Helix and the Arrival Read online

  ‘Crag didn’t tell me – I worked it out. Look, Steckman, Ugthorn is going to die unless he gets some proper medicine.’

  Steckman turns his back on me. ‘I can’t help you, Helix.’

  ‘You get it from the river people, don’t you? You told me that they understand medicine.’

  ‘I’m not helping. It’s too risky.’

  ‘Why not?’ I say. ‘You helped Crag.’

  He turns back and faces me. ‘It wouldn’t be the same as giving Crag some herbs for his sore hand – your friend’s father has been mauled by a sabre-tooth! He requires a poultice made by a proper medicine man.’

  ‘We’re his last hope. We’ve got to try something.’

  ‘No, Helix. This has nothing to do with me. I don’t belong to your people – I don’t belong to any people.’

  There’s a loud clap of thunder. Porgo jumps up onto all fours in a shudder of snorts and spins around in a circle. Heavy rain begins to fall. We run into the nearest cave. It’s large and empty. It appears to be a communal meeting space.

  The rain is so heavy that it looks like a waterfall beyond the entrance. Steckman points upwards and speaks loudly into my ear, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the water.

  ‘My sacks. I must return to the cave where I’m staying and make sure nothing gets wet. You’ll have to stay here the night. The Common Way will be flooded and it’s getting late.’

  Steckman’s right. I can’t return to Rockfall tonight.

  The rain bashes the ground outside and forms deep puddles in the swales along the path.

  ‘If you don’t help me,’ I say to Steckman, ‘I will go to the lowlands without you and seek the help of the river people.’

  I don’t know if he hears what I’ve said.

  He whistles twice for Porgo and the two of them run out into the open. They turn inwards and climb the slippery, zigzagging path back to their dry cave.

  I hear Porgo squealing, as much in delight as in fear, I think.

  The storm is so fierce it’s as though the river has come to the mountain. Mum and Dad will be worried and Krike will miss his suup, but there’s nothing I can do.

  The cave I’m in has a wide mouth but, thankfully, it’s also deep, which means I can take shelter from the rain being blown through the entrance. It’s an old cave by the feel of it, and has seen many folk come and go. There are creepy paintings on the walls of creatures that have long since disappeared from our hunting grounds: woolly rhinoceros, giant cave bears and the greater mountain ibex (as opposed to the lesser mountain ibex, which is pretty unimpressive and is sometimes hunted today).

  There’s a pit for a fire near the back of the cave and wood piled beside it. The small pouch I carry on my belt contains flint, some bark shavings and a firestone used for making sparks. It was a present from Mum and Dad for my tenth birthday – a caveboy’s fire-making kit, in case of emergency. I’ve never had to use it before …

  I hold the firestone in one hand and the flint in the other. I strike the flint against the firestone but the wind and cold defeat any hint of a spark. I smash the firestone with the flint again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Until …

  Sparks!

  Embers!

  Smoke!

  I blow, making the bark shavings glow orange and the kindling catch alight. Soon there are the makings of a real fire, a fire made by me.

  I try to make myself comfortable on one of the storage ledges at the back of the cavern. I wouldn’t say it’s the most luxurious place to rest, but by rearranging the large, flat stones of the shelf, I’m able to make myself a smooth surface to sleep on, up off the dusty cave floor.

  The heat from the fire rises and feeds me with a small amount of warmth. The flames from the fire flicker shadows on the cave wall and ceiling, illuminating the cave paintings and making them come to life.

  I roll this way and that, but I can’t seem to get comfortable.

  I sit up to try to reorganise my stone bed and in the flashes of light from the fire, I notice that one of the stones, the biggest and flattest one, contains word signs: I’m sleeping on a tablet of some kind. I look at the rest of the rocks that form the ledge, but this looks to be the only tablet.

  I slide off the ledge and remove the tablet, holding it beside the fire so that I can see it better. I blow away the dirt that’s found a home in the grooves of the stone etchings. Across the top is written what looks to be names and I can just make them out: Herb, Vedgar and Crev. How many Herbs, Vedgars and Crevs can there be? It has to be my great-grandfather Herb, Veldo’s great-grandfather Vedgar and Korg the Magnificent!

  I have to read slowly and keep blowing dirt from the etchings, but the words slowly come to life:

  I can’t believe the words before my eyes. I read them again and then a third time to make sure I’m not imagining them. But each time I read, the same message appears. I think back to when I last saw Korg. When he saw the sacred rock from the river, I remember him saying, ‘It is a thing of memories.’ His words make sense to me now. Korg remembered seeing the blue rock and was there the day that Vedgar pulled it out of the river.

  The writing continues. I blow away some more dirt, eager to keep reading.

  My chest is pounding as if I’ve just run to the top of the mountain. Not only had Herb, Vedgar and Korg visited the river, but they’d crossed it and eaten the river people’s food! And enjoyed it! I wish Speel was sitting beside me right now – I’d read the tablet to him slowly and finish each line with a smirk.

  I read on.

  I knew it. The river people’s roundhouses are not poor imitations of caves as Speel would have us believe. Why hasn’t Korg told this to everyone? Why does he allow Speel to lie?

  The final rows of word signs at the bottom of the tablet are thickly encrusted with dirt. I blow away what I can and scrape away the rest with a twig.

  I let go of the tablet. It makes a thud as it lands on the floor of the cave. A puff of dust rises.

  I say it to myself and it sounds like a victory chant.

  There is no Land’s End. There is no Land’s End. There is no Land’s End …

  I wake to the sound of footsteps in my cave. The stone ledge I slept on has left me with a sore side. The little sleep I did get between lightning and thunder was dotted with confused dreams where I told everyone the truth about the river people and saving Ugthorn.

  As I open my eyes, I notice a figure in front of me: a white-haired girl … the white-haired girl! There is a look of pride on her face as she stares down at the woven basket she is holding. Slowly she strokes the skin covering what I assume are her meatcakes.

  ‘Good morning!’ she says, in a voice that sounds like it’s almost about to break into song. ‘You must be Helix!’

  ‘Hi,’ I say, rubbing my eyes.

  ‘Steckman asked me to give you this.’ She passes me a writing skin with a note written on it.

  Dear Helix,

  Sorry I am not here to greet you this morning, but I have had to leave for the lowlands. I hope your friend’s father gets better. Sorry that I cannot help.

  Yours, Steckman

  PS Porgo grunts hello.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ says the white-haired girl.

  ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘I wanted to talk to Steckman again. But,’ I add, remembering the tablet, ‘at least I’ve still got –’

  I look down by the fire for the tablet. It’s gone.

  ‘There was a tablet by the fire and now it’s gone,’ I say to the girl. ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘I didn’t see a tablet,’ she says. ‘How about a meatcake instead?’

  I climb down from the ledge and look around the cave. Someone has taken it. Who would have done that?

  I run past the girl and out into the open. The rain has stopped, but the ground is sodden. I find the cave belonging to the old woman and Spud.

  ‘Hello, is anyone there? It’s Helix.’


  The old woman appears, with Spud close behind her. ‘You again,’ she says.

  ‘There was a tablet in the cave that I slept in last night. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Do I know where the bablet is? What’s a bablet?’ She looks around, confused, to her son Spud who is scratching his giant shoulder.

  ‘Tab-let.’ I say it slower this time.

  ‘Smablet? He’s making words up again,’ she says to Spud.

  ‘T-ab-let!’ I say one more time.

  ‘Tablet?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, letting out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Why didn’t you just say it properly the first time?’ she says.

  ‘I … I’m sorry for mumbling,’ I say.

  ‘Whatever was in there belongs to the Dark Side,’ says the old woman, turning around sharply and walking back to her cave.

  ‘But it’s really important,’ I call after her. ‘I think it might have belonged to my great-grandfather Herb.’

  ‘Herb?’ she says, turning to face me.

  ‘Yes. Did you know him?’

  ‘You’ve outstayed your welcome, boy, and it’s time you went.’

  ‘You knew him! He must’ve come here –’

  ‘Spud! See that the boy leaves.’

  Spud grabs me with his strong arm and drags me to the Common Way.

  ‘Leave,’ he says, and flings me forward. I land on the ground, face first in a puddle.

  I stand up, dripping wet, and begin to walk back to Rockfall.

  ‘Wait,’ comes a voice from behind me. ‘Take one of my meatcakes with you.’

  I remember Rex’s advice and keep walking. Fast.

  The trail back to Rockfall is flooded, so I end up sloshing through puddles for most of the return journey. I stop at Krike’s cave, or the Cavern of Pong, as I think of it now, and fill one of his empty bladders with suup. Once the bladder is full, I leave quickly, wanting to get back to Rockfall as fast as I can.

  When I arrive in Rockfall, my first thought is to stand on the speaking rock and call for everyone’s attention. ‘People of Rockfall, there is something I need to tell you. For all these years, you have been living a lie. The mountain, the lowlands and the world beyond are not as you’ve been led to believe …’

  But then I remember the whole reason I went to the Dark Side in the first place: Ugthorn, and that there’s a chance he can be saved with the right medicine, proper medicine from the lowlands.

  First, though, I find Mum so I can let her know I’m safe and well. When she sees me, she runs forward and embraces me in a tight hug. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Um … I had to fetch Krike’s suup from his cave. Then the storm came and it was too dangerous to return, so I stayed the night.’ I don’t like lying to Mum, but the whole finding-a-tablet-on-the-Dark-Side-and-wanting-to-save-Ugthorn story would be too difficult to explain right now.

  I hold up the bladder.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Mum asks.

  ‘I don’t know, but it smells bad.’

  She grabs it from me and pulls out the stopper. ‘Sweet heavens,’ she says, scrunching up her face. ‘It’s some kind of fermentation. Is that a bat’s ear floating around inside?’

  ‘I’d better go and give it to him,’ I say.

  I find Krike asleep beneath a thick panthera skin. I clear my throat loudly and make some coughing sounds to wake him up. He slowly opens one eye.

  ‘Did you bring me my suup, boy? If I have to eat another mountain vole, I’ll jump in the river.’

  ‘Here,’ I say, handing him the bladder.

  He reaches out to take it from me, but the movement sets off some sort of reaction within him, as a sound like a bison horn being blown reverberates from beneath his loincloth. He pops the stopper from his drink bladder and chugs down three or four gulps of the horrible-smelling brown liquid.

  ‘Ah, that’s better … A hearty meal at last.’ He follows this up with a burp.

  ‘Krike,’ I say to him, making up my mind, ‘I’ll be busy today so you’ll have to look after yourself.’

  I leave him to his own stench and go to the Ledge, where I know I’ll find Saleeka. Sure enough, Saleeka is there, still brooding over her marriage-to-be to Sherwin, the most ineligible bachelor on the mountain.

  ‘I’ve made a discovery and I have a plan,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean? What discovery? What plan?’

  I decide she needs to know about the discovery of the tablet first. It’s my best chance of getting her to listen to my plan.

  ‘You need to promise me that you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.’

  Her eyes light up a little. ‘Do you have a secret?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s the secret of all secrets, so I really mean it. You can’t tell anyone,’ I say, holding my stare into Saleeka’s eyes. The worst thing that could happen right now would be for everyone in Rockfall to find out about the tablet – I’d be summoned before Speel, making any chance of saving Ugthorn almost impossible.

  ‘I promise, Helix. I’m like a rock when it comes to secrets.’

  I tell her all about my trip to the Dark Side, how my original plan was just to find Steckman, but that the storm forced me to stay the night, which led me to find the tablet containing the adventures of Herb, Vedgar and Crev.

  At first she doesn’t believe the part about the tablet and shouts questions back at me to try to undo my story. For each of her questions, though, I have an answer, and after a while she can sense that I’m telling the truth.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing for now. I’ve thought about this. What was written on the tablet will have to wait. Are you ready for my plan now?’

  ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ says Saleeka, still a bit shocked from hearing about the tablet.

  ‘Before we do anything about the tablet, we first need to help Ugthorn.’

  ‘Help Ugthorn? How?’

  ‘You know how I said that I went to the Dark Side to find Steckman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The reason I was looking for Steckman was to ask him for medicine to help Ugthorn. I know he trades medicine from the lowlands to folk on the mountain, and I know the medicine works. But he refused to help – said that if anyone found out he would be banished from the mountain.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ says Saleeka.

  ‘Which brings me to my idea,’ I say. ‘I want to cross the river and ask for medicine to help Ugthorn.’

  Saleeka’s jaw drops and I can see all the way to the back of her throat and into her disbelieving brain.

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘No, I’m serious. Krike’s medicine is useless, and from the tablet we know now that the river people are friendly – or were once, at least.’

  Saleeka is shaking her head. ‘Do you remember what happened to you last time you went to the river, Helix? And can I also remind you that you hadn’t even crossed the river, you were just looking in its general direction.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘but what choice do we have? If we do nothing, Ugthorn will die.’

  ‘You keep saying “we”, Helix, as if I’m with you on this. I’m not!’

  ‘But why not? Don’t you want to help your friend’s father live?’

  ‘Of course I do. And if I could help him, I would. But to cross the river would mean being put to death. And anyway, it is up to the heavens whether Ugthorn lives or dies.’

  I throw my hands in the air. ‘The heavens. Why does it always come down to the heavens when someone’s uncertain about something?’

  ‘Some things are out of our hands, Helix.’

  ‘Like what? Like you having to marry Sherwin? Maybe we should just put that down to the heavens and say it’s meant to be.’

  ‘No. That’s different,’ she says, narrowing her eyes at me.

  ‘How is that different?’

  She avoids m
y gaze. Her lips are tightly drawn. The stubborn Saleeka is back.

  ‘Cross the river with me, Saleeka,’ I say.

  She stares at me with her mouth open wide, as if there’s a big bone sticking out of my head. ‘Helix! They hate us and we hate them. That’s the way it is and it’s not going to change.’

  I stand up and look down at her with my fists clenched. ‘Do you know what your problem is?’

  She looks straight into my eyes, challenging me to tell her. ‘What? Say it.’

  ‘You’re so wrapped up in how terrible your life is that you’ve forgotten there’s a whole other world of suffering out there, a world with people like Ugthorn, the father of our friend Ug, who will probably die because he didn’t get the right medicine. Don’t help then, Saleeka. Keep complaining about your miserable life and your horrible marriage-to-be. Good luck with it all. I’m sure you and Sherwin will make a fantastic couple and the heavens will give you everything you deserve.’

  ‘Are you finished?’ she says.

  I turn my back on her and climb down the mountain.

  As I’m walking back towards my family’s cave, the announcement horn blows, summoning everyone from Rockfall to the speaking rock. What’s so important that there needs to be a Gathering? Maybe Korg is going to announce the birth of a hairy cavebaby. Or perhaps he’s going to tell us that the store cave is running low (thanks to my family’s constant use of it). Then I think of something more obvious – Sherwin and Saleeka’s marriage-to-be. That must be the reason for the special announcement.

  Why now!? I need to find Ug and tell him everything. Surely he’ll agree to venture to the lowlands with me in search of medicine for his father. I make my way towards the speaking rock. Hopefully Ug will be at the Gathering.

  Mum and Dad appear, followed by Sherwin. They stand behind me. I look around and see that Ug, his mother and the Uglets are here. They form a tight group on the other side of the rock. Ugthorn is obviously still in their cave, too sick to move and nearing death.