The Enchanted Flute

by James Norcliffe

  ‘Well Master?’ asked Silenus.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Faunus. ‘It is an impasse.’

  ‘They haven’t got the flute,’ said Silenus. ‘It is a mystery!’

  ‘It’s only a mystery if you believe her,’ snapped Faunus, ‘and I certainly don’t!’

  Johnny moved forward to join the other two. ‘What about Becky then? Do you believe her about that?’ he asked.

  Faunus shrugged. ‘That is more likely,’ he said. ‘They could well have secreted her somewhere to prevent me from finding her.’

  ‘I think so too,’ said Johnny.

  He glanced about him at the countryside. It seemed almost deserted. There were the wooded hills, the river flat below and the sea beyond. There was nowhere and everywhere for Becky to be. She could be in the villa behind the olive grove, but then again she could be anywhere.

  ‘Let us go,’ said Faunus grimly. ‘I need to think. Silenus, take the boy or he’ll slow us down.’

  Once again, Johnny found himself plucked up by Silenus and tucked under his arm as if he were a kicking set of bagpipes. Faunus had already leapt away, and Silenus bounced along behind, snorting and laughing.

  ‘What will happen?’ asked Becky.

  The old king shrugged. ‘What always happens,’ he said.

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘The foolish will do foolish things and the wise, wise.’

  ‘I guess things will balance out then,’ smiled Becky.

  ‘Alas, no,’ said Basilius, ‘for there are ever more foolish than wise.’

  ‘No, but really,’ said Becky. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘If Faunus has the flute, as the maidens seem to think he has, then he will be scouring the land for you. When he finds you, you will play the flute for him. You really have no choice, do you?’

  Becky nodded. She never did have any choice, not only of what to play but also of who to play it to. It was useless playing it for Paddy. It was more than useless in the orchestra. Always the flute drew her to Landon Road and her audience of one: the ancient figure in the wheelchair. Now, if this old king was right, these solitary recitals would sooner or later begin again.

  ‘And after that? What will happen after that?’ Becky was thinking about that story in Arabian Nights, about the girl who had to tell the prince a different story each night so he would not cut her head off. Was this a situation like that? Would she have to keep playing the flute for Faunus forever, or until he decided she was dispensable. What would happen to her then?

  ‘He will undoubtedly regain his powers and no doubt his fauns will regain theirs. And after that,’ the king added, ‘there will be mayhem and madness once again.’

  ‘What about me?’ asked Becky. ‘What happens to me?’

  ‘Ah …’ said the old king sadly. ‘It were best not to dwell on that.’

  Becky sat thinking, sipping at her goblet of nectar.

  Then something the king had said earlier registered. She looked up at him. ‘You said if Faunus has the flute … Do you not think he has it?’

  The old king nodded slowly. ‘No, we somehow don’t think he has.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  Becky didn’t think it was obvious at all.

  ‘Why,’ explained Basilius, ‘because you’re here with us.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, if Faunus had the flute you would be drawn to it and it to you. Because the flute is enchanted and you are enchanted it would find you out and you would find it out. This would have happened even if the maidens had the flute.’

  ‘Well,’ said Becky, ‘I guess you’re right, but wouldn’t that happen whoever happened to have the flute?’

  ‘We imagine so,’ said Basilius with a faint smile. ‘Curious, isn’t it?’

  Becky thought so, too. It was more than curious; it was mysterious.

  ‘In any event,’ said Basilius. ‘It convinces us that Faunus does not have the flute, and so for the moment, at least, we believe you are safe here.’

  Faunus sat on his throne-like chair brooding once more. Johnny lay in a far corner against the wall of the cave on a mattress covered with skins. Every so often a faun would approach Faunus as if to offer him something, or perhaps to make some suggestion, but something in Faunus’s dark expression or the irritable cast of his shoulders always drove them back, the offer not made, the suggestion stifled.

  It was now evening. The hole in the cavern ceiling had faded then deepened into a blackness studded with stars. At some point the fauns had lit oil lamps and while these were inadequate to illuminate the large cavernous chamber they did provide small islands of flickering glowing yellow here and there.

  Neither Faunus nor Silenus appeared to have suffered any ill effects from the afternoon of drinking ale and wine, unless this dark intensity of Faunus was the result. Johnny didn’t think so. He felt the doctor was wrestling with a major problem, one that was taking all of his resources and focus. He remembered Faunus saying it was a paradox: he had to have Becky and the flute, but in order to get Becky and the flute he needed Becky and the flute. It was like a worm swallowing its tail; it was like an endless circle. He desperately needed a circuit breaker.

  The solution was beyond Johnny and, at some point, he fell into a fitful sleep. His dreams were agitated and full of violent chickens and crazy motorcyclists doing the wall of death up and around the sides of the cavern, trying to roar higher and higher and to burst right through and into the circle of stars glittering above. At times he woke, or thought he woke, to see small figures flitting in the darkness, or moving from one small glowing flicker of light to another.

  He finally awoke to find himself being softly shaken. He rolled over and found the small figure of the faun Sylvester kneeling by his mattress.

  ‘What is it?’

  The stars had disappeared. High above him there was now a circle of cool lilac light with the palest white moon to one side.

  ‘Master would speak with you, boy-child.’

  Johnny rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and then opened them and focused.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘He will tell you himself.’

  Johnny looked around in the gloomy light and was surprised to see that Faunus was still seated on the chair, but, rather than brooding now, he was sitting up looking more connected to the everyday world around him. His arms were now more relaxed on the armrests of the chair and he was looking across at Sylvester and Johnny with a satisfied smile on his face.

  Johnny climbed to his feet and hurried over.

  ‘We are going to return to the villa,’ Faunus announced as Johnny approached him.

  ‘So soon?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘There is little to gain in wasting time,’ said Faunus.

  There was little to gain in returning to the villa, thought Johnny, considering the reception they had received last time.

  Perhaps, sensing what he was thinking, Faunus added, ‘I should rephrase that. When I say we I really mean you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Faunus.

  ‘You have a plan?’ asked Johnny uncertainly.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Faunus smiling. ‘And it is this. You saw Hesteria at the door. She would no sooner let me inside that villa than she would a viper. However, you, she might accommodate, especially if you had run away, as it were, escaped my clutches and, of course, the clutches of my hungry friend, Silenus.’

  Johnny nodded. He thought he understood.

  ‘So, I, or perhaps one of my little charges, will escort you to the villa. You will seek sanctuary there and I am sure you will gain admittance. Once there you will seek to ascertain the whereabouts of the flute and the whereabouts of the girl Rebecca.’

  ‘But even if they let me in, they won’t tell me,’ said Johnny. ‘They’d smell a rat.’

  ‘I am not proposing you ask them directly,’ said Faunus dryly. ‘Or, of course, they would, as you put it, smell a rat.
You could ask the whereabouts of Rebecca, naturally. They would expect nothing less.’

  Johnny stared at Faunus, trying hard not to smile. This was far better than he could have hoped for.

  ‘You think they would tell me?’

  ‘I would be astounded if they did,’ said Faunus. ‘But you have shown yourself to be a not unintelligent boy with a sense of strategy, so I am sure that without making it obvious you could learn something useful — especially the whereabouts of the girl, for I half-suspect that where the girl is, the flute will be found as well.’

  This, Johnny thought, was the opportunity he’d hoped for. He remembered his frustration the day before, his way to reuniting with Becky blocked by the figures of Silenus and Faunus. Now Faunus was stepping aside and encouraging him through.

  He looked at Faunus carefully. There must be a catch. He had learnt enough by now to know that Faunus was unpredictable, but unlike Silenus he was not foolish or transparent.

  ‘And if I do?’

  ‘If you do?’

  ‘Find out where Becky is … What do I do then, do I try to find her?’

  ‘Of course not,’ laughed Faunus.

  ‘I don’t?’ Johnny was somewhat confused.

  ‘If you find out where they’re hiding the girl, you’ll come back here and tell us where she is. Silenus and I will handle things from there.’

  This, Johnny thought, was the catch. Of course, it didn’t really change things. He was under no obligation to come back and do any such thing. Once he’d found Becky they could work together somehow to find a way out of this mess. If Silenus were going to be involved it would probably be a massive stuff-up, anyway.

  He looked again at Faunus and realised that the doctor’s glittering eyes had never left him. He wondered apprehensively whether the doctor was able to read his thoughts.

  Faunus’s next words were a chilling confirmation that he probably could. ‘Of course,’ he said pleasantly, ‘if you should happen to find Rebecca and not return to tell us where she is, I swear we will find you and when we do I shall gratify my hungry friend by returning you forthwith to his chicken house.’

  Johnny flushed, and turned away unable to bear the relentless stare.

  ‘You should know,’ continued Faunus, ‘that you are in Arcadia only by sufferance. Unlike your friend Rebecca, you have no right or business to be here at all, but I am prepared to overlook this intrusion as long as you are useful to me and serve my will.’

  Johnny felt the sting of this keenly, and his heart began to beat wildly.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  Johnny nodded.

  He understood.

  Later that day he found himself once again on the outskirts of the villa. The journey had been a difficult one, mainly because he had been escorted by the faun Sylvester and the little creature had insisted on their travelling through the wooded slopes, rather than across the plains below. Despite the return of his master and the new protection that return promised, the faun was still extremely wary of Silenus, and had no wish to expose himself to any danger. Johnny, too, somewhat shattered by his last conversation with Faunus, had no wish to run across the big man.

  Because of this caution, they followed a bewildering route up gullies and down slopes, over rocky creeks and up ferny banks. Johnny was soon hopelessly lost. The faun, however, was unerring, prancing ahead without hesitation on his little goat feet. Johnny’s progress was clumsier and much slower, and he became aware how ill-equipped his legs and feet were for this sort of up and down terrain.

  He was also fast becoming exhausted, so that when eventually Sylvester stopped in a small grassy clearing bisected by a trickle of a stream and waited for him to catch up, Johnny was grateful and sank wearily on to the soft grass.

  ‘How much further?’ he asked, not for the first time.

  It seemed to him that they’d probably travelled five times the distance already.

  ‘We’re here,’ was Sylvester’s surprising reply.

  ‘We are?’ Johnny looked around him, confused.

  ‘This is as far as I go,’ whispered Sylvester. ‘I must go back to my master and report that I have delivered you safely.’

  Johnny stared at the earnest little creature.

  ‘But delivered me safely where?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t that villa.’

  Sylvester nodded. ‘No, but if you follow this stream down a short distance it will lead you to the villa. It is not meet that I am seen with you. The Master made that clear.’

  Johnny nodded. ‘This stream, right?’

  ‘Correct,’ whispered the faun. ‘It does, in fact, provide the water for the villa. It will lead you safely home.’

  Johnny felt a momentary bitterness at Sylvester’s use of the word home. It won’t, he thought. It would only lead him into deeper complications. He was further away from home than ever. The more he tried to get out the more entangled he became. He now saw Faunus as some sort of spider, and he was helplessly stuck in his web.

  ‘Goodbye,’ whispered Sylvester. ‘I hope …’

  ‘I hope so too,’ Johnny muttered, although he was quite certain that what he hoped for and what the little faun hoped for were quite different things. ‘Thank you,’ he added, but the faun had already disappeared into the woods.

  Johnny did not immediately rise from the grass. He lay there some time considering all that had happened and trying to imagine what was to come. The first was easier than the second. He couldn’t see any way out of the situation at all, and the further he looked the murkier it became. He wished he’d never thought of the spider/fly idea. Whenever he thought of Faunus now his spiderishness grew and grew and swamped every other thought.

  The only thing he could concentrate on was rehearsing the story he would present to the people in the villa. He decided that he didn’t really have to lie much at all, not really, or at least not directly. All he needed to do was leave things out, things like the fact that he was still caught and wriggling in Faunus’s web.

  Otherwise, he could tell the same story as no doubt Becky had told, except that after they’d been split up he could tell of being shut up in Silenus’s hen house, being rescued by Faunus, and then being more-or-less held prisoner until he found a chance to escape from the cavern and make his way to the villa he’d been forced to visit the day before.

  Given a story like this, and the terrors he’d endured, nobody could doubt that he’d have every reason to try to get away and rejoin his friend. Given a story like this, too, nobody would be suspicious about his wanting to know where Becky was.

  Gradually, this rehearsal allowed him to grow in confidence so finally he stood up, dusted himself down, and began the short journey beside the trickling stream.

  Sylvester was quite right. It was not long before the trees began to thin and then merge into an orchard of sorts. There were olives, and what looked to be apricot or almond trees, and the occasional lemon or orange tree. There was a small terrace before the stream began its final rush and, looking over its edge, Johnny could see the brick red tiles of the villa roof below.

  He hurried down a narrow pathway and made for the door the woman dressed in white had emerged from the day before. He banged on this door, he hoped with sufficient desperation, and waited.

  It was not long before the door opened and he found himself being studied curiously by a different woman, although dressed in similar style.

  ‘Yes?’ she asked.

  She was beautiful, Johnny saw at once. She was far more beautiful than any woman he’d been this close to before. Her golden brown hair was drawn back and tied with a ribbon accentuating the perfectly sculptured lines of her face. In fact her face would have looked as though it had been carved if it were not for the deep luminously green eyes that were searching his face. These eyes were very alive and very intense.

  So intense, Johnny’s well-rehearsed lines disappeared like dust in the wind and his mouth felt dry and unable to wrap itself about any words at all. He felt
himself reddening in confusion.

  ‘Yes?’ repeated the woman.

  At this point, she was joined by another, who could have been her twin.

  ‘What is it, Nysa?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a boy-child,’ said the woman at the door. ‘It is probably the boy-child who came into Arcadia with the girl.’

  At this point, Johnny found something like his voice, although it came out more like a croak.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘He wants to come in,’ reported the woman standing before him. ‘I think you should tell Hesteria.’

  And then, to Johnny’s surprise, the door was shut firmly in his face.

  None of his rehearsals had prepared him for this reception. He realised he must have looked like an idiot at the door, or rather more like a landed fish with his mouth opening and closing and gasping for air, but in a way his very incoherence should have suggested how desperate he was. Instead these women had spoken of him almost as if he weren’t there at all, that he wasn’t capable of listening, as if he were some sort of senseless object.

  I suppose that’s just how I appeared, he reflected miserably, stepping back from the portico and retreating to an old olive tree not far from the entrance.

  He was not sure what to do. He couldn’t really go back to Faunus immediately, even if he had the energy. Not after only one failed attempt. He couldn’t risk Faunus’s displeasure. The only alternative was to wait around for a bit and then try knocking at the door once more.

  However, while he was pondering these possibilities, the door opened and the woman who had responded to Faunus so coldly the day before came out.

  She walked over to Johnny who straightened as she approached. Like the woman who’d first answered the door she studied him curiously, almost clinically Johnny thought, the way a scientist might examine some odd new species.