Aurelius and I

by Benjamin James Barnard

  Down to my final three winegums, the end of our mission, and indeed our lives, seemed imminent, but then a minor miracle occurred. In the panic to drag my legs away from the gnashing yellow teeth of the troll, my aim became understandably skewed, and I ended up landing a port flavoured sweet directly into the mouth of the troll, rather than its eye. Caught off guard by the tactical change, the troll stopped trying to eat me for a moment whilst he coughed as a result of the sweet’s inadvertent targeting of his tonsils. In doing so, he accidentally swallowed the gelatine-based delight, and was evidently pleased with the results of his mistake for he instantly forgot his murderous desire and instead began gathering the other wine gums from the forest floor.

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief and turned to my fairy companion expecting to see her do the same, only to find that she still had her head in her bag searching for something that, if not discovered by now, could surely never have been in there.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to save our skins,” she replied from inside the cloth sack.

  “Well you had better do it quickly because the first troll is going to manage to drag himself out of that quicksand pretty soon, and the second will have finished off those sweets even sooner.”

  Indeed, no sooner had I spoken the words when the second troll, having abandoned his search, satisfied that all the missing wine gums had now been accounted for, looked hungrily in my direction. In response I threw my penultimate sweet into the long grass to his left, desperately trying to buy Ophelia some more time with which to discover whatever magical saviour lay hidden in the depths of her bag.

  “Whatever you’re doing, do it quickly!”

  “I’m trying, I’m trying!’” she yelled.

  Within seconds the troll was once again upon us, having located the missing wine gum disappointingly quickly. In desperation I threw the final sweet over the beast’s head hoping to gain Ophelia the maximum possible amount of time. Unfortunately for both of us, I and the troll watched despairingly as the round jelly rolled agonisingly into the quicksand in which the first troll was still trapped and sank rapidly. The second troll turned to face us once again, a look of pure rage across his face.

  “Ophelia!” I wailed as if I could somehow will her to find whatever it was she was looking for. It was the useless, desperate action of a frightened child. Miraculously though, it worked.

  “Got it!” she smiled, triumphantly holding an even smaller cloth bag above her head.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, just do it!” I demanded, unable to believe her failure to grasp the urgency of the situation. She appeared to be completely immersed in her own little world (no doubt a peaceful, calm world in which there was not a troll shredding the ends of my trouser legs with his grimy, yellow fingernails), and then, suddenly, a realisation of the true horror of the situation swept across her face and she hurled the tiny bundle directly into the face of the troll.

  “AAAARRRGGH!!!”

  The troll let out a blood-curdling cry which the preceding mass of repeated letters can go no way toward justifying. It was extremely loud, so loud in fact that I instinctively moved to cover my ears with my hands, almost falling from my position on the branch as I did so.

  The evil blue beast bent over with his head between his knees, his hands covering his face as he wailed. When he finally took them away, his face was no longer blue at all, but a strange shade of purple that lay somewhere between lavender and pink. His cheeks puffed, his ears twitched and his eyes bulged.

  “He looks as though he’s about to explode,” I said to Ophelia.

  “He is,” she replied with a satisfied smile.

  “I beg you’re pardon!”

  “I said he’s going to explode,” she repeated calmly. “I just hit him with an entire bag Karupa Dust, the most powerful weapon in a fairy’s arsenal, once inhaled the subject’s nasal passageways are filled with a potent and painful gas which builds and builds until it eventually causes their head to explode.”

  I stared at her in shock, unable to believe the calmness with which she had ended the gruesome troll’s life. I knew that it was a horrible, disgusting, and evil creature and I knew the action was taken in self defence, but it still felt deeply wrong that I had played such a major part in killing a living, thinking(ish) thing. In spite of the fact that it had attempted to batter me to death just moments before, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the troll as it writhed around in pain in front of me.

  After what seemed like hours, but was in reality probably only seconds, the changes in the troll began to accelerate. His head became larger and pinker, his nostrils flared to the size of lemons and his eyes bulged so wide that they looked as though they would tip from their sockets and roll down its cheeks at any moment.

  “He’s gonna blow!” yelled Ophelia.

  We both covered our faces and waited for the sound of the explosion.

  “AAAA-CHOO!”

  The horrible, strange noise was followed immediately by the sensation of what I could only assume to be trolls brains spraying across my face and torso. Then there was silence.

  I gingerly took my hands from my eyes, forcing myself to open them and see for myself the exploded troll head that I knew lay in wait for me. When I did so however, I was surprised and confused to be faced with a very intact, very angry-looking troll head staring right back at me.

  “I thought you said his head would explode” I said, too frightened to take my eyes off the still pink-faced beast.

  “I thought it would,” she replied. “It works on stag beetles.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears, we were facing certain death at the hands (and teeth) of an angry troll because my fairy sidekick was unable to comprehend that a troll is quite considerably bigger than a stag beetle and so the two may require different dosages of ingredients if magic potions were to be successful.

  “AAAA-CHOO!”

  Just as the troll went to resume its attempts to pull me from the tree it was overcome by a second sneeze and I was once again covered in what I now knew to be troll bogeys, which is possibly the only thing in the world more disgusting than being covered in troll brains.

  I realise this may seem hard to believe, but you must understand that troll bogeys are quite the most disgusting bogeys of any creature on earth (and no doubt beyond). To start with, they are the brightest, most fluorescent pink you have ever seen - it resembles the colour of radioactive Turkish delight. They are slimy and sludgy, but not at all watery. They have a texture which is somewhere between oysters and phlegm and which feels much more disgusting than either, particularly when it is hanging from your face. And, as if this were not disgusting enough, they are frequently punctuated by thick green hairs ripped from inside the troll’s nostrils. No, dear reader, being covered in troll bogeys could not be claimed by anybody to be a pleasant experience, and it is one which I recommend you do your best to avoid.

  “AAAA-CHOO! AAAA-CHOO! AAAA-CHOO!”

  “Come on,” I said to Ophelia after watching the second troll writhe around on the floor sneezing, while the first still clung desperately to the roots of a tree next to the quicksand in which he was stuck, not daring to move for fear of being dragged further under. “This is our chance, let’s get out of here!”

  We made our way down from the oak as quickly as possible, before tentatively skirting around the still sneezing troll when we reached the ground.

  “Don’t forget about me!” cried Grahndel from across the quicksand.

  “I wish we could,” said Ophelia.

  “Wait there,” I said. “We’ll come around and find you.”

  ***

  Once the three of us had been reunited, I restored my companions to their previous positions in my rucksack and shirt pocket and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction to the trolls, the caves, and any trace of Blackheart and his cr
onies. When I was sure we had escaped their clutches, and I had run until I could run no further, we stopped and rested against a large sycamore on the edge of a clearing.

  Chapter 19

  I had only meant to rest my eyes for a few moments, but having been awake for almost twenty-four hours, I had ended up drifting into a deep sleep.

  It was gone noon when I awoke and the midday sun was high in the sky. On returning to consciousness two thoughts flooded my mind; firstly, I had managed to avoid being murdered by trolls or eaten by wild animals while I had slept, and secondly, I was starving.

  I retrieved the final, sweaty jam sandwich from my rucksack and greedily munched it down without even thinking to offer any to either of my companions (not that they would have been likely to have accepted such an offer; if you’re somebody that thinks bat poo tastes good, strawberry jam may well not be your most favoured food source). Having devoured my sandwich in around fourteen seconds, I leaned back against the tree I had been sleeping under and sighed, wondering whether I would ever see Baskerville again, or anybody else I loved for that matter, as I was becoming less and less sure that I would escape the wretched forest with my life.

  “Sleep Well?” asked Ophelia.

  “Not bad, considering I had no blankets and no roof over my head,” I admitted.

  “Good, you’re going to need the energy. According to what we overheard from Aurelius and Blackheart we have less than twelve hours to save the forest and everybody in it, and we still don’t have the slightest idea what we’re supposed to be saving them from.”

  “Will you stop it with all this we stuff, already,” Grahndel grumbled.

  “Look,” the princess replied, “If you’re so against teaming up with us, what are you still doing here?”

  It was a good question. After all, now that Grahndel’s story had been verified, he was pretty much free to go. I certainly wasn’t going to try to stop him at any rate. And besides, he had had the past seven hours to escape unnoticed. So why had he stayed?

  “I, I have nowhere else to go,” he said timidly, as though fighting back tears. “Since Blackheart and his men have taken up residence in the caves, I’ve been left without food or shelter. Do you know what its like to be all alone in such a big forest, surrounded by predators? It’s not a nice feeling let me tell you. I feel much safer when I’m with you Charlie, you know, what with you being a Protector and everything. You don’t mind if I stay do you?”

  “Well, I suppose not, provided you stop whinging all the time.” He nodded his agreement eagerly. “You have a funny idea about what constitutes ‘safe’ though. We were almost troll-fodder last night. In fact, I seem to have become a magnet for weird monsters lately. I was...” I stopped mid-sentence, a sound coming from the long grass to my left had caught my attention. I prayed that it wasn’t yet another of The Professor’s unwanted magical visitors.

  “What is it, Charlie?” asked Ophelia.

  “Ssshh!” I replied.

  “Ooreebah!”

  There it was again. A weird, gurgly cry. The closest thing I could have compared it to was the call of a young chick, but at the same time it was in some way distinctly different from the call of any bird I had ever heard before.

  “Ooreebah!”

  As I got closer I realised that the sound was not coming from the long grass at all, but from the patch of daisies that lay before it. I crawled gently over to where the sound was coming from on my hands and knees, tenderly parting the tiny flowers with my fingers so as not to further harm any bird that I might find in amongst them.

  “Ooreebah!”

  I could say with some certainty that the creature the strange noises emanating from was certainly no bird. I could not though, have said what it was. It was quite the oddest looking thing I had yet seen during my time in the forest (which was really saying something). It’s fragile body, while human in shape, was more stegosaurus-like in substance and stature, making it look like some sort of armoured, mutant super hero who appeared as though it should walk on all fours. On top of its long and bendy neck sat a face that was at the simultaneously human, and yet not human at all.

  You see, dear reader, while its features were, when examined individually, distinctly reminiscent of mine or yours, their scale upon the face was all wrong; its ears were so small they were practically invisible, yet its eyes, which were a delicious, chocolatey shade of brown, were so oversized as to take up a third of its face. And while its face was generally quite narrow, it had a mouth which literally stretched from ear to ear, with which it smiled up at me without the slightest hint of fear. Even as I scooped the little lady (for it looked somehow like a girl, and I could see no obvious anatomical reason to conclude against such a supposition) up into my hand to get a closer look, it made no move to escape; instead it simply stared at me inquisitively from within my palm - a palm which it did not come close to over-spilling from, for it was a creature so small as to make even the unfathomably tiny Ophelia look to be of distinctly average stature.

  “What is it?” asked the dragnor, unable to take his eyes from the adorable little creature.

  “I was kind of hoping you might be able to tell me; I’m not exactly an expert with this sort of stuff.”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” he exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “Me either,” agreed Ophelia.

  “Dadda!” said the tiny creature, smiling up at me with those enormous brown eyes.

  Though I didn’t realise it at the time, that moment was one of the most important of my life (and certainly one of the most important of this story). It was a moment that changed how I felt about the world of magic, about my powers, about everything really. As I looked down upon the innocent infant that had chosen me to be its protector in life, I realised how selfishly I had acted since discovering my gifts. I mean, most children would give their right arm to find out that there was more to life than school, and early bedtimes, and learning to be a grown up; to learn that the stories they were told, the games the played, the dreams they dreamt, were all based firmly within reality. I had somehow stumbled upon the existence of a secret, enchanted world outside of the one grown-ups talked about at school and on the news, a world that made the existence of fairies, and ogres, and whatever the cute little thing lay in my hand a reality. It was a world that had to be worth saving. And, whether I liked it or not, I had been assigned the duty of saving it. It was all down to me. I could either let the little lady I held in my hand perish, along with all the other wonderous and innocent creatures I had met in the last forty-eight hours, or I could embrace the gifts I had been given and do my very best to protect those who needed my protection.

  It wasn’t much of a choice really. If I really was a Protector, then saving this forest was what I was born to do. I was just going to have to grow up fast and rise to the challenge, even if that meant putting my destiny before my dog. Besides, I reassured myself, I was just as likely to find Baskerville by following my destiny as I was by randomly scouring the epic forest alone.

  “Right you guys, let’s get moving,” I said, delicately placing the minute orphan into the breast pocket parallel to the one inhabited by Ophelia. “We’ve got a forest to save, and only eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes in which to do it.”

  A beaming smile spread across Ophelia’s tiny, porcelain face. “That’s the spirit. I knew you were a hero.”

  “That’s all very nice,” said Grahndel, sarcastically, “But where exactly is it you are suggesting we go?”

  I stopped putting on my backpack, turned to him and answered, with a raised eyebrow and steady voice that I hoped exuded confidence and authority; “To find Raymondo.”

  Chapter 20

  I explained to my companions how Raymondo had been among the first to be aware of Blackheart’s presence within the forest, and so maybe he would have more idea of what was goin
g on. They were clearly inspired by my plan. This was partly because, as they informed me, The Great Raymondo was widely revered as the wisest creature in all of Hanselwood forest, and partly because it was the only plan we had.

  And so I lead our unlikely band of heroes through the forest toward our destiny. A new-found determination hung in the air, a feeling of belief in ourselves and in my leadership. A feeling I fear I spoiled somewhat when, after at least ten minutes of determined marching, I thought to question my companions as to where we might find this Raymondo character.

  “You mean you don’t know?” sighed the dragnor.

  “Well...no,” I admitted. “I just sort of assumed you guys would know, I thought The Great Raymondo would be quite famous within the forest.”

  “He is,” Ophelia confirmed. “He’s famous for his reclusiveness. He lives in a location so secret, that no magical being has the slightest clue as to where it might be. Not even Aurelius. Very few Alundri have ever even seen him.”

  “But why is he so secretive?”

  “Because he’s a genie, stupid. Genies have to grant the wishes of those who speak them aloud in their presence. It really is a terrible curse. Rumour has it that as a young genie, Raymondo granted a wish that greatly helped The Professor in his pursuit of power. It wasn’t his fault of course, it’s in his nature, but that fact has done nothing to ease his guilt. He has been in hiding ever since, communicating with the outside world only through the animals which are his sole companions.”

  The princess’s words rang a bell somewhere in the back of my mind and I vaguely remembered that, in amongst the encyclopaedia of magical knowledge Aurelius had bestowed upon me, he had said something about wishes having to be spoken to be granted and animals only being able to communicate with Alundri telepathically. I confirmed this with Ophelia.