Phyllis Wong and the Waking of the Wizard

by Geoffrey McSkimming

  ‘Ambrosius asked Myrddin why they needed to go all the way to Ireland to get the stones, when there were other stones in England. Myrddin replied that the stones from the Circle of Giants were mystical stones, ancient stones endowed with wonderful curative powers. In the long-distant past, Myrddin said, the giants had brought these stones to Ireland from Africa, and they had used them in their baths to cure them of illnesses. The stones possessed secrets the likes of which the world had never known.

  ‘Ambrosius sent his brother Uther Pendragon and his army to Ireland, where a fierce battle against the Irish king ensued. Finally, Pendragon’s army won, and the soldiers tried to move the stones to their ships, ready to sail home. But they could not budge them. In the end Myrddin himself used his magic to spirit the stones onto the ships. They sailed them back to England, and erected them, thanks to more of Myrddin’s spells, right where you are seeing them.’

  ‘Do you think that really happened?’ asked Phyllis.

  Wallace smiled. ‘Ah. One thing I do know: scientists discovered that some of the stones here were brought from Pembroke in Wales, hundreds of miles away. And that means that the stories about Myrddin transporting the stones from a long way away are perhaps grained in the truth.’

  Phyllis let that seep into her mind.

  They were nearer the monument now. Phyllis stopped and let the view of the stones, at this closer distance, fill her eyes.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said quietly. ‘Timeless and beautiful.’

  Wallace stopped alongside her. ‘That it is, my dear. I thought the very same thing the first time I laid eyes upon it. And I still think that every time I revisit here.’

  Daisy was busy sniff-patrolling up ahead, darting from one side of the road to the other.

  Now the sunlight’s dancing rays were thinning, and the surfaces of the standing stones seemed to swallow up the feeble golden beams, sucking them deep into their cold, hulking forms. The megaliths loomed dark and deep grey against the fading light.

  ‘Stonehenge is the most remarkable group of standing stones, Phyllis, and the most famous. And it’s the only stone circle—and there are more than a thousand of them in Britain—which has many of the lintels still in place.’

  Phyllis let her gaze wander across the stone slabs that capped many of the standing stones.

  ‘Come,’ said Wallace, ‘before the sun goes completely.’

  They started walking again, and Wallace continued his briefing: ‘Most experts on stone circles believe they were made as places where astronomy could be practised, and this fits in with what we know of Myrddin. He built an observatory for himself at a stone circle site somewhere, which the people knew as Myrddin’s house. It had seventy windows and seventy doors, through which Myrddin could watch the sun, Venus and the stars. From this place he studied the movements of the planets and the constellations.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Phyllis.

  Up ahead, Daisy stopped, turned and gave a hurry up, you’re going too slow yap.

  ‘And before we arrive,’ Wallace said, pulling out a notebook from his coat pocket, ‘here are the bare and basic facts, as I jotted them down from a guidebook left behind by a careless tourist on one of my previous visits.’ He winked at Phyllis, flipped open the notebook, and read:

  ‘ “You see before you 150 gigantic stones set out in a definite circular pattern. The outer circle includes 17 enormous sarsen stones of hard limestone, many of which are capped with a lintel stone . . .” ’

  Wallace read on, sharing with Phyllis details of the stones—their height, weight and the arrangement of the outer and inner circles. When he’d finished he closed the notebook and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Now you have the facts,’ he said, ‘and the legend, go and have the experience.’

  Phyllis gave him a huge grin, then a quick, sudden hug. ‘Just try to stop me,’ she said. ‘C’mon, Daisy!’

  Off she rushed, straight towards the inner circle. Daisy followed at her heels. Wallace went and rested against one of the sarsens, leaning his staff against the cold, ancient rock. He shut his eyes and tried to feel the presence he was searching for.

  Phyllis wandered amid the standing stones, taking in what it was like to be in a place that was so old, so mysterious, so enigmatic. Everything was quiet—not even the warbling of birds or the gentle rustle of the wind could be heard—and the sense of calmness, of great, gentle soothingness, was even stronger in here.

  She came to the centre of Stonehenge and stopped by a large block of sandstone that Wallace had described from his notebook. She slung her shoulder bag onto the grass and stood perfectly still.

  She shut her eyes and tried to sense if Myrddin was about.

  Daisy watched her as she remained statue-like, concentrating.

  Everything was still and silent and secret.

  After a few minutes, the small dog wagged her tail and barked loudly. Phyllis’s eyes shot open and she crouched down and patted her four-legged friend. ‘Do you like it here too, Daisy? Can you feel something special about Stonehenge?’

  Daisy wagged her short tail more quickly and licked Phyllis’s hand.

  Phyllis sat on the grass next to Daisy. Overhead, the sky was filled with a flurry of bright crimson and orange streaks as the sun gave its final bursts of light to the dying day. The young conjuror studied the lintel stones against the vibrant sky, and she felt happy and special to be here right now.

  ‘Do you think Myrddin really made this place?’ she asked Daisy. ‘Do you think he actually put these stones here? Did he watch the stars from inside all of this?’

  ‘You know,’ came Wallace’s voice from across the sarsens, ‘I’ve seen a drawing in a very old manuscript, showing Myrddin being assisted by a giant as he builds Stonehenge. That history was written in about 1155. Even back then, people believed Myrddin made this place.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could hear me,’ Phyllis called out to him.

  ‘Ah. One of the funny ways I get affected by Transiting. For a few hours afterwards, my hearing is extremely acute; I can hear the pin dropping from the very bosoms of infinity’s haystack . . . oh, I know what I mean.’

  Phyllis smiled.

  ‘Another thing that may tickle your fancy,’ Wallace called, ‘is that somewhere in all of these stones there’s supposed to be an inscription, carved by Myrddin himself. I’ve never been able to find it, though.’

  ‘What’s it supposed to say?’ asked Phyllis. She could see her great-grandfather between two of the standing stones. He’d taken a deck of cards out and was fanning them back and forth, spreading them and closing them with astonishing smoothness.

  ‘We believe it was a warning from Myrddin to King Arthur, that the mortal battle for the end of the world would take place on this plain.’

  ‘Jeepers,’ said Phyllis. ‘And did it?’

  ‘Not yet, my dear, not yet.’ Wallace held the cards in his right hand and, with a flick of his wrist, sent them flying, one by one, up into the air, over his head and into his left hand. ‘We’re all still here, aren’t we?’

  ‘Do you think if you can find this inscription it might give you a clue to Myrddin?’ Phyllis asked, her eyes twinkling at W.W.’s wonderful dexterity.

  ‘Perhaps. It is something I hope for. Any clue is a clue to be examined carefully, my dear. Any little sign of the wizard is—’

  But that was all she heard.

  There was a sudden grinding of rock against rock and then a flat, heavy rush of air and the enormous lintel slab above Wallace Wong came crashing down!

  The ground shuddered as the lintel smashed deep into the grass.

  The playing cards shot into the air in all directions.

  ‘NO!’ Phyllis screamed, her voice like shattering glass. ‘W.W.! NOOOO!’

  A little about Sturdy

  Phyllis ran through the gaps between the stones, Daisy hard at her heels, yapping loudly. She couldn’t see Wallace Wong anywhere. The massive lintel stone had smashed into the ground with
such force that it was embedded a foot deep in the grass.

  Suddenly, as Phyllis neared the fallen lintel, a long steel crowbar came clattering down, hitting the lintel with a huge CLANG and bouncing onto the grass.

  Phyllis stopped in her tracks. In the dim, fading light, she saw the shape of a man, springing down from the top of the stone against which W.W. had been leaning. The man paused on the ground for a moment, then jumped up and ran away—fast, but with light footsteps—through the gaps between the stones in the outer circle.

  Phyllis raced over to the lintel. ‘W.W.!’ she shouted, her voice catching in her throat. She kicked aside the scattered playing cards as she flung herself at the huge slab of fallen stone. ‘W.W.!’ she cried again, searching for him.

  A cold, shaking dread raced through her as she feared the worst. It couldn’t have happened . . . Wallace Wong, Conjuror of Wonder!, flattened to death like this! It couldn’t have—

  ‘Ugh,’ came a hoarse grunt from the other side of the lintel stone.

  Phyllis and Daisy sprang around the end of the lintel to see Wallace on the grass. There were only millimetres between the cold, hard edge of the lintel and Wallace’s back. His legs were curled up, his knees tucked into his chest, and his neck was bent low, his chin almost touching his kneecaps.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Phyllis cried, dropping to her knees next to him. Daisy ran and bounded and jumped all over him and Phyllis.

  ‘I think so,’ came Wallace’s startled voice. ‘A few bruises, I suppose, that’s all. I got out of the way just in the nick of time . . . heard the stone moving, and then saw it plummeting, and I curled myself up into a ball and tried to roll out of the way, just like I did in my picture Kindly Remove Your Trombone, Neddy, when I had to escape from the sudden onslaught of—’

  ‘Your coat! It’s stuck!’

  ‘Mmm?’ He uncurled himself, and tried to inch away from the lintel stone, but he couldn’t move: his tails were pinioned underneath the massive weight.

  ‘I feel like a pig caught by his short curliness,’ he said, half-smiling. ‘Well, there’s nothing else for it. Move back, Phyllis, my dear.’

  Phyllis crawled away from him. Wallace bent his knees and positioned the soles of his shoes against the flat side of the stone. Then, with a huge grunt, he pushed back with his feet, levering his body sharply away from the lintel. There was a loud riiiiiiiiiiiiiipping sound, and the tails tore clean off his jacket, remaining buried under the lintel.

  Wallace got to his feet and helped Phyllis up. ‘Well,’ he muttered, dusting himself off, ‘that was a close one.’

  ‘Did you see him?’ Phyllis asked urgently. She turned and scanned the dark hills on the other side of Stonehenge, but the evening was becoming too dense and dim to see very far at all.

  ‘See whom, my dear?’

  ‘The man. The guy who sent this down!’

  ‘There was a man?’ queried Wallace.

  ‘Didn’t you see him?’ Phyllis was alarmed. ‘Didn’t you hear him jumping down after he threw down that crowbar?’ Phyllis pointed. The crowbar still lay where it had landed on the ground.

  Wallace went over to the crowbar and inspected it. ‘No, I can’t say I did. With that rush of adrenalin, and all that getting out of the way so fast, I s’pose I wasn’t concentrating on anything else. All I could hear was the blood rushing to my head . . .’

  Phyllis frowned. ‘Someone tried to hurt you, Great-grandfather! That was a deliberate attempt on your life!’

  She started picking up her great-grandfather’s cards—as many as she could find in the creeping darkness. She noticed that the backs of the cards had his monogram printed elegantly on them: W.W., with two little red imps playing around the letters. Phyllis realised, as she reached for the three of hearts, that her hand was trembling.

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’ Wallace asked, in the same sort of voice with which he might have enquired what time the next bus was arriving.

  ‘No, he was too fast. But I saw that he was tall. Wide shoulders. And he had red hair and a big overcoat.’

  ‘Red hair, you say?’

  ‘Ginger, I think. And I think he had a beard to match.’

  ‘Ah. That sounds like him.’

  Phyllis stopped picking up the cards, and faced her great-grandfather. ‘Sounds like who?’ she asked. And then a thought struck her like a dart. ‘You mean . . . W.W., was that Myrddin himself?’

  Wallace Wong laughed shakily. ‘No, my dear. I’m fairly certain not. No, it sounds like someone else whose path occasionally crosses mine.’

  ‘Who?’ urged Phyllis.

  ‘Alexander Sturdy. He often tries to kill me.’

  Ahead, in the steadily thickening night, the old ruined farmhouse loomed dark against the sky.

  The man was hurrying, his boots squelching as he made his way across the muddy fields. He was fleeing cross-country: for him it was the safest route . . . he did not want to risk being seen, especially after his attempt at monumental mayhem.

  Under one arm he clutched a crocodile-skin overnight bag. He carried it carefully, almost tenderly, as he rushed through the fields. The lobes of the man’s ears were ringing, almost burning, with the heavily chilled air that had crept in with the fall of the night.

  The low hedge surrounding the farmhouse came into view. The man reached it with bold strides and then, with the lightness of a butterfly, he vaulted over the top of the hedge, ran up the path and ducked into the building.

  He paused momentarily at the foot of the stone stairs and peered up into the darkness, much thicker in here than outside, where a pale moon had already begun to rise. He counted, waiting, as he got his breath back: one, two, three, four . . .

  . . . and then, slowly, the shimmering amber edges of the Anamygduleon began to emerge.

  The man watched while the Pocket established itself more fully, the edges growing brighter and ever-shifting, the tiny beads of bright lights coming into view through the moving nebula of mist.

  He felt the first gusts of wind blowing out of the Pocket, down the dusty stairs and onto his face.

  He clutched his bag firmly under his arm. ‘Time to go, my little friend,’ he said quietly to the bag. ‘Time to go somewhere my earlobes will not be brutalised by this wretched iciness. Time to find the right Time to plan the next stage of our searching for the man who hides himself away . . .’

  Then, his dark eyes fixed firmly on the beckoning Anamygduleon, he rushed up the stairs and was gone into the gusty void.

  ‘He often tries to kill you?’ Phyllis almost yelled at her great-grandfather.

  Wallace shrugged. ‘It comes with the territory.’

  ‘Who is this guy?’ Phyllis demanded. ‘Alexander Sturdy? Why does he want to kill you?’

  ‘Ah, my dear, it is not important. There are things that you have to endure as you go on your path, just like the falafel has to sit side by side with the eggplant of desire. Sometimes it is—’

  ‘W.W.! I don’t care about the eggplant of desire! Tell me about Alexander Sturdy!’

  Wallace held up his hands. ‘But you do not need to know, Phyllis.’

  Phyllis took a deep breath and set her voice low, using the same tone she used during magic performances when she really wanted the audience to concentrate: ‘I think that if your path and my path are going to be crossing occasionally, and if I’m going to be Transiting sometimes with you, then you should at least let me know about any possible threats—like people trying to kill you, Great-grandfather!’

  Daisy gave an agreeing bark, and Wallace scooped her up and held her close. Phyllis’s tone had unsettled him, even more than the falling lintel stone. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you insist—’

  ‘I do insist,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Then I shall tell you about Alexander Sturdy, and my strange history with him.’ He looked around at the darkness that had enclosed them and the countryside and the majestic, but now slightly injured, monument of Stonehenge, and he sighed. ‘But
not here. It is cold now, and dark, and we should not linger here with this’—he looked down at the fallen lintel—‘this dreadful act of destruction. No,’ he went on, stroking Daisy’s back, ‘I know somewhere much more salubrious where we can Transit. Come, back to the Pocket, and we shall venture forth again.’

  A short time later Wallace, Phyllis and Daisy were sitting at an outdoor table at a café named Florians, in a wide square in Venice, Italy.

  ‘I wish they’d hurry up and serve us,’ Wallace said, looking around for one of the waiters in their ankle-length white aprons and black bow ties. ‘It’s always been hard to get good service in St Mark’s Square.’

  ‘What Time is it?’ asked Phyllis.

  ‘You tell me,’ he replied. He pushed the Date Determinator across the table to her.

  Eagerly she pressed the small button at the end of the device. The little brass numbers started spinning around. Click click click click went the gears.

  Daisy, sitting on Phyllis’s lap, put her front paws on the white tablecloth and leant across to get a close-up view of the whirring action.

  After half a minute the gears slowed, and the emerald and yellow sapphire lights glowed green and yellow. There was a CLICK and the numbers came to a stop.

  Phyllis read aloud the date: ‘We’re at July 17th, 1926.’

  ‘Ah-ha,’ said Wallace Wong, still trying to summon a waiter.

  ‘So,’ said Phyllis, passing the Date Determinator back to him. ‘Alexander Sturdy?’

  Wallace rubbed his neat pencil moustache this way and that, not listening to Phyllis. ‘I know how to get one,’ he muttered to himself. Then to Phyllis he said, ‘You are going to be moved, my dear.’

  ‘I’m sure I will if you’ll only start telling me your story—’

  ‘Hmm? Ah, no, I mean like this!’

  He held one arm straight out over the table, pointing all his fingers directly at Phyllis. His other arm he concealed beneath the tabletop. After a few seconds Phyllis and Daisy began to rise off the chair, floating two feet into the air.