by Mike Wilks
Mel pushed the button. There came the sound like a door opening on rusty hinges and the same face appeared, but this time formed from the polished metal around the button, with ‘push for attention’ for a brow. The rivets looked like pimples.
‘Oh, there you are. You took your time.’ It sounded harassed. ‘So, what’ve you got?’
‘Got?’ said Mel, puzzled.
‘Oh, really! You’re making a delivery,’ said the face tetchily. ‘Remember?’
The cable car took them out to one of the undamaged islands. One by one, they were lowered down to vacant cells in the sculpted mangrove tree. Inside each was an odd metal helmet that looked like an upturned pudding basin encrusted with coils, dials and coloured lights. As instructed, they placed these on their heads, closed their eyes and imagined something. The helmets hummed, causing their scalps to tingle and the lights to flash and then, with a sound like a nightingale trapped inside an accordion, the object they imagined materialised in front of them. It was like making art without any of the hard work of drawing or painting.
When they were all back inside the cable car once more Mel pushed the button again.
‘Very nice, very nice indeed,’ said the face as it reemerged. ‘You may only have a single brain cell between the three of you but that’s some quality inspiration, I must say. We could do with a lot more of that – to replace the damaged stock.’
‘We wish we could stick around and help some more but we must be after the house,’ said Mel.
‘Perhaps you didn’t hear me right. I said, “we could do with a lot more of that ”.’
‘I’m sorry, but we haven’t the time right now. We have to go.’
‘Go? You’re not going anywhere. Not until all the stock’s been replenished. That house you seem to be so friendly with was the cause of all this damage. And now you’re going to put it to rights.’
‘I thought you said you hadn’t seen the house,’ said Ludo.
‘I didn’t say I had and I didn’t say I hadn’t.’
‘But we have to go,’ pleaded Wren. ‘We’ve already spent far too long here as it is. If you could just show us the way out, we’d be ever so grateful. Please.’
‘Oh well, if you have to go, you have to go,’ said the face, relenting. ‘It’s a pity. We sure could have used your inspiration. You don’t see quality like that every day. Hold tight.’ The face vanished and the cable car sped off with a lurching motion, into the heart of the mine.
They headed for an island towards the periphery of the flagstone sea. This one had a large, cone-shaped volcano on it rather than the ubiquitous mangrove trees. When the car was immediately over the volcano it came to a swaying halt and the face re-emerged from the dashboard.
‘Here we are.’
‘Where?’ asked Wren. ‘This doesn’t look like a way out to me.’
‘Way out, ducky? Whatever could have given you that idea?’ asked the face. ‘Like I told you, you won’t be going anywhere until the mine’s been restocked. I’ll find out what’s needed and come back for you. Until then, you can keep the other one company. He looks like one of your lot. Alley-oop!’
‘What other – ?’
Mel’s question was cut short by a whirring noise as the pulleys all along one side of the car engaged and the whole conveyance abruptly tipped upside down. The friends spilled out of the car and through the air into the volcano. Down and down they tumbled, landing on a great pile of junk that filled most of the interior. The debris broke their fall and they clattered helter-skelter down the slope, landing in a heap on the floor.
Mel looked up and saw the mouth of the crater, a disc of light no bigger than the full moon, high above them.
‘That lying scrot,’ said Ludo as he staggered to his feet, dusting himself down.
‘We shouldn’t have been so inspirational.’ Mel angrily kicked a piece of junk.
‘What’re we going to do now?’ said Ludo.
‘We need to find a way out – in a hurry. Before too long we’re going to become sick again, remember?’ said Mel. ‘Perhaps we can find something to help us in all this rubbish.’
‘I suppose a ladder would be too much to hope for,’ said Ludo, sorting through the junk.
‘It’d need to be a really long ladder,’ said Wren. ‘Even from the top of the heap it’d never reach the opening.’
‘This is all junk,’ said Ludo. ‘Everything’s broken or useless.’
‘It must be the mine’s dump,’ said Wren
‘I’ve found a kettle. Yuck, it’s made from butter.’ Mel wiped his greasy hands on his doublet.
‘Here’s a chocolate frying pan,’ said Ludo. ‘And a teapot made from feathers. What have you found, Wren?’
‘I’ve got a velvet cartwheel, an elastic spanner and a sewing machine that seems to be made out of smoke. Nothing here’s the least bit useful.’ Wren sat down on the scrapheap.
‘There’s got to be a way out,’ said Mel as he knelt and unfastened his satchel. He withdrew the telescope and began to pan around the interior of the dimly lit volcano but there was very little to see in the feeble light filtering down from above. The far side of the volcano was obscured by the scrapheap. Even using the magnifier, he could find nothing. The only way out was the mouth of the crater high over their heads.
‘Ahem!’ A polite cough sounded behind the friends. ‘Young sirs, miss, if I might be so bold as to venture a small suggestion?’
‘This is more like it, eh, Mumchance? Who’s doing the running away now? Look at that cowardly cottage run!’
The High-Bailiff looked down from the cabin of his flying command vehicle at his men-at-arms far below, thundering across the Mirrorscape in their newly plundered conveyances. Fleeing before them in a cloud of dust was the house.
‘Amazing what one can find inside a mountain these days. These machines are just the job.’ Adolfus Spute gazed admiringly at his fleet of bizarre vehicles, taken from the Mine of Inspiration. ‘Mumchance, we’re losing altitude. Adjust the buoyancy, my little man. Give us a trifle more elevation, if you please.’
The dwarf mounted a ladder and opened a trapdoor in the roof of their weird flying machine. From the outside it resembled the rotting carcass of a rhinoceros. He blew a violent blast on his silver whistle. Above his head flew a huge flock of birds attached to the passenger compartment with myriad fine wires. When his whistle blast had no effect he reached inside his scarlet robe and withdrew a small catapult. Fitting a pebble into the sling, he took aim and fired into the midst of the flock. There was an enraged cawing and a cloud of shed feathers as his missile hit its mark. The birds flapped harder and the vehicle rose.
‘Ah, that’s better. Not long now, my manky miniature. Soon we’ll have Ambrosius Blenk in our hands once more.’
Down and Out
Startled, the friends turned at the sound of the voice. He was about their height and dressed exactly like them in the Blenk household livery. But there the similarity ended. He was more or less human in shape but his bald head was completely spherical and his face recessed into it.
‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Swivel and I am Master Blenk’s butler.’ He inclined his round head in a bow.
‘No you’re not,’ said Ludo. ‘I’ve never seen you around the mansion.’
‘Forgive me, young sir, but I serve the master here, in his residence in the Mirrorscape. Like all inhabitants of the Mirrorscape I am a figment. In my case, of Master Blenk’s imagination.’
Mel quickly made the connection. ‘You mean you work in that funny-looking house?’
‘Precisely, young sir. And it’s rather important that I get back as soon as possible. The master needs looking after.’
‘Then you’ll know what’s happened here?’ said Wren.
‘Indeed. Master Blenk was visiting his house by the lake when a large band of red-robed ruffians from the Fifth Mystery arrived and began vandalising the grounds and mistreating the wildlife. Then they attempted to enter th
e residence, quite without invitation. Such appalling manners.’ At this point the strangest thing happened. Swivel’s face, which up until then had been composed, swivelled around within his head with a metallic, scraping sound, to be replaced by another with a look of disdain on it. It then swivelled back and he continued. ‘Billet, who you rather questionably refer to as “that funny-looking house”, took umbrage at this and, after excusing himself to Master Blenk, set about teaching that rabble how to behave towards their betters. But they wouldn’t be told. It was all most regrettable.’ He sighed and his face rotated in the other direction to display one of resigned sadness before flipping back. ‘They fled and he … we, gave chase. To cut a long story short, we ended up here, at the Mine of Inspiration, where things took a turn for the worse. Up until that time, Billet had the upper hand and the hooligans were in full flight. But once inside the mine they managed to appropriate several important articles of inspiration and caused quite a furore. I’m sure you’ve seen the result. Not to put too fine a point on it, the tables were turned. Master Blenk and Billet fled from the mine, this time with the hooligans in pursuit. Unfortunately, during the unpleasantness, I was accidentally ejected and left behind. I believe I may have been held to blame by the management for the unfortunate events and found myself sequestered here.’
‘It looks like the master needs our help now more than ever,’ said Mel. ‘The question is, how do we get out of here?’
‘I was just about to suggest something, young sir. But first, if you’ll permit me?’ Swivel’s hand retracted into his sleeve and when it came back out had a clothes brush attached. He began to brush the dust from Mel’s velvet doublet.
‘Never mind that now. What’s your suggestion?’ asked Mel.
‘As you wish. It’s just that I see you have the omniscope.’
‘The what?’
‘The omniscope, young sir.’ The clothes brush hand withdrew into Swivel’s sleeve and his open hand popped back out. ‘May I?’
Mel realised that he was referring to his telescope. ‘This thing? I’ve used it but I can’t see a way out anywhere.’ He passed it to the butler.
‘But perhaps the young sir is not aware of its rather special attributes.’
‘You mean making things appear closer?’
‘Forgive me, but the omniscope does rather more than that. You have perhaps been wondering about the various attachments along its length, only one of which is the special enlargement facility. This control here, for instance, allows for better illumination of the subject and this one here – ’
‘Let me see,’ said Ludo snatching the object from Swivel’s hand. ‘Wow! You should see this, Mel. Everything’s as bright as day.’
He handed Mel the omniscope and Mel began to re-inspect the interior.
‘Excuse me, young sirs, but you won’t find a way out there. I’ve already looked.’ At this, Swivel’s face rotated again, this time from his chin upwards, revealing a face with huge, nocturnal eyes.
Its ghastly appearance made Ludo jump.
‘I’m sorry if I startled you.’ The butler’s face swivelled back to his normal one.
‘So there’s no way out?’ said Wren, disappointed.
‘Perhaps if I may continue? This control here will permit you to see a distance through things.’ Swivel indicated another knob on the omniscope.
Mel returned the apparatus to his eye and twiddled the knob. At first nothing seemed to change, but as he turned the knob further, the walls of the volcano paled and vanished and he could clearly see the surrounding islands and ships. ‘That’s amazing, but I still can’t see a way out of here.’
‘Ahem!’ The polite cough once more. ‘Perhaps the young sir is looking in the wrong direction?’ The butler nodded towards the pile of junk.
Mel turned the omniscope on it and looked down deep into the heart of the scrapheap. ‘There’s a great big hole in the floor, right in the centre, like a massive drain or something. But it’s blocked. There’s a big whatnot wedged in it. Perhaps all this junk’s supposed to vanish down there.’
‘Exactly,’ said Swivel.
‘But that still doesn’t help us much,’ said Mel. ‘There must be hundreds of tons of junk in this pile. We’ll never shift it.’
‘Maybe this’ll help.’ Wren held out a battered and dented helmet similar to the one they had used to produce their inspiration. ‘I’ve just found this on the scrapheap. It’s been through the wars but perhaps we can get it to work.’
‘How very enterprising of you, miss. If you’ll permit me?’
Wren passed the helmet to Swivel. He held it in his left hand and his right withdrew into the sleeve of his doublet and re-emerged as a stubby screwdriver. He tightened a few screws, changed his hand for a pair of pliers, remade a connection or two, changed his hand back to normal, blew some dust off the helmet and handed it back. ‘That might serve tolerably well, although I sincerely doubt it will function perfectly. After all, it had been thrown away.’
‘Go on, Wren, you found it, you use it,’ said Mel.
Wren put the helmet on and closed her eyes. Her brow furrowed in concentration and the lights flickered and then glowed dimly. There was a sound like fingernails scraping on a blackboard, and something amorphous began to materialise on the floor in front of Wren. At first it was vague and transparent and then it started to fade away altogether.
‘Do excuse me, miss.’ Swivel whacked the side of the helmet with his hand. ‘Most frightfully sorry, and all that.’
Wren recovered from the blow as the lights glowed brighter and, with a pop like a champagne cork, a python with the head of a flamingo sprang into existence at her feet.
‘Well done. That’s fantastic. It works!’ said Mel, slapping Wren on the back.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Wren, disappointed. ‘I tried for a rope with a hook on the end. Something we could use to drag this junk aside.’
‘At least we’re getting something,’ said Ludo.
Wren tried some more and then Ludo and Mel took turns, but after an hour of attempts at imagining something useful all they had produced was another pile of worthless junk. More by luck than design, they had created several more or less round wheels, lots of nondescript tubes and more than a fair share of useless and malformed animal parts before the helmet gave up the ghost with a flash, a bang and a puff of multicoloured smoke.
Mel removed the smoking helmet. ‘Well, I guess that’s it.’
‘What now?’ said a downhearted Ludo.
‘We’re not necessarily finished yet, young sirs, miss. Between the items you have imagined and the scrapheap here, we now have at our disposal a rather large quantity of raw material. A kit of parts, as it were. If you were to describe exactly what you were aiming for, with my skills I might just be able to fabricate such a device.’
Mel retrieved a pencil and the master’s sketchbook from his satchel and turned to a blank page. ‘What about some kind of excavating machine?’ He sketched out what he had in mind. Wren and Ludo made some helpful suggestions which he incorporated before handing the finished design to the butler. Swivel set to work.
Swivel was amazingly industrious and, after going through an impressive repertoire of different faces and hands, had Mel’s machine fully assembled. It would have been finished a lot sooner if he had not stopped periodically to tidy up after himself. The friends inspected the finished machine.
The main part of it was built from the ribcage of an enormous fish. Inside was a four-seater tandem bicycle frame. This was bolted on to a flat bed from beneath which protruded a multitude of feet. Some were human-looking (with and without shoes), while others were distinctly animal in origin. Still others were mechanical, built from small pistons, bolts and springs. For the excavating end there was a huge dinosaur’s head with a formidable array of sharp teeth. Its eyes had been replaced with lanterns. It was anchored in front of a rather dangerous-looking steam engine, topped with organ pipes of varying length. The excavated waste wa
s to be channelled along the machine by a complicated tangle of intestine-like flexible pipes and finally expelled from the rear via something that resembled an oversized sousaphone. This emerged from a great big bottom. All in all it looked as if it would be rather more dangerous to the operators than to the scrapheap.
‘Look, I’m not so sure this is a good idea after all,’ said Ludo, studying the machine. ‘I think I’d rather stay here having inspiration than getting in that jerry-built thing.’
‘Excuse me, but I rather think you are labouring under a misapprehension,’ said Swivel. ‘When the Mine of Inspiration wishes to uncover a large amount of inspirational ore, it uses what any other mine would given the same situation.’
‘Oh, and what’s that?’ asked Ludo.
‘Why, explosives, young sir.’
Ludo was the first to climb on board the strange machine. He took the rear saddle with Wren in front of him, then Mel, who fastened his satchel to the crossbar. Swivel, who knew how to operate the contraption, sat in the driving seat immediately behind the steam engine. As they built up a head of steam the organ pipes began to whistle musically. The butler started the excavator and it rose on its feet and edged forward like a huge, weird centipede.
‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’ The face emerged with a metallic boing from a malformed gondola at the edge of the scrapheap. It was evidently angry.
‘With your permission, young sirs, miss?’
‘Be our guest,’ said Ludo.
Swivel pulled one of the many levers arrayed along the handlebars and the head of the machine turned and crushed the boat with its massive jaws.
The face immediately reappeared on the other side, this time on a church steeple that appeared to be constructed from dried moths. ‘Oh no, you don’t. I know what your little game is. I’ll fix you.’