Recovering quickly from the unexpected surprise Toby launched into a lengthy explanation about the arrival of the general and what Guy Fawkes had said. He then told Charlie about the investigations in Tintagel.
Charlie was dumbfounded. She had intended the investigations to keep Toby occupied – they were never supposed to produce any results. But most upsetting – and the one thing Charlie felt most angry about – was that Toby had left the safety of the village. He shouldn’t be anywhere near London. But despite her anger she had to admit that his snooping had produced some outstanding information. Charlie secretly doubted she could have done half as well. She was equally as proud of him as she was frustrated with him. Charlie decided that was as much as she needed to say, at least for the moment. However, the main priority was to get Toby and Arty back to the village. And Arty, who was now nursing a bruised ego having fully recovered from the effects of Deirdre’s soul-sucking powers, as well as the sudden appearance of a ghost, had the perfect solution.
Arty pulled out a little silver pipe no bigger than his thumb from his pocket and blew hard through pursed, spinach-free lips. There was no noise and Toby thought his whistle had lost its pea. Arty grinned; he looked unnecessarily smug.
Twenty minutes later a deep rumbling noise reverberated down the street outside. A pair of tyres squealed as a motorbike came to a sudden halt. Thirty seconds later there was a booming knock at the door. The silver messenger, Brough 23, had arrived.
Manic the ferret stayed with Charlie at Charlie’s insistence. She had explained unconvincingly that the little ferret could help her. Toby heard her whispering ‘Fidget’. He wasn’t too sure what that meant but he got the feeling Charlie already knew Manic, although she wouldn’t admit it. He was starting to realise there were a lot of things Charlie had not told him. That hurt. She promised to look after Manic although Toby doubted that was necessary. Manic seemed perfectly capable of looking after himself. She also promised to visit soon. Even if she was keeping secrets Toby hoped she would. He climbed into Brough 23’s chest without a second thought and settled into one of the plush armchairs. Arty helped himself to some delicious hot chocolate whilst Toby pondered over recent events. Arty then added rhubarb and custard boiled sweets into the mix. His stomach had clearly made a full recovery.
Toby was worried about the suggestion that the general wanted his liver. His head was a whirl of questions. Could someone really absorb my magical flying skills this way? It could explain why the general was chasing me but if he was Merlin’s son then surely he would have the magic to fly anyway? What’s so great about changing into a falcon when I can’t make myself invisible? The general can and that magic has to be far more powerful.
Toby’s agonising contemplations were interrupted by the noises from Arty slurping on a mouthful of sweets in between gulps of hot chocolate. He was beginning to sound like a toothless old dog trying to suck all the goodness out of a bone. His cheeks were swollen as he peered into a large book that was spread out on the central table. The Wiltshire countryside whizzed by through the large windows that surrounded the lounge.
Toby sighed in annoyance. ‘Arty,’ he whined.
‘Uh?’ mumbled Arty.
‘I need your help. Do you think the general is just after a hostage?’ said Toby, verbally prompting Arty’s memory. ‘My uncle and the general are old enemies so it could be just about revenge. What do you think? If the general got me then my uncle would be forced out of hiding.’ Arty only managed a mumble. Toby tutted and continued. ‘Mr Fawkes said he’s Merlin’s son so he’s got to be a powerful wizard. What does a powerful wizard want or need most? What would a bad wizard want? The hag talked about special powers, to change something – a mask of sorts.’
Toby could almost have screamed in frustration, either at Arty or at his own inability to work out this conundrum, he wasn’t sure which. He felt as if he was so close to the truth but something was eluding him, something that was key. Arty seemed to finally notice Toby’s growing anger. It didn’t stop him eating his sweets but at least his face was a picture of concentration as he listened to Toby.
‘The general, Merlin’s son, can already travel across time, yes?’ said Toby, referring to the meeting room he saw in the Arc Light. Toby’s face suddenly lit up. ‘Hang on, that’s got nothing to do with time – the professor said that wasn’t time travel. When I saw the general in the other London that was a parallel universe. That’s got nothing to do with time. He can’t travel through time.’
‘Not time?’ Arty gabbled.
‘Yes, time travel,’ said Toby. Arty looked confused. ‘The general wants to time travel – that’s got to be it, wouldn’t anyone? And if someone like the general, who has Merlin’s power, could time travel, that would make him even more powerful, the most powerful thing that ever existed,’ uttered Toby disbelievingly.
‘But what’s the point of time travel when you can’t do anything but just look? Nothing changes, does it?’ complained Arty. ‘And how would you, being a hostage and all, help him do that? Yeah, I get it that the professor would have to return from hiding to help you but then what?’ said Arty proudly. He nodded to himself and jutted his chin out. ‘Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good point.’
Arty didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he tossed a sweet in the air followed by three more at intervals. They travelled towards the ceiling one after the other and then suddenly disappeared into thin air high above his head. Arty waited expectantly with his mouth wide open and his eyes keenly focused above. Suddenly one reappeared about a foot away from where it was last seen. Arty dashed for the falling sweet and caught it in his mouth. The second had also reappeared too – it had changed direction. Arty swivelled around and just managed to catch it after it bounced off his lip.
Toby watched the sweets as Arty performed some minor acrobatics. A dense fog was beginning to clear in Toby’s head as the sweets reappeared in different positions. ‘What are those?’
‘Time Tossers,’ said Arty with some difficulty whilst sucking on the new sweets. ‘You flick them in the air and they disappear – for maybe thirty seconds sometimes. They can change direction and then reappear sometimes up to three feet away. Then you’ve got to try and catch them. If you don’t they explode when they hit the floor and let off an almighty stink, which is quite weird really ’cause they taste fantastic. You should try them,’ chuckled Arty. The last two Time Tossers had suddenly reappeared and Arty hadn’t noticed. They bounced off his forehead and exploded. A green stinky smoke wafted outwards. ‘Oh, that’s rotten,’ cried Arty wafting his arms frantically, but Toby hadn’t noticed.
Toby slapped himself on the forehead as the biggest ever light bulb moment exploded into life. ‘Change direction . . . Change! It’s not just about time travel, Arty. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s about changing history, too! Why didn’t I think of that earlier? You’re right, my uncle said it couldn’t be done: “You cannot touch or speak with anyone in the past. It is impossible to change history.” It’s simple, it’s—’
‘Change what though?’
Toby shivered. ‘My uncle executed the general for being a witch hunter, yes? He had murdered hundreds of witches. The general wants revenge. He wants to travel back in time and murder my uncle, just before my uncle kills him. He does that and he’s alive again. And it’s my uncle that’s the ghost. The general has worked it out. He knows how to change history with the Arc Light and he needs the pixie gold to make it work. And he thinks we know where the gold is. And if he has me as a hostage then it would be a lot easier for him. If he had me as a hostage, my uncle would come out of hiding. Don’t you see? There’s little point in him killing my uncle now. It’s pointless. The general holds me hostage and my uncle comes forward. He interrogates my uncle for information about the gold. The general then finds the gold and runs the Arc Light. He goes back in time and then kills my uncle. The general is alive again. My uncle is dead. And me? Well, I don’t know—’
‘Bu’ ’orly .
. .’ Arty began to choke whilst still holding his nose from the stinky smoke. He spat the sticky saliva-soaked sweets out onto the table. ‘But surely he’s better off dead anyway. You can’t die when you’re dead.’
‘No, you’re wrong. When I was in the Greasy Witch Café the ghost witches said there is a way to kill a ghost but they wouldn’t talk about it. They seemed afraid. The general must know that – he’s scared, Arty. You go from being alive to dead – you’re a ghost. But when you die as a ghost . . . there’s nothing beyond that. He wants to turn back time and he needs the Arc Light to do it, and he needs the pixie gold to run it, too. The professor said there’s hardly any gold left, just enough for one more use. It’s not enough for the general. Arty, if the general finds that gold he could destroy everything, kill my uncle, and maybe me too—’
‘He could take over the world,’ interjected Arty.
‘Precisely.’
‘We’re in deep do-dos right up to our necks,’ whimpered Arty.
‘Not yet. Someone said that Merlin and the general had a major bust up. So I reckon the general is after more than just my uncle and me. There’s so much more at stake here, Arty. We’ve got to find that gold. The general can’t do a thing if he doesn’t have the gold . . . what?’ queried Toby, as he watched Arty casually pat the book in front of him.
‘I’m reading about Cornish pixie gold here. Shenanigan said the best library he’s ever known is here, on board Brough 23, right here,’ he said, tapping the book again.
‘Does it say where the gold is now?’ asked Toby hopefully.
‘Not in so many words, but after reading this I can imagine how it would help the general and maybe useful for you too. You know you wanted to return to London?’
Toby nodded.
‘Well, it says here the gold would give you all the protection you would need, far better than Merlin’s stuff at the village.’
‘How?’ asked Toby, as he swiftly moved over to join Arty.
‘Look – it says it right here.’ Arty flicked a sticky half-sucked sweet off the book. He brushed his finger down the page as if it was a touchscreen computer; lines of writing swished by. He stabbed at the paper and it stopped. With a couple of minor adjustments, moving the lines along two or three at a time, he finally indicated. ‘Here!’
Toby read out aloud.
‘This exceptionally rare gold has some extraordinary properties giving its owner the ability to assume complete immunity from the aggressive actions of any man, creature or beast.’
Toby looked at Arty. ‘This is the answer.’ Arty nodded vigorously. Toby read on.
‘One grain is more than adequate to provide protection for an individual the size of a forest troll for fifty years,’ Toby read, flicking through the writing. ‘The gold is so precious that if you had an egg cup full it would be worth more than all of the human gold held in the Bank of England.’
‘I heard someone say the Cornish pixie king desperately wants his gold back,’ said Arty.
‘Does it say anything else?’ asked Toby.
‘I can’t see anything. There’s a search box, stick in “pixie gold”,’ said Arty, moving aside.
‘How do I write in the box?’
‘You don’t. You tap the box and speak.’
Toby tapped the box and it started to flash. ‘Uhm, Cornish pixie gold,’ he said, half shouting. In a second the page had produced a list of headings.
Cornish pixie independence
Gold mining
Cornish mining dwarves
Welsh gold
Pirates’ gold
Welsh gold miners in Romania
Arty read through the list.
‘There . . .’ Toby pointed. ‘Pirates’ gold. I remember the professor saying about a pirate that had stolen the pixie gold.’ Toby looked at Arty. He felt like they were making a major breakthrough. Arty reached over and tapped Pirates’ gold.
‘Oh,’ he cried in disappointment as a long list of names proceeded to download.
The Legend of Blackbeard.
Long John Silver
Treasure Island
Bluebeard and the Indian Princess
The Terror of the High Seas
The list went on.
‘This is never going to work,’ said Arty in frustration. He flicked at the page and the list scrolled over like a Catherine wheel that had just been lit. The list slowed and stopped. It said:
The Minack Pirate and the Legend of the Cornish Pixie Gold
It flashed brightly as if it was trying to catch the Toby’s and Arty’s attention; they ignored it and went back to their hot chocolate.
‘Let’s speak to Shenanigan. I bet he could tell us straight away,’ said Arty impatiently. He took a sip of his chocolate and dropped back into the large armchair. ‘Can you imagine it, us owning all that gold? You could get an army of soldiers, give them a grain of pixie gold and take over the world.’
‘It wouldn’t work. It’s that valuable the soldiers would just run off with their grain of gold,’ said Toby in frustration.
‘Nah, we would just tell them they could have as much spoils as they could carry. We would be the most powerful people in the entire world and our men would be the richest soldiers in the entire world. You wouldn’t want for anything.’
‘It sounds like you’ve given that a little bit too much thought. I would give all that gold up if I could be back in London with the professor and Charlie,’ said Toby soberly.
‘Well, if we could find the pixie gold then we could sort the general out once and for all,’ added Arty.
‘Yeah,’ said Toby, suddenly brightening up. ‘If we could find out where that ship sank we would know where to look. The professor said the pirate’s ship sunk in a battle with the Royal Navy. If we could get the gold, I could defeat—’
‘We could,’ interrupted Arty.
‘Yeah, bring it on,’ they shouted, punching their knuckles together. They both cried out in pain and laughed at the same time.
‘Gentlemen, Mr Brough 23 has informed me that we are about to arrive at Tintagel. Do you require anything else?’ said the butler stiffly.
‘No thanks,’ they said, rubbing their fists and still laughing.
‘Do you require the book, sirs?’
Toby shook his head. He watched inquisitively as the butler closed the book with the flashing page and wiped the table clean of the sticky sweets that Arty had discarded. There was something bugging him but he just couldn’t think what it was. He shook his head and cleared the fuzzy image from his mind. The boys felt exhausted. Without saying another word they returned to their cottage and went straight upstairs to bed. Arty fell asleep in seconds, lightly snoring. Toby took a little longer as something was still troubling him; something was missing. There was a black hole in his mind’s eye where an image, a picture of some sort should be. It sat right on the edge just in the shadows. Every now and then it flickered like a flashing sign with its batteries almost spent. Slowly the nagging thought faded until eventually Toby fell asleep too.
‘ARTY!’ screamed Toby, sitting bolt upright in bed. He was still wearing the same clothes he had worn to London.
‘Who, what? Get out you thieving ba— whoa, who said that?’ Arty sat bolt upright too, in a terrible fluster.
They both rubbed their eyes clean of sleeping dust.
‘I was having a terrible dream. Someone came into our room and stole the pixie gold from us. Have you still got it?’ said Arty, still half asleep.
Toby was wide awake. ‘You’re still dreaming. We don’t have it but I know who does. It’s the mer-people.’
‘Who?’
‘The mer-people,’ said Toby impatiently.
‘All right, keep yer hair on!’
‘When we left Brough 23 last night something was nagging me. And I couldn’t figure it out. And then I saw it when I was asleep—’
‘The woman of your dreams!’ Arty laughed.
‘No, the book we were reading yesterday. It
was there right in front of us and we walked away from it. The article we needed was right there,’ said Toby, pointing at an imaginary page in front of him.
‘What are you on about?’
‘You had scrolled down the page and got bored and gave up. I must have seen it but it didn’t register at the time—’
‘What? grumbled Arty in irritation.
‘The Minack Pirate and the Legend of the Cornish—’
‘Pixie gold,’ finished Arty, swallowing. ‘I must have seen it too.’ He went very pale. ‘Bleedin’ Henry!’ he said as he reached for his little silver whistle. Arty blew so hard he went red in the face with the effort. Arty and Toby immediately got dressed into clean clothes. They eagerly listened for Brough 23.
He didn’t arrive.
‘He’s had a crash, hasn’t he?’ asked Toby desperately.
‘Nah, he’ll be working, ferrying some spotty little goblin around or something,’ said Arty angrily. ‘We need to find Major Shenanigan.’
The boys raced down the stairs. Major Shenanigan was waiting in the lounge with a hot mug of tea in his hand.
‘Ah, there you are, boys. Come on, we’re off to the polo match today.’
‘Oh no,’ said Toby. His panicked expression slid into something that resembled the ultimate disappointment.
‘Hmm, your enthusiasm is about as warm as a dead fish. Okay, maybe I need a quick reassuring word with you, Toby. I don’t suppose you’ll mind if Arty hears this. We’ll be travelling in the silver messenger, which guarantees your safety. You will also find the Minack Theatre has the same protection as the village so just enjoy yourself today. Don’t worry about anything, understand?’ Shenanigan smiled. He clearly hadn’t fully understood Toby’s disappointment. ‘I see you’ve perked up since I mentioned the silver messenger. So come on, what’s on your minds?’
Toby Fisher and the Arc Light Page 16
