissa used to always chase we away from the kitchen with a rolling pin in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other," he said.  "I never thought I would miss that, but I do."

Jasper stopped short as he remembered something.  "My sister, Kaia, would be twelve today."

"Really?" asked Jack.

Jasper nodded.  "Yeah.  I miss her.  She used to attack me with wooden spoons too."

Jasper smiled a bit sadly, then his expression brightened.   "Food!!"

Tables had been set up, and the women and girls were loading them with food.  The men were starting the fire, and soon the party was in full swing. Sitting around the bonfire, they all ate until they could eat no more.  Stories were told, and the evening wore away pleasantly.  The Carzims were staying over at the farmhouse, and the four boys retired to the attic with Stephen, who was resigned to giving up his bed to one of the ladies at the prospect of staying in the attic with the 'big boys' as he called Jonathan, Jack, Jasper and Joshuel. 

Almost as soon as they reached the attic, Ezmeralda jumped into Jasper's lap with a demanding meow.  He scratched the cat behind her ears, an action that was followed by contented purring.  Ezmeralda stretched comfortably and worked her claws, digging them into Jasper's blue pant leg and velveting them methodically.  Stephen went to sleep, and they blew out the light and talked, or at least tried to talk, in whispers in the dark until Mary came up and sternly told them to go to bed.

 

There was plenty of action going on the next day, but Jasper found some time to be alone.  The musicians playing beside the fire the night before had reminded him of something - something he had nearly forgotten.  Digging through the depths of the bag in which most of his possessions were stored, he found it: a pipe.  His father had carved it for him many years before, and it was truly a work of art.  Designs twisted around it, and an engraving of an elf-maid sat upon a swing that seemed to hang from the upper ridge, which was carved to look like a tree branch.  She wore a dress whose sleeves fell back to her elbows; the skirt was long and full and only the tips of her toes peeked out from under it.  A light wind lifted her flower-crowned hair, blowing it to the side and showing a pointed ear.  Only the profile of her face could be seen, for it was turned to the side.

Jasper put the pipe to his lips and blew upon it.  It started with a pure note, then squawked painfully.  Jasper took a deep breath, licked his lips and blew again.  He had once been skilled at this, earning extra money during the festival for playing at celebrations.  The note sounded clearly.  He shot into a lively tune that he was quite familiar with, or had been.  To Jasper's pleasure, he noted that he had lost none of his skill.   He switched to a different song, one that changed from major to minor with great frequency.  Eyes half closed, he swayed slightly with his music.  Reluctantly, he brought the song to an end.

"I never knew you could play," said a voice from the doorway.

Jasper turned.  Jack was watching him.  "I haven't in some time," Jasper said quietly.

"You're very good for not having played in so long."

"Thanks," said Jasper, rising with the pipe in his hand. 

"I heard you downstairs and came to investigate," said Jack.  "You should play with the musicians tonight."

Jasper shook his head.  "I do not know any of your songs."

Jack grinned.  "Doesn't matter.  I have the feeling you can pick things up and besides, some new songs will be great."

"You...you really think so?"

"Yep."

 

Jasper was far less uncomfortable that night than he had expected.  Playing with a group of musicians was actually quite familiar to him, for he had done it quite frequently back home.  He found out why Mary had so firmly insisted that they go to bed the night before, for there was no sign of the party stopping.  Anna curled up in Alethea's lap and went to sleep.  Stephen tried desperately to stay awake, but failed.  The fire burned down to embers that glowed beautifully.  They reveled in the moonlight, running races over the harvested fields and having mock battles amongst the dried corn-stalks. 

Alethea carried Anna and Stephen back into the house and put them to bed.  Then she returned to the party, an unearthly white figure that danced over the fields.  A more traditional part of the evening was starting.  If the boys could catch Alethea, they could go up to a huge pile of rocks less than a mile away and continue their races, mock battles and contests of strength there.  If she could elude them for a set amount of time or until they gave up, the evening would be over and they would have to go to bed.  The boys chased Alethea, but she was as hard to catch as a ghost, her laughter taunting them.  At last they all gave up, save for Jack, though he pretended defeat.  Then, creeping away from his unwary comrades, he slipped up on Alethea with the silence of a cat.  A scream of surprise informed everyone of Jack's success in apprehending his cousin.  He emerged from the corn-field carrying the merry captive who must now sit as queen over their early morning revels.  It was an old tradition of unknown origin, and they happily practiced it despite the fact that the the only young people in the Carzim family were boys, Jonathan and Joshuel;  Melissa and Alethea were the only girls in the Breaker family both old and young enough to participate, and this year, only Alethea was present.

They carried her up to a huge mound of rocks, a triumphant, noisy group.  The topmost rock was, in comparison to the other rocks, small, and it was here that they seated Alethea on a bearskin.  The rock directly below her was very large, flat, almost white, and perfect for playing any game that they could think of.  Alethea laughed with pleasure at their wild feats as they contested against each other.  In the very early morning they gathered in a circle to eat left-overs of supper which Jonathan had possessed the intelligence to bring.  

They lounged about for a short while after their respate, but activities soon resumed.  Jonathan challenged Jasper to a wrestling match, and soon the two boys were rolling about, sweat beading on their faces.  They grunted and strained, muscles trembling with the effort, teeth gritted.  At first, they seemed evenly matched, but Jasper soon began to feel the sweetness of dominance.  Jonathan was skilled, but Jasper had spent many months honing his skill with Jack.  A few minutes in the competition, Jasper saw a flicker of self-doubt in Jonathan's eyes.  He fought harder, and Jonathan responded in kind, but Jasper soon had him pinned flat on the rock.

"You're really good," Jonathan gasped.

Jack laughed. "You don't have to tell me that.  He's been practicing on me for the last several months.  The barn floor and I are now very well acquainted."

"Now Jack," said Jasper, rising off of Jonathan, "You've introduced me to that floor more than once as of late."

"Perhaps," said Jack, "but you're still my better at wrestling."

"Look," said Alethea.  "The sun rises."

The  turned east.  The sky was lightening.  They all sat down and watched golden rays streak across the sky, turning the clouds pink and dying the mountains with red.  Joshuel yawned so widely that it was a wonder his face did not split in two. 

"May I suggest sleep?" he asked.

The others nodded, suddenly feeling very tired.  They had brought up several skins and now spread them on the rock.  Alethea lay in center; the boys formed a square around her - a shielding gesture that she did not protest, for beasts roamed the forest, not all of them harmless.  Jonathan gave Alethea his cloak to serve as a blanket and dropped down on his bedroll, seeming to go to sleep immediately.  Muttering something about his brother's immunity to cold, Joshuel wrapped himself in a cloak and laid down, also passing swiftly from consciousness.  Jasper and Jack followed suit