by Michael Kerr
Sam almost fainted at the sight of the head rolling in the dirt. It came to rest with a look of surprise in its wide, staring eyes.
“I...I don’t believe that happened,” Tommy said.
“You’d better,” said a voice from behind him.
They all turned, to find the jester, Pintello, sitting behind them. He looked different without his tunic and hat and makeup on. He was completely bald, and wore a close-fitting doublet and hose.
“What do you mean?” Fig said.
“I mean that Sylvester likes to see people die violently. He is a wicked and bloodthirsty ruler. The longer you stay here, the more chance that one or all of you will meet an untimely end.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Sam said. “I think we should leave before we outstay our welcome.”
As usual, it was too late. An official wearing an armband with STEWARD stencilled on it came up to them.
“Which of you, er, people is Gorf?” he asked.
“Me,” Gorf said. “And I am not people, I am a troll. Well, half troll, half goblin.”
“Nonsense,” the steward said as he ticked Gorf’s name off a list. “I am Percival Grimble, an expert in the field of myths and legends of Allworlds, and you are definitely not a troll or goblin. You are more like a Bigfoot or yeti.
“I should know what I am,” Gorf said, beginning to lose his temper.
“Yes, you should, but obviously don’t,” Percival said. “A troll is an evil spirit, and is usually very small, malicious, and extremely ugly. They have fir trees growing from their heads, and live in caves and other dark places. They spend much of their time hiding under bridges and jumping out to trap people crossing, to demand payment from them under threat of a very unpleasant death.”
“And what do you believe a goblin to be?” Sam asked the snooty steward.
“They live in grottos, and are mischievous. They have pointed ears like these two fairies with you, and are very noisy. They move things around a lot at night, and are very rarely seen. Pretty stupid creatures, in my humble opinion.”
Gorf grasped the little man by the throat, lifted him up off the ground and squeezed his neck until he went purple in the face and his eyes bulged.
“That’s enough, Gorf,” Fig said. “Don’t kill him, or we’ll most likely be put to death.”
Gorf growled and set the man down. “So what is a yeti or a bigfoot?” he demanded.
“They’re both majestic and handsome beings, just like yourself,” Percival answered in a very hoarse voice. “Yetis live in very cold mountain ranges, and are known by humankind as abominable snowmen. Though of course you are not in the least abominable.”
Gorf did not know that abominable meant not nice, so was not offended.
“I don’t like the cold,” he said. “I live in the desert.”
“Then you are most likely a Bigfoot, or a close relation to them. They are very solitary creatures, are covered in hair, and have the look of gorillas, as you do.”
Gorf was confused. It was worrying, to say the least, to be told that you were not what you had always thought you were. No wonder he didn’t fit in well with trolls or goblins. But why had he not been told of his true ancestry? He now had no reason to ever go back to the Desert of Storms. He didn’t belong there.
“Come, Gorf,” Percival said. “It is time to see just how good you are with that bow.”
Gorf and the others followed the steward through the crowds, away from where the black knight’s head and body had been loaded onto a cart and removed from the jousting arena.
In a roped-off field surrounded by spectators, twenty-four of the finest archers in the land had gathered to compete against each other.
The first round was straight forward. From a long rope – strung like a clothesline between two trees – hung a dozen pumpkins, fifty feet away. And after they had been set swinging by a boy running along to give each a hard push, the first twelve archers had twenty seconds to shoot as many arrows as possible at their nominated pumpkin. After the first twelve had fired, the second group stepped forward and had their go. Gorf hit his pumpkin with eight arrows, and qualified to go through to the next round with fifteen of the others, to shoot three arrows each at small white circles painted on the trunks of trees. The circles were six inches in diameter, but only looked the size of ten pence pieces from where Sam was standing.
“Come on, Gorf,” she shouted, amid the cheers from all the other contestants’ supporters.
Gorf put all three of his arrows inside the circle, and successfully moved on to the next challenge with just five of the others. He felt confident that he would win. A couple of the others were very good, but not good enough. After two more rounds only three of them remained. The last trial seemed impossible to the watching crowd. Brass nails had been hammered part way into narrow wooden poles. And once more the archers had three arrows each to fire and try to hit the head of the nail in their pole, to drive it deeper into the wood.
Gorf’s first arrow grazed the nail and spun off into the grass. The slim young man standing next to him missed the pole altogether. It was a burly innkeeper who shot last, burying his arrow into the pole just a fraction above the nail head.
Gorf nocked his second arrow, took careful aim, being sure to release the string smoothly as he breathed out. The arrowhead hit the nail square on and drove it all the way into the pole.
Sam and the others screamed with delight and punched the air with their fists. The young archer and innkeeper shot well, but missed the nail by a hairsbreadth with their second shots. And with only one shot left each, Gorf looked to have the competition won. The teenager missed again, but the innkeeper matched Gorf’s accuracy. It was a tie.
The steward declared the youngster to have come third, and handed him a small leather pouch full of groats as his prize.
“Just the two of you left,” Percival said. “You have but one more test to decide an outright winner. Come with me.”
Gorf and the big innkeeper, whose name was Murdo Thugg, followed Percival back to the jousting ground in front of the big tent.
“We have two expert bowmen who are equally good, my Lord,” Percival said to Sylvester. “It calls for a final shoot-out to decide which of them is to be named champion.”
“Very well,” Sylvester said. “Let them shoot at each other until only one remains standing.”
Gorf shook his head. “I am not going to kill a man to win a stupid competition,” he said.
Sylvester clicked his fingers. Soldiers drew their swords and held them to the throats of Sam and the others.
“You will complete the contest as directed,” Sylvester said. “Or this collection of misfits will be taken back into the dragon preserve and catapulted out of the cart that brought you here. Do you want them to be blackened by boiling breath and eaten up?”
Gorf shook his head.
“Come, you big, hairy coward,” Murdo said. “Let me finish you off quickly and win the prize.”
Gorf stared at the big innkeeper. He was extremely ugly, with a flattened nose that appeared to have been broken many times, and thick, cracked lips pulled back in a sneer. His head was shaven, and a spider’s web was tattooed on the top of it.
“So be it,” Gorf said to Sylvester. “But be aware that if my friends are harmed in any way, then one of my arrows will find your black heart before any of your men have time to stop me.”
“If you win, you may all leave and continue your journey,” Sylvester said. “But should Murdo be triumphant, then your friends’ fate will not be something for you to worry about. Will it?”
Percival rapped Gorf’s chest with his knuckles. “As I thought, you are wearing a breastplate,” he said. “Remove it, Bigfoot.”
Gorf unfastened the top of his tunic, and Percival quickly reached inside it, undid the buckles and withdrew the steel plate.
When Gorf and Murdo were in place, a hundred feet distant from each other, Percival gave instructions to both of them. “I s
hall count to three,” he said. “After which you may fire at will.”
Tommy wasn’t worried. His faith in Gorf was boundless. Gorf was his hero, and had been since saving him from the rapids, after he had fallen from the rope bridge.
“One...Two...Three,” Percival shouted.
In a blur, both Gorf and Murdo snatched arrows from their quivers, fitted them to the bow strings, drew back the mighty long bows, took aim and fired.
Gorf was hit. The arrow sliced through his cheek, and carried on, to stick in a tree trunk twenty yards behind him.
Murdo screamed and fell to his knees. Gorf’s arrow had hit him in the leg, splitting his kneecap in two.
“I win,” Gorf said to Sylvester.
“Nonsense,” Sylvester replied. “He is still alive. Finish him.”
“I took you for a man of your word, my Lord,” Gorf said. “You said that it would be over when only one of us remained standing. As you can see, Murdo is on his knees.”
Sylvester frowned and gave it some thought. “I shall honour my word,” he said. “You are the winner, but your only prize will be to leave here, now, and never return to Chimera. I will have you escorted south to the boundary of my realm.”
As they picked up their bags and made ready to leave, Sam panicked, put down her bag and opened the flap. “Oh no, it can’t be,” she cried in disbelief. “The chalice is gone. Someone’s stolen it.”
“But who could have done it?” Ben said.
“What is this chalice?” Peter the page asked, approaching them.
“A large gold cup,” Sam said.
“Then I think I know who took it,” Peter said. “The jester, Pintello, and the dwarf, Turquin. They left in a hurry, shortly after Sir Havalot’s joust. I saw Pintello stuffing something that shone brightly into a sack.”
“Where did they go?” Fig asked.
“They headed south by horse drawn cart.”
“Thank you, Peter,” Sam said. And to the others. “Come on, let’s go. We have to find them and get the chalice back.”
“Yes,” Gorf said. “Or all the trials we have faced will have been for nothing.”
As they made off with two of Sylvester’s footmen leading them, the most frightening thing happened. The strange, blurry sky darkened, and from out of it appeared a giant, pink hand. It reached down, grasped hold of the roof of the castle...and pulled it open, in exactly the same way you would lift the lid off a box.
“I don’t understand,” Sam said as they took cover behind a cart. “What’s going on?”
Ben was first to notice the sudden change to everything around them. The two footmen had become frozen. They were not real anymore, but looked like toy figures made from lead and hand painted. Nothing was real. Looking back to where the crowds had been attending the tournament, they saw that everyone was the same as the two figures standing stiffly next to them.
“The castle is a doll’s house,” Ben said. “This is like Toy Story, where all the toys come alive when no one is there to see them.
“That’s impossible,” Tommy said. “Everything was real.”
“No, Frog,” Ben said. “We should know by now that anything can happen in Weirdworld.”
“What shall we do?” Speedy asked.
“Keep hidden. Wait until this giant kid has finished playing, then get as far away from here as possible and find Pintello,” Sam said.
– CHAPTER TWELVE –
LAND OF THE VAMPIRES
They crept under the cart and hoped that the giant hand did not pick it up. All they could do was keep still and wait for the danger to pass.
Sam found it almost impossible to believe that she was just an ordinary girl, who liked to listen to pop music, go to the multiplex, and study hard, hoping to gain a place at uni in a few years time. She now felt like Alice in Wonderland. Nothing was what it seemed to be. This wasn’t a nice world at all, apart from Fig, Speedy, Gorf and Pook. And if they got away from the castle, they would have to somehow find Pintello and get the chalice back. If that wasn’t enough, Peter had told them that the only way to the Lake of Life was through the Land of the Vampires. She had watched Buffy, Angel, and The Vampire Diaries on telly, and had seen other more frightening movies about vampires, and really didn’t want to meet any. The thought of being bitten on the neck and having her blood sucked out, made her shudder. But the immediate problem was hovering above them in the shape of the enormous hand. They all watched as a massive finger and thumb closed together on Lord Sylvester’s head and picked him up. Tommy couldn’t help but hope that Sylvester would be crushed, or at very least be dropped from a great height.
It seemed hours before the top of the castle was replaced. Ben believed that they were in a land of giants, where a child had been playing with his or her toys.
They waited a while longer, and the footmen standing next to the cart came to life again.
“You’re just toys,” Tommy said to them as he crawled out from under the cart.
“This is true,” one of them replied. “But we can come to life when the giants are not around.”
“How?” Tommy asked.
“I don’t know,” the footman said. “We just do.”
They all climbed into the cart, and the horses pulled it at a gallop, bouncing and swaying along a rutted track, through a forest, to where it eventually came to a stop in front of a high wall.
“We’re not back at the dragon preserve are we?” Speedy asked.
“No,” said the more talkative of the two footmen. “Through there,” and he pointed to a large wooden door, “is Outworld, where you must go.”
As they stepped down to the ground, the man driving the cart cracked his whip, and the two horses turned and sped back the way they had come, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Gorf went over to the door. There was no handle, only a knocker in the shape of a monster’s head, which was fashioned from metal that was stained green. The face was fierce and glaring, and iron teeth gripped a big ring in an open mouth. Gorf grasped the ring and swung it against the door three times. There was no reply. He knocked again, louder and longer, only stopping when he heard a voice from the other side of the door.
“Hold it down, willya? I ain’t deaf!”
“Then let us in,” Gorf said.
“Ya mean out, dontcha?”
“Whichever,” Gorf replied. “Just let us through the door.”
“No can do. We’re closed. Come back in a coupla days.”
“He sounds American,” Tommy said.
“Do you want me to have to go to the trouble of climbing this wall, and probably being in a very bad mood when I get down to where you are?” Gorf said in a threatening voice.
“Ha! Ya can’t climb the wall, bozo. There ain’t no top to it. There’s here where I am, and there’s there where youse is. And this door’s the only way through.”
“Please, sir,” Sam said. “We have to go south to the Lake of Life. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Who’s we?”
“Three humans, two fairies, a...a Gorf, and a bear,” Sam answered; not sure now what Gorf thought he was.
“Are ya a goil?”
“If you mean, a girl, yes. My name is Sam.”
“Sam’s a guy’s name.”
“It’s short for Samantha. Who are you?”
“I’m the doorman. And without a password, ya ain’t comin’ in. Not now, not ever.”
“Pintello told us you would let us through,” Ben said, sure that the jester must have passed through the door, if Peter had been right in saying he had headed south from the castle.
“So why didn’t he tell me to expect ya?”
“Maybe he was in a hurry and forgot to mention it,” Ben said.
“And maybe you’re tryin’ to kid a kidder.”
“What’s your name?” Sam asked.
“If ya gotta know, it’s Aubrey. And I’m older than ma teeth, and wiser than a fat owl, so don’t think you can fool me into openin’
up. Why dontcha all just go back where ya came from and give ma ears a rest, huh?”
“That ain’t gonna happen, Aub’,” Fig said, imitating his voice perfectly. “We’ll just build a big fire in front of your lousy door and burn it down. How does that grab ya?”
“It’d take ya a week to burn through this. It’s two feet thick.”
“We’ve got no other way to go,” Sam said. “Even if it takes a month, we’ll get in.”
Aubrey went quiet for a while. They then heard the scraping of metal against wood. Bolts were withdrawn and the door swung open.
“So come in,” Aubrey said. “Welcome to the real woild.”
“What’s a woild?” Pook asked.
“A bear with a sense of humour, that’s cute. But don’t mock me, it ain’t polite.”
“I only asked,” Pook said. “And I don’t know what mock means, either.”
“It means, among other things, to make fun of someone.”
“Sorry, Mr. Aubrey. I only wondered what a woild was.”
“It’s just Aubrey. An’ the woild is the world, if ya don’t talk proper like what I do.”
Ben looked about him and thought something was wrong with his eyes. There was no colour. Everything was black, grey and white, like an ancient movie on TV.
“Is everything―?”
“Black and white,” Tommy said, nodding.
They all saw it the same way.
“Why are there no colours, Aubrey?” Sam asked the doorman.
“Who knows?” he replied. “I’m a doorman, not a scientist.”
Aubrey was in fact a very large bird: An ostrich with a long neck and legs, and wings ending in thick stubby feathers that he used as fingers.
“So whatcha all starin’ at?” Aubrey asked.
“You,” Tommy said. “You’re a bird.”
“What’s wrong with bein’ a boid?”
“Nothing at all,” Sam said. “We’ve just never met an ostrich that speaks with an American accent.”
“I was hatched an’ raised in Central Park Zoo, New York City,” Aubrey said. “One day I escaped, got lost in some thick, pink fog, an’ ended up here. The guy who owns this wall thought I’d make a good doorman, so gave me the power to speak.”