The Fairy Crown (Adventures in Otherworld Book 2)

by Michael Kerr

  “Mayhaps they believe that all adversity is no more than a challenge to overcome.”

  “Wise words, Molok. But they are no more than fools that will make a fine meal. Once we have killed them, we shall roast them on a spit and wash them down with a jug or two of blueberry wine.”

  “Should we not try to take them alive? The emperor Ganzo would want to question and torture them.”

  Fang shook his head. “He has enough fairy prisoners. And if we captured them we would have the problem of holding them here until we are relieved in another four turns of the moons. And then of marching them all the way to the stronghold. What Ganzo doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.”

  Far below Molok and Fang, Figwort, Speedwell and Squill thought up a plan of what to do.

  “When we break cover, they will shoot at us,” Speedwell said. “And if we should even be grazed, then the snork venom on the tips of their arrows will send us heavenward after suffering much pain.”

  “They will not expect us to make a move till moonshow,” Figwort said. “So we will make our escape now, in case they try to creep up on us. If we change shape and appear as beetles or lizards, then we can slip away unseen.”

  “Could we not just become the colour of the rock, and be invisible to them?” Squill suggested.

  “You’re as sharp as a thorn, lad,” Figwort said. “That would mean we could still fly, and be well away from here in no time at all.”

  Like chameleons, the three fairies turned to the exact colour of the grey-black rock and flew along the winding canyon until they were sure that it was safe to take shelter from the sun again.

  Sam explored the chamber and found a ray of hope in the form of an almost perfectly round hole in the floor of the cave. It was approximately three feet in diameter, but was full to the brim with water. “This could be a way out,” she said.

  Gorf went to her side and looked down at the still, glassy surface. “It could also be what it looks like; a spring that probably leads into an underground lake far beneath us.”

  “You’re not being very positive, Gorf. Try to look on the bright side once in a while,” Sam said.

  “I don’t think there is a bright side,” Tommy mumbled.

  “One of us should swim down and sees where it leads,” Sam suggested.

  “Not me,” Tommy said.

  “I’ll do it,” Sam said.

  Ben stepped forward. “No, Sam, I will.”

  Sam shook her head. “ I’m a better swimmer than you.”

  “You are not a better swimmer than me,” Ben said adamantly. “And even if you were, this isn’t about swimming. I’m just going to see if this leads to anything but more water.”

  Behind them, the first cactus creature came into view. Gorf saw a large boulder in the shadows and went over to it. The others immediately knew what he intended to do, and all of them got behind the massive lump of rock and strained and pushed and struggled to move it. At first it wouldn’t budge, but finally it moved just an inch, then another, and began to roll like a giant snowball, and they steered it into position in front of the entrance to the chamber, where it came to a stop with a loud grinding sound, squashing the first of the cacti, which was almost upon them. There was a squelching, tearing noise, and part of the leathery plant was amputated and lay quivering on the ground at their side of the boulder, making the sound of a whistling kettle as sticky white fluid ran out of it.

  “That is so gross,” Sam said, staring at what she thought resembled crushed green melon with spikes.

  “At least we’re safe from them now,” Ben said.

  “Safe!” Tommy exclaimed. “You must be joking. We’re trapped, and there are hundreds of those overgrown pot plants. They’ll eventually push that boulder back and get to us.”

  Ben stripped to his shorts, which in this world were not his cotton boxers with Bart Simpson’s yellow face on, but some sort of sackcloth that itched a lot.

  Laying face down next to the edge of the hole with his hands on the lip, Ben slowly eased forward, took three deep breaths to fill his lungs with as much air as possible, and pulled forward to slip into the water.

  He hardly made a ripple. It was as if the pool had just gobbled him up. Sam started to count. If he didn’t reappear before she reached ninety, she would go in after him. Without thinking, she held her breath while she counted. One...two... The seconds ticked by. The thought of Ben drowning brought tears to her eyes. Forty-six…Forty-seven. It already seemed as if he had been down there forever. Eighty-eight...Eighty-nine...Ninety! No sign of him. Not even a bubble broke the mirror flat surface of the ice-cold water.

  Placing her bag on the ground, Sam started to undo her jacket as she got her breath back.

  “No, Sam,” Gorf said. “He would have been back by now if he was able. Maybe a current sucked him down. Or something might live in there, and...”

  Sam tried to reach the pool, but Gorf gripped her firmly around the wrist and pulled her back.

  “Gorf’s right, Sam,” Tommy said. “We’ve lost Ben, and we’ll lose you if you go down after him. We have to find another way out of here.”

  They stood and just stared at the circle of water for another minute, hoping for a miracle. Sam wanted to give up. Just sit down and wait for the killer cacti to break in and suck her dry. But she couldn’t because of Ben, who had forfeited his life trying to find a way out. If she gave up now, then she would be letting him down, and he would have perished for nothing. She knew she owed it to him to carry on. And there was also the captured fairies to save, and King Ambrose’s crown to find. A lot depended on their escaping from the chamber and completing the mission.

  They were in shock. It seemed impossible that they had lost Ben. Sam and Tommy were crying, and Pook had gone very quiet. He felt very bad about Ben, but fear was his strongest emotion. The thought of being drained by the cacti was making him feel sick, and he was trembling like a blancmange.

  Gorf looked up at the hole in the centre of the chamber’s ceiling high above them. The rock walls were smooth and rounded, forming a dome. There was no way he could climb up.

  “Quick, Gorf, think of something,” Tommy said as the boulder moved a fraction. “They’ll be in here with us in a minute.”

  Desperation can sometimes be the motivation needed to come up with a solution to what seems an impossible problem. Gorf could only think of one thing to do.

  “Pook,” he said. “You are the smallest and lightest. I shall give you one end of the rope, and then throw you up through the hole above us. You must find something to tie the end of the rope to, so that we can all climb up and out of here.”

  Pook swallowed hard and began to shake his head.

  “Trust me, Pook,” Gorf said. “It is the only way we will escape with our lives.”

  “You’ve got to do it,” Tommy said. “We’re all dead meat if you don’t.”

  “I wish I’d stayed at Charlie’s place,” Pook said. “Being with you lot is more stupid and dangerous than smoking. You should have a government health warning stamped on your foreheads.”

  “So you’ll do it?” Tommy said.

  “Only because if I don’t I’ll end up being zapped by one of those spooky plants.”

  Before Pook could change his mind, Gorf removed the coils of cord from his bag and tied one end around the bear’s waist. Then, picking him up, he took aim and hurled Pook up towards the bright circle of daylight, in the way a basketball player throws a ball at the hoop.

  Pook sailed up and through the hole without touching the sides. “Ouch!” he said as he landed hard on his behind on what was the roof of the chamber. He undid the rope, tied it to a large knob of rock and shouted down to the others, “Okay, come up.”

  Sam climbed up first, ignoring the fact that hauling herself up the rope was taking the skin off the palms of her hands. Tommy went next, moving quickly when he heard the boulder scraping against the rock floor as the cacti pushed it back from the entrance to the chamber. Gorf was las
t to climb up the rope to safety. But as he hauled himself up it, the boulder rolled back and the cactus creatures entered the chamber and reached up to him with their long, spiny arms.

  Ben didn’t know how far he swam straight down before he saw the light shining out from the side of the rock tube he was in. It may have only been fifteen or twenty feet, but was deeper than he had ever been before. He was more used to the local swimming pool back home, or sometimes Grimwith reservoir, even though there were signs up saying:

  DANGER

  NO SWIMMING

  BY ORDER

  Ben now knew all about danger; real danger of the bone marrow chilling variety. A danger that no other humans that he knew of would believe existed. When he had been in Grassington, in his world, he fully expected to get through each and every day without being attacked by monsters. But here in Weirdworld he knew that any bizarre creature might appear and tear him to bits and eat him. Tommy might want to live in this nightmare place, mainly because of Pook, but he wanted to go home. Playing football, climbing trees and just hanging out with Sam and Tommy had been all the excitement he’d needed. He should never have followed them through the portal.

  Twisting on his side, Ben entered the slightly narrower passageway. It curved upwards, and the water became clearer as stronger light penetrated down to meet him. He still had plenty of breath, but was in danger of not making it back if he didn’t surface soon. He kept going, trying not to panic. Just another few feet...and a few more. Now he knew that he was beyond the point of ever getting back to the others. He’d put all his eggs in one basket, as he might have said to Fig, to confuse the old fairy should he ever see him again, which was becoming less likely by the second.

  The water-filled passage funnelled out like a trumpet, and Ben burst up into air and daylight and warmth. The sense of elation was overwhelming. He began to laugh. He’d done it with breath to spare. He was in the middle of a large pool that was enclosed by a rock ledge. He swam to the side, reached up, grasped hold of the edge of the hot stone with both hands and heaved himself into the air, scrabbling with his feet to lever himself up and over onto the flat shelf and sit up.

  He could see no immediate danger. Nothing appeared to be lurking in the vicinity. Black rock walls stretched up as high as church towers on both sides of the pool, with a trail winding its way between them. And the sun shone down from the narrow strip of sky that was visible. Things were looking up, until he got to his feet, slipped on the now wet rock and fell, cracking his head and knocking himself out.

  When he came to, Ben sat up slowly, wincing. It felt as though somebody was trying to break through his left temple with a hammer and blunt chisel, from the inside. He put his hand up to his head, touched it gingerly and looked at his fingers. They were covered with blood. He was still a little groggy, but didn’t have blurred vision, so decided that he probably hadn’t suffered concussion or a fractured skull.

  Oh, no! How long had he been out? A minute or two? Half an hour? He had no idea. The others would be sure that he’d drowned. He had to get back to them. Standing up made him dizzy. The canyon walls seemed to spin around him, and he was forced to sit back down again. Only when he was as sure as he could be that he wouldn’t pass out underwater, did he stand up at the edge of the pool. Going back should be easy. He knew the way, and how far he had to swim.

  Ben jumped into the pool and swam down and along the tube, into the dark again. Even though he knew it would lead him into the shaft and up to where he had left the others, he was scared. Going the other way towards the light had been in some way easier. It was against all his instincts to swim into the murk.

  He surfaced and could hardly see. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adapt to the dimness of his surroundings. The others were gone. He felt hurt and a little angry to think that Sam and Tommy would walk away, not knowing his fate. But commonsense told him that after a while, when he hadn’t returned, they would have believed he had drowned. They were in for a shock. Not only had he survived, but had found the way to the outside world, hopefully a long way from the giant cacti that had been after them.

  His clothes were still lying in a pile where he had left them. As he dressed, he noticed the piece of cactus near the entrance to the chamber. He was too late. It was obvious that the creatures had caught the others. But if that was true, then where had they gone? Surely they would have been sucked dry and left where they lay. Maybe they had somehow got past the cacti and escaped. He would have to go back the way they had come and find them. If he moved quickly he was sure that he would soon catch up with them.

  Gorf led the way down the outside of the dome-shaped cavern to the ground, and in silence they walked along a path between high cliffs, keeping to the shadows. They were all too upset over Ben to talk to each other about anything, and after trudging for hours they came out onto a stretch of flat, black sand and stopped to look up at the range of mountains in front of them. Smoke drifted from the peaks, and there was a dull, red glow in the sky above them.

  “They must be the Mountains of Fire,” Gorf said. “Beyond them lie Farland and the stronghold of the horgs.”

  “We should stop for a while,” Sam said. “My legs are aching, and I need to sleep.”

  “Very well,” Gorf said. “We shall go back to the shelter of the cliffs and rest for two or three of what you call hours.”

  They sat with their backs against warm rock, and apart from Gorf they all slept. Sam had a bad dream, of Ben sinking down ever deeper into the pool, to eventually come to rest in total darkness, where blind, white crabs scuttled across the silt to pick out his eyes and feed off him. She woke up with a scream formed in her throat, but clamped her mouth shut and began to sob.

  The sun had gone down and the sky was a canvass of purples and reds when Gorf saw the silhouette of a figure approaching. He strung an arrow to his bow and drew back the string, ready to shoot at whatever was coming towards them.

  “I can see you, big guy,” Ben shouted. “Put that bow down, you’re making me nervous.”

  They couldn’t believe it. They all ran towards Ben, hugged him and laughed.

  “How come you ran out on me?” Ben asked when they had settled down again to sit in a circle, passing one of the wooden bottles of water to each other to quench their thirst.

  “We didn’t run out on you, Ben,” Sam said. “You’d been gone so long that we were sure you’d drowned. And those cacti creatures were attacking us.”

  Gorf told Ben of all that had happened, and of how he had thrown Pook up through the hole in the roof with the rope tied to him.

  “Spikey’s mates pushed the boulder out of the way,” Tommy said. “They almost got Gorf. I’ve never seen anything come up a rope as fast as he did.”

  “I found a way up into a large pool. Then I slipped and knocked myself out,” Ben said, gently rubbing the egg-sized lump on his head.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” Sam said.

  “I wish it had ended,” Tommy said. “We still have to get through the Mountains of Fire and somehow find Fig, Speedy and Squill, and save the other fairies and the crown.”

  “Then the sooner we get moving the better,” Gorf said. “We have the element of surprise on our side. The horgs will not expect a band of humans and a...a me to be on their trail.”

  “Haven’t you decided what you are yet, Gorf?” Tommy asked.

  Gorf shrugged his massive, furry shoulders. “Not really. I don’t think I’m what you humans call a Bigfoot, and I know I’m not a hairy troll. I think I shall just be a Gorffin...Gorf to my friends.

  ― CHAPTER SIX ―

  MUD MEN

  Having darted along the canyon like large, grey insects, blending perfectly with their surroundings and totally invisible to the two watchers high above them, the three fairies rounded several bends, and when they were sure that they could not be seen from the horg lookout post, they landed and changed back to their natural colours.

  Finding an archway of rock, t
hey sheltered from the heat again, and carried on through the mountain pass when the sun lost its strength and the air became slightly cooler.

  It did not become dark. And as they ventured farther into the mountains, the temperature rose and it became hotter and hotter. All around them the earth shook. Molten rock spilt out from cracks, throwing lacy fountains of red, orange and yellow liquid fire and froth high into the air. With their faces scorched, Figwort, Speedwell and Squill landed, unable to fly through it. Large red-hot lumps rained down all around them, thudding and sizzling. All they could do was keep dodging them as they moved quickly over the smoking surface, fighting for breath as the grit, ash and searing heat threatened to overcome them.

  “Oh, no!” Squill screamed. Directly ahead of them appeared a scarlet river of lava, surging towards them down a slope at astonishing speed. Its bright surface spurted bubbles of gas, and the air above it sparked with heat.

  There was no time to think, only to act. Figwort flew up and banked to the left, out of the flaming torrent’s path, closely followed by Speedwell and Squill. Had they been above it as it sped by below, then their wings would have caught fire, and they would have dropped to certain death. Even fairy magic is no match for such extremes of nature’s enormous power.

  “That was far too close for comfort,” Speedwell said when they landed on a bank of solid basalt, that had the appearance of solidified black porridge.

  “All I can see are flames and clouds of gas up ahead, and it’s raining drops of fire,” Figwort said. “There is no way we will be able to carry on. We must turn back.”

  “What might that be?” Squill said, pointing to an opening in the rock wall ahead of them.

  They rushed forward and entered the round mouth of a giant cavern. It was much cooler inside, and protected them from the firestorm. They had no way of knowing that the opening was the end of a lava tube; a winding tunnel that molten lava had run through, to leave as empty as a drinking straw when the vent dried up and the racing lava had drained away.