Aurelius and I (16 page)

“You mean to tell me that neither of you had the slightest clue that I was a Protector?” They both shook their heads. “Then, why on earth aren’t you scared of me? What did you mean when said you could tell I wasn’t like other humans? What’s so different about me?”

“Why, you’re magic of course,” answered the fairy.

“
What?
”

“You know, magic. One of us. An Alundri. A magical being.”

“And a pretty powerful one too,” added the dragnor. “I can feel the magic oozing out of each of your pores, you’re practically glowing with it.”

“But I’m not one of you - I’m a human!” I insisted, for finding out I had even been wrong about which species I belonged to was a revelation too far for my young mind to be able to cope with.

“Well of course you are, silly!” the fairy princess said reassuringly. “You’re just as much a human as all the other humans, it’s just that you’re a magical one, that’s all.”

“Oh,
that’s all
, is it?” I repeated, incredulous to her calm acceptance of my manifest difference to every other member of the human race.

“Yep, that’s all,” she continued, failing to observe my tone, deliberately or otherwise.

“So can all alundri sense that I’m one of them? Is that how Aurelius was able to find me? I mean, won’t that make me a bit of an easy target for people like Blackheart?”

“No, not every alundri is able to sense magic,” Ophelia replied in a tone that suggested I was supposed to somehow implicitly know all that she was telling me. “If they could, then you’d be able to do it, wouldn’t you?”

“So how come the two of you can sense it?”

“No-one knows exactly,” Grahndel butted in. “Some creatures can just sense these things.”

“Only the less powerful ones though,” Ophelia added quickly, eager to regain control of the conversation. “And not even all of them. It’s really quite random, dragnors can sense magic, goblins cannot. Fairies happen to be particularly good at it. It is very rare that one ever finds the ability within more powerful alundri though.”

“Impossible, I’d say,” Grahndel corrected.

“He may be right,” Ophelia admitted begrudgingly. “It’s as though their own magical aura is so strong that it blocks them from picking up on anybody else’s.”

“I see,” I said. “Or, at least I think I do.”

“Now, we’ve answered your question,” continued the fairy before I had time to formulate another, “so let’s get back to the important stuff - are you
really
a protector?”

“According to Aurelius.”

“Wow! That’s so amazing. I’ve never even heard of a magical being who was also a protector before. You must have extraordinary abilities.”

“Oh yes!” interrupted an excited Grahndel, “What can you do? What can you do? Tell us! Tell us!”

“Well...” I said, taking a pause before answering in order to build anticipation. I had to admit, there was a part of me that enjoyed knowing that I was different from everybody else...after all, it’s very flattering to have others in awe of your power, especially at eight years old, when you’ve spent you’re entire life thus far with everybody else having power over you.

“I can heal the sick,” I said, trying but failing miserably to hide the bravado from my statement.

“
And?
” asked both my companions in unison, instantly wiping the triumphant look from my face.

“
And
what?” I asked. “That’s it.”

“Oh,” said Ophelia. Grahndel simply sneered.

“That’s it?” he repeated. “That’s it! Healing the sick? That’s the extent of your great power? Every third magical creature can heal the sick! Why, I once met a Guatemalan dung demon who could heal the sick, and they’re the least powerful magical creatures in all the world. Their only real powers are all based on a frankly unnatural ability to animate other creatures’ poop and make it do their bidding – you know, wash the dishes and such.”

“
Shut up, Grahndel
!” snapped Ophelia. “Of course he can’t
just
heal the sick, you can see how powerful he is. He must have got confused, that’s all. What he probably meant is that he can heal the
dead
. You know, bring corpses back to life and such, like the necromancers do, isn’t that right, Charlie?”

“Apparently not,” I admitted dejectedly. “I mean, you know, I’ve never tried or anything, but, according to my grandmother, my grandfather never could, and it’s him that I inherited my power from.”

“Oh,” the little princess said dejectedly.

“Great,” said the dragnor. “We’re off on a potentially fatal mission to find some of the most powerful and evil creatures the world has ever known, and between us we’re armed with miniscule portions of fairy dust, fire-breath barely strong enough to light a candle, and the ability to be healed should we, by some miracle, manage to be harmed but not killed by Captain Blackheart and his merciless assassins. Somehow I don’t fancy our chances much.”

“Well, we’ll just have to make sure we don’t make them aware of our arrival, won’t we?” Ophelia said sternly.

“And you’re certain Blackheart won’t be able to sense me?” I asked. The two of them nodded. “And what about Blackheart’s minions? Surely some of them will be less powerful, and therefore able to sense my presence?”

“Ordinarily, yes. But, if Grahndel speaks the truth, then with so many magical creatures in such a confined area, it is highly unlikely that any of them would be able to sense any individual auras, especially if we keep our distance.”

“What do you mean,
‘if Grahndel speaks the truth’
?” interrupted the indignant demon. Of course I speak the truth.”

“Oh, and you’ve been Mr Honesty so far, haven’t you? What with your ever-changing story over whether you do or do not eat fairies.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Catch on quick, don’t you?”

“Er, guys?” I said, trying to interrupt their infuriating bickering.

“I’m no liar!”

“Guys?”

“Yes you are. You’re such a liar that there’s more fire in your pants than in your mouth!”

“SHUT UP!” I yelled. “If you just keep quiet for a second, I think we’re about to find out whether he’s lying or not.”

And I was right, for there, in the background, cutting through the elaborate composition of squawks and rustles that filled the darkened forest, came the sound of running water.

The caves of which Grahndel had spoken were still some way further down river, around a bend in the water’s path which itself was barely within view. Nevertheless, we were far more cautious in our movements once we began journeying along the riverbank, moving in and out of the trees in an attempt to avoid detection by any mermaids who may have been assigned lookout duty.

It was clear that we were heading in the right direction, for the nearer to our destination we got, the louder the sound of the water smashing violently into rock became. So much so that by the time the caves came into view it was difficult for us to hear one another speak.

“I think this is close enough,” I yelled to my companions over the sounds of the rapids which were by this point right along side us. I had chosen a spot among the rocks that bordered the river’s south bank which provided us with both a good view of the entrance to the caves, and a good head start with which to flee if we were spotted.

Ophelia took from the bag her grandfather had given her some sort of homemade viewing device which had been awkwardly fashioned from some discarded plastic tubing and a fragment of broken glass. I was highly sceptical as to how useful it would be in making any image clearer; indeed it appeared as though it would be likely to have quite the opposite effect. However, when Ophelia uttered her next words I was glad I had not voiced my prejudices aloud, for their fallacy was instantly exposed.

“Where’s the boat then?”

“I beg your pardon?” replied the dragnor.

“I said,
where’s the boat
?” she repeated. “You said there was a boat, but I don’t see one.”

As I squinted my eyes against the darkness and the distance, I saw that she was quite correct, there was no boat to be seen.

“How should I know where the flipping boat is?” Grahndel replied incredulously. “Maybe they moved it. Boat’s do move you know – that’s kind of the point.”

“Or maybe you’re a liar.”

“For the last time, I am not a liar! They have moved the boat. I don’t understand why you find this fact to be so baffling. I mean, why would it still be there? They’ve arrived haven’t they? The boat has done its job. They’re hardly going to just leave it floating around like a big sign saying ‘Attention everybody, baddies ahoy!’ are they? That would just be stupid.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“Well, I wasn’t, but since you ask...”

“Shhhh!” I interjected, and for once not just because I couldn’t stand the noise. “I thought I saw something move, over there, by the entrance to the cave.”

A silence came as we all studied the cave avidly.

“Well I don’t see anything,” said Ophelia.

“Me either,” agreed the dragnor. “Where are we supposed to be looking?”

“Right there, at the entrance,” I replied. “Between those two pillars.”

“Pillars?” Grahndel repeated. “I’ve lived in those caves for half my life and there are no pillars.”

“Then what are those?” I said, taking his chin in my hand and moving his head to look where I was looking.

“Oh, those,” he said. “Those are the rockalusses I was telling you about.”

“What!?” Ophelia and I exclaimed in unison.

“Rockalusses,” he repeated. “You know, once great magical beings enslaved in rock by The Professor and turned into his huge, powerful henchmen.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ophelia. “Because they look a lot like plain old rocks to me.”

“Once again you demonstrate your stunning ability to remain abjectly unaware of the point. Camouflage is a rockaluss’s best means of attack. They may be strong, but they are far from quick, they have to let their prey come to them.”

“And what exactly constitutes ‘prey’ to a rockaluss?” I asked.

“In this case, I’d say anything that tries to interfere with The Professor’s plans by going near those caves.”

I gulped.

“Don’t let him frighten you,” said Ophelia, as if she had never known fear herself. “He’s just trying to scare us off so that we don’t try to get in any closer and find out that they’re just rocks and that this has all been one big lie. Well, I for one am not going to fall for it. I’m going to take a closer look, you guys can wait here if you like.”

“
No wait!
” I yelled as she began to walk away.

“What is it?” she asked. In reply, Grahndel and I simply pointed back toward the caves, where both of the apparently inanimate pillars of rock that guarded the entrance had begun to move.

The three of us looked on in silence as the rockalusses moved slowly and awkwardly from their posts, turning their bodies and raising their arms in a kind of odd salute. A brief glance to their left explained their actions.

“
Blackheart!
” exclaimed Ophelia as the enormous, bescaled, figure of the evil Gravlier emerged from the caves. Incredibly, he was even more frightening in the flesh than Grahndel’s description of him had been.

For a start, he was huge. I mean massive. Even from a distance he was obviously taller than any human I had ever seen, including those American basketball players I had watched on television. But it wasn’t really his height that invoked such awe, but his width. You see, most humans, when tall, have a tendency to look lanky, as though they have the same overall body mass as anyone else but have simply been stretched. This was not the case with Blackheart. If anything, his immense girth made him look somehow stumpy, in spite of his great height. His clothes were of a minimum for a warrior, a simple chest plate and what appeared to be a leather skirt stretched awkwardly over his coal-black skin.

On his feet he wore biblical-style sandals which, even paralysed with fear as I was, occurred to me to be of the most impractical style of footwear for a warrior. I could only reason that the immensity of his feet – the flabby flesh of which bulged from between each strip of leather as though it may explode at any moment – rendered sandals to be his only available choice of shoe.

As he arrived on the riverbank, the two mermaids of whom Grahndel had previously spoken raised their heads from the water. Blackheart barked his orders at them (though we were too far away to hear what such order may have been) and they quickly made their way up river toward us.

The three of us ducked behind a large rock and stayed there silently for several long and frightening moments, not daring even to breathe.

“Okay, I was right, you guys were wrong, now can we please just get the hell out of here?” asked the dragnor when he felt sure that we had not been spotted. I was inclined to agree with his sentiment, after all, I had only come in to the forest to look for my dog - it had never been my intention to become embroiled in the plans of creatures too scary to exist even in fairytales. Even the ridiculously brave Ophelia made no protest when I nodded my agreement at Grahndel’s suggestion of escape.