by S G Read
The boys looked at each other; it was something they had not tried before and certainly not in swirling water.
'Shall we try it here or go over to the trees where the ground is softer should we just happen to collapse?' Sherman asked carefully.
Faced with climbing back up the rope again for no good reason and not wanting to miss the boys making the pyramid, Celia made a decision.
'Try it here or we all have to climb back up that rope and I don't want to climb up it more than I have to.' She declared.
The boys went into a huddle, leaving the girls standing on their own. No one actually wanted to try it down there in the dark in swirling water but they liked Celia and did not want to make her do something she did not want to. The huddle of boys parted and Sherman walked over to Celia, shielding his eyes from the light from the torch she was shining at him.
'We will do it on soft ground but we will pull anyone up who wants it.' Sherman announced.
Celia smiled; she liked that idea.
'I don't mind being pulled up, I am a weak girl after all.' She replied, but daring anyone to agree with her.
'I'll climb up,' Jenny declared, 'I am better than any boy.'
Jenny did not want to be pulled up like a weakling. Molly nodded in agreement and climbed up the rope. Jenny followed and not wanting to look like the weak link, Celia followed, although Sherman did help her by discreetly putting his hand under her foot.
The boys followed one by one and they all walked over to where the ground was softer, if they did fall, they wanted a soft landing. Sherman took up a position in the middle of the pyramid, CJ stood next to him but they had to work out who stood on the other side of Sherman.
It was trial and error, they started with Toby then John and Colin climbed up to be the next level. Simon climbed up to be the top man but Toby collapsed and that meant the whole pyramid collapsed. The boys fell in a heap. The same happened when they tried Ben as the third man in the bottom row but when Denis took Ben's place JC was able to climb right up to the top.
'I think I could get out now.' He called down.
JC climbed back down.
'All we have to do now is to do it in the cave and we will know that we can get out again if I bring the rope down.' Simon declared.
They all nodded; at least that way they knew they could get out again if they needed to. One by one, they climbed back into the cave to try the pyramid inside. Using the same boys JC climbed out of the cave, walked about then climbed back down again using the rope, while the pyramid dismantled.
'I call that a successful trial,' Sherman declared, 'get the rope Simon.'
They watched Simon climb up the rope and then saw the rope pulled out of the cave. A few seconds later, he shouted down to them.
‘Lowering the rope down.’
The rope reappeared but now Simon had doubled it up, as they had done in the jungle. He passed it round the tree to enable him to climb down holding both pieces of the rope and then by pulling just one side of the rope to pull the rope down. Simon climbed down.
‘We want the rope!’ Ben complained thinking Simon had retied it.
‘Oh contraire.’ Simon retorted and started pulling on one side of the rope. It moved freely for some distance and then stopped. ‘Damn, it's snagged.’ It was his turn to complain. ‘Give us a hand.’
Ben pulled, then Sherman pulled and in the end, they all had to pull before it came free and fell into the cave.
‘No turning back now then.’ Sherman concluded.
He hooked the rope round a protruding rock and Simon went to climb down.
‘I’ll do this one if you like?’ Ben offered.
Simon stopped. ‘Be my guest Ben but you might get wet.’
‘Might?’ Ben retorted looking at the water swirling down the hole. ‘I think it is a foregone conclusion.’ He took hold of the rope and slid into the water. ‘Well it isn’t freezing lads.’ He added but as he spoke, the water took his feet away and he disappeared into the hole. His hand slipped off the rope and the rope stopped moving.
The others waited fearing the worst but suddenly there was a tug on the other end of the rope and Ben’s head appeared out of the swirling water.
‘I forgot a torch.’ He admitted holding up one hand for it. ‘The water goes into another chamber but is dark down there.’
Stevey pushed his rubber torch into Ben’s hand and Ben climbed back down.
‘Found them.’ He shouted up loud enough so that they could hear him over the swirling water.
Simon followed him down and as soon as he was down another followed until they were all down below, waist high in water, looking at the two openings with the water swirling down them.
‘But which one leads to the flume nearest the cove? The one that is, low enough down not to kill us when we land. Not to mention that it is too far away to swim when you have been dumped into the sea from a great height.’ Molly asked.
‘I have it.’ Simon declared. ‘We leave someone here with something we will see when it comes out. Then the rest climb up and make a human pyramid to get someone outside to watch where it comes out. Wherever it comes out we will know which one is which.’
‘Brilliant,’ Ben cried, ‘I’m all for that.’
‘Sounds good to me as well,’ Sherman agreed, ‘I’m all for a way down, where I don’t have to climb up more than I have to.’
‘So who goes out?’ Stevey asked.
‘I’m the lightest.’ JC answered.
‘All in favour of J.C. going out again, to see which flume we use.’ Stuart asked.
All their hands went up.
‘Carried, now all we have to do is to get him back out of the cave.’ Stuart declared.
Simon started up the rope but half way up it broke and he fell back down into the water.
‘Well that rules that one out.’ Sherman exclaimed.
Simon appeared from the waist deep water, he climbed out of the water on to a ledge to the left of the two flumes that he could see by the light from Celia’s torch. As he reached it the torch went out and the ledge was no longer lit by the torch.
‘And my torch has gone out!’ Celia added, slapping it with her hand trying to make it come back on.
‘It’s light up here without a torch,’ Simon declared, ‘and there is an old book on the ledge.’
‘How come, it wasn’t there earlier?’ Denis exclaimed.
‘It had to be or it wouldn’t be there now.’ Ben argued.
'Well I didn't see it earlier, what about the rest of you?' Denis asked.
‘Look at that weird light coming from the rocks and the ledge is longer than it was earlier.’ Stuart pointed out. ‘Something funny is going on.’
‘Like what?’ Stevey asked, now interested.
‘I don’t know,’ Stuart answered, ‘but it is certainly something odd, what book is it?’
'We should be used to odd by now though.' Sherman argued.
‘That book looks old enough to be written by Shakespeare!’ Toby declared.
‘It says it is the second book of Grimoire.’ Simon answered.
He opened the book and a few seconds passed while he turned pages. He read what was on each page and then turned to the next page, while the others grew impatient to find out what it was, some grew impatient quicker than others.
‘Well?’ Ben asked.
‘I think it is a spell book.’ Simon answered.
‘A spell book?’ The others chorused.
‘I think so. Listen to this, this is a spell that is supposed to open a portal, and that is just what we need at the moment.’ He turned to face the wall behind the ledge. ‘Lanuam aperi cav.'
As he said it, the wall disappeared and light shone through from outside.
Chapter 2
‘Wow.’ Ben cried. ‘Now that is what I call a good book, let’s go, we can see which flume it is when we send something through one of them.’
As he spoke a little old man walked in through the hole in the
wall, he was dressed in weird green clothing and had bright red shoes.
‘Who are you?’ Ben asked rudely.
‘My name is Seamus and it is lucky I am not my brother Fergus.’ The old man replied, looked around and walked out again.
‘Is it me or was that weird?’ Ben asked looking through the doorway Simon had opened. He watched the old man walk away then looked about him. ‘Wow, look out there. There is no sea, no cove and even though there are no clouds, I can’t see the sun.’
They all looked through the opening, they all had different ideas as to where they were but none of them made any sense. The sun was shining somewhere but they could not actually see it. It was as light as a normal sunny day without the sun shining there.
‘So what do we do now?’ John asked looking outside. ‘There is no way to see which flume to go down and we have a new place to explore.’
‘We will vote on it then. Now that we have a door open somewhere and I might add somewhere mighty strange by the little man we saw. Do we explore? Or do we try to find a way back out the way we came in?’ Stuart asked. ‘All in favour of exploring this new place?’
Every hand went up including Stuart’s. They walked out into the sunshine and looked at the land below them from their lofty height. In front they could see a trail leading down, it curved to the right until it came to a crossroad of trails. In front of them there were cliffs with a plateau on them and even that looked explorable, the plateau led to higher cliffs to their left which looked impenetrable. One trail from the crossroad led between the rocks to the left of the crossroad, disappearing through the cliff with the plateau on it. The path to the right led in front of a mountain of rock and they could see that it had numerous crevices and ledges on it. The path straight on disappeared between the rock which was in front of it. They liked what they saw and all smiled. The adventure was about to begin.
‘Let’s go and explore then, we all saw where that little old man went.’ Stuart cried and walked down the slope away from the portal.
Ben overtook him, with the rest close behind, except for Simon, who was engrossed in the book as he walked along. Suddenly Ben screamed and everyone saw him lifted into the air by a flying animal, which had an eagle’s head but the body of a lion. The girls screamed as well when they saw the creature but Ben screamed louder as the monster carried him off. The screams alerted Simon, who just happened to be on the page of a spell, which he thought, might help Ben.
Simon pointed at the monster and shouted 'petrificare cav' without delay.
The creature shuddered and started to lose height. As the spell took hold it flew lower and lower until they both crashed into a tree, the spell had turned the creature to stone. The impact with the tree damaged not only the tree but the stone creature which fell into pieces.
‘This is one weird place.’ Molly exclaimed.
Ben climbed through the tree’s branches to find a way down. He was not good at climbing but he thought he could manage that.
'That was close.' He called from the tree.
Suddenly a tree branch moved and took hold of Ben’s leg, lifting him in the air and aiming at a small opening in the middle of the tree, which opened up to accept the meal it was about to receive. Simon pointed to the tree and chanted the same spell again and the branch stopped short of the hole, as the tree turned to stone. The branch broke under Ben’s weight and he bounced all the way to the ground but for once he was not complaining. He was just glad to be back on the ground. He stumbled over the rubble which was the remains of the creature and walked back to the team.
‘Look out for flying lions,’ Ben warned, ‘oh and trees that want to eat you as well!’
‘Do we go on?’ Stuart asked.
True to form they were all for going on and Simon read up on the spells that were in the book, just in case. As they walked away a noise made them turn back. The stone tree was collapsing as another tree grew in its place, not a sapling but a full grown tree and ready to eat them again. As soon as they saw the tree start to grow, they hurried away. They followed the track and came to the crossroads. They could go straight on, turn left or right.
‘So which way do we take?’ Toby asked.
‘That way,’ Celia declared pointing to the right, ‘the old man went that way. If we follow we could catch him and ask him where we are.’
‘Who is in favour of going the way Celia wants?’ Stuart asked.
Everyone raised their hand except Stuart, he adhered to the rules this time.
‘Carried.’ He declared.
They turned right and went in the same direction as the old man with the red shoes, in hopes of catching him up. In front, they saw the same gryphon type creature flying along and instinctively took cover. The gryphon swooped and snatched the old man dressed in green with his red shoes from the ground. The old man screamed in agony as the wicked claws dug in deeper, as they gained height. The children watched in awe as the gryphon landed on a ledge and started to tear the man apart and eat him. Ben gulped as he imagined the gryphon eating him up there.
‘Thanks Si.’ He said quietly.
Simon bowed. ‘All in a day’s work.’
The noise from the old man stopped and from then on it was just the gryphon eating its meal. They walked on. They assumed that the gryphon was no longer hungry and to them it meant that there was no longer any danger from it. Further on they saw a large old cat lying in front of a cave. They paused, did that want to eat them as well? They chose to approach it cautiously. As they approached, the cat lifted its head and looked at them. When it saw the book Simon was reading, it became alarmed. The cat turned into an old woman while the boys watched.
‘You bring that book in here?’ She cried furiously. ‘If the apprentice gets his hands on it no one will be safe. He has been trapped in this world for many years but with that book he can get out and take over both this world and your world.’
‘Who are you?’ Simon asked.
‘I am the Grimalkin that is who I am.’ The old woman answered. ‘I take it you opened a door to get in here and I don’t expect the spell to close it again is in there. That means the only way to close the door and keep the apprentice in here where he has been imprisoned, is to use the other book and the apprentice is not likely to let you do that! Is he?’
‘Should we put it back then?’ Simon asked.
‘Or we could all go down the flume and take our chances on picking the right one and take the book with us because it is the only way out.’ Stevey asked
‘Too late for that, he will know it has been used and he will send out his spies to find out who has it. And a few mortal restrictions will not stop a wizard of his calibre. He can stop the water with a stroke and ride a broom up through any problem so I don’t think you can stop him now!’ She walked into the cave and closed the door.
‘Don’t you believe it Mrs. Grimalkin, this is Minton Cruisers he's dealing with.’ Ben called through the closed door. ‘We sort out problems like this before breakfast every day.’
‘Getting worse by every step I should say.’ Toby observed.
‘We need to plan,’ Stuart pointed out, ‘anyone got any ideas?’
‘I say we reconnoitre the area and find out just what is what before we make any plans.’ Stevey suggested.
‘Any other ideas.’ Stuart asked.
No one said a word.
‘So we go with that then.’ Stuart concluded. ‘Let us go on and keep our eyes open and Simon you keep out of sight with that book in case this apprentice makes a show.’ He continued.
They walked on in a group, keeping to the shadows and cover, where there was any. Simon dutifully kept out of sight behind them, in case of trouble. From then on he did not speak. They came to a split in the trail and looked down the left trail. There they could see man like creatures with funny looking heads, walking about. As they looked past the first of them, they could see that some of them were sitting down but they had no heads. It looked like someone had cut their
heads off. The next surprise was to see the headless ones stuffing food into the top of their neck.
‘Gross.’ Ben complained.
A shadow from above made them all seek cover immediately, after seeing Ben plucked from the ground, they knew that it might happen to them. From their hiding places, they saw another winged creature fly over. It looked similar to the creature Simon had turned to Stone. They watched it fly over and into the path through the rocks. When it had passed overhead they crept out in time to see it pluck one of the creatures from the ground as it walked along with the head guiding it. The head, obviously not wanting to be eaten as well, leapt for safety using his little legs to propel him towards a tree and then grab hold of the tree with its equally little arms.
‘A wise head,’ C.J. commented, ‘what am I saying! This place is weird.’
‘I vote we go the other way.’ Toby declared.
‘All in favour?’ Stuart asked.
All hands shot up into the air and they walked away, whilst still watching the creature as it landed on the far rocks to eat its meal. They could still see the other gryphon sitting on its ledge so they knew there were at least two of them but this one was slightly different. With the two on the rocks they could look one to the other and compare them.
‘Do you see the difference between them?’ Toby asked. ‘That one which just ate the Acephali, or headless man was an Opinicus.’
‘Have you been reading your book on mythical creatures again?’ JC asked.
‘Not mine, there was an old one at Gordon Hall which has a lot more information in it.’ Toby answered. ‘I wonder if we will see Sleipnir, Odin’s eight legged horse.’
‘An eight legged horse now that will get us round in here quick.’ Sherman declared.
They walked on, with Simon keeping out of sight and also keeping very quiet. When they walked forward he was looking about him. He saw in opening and took the chance for a private confidence, he did not mention it as he was keeping quiet. Instead he tapped JC on the shoulder and pointed. Celia took the lead, not being backward in coming forward and she saw a shimmer in the nearby rock face. It caught her attention and she stood looking at it, while the rest stopped behind her. Suddenly the wall opened, or seemed to open and a small old man just like the first one they had seen appeared but whereas the first one had red shoes this one had white shoes.