With a surge of adrenalin, Bill snapped into full awareness. There, off to his left, was an unmistakable flickering between the trees. It was a fair way away which meant it was pretty big and that, in the middle of a wood, could only mean it was out of control. And yet, it had been a misty day and the autumn forest was hardly a tinderbox.
Without thinking further, Bill Strike left his cart and sprinted into the darkness, using the distant light from the fire to guide him. Somehow, perhaps through an instinctive woodcraft baked into his very bones, he didn’t fall into or trip over anything and, within minutes, he realised where he was heading. The cottage of Nomenclature Vokes, fire wizard, was ablaze.
Bill burst onto the lane that ran past the cottage and stood, panting, as he took in the sight. If Vokes was in there then Bill was already too late - the thatched roof was falling apart, and flames licked out of the smashed windows on the ground floor.
He had just the wits to head for the well rather than straight for the door, so it was with a full bucket of water that he arrived at the entrance to the cottage. He threw the water at the door, but all that achieved was a hissing steam to go with the heat and crackling of the fire. Bill stood back to decide how to get in then headed for the door, grabbed the knob and instantly threw his hand back in agony. Stepping backwards, he was just in time to watch as, with a sound like a thousand cows giving birth, the roof collapsed.
It was the sun that woke Bill, that and the tangy smell of smouldering wood. He’d fallen into a deep sleep of exhaustion beneath the shelter of the well roof as the rain doused the flames. Bill rubbed his eyes, winced at the pain in his singed right hand and then, as he sat with his back against the well on this most meteorologically perfect of mornings, he remembered everything.
Hauling himself up, he stumbled over to the wreckage. The walls were more or less intact, but everything organic had perished. The door was now little more than a charred plank of wood hanging from its hinges which fell apart as Bill pulled on it. The inside was barely recognisable; blackened beams had crashed onto walls and pivoted into the rooms, flattening anything they landed on.
And then Bill saw the legs, sticking out of the fireplace from where, he imagined, their owner had either caused the fire or tried to escape it. The shoes were smoking black oblongs, and Bill’s eyes were drawn unwillingly up the fleshless leg bones to find an upper body marked only by a ring of ash. He knelt beside the body and gently lifted a still-warm foot. Beneath was a scrap of red cloth. Nomenclature Vokes, it seemed, had been a victim of his own magic.
The rest of the morning was spent digging a grave for the wizard in the garden of his cottage. It had taken some time to find a spade and much longer to dig into the chalky soil a pit deep enough to keep the scant remains safe from scavengers but, in the end, it was done.
Bill approached the bones and looked around for something to carry them in. He spotted a copper coal scuttle that had, miraculously, escaped the worst of the blaze with little more than a coating of soot which he brushed off with his filthy sleeve. A piece of paper fell out and floated gently to the ground. Frightened this survivor of the inferno might perish in the watery ash of the wreckage, Bill stuck out his hand and caught it. The pain flared again, and he swapped it carefully to his left hand. As a final surprise, it was cold to the touch.
He sat on his haunches to examine what, it turned out, was a small scroll. As he carefully unwound it, he read the first line, written in Vokes’ unmistakable hand: “As you have found this, I must be dead.”
Feeling that he needed some fresh air, Bill took the scroll outside into the bright sunlight, stood in the garden with its carpet of brown, red and gold autumn leaves and read.
As you have found this, I must be dead. I have been conducting some dangerous experiments, and it seems that they have failed. Please ensure that this letter and the coal scuttle in which it was placed, finds its way to William Strike, son of Blackjack Strike the collier. His hand alone will activate the rest of this message. Should my belated gratitude not be sufficient inducement to see this letter safely delivered, please be advised that it contains a rather unpleasant fever curse that will be cast unless William Strike touches the device shown below.
Beneath this text was a sigil in the shape of a stylised flame. With trepidation, Bill prodded at the symbol with his finger and watched as the wizard’s untidy scrawl filled the rest of the scroll.
William, I regret that I must ask you to take on the task I now assign you. The vessel that contained this letter, a seemingly ordinary copper coal scuttle is, in fact, an object of great power and importance. It must be delivered safely to the person addressed below as soon as you can possibly manage it: it would be a catastrophe should the scuttle fall into the wrong hands. I cannot express how important this is, William - get the scuttle and this letter to its new guardian within the week. Every second matters. You have a long journey ahead, and you might have some unsettling experiences along the way, but I have faith that you are up to the job and will do your mother proud.
Deliver the scuttle to Mother Hemlock, Hemlock’s Farm, Upper Bottom in the county of Fitzmichael. And under no circumstances allow anyone else to know about or handle it.Most especially it must never be disclosed to an agent of the crown or county.
I am sorry to have to place this burden on you, but it has been your appointed task for some time, I just wish I could have explained in person. There is a small cache of coins buried beneath the loose stone in the parlour, it should be sufficient for your purposes. Yours hopefully, Nomenclature Vokes, MICRWiz 1st Class
Bill Strike went back into the wreckage and dug out the unprepossessing copper scuttle before scrambling his way through to the parlour. He was familiar enough with the layout to know where the loose slab was, but it was buried beneath the wreckage of an oak table, and it took some time and a lot of effort to dig it out. When he reached the blackened stone, he couldn’t lift it. Then the image of the wizard’s staff acting as a lever popped into his head, and he scanned the devastation. He could see the remains of the living room hearth from the parlour but, of course, the fire was hottest there, and the staff would have been the first thing to be consumed. Sighing, he climbed back out of the ruins of the house, grabbed a hatchet from its place on the block outside and found a straight ash tree. A pity to cut it down and then discard it, he thought, but he needed what was beneath the stone.
Ten minutes later, he was sitting in the autumn sun, counting the coins he’d found in the hidden leather pouch. Ten marks - hardly generous, thought Bill, but it should pay for accommodation and food along the way, if the prices in the Cock & Bull were any guide. He then read and re-read the letter until every word was ingrained in his memory. He sat down in the dry grass beside the well and looked out on the scene of destruction. This place that he’d known since childhood was now a steaming ruin and the future that had seemed so mundane just a week ago was now uncertain and terrifying. Was this the reason for his father’s odd behaviour lately? Had he known what Vokes had asked him to do?
He looked again at the address. He’d heard of Fitzmichael County but only had a vague notion of where it might be - and that notion suggested it was a long way away. Idly, he turned the scroll over and watched, as if it had read his mind, as a black line emerged and began to trace the outline of a map with its origin in the bottom left corner where he sat now. Fitzmichael covered the top right corner and its capital city, Montesham, was marked in the centre of that corner. To its south-east, a small cross was labelled “Upper Bottom”.
Bill glanced at the scale which was now drawing itself at the bottom of the scroll. He picked up a scrap of window frame and made a basic ruler by scratching the scale into it, and then tried various routes between where he was now and Upper Bottom to find the shortest. 150 miles, by his reckoning, so if he was to do it in a week that would be a little over 20 miles a day. This didn’t sound too bad to Bill, used as he was to being on his feet all day, but he rather suspected it would
prove tougher than it seemed.
Bill lowered the map and glanced around the plot where the ruins of the cottage and its garden sat. Trees surrounded it on all sides with a narrow strip of, perhaps, 20 feet keeping the little compound separate from the forest as a whole. He could imagine unfriendly eyes gazing from the darkness between the trunks and suddenly felt exposed and in danger. Panic rose in his stomach as he realised that there was no safe option. He could stay here and wait for the danger to come to him or he could take the scuttle and make a run for it. There was only one choice, and Bill hated it.
With conviction he didn’t feel, Bill folded the map, tucked it into his coat pocket and headed for the path into the forest. He didn’t turn back, didn’t look again at the pile of bricks and blackened timber that had once been Vokes’s home, didn’t dare to see if anyone was watching. That life, that security, that past was over.
Humunculus The Great, king and overlord of the Darkworld, swept across the floor of the dungeon, pacing back and forth, shaking his head. His patience had long since expired, and the sobbing of the woman strapped to a blood-stained wooden chair was getting on his nerves.
Snip. The woman screamed.
“Please, stop!” she begged but Humunculus merely nodded to the hulking form of the torturer and the scissors descended again. Snip. Scream.
“That is unpleasant?” asked the king with feigned innocence as he glided across to the woman and ran his finger along her shredded hair line.
Tears ran down her face. A pretty face - or at least it would be pretty if it weren’t so moist and if its complexion were a little less rosy. Oh, how he hated crying. But then, it was a price he was willing to pay. Up to a point.
“Please leave my hair alone,” she sobbed. Indeed, it had been a pity, her locks had been the envy of many. So white they almost glowed as they lay, ringlet upon ringlet, on the dark, slimy, dungeon floor.
The king shrugged. “Of course, I’d be delighted to. However, that will require that you answer my questions. Are you ready to be co-operative?”
With an effort, the woman nodded.
“Good,” the king’s smile lit up the dim dungeon, causing a tangible drop in tension amongst the torturers as well as Bently, who was hovering by the door with a tray on which stood a steaming drink.
The king stepped towards the woman and lifted her face.
"You and I had an agreement 21 years ago. In return for the release of your traitorous father from this very dungeon, you were to travel into the Bright, where you would trick a member of that realm into impregnating you with child. That child, being partly of their kind and partly of ours could, according to your sainted father, guide me through the barrier between worlds. That child has yet to appear and yet you returned to tell me that the plan would play out. Where is the child?”
The woman shook her head, showering the floor with hair. “I can’t say.”
“Can’t say or won’t say?” snarled the king, the thin veneer of bonhomie shattered in an instant.
“I did as instructed. I seduced the man of power in those parts and gave him a child. I was very careful to set in train the events that would lead to your release. As far as I know, the boy is now a man; a man with a compelling desire to seek you out. I’m sure he will be here soon.”
The man came close again and looked directly into the woman’s grey eyes. “You’re hiding something from me. Very well,” he said, then turned to the torturer and nodded, “let’s see just how short we can cut your hair.”
The woman screamed.
Chapter 5
The romantic enthusiasm for the adventurer’s life that had tempered Bill’s naked fear wore off within a half dozen miles. His boots, which did such a good job when tramping around the forest, became like ankle chains after walking on them solidly for an hour.2 He regretted not asking his father’s advice as, although no adventurer, Blackjack had at least travelled to the nearby towns and could have told him he’d need better shoes. On balance, however, he’d decided it was too risky to tell his father what he was doing because Blackjack would have tried to stop him. Or, worse, insisted on coming along. Bill was quite nervous enough about the whole expedition without having to worry about his father. No, the note he’d left at The Cock & Bull, written using large letters and short words, would do. He’d said that Vokes had sent him on an errand (which was true) but had also intimated that it involved only a trip to a local town. He hoped to be back within a couple of weeks which would be practically before his father would even notice his extended absence, in all likelihood.
The “Hanged Man” was the least unwelcoming of the pubs in the small town of Flipperty-Gibbet and it was here that Bill bought a room overlooking the market square. Sadly, this gave him the perfect view of the gibbet after which the town was, allegedly, named. When not in active use, the gibbet was decorated with an effigy of the witch Flipperty who had famously survived being hanged in the dim and distant past. Bill didn’t consider himself to be a particularly cynical person, but that sounded like complete bollocks invented by an enterprising mayor of the town to give it something to attract tourists. Whatever its provenance, the gibbet, with its stylised and rather amateurishly put together effigy was pretty unpleasant, and Bill was glad that it would soon disappear into the deepening dusk. Although he’d know it was still there. He pulled the shutters closed and went to sit in the welcoming light of the little fire.
It was odd, given that he’d recently witnessed an inferno destroying the house, precious library and body of somebody he’d known all his life, that the fireplace drew him towards it as if inviting an embrace. Perhaps that was what came of being a charcoal burner, fire was as natural a part of his daily life as water was to a boatman, and just as treacherous.
So, there he sat, in the glow of the hearth, with his pack on his knees. He fished out the copper scuttle, examined it and found it unchanged from the last dozen or so times he’d checked it that day. The letter, which he’d shoved inside a leather pouch, was also safe, sound and unchanged.
The burden of responsibility the wizard had placed on him felt like an iron chain around his ankle, or perhaps a heavy anchor dragging him into the depths. He wished he knew more about the danger posed by the scuttle, or perhaps he didn’t, but he was in no doubt the risk was a real one. It wasn’t just that he believed the wizard’s letter, he also, for reasons he couldn’t pin down, felt as though he had to do what he was doing. There were two opposing forces at war in his mind, one pulling him towards home, encouraging him to give up and live the life his father had mapped out for him. But he also had a yearning to go to the north-west and see that country; it somehow felt like where he should be. Perhaps he’d learn something about his mother on his journey. He extinguished that spark of hope before it became a burden of expectation.
He knew that he couldn’t go home, however frightened he was of the road ahead. Even if no-one else ever knew of this failure, he’d know himself. Yet the road ahead was so very long, and here he sat, after just one day, exhausted and wondering whether his feet would hurt as much tomorrow as they had today. And he didn’t even have a beer to console him. That, at least, could be fixed, thought Bill, before he leapt to his feet, winced for a moment, and headed for the door.
You had to admire the thoroughness and dedication of the owners of The Hanged Man, they’d certainly cultivated an ambience perfectly suited to the name of the place. Harry, the barman, had all the joie de vivre of a diabetic rat in a sweet factory. He was an odd creature with greased hair carefully gathered into a centre parting, a bristly moustache and bow tie. The beer lived up to expectations by being lifeless, and Bill felt relieved that the corner he’d found to sit in was dark enough he couldn’t see what colour it was. Black he imagined.
The present company included a couple of old men playing what must have been a local version of hangman consisting, as it did, of a model gallows and miniature Flipperty doll with removable extremities. Bill watched as one of the old men shook
his head, wrote a letter beneath the gibbet and removed the second of the witch’s wooden legs. The other gaffer’s hand inched towards a thick book on the bar-top which, Bill suspected, contained a dictionary.
Bill sipped his beer, suppressed a shudder and hoped it was nice and strong. And then he saw her, sitting in the opposite corner of the bar, giving the very definite impression she’d not seen him, wasn’t interested in doing so and, anyway, was capably armed. All of which passed straight over Bill’s head, swept under the carpet of caution by the all-trumping fact that she was a girl. He could tell.
It was hard to get a true impression of her, both because the corner she was sitting in was rather gloomy and also because he was trying to examine her while looking in a different direction entirely. After a few minutes of this, his eyeballs ached, and all he knew for certain was that she was female, quite tall and that she had a big nose. Good, perhaps she wouldn’t be too fussy then. Bill drained the last of his pint of ooze and staggered over to her.
“Is this seat taken?”
He’d decided this was his best opening gambit because, as she was obviously the only occupant of the booth, she couldn’t possibly say yes.
“Yes,” she said.
“No, it isn’t,” countered Bill.
“Why did you ask, then, if you knew the answer?”
This was too much for Bill who was, by now, too exhausted and (not to put too fine a point on it) pissed, to engage in mental combat. He sat down. “My name’s Bill Strike. I work in combustibles.”
“You do? That explains the absence of eyebrows, I suppose,” said the woman, “And what a coincidence, so do I.”
This was unexpected. The girl was actually talking to him, as if she was interested. This was an Opportunity, thought the part of Bill’s ego that the beer had fuelled. Perhaps this was going to be easier than he’d thought and, now that he was getting a closer look, she wasn’t bad looking at all.
Myths and Magic Page 3