Aurelius and I

by Benjamin James Barnard

  With this in mind I hopped across the stepping stones to meet my foes head on. It was a manoeuvre I had not properly considered. The stones were wet and slippery and, although I managed to keep myself from toppling into the dark and threatening water, my journey to its opposite bank took me a great deal longer than I had anticipated. As a result, when I once again arrived on firm ground, I found that the pair of rockalusses were immediately upon me. I had no clue as to how I would ever have the time or the space to fight both of them, and no time in which to figure it out. Overcome with fear and frustration I took the only option left to me; I closed my eyes tight a swung the Scimitar blindly in front of me.

  Though I could feel very little in terms of what had made contact with the blade, the sound of rock slamming to the floor and the feel of gravel hitting my face told me that I had made contact with something. Quickly, I opened my eyes to assess the position of my second opponent, fearing that I would do so only in time to make myself aware of the enormous stone foot that was milliseconds from crushing the life out of me. But, to my surprise, I discovered no more rock giants at all. I had destroyed them both with a single blow.

  Buoyed of my efforts thus far, I surveyed the chamber to enquire as to the progress of my next opponents. None were forthcoming. The trolls, on witnessing the fate of their compatriots, and being typical bullies who liked only to torment smaller, weaker creatures who would not fight back, had backed away into the corner. Aurelius also looked concerned, and had made no effort to move from his position. Blackheart, however, remained unfazed.

  “Very impressive,” he said, the devilish smile never leaving his lips. “That’s quite a weapon you have their.”

  “It sure is, so I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you, it can cut through anything, even a giant ball of flab like you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he replied. “But it still has one weakness; you. You see,” he said reaching inside his long, animal-hide coat, “that blade can only cut through what you are quick enough to hit.”

  And with that he pulled the final trick from his sleeve (well, his inside pocket actually)... a gun.

  I froze. It was the most unexpected of horrors. Strange I know, seeing as I was dealing with creatures whose sole aim was to wipe out all humanity, but I had never considered that they might be capable of using firearms. The little pistol, which was clearly man-made, just seemed so out of place in a world of fairies, and scimitars, and magic. Part of how I had survived the last few days was the fact that they had seemed as though they had belonged in another world, or at the very least another time. A time before factories and cars, before television and air travel. A time before guns. Somehow, the sudden introduction of this modern, efficient way of killing, served to shatter the dreamlike unreality of my situation that had been allowing me to function thus far, causing the fatal perils I was faced with to suddenly ring true. For the first time in my young life, I felt true terror.

  “I’m afraid I cannot offer you the same courtesy you did me in allowing you to leave with your life,” the captain continued with all the sincerity of a used car salesman. “My boss just wouldn’t allow it.”

  He raised the gun so that it was level with his face and took aim.

  “Any last words, boy?”

  “Don’t shoot me?” I ventured.

  “You’re funny, you know that?” he laughed, before letting all humour drop from his face as he prepared to fire.

  Now I realise, dear reader, that, given the fact that I am the one telling the story, your fear for my death is likely to be somewhat limited, but let me assure you, at the time, I was in possession of no such reassurances myself. I truly believed my time had come. My life cut tragically short, my destiny unfulfilled. I, the so-called chosen one, was to conclude my existence in a cold, wet cave, where my body may never be found. My last thoughts as I shut my eyes were of my parents, and how desperately sorry I felt for them that they had not only lost their only son but that they would never know why. I knew in my heart that they would spend the rest of their lives searching in vain for their lost little boy, whom they would have no way of knowing whether he was alive or dead. All I could think was that, in spite of the loss of the forest and possibly of humanity as a whole, for me, my parents’ sadness would be the greatest tragedy.

  What happened next remains a blur, but I shall recount to you what I remember of it and what I was informed of by others after the event.

  Through my tightly closed eyes I heard the guns shot and awaited death. Awaited it for what seemed a surprisingly long time. And then I heard the scream.

  I opened my eyes to discover Aurelius lying on the floor between Captain Blackheart and myself, motionless in a newly-forming lake of his own blood. The screams came from the mouth of Ophelia, who knelt by his side, willing him to reawaken, to move, to show some sign of life.

  He did not.

  Had you told me two minutes earlier that I could have felt worse than I did then, standing alone in the face of imminent death, I’d have thought you a madman. But as I sat and watched the death of a man who had always been my friend and who, in the end, had given his life for mine, when I, until that moment, had been ready to take his myself, I was overcome with shame. I wished he hadn’t done it, that I could take it back for him. I wished that it was me that had been shot.

  Fortunately, Blackheart was more than eager to make my wish come true. Only momentarily fazed by the fact that he had just slain a man who he had believed to be his comrade, he briefly contemplated Aurelius’s unmoving corpse, shrugged, and raised his gun toward me for a second time.

  “Skloopenay Naa!”

  King Rolinthor flew in front of me without warning and uttered his strange words before hurling a strange ball of turquoise light from his own personal bag of tricks into the barrel of the Blackheart’s gun.

  The Captain pulled the trigger. It jammed. I had cheated death once more.

  “Will there never be an end to this infernal child?” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “SEIZE HIM!”

  For a brief second I looked around, puzzled as to who Blackheart was talking to. I could only think that he referred to the trolls, who still stood meekly behind, their leader, wary of my mighty blade. Clearly they were not the target of Blackheart’s instruction. I looked around me to discover who was.

  Then, as if in answer to my question, I felt a hand around my ankle. Before I could do anything about it, I was being dragged under the water.

  Chapter 43

  The feeling of relief at still being alive that overcame me upon my return to consciousness was rapidly replaced by a strong desire to return to the dark serenity of my dreams. I had never in my young life felt so unwell (despite a particularly nasty case of chicken pox shortly after my sixth birthday) – indeed I found it difficult to comprehend that a human being could feel such pain in so many different places on their body and yet remain alive.

  The first thing that hit me was the cold. Every part of me burned with that strange feeling of ice-cold heat which one gets after making snowballs without gloves on. It was the kind of cold that came hand in hand with being soaked through.

  My fascination with my body temperature was, however, only momentary, slipping almost entirely off my sensory radar the instant that I moved from that groggy, half-dream state into true consciousness and became aware of the searing pain that was seemingly present in every part of my body.

  At first my only focus was for the dull ache that had engulfed my entire skull in a throbbing cloud of suffering - the kind of ache that hurt all the more if you tried to move your head in any way. Only this one was so bad that if felt as though my head was being shaken from side to side even when it lay flat and still against the hard, stone surface upon which I had awoken.

  The realisation of this surface brought my attention to the pain in my back, particularly between my shoulder blades, where it felt as though my fle
sh had been pierced by a thousand tiny arrowheads. A pain that was only intensified by the smooth, solid surface they were pressed against. In an effort to relieve some small percentage of my suffering I attempted to roll onto my side, thus providing my spine with some welcome respite from the unerring solidity of its current resting place.

  It was then that I got really scared.

  I couldn’t move. Not even a little. It was the most bizarre, most terrifying sensation I have ever experienced. My body simply would not do what I told it to. I felt as though I were imprisoned within myself. I quickly began to panic.

  I’m paralysed I thought to myself as hysteria crashed over me like a tidal wave.

  I took a deep breath and attempted to assess things more rationally.

  You’re obviously not paralysed, you idiot I derided myself internally. I was correct of course. Things would have been a whole lot less painful had I actually been removed of feeling throughout my body. So what was going on then?

  This may sound somewhat foolish, but it was only at that moment that I was able to think clearly enough through the semi-conscious pain I had been experiencing to realise that my eyes were still closed. I opened them cautiously, with a great sense of foreboding at the prospect of what new horrors I might be about to discover.

  The first thing I observed was the reason for my apparent paralysation. In fact, I was neither paralysed, nor under the influence of any kind of spell or enchantment, I had simply been tied down. Tied very firmly, to something very large, and very sturdy - something I quickly realised to be the Stone of Soolarondoo.

  Animated by the realisation of my situation, my eyes searched desperately around the room for an element of hope, some small promise that perhaps all was not lost. They found none.

  The first thing my glance fell upon was two mermaids, smiling smugly, from the water’s edge. I remembered now – the hand around my ankle, the cold shock of the water, the dirty, black-tasting fluid filling my lungs as I tried desperately to reach the surface but was held back by arms I could feel, but could not see.

  Overcome with a hatred for the two sea-witches that had been responsible for my ungentlemanly defeat, I continued to scan the room in the hope of locating the fairy companions that might once again prove to be my saviours.

  It was a hope that was short-lived.

  There, to my right, an enormous troll sat upon an upturned, slatted, wooden crate. Beneath it I saw movement, the movement of my friends.

  “He’s alive!” I heard Ophelia exclaim with an unreserved glee that seemed woefully out of place given our current situation.

  For now, I thought to myself pessimistically.

  I was about to shut my eyes once more, for nothing but misery had greeted them since their opening, when my mind returned to me one last weakly flickering flame of distant hope. I turned eagerly to my left only for the flame to be immediately, and firmly extinguished, replaced instead with desperation and guilt. There on the floor before me, lay the unmoving corpse of Aurelius-Octavius Jumbleberry-Jones.

  I felt tears well in my eyes once again, but they were given no time to fall.

  “I think our almighty chosen one had awakened,” Captain Blackhearts familiar voice came from behind me. His words were met by an echo of deferential laughter from his various henchmen. “We’ve been waiting for you, Charlie. We didn’t want you to miss out on all the fun.”

  The enormous, repulsive, Gravlier stepped from behind me into my limited field of vision. In his hand, I was disturbed but not surprised to discover, he held the genuine Scimitar.

  “Today must indeed be my lucky day,” he continued on, “for I am not only afforded the opportunity to destroy the Stone of Soolarondoo, and with it the viability of this forest as a home for the Tendrala – thus bringing The Professor’s dream of a new, Alundri-ruled world ever closer - but I also get to rid him of the great, prophesised champion of the tendrala in the process.”

  He burst into gleeful laughter once more at these last words.

  “You see, Charlie, with you out of the way, their will be little to stop us in our drive to rid the world of humanity. And the best thing is, that you humans, with your obsessive need to cover nature’s work in concrete, are going to help us do it. You are providing even those Alundri who once saw our cause as extremist with great motivation to join us through your unnecessary, uncaring destruction of their homes. The plain truth of it is that this world will soon be ours, and we couldn’t have done it without you.”

  More laughter.

  “Fortunately, Charlie, there’s no need for you to worry your young mind with all that any longer, for you’re not going to be here to see it.”

  This time there came no laughter, simply an angry resignation at the task that befell the great beast. Slowly, deliberately, he moved himself into position.

  I watched in horror as he raised the scimitar high above his head. I watched as he launched into yet another long, and immodest speech about how glorious his victory had been and how he and his armies were now unstoppable. I watched as he took one last murderous look at me with his single yellow eye. I watched as that single eye was crushed under the weight of a spectacularly aimed pebble travelling at roughly ninety miles an hour.

  Chapter 44

  Even as a child it had long ago struck me that the bad guys in films would surely end up on the winning side with far greater regularity should they not delight so in spending such vast amounts of time revealing their detailed plans and revelling in their as yet unearned victories as opposed to simply disposing of their foes quickly and efficiently. I remain to this day, however, immensely grateful that they do not, for, in my own experience, it seems that this strange phenomena of overly confident hesitation is simply a case of art imitating life, and it is a phenomena that is directly responsible for my being alive today to tell you my story - a story with which I shall now proceed without further interruption.

  “OOOOWWWEEE!”, cried Blackheart in a surprisingly girly voice, his free hand instinctually, but uselessly moving to guard his eye after the event.

  “Surrender beast, or face the wrath of the tendrala!”

  The threat came from across the room. I was unable to lift my head to the correct angle that I might discover its source, and was, in any case, reluctant to remove my gaze from my impending doom at the hands of the scimitar. What I was able to ascertain was that the voice was that of a woman, and it was one which I had heard before.

  “NEVER!” responded the Captain, stumbling blindly around, unable to see the new threat posed to him. “KILL THEM!” he commanded before tumbling toward me with scimitar outstretched. I held my eyes tightly shut, fearing not for the first time that day that this must certainly be the end.

  CLINK

  The relieving sound of metal on stone filled my ears and brought a paralysing wave of relief to my chest.

  I opened my eyes to see Rain and Barry, the tree elf and the ogre I had met on my earlier venture into the forest with Aurelius, doing battle with the trolls that had been commanded to seize them. It was then that I realised they were not alone. They had with them another companion, who, although smaller and less powerful than the others, I was most excited to see again...my beloved Baskerville.

  Happiness flowed through me like a shot of pure adrenaline at the safe return of my most faithful friend. It was a joy that quickly doubled when I came to realise something else...I was sitting up.

  In the fit of ecstatic surprise at opening my eyes after the swipe of the scimitar to discover that I was not only alive, but also being rescued, it had not occurred to me that before that blow from the scimitar I had been unable to identify my cavalry due to the fact that I was unable to move any part of my body but my head. Now, however, I found I was able to freely move my torso. In his blind flailing, Blackheart had sliced through my restraints.

  I tried to get up from the tablet, but f
ound that my legs were still immobile. I looked down to see that they were tied down only by twine and set about loosening my restraints that I might join my friends in our final battle.

  I soon discovered that it was a hopeless task. The twine was knotted too tightly and too complexly for me to have any hope of undoing it in time, especially given that my fingers remained largely numb from the icy water. I lay back in hopeless frustration, desperately scouring the floor around me for some sort of cutting instrument.

  “Need a hand?” came a tiny voice from down by my feet. I looked down to discover Ophelia’s pale, child-like face smiling back at me. Out of a sheath that had lain hidden beneath her leafy skirt, she drew the sword given to her by her grandfather at the start of our journey together and set about sawing through my restraints.

  I looked around me with great urgency, attempting to assess our situation. Things were going well; Barry’s strength and Rain’s slingshot were combining with great success against the powerful trolls, who, with the help of the distracting factor of Ophelia’s parents, were beginning to falter despite their immense reserves of strength and stamina.

  Pleased with our progress, I allowed my eyes to wander over to the injured-Blackheart, whom I discovered looking a great deal less injured than before, staring right back at me, pure hatred filling his single, bloodshot eye.

  “HURRY, OPHELIA, HURRY!” I almost screamed as I saw the great beast begin to step slowly toward me, wielding the scimitar with bloodthirsty relish.

  “Almost there,” she assured me. But it appeared that almost would not be good enough as the angry gravlier broke into a run, the scimitar raised high above his head and ready to strike, a fearful battle cry emanating from his enormous, yellow-fanged mouth.

  “Got it,” shouted the little princess, and not a moment too soon, I rolled quickly onto the floor to the right of the tablet just as Blackheart’s blade swept across its surface from the left.