The Secret of the Swamp King by Jonathan Rogers Page A

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?”
    â€œAh, 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:
    In deepest swamp, the house of bears,
    An orchid in the spring appears
    On oaken limb around a pond
    As black as night and round as sun.
    It floats in air, a ghostly white.
    It soars and leaps like frog in flight.
    And in the orchid’s essence pure
    Is melancholy’s surest cure.
    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?”
    â€œBut 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.’”
    â€œSo the orchid is black? And round?” asked Aidan.
    â€œNo,” Jasper answered. “I think that’s the pond where it grows. The pond is round and black.” Jasper returnedto 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.”
    â€œWhat 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.”
    â€œMaynard?” said