by Michael Kerr
Entering the grand banquet hall of the Oak Palace, Sam, Ben and Tommy were met by the sight of hundreds of fairies. They were seated on long benches, at tables lining the walls. And at the end of the room – that was bigger than two tennis courts – was another table raised up on a stage, with a figure seated behind it who they knew must be the king.
“Go on,” Figwort whispered. “Walk slowly up to about ten paces from him, and don’t forget what you must do.”
The room became silent. All eyes were on them as they walked stiffly up to where a pencil-thin fairy leaned forward over the table to inspect them. His skin was green like Figwort’s, but his hair and beard were bright orange, and a crown made of what appeared to be some kind of animal horn inset with gems sat precariously on his head at an angle, almost covering his right eye.
Sam felt stupid standing on one leg and bowing her head as instructed.
“Why did you do that?” the king asked in a squeaky voice, looking bewildered at their antics.
“Figwort told us to...Sir,” Sam said.
The king sighed. “He has a very strange sense of humour. I sometimes think he is so old that his brains are turning to mulch.”
Figwort took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. He tried not to lose his temper – which was of the short-fused variety – by silently naming wild flowers; a practise similar to humans counting to ten. It didn’t work.
“I appreciate that you’re the king of the fairies, Ambrose,” Figwort began. “And I respect your position as such. But you are still my nephew, and almost an eternity my junior. So how about you show some respect for your elders, eh?”
Ambrose thought it over. He drummed his fingers on the arms of the throne and flexed his enormous crimson wings. “Very well,” he said. “Point taken. But address me as King Ambrose, or your Majesty. Familiarity breeds contempt, Figwort, and you are without doubt the most contemptible old fairy in the forest. Now introduce me to these whortles.”
Figwort turned his attention to Sam, Ben and Tommy. “This is King Ambrose, ruler of all he can see from the top of the Oak Palace. Tell him your names.”
“I’m Samantha...Sam Craig,” Sam said. “And these are my friends, Ben Cooper and Tommy Scott, your Majesty.”
“And why have you crossed over from the world of humankind?” King Ambrose asked, pushing his crown up a second before it would have fallen off his head.
“We didn’t plan to,” Ben said. “Something forced us to come here. Wherever here is.”
“That’s as might be, young whortles,” the king said, scratching at his beard as he pondered over what to do with them. “Mayhaps I should turn you into toadstools, or have you hung up outside the Cave of Screams for the giant bats. They are partial to a warm-bloodied supper at dead of night.”
“That wouldn’t be a very nice thing for a good king to do,” Sam said.
“True. But being nice all the time would be very boring,” King Ambrose said. “And much as I would like to return you back to where you belong, that isn’t going to happen. It’s the chalice that’s the problem. I can hear it calling out from your bag, Sam Craig. Wherever you found it, you should have left it there. It was cast out of this world in the distant past, and has the power to blow apart all of creation, should he who is all things evil ever get his claws on it.”
“So what do you suggest we do with it?” Ben asked the king.
“You will have to deliver it to the Keeper-in-Waiting, who dwells in a world of ice in a far-off land.
“Why us?” Tommy said.
“That’s, why us, your Majesty?” Figwort said, digging Tommy in the ribs with his elbow.
“Why us, your Majesty? We don’t want it,” Tommy said. Just the thought of an ice world caused his bad leg to ache. He didn’t like British winters, never mind somewhere that sounded as cold and bleak as the North Pole.
“Because the chalice chose you three,” Ambrose replied. “It called out to you, and you recovered it. You now have a responsibility...A duty to ensure that it is returned to the Keeper.”
“How would we find him, King Ambrose?” Sam asked, knowing that this was fate, and that they had no choice but to try to fulfil what was now their mission.
“After the banquet and a good night’s sleep, Figwort and one of my palace guards will accompany you to the Crossroads of Time, where you―”
“You have got to be kidding!” Figwort yelled, shooting up into the air, where he hovered and stared down at the king. “I’m getting too long in the wing to go on lengthy flights anymore. I’m at an age when I should be taking it easy, not babysitting humankind kids. I’m not some fit young fairy who needs to prove anything. And I’ve got gout in my foot, and a bad back.”
“Get down here at once, Figwort,” King Ambrose ordered. “For nature’s sake, all I ever hear from you are excuses, excuses, and more excuses.”
Figwort obeyed, fluttering down to perch on the edge of the table. “They are not excuses. They are perfectly valid and good reasons,” he said. “I’m unsuitable to take on any jobs that might cause me undue stress.”
“Now hear this,” King Ambrose said with a hard edge to his voice. “This is not a debate or a request. It’s a direct order. If you refuse to comply, then you...you’ll be sorry.”
“Is that a threat?” Figwort demanded, thrusting his face up to within an inch of the king’s. “What if I refuse? What are you going to do, clip my wings and ground me? Or maybe turn me into a cockroach or a centipede?”
King Ambrose started to go bright yellow in the face, which was always a bad sign. Figwort realised that he had pushed his nephew too far, and had the good sense to know when to back down.
“All right,” he said. “You win. I’ll take them to the Crossroads of Time.”
“That’s more like it,” Ambrose said, and his rage began to fade, leaving just a tinge of yellow at the tips of his pointy ears and on the very end of his large, sharp nose. “The subject is closed. Now let’s eat, drink and be merry.”
Hours later, when the banquet was over, Figwort led Sam, Ben and Tommy up a winding staircase to a large room that was located high up in the Oak Palace. It was furnished with three wooden cots. “I’ll be back at sunup,” he said to them, before hurrying away.
There was a square hole in the trunk that served as a window. The shutters were open, and they could see not one, but three moons in the night sky, all different sizes, or perhaps just nearer and farther away from them. One was yellow, the second a dull orange, and the third a luminous green.
Tommy yawned, and without even taking his leg brace off, he flopped down on one of the cots and fell asleep in seconds.
Sam went to the window, looked up at the moons and the millions of stars sparkling in the blackness, and wondered if she would ever see her mum, dad and little sister, Emily, again.
“We’re in big trouble,” Ben said, standing by her side. “We don’t belong here, trapped in this crazy world.”
“It’s all my fault,” Sam said. “I should never have gone after the cup. If I’d left it at the bottom of the lake, none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ben said, patting her on the shoulder. “We’ll get back home, somehow. Let’s try the cup now, and see if we can wish ourselves out of this mess.”
Sam took the cup out of her bag and set it down on one of the cots. It began to glow like a night light, and she put the fingers of both hands on the rim, and Ben did the same.
Nothing happened.
“I’ll wake Frog up,” Ben said. “Maybe all three of us have to do it.”
“Uh, what?” Tommy gasped, as Ben shook him. “Is it morning already?”
“No. We need you to help us. We have to see if the cup will somehow magic us back to the lake,” Ben said.
The three of them gripped the wide rim with their outspread fingers touching.
“Please grant our wish and take us back home,” they said together, then repeated the request four times, half
expecting to be whisked back to the turquoise lake. The cup, or chalice, as the king had called it, began to vibrate and become warm to the touch. And as they watched spellbound, a column of blue vapour rose up from inside it, and the ghost-like image of a very old man with snow white hair and beard appeared to them, like a genie from a magic lamp. He was holding out his hands as if to accept something. He faded after a few seconds, and the blue smoke withdrew into the chalice and was gone. The cup cooled and was still again.
“I think that was the keeper we have to find,” Sam said.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Doesn’t look as if a ‘get out of jail free’ card is going to come up.”
Outside the palace, under the soft glow of the moons, Figwort and a much younger fairy, whose name was Speedwell, were sitting in a small glade, drinking mead from leather cups.
“I’ve chosen you to accompany me on what might prove to be a trip fraught with danger, Speedwell,” Figwort said, draining his cup and pouring himself more of the potent brew.
“So tell me about it,” Speedwell said, fixing Figwort with an attentive look in his bright, amber eyes.
“We will have to travel due south for ten turns of the moons, then enter the Living Forest,” Figwort said. “From there, with directions from a wise old tree I know, we will find the pass leading between the twin peaks of Doom Mountain, and make our way down through the Valley of Mist to the Lake of Life.”
“For what purpose shall we be going so far through dangerous lands?” Speedwell asked.
“To take the three whortles to the Crossroads of Time, lad. Once there, we can be rid of them and make the journey home at a steady pace.
“And when do we set off on this trip?”
“At sunup. So pack plenty of nut pie. I don’t want to have to eat berries and roots for every meal.”
“Has anyone ever made a journey like this and returned to boast about it?” Speedwell asked, though not out of fear. He was looking forward to going, having never been outside the forest.
“Only Catchfly ventured as far as the Desert of Storms and made it back. And he’s been heavenward for longer than I care to remember.”
“But won’t our magic protect us from all danger?”
Figwort shook his head. “No. There are powers much stronger than ours between here and where we must go. And many are of a dark force. The truth of it is, we may not survive to tell the tale of what lies in the Outlands.”
― CHAPTER THREE ―
THE LIVING FOREST
Ben woke up, and for a second he thought he was back at home in his own bed. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, opened them and groaned aloud at the sight of the smooth oak ceiling high above him. What he had thought to be a fantastic dream was not a dream at all.
“Sam! Frog! Wake up,” he called, sitting up in the cot and swinging his feet down onto the floor, to push himself up and hurry over to where Sam was curled up with the sackcloth bag containing the chalice grasped tightly in her arms.
“Oh my goodness,” Sam said. “What will my mum and dad be thinking? We’ve been away a day and a night. They’ll be worried sick.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said through a yawn, sitting up in the cot alongside hers. “My mother’ll be screaming blue murder. The police will be out combing the countryside with the mountain rescue people by now.
“They’re sure to find our bikes,” Ben said.
Sam began to cry. “But that’s all they will find,” she said. “We aren’t there anymore. We might as well be on the moon.”
“We were supposed to be going to Grimwith Reservoir,” Tommy said. “Police divers will be searching the bottom for our bodies. It could take weeks for them to realise that we aren’t in it.”
Ben shook his head. “Don’t be such a numbskull, Frog. Our bikes are miles away from there. And even if they don’t find them, no one is going to waste time looking for us in the reservoir. Not unless they’re daft enough to think we rode into the water.”
“We need to get this stupid chalice back to where it belongs, and find a way back home,” Sam said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“Simple!” Tommy said loudly. “I don’t think you appreciate that I’m not the numbskull here. I read enough science-fiction books to know that we probably went through a wormhole. We could be a trillion light years from Earth, and a million years in the past, or the future.”
“We don’t know that, Tommy,” Sam said. “We have to hold on to the belief that we will get back to the place and time we left.”
There was a tapping at the door. They stopped talking and looked towards it.
“Come in,” Sam called out.
The door squeaked open. Figwort appeared with another younger looking and much taller fairy, who gave them a huge lopsided smile that disclosed a mouthful of triangular, serrated teeth, almost identical to those of a great white shark’s.
“This is Speedwell,” Figwort said. “He’ll be coming with us to the Crossroads of Time. Let’s go and eat, and be on our way.”
After a breakfast of hot, brown bread, dandelion jam, and cups of blackberry juice, Figwort took them to see King Ambrose.
“Wear these,” the king said, handing each of them a necklace made of small, polished ruby-red stones threaded onto strips of leather. “They are charged with the power of good, and will help you stay true to your quest. In what may prove to be difficult times ahead, these necklets will give you the strength of will to keep going.”
“Are they magical, your Majesty?” Tommy asked the king.
“Not in the sense that by wearing them you can ward off evil, or make spells of your own,” King Ambrose replied. “Whortles can’t do magic. But they will give you the determination, courage, and above all the belief that what you are attempting to do is the right thing, and that you may save the inhabitants of Allworlds.”
“They’re very pretty,” Sam said, tying the two ends of the leather cord into a reef knot at the back of her neck.
“I’m glad you think so,” the king said. “I make them myself. It’s my hobby, along with woodcarving and badger riding.”
They bid the king good-bye and left the oak palace to set off on their journey, only for Figwort to bring them to a stop next to a nearby stream.
“You need to mix some mud and leaves together and smear the chalice in a thick coating, whortle,” Figwort said to Sam.
“I don’t like being called a whortle,” Sam said. “I’m a girl, and my name is Sam. Please use it to address me from now on, or I will call you…Grumpy.”
Figwort smiled. Even though she knew he could turn her into anything that took his fancy, she had the strength of spirit to speak out against him.
“Very well, Girl Sam it shall be,” he said.
“Just Sam will do nicely. And I shall call you Fig, if you have no objection.”
Figwort shrugged.
Following Fig’s instructions, Sam went down the bank to kneel at the water’s edge, and gathered up handfuls of dark, sloppy mud that smelled worse than rotten eggs.
Ben and Tommy backed away holding their noses as Sam added dead leaves to the mud and kneaded the sticky mess together with her fingers – in much the same way she would sometimes do with a lump of pastry, when helping her mum to bake –and completely covered the chalice, inside and out.
“And why did I have to do that?” Sam asked Fig, who was sitting above her on a stone-built humpback bridge, with his legs dangling over the edge of it.
“Because the ringing it sometimes makes is a signal that can be heard far and wide. When the mud has dried and hardened, it will stifle the sound from all but the most keen-eared creatures.”
When the heat of the sun had dried the coating of mud into a rock-hard, grey shell, Sam replaced the chalice in the bag, then washed her hands in the murky water and wiped them dry on a clump of grass.
“Good,” Fig said, getting up and flying down to them. “Now all we need to do is disguise you three, and we can be on our way again.”
“Disguise us as what?” Ben asked him.
“Why as fairies, of course. You would attract unwelcome attention as you are, with skin as pink as baby mice, and those funny little blunt ears.”
Without giving them time to even begin to argue, Fig (as all but Speedwell now addressed him) touched each of them on the tips of their noses.
Sam felt a mild electric shock, and for just a second her ears throbbed. She was facing Ben and Tommy, and saw both of them change. Ben winced and cupped his ears with his hands, and Tommy made a funny high-pitched squeak.
“Do I look like you two do?” Sam asked them.
Ben giggled. “You’ve turned green, and your ears are like Fig’s,” he said.
All three of them ran to the edge of the stream and looked down at their reflections in the tea-brown-coloured water.
“You have no right to do this to us,” Ben said.
“Shut up, Ben,” Fig said. “I did it with your safety in mind. There are creatures that would roast you alive over a wood fire if they thought you were whortles and couldn’t protect yourselves against them.”
“Wings!” Tommy said, staring at Sam’s back. “We’ve got wings. We can fly.”
“No, you can’t,” Speedwell said. “You only look like fairies. We can’t make you into real ones. You’re the same as before.”
“Come on,” Fig said. “We have a long way to travel before moonshow.”
They walked for hours, with Fig leading, and Speedwell, whose name they shortened to Speedy, bringing up the rear. The time passed quickly as they marvelled at the many strange flowers, insects and birds they saw along the way.
As dusk fell, Fig stopped and pointed to a large burrow in the side of a hillock. “We’ll spend the night in there,” he said.
“What made it?” Sam asked.
“Night wolves,” Fig said. “They dig out these warrens, live in them during the day, and hunt at night. Once they have eaten all the wildlife in the area, they move on.”