The Ninth Gift

By P. M. Malone

After his mothers death and his fathers disappearance, Cale McHail moves in at his Aunt Ellen and Uncle Franks house. But one day as Cale is on his way to a baseball game, he comes across his old invisible friend playmates, Paffy and Cripps, suddenly made visible. They explain that they need Cales help on an urgent mission and ask him to accompany him to their home.

Although Cale protests, he suddenly finds himself in Glenhope, Paffy and Crippss homeland, and in a world that hes never seen before. It is there that he learns of EyeStonea powerful stone that can foresee the future and influence it for goodand of the influential people who wish to use its power for themselves. Whats more, Paffy and Cripps believe that Cale may have the power they need to save EyeStone before its too late.

With his former playmates and his new friends Princess Barcelona and the warrior Rockfast at his side, Cale embarks on a quest to reach Balthesmor Castle and save the Eyestone. But to get there, the group must first cross the treacherous desert called Sandwhisper, survive the terrifying Realm of the Four Caves, and face dangerous and fantastical creatures. If Cale survives, he must face the most horrifying obstacle of allsomeone from Cales own past may be the embodiment of the very evil that Cale was sent to Glenhope to destroy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466902152

P. M. Malone

Growing up in the Minnesota River Valley, P. M. Malone enjoyed a magical youth where he played among the prairie grasses and enjoyed a childhood filled with fantasy and adventure. As an adult, he cherished his family and life and enjoyed his career as a physician in radiology. He now lies among the prairie grasses that he wrote so fondly about and is greatly missed by his family and friends.

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© Copyright 2012 P. M. Malone.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-0213-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-0214-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-0215-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011919109

Trafford rev. 05/30/2012

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CONTENTS

BEFORE

CHAPTER I. A WHOLE NEW WORLD

CHAPTER II. LAY OF THE LAND

CHAPTER III. FRIENDS AND FOES

CHAPTER IV. THE FIRST LEG

CHAPTER V. FIREWIND

CHAPTER VI. DARK FOREST, DARK FACES

CHAPTER VII. GREENHAVEN

CHAPTER VIII. JULY SNOWSTORM

CHAPTER IX. CAVE OF WIND AND THUNDER

CHAPTER X. GROUTS

CHAPTER XI. BRIDGE OVER THE ABYSS

CHAPTER XII. CAVE OF THE NEMEGOTH

CHAPTER XIII. THE SEA OF SUBMISSION

CHAPTER XIV. CAVERN OF COLOR

CHAPTER XV. BALTHESMOR

CHAPTER XVI. SHOWDOWN

AFTER

For my grandchildren:

Hannah, Matt, Catie, Dylan, Aislyn, Alec, Patrick, Addison and Ayven

Study hard, learn much, experience life…but never stop dreaming.

P.M.Malone

As the author’s wife, I would like to acknowledge the help of our five children, Dan, Mike, Melissa, Christopher and Justin, in completing the publishing of this book. The author had started working with Trafford Publishing Company and we wanted to fulfill his dream.

Wanda Malone

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.

Carl Sagan

Courtesy of Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc.

BEFORE

Sitting in his rented Ford automobile at the edge of a leafless woods, Blake McHail congratulated himself. In spite of being doused with spilled coffee, the penciled map had gotten him here. The curvy road he’d just negotiated had been the first gravel road he’d seen, much less traveled on, in fifteen years. In addition, he’d managed to arrive at his destination without help, without having to stop and ask directions. Not that there’d been a whole lot of places to stop or crowds of people to ask anyway.

Audrey would have begged him to pull into a gas station. More than once his map-reading ability had been the butt of her good-natured humor. At the thought of her his eyes filled with tears. He shook his head.

It had been almost seven years she’d been gone. Seven years of trying to forget, and trying to get ahead by burying himself with work. But the boy . . . the boy needed a father, more than ever. As a father he was doing a lousy job. But this, the reason he was here . . . it had to be done. After this was settled, there’d be time.

A heavy November sky hung over the car like a pall. This sort of landscape made the word ‘isolated’ seem inadequate. He’d decided to concentrate on the shack, no more than ten yards from him. It looked pretty small, and in dire need of paint. Two tiny windows reflected the afternoons’ dim light. The combination lock Frank had told him about was visible on the door. Massive branches of an aged and rotting basswood tree leaned over the shingled roof, which was green with moss. More than a few shingles were missing. It probably leaked like a sieve.

He found himself less than anxious to leave the car. It wouldn’t surprise him to find a vagrant, complete with empty whiskey bottle, camped in a corner of the shack. Then again, probably not. How would a footsore vagabond find himself so far from a major highway or a railroad? Nevertheless, it suddenly struck him as strange that the windows weren’t broken out here in the middle of nowhere. Not that his home in suburban Chicago was such a metropolis. On the contrary, it was pretty tiny compared to Chicago proper, or even Milwaukee. But it recorded its fair share of crime, including plenty of senseless vandalism.

A sudden gust of cold wind sent cornhusks fluttering like misshapen bats over the hood of the car. On either side of the wooded area where he’d parked were large cornfields, mostly harvested. Harvest meant civilization. There must be a farm site nearby. It certainly wasn’t to be seen from where he sat and he didn’t remember driving by one. Shivering uncontrollably, Blake McHail felt very much like the only living and breathing creature in this corner of the planet. What in the world could be so important out here? He had no answers yet, but knew answers had to be close by—maybe in the shack. He sighed deeply, picked up his duffel bag, walked to the door and, without hesitation, began twisting the dial of the lock.

A month earlier his boss, Frank Magruder, had called Blake into his office.

Say, heard you were an upland game hunter, Frank had said.

Once upon a time, Frank, he’d answered. Not since I was a teenager.

Still own a shotgun?

Up in the attic somewhere, I suppose, he’d replied, old Browning twelve gauge.

In working condition?

Who knows? I stored the thing in grease years ago.

It’s settled then, Frank Magruder had said, you’re coming. I rented a small spread in South Dakota. Heard there’s almost as many pheasants now as there were back in the fifties. Just you and me, out in the fresh air, the primal hunt. What do you say?

I don’t know, Frank . . . Cale, you know. He’ll be starting basketball practice . . .

Hey, the boy will be just fine and you know it, said Frank. Good grief, Cale’s what . . . thirteen or fourteen years old?

Thirteen, said Blake.

Yeah . . . a young adult. And there’s, uh, Audrey’s sister and her husband. Have the boy stay with them for a few days. Four days. Four lousy days. We need a getaway and relaxation time. Take our minds off everything but the great outdoors. You know, the hunt . . . back to the basics, that sort of thing.

Frank leaned toward him, a serious look on his face. Blake, you need this more than you realize. And the job needs you in top form. I insist you come along.

Blake went back to his office and leaned back in his chair. So it was settled. ‘The Primal Hunt, eh?. Downright bizarre. Based on what I wasn’t supposed to see in the notes he forgot in the lab, there’s more to this outing than Frank wants to say. Did I act disinterested enough? I wonder if he has any idea I know as much as I do. Mostly, I wonder why he wants me along. Well, I’ll make sure I get there first. I’ll go along with the charade. And maybe, if I can discover why that place in South Dakota is so important, then just maybe I can spring a little surprise of my own.

His mind slipped back to Audrey, her long and painful illness, and the little boy who could not understand why his mother had been taken from him. The little boy who wasn’t so little any more. He’d spent far too little time with Cale the last year or so and felt the clammy chill of guilt. But soon . . . soon all those long hours, those weekends at the office and lab, soon it would be over. The rewards for what he’d discovered, and what he would now discover, what he’d been slaving over, the puzzle that Frank unwittingly found the key to, were almost in his grasp. He had to keep his cool. The answer was near. And then there would be time, time to spend with Cale.

The weight of the shotgun felt good in his arms. The warmth and snugness of the lined hunting boots felt good too. The tall and slender man set off for the mostly harvested cornfield. A few rows of stunted cornstalks ran from east to west, along a weed-choked swale. From his youth he remembered that would be the place to walk. No good walking in the unpicked corn. He’d hear the pheasants taking wing but would be unable to see them, much less get off a shot. Or else the wily rascals would simply run away from him, silently and across the rows, totally invisible.

Cold wind stung his face and he pulled the collar of the coat up around the thick, gray-flecked hair that stuck out below the brand new hunting cap. A pair of crows flew over, cawing back and forth. The overcast thinned for a moment, letting the hint of a sunbeam filter through. These forty-two year old legs felt younger than they had for some time. The world seemed fresh and untouched and there had been a time when this spectrum of feelings would have brought a smile to Blake McHail’s lips.

P-f-f-f-f-l-l-l-l !

He almost fell backwards as the rush of feathers against air exploded at his feet. He brought the shotgun to his shoulder and nearly squeezed the trigger . . . until he realized he had a hen in his sights. Shooting hens was illegal. He lowered the gun, glanced at it, and almost chuckled. The bird had been in no danger. He had forgotten to release the gun’s safety.

He watched the hen gracefully glide into the unpicked part of the cornfield, a good two hundred yards away. Blake noticed a speck—at first he thought it was a piece of lint—had caught in his eyelash. Lint? In the middle of a South Dakota cornfield? Before he could snatch it away, the lint melted and Blake realized the air was suddenly filled with tiny snowflakes.

With a touch of concern, he pivoted from the direction he’d come. Yes, he could see the small wooded area. As a matter of fact, he could make out smoke from the fire he’d started in the cabin’s potbelly stove, curling up into the thick gray sky, then driven south by the wind. The cabin was no more than a five minute walk. He calmed down. This was, after all, November. And this was South Dakota. It sometimes snowed here in October. In any case, he was in no danger of getting disoriented or lost. And he very badly wanted to walk a while longer. Frank had picked this spot and there had to be a reason for it. Blake had asked few questions, not wanting to tip his hand. He’d heard nothing of value so, he’d arrived early hoping to find a clue before Frank arrived.

Checking his gun, he set out again, picking his path between the golden brown corn stalks and the bent gray weeds. No more than fifty paces further on another bird got up, right in front of him. This time the bright red of the rooster’s head caught his eye. He quickly raised the shotgun, remembered to aim just in front of the bird’s path, and squeezed the trigger.

Though he thought he was ready for it, the shotgun’s recoil caught him by surprise. In the explosion of blue smoke he momentarily lost sight of the pheasant. Then he saw the bird, a puff of feathers in its wake, losing altitude, graceful flight suddenly awkward. The wounded creature managed to flap its wings a few times, and then seemed to crumple, falling heavily into the brush and weeds.

Well, thought Blake McHail, the charade will seem genuine. Frank will think I really came to hunt.

Having marked, with his eyes, exactly where it had fallen, he thought this would be easy. It was not. The brush was much thicker than it had appeared from a distance. Dense tangled grass and weeds were interspersed with shoulder-high thistle and trees with wrist-thick trunks. Clusters of bushes, red dogwood and others he could not name, huddled in scattered groups. He could see only a few feet ahead. In his hurry, a branch seemed to reach out and trip him. He broke his fall by grabbing onto a yearling willow’s springy branches and rolling with his momentum, holding the precious firearm away from the earth. Cursing to himself, he regained his feet. Snowflakes were coming down thicker and thicker. Just as the thought occurred to him to give it up, and just as he turned to look back and readjust his bearings with the hunting cabin, the pheasant jumped from the grass a scant ten yards away, in a doomed attempt at flight.

Blake set off once more, walking fast, trying not to trip again, eyes flickering between the path ahead and his feet. The wind picked up, but he thought he could hear the rooster running just ahead of him, through the brittle vegetation. And, now and again, between branches, snowflakes, and tufts of grass, he thought his eyes caught hurried movement, a flash of feathers. The earth beneath his feet became rocky. Less black dirt and clay. Still plenty of weeds. Less in the way of trees. Getting winded, he concentrated on keeping his feet and legs moving through the resistance of the tangled grass.

Without warning, the earth went out from under him. He started to fall forward, lurched backward with all his might, and found himself sliding on his back, down a steep ravine. At first he bounced over small rocks and crashed through clusters of thin-stemmed and fragile bushes. A funny thought raced through his mind, of Alice’s rabbit hole, then a panicked thought; if this ride grew any rougher, despite the heavy hunting clothes, he was going to be badly hurt. Who would find him out here?

Just as he began to grope for a handhold, on a rock, a tree, a thick bush, the path became smoother and smoother, reminding him of a shiny slide on a children’s playground. He was sliding no faster, but no slower either. Attempts to retard his progress were futile. He tucked his legs under him and, pulling his arms and the shotgun into his body. If he broke a leg he’d be in real trouble. It surprised him to realize he was still clutching the shotgun, holding it tightly to his chest as though it might magically protect him from splattering his head against a rock.

His body had turned ninety degrees to his path of descent when his bottom suddenly met a substantial obstacle. A big clump of weeds, he thought in a flash. Then he was flipped, sideways, end over end. The shotgun finally sailed away from him. He landed with a sharp exhalation of air . . . partly on his head, partly on his left shoulder, and partly on his left hip.

The air left his lungs in an instant, as did sight. He gasped for breath as he fought to see. His first sensation was that of warmth. And it frightened him even more than the tumble itself, more than the thought of a broken limb. How could he possibly be warm out here . . . unless he was covered with his own blood? Or dead?

He managed to prop himself up on one elbow. No broken bones. No major ones anyway. But he felt as though half of his skin was scraped off and the other half one gigantic bruise. He managed to stand up. His left hip was sore but he could bend the leg. His eyes slowly adjusted to the light. He had not been blinded by the final bump on his head after all. It was dim, but he could see. The first thing he realized was that it was not snowing any more. The second was that the air around him was indeed warm, warm enough so that he was already becoming uncomfortable in his hunting coat.

More than that, there were sounds. Unusual sounds, at least for a ravine at the edge of a South Dakota grain field in early winter. Running water maybe wasn’t so unusual. But what seemed to be the peeping of some kind of bird? And what he would swear was the buzz of insects? As things became less shadowy, Blake McHail’s relief at being safe and without serious injury began to vaporize. He was surrounded by greenery. Greenery that looked, for all the world, like what he would expect to see somewhere in the Amazon. In South Dakota? He felt a laugh trying to form. It didn’t stand a chance.

CHAPTER I

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

Cale McHail ran as fast as his legs would carry him. Heart pounding with fright, and mind swimming in confusion, he ran without looking back. What was he running from? As far as he could tell there was no one behind him. And where exactly was he? No way were his worn tennis shoes still treading on the grass of his childhood’s backyard in LaFayette, Illinois. It had become dark. And cool. Where had the sun gone?

He stumbled and a sudden sharp ache in his side forced him to stop. He hunched over, hands on knees, tried to catch his breath. Still bent, he shuffled to a nearby wall of damp stone, and leaned heavily against it. What was this? Through his light jacket the rocks were very cold. He became aware of flickering orange light high above. Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, he looked up to blazing torches, fastened to the wall by heavy gray metal straps. He swallowed hard and tried to steady his shaking knees. Glancing down the dimly-lit and rocky path he’d just come from, he detected no movement, heard no sound. What had become of Paffy and Cripps? They had been right behind him—hadn’t they? How far had he run?

The path he’d traveled was dark and quiet. For that matter, the way forward was just as deserted. As far as he could tell, he was alone. Mist filled the air, like a light fog on a damp April day. He could see no further than twenty yards in either direction.

Where in the world was he? Chest heaving and mind rebelling, Cale decided he must be in one big crevasse, or maybe some kind of tunnel or cave, one that was wide enough that he could not see the other side. He quickly calculated the diameter of his stony path to be at least twenty feet across. Like the floor, massive rocks made up the wall. The ceiling—if there was a ceiling—was not visible. Far above his head a faint hissing sound came from the flaming torch. He could see another light; a few yards back the way he’d run. He realized he’d raced past others, spaced just close enough so total darkness was kept at bay. Were they the reason it was so hazy in here? He sniffed the air. There was no hint of smoke.

That was beside the point. No matter the place—how had he gotten here? It had to have something to do with Paffy and Cripps. In any case, one minute he’d been chatting with what he thought were old friends, imaginary ones according to his father, and the next . . . A huge lump grew in his throat. What had become of the quiet Illinois street with his little room and bed?

Paffy had practically shouted at him, Don’t run! He supposed he should have listened. But he’d been scared. Who wouldn’t be? And Paffy, funny and easy-going Paffy, of all people, shouting, just made things spookier. Everything had suddenly become confusing and unreal. Running had seemed a reasonable thing to do.

That morning he’d left Uncle Fred and Aunt Ellen’s house on his bicycle, throwing his baseball glove in the bike basket, deciding he’d rather be early for the game rather than hang around with Ellen. He started out for the park, he remembered that. What indistinct and forgotten whim turned his handlebars toward the house on Buckthorn Lane, the house where he’d lived with his father and mother? They were gone. For good. The white two story house that he’d called home, with his Lilac Fort in the back yard, belonged to someone else now.

The last thing he expected to find at that house were his old playmates. When he was a lonely six year old boy, who had just lost his mother to cancer, plump, jocular Paffy and slender, serious Cripps came to him in his Lilac Fort to keep him company. They brought consolation and distraction, to a boy who had no one else to play with. He was trying to distract himself from this inexplicable situation with thoughts of Paffy and Cripps.

Paffy was short and round as a barrel. He wore red pants and shoes, a faded green shirt open at the wrinkled collar, as well as a loosened and soiled red, white, and blue polka dot tie. Thin blond hair grew from the sides of his perfectly round and nearly bald head and draped over both ears. The ears were very large, left larger than right, and they stuck out straight from his head. He might have been a circus clown on the loose, with his too-pale face, large blue eyes, and flat nose. At least he didn’t wear white gloves or floppy-toed shoes.

Cripps, with his long, scrawny neck was Paffy’s opposite in just about every imaginable way. He was rarely without his black top-hat, except when he’d gotten down on his hands and knees, years ago, to play with Cale. He wore thick spectacles, which usually slid well down on his nose. His suit was plaid, sort of yellow-brown in color, and he seemed fond of his brown silk vest. The sleeves of the coat were too short, and skinny wrists protruded from them. His scuffed black shoes were always dusty, as though he’d walked a long way on dirt paths. Below the trousers, which were also too short, and over the tops of his shoes, he wore spats. Wispy hairs, like tufts of autumn grass, grew from his nose and ears. He carried a short walking stick topped with a shiny brass knob.

Paffy and Cripps could not be real people, of course. The whole idea of two adult men that no one else ever saw, coming to play backyard games with a lonely and frightened little kid, was too ridiculous for words. Even back then, when he was only seven, Cale knew enough not to mention these strange playmates to most people. Except his dad. That’s when dad told Cale these two adults were simply part of an awake-sort-of-dream, a dream Cale needed very badly at the time. And it surely had been a bad time. Cale wasn’t sure how he would have gotten through that time without them, those supposedly imaginary friends, who comforted him more than anyone besides his father. After that, for some reason, maybe because his father had told him they were not real, maybe simply because he was growing older, one day Paffy and Cripps disappeared as quickly and quietly as they had appeared. That was too bad, because less than a year ago, Cale’s father, Blake McHail, had disappeared while on a hunting trip. Paffy and Cripps might have helped him through that shock and horror as well.

He wiped another tear from his eye and tried to forget the past. Okay, so if they were so obviously imaginary, how could Paffy and Cripps have shown up today, seven years later, looking exactly as they had before, and seemingly as solid as the rocks he now leaned against?

Seeing them had been wonderful, but downright weird. It had to be a dream, of course. There was no other explanation . . . but this most definitely did not feel like a dream. He was quite sure he was awake—wide awake. He tried to think, to go over what had happened today. Maybe something would occur to him to explain this unreal situation.

It had been a long bike ride from Aunt Ellen and Uncle Fred’s place. He knew he should be headed in the opposite direction, toward the park and the baseball game with his friends. There was no good reason for coming this way. Or had there been a reason? Cale sighed and remembered that he had just had a feeling . . . a feeling that he wanted to go home, even if it wasn’t home anymore, even if it hadn’t been home for over a year. He’d been distracted as he rode along, knowing the route by heart, feeling even at that point he might be dreaming. Then there was the near-accident. It was his fault, he’d not been paying attention to traffic on the quiet side street, veered out too far into the intersection as he made the turn, almost got hit by a big Buick.

Cale straightened up . . . maybe that was it! Maybe the car had hit him after all!

Maybe he was now laying somewhere, maybe in a hospital emergency room, unconscious, and dreaming all of this! No, it couldn’t be. He remembered the man getting out of the car, picking up the baseball glove that had fallen out of the basket and bawling him out, telling him he ought to be careful because the car outweighed him fifty to one, that he was the small marble and the car was a big one, and on and on. Well, he could have dreamt that too.

He’d pedaled on after that, more slowly and carefully, finally arriving just across the street from the house in which he’d been so happy. It had been repainted, he was pretty sure. The white looked newer, brighter. Flowers hung in their baskets on the front porch, just as they had when he lived there with his father and, at one time with his mother. The curtains on the front windows were the same. He swallowed hard when he looked up at the window where his room had been.

It took some time for him to work up the courage to walk up to the front door and knock. He thought perhaps the only reason he could do it was because, after standing there a while, he doubted anyone was home. And what if someone was home? What, exactly, was he going to say to them? May I come in and walk around my old home? May I use your telephone? Or bathroom?

Actually, only at the last moment would he tell them the truth, or at least what he thought was the truth: That he used to live here and would they mind if he walked to the backyard where he used to play as a little boy? For some reason he could not consciously