Magic Parcel

by Frank English

  The table company fell silent, not wishing to heed Tarna’s words but not being able to avoid them. His prophecies were too real, and too close to be comfortable, and the one thing no one there wished to have disturbed was his comfort. Such talk should be confined to fairy tale telling by the fire on a cold winter’s evening when all was safe in its cocoon of make-believe.

  Oompah ate slowly, deliberately, that great cavernous jaw making it very difficult to chew the smaller morsels. As he dined, his mind ran back to the times before he had this ... this abominable curse to carry around with him, to the time when he was dressed in human form. As these thoughts ran through his mind, a wave of bitterness and hate for his curser rippled through his body, taking him almost to the point of despair; despair of ever being human again.

  Then a sound, clear and fresh, cut through the depression, dispelling the gloom, and breathing a welcome breeze of spring into their lives. A lark had risen, sending out its fluid tones of happiness through the world. The King’s warty face changed slowly, his eyes twitching towards the sound which set even his flapping feet moving in time with its message of joy. He heaved his ungainly body out of the chair and half-hopped, half-waddled across to an open window where his eyes strained to find the bird. By this time it had become a dot, a mere speck in the white-flecked blue sky above.

  “That’s it then,” he croaked, turning away from the outside world, a new light of determination burning in his eyes. “Something must be done. We will sort out this upstart; this... this... Seth. The Wizard of the Enchanted Wood must be summoned and consulted, and ...”

  “But ... surely we can not summon legend to our needs!” Dominic blurted out almost disbelieving what his father was saying.

  “Almost unseen and largely unknown he may be,” Tarna corrected, “but legend he certainly is not. By some he is known as Morgar; by others Tara-na-bos, but to most, he is Algan the Great.”

  Where there had been quiet before, a deeper more stunned silence set over the gathered company. The very mention of his name brought wonder to some and dread to others.

  The lights in the room slowly faded leaving the semi-darkness contrasting sharply with the outside afternoon sun. Each looked surprised and puzzled, and several turned to speak but tongue had cleft to palate in an involuntary spasm leaving all present without the power to communicate with their fellows.

  Their attention was drawn towards an area of silk tapestry-hung wall behind and to the right of the royal throne, where the darkness deepened and from where emanated a power of such intensity that each was hardly able to behold it for long. Softly at first, like dark treacle oozing over them, a voice poured into their minds, but then changing in depth and character, it left them in no doubt as to who was the master and from which source it came.

  “I am aware of your dilemma,” it said. “Seth and I are adversaries of old, and I know his mind. Do not attempt to confront him; you would be destroyed. He is of a power born of the ancient Evil and can be matched by like power only, which is outside any of your mortal capabilities. Fear not. A way will be found. My mind is turned towards it.”

  They were released as quickly and totally as they had been seized moments earlier, leaving their feeble minds groping and their weak, powerless bodies gasping. The room was again light, and a keen breeze disturbed the silken tapestry by the throne. There, to everyone’s utter amazement, was picked out in gold and silver, a huge capital letter ‘A’ where previously had been woven an ancient hunting scene.

  Chapter Seven

  The monster-like mouth opened to its fullest extent, its yellow breath pouring over the two terrified and trembling brothers. The creaking and groaning of its protesting hinges had been replaced by a dull scraping of metal along a gritty stone floor. Jimmy’s eyes remained tight shut, anticipating the worst. Tommy, however, preferred to watch the approach of whomever was entering their room with eyes narrowed ready to turn off sight should it not meet his requirements.

  Quiet descended; no sound. Even the door had stopped opening, allowing the silence to grow around them.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said a clear ringing voice, which cut through the gloom and oppression like a razor.

  Slowly, like someone awakening from a long sleep, Jimmy opened first one eye, then the other, fully expecting to find that he was either at home after all or taking part in some extraordinary dream. Wasn’t that the smell of frying bacon? And surely, wasn’t that voice familiar? Now, where had he heard ...? What he did see surprised him.

  Two figures, one that of his brother, were silhouetted against the yellow light of the dungeon’s outer room. The other was that of a young girl of about Tommy’s age, to whom he was talking quite excitedly.

  “You need not stay here,” she said with a strange lilting tone. “My uncle is occupied elsewhere, and when he throws his mind back your way, you must not be here.”

  “Your uncle, you say?” Tommy asked. “Who is he?”

  “Why, the Lord Seth, of course,” she replied.

  The two boys visibly shrank away from her, immediately deciding that talking to her must be a trap. Realising from their reactions what they must be thinking, she launched in to her explanation.

  “I understand what you must be thinking,” she went on, “but I am linked by blood alone, and I am as much a prisoner in many ways, in this eternally mobile fortress, as you are at the moment. Seth has not always been evil you know,” she continued after a moment’s pause, looking at Jimmy for the first time, “but from meagre beginnings with my father, who was great in the arts of wizardry, he desired power for its own sake, and that’s when he began to turn towards evil ways.

  “Long years it took him to learn his art, but he had a good teacher in father, who simply poured out his knowledge into Seth, filling him almost to overflowing with his experience. When he had taken his fill, father was discarded like an empty bottle. As his knowledge, by this time, was of little use to him, father disappeared mysteriously. Some say to eternal enslavement to the will of his brother; others, including Seth himself, say he simply wandered into the wild, half-crazed by his loss of power ...”

  An ominous rattle of keys somewhere in the bowels of the dungeons heralded the return of their unwelcome keeper, warning them that they ought to fly.

  “I have talked overlong I fear,” the girl whispered. “Come, you must be gone. They will not think to look for you until the next feeding in about an hour, and by that time you must not be around to taste their concoctions.”

  She closed the door behind them as they drifted silently into the outer keep outside their prison. Jimmy covered his ears expecting the door to signal their departure, but noiselessly it swung shut, securing itself with the least resistance. Their plight was simple; how to get out of a sorcerer’s stronghold even with the help of the sorcerer’s niece.

  The journey was short in distance but long in duration, flitting as they were from pillar to pillar and dark doorway to alcove, like three grey shapes in a land of shadows. A stubbed toe or clumsy movement were all they needed to bring down a whole army of watchers onto their backs.

  Although it hadn’t taken them too long, Jimmy was beginning to feel the pace a little, with his joints taking most of the hammering. Sprinting, bobbing and weaving, and the sudden diving behind some enormous wooden chest, which smelled of old attics, began to take its toll. Not looking where he was going, he cast a glance over his shoulder, when he ran into the corner of a heavy, solid oak casket, half-hidden in the gloom of a deepish alcove. The air gasped and hissed out of his body like a deflated football as he sank slowly to his knees, clutching his unfortunate midriff. Away to his right, came the urgent chatter of feet on the stone floor followed swiftly by several harsh shouting voices.

  “They must be down this way,” one croaked. “I heard a noise.”

  “Yes!” shouted another. “Follow! Follow! We have them! We have them!”
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br />   Jimmy was about to open his mouth to shout for help when a huge hand clasped itself firmly over the lower half of his face, shutting out all possibility of any sound escaping from his lips. A strong arm lifted him from the cold floor, and whisked his helpless body behind the chest into the total darkness of a close musty sort he had never experienced before; except for ... in that old cupboard under the stairs at home! That was the place daylight hardly ever saw and fresh air never sweetened; musty, dank and old, piled high with interesting and exciting rubbish. Yes, that was the smell, but it was with a different, heart-thumping excitement he faced his present situation; the excitement and fear of the unknown.

  A few minutes elapsed before he was set down, gently, the right way up, and he was about to protest through a deep gasp, when he heard a whisper in his left ear advising him not to say anything yet. It was Tommy.

  With mouth tightly shut and the light still turned firmly off, someone took hold of his hand to lead him to an uncertain destination. Oh how a slice of mum’s suet roll and his favourite chips would have made him feel much happier and able to face what was to come.

  Their progress was swift even though the darkness was thick enough to touch, and their guide was either an expert or a night animal, so straight and unerring was his track. Sweet, cool and hot, stifling air attacked Jimmy’s bare face and arms from tunnels opening to left and right, but nothing slowed their rate or deflected their course.

  Suddenly he was stopped by having his nose squashed without warning between the shoulder blades of the person in front.

  “Steady on, now! I’m not a wall!” It was Tommy’s voice, and oh how glad the younger brother was to be able to communicate with someone.

  The light, without his really realising it, had grown gradually around him, becoming more diffuse and allowing him to see at last who his guide was.

  “But ... but ...” he stammered in disbelief at seeing only Tommy and the young girl before him. “Where’s the big ... ? And how ... ?”

  It was obvious from the look of mild amusement in her eyes and the slight smile playing around her lips that there was more to her than he understood. He halted in mid-sentence and took to sucking his bottom lip, a puzzled frown on his brow.

  “There is no need to worry,” she smiled. “A sorcerer’s daughter may dare and achieve almost anything. Take comfort that through there is your escape, and whatever lies in store for you both.”

  She swept her hand in front of them, directing their gaze towards a dancing curtain of grey mist across their exit from this den of sorcery, and their entrance to the unknown. As the first wisps of the curtain played across their feet a thought struck Tommy:

  “We don’t even know your name,” he croaked hoarsely, looking back over his shoulder.

  Instantly, almost in anticipation of the question the sweet name “Miriel” floated back to them through the mists, and as it brushed their ears, a feeling of lightness and hope surged through their bodies. The mist finally closed around them and all trace of their companion was lost. They were finally on their own, and the only way left for them was to go forward.

  “Well, Jim,” Tommy said after a few moments of thoughtful hesitation, “this is a rum how-do-you-do and no mistake. We can’t go back; forward is completely unknown, and all in all ...”

  “We’re lost,” Jimmy interrupted.

  “Correct!” Tommy answered. “Well, it’s for sure we can’t stay here. Time’s getting on and staying here’s just wasting it. So I vote we go on. What do you say?”

  “OK by me,” Jimmy answered. “I don’t know what day it is even, so we’ve nothing to lose.”

  So, with a last look back and a nod to each other, the two brothers set off deeper into the mist, accompanied by a strange musical wheeze, which sounded as if the wind was trying to breathe life into a set of worn-out old bagpipes.

  On they trudged, able to see nothing but a white blanket mist which enveloped them totally. It was not your usual damp, smelly, choking mist, really not a mist at all, only a mass of white, which painted out all the surroundings.

  Stronger than ever through this white blanket, with other senses heightened by lack of sight, came the equally evocative evidence of an exotic countryside: scents and sounds such as they had never experienced before nor ever dreamed could exist. The sappy, resinous smell of a spring morning’s pine forest mingled with the salt tang of a sou’westerly from the sea, woven around by the equally incongruous sounds of the strident, plaintive cry of a gull superimposed on the back-drop of a country meadow in early summer.

  Confused and yet overjoyed at the re-awakening of some of their half-forgotten memories, Tommy and Jimmy stumbled on through undergrowth they couldn’t see but felt, as its springy whip-like grass stems returned to their starting places on their passing.

  “I’m thirsty,” gasped Jimmy after half an hour or so, “and I ...”

  “Sh!” Tommy hissed, stopping sharply and grabbing his brother. “Over there,” he whispered, “see, the mist is thinning out, and I can see ... people!”

  “Where? Where?” Jimmy asked, craning his neck and shuffling around in what felt like heath tussocks under foot. “Show me. I ... Arghh! My shin! My leg!”

  He had broken away from Tommy’s grasp, and collapsed somewhere in the thickening mist. His pained groans and gasps came from somewhere below the knee height of his brother, who immediately dropped to a crouch to feel around for his younger brother.

  “Jim. Jim,” he croaked. “Where are you? Groan a bit and then I can get a fix on your position.”

  Jimmy didn’t find that remark in the least funny, but obliged with a heart-felt moan nonetheless, which resulted in his brother finding him.

  “Careful, can’t you?” Jimmy complained at last. “That’s my eye you’ve got your great ... elbow ... in!”

  Jimmy had finally realised that the mist had disappeared, as if some huge vacuum cleaner had removed all trace of the obliterating nuisance, and what he saw in no way even approximated what he had imagined. Barren hills are what they saw, bare of all vegetation apart from the springy tussocky heath grass they had been stumbling along, and mountains - stretching endlessly in a great crescent far away into the blue haze off northwards and out of sight. They had been to the mountains for holidays many times before father had died, but compared with the grandeur and scale of these, their mountains were as a rash on an animal’s back.

  Jimmy’s gaze swept around following the range until his eyes became watery with the strain. On their return journey, his eyes lighted on the object which had brought about the untimely meeting of his knees and the ground. Cold, it felt against his skin, and hard and unyielding under his hand.

  “But ... but ...” he stammered, taken very much aback by its sudden appearance. “It’s a ...”

  “Grave,” Tommy finished off for him. “Overgrown it may be, but still very much a ... grave ...”

  His matter-of-factness quickly evaporated on looking up from the hard, glossy rectangularity of the grey granite grave surround, withstanding the continual onslaught of weed and weather, to catch the shadowy outline of some indistinct figure in his eye corners. He nudged his brother who had already seen their ghostly spectator and was slowly dragging himself to an upright position, eyes firmly fixed on the apparition. Large in the extreme, with huge hairy arms folded across its chest like scaffolding, its unblinking eyes peered out of a face totally surrounded by black, grey-flecked, dishevelled hair, fixing them to the spot as effectively as tying them with rope.

  The Old Man of the Mountains sought an explanation from those disturbing his rest!

  Chapter Eight

  The darkening storm gathered about the pinnacles and battlements of Seth’s castle. Black clouds formed their battalions, marshalling their dark troops ready for battle with the Master of Mystery. Lightening began to flicker and play, adding a silver circlet to the crown
of clouds the castle already displayed.

  The first rolling clap of thunder startled the surrounding countryside and even rattled the thick stone battlement tops. This would be a conflict to end all conflicts, and one in which the elements, after centuries of perseverance, would crush utterly the upstart magician who had tried - and succeeded for the most part - to tame them to his will.

  The crash, although expected and prepared for, still took participant and spectator by surprise, stunning even the hardiest of animals into immediate submission. Yet the castle simply sat, amidst its bushes and trees, like the bones of the earth out of whose rocks it had gradually grown over the years.

  Suddenly, when the intense blue flash of the storm had stopped printing tiny replicas on the inner black velvet backdrop of the eye, it was gone! The castle had disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving a deeper, darker gap in the countryside.

  Tommy and Jimmy felt instantly the moment the disappearance had taken place.

  “But ... Tom ... the par...!” was all Jimmy was allowed to say by his brother, who clapped his hand tightly across his mouth, in the meanwhile whispering to him not to disturb the guest to their homely surroundings.

  The figure didn’t move. Motionless, his unblinking eyes bored through their minds, searching, probing and asking. Where had they experienced that before? Yes, of course ...!

  “Seth!” blurted out Jimmy with the impetuosity of youth. “You’re ... !”

  “Seth, and not Seth,” came the overriding reply, but the lips did not utter those words; they were not heard but felt. Jimmy was beginning to wonder if in fact the ears were of any use at all in this land, nobody much seemed to use them; at least, not for communication anyway. That was one of the things about this country he would alter if he ever became king; that and things like better catering facilities, and more toilets. Why didn’t they ever...? His mind was wrenched unceremoniously back to the attention of their visitor, who was beginning to become a little irritated by the small boy’s lack of attention.