The Other Side
Page 2
Finn peered over the edge into the darkness. Although he couldn’t see anything he expected to hear some noise, a scream of pain or something as Max hit the bottom, but there was only silence until Gran said ‘Okay now you Finn, quickly, you must do it now.’ The garden was long but the men were getting close.
‘But Gran….’ said Finn, looking afraid.
‘Now Finn, DO IT’ screamed gran. Acting more on impulse, Finn placed his palm on the edge of the well and sure enough the edge lit up the same way it had done for Max. He peered over the edge unsure and in doing so felt himself lift off the ground. As he turned his head to look he saw Gran had lifted his legs and was toppling him over the edge. ‘I’m sorry my boy it’s for your own good’ was the last thing Finn heard as he tumbled into the darkness and started to scream.
‘Fiiiiinnnnnn…’ Eric shouted as his brother disappeared down the well.
‘Now you Eric, GO NOW…’ Gran shouted as the chasing group of scary-looking men were almost upon them. Eric looked around to the men. The one that was closest to them looked particularly scary. He was a large man, had long scruffy hair and appeared to be missing one of his eyes. Where it should have been there was a large scar running down from his forehead, through the eye and all the way down to his chin. He was now only about ten yards away when he screamed through badly-coloured snarling teeth, ‘YOU BOY, STAY WHERE YOU ARE.’ As he did so, his one working eye lit up a sparkling colour of green which completed the whole scary-looking effect. That was enough for Eric, he reached out and touched the edge of the well, however this time it lit up red, then changed to blue, then back to red again, then onto green and back to red again. As it continued doing this, Eric looked to his gran for direction, but his gran hadn’t noticed as she was too busy bending down to lift Eric off his feet in the same way she had for Finn. ‘No Gran…wait!’ he yelled, but it was too late and as he toppled over the edge and fell into the darkness he realised the last colour he had seen on the well’s edge had been green.
Chapter 5
When Finn leapt over the edge of the well his stomach had left him, as he initially fell down into the pitch darkness. Then as the realisation of what he had done hit him, and at the thought of the crushing landing he was imminently due at the bottom of the well, he started to scream. And scream he did… on and on and on, however no painful landing came. Instead he continued to fall and fall, until he realised he actually felt more weightlessness rather than falling. Then suddenly it felt like a big whoosh of air ran through him and out he tumbled into the light and onto a hard concrete-like surface where he rolled over several times before coming to a halt.
As he groggily lifted his head, he felt like he had ridden a rollercoaster ten times in a row. He was greeted by the sight of Max bending down towards him holding his large hand out and sporting a wide grin on his face. ‘It takes a bit of getting used to’ he chortled to Finn.
‘What exactly just happened?’ said Finn as he took Max’s hand and was helped up onto his rather shaky legs.
‘Well that’s going to take a bit of explaining’ said Max. ‘Let’s just say you’re no longer in your world for starters’ he continued as he looked back towards where they had just fallen from.
Finn followed his gaze towards where he had just tumbled from, expecting to see some kind of large dark hole or something similar. Instead there was a large golden archway that had the same kind of strange writing around it that had shown up on the well when it lit up. In the space between the archway was a strange kind of mist that only hovered and swirled in between the arches, making it impossible to see through to the other side. As Finn regained his composure he started to become aware of the noises around himself as well, including something roaring off to his left. As his gaze drifted in that direction he saw that they appeared to be on some kind of cliff face and the source of the roaring noise was coming from a large waterfall about one hundred metres to his right.
‘Wooooaaa’ said Finn in amazement as he started to walk in the direction of the waterfall for a better look. He managed about twenty paces before he arrived at the edge of the ledge they were on. Looking down, the river below which the waterfall fell into was about one hundred and fifty metres below them and the start of the waterfall was about another hundred metres above them.
Unlike any water he had seen before however, the water appeared to sparkle with a golden glow. As Finn followed the river further downstream he caught sight of a magnificent-looking, gleaming white horse standing on the riverbank. It was so white it almost appeared to be glowing and as his eyes glanced over the horse’s head, he realised it was staring right back up at him. Finn and the horse locked eyes for a few seconds, then the horse leapt from the riverbank into the water, head first. However, right as it hit the water it appeared to make a magical transformation; the horse had turned into what Finn could only describe as a mermaid-looking creature. The creature had dived underwater and it had happened so fast Finn could only rub his eyes and gape down to the river below, wondering what exactly he had just witnessed.
Just then, a head appeared out of the water. It belonged to what looked like a young lady, and even from this distance what looked like a very beautiful young lady, with long, glowing white hair just like the horse had. Finn couldn’t move. He was transfixed to the spot, staring at the beautiful young lady. Looking directly at Finn she appeared to smile to him before diving back underwater. As she did so, her large fish-like tail splashed, before disappearing into the sparkling depths.
‘What was that?’ exclaimed Finn, looking round to Max who was still sporting a large grin on his face.
‘That Finn, was called a Mermai and you should consider yourself very lucky to have seen it as they are ancient, magical creatures and do not allow themselves to be seen by most beings.’
‘A Mermai???…ancient magical creatures??? Where are we Max? Where’s Eric? And what’s going on?’ Finn blurted out, starting to look a bit panic stricken.
‘As I said, we are no longer in your world. Welcome to the Land of Knor’kan’ said Max as he extended his arm and motioned outwards towards the land in front of them. Finn had been so distracted by the waterfall and the Mermai that he hadn’t even looked out from the other side of the cliff ledge they were on. As he did so, he saw a vast land open up before him, full of large, dark-looking forests containing what looked like the biggest trees he had ever seen. Beside the forests lay vast open fields, through which the sparkling golden river weaved a winding pattern. Beyond all that he could see jagged, snow-covered mountain ranges.
Finn carefully inched closer to the edge of the cliff to look at the drop below. It looked very steep with no easy way of climbing up or down, however as he glanced over to the opposite side from the waterfall there was narrow path leading away from the ledge they were on. ‘Come…’ said Max motioning towards the path, ‘there is someone very eager to meet you.’ ‘Someone is eager to meet me??? Who?…and what about Eric?’ said Finn.
‘Don’t worry about your brother Finn, he will not be in any danger, we will meet with him later. Come, the Queen is waiting,’ said Max as he turned and started walking down the path. Finn looked uncertain, however as he glanced around at his surroundings he realised that he didn’t really have any other options at the moment than to trust Max. So with a loud sigh, he began following him.
Chapter 6
Eric had landed roughly. He had lost count of the amount of rolls over the ground he had done before coming to rest face-down in what felt like snow. He slowly raised his groggy head, spat out a mouthful of snow that had forced its way in during his tumble and started to look around to see where on earth he was.
Glancing around he appeared to be in a large frozen cavern, which was covered by lots of large stalagmites and a coating of fresh snow over the ground. As he gazed in the direction from which he had fallen, he noticed an extremely large object that could only be described as looking like a very large mirror. A large golden arc framed the mirror and a
ppeared to have writing over it which looked similar to the symbols he had seen lighting up on the well back in Gran’s garden. As he studied the strange object closer he realised that this was unlike any other mirror he had ever seen, as the silvery surface was actually moving. Very slightly, just shimmering, but definitely moving all the same. Then in the blink of an eye a large man suddenly appeared out of the mirror. He landed on the snowy ground and came to a running halt over a few yards. The man and Eric locked eyes and for a few seconds they just stared at each other. Eric’s look of astonishment quickly turned to one of terror as he realised it was the one eyed man with the large scar that had been chasing him, who now stood only a few yards away. As he had noticed before, the man’s eye was lit-up with a sparkling green colour which only served to give him an even more sinister look.
Eric broke the stare and started looking around, desperate to find some sort of exit from which he could make an attempt to escape. Realising what he was doing the man raised his two hands up in a calming gesture. ‘Whooa there kid, I’m not going to hurt you,’ said the man in a gruff-sounding voice that matched his overall intimidating appearance.
‘Yeah right’ thought Eric, still frantically looking around for an exit.
‘Look kid, the only way out of here is this way’ said the man, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the exit was behind him. ‘Now you can either calm down, come over here and we both walk out of here together in a civilised manner or you can try to somehow get around me and make a dash for freedom, which, will probably end up with you being carried out of here over my shoulder, and I would imagine that would be a lot more uncomfortable than walking on your own. Also as I’m sure you’ve noticed we ain’t in your back garden anymore, we’re…well…a long way from there now. I’ll explain all that in time, but for now you’re just gonna have to trust me a little.’
‘Trust you!!!’ Eric exclaimed, ‘you’ve been following and chasing me and my brother all day, you just barged into my home and forced me to jump down a well.’ Eric shouted, his fear being replaced slightly with anger. Getting to his feet he said ‘Where’s my brother anyway? and what have you done to my gran, is she okay?’
‘Look, your gran is fine, we wouldn’t harm her. We only wanted to meet you and your brother and preferably not like this. However we were forced into action as the Fairies had already started the process of bringing you here and it looked like they had beaten us to it, but here you are, you came to our side which is interesting,’ said the large man.
‘Fairies??? The other side?? What’s going on? Where exactly am I?’ blurted Eric all at once. Breaking into a laugh, which made the large man look a tiny bit less frightening, albeit not by much, he said, ‘Look I know you’ll have many questions, but let’s leave this cold cave and I’ll do my best to answer your questions on the way.’
‘The way to where?’ asked Eric.
‘To the city of Alfheim of course,’ said the large man, looking at Eric like he had asked a silly question.
‘Oh yeah of course, I should’ve known eh,’ said Eric rolling his eyes.
‘So what’s it to be then young master, are ye coming the easy way?’ asked the large man. Taking one last look around, Eric shrugged his shoulders, then slowly got to his feet and started walking towards the large man. ‘Yeah I suppose so,’ he said.
‘Good boy, you’ve made the right choice. But before we go on allow me to introduce myself. I am Doogard, proud Chief of the Elven army,’ he said in a loud booming voice, whilst pounding his chest with his large fist.
‘Elven army,’ thought Eric. I must be going mad, but he kept the thought to himself and instead just stuttered, ‘Eeeh…ok…then….I’m Eric.’
‘Well of course ye are boy, ye don’t need to tell me that,’ laughed Doogard as he turned and headed towards the way out of the cave.
Chapter 7
They had been walking for what seemed like a long time and Finn was sweating as the sun or rather the two suns that were beaming down at them from high in the sky were really starting to heat the land up. They had finally meandered their way down the mountain and were walking through a long field heading towards the very large and dark-looking forest that Finn had seen when they were high up on the cliff ledge. ‘Don’t worry’ said Max, ‘once we hit the forest it’ll cool down in the shadows,’ as he noticed that Finn was starting to toil in the heat. ‘It’s the wrong time of day to be walking about, as it’s when our two suns are closest together in the sky and it magnifies the heat given off by them. Most folk tend to avoid moving around during the midday suns,’ said Max.
‘No kidding,’ said Finn wiping the sweat from his brow. So far on the long trip down the mountain Max had explained that he was part of a race of beings known as Fairies. Unsure as to whether to laugh or hit Max with a number of questions that he had, Finn instead decided to do neither and just kept quiet, letting Max say what he had to say. Max had told him that there were magical portals that could transport you from the earth that Finn called home, to the world in which he now found himself. He said that they had existed for thousands of years, but that only people from his side possessed the magic to use these portals and that although some humans knew or suspected that they existed, none had ever managed to use them.
‘So how did my brother and I manage to use the portal and where has Eric gone?’ asked Finn, finally breaking his silence.
‘Well the how and why, I’ll get to, but I fear your brother must have been transported to the other side of Knor’kan. Down in the cold lands of the south, which are ruled by our sworn and ancient enemies, the Elves.’
‘I don’t mean to be cheeky but elves and fairies are…well…things from storybooks back home,’ said Finn looking rather wearily at Max.
‘Ha ha’ laughed Max, ‘yes we are well aware of what we are thought of in the human world, but that is of no concern to us, most of the stories were probably started by misbehaving Elves or Fairies anyway. Most humans don’t believe we exist and that’s the way we prefer it to be. You see for years we were free to roam back and forth between the two worlds, however I’m sorry to say that much like the human race, Elves and Fairies are alike in that we are made up of the good and the bad. And for the bad element within our race, going to your world was very appealing, as over there it’s very easy for us to manipulate humans using some of the magical powers we possess. We can almost do as we please.
Over the years cover stories were made for various things and the humans would swallow whatever story we came up with. For example where you stay: Cornwall, was notorious for its pirates back in the day, however most pirates were nothing more than boisterous Elves and Fairies. Travel between the worlds was done through special portals which would look like a large mirror to you on this side and what humans refer to as ‘wishing wells’ on your side. Which is another reason why Cornwall became overrun with ‘pirates’ —at the time it had more wishing wells than any other town or city and therefore had the largest free travelling population of Elves and Fairies too. However as I said, the bad element of our races were abusing their powers and taking advantage of the human race. Also, here in our own land Fairies and Elves stay far apart and with good reason too, as most would start fighting at the mere sight of each other. So in your world, meetings with one another were becoming more common and so became the fighting. Casualties were racking up on either side and the humans were becoming suspicious of some of the strange mutilated bodies they were finding. Some had been killed using dark magic and by means that were not possible by humans. So eventually, leaders of both races put a ban on free travel between the worlds. Most of the portals that existed in Knor’kan were covered over or had the magic spell lifted from them, making them useless. And from then on any travelling between the worlds became more regulated. Permission must be sought first before any travel is allowed.’
‘Ok then’ said Finn, ‘but that still doesn’t explain why my brother and I have become involved in all this.’
‘And?’ said Finn impatiently.
‘Well…she didn’t exactly tell you everything about your parents. You see the thing is…erm…well…your parents are not actually from your world, or what you think is your world,’ said Max turning to look down at a very confused looking Finn.
‘What I think is my world?...what exactly are you trying to say Max?’ said Finn, a little exasperated.
‘Well to be blunt…your mum was one of us, she was a Fairy!’
‘WHAT?’ exclaimed Finn stopping dead in his tracks. Max stopped and looked back at Finn, ‘I’m sorry, I know all this must be very overwhelming but it’s the truth Finn. You see that’s why you were able to travel through the portal, because although you were born and raised on earth, this is your true home.’