Rowan OF Rin Seven hearts the journey make. Seven ways the hearts will break ... The witch Sheba’s prophecy is like a riddle. A riddle Rowan must solve if he is to find out the secret of the Mountain and save his home ... To the sturdy villagers of Rin the boy Rowan is a timid weakling. The most disappointing child ever. Yet, incredibly, it is his help they need when the stream that flows from the top of the Mountain dries up. Without its water their precious bukshah herds will die, and Rin will be doomed. The six strongest villagers must brave the unknown terrors of the Mountain to discover the answer to the riddle. And Rowan, the unwanted seventh member of the group, must go with them. For Alex and Clem LEXILE™ 710 Omnibus Books 52 Fullarton Road, Norwood SA 5067 an imprint of Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 11 000 614 577) PO Box 579, Gosford NSW 2250. www.scholastic.com.au Part of the Scholastic Group Sydney • Auckland • New York • Toronto ■ London • Mexico City • New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires ■ Puerto Rico First published in 1993. Reprinted in 1993, 1994 (twice), 1995, 1996 (twice), 1997 (twice), 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 (twice), 2002. First published in this edition in 2003. Reprinted in 2003 (three times). Text copyright © Emily Rodda, 1993. Cover artwork copyright © Barry Downard, 2003. Map copyright © Omnibus Books, 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Rodda, Emily, 1948- Rowan of Rin. Rev. ed. For children aged 9-12 years. ISBN 1 86291 535 0. 1. Rowan (Fictitious character: Rodda)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Dragons—Juvenile fiction. 3. Riddles—Juvenile fiction. 4. Courage—Juvenile fiction. I. Title. A823.3 Typeset in 14/16 pt Garamond 3 by Clinton Ellicott, Adelaide. Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, Adelaide. Contents 1 The Meeting 1 2 Sheba 11 3 The Heroes 22 4 Seeing is Believing 30 5 The Mountain 40 6 The Forest 51 7 Dreams 63 8 Flesh and Blood 74 9 Moving On 83 10 Endless Night 94 11 The Snare 105 12 Bravest Heart 115 13 The Answer 124 1 — The Meeting ne morning the people of Rin woke to find that the stream that flowed down the Mountain and through their village had slowed to a trickle. By nightfall even that small flow had stopped. The mill wheel lay idle. There was no water to turn its heavy blades. The bukshah drinking pool on the other side of the village was still. No bubbling stream was stirring it into life and keeping it topped up to the brim. There was no change on the second day, or the third. By the fourth day the water in the pool was thick and brown. The bukshah shook their heavy heads and pawed the ground when they went to drink in the morning and the evening. After five days the pool was so shallow that even little Annad, who was only five years old, could touch the bottom with her hand without getting her sleeve wet. And still the stream failed to flow. On the evening of the sixth day the worried people met in the market square to talk. “The bukshah could not drink at all today,” said Lann, the oldest person in the village, and once the greatest fighter. “If we do not act soon, they will die.” “Not Star,” whispered Annad to her brother, who was the keeper of the bukshah. “Star will not die, though, will she, Rowan? Because you will give Star water from our well.” “Bukshah cannot drink from our well, Annad,” said Rowan. “It is not sweet enough for them. It makes them ill. They can only drink the water that flows down from the Mountain. It has always been so. If the stream stays dry, Star will die like all the rest.” Annad began to sob quietly. The children of Rin were not supposed to cry, but Annad was very young, and she loved Star. Rowan stared straight ahead. His eyes were tearless, but his chest and throat ached with sadness and fear. The sadness was for Star, his friend and the strongest and gentlest of all the bukshah. And for all the other great, humped woolly beasts, each of which he knew by name. But the fear was for himself. For himself and Annad and their mother, and indeed for the whole village. Rowan knew, as Annad did not, that without the bukshah there would be no rich creamy milk to drink, no cheese, curd and butter to eat. There would be no thick grey wool for cloth. There would be no help to plough the fields, or carry in the harvest. There would be no broad backs to bear the burdens on the long journeys down to the coast to trade with the clever, silent Maris folk. The life of Rin depended on the bukshah. Without them, the village too would die. Annad could not imagine the valley without the village. But Rowan could. Reading the old stories in the house of books, listening half-asleep to Timon under the teaching tree, and, most of all, sitting on the grass by the stream while the bukshah grazed around him in the silence of the morning, he had often imagined this place as the first settlers must have seen it. Hundreds of years ago they had climbed through the hills, carrying the few things they owned on their backs, looking for somewhere in this strange land that they could claim as their own. They had come from far away, across the sea. They had fought a terrible enemy. On the coast they had heard, from the wandering native people they called the Travellers, of a place at the bottom of a forbidden mountain in the high country far inland. They had been tramping for many, many days in search of it. They were very tired. Some had almost given up hope. Then, one afternoon, they had topped a rise, and looked down. There below them, nestled between a towering mountain ahead and the hill on which they stood, was a green, secret valley. The people stared, speechless. They saw trees loaded with small blue fruits, and fields of flowers they did not recognise. They saw a stream, and a pool, and a herd of strange grey beasts lifting their heads to stare, horns shining in the sun. They saw silence, stillness, and rich earth, and peace. The people knew then that this was the place. This would be their home. So they came down and mingled with the big, gentle animals, who were tame and unafraid. They called them the bukshah. “The stream flows down from the Mountain,” said Bronden, the furniture maker, her loud voice breaking into Rowan’s thoughts. He watched her stab the air with her stubby finger, pointing. “So the problem must be up there, up there, something is amiss. Something is stopping the flow.” All eyes turned to the Mountain rising high above the village, its tip shrouded as always in cloud. “We must climb the Mountain and find out what it is,” Bronden went on. “This is our only chance. “No!” Neel the potter shook his head. “We cannot climb the Mountain. Even the Travellers do not venture there. Terrible dangers await anyone who dares. And at the top—the Dragon.” Bronden sneered at him. “You are talking like a crazy Traveller yourself, Neel! There is no Dragon. The Dragon is a story told to children to make them behave. If there was a Dragon we would have seen it. It would prey on the bukshah—and on us.” “Perhaps it takes its prey elsewhere. We do not know, Bronden.” Allun the baker’s light, pleasant voice rose above the muttering of the crowd. “But if you will excuse me for talking like a crazy Traveller— remembering that my father was one, and it is only to be expected—let me remind you of what we do know.” His usually smiling face was grim as he stared Bronden down. “We do know that we hear it roar almost every morning and every night. And that we see its fire in the cloud.” Bronden rolled her eyes disdainfully, but Rowan shivered. Tending the bukshah in the cold and dark of winter mornings, and in the evenings when the sun had slipped behind the Mountain, he had heard the sound of the Dragon. He had seen its fire too, in the sky above the cloud. The bukshah swayed and grew restless at these times. The calves bellowed, and the bigger beasts pawed the ground, flared their nostrils and huddled together in fear. Even Star moaned when the Dragon roared, and when he stroked her neck to calm her, he would feel the nerves jumping under her long, soft wool. Suddenly he realised something. Something no one else seemed to have thought of. He must speak. Nervously he rose to his feet. The villagers stared curiously at him. What could the boy Rowan, the shy, timid herder of the bukshah, have to say? “The Dragon has not roared since the stream dried up,” said Rowan. “Not in the mornings, and not at night.” He spoke as loudly as he could, but his voice sounded small in the silence. He sank back to his place. “Is this so?” Allun looked around the circle. “Is the boy mistaken?” “No, he is not,” said Bronden slowly. “I recall it now. Indeed, there has been no sound from the Mountain for days.” She lifted her head. “So I am right. There is something amiss, high above us. I have told you what we must do.” “But we cannot do it,” insisted Neel, with dread. “The Mountain is too steep, too dangerous. We cannot climb it.” “Has anyone ever tried?” enquired Allun. “Yes!” said tall, straight-backed Marlie, the weaver and dyer of cloth. “In times gone by, some people did climb the Mountain, to look for new fruits to plant in our orchard. But they never returned. After that, the people of Rin heeded the warning, and left the Mountain alone.” “You see?” Neel burst out. “You see? If we climb the Mountain, we will die.” “But Neel,” boomed Bronden. “If we do not climb the Mountain, we will die.” “Bronden is right. We must make our choice,” said Strong Jonn, who was the keeper of the orchard. “We remain here and hope the stream begins running again of its own accord, or we climb the Mountain and try to remove whatever is stopping the water from flowing down to us. Both ways are dangerous. What is our decision? To go, or to stay?” “We must go,” Marlie replied. “We cannot simply stand by and let death slowly come to our village. I vote to go.” “And I,” shouted Bronden. “I vote yes!” said Strong Jonn. “I too,” added Allun lightly. “Yes! We agree!” growled mighty Val the miller, who had stood silently listening in the shadows, shoulder to shoulder as always with Ellis, her twin brother. Val and Ellis toiled together in the mill, grinding the grain into flour, endlessly cleaning the great stone building so that not a speck of dirt or the tiniest spiderweb could be seen within its walls. Jiller, Rowan’s mother, said that since childhood no one had ever seen them apart. “Yes!” “Yes!” “Yes!” One by one the villagers stood up. Rowan looked around at the familiar faces, now so serious and so stern. Maise, the keeper of the books, was standing, with her son and daughter. So were Timon the teacher, and Bree and Hanna from the gardens. White-haired Lann leaned on her stick beside them. And even fat, soft Solla, who made sweet toffees and cakes and never could resist his own cooking, had struggled to his feet. Then Rowan saw Jiller rise slowly and join them. His heart thudding with fear, he scrambled to his feet beside her. Soon Neel the potter and four others were the only ones still seated. “So it is decided,” cried Bronden triumphantly. “We will arm ourselves and set out at dawn.” “Wait!” said Marlie. “We must not go without consulting Sheba.” “That mad old hag? That spinner of children’s nightmares and curer of pains in the belly? What has she got to do with this?” “Sheba is old, Bronden, but she is not mad,” said Marlie firmly. “As anyone who has been cured of illness by her remedies will tell you. Sheba knows more than herbs and spells. She understands the Mountain as you and I never will. Sheba knows the way up the Mountain. The secret way she was taught by the Wise Woman before her. We must ask Sheba to help us.” “This is a good idea,” agreed Strong Jonn. The people murmured. Many did not trust the Wise Woman, Sheba. She lived alone beyond the orchard, gathering herbs and other growing things and selling the medicines, ointments and dyes she made from them. She rarely spoke to anyone other than those with whom she traded. And when she did it was seldom pleasant. The children of Rin were a hardy crew, like all of their race. But they were afraid of Sheba, and called her not Wise Woman but Witch. “Oh, come! What harm can it do?” called Allun, grinning. “If the old one can tell us anything, which I doubt, then all the better. If she cannot, we have lost nothing.” “Travellers’ foolishness!” snapped Bronden. “This is not a game, Allun the Baker. Why don’t you “Enough!” cried old Lann. She glanced at Bronden, who scowled. “We are going into the unknown,” she said sternly. “And time is precious. We cannot afford to miss a chance to speed our way. Who knows Sheba best?” “I know her,” said Strong Jonn. “She gathers a herb that grows under the hoopberry trees in the orchard.” “I trade with her,” said Marlie. “Her purple and blue dyes, in return for cloth.” “Then you two can go and beg her favour,” sniffed Bronden, “since you are so keen to do so.” She turned her back on them. “We will wait here for your return,” said Allun. “Be speedy. There is much to plan.” He laughed. “And take care not to insult her, now. Like Bronden, she is not a woman to be trifled with.” Strong Jonn looked around at the watching villagers and pointed. Rowan jumped. Jonn’s finger was pointing at him! “Boy Rowan,” called Strong Jonn. “Little rabbit, herder of the bukshah! Run and get two cheeses from the coolhouse. The oldest, ripest, strongest cheeses from the topmost shelf. And bring them to us at Sheba’s hut. Sheba is very fond of good strong cheese. The gift will sweeten her temper.” Rowan stared, open-mouthed, and did not move. He was terrified of Sheba. His mother nudged him. “I will go,” piped up little Annad, beside him. “I am not frightened.” Laughter rippled through the crowd. “Go along, Rowan,” Jiller urged in a whisper. “Do as you are bid. At once!” Rowan scuttled away through the crowd. “He is scared of his shadow, that boy,” he heard Val the miller mutter to her brother, as he passed them. “He will never be the man his father was.” Ellis grunted agreement. Rowan ran on, his cheeks burning with shame.