by SJB Gilmour
The nymph curtseyed and fluttered back to the centre of the nonagram. It glowed again and then flickered. Then she was gone.
‘But,’ Sarah began to protest.
‘After you get cleaned up and have had a proper meal,’ Roberta insisted.
Ronny stepped up to Sarah, whose temper was beginning to rise. She really wanted to go and find out what this was all about.
‘I’m not going to tell you what to do, Mistress Sarah,’ he began diplomatically. ‘That’s not my place. But, that invitation has all the earmarks of the beginning of something that could lead to quite an adventure. Best not to start such a thing unprepared, wouldn’t you say? It might pay to pack a few essentials in case the unexpected happens?’
‘What do you mean, “adventure”?’ James asked his friend.
Ronny shrugged. ‘The usual. A cryptic message from ancient spirits, mentions of important “prophesied” figures—’ He held up two stubby fingers to indicate inverted commas. ‘Could lead anywhere. Remember, we’ve got one half of an enchanted thingamajig and the other half’s missing. If and when Mistress Sarah here finds the other piece, she’s supposed to be the one to complete it and use it to destroy Conundrum Gate. This has got quest written all over it. Never know what me might face.’
James grinned. ‘Well that calls for a drink.’ He held one finger up in the air with a self-important grin on his face. ‘Never start a quest sober!’
‘Agreed!’ Ronny added with aplomb. David, Robert and Benjamin all echoed this sentiment and the five of them went off in the direction of Benjamin’s wine cellar.
Grumbling to herself, Sarah nudged Mel and the two girls left the hall and went upstairs to their rooms to get cleaned up.
Their rooms were on the top floor of Benjamin McConnell’s country manor house. Until very recently, he had lived there all alone and the rooms had only been used for the occasional guest. Now that Sarah and her oddly assorted family had all moved in, these rooms, and many more like it, were finally getting some use. Still, Uncle Benjamin’s house was perhaps only half-full despite now housing Sarah, Mel, James, Ronny, Angela, David and Susan.
Now Sarah had a huge bedroom – much bigger than the one she’d had in Uncle Robert and Aunt Roberta’s house in Oakleigh. It joined Mel’s through a shared kitchenette that was little more than a small kitchen table, a sink, fridge and a microwave. Her room had a walk-in robe and an en-suite bathroom. It was furnished very handsomely with two desks, a dresser, couch and, most importantly thought Sarah, a dock for her music player. Mel almost never went anywhere now without her music player and earphones, but Sarah hated sticking anything in her ears and preferred to play her music out loud.
Her room also had a small open fireplace before which Sarah had often slept in her wolf form, curled up on a large rug. It wasn’t unusual for her bed, also much bigger than her old one, to go un-used for weeks.
Once Sarah had showered and dressed again in her favourite clothes — jeans and a t-shirt under a sloppy hoodie, she packed her enchanted satchel. From the outside, it looked just like a regular leather rucksack. Inside, it was enormous. Sarah packed a couple of small bags of fresh clothes and a few tomes she’d been given by her family. Grudgingly she also added a pair of runners and a pair of combat boots.
Like her Aunt Roberta and Uncle Robert, she hated wearing shoes and never wore them inside. She would go barefoot outside whenever she could, even in the coldest of weather. Now that she had begun training with Angela however, she was forced to wear the heavy boots far more frequently than she would have liked.
‘Bare feet are all well and good for moving silently,’ Angela told her firmly when she first began training her. ‘One stomp to a toe and you’re useless.’ She then demonstrated by stomping her own booted foot down on Sarah’s bare big toe. Hard.
Sarah had howled in pain and collapsed to the ground, clutching her foot. Her toe was broken and bleeding.
‘Santicularus!’ Angela commanded, using the Magaeic healing spell. Sarah’s toe tingled and glowed for a moment and then was healed. After that, Sarah wore her boots — but only when she absolutely had to, that is.
So, barefoot and clean, Sarah carried her satchel down to meet the others. She found Mel, Angela, Susan and Nathan the bookwyrm all waiting for her in the hall.
‘I’m not waiting around here for the boys to sit around to get drunk,’ Susan declared. She looked around. ‘How do I get to the cellar again?’
‘They’re not there, Mistress,’ Nathan told her politely. ‘As I was leaving the library, I saw them heading to the shed.’
Susan rolled her eyes. ‘That damned gnome’s been making more home-brew again, I’ll bet.’
Angela smiled. ‘I need to visit the armoury too.’ She grinned at her sister. ‘Don’t worry too much about our cousin, Suz. He could drink a giant under the table. He’ll be alright.’
‘So can I! I don’t care how much he can drink,’ Susan argued as they walked out to the shed. ‘I care about how much he does drink! We’ve children here. He needs to be responsible.’
‘Oh lighten up,’ Angela told her sister. ‘You sound like mother.’
When Sarah had first met Angela, she had been quite protective of both she and Mel. That protectiveness had diminished, especially for Sarah, as the two girls had matured. Once Sarah had had her first period (which also occurred the day of her twelfth birthday) Angela stopped treating her like a child in need of protection.
Her teacher was quite worldly and often very dismissive of many of the social norms and limits mortal humans seem to love so dearly. Despite Sarah being only twelve years old, Angela clearly thought of her as a young adult, perfectly free to do as she saw fit. When it came to issues like the age of consent, Angela had the very strong opinion that once a girl began to menstruate, it was none of anyone else’s business what she did or with whom. As for drugs and alcohol, she merely shrugged.
‘Your choice,’ she told Sarah once. ‘Booze can be useful at times. Take Chinese Fighting Maple Rum for instance. Never go to sea or snow without it. As for recreational use? Completely up to you. Use it while you’re training and you could wind up dead. Use it while you’re fighting and you will wind up dead. The rest of the time, it’s your liver and your head.’
Sarah had tried alcohol a couple of times already and never liked it. She never really liked having her head feel as though it was full of fuzz, and liked feeling unsteady on her feet even less.
Angela and Susan continued their argument as they entered the shed and began packing their own rucksacks with various items of equipment.
The shed had always been just that — a small timber shed at the side of Benjamin’s manor house. Then James and Ronny had moved in. Immediately upon arrival, the odd little pair had set about expanding it. Ronny had excavated an enormous cavern underneath it and it was there that the two had established their operations.
James had set up a huge store of enchanted spices (many quite illegal, and almost all very, very dangerous) while Ronny had stockpiled all manner of provisions. There was camping and expedition supplies and enough weapons for a small army. He had also assembled an elaborate distillery and brewery. His “still” as he called it, produced the rich, dark Chinese Fighting Maple Rum and also a large quantity of a deep red stranglehops beer.
To supply Ronny’s still and many of James’ spices, several acres of Benjamin’s land had been ploughed up and sown with a variety of enchanted flora. If these plants had been seen from the nearby roads by some curious mortals, and those curious mortals had chosen to jump the fence and investigate the plants, they might have been hurt or even eaten. To prevent that, James had also planted round each plot with hedges of whisperwattle. These plants looked very much like an ordinary yellow-flowering wattle so common in southern Australia only instead of giving off a pleasant fragrance, they emitted a subliminal murmuring.
‘Move along,’ the bushes whispered into the minds of any humans nearing them. ‘Nothing to see
here at all. Watch out for snakes and leeches and spiders and scorpions. Don’t want to get bitten, do you? These branches are really prickly too. Wouldn’t want to get scratched. Who knows, you might be allergic and you’re a long way from a hospital…’
Sarah loved the shed. James and Ronny had so much gear for her to geek-out over. There was even a workshop for her to keep her bicycle. The shiny red machine had been a present from Uncle Benjamin the year before and was one of her most treasured possessions. As much as she relished the form of a wolf, she always made time for at least one ride a week around Benjamin’s property.
Mel also loved the shed, but not for the same reasons as Sarah. Mel loved the weapons. Her eyes lit up when she saw Castor and Pollux. James’ two ogre mercenaries were unpacking a crate of new arrivals.
‘Dem’s fightin’ blades an’ stuff from Jilde,’ Castor told her. The huge ogre dwarfed Sarah and Mel, but he and his brother were surprisingly dexterous when it came to handling small things. He handed Mel a pair fighting gauntlets.
Mel pulled on the armoured gloves and then picked up a pair of matching blades.
‘Just a look, dough,’ Pollux added in his thick Brooklyn accent. ‘Master Isaacs don’t want none of dem to go missin’, blunted or nuttin’.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Mel promised. She twirled a blade in each hand. ‘Cool,’ she breathed.
‘You’ll like this a bit better,’ James told her, appearing behind the girls. The bald Master Botanist held out a small tome with one hand and held out his other for the knives. At first Mel was reluctant to relinquish the deadly weapons.
‘C’mon. Angela’s right behind you. Hand ‘em over.’
Mel gave him the knives though kept the gauntlets on as she took the tome from him. Its cover was a dark green reptile skin and had a very unfriendly presence.
‘It’s a prophetic piece I picked up somewhere. Just don’t tell Angela you got it from me,’ James told her, handing the knives to Pollux. He was swaying slightly and his eyes were a little too wide open. His breath smelled strongly of liquor.
Mel immediately shoved the tome into her rucksack. Then she took off the gauntlets and gave them back to Castor just as Angela appeared.
Seeing Mel return the gauntlets, Angela’s expression showed she knew exactly what her niece had been doing and that she was quite lucky to have not been caught in the act of handling weapons she wasn’t trained to use.
James grinned and turned to Sarah. ‘Got a tome for you too, kiddo.’ He gave Sarah a small tome bound in red leather.
Enchantments, Cantrips and Spells for Healing
By
Jasper Jones, Master Healer
‘Whoa, cool!’ Sarah exclaimed. This tome was a wonderful gift. She threw her arms around the inebriated sorcerer and hugged him tightly. ‘Thank you!’ She wrinkled her nose at the smell of the liquor he’d been drinking. There was also another fragrance about him she couldn’t recognise. Before she could ask about it, he sauntered off, calling to Ronny about a back-order of spices.
When Sarah met the others back at the main hall, she did so in her Golden Mane wolf form. Ronny, David and her uncles Robert and Benjamin all smelled of the same robust liquor Ronny had brewed. James smelled of it too, only the strange scent she had detected on him back at the shed was stronger now than when she smelled it in her human form. Whatever it was, she couldn’t recognise it exactly.
‘The Flower Man carries the odour of serpent about him. That is the scent you detect, Golden Mane,’ the voices of Wolfenvald told her within her mind.
Snakes? Sarah asked silently.
‘Or lizards,’ Wolfenvald replied dryly.
‘James, you smell like snake.’ She wagged her tail.
James shrugged. ‘No surprise there. Found a copperhead in the blood-beet patch this morning.’ He waggled one foot at her. She sniffed it. Sure enough the scent was stronger there.
‘Damn thing bit me too,’ he continued.
‘It bit you?’ Now Angela seemed concerned. ‘Are you alright? Those things are poisonous!’
‘Bah! I’ve been bitten by a helluva lot worse than that before. Stung a bit, but I’m alright.’ He looked around at the gathered group. ‘Well, are we going to go find out what the spooks at Castlerigg want or not?’
Sarah changed form and along with the others stood in the circle around the nonagram in the floor.
Angela handed out a handful of foul-tasting portal stones which everyone reluctantly put in their mouths. They joined hands and then as one stepped into the nonagram which had become a shimmering portal. Moments later, they all arrived in the middle of the mystical stone circle of Castlerigg in the north of Britain, and shivered. It was snowing and very, very cold.
Chapter Two.
Wallop the hobgoblin had always been something of a joke among his peers. Even by hobgoblin standards, he wasn’t held in very high esteem at all. His plans and ambitions never seemed to come out right. Every time he tried to elevate his status in the society of hobgoblins living in the forest near Castlerigg, somehow it all went wrong and instead of impressing his fellows with his genius and talent for leadership, he was more often than not left standing all alone, being laughed at.
Still, Wallop was a determined little hobgoblin. He kept at it. Now finally, after centuries of being mocked and shunned, things had begun to go his way. And it was all thanks to one Golden Mane werewolf, Sarah Coppernick and her obnoxious uncle, the Silver Shroud werewolf Benjamin McConnell.
The year before, he’d come across the two in the forest. True, they’d torn his finest smock and mocked him. True, they’d threatened him with some sort of blinding light from an elemental hex. But, the other hobgoblins didn’t know that. The story Wallop told them was a little different.
When he had finally caught up with some of his less horrid neighbours, they were very curious. After all, despite his very strong (and rather unpleasant) personal odour, Wallop now carried the scent of two werewolves. To smell of contact with a werewolf and still be alive to tell about it is quite a rare thing for a hobgoblin.
So, Wallop told them how he had frightened the two werewolves so badly they had scurried away with their tales between their legs. Luckily for Wallop, his fellow hobgoblins were just as simple as he was, and believed him. From then on, Wallop insisted he be called by his new name. He was Wallop the Great.
Wallop the Great now had himself a small band of followers and news of his exploits, embellished even further with every retelling, spread throughout the hobgoblin world. He was in his element. Hobgoblins listened to him without jeering. He had a number of female hobgoblin girlfriends who until his new elevation in status wouldn’t have had a bar of him and he had quite a collection of newer and even finer smocks than he’d ever had in his life. This, thought Wallop the Great, is the life.
You can imagine his surprise and sudden fear of being found out when in the middle of his forest, where no non-hobgoblin had any right being in the middle of the night, he saw not only Sarah Coppernick, but a young female human witch. The two were wandering through the forest, searching the ground for something.
Sarah watched her friend poke into the snow with a stick, seemingly at random.
‘So what are we looking for out here?’
After they had arrived at Castlerigg, they had set up camp. Contacting the spirits would be done the following morning, Angela and Susan declared. The twin sisters seemed determined that the task be done in daylight, but Sarah suspected that neither witch wanted to be stark naked outside in the middle of an English winter night.
While the rest of the group stayed at the camp and chatted over more drinks, Mel had taken off into the forest, equipped with a stick, pink rubber gloves and a small wicker basket.
‘Winterooms,’ Mel replied. She poked at the ground again. ‘Enchanted little mushrooms that only come up under snowfall the night before a full moon.’
She prodded at an innocuous spot of snow. Smiling to herself, she set the stick a
side and reached down into the snow with one gloved hand.
‘C’mere, you little bugger,’ she muttered. Whatever she was trying to grab, obviously didn’t want to be grabbed. ‘Gotcha!’ She held up a small mushroom that was white with purple spots.
It wasn’t the spots that surprised Sarah. Unlike every other mushroom she had ever seen, this one was wriggling and squealing.
‘Lemme go!’ the mushroom squeaked.
Mel smiled. ‘Winterooms. Necromancers use ‘em to animate corpses.’ She tucked the struggling little fungus into her basket and closed the lid.
Sarah changed into her Golden Mane wolf form and sniffed at the basket.
‘Careful. They’re toxic, and you can’t kill them. Dry them out, cut them up, boil them, grind them into powder… They’ll stay alive. They don’t even burn. That’s why they go into zombie-balm to make golems and stuff.’
‘Zombie-balm?’ Sarah had read a little about animated corpses like mummies, golems and zombies, but found the subject quite gross. Instead, she preferred to read tomes on healing and enchanted fauna.
Mel nodded. ‘Rub the balm onto a dead body and you’ve got a zombie. The fungus spreads and it’ll infect any living thing the zombie bites. Gotta watch out though. One bite from a zombie lets the fungus spread. The bite victim dies and then starts to rot and then you’ve got another zombie.’ She shrugged. ‘They don’t last long. As soon as the muscles fall apart, the zombie can’t walk. They fall over and just keep rotting.’
Sarah looked down at the ground. ‘So somewhere under the ground here is what’s left of a zombie?’
‘Yep.’ Mel waved at the forest. ‘Must have been some kind of zombie plague about here at some stage.’
Sarah sniffed at the ground and then began to dig. Sure enough, after she had excavated several bucketfuls of frosty loam, the unearthed some ancient human bones. They did not smell very nice at all. Still, now she knew what the strange fungus smelled like, Sarah had no trouble finding more, though she was careful not to get too close to the enchanted fungus.
