It soon became clear that there were only two types of Creation: the chosen few – those who elected to become Crevitos’s bully boys – and the rest.
As far as Crevitos was concerned, the rest now only had one purpose in life and that was to slave for him, mostly in the mines, which was where Boff had spent many an exhausting and miserable month: toiling, breaking rocks, staggering under heavy loads, and forever transporting endless rubble from one place to another. Mindlessly, back-breakingly, forever fearful of the stinging slash of a whip, signalling that you were not working hard enough, or fast enough, or it happened to be your bad luck that day to pull the wrong face at the wrong moment.
There was no relief. No end in sight; just incessant, interminable, unremitting toil, stretching into the forever after.
In the long huts where the workers grabbed a measly few hours rest, there were rumours; rumours that there was a place somewhere in the far north of the land to which a few lucky Creations had escaped. Nobody knew where or how, but in the stark darkness of the night hours, a glimmer of hope flickered among the inmates.
Boff’s ability to daydream had earned him many a flick of the whip, as he imagined himself setting out on a journey to find this special place where Crevitos had no command. A place in his mind that became more green, fresh and beautiful every time he thought about it.
And so it was, that he knew, he knew, as soon as he found the box, that something incredible was about to happen.
At first glance, it was not a particularly dazzling box. In fact it was quite ordinary looking; wooden with some pretty carvings on the top.
Boff didn’t dare look too closely however, as any cease in activity on his part would bring a whip bearing guard over quicker than winking. The box would be taken from him and that would be that.
Checking carefully to make sure he was not being observed Boff slipped the box under a fair-sized piece of rock. With the rock concealing the box, he carried them over to a nearby cart. Fortunately the cart was almost full. Quickly, he hid the box underneath a heap of rock and began to push the cart along the track to one of the many dumping chutes.
He gasped as a whiplash stung expertly across his back.
‘You there!’ snarled a fox like creature with fangs that grew up nearly to its ears. ‘You call that full?’
‘No, Sir. Sorry, Sir. It won’t happen again, Sir!’ Boff cringed and whimpered and wrung his hands in supplication knowing that, however distasteful, it was the only way a guard might be prepared to let him off more lashes of the whip.
Fortunately, just at that second, a scuffle broke out behind them. With a snarl of ‘Snivelling wimp,’ the guard turned and stomped off in the direction of the fracas. Taking advantage of the distraction, Boff hurriedly pushed the cart the last few yards to the dumping chute. Glancing around furtively, he surreptitiously rescued the box from its hiding place beneath the rocks and then gave the cart a final shove through an opening in the rock, where it trundled down the chute to yet more exhausted, despairing Creations down below.
In the dimness of the recess, Boff clutched the box to him and slid silently behind a large overhang of rock where he couldn’t be seen.
Now for the box. Almost tenderly he traced the carved patterns with a finger, just for a moment afraid to take the plunge and open the lid. Heart beating wildly, he placed his thumb just above the tiny keyhole. It would be locked. Of course it would. No doubt the key had long since disappeared. Applying a little pressure, he was quite shocked when the lid shifted easily upwards.
He took a deep breath, to still his shaking hands. There were wonders, dreams of happiness inside this box, he knew it, just knew … ohhhhhh!
The excitement drained out of him like water down a huge plughole, leaving him feeling weak and not a little foolish.
Well, at least he’d found the key, a small, ornate, sparkling key. Disappointed, he thought at least he might as well see if the key actually fitted. After all, it could still be his little secret. He could hide it here, behind this overhang. A little piece of him no one knew anything about. And maybe one day, one day he’d find out it really did have magical powers and then he would be free of this awful place!
‘Imagine,’ he whispered to himself as he placed the little silver key into the keyhole, ‘just imagine …’
The light that flooded out of the box was enough to bring a whole host of guards down on his back; that Boff knew. But he didn’t have time to consider the implications. The dark stain that had rapidly replaced the light was already shrinking. Instinctively, Boff grabbed up the box and stepped forward into the black blot, shutting his eyes tight as he did so.
Blue sky, fluffy clouds. Blinking in the sunlight, for a moment Boff convinced himself that he had just woken from a horrendous nightmare and Doodland was the same as it had always been. Except he knew that wasn’t true. One glance down at his dirty, grime-smeared clothes and the wooden box clutched firmly in his hands told him that it wasn’t true.
Maybe this was the future? Maybe Crevitos had gone and Doodland had reverted to its natural state. Or maybe this was the past. Not such a nice thought. That would mean that Crevitos was yet to come!
Boff was startled out of his thoughts by a whistling sound. Instantly fearful, he ducked behind a nearby bush.
The whistling was soon followed round the corner by a small boy. Boff had seen boys before on Doodland, though not quite like this one. This one seemed more – what was the word – solid.
As the boy neared the bush, to Boff’s utter amazement, it began to chatter.
‘Hello, Squib, hello, hello.’ All the leaves seemed to have tiny little voices that all talked in unison. ‘We know something you don’t know,’ they squeaked and giggled.
Squib bent down with his hands on his knees and peered closely at the bush.
‘Well you’d better tell me,’ he said good naturedly, ‘or you know what happens to bushes that keep secrets!’
‘Oh no!’ squealed the leaves in mock horror. ‘Not the tickling, no, no, not that!’
Squib wrinkled his face into a not-very-fierce frown and extended a menacing hand. It touched the leaves lightly and he wriggled his fingers.
‘Yes that!’ he growled, not very threateningly.
Boff felt the bush shiver with delight and all the little leaves exploded into tiny, tinkly titters again.
It was then he realized that the boy was looking right at him.
‘It’s okay,’ said Squib, ‘you can come out. I won’t hurt you.’
And strangely, Boff believed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The time spent with Squib and the Prof had been a relief, a delight and an education all rolled into one. The Prof had been fascinated by Boff and had wanted to know everything he could remember about his world and its people – at least as it had been before Crevitos came on the scene.
Boff in turn learnt that he had somehow been transported to a place called Emajen, which, in many ways, was not so very different from his own world.
The Prof apparently knew all about the wooden box. That is to say, not Boff’s wooden box precisely; the Prof himself had one almost identical.
‘So how does it work exactly?’ was Boff’s query.
The answer was quite simple. Once the key was inserted in the keyhole of the box, you recited twice the name of where you wanted to be and there you were. Why it worked of course was another question and not one the Prof had an answer for.
As far as he knew, they were very rare. He’d only come across one other person on Emajen who had one, although perhaps it was not necessarily something you would tell too many people about.
But Boff was confused.
‘I’ve never even heard of Emajen,’ he pointed out, ‘let alone knew that I wanted to come here. So how could I have said the name twice?’
The Prof studied Boff closely for a minute.
‘Think back,’ he said quietly. ‘Think back to what exactly happened with the box. You must have said somethin
g?’
Boff shut his eyes and, much against his desire, pictured himself back in the mighty mine under the ground.
‘Imagine,’ he murmured softly and again. ‘Imagine … that’s it!’ he cried. ‘I was just thinking how wonderful it would be if the box had magic powers that could spirit me away. I said ‘imagine’. I must have said it twice. It’s close enough – you think?’
The Prof beamed. ‘Most certainly!’ He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. ‘It rather suggests we should enunciate clearly when using our friend here!’ He patted the box fondly.
‘Enun … what?’
‘Speak clearly,’ Squib explained, proud of what he’d learnt from the Prof.
‘Oh!’ Boff looked thoughtful. ‘It’s a bit scary. I could have ended up somewhere really awful!’
‘Not more awful than Doomland by the sounds of it!’ said the Prof. ‘Now, the thing is, what are we going to do about the other poor souls in that dreadful place?’
And so they had talked long and hard about how they could return to Doomland to try and rescue some of the other Creations. They had figured that if they asked the box to take them to north Doomland they would be pretty safe from ending up back in the mines. The biggest problem that the Prof could foresee was that there might well be a limit as to how many beings could get through the gateway in one go.
‘Will you ask for Doodland or Doomland?’ was what Squib wanted to know.
‘Good point,’ said the Prof.
‘Doodland!’ said Boff firmly. ‘Doomland is only what Crevitos chooses to call it and I firmly believe that one day it will be Doodland once again!’
Saddler yawned and stretched.
‘Good old Prof. It worked then. Are you all ‘ere? I must say ‘e kept it well under ‘is ‘at. Never once mentioned a word of it to me.’
‘We just thought it was safer, you know if nobody knew we were here. But in answer to your question, no we couldn’t possibly rescue everyone. To begin with, it was quite easy. We could get about six Creations through the dark splodge at a time and of course, in the north there was no one to notice them go. We were afraid to open a gateway anywhere else in case we got caught, so we thought it would be safest to travel stealthily to the mines at night-times and sneak out a few Creations at a time.’
‘That must have been painfully slow,’ said Anthony.
‘Slow, but relatively secure,’ explained Boff. ‘The trouble was, as time went on a lot of good, decent Creations turned into spies for Crevitos to try and save themselves from destruction in the mines. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was on our side and who was on his.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Destiny.
Little sparks flashed briefly inside Boff’s head and his light bulbs glowed a pale, sickly, green colour just for a moment.
‘The last time we went … we were very nearly caught. We took a chance and opened up nearer to the mines. We tried to save a bit of time. You know maybe get a few more Creations out. But it was our undoing. We’d rounded up enough to go through in two lots. One of Crevitos’s sneaks must have seen the gateway open the first time. By the time the second group were ready to go through …’ Boff faltered and shuddered, the sickly, green hue returning to his light bulbs.
‘I … will … never forget that … face!’ He buried his own face in his hands; a picture of such abject misery, that Destiny rushed to his side and put a consoling arm around his shoulders.
‘I know. I know about the face!’ she murmured soothingly.
Once Boff had calmed a little, Saddler felt it safe to ask, ‘Did they follow you? Through the gateway?’
‘Not then. Not then,’ Boff repeated softly, almost to himself. ‘But they saw enough to know it could be done. Worse still, much, much worse, the box was somehow lost in the panic and I very much fear it wouldn’t take Crevitos long to figure out how it works.’
‘Surely, if he’d found out its secret he’d be here by now trying to take over Emajen like he did Doodland,’ suggested Destiny.
‘From what you’ve told me, he’s already been here for at least long enough to cause some trouble. But the Prof thinks he’s not strong enough to risk a full scale invasion yet. You see Creations aren’t terribly strong …’ Boff’s brain flushed a little pink. ‘And we were, still are, mostly gentle folk. We weren’t exactly difficult to overcome. Here it’s different and Crevitos will need an army, an army that can cross the divide between worlds in much larger numbers.’
‘A longer darkness and a bigger ‘ole,’ said Saddler forebodingly. ‘And you can bet that’s exactly what ‘es working on right now!’
‘Oh dear!’ Boff’s eyes were sad. ‘What have we done?’
Destiny looked despairingly at Anthony and tightened her arm protectively around Boff’s shoulders.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
‘Shh,’ Anthony was suddenly alert. ‘I can hear someone coming.’
The noise he had heard was really no more than a loud swish, and Destiny was greatly impressed that he’d heard it at all. It heralded the approach of another strange being; a sort of two headed octopus with, as far as Destiny could tell, ten tentacles instead of eight. It was very difficult to count as they kept slithering and wriggling about all over the place.
‘Hi, Boff.’ The creature smiled with the one mouth its two heads appeared to share, revealing one gleaming white tooth in the centre.
‘Hi, Screwy, any news?’
‘Screwy?’ mouthed Anthony at Destiny.
Destiny grinned and turned back to Boff, keen to know what was going on. Screwy’s face had taken on a grim expression.
‘A lot of discussion going on,’ he told them. ‘Eldon He-Haw thinks we should listen to you and help you. The others are not so sure. They say we are well hidden here and they don’t want to be involved in any trouble again. They say whatever’s going on up there …’ he glanced up at the ceiling, ‘… is none of our business!’
‘That’s crazy,’ yelled Saddler. ‘Don’t they understand ‘oo’s behind what’s going on? They should know by now that there’ll be no ‘iding from ‘im if ‘e finds a way to bring an army ‘ere!’
Screwy wriggled all ten tentacles agitatedly.
‘They don’t want to believe it’s him!’ His voice almost disappeared, so hushed was his whisper.
‘Can’t you do something, Boff? That Eldon said they value your judgement and it was you who brought them here to safety!’ demanded Saddler.
All Boff’s light bulbs glowed red and his brain was suffused with a violent burgundy flush.
‘Oh … oh … I’m not very … I mean, I couldn’t … oh …’ he stuttered.
Screwy wrapped a tentacle around his friend and the eye in each of his heads stared reprovingly at Saddler.
‘Boff here has been braver than anyone I ever met,’ he said adamantly. ‘The Eldons may value his opinion, but they will insist on working out a number of possible options which will then have to be voted on by all the rest of us. The outcome of the vote is final, no matter what anyone says.’
Destiny looked pleadingly at Boff.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.
Without hesitation, the two Creations answered as one.
‘We need to get you out of here!’ they said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
They all waited anxiously while Boff went to check on the meeting again to see how things were progressing. He reported that the debate was still in full swing and set to continue for some time.
The biggest quandary was that the way out involved crossing through the Great Hall again, where the meeting was currently being held. It was Screwy who suggested that he should create a diversion and give them a chance to slip through without being seen.
Knocking on the door to be let out, Boff explained to the guard that he was now wanted at the meeting and that Boff himself would secure the door before he and Screwy followed in very short order. The strong Creation waved his trunk in acknowledgement and hurried off.
Checking that the coast was clear, Boff motioned to the others to follow him. He led them back through the maze of torch-lit passages, until they reached the Great Hall. Despite its enormous size, it was packed with creatures of all shapes and sizes, listening intently to the debate that was being bandied back and forth among the group of Eldons on the raised platform.
As they watched, a Creation standing in the middle of the crowd waved what looked like a white hanky in the air. There was silence while he asked his question and then the Eldons each gave their answer according to their interpretation of the situation.
‘No wonder your meetings take so long,’ whispered Anthony to Boff.
Screwy, who had disappeared for a moment, now reappeared and waggled a white piece of cloth at them with one of his tentacles.
‘Wait ‘til I’ve asked my question –’ he beamed – ‘and then get going quick!’
‘Thanks for this Screwy,’ said Boff.
‘My pleasure! See you soon, I hope!’
Screwy disappeared once more into the crowd and moments later, they saw a bright yellow tentacle waving its white cloth in the air.
‘Don’t the Eldons think we ought to help defend Emajen against Crevitos since it’s pretty much our fault he found out how to get here in the first place?’ queried the voice connected to the tentacle.
There was an immediate uproar throughout the hall, although it was impossible to tell whether in agreement or outrage at Screwy’s question.
Without waiting to find out, Boff and the others took the opportunity to slide unobtrusively around the side of the great stone wall and out of the opening at the far end. Boff hurried them up the long passage that led back to their cave, where they squeezed breathlessly through the gap in the overlapping rock.
There was no sound of pursuit, but in any case, Boff was certain that the Creations would be too wary to follow them outside. Even so, they weren’t taking any chances and they kept up a steady march until they had made their way down the hillside and into the shelter of the trees.
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