ISOF

by Pete Townsend

  ‘You’re late!’

  Ben looked up towards the doorway, which was now partly obscured by a dark shape.

  ‘Late?’ he enquired of the shape. ‘Late for what?’ Ben looked around at the gloom-laden cell. ‘Late for what and how did I get here?’

  ‘Expected you two days since,’ explained the shape cryptically. ‘And as for how you got here, it depends which here you mean.’

  Before Ben could utter a bewildered grunt, the figure lit what appeared to be a candle, causing fingers of light to flicker around the walls. Ben began to move forward. The figure recoiled waving its hands in front of its face.

  ‘Don’t come anywhere near me. Just look at the state you’re in.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied Ben, ‘but I don’t know what state I’m in. I can’t see anything, but whatever has gotten me into this state is sticky and it stinks.’

  A large bundle of fabric flew through the air and hit Ben across the chest. With a mixture of fear and surprise, he hugged the warm cloth, thankful of its protection against the creeping dampness around him.

  ‘Wrap it around you,’ instructed the figure. ‘It might help you feel a little better and stop that awful smell from creeping everywhere.’

  Ben did as he was told, feeling glad of the warmth. The figure extended an arm and offered Ben a smaller piece of cloth.

  ‘Here, wipe your hands on this and then you can eat some of these freshly baked cakes I’ve brought you.’

  ‘It’s OK’ replied Ben. ‘I’ve got a piece of tissue here.’

  The figure made an agitated clucking sound, causing Ben to give her a quizzical glance.

  ‘If you’re like any of the boys I know,’ continued the figure. ‘Then that tissue is nothing more than a scrunched up piece of dirt, which is what my cloth will be once you’ve finished wiping your hands.’ The figure nodded at the cloth. ‘Come on now, clean up and get some food inside of you.’

  Within seconds Ben had brushed the cloth over his hands and was busily eating the cakes that the figure provided. In between mouthfuls he began his questions again.

  ‘Mmm, these are lovely,’ he mumbled between mouthfuls. ‘Do you know where I am or,’ Ben nodded towards the darkness. ‘Why I’ve been dumped in here?’

  ‘You’re here because half of the village heard you fall into our duck pond,’ the figure chuckled. ‘Such a commotion you caused.’

  Ben took another nibble of cake.

  ‘I don’t remember much about it,’ he said, allowing a few crumbs to escape.

  ‘We didn’t know what to think,’ explained the figure. ‘What with the recent spate of animal thieving it was only natural to assume someone was stealing our ducks.’

  ‘Fish,’ said Ben. ‘My Dad deals with fish.’ He nodded and grinned in unison. ‘I remember now.’

  The figure moved closer to Ben. As the glow from the candle embraced them both, Ben could see that the figure was that of an older woman, whose features were partly hidden by hood draped around her face. The woman’s face appeared kindly, with eyes the colours of autumn and little wisps of brown and grey hair showing beneath the hood. The woman smiled and stroked Ben’s chin.

  ‘Ducks, dear,’ she grinned. ‘We haven’t any fish to be stolen or to sell.’

  Ben looked around him at the confining walls.

  ‘So how…’ he began to ask.

  The woman sighed.

  ‘Once Smegglebert had rushed out to discover you in sitting in the middle of the pond surrounded by screeching ducks, the rest of our neighbours had also come out to see what all the fuss was about. Well,’ she shrugged. ‘It was too late then. Somebody had reported a disturbance to the Jaresh and you were dragged here to wait until somebody decided what to do with you.’

  ‘Smegglebert?’ queried Ben. ‘Jaresh?’

  ‘First things first,’ said the woman. ‘You’ve had one brush with the Jaresh, and you’ll get to know what they are soon enough,’ she added. The woman paused and smiled. ‘As for Smegglebert, well, he’s my husband.’

  Using his tongue to manoeuvre cake crumbs into his cheeks, he framed the next question.

  ‘So you’re Mrs Smegglebert?’ he spluttered.

  ‘Well,’ chuckled the figure. ‘You’re a smart one and no mistake,’ she said as her smile competed with the candle for brightness. ‘People know me as Pinchkin. Everybody knows Smegglebert and me. We knew their grandparents and their grandparents, grandparents.’

  ‘So you’re old then?’ said Ben, a smile briefly flickering across his face.

  Pinchkin’s eyes twinkled and she chuckled again.

  ‘You’ve such a way with words, young man,’ she replied, playfully prodding his chest. ‘We were around when the forest was no more than a few seedlings in the ground and...’ Pinchkin’s voice dissolved into silence followed by a moist sniff. Ben squirmed his feet in the slime on the floor. He felt embarrassed and awkward.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ he asked, offering her the cloth he’d used to wipe his hands earlier.

  Pinchkin sniffed again and sighed a smile.

  ‘Bless you boy, but I’ll use one of my own if you don’t mind.’ She extracted a neatly folded piece of white cloth from her pocket and wiped away her sniff. ‘You must excuse me,’ she mumbled dabbing her eyes before folding the cloth neatly and putting it back in her pocket, ‘I think the atmosphere is making my eyes prickle.’

  ‘As long as it wasn’t something I said,’ mumbled Ben.

  ‘Oh, my dear no,’ said Pinchkin. ‘Things have been a bit unsettled recently. With your arrival, and what with the forest and all that, it doesn’t make life easy. My eyes have seen too many changes, that’s all.’

  Ben wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and immediately wished he hadn’t. Although his hands were no longer covered with the tacky substance that oozed from the ceiling onto the floor, the smell lingered. Ben shook his head slightly and looked directly at Pinchkin.

  ‘What I don’t understand, ‘he began. ‘Is how I ended up in the duck pond in the first place?’

  It was PInchkin’s turn to shake her head. ‘That’s something you’d better ask Briel,’ she replied. Stroking Ben’s cheek she gave him a comforting smile. ‘Follow me, you’ve been summoned to meet Lord Tolc.’ She gave a short chuckle. ‘That should give you something to smile about.’

  Without allowing Ben the opportunity to ask any more questions, she led the way through the doorway of the cell and into another dimly lit room, which lay directly opposite. A candle spluttered light from a shelf allowing Ben to see a table propped against the far wall. On the remains of a chair sat a bundle of clothes, which Pinchkin pointed to.

  ‘Get yourself out of your wet clothes and put these on. I’ll just be outside the door. Call if you want anything.’

  The thin wooden door shut with polite bump. Ben was just about to unwrap his cloak when the door opened again and Pinchkin’s hand appeared waving another piece of cloth.

  ‘And make sure you give yourself a good wash down before you put those clean clothes on.’

  The door closed softly. Ben eyes gazed around the room until they located a wooden pail hiding under the table. He dipped his hands into the depths of the pail and immediately took them out again with a gasp, as the freezing water numbed his fingers. As he rubbed the warmth back into his face and hands with the cloth, he briefly toyed with the idea of dunking his head in the pail so that the numbing water could obscure his thoughts and stop him thinking. Ben very quickly decided against the idea and squeezed himself into the clothes provided by Pinchkin.

  Chapter 9

  Emerging from the room, Ben stood nervously in the corridor as Pinchkin examined his wash and brush-up efforts. After a quick head to toe move of her head she gave a brief nod.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she said giving the air a sniff. ‘And you smell a lot better too, almost.’ Gently patting his collar straight and, brushing her hand across his hair, she gave him a smile. ‘Come on,’ she said, setting
off along the dimly lit corridor without waiting for Ben to reply.

  Ben did his best to keep up as Pinchkin scurried along. The corridor was partially lit by spluttering candles placed in small recesses in the wall, which almost illuminated the roughly hewn wooden doors set into the walls at regular intervals. Each door appeared to have a square metal plate set in the middle, most of which were rusty and looked as if they hadn’t been used for centuries. ‘Little wonder,’ muttered Ben to himself, ‘if all the cells are as dark as the one I was in, it’s a waste of time trying to see what’s in there. Better off using your nose!’

  Lost in his thoughts, Ben hadn’t noticed Pinchkin urgently waving her hand behind her back. Ignorant of the signal to stop, Ben collided with the matronly figure. Pinchkin emitted a high-pitched grunt while Ben was left spluttering and spitting out bits of woollen cloak. Just as he was picking out the last fibre particles from his mouth, he suddenly felt himself squashed against the roughly hewn wall of the corridor.

  ‘Gerroff,’ he moaned, using his hands to push against the smothering figure of Pinchkin.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ demanded a voice, which sounded vaguely like a chainsaw. Pinchkin jabbed Ben hard in the ribs with her elbow. Unable to make a sound, as more woollen cloak seemed to invade his mouth, Ben quietly rubbed his bruised ribs.

  ‘There’s nothing here that you need to worry about,’ intoned Pinchkin, with a voice that seemed to drip honey.

  ‘Nothing?’ asked the chainsaw voice dreamily.

  ‘No, nothing whatsoever,’ repeated PInchkin sweetly. ‘Why don’t you go about your rounds as if nothing mattered and everything is just as it should be,’ she suggested.

  The voice sighed dreamily, muttering something that Ben couldn’t hear clearly. He felt Pinchkin lift her hand.

  ‘Off you go,’ instructed Pinchkin firmly. ‘Be about your business.’

  Ben could just discern the sound of somebody shuffling along the corridor accompanied by a scraping noise, like something being dragged. Squirming his head free of Pinchkin’s cloak, he was able to see the dark outline of a figure retreating around the corner of the corridor, all the time making a discordant, rasping humming sound and dragging what looked suspiciously like a spear behind it. After a few moments, Pinchkin moved forward to release Ben from his temporary confinement against the wall. Turning around, she placed a finger against her lips in warning. With a quick jerk of her head, she beckoned Ben to follow along the corridor.

  After walking a few paces, Pinchkin looked up and down the corridor. When she was confident that there were no other beings around, she took Ben by the shoulders.

  ‘Pay attention,’ she said firmly. ‘This isn’t some game you’re playing now!’

  Ben looked at her stern face, puzzled both by her comment and how she’d dealt with the creature he assumed was a guard.

  ‘How did you,’ he began, pointing back along the corridor. ‘And how did you know…?’

  Pinchkin placed a finger against his lips. ‘Quiet, now, she smiled. ‘Some things will only become clear over time, and others,’ she shook her head. ‘May never become clear at all.’

  Ben, his finger still pointing along the corridor, frowned. ‘But that thing you did with the creature, I’ve seen that done before.’

  Pinchkin examined Ben’s face. ‘How?’ she asked. ‘Where have you seen mind massaging before?’

  ‘I don’t know about the mind massage stuff,’ explained Ben. ‘But making creatures think what you want them to think, that was in Star Wars.’

  ‘Star Wars?’ replied Pinchkin, totally bewildered.

  ‘Yeah,’ grinned Ben. ‘I’ve got them all on DVD, including the prequels.’

  ‘DV what?’ asked PInchkin. She shook her head. ‘Don’t bother trying to explain,’ she said. ‘We haven’t time, come along.’

  They walked along in silence. The gloom of the corridor seemed to go on forever, only broken occasionally by spluttering firebrands held to the wall by rusting chains. As he stumbled along, the rough floor seemed intent on bruising Ben’s feet as he struggled to keep up with Pinchkin.

  In between the firebrands, the roof and walls streamed with water, causing small pools to form in the uneven surface of the floor. Every now and again, the monotonous stone sagged inwards to reveal a crude, rough-hewn door. Each door boasted a tiny steel shutter set at eye-level and a simple lock keeping inquisitive strangers from satisfying their curiosity.

  Pinchkin still strode confidently ahead. Ben was amazed at the speed with which her feet carried her across the floor. She didn’t hesitate at junctions in the corridor or seem to be affected by the lack of light. At yet another junction, Ben managed to tug Pinchkin’s cloak.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ he gasped, his ribs beginning to ache with both the effort of keeping apace with Pinchkin and the rough handling he’d had taking him to the cell, even though he couldn’t remember a thing about that. Pinchkin paused briefly and gave him a patient smile.

  ‘Almost,’ she said reassuringly. She ruffled his hair. ‘But don’t you be too eager to get there,’ cautioned Pinchkin. ‘Because once there you will need to be elsewhere, and then,’ she said solemnly, ‘you’ll eventually arrive where you first started.’ Again Pinchkin didn’t wait for Ben to comment but hurried forward into the consuming gloom.

  Ben felt totally confused. He couldn’t pretend he understood anything that was happening to him or what was being said. He ran to catch up with her fast disappearing figure.

  ‘Are all these cells occupied?’ he asked breathlessly.

  Pinchkin’s face clouded over.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. Although no-one knows for certain who’s in the cells and how long they have been there.’ She continued to walk but pulled her cloak tightly around her shoulders. ‘Ever since the Jaresh took control of the High and Low Territories, people have disappeared. It’s got to the point where you dare not go out at night. Heaven alone knows what could happen to some poor unfortunate being. You hear such terrible tales.’ Pinchkin turned and wagged a finger at Ben. ‘And there’s always that Thrumble in the background, a nasty piece of work that one, you mark my words.’

  Ben sensed that he’d just heard something important but couldn’t quite make out what it was.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I think I’ve lost the plot somewhere.’

  Pinchkin brushed some hair from her face that had escaped the attention of her hood. ‘Never you mind my dear. You won’t understand any of this at the moment. Best just leave it at that and let things unfold naturally. Come along,’ she encouraged. ‘Let’s not keep Lord Tolc waiting any longer.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. What’s going on? Why am I down here in this dimly lit stink and just who is Lord Tolc?’

  Pinchkin turned and put her hands on Ben’s shoulders.

  ‘Now listen, young man. What you don’t know, you can’t worry about. And believe me,’ she continued. ‘There’s enough to be fretting about I can tell you.’

  Ben shook himself free from her grip.

  ‘Then why am I here?’ he asked angrily. ‘And’, he pointed back towards the cell they’d recently left. ‘What’s all this about me being late?’

  ‘It’s always why this and why that with you youngsters.’ replied Pinchkin coolly. Without warning, she dug deep into her pocket and extracted a handful of what looked like seeds. Crushing them with her hand, Pinchkin held the small pile of seeds under Ben’s nose. ‘What do you see?’ she asked.

  Images floated in front of Ben’s face as the scent from the crushed seeds escaped. He could see and smell the forest, the damp grass, and the scent of unknown flowers. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a rushing stream and the occasional call of a bird soaring high above. Pinchkin squeezed his nose.

  ‘Ow!’ winced Ben. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘You were almost asleep boy. Now, there’s a point.’ She mused. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘It’s Ben,’ he repli
ed, rubbing his nose.

  ‘Well Ben, what you’ve just experienced may soon be a memory, a thing of nostalgia.’

  Ben recalled the images.

  ‘But that’s impossible. There were loads of trees and plants and things. It’d take forever to forget that.’

  Pinchkin sniffed.

  ‘I wish that were the case. But the speed the Cutters work at, it’s a wonder there’s any forest left at all,’

  ‘Cutters?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Yes, Cutters,’ she said, her lips a taught line of anger. ‘They’re a group of mercenaries from the north of the land. They’ve destroyed their own land by building great towers and creating scars across the earth to travel along. Once the Jaresh heard of their ability to transform nature, those Cutters were brought down here before you could say apple-pie and custard.’

  Ben could almost taste the words trickling down his throat.

  ‘And they’ve begun to build towers and things?’ he asked.

  ‘Dear me no,’ exclaimed Pinchkin. ‘It’s not towers that the Jaresh want, it’s Pugwort.’

  Before Ben could ask another question, the gloom gave way to an eye-searing brightness as the corridor opened out on to an extremely large room. From a ceiling that blurred with distance, hung a series of small metal chains with a spinning ball of light at each end. Ben closed his eyes at the fierceness of the light, but even with them closed he could still see the flashes of lightening erupting inside of his head. Gradually, opening his eyes, he could see two lines of ornately carved pillars straight in front of him. Huddled around each pillar were little groups of people, each much smaller than Ben and wearing an assortment of brightly coloured clothing that reminded him of a medieval fair.

  The room looked like an oversized railway station ticket office that he remembered seeing in the films his mother liked to watch. There were no seats anywhere apart from small stools that sat beneath the large noticeboards that adorned the walls. Occasionally, a figure from one of the pillars would break away from the rest of the group, scurry across the room to the noticeboards, hop onto the stool, reach inside their coat and take out what looked like a ticket. With little nods of their head from the ticket to the notice-board, the figures would check their tickets against the details on the boards, make a clucking sound with their tongues and then scurry back to their separate groups, each apparently updating their friends on the lack of change since their last visit.