CHAPTER VIII
The rest of them reentered the house where all the men sat down heavily.
“I need to go back outside,” Connor suddenly said and left.
“I will go,” Kaitlin said and also left.
“I too don’t feel well,” said Lucas. “Seeing one of the Six Princesses, is it even true?”
“It is true,” Alura said. “Though I too cannot believe it. It is a mighty Quest that you have chosen.”
Dylan didn’t feel sick. He felt a wonderful calm feeling, he felt happier than he had since they left, though he didn’t know why. He thought of the Princess again and that calm, happy feeling surged through him. She was good, he thought, she was Right.
%%%
Connor of the Shed, Guardian of the Portal stood up having been sick at the edge of the clearing.
“Oh, you,” he said seeing Kaitlin and he was embarrassed.
“It’s OK, Connor of the Shed, such a reaction is normal, especially for an Outworlder.”
“You know of this Princess?”
“Yes and no. They are considered myths.”
“Lots of things here are considered myths in my world.”
“I can only imagine. Let us rinse you,” and she took his hand and led him to a trough of rainwater. There she scooped up water in her hands and rubbed it across his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You shouldn’t.”
“Yet I do,” she replied.
%%%
“I need ale,” Lucas said.
“It is in the kitchen,” Alura answered.
“You do not help me?”
“I am not my sister,” she replied.
“Very well,” and he went out.
When he returned Connor and Kaitlin were back and Dylan felt weird about it, was it jealousy? Why was she looking after his Dad? She wasn’t his Mum. And he thought back to the Deer Woman, how he wished that had been his Mum. How he wished she were here to explain everything to him. It was all too much and he wanted to go home. Or to that green woman, the Princess. He couldn’t cry here, he couldn’t.
“I’m going outside,” he said.
“Are you all right?” his Dad asked.
“Yeah, I just need to think.”
“It’s pretty confusing, isn’t it?”
“It’s not like the books.”
“No, it isn’t,” his Dad said and gave a weak smile.
“I will come with you,” Lucas said and stood.
“No. I need a little time to sit,” Dylan insisted.
“He will be well, we can sense danger here,” Alura said.
“Thank you, Magician,” Lucas said and sat, taking a gulp of his ale.
Dylan walked outside and looked around. It was getting darker and he guessed they would have to sleep at the Magician’s house. That was OK; he thought there was probably lots of room.
He walked around the bungalow, the chimney still lazily giving off smoke. He tried to think of everything he had seen and done, but it made his brain hurt to try and understand it all. And then he saw the old man.
He was sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the forest. Dylan could see that he had a big white beard like Father Christmas and was smoking a long pipe. The smoke came out in rings.
“It’s all very confusing, isn’t it?” the old man said around his pipe.
“It is, Sir,” Dylan said.
“Want to come and talk about it?”
Dylan started forward and then thought of the Deer Woman again.
“Oh, I’m not one of those,” the old man said and showed Dylan his feet. He had short legs and Dylan walked over to him.
“Life is never easy is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Dylan replied.
“No, I agree,” the old man said and three new smoke rings came out of his pipe. “I expect you want to go home now, despite the bullies.”
“How do you know about them?”
“Oh, you know,” the old man waved his pipe in the air.
“Who are you?”
“Just a man who knows what it is like to feel lonely, young Guardian. My, what a big responsibility on such small shoulders.”
“I’m just here because I have to be.”
“That’s where you are wrong, my young friend. You are more important that you think. You must look after the Foreshadow.”
“No, you’re wrong, they are looking after me.”
The old man shrugged. “It goes both ways.”
“How am I supposed to look after them?”
“Well maybe this will help,” the old man said and took a short sword from beneath his cloak. He held it out to Dylan and, without thinking, he took it.
“What will I tell my Dad? I can’t even use a sword!”
“None of your companions will notice and as for your skill, I think you will find the blade will help you with that.
“Take this also,” and the old man took a belt and scabbard out of his clothes.
Dylan took them and tried them on. They were a perfect fit and the sword was a good length and weight for him.
“How is this?”
“Things are strange to you here,” the old man said and winked.
“That’s not very helpful.”
“No, no it is not, is it?”
“I still don’t understand how I can protect the others.”
“All in good time, young Guardian, all in good time,” he took another puff of his pipe. “You will be helped no doubt, but do not lose hope, you are the key.”
“Now I really don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Dylan?” Lucas shouted from the front of the bungalow.
“You should be going,” the old man said.
“But…”
“Dylan? By thunder!”
“I’m coming,” Dylan shouted and turned and ran. Then he thought again and turned, but the old man had gone. On the tree trunk sat a Lien; it looked at Dylan, straight in the eyes and then turned and jumped into the forest.
Dylan turned and ran around the house and ran straight into Lucas who grabbed him and lifted him into the sky before setting him down.
“Where have you been?”
“Just thinking,” Dylan said.
“Let us go in, there is food and sleep to be had, Guardian.”
“OK, Lucas,” he never noticed Dylan’s sword.
%%%
They slept the night there and each had their own room. Dylan suspected that the twins had used magic to make their small bungalow bigger again. The bed was comfy, just like his one at home and it was hard for him to get up early in the morning when his Dad knocked on the door.
They sat and ate a large cooked breakfast, it didn’t seem to matter how much Lucas ate, it just kept coming.
“Needs tomato sauce,” he said through a mouthful and Kaitlin laughed.
“Even I don’t have the magic to conjure that,” she smiled.
And then the three of them walked back into the woods with careful instructions from the Twin Magicians who then went back into their house and sat next to each other, held hands and started channeling their magic.
%%%
Bell and the Shadow Ranger had walked long into the evening and then slept. They set off early the next morning for the caves at the foot of the mountains.
“So here we are,” Bell said.
“It appears so.”
“So the Princess…”
“Don’t even ask; I will not speak on such things however much you pry.”
“It is fair.”
“But of you? Defender of the Forest Way? You swore an Oath?”
“My secrets are also my own,” Bell said and looked at the cave a climb above them. “If we survive this cursed cave, perhaps I will share with you.”
“Then let us be on with our mission.”
They climbed up and over the rocks until they reached the mouth of the cave.
“How far in do you think we will have to go?” Bell asked.
“I have
no idea, but normally it is not far as the dragons need large tunnels to get in and out,” they sat down and ate some of their provisions and prepared rope and two torches.
“I hate caves,” Bell said as they entered.
%%%
By the time they entered the caves Lucas, Connor and Dylan were coming out of the forest and onto a wide road. Already there were horse and carts trundling up and down it.
“This is the main road down to the port,” Lucas explained. “It is forever busy with people travelling to buy and sell.”
“You know the port,” Connor said.
“No, not really. I have been only a few times and not for a long time now.”
“You sound sad,” Dylan said.
“Hmm. Perhaps I have been too long in the forest,” was all Lucas replied.
They walked along the road keeping out of the way of the traffic. It was weird, having been in the forest for so long, to see people and animals. People who had no idea what the three of them were doing. Just going about their normal lives while here Dylan was walking to find a pirate in order to start a rebellion.
What would these people think if they knew? If they knew that two of the people they passed were not just Outworlders, but from the Fifth World. It made Dylan wonder how many people he had walked past in the street or at the shops back on Earth who were actually on some kind of Quest. How many people in the street had weird and interesting stories about how they got there?
Finally a man with an empty cart offered them a lift into the Port and they climbed on.
%%%
The cave they entered branched off into three and they stopped. There was still some light reaching them from the cave mouth and here there was a hole in the wall that went through to outside.
“Now where?” Bell asked, but the Shadow Ranger just shut his eyes.
“Can you feel them?”
Bell closed his own eyes and, yes, he could feel something, a connection to the Twin Magicians. They were connected to the dragon and he felt they were trying to guide them to it.
“I feel left,” Bell said at last.
“I agree,” Mattaeus agreed and they walked into the darkest cave.
After a while the light began to fade.
“We should light the torches,” the Shadow Ranger said.
“I don’t think we need to,” Bell said. “My eyes seem to be getting better in the dark.”
Mattaeus looked around and, yes, he might be right, he could still see the walls and the ceiling. Slowly he walked further into the darkness.
“You’re right. Can you see that spider on the ceiling?”
“I can,” replied Bell, “I don’t want to, but I can.”
“This must be the doing of your Princess, she said she would help.”
“It will make our job easier, for sure.”
“I wonder how the others fare without such magical help?”
“Lucas will look after them and Connor of the Shed is a wise and upstanding man,” Bell told him as they continued to walk.
“And can you believe any of this is happening? Or the things we are trying to achieve?”
“Sometimes, no; one minute I was tending to my vegetable patch and the next Lucas was pulling me through the forest and into the Fifth World.”
Mattaeus laughed. “I cannot imagine you gardening, Forest Ranger.”
“Huh. It is but a small patch outside my house.”
“Do not be offended at my jest; I too would like a vegetable patch, a home to call my own.”
“You have not a home?” Bell asked, but there was a noise ahead of them and they stopped, silently listening.
It sounded like footfalls, but there seemed to be a clicking and scraping too. They drew their swords.
%%%
As they did so, Dylan, Lucas and Connor were just arriving at the port after a long and bumpy ride. Dad sat up front and talked to the driver, pretending he was from the village of Doomth and had never been away this far. The farmer was happy to tell Dad all he wanted to know and at length too. Dylan sat in the back with Lucas, but they did not talk too much. Lucas tried to tell him all that he knew about the Port of Columbina, but it was not a lot. Instead Dylan asked him about life as a Guardsman and the Mountain City, but Lucas wasn’t much of a storyteller and Dylan finally drifted to sleep.
For Lucas himself, he watched the trees go by and thought back to his old life, of being a Guardsman. They were good days, happy days. There wasn’t a lot of war on Sylvae and so there was not much to do as a Guardsman. He helped people more than protected them.
Of course, that was until after the Yokum Rebellion. Until then the country of Thalm was of little interest to the Chinerthians, it was mostly just dense forests, but after the Rebellion soldiers had come to take the ports. The Thalmians were not going to let that happen easily and many lost their lives fighting. They were not fighters, the Thalmians. Ultimately the leaders of the resistance, the CunoThalms, had fled to the Mountain City and so the Siege of Tahoma turned into the Battle of Tahoma and the Mountain City was no more.
Lucas shivered at the memories; he had fought long and hard, but they were too weak from the siege, there were too many civilians and not enough fighters. He had escaped with the last CunoThalm, but he had died in the woods and Lucas had walked for days. He knew not where, maybe in circles, until one day he found himself in Capel. He had managed to take his money from the Mountain City, and bought a small house. The rest was a quiet history.
Until he went chasing a pig for his lunch and fell through a portal. By thunder! What strange events.
And here they are now, coming into Port Columbina, the furthest Lucas had been since fleeing Tahoma.
Dylan was awake and watching the Ruling Guards stopping carts coming in and out. They wore red and black uniforms and had swords and spears. They didn’t stop his cart because it was empty and Dylan wondered what they were looking for.