Myths and Magic

by Kevin Partner

  Again, Vokes lapsed into silence.

  “Carry on,” Bill said, “please. Why did she need you to shelter her?”

  “What? Oh. Well, because she’d run away from the baby’s father, Walter Fitzmichael. She was devastated by what she’d brought into the world and sought my advice. I suggested that she might attempt to balance the evil of her first son by finding a good man with whom to have a second.”

  Bill could feel Brianna flinching beside him, but Vokes continued to plough his misogynistic furrow.

  “I told her that the best man I knew was called Blackjack Strike, and here you are. But she couldn’t stay in our world. He called her back, you see, and she knew that if he learned where she was, you would be in danger if you were near her. It broke her heart to leave you, but she asked me to watch over you on her behalf and that I’ve attempted to do.”

  Bill sat in contemplative silence, hardly noticing when Flem came in with a tray containing four mugs of hot tea.

  “Mind if I sit down?” he said, before occupying his chair right by the fire, leaning forward and stabbing at the embers with the poker.

  “Mr Vokes and I have chatted while you were outside, and I know enough of what’s happened to understand if you’re feeling mixed-up lad,” he said, kindly. “But, to be honest, all that is just background to the bigger story what’s going on now and, if I may say so, Mr Vokes, it’s time to come to the point, for the sakes of us all.”

  This seemed to stir the wizard.

  “Yes, of course, you’re right Master Hemlock,” he said. “Where was I? Ah yes, well I continued to watch over and tutor you as you grew up. I watched how heartbroken your father was when Astria left him, but I’d lost her too so perhaps I wasn’t as sympathetic to either of you as I should have been. But, anyway, I heard nothing for many years, except rumours of the excesses of your half-brother, until, only a few weeks ago, I was visited by a man who calls himself General Odius, although he is, in reality, simply a ruffian following the orders of the Faerie King.”

  There was a rumble from the chair containing Farmer Hemlock. “He was here and took my Jessie and the others away. If I ever get my hands around his scrawny neck, no power in the worlds would save him.”

  “Quite,” said Vokes. “A nasty, poisoned, leftover from the last Faerie War. He told me that the Fitzmichael boy was ready to release his master, all that was needed was for me to pass my magical gift to him through the staff so he could use it to open the portal and pull the King through. It shows how little they understand our magic. Even if I wanted to do it, there’s no way of knowing whether it could pass safely to your half-brother. But my daughter’s life was being threatened so I couldn’t simply refuse.”

  Brianna snapped to attention. “So, you faked your own death in that fire.”

  Vokes nodded sadly.

  “Yes, though not before I passed my gift, through the vessel, to William here. I had tested you, you see,” he said, looking directly at Bill. “I knew you would make a good host for the magic, not just because you are compatible with it but also because you have the right spirit not to abuse it as I have, to my shame, sometimes done.”

  “But it didn’t go according to plan, did it? You ended up a prisoner anyway?” Bill said.

  “Yes, I was apprehended by Odius as I attempted to slip away. He forced me, under threat of my daughter’s life, to send my gift into the staff. Of course, I’d already put it into the scuttle, but I used some remaining tricks and sleight of hand to convince him. He tested me with violence but, as I had lost the gift, I could not defend myself, and he believed that it was, indeed, within the staff. So, he made me leave it in the ruins of the cottage for your brother to find, although, to him, it will be little more than a walking stick without the gift inside. He watched me write the note and, though I don’t believe he can read, I couldn’t risk a plainer message than the one I left. You see, the only way I could see my daughter surviving was if the two of you succeeded in releasing the King from the stone.”

  Vokes paused for a moment and then drew in a deep breath. “I have one more confession to make. I regret, under torture and fear for my daughter, I revealed the locations of the other vessels though I did convince the King that the scuttle had perished in the fire.”

  Flem Hemlock was up out of his chair in an instant. He loomed above Vokes, his finger inches from the old man’s nose.

  “It was because of you that they came here!” he roared. “And ‘cos of you my Jessie is sittin’ in a wet cell in the gaol, the gods only know when she’ll come out again.”

  “Dad!” Brianna shouted, grabbing his clenched fist. “It’s not his fault, what would you do to keep me safe if someone threatened me?”

  Flem’s temper passed like a summer storm, and his body relaxed. “Maybe you’re right at that, but the fact remains that your mother is sittin’ in gaol while we’re just sittin’ here!”

  “I want to get her out as much as you do, but she wouldn’t thank us for freeing her, even if we could, whilst doing nothing to prevent the Faerie King being released,” Brianna said.

  “What makes you think we can do anything to stop him?” asked Bill.

  Brianna shrugged. “Vokes is here because he knew you’d be here. If there was no way to stop the King, he’d have taken a ship across the sea to escape his wrath. Isn’t that so?”

  No,” Vokes said. “If there were nothing to be done, I’d have stayed beside my daughter in the dungeons of the Darkworld. But we might be able to thwart him now that I am here. William, you have guarded the magic well, it is time to pass the gift back to me so that I can find and destroy your half-brother now that the King’s plan is known.”

  Bill didn’t know whether to be angry or apologetic. How dare Vokes use him as a stooge, to merely be a carrier for the gift until it was safe for the old man to receive it back? But he was all out of rage.

  “Chortley Fitzmichael has the staff, and he also has the magic,” he said

  Vokes’s face went white, and his mouth fell open.

  “Well then,” he said, after a moment, “we’re finished.”

  Chapter 25

  Having finally fallen asleep as Gramma’s snores relented in the small hours, Velicity was woken seemingly moments later as the sun rose on a misty, crisp morning. The three women had been obliged to huddle together for warmth, but the price had been sleeplessness for two of them, though Jessie Hemlock was now out for the count judging by the odd angle of her head.

  There was a noise in the dell below. Velicity listened carefully and soon identified the sounds of men breaking camp and wind. She nudged Jessie who snorted into wakefulness and then Gramma who, somehow, managed to go from comatose to fully awake in a matter of seconds.

  “What is it?” yawned Gramma. “I were dreamin’ about having a nice brew from a proper keckle.”

  Jessie, who’d cottoned on quickly to what was occurring below said, “They’re leaving. We needs to follow, see if we can get a chance to grab the vessels.”

  “They don’t seem to be going quite yet.” Velicity said, pointing at the pile Gramma had hidden in on the previous evening. Figures were adding brushwood to the base of the woodpile.

  Jessie pointed. “There he is. I’d recognise that scrawny bastard from a mile off.” Another figure had left the house, his skin visibly whiter than that of his comrades, leading someone on a halter.

  “It’s the lass I ‘eard last night,” Gramma said, indicating the prisoner.

  “It may be best if we don’t watch. Come on,” Jessie said, hauling herself to her feet and making to move deeper into the stand of trees.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” said Velicity, who watched as the figure was led to the pile of wood and the vagrant army gathered around it.

  “Suit yourself,” replied Jessie, “but we need to follow them when they leave, and we mustn’t be discovered. We can’t help whoever she is.”

  “No,” Gramma said, “you go your own way, Jessie ‘emlock but I
ain’t leavin’ that lass to burn without doin’ sommat about it.”

  “I agree, we have to try to do something,” Velicity said.

  Jessie looked from one to the other, her eyebrows raised, and then shrugged. “Well, on your heads be it, and you’d both better be ready to run to catch up with Odius. Or escape from him, dependin’ on how it goes.”

  Down in the dell, the prisoner had been hauled up the woodpile and tied to the stake jutting out of the top. The figure was, as Gramma would put it, big boned and, judging by her lack of struggle, resigned to her fate.

  Odius had mounted his horse and was saying something to her. One of the vagrants passed a flaming torch up to him which he casually tossed into the wood before turning his horse and riding slowly away, without a backwards glance. Most of his army followed him, many moving quicker than they had in a long time, presumably not keen to see what would now happen.

  Four figures were left around the wood pile as the flames slowly took hold.

  “Right, you take that’n and you take that’n,” whispered Gramma to Jessie and Velicity, pointing out the two men to their right.

  “You can’t eliminate two of them on your own!” hissed Velicity. “As soon as we attack, the spare one will come running.”

  But Gramma had already started jogging down the hill. Velicity looked at Jessie, who shrugged, before they followed the old woman towards the igniting pile.

  #

  Clayton “The Bastard” Buzzard was enjoying this. The other, softer, members of the vagrant army had gone with the general, but he and three other likeminded scumbags had volunteered to see that the stupid old cow burned. It had been a chilly night, and he was grateful for the warmth offered by the fire which was now establishing itself nicely, despite the wet wood beneath the outer kindling. He imagined it’d be getting nice and toasty where she was now.

  He wasn’t entirely certain what the woman’s crime had been and didn’t really care. It was enough to know that she was the one tied to the stake and not him. Mind you, she could talk the hind legs off a mule and that, to his mind, was crime enough to see any woman combusted. He could hear her singing now, over the sound of crackling wood, but it wouldn’t be long before she was shrieking and then, mercifully, she would be silent.

  Buzzard leant forward and rotated the skewer, listening with delight as the sausages sizzled. She’d be sizzling soon, he thought. He had no plans to hurry away once she was dead as it was warm here, and he expected the general was only going to lead his followers to another cold camp where they’d hang around for days doing nothing but fighting, gambling and drinking. Much though he liked each of these, right now, on a chilly morning, he was in no rush to leave the growing warmth of the bonfire.

  The last thing he saw was a blur of brown sweeping across his peripheral vision, and then an explosion of light before everything went black.

  “Get up from that, clotyead!” Gramma said as the big brute fell like a stone. Shouts to her right told her that Velicity and Jessie had seen to, or were seeing to, their targets.

  There was the sound of rushing feet. “‘Ere, what’s going on?”

  Gramma turned to see a huge figure rushing out of the morning gloom carrying a scythe. It was almost on top of her.

  “Bastard? You alright?” it shouted before spotting her.

  “You killed Bastard!” It said as it raised the scythe. Gramma put her hands up in a futile attempt to protect herself. There was a whoosh as the agricultural implement swept through the air followed by the grunt of a man having the wind knocked out of him.

  Gramma opened her eyes to see her attacker pinned to the grass by a fat, familiar, figure.

  “No-one raises a finger to Gramma Tickle. It ain’t right,” he said, before giving the prone, gasping figure a hard kick to the ribs.

  “Stinky Willy? Is that you, cock?” Gramma croaked, trying hard not to breathe through her nose.

  Her knight in smelly, dirty, armour smiled, exposing a row of rotten and missing teeth.

  “I followed you, Gramma, once I’d told the other one about where we’d been told to gather. He’s a nasty bit of work, and I regret the day I ever listened to ‘im. Should ‘ave stayed in that nice, warm old shepherd’s hut and not gone getting mixed up with the likes of ‘im.”

  He looked sheepish for a moment. “Will you forgive me for breakin’ into your ‘ouse and stealin’ your clock?”

  Gramma smiled, as a welcome breeze blew the stink away. “You daft bugger. You take a bath, and I’ll forgive you.”

  Stinky Willy looked horrified, but his protest was cut off before it began by a cry from the bonfire.

  “Oh, bloody ‘ell,” said Gramma. “Come on, Willy, ‘elp me get ‘er out of there.”

  “Over here!” Jessie said. She was around the back of the bonfire as the flames hadn’t quite completed a circuit.

  Velicity pushed past her.

  “I’ll go,” she said, grabbing a knife from the figure she’d pole-axed and clambering onto the firewood on all fours. The wind changed direction, causing her skirt to billow and giving Stinky Willy an education he never forgot.

  Reaching the top, her nose and lungs filling with acrid smoke, Velicity grabbed the stake and ran her knife down the rope bonds at the back. The woman she’d rescued half fell and Velicity was forced to drag her considerable personage towards the ever-decreasing gap in the circle of flame. She emerged to tumble onto the grass, her once fine dress smoking and her breath rasping in her throat.

  Jessie Hemlock helped her to her feet.

  “Well done, lass,” she said.

  The rescued prisoner was on her hands and knees retching while simultaneously trying to thank them for her rescue.

  Gramma sat down beside her.

  “Take your time,” she said. “You’re safe now. Well, safeish, I suppose.”

  They waited for the coughing to die away.

  “What’s your name, then, and what were you doing tied to that there stake?” asked Jessie.

  The rescuee looked up at them.

  “Oh, I think perhaps I talked rather too much,” she said, sheepishly. “And the name, it’s Flaxbottom. Permanence Flaxbottom.”

  #

  Bill wandered aimlessly around the kitchen garden at Hemlock’s Farm on a deceptively bright late afternoon. His mood was surprisingly sanguine, he thought, considering that he was to blame for the forthcoming catastrophe. It was probably too big a concept for his mind to handle, and he suspected he’d appreciate the full gravity of the situation only when he came face to face with a mad fairy carrying a sharp weapon.

  “It’s not your fault, you know,” Brianna said, appearing at his side. “Well, actually, it is your fault - you shouldn’t have tried to protect me. But I don’t blame you, I’d probably have done the same.”

  Bill gave a grim chuckle. “I wonder what happened to Fitzmichael?”

  “Oh, I imagine he’s left a trail, but we know where he’s going, anyway, the Cartwheel. He probably got there yesterday.”

  “It’s odd, though,” Bill said, “I sort of expected that we’d know about it by now if he’d succeeded in breaking down the portal. I imagined all hell being let loose to be pretty unmissable.”

  They sat down on the bench beside the raised beds.

  “I’d hate to think what sort of a state he must be in, whether he’s got there or not,” Brianna said.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, if he succeeded, he’s probably finding out right now how grateful the Faerie King is,” she said.

  Bill smiled. “You do sarcasm so well.”

  “And if he failed,” she continued, “the magic would be driving him mad by now unless he’s already combusted.”

  Unwelcome images flashed into Bill’s mind. “I almost feel sorry for him. Whatever he does, he loses.”

  Brianna laughed. “Oh, come off it, Bill. He’s a psychopath and an utter bastard to boot. Good riddance to him.”

  “He’s also my o
nly living relative, except for my mother, who I may never see again, and my wonderful grandfather who blames me for everything.”

  “Take it from me, the world would be a better place without Chortley Fitzmichael in it,” Brianna said.

  They sat silently for a few minutes, both lost in their own thoughts. Bill watched as a small murder of crows wheeled across the bright sky, cawing at each other as they headed for their roosts in the oak trees to the south of the farm.

  “No, whether I like it or not, he’s family. I shouldn’t have come here, I should have gone after him.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” Brianna barked. “He’d run you through as soon as look at you. And even if he didn't turn out to be a complete tosser, he could go off at any time, and I can tell you, it’s no fun wondering if you’re going to be toast every time your companion gets emotional.”

  Bill got up and walked over to the flower bed in front of them. He stood there, with his back to her.

  “But you stuck by me, didn’t you,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Because you were worth it,” Brianna replied. “You’re a good man, he’s not.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bill said, still not turning around. “I’ve got to try to help him, if I can. I’m going to head for the Cartwheel, see if I can talk him out of opening that portal, if he hasn’t already. I’d like you to come, but I’d understand if you didn’t.”

  Bill turned to face Brianna, and her anger fled.

  “I think you’re a fool, but one with a good heart. We might as well go to the eye of the storm as wait here for it to come to us.”

  She got up and planted a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll tell dad we’ll set off first thing in the morning.”

  Chapter 26

  “Are you sure it was wise to leave that Flaxbottom woman in the care of Stinky Willy?” Velicity asked.