Aurelius and I (24 page)

“That doesn’t sound so dangerous to me,” Grahndel interjected.

“Perhaps that is because you have a brain the size of a rabbit dropping in that tiny little head of yours? Just think of the damage that could be done if a single microbe of alien bacteria were to enter the earth’s ecosystem. With no immunity to infection, entire populations could be decimated within days. And, of course, The Professor does not plan to bring forth merely a single microbe, he will seek to use the gateway to transport an entire army from Roobatzi into our own world, an army who will kill and destroy at his will.”

“We have to stop him!” exclaimed Ophelia, tears forming in her eyes.

“And we will,” I reassured her. “The Great Raymondo is just about to tell us what Blackheart and The Professor’s plan is, and how we can stop it... aren’t you, Mr Raymondo?”

“Er, well...” he hesitated. “I am sure I can inform you as to what their plan is
likely
to be...as for how to stop it, that I’m not quite so certain of I’m afraid. You see, legend has it that the stone’s creators – whoever they were – foresaw that it may one day be misused should it fall into the hands of the humans, who, with no true comprehension of this type of power, may work out away of harnessing the stone’s energy in order to destroy their enemies – not realising that in doing so they would endanger the entire planet. And so, as a safeguard against such an eventuality, the creators of the stone forged a weapon that could destroy it, the most powerful weapon in all of existence, The Sacred Scimitar of Slanoria.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The Sacred Scimitar of Slanoria,” he repeated. “It is the only weapon powerful enough to destroy the Stone of Soolarondo. It was forged that anyone who sought to misuse the stone’s power might be stopped.”

“And you believe that Blackheart has the scimitar?” I asked.

“That is my suspicion. You see, the creators realised that such a powerful weapon could not be left in the hands of just anybody, and so they declared that the scimitar would remain for always under the protection of a guardian, whose job it would be to protect both the scimitar and the forest itself.”

“And now that guardian is Aurelius,” I said. I was beginning to understand how it was all coming together, and I didn’t like it one bit. “But, if Aurelius has been corrupted, why did he not simply use the scimitar himself? Why would he need Blackheart’s help?”

“Because, my young friend, destroying the stone is not Aurelius’s main objective.

“As I mentioned before, the elders who bound the stone’s power left open a way for the most powerful Alundri to open it under certain, unusual, conditions. Upon the stone is carved a spell which releases its powers to the command of he – or she – who speaks the words, but there is, of course, a catch; the prophecy states that the words will only be understood by the chosen one, and, even then, only become fathomable during the midnight hour when the full moon coincides with the summer solstice - a very rare occurrence.”

“A very rare occurrence which just happens to be occurring tonight,” I corrected.

“Well, I believe that is the case, yes.”

“That must be why Aurelius was telling Blackheart that he would have to wait” I said, the full severity of the situation hitting me all at once. It would have been bad enough if nobody in Hanselwood forest had magical powers, but for one person (or, worse, one Gravlier) to hold all of them would simply be a disaster.

“So how do we stop him?” asked Ophelia.

“I’m afraid I see no way of doing so,’ answered the apparently not-that-great-after-all Raymondo. “Even if The Professor and his cronies have not, by some foul means, obtained the ability to harness the stone’s power, it seems certain that they hold the weapon necessary to destroy it, and with it, all hope for the future of magic in Hanselwood.”

We exited the Great Raymondo’s lair through a second secret passage that lead to the forest floor along a route which involved mercifully less chance of imminent death than the first. As we emerged into the sunshine through its carefully disguised trapdoor I reflected upon the strange mix of emotions our encounter with the genie had left me with.

On the one hand I felt happier – we had (albeit accidentally) succeeded in our mission to locate Raymondo, and, just as we had hoped, he had been able to provide us with information as to the nature of Blackheart’s plan. On the other hand though, we had now exhausted our only plan of attack and still had absolutely no idea of how Blackheart could be stopped.

I stood and stared at the forest around me for a long moment, unsure even of which direction to begin travelling in, let alone of what we should do next. Fortunately the loud rumbling of my stomach provided me with the answer.

“I’m hungry,” I declared.

“Me too,” the others said in unison.

“You mean to tell me,” I said, turning to Ophelia, “that for all the rubbish you packed into that tiny bag, you didn’t think to bring any food?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t think it was important, I mean sneeze dust and fart gas are pretty hard to come by these days, but you can find food anywhere.”

“And can you suggest where anywhere might be?” I asked, but silence was her only response.

“I know where we can find food,” said Grahndel, looking wistfully back at the trapdoor.

“Food!” repeated a tiny high-pitched voice that seemed to come from the air itself.

“Who said that?” I said, spinning in a circle. Only silence came in reply.

“Food!” came the voice again, this time at a marginally more audible level.

“Where did that come from?”

“It came from you, you toad-kisser,” the dragnor answered.

“From me?” I repeated, without the slightest clue as to what the grumpy demon could be talking about.

“From your pocket.”

In my eagerness to locate Raymondo and my subsequent panic as to how we were ever going to save the forest I had entirely forgotten about the miniscule creature I had named Daisy and place in the safe-haven of my shirt pocket – I am certain, dear reader, that you had not been so incompetent.

Cautiously, I reached into my pocket praying that my energetic escapades over streams, down stairs and across falling floors had not caused any harm to the little lady, who, given that she made Ophelia appear positively enormous, can have had bones no thicker than pencil lead. As opened my palm to reveal the infinitesimal naked creature three things struck me immediately;

She did not appear to be hurt (indeed she seemed very happy);

She had grown immensely in size in the hour and twenty-seven

minutes she had remained in my pocket;

She was most definitely a He!

“How has it grown so fast?” asked Grahndel. “That’s definitely the same one you put in their right?”

“I think so,” I said. “It looks like the same one, only ... bigger.”

“That’s because it is the same one,” Ophelia said solemnly.

“But how is that possible?”

“Because it,
he
, is a daylet,” she said solemnly.

“Oh blimey,” exclaimed Grahndel, “I think you’re right. I never really believed they existed.”

“What’s a daylet?” I asked, wholly bewildered once more.

“A daylet, Charlie, is what you are holding in your hand,” said the princess. “It is thought that they may be part of the same evolutionary family as fairies, but nobody really knows because nobody has ever been able to study them properly, well not live ones anyway, they’re extremely rare...because they go from birth to old age and finally death in the space of a single day.”

Suddenly I understood why my companions had become so glum since identifying the creature sat in the palm of my hand. As it stared trustingly up at me with its innocent young eyes it was all I could do to hold back my tears at the thought of its imminent and inevitable passing.

“Food,” it repeated, amazing me all over again with how incredibly quick it was not only to grow, but also to learn. In barely more than an hour it had taught itself to speak. It was truly miraculous, and I was instantly able to recollect why I had previously found the creature to be so inspirational.

“Food Dadda!” it said again, looking right at me.

“What should we call it?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” said Ophelia. “You already gave him a name, remember, his name is Daisy.”

“Yes, but that was when I thought he was a girl. Daisy is a girl’s name, we’ll have to change it.”

“Why? Daisy may be a girl’s name in your boring old human world, but here in the forest, it is simply the name of a flower – neither male nor female, just a flower.”

“But isn’t being named after a flower a little, you know...girly?”

“Nonsense I once had a cousin named geranium, and he was the toughest of the tough. He’d have pulled the arms off anyone who called him girly.”

“Still, I don’t know...”

“Daisy!” squeaked the tiny orphan, fatally undermining my case for a change of name before I could finish putting it. Ophelia didn’t bother to speak, she simply raised her eyebrow at me, in full knowledge that, as usual, she had won her argument.

“Daisy!” the little fellow repeated gleefully. “Daisy hungry!”

“I suggest,” said Ophelia, “that you spend a little less time worrying about the name of your new adoptee, and a little more time thinking about how you can feed it.”

She was right of course (need I even mention such a fact anymore?), but where was I going to find food for the tiny fellow when, as it turned out, none of us had any idea what daylets ate. What I did know was that he was hungry, and so was I. It was that thought that eventually provided me with an answer.

“Come on guys, hop into the rucksack, I know a place where we can get something to eat.”

It had taken nearly two hours of trekking before Aurelius’s cottage eventually came into view. A fact that was largely my own fault for opting not to reveal our destination until I was well and truly lost, having marched confidently in the wrong direction for more than forty minutes.

“Finally. I’m starving...not that I’m blaming anybody in particular,” whinged Grahndel, staring deliberately at me.

“Look, its not my fault if you were too fussy to eat any of the many thousands of acorns we walked past along the way is it? Daisy, Ophelia and I have no choice but to be hungry but you’re just picky, so why don’t you just shut up for once?” I felt a little guilty at the harshness of my words, but I was tired and hungry, and beginning to feel the pressure of the level of responsibility that had been placed upon my young shoulders.

“Yeah, shut up!” repeated the daylet, whose language skills had developed even further throughout the duration of our search.

“I think I liked you better when you didn’t speak,” snarled the dragnor.

“Not to add to your woes, Grahndel,” added Ophelia as we turned onto the windy, white-stone path that lead to Aurelius’s front door, “but what makes you think Aurelius is going to have kept his cupboards stocked with a regular supply of bat dung?”

“Don’t even say that,” said Grahndel, a look of sheer horror sneaking across his face. “He must do, mustn’t he? I mean, what sort of person owns a house but doesn’t keep a fresh supply of bat droppings in their larder? I mean, that would just be weird wouldn’t it?”

“Some people might not find that quite such a strange thing, no,” she replied, without even attempting to hide her smile.

“Will you guys please be quiet,” I hissed. “Aurelius isn’t on our side remember, we don’t know who could be in there.”

“Yeah, be quiet!” the daylet echoed.

“You too, Daisy.”

“Oh, me too? Okay.”

Having descended from their various positions about my person, my now free moving companions formed an orderly queue behind me as we crept slowly and silently toward the broken doorway of Aurelius’s circular cottage. I took the final few steps alone, signalling for the others to stay back until I had checked that it was safe to enter. Despite the fact that the interior of the cottage looked like a jumble sale after an earthquake, its small size and lack of viable hiding places meant that I was able to ascertain very quickly that the space was uninhabited. There were no trolls hidden under the table, no witches lurking in the mysteriously existing corners, and no goblins behind the sofa.

“All clear,” I said, turning to the others. No sooner had the words left my lips than the hungry dragnor pushed past me and began a disorganised, desperate ransacking of the kitchen cupboards in what was an inevitably futile search for bat droppings. Needless to say he didn’t find any. Indeed, he didn’t really find much of anything. It seemed that every cupboard he searched was bare.

“I thought you said there’d be food here,” he whined at me.

“There is, or at least there was. I mean, there must be. Aurelius must eat. He does eat, I’ve helped him collect ingredients. There must be some food somewhere here.”

“Must be,” echoed the daylet.