The Enchanted Flute

by James Norcliffe

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll not go back in the coop. Nor will you end up in the stew.’

  Johnny almost collapsed with relief. He stared desperately at Dr Faunus as if not quite sure whether he could trust him.

  ‘Silenus is a merry friend, and fond of a prank,’ said Dr Faunus. ‘He is though, unfortunately, quite ruthless and inclined to give first priority to his stomach! I have many times remonstrated with him about this, but, alas, he is quite incorrigible.’

  ‘I don’t think this was a prank,’ whispered Johnny.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t,’ Dr Faunus smiled grimly. ‘Silenus would probably eat his own mother if given the opportunity. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has already done so!’

  This time, Johnny looked around apprehensively. He thought he trusted the strange figure who had rescued him, but he was not sure how much sway he would have should Silenus return, as he could at any moment.

  ‘But,’ said Dr Faunus. ‘Where is Rebecca? Surely …’ he glanced meaningfully towards the hen house.

  Johnny took his meaning. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘She’s okay. I mean, I hope she’s okay …’

  A look of concern passed quickly over Dr Faunus’s face. ‘What do you mean, you hope she’s okay?’

  ‘Could we get out of here?’ Johnny asked. ‘It’s kind of a long story and I’m worried that …’

  ‘Yes, that might be wise,’ Dr Faunus agreed. ‘But the flute, is that safely with her?’

  Johnny shook his head, remembering. ‘It’ll be inside, I guess,’ he whispered. ‘Becky didn’t take it with her. I think she hid it under the goatskin on her bed.’

  ‘Get it!’ ordered Dr Faunus.

  Johnny looked nervously at the house. For all he knew, Silenus could have returned, could be pouring himself a tankard of beer even as they spoke. He turned back to the strange figure. ‘I don’t think …’

  ‘Get it!’ repeated the doctor, but this time with a note of such absolute command in his voice, and an eye that flashed with such menace that Johnny immediately wilted. He had been given a glimpse of a Dr Faunus that frightened him more than ten Silenuses. Without a backward glance he scurried into the house, hurried through the parlour and into the adjoining room. Quickly, he rummaged under the goatskin and found the black case. Tucking it under his elbow, he retraced his steps and within seconds, really, was standing before Dr Faunus once more.

  ‘See,’ said the figure easily. ‘That wasn’t too difficult. Now, as your reward, we will get you away from this place and the appetite of my old friend as quickly as possible. At least it will be dark soon and more difficult for him to pursue you.’

  He glanced almost fondly at Johnny.

  ‘You have proved a good friend for the girl. You deserve better than the pot.’

  Johnny gave Dr Faunus a nervous little grin.

  ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

  ‘You also deserve, or rather need, a good bath. We shall make for a pool.’

  Johnny agreed. Even in its drying state the chicken shit reeked in almost visible waves, and he felt unbearably filthy. ‘I reckon,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty awful.’

  ‘It’s not just on your own account,’ observed Dr Faunus dryly. ‘Silenus, I recall, has a nose like a bloodhound. He’ll scent his chickens on you from a mountain away. The sooner you’re clear of that muck, the better.’

  Johnny nodded. He could not disagree with that.

  At that point, Dr Faunus said, ‘Come then!’ and immediately set off at a brisk pace towards the forest on the hillside, with Johnny hurrying increasingly breathless behind.

  Johnny soon realised that Dr Faunus was very familiar with the forest and the contours of the hills it covered.

  ‘We will find a pool before darkness falls,’ Dr Faunus said. ‘There are several in this vicinity, but you had better not clean yourself in one my people drink from.’

  Johnny nodded. Since he had seen that flash of utter authority outside Silenus’s cottage he had no wish to engage in debate. In any event, he agreed. He would certainly not want to drink any water he or his clothes had been washed in.

  Johnny realised, too, that Dr Faunus’s odd legs were no handicap. Quite the reverse. He bounded up slopes and leapt from point to point with the ability of a chamois. In fact, he seemed to exult in the movement. Johnny wondered just how long it had been since Dr Faunus had enjoyed this vigour and freedom. He was as frisky and playful as an irrepressible puppy, running when he did not need to, jumping up on rocks just for the pleasure of jumping down again.

  Johnny had great difficulty trying to keep pace, despite the fact that with all his comings and goings, leapings here and leapings there, Dr Faunus was probably covering twice the distance twice as quickly.

  They eventually found a stream tinkling down a rocky gully and followed it uphill.

  ‘There is a pool here we can use,’ Dr Faunus called over his shoulder.

  Johnny hurried after the creature and clambered the last few metres up a steep slope beside a tumbling waterfall. At the top was a small plateau and a dark pool surrounded by bulrushes. Dr Faunus gestured towards the pool and parted the bulrushes for Johnny. He nodded his thanks, handed the doctor the black case and made his way into the water.

  The pool was surprisingly deep and initially the water quite chill. Johnny did not care. He sank under the surface several times, remaining there for as long as he could, breathing beads of bubbles and rubbing vigorously at his face, hair and clothes.

  The third time he re-emerged, wiping his eyes and shaking his head, he heard an expression of anger from the doctor. He turned to find Dr Faunus looking at him with irritation.

  ‘You did not open the case to check whether or not the flute was there?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘No … I just …’

  ‘Fool,’ snapped the doctor.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ asked Johnny, knowing with a sinking heart that there was.

  ‘Of course something’s wrong, you idiot! There’s no flute inside the case.’

  Silenus was in high spirits when he returned from the evening chase. He wore three rabbits tied together by their hind legs around his neck like a grey furry scarf, albeit a scarf speckled with blood. He swung a smaller bow in a merry fashion back and forth as he whistled a jaunty tune.

  He’d been in half a mind to spend some time scouring the nearer hillsides once again for the girl Becky. He considered himself a good cook and felt that the boy-child alone, being somewhat scrawny, would not make the rich meaty stew he preferred. The rabbits would help, of course, but the girl-child would have been a much better option. Both boy and girl and the rabbits seasoned with a bouquet garni of potherbs and turnips would have been best of all.

  In the end though, the rabbits were thirsty work enough. Perhaps after some refreshment, he might reconsider his decision.

  He entered the cottage and slung the carcasses in the corner. He found his flagon and poured himself a generous tankard. Perhaps after several generous tankards he would fall into a slumber and in that slumber would come the dreams. These would tell him whether or not he would find the girl-child.

  Silenus was famous for his dreams and the way they could foretell what was to come. So famous was he for this skill, this gift really, kings would seek him out and ply him with wine. All wanted the same thing. Too impatient to wait for tomorrow, or the next week, they wanted to know the future now; wanted it laid out like some chart. Fools that they were. Every chart told the same story: the road to the future is the road to death.

  He grinned as he took a huge draught. But who was he to argue when they paid for this depressing message with such quantities of ale and wine? One had even filled a well with wine for him, although of course in the end it did a fat lot of good and he shouldn’t have bothered.

  Several tankards later, Silenus felt so heavy in the head that the need to rest it on the table was too strong to resist. With his arms outstretched on either side he lai
d his flushed and blood-shot cheek on the rough pinewood tabletop then closed his eyes. In doing so he knocked the tankard over and it lay on its side rolling back and forth several times like a slowing metronome, no doubt hastening the onset of his slumber. Indeed, before it had stopped moving altogether, the first horse-like snorts heralding the snoring to come began to rend the air.

  With the snores came the dreams. Silenus had hoped to concentrate on Becky as he’d last seen her, white-faced as she turned to watch the frustrated centaur roaring along the side of the steep defile. He’d hoped to follow Becky as she’d clambered and scrambled into the woods on the hillside, to track her path as she made her way further and further away from the danger.

  Instead of Becky, though, he was disconcerted to find the figure he was following through the woods was the boy-child, Johnny. It was Johnny who clambered up hillsides and swung from handhold to handhold; Johnny who tracked the path of a stream further and further away from the cottage; Johnny who eventually found a plateau with a bulrush-fringed pool. In his dream Silenus saw the bulrushes part to allow Johnny to pass between them and enter the pool and disappear beneath its dark surface. There seemed to be some shadowy presence nearby, but who or what this presence was he had no way of knowing.

  Silenus opened one eye and stared at the surface of the table so flat and bare. He shook himself and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

  The dream made no sense. He’d seen the boy-child Johnny disappearing into the black waters of a pool. But Johnny was securely locked in the hen house. Johnny had no future.

  Clearly, something was amiss.

  Silenus, his good humour replaced by puzzlement, stood up shakily and grabbing a lantern lurched towards the rear door of the cottage. He swung it open and made his way down the stone-flagged path to the hen house.

  He unpegged the door and peered in. The hens clucked and gobbled at him irritably. With increasing confusion, holding the lantern high, he checked every corner, but it was absolutely clear that the boy-child had somehow vanished.

  Silenus uttered a disbelieving oath, then slammed the door sending the hens scattering.

  He secured the door again and stood there perplexed.

  There was no way the boy could have escaped by himself. He could not have forced the door. He could not have burrowed out.

  He must have had help.

  But who would help him? Who would have risked the wrath of Silenus to steal food from his hen house?

  Only somebody very brave, very powerful, or very stupid.

  He looked about, scratching his thatch of hair. Beyond the roof of the hen house the dark hills rose, wooded and extensive. In his dream, the boy-child had been in the presence of another, some shadowy other whom he could not define.

  It was probably the girl. Nothing else made sense. She would have made her way back to the cottage and possibly some caution prevented her from knocking or she might even have seen him shutting the boy in with the hens. Then she would have waited in hiding somewhere until it was safe to go and release the boy.

  This was something he should have anticipated.

  Unless …

  There was another possibility.

  The centaur!

  The creature could have come while he was out. Missing out on the tastier-looking girl would no doubt have frustrated it. He should have anticipated this as well. The centaur could well have been sniffing about for some other morsel. It was odd, though, that he hadn’t heard it. At all other times this creature had announced its presence by its roaring scream. That did not mean, though, that when the need arose it could not prowl quietly about.

  Dropping to his knees, Silenus checked the pathway for anything that would suggest that either the centaur or the girl Becky had been near the hen house. He took pride in his hunting skills. Once he had ascertained which of these two was the thief, he would follow their spoor and retrieve his property. He grunted with satisfaction. It could well be that the boy’s escape was a Good Thing. If the centaur had stolen him the creature would either eat him quickly or keep him for later. If the latter, Silenus would both retrieve the boy and have the pleasure of killing the centaur. If the former, there would be only the pleasure of the killing. There would, however, be some satisfaction in that.

  On the other hand, and this was his preferred likelihood, if the girl had somehow rescued her friend, then he would follow their trail and his casserole would be doubly rewarded. This was such a pleasant prospect that Silenus licked his lips in anticipation.

  It was too dark, however, for the path to reveal anything, but as he tracked down the path to the softer soil over which the boy and his rescuer had made their escape, Silenus made a very surprising discovery.

  It was perfectly clear that neither the strange centaur nor the girl had let the boy-child out of the hen house. Whoever had stolen his dinner had cloven hooves and, moreover, walked on two legs.

  This did not make sense.

  The only creatures matching that description were the fauns and the fauns were flighty, timid creatures. He could not imagine a faun willingly coming anywhere near his cottage unless it had a deranged and suicidal impulse to end up in the pot.

  Once again he glanced up at the wooded hills.

  Strange things were abroad. These human children arriving out of nowhere, the monstrous centaur with wheels for legs, and now this reversal of nature: a faun braving his domain and stealing from his hen house.

  A strange faun, too. For now, looking more closely at the hoof prints, Silenus could see that this faun was bigger and heavier than any faun he’d known before.

  What was going on?

  He shrugged and stood up again. Time would no doubt tell. His task for the present was simple, to follow these tracks wherever they led. With a purposeful frown, he looked up at the hills again, grunted, and then returned to his cottage to fetch his huge bow.

  Hours later, it seemed, footsore and weary, Silenus returned to his cottage. There had been no sign either of the escaped boy, nor the girl-child. On his way back, though, he had heard the unmistakable sound of the centaur and then from the hillside had witnessed yet another wonder. Some creature, moving through the night, clearly the centaur, with the power to throw huge bolts of wondrous light to scythe through the darkness even as it was roaring with its usual fury.

  The sight was so disconcerting that Silenus hurried home desperate for the steadying comfort of a deep draught of dark ale. Thus fortified, he would venture forth again and deal to the creature once and for all.

  Shortly after his third tankard however, Silenus felt a great weariness descend upon him. The thought of picking up a bow, especially his heavy bow, and then to range over steep hills in pursuit of the centaur was just too exhausting a prospect. It could wait, he thought. There would be time enough later. All he needed right now was perhaps some time to recuperate, all he knew was an all-encompassing need to lie down again and shut his eyes.

  He would retire to his chamber. He needed to stretch out completely, not rest at his table. But his chamber seemed an interminable distance away, far too far and far too demanding a journey. He would rest where he was. Slowly he sank to his knees, and then rolled to one side, stretched out on the flagstones and immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Johnny climbed out of the pool and pushed through the bulrushes to where Dr Faunus was standing, the opened flute case on the grass before him. He shivered both from the soaking cold and the doctor’s almost palpable displeasure.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ he whispered.

  ‘What is there to understand?’ snapped Dr Faunus. ‘It’s quite simple, isn’t it? There is no flute in the case. Somebody must have removed it.’

  Johnny nodded. ‘Yes, I know all that. What I mean is that Becky hid the case under the skins in the room we stayed in the night before last. When I fetched it for you, it was in exactly the same place. There was nothing to show that that guy …’

  ‘Silenus?’

  ‘… Ye
ah, Silenus. There was nothing to show he had moved it.’

  Johnny hugged himself to ward off the cold.

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Johnny. ‘That’s what I don’t understand.’

  Dr Faunus looked at him sharply. ‘Are you thinking that the flute may not have been inside the case when Rebecca placed it under the skins?’

  ‘I don’t know. So much weird stuff has happened …’

  ‘Could it have been removed earlier?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was with Becky most of the time and I never saw her take it out or anything. Actually I don’t think she liked to play it …’

  The doctor’s eyes glittered.

  ‘It could have been slipped out when we ate the fruit, I guess,’ suggested Johnny.

  ‘The fruit?’

  ‘Yeah, the fruit was just another one of those weird things that happened. We were coming down this hillside and we were absolutely lost and feeling sort of hungry. There was a small clearing with grass and sitting on the grass was a basket with fruit in it, you know, strawberries and crab apples and things. Becky got stuck into it. I don’t think either of us were looking at the flute case.’

  This story seemed to interest the doctor. ‘You did not see the owner of the basket?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘I was a bit worried about eating it, you know, in case … but I don’t think Becky cared one way or the other.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said the doctor thoughtfully, bending down and picking up the case. He snapped it shut and then asked, ‘And where is Rebecca at the moment? I am assuming of course that my friend Silenus hasn’t already eaten her as an entrée?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he said, and then he told Dr Faunus of all that had happened since they knocked on the door of Silenus’s cottage. All of this the doctor listened to attentively. He seemed not to be particularly surprised at the description of the black figure on the farm trike and this confirmed Johnny’s suspicion that the rider had in fact been Dr Faunus himself.