Blind Man's Buff

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “It would be if I put you down now,” said the thing. “Just wait. Nearly there. Now! Here we are.”

  On the far slopes of the volcano the mountainside was marked by dark openings into the rock. Smoke billowed out, but clearly there were many heated caves. Wuz said, “There now, I shall leave you here and fly off to collect your friend.”

  ‘But –” Before Poppy had a chance to ask where she was, she was dropped at the entrance to one of the higher caves, and past the puffs of smoke she could see a tunnel leading into the mountain. She didn’t dare go in, but she called, “Hello. Is anyone at home?” and then waited.

  Within a few moments Wuz arrived with Peter, dropped him next to Poppy, and then landed beside them both. “A lack of appreciation,” said Wuz with a small snort, “can be forgiven under the circumstances. I imagine you were frightened. Sadly, most humans frighten very easily. I was, however, saving your ungrateful lives. No one lasts long in the serpent lake, you know.”

  Peter was hopping up and down, trying to put out the dribbles of hot ashes which were scorching his trousers again. “You mean,” he said, horrified, “those fish I saw swimming in the hot water were actually snakes?”

  Wuz nodded. “Very dangerous snakes, most of them. Of course the blue ones are fairly safe and the black ones are only a tiny bit venomous, but the green ones and the white ones are really lethal, and the red striped ones are huge and extremely bad tempered. They are the Sparkan Constrictors. But the multi-coloured flat faced little ones are the worst of all. They are the Laval Adders, and so venomous, one little nip is the end of everything.”

  Poppy really didn’t want a biology lesson. “You mean you wanted to save us? But where are we now?”

  “My house,” said Wuz with a proud smirk. “Come on in.”

  “But,” wavered Peter, “what are you?”

  Wuz frowned. This expression added creases to his forehead, but his skin was already much creased into grooves and furrows, scaled like a snake’s and many coloured with a fluorescent glow. His small face was rather like a lizard’s, although his ears pricked up like a cat’s, his snout was snubbed, puppy style, and his mouth was wide. A long tail ended in an arrow-head, and all down his spine were lumps and bumps. He had four legs, and the back legs were strong and heavily clawed. And as well as all this, Wuz had two wide black bat-style wings.

  “You’re a – dragon,” breathed Poppy. “Perhaps a baby.”

  This was a mistake. The frown lines deepened and the end of the tail flicked with impatience. “I am indeed a dragon, and of more than average proportions,” Wuz said. “I am a full grown Sparkan Dragon, a dominant male of the species, and a full ninety nine years of age. What makes your puny brain think me so young? Babies, I should point out, are soft pink things. I am a glorious colour.”

  “Indeed you are,” said Peter immediately. “It’s simply that you are so – kind. And we’d heard that full-grown dragons are angry and – mean.”

  Wuz relaxed. “Then you’ve heard wrong,” he said. “We are all remarkably kind and friendly dragons, and at all ages. And we don’t eat people. In fact, we don’t usually see any. Visitors are rare. My last human sighting was when I was sixteen, eighty three years ago when I was a mere four-claw.”

  “Gracious,” mumbled Peter.

  Poppy smiled. “I presume you dragons have long lives?”

  “Oh well, average I suppose,” said Wuz, head to one side. “My mother is considered a little ancient. A hundred and ninety nine, which is old age. She doesn’t fly much anymore.” He regarded them a moment as they both stood staring. “Best come in and meet her,” Wuz nodded. “It will be quite exciting for her.”

  The cave was high, the inner walls were hot to touch but there was no soot or lava. It smelled, however, of burned coals, rotten scorched weeds, stale sweat, dirty water and sulphur. Both Peter and Poppy took a deep breath and said nothing about the awful stink. It got stronger as they entered further into the cave.

  And then, at last, it all changed. The cave opened out into a huge space where many shelves were carved into the rock walls, each spread with straw, shrubby twigs and leaves, as if to make comfy beds. A small hole in the very centre of the roof permitted the smoke to escape and air to enter, and in various places across the floor large jewelled stones had been inserted, shining out into the grey light with stabs of green jade, purple amethyst, ruby, topaz, sapphire, diamond and onyx. Embedded crystals caught the golden light when the mountain blazed, and flared across the opening in the ceiling. It looked like a cave of wonder.

  Seven or eight dragons lay, stretched out on their shelf beds, eyes like wide spangled emeralds as they watched the entrance of the humans. They all looked exactly like Wuz.

  “Oh, my,” exclaimed Peter.

  “Heavens above,” breathed Poppy.

  One of the lower shelves was empty and Wuz invited his guests to sit there, while he introduced the others. “A human girl named Poppy,” he waved a paw, “and the young male is Peter.” There were appreciative gasps from the dragons, who all sat up and peered down. “Now,” Wuz said, scampering across the bejewelled floor, “this is my mother Pah, the matriarch of our family. Then up in the far corner, half asleep, is my father Nob. Here is my uncle Swid, and my aunt Zock. I have three cousins on the far wall over there, Bish, Dash and the female Dimpy. My other aunt Forge, and her mother Vinty. There, now you know my whole family. Would you like to stay to dinner?”

  Poppy took a step back. “Well, I mean, not if, that is – we are dinner. And then it rather depends on whether you eat the same things we do.”

  Peter was busy waving to all the relatives. “I’d love to come to dinner,” he said, not listening to Poppy. “And can I play you my lute afterwards?”

  The matriarch leaned over her high shelf-bed and twitched her ears. “It’s a very long time since we entertained humans,” she said politely, “and I welcome Poppy and Peter to our cave. We will be delighted to invite you for dinner.”

  Aunt Zock sat up, with a vigorous scratch behind her ear. “We’re having roast fish and mulberry sauce, with python sap, warmed lake weed, and golden figs. I am the cook in this household,” she said. “We will love to hear your music, young man. We never have the opportunity to listen to music, except the roar and rumble of the volcano. This will be a party to remember.”

  A few burning crimson stones were brought in from outside and laid in the centre of the floor where soon a small fire blazed. Aunty Zock began to cook, and the smells overtook all the others. The roast fish and mulberries smelled delicious, but when four golden figs were carried in, the perfume was even more wonderful.

  Wuz sat with Peter and Poppy, and talked. “We climbed the rainbow,” explained Poppy.

  “The ladder?” asked Wuz. “Sometimes strange and unpleasant things climb the ladder.”

  “The rainbow brought us,” said Peter. “That’s different. But it was a surprise. I didn’t really know anything about Sparkan.”

  “And we didn’t know it had – animals – I mean –life,” said Poppy in a hurry.

  The little dragon lifted a paw and began to count on his claws. It reminded Poppy of John Ten Toes. “One, dragons,” Wuz began. “Two, the serpents of the lake. Three, fish of six or seven types, including Sparkan Pike, which is what we’re having for dinner. Then there’s the Lava Wolves, that’s four. Five, the blue rabbits. And six, the wooshabouts. Then of course there’s all the insects, but we don’t bother to count them.”

  “Blue rabbits?”

  “Wooshabouts?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Wuz, “I shall take you around the island. But now it is time for a feast.” The dinner lasted some hours, and although Poppy and Peter were both hesitant concerning the python sap, they closed their eyes and ate everything, trying not to wonder what each mouthful consisted of, or whether they would end up having dreadful stomach aches in the night. It all tasted surprisingly good, and when little bowls of juice were brought, this finished the meal with th
e most delicious of all.

  “This,” Poppy said, holding up her little stone bowl, “is wonderful.”

  “Ah, yes,” called down Nob from a high shelf. He had drunk two bowls of golden juice already. “We pick the golden figs from the great fig tree, the only fig tree on Sparkan. We press the figs and use them in our cooking, but the remaining juice is fermented in dark heat and this is it.”

  “It brings blessings, happiness, and energy,” said Aunt Vinty, raising her bowl. “But we can only drink it occasionally, for sometimes the figs stop growing, when the volcano becomes too violent. Then we have to drink mulberry juice instead, but it has no special properties.”

  Peter drank with his eyes closed in dreamy delight, and Poppy felt she wanted to get up and dance. Eventually Peter started to play his lute, remembering the tunes he had already learned, and others he had written himself.

  He was playing a slow melody when Nob began to sing. His voice was soft and low and his song seemed mournful.

  “The land of our birth is dying,

  But breathes as yet undead.

  The blown ashes float sighing,

  But the blood of our wounds boils red.

  The land that we love

  Holds the life that we love,

  But the land that we love is dying.

  The land that we love

  Holds the life that we love,

  But our brothers die, crying.”

  Peter’s last note echoed slowly and finally disappeared into the stone. “Did you make that up just now?” he asked, impressed.

  “It is an old song,” said Nob, shaking his head. “It was written when Sparkan broke away from Lashtang many hundreds of years ago. But we never had any music before. We knew nothing of music.”

  “Now we shall remember your tune,” called Bish. “We can sing it together on long dark evenings.”

  “And pass the song down to our eggs,” said Aunt Forge, “for traditions are important to us. And we will remember your name as a great human composer.”

  It was the next morning when they woke, but not to the glorious crimson dawn which they were used to on Lashtang, for the sky here was always golden, red and orange from the volcano. Wuz sat up and yawned, which rather worried Poppy because it showed all his very sharp teeth, and how many there were. However, she also sat up and stretched, saying, “Can we explore the island today?”

  Wuz took Poppy on his back. Riding a dragon had never been one of her dreams, but now it seemed the most exciting thing she could imagine. Riding Hermes was certainly more comfortable, and fluffy white feathers were nicer and softer than hard bumps, spikes and scales. However, holding to Wuz’s long neck and feeling the amazing muscle power of his body beneath her legs seemed thrilling. His wings, stretched fully, were large and it felt as though the wind flowed with them, holding them up and carrying them onwards.

  Cousin Bish took Peter, and together they all flew over and across the island. It was very small and did not take long, but there was plenty to see. They avoided the mountain itself where sparks and hissing flames still erupted, but they sped high over the Lake of Serpents, and could see some of the great coiled monsters on the lake’s edge, basking in the heat.

  The lake was huge but finished with grassy scrub and bracken, with a narrow line of beach and rocky cliffs before plunging down into the empty sky.

  There, some miles below, the world of Lashtang could be seen, so distant that it appeared as tiny. The terrible forest they had only recently left, now seemed to be a dark splodge of scraggy greenery, no more. The Mountains of Clarr seemed like little white hills, and the great City of Peganda was just a dirty footprint in the dust.

  As they flew, they could see the roots of Sparkan like many long tails hanging down and waving in the wind.

  Then, back across the land and on the other side of the volcano, the country was bleak with bare rock, crevices of moss, gaping cracks, clumps of low leafy bracken and a few sudden holes in the endless stone.

  ‘That,” called Bish, “is where the Lava Wolves, and the Blue Rabbits live.”

  “The wolves eat the rabbits?”

  “When they can catch them.”

  “And the whooshabouts?”

  “Ah,” said Bish, “I shall show you.” And he flew on, with Wuz close behind.

  The great rocky plain finally finished in a small green and pleasant strip of lush grass which wound on along the coast. The land itself finished in massive cliffs which stopped abruptly as the island rocked in its orange clouds. Across the long grass grew many thick blossomed bushes, and there in the middle soared the enormous fig tree. Its trunk was as wide as a hill, its branches stretched up to the sky and across to the cliffs, and it was the biggest tree either Peter or Poppy had ever seen. A thousand golden figs hung, oozing juice and sweet perfume. To either side stood ancient mulberry trees, also thick with fruit on their wide branches.

  Sleeping placidly on the width of the branches, and hanging, eyes closed, from the stalks of the bushes, were small furry creatures looking very like minute sloths.

  “The whooshabouts,” said Wuz.

  “But they aren’t moving.”

  “They never move. They rarely wake up. They do everything so slowly, it seems they aren’t doing a thing. That’s where the name comes from.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  John stood on deck, gazing up at the sky. He wondered what his friends were seeing, doing, and thinking at that precise moment.

  It was early spring and his father had set sail for the Spanish Islands in the Middle Sea, taking him on board for the first time. John had never seen the sea before in his entire life, and he was thrilled with it. The salty fresh breezes made him feel twice as awake, and he loved looking over the gunwales, watching the bow wave throw up spray against the curve of the ship’s keel. The great mast, like an enormous tree, stood central, and the sail blew, as full of wind as a big white cloud on a gusty day.

  The ship was The Steady Eye and flew the English flag, but this was a trading vessel, and Arthur Crinford did good business in Spain. Arthur hoped he could encourage his new found son to follow the trade, and become wealthy. John had no objections. Being rich was a glorious dream since he had been penniless his entire life, and he quickly discovered that he loved the sea. But he couldn’t help thinking about his friends.

  When busy wondering who was in London, who was in Lashtang, and who was fighting the Hazletts, he often didn’t even hear what his father was saying to him.

  “Wake up, John,” Arthur said. “I’m teaching you navigation and how to guide your route by the stars. This is far more important than your dreams.”

  “I wonder if one of those stars up there is Lashtang,” said John softly as the thousand tiny flashing lights peered back down at him.

  “There are sea monsters in this ocean,” said his father, frowning into the starlight. “You need to keep alert when you’re on watch.”

  John thought he’d like to see a monster rising up out of the water, just as long as it wasn’t too big. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  He had seen Alice and Alfie just before setting sail, and had been a little worried to see how much they missed everyone else. Sam was happy with all the cats around him once more, but he said he wanted to hear Pete’s music again, and ride on Hermes and the Sky Train and feel like a bird. And he missed everyone too.

  Alice and Alfie had been once more to the palace, but the king had refused to see them. Instead they had seen Lord Stanley, who had confirmed that Baron Cambridge had never reappeared, and was presumed dead, although no one knew how. Therefore Alice was free to marry whom she pleased, as long as she received the king’s permission first.

  Now they all wished they could rush off to Lashtang and help in the rebellion and see Poppy, Nathan and Peter, but they had no magical way of travelling to another world.

  “I don’t know how to go further than the market,” sighed Alice.

  “I knows the way to Bedlam Hospice, grumbled A
lfie, “and reckons that be where I’s gonna end up.”

  “You’re not a lunatic and you’ll never be put in a hospice for mad people,’ said Alice firmly. “But I might end up dead of boredom. I want all that wonderful adventure back.”

  “I’s gonna have adventures on me dad’s boat,” John had answered. “Then I’ll come home and tell yer all about it.”

  “And then we’ll be even more jealous.”

  Nathan, Poppy and Peter had been gone for some months. Now at last the ice and snow had all melted away, and a bright sunny April had dawned. The Steady Eye sailed from London docks a little down river from the great Tower, and as the west wind filled the sail, they uncoiled the ropes that held them to the quay, and John stood happily at the prow. But now, after two weeks of just staring at the ocean, he also dreamed of Lashtang, of Nathan, and the others, and adventure in other worlds.

  It was night and the night sky appeared even vaster than during the day. Thousands of stars flickered and a tiny sliver of moon hid within a little silvery mist.

  There was not even the company of the other sailors, for they were now asleep in their hammocks below deck, and rarely spoke to him even during the busy days.

  Which was when something splashed on the Larboard side, and a fountain of spray leapt up into the air, cascading onto the deck. John rushed over and peered down. He hoped it was a sea monster, but he quickly realised it was nothing of the sort, and stood there in utter amazement with his mouth open.

  =========

  It was still icy winter in north-eastern Lashtang as Nathan climbed off Hermes’ back, brushed a small white feather from his chin, and stood gazing at the great part-ruined castle looming at some distance before him.

  Its two vast towers stood seemingly unharmed, but the protective stone wall around and the bailey and other courtyards were covered in vine and moss, while the doorways, turrets and arrow slits were broken, their edges shattered and crumbling. It stood dark against the pale sky and although it stood on the cliffs, the thundering winter waves could be seen and heard behind.