by Michael Kerr
“I need to rest,” Tommy said after they had spent hours battling through the thick jungle. The humid heat was draining the strength from them, and sweat soaked their clothes, hair and skin. Even Gorf was suffering. He was used to the dry heat of the desert. His fur was matted and dripping, and he was panting like a hot, thirsty dog.
Sitting against one of the many fallen tree trunks, they drank the last of the tepid water they had left.
“I’d love to be diving into the swimming pool at Grassington,” Ben said.
“And I wish I had a large glass full of chilled Coca-Cola with ice cubes clinking in it,” Sam said.
“Shuddup,” Tommy said. “It only makes it worse, thinking about stuff we can’t have”
“What’s that?” Pook said, pointing his paw towards a grey object that tilted down from the green canopy high above them.
“It looks like a plane’s wing,” Tommy said. “But it can’t be.”
They got up and walked to a spot directly beneath it.
“It is a plane,” Ben said. “Look between those branches, you can see crumpled propeller blades.”
“What is a plane?” Gorf asked.
“A flying machine,” Tommy said. “And I can see part of the fuselage with a star in a circle on the side of it. It’s an old American fighter plane.”
“But how could it wind up in this world?” Sam asked.
“Same as we did,” Tommy said as his voice became a little high and loud, due to the fact that he was getting excited. “It must have come through a portal. Maybe that explains the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships go missing.”
“Do you think that the crew survived?” Ben asked.
Tommy shrugged. “Even if they had, that’s a World War Two plane. It looks like a Mustang. So it’s probably been here for the best part of seventy years. They’d be ancient now.”
“In our world they would,” Sam said. “Time doesn’t pass the same here.”
“We’ve got to check it out,” Tommy said. “Climb up and take a look, Pook.”
“ ‘Scuse me? I thought I just heard you say: ‘We’ve got to check it out’,” Pook said.
“That’s right. You’re a bear, and bears are good climbers.”
“Not this one. Have you forgotten something, Tommy? I was a teddy bear. Not a black bear, or a grizzly bear, or a polar bear, or a circus bear that does tricks. If you want to have a look in some wreck up a tree, then be my guest. If I climbed that high I’d get a nosebleed.”
Gorf took the coiled rope from his bag, tied one end to an arrow and shot the arrow up and over a thick branch next to the plane. When the arrow fell back to the ground, they had a means to reach the canopy.
“There,” Gorf said. “I’ll haul you up, Tommy. But make it quick. We need to be on our way.”
Not wanting to appear scared, and eager to investigate the old plane, Tommy looped one end of the rope around his chest and tied it.
Hand over hand, Gorf winched Tommy up higher and higher, until he was next to the front of the rusted plane.
The pilot was still strapped into his seat in the cockpit. Or what was left of him was. The grinning skull still wore a leather flying cap and goggles, and behind him was another skeleton, that Tommy rightly assumed to have been the navigator.
Reaching into the open cockpit, Tommy pulled down the zip of the dead pilot’s rotting jacket, grasped the identity-discs – that were commonly known as dog tags – from around the neck, and pulled hard to snap the thin rusted chain they were attached to. The skull became detached, rolled forward, and Tommy jerked backwards. The sudden movement caused the plane to shift. At first it only slipped forward an inch or two. But then its weight and the pull of gravity took over. With a screeching of metal and the crack of tree branches, the aircraft plunged down to make a final landing on the forest floor.
Ben, Sam and Pook ran for their lives, leaving Gorf holding the rope. He took several steps backwards and dodged behind a tree, but kept hold of the lifeline, from which Tommy was swinging from high above him.
As the wreckage settled, Gorf lowered Tommy to the ground.
“You were supposed to be looking, not touching,” Sam said, appearing from behind the mangled plane.
“I thought we should find out who was on board, so that we can let their families know what happened to them,” Tommy said. “I was just getting their dog tags.”
“Bad idea, Tommy,” Ben said. “If we get back, which is highly unlikely, and you found out where their descendants lived, what would you do? Tell them that while on an adventure in a parallel universe you found skeletons in a plane?”
“It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Well it isn’t. All you would do is cause a lot of upset. It’s not as if you could take them to the crash site. We can’t ever tell anyone about Weirdworld, because they wouldn’t believe us. We’d all be locked up in a loony bin.”
“Yeah, okay, Ben. You’ve made your point. Let’s check the plane out, bury the...the crew, and say a prayer or something.”
There was nothing of any use to salvage from the plane. So many years in a tropical rain forest had ruined anything that might have been. But they did find the two flyers’ wallets, and in them were faded, damp photographs showing the men as they had looked. The pilot, whose name had been Jack Morris, was pictured with a woman and a little girl. And the navigator, Ed Nolan, was standing next to a good-looking blonde woman. Tommy felt sad. Photos were frozen moments in time. He found a penknife among the wreckage of the cockpit and slipped it into his pocket. It was rusty, but had USAF stamped on it, which he knew stood for United States Air Force.
Using pieces of metal – that had broken off the plane’s wings – as shovels, they scooped out shallow graves and placed the two skeletons side by side, then covered them up and stood around in a circle.
No one knew what to say. It was Sam who finally said something. “We didn’t know you, Mr. Morris and Mr. Nolan. But at least someone now knows what happened to you, and where you are. If we get back home, we’ll send your identity tags and your photographs to the Air Force in America, and let them decide how to honour your memory. Rest in peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” Tommy and Ben said.
“What does amen mean?” Gorf asked.
“It means ‘so be it’,” Tommy said.
“I didn’t know that,” Ben said. “Don’t tell me, you read it somewhere.”
“Of course I did. How else do you learn anything, if you don’t read?”
“On the ‘net.”
“You don’t learn anything worthwhile on the internet, Ben. You just look up stuff on music and sport.”
“It’s still learning. All you know are boring facts about stuff nobody cares about.”
“Enough, you two,” Gorf said. “I think we should go. We need to find fresh water, and then get to the Black Tower as quickly as possible. I fear that Fig and the others are in great danger.”
They carried on deep into the darkness of the jungle. The leafy covering high above was like a solid green blanket, and only narrow shafts of sunlight broke through it to shine down like powerful spotlights.
When they came to a stream, Tommy jumped in it, to wash off the dried yellow clay that he was caked in from falling in the lake of mud. Pook climbed down the bank and joined him and, with the exception of Gorf, who stood guard over them, the others waded into the chilly water. They drank their fill, then started to splash each other and generally frolic about.
For just a few minutes, Sam, Tommy and Ben put all thoughts of the dangerous quest they were on out of their minds and enjoyed being twelve-year-olds, giggling and wrestling and having fun.
A little later, with a fresh supply of drinking water in their wooden flasks, they crossed the stream and kept going north, only stopping when they came out on to a wide road.
“Someone made this,” Sam said. “They’ve cleared the jungle.”
“It must be a route tha
t the horgs’ use,” Ben said. “I bet it leads all the way to the mountain they live on.”
“Should we follow it?” Tommy asked.
“Yes,” Sam said. “But we’d better keep to the edge, watch out for the horgs, and be ready to dive back into the jungle. We don’t know how often they use this road.”
Up above them, built between two massive trees, was a sturdy hut made from stout branches and logs. It had a walkway around the outside of it, and a ladder leading down to the ground. It put the tree house in Ben’s back garden to shame.
From the walkway, a young horg soldier by the name of Shak saw Gorf and the others appear out of the giant ferns that lined both sides of the road that led to the Black Tower.
“I don’t know what those strange creatures are,” Shak said to Vrul, a veteran of many wars against enemies of the Horg Empire. “Shall we kill them, or capture them and have them delivered to our master?”
“We will take them alive if we can,” Vrul hissed. “Ganzo will enjoy putting them in the arena, to be ripped to pieces by the sabre-toothed lions.”
Gorf could not believe that they had been taken prisoner so easily. Even with his sharp hearing, he did not hear the horgs sneak up on them.
Tommy was at the rear as they walked along the side of the road. A hard blow to his back sent him sprawling onto the ground.
The others spun round as he cried out. A horg was standing with one foot pinning Tommy by the neck, and holding a crossbow to his head.
“Submit, or this creature will have his brains split by a bolt,” Shak said.
Gorf was about to spring forward, when another horg appeared and aimed a cross bow at his chest.
“If you have any sense at all, then you would be wise to lay down on the ground with your hands clasped behind your ugly head,” Vrul said to Gorf. “If you do not do exactly as you are told, then you will all be killed here and now.”
― CHAPTER EIGHT ―
CANNIBALS AND CROCODILES
Figwort stopped in front of a tree trunk that had been carved into the figure of a warrior wearing a grotesque mask. It held a spear in one hand and a head in the other. The head appeared to be real, though no larger than a medium-sized pumpleberry. It hung down from an ebony fist that gripped its long, black hair. The skin on the shrunken head was brown and wrinkled like a prune, and the eyelids and mouth had been sewn shut with thick twine.
“What is it?” Squill asked, approaching the wooden warrior.
“Some kind of statue,” Figwort said.
There was a rustling of leaves above them, and a small furry animal appeared, to squat on an overhanging branch and look down at them.
“It’s a warning,” the animal said in a jerky, high-pitched tone of voice. “This part of the jungle is home to the Bulunga; a tribe of people that do not take kindly to trespassers.”
“And what are you?” Speedwell asked the furry creature.
The animal chittered, “A monkey, of course. And my name is Nith. What are you strange green creatures?”
“We are fairies,” Figwort said, and told Nith their names.
“Is that a real head in the statue’s hand?” Squill asked Nith as he dropped down to the ground.
“Yes, I’m sorry to say,” Nith said. “The Bulunga are ruthless hunters, and monkey meat is their favourite food. Although they will cook and eat any members of other tribes that live nearby.”
“You mean that they’re cannibals?” Speedwell asked.
“Exactly. And head-hunters. They also shrink the heads of any enemy, as you can see from the example in front of you.”
“We’d better get away from this place,” Figwort said. “I would rather not come face-to-face with such a savage race of people.”
“Where are you heading for?” Nith asked.
“To the tabletop mountain that is called the Black Tower,” Speedwell said.
Nith’s eyes widened. “Do you know that an army of lizard men live up there, who are even more deadly than the Bulunga?”
“Yes, but we are on a mission to save the lives of other fairies.”
“Then I am afraid that this is the only way. Keep away from any trails that you come across, and move as silently as a nervous morg moth.”
“Thank you, Nith. We shall heed your warning.”
“You’re welcome,” Nith said, and scampered back up the trunk of the tree, to vanish into its leafy crown.
They carried on without talking, flying slowly just a few inches above the ground, not wanting to signal their whereabouts by crunching twigs underfoot.
Figwort saw them first. A dozen figures were gathered under a towering tree. They were small, not much taller than fairies, and their bodies were slim and smooth and oily black. The only garments they wore were loincloths made from some kind of spotted animal pelt, and head-dresses constructed of beaded bands and parrot feathers. Bones had been pushed through their broad noses, and patterns were daubed on their faces with some kind of blue and white paint.
As the fairies hid and watched, one of the hunters stealthily raised the end of a long piece of bamboo to his mouth, pointed the hollow tube into the air, and blew with such force that a dart was propelled out from it, up very high, to stick in the neck of a monkey that was swinging through the treetops.
The monkey, that they hoped was not Nith, howled loudly and hung by one paw to a branch for some time before dropping down, to be picked up, already lifeless, and stuffed in a sack made from woven strips of palm fronds.
The Bulunga Indians were expert shots with blowpipes. The tips of the darts they used were coated with the sticky poison exuded from giant red and blue frogs that they roasted on spits. The other end of the darts had fluffy seed fibres attached to them, to make an airtight fit in the pipe. The weapon was both silent and deadly. Any bird or animal struck by a dart soon became paralysed and fell down to the forest floor, dying quickly but painfully as the toxic poison took effect.
Squill gasped out loud as another Indian shot a large black bird that had a giant, curved and multicoloured beak. Even as the bird squawked and toppled from its perch, the Bulunga were charging to where they had heard Squill.
As the three fairies flew off, Squill cried out, plucked a dart from his side and then dropped down into thick ferns and began to shudder and moan.
Figwort and Speedwell quickly circled between tree trunks and approached the band of natives from behind.
The leader of the group spotted them and turned round.
What an ugly little devil, Figwort thought. The pygmy cannibal was snarling at him, and his bared lips disclosed teeth that had been filed to sharp points. Apart from the bone that ran through his nose, he had a necklace around his neck that appeared to be fashioned from pickled or sun-dried ears strung on a length of plaited fibre.
“You die now, strangers who fly,” the cannibal said, before raising the long blowpipe he carried to his mouth.
Fig concentrated hard, pointed a finger at the natives and drew circles in the air. In the next instant, with the sound of popping corn and bright white flashes, the Bulunga tribesmen shrunk to the size of acorns and fell to the ground, now changed into shiny-backed beetles that scurried off to hide in the thick mulch of leaf litter that covered the ground.
Speedwell flew over to Squill, who was dazed and moaning. “Are you all right, Squill?” he asked.
“Uh, what? Where am I? What bit me?”
“You’re in the middle of a jungle. And nothing bit you. You were shot with a poison dart. Does it hurt much?”
“It stings a lot. And it’s making my teeth itch, and my fingers and toes tingle.”
“If you weren’t a fairy, you’d be heavenward by now, like the poor monkey and bird that they shot.”
“True. Where are the cannibals?”
“Figwort changed them into beetles.”
Squill got shakily to his feet. The effects of the frog poison made him feel very numb all over, and his mouth was as dry as sand. He drank some water
from the wooden flask that was fastened to his belt, and felt much better.
“Are you going to change them back, Figwort?” Squill asked.
“No. They can stay like that until the spell wears off. See how they like being hunted and mayhaps eaten by all the animals and birds of the forest that feed on juicy beetles.”
Speedwell said, “But, Figwort, they―”
“No buts, Speedwell. You are too soft-hearted for your own good. If we did not possess our magical powers, then we would have no doubt ended up in a pot over a fire with our flesh being cooked. Let them stay as beetles for a while. It will give them a taste of their own medicine. And if they do get eaten, then it is no less than they deserve.”
“Figwort is right,” Squill said. “If we had become the Bulungas’ next meal, then our rescue mission would have well and truly failed.”
They hurried away, in case more of the tribe turned up and started blowing poison darts at them. Figwort and Speedwell carried Squill between them for a while, due to him having no feeling in his wings. He could have flown, but would have had no control over direction or height, and would have careered up and down and smashed into trees.
Much later, and a long way from where they were attacked, Figwort decided to stop. They were all hungry and thirsty.
“This seems a safe spot,” Figwort said, landing at the edge of a large lagoon.
They had eaten all the nut pie that they’d brought with them, and so Figwort and Speedwell searched for fruit and berries to eat, leaving Squill sitting next to the water with his feet dangling in it to soothe the itching sensation that the poison had caused.
Squill felt weak and tired, and closed his eyes, almost lulled to sleep by the heat and the background noise of buzzing insects and chirping birdsong.
The lagoon’s surface was covered by a layer of emerald coloured weed, and peppered by giant lily pads and their large white flowers. Enormous, iridescent dragonflies zigzagged back and forth, and fork-tailed birds swooped and wheeled, feeding on the myriad insects that circled in clouds.