Floods 3

by Colin Thompson

  In the Himalayas the mist had lifted and the sun shone down into a two-coloured world. Above, the sky was a bright clear blue. Everything else was covered in a layer of fresh white snow that had fallen during the night. It was as if no living creature had ever set foot in this high valley. The stable itself was almost hidden beneath a large snowdrift.

  Inside the stable the air was warm and humid, filled with the sweet smell of damp hay. Baby Valla lay in his manger, gurgling quietly to himself as he sucked his thumb. Being a wizard, with a touch of vampire from his great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side, he already had tiny fangs, and soon punctured his own skin. This would make a human baby cry, but as Valla tasted his own blood, a contented grin spread across his little face. His parents lay together, half buried in the straw below the manger, and across the stable Vessel lay curled up at the Queen’s feet dreaming of cheese.

  George was gradually eating his way through the Queen’s bed when she woke with a shudder and sat up.

  ‘What is it, my queen?’ said Vessel. ‘Are you cold?’

  ‘Go on, blame it on me,’ George whinged. ‘Can’t even eat a bit of breakfast without someone complaining.’

  ‘No, it’s not the cold,’ said the Queen. ‘I felt the icy hand of death on my shoulder. The Hearse Whisperer comes behind us and she is one who will never rest until she has found us.’

  ‘The Hearse Whisperer?’ said Nerlin. ‘My grandfather used to speak of her, but none of us believed she was real.’

  ‘We must leave,’ said the Queen. ‘The further away we get, the better. I knew the King would send people after us, but I never thought he would use someone as evil as the Hearse Whisperer.’

  ‘We need to find some food for our new baby,’ said Mordonna. ‘I know puncturing your own veins is a great way to keep a deadly pale complexion, but I’d rather not.’

  ‘Blood, blood, blood,’ gurgled Valla.

  ‘Oh bless him,’ said the Queen. ‘Look at that blood round his little mouth. What an angel.’

  ‘Who’s mummy’s little vampire?’ said Mordonna fondly as baby Valla sunk his fangs into her thumb. ‘But, oww, oww, we really need to find him some food, like, oww, oww, as soon as possible.’

  ‘We can get supplies from a blood bank,’ said the Queen.

  ‘Hello?’ said Nerlin. ‘Himalayas? I don’t see any branches of Bloods R Us.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Vessel, knowingly. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if there was one up here somewhere. I mean, mountain climbers are always having accidents. I would have thought there’d be quite a demand.’

  Nerlin put his son in his backpack, helped Mordonna up onto George’s back and the party went out into the blinding whiteness. It almost felt like spring rather than the depths of winter, provided you were a penguin or a yeti.

  ‘I might have known,’ George moaned, ‘every blade of grass is buried under tonnes of snow.’

  Mountain after mountain, joined by a line of deep valleys, lay ahead of the travellers, but just as Vessel had predicted, a mile or so past the stable there was a small wooden hut half buried in a snow drift. Above its door hung a sign:

  ‘Morning, ladies and gents,’ said the man behind the counter. ‘What can I do for you on this bright, almost spring-like morning?’

  ‘Sixty litres of your finest red,’ said Vessel, ‘to go.’

  ‘What group?’

  ‘All of them,’ said Vessel.

  ‘I’ve only got fifty-eight litres in stock,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Hold on. I’ll nip out the back and get some more.’

  The man vanished into a room at the back of the shop and, after a few loud screams followed by silence, he returned with two more bottles and a big bandage on his arm.

  ‘There you go, squire,’ he said. ‘That’ll be fifteen sovereigns.’

  ‘Here’s twenty-five,’ said the Queen. ‘An extra two as a tip and eight to forget you ever saw us if anyone comes asking.’

  ‘Is someone likely to?’ the man asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Vessel, handing the man a small pill box. ‘I’d advise you to take these three times a day for the next week or so.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Heavy duty painkillers. Some of the people following us are not very nice,’ said Vessel. This was an extremely huge understatement, but he knew that if told the blood bank man just how not nice they were, he would probably run away with them. ‘I think we should probably hypnotise you too and do a bit of memory reformatting in your brain, just to be on the safe side,’ Vessel added.

  Mordonna uncapped a one-litre bag of blood and popped the nozzle into Valla’s mouth. He kicked his little legs with such excitement he nearly fell out of Nerlin’s backpack.

  Fifty-nine litres of blood flopping about in two saddlebags gave George something else to moan about as they set off down the valley. Gradually the snow grew thinner until at last they were below the snow line. They followed a path along a river that jumped and sparkled over bare rocks. Grass began to appear, then stunted trees and small groups of houses with people who waved as they passed. They stopped in a village and bought food before moving on again.

  ‘Rubbish grass,’ said George. ‘Tastes like mulch.’

  ‘We really need to get off this main path,’ said Vessel. ‘This is the first place they will look for us.’

  ‘What, you mean find somewhere where the grass is even crappier?’ said George.

  ‘Where exactly are we going?’ said the Queen.

  ‘Wherever it is, I bet it’s somewhere bleak and cold with really tough grass,’ said George.

  ‘We’re going East,’ said Vessel. ‘When we get to Shanghai we will find a boat. Then we’ll decide where to go from there.’

  ‘Shanghai?’ said the Queen. ‘How romantic. Are we going to travel along the famous Silk Road?’

  ‘If only we could,’ said Vessel. ‘But the King will have spies all along that road. No, we will take the older and lesser-known road, the Cardboard Road.’

  The Cardboard Road was an ancient route where traders had carried cardboard from the workshops of China to the cities of Europe. It had only existed for two hundred years before the Europeans had managed to analyse and successfully copy the Chinese cardboard and make cardboard of their own. There had also been a Porridge Road, where traders had carried porridge from its place of origin – a small town on a ridge above the River Po – to England. It had only taken British scientists eighty years to isolate the main ingredient – oats – and a further fifty years to discover the other ingredient – water. After that the Porridge Road, along with the Lard Road, the Soap Road and the Yellow Brick Road Road, had fallen into disuse and vanished beneath encroaching vegetation. Nowadays the only road that still operates is the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Road.

  Eventually, after three days of hacking through undergrowth, following themselves, setting traps for and catching each other, Cliché, Stain and Ooze reached the Valley of the Sages and Other Herbs. The first thing they saw was the Hearse Whisperer sitting on a rock filing her nails.

  ‘You three couldn’t follow your own fingers if they were on the ends of your hands and were pointing where you had to go,’ she said.

  The three spies, who hadn’t the faintest idea that the Hearse Whisperer was the King’s secret, secret agent, tried to ignore her, but as they walked past she put out her foot and tripped the first one, sending the other two crashing down on top of him.

  ‘Oops,’ she said. ‘Now why don’t you just go back home and get killed by the King? You are the crappiest spies in the whole history of spying and you couldn’t find a snowflake in a blizzard, never mind catch a princess, her husband, her mother, the mother’s servant and a donkey.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ said Cliché.

  ‘Assuming that’s what we are doing, of course,’ Stain added hastily. ‘Which we’re not.’

  ‘No, of course we’re not,’ said Ooze. ‘We don’t know what you’re t
alking about. We’re just doing a bit of hiking.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ said Cliché. ‘What princess?’

  ‘Look, I work for the King,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. The three idiots might be of some use to her, though she couldn’t exactly see how. ‘He sent me here to help you,’ she added.

  ‘Oh,’ said Stain.

  ‘So, you’re on your way to …?’ Cliché began, hoping the Hearse Whisperer knew where they were supposed to be going.

  ‘Yes, absolutely.’

  ‘To see the umm, the err …’ said Ooze.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Stain. ‘We’ll follow you.’

  ‘No, no, you lead the way,’ said the Hearse Whisperer.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Cliché.

  ‘Ladies first,’ said Ooze.

  ‘You don’t know where you’re going, do you?’

  ‘Well, umm, err, no.’

  ‘To find the Sheman?’ prompted the Hearse Whisperer.

  ‘We knew that,’ said Ooze.

  ‘Yes, we just wanted to make sure you really were on our side,’ Stain added.

  ‘Yeah right,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘Come on, let’s go then.’

  When they reached the caves, it was obvious which one was the Sheman’s as there was laundry hanging up to dry outside and a recycling bin with a takeaway lentil container and a pair of organic socks in it. It didn’t take them long to realise the Sheman was not there.

  ‘She’s escaped!’ the Hearse Whisperer wheezed, setting fire to the Sheman’s cave in frustration.

  Stain got down on all fours and began to sniff the ground.

  ‘This way,’ he said, heading towards the cave that led to the Sanctuary Trail. They slid and tumbled down the icy mountain path until they reached the stable where Valla had been born.

  ‘I smell new life,’ said Stain sticking his head in the manger. ‘Baby boy, no more than a few hours old.’

  The Hearse Whisperer vented her anger by setting the manger alight. She did this a few seconds before Stain pulled his head out of the straw. The spy screamed and fell on the floor clutching his left ear. A strong smell of fried bacon filled the air.

  ‘Excellent,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘A child will slow them down. We’ll rest here for the night and set off at dawn. We will have them in chains before lunchtime.’

  Once out of the mountains, the refugees made better progress. Using ancient Buddhist Mountain Running And Leaping Skills which Vessel had learnt at his mother’s knee,31 they managed to cover huge distances in mere minutes so that by late afternoon they were having tea and cakes in Shangri-La, and by evening they had reached the Chinese border. Of course, once they crossed into China, the mystical running and leaping skills stopped working and they were forced to travel on foot. Nevertheless, they reached the Great Wall of China Inn and Noodle Takeaway Number Seventy-Three by nightfall, just in time for a delicious meal before the kitchen closed.

  Their pursuers had to make do with bicycles and a faulty broomstick that kept flying backwards. This meant that when they finally reached the Inn, it was after midnight and they were forced to eat what they could scavenge out of the dustbins.

  ‘The Princess has been chewing this,’ said Stain, sticking a chicken bone up his nose and inhaling deeply.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ said Cliché. ‘Grab her and kill the rest of them?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘They have very strong magic. We need to catch them off-guard.’

  ‘They’re asleep,’ said Ooze. ‘How much more off-guard can they get?’

  ‘We’re not all asleep,’ said a gloomy voice from the shadows.

  ‘Some vatch up on you from below outside in,’ said another voice from the roof.

  ‘It’s just the stupid donkey and the servant’s crazy bird,’ whispered Stain.

  ‘Stupid, maybe,’ said George, ‘but with hearing sharper than a pin and kung-fu hooves.’

  The four spies agreed to wait for an unguarded moment when they would be able to strike.

  Parsnip flew through his master’s bedroom window and tapped him on the head.

  ‘Four pies, master, flee now must go do,’ he said.

  Vessel woke everyone. The four spies were busy poking around the dustbins for food, so the refugees slipped quietly out of the front door and off into the night.

  The refugees had many, many miles to travel to reach Shanghai and find a boat, but they were in no hurry and agreed with Vessel when he said that travelling slowly would be exactly the opposite of what the King’s spies would expect. So they took detours to beautiful villages and walked along country roads past gentle streams.

  Time passed and everyone except Valla got five months older. Little Valla got five years older. He even went to some of the village schools, where he learnt Chinese calligraphy and how to make delicate porcelain bowls.

  ‘Because,’ he explained, ‘you never know when things like that might come in handy. And besides, fresh blood looks so appetising in a fragile white bowl.’

  They had to leave most of the villages in rather a hurry when Valla kept drinking blood out of the local chickens and his fellow students’ necks, but each time the Queen would wave her wand and do the forget-we-were-ever-here spell, so no one came after them.

  The spies did not overtake them, as Vessel had predicted, but followed at a discreet distance, staying just one village behind them. There were many occasions when the Hearse Whisperer was sure they could have overpowered the refugees and kidnapped Mordonna, but her three pathetic companions were such dreadful cowards they always found excuses why it wasn’t the right time. Even the Hearse Whisperer felt uneasy about a confrontation. She knew she could overpower Vessel, Nerlin and Mordonna on her own, but Queen Scratchrot was another story. They had crossed swords in the past and the Queen had usually come out on top. Also, only an idiot would be in a hurry to get back to Transylvania Waters and its awful king, and the Hearse Whisperer was not an idiot.

  So, she waited.

  At last the runaways reached the outskirts of Shanghai. One look at the group would tell anyone that they had as much chance of blending in as a glass of water in an oil slick, except that the Queen and her party were more like the oil slick in a sea of clean water.

  ‘I think we should split up and meet at the harbour in two hours,’ said Vessel. ‘That way we might not stand out so much.’

  ‘I’m not splitting up,’ said George. ‘All my insides will fall out.’

  ‘Actually, good and faithful friend …’ the Queen began.

  ‘Uh oh, bad stuff,’ said George. ‘Whenever you talk like that, it’s always followed by something I don’t like.’

  ‘This time you will like it,’ said the Queen, ‘because you are going to get a huge reward.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ the Queen explained. ‘Which would you rather do: get on a very small boat and set off into a wild and stormy sea where you are guaranteed to be horribly seasick every ten minutes, or spend the rest of your life in this lovely field we are now standing in?’

  ‘Boat,’ said George.

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ said the Queen. ‘Look at all this lovely grass.’

  ‘Don’t like Chinese grass,’ said George.

  ‘Yes you do,’ said the Queen. ‘You’re just being silly. Here we are offering you a life of leisure and luxury as a reward for all the hard work you have done for us, and all you can do is complain. You are a very ungrateful animal. I’ve half a mind to turn you into a boiled egg.’

  ‘Go on then,’ said George.

  ‘Look, any donkey would give his right hoof to be sold to this wonderful Chinese gentleman,’ said Vessel. ‘Lovely fresh ditch water, all the grass you can eat and all you have to do is carry a few really tiny bags of ultra-lightweight coal out of his lovely clean mine eighty-seven times a day.’

  ‘Can’t I be a boiled egg instead?’ said George. />
  ‘No,’ said the Queen.

  She stared deep into the donkey’s eyes and said, ‘Now look, everyone knows that donkeys are the worst sailors in the world. You would be so seasick it would fill up the boat and sink it.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ said George.

  ‘It’s a well-known fact,’ said Mordonna. ‘Everyone knows that.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said George.

  ‘Listen, donkey, if being seasick was in the Olympic Games all the medals would be won by donkeys.’

  ‘But, I err, umm …’ George began, but he was now so confused that the thought of coal mining was beginning to look quite appealing.

  ‘And this lovely man is going to pay us three whole fen32 for the honour of allowing you to carry his extra special bio-organic low-fat coal.’

  ‘Three fen? Is that a lot of money?’ said George. ‘After all, I’ve given you the best years of my life.’

  Trouble is, you gave me the worst ones too, thought the Queen.

  ‘Well, of course it is. You are probably the most valuable donkey in the whole world,’ she said.

  Before he could say another word and before the Queen could start feeling guilty, Vessel took the miner’s three tiny coins and handed him George’s halter. After man and donkey had disappeared into the coal mine, Nerlin said, ‘Is that enough to buy a boat?’

  ‘Not so much a boat as a very small nail to start building a boat with,’ said Vessel. ‘We’d need fifty billion fen to buy a whole boat. That is, if we were going to buy one.’

  ‘So, we’re not going by boat?’

  ‘Oh yes, we are,’ said Vessel, ‘but we’re not so much going to buy a boat as borrow one.’

  Although the Queen had a big bag of gold and Mordonna had all her pockets stuffed with precious stones, and witches and wizards can always get money by magic, Vessel only had the three fen he’d been given for George, and his male pride wouldn’t let him ask the Queen or her daughter to help. Besides, as far as he was concerned they weren’t going to keep the boat. They only needed it for a little while, so he didn’t see why he should have to pay for it.