The Chalice of Hope (Adventures in Otherworld Book 1)

by Michael Kerr

  “Let me see,” Sam said, pushing between them. For a second she felt very dizzy again. She studied the strange symbols and meaningless letters engraved into the gold. They were faint, and she thought that the cup must be very old for them to have nearly worn away. And then her bright blue eyes widened in disbelief as the writing began to move. The letters and pictures came alive and wriggled and rearranged themselves into English, to form the words: VIRTUE IS ITS OWN REWARD.

  As soon as Sam had read the writing, it returned to its original gobbledygook.

  “Did you see that?” she asked Ben and Tommy.

  “See what?” Ben said.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Tommy said.

  “You must have seen it,” Sam said. “Just for a second, the writing changed. It was in English.”

  “Was not,” Tommy said. “I never took my eyes off it, and nothing happened.”

  After being in the warm, turquoise water, hearing the bells, and seeing the glow that led them to the cup, Ben didn’t doubt Sam. “What did it say, Sam?” he asked.

  “Virtue is its own reward,” she said, running the tip of her index finger along the row of strange symbols that they all saw as something different.

  “And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?” Ben asked, picking the cup up and turning it upside down to look for a hallmark. If it really was gold, then it should have one. And, yes, there was something stamped on the bottom. It was a hand holding a hammer over an anvil.

  “Bet it’s an antique Viking or Roman thing,” Tommy said. “It could be worth a fortune.”

  “You found it, Sam. Put it in your backpack and let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “This place is giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Sam tucked the cup inside her backpack, and when she and Ben had put their trainers back on, the three of them began to climb back up the slope to where they had first seen the lake through the passageway in the cliffs. When they reached the ledge, the opening was gone. They looked left and right, but there was only solid rock. It was as if the stone had healed up like a cut. The ridge that towered above them and encircled the lake was vertical and smooth, with no visible breaks in it.

  “We’re trapped. What do we do now? How do we get out of here?” Tommy wailed.

  “I think it’s the cup,” Ben said. “We shouldn’t have taken it. Maybe if we put it back where we found it, then everything will go back to normal.”

  Sam thought he was right. The cup was working some kind of spell.

  They slid, slipped and scrabbled back down, stepping carefully between boulders, to where the water lapped against the shore.

  That was when it happened. They all saw the same thing, and stood frozen to the spot. The air shimmered, and there were crackling, popping sounds coming from all around them. The waterfall stopped falling, to become solid like a giant icicle, before lifting up from the lake’s surface and beginning to flow again, but backwards, to vanish over the top of the cliff.

  Nature was playing tricks. A whirlpool appeared at the centre of the lake, spinning and growing. The noise was deafening. And with a mighty thunderclap, the water parted to form an avenue between two steep liquid walls.

  “This isn’t funny,” Tommy whispered. “I want to go home.”

  “It’s like what Moses did, parting the Red Sea,” Ben said.

  “I th..think we’re meant to g..go in,” Sam stammered.

  “No chance,” Tommy said, turning and running away from the lake just as fast as his lame leg would allow. He took no more than six steps, before crashing into an invisible wall, to bounce back off it and fall down.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asked, rushing over to where Tommy was sitting up and taking off his glasses.

  “Uh! No,” he said. “I’ve hurt my nose.”

  “Did you slip, Frog?” Ben asked him.

  “No. I hit something. There’s a...a force field.”

  Ben wanted to laugh, but didn’t. Instead, with his arms outstretched, he walked in the direction Tommy had been running. Sure enough, the palms of his hands came up against an unseen barrier. It felt spongy, and gave a little, but he couldn’t push his fingers through it. The harder he pressed, the more it seemed to resist. And it was moving, approaching them. If it didn’t stop, then they would be forced into the channel that now split the lake in two.

  “I think I’m having a nightmare,” Ben said. “Pinch me.”

  Sam nipped his arm.

  Ben yelped. “Okay, so I’m awake. Now what do we do?”

  Sam shrugged. “We’ll have to go across the lake.”

  “Do we have a choice?”

  As if in answer, the invisible wall reached them, to gently but firmly press them backwards.

  Huddling together, they walked out onto the slippery stones. With every step, Ben and Tommy expected the quivering, towering turquoise walls of water at either side of them to come crashing down to smash and drown them. But Sam was certain that no harm would befall them. She was absolutely positive that the gold cup possessed magical powers that would protect them.

  As they reached the far shore, the water collapsed with a deafening crash to fill the path they had taken through it. Ahead of them was a bank of fog. It was bright pink, and looked so thick that it might have been made out of candy floss or cotton wool.

  They walked into the fog, passed through it, and came out into the sun-dappled glade of an oak wood. When they looked back, both the fog and the lake had disappeared. Only trees stretched away in every direction for as far as they could see.

  “My oh my, you shouldn’t be here,” a sandpapery voice said from above them.

  Sitting high up on the branch of a tree was a large bird. It was as black as a crow, but bigger than a golden eagle. It flapped down onto the lush grass and hopped over to stand in front of them.

  “What are you?” it asked, glaring at them with yellow, glassy eyes.

  ― CHAPTER TWO ―

  WHORTLES AND OTHERKIND

  “What are we?” Ben snapped. “We’re people, that’s what we are. And you’re just a dumb bird.”

  “Wrong on both counts, people,” the tar-black bird said. If I was dumb, I wouldn’t be talking to you, would I? And I’m not a bird. At least not very often.”

  Before Ben could reply, the big bird shape-shifted before their eyes, to become a little man resembling a living garden gnome. He was no more than two feet tall, with pointed ears, a greenish cast to his skin, and large, purple wings.

  “I’m Figwort,” he said. “Why have you whortles come here?”

  “What is a whortle, and what are you?” Sam asked, a little angry at being interrogated by a grumpy, pint-sized creature that she thought would look more at home sitting next to a pond with a fishing rod in its hands.

  “You’re a whortle, which is humankind. And I’m a fairy.”

  “You don’t look like a fairy,” Tommy said.

  “How would you know? Have you ever met one before?” Figwort asked, folding his arms over the flowing white beard that grew down to his big-buckled belt.

  “Well, er, no. But I imagined fairies to look like Tinkerbell, or the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio. You look more like a Vulcan out of Star Trek.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind,” Tommy said.

  “You’ll have to come to the Oak Palace,” Figwort said. “The King will decide what is to become of you.”

  “I think we’ll just leave,” Ben said.

  Figwort shook his head vigorously. “You can’t just leave. You know an entrance to this world now.” And having said that, he flew up into the air, and they were drawn up after him and sucked along in his wake.

  Sam felt like Wendy Darling, flying along behind Peter Pan on her way to Neverland.

  “We’re flying!” Ben shouted at the top of his voice, stretching his arms out and clenching his hands. He felt like Superman.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Tommy screamed, pin wheeling along at the rear, his calliper weighin
g him down, so that he was in danger of colliding into the tops of trees.

  After a short flight, they landed in a heap in front of a mighty oak tree, helped each other up, and followed Figwort to a Norman-arch-shaped door set into the tree’s trunk. The door creaked open at a hand signal from the fairy, and it was then that they realised they were now Figwort’s size. He had somehow shrunk them.

  After being taken inside the hollow tree, Figwort led them down a winding wooden staircase to a narrow passage. Thick roots were sticking out of the rough earthen walls, floor and ceiling.

  “In here, for the time being,” Figwort said, opening a door made from a single, thick slice of oak.

  No sooner had they entered the underground room, than the door slammed shut behind them. Ben tried to open it, but there was no knob or handle on the inside.

  “Let us out!” Ben shouted, kicking the door and hammering on it with his fists.

  A small flap opened at eye level. Ben put his face up to it, looked out, and instantly jumped back in fright at the sight that met him. What he saw appeared to be a huge rabbit. It was standing upright, staring back at him with small pink eyes. It wore a shabby tunic that could have been made from a potato sack, and a cone-shaped wooden helmet on its head between its floppy ears. Drool dripped from a slobbering mouth that had large ivory tusks curling out from it.

  “Quiet, whortles,” the monstrous rabbit growled. “Or I will gobble you up, bones and all.”

  “Great. Just great,” Tommy said, sitting on the single wooden cot, which was the only item of furniture in the gloomy cell. “Let me get this right. We set off on a bike ride to Grimwith reservoir, stop off on the way, get lost in fog, and end up at a lake full of warm, turquoise water. Then you two find a gold cup behind a waterfall, and everything gets weird, with force fields, parting of the water, and being taken prisoners by a bird that turned into a green fairy. How am I doing so far?”

  “Apart from flying, being shrunk, and having a giant rabbit threaten to eat us, I think you covered just about everything,” Sam said.

  Tommy bent his knee and his brace creaked. Usually it squeaked. Ben was always telling him to oil the calliper. He pulled up the leg of his pants and gasped. His calliper had changed. It was no longer metal, but made of wood, with leather fastenings where the hinges had been.

  “Check out your glasses,” Ben said.

  Tommy took them off and inspected them. The lenses were missing, and the frames looked to be made of the same wood as his calliper.

  Ben raised his left hand and examined his wristwatch. It was now a bracelet made of bark.

  They went through everything. Anything manmade had changed. Their clothes looked similar, but were made from wool and other natural fibres. And all plastic and metal was gone. Even the bottles in their backpacks – that were now cloth satchels with rope handles – were wooden containers, stoppered with corks and holding water, not Coke or lemonade.

  “This could be the Three Musketeers’ greatest adventure,” Sam said, taking off the uncomfortable clogs that had replaced her Nikes.

  “This could be our last adventure,” Ben said.

  “Where do you think we are?” Tommy asked.

  “Somewhere that shouldn’t exist, but does,” Ben said. “We’re in a different time or place. Something seriously spooky has happened to us, or I really am asleep and dreaming.”

  Sam began to shiver. The room was damp and cold, and it smelled like a compost heap. She put the clogs back on to keep her bare feet off the dirt floor. “Do you think they’re going to harm us?” she asked.

  “Who knows?” Ben said. “We need a plan.”

  “Plan! We need a miracle,” Tommy said. “Remember, Figwort can do magic. He could probably turn us into bugs and squish us. Think up a plan to beat that.”

  “I think we’re safe, as long as we have the cup,” Sam said. “I’ve checked, and it’s still gold, so Figwort’s magic can’t be able to affect it.”

  “Maybe it can help us,” Ben said. “What if we all touch it and wish to be back to where we were before we found it?”

  “Sounds good,” Sam said, about to open the woolly bag that had been her backpack, but stopping when the door was suddenly opened.

  A very tall, thin figure with a milk-white face, long nose, and eyes as big and white as Ping-Pong balls, walked in. Well, not walked. He seemed to drift towards them with his feet a few inches above the floor. He wore a black cloak, and his hands were huge, with long fingers and thick horny nails that were more like talons. He hovered in front of them and smiled, to reveal a mouth packed full of needle sharp teeth.

  Sam, Ben and Tommy gasped and backed away from him, the blood draining from their faces. And as they retreated, the creature seemed to melt and reform into Figwort.

  “Impressive, huh?” Figwort said.

  “N...Not funny,” Sam said.

  “No. You have no right to lock us up like this and steal all our things,” Tommy added.

  “I stole nothing,” Figwort replied, looking a little taken aback at being accused of such a crime. “Things that don’t belong here change.”

  “Don’t you have glass and metal and plastic here?” Ben asked.

  “We have all we need, and don’t want anything from elsewhere.”

  “Why have you been so mean to us?” Sam asked him. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “You came to where you shouldn’t be. That’s wrong,” Figwort stated.

  “Not by choice,” Tommy said. “We found a gold―”

  “Shut up, Frog,” Ben said. “We don’t have to tell this little freak anything.”

  Figwort puffed out his chest, and his beard bristled and quivered. “You should watch your mouth, young whortle, or I might seal it up as tight as a drum. Or change you all into dragon snot.”

  “You’re not a very pleasant fairy, are you?” Tommy said. “I always thought that fairies were kind, and granted wishes and did good things.”

  Figwort made a snorting sound. “Where did you get a silly idea like that?”

  “I read it in books.”

  “Books are written by whortles and otherkind with vivid imaginations,” Figwort said. “They don’t know the real of what is true.”

  “What do you intend to do to us?” Sam asked. “Are you going to hurt us?”

  “The king will decide your fate. He’s my nephew, more is the pity. He has the backbone of a peat worm, and less sense than an apple.”

  Something struck Sam as very peculiar. Figwort was speaking in English. Would he have been able to talk to them in any language? She thought so. “Where did you learn to speak English?” she asked him.

  Figwort stopped insulting the king – which, to Sam, was to say the least a traitorous thing for him to be doing in front of strangers – and smiled.

  “It’s like the clothing and objects that changed,” he said. “We only have one language here. Everything but the most stupid of insects, like bogflies, can talk and be understood. It makes things simple. When I speak to you, your minds make it into words and phrases that you can understand.”

  “What do you call your world, Figwort?” Ben asked.

  “By a name that would have no meaning to you, that means here, as opposed to being anyplace else. We and you live in other worlds to each other, which are linked by portals that can take us from here and now to there and then. We are all only a wing beat away from each other. Does that answer your question?”

  “I think so,” Ben said, frowning. “You mean that we’ve somehow entered a parallel universe.”

  “I don’t know. You found a hole in time and space and passed through it.”

  “So why can’t we just go back, then?” Tommy asked with a pleading hitch to his voice. “You can do magic. You could send us home and make us forget what happened.”

  “Not so simple, Frog,” Figwort said, having picked up on Tommy’s nickname. “The portals drift about. They don’t stay in the same place for very long. Some are ve
ry small and just wink out like stars, and others are like giant tubes that a forest could pass through. The chances of you finding the right one back to your world are slimmer than a blade of meadow grass.”

  Sam listened to the fairy, not convinced that he was telling them the truth. But she felt safe, because of the cup. They had to take it somewhere, of that she was certain. The writing had spelt out: Virtue is its own reward, and she thought that virtue was another word for goodness.

  “Let’s be friends,” Sam said to Figwort. “There’s no reason for us not to be.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Now follow me. The king is having a banquet, and you three shall be his special guests. When you meet him, you must stand on one leg and bow your heads three times. It’s the custom.”

  “That’s daft,” Tommy said.

  “Most customs seem daft to otherkind, Frog. What is it you whortles say...When in Rome, do as the Romans do?”

  “Can you read our minds, Figwort?” Sam asked.

  “A little. And I know what you have hidden in that bag. It doesn’t belong here, and I daresay the king will banish you for having it in your possession.”

  “Do you know what the cup is?” Ben asked.

  “Only that it was fashioned in the Mountains of Fire by a powerful sorcerer in ancient times. Worlds might collide and shatter if it falls into the wrong hands.”

  Figwort turned and went back out through the cell door, beckoning them to follow him. Ben went first, slowly, a little scared of what the tusked rabbit guard might do, but it was no longer anywhere to be seen.

  “Was that you in the shape of a rabbit, threatening to eat us?” he called out to Figwort, who was flying along in front of them, his wings a blur.

  Figwort paused in mid-air, as still as a hummingbird sipping nectar from a flower, and nodded his head, then flew on, chuckling to himself.

  They came up through a maze of tunnels in the tree’s roots, to be led through oak-walled corridors that were carved with all manner of creatures and birds, some of which they could recognise, but many more that were mystical and in some cases grotesque. The carvings seemed to move in the glow of wall-mounted flax torches that flickered and drove back deep shadows as soft and as black as a kitten’s fur. Ahead of them, a massive and ornately etched door opened silently as Figwort drew a figure-of-eight sign in the air with his finger.