by SJB Gilmour
‘Angelina and McConnell did as they were told and delivered Molotov relatively unscathed. I told the Guild they should have let McConnell have her for breakfast or at least let Angelina have her, but they probably knew about my little wager and wouldn’t have a bar of it. Instead, that evil snake Mautallius proposed they appeal to the rock giant, Kevin, to hold her under that mountain of his.
‘Gatekeeper Guntex wasn’t too happy about it, but then it was his job to protect The Guild, so I assume he made a show of interest just out of form.’
James glanced Benjamin. ‘Sorry about that, McConnell,’ he apologised with an embarrassed wince. ‘You weren’t very popular back then, you know.’
Benjamin shook his head, making his ears flap back and forth. ‘Never mind that. I’ve got a thick hide. Read on.’
James nodded and looked back at his diary.
‘Mautallius held the Guild in thrall. So old Molotov, Gint and Grimm got stuck under Kevin’s mountain. Luckily, that was the last thing Mautallius managed to do. A few days after that, the crafty little snake suffered quite a setback. A clever young Grey Coat werewolf called Mikolaj Kopernik had some absurd idea about helping the mortals understand their universe. None of us thought much about it. If he wanted to try to help them, then that was all well and good. But Mautallius took one look at him and announced he should be killed. He claimed if Kopernik was allowed to live, his offspring would bring us all undone.
James interrupted his tome, looking at Sarah. ‘That’s your great, great, great…’ He paused and counted on his fingers, ‘Oh, chock it. There’s about five or six greats in there somewhere. He’s one of your great grandfathers.’
Sarah nodded. ‘I know,’ she said quietly. Then she felt a bit puzzled. ‘Only five or six?’
Uncle Robert wriggled off the couch and padded over to her, his nails clicking on the floor. ‘Human generations are about twenty-five years, but werewolves breed much more slowly. Look at ‘Berta and me. We’ve been together for about a century…’
‘One hundred and twenty-two years, four months and six days,’ Roberta corrected him.
‘There you go,’ Robert went on. ‘And we’ve not had a litter yet.’
‘And,’ stressed Aunt Roberta, ‘with life-spans as long as ours, those silly concerns humans have about inbreeding don’t really apply. Rufus is one of your great grandfathers seven generations back, he’s also one of your grandfathers several generations before that.’
Sarah blinked. ‘Huh?’ Then Wolfenvald showed her the images of her lineage within her mind and it made sense, sort of.
James waved at his tome.
‘Mautallius claimed to have read a prophecy none of the rest of us had ever seen. Something about One of Gold and One of Silver and some sort of apocalypse. He kept carrying on about the Forces of Chaos. What guff. Chaos was the first of the Hellenic gods to hang up His wings. Now they’re all sitting around Mount Olympos waiting for whatever it they’re waiting for, to actually happen. To cut it short, I didn’t believe him.
‘I drilled The Nonagon’s Department of Nasty Predictions but they couldn’t find anything. They did however point out that Mautallius was probably going to feature in something particularly nasty, sometime, somewhere. Bah. Departmental thinking is exactly what it says: a departure from the rational to the mental…’
Angela chuckled. Benjamin obviously echoed the sentiment. ‘Just what I keep saying,’ he growled, wagging his tail.
James nodded and the tome continued to read.
‘So, I advised Kopernik to challenge him. I was surprised, actually. Werewolves are great at giving advice but they don’t often take it. Impulsive buggers, werewolves, but anyone with the cahones to stand up to Mautallius gets my vote. Kopernik didn’t actually hurt him very badly, but he certainly beat him fair and square. Then he took off, saying he wanted to prove to the mortals that the world is round.
‘Mautallius didn’t stick around either. Being beaten was too much, so he marched off in a huff, declaring all sorts of terrible things would happen to us all.
‘Duh. Of course terrible things are going to happen to us all. I don’t know many sorcerers who have died of old age. Anyway, Mautallius scarpered and I, for one, am glad he’s gone. A divided, bickering Guild is better than one under the control of a twisted megalomaniac like him. They offered me a position again. I must admit to taking more pleasure in knocking them back than actually having received an invitation.’
James put the diary back on the shelf. ‘Well, there you have it,’ he told the group. ‘It was that crafty old chocker Mautallius who suggested putting Miranda under that mountain.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘And I guess that’s why he’s got it in for you. You could be the One of Gold he mentioned.’ He added to his list on the blackboard. ‘Mautallius has a prophecy too. If he’s involved, we can’t discount it.’ He paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘Mautallius has never been a friend of the werewolves. If you’re looking for allies, why don’t you recruit some of them? Are you sure you don’t want to hire a quickling assassin?’
‘All in good time,’ Benjamin promised.
‘But you didn’t say why he did it,’ objected Mel. ‘Knowing whose idea it was isn’t that useful, is it?’
‘Oh, yes it is,’ Benjamin growled. He rose and began pacing. ‘Mautallius never did anything without a good reason. All he ever wanted was power. He knew once he’d been humiliated in front of the Guild, he’d lose their faith and could never control them. It makes sense. There are only two Guild Council members who remain from his time. Marzdane and his crony, Moira Cromwell.’
James nodded. ‘Yes, those two were always the first to support Mautallius in any of his schemes. He didn’t need to use much charm to get them to follow him. Cromwell was usually trying to live up to her uncle, Oliver Cromwell Senior’s reputation. Naturally, she was attracted to anyone powerful. She’d change allegiances in a second if it suited her. Marzdane is a different bird altogether. He used to defer to Mautallius if the old snake so much as sniffed at him. Chocking coward. Carried on with all sorts of macho guff but still followed Mautallius around like a puppy.’
‘How did Mautallius get the others to follow him?’ Sarah asked the bald Master of Flora.
‘He was always particularly gifted when it came to using spells of suggestion. He could make the idea of walking through fire sound as attractive as eating ice cream.’
‘You didn’t seem to be affected,’ Angela observed.
James tapped his head. ‘Willpower,’ he told her. ‘All it takes is willpower. That’s why I’m such a good botanist. It takes a great deal of willpower to resist the charms emitted by some of my plants. I’m one of only half a dozen people in the trade who can come face-to-face with a eucalyptus horribillus and live. Those things are really nasty and pretty hard to resist. Over the last few centuries, I must have lost half a dozen faeries to the one outside this very office. It just gobbles them up without even blinking.’ He pointed out the office window to a small, grey-leafed gum tree.
‘Watch this.’ He clicked his fingers. Instantly, he appeared outside perhaps about three metres from the innocent-looking tree.
Sarah and the others rushed to the window to peer outside. James stepped towards the tree carefully, one foot at a time. As he got closer, the tree began to rustle. Then it gave a soft, low-pitched croon.
‘Come,’ the tree called sweetly and softly. ‘Come closer!’
Sarah shook her head and pulled her face away from the window. Her friends, however, did not. Even Benjamin’s steel-grey eyes glazed over at the deliciously tempting sound of the tree.
Confident that she could resist the tree, Sarah changed into her wolf form and leaped through the open window. She landed nimbly on the grass and padded up to stand beside James.
He looked at her in alarm. ‘Get away from here, child! This chocking thing is dangerous!’
‘It’s alright,’ Sarah replied calmly in the manner of wolves. ‘It doesn’t bother me.
I was just curious. ‘I’ve never heard a plant ask me to do anything before.’
James seemed startled. ‘You can understand it?’
‘What’s so strange about that?’ Sarah nodded back at the others. ‘They can hear it too.’
James did a double-take. ‘All they can hear is a nice tone and feel an almost overwhelming urge to come to the tree. I doubt they can understand the words at all.’
‘What happens if you get too close to it?’ She wagged her tail brazenly. ‘Those leaves look just like ordinary gum leaves.’
James shook his head. ‘Remind me to ask you about just this ability of yours to understand plants,’ he told her. ‘You’re right,’ he said, nodding at the strange tree before them. ‘The leaves are normal. It’s the trunk you have to look out for. Watch what happens when I get just a bit closer.’
He stepped towards the tree. Its branches opened out wide to allow him a clear path to the trunk. Then, to Sarah’s absolute horror, the trunk split open from about half a metre from the ground to nearly a metre above her head. It opened wide to reveal a hideous gaping maw lined with hundreds of dripping fangs and a long forked tongue. The evil-looking tongue lashed at James viciously. He swatted it aside with contempt and stepped back. The tree howled at the loss of its prey and the crooning became an angry roar that Sarah could clearly understand to be a string of quite unpleasant and most insulting profanities.
Then, James clicked his fingers again and both he and Sarah appeared back in his office. The others, who had managed to regain their senses once the crooning had stopped, had returned to their seats in awe. They regarded Sarah with newfound respect. Benjamin especially, beamed proudly at his niece.
‘Good thing it’s you tracking down that old snake,’ said James. ‘Only someone with the sheer nerve to walk right up to a eucalyptus horribillus and ignore its voice would stand a chance against old Mautallius.’ He grinned at Sarah. ‘If you get tired of adventuring, my girl, you’d make an excellent botanist.’ He looked at the others with surprise. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she could understand plants?’
Benjamin, Roberta and Robert all made surprised whining sounds.
‘None of us knew,’ said Angela. She looked at Sarah curiously. All the attention made Sarah feel very embarrassed. She whined and sat with her tail thumping the ground nervously.
‘We’ll explore this new talent of our young Golden Mane later,’ Angela promised. Then she looked back at James. ‘Back to the point, this stranger who purchased all your nutsmeg. Could it have been Mautallius?’
James scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Could’ve been. I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Mary took the order. Then Minnie, my security pixie, sent Castor and Pollux to handle the delivery and payment.’ He grinned proudly. ‘Ogres might be dumb, but they’re great collectors.’
‘You trust them with all the details?’ Roberta asked him.
James shook his head. ‘It’s all coded. Java is for a kilo of Nutsmeg smuggled in a tonne of coffee. Joe is for Strangleweed. Brazil is for Wolfsbane…’ he looked at Roberta who was wearing a very disapproving expression. ‘What?’ he asked mildly. ‘You now I’m a spice lord. So what? You’ve got me under a behaviour curfew so there’s no need to be so chocking superior. I can’t even go next door to my own chocolating pub!’
‘Did you keep a record of the sale?’
Master James nodded, rose from the couch and stuck his head out through the door. ‘Kylie!’ he bellowed. ‘Tell Mary to fly in here, would you? Tell her to bring her ledger!’
Moments later, there was a loud thump as something hit the outside of the door. Then Mary poked her head nervously through the doorway. Her huge glasses were crooked.
‘Oh, hello, Master Isaacs!’ she said brightly. ‘You called for me?’
‘Yes, Mary,’ replied James. ‘Come in, dear. Did you bring your ledger?’
Mary nodded so hard her glasses almost fell off. She fluttered into the room carrying a huge leather-bound tome. When she saw the assembled group all staring at her she quivered.
‘Oops…’ she murmured nervously. ‘Is something wrong, Master James?’
‘Just a little matter that needs clarifying, that’s all,’ James reassured the nervous little faerie. ‘We need to know who purchased all that Java about five or six years ago. He didn’t happen to sign for it, did he?’
Mary gave a nervous squawk and hurriedly opened the massive tome she was struggling to carry. ‘Yes!’ she announced. ‘Here it is. Five and a half years ago, the man who bought the coffee signed his name Mautallius.’
James looked meaningfully at Benjamin. ‘Thank you, Mary,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the Silver Shroud. ‘As always, you’ve been a great help. You can go now,’ he told her.
‘Not just yet,’ Angela said, holding up one hand to stop the nervous faerie. ‘Mary, he couldn’t have carried ten tonnes of coffee by himself. Did he ask you to deliver it somewhere?’
‘Oh yes, Miss Harding!’ Mary told her confidently, nodding so hard her crooked glasses nearly fell off her nose again. ‘It’s all here.’ She peered at the tiny script. ‘Here we go!’ she told them triumphantly. ‘Mister Mautallius demanded that I have the shipment delivered care of an account at Troll Mountain.’ She paused and continued to read. Then she flipped through several pages to a reference list. ‘The main signatory to the account is Thrag, the Chief Troll.’
James smacked his head in chagrin. ‘Chock it,’ he muttered. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have let Thrag open an account.’
‘Why did you?’ Benjamin asked him. ‘The trolls lost their Guild Guard contract for a reason, remember. They’re troublemakers.’
‘Hey,’ James protested mildly, spreading his hands out. ‘Business is business. Just because The Guild declares someone renegade doesn’t mean much, you know. The trolls buy a lot of buckwheat and nuts. If it’s got a high-magnesium count, they eat it. Their gnangs are as good as anyone else’s.’ He then looked at Mary sourly. ‘Hope you charged Mautallius for the freight,’ he growled.
Mary grinned shrewdly. ‘Oh yes, Master Isaacs. I remember he was so rude, I charged him double and he didn’t even complain.’
‘What was the total you charged him?’ James asked, genuinely curious.
Mary looked back at her ledger. ‘Umm…,’ she said, reading down through her list of numbers and addresses. ‘It was a huge shipment… I remember wondering just what he was going to do with all that coffee… Here we go. He paid cash. The exchange rate was up at the time, so I insisted he pay in hammers. Seventy-five thousand hammers.’ She beamed at James. ‘We made quite a good deal there too,’ she told him proudly. ‘The next week, the bottom fell out of the pexo and those hammers tripled in value. If we’d gone through the exchange, it would have cost us half a point on the gross.’
‘Thank you, Mary,’ Angela said gently to the nervous little faerie. ‘Dear, could you flick back to the first entry in that ledger? What was the date?’
Mary nodded and shut the enormous tome then opened the cover to the first page. ‘Here we are. July 30, Ten Fourteen.’
Sarah looked at James. ‘Is that when Rufus disappeared?’ she asked in a small voice.
James made a face. ‘It was about then, yes.’
‘So Rufus has been trapped for nearly a thousand years…’ Sarah couldn’t go on. Even the six years her parents had been missing seemed a lifetime.
Benjamin nudged her. ‘We know when we last saw Rufus, Sarah. We don’t know how long he’s been trapped. He could have been running about on his own for a very long time before whatever it is caught him.’
Even her dearest Uncle Benjamin wasn’t able to make Sarah feel better right then. A thousand years! Sarah felt herself begin to shake.
‘Master Isaacs, Sir, is there anything else I can do for you?’ Mary asked him.
James shook his head. ‘No thanks, Mary,’ he told her without looking away from the board.
Mary curtseyed and struggled to keep her balance with t
he heavy tome in her hands. She bowed again and fluttered out the door. The others could clearly hear her singing to herself, interrupted by the occasional thump as she bounced into walls and doors down the corridor.
‘That’s a lot of money to pay for coffee,’ Roberta observed casually. ‘You’re lucky faeries don’t often go to the supermarket.’
James waited till the faerie was out of earshot. He then looked over at Benjamin. ‘I think we might have an answer here,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Benjamin agreed. ‘It’s time we went and had a long-overdue chat with Kevin.’
‘Never mind Kevin,’ said James. ‘I want to have a few words with Thrag. That troll still owes me money from over a decade ago. That account should have been settled before the trolls bought more produce from me.’ He frowned. ‘Castor and Pollux should have collected that debt. Mautallius probably charmed ‘em.’ His eyes widened with outrage. ‘That chocolating chocker ripped me off! Oh, I’m mad now,’ he fumed. ‘Nobody rips me off! I’ll make him sorry I have to collect the debt myself!’
Chapter Thirteen
The group emerged from James’ elevator into a small oasis in a desert. The heat was dry and searing.
‘This is awful!’ Mel complained. ‘Where are we?’
‘We’re in the Afar Depression, Melanie,’ Angela supplied. ‘Several dozen metres below sea-level, I believe.’ She waved into the hazy distance. ‘And that way, is Erta Ale, the volcano I mentioned. Once we get past that, we’ll be onwards to Troll Mountain.’
‘Another volcano?’ Ronny complained.
James slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, mate,’ he told the scowling gnome. ‘This one’s smelly, but there’s no Fire Giant to worry about. Just those chocking grass-eating baboons.’
‘Baboons?’ Sarah demanded.
James nodded and peered over her shoulder at her satchel. ‘Don’t tell your bookwyrm buddy but there are also a lot of golden eagles about.’
‘And the local wolves,’ Roberta supplied. ‘They’re pleasant enough so long as they don’t think we’re hunting their gazelles.’ She looked at Sarah seriously. ‘If you want to hunt anything, Sarah, stick to rabbits. It’s not best to upset the locals.’