“You might find that it helps the taste no end if you add plenty of sugar,” he said, stirring three heaped spoonfuls into the cup. Tom tried it again, and this time the taste was much less bitter and quite agreeable.
“Why can’t you get ordinary tea here?” he said. “I don’t understand.”
The professor placed his cup on the saucer resting on his knee and took a deep breath before beginning. “I’m afraid there is no easy way to explain the predicament you and I find ourselves in. Likewise, there is also no way to make what I am about to tell you any more believable, however after you have been here a short while you will find that what I say, as fantastic as it may seem, is also the truth.
“You are no longer in Marsham. In fact, I am afraid to say you are no longer in England. To the best of my knowledge, you are on another world entirely. I cannot say whether this planet is in our galaxy or indeed in our universe, but one thing I do know for certain is that we are nowhere near our Earth. Just take a look at the sky this evening, and you will not see a single constellation you recognise, I’m sure.
“Somehow, some force or other has opened what can only be described as a great mouth in our reality, and sucked you into this world and my barn where you landed.” He finished and picked up his teacup again, watching for Tom’s reaction. Tom sat listening in complete disbelief.
“So you’re saying if I go out I’m going to bump into a whole load of aliens or something?”
“There will certainly be a few things that will surprise you a little. For example, humans are very much a minority group in this world. However, there are many creatures who, to all outward appearances, appear human, which is why I questioned you so when I found you,” said the professor.
“I can’t believe I’m listening to this. You’ve been watching too much Star Trek. Can I use your phone to call my dad, please?” Tom asked, putting the tea plate back on the stool.
“Forgive me, I do not understand some of the words you use.”
“Now I know you’re taking the mick.”
“Let me ask you something. Where were you just a moment before you found yourself in my barn? Eh?”
Tom stared into the open door of the stove where the fire flickered around the remnants of the charred wood, trying to piece together the events that had brought him to this strange little cottage. “I was on my way home across the common...”
“Yes,” the professor prompted.
“The lights all exploded, and it became windy. And I couldn’t move.” The stress of remembering his ordeal began to show in his voice as he spoke. “There was this light.”
“A little point of light which grew larger until it engulfed your entire being. You were unable to command your own body and could not even breathe, though you were not starved of oxygen. There followed a sensation of falling through the air before landing in the barn,” the professor finished.
“How did you know?” asked Tom.
“The exact same thing happened to me too. Only I landed in a Larnis tree.
“I was at the university where I was doing research. A friend of mine had rather a fascination for the supernatural and the occult. Oh my, in those days anything to do with the occult was blasphemy, strictly a taboo subject.
“On one occasion, my friend arrived in the laboratory where I was working in a state of extreme excitement. He had apparently discovered an ancient book hidden in the archives of a church. It appeared to record the exodus of a race of people from our world. The illustration inside the leather cover was of two worlds with a path made of light linking them.
“Alexander, my friend, was ranting about this book proving his theory about mythology being founded in truth and that there really were demons and all manner of ghoulish creatures at one time roaming our very own lands.
“He eventually sat down at his desk and began translating the text. He worked all night with neither sleep nor food. When I returned the following morning, I found him pacing up and down the lab with an open book in each hand still trying to decipher the ancient writings.
“Later that day, I heard him cry out with elation as he had succeeded in translating the passage that was causing all the trouble. He began to read out what sounded like nonsensical gobbledegook, and as he did so, a strange light appeared as a dot in the centre of the room. Within seconds it began to grow, and as I attempted to investigate the cause, I found I could not move.
“I tried to call to Alexander, who was still at his desk with his back to me, unaware of what was happening, but nothing came from my mouth. I remember a wind came from nowhere and blew open the window. Papers and equipment flew from the desks and workbenches. Alexander rushed to the window to try and pull it closed, thinking that the wind was coming from outside. But it was not, it was coming from inside the room. Alexander looked around and saw me stuck in this ball of light and cried out to me. I did not hear what he said for at that moment, Alexander, the laboratory and my whole world disappeared. The next thing I knew, I was halfway up a tree with my foot in a Corbit’s nest. That was, if time here works the same as it does in our world, one hundred and ninety years ago, give or take a year or two. King George III was on the throne. Very unpopular, you know. Mad as a March hare of course.” He smiled as he reminisced.
“So you are over two hundred years old?” said Tom condescendingly.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” replied the professor. “Not that I can remember much of it, of course. Shortly after my arrival in this realm, I had rather an unfortunate experience with a spinning wheel and, er, nodded off. They couldn’t find a handsome prince willing to oblige so my little nap lasted for a hundred and forty-nine years until Prince Gerald the Tidy happened to be passing on a State visit. Charming fellow.” The old man paused again in thought then shook himself back to his dubious reality. “Anyway the point I am trying to make is that you are no longer in your world and you need to be very careful here until you are accustomed to the peculiar ways of this realm.”
“If I am in some other world, how do I get back?” asked Tom.
“I am afraid you can’t. This place is your home now, and you have to make the best of it,” said the professor sadly.
“What do you mean I can’t? If I got in, I can get out,” said Tom alarmed.
“I searched and searched for years for a way to get home and back to my beloved Edith. There were rumours and myths about opening a door to Earth, but I never found any truth in them. So you see, you are as stuck here as I am and you will never see your home or your loved ones again. It is hard, I know, but the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you will be able to get on with your new life here.”
At this Tom got up hastily putting his cup on the cluttered stool with a clatter. “You’re mad. This can’t happen. You’re trying to keep me here,” he shouted in panic. He ran out of the door and down to the yard gate. The professor came out after him calling to him to wait, but Tom went through the gate pausing for a moment to look up and down the unmade narrow lane. Nothing was familiar. The track wound down the hill with a high tangle of hedge on one side with tall trees behind and the professor’s smallholding on the other. Tom ran off down the path through the newly fallen snow, ignoring the old man shouting after him about the curfew.
After a few minutes, Tom thought he must have left the man well behind and slowed to a walk trying to make some sense of everything that had happened since he had left his friends at the edge of the common. Perhaps he had fallen and hit his head when running through the copse. All this, the strange light, falling through the barn, the professor, was all a dream. He would wake up in a minute on the edge of the common with a headache. But even as he was thinking this, the tiniest part of him, the part that daydreamed, the part that believed in the magic of Christmas kept niggling at him that the professor’s story was true. ‘No, don’t be silly!’ his common sense told him. ‘If there were a way to another world, scientists would know about it. He would have learned about it in science or geography at
school. Ha! That would make geography worth staying awake for...’
He stopped. His mouth fell open. His common sense was speechless. His wide eyes stared in amazement at the sight that met them as he rounded a bend in the road. The hedgerow and trees fell away, and a vast snow-whitened meadow lay to the right side of the track, beyond which a great pointy-topped, snow-capped mountain rose from the ground, complete with rocky foothills and a wide river winding its way through them.
As Tom surveyed the scene before him, his niggling voice all smug, he noticed a castle or fort standing proudly at the top of the foothills. From this distance, it looked as though it was actually carved out of the mountain itself with a high wall encompassing the entire magnificent building. The central structure had three crenelated towers, and there was smoke rising from the roof of a building behind the middle tower. In the centre of the big wall surrounding the structure, was a big black arch through which the river flowed. The river wound its way down through the foothills towards Tom’s general direction before disappearing from sight. ‘OK,’ he thought. ‘This isn’t Marsham.’
While Tom stood staring, all agog, at the scenery, he was blissfully unaware that slowly the branches of two rather oddly shaped trees on opposite sides of the track had started to move towards him. The strong branches silently bent towards the young man sending their vine-like tendrils rustling softly through the snow. As they began to surround Tom’s feet, he managed to compose himself after the shock of the sight before him, his mind trying to come to terms with the fact that the old man had been telling the truth, or at least that he was a very long way from home. He decided to go back to the little cottage and talk to the professor again. But, as he was about to turn, the vines tightened around his ankles and in one swift movement sprang upwards hauling him feet first off the ground.
Tom was suspended in the air thrashing about like a fish on the end of a line. He shouted for help as he tried to reach the vines, but they were too tight. The pain in his ankles was almost unbearable where the crushing creepers cut into them. He fought against them in vain until, after a few long minutes, he heard a voice from somewhere below. The voice shouted something in a different language. Tom strained to see where the voice came from and just managed to glimpse a figure in a hooded robe before a blinding white light shot from the long staff he was carrying. Instantly the vines shrivelled up and crumbled releasing him. He tried to save himself as he fell, but it all happened too quickly, and he landed hard in the middle of the narrow lane, unconscious, again.
Chapter 3
Death and the Cleric
For the second time, Tom woke to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings with a throbbing ache in his head and painfully sore ankles. This time, however, at least he found himself lying in a bed and not on a cold hard barn floor. Although better than the floor, the bed was not exactly the most comfortable on which he had ever laid his weary body. It was hard, creaky and of the single variety.
“Cor!” Tom said, trying to move his sore limbs. “You wouldn’t need a princess to find the lumps in this bed.” He looked around. “Where the heck am I now?”
From where he lay, he could see his surroundings in the dim light from the curtained window. He was in a rather bare little room with only the most basic wooden furniture. Raising himself on to one elbow, he was better able to see. Next to the bed was a small table with a half-burned candle and a handleless cup of water. Above this was a window with a rough piece of grey material hanging from a pole, pretending to be a curtain.
The walls and ceiling were just plaster with cracks here and there for decoration. In the far corner, a door of wooden planks held together with two cross pieces and a diagonal in the form of a Z did its best to cover the opening.
Tom took a sip of the water, which he assumed was left there for him and lay back on the pillow. He rubbed his aching forehead and tried to remember how he came to be here. Images began to seep into his mind. A mountain; a castle; a river; vines around his ankles; all of the above upside down; a hooded figure holding a thousand-watt halogen walking stick. Then the conversation with the old man came flooding back, this time Tom added the evidence of his own eyes and sore ankles and began to think that the old chap may not be a senile old fool after all. Could there be any truth to his tale? But if it was true, how did he get here? How was he going to get home? Could he get home? If he didn’t would his dad find the socks he’d bought him for Christmas?
Tom’s head began hurting even more now, so he decided to stop using it and closed his eyes.
He awoke to the sound of birds twittering and the even louder sound of rumbling inside. ‘Boy I’m hungry,’ he thought. ‘How long have I slept?’ Sitting up on the bed, he found that his head no longer hurt. Just to make sure he carefully turned it from left to right and back again. ‘Hmm, OK.’ He gently rolled it around. ‘Yep, a bit stiff but definitely better.’
He got off the bed and went to the window. He drew back the curtain and winced as the watery sunlight pierced the gloom, hurting his eyes. It was well into the afternoon, judging by the height of the sun forcing its way through the clouds. He wiped the condensation from the window and saw a blanket of white snow covering the unknown world outside. Outside the window, there was a small garden enclosed by a high wall. It seemed to be dedicated to growing vegetables, judging by the large green leaves sticking out of the white here and there and a wigwam of empty bean canes in one corner. Most of the wall on the right-hand side of the garden was taken up with a low thatched outbuilding with a couple of small windows and a stable door, probably used to store the produce from the garden.
Tom’s attention was drawn back inside by the sound of hushed voices coming from the next room. He quietly went to the door and opened it just enough to hear what was being said.
“I only just got there in time,” a man was saying. Tom did not recognise the voice. “The Sen-Trees had already got him, and the Guardians were on their way.”
“Just a minute Garren,” said a second voice. It was much softer than the first with a high pitched nasal quality to it. “Come-a-long in young man,” it said loudly. “Come on. That’s it. It’s not polite to listen at the door.” Tom slowly opened the door and cautiously stepped into the room. “There you are. Hello,” said the second voice. “How are you, my dear? What a terrible ordeal you’ve had.”
The voice belonged to a tubby little man, a little shorter than Tom. He stood to greet the boy revealing his entirely black attire, boots, trousers, and tunic. He had quite a jolly-looking round face with jet black eyes with laughter lines. The top of his head was completely bald, but around the sides and back, he had short grey hair. On the other side of the table at which the man was seated a moment earlier was a much taller man, clean-shaven but with long shoulder-length hair, black for the most part with grey streaks. He wore a long grey robe tied about the middle with a green cord and sandals on his feet.
The man in the long robe rose from his seat and pulled out a chair for Tom. “Come. Sit,” he said in a deep gentle voice. “You must be thirsty after your long sleep.”
Tom went to the table and sat. The man put a hand on his shoulder and smiled what appeared to be a pitying smile for a moment, then went over to a stove, the doors of which were open, its fire warming the room. He reached up to take a cup from a shelf above and filled it with steaming liquid from a copper kettle.
“Where’s the old man?” asked Tom.
“Oh, you gave poor old Albert quite a start, I’m afraid,” said the man in black.
The taller man placed the cup on the table in front of Tom and said, “He followed you as fast as he was able after first sending me a message. I had just released you from the Sen-Trees when he caught up. We had very little time, the Guardians were almost upon us. Once he saw you were safe, Albert went back to his cottage. He’s quite alright.”
“What are Sentries?” Tom asked, confused.
“Sen-Trees are trees which are in the service of His Excellency C
ount Balfour,” replied the taller man. “Balfour rules this place with fear and swift retribution for those who break his laws and regulations. He forces the inhabitants of Malgoria and the surrounding towns and villages to do his bidding. Even the trees, birds and animals are forced to obey him, and they dare not resist.
“Once, to the western side of the mountain, there stood a breath-taking forest, ancient trees and young saplings, deer and wild ponies ran there. Many rare flowers and animals lived there in peace. The trees allowed the villagers to go there and enjoy their beauty, providing they respected the wildlife and kept away from the nurseries. Then just after Balfour arrived he sent his men to hunt the animals, they cut the saplings to make their bows and chopped down trees for fire and building wood. The trees fought back with their vines and their branches. They hurt no one, just kept Balfour’s men out of the woodland.
“He soon realised the forest was of no use to him anymore, so he diverted the streams that flowed from the mountain and provided the forest with its essential water. Then, after the dry season, he went to the edge of the forest and told the trees that he was master of this land and as such the forest and all its flora and fauna was his to command. Then he made the most terrible example of the wood to show all Malgorians what would happen if they opposed him. He released a fireball from his wand and sent it into the heart of the parched woodland.
“The villagers watched and wept for three days as the forest burned. They were restrained by Balfour’s men from fighting the fire. There was nothing left. Every tree, plant and animal perished in the flames. So now those trees, animals and people who do not work directly for Balfour dare not oppose him for fear of a similar fate befalling them and their loved ones.”
Tom listened to the sadness in the man’s voice as he returned to his seat. His companion sat quietly staring at the table, his round face sad as he remembered. “It was a truly lovely place. I remember being most upset as I walked through the flames to see them safely to their rest.”
The Sorcerer's Tome Page 3