The Fairy Crown (Adventures in Otherworld Book 2), Page 2

  Ben picked his way across the rough ground, looking down to find his footing on the pebble and boulder strewn surface. He glanced up every few seconds, and was surprised to see Sam and Tommy rushing towards a large column of smooth, grey rock. It was very close to a cavern that he recognised as having been behind the waterfall where he and Sam had found the chalice. He shouted to them, but could hear a loud crackling, snapping, popping sound, and knew that they had not heard him.

  Not more than twenty seconds after his friends vanished from sight around the side of the lofty pillar, Ben reached it, and ran to where he expected them to be, only to find that they had disappeared.

  ― CHAPTER TWO ―

  RING OF FIRE

  Sam and Tommy tumbled through the circle of pink mist and landed in a heap on ground covered in a thick layer of warm, black ash. Leaping to their feet, they looked around them at a landscape that was filled with drifting smoke and the charred remains of trees. The hot air burned their eyes and throats, and they started to cough.

  “This isn’t where we should be,” Tommy croaked. “We’ve been transported to the wrong world.”

  Sam blinked tears away from her watering eyes. She couldn’t decide whether this was the oak wood of the fairies or not. If it was, then there had been a terrible fire.

  “Let’s go back, Sam,” Tommy said. “Quick, before the portal disappears.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  They turned and made to dive headfirst through the now shrinking circle, but were knocked backwards as a figure emerged from it and thudded into them with the force of a bowling ball hitting skittles.

  Ben sat up and grinned at them. “I decided to come along for the ride,” he said.

  “We’re in the wrong place,” Sam shouted from where she was kneeling on her hands and knees. “We need to go back. Now.”

  With a loud whip-crack noise the portal popped out of existence. They were trapped.

  “Great,” Tommy said. “Take a look around, Ben. We’re stuck on a world that’s all burned up.”

  Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “The necklets are still glowing, and look at your clothes. I reckon we’re at the same place where we met Fig before. There’s been a forest fire. Let’s try to find the Oak Palace.”

  Sam looked down at her clothes. Ben was right. Her top and jeans were now roughly-woven garments made out of wool or some other natural fibres. All their clothes had changed. It was like the first time they had visited Otherworld. Nothing that didn’t belong in the land of the fairies stayed the same. Standing up, she took her backpack off, which was now made of brown sackcloth, opened it and took out a wooden flask that had been the plastic bottle filled with Coke. The cola was now water. They all had a mouthful, then started off in the direction they thought would lead them to the Oak Palace, after Ben had gathered up a few large stones and built a mound on the spot where the portal had been, so that they could find it again.

  The small corner of Otherworld that had been home to fairies for longer than could be remembered, was now ablaze. A stiff breeze fanned the flames, which spread fast, skipping from tree to tree; a mindless force that raced at the whim of the wind, increasing in strength and ferocity with every second that passed. This was an enemy too powerful to be repelled by fairy magic.

  Speedwell had been away from the village gathering hazelnuts, and was unaware that the warlike horgs had attacked the Oak Palace and the timber-built, thatched-roofed huts that surrounded it. He saw the thick, black tower of smoke in the eastern sky, dropped the half full sack of nuts he had picked and took off, to fly low and fast, heading home, unaware – for the moment – that the flames would outflank, race behind, and encircle him in a burning ring of fire.

  Speedwell squinted into the twilight gloom, along the track that twisted through a green canyon of firs and pines, to snake downhill in a meandering series of S-bends.

  The forest was alive with wildlife clattering and crashing through the undergrowth, terror-stricken, attempting to outrun the approaching blaze. Three deer burst from cover no more than an arm’s length in front of Speedwell, causing him to swerve so fast that he crashed into a tree trunk and fell to the ground, slightly dazed, and with one wing torn and hanging limp. The deer passed him by with rolling eyes and lolling tongues, to bound into the greenery, vanishing into what would in all likelihood be a flame-grilled death.

  Climbing to his feet, Speedwell saw that the air above him was now so hot that birds were falling from the sky as the rising heat set fire to their feathers, and the choking smoke suffocated them. Had he still been able to fly, he would have kept close to the ground and soon been out of trouble. As it was, he was not sure what to do. The noises around him were ceaseless, as creatures blundered through the foliage in desperate flight. Now on foot, he set off along a trail, but soon had to stop. Ahead of him was a solid wall of smoke and flames. The way forward was impassable. He had a choice of which way to go, north or south, into trees that would soon be more fuel to the fire. He dreaded being trapped, cut off and surrounded by a circle of flame. He headed south, hoping that he would be able to find somewhere to shelter and be safe from the fire as it swept past.

  Long tendrils of smoke drifted lazily through the trees, and the air felt charged with a static dry heat that was the forerunner of the following blaze. Speedwell had no alternative but to move fast and be ready to take advantage of any half chance that presented itself to him.

  All too soon the flames erupted close by, to lick at the air and move towards him. He ran for his life, terrified by the thought of being burned alive.

  Unbeknown to Speedwell, the ring of fire was complete; a sparkling, dancing noose, drawing ever tighter, consuming all in its path. The area that he was in would be ablaze in moments. But good luck was with Speedwell. He arrived at the edge of the Whispering Lake. It was quite large and deep, fed by mountain streams that ran down through the forest, and also by underground springs. He stumbled along the shore, coughing on hot smoke, hardly able to see as the flames rushed towards him. He waded out through reeds, into the welcoming ice-cold water, only stopping when the surface of the lake lapped at his chin. The curtain of flame encircled the shoreline, reflecting off the water like liquid gold, and he laughed with relief, knowing that he was safe from it, as he clutched a piece of broken reed in his hand, ready to submerge his head and breathe through the tube, should the heat become too intense.

  Much later, when the fire had passed, Speedwell waded to the shore, teeth chattering violently, due to being immersed for so long in the frigid water of the lake that had saved his life. All around him was a strange landscape of drifting vapour and the blackened, deformed shapes of tree trunks that seemed to move like cloaked figures in a swirling, smoky mist. The ground was now covered in a thick layer of charred wood and grey ash. The bushes and grass had been burned away. He sat on a rock, removed his ankle boots and emptied out the water, before pulling them back on over sopping wet socks.

  Continuing on his way downhill once more, Speedwell was eager to get back to the village next to the Oak Palace, to link up with any other survivors. He could not bear to imagine that he was the only one who had escaped with his life. And when he found family, neighbours and friends, they would all have to move away from the forest and find a new home. It was a disaster.

  Lost in a drastically altered landscape, and with the air still too smoke-filled for him to see the three moons and the stars that would now be overhead, Speedwell wandered until morning light filtered through what was now a black and lifeless place.

  The power of fairy magic had quickly healed his injured wing, and so he flew up high into the sky and moaned aloud at the sight that met him. For in the distance he could see the burned out cottages and the still smoking remains of the palace.

  Within minutes, Speedwell was back on the ground, in what had been a village teeming with fairies, but now appeared to be deserted. He called out, but there was no answer. He searched, and began
to cry as he came across the bodies of dead fairies. They had obviously been killed by something other than fire, which they could have flown away from.

  “Speedwell! Speedwell!” a voice called from the track that led out of the village at the other side of the still burning palace.

  “Figwort,” Speedwell shouted, and flew over to where the old fairy was crawling along on his hands and knees.

  Figwort had been one of the few to escape. He had been taking a nap in a glade near the stream when the attack took place, and being wise enough to know that there was absolutely nothing he could do, had hidden under a humpback bridge, and stayed there until the horgs’ had left and the fire was all but out.

  Figwort’s flowing white beard was now singed and almost black with soot. And his face and hands were burned and covered in large blisters that fortunately were already beginning to heal.

  “What happened here?” Speedwell asked his friend.

  “Before I tell you, let me drink some water, Speedwell,” Figwort said, and began to cough.

  Speedwell took a wooden flask from his belt, removed the stopper and held it to Figwort’s cracked lips. The old fairy took a few sips. “That’s better,” he said. “Come, we must search the area for more survivors.”

  “But what did this, Figwort? Surely everyone would have flown well clear of the fire.”

  “It wasn’t the fire that sent them heavenward, Speedwell. They were set upon by an army of horgs that are in the service of the Dark One and came here to find the chalice that we delivered to Iceworld.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Because on my way from the stream, I came across Hip Hornbeam, and before he ceased to be, he told me that a horg had questioned him, before running him through with a spear that had been coated with the venom of a snork.”

  “A snork?”

  “Yes, Speedwell, the most poisonous animal in all of creation. There is no antidote for the toxic liquid it secretes, and even fairy magic cannot stop it from turning blood sour and melting bones.”

  “Then we might be the only two to have escaped such a terrible fate.”

  “Mayhaps you are right. But before we leave here, we must be certain that all the others are beyond help.”

  It was in the smouldering ruins of the palace that they found the only three survivors still left in the village. One was Toadflax, a tailor of fine clothes for the king. Another was Squill, a youngster who had worked in the royal badger stables, and had hoped to ride in the king’s colours at the next big race meeting to be held at the end of harvest term. The third fairy to be found was no less than King Ambrose himself. He was stumbling along the smoke-filled corridors on the top floor of the palace, searching each chamber for his crown.

  “Your Majesty, let us take you out into the fresh air,” Speedwell said.

  “When I have found my crown, and not before,” Ambrose wheezed. “I must have lost it when I hid from the horg soldiers.”

  “They took it, sire,” Squill said. “I was hiding under straw in a badger stall, and saw one of the ugly brutes pass by with your crown on its head.”

  “Then all is lost,” King Ambrose said. “For the crown is much more than merely a symbol of my status as the ruler of Fairyland. The horn it is made from was cut from the forehead of the last white cave bear to have ever lived on Snow Mountain. It had been trapped in a glacier in olden times, and while out hunting, the first king of the fairies, Oberon, saw the bear through the ice, and dug the animal out. It is the power of the horn and the gems set in it that gives all fairies their ability to fly and make magic. Without it, fairies throughout Allworlds will first lose their powers, and then fade away and be no more.”

  “Then we must follow the horgs and seize it back,” Speedwell said.

  “That may prove impossible,” Ambrose sighed. “The stronghold of the Horg Empire lies across a great expanse of lava beds, beyond the Mountains of Fire in a far off land.”

  “What do you suggest?” Figwort said. “That we just sit back and wait to fade away? Is that the royal decision, nephew?”

  “No, Figwort. But how do you suppose the five of us can overcome such odds?”

  “Mayhaps we can’t. All I know is that we must try. The young whortle, Tommy, once said that it is better to have tried and failed, than not to have tried at all.”

  “And it’s not just the crown at stake, your Majesty,” Toadflax said. “The horgs did not send all our brethren heavenward. Many were chained up in carts and taken away.”

  “But surely they could change shape or cast spells on their captors?” Speedwell said.

  “Spells do not work well against horgs. And they will have clipped the wings off all the fairies, rendering them helpless to protect themselves,” Figwort replied.

  “We must pack some food and water and go after them,” Speedwell said.

  “But not you,” Figwort said to the king. “You should stay here, and Toadflax too. There may well be others who have survived the fire and fled. When they make their way back, you should be here to lead them to another place.”

  King Ambrose did not argue. “We shall wait here for two turns of the moons,” he said. “And then head west until I find somewhere suitable to stop for shelter. But it is almost certain that we shall not last long without the protection of the crown, Figwort. You are undertaking a mission that I fear is impossible to accomplish.”

  “It’s not long since we made our way across many lands and overcame much danger to deliver the Chalice of Hope back to were it belonged,” Figwort said. “We shall go with that hope in our heart, and let nothing dampen our determination to retrieve the crown and make our way back.”

  “I shall pray that you are successful in your quest,” King Ambrose said. “I have heard that the horgs have but one weakness. They are all stupid creatures, and rely on their leader Ganzo and his captains to give them orders and make all decisions.”

  Without wasting any more time, Figwort, Speedwell and Squill left the charred remains of Fairyland and flew north, heading in the direction of the lava beds, that had covered the area when a now dormant volcano had erupted and thrown molten rock high into the sky for longer than any creature in Otherworld could remember.

  Shortly after sunup, the three fairies landed and found shelter from the burning heat in one of the many caves that had been formed by cooling magma. They waited till moonshow before flying all night, until their wings were aching. They needed to eat and drink and rest again during the day, until the sun once more sank in the west.

  “What do you plan on doing when we catch up with the horgs or reach their stronghold?” Speedwell asked Figwort.

  “I wish I knew,” Figwort answered. “We shall just have to have great faith and trust that good fortune will present a way to free our friends and snatch the crown back.”

  “And our powers will fade as we travel farther away from home, won’t they?” Squill asked.

  “I don’t know, lad,” Figwort said. “If the crown is the source of all our magical gifts, and we are getting closer to it, then I see no reason why we should not stay as we are.”

  “I hope so,” Speedwell said. “It would be a long way to travel on foot, if we were unable to fly.”

  As the three fairies settled down to sleep on the floor of the cave, the Dark One was already leaving his lair deep beneath the earth, to make his way to the horg stronghold and await delivery of the fairy crown and the prisoners that he was intent on torturing, to find out which of them had knowledge of how to reach Iceworld and lead him to where the Chalice had been hidden from him. He had tracked it as far as the Temple of Kadu, and satisfied himself that the high priest, Sharlo, who had been brought back to life by it, did not know where the group that held it was. The priest had begged to be spared, and so he had made Sharlo immortal, but chained him up in the crypt beneath the temple, where he would remain alive for the rest of eternity, forever imprisoned in total darkness.

  ― CHAPTER THREE ―


  REUNION

  Covering their noses and mouths with their hands against the smoke, the trio headed in the direction they supposed the Oak Palace to be.

  Sam feared the worst. The landscape was so black and desolate that she could not imagine how the kingdom of the fairies could have survived. There was not one bush, blade of grass or leaf left untouched. Everything was burned up, and the sky was dark grey, filled with clouds of thick smoke.

  “Do you think we’ll find anyone alive?” Ben asked.

  “Dunno,” Tommy said. “I’m not even sure that we’re back in the same place. We might be in another world, or on a planet in another galaxy.”

  “Surely they could fly away from danger,” Sam said. “It would take a lot more than a forest fire to harm them.”

  They tramped across the ash-carpeted ground, looking nervously about them, not knowing what danger might be lurking in the swirling smoke, or behind the twisted and split trees that looked like deformed monsters. Eventually they came to the blackened remains of the Oak Palace. It was only recognisable as such because of the arch-shaped doorway and the many openings in its trunk that served as windows.

  “Fig! Speedy!” Tommy called out, horrified to see the burned-up bodies of fairies lying twisted and stiff on a thick carpet of ash the colour of night.

  For what seemed a long time, all they could hear was the spitting of boiling tree sap and the popping of pine cones that were exploding and shedding seeds that peppered the ground. And as all three of them were about to call out again, a fairy they had not met before appeared from out of the smoke. His face was streaked with green stripes, due to the lines of tears that had rolled down his cheeks to cut paths through the ash that covered him from head to foot.