by Michael Kerr
“I am not a tree. It suits me to appear like this to you. And as for payment. I ask only for one of your number, that I may enjoy a meal that does not consist of fish, eels, birds or crabs.”
“You mean you want to eat one of us?” Sam said in an outraged voice.
“Exactly. I think the lizard creature would make a tasty supper snack.”
“ME?” Zoot said, backing away from the tree. “No way. I didn’t face all the dangers of the last couple of days to end up being eaten by a tree.”
All but two of the looping roots withdrew into the thick trunk, and what had appeared to be a mangrove tree changed into a tall man shape. It had clumps of weed and leaves clinging to it like wet camouflage netting, and a face that reminded Sam of a lumpy dirty, mustard-coloured bath sponge, full of holes.
“What are you?” Speedy asked the monstrosity.
“I don’t know,” it replied from a large hole that opened in the sponge. “I’m the only one of me, so don’t need to have a name.”
“Swamp Thing,” Tommy said. “That’s what you are.”
“I don’t care what it is,” Zoot said. “Being eaten isn’t in my plans. Not now, not ever.”
“I was joking,” the creature said. “I like to frighten strangelings that pass by. You may continue on your way without any fear of me. But be on your guard against the Ghosts of Sooth that dwell on the fringes of the swamp, for they will kill anything that attempts to cross the grasslands beyond.”
“What are these ghosts?” Tommy asked.
“Spirits of a warring tribe that was wiped out a long time ago. They are not living, but will not lie at rest.”
“We are fairies,” Fig said to Swamp Thing, indicating that he meant himself and Speedy. “Our magic will protect us from these beings, as it would have against you, had you tried to do any of us harm.”
“Do not overestimate your powers. Fairies are not the only ones that can cast spells and cause all sorts of mischief,” Swamp Thing said. And to prove it, he caused a giant spout of mud to rise up out of the mangroves. It resembled a brown tornado, and fishes and frogs and all manner of things flew out of it before it stopped spinning and took the shape of Figwort. After a few seconds, the mud sculpture changed to appear as Speedy, and then each of them in turn, before it collapsed and filled the hole it had risen from.
“You have a great ability,” Fig said to the strange being. “Why do you live here alone in this stinking swamp?”
“Everyone has to live somewhere,” Swamp Thing said. “I know what I like, and I like what I know. This is my home, and the solitude suits me. Most other life forms that pass this way are troubled and have problems to solve or quests to complete. I have no worries. I sleep when I’m tired and eat when I’m hungry, and do not have the need of company. And I like the way it smells here. To each his own, fairy. It wouldn’t do for everyone to like the same things.”
“That’s true,” Tommy said. “My mum says that home is where the heart is.”
“And what does that saying mean?” Fig asked.
“That home is where you are happiest, with people and things around you that make you feel...feel content.”
“You weren’t content back in Grassington, Tommy,” Ben said. “You wanted to be back in this world with Pook and Gorf.”
“I like both worlds for different reasons,” Tommy said. “If Pook could come back with us, then it would be perfect. But I can never go back, because if I do, Pook would turn back into the stuffed toy he was. Don’t forget, it was our belief in him that kept him alive when we left the Valley of the Mist.”
“We believe in him,” Speedy said. “He could stay with us, and with our magic he would not become unreal again.”
“Does anyone care what I think?” Pook asked.
“Er, sure, pal,” Tommy said. “What do you think?”
“That it would be wrong for you to stay in this world on account of me, Tommy. You have a future waiting for you back in your own world. I’ll stay with Fig and Speedy, and even if I did stop being real, I wouldn’t know it, would I?”
“You do realise that even if we make it to wherever King Ambrose has gone, that we may be stuck in Weirdworld forever,” Ben said. “Getting back to our own place and time once was a miracle.”
“I don’t think so,” Fig said. “You found a way back to us when you wanted to. I think that you have formed some kind of link with our world. It may be to do with the chalice. It called out to you, Sam, and led you to it, then through the portal. I think that when the time comes, you will be drawn to a gateway back to the place you call home.”
While they had talked, the creature that Tommy had christened Swamp Thing had changed shape again and was no longer visible to them. They called out to it, but it remained hidden to their eyes, now as a small green frog sitting on a rotting log, croaking as it watched them turn and head off along the trail.
Gorf’s keen eyes picked out the footprints of the others. He followed them into the swamp and began to run at a steady pace along the path, his broad, webbed feet squelching on the soft ground. Only when it became dark did he stop to rest for a while, but not to sleep. Finding a suitable springy tree branch, he used the sharp dagger he had taken from the horg to cut it from the trunk and fashion a makeshift bow, with notches carved at either end, to which he strung a piece of twine that he pulled loose from his tunic. He also made some arrows from smaller saplings, sharpening them at one end and cutting the other ends crosswise and inserting shaped waxy leaves to serve as flights. It was not a fine bow like the one the horgs had taken from him, but would have to do until he could find a yew tree, select a suitable bough, and make a longbow to equal his last one.
Armed with the bow, arrows and the dagger now, Gorf smiled at the thought of not only outwitting Ganzo, but at having the pleasure of seeing him killed by Theros. The beast had finally turned on its master. Ganzo had surely known that cruelty breeds hatred as well as fear. The big cat had been intelligent, and had made the choice to kill the horg leader, even though it knew it would be the last act it would ever carry out. It had no doubt decided that to spend its life caged, and be used to entertain the bloodthirsty lizard men, was not how it wanted to live. What Gorf could not know, was that Theros had been trapped in the jungle many years ago, when only a cub, but had never forgotten the pleasure of running free and hunting with its own kind. A life in captivity was no life at all.
Gorf sighed. The lands he had visited all seemed to be full of life forms that took a warped delight in inflicting pain and torment. As a hunter in the desert, he had not come up against the greedy and cruel, who wanted power over others for power’s sake. He had, as most animals, killed only for food, not for sport or pleasure. At heart he was a gentle, peace-loving individual, and yet the likes of Ganzo had brought out the beast in him. He was not proud to be happy when someone met a violent end. But if they deserved it, then he could not help but feel a certain satisfaction. It all came down to good and evil. And sometimes, as a last resort, when there was no other choice, if good was to come out on top, then it had to be as ruthless as evil, or all that was bad would take over and spread like a plague or forest fire.
Gorf slowed as he saw a figure standing on the path in front of him. At first he was sure it was Pook. But although it looked like the bear from a distance, as he drew nearer he could see that it was at least twice the size of his friend, and that its eyes were the same muddy colour as the swamp.
Stopping, Gorf gripped the handle of the dagger in his belt and waited to see what the strange creature’s intentions were.
“Hi, Gorf,” the fake Pook said. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
“Whatever you are, you do not fool me,” Gorf said. “What do you want?”
The figure changed and became its true shape. “I am what a group of travellers that passed by a short time ago called Swamp Thing,” it said. “But I am not a thing, I am a one-of-a-kind creature that chooses to live in solitude among the mud and th
e mangroves. What are you?”
“I believe I might be the only one of me, too,” Gorf said. “Why have you shown yourself, if you are so fond of being alone?”
“To be of help, no more. Are you following two fairies, a horg, three humans and a bear?”
“Yes,” Gorf replied. “Are they the travellers you spoke of?”
Swamp Thing nodded, and a small crab was shaken free from a fold in his spongy face, to fall to the ground and scuttle away. “Yes,” he said. “They are headed to the grasslands that border the swamp. I have warned them of undead creatures that will almost certainly attack them. What I forgot to tell them is that the ground is full of unseen traps. There are covered pits with sharpened stakes set at the bottom to impale anything that falls into them. And there are also large steel-jawed traps hidden in the long grass, with teeth that will sever legs.”
“Then if you don’t mind, I will be on my way. The sooner I catch up with them, the better.”
“I shall show you a shortcut,” Swamp Thing said. “Walk out into that marsh to your left. It is very shallow, and at the other side of it you will find a trail that halves the distance to the edge of this wetland. Although I daresay your friends have already reached it.”
Gorf thanked the strange creature and followed its directions. He moved as quickly as he could, fearful that Sam and the others might fall into the spiked traps or be snared, or harmed by whatever the undead creatures were. He hoped that the fairies’ magical powers would be enough to protect them, but was not going to bank on it.
Unknown to Gorf, disaster had already struck, and a life and death struggle was taking place up ahead.
― CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ―
THE DARK ONE
Every horg looked up as a shadow passed over the arena and blocked out the sun. The Dark One circled before angling down, folding his wings back as he came in to land on the hot, bloodstained sand.
A loud gasp erupted as spectators and horg soldiers alike looked on in awestruck wonder at the sight of him. It was as if the towering statue in the Temple of Urucuaro had come to life.
The Dark One was named as such for both his nature and appearance. Apart from burning, bright eyes, that like twin suns could blind anyone foolish enough to look directly into them for more than a few seconds, he was as black as the dead and distant reaches of the universe, where there were no stars to spangle the void with pinpricks of light. His head resembled a gleaming skull, with enormous curling horns sprouting at either side. And when he moved, it was with the fluid gait of a fearsome predator.
With a flick of an enormous clawed hand, the Dark One swept the corpse of Theros away from Ganzo. He saw that his son was beyond help, and threw his head back and emitted a thunderous, deep roar that caused the foundations of the arena to shake, and for pieces of the rock walls to crumble and fall to the ground as they cracked and split.
In a fearsome rage, the giant devil lowered his head, spun round in a circle and let streams of brimstone – that was the fuel of hellfire – loose from his eyes, to sweep the throng of spectators and turn many to sizzling, blackened skeletons.
“Where are the fairies, and the crown that gives them their power?” The Dark One asked in a voice as low as the deepest roll of thunder, directing his question to Takah, a quaking horg who had been one of Ganzo’s trusted aides.
“I have just been informed that they have escaped, my Lord, and that the crown is gone,” Takah said, frozen to the spot with fear, shaking from head to foot and expecting to be burned up instantly for being the bearer of news that he knew would anger the Dark One.
“Then you had better muster your forces and recapture them,” the Dark One said. “For they have knowledge of where the Chalice of Hope is. And as long as that vessel is out of my reach, then the spirit of goodness will exist and spread throughout Allworlds.”
“We shall find and deliver them to you, Master,” Takah said, and gave the captains of the guard orders to search until the fairies were once more in their clutches.
The Dark One gathered Ganzo up and flew out of the arena, to land in the courtyard next to the temple and blast the massive oak doors off with one lethal stare from his deadly eyes. He strode up to the edge of the sacrificial pit and cast the limp body of his reptilian son down into it.
“By all that is wicked, unholy and bad, I give you my word, son, that all fairies will perish,” he whispered in a dry, gravely voice. “I shall find the chalice, turn the gold to a pool of boiling liquid, and destroy the virtue, honesty and mercy that were forged within it.”
As Ganzo’s body was engulfed by the lake of lava at the bottom of the pit, the flames that rose up into the temple took the shape of a thousand bats. They flew up, and under the Dark One’s unspoken instructions, burned through the domed roof and set off in every direction, to seek out the fleeing fairies.
With a mighty beat of his wings, the Dark One, who was known by many names in Allworlds, shot up through the temple’s damaged dome and soared high into the sky, to look down at the ancient city of Urucuaro on the top of the tabletop mountain known as the Black Tower. An army of horgs were searching it street by street, and a battalion of them were streaming across the drawbridge, to go down the mountain and look for the escaped prisoners.
The Dark One smiled. The horgs were his creation, made from the power of his mind, and had been invented for his son to command and use to cause mischief with. He decided that when the chalice was found and destroyed, he would create ten million more horgs, and with the power he would then have, seek out and open each and every portal to Allworlds, and send them through to conquer every parallel reality. Nowhere in creation would be safe from his destruction. At long last he would be supreme, and evil and sin would reign unchecked for the rest of time.
Fig and Speedy flew on ahead to try and catch up with Redwing and the other fairies and tell them to fly high over the grasslands that the Ghosts of Sooth inhabited. The others rested again, then set off at a slow pace. The heat and stinging insects had sapped them of strength, and they were tired, hungry, and sore from all the bites that covered their hands and faces.
Plodding along and almost asleep on his feet, Tommy lost his balance. His foot slipped off a slimy mangrove root and he fell sideways, to roll down a slope at the side of the raised trail and land in the soupy, stinking swamp. He was not hurt, but had somehow floated out a dozen feet from the bank. He coughed and spat out the foul liquid and tried to stand up, only to immediately sink to his waist in gooey mud. He attempted to wade to the bank, but with every step he sank further down, until he was covered to just below his shoulders.
“Don’t move,” Sam shouted to him. “Keep absolutely still, Tommy.”
Tommy was terrified. The mud was bubbling around him, and was squeezing against him so tightly that he could hardly breathe. Even though he did as Sam said and stopped moving, he was still sinking. This was like quicksand. And to make it worse, dozens of small crabs were emerging from roots and holes in the bank and scuttling towards him across the semi-solid surface with their pincers clicking as they scissored the air.
Ben picked up a long branch and held it out. “Grab hold of the end, Tommy,” he said, “and we’ll pull you out.”
Tommy lifted his arms up, and with a sucking sound they came free. He reached out and managed to grasp the end of the branch, but as Sam, Ben and Zoot began to pull, it broke in half. Now, Tommy was up to his chin, and could only stare at his friends and wait to sink, and to choke beneath the surface.
The first two crabs reached him. One snipped at his ear, and the other gripped his bottom lip with its pincers and began to pull. He screamed, and the crabs darted away, but as he gasped for breath, his mouth filled with the runny mud that was like mustard-coloured porridge.
“Do something!” Pook wailed as Tommy’s head vanished from view. But there was nothing that Sam, Ben or Zoot could do. Tommy was gone.
The noise of something approaching made them turn away from the sight of b
ubbles popping on the surface where Tommy had been a second before.
It was Gorf. He charged up to them, and Sam pointed to the bubbles. “Tommy,” Sam said. “He fell―”
“Cut a length of strong vine from a tree,” Gorf said, handing her his knife as he cast aside his bow and arrows and, with no hesitation jumped into the pool of quicksand.
Tommy felt something grip his shoulder, and the next second his head was back above the surface and he was coughing and blowing mud from his nose and mouth.
Zoot found a creeper growing along the ground and called Sam over to it. She sliced through it with the keen blade, and Zoot picked it up, tied a loop in it with a slipknot and threw it out like a lasso to Gorf. The creeper fell short, and as Gorf and Tommy sank ever deeper into the swamp, Zoot pulled the makeshift rescue line back, coiled it up as fast as he could, and threw it back out as far as he was able to.
The thick length of vine snaked above Gorf’s head, and he snatched it out of the air and put his hand in the loop, to let the noose tighten on his wrist as Zoot, Sam and Ben began to pull him and Tommy to safety.
Back on the bank, Gorf slapped Tommy hard on his back repeatedly, until he had brought up all the mud that he had swallowed.
“Th...Thanks, Gorf,” Tommy wheezed. “You saved my life, again.”
“You’ll have to stop falling into rivers and swamps, Tommy,” Gorf said. “One of these times I won’t be around, and you’ll perish.”
“I don’t do it on purpose,” Tommy said. “Suffocating in that stuff and being attacked by crabs wasn’t my idea of fun.”
“You both look like Swamp Things,” Pook said. “And you stink.”
“Thanks, Pook,” Tommy said. “Maybe I should dip you in it, and you’ll smell the same as Gorf and me.”
“How did you escape?” Ben asked Gorf. “We thought you were a goner.”
“Let’s talk as we walk,” Gorf said. “Where are Fig, Speedy and the other fairies?”
