by Michael Kerr
“And how do you know they’ve moved on?” Ben asked.
“Their scent is stale,” Speedy said, sniffing at the opening. “And so is the smell of animal blood. I would think that they quit this lair at least seven turns of the moons ago.”
“I hope you’re right,” Tommy said. “I don’t fancy meeting up with them.”
Speedy chuckled. “Don’t worry, Frog, they never tangle with fairies.”
Tommy was not amused. Both of the fairies were calling him by his nickname. Ben had a lot to answer for.
Inside the sour-smelling warren, they made themselves as comfortable as possible in the underground wolf den, unconvinced that the animals would not slink back into the tunnels and view them as food. Even if the fear of being eaten had not kept them awake, Fig’s snoring did. It was like a car horn honking, and they were relieved when the first pink light of dawn arrived, to filter through the tunnels.
Leaving the warren, they set off in the direction of a distant mountain range, and by what Sam, Ben and Tommy thought of as being midday, they broke out of the forest, to be faced with moors that were covered in a thick carpet of knee-deep purple heather.
The sun above them was the colour of a peach, and ten times bigger than the one in their own world. The clouds were a soft, yellowy-orange, and the sky was a blaze of gold and violet. It made all day appear to be a bright sunset.
“Have you ever been to another world?” Sam asked Fig as they tramped uphill to the top of the moors.
“No, Sam,” he replied. “Some fairies have, but few return to speak of what they saw. Perhaps they did not survive, or most likely could not find their way back home.”
“But how can more than one universe exist? It doesn’t make sense.”
Fig raised his bushy, white eyebrows. “And how would you know what does or does not make sense, young Sam? You have to think of time and space as being like the weather; swirling, shifting, merging forces that overlap each other and cause raging storms, balmy sun-kissed days, flooding, snow, drought and famine. Allworlds is one place really. Try to imagine anywhere you have never seen or been to. Just because you don’t know of its existence, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”
“I think I know what you mean,” Sam said, trying to understand. It was all a bit mind-boggling.
“Good,” Fig said. “Because there is nothing you can think of that doesn’t exist, somewhere. Don’t always look for answers to things that are beyond question. It will only cause you mindache.”
Sam knew what Fig meant. Her dad had once said that if a tree fell down in a forest, and no one was there to see or hear it fall, then had it really fallen. She thought he was explaining that, unless something was witnessed to have taken place, who would ever know that it had. Awesome. She was getting mindache just thinking about it, which was Fig’s way of describing a headache.
All of a sudden a dark shadow swept along the ground towards them with the speed of an express train. Far too fast for a cloud to make.
They looked up to see something that could have been a cross between a pelican and a prehistoric pterodactyl out of a Jurassic Park movie. It had the wingspan of a plane, and the flapping of its blue, leathery wings caused a down draft powerful enough to knock them all off their feet. The bird’s head was pointed, and a deep pouch hung below a long, sword-sharp beak.
“Stay still,” Speedy shouted, and flew away from them, zigzagging a few feet above the top of the heather to lead the creature away.
The giant bird spotted Speedy and swooped down like a jet fighter, to snap him up in its beak and soar up high into the sky again. The rest of them watched as Speedy was carried off.
“Stupid bird,” Fig said, shaking his head. “It has bitten off a lot more than it will ever get to chew.”
The great blue-winged goat gull – so named for its habit of eating the goats that roamed the moors, and obviously because of the colour of its wings – flicked its head, threw Speedy into the air, opened its beak wide and caught the flailing fairy in its pouch.
“Speedy’s been eaten,” Tommy cried out.
“I think not,” Fig said, and an instant later the giant bird exploded in mid-air, and a snowstorm of feathers and lumps of bloody flesh rained down on them.
“That’s disgusting,” Sam said.
“No, Sam,” Fig said. “That’s tonight’s supper.”
Speedy flew down through the blizzard of feathers and alighted next to them. He was covered in gooey bird spit and blood and feathers.
“Best collect up some of that overgrown bird’s meat, and then find somewhere to wash off this mess,” Fig said.
They found a fast flowing stream, cleaned up, and carried on towards the foothills of the mountains.
It was almost dark when they stopped for the night in a large cave. Fig got a fire going, lighting it by using a spell, which dispensed with the need for matches, and before long, and except for Sam, they were all tucking into barbecued gull meat.
“It tastes like chicken,” Ben said to Sam, who had refused to eat any of the dead bird.
“It’s excellent,” Tommy said. “Better than KFC.”
Ben held out a chunk of the roasted meat, and Sam took a small bite, ready to spit it out. Instead, she ate it. It was succulent, and her rumbling tummy insisted that she eat more.
“Are we safe here?” Ben asked Fig after they had eaten their fill and washed it down with blackberry wine.
“We should be all right,” Fig replied. “But the farther we go from the Oak Palace, the weaker our fairy powers will become. A lot of the dangers that may lie ahead will not be overcome by any quick fix magic.”
“How did you blow Big Bird up?” Tommy asked Speedy.
“When it gulped me into its pouch, I just pushed hard with my mind in every direction. I didn’t mean to harm it. I panicked a little and overdid it. We only resort to using such force if we are threatened.”
With the log fire burning brightly, they made themselves as comfortable as possible, to spend their third night in ‘Weirdworld’, as Ben had christened the place.
It was perhaps another week before they caught sight of the Living Forest.
Sam began to feel that her past life had been a dream. It was becoming harder by the day to bring the faces of her mum, dad and Emily to mind. She reckoned it was ten days since they had first set off on the bike ride. But time here was not the same. She knew that the days were of different lengths. It was no good comparing where she came from to where she was now. All the things she had grown up to understand were of no help to her.
They approached the forest, but had to stop at its edge. The trees were so tightly packed together that they could not pass between them.
Fig spoke to the trees. “I am Figwort,” he said. “And with my friends here, am on a mission that could save Allworlds from a great catastrophe. I wish to speak with Sempiternal, the tree of all knowledge.”
The trees’ leaves began to tremble and make a loud rustling sound.
“What’s happening?” Ben asked Fig.
“They are passing my message through the forest to the wisest of all trees, which lives at its centre.”
“You are to follow the path we make,” a voice that could have been a breath of wind said, and the trees opened up in front of them to form a narrow trail.
They walked single file into the very heart of the forest, and looking back, Sam saw the path closing up behind them, as the turquoise lake had. No living creature could enter without permission.
It was maybe an hour later that they came to a house-high, dense wall of black thorny bushes that ringed a lush, grass-covered glade in the middle of which grew a giant red tree that was the width of a cooling tower and as tall as St Paul’s cathedral.
The twisted branches of the bushes began to unravel.
“Stand well back,” Fig said to the others. “The thorns of these sentry bushes are loaded with a poison that has no antidote. Just one scratch, and your blood would turn to jelly, an
d you would swell up and rot like an overripe melon in the blink of an eye.”
A gateway formed as the bushes shrunk back, and the five of them rushed through it, arms close to their bodies, and scant inches from the lethal thorns. They approached the enormous tree and looked up, but were too close to it to see its top.
“It’s a redwood,” Tommy said. “The tallest tree in the world...Well, in our world.”
“And in ours,” Speedy said.
A second later, thick branches snaked down to form a cradle in front of them a few feet from the ground. Fig and Speedy flew up to it and reached down to help Sam, Ben and Tommy to climb onto the living platform.
“Hold hands,” Fig said as the branches began to rise like a lift up the side of the mighty tree at dizzying speed.
When they came to a stop, the dark, fissured bark of the trunk began to change, and the features of a face appeared in front of them.
“It must be quite a while since you visited the Living Forest, Figwort,” Sempiternal said through bark lips that creaked as they opened and closed.
“Yes, I was a mere youth when I first ventured this far from the Oak Palace.”
“Time passes slowly around me, Figwort. But I can see that your beard is now white, and that you have spread a little around the middle. What is this mission you are set upon, that is of such importance?”
“These whortles are in possession of an ancient chalice that is said to have the power to stop evil from overrunning Allworlds. And I fear that if the Dark One knew of its whereabouts and was able to take it from them, then he would destroy it and all that is good.”
“Ah, humankind. I have never met one,” Sempiternal said. “Let me see them in their true form, Figwort.”
Fig clicked his fingers, and Sam, Ben and Tommy changed back to how they truly looked.
“Where did you find the chalice?” Sempiternal asked them.
“At the bottom of a lake, behind a waterfall,” Sam replied. “It led us from our own world to wherever we are now.”
“Then you have been chosen by the spirit that dwells within the chalice to deliver it into the Keeper’s hands,” Sempiternal said to them. And to Fig, “How can I be of help?”
“We need to reach the Crossroads of Time, and do not know the way,” Fig said.
“It will prove to be a perilous undertaking,” Sempiternal replied. “One that you will be lucky to live through. You must go west, between the twin peaks of Doom Mountain, and then due south across the Desert of Storms to the Valley of Mist. That way will eventually bring you to the Lake of Life, where you will need to convince the Ferryman to take you to the Crossroads.”
“Thank you, Sempiternal,” Fig said.
“Don’t thank me, brave fairy. For I fear my directions will only send you on a course that will lead to your downfall.”
“We have no choice, great sage of trees. The chalice is the symbol of all that is good, and it is said that it may bind together the very fabric of existence.”
“I believe it was cast out of this world by a priest, so long ago that many think it is no more than a myth, Figwort. It is a pity it did not allow itself to stay lost.”
“I agree,” Fig said. “But it has other ideas.”
Lowering them gently to the ground, Sempiternal wished them good luck and bade them farewell.
As they left the Living Forest, Fig once more gave the three of them the appearance of fairies, and they headed west, determined to deliver the chalice to the Keeper and to save Allworlds from a terrible fate. They struck out in the direction of Doom Mountain, mercifully unaware of the fearsome perils that lay ahead.
― CHAPTER FOUR ―
THE GARGOYLES OF DOOM MOUNTAIN
Sam noticed that Tommy’s zits had gone. They had reached the bottom of the rift that split Doom Mountain in two, and stopped to eat some of the cold, cooked gull meat and nut pie.
“You’re not so green anymore,” Tommy said to Sam and Ben.
“Neither are you. And your spots have completely vanished,” Sam said.
Tommy reached up and ran his fingers over his face. It was true. The large, yellow-headed spots that had peppered his cheeks and risen in clusters round his mouth and nose, weren’t there anymore. The skin felt smooth, and he could no longer feel the usual smarting soreness that the inflammation caused.
“Yeesss!” he shouted, punching the air and causing Fig to nearly choke on the piece of pie he was eating.
“What are you doing that for, Frog?” Speedy asked as he slapped Fig on the back until he coughed up a large piece of crust and some half-chewed hazelnuts.
“Because my face usually has more spots than a leopard.”
“It’s the air here,” Speedy said. “We don’t have many ailments. I can’t remember anyone I know ever being ill. Although I do believe that one of my uncles once had food poisoning from eating a black-eyed caterpillar, when he was no bigger than a woodlark.”
“My great grandfather got wing rot,” Fig said, now recovered from his coughing fit. “He couldn’t fly for almost a harvest term, and had to have his wings bathed in bat drummins every moonshow.”
“Drummins?” Ben said.
“Er, droppings,” Speedy explained.
“Yuchh! I should think he would smell terrible with that on his wings,” Sam said.
Fig smiled. “No worse than usual, as I recall. He always said he was allergic to soap-root and water.”
Tommy was still marvelling at the absence of his spots, but could only feel the difference, having nothing to see his reflection in. He then looked across to where Sam and Ben were sitting on rocks, and got a second and even greater shock. He could see them in sharp focus. He whipped his glasses off and found that they were still made of wood and had no lenses. He even poked a finger through the frames to be absolutely sure.
“Now what?” Ben asked him.
“My eyes,” Tommy said. “I can see clearer than I could with glasses.”
“Check your leg, Tommy,” Sam said, somehow knowing what he would find.
Tommy pulled up the rough flax cloth of his trouser leg, stared at the limb in disbelief, and began to sob. Even with the wooden calliper on, it was noticeable that his calf muscle was now no longer withered. He undid the leather straps that held the brace in place, took it off and jumped up and down to test his leg, before running off along the rocky path that they had climbed up. When he dashed back he was breathless, but had a huge grin on his face bigger than any Sam or Ben could remember seeing before. He even appeared to be taller, because he was now standing straighter. And after so long without his beloved junk food, he had lost a little weight. It suited him. Being rid of the spots, the poor eyesight and the calliper had made him a much happier person.
“Can you two believe this?” Tommy said. “Isn’t what’s happened totally wicked?”
Sam smiled. “Yeah, Tommy, totally. You look great, apart from the pointy ears and lime-green skin.”
Tommy turned to Fig. “Did you do this? Did you cast a spell or something?”
Fig shook his head. “No, Frog. It’s because you are in a different world. But if you ever get back to the place you came from, then you will probably be as you were.”
“Then I don’t ever want to go back. Not if I can stay as I am now.”
“You don’t belong here,” Speedy said. “You’d end up being miserable, because you would never be able to fit in.”
“I would adapt,” Tommy said. “Apart from my mother, I’ve left nothing behind that I’d miss.”
“What about your I-Pod, computer games, TV, eating things you like, and being with us?” Ben asked.
“No contest,” Tommy said. “Everybody made a big thing about my leg, except for you and Sam. You can’t know how good it feels to take that poxy brace off and be able to walk without limping. I feel great.”
“I can understand how you feel, Tommy,” Sam said. “But I need to go back. I couldn’t bear for my family to never know what happened to me.
”
“I think you need to be aware that the chances of ever getting back to your own world are remote,” Fig said. “Even if we don’t all perish trying to return the chalice, and by some good fortune you did find the portal through to the place you left, then you would most likely be in a different before or after.”
“You mean back or forward in time, Fig?” Ben asked.
“Yes, that’s what I said. Back before you existed, or so far ahead that you would think it as strange a place as this.”
“But if there are ways to journey into other places, then there has to be a way to go back to the same place and time you left,” Sam said with a note of panic in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Sam, but there doesn’t have to be anything,” Speedy said. “Even now, a great amount of time could have passed where you call home. It’s all very fluid. They say that there is a place called the World of Lost Outsiders, where many travellers like you have ended up. It is a strange gathering of beings from every corner of Allworlds. There may even be other whortles there who, like you, have ventured through a portal and not been able to find a way back.”
“Well, I don’t care,” Tommy said, stuffing the folded calliper and the frames of his glasses into his bag. “I wouldn’t trade how I am now for any world.”
“Stand up, and make known who you are and what business you have here,” a booming voice shouted from a ledge high above them.
They looked up to see a large, heavily-built figure. He, or it, resembled a gorilla, though its fur was the colour of wet sand. The creature wore a tunic of black leather, and had a longbow and a quiver full of arrows slung across its back.
“Come down here if you wish to talk,” Fig said. “I have no intention of giving myself neck ache looking up at a hairy troll.”
The ape-like creature leapt off the ledge and landed next to them, bending its muscular legs on impact to absorb the shock. It then straightened up and glared down at Fig.
“I am not a hairy troll,” it said. “I am both troll and goblin in equal parts, which makes me a friendly, mischievous individual…with attitude. And, as you can see, I am a splendid looking specimen. My name is Gorffin, though you may call me Gorf, if I decide to let you live.”