Chapter Seven

The Old Lore

Aidan spent the rest of the afternoon in the library with Jasper. He was hungry for any old lore related to the frog orchid, the Feechiefen Swamp, or the ways of the feechiefolk.

The two brothers leaned over a huge map of Corenwald, stretched out to cover the whole library table. Here was the kingdom in its entirety. In the north, the high mountains towered over dales, hollows, and high country lakes. A different kind of wildness prevailed there—not the swampy, sandy wildness of Aidan’s native haunts, but a wildness of crags and rocks and waterfalls, of elk and brown bears three times the size of a man.

South of the mountain range rose the foothills, where miners scratched out a living under the ground. A low plateau stretched across the middle of the island. This was Corenwald’s breadbasket. Its lush and rolling land was sectioned into farms arranged in tidy grids. Here the map was dotted thickly with villages and towns. Here the world seemed orderly and safe.

At the bottom edge of the plateau, the capital city of Tambluff, the gleaming jewel of Corenwald, was tucked into a bend of the River Tam. From there, to the south, east, and west, the land dropped to a low and sandy plain where the rivers meandered slowly, taking their sweet time on the last long leg of their journey to the sea.

On the western coast, the chief city was the deep-harbored port of Middenmarsh. The first settlers of Corenwald landed there and radiated east across the Bonifay Plain and toward the River Tam. In the southwest quarter of the island, the land drained by the Eechihoolee River, the population was sparser than in the center of the island. But still, the map showed farms and villages stretching as far down as the southern coast, where oranges and lemons grew.

The swampy heart of Corenwald was in the south and east, where the River Tam flowed. Here the map grew murky indeed. Flowing south from Tambluff, the river rolled through Hustingreen, then along the edge of Longleaf Manor. But as the river flowed through the Eastern Wilderness, the map showed nothing else for leagues and leagues. No village, no settlement, no farmstead. Beyond Longleaf, there was only one more marking on the map. The river made a looping bend before turning east for its last push to the sea. This was Big Bend. And situated on the very bottom of the bend, on the north side of the river, was Last Camp. It was the last outpost of civilization in the Eastern Wilderness.

To the south of Last Camp, across the river, the bottom right corner of the map was simply labeled “Feechiefen Swamp.” There was no further detail—no islands, no waterways, not even an outline of the swamp. No one really knew what lay beyond Last Camp. Jasper dug up every map he could find. Pretending to look for something in the Eastern Wilderness, Aidan let his eyes wander down to the southeastern extremity of each map. But each was the same. No matter how detailed the map, the Feechiefen was a big blank. As far as the mapmakers were concerned, Feechiefen was beyond the edge of the world. The only thing to be learned from the maps was what Aidan already knew: To get to Feechiefen, he would have to go to Last Camp and turn south. And pray to the One God.

Jasper rolled up the last of the maps. Aidan remarked, “Lord Cleland mentioned something called the frog orchid. Do you know anything about a frog orchid?”

“Ah, the frog orchid,” answered Jasper. “Not one of the more well-known bits of lore.” He dug into the scrolls again and pulled out a manuscript. Jasper was loving this; someone was interested in the old lore he loved so much, someone he could instruct and show off for. He unrolled the manuscript and ran his finger down the elaborately scripted lines. “Here it is,” he said eagerly, and he began reading aloud:

Aidan whistled. “What on earth does that mean?”

Jasper shrugged. “A lot of the lore-masters think it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “They think it’s just a little song. After all, if nobody’s ever come back alive from Feechiefen Swamp, who could have written it?”

“But let’s say it does mean something,” said Aidan, undeterred. His king had sent him in search of the frog orchid, and he was going to make the attempt, whatever the lore-masters might think about it. “Let’s say it actually does give clues for finding the frog orchid. What could it mean?”

Jasper’s brow creased with concentration. “‘In deepest swamp, the house of bears.’ What would be a house of bears?”

Aidan thought. “A cave? A bee tree? A canebrake?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Could be a lot of things.” He turned to the next line of the chant: “‘An orchid in the spring appears.’ That makes sense, at least.”

Jasper picked up the chant. “‘On oaken limb around a pond / As black as night and round as sun.’”

“So the orchid is black? And round?” asked Aidan.

“No,” Jasper answered. “I think that’s the pond where it grows. The pond is round and black.” Jasper returned to the next two lines: “‘It floats in air, a ghostly white. / It soars and leaps like frog in flight.’”

Aidan’s head was swimming. “So it floats? I thought it grew on oak trees. And since when did frogs fly?” He was getting discouraged. No wonder the lore-masters thought the Frog Orchid Chant didn’t mean anything.

Jasper shrugged again. “That’s the way it is with the old lore. Sometimes you run across something that seems like it couldn’t possibly make sense.” Then he added, “But then one day you find out it was true and right all along.”

“What other feechie lore do you have in here?” Aidan asked, thumbing at some of the manuscripts on a reading stand.

Jasper walked to the shelf where he kept scrolls of children’s stories and folk tales. “Let’s see,” he muttered. “I had a scroll here that Maynard used to come in and read quite often.”

“Maynard?” said Aidan, surprised. “When did Maynard ever come to the library?”

“Oh, he and I spent many evenings in here reading together after you went to Tambluff,” said Jasper.

Aidan was floored. “I just never knew Maynard to be interested in the old lore or in anything the rest of us were interested in. What sort of thing did he read?”

“Feechie tales mostly.” Jasper gave up looking for the scroll of feechie lore, which obviously wasn’t in its place. He noticed the look of open-mouthed wonder on Aidan’s face. “I know, I know. Maynard always thought you were lying about the feechie in the bottom pasture. He acted like feechie talk was the craziest thing he had ever heard of. But people can change.

“After you went to Tambluff,” Jasper continued, “Maynard tried harder to be a good son and a good brother. He even took your place watching sheep in the bottom pasture for awhile. It was like he was trying to make something up to you, or to Father.”

Jasper shook his head. “I think that’s part of the reason Father has taken Maynard’s death so hard.”

Aidan looked out the window. Father was returning from the melon field with Percy. He looked very old. “Poor Father,” Aidan whispered.