Riverlilly Read online

Riverlilly

  Second Edition

  Story & Art 2011

  J. Evans

  Table of Contents:

  A Beginning

  I – The Open Sea

  Chapter the First

  Chapter the Second

  Chapter the Third

  Chapter the Fourth

  Chapter the Fifth

  Chapter the Sixth

  Chapter the Seventh

  Chapter the Eighth

  Chapter the Ninth

  II – The River

  Chapter the Tenth

  Chapter the Eleventh

  Chapter the Twelfth

  Chapter the Thirteenth

  Chapter the Fourteenth

  Chapter the Fifteenth

  Chapter the Sixteenth

  Chapter the Seventeenth

  Chapter the Eighteenth

  Chapter the Last

  An Ending

  What law can there be in the Land of Lin

  If three days of magic rule all herein?

  ~the Fisherman

  A Beginning,

  The Year Nine Hundred & Ninety-Nine,

  The Third to Last Night,

  In which no wheel has an end.

  Night fell at last where the mountains met the sea. The moon shone like a lanternfish’s heart twisted inside-out, hovering between clouds the black of ancient depth. Two children crouched in the darkness halfway up the mountainside, spellbound, watching the sea roll east, endless wave upon wave without end.

  “Ready?” Jai whispered.

  “Ready,” Ceder whispered back.

  Their wheelbarrow had no wheel—it had long since rusted, bent, and broken off, but Jai thought they would be quicker away without it. The mountain was too steep to go by foot in the dark and this was their only chance, wheel or no.

  Straining every fiber in his body, Jai grudged the makeshift sled to a building pace over the shale and loose rocks. This is too loud! He turned to check over his shoulder but there was no one there.

  The mountainside declined quickly. Jai sprang into the wheelbarrow behind Ceder and they were immediately sledding downhill at an uncontainable speed. He braced his legs against the sides of the cart for stability and tried to steer left or right but he had as little control as a captain whose sinking ship is already halfway below.

  ******

  From the Dawn of Time to Dusk of the Last Day in the Land of Lin there has been, there is, and there will always be a boy named Lion and a girl named Lilly, each as beautiful as summerset, sage as time unwound, more magic in their smallest fingers than all the spells of wry old warlocks, wizards wise, or wishing wells.

  They made their home in a forest where the sky was forever cast in silver twilight, but the frozen sunset was a curiosity they both ignored and forgot. They stayed in their forest a thousand years and a single night beset them not. In the enchanted evening they passed their time without a care, inseparable but for the running and the hiding of their play, and only once would they succumb to sleep and in so doing lose their never-ending day.

  ******

  Down the haggard mountainside the wheelbarrow hurtled breakneck into rocks the size of whales’ bones, recklessly off course up rising crests and peaks they sped, cascading over dips and crisscross fractures in the stone. Disturbed for the first time in a thousand years, knocked-loose sand and pebbles zipped past the children’s heads like swarming bees.

  Jai held his breath and squeezed Ceder. Her back was clammy against his cheek. He closed his eyes and prayed, but the mountainside was mammoth and their ride down lasted longer than a dream disquiet.