The Chalice of Hope (Adventures in Otherworld Book 1)

by Michael Kerr

  “Be aware that we are fairies, and are more than able to defend ourselves against a fur-ball with a bow and arrow,” Fig said.

  In a blur of speed, the bow was in the creature’s hands, drawn back with an arrow fitted and ready to be fired. It was being pointed directly at Sam’s heart.

  “You two might be fairies,” Gorf said to Fig and Speedy. “But these three are not what they seem. I believe my arrowhead would end this young spriglet’s life. And the most powerful fairy magic cannot return what is dead to alive again.”

  Fig twitched his nose and the arrow turned into a leafy stick of rhubarb. “Fire away,” he said. “I’ve never known anyone be mortally wounded by a rhubarb stalk.”

  Gorf laughed loud and long, then replaced the bow on his shoulder and began to munch on what had been an arrow. “So introduce yourselves and let us be friends,” he said, while chewing on the arrow that now resembled rhubarb but still tasted of wood.

  Fig told Gorf everything, bar the fact that they had the chalice.

  “It is madness to try to reach the Crossroads of Time,” Gorf said. “What possible reason could you have to risk your lives in such a way?”

  “To see if our friends can be returned to their own world,” Fig said.

  “Better they stay here and live, than to face the many terrible dangers you will encounter on your journey.”

  “We are set in mind to do this, Gorf,” Speedy said. “But why are you here alone on Doom Mountain?”

  Before replying, Gorf helped himself to the last chunk of dry and salty gull meat. He gulped it down, licked his black lips, and looked to the corked hog’s bladder that held the berry wine.

  Fig handed it to him, and he drained it with one long swallow.

  “That’s better,” he said. “This covering of hair is fine in cold and at moonshow, but gives me a mighty thirst in the heat of the sun.”

  “Why don’t you shave it off, then?” Tommy asked.

  Gorf fixed him with his deep-set, caramel-brown eyes. “Because it is who I am, like this. And it would grow back even thicker, and in the space of one passing of the moons.”

  “And why are you here, Gorf?” Speedy asked again, getting back to the subject.

  “I dwell near the far edge of the Desert of Storms,” Gorf said. “And on a hunting trip for cactus sloth, the sand came up. I got lost and made my way to not far from here. I was searching for the way back when I looked down from the path and saw you.”

  “We are heading that way ourselves,” Fig said. “Perhaps you would like to join us for the trek through the desert to the Valley of Mist.”

  “Indeed I would,” Gorf said. “And these spriglets―”

  “We’re humans, Gorf,” Sam said. “Not whortles or spriglets. Please address us by our given names.”

  “Very well. I meant no disrespect,” Gorf said.

  Now numbering six, they set off along the path that led between the skyscraper-tall and snow-covered split peaks of Doom Mountain.

  Sam was the first to see the bones.

  “Look,” she said. “Are those what I think they are?”

  Speedy flew over to the first small pile and picked up the lower jawbone of a broken skull and examined it.

  “It was a sabre-toothed rabbit,” he said.

  Looking ahead they could see more heaps of bones.

  Speedy dropped the mandible and went to the next skeleton. It looked very humanlike to Ben, who jogged up to where Speedy was kneeling down next to it. The bones were yellowed like old ivory.

  “These are fairy bones,” Speedy said. “Most of them have been broken.”

  “What could have done it?” Tommy asked.

  “Maybe falling rocks,” Sam said.

  “Impossible,” Fig said. “No fairy would be that slow-witted. It takes a great deal to send us heavenward.”

  “You mean to kill you?” Tommy said.

  Fig frowned. “Kill is not a word we tend to use, Tommy. There is being and not being. And what has been and now is not, has gone heavenward.”

  With their spirits dampened, they carried on, only to find the split-crushed-broken skeletons of many more creatures and birds. Before too long they were walking on a crackling carpet of bones that filled the canyon floor from wall to wall.

  “How much farther until we are out of here?” Speedy asked Gorf.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “I found a route that took me around the mountain, and think it would be wise if we turned back and used it. I have the feeling we might be walking into a trap that neither your magic nor my bow and arrows will be able to overcome.”

  “You may be right,” Fig said.

  But they were already too late to retrace their steps.

  With the rumbling sound of thunder the mountain moved, and the thick layer of bones rippled and made the noise of popping corn in a microwave oven, or of a mass of eggshells being trodden on by many feet. Fig and Speedy hovered above the moving bones, and the others waved their arms as they tried to keep their balance and stay upright.

  “It’s an earthquake,” Tommy shouted, to be heard above the deafening sound.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Look up there.”

  High up on both sides of the chasm, the rock was bright red and liquefied, running slowly down towards them in streams of molten lava.

  “Doom Mountain must be a volcano,” Ben said, holding his hands up to shield his face from the rising heat.

  After only a few seconds the lava stopped moving and broke into large fiery balls that took the shape of creatures and formed a dark grey crust as they cooled.

  “Gargoyles!” Sam cried. “Thousands of them.”

  The army of hideous gargoyles were hunched among the rocks, as still as statues. And as the smoke that rose from them cleared…they came to life.

  All Sam and the others could do was to stare in open-mouthed amazement as a horde of horned, beak-headed, grotesque stone demons crept, crawled, hopped and flew down towards them.

  Tommy was strangely fascinated, even though he knew that the explanation for the tons of bones was fast approaching. These solid creatures reminded him of the nightmarish heads and beasts and strange half-man-half-monsters that were to be seen projecting from the walls and built into the parapets of medieval cathedrals and churches.

  Fig’s face turned a deep plum colour as he strained to use his powers to stop the beings. He willed them to halt and crumble into gravel, but fairy magic did not work on lumps of volcanic rock. Whatever dark forces were driving them was too strong for him to subdue.

  Seconds later, a ten deep grey army of carved imps had surrounded them, and were shuffling forward, all chanting:

  “We shall push you and crush you and break up your bodies and bones.

  We shall stomp you and chomp you and leave you to rot on the stones.

  We are the Dark One’s disciples, and vanquish all good,

  so we’ll split you and slit you and spill out your blood.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” Sam asked.

  There followed a heavy silence. After a few seconds had passed one of the gargoyles hopped forward. It was the same height as Sam, had the body and feet of a hawk, and the head and arms of a man. With fingers hooked into both sides of its mouth, it pulled its lips apart, stuck out a foot-long tongue, and pushed the end of it up first one of its wide nostrils and then the other. “I am Boggart, a tongue-puller and demon from the hottest hob of hell,” it said after making several very silly faces. “And you are the damned, for daring to trespass here. We are the guardians of this gateway to the pit, and all who are foolish enough to enter must pay with body and soul. Why do you think this is called Doom Mountain?”

  “Hold each other’s hands,” Fig said, grasping Sam’s. They all obeyed without question, and were standing in a line with Fig at one end and Speedy at the other.

  With an unearthly – or unworldly, to be precise – scream from Boggart, the gang of gargoyles moved in to squash the life
out of what seemed to be a helpless band of defenceless travellers.

  “Now!” Fig shouted, and took off, straight up into the air, as did Speedy. The other four were lifted up between them, just as the space that they had occupied vanished under the onslaught of the pumice beasts, that crashed together below them with such force that many fell apart on impact, and a cloud of charcoal-coloured dust rose up from the canyon floor.

  “That was too close for comfort,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, we were nearly jam,” Tommy added.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have far to go,” Speedy said. “With our waning powers and the weight of you all, I’m not sure how long Figwort or I can keep this up.”

  They flew off, and at the next bend in the canyon they saw that they were nearly through the twin peaks of the mountain. But they were not alone. Behind them, flying in formation like the Red Arrows, were nine winged gargoyles. They were quickly closing the gap, determined not be outsmarted again.

  “How can lumps of rock fly?” Tommy said, looking back and above him as he heard the swish of wings cutting through the air.

  “How doesn’t matter, Frog,” Speedy said, his breath ragged and his wing speed flagging. “Lots of worse things than this may lie between us and our destination.”

  The gargoyles dive-bombed them, cackling as they swept in for the kill.

  “You’re going to fall, to smash and crash, and come apart in pieces,” the leader of the flying fiends shouted.

  At the very last possible hundredth of an instant, Fig and Speedy folded their wings, as a moth will to escape the clutches of a bat, by dropping out of the night to evade becoming a meal, and the six of them plummeted downwards.

  The squadron of gargoyles, being too heavy, too stupid and going far too fast to change direction at short notice, sped down and hit the ground, to explode and cease to exist.

  Flying out into open countryside, Fig and Speedy made an emergency landing on a grassy slope. The group tumbled down it, over and over, to come to rest in a heap next to the edge of a deep gorge.

  “Rot my socks! I think I’ve lost a wing,” Fig said, sitting up and straining his neck to look over his shoulder. “One of those ugly brutes must have grazed me.”

  Speedy checked him out.

  “Half of your left wing is missing, Figwort. You’re all but grounded I’m afraid.”

  “Will it grow back again?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” Fig said. “But no matter, our powers are only half what they were when we set off, and will no doubt fade altogether before we travel much farther.”

  “That’s right,” Speedy said. “I don’t think I could fly another cart length. Being so far away from home has made me feel very weak.”

  Tommy and Ben had got to their feet and were looking out over the gorge.

  “It looks like the Grand Canyon,” Ben said. “It must be a mile deep, and just as wide.”

  “The Grand Canyon is eighteen miles across at one point,” Tommy said, knowledgeably.

  “How do you know that? You haven’t been there,” Ben said.

  Tommy shrugged. “Read it somewhere.”

  “What is a mile?” Speedy asked them.

  “One of our words for distance or length. We use inches, feet, yards and miles to describe how long, wide, tall or far away something is,” Tommy said.

  “Or millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres,” Sam added.

  Speedy pulled a face. “It sounds very complicated. What is an inch?”

  Sam held her index finger and thumb approximately an inch apart, and then proceeded to explain measurement, and also the way that humans split up the passing of time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.”

  “I’m too white in the beard to start learning stuff like that,” Fig said. “Here and there, and before and after, and the passing of the moons and harvests is all you need to know.”

  “I think we should use sprig... I mean human time and measurement,” Gorf said. “It would make things easier if we all employed the same method.”

  “What do you use as a guide to distance, Gorf?” Ben asked.

  “The space between an archer and average shot arrow. If someone says that there is good hunting to be had fifty arrow shots away, and two hands left of the sun at its top, then all but a troll with a soft head would know where that was.”

  “Very well,” Fig said. “We will use human terms for the duration of the trip.”

  After resting for a while, they faced the next hurdle; the wide, deep canyon.

  “It runs as far as I can see in both directions, and blocks the way south,” Speedy said. “We’ll have to cross it.”

  Fig plucked a handful of grass and threw it out over the rim. Some of it was blown straight up by thermals of hot air rising from the orange rock. And some was sucked down and scattered in all directions by unseen, swirling eddies.

  “That rules out my flying across and carrying you over one at a time,” Speedy said.

  “Then we will have to climb down this side and up the other,” Gorf stated.

  “But it’s so deep,” Sam said. “Do you think we can?”

  “If we have to,” Fig said. “But first let’s walk along the edge for a few...hours’, to see if it becomes less steep.”

  They drank water and picked some of the large, blue, thick-skinned fruit that hung in bunches from a nearby tree.

  “What’re these?” Tommy asked Fig. “They taste like tangerines.”

  “We call them pumpleberries,” Fig said. “Be sure not to swallow the pips, or you’ll be sprouting shoots and leaves from unmentionable places before moonshow.”

  It was late in the afternoon when they came across a sagging rope bridge spanning the gorge, which had narrowed to no more than ninety feet wide, and was only a hundred feet above a fast flowing-river. The bridge appeared to be very old, made of short planks tied together with thick twine, and handrails made from plaited lengths of flax. Many of the planks were missing, and the bridge was swaying from side to side in the strong breeze. Looking down, they could see the tops of boulders breaking through the churning, white-capped water.

  “No way am I going to walk across that,” Tommy said.

  “Let me go first,” Gorf said. “I’m the heaviest, so if I can make it, we all can.”

  Speedy fluttered up a few inches off the ground, and then dropped back down.

  “It’s no good,” he said. “I don’t have the strength of wing left to be of much help to you. But let me go first and test it. If it gives way, I may be able to glide to the other side.”

  They gathered at the bridge, and Speedy held on to the ropes and edged out, pressing down hard with his feet on each plank as he slowly moved forward. He was soon across, and beckoned the others to follow. Gorf went next, and the brittle, sun-dried planks bowed and groaned under his weight, but held firm. Soon, all but Tommy and Fig were standing on the far rim.

  Tommy took deep breaths. He was a little ashamed to be so scared, but couldn’t help it. He wasn’t particularly happy about heights, and did not trust the bridge. He knew that if it gave way, then he could not expect an air rescue from Fig or Speedy.

  “You go first,” he said to Fig.

  Fig hesitated.

  “S’cool, Fig, honest. You go on, I’ll be right behind you. I’d just rather go last.”

  “Be sure to follow me, boy, or you’ll put us at unnecessary risk by having to come back for you. There is no way but forward.”

  Tommy watched the old fairy march across to the other side without pause. He made it look easy.

  “Come on, Frog, you can do it,” Ben shouted, trying to encourage him.

  Tommy gripped the ropes so tightly that his knuckles gleamed white. He started out, and thought that if he did not look down into the foaming water far below, then he would be fine. The only trouble was, he had to look down to negotiate the spaces where some of the planks were missing. He focused both his mind and his eyes on the swaying wa
lkway and shuffled forward.

  “Please don’t give way,” he whispered to himself.

  Three quarters of the way across, the rope Tommy was holding onto with his right hand, snapped. The bridge tilted and dropped out from under his feet, to leave him hanging by one hand. He was too terrified to scream, and just froze as he watched the rope he hung by begin to fray and unravel just a few feet in front of him. It came apart with a loud twangy sound, like a rubber band snapping, and he plummeted down to certain death.

  Mum! he thought as he fell with his arms outstretched, staring at the rocks and water that seemed to be rushing up to meet him.

  The others gasped as Tommy fell. They were numb with shock and unable to do anything but watch in horror as their friend tumbled through the air. Sam closed her eyes and turned away. She couldn’t bear to look.

  ― CHAPTER FIVE ―

  THE TEMPLE OF KADU

  Tommy plunged down into the water between two large rocks, before being brought to a jarring stop as his back met the pebbly bottom of the river. The breath was forced out of his lungs, and he was dazed.

  Looking up through the clear water, he could see the light dancing on the surface. He reached for it, kicked off the river bed with his feet and shot upwards, fighting against the powerful urge to relieve the pain in his chest by trying to breathe. Black spots danced in front of his eyes, and he was sure that he would pass out and drown.

  Breaking the surface, Tommy gulped in a mixture of air and spray, and was immediately swept away by the rapids. He felt like a white water canoeist… without a canoe.

  It was Speedy that saw Tommy bob up like a cork far below them. “I think he made it,” he said to the others.

  “How can we save him?” Sam said. “He’ll be smashed to pieces on the rocks.”

  “Follow me,” Gorf said, setting off like an Olympic sprinter.

  The river curved away from them, forming large S-bends, and by cutting overland instead of following it, they were sure that they had got ahead of Tommy.