by SJB Gilmour
‘I also remember blood,’ he told them bitterly. ‘Lots of blood. Then the next thing I remember was waking up on the forest floor, staring up at the eyes of a wolf. I recognised her! She was the same she-wolf I’d rescued all those years before. Then, to my amazement, I heard her voice inside my mind.
‘She told me what had happened. The monster pursuing her had once been an ordinary sorcerer. Then he had become obsessed with wiping out all werewolves. The bolt he fired at her was an enchanted weapon. It was designed to kill her and her alone. When it hit me, the power it took to create it went to me. Instead of killing me, it made me very powerful. Unfortunately, the demon, having lost the body of the sorcerer, possessed me instead. The werewolf knew what she had to do. She sacrificed her own powers to rid me of the demon. Then she showed me what else I had done.’
Benjamin hung his head in his hands for a moment. When he looked back up, his eyes were red and his face was flushed. Though no tears fell down his cheeks, it was obvious this was a very painful subject for him.
‘Firenza was dead,’ he told them simply. ‘The demon within me had torn her apart. Then, I sort of lost it for a while. I hunted down just about every associate the sorcerer ever had. I killed his family. I killed his friends. I killed the ones who made his weapons.’ He looked up at Angela. ‘Then I got a lucky break. An Amazon Lieutenant, one of their best, was sent to either talk sense into me or kill me, whichever came first.’
Mel was looking at her aunt and then back to Benjamin. ‘What about the curse? How could you kill him?’
Angela smiled sadly. ‘I tried,’ she admitted. Then she opened her vest to show a small round scar next to her left breast. Whatever made that scar it would have gone straight through her chest into her heart. ‘One silver-tipped arrow.’ Then she closed her vest again.
‘But you’re still alive!’ Sarah blurted.
Angela nodded. ‘All that lovely Troy blood,’ she replied. ‘And a lot of moonlight.’ Then she shrugged. ‘It earned me a promotion.’
Benjamin nodded. ‘It was actually quite lucky. When I saw what the curse of the Silver Shroud could do, I had to abandon my quest for blood and heal her. By the time she was better, I’d lost the urge to kill, but I still had the grief.’
Sarah leaned forward and held her uncle’s hands. ‘It wasn’t your fault!’ she exclaimed. ‘You didn’t kill Firenza. The demon did!’
He nodded. ‘I know that, Sarah. But, there’s an interesting thing about demons. They leave their mark wherever they go. Even though the demon is no longer within me, I can still feel its rage. There are times when I am very angry or in battle that I remember that rage and I have to fight hard to keep it from consuming me.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘You’ve seen my property at Gembrook,’ he reminded her.
Sarah nodded.
‘And you know the little creek that runs down by the bottom of it? Tomahawk Creek?’
Again, Sarah nodded.
Benjamin smiled sadly. ‘I bought that property the day I laid eyes on that creek,’ he explained. ‘It’s very much like the one near where I lost Firenza.’
Sarah put her hand on her uncle’s knee. ‘Is that really why you live up there all alone?’ she asked, her voice very near to cracking from holding back a sob.
Benjamin shrugged and his steel-grey eyes took on a distant look. ‘Maybe,’ he said softly, gazing out into the distance. ‘Anyway, that’s enough old history for now,’ he said, giving his head a shake and forcing himself to smile again. He rose and stretched, then turned back to Sarah. ‘The touch of a demon can’t kill me, but it can knock me about a bit,’ he told them, returning to the original subject.
Sarah thought this was quite an understatement but held her tongue.
He caught her sceptical look. ‘Well, being a former mortal, having been wounded by a demon always makes me more vulnerable to further attacks, but the power within me is usually more than sufficient to keep me alive.’
‘Why didn’t it affect me?’ Sarah demanded.
Benjamin smiled and tousled her hair. ‘Most werewolves are very resistant to demons, and you’re a Golden Mane, Sarah. A demon couldn’t hurt you in a pink fit. That’s possibly why the elemental hex didn’t react to it.’
‘Then why did you push me out of the way?’ Sarah demanded with more heat than she expected.
Benjamin shrugged. ‘Habit, I guess,’ he told her.
Mel was looking confused. ‘I don’t understand. If that sorcerer who was possessed by the demon was hunting the werewolf, how come she didn’t just go back to Wolfenvald?’
Benjamin’s eyes were pained. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I wondered that for a long time, myself. The only reason I could think of was that she wanted me, or someone like me, to become a Silver Shroud to kill the demon.’
‘Why didn’t she just go to a necromancer?’ Mel pressed.
Benjamin gave her a wry smile. ‘There weren’t that many of them around in those days, Mel. Those few that did exist were all cloistered around Conundrum Gate or Lentekhi.’
Then he slumped down on his bucket. Angela pressed her hand against his forehead. She looked up across the oasis at her cousin James. The eccentric botanist was poking about the charred remains of the palm trees, muttering angrily to himself about the stupidity of demons.
‘We’re going to need some shelter, James,’ she reminded him. ‘Are you going to fix up this bomb-site soon?’
James nodded and strode over to Mel. She looked up at the bald Master of Flora nervously.
‘Where is that firedrake of yours?’ he demanded. ‘I need what he’s bringing!’
Mel nodded in silence and closed her eyes. She concentrated very hard for a moment or two then she opened her eyes.
‘He’s coming now,’ she reported. ‘He’s been chatting with Mary.’
James shook his head disgustedly. ‘That chocking faerie,’ he muttered. ‘Sometimes I think I ought to just feed her to my plants.’
Mel flared. ‘You be nice to her, you big bully!’ she admonished the bald sorcerer. ‘She was very nice to us and she bends over backwards to help you! You should be grateful!’
‘True,’ he admitted. ‘And I am grateful, believe me. But,’ he added holding one finger in the air. ‘That faerie has cost me more than you know.’ He shuddered. ‘I put up with her mistakes for three hundred years before I realised she was short-sighted. Her ledger was a mess.’ He chortled.
‘Speaking of mistakes, cousin,’ Angela said to him coolly, ‘wouldn’t you say it was a blunder to let Thrag have access to all that nutsmeg?’
James shook his head. ‘Not really. The mistake I made was not collecting the account myself.’
Just then, Jimbo reappeared. He was carrying a new leather satchel in his talons. He flew around the burned-out campsite once then dumped the satchel at Master Isaacs’ feet and landed on his shoulder.
‘Okay!’ the firedrake declared. ‘Here’s your stuff. Now, where are my fire beans?’
James smiled and picked up the satchel. He reached inside and withdrew more satchels to replace those lost in the fire. When he had distributed the satchels, he fished out a small steel bucket, sealed with a bright red lid, and handed it to Mel.
‘Don’t let him eat them all at once,’ he advised her. ‘Those beans pack a kick, and he’s still a juvenile. If there were an adult dragon around, I’d probably get roasted for letting him have any at all.’
Jimbo flew around and around her, begging her for his beans. Mel giggled and fished in her own satchel. After a few moments, she pulled out two thick padded gloves, a large pair of barbeque tongs and a large metal scoop.
She put the gloves on and took the lid off the bucket. A blast of heat came from the bucket as she removed the lid. Inside were hundreds of bright red beans. Mel carefully scooped a dozen or so. Then she dumped the glowing red beans on the sand. Jimbo gave an ecstatic hoot and pounced on them. He gobbled them up dreamily, relishing their fiery heat.
Then he sat ba
ck, put one claw in front of his mouth and burped delicately. He craned his long reptile neck to look down at his belly, which was rumbling very loudly. He gave his belly a few gentle pats. All sorts of pops and gurgles were coming from the tiny dragon. Then he tilted his head back.
‘Uh, oh!’ warned Mel, backing away. The others did the same.
Jimbo’s eyes whirled with joy and he opened his mouth and belched a jet of flame nearly five metres into the air. The little firedrake then launched himself into the air, shooting out bursts of fire with glee.
‘That should keep him going for quite a while,’ James observed. He clapped his hands together and looked about the ashes of the campsite. ‘Right!’ he announced. ‘Before we rebuild the camp, I want everyone out of the way. I’ve got to fix this place up!’
He shooed everyone out onto the sand and dug around in his satchel. After a moment or two, he withdrew a small leather pouch. He reached inside and took out a handful of bright green powder and held it in his hands. He glared at the powder then threw it up into the air.
‘Horticus!’ he commanded then bolted away from the burned-out oasis before any of the powder could settle on him.
‘A little rain should do the trick!’ he declared. ‘Angela, I think you’d better do it rather than young Mel here,’ he suggested teasingly. ‘We need water, not oil.’
Angela threw him a dimply smile and stepped in front of the group. She held her hands wide and began chanting a long spell.
‘Aquaslick!’ she shouted and thrust her hands out towards the sky above the oasis.
A small thundercloud appeared over the oasis and it began to rain. The rain poured down, soaking every part of the oasis and stopping just a few feet out onto the sand. Jimbo hooted and swooped up through the rain, shrieking in joy. Every time a tiny bolt of lightning shot from the miniature thundercloud, he hooted and shot a burst of fire back at it.
‘Bloody clown,’ Mel chuckled in mock disgust.
After perhaps fifteen minutes or so, James turned to his cousin and said, ‘That should do it, thank you Angela.’
Angela waved one hand at the cloud. ‘That’ll do,’ she told it. ‘Haltus!’
The rain stopped and the cloud vanished.
‘Now what?’ Sarah asked.
‘We wait,’ replied James, his eyes fixed on the oasis. Sure enough, the powder he had thrown into the air, which had then been washed down into the sand, started to work. The ground rumbled and then dozens of new palm trees burst from the ashes and sand. Ferns and banana trees shot up in clumps, soon joined by coconut palms and mango trees.
‘Show-off!’ Angela chided her cousin.
‘Wow,’ breathed Sarah. ‘What was that stuff?’
James grinned proudly. ‘Instant Garden,’ he replied. ‘Just add water!’
Chapter Fourteen
The group stayed at the oasis for two more days while Benjamin recovered. At Angela’s insistence, James and Ronny returned to Sundew Farms for fresh supplies and equipment. When James arrived back at the oasis, his nose was freshly stuffed with tissues and he smelled quite strongly of freshly cut grass.
‘Been to your pub, have you?’ Roberta asked him cheekily.
‘Oh, shut up, flea-bag,’ James replied good-naturedly.
Sarah smiled to herself. Her new friends and family were getting along very well. It gave her a sense of belonging she’d not had before.
‘Such is the nature of a wolf’s pack,’ the voices of Wolfenvald observed within her mind. This new sensation had Sarah feeling strangely at peace, despite being out in the middle of one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. True, the searing heat of the daytime sun left them with little choice but to hunker down in their tents, but the nights were cool and clear and the mornings were sweet and fresh.
On the second night, she padded up to sit high up in the dunes above the oasis to stare at the slowly growing moon. She realised the desert was far from lifeless. Small desert mice hopped and scampered about nervously, searching for food. Sand-dwelling spiders and other insects scurried here and there.
She looked up and her sharp eyes spied an enormous golden eagle casually gliding towards her. The eagle swept in and landed right before Sarah as she sat with her head on her paws, gazing up at the moon.
‘Werewolf,’ the enormous raptor remarked, greeting her as one warrior would do greet another.
Sarah wagged her tail and responded in kind. ‘Raptor,’ she replied calmly. Nathan had been right. This bird had a wingspan of nearly two and a half metres and he was incredibly well muscled. His talons looked strong enough to wrench a small tree out of the ground. Despite the eagle’s size, Sarah was not scared at all.
‘You and your friends are going to try to take back Troll Mountain, aren’t you?’
‘How did you know that?’ Sarah asked, curiously.
‘Why else would a Golden Mane come here?’ the eagle asked back. Then he looked up and listened intently. ‘I must go. I’m hungry and tonight’s a great night for hunting.’ He spread his wings and launched into the air. ‘Don’t use the lower cave!’ the eagle screeched to her as it flew off. ‘That one’s a trap!’
Sarah watched the eagle fly away into the desert night. The stillness of the air and the light of the moon and stars were very relaxing. When she returned to the oasis, everyone was asleep. She padded into the tent she shared with Mel. Her friend was asleep with Jimbo curled up beside her. Sarah curled up on top of her sleeping bag, laid her tail over her nose and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, Sarah woke early and quickly dressed in more of the strange, loose-fitting clothes. Instead of being dark-coloured, these were cool white cotton and silk. She walked outside her tent and into the fresh morning air. Ronny was also up early, busily preparing breakfast for the group. Master Isaacs and Nathan were also early risers. Benjamin, Angela, Robert, Roberta and Mel had not yet appeared.
James was seated under the large flat leaves of a banana tree, calmly watching Ronny work. The oddly matched pair was deep in discussion.
‘I think,’ Ronny was saying as he prepared breakfast, ‘therefore I am. I can communicate, thus demonstrating my awareness. An ordinary plant doesn’t have an awareness. As a consequence, it can’t communicate. Your precious carnivorous plants are different. They’re enchanted. Many of them are quite sentient. I’m talking about mortal plants. Their responses are automatic according to nature and their genetic code. Mendel proved that.’
James scoffed at him. ‘Don’t throw that old existential bull-chock at me Ronald! You’re too smart for any of that nonsense. Mendel didn’t prove anything. He fudged his results, the fool. Why that man spent so many years mucking about with peas is beyond me. The philosophers you’re so fond of couldn’t see beyond their own tiny minds. Most human philosophers of the last few centuries have been morons. There’s no way they’d have been able to sense an awareness in anything other than themselves.’ He calmly watched Ronny’s face get redder and redder. ‘It doesn’t just apply to plants either. Take that elevator,’ he pointed at the twisted ruins of the elevator, now covered in vines and moss. ‘It used to think, and it wasn’t alive. According to you it was just an object.’
Ronny took a deep breath and diplomatically chose to ignore the eccentric Master of Flora’s sweeping statements about the mortal philosophers. He nodded at the remnants of the elevator. ‘That thing was programmed by its manufacturers. It doesn’t count. It might as well be dirt and water like a golem.’
He then looked up and saw Sarah. ‘Oh! Hello, Miss Sarah. Master Isaacs here and I were just having a most interesting discussion. Would you care to join us?’
‘What’s it about?’ she asked them politely, not quite really sure what they were on about.
‘It’s an old philosophical argument, Sarah,’ James explained. ‘We’re discussing whether or not plants and other so-called non-sentient beings actually think. I say they can. Your lumpy little friend here is arguing for the negative.’
Sarah pondered this for a moment then she turned to Ronny. ‘I’m sorry, Ronald,’ she told the gnome. ‘But he’s right and you’re wrong.’
James chortled. ‘Black and white!’ he laughed.
‘What?’ Ronny exclaimed. He placed his fists on his hips in indignation. ‘Just like that? There’s no fun in that! This argument’s supposed to go on for days… Weeks!’
Sarah shrugged. ‘The trees in Wolfenvald, Russia and Castlerigg all talked to me,’ she said. ‘Master James is right. A few months ago if anyone had told me all this was going to happen, I’d have thought they were mental. If trees can talk, so can other plants, can’t they?’ Sarah remembered her experience with James’ eucalyptus horribillus. ‘Remember that tree outside James’s office?’ she asked the chagrined gnome. ‘That tree tried to trap me then got mad when it couldn’t. It might not have said anything to you, but I heard it very clearly. It’s enchanted, so I guess its voice was louder, but ordinary trees have talked to me too. To do that you’ve got to have some sort of personality, don’t you?’
James laughed uproariously. His guffaws drew several angry mutterings from the tents where everyone else had still been asleep. He banged the table loudly.
‘See!’ he crowed to Ronald. ‘I’m right. And you’re wrong! What a wonderful girl this is!’
Ronny wasn’t about to give up. ‘No,’ he disagreed. ‘The trees in the forest had a collective consciousness. They were like a hive of bees or an ants’ nest. By themselves, they’re just wood.’
Sarah smiled and patted Ronny on the shoulder. ‘You said it yourself,’ she told him sweetly. ‘They have a hive mind. That would mean that together, they are much smarter than by themselves, but single trees must have some intelligence to add together. You can’t add two bits of nothing together to get something, can you?’