by Ektaa Bali
Her father’s brown face changed completely. It went an ashen colour, and he took a sharp breath. He took her hand and walked her back to the camp. The guards followed.
“Pack up everything Sampson,” he said in a grave voice. He turned back to Sonakshi.
“Listen, Sona. After we rescued Rowen from Mankini’s island, I had all of her things collected from her witch’s tower. Papers, books, instruments, everything. I didn’t want anyone finding and using the information she had stored there. I brought it all back with us and read some of it.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “If what I’ve read is true, then the Fae are in great danger.”
6
Old Enemies
“Why does the sky cry sometimes? “
“The sky cries as a mother does, when she thinks about how much she loves her children. And through her love, her children grow and are fed and live happy lives.”
—Queen Salote to Princess Vidya
* * *
Princess Sonakshi returned to her castle in the Blue Mountains by nightfall, guarded carefully by her father, Captain Sampson, and the guards. It was a hidden place, as King Deven and Queen Ria had escaped Fiji seven years earlier, hiding Sonakshi, then a baby unicorn, from the cunning witch Mankini. The old witch had needed Sonakshi’s blood for a spell that would reverse a curse she had gotten by killing Sonakshi’s grandfather, also a unicorn. In the end, Mankini had resorted to kidnapping Sonakshi’s best friend, Rowen, to lure her to her tower in Makogai. It had worked, but Sonakshi had gotten the better of Mankini. The witch turned to dust, and Sonakshi had learned what it meant to be a unicorn.
Hidden away in the Blue Mountains, their closest neighbours were the Lord and Lady of Cabbage Tree Creek, so their children, Kiera and Rowen, had become Sonakshi’s best friends.
“Sona!” cried Kiera, running down the palace stairs, her flaming red hair streaming behind her.
“You’re back!” cried Rowen, three years younger, but just as fast at running as his sister.
Sonakshi grinned when she saw the two of them, puffing and panting down the stairs. “You guys won’t believe it!” she said. “Wait till I tell you—”
“I want all of you in bed,” ordered King Deven. “We will talk to Batuman tomorrow.”
“Batuman?” asked Kiera, wrinkling her nose. “Why do we have to talk to him?”
The obese bat had been Mankini’s servant. They had brought him back with them from Fiji and locked him in the dungeons beneath the castle because King Deven had wanted to keep a close eye on him.
“I’ll tell you everything,” said Sonakshi, leading her two friends up the stairs and to their rooms. The two often slept over at the castle, as they all went to school together with the children of the guards who also lived there. The three kids sat in Sonakshi’s room with their pyjamas on, gasping in shock as Sonakshi told them about her escape from the Bunyip.
“On the way back, I got a messenger leaf from Vidya saying she got home safely. I was so worried. That thing was so scary.”
Yawning, and content they had just listened to one of the most daring stories they had ever heard, they pulled up the covers of Sonakshi’s bed, and all fell asleep.
The next morning, King Deven took the three of them down the long stairs that led below the castle, into the dark of the dungeons. Rowen tightly clutched onto Kiera’s hand. He had been locked up in Mankini’s dungeon in Fiji for days, and seeing these dungeons reminded him about that awful time.
Sonakshi was thinking about her own feelings. Batuman had helped Mankini do some horrible things, including lie to her and kidnap Rowen. He had also hurt people, including herself and her grandfather. The old bat had cried the entire way from Fiji, mourning the loss of his Mistress. He and Mankini had been together for a hundred years, so it was fair that he would be upset about the whole thing. But Sonakshi wasn’t entirely sure he was deserving of a life imprisonment for his crimes either, there was magic keeping him alive for an artificially long time after all. Mankini might have died, but her magic had lived on. Who knows how long he would live for? Did he deserve forever in this jail cell? They took him out once a day for walks, but he was not allowed to fly. Sonakshi imagined being told that she could never ever fly again and shivered at the thought. There would be nothing worse, she decided. Flying was who she was.
They followed her father down a long dark corridor, past a line of three empty cells. They kept Batuman in the last one.
They found him lying on his tiny bed made of soft linen. He had propped himself up with pillows and was engrossed in an old book. A bowl of water was off to one side, and a punnet of berries. When he saw the group step in front of his cell, he gasped and jumped off his bed, dropping the book to the floor with a clatter.
“Princess Sonakshi!” he cried, waddling up to the bars of the cell. He clasped his hands in front of him, bowing low. “Your majesty.”
The children stood in a line against the bars of the cell, King Devin took a seat on a stool just behind them.
“Oh, little Rowen, and friend too!” he said lightly.
“Hello Batuman,” said Sonakshi in a quiet voice.
Kiera and Rowen remained silent, glowering at him. Neither had quite forgiven him for his part in Rowen’s kidnapping and Sonakshi’s near death.
“Oh, hello Unicorn Princess, Batuman is so happy that you’ve come to see him!” Batuman bounced on the balls of his feet.
“Are you well, Batuman?”
“Oh yes, your Majesty, very well in this dark dungeon. The guards bring me little fruits to eat. And Scotch Finger biscuits. Yes, those are Batuman’s favourites.”
Sonakshi nodded. “Well, we’ve come to see you because we need your help.”
“Oh yes?” He clapped his hands eagerly. “Batuman is happy to help however he can.”
“My father has found something in Mankini’s documents. She mentions the Bunyips quite a bit.”
Batuman’s face fell, the corners of his mouth drooping. He stopped bouncing on his feet and became rather still.
“Oh dear. Yes. That.”
“That?” asked Sonakshi, nervously toying with the metal bar in front of her.
“I mean… Batuman knows nothing!” he squeezed his black lips hard together and shook his head so vigorously back-and-forth Sonakshi thought he might do some damage to his brain.
“Batuman,” she cooed disapprovingly. “Please tell us what you know.”
The old bat sighed, looking at his feet, his tiny round belly expanding like a balloon as he breathed in and out. “Batuman does not know what to say.”
“Start with the truth!” Kiera slapped the bars with a hand, her temper getting the better of her.
Batuman jumped back in shock. “Excuse me!”
“Batuman,” hissed Kiera, fists clenched, turning the colour of a strawberry. “Do not think we have forgotten what you did to Rowen!” She pressed her face against the cold iron bars. “You owe us.”
Batuman burst into tears. “B- Batuman is s-sorry!”
He wailed and threw himself face first onto the floor.
Kiera scoffed and pulled Rowen back to go and stand further away with King Deven, who put a reassuring arm around the little boy.
“Come on, Batuman,” said Sonakshi gently. “Kiera is correct, we have the right to know everything.”
Batuman quietened and pulled himself off the floor with a huff and a rather long groan. He wiped his eyes and sniffed, staring up at Sonakshi.
“Batuman is really sorry, unicorn Princess. He will serve you now.”
Sonakshi nodded and gave him a small smile.
“Now, why would Mankini be writing about Bunyips in her books? They are native to Australia, right? Not Fiji.”
Batuman nodded earnestly.
“Don’t think that a powerful person like Mankini springs up out of nowhere,” he said in a thick voice. “She comes from a long line of dark witches. When witches have children, sometimes they turn
out a bit… different.”
“Like a slippery man-eating beast different?” called Kiera from behind Sonakshi.
Batuman ignored her.
“Mankini has two brothers. The elder one happens to be called the Bunyip King.”
An icy fist took hold of Sonakshi’s heart. The Bunyip King.
“But there have not been Bunyips sighted for decades,” said King Deven.
Batuman nodded.
“Ahh, yes. And did anyone wonder why that is?” Batuman held up a fat finger. “How did the Bunyips go from gobbling up humans left right and centre, to just—” he clicked his batty fingers. “Nothing. The answer, your unicorn highness… is. The. Fae.”
Sonakshi frowned. Where was this story going?
“The Fae are the custodians of the land. They keep the balance. When they saw how powerful the terrifying Bunyips were getting, how many humans were getting eaten, they had to do something.”
Sonakshi glanced back at her father, who was frowning at Batuman now.
“With the help of the Queen of the merpeople,” said Batuman, stepping forward. “Princess Vidya’s grandfather, King Fern, rounded up all the Bunyips.”
He paused for effect.
“But the Fae do not harm living things,” he jeered. “So they did the cleverest thing. They locked up the Bunyips and their King, in a cave in the Fae lands. In that cave where the only water supply was a deep pool of sleeping potion.”
Sonakshi found it suddenly hard to breathe. Was it possible that Vidya’s grandfather had done this? Batuman must have seen the scepticism on her face because he quickly added. “You were not there, unicorn majesty, the Bunyips were taking everybody. Eating everyone they could find. The Fae King could not leave monsters roaming around the Murray river. He had to fix it.”
“Alright,” came King Deven’s voice. “If that’s the case, then how does Mankini come into it?”
Batuman stepped forward. “Mankini wanted revenge for what the Fae had done to her brother and his people. It was her life’s mission after… collecting my unicorn mistress, of course.” He bowed at Sonakshi again.
A jolt of old fear struck Sonakshi, but she remembered Mankini was dust now. She was not alive to get her revenge on the Fae.
“But she’s gone now.”
“Not quite,” said Batuman, holding up a fat finger.
Sonakshi stared at him in horror. She had seen Mankini die before her eyes. Seen her turn to dust and fade away. Sonakshi had broken the curse herself!
“Mankini may be gone in body, but her spells still remain, do they not?” Batuman bowed, indicating himself as the truth of the matter. He was still alive after a hundred odd years, after all.
“And this spell was a spell of a special kind. On the event of her death, the spell would activate, and the Bunyip King would awaken, and he would be sent special knowledge of how to take his revenge.”
Batuman shrugged his furry shoulders. “And that’s all I know.”
Sonakshi remembered Mankini’s last words to her in her tower on Makogai Island. There will be others. It sent a shiver up her spine. She meant this. She meant her brother. But they weren’t coming for her. They were coming for all the Fae.
King Deven stood. “We must warn the Fae, Sona.”
Sonakshi nodded, and the small group made their way out of the dungeons. But a thought in the back of her mind made Sonakshi linger behind.
“Batuman…” she said, coming to stand in front of the cage again. Batuman was sitting on his bed, toying with his blankets. He looked up with hopeful eyes. “You said Mankini had two brothers?”
He nodded his fat head.
“What do you know about the other brother? The one that’s not a Bunyip?”
Batuman shrugged one shoulder and looked down at his feet. “I do not know much, Princess.”
She nodded, biting her lip in thought.
As Sonakshi turned her back on him to leave, she did not see the sly smile that had spread across the old bat’s face.
7
The Bunyip King
The Bunyip King sat on his throne of rocks, staring at the forest around him. His bunyip army had built a bonfire in the middle of the clearing that they called their current home. Behind him was the cave where they had slept for over one hundred years. The large rock that had blocked it tightly shut was standing uselessly to the side. He was the biggest Bunyip of them all, and he watched the rest of them with too-clever eyes.
One group of his Bunyip army were chopping down trees to make more space. Another group was fast asleep after a long night of patrol. They had taken over this forest, and half of the silly little creatures in it had fled in fear. They owned it now.
When he first woke up weeks ago, his world had been dark and cold, his thoughts full of what had been done to him and his people. The Bunyips around him been fast asleep in their spots, still and silent. Just when he wished he never had been woken, a light had come to him through the darkness, and he had seen his sister’s face. He had been so happy to see Mankini, but then she told him that the spell that allowed her to send him the message meant that she had died. His grief made him howl with sadness into the lonely dark. But then she told him what he needed to do to get his revenge for what the Fae had done to him, and it had made him feel better.
He had followed her instructions to the letter. His sister was so brilliant, so genius, that her plan was unthinkable and quite unexpected. But it had worked. He’d swum deep into the ocean. He’d fought dark sea creatures and returned with the secret weapon. The very thing he’d need to make him successful against the Fae.
His army had awoken clever. They could talk to each other properly and they could build fires. They were smarter than they had been before.
Before, that is, they had been forced into a prison of sleep. Tricked and imprisoned. The Fae were responsible for everything. Because of them, he and his people had been left for dead. His fist clenched around the rock he was holding. It crumbled to dust. It hadn’t taken him much effort at all. He was now also strong. Far stronger than before his long sleep.
He had a secret. Something the tree huggers would never guess. Something they would not even think was possible.
“Those flower sniffing, tree hugging abominations!” he growled.
One of his soldiers, young and keen, came to his side.
“They’re disgusting, your highness, so disgusting.”
The Bunyip King growled with approval.
His eye caught movement at the edge of the forest. One of his Generals was escorting three Yara-ma-yha-who out of the line of trees. There were many strange and fearsome creatures in this forest, but out of them, the Yarama were apparently the scariest. They were small red men with bald heads and big teeth. Once they had their prey, there was no escaping.
But the Bunyip King did not find them scary at all. His teeth were sharper. His muscles were stronger. His brain was more clever.
The Yarama at the front was holding something in his hands as he walked toward him. The Bunyip King watched them with unimpressed eyes as they came to stand in front of where he sat.
“My King,” said the general. “This is the chief of the Yarama. To thank us for our protection, he has come with a gift.”
The Yarama were trembling with fear as they stood there. He knew that one Bunyip was a scary sight for creatures such as these, and as the King, he was bigger and scarier.
“What is it?” he growled, leaning down to look the Yarama in his beady little eyes.
The little man looked down quickly and gulped. He held the thing up high. The Bunyip King leaned down and sniffed at it, then wrinkled his nose.
“It stinks of the Fae.”
The Yarama mumbled something.
“What did you say?” he asked, aggressively.
The Yarama jumped, then recovered and blurted, “A stolen potion, your kingliness, sir.”
The Bunyip King grunted, feeling irritation boiling within him.
“Wh
at does it do?” he leaned back on his throne.
“Strengthens you—”
The Bunyip King grabbed the Yarama chief in one claw and, with little effort, hurled him straight into the trees where he had come from. The other two Yarama shrieked and scattered, running at full pelt after their chief.
Bunyips around him laughed in amusement, gravelly and deep.
A potion to increase strength? What a fool! Only the spindly legged Fae needed potions made of the stinky flowers to make them strong.
But he and his army were already the strongest things in this forest. The secret sat in the cavern behind him, filling the once dark space with golden light. He didn’t even have to look at it to feel it’s magic. It was so powerful that just by holding it; he had been changed for good. The best thing was, those dratted Fae wouldn’t even see it coming. He sure had a few surprises for them.
* * *
He had just one problem to solve. Just one big issue. The endless sky. The Fae people had one unstoppable defence. Better than any wall or any army was the fact that the Fae palace sat in the middle of the sky. He could bring his entire army to the edge of that cliff, and they could roar all they wanted. But it would all be for nothing if they could not get across. He had thought of everything. A gigantic bridge, a catapult, some trick or clever way to get the Fae to come to them. But nothing he thought of would work. It made him so angry that this one tiny thing was stopping them. He had every other thing. He just needed the answer to this problem. Heat ran through him. His blood felt like hot lava through his body that was so fierce he wanted to rip up a tree and throw it over that gap to the palace. He wanted to tear down every tree in this horrible place. He wanted every Fae to leave this place. He needed it. It would be his. It was his. He and the Bunyips deserved it.
Every rock, every root, every flower, every bird. Every inch of soil was his. Those ugly tree huggers just didn’t know it yet.