The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4)

by Tony Rattigan

***

  Next morning after breakfast, Jim and Cobb picked up Jim’s guns and headed out of town, towards the wooded hills.

  ‘Did you notice that guy who was checking us out at breakfast,’ asked Jim.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Well, he’s not my type, but don’t let me stop you,’ replied Cobb.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said Jim drily. ‘What do you reckon, secret police?’

  ‘Definitely, I can spot a copper miles away,’ agreed Cobb. ‘They’ll be keeping a close eye on us but at least they won’t be able to follow us too closely in the woods.’

  ‘But just in case, that’s why we are not going anywhere near the castle,’ said Jim.

  ‘Isn’t that going to make it a bit difficult to rob it then?’

  ‘Look, for a few days we’ll just wander around, shooting defenceless animals and pretending to be a pair of harmless hunters … except to the animals that is. Then in a few days, when everyone thinks that we are just what we appear to be, we’ll head over to the castle and check it out. Less suspicious that way.’

  As they talked they walked up the slope into the hills. The path was marked with deep furrows in the snow and as they got to the top they saw why. The local woodsmen cut down the trees, stripped them down to logs and then brought them to this point where they were loaded onto a wooden sled and towed down to the town. The woodsmen hadn’t started work yet and the sled was parked near a pile of logs.

  ‘Okay,’ said Jim un-slinging his gun, ‘let’s start looking like hunters. What do you know about hunting in the winter?’

  ‘Don’t eat yellow snow?’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Look,’ said Cobb, ‘I live in the city. The only wildlife I ever get to see is rats. If I want to catch a rabbit I go to the butchers!’

  ‘Oh dear, this is going to be a long trip,’ sighed Jim.

  ***

  While Jim and Cobb were out in the woods that morning, another coach pulled into the town of Magdeburg. Adele and Won Lungh climbed out as it stopped before a guest-house. Adele knew that Cobb would be staying at Der Wilden Kirsche so she had told the coach driver to take her to another hotel. He took them to a small guest-house as there was no other hotel in town. They didn’t have a booking but Adele soon got two rooms for herself and Won Lungh. Adele had taught Deutschen when she had been a teacher and along with Gallic, spoke it fluently, so she was able to get along easily in the Pils-Holstein language.

  (Although Adele was trained as a science teacher, she had also learnt Gallic and Deutschen so she could increase her employability by teaching those subjects.)

  Once they had settled into the rooms and freshened up, she told him that she wanted to find the local market. ‘We must be careful not to bump into Cobb and Jim Darby,’ she cautioned him.

  She asked the lady who ran the guest-house, Frau Leibnitz, where the local market was and was given directions. With Won Lungh in tow she set off to find it.

  When they reached the market she browsed amongst the stalls until she found what she wanted. There was a tent with a sign outside advertising Fortune-Telling. That’s the one, she thought and went in.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the occupant of the tent. ‘Please be seated.’ Adele did as she was bidden.

  ‘If you cross my palm with coin, I will reveal the mysteries of the future to you.’

  Adele took her gloves off, opened her purse and carefully and deliberately placed a bank note on the table. ‘I want you to reveal the mysteries of the present. Like where can I find the local witch.’

  ‘If it is a witch you seek then you have found her.’ Her hand inched towards the bank note but Adele slid it away.

  ‘No I mean the real local witch, one that wouldn’t stoop to telling fortunes in a market.’

  ‘I am the one you seek child, all around here the people come to me for guidance and knowledge.’ She grabbed the edge of the note but Adele hung on to it tightly. There was a gentle tug of war between them until Adele’s eyes narrowed slightly and the bank note burst into flame.

  The fortune-teller gasped and held her hand to her mouth.

  Adele opened her purse and took out another bank note. ‘Let’s try that again shall we?’ She placed the note in front of the fortune-teller who, torn between fear and greed, eventually reached out and placed her hand on it. Adele quickly put her hand on top of the fortune-teller’s.

  ‘Now then, I want you to tell me the name of the local witch and where I can find her.’

  The fortune-teller had seen what Adele’s touch had done to a bank note and didn’t want to see what it could do to her hand. ‘Her name is Witch Zelda and she lives in the gypsy encampment to the north of town,’ she said quickly. ‘Take the road past the temple and go for about two miles, there you will find the camp.’

  ‘There now, that wasn’t so difficult was it? Thank you for your assistance.’ She stood up, placed another note on the table and turned to go. She stopped, turned back, smiled sweetly and said, ‘Of course, if you’re lying … I’ll be back.’ Then she left the tent.

  Outside the tent she greeted Won Lungh who was waiting there patiently for her, ‘Come on Won Lungh, we’re going for a walk’.

  ***

  Adele and Won Lungh walked along the road the fortune-teller had told them about. As it reached the woods it turned into a dirt path but they kept on walking. They smelt the gypsy camp before they saw it. An interesting mixture of aromas: unwashed humanity, campfire smoke, cooking food, animals etc., all combining to assault the senses. Adele and Won Lungh walked on unperturbed. They were from Londum … they knew what smells were all about! A group of rag-tag smelly gypsies in the wood were nothing compared to two and a half million Londumers throwing their garbage out into the streets.

  They came to a clearing in the woods, cooking fires with huge pots of something bubbling inside, suspended over them. The clearing was surrounded by the traditional gaily painted travelling caravans, synonymous with gypsies.

  The gypsies saw Adele and Won Lungh and came forward to meet them. Adele was not sure if they came to greet them or came to face them. She decided to brazen it out.

  ‘Good morning. I seek Witch Zelda.’

  There was a muttering in the crowd of gypsies and then they separated to allow an old, bent over woman to hobble forward, supporting herself on a cane.

  ‘Greetings strangers. You have come to seek the guidance of Witch Zelda? To find enlightenment to the mysteries of the other worlds perhaps? I am Witch Zelda, come with me and we shall explore them together.’

  Adele stared wordlessly down at the bent old woman, looked at Won Lungh who cocked an eyebrow and then back at the old woman.

  ‘Yes, yes, very interesting old crone, I’m sure the tourists find it very entertaining but as I said, I’ve come to see Witch Zelda.’

  The old crone raised her head to look at Adele and then she looked anxiously around her at the crowd. Unsure what to do next; she went into her spiel again. ‘You have come to seek the guidance of Witch Zel-’

  ‘Yes I have and you are not her!’ interrupted Adele. She brushed past the crippled old hag and looked over the crowd. They all, the men included, looked around them nervously, unwilling to meet her eyes … except one.

  At the back of the crowd one woman leant casually on a tree, puffing on a pipe, watching the proceedings with interest. Adele pushed her way gently through the crowd until she stood before the woman. They faced one another and neither spoke as each studied the other.

  The unknown woman certainly wasn’t the hag that Adele had been led to expect. She was maybe in her late fifties, plain certainly but not ugly. The outdoor life and exposure to the elements over the years had weathered her face but it had also given it character. It was like flint, you could bend iron bars across that face. It would take two strong men with crowbars to make that face express an emotion if it didn’t want to.

  And then there were her eyes. Two grey gimlets. They h
ad a gaze that could strip wallpaper. They made you think that she could look deeply into your eyes and read the manufacturer’s label on the inside of your skull.

  Adele bowed deeply to her. ‘Good day to you, Witch Zelda. It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Adele Curran.’

  (Although women traditionally curtsy, witches bow to each other. Adele’s mother, who had been a witch, had taught her that.)

  The woman studied Adele for a moment longer, tapped out her pipe on the tree and then, bowing just as deeply as Adele had, returned her greeting, ‘Good day to you, Sister of the Craft. I am Witch Zelda Temola.’ She straightened up, ‘How may a traveller on the path of enlightenment, help a fellow traveller?’

  And then she smiled and for the first time you noticed the white teeth and the twinkle in her eyes. The wrinkles in her face turned into laughter lines and you forgot all about flint and crowbars and thought about lazy summer days and picnics in the meadow. (And that’s when the more astute, really began to worry.)

  ‘Sister of the …? I’m sorry, what was it you called me?’ asked Adele.

  ‘Sister of the Craft. It is how one witch greets another. True witches that is, not those peddlers of potions and tellers of fortunes in the market place,’ said Zelda, disdainfully. ‘I’m talking about real Daughters of the Elements. You are one of us, are you not?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, my mother was a witch and I have a few powers, but I’ve had no proper training.’

  ‘Being a witch is what you are, not what you know, it’s in the blood! Potions and spells can be taught,’ asserted Zelda, forcefully.

  ‘Well … I … I don’t really know what I am,’ said Adele, at a loss how to answer. ‘What is the Craft?’

  ‘The power that you have, the knowledge to use that power properly, the wisdom to use that power properly, and to use all that for the good of the people you are responsible for … that is the Craft.’

  Zelda took Adele’s arm. ‘Come with me child. Let us go to my caravan and we will speak of this further.’ She looked at Won Lungh, ‘You can bring your pet ape if you like.’

  Fortunately the conversation had taken place entirely in Pils-Holstein and Won Lungh was unaware of how he had been described. Adele had to suppress a grin though as she nodded to Won Lungh and let herself be led away from the immediate encampment as Won Lungh followed.

  Adele followed Witch Zelda back to her caravan, which was set apart from all the others, on the edge of the clearing, allowing her some privacy. (Besides, no one wanted to park their caravan right next to the witch’s; you never knew what Magick might leak out as she practised her craft. You could wake up as a turnip one morning.)

  As they reached it, Zelda looked down at the remains of a campfire. ‘Oh, the fire seems to have gone out, would you be a dear and get it going again?’ she asked politely.

  Adele and Won Lungh wandered into the forest, picking up firewood and kindling. When they judged they had enough they returned to the caravan. Won Lungh arranged the logs into a pile in the fireplace and then stuffed twigs into the spaces in between. When he had finished, Adele took a handful of twigs, closed her eyes and concentrated. A moment later the kindling began to smoke and soon after, flames appeared. She pushed the burning twigs into the base of the fire and watched as the flames spread to the other twigs and then to the logs.

  While this was going on, Zelda bustled about in her caravan, ostensibly gathering the items to make tea but all the while surreptitiously watching Adele. When the fire was burning nicely, Zelda hung a pot of water on the tripod over the fire.

  ‘There, that’s nice,’ she said, ‘just what we need, a nice cup of tea. Will you be staying to take food with us?’

  Adele looked across at Won Lungh who sat there impassively then back at Zelda, ‘Yes thank you, that would be nice.’

  ‘Good, good. Rabbit stew sound all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure anything will be fine.’

  Zelda reached under her apron and produced a knife. Handing it to Adele she said, ‘Well, we’ll be needing some rabbits then.’

  ***

  Half an hour later Adele and Won Lungh returned from the woods. Won Lungh carried four dead rabbits over his shoulder. Adele expertly skinned and gutted the rabbits and Won Lungh hung them on a tree to drain.

  Zelda gave her a bowl of hot water and some soap and when she and Won Lungh had cleaned themselves up, they sat down and Zelda handed them mugs of hot, steaming tea. ‘Where did you learn to skin those rabbits so efficiently?’

  ‘I studied anatomy and biology at University. They made us cut up rabbits and frogs and I became a dab hand at it.’

  ‘How did you catch the rabbits so quickly,’ asked Zelda.

  ‘I “called” to them with my mind, I don’t really know how else to explain it. When they came to me, Won Lungh killed them. I’ve been able to do it since I was a little girl, bring animals to me, make dogs stop barking, that sort of thing.’

  Zelda just smiled and puffed on her pipe. They all sat there quietly, sipping their tea.

  After a few moments Zelda asked Adele, ‘Now then, what’s this nonsense about you not knowing if you’re a witch or not? I’ve seen you make fire with your bare hands, do you know how difficult that is? Not many can do that, you know. And then you can control animals with the power of your mind. All sounds pretty “witchy” to me. You’re a witch, born and bred, no mistake about that!’

  ‘That’s good of you to say so. I guess I’ve just been afraid of being a witch, of what it might lead to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Zelda.

  ‘My mother was a witch, she married my father and they had me and they were happy together. But my father worked for an evil man named Quist, a real villain. Quist had my father murdered and then he made his move and married my mother. She only married him to protect me but he made her use her powers to help him with his crimes.

  ‘As I grew up, I saw the power he had over her and the way it somehow diminished her every time she helped him. I begged her to stop but she was afraid of what he might do to me, if she resisted him. She feared that he was going to groom me to take her place later. I vowed that he would never control me that way, make me party to his evil, so I deliberately shied away from developing my powers so that I would never be of any use to him.

  ‘So instead of Magick and the ways of the natural world, I turned to things scientific, things of logic and reason, things that could be weighed and measured and put in bottles and labelled. I went to University and studied science and physics. I did my best to become as “unwitchy” as I could but now Quist is dead and I no longer feel threatened by him. I find myself wanting to know more about the witch side of me. To find out what I am, what I can really do … but maybe I’ve left it too late.’

  ‘So what exactly did you do at this, what did you call it, this “University”?’ asked Zelda.

  ‘Well, I studied the world around us, tried to understand what makes it works. I learnt how to work with chemicals to produce a required reaction, studied humans and animals to see how they behave … basically I just tried to make sense of the Universe around us.’

  ‘So, how exactly is that different from what I do?’ asked Zelda. ‘I study humans and animals, I mix potions and I try and make sense of the Universe.

  Adele sat there stunned for a moment as what Zelda was saying sank in. ‘I think I see what you mean. You’re saying that we are heading in the same direction, towards the same destination, we’re just taking different paths.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Zelda confirmed. ‘Despite your attempts to deny your heritage, you’ve spent your time learning all the things that a good witch should know, but you’ve justified it to yourself as studying science.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adele.

  ‘So now it’s time to call a snake a snake and accept what you are … a witch! I greet you … Sister of the Craft.’

  Adele was slightly overwhelmed by this revelation, at last she could acknowledge her
mother’s heritage, acknowledge that she, Adele, was … a witch, and what is more, she was being treated as an equal by Zelda, an experienced witch. A tremendous feeling of satisfaction went through her. Free of Quist’s influence, she was finally able to become her true self.

  Zelda relit her pipe with a twig from the fire and puffed on it silently as she sipped her tea. She let Adele take time to come to terms with her newfound realisation about herself. ‘Actually,’ said Zelda, ‘we’re not really that different from scientists you know. They think they know how the Universe works. Witches know we know how the Universe works.’

  Zelda looked at Won Lungh who hadn’t understand a word of the conversation but sat there impassively watching Adele. ‘Is he your familiar?’ she asked Adele.

  ‘Won Lungh? No, he’s my … erm … friend, bodyguard, sort of substitute father, I guess.’

  ‘Do you have a familiar? All good witches have a familiar.’

  ‘I have a cat at home but he’s a bit strong willed and independent,’ Adele laughed, thinking of Lucifer, ‘I’m not sure he’d make a good familiar.’

  ‘No, no, you can’t make a familiar, a familiar is not just an animal; it’s a spirit that comes to a witch to assist her. It comes in the form of an animal but it’s more than that. Do you have a name?’

  ‘Er … my name is Adele, I thought I’d told you,’ said Adele, confused.

  ‘I’m talking about your secret name, the one known only in occult circles or possibly by a loved one. It is sometimes given by a mentor or a teacher but often witches choose the name themselves, when they come into the power.’

  ‘No, I don’t have one. Do I need one? Should I just make one up?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary, one day you will just know what it is, then you will be ready to be a proper witch. But enough of that for now, why have you come to see me?’ asked Zelda.

  ‘There are a couple of men here in Pils-Holstein, strangers, visitors. I am seeking them.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard of these men. The people and the animals of the forest tell me things. These men you speak of spend their time in the woods supposedly hunting, although they haven’t caught anything except rabbits. Despite it being winter the game is plentiful, so I suspect that is just a cover. Are these men enemies of yours? If so they are now enemies of mine,’ she declared.