“And ... and ...” giggled Jimmy, “was that ... that toad the King?”
“Yes, it was,” Dominic answered, taking his turn now to be somewhat affronted by Jimmy’s rudeness. “Yes, that is my father.”
That unexpected piece of news stunned the brothers into silence, and covered Jimmy in embarrassment. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stared at his shuffling feet whilst muttering an uncomfortable apology.
“Don’t mention it,” Dominic replied. “You weren’t to know. Forget it, and let’s shake on it.”
They all shook hands and sat down on a nearby bench to talk.
“He wasn’t always like that,” the prince said slowly, “like a toad, I mean.”
“I was beginning to wonder how you managed to have a ... I mean, how a ...” Jimmy stammered.
“Toad came to have a human son?” Dominic finished off his question. “He was human form originally, but that wicked magician Seth changed him into what he is because father wouldn’t consent to Seth having my elder sister, Olwyn, as his wife. And so a toad he must remain until ... well, I don’t know when.”
“Coo,” was all that Jimmy could say. All this talk of magicians, magic spells and wicked people had quite taken away his breath. Tommy was also at a bit of a loss, but he was older and had been here before, so he was the first to speak.
“Where do we go from here then?” he asked. “I don’t know the way out from hereabouts. Tarna never brought me around this ...”
“Tarna?” Dominic asked a little puzzled. “Do you know Tarna?”
“Why, yes, we ...” Tommy began again but was cut short by the prince.
“Well, indeed,” he went on, “you are welcome! Tarna, you see, is not only a great friend of mine, he is my brother.”
“But, but ...” stammered Tommy, “how can he be your brother when ... you’re a prince and live in a palace like this. He’s only a peasant boy and lives in the Settlement over by the river. Surely ...”
“He chose to live there,” Dominic answered quite plainly. “Didn’t like the life here; always been the wild member of my family. He’s been a constant source of disappointment to father.”
There was silence for a short time as Dominic seemed to have fallen into deep thought. Suddenly, he jerked himself out of his reverie as Jimmy began to shuffle around in an effort to stop his empty stomach from rumbling.
“You must accept my humblest apologies for my lack of manners,” Dominic said again. “My own problems have made me cast aside my first duties to my visitors and guests. You must be in great need of rest and refreshment after your trials today. Would a picnic of bread, honey, cheese and the best of last seasons crop of apples be of any use to you?”
Their chorused “Yes please!” and “Thank you very much” gave Dominic the answer he needed to lead them off to the kitchens to collect a large basket to take out to one of the inner garden areas.
As they emerged from the relative dimness of the castle into the sheltered garden, Tommy and Jimmy were dazzled by the brilliance of the afternoon sun, which was unaffected by the darkness it had witnessed earlier. The evocatively beautiful song of the lark in the upper airs carried their minds back to the fields and woods in spring and summer around their own home, and they, for the first time, felt lonely, frightened, and began to wish they were back.
The manicured and sculptured lawns could be the ideal pages for a book upon which the poetry of jasmine, veronica, weigela and lavender was written, all set out in the perfect splendour and isolation of their individual island beds and borders. There were three rustic bench seats perfectly placed to take the occasional picnic. The one they were aiming for was sheltered by an aromatic bower of arching yew which was threaded through and held together by dozens of crimson rambling roses.
“This is our private garden,” Dominic broke the silence as they set to the inviting fare in the basket. “I come here often to think and just to be alone. It is a place I used to share occasionally with Tarna.”
Jimmy’s puzzled look prompted Tommy to describe Dominic’s brother to him, and to run over a few of the adventures they had shared the last time he was in Omni.
“We became almost like brothers,” Tommy explained to Jimmy. “But our meeting, the first time I came to this place, was very different from your experience so far. He seemed to be waiting for me, as if he was expecting me to be there.”
Tommy continued his tales about his great friend Tarna with such enthusiasm and feeling that Jimmy felt he had known him all his life. He was sure he would know him if they were ever to meet. Dominic’s feelings were mixed, however. Tarna had never shared with him the sorts of adventures Tommy described. This allowed a mixture of wonder and envy to become intertwined within him.
Silence again descended to be punctured only by the crunching of teeth against apple. In fact, the silence had grown to be so complete that even the thousands of dancing and fiddling midges had been stilled, and every sound from the three companions dropped through the air, ringing as they fell. At that moment, Jimmy realised that, although his brother was speaking, he could hear nothing of what he was saying. It was as if a deadening blanket was cutting off all sound, stifling their voices before words were issued from their lips.
At the same time, Jimmy and Tommy were gripped by a feeling of sudden nausea so violent that they had neither choice nor control of the sickness, which surged from their bodies. Their heads began to swim alarmingly, making them unable to stand, whilst cold, clammy hands fastened themselves over their mouths and around their bodies, binding them as tightly as any stout rope. Before total unconsciousness overtook them, Tommy glimpsed a sea of the same bodies who had terrified him before.
The Sesqui-senti were abroad, and they were taken prisoner.
Their unconsciousness lasted but a short while - a brief respite of blessed relief from the nausea they had experienced before. The Senti jostled, prodded and poked their minds and bodies once more to wakeful reality, which was far worse than the dreams they might have had on the blackest of nights. Their journey, always on foot, was an unpleasant if uneventful one, covered in the main in silence, except for the crackling rattle of the Sentis’ shambling gait and the pad of their shoeless feet on the soft turf.
Dusk had fallen prematurely, reducing all around to a whispering world of half-light and uncertainty. To the north the opposing cloud battalions of two warring heavenly armies vied with each other in glowering combat, each throwing towering forks of lightening, West against East. Like two great powers, mind against mind, they strove to prove their mastery, but neither gained the upper hand; each retreating to rejoin battle at some later time.
Suddenly, it was before them!
In the gloaming, the harsh, sharp outline of the seat of despair, last bastion of a world of doom and fear, appeared out of the gloom. Instinctively, Jimmy clutched at the parcel he still had under his coat. As they approached the last steps to an uncertain end, feeling it would be important, he thrust it from him into the split trunk of a gnarled and knotty oak which stood sentinel on the borders of an ancient wooded area below where the castle had come to rest.
He was only just in time. The immeasurably thick steel gates of Seth’s Castle clanged shut behind them, sealing them off from the outside world.
With that last desperate clang, their world closed in on them, changing from one of sunlight and breezes to a half world of shadows, darkness and silence. It was a darkness so complete, the eyes began to feel as if they had never witnessed the blessed sun or those millions of winking dots at night. And silence; a deep, thick, brooding silence which wrapped itself around them. With it came the smells, which tantalised and tempted them with their favourite treats beyond imagination. Promises of whatever they wished for were laid before their eager minds. But whenever they were about to become reality, as soon as their aching mouths and stomachs were about to taste those invi
ting morsels, their teeth sank into empty air. As they hadn’t eaten properly for quite a long time, their disappointment at missing out on what promised to be a delicious meal was understandable.
The silence didn’t reign for long. Quietly at first, but increasing in intensity and volume, a voice took shape in their heads, growing in their minds until it was all they could hear.
“Welcome to my realm,” it said quietly with that deceptively honeyed tongue of an insincere host. “You are guests in a place from where there is no return and in which all exits are entrances.”
“But, how can we be guests if ...?” blurted out Jimmy in reply, he was rewarded by having an enormous invisible hand flapped across his mouth making it rather difficult to hold a conversation. What he had been going to ask was how could they be guests and welcome when they couldn’t come or go as they pleased, but the chance had passed as quickly as all thoughts of food had evaporated.
The voice stopped, to be replaced by insistent, probing, searching fingers in their minds seeking out all information about their origin, their reasons for being there. Then, inadvertently, it was out! The parcel! The hint of the existence of such an object directed the questioner’s full attention onto Jimmy.
“What was this ‘parcel’? What was it for?”
Answers were gradually coaxed from the little boy as he felt his inner-will crumble before such a sustained onslaught.
“Where is this ‘parcel’ now?” the Questioner insisted. “It must be found! It has to be found for the greater good of all!”
Its whereabouts were almost revealed, when Jimmy felt a surge of power wax inside his small being, before which the Questioner faltered and hesitated, unsure of this new determined obstacle. The question was put again, more forcefully this time, but the resistance was equal to it. For an instant the full power of its fury was turned against this ... this microscopic ... thing which had had the insolence to resist the Questioner of the Glorious Lord of Seth. Jimmy, although reinforced and supported mentally by some force outside of his understanding, was no match for such a great magician’s wrath and was knocked to the floor by the intensity of his attack.
As quickly as it had appeared, the Power changed direction and was gone, giving its attention to some other field, leaving Jimmy dazed and exhausted from its suddenness. Slowly, painfully, he dragged himself to a sitting position, rubbing his head, and, for the first time since they had entered that cursed place, they could see. This world was set in a dim mistiness, which made the eyes tired and seeing very difficult, and was populated by shadows and flitting, indistinct shapes.
“You all right, Jim?” Tommy asked in a hoarse whisper.
“I ... I think so,” Jimmy replied, vainly rubbing his eyes with his knuckles in an attempt to clear the fog from his head. “I’m ever so tired - and hungry. I wish we were back home with some of those bangers and bacon Mum always cooks on ... what day is it, Tom?”
“Dunno,” Tommy replied, scratching his head, “but my stomach tells me it’s ages since we last ate. I’m starved.”
It all became clear - startlingly, painfully, desperately clear - as the mistiness vanished, leaving the brothers shocked and frightened.
Four walls, each of un-guessable thick black stone, had sprung at them from out of uncertainty, and, topped by a ceiling somewhere above their heads, they completed a dark room which proved to be their prison. A single window, three metres or so from the ground, allowed watery rays from some alien sun to bring a tiny glimmer of hope through the thick mesh covering the opening. All hope, however, was squashed when their gaze lighted on the door, which seemed to be an extension of the walls. Black, sombre, encrusted with years of damp and dirt, its only decorations were enormous, rusted iron studs and a tiny grille opening near to its top.
Too frightened to cry, Jimmy edged closer to his brother who, as old as he was, was glad of the feeling of security the closeness of his brother provided.
“Tommy?” Jimmy asked, his voice falling from his mouth with a curiously deadened sound. “Will we ever get out? You see, Mum doesn’t know about Isaac, my gerbil, yet, and before long he’ll need feeding, and besides ...” His voice faltered even though he was bravely trying to sound unworried, “... I’m hungry.”
“Well, I...” Tommy started, but was drowned by the grating clunk of several bolts on the outside of the door being slid open. The ensuing creak of protesting hinges fixed their unblinking eyes on the gradually increasing outline of light around the doorframe. Not knowing what to expect, they were frozen as the door slowly opened; like the jaws of some preying beast.
Chapter Six
“Oh my head, my head!” Dominic groaned as he cradled his face in his cupped hands, still sitting on the floor.
The darkness in the garden had cleared almost, leaving one or two pockets of grey mist still stubbornly refusing to disperse. The sun’s rays finally, after a long battle, had managed to thrust their way through the murk to re-warm and reawaken the land.
“Fear not, Dominic,” a familiar voice cut through the uncanny silence. “The danger is past.”
The young boy’s head jerked up, a look of surprise dancing in his eyes.
“Tarna!” he finally blurted out. “How did you get here? You were out in the Settlement last I heard of you.”
“The Chieftain saw troubles coming from afar. We came through as quickly as we could,” Tarna answered briefly. “You we were able to save, but we came too late for the Otherworldlings. The Senti have them in their foul clutches, and by now they’ll be in Seth’s ‘gentle’ care. Their prisoners and their purpose were obviously known to them for they were taken with the least fuss. You they didn’t want, but you would have lost your head had we not cut through them in time.”
Dominic, forgetting his troubles and pain and glad to be able still to feel the luxury of a headache, gave out an involuntary shudder of horror and revulsion as his brother led him inside.
“But what about the Brothers?” Dominic asked as soon as they were settled in to his quarters. “Is there nothing we can do?”
“Nothing,” was the quiet but definite answer from the older boy. “Once in Seth’s hands, there is no escape. They are, I’m afraid, on their own. Any help they get must come from within, and Seth’s power is ... well, look what happened to Father.” His voice tailed off, leaving a deep silence in the room, which was usually bright and airy and full of the smells and sounds of nature filtering in from the garden close by.
The effects of a Seth presence were a long time wearing away, leaving the very fabric of a place steeped in his evilness.
“There is perhaps ... no, it’s not possible,” Tarna continued in a half-aside, talking quietly, almost to himself, with a distant look on his face.
“Go on!” said Dominic eagerly, wanting above all to help the two brothers whose friendship he courted for a fleeting moment. “You said ‘perhaps’. Is there some way...?”
“Well, yes, there may be,” Tarna replied hesitantly. “It’s just possible - only just possible mind you - that the Old Man of the Mountains might be able to help.”
“But ... he’s ...” Dominic stammered, eyes narrowing in disbelief and a little fearful at his brother’s suggestion. The Old Man had lived only in legends - a figment to frighten small boys who wouldn’t behave; a shadow which sat at the back of the mind or around behind the door in a dark room.
“Yes, I know,” answered Tarna. “He’s been told of only in stories for hundreds of years, but there are ways of summoning the help of this spirit; yes, don’t be startled, his spirit lives! If it is dealt with in the right way, it can be turned to good. It is not the evil storytellers would have us believe. We must ...”
The midday bell interrupted Tarna, summoning all in earshot to the table for the afternoon repast. Reluctant to leave but not able to resist, the brothers set off down the linking corridor to their family dining area.<
br />
Resplendent in his ‘king’ robes, their father squatted on a raised throne-like seat at the head of the great oval table, and, as his elder son entered, the area above his enormous globe-like eyes, where there would normally have been brows, wrinkled upwards in his one show of surprise.
“We are honoured indeed,” Oompah croaked in semi-mock seriousness, “to have one so important to take meat at our humble table. Were we able to make it, our bow would be of the lowest and most respectful for the occasion.” He broke off to incline his bulbous head and sweep his long thin arm across his chest in illustration of his words. Tarna’s only response was a slight lowering of the chin and setting his lips into a line of restraint, for he knew his father’s wit of old. If he were to allow it, he could so easily be drawn into the old verbal jousts he remembered with a wince. He had come with a need for food not for exchanges to help sharpen his father’s wit nor alleviate the boredom of his short fat prison.
“We were attacked by the Senti, Father,” Dominic said through a mouthful of bread and honey.
“That’s impossible!” Oompah blurted out. “There is no way they could have entered the Fortress.”
“Impossible it may be,” Tarna said not wanting to miss his opportunity, “fact it certainly is. They were ‘directed’, knowing what they wanted, and so shrugged aside your defences without engaging them. They carried off their prize - the two Otherworldlings.”
“If that is all they came for, and took,” Oompah went on with visible relief, “then we can be thankful they found nothing more useful.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” Tarna insisted quietly. “Those two boys could turn out to be a very costly ‘useless’ package. They have something of enormous value that Seth obviously desires greatly, but what that is, I cannot perceive just yet. The Chieftain has encountered a blockage; a thick impenetrable mist shrouding the whole episode which he cannot pierce. He feels that if Seth discovers that which he desires, we may as well go back to hiding in caves so swift and total will be his victory.”
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