Myths and Magic

by Kevin Partner

  Since then, he’d experienced many symptoms of his new magical ability, most of them unsettling. His arms would become hot whenever he got the slightest bit agitated, which was often, and his mind would lose its grip on reality for a moment. As time had gone on, this had happened more and more, accompanied by a feeling of utter exhaustion, as if he were coming down from some massive high. He was glad he’d commandeered the horse, even if it was crazy.

  He kicked the beast on. His original plan had been to head straight for the stones for his showdown with the mysterious man in the stone circle, but the exhaustion had become overwhelming, and he’d decided to find somewhere to hole up for the remainder of the night. It wouldn’t do to go into the circle with his wits half-scrambled. Chortley knew a treacherous bastard when he met one.

  There was a dim light ahead coming from what looked to be an isolated cottage. He could sense the relief in the horse when he practically fell off its back as it came to a halt. He stumbled to the front door and banged on it. It was opened by a frightened old man carrying a rusty sword.

  Chortley put on his best winning smile and asked if the old boy could possibly spare a room for the night. The man’s eyes roved over Chortley’s sweating, exhausted, face and, it seemed, concluded he was probably carrying the plague. He shook his head and started to close the door. He opened it surprisingly quickly when he caught a flash of gold.

  “Doreen,” he shouted, over his shoulder, “get your dressing gown on, we’re sleeping in the barn tonight.”

  Bill and Brianna slipped through the dark, wet streets of Crapplecreek expecting to hear the braying of an alarm at any moment. But it never came. Bill suspected that the guards outside the door of the commander’s room had been given strict instructions not to enter, and their fear of Fitzmichael’s wrath kept them at their stations and obeying the letter of their orders, if not the spirit. He also suspected that the inhabitants of Crapplecreek were too sensible to be up at this time and so weren’t around to notice two figures stumbling through the night.

  Bill’s arm hurt from where he’d fallen out of the tree which, it turned out, had given the impression of being more robust than it actually was. His left palm was striped from where he’d grabbed at a branch in vain as he’d felt himself begin to fall. Brianna, by contrast, had landed with all her usual feline grace right alongside his sprawling body. In an instant, she’d established that he wasn’t badly hurt and had told him to shut up and keep his agony to himself.

  They were nearing the outskirts of the town now, heading in roughly the right direction to hit the east road which led to Upper Bottom. They focused on nothing but getting there although their success in escaping, which had invigorated Brianna, had done little to lighten Bill’s mood. They were heading for Brianna’s home because it felt like the right place to be, not because it offered hope.

  It took longer than they’d expected to reach the eastern gate as they’d got lost several times and, when they arrived, it was guarded. With neither the inclination nor the patience for subtlety, Bill approached the guard with what he hoped was the jaunty, confident, air of a drunk farmer on his way home. Thus distracted, the guard was an easy target, even in the dark, for Brianna to hit with the garrison commander’s ceremonial truncheon. He went down with little more than a surprised grunt.

  “Right,” Brianna said, “we need to be a long way from here when the watch changes, come on!”

  She pulled open the gate and leapt into the darkness.

  “I’m gonna find that Stinky Willy,” hissed a voice belonging to the smallest of three shapes hurrying north along the streets of Crapplecreek.

  “We ain’t got time to look for him,” came the response, “we need to get away, quick.”

  A third voice cut in. “Where are we heading?”

  “North,” said the second voice, “we can’t go back to the farm, that’s the first place they’ll look. We’ll hole up at Gramma’s, ain’t that right Gramma?”

  “Ay?”

  The second figure stopped, bringing all three into a huddle at the junction with the main street.

  “I said,” repeated Jessie Hemlock, bringing her mouth close to Gramma’s ears, “we’ll go to your place, they won’t be expecting that!”

  Gramma nodded. “Aye. That’s the last place that Stinky Willy will expect me to be. He thinks I’m in the bloody gaol. Just you wait till I get my ‘ands on ‘im.”

  Jessie Hemlock rolled her eyes but, satisfied that the decision had been made, she turned to Velicity. “We’ll need to find some transportation, I don’t fancy walking all that way in a rush. Keep your eyes open.”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to create a diversion, I’m all out of drawers,” Velicity said.

  “It’s that Stinky Willy!” Gramma said, ten minutes later.

  Jessie Hemlock slapped her hand over the old woman’s mouth. “Keep your voice down.”

  “Icanshmellim.”

  Jessie withdrew her hand. “We ‘aven’t got time for this, we need to get away.”

  “‘E’s over there,” Gramma said, pointing.

  Velicity and Jessie followed her arm to the gloomy entrance of an alleyway that ran off the main road. There sat a ramshackle cart hitched up to a moth-eaten donkey. There was no sign of anyone else except, just possibly, a ripple in the lamp-lit air above the stack of hay loaded in the back.

  “I can’t see him,” Velicity said, wrinkling her nose reflexively.

  “No, but I can smell ‘im. I’d know that stink anywhere,” said Gramma, and she headed off towards the cart with the others struggling to keep up.

  Moments later, there was no doubt about it. Something very smelly was contained within the hay and the younger two women stood well back as Gramma bravely approached the cart. With the speed of a striking teacher, she thrust her hand into the load and it came back gripping a bunch of greasy locks followed by an oily face and a mouth opening ready to yell.

  “Now you put a sock in it, Stinky Willy Clitheroe, or you’ll get the leatherin’ of your life!” snapped Gramma.

  Stinky Willy opened his terrified eyes and contrived to shake his head, suspended as it was by the hair.

  Gramma let go and he slumped back down, shuffling back to the far edge of the cart where he could be seen cowering in the light of a streetlamp.

  “I didn’t want nothin’ to do with it, mistress. If I’d ‘ave known they was after you, I’d never ‘ave gone along with it!”

  “Oh, is that so?” Gramma replied.

  There was a flurry of nodding from the back of the cart. “And, and I told that lad where you’d be so’s he could come and get you out.”

  “What lad?” asked Jessie, forced by her curiosity to brave the stench.

  Stinky Willy recognised Mother Hemlock and his terror, if anything, increased. “The lad what was tendin’ the girl. You know, the one the General cut.”

  “My daughter d’you mean?” Jessie said, every word a dagger to the trembling vagrant.

  “Oh, ‘eavens,” Stinky Willy said, almost paralysed with fear.

  Velicity braved the miasma and moved closer. “It’s okay, Willy. She survived.”

  “Right, Stinky Willy,” Gramma said, “if you want to avoid that leatherin’, you’ll ‘elp us now.”

  The old woman paused for a moment, considering.

  “Well, whether you want to avoid the leatherin’ or no, you’ll be ‘elping us but it’d be easier if you did it willin’.”

  More frantic nods. “Oh yes, Gramma. I’ll do anythin’.”

  “Okay, you get up front there while we ‘ides in the ‘ay, and you drive us out through the gate. If anyone asks, you’re deliverin’ ‘ay,” said the criminal mastermind that was Gramma Tickle.

  “Oh, surely you’re not going to try the old ‘escape in the hay’ trick? That only works in books,” Velicity said,

  Jessie Hemlock chuckled. “Yeah, but them books didn’t contain Stinky Willy, did they?”

  She climbed up
into the hay, holding her nose to keep the worst of the general fragrance at bay, as Willy clambered onto the seat behind the donkey.

  “How come the donkey don’t mind the smell?” Jessie asked.

  Stinky Willy turned around.

  “What smell?”

  Robert A’Jobbe, Bob to his few friends, jerked awake at the sound of cart wheels rolling towards him. He looked up to where the faintest traces of dawn were lightening the sky. Either this fellow on the cart was up very early to be on his way ahead of the traffic, or he’d got drunk in one of the town taverns and was running ten hours late. Judging by the look of the large, unclean, figure wobbling slightly in the driver’s seat, it was the latter. Well, Constable A’Jobbe was not about to become an accessory to laziness and debauchery (except his own) so this farmer could expect a thorough inspection of his cart and an equally thorough interrogation of his purpose. And to be divested of a shilling or two.

  As the cart rolled towards him, Bob became aware of a rustling in the gutters at a radius of around 15 feet. If it wasn’t so ridiculous, he’d swear rats and mice were being swept ahead and to the side of the cart as if it were the bow-wave of some great ship cutting through the sea.

  Such thoughts were ripped from his mind, however, as he went to raise his hand to stop the cart. A smell like the uttermost recesses of the underworld’s sewers engulfed him like a tidal wave and he stepped backwards. But it simply followed him as the cart came closer.

  The farmer, if that was what he was, waved nervously and shouted something about taking hay out of the city to feed his livestock. Robert A’Jobbe would have liked to claim he was, at this point, torn between his duty to inspect the wagon and the overwhelming repulsion he felt towards doing exactly that. He’d have liked to claim that, but it would have been a lie - it was no contest. Nothing would have compelled him to approach it any closer than he already was. He retreated further and threw open the North Gate then watched, his finger over his nose and his breath held, as the wagon trundled slowly past. The miasma followed in its wake, rippling the air as mother nature wrinkled her nose. And probably vomited.

  As soon as it had passed through, he slammed the gate, drew in a huge lungful of still poisonous air and threw up against the wall. He sat, recovering, for several minutes before deciding that he wouldn’t report this. It was, after all, just a farmer taking hay to feed his animals.

  It was only a couple of days later when he was prepared to think about the incident again that it occurred to him that it was rather odd the farmer was taking hay out of the town rather than the other way around. Even this didn’t pique his curiosity enough to look into it - Robert A’Jobbe would have been happy never to see, or smell, that man, his cart or donkey ever again.

  On the other side of the gate, about a quarter of a mile out into the countryside, a figure fell sideways from the cart.

  “Right, Stinky Willy, you can walk the rest of the way ‘ome. And you can think ‘on about what ‘appens to them what crosses Gramma Tickle,” said a voice as he fell. “And just you remember this - if I ever catches you doin’ anythin’ you shouldn’t, oh the leatherin’ you will get! Think on that, Stinky Willy.”

  The donkey regarded the man in the ditch with some sympathy. As temporary owners went, he didn’t seem a bad sort. He hadn’t understood what the fuss was about as the man seemed quite fragrant to him. Mind you, 20 years hauling sewage underneath the streets of Montesham gave you a unique perspective on smell.

  Chapter 23

  It was mid-morning on a bright, brisk, autumn day when Bill and Brianna arrived, with sore feet and tired legs, at Hemlock’s Farm. Despite the impending destruction of their world, the seasons marched on and so did those whose labours were determined by their endless rotation. Until someone blew a horn and declared a horde on the horizon, farmers would gather in the harvest at this time of year and so, at Hemlock’s Farm, they did. Lining the track as the two fugitives staggered towards the farmhouse were neatly stacked bales of hay, drying in the late sun. And there was a definite aroma of turnips wafting from a field nearer the house.

  Brianna forgot her exhaustion and broke into a run when she spotted her father striding up the track from the farmyard. As she threw herself into his arms, harvest brassicas scattered in all directions, and there was a breathless couple of minutes during which she summarised where they’d been.

  Bill caught up in time to see Flem Hemlock withdraw from her embrace and look at them both.

  “What a relief it is to see you, both of you, safe. Let’s go inside and you can tell me the whole tale,” he said, “but I’ll warn you, we’ve got a visitor. Been here since yesterday evening, he has, and wanted to see you, Bill, in particular, when he learned our Jessie’s not here. Very keen he was to know all I could tell him about you, little though that was, and I told him even less.”

  “What do you mean? Who is he?” Bill asked, feeling that he couldn’t possibly handle another unexpected turn of events.

  “Just some old man. Says he escaped from the Cartwheel to come and find you,” Flem said, over his shoulder. “You’ll see for yourself in a minute, he was in the parlour last time I saw him.”

  Bill turned to Brianna, who was walking alongside him. “What’s the Cartwheel?”

  “It’s the local name for the stone circle, the one Fitzmichael’s heading to.”

  That brought Bill up short, and he grabbed Brianna by the arm.

  “Hold on, d’you think it’s him? The Faerie King?”

  Brianna shook her head.

  “Dad said he’s an old man and there’s no way the Faerie King would appear like that, he’s far too vain. Come on, let’s find out who he is,” she said, striding off towards the farmhouse, Bill trotting lamely to keep up.

  Flem Hemlock was standing beside the open door when Bill got there.

  “In the parlour, I’ll bring in a brew,” he said before hurrying off to the kitchen.

  Brianna stepped aside to let Bill go ahead of her, and he cautiously opened the parlour door before peering into the room.

  An old man sat nodding in a chair in front of the fire, a blanket warming his legs. He wore splendid, though somewhat grass-stained, scarlet robes and had a long white beard that spread over his lap. In his hand, as he dozed, was a mug of tea.

  “Vokes!” Bill ejaculated.

  The tea went flying as the old man started. He jumped to his feet, howled in pain and, grabbing his back, he fell back again into the chair.

  “But you’re dead!” Bill said.

  The old man turned painfully to look up at Bill.

  “Come and sit down, my boy, I really can’t talk to you while you’re standing there.”

  After exchanging dumb glances, Bill and Brianna dropped into the other two chairs in front of the fire.

  “I saw your cottage go up in flames,” Bill said. “Damn it, I saw your bones in the rubble by the hearth! I buried them!”

  “My bones?” Vokes shook his head. “No, my bones are still where they should be.”

  Bill felt his stomach dive into his boots.

  “By all the gods. Dad,” he said, as if to himself.

  Brianna reached out to touch his arm. “You don’t know that, it could have been anyone.”

  “Who else lived in the woods? Who other than a Strike would be stupid enough to try and tackle a blaze like that from the inside?” Bill said desperately, tears welling in his eyes. “No, I know it’s him. I gotta go back!”

  He leapt up and made for the door, ignoring Brianna’s calls.

  “William Strike.”

  Bill felt compelled to stop and turn around. He looked at the wizard sitting in the chair pointing at him.

  “The bones were not those of your father, William. It was necessary for me to convince those looking for me that I had died in the blaze, so I used a skeleton I had acquired for, ahem, research purposes.” Vokes looked down, unable to retain eye contact.

  Bill shook his head.

  “No, that�
��s not all of it. When I thought about Dad, I knew something was wrong,” he paused for a moment. “Who was looking for you? And why?”

  Vokes’ face tightened. “You are not the only one looking for information concerning your mother. There are certain forces at play, agents of the hidden realm, who have quite uncomfortable methods of extracting information. I needed to escape so that I could unite with the other elementals in opposing them.”

  Even in his exhausted state, Bill recognised a half-truth when he heard one. But let the wizard keep his motivations to himself, Bill was only interested in one thing.

  “So, where have you been all this time? Hiding in a bush somewhere?”

  “I was captured!” Vokes said, wringing his hands as if the memory was painful. “Despite my attempt to fool them, they found me and took me back to their world. It’s real, you know, the Darkworld.”

  “So I hear,” Bill replied, his mood hardening and his patience expiring. “But why did they want to know about my mother?”

  Vokes sat back in his chair and sighed. “It wasn’t your mother they were interested in but rather the son she bore. I fear they will not rest until they find you.”

  Now Bill felt as confused as that time when he’d been the last to understand the rules of a drinking game in the Cock & Bull. The one with coach stations. He was about to ask why anyone would be interested in him when another question emerged with all the urgency of a rotten potato curry.

  “What about Dad? Will they go after him?”

  One look at the wizard’s face and Bill knew the answer. An image popped into his head of his father working alone in the woods, watched by unfriendly eyes. The big man looked so terrifyingly vulnerable, and there was no-one to warn him, no-one to help.

  “You cannot go back,” said Vokes, as if reading his mind. “If they want your father, there is nothing you can do. In all likelihood, they found him days ago and his fate, either way, is decided. Ours, on the other hand, is not. You are needed here - the Faerie King is coming, and he’s bringing a host big enough to sweep away the entire Varman army. You have to help. Your mother needs you.”