Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  Myrrdinus looked away, deciding to remain silent about the sacrificed snake, but Bert caught the expression and feared the worst for his friend.

  Asher pointed at Frog. “What be that?”

  “Frog,” stated Myrrdinus, somewhat obviously. “Be friend,” he continued - which was not so obvious.

  Frog, for her part, delivered a musical, “Rivet.”

  “Been in cage in temple,” Gwyneth added. She had, however, more pressing information to relate. “Dad, soldiers riding in forest.”

  “Following Elaine,” Bert told her, pointing back at the nearby cabin, “and him.”

  The ‘him’ turned out to be Harlin, leaning on the crumbling doorway of the cabin. Once he spotted them, he plopped down on the muddy doorstep with relief, forcing Elaine to climb over him. The hugging and swapping of information was duly repeated.

  Myrrdinus told Elaine that the Queen was in the temple and not the castle, thus rendering her noble sacrifice moot.

  How typical, thought Elaine.

  Gwyneth asked her what was happening at the cabin and was told that Harlin had called a meeting of Elders.

  “What for?” asked Gwyneth, voicing Bert’s cynicism.

  “To talk to them,” Elaine replied, in a rather more protective tone than was strictly necessary.

  “We see what good that doing,” Bert sneered.

  “It’ll be fine,” Elaine insisted. “He only wants to talk to his own people.”

  * * *

  It was not fine; it was very far from fine.

  Hours later, Grey Squirrel perched on a tree branch, cringing. Directly below him sat a glamorous, long-lashed Frog, also cringing. Stationed next to her, his soggy bottom soaked in mud, was Clipper, his face puce from anger. Overhanging all was the melee of raucous voices, overlapping one another in layers of abuse.

  “Why listen to ye?”

  “Where ye been ten year while Queen taked everybone from us?”

  “Ye no idea, boy.”

  “Why come back here, bringing Harpy on us?”

  Assembled around a camp fire, directly in front of the cabin, stood a group of village Elders, engaged in berating Harlin with an uncomfortable degree of relish; something they had waited many years to do. Anyone who might have offered support to the besieged young man was kept outside of the circle of Elders in an effective exclusion zone.

  Bert leaned against a tree, even further away, observing the confrontation. His sympathies were entirely with the Elders. He knew that each had lived through their own personal tragedy, courtesy of Harlin’s actions, many years before and since. Bert’s own thoughts were neatly summed up when one such Elder sneered, “Ye called us here on our honour for yer father? Ye spitted on Gawain. Never able trust ye to lead, Magiker.”

  That was one abusive statement too many for Elaine. The logical scientist, reluctant speaker and faker of cold-heartedness could not watch the demolition of one, so very scarred by life, whether it be his own fault, or no.

  “Why can’t you listen?” she pleaded. “Just listen to him.”

  “Should give Harpy what she want,” suggested one Elder. “Get Melith back.”

  Over the sound of Drevel’s snarls, Asher bellowed, “Not handing woman to Harpy, not even for me own wife!”

  “You blame Harlin for staying away,” Elaine interjected. “Now you won’t listen when he does come back.”

  The Elders shook their heads as one. “And what he saying? We need look for Key of Old. Hardly new idea. What if we finding? How we get close nough to Harpy to use it, when she have Firestone?”

  “And Baal.”

  “And renders.”

  “Make no mind,” Bert offered, limping a few paces closer to the circle. “Not know where Key be. No idea where start looking.” He finally stared straight at Harlin; something he had avoided doing for hours. “No, boy, be too late for this.”

  Harlin’s head dropped. His faltering confidence had long since floated away on a sea of self-doubt and guilt. No-one was aware of the extent of his sin, even Myrrdinus. If they became aware, they would probably kill him and deservedly so. Elaine’s presence had somehow cast a spell over him, like an air of long forgotten hope. It had evaporated in the wake of severe opposition. Even Elaine could see that it was all over, before it had even begun.

  Suddenly, Frog propelled herself out of the mud, executed a neat somersault in mid-air and landed in the middle of the circle with a wet slap, whereupon she proceeded to perform a ninja dance; all legs and tiny fists. There was a tumbleweed silence whilst the Elders and Frog eyeballed each other.

  “Rivet!” she finally announced, poking two fingers at her bulbous eyes in a ‘watch me closely’ gesture. She began to hop.

  The Elders were too stunned to object and even leaned forward with curiosity when letters began to appear in the sludge. Myrrdinus, Asher, Elaine and Clipper’s father peered over the top of the leaning circle whilst Drevel weaved his way through the sea of legs. Clipper shoved an Elder aside and stationed himself so close to the flabbergasted Harlin that he practically stood on his idol’s feet. All this left the vertically challenged Gwyneth straining to see anything.

  K…E...

  “Key?” offered Clipper.

  Frog performed one leap to indicate yes and took a rest. This gave Gwyneth time to gain access to the circle by startling Myrrdinus with a well placed grope.

  “One hop meaning aye,” Gwyneth helpfully informed the villagers.

  “What bout Key?” a chorus of voices asked, drowning her out.

  Myrrdinus gestured for silence. “Ye know where it be?” he asked Frog.

  All the villagers burst into guffaws of laughter, making the young man scowl. The laughter ceased, however, when Frog leapt, once. Everyone looked to Asher for his reaction; a response that didn’t escape Harlin’s notice.

  “Where be Key?” Asher asked the tiny animal, peering down at her from a great height.

  Taking an enormous gulp of air, Frog proceeded to leap up and down like a frenzied, slimy green typewriter.

  K…E...Y…I…N…2…

  “Key be in two parts!” announced Myrrdinus, unnecessarily, receiving a long-suffering glare from Gwyneth for his trouble.

  S…E…N…D…E…D...W...E…L…L…O…F…S…N…A…K…E…A…N…D…C…A…V…E…O…F…F…E…A…R.

  “Well of Snake and Cave of Fear,” Asher murmured to himself. “Neither sound nicely. How ye know?”

  Frog audibly sighed and began jumping again.

  S…E…E…N.

  “Ye seen Harpy send Key parts?”

  A single, tired hop followed.

  “Who be ye?” Bert asked, having given up his self-imposed exile and hobbled over.

  Frog keeled over with exhaustion and lay on her back, legs in the air. Silence descended once more as Harlin peered down at her.

  “Ye knowing where well and cave be?”

  Frog obligingly rolled over and faintly drew in the mud with a suction tipped finger.

  “If ye can draw, why all jumping?” asked Myrrdinus - which was actually a very sensible question. Unfortunately, everyone was so used to him being a bit of a twit that they laughed anyway.

  By now, Frog had completed her elementary drawing of a waterfall with a heart above it, next to the word cave.

  “I know this place,” Harlin advised. “Be Heart Waterfall. And Well of Snake?”

  Frog crawled next to the word snake and drew a pointing arrow.

  “That way,” pointed Myrrdinus, never knowing when to call it quits.

  “Dumbwit,” mumbled Gwyneth.

  “Two teams. One for cave, one for well,” announced Harlin, surprising everyone. “I taking cave, as know where be.”

  “Well,” said Gwyneth.

  “Well what?” asked Myrrdinus.

  “I be going Well of Snake. Dumbwit.”

  “I be leading,” stated Myrrdinus, pumping himself up to his most impressive height.

  “Ye not finding own
arnus,” Bert pointed out, like a pin to a balloon.

  “Be going with ye,” stated Asher.

  “And me,” said Bert, adding, “If ye make me.”

  Harlin looked from one to the other with a pointed stare. “Both in no state. Not able walk there. One too beaten, tother wooden leg. Both stay here.”

  “Be watching mouth, childlin,” Bert snapped, despite knowing he was right. “Not me leader.”

  “Not yet,” Harlin shot back. “Anybone else?”

  The Elders shuffled and looked away.

  “So, going lone. Myrrdinus, meet back here, when doed.”

  Drevel barked so loudly that all the Elders jumped. He trotted over to Harlin, visually announcing his intention to accompany him.

  “I’m going with you, too,” Elaine decided, having absolutely no idea what she was doing, beyond loyalty.

  “No,” stated Harlin with a simultaneous bark from Drevel.

  “Fine. I’ll just follow you,” Elaine told Harlin. “You can hardly outrun me.”

  A smile surfaced before Harlin had begun to process the emotion. He smothered it, but not quickly enough for anyone to miss it.

  “We returning with Key,” he told the shuffling Elders. “Then talking again.”

  Gwyneth hugged her father, struggling with what to say for once in her life. “I know,” Asher told her, not quite believing he was letting her go into danger, when all he wanted was to lock her away in safety. But there was nowhere left to call safe in this realm. He settled for, “Stay close to Myrrdinus.”

  Bert crossed his arms, fretted and scowled at Myrrdinus. “Not believe this. Ye taking care of her. Ye hear me?”

  “Never stop hearing ye,” Myrrdinus muttered.

  Gwyneth released her father and headed over to Elaine. They faced one another for a long moment before embracing.

  Clipper stood even closer to Harlin - if that were humanly possible - signalling his intent to shadow his idol. Harlin, touched by the boy’s blind loyalty, gripped Clipper’s shoulder with his good hand and gently told him, “Not coming this time. Need ye take care of Asher and Bert. Understand?” The boy considered the importance of his new task, glanced at his charges and nodded.

  Myrrdinus offered his right hand to Harlin. He immediately swapped to his left, so that he could shake Harlin’s good hand; and shake they did, faking a manly manner.

  Drevel peered at the glamorous Frog and delivered the canine equivalent of a beaming, toothy grin. She, in turn, batted her unfeasibly long eyelashes and returned the smile before being resettled onto Myrrdinus’s shoulder.

  “Which way Well of Snake?” he asked her.

  Frog duly pointed.

  Myrrdinus set off in that direction, striding freely and heading straight for a tree.

  “Mind tree,” warned Gwyneth, peering over Bert’s shoulder whilst hugging him.

  As the two teams headed in opposite directions, Frog waved goodbye from her high vantage point. Bert waved back, realised what he was doing and whipped his hand back down.

  Grey Squirrel sat on a branch, peering right and left, trying to decide which way, if any, he should go. He crossed his tiny arms, frowned and pondered.

  * * *

  Oblivious to the expeditions underway, the Harpy lay in her exotic bedroom, surrounded by shiny trinkets of gold, jewels and sparkling glass. Wall hangings of once finest embroidery, depicting angels of light - a fraying throwback to a happier time – were an ironic witness to the occupant’s deterioration. Furs shuffled on the bed as she rose, her toes cracking when gnarled feet touched the floor. A bony talon reached for a hooded robe, covering wisps of tattered hair.

  The Queen unlocked her door and climbed the stairs to the temple’s second level, the effort causing her to emit a grunt with each step. Even before she reached the spell room, her finely honed instincts told her that something was wrong. She flung open the door. The mass exodus of animal and rebel had left the room in an even greater state of chaos than usual. The door crashed into a pile of discarded books and swung back into her face, almost breaking her nose.

  Despite the searing pain and the watering of her bloody eyes, the Queen entered the room to be presented with a scene of prisoner liberation. Every cage was empty. Scrambling across the room, the Queen discovered the wreckage of a wooden cage, now devoid of a certain amphibian.

  The High Priest of Magikers had risen earlier than his Queen because it took him far longer to get himself dressed. Gergan was arranging his thinning hair with a sharp comb when the Queen’s terrifying screech of rage echoed through the temple. He stuck the comb in his eye.

  Elmin had risen even earlier than Gergan because he was the only one who ever did any work in the temple. He was on his hands and knees, scrubbing, when the Queen’s dulcet tones rang through the altar room. A thunderous flood of priests flowed straight past him, piling through the far door and leaving dirty footprints on his nice clean floor.

  Gergan pushed his way through the cowering crowd of priests as the Queen shrieked, “Pilt! Rack, rack, rack! The frog’s gone! Rack!”

  Papers, books, furniture, all flew through the air. The Queen launched into such a fit of fury that all the ceremonial healing work of the previous day was undone. Not that Gergan would have dared to make that point, certainly not at this precise moment.

  “Who’s been here?” the Harpy demanded.

  Everyone looked at Gergan.

  “Nobone,” he replied, in a strangulated squeak. “Unless…”

  “Out with it! Now!”

  “I, er, carried out marriage.”

  Harpy was pounding on Gergan’s coiffured head when she suddenly stopped. A thought had occurred to her. “Melith. She still here?”

  “Aye, Majesty,” whispered a priest, being that Gergan was still swaying with concussion. “Seen her in snake room.”

  “If they didn’t come for Melith,” the Queen mused. “Then why?”

  She stared at Frog’s splintered cage and remembered the rushing of a waterfall and a sparkling Eden within a cave. The Harpy laughed. Gergan and the Priests cringed; this was usually the moment someone got transformed into a bird.

  “The Key of Old,” she croaked in amusement. “They think they can find it. Gergan, summon the soldiers. And fetch my renders, we are going hunting.”

  * * *

  Something terrifying moved at speed through the forest, slithering through thick white dust, up the side of a stone well, over the top and down… down into darkness.

  Chapter 9

  A slightly charred fish sizzled over a crackling camp fire, held in place on the end of a sturdy and very sharp stick. The other end was clamped tightly in Gwyneth’s eager hand. She waved her catch amidst the flames with endless happy humming. Myrrdinus wasn’t quite so cheerful, being slumped against a tree, his arms crossed, sulking.

  “Be own fault,” Gwyneth pointed out, not improving his mood.

  She had offered to catch his dinner, but, being prideful, he had refused. So now he sat, eating nothing tastier than his own words, tortured by the aroma of her supper. He glanced over at his new friend for some moral support, only to witness Frog chewing on a fat, squelchy worm. He gagged.

  “Not watch her, then,” remarked Gwyneth, unsympathetically. “Worm goodly for her. Fish for me. Pride for ye.”

  Myrrdinus sighed, shuffled and sighed again.

  Gwyneth knew that whatever bothered him wasn’t simply an empty stomach or a tiring day’s walk. “What?” she asked, pointedly.

  “Nought,” he replied, staring up at the stars. At least the rain had ceased, for now.

  Gwyneth waited. She knew that he would continue without any further prodding. He always told her everything, despite protesting against her at every turn.

  “Ye know,” he began, “even if finding Key, to get to Harpy and Firestone we must go through Baal. How we doing that?”

  “Get Key first,” Gwyneth told him. “Worrying ‘bout Baal after.”

  “Baal breathing f
ire, rightly?” said Myrrdinus, pontificating.

  “And?” asked Gwyneth, wondering where he was going with this.

  “We tie his legs and pour water in his nose, to dousel fire.”

  The short silence that followed this pronouncement was broken by peals of laughter from Gwyneth and derisive croaks from Frog. Tears pouring from their eyes, two different species rocked with hilarity, waving their respective banquets.

  “Not talking ye again. Never,” Myrrdinus announced, turning his back on them both.

  “Please, God, may Harlin have better plan than that,” prayed Gwyneth and took a huge bite of her fish.

  * * *

  Harlin, Elaine and Drevel’s journey was no less arduous than that of their friends, but it was far less verbally animated. Although their destination was geographically closer than the well, the terrain involved an element of steep ascent which slowed their progress and subjected Harlin to severe strain. By the time darkness fell the young man was exhausted and in terrible pain. Although he found their actions embarrassing and an affront to his male pride, Harlin agreed to rest while Elaine and Drevel collected firewood.

  Drevel was filling his mouth with fallen branches when he heard the noise. A low growl and a toss of his head alerted Elaine to the possible proximity of danger. Quietly spitting his burden onto the earth, the dog rotated both ears, trying to locate the sound of breaking twigs in the darkness. His canine radar soon pinpointed the source of the disturbance: five of Harpy’s soldiers moving slowly through the forest.

  Elaine helped Harlin to crouch behind a large mound, but he was barely able to stifle a groan. Pulling him back against her chest, she allowed him to relieve his leg pain by leaning against her. Once sure that his charges were safely hidden, Drevel crouched low in the undergrowth. Elaine held her breath as the men passed by, being close enough to see their swords and spears glistening in the moonlight. One of them carried a bow and a quiver of arrows, slung over his shoulder.

  “Be there,” one of the men whispered, pointing away from Elaine and Harlin, to the relief of both. Suddenly, all five men pounced at once, converging on a spot in the darkness. The gruesome squeal of a trapped hog echoed through the night, its misery compounded by unnecessary torture from its captors.