Dominoes

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Not to mention whooshabouts, dragons and wolves,” said Nathan.

  But it was only quietly and to Granny that Poppy said, “I’ve made friends with Brewster too. Do you think that’s wrong?”

  “My dearest,” Granny told her, “to make friends with the enemy is the wisest thing anyone can ever do.”

  “I cut the chain,” Nathan was saying to everyone, and shaking Ferdinand’s hand, “I really cut it. That place inside the volcano is wonderful. Horrible getting in. Horrible getting out. But beautiful in that cave with the silver pool and the Eternal Chain. There’s sort of mermaid people with wings, and they knew who I was.”

  “You could say,” smiled Messina, sitting down again, and pulling Nathan to sit beside her, “we have had a few adventures of our own.” And with that she began to explain what had happened to them all while Nathan and the others were away. “You know the horrible little red slimy jelly that tried to suck itself into Sam’s neck?”

  “Yuck,” Sam said. “I’ll never, ever forget.”

  “And then there was another one, but much bigger, that tried to squash you flat, Nathan.”

  “And I’ll never forget that either,” Nathan said, “it stank, and it was disgusting.”

  “Well,” continued Messina, “we were visited by twenty or more. They came to the house. Clearly Yaark sent them. But these were enormous and easily as big as a coach or more.” She sighed. “None of our magic would work, as it seems Yaark put a barrier around the house to stop us and any of our magic getting out. But we put up another barrier of our own which stopped any of those jellies getting in.”

  Everyone was aghast. “So wot happened?” asked John. “How did yer get rid o’ them?”

  “One magical spell we managed to get through,” explained Bayldon, “because it wasn’t directly against the jelly-things. All those gluttons ever want is food, so we magicked food, piles and piles of it, but all full of another magic to make those jelly-beasts shrink. And it worked. They got the food and gulped it all down, vomiting and farting, horrible creatures. And at first nothing happened. We thought we’d failed again, and just given a lovely feast to those things. But then, very slowly, they got a little smaller. Then smaller still, and then even more.”

  “So it worked,” cried Sherdam, clapping his hands. “They ended up the size of large dogs. So we tried to run outside and attack them or at least frighten them away. But Yaark’s magic was still working too, and we couldn’t leave the house.”

  “So what did you do?” Alice was amazed and red in the face.

  “All our gorgeous animals ran out instead,” grinned Zakmeister. “They kicked and bit the jelly-oxen, and chased them far, far away. Your beautiful cats went racing out. Alan and the two baby llamas Even Mavis and Dimples. What heroes and loyal friends they all are. Those fat jellies went wobbling off and hopefully, we’ll never see them again.”

  “And Yaark?”

  Messina leaned back in her chair. “I saw the blue star in the sky. But I haven’t seen him since. He’ll be shocked that his plans for keeping half our people as insects has now been changed, and the people of Lashtang are good free people again.” She smiled at Ferdinand. “But he surely has other plans. I don’t know if cutting the Eternal Chain will make him creep away, feeling he has failed. Or will it make him so furious, he’ll leap out and do something terrible?”

  “He already has,” Nathan reminded her. “But sending the whole of Peganda into ruins. I want to go there later this afternoon, and I’ve asked lots of the plains people to come with me. We all need to help rebuild for everybody. Lashtang is going to be reborn.”

  Chapter Thirty

  They stood at the open gates of Peganda and looked in amazement at the huge city stretching before them.

  The last time Nathan had stood here, he was looking at the ruins of ten thousand buildings, great and small, all turned to broken sticks, crumbled brick dust, flattened walls, smashed tiles, and splinters floating in the air. Everything had been unrecognisable, and groups of people stood crying in the dust as they saw the destruction of the homes they had loved.

  It was less than two months later, and now the city was rising like a bird on the wing. Messina, Zakmeister, Sherdam, Granny, Umbod, Tryppa and twelve other tall men and women, Messina’s friends and supporters who had strong magic at their fingertips, walked the city streets, now meeting with the people and talking at length. As each citizen who had lost their home now explained what new home they dreamed of, and where exactly they wished to live, then with great bursts of sparkling magic, that house would begin to rise. The homeowners would stand in utter amazement as they saw their dreams come true before their eyes. Real glass smiled from the windows, and real tiled floors kept out the draughts.

  The people of the marshes and plains came in their hundreds to help paint and furnish the rooms inside these magically grown homes, and the people of Peganda made friends with everyone and found themselves no longer homeless.

  Cheering their new empress, empling, empole and empola, the folk learned to love their true royal family. But some would stand aside, whispering.

  One man mumbled, “I don’t trust magic. Tis bribery and one day may fall on us and crush our heads.”

  Another said, “And what will our mighty Clebbster Hazlett do when he sees all this. He’ll punish us for taking help from his enemy. Not worth the risk.”

  But most of the people cheered the Octobrs and the Bannisters and made up songs about how wonderful the future would be, and how they admired and loved their empress.

  “The people are already on our side,” Bayldon told Messina. “Do we need a rebellion? I think we’ve already won.”

  “Perhaps.” Zakmeister remembered his brother. “But what will Yaark and the wizards be planning right now? We haven’t seen the worst of them yet.”

  “Our supporters,” interrupted Poppy, “could beat anyone. Look how many we have now. And how strong they are. Almost all Peganda. Almost all the folk of the marshes and plains. Most of the fishing villages. Then hundreds of lava wolves, even more dragons, Whooshabouts too. There’s so many Epilogs, I don’t know how many and they’re all so brave. Then there’s a pirate ship on our side, and a big group of brigands. John’s dad and his big trading ship with a crew of twenty or more. Then, on top of all that there’s us and all that amazing magic.”

  “That should beat anyone and everything,” said Nathan.

  Clapping loudly, John said, “And me, John Crinford Ten-Toes. Wot more could any folks want?”

  And so the city of Peganda was rebuilt far more beautiful than it had been before. Everyone remembered a time when buildings cracked and tumbled almost every day for they had been badly built over many years, simply one wall leaning on the house next door. Attempting to repair their homes, most had erected metal poles just to support the frontage, and when that slipped in bad weather, a whole street would begin to collapse.

  But now every home was safe and sound and beautiful, well-built and comfortable both outside and in.

  Each day they arose early and went out to build more, planning new streets, and wonderful public gardens along the banks of the river.

  “You should have a palace,” decided Alice. “The great Octobr Palace, right in the city centre.”

  Messina frowned. “Certainly we must live somewhere,” she said, “but I don’t like these gaudy show-off palaces. Perhaps we could stay in the cottage.”

  “No.” Granny shook her head. “I might stay there myself. But you and Bayldon should have somewhere a little closer, and much more grand.”

  “You could do up the Bymion Palace,” suggested Alice.

  Again Messina frowned. “There’s too much bad magic there. One day I might go to bed tired, and suddenly find myself spinning off to Sparkan.”

  “Might be fun,” giggled Poppy.

  There’s that horrid castle just a little north of the city,” remembered Nathan. “All ruined now. It’s where Wagster and Yaark used to sta
y. Maybe Clebbster too, though nobody ever seemed to know where he lived.”

  “Nor even what he looked like.” Alfie turned, the huge pile of new clothes for the people which he carried, almost hiding his face as he staggered into the empty market place.

  “And that is one very important point,” said Sherdam. “Clebbster has never approached us directly. He has permitted Yaark to take over. But what are his own powers? Some of you have seen him as a giant serpent, but that isn’t the father of the Hazlett twins. And why do they have forked tongues? There’s still a lot we don’t know and need to find out. We haven’t won yet.”

  “But don’t go living in that horrible castle.” Peter was walking with Poppy and carrying two sacks of potatoes. “It’s a wicked place and Nathan said it was full of dark magic and weird creepy voices.

  “Never mind about the future,” said Granny. “Let’s concentrate on the present. First we get this city finished. Then villages and homes for the people of the plains and marshes. Meanwhile, we just stay in the cottage.”

  The centre of the city became a huge market square with covered awnings and big bright stalls. Here the people of the plains and farms could bring the food they had grown, and sell it to the city folk, and the city craftsmen could make and invent many things to sell to the farmers.

  “We should bring in cars,” said Poppy.

  “Horses,” said Sam.

  “Cinemas,” said Nathan.

  “Big sailing ships,” said John.

  “Theatres for music,” said Peter.

  “Flower gardens,” said Alice.

  “And schools for sword fighting and target shooting and making armour,” said Alfie.

  “I must say, I should quite like a fountain,” said Bayldon.”

  “I have every intention of introducing electricity,” said Granny. “But just a beginning. Not too much. If I bring in electrical lighting, then the people themselves can get wonderful new ideas and invent everything else themselves, just as they did in England at first, and all the other countries too. But nothing else too soon. “

  “Electrical games and TV.,” said Poppy, excited.

  “No, no,” repeated Granny. “Just the first beginnings of electricity so we can have good lighting in houses and out in the streets too, and perhaps a little heating in winter.”

  Winter was growing closer as autumn turned the leaves of the trees to red and gold, and the late sunshine streaked through, bringing long shadows across the winding roads. The fur trees and cypresses with their evergreen foliage stayed thick and lush, and the oak trees grew their acorns. The brilliant warmth of summer sunshine had begun to fade. Then clouds covered the bright blue skies, and the winds turned cold. But the work carried on as Peganda rose higher. Because more and more people wanted to live there, they built blocks of luxurious flats, fifteen stories high, with electric lifts. Electricity excited everybody, and some people moved from the villages to the city just so they could have electricity and bright lights. Now almost everybody was getting a proper bathroom, and this seemed the best of all.

  As the days passed and the city was nearing completion, Granny chose to return to the cottage, and many of the others also went back to their homes and their previous work.

  “I am travelling to see the Epilogs,” Tryppa said, and turned to Peter. “But I shall return soon and continue our lessons on the magic lute. Though already you play so well, the lessons are hardly needed.”

  “But I love learning more,” said Peter, “and I love playing the lute with you playing yours.”

  “I shall return soon,” Tryppa promised him.

  “I’m going back to the Golden Fig plantation I’ve started at the foot of Clarr,” Sherdam explained. “There’s still plenty of work needed there, and I need to learn too, all about those special trees.”

  Others left too but Zakmeister decided to stay with Sam, and Messina and Bayldon wished to remain in the city and support their people. They took up the top floor of a large block of flats near the river, where they could look from the large windows and see right across the city from gate to gate and all around the walls and beyond. Poppy and Alice shared a bedroom, and so did the boys, sharing two between them. They enjoyed the electric lift, the electric light and the electric bathroom, and went out every day to help the people of the fishing villages and the marshes and plains.

  When Ferdinand jumped from the lift one day, hardly waiting for the doors to open since he was frightened they might close on him, he told everybody that he had searched and searched and finally found his wife again. She was no longer a scorpion, and he was extremely excited to get her back after so many years.

  “We have a cottage in the village of Pickles on the south coast,” Ferdinand said. “It’s a beautiful village and a few important people have some to live there since the illustrious Lady Altabella has rebuilt it and made it so pretty, overlooking the ocean.”

  “Well, you must be one of the important people,” grinned Nathan.

  “Not at all, not at all, my illustrious lord,” said Ferdinand, “but Lord Ninester and his kind mother have a home there. They live together, and often walk the streets with their new puppy, and say hello to everyone.”

  “I liked that puppy,” nodded Peter. “I should go and visit Little Smudge one day. And Ninester too of course.” Then he smiled, “And naturally my friend Ferdinand.”

  “I should be very grateful if you would,” Ferdinand answered, bowing. “I have done as much as I could to make our new cottage look much as your cottage does, for I spent many happy years there.”

  “Sounds like it’s not a little fishing village anymore,” Poppy laughed. “Sounds like a place of palaces and huge houses.”

  “Lord Ninester also has a cottage,” Ferdinand agreed, “but it is not huge. But I think, just like me, he and his mother have tried to make their cottage look much like yours. But then there are other people who have built very grand houses.”

  Nathan wasn’t much interested in cottages or grand houses either, but he looked up, saying, “who has the magic or the money to make a palace nowadays?”

  “There’s a big black palace of stone on the edge of the cliff,” Ferdinand said. “Then two smaller ones down in the port where the fishing boats sail out. One of them has a very rich man living there, but he’s not well liked, but I’ve never seen him. I don’t know who lives in the black one or the other one.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s important,” said Messina, entering the small living room and taking Ferdinand’s hand as he tried to bow to her. “But I wish to see Ninester, so we will visit you in a few days, my friend.”

  “Perhaps it’s Clebbster living in the big black palace,” said Poppy after Ferdinand had left,

  “That monster would never live in a fishing village.”

  “Hiding?”

  “But it could be Wagster and Brewster,” said Messina, “and I would like to take a look, besides visiting our friends.”

  It was some days before they could leave, for there was so much to be done. Sam and Zakmeister stayed at home, and so did Peter for he wanted to practise his lute. And Bayldon decided he’d stay home for a rest. But Alice, Alfie, John, Nathan and Poppy were all whooshed to Pickles village by Messina’s magic.

  It was not as small as it had been in the distant past, and now there were little shops, many houses, restaurants along the seafront at the port, and all the boats lined up ready to sail out early the next morning. The small market mostly sold fish, but there were also vegetables and fruit for sale, and people sitting mending their fishing nets. The sun crept out between the clouds and glittered on the sea. It was a calm and pleasant day and the water was flat.

  Heading up the main road towards Ninester’s cottage, they were passed by several villagers, although no one seemed to recognise them. A busy woman in a long red coat with two big overflowing shopping baskets bustled along, pushing Poppy and Alice out of the way as she hurried on. Two small boys hurried past, playing ball with eac
h other as they ran. But the ball was a small red melon, and when one boy dropped it, it broke and oozed red juice all over the cobbles. This made Messina remember the red slime of the jelly-oxen, and she crossed the road to walk on the other side.

  They were also passed by one old man coming down the slope in the opposite direction. Everyone turned to look at him as he seemed strange, but he averted his eyes and stared at no one. He was extremely old and had a few curly twists of very white hair coming down from his flat black velvet cap. All his clothes were black, and his coat was down to his feet, and swept the cobbles as he walked. So bent over that his back seemed more like a big bump that anything else, he used a walking stick, clutched in his left hand but his right hand could not be seen as it was pushed into his coat pocket. His face could hardly be seen either, yet his eyes, small and bright green, appeared malicious and his ears were large and pointed, while his nose was very long and thin. The only visible hand was also bent with long dark fingernails which curved over. But the walking stick was beautiful, being black and shining as though studded with black crystals, and the hilt in the man’s hand was a large carved peacock with beautifully coloured glass feathers in the tail.

  Nathan turned his head to stare as the old man passed them and tottered on, walking now in the opposite direction.

  But as he turned, so the old man turned also, and just for one fleeting moment, they stared at each other, the ancient old man, and Nathan, the new empole.

  Then the man’s eyes flicked away, he turned his head again and walked on. Nathan did the same. But he realised that he’d begun to feel quite sick and his hands were shaking. “I’ve seen him,” he whispered to his mother.

  “I know,” she replied. “So have I.”

  Poppy overheard and came closer. “You know who it was then? And you knew he’d be here?”

  “I must admit ignorance,” murmured Messina, dropping back a little from the rest of the crowd. “I cannot be sure who it was. Yaark, perhaps, in yet another guise, Or Clebbster himself. Or another of their vile friends. He could even be a good man who just happens to live here, but I sensed evil from him. I cannot believe he was a good man.”