Chapter 30 - The Return of Captain Scar

*Flashback*

A cruise ship cuts through the wide open sea. Not another boat, or strip of land is visible as flat blue water shines in the mid-day sun. Darker lines form the horizons, empty in every direction. But wait... There is something in the water. An indistinct shape bobs on the ships wake. As the huge ship bears down upon it, it becomes clearer. And then the little boy watching it realises what the shape is, and shouts gleefully: “A pirate! A pirate in the water! They made him walk the plank! Arrr! Arrr!” He picks up his toy cutlass and begins to fight a little over-enthusiastically with another little boy, who gets upset at being stabbed in the stomach, and runs away crying. The crying boy’s mother stands up to give the excited boy’s mother a piece of her mind, but then stops, distracted. For it is a pirate. He’s even dressed like one. And he’s about to go under the ship.

The mother dials the captain on the emergency phone. He gives the order for the ship to be turned. The ship veers to the left and comes to a halt. The pirate bobs on his board, just out of the way of the ships progress. A lifeboat is lowered, and some crew members row over to the figure. He is unconscious, but has a pulse. He is very thin and bedraggled, his striped clothing torn and wet, his skin a fiery red from sunburn. He seems like he has been out here for several days. They lift him into the lifeboat and take him back to the ship, where he is laid on a bed and attended to by the ship doctor. When he recovers consciousness, he tells them he does not remember what happened, and takes a job as a children’s entertainer, pretending to be a pirate.

It really was a pity that Scar had been unconscious during his rescue. It was the most piratical thing he had ever participated in. His father would have been proud of him, floating like that on that tiny piece of wood for days, his clothing all torn. If he’d lasted another day or two, he was sure an albatross or something would have come and pecked out his eye, and he would have had a legitimate reason to wear an eyepatch. He couldn’t help feeling a little hard done by, coming out of such an adventure without an eyepatch. But such was life. Now fate had handed him the opportunity to be a pirate and completely avoid any risk of death, dismemberment, prison, bankruptcy, mutiny, or humiliation at the hands of his own prisoners. This job suits him to his very core.

Unfortunately, some others don’t agree. The children, for instance, don’t believe he is a pirate, even though the captain has given him his own parrot, and he has taught it to say “Arrr!” They laugh at him, and want him to make balloon animals. One little boy keeps challenging him to sword fights, whacking him around the head with a wooden cutlass and calling him a cowardly cur when he refuses.

When the Captain threatens to fire him for failing to make satisfactory balloon animals, Scar feels his last chance at piracy slipping away. He tries harder, practicing making balloon animals at night in his cabin. But all this does is use up the supply of balloons, and litter his cabin with tiny bits of coloured rubber, when they inevitably pop. He is devastated when the Captain calls him into his office to inform him that they will be letting him out at the next port, and gives him his final pay packet.

In keeping with his role as ship pirate, Scar is made to walk the plank as a final send off. They extend the plank from a special hole in the hull, on the very lowest level. Apparently they have done this before. A large crowd gathers to watch. The drop is only about a metre and a half, but somehow that makes it even more embarrassing. As though he is not tough enough to walk the plank at a higher level. They are quite near the docks, within swimming distance, and the townspeople have an excellent view. There are not even any sharks. As Scar walks the plank, he can feel his father rolling in his grave. He is a failure.

To make matters worse, when he reaches the end of the plank, Scar discovers that he is terrified of heights. He slips on the end of the board, and instead of the graceful dive he had planned he splashes into the water in an undignified mass of flailing limbs. As he sinks beneath the surface he spots something through the clear water. It is resting on the sandy sea-floor, in the shade of the docks. It is dark under the docks. The sun doesn’t reach in. Yet there is a sparkle. A glitter. Something is shining. Almost as though it is giving out its own light. Scar rises to the surface, spluttering and coughing. He spits out copious amounts of water, and does not look at his audience. There is a fallen star under the docks, and it is his. He will sell it. He can be rich again! Visions of new boats, open seas and enormous cannons fill his head. Maybe if he gets enough money for the star, he can have his leg amputated and get a pegleg. All the great pirates had peglegs. Finally, finally, he will be respected. He strikes out toward the star.

Sadly, as is often the case with Scar’s plans, he is about 200 years out of date. No-one would buy a star anymore. It had long been discovered that fallen stars had no use whatsoever. They don’t even really sparkle. That stops after a few days, when the star cools down. Then it is just a lump of rock, and who wants one of them? He had severely misconstrued a sign a few years ago, and had been looking for a star ever since. It had been written in huge red letters, screaming from the window of a newspaper publisher, and had been surrounded, for some reason by pictures of young men and women in compromising positions, with their hands over their faces: WE PAY FOR PICTURES OF THE STARS. It follows logically for Scar that they would pay even more for an actual star.

When he reaches the pole of the docks where the star sparkles, he takes a big breath. This is it. He has made it. He dives under the water, eyes wide open even though it is salty. He can’t chance missing it. The water is crystal clear and surprisingly warm, considering it is nearly winter. A school of tiny fish swarm past his nose. One hits his face, but Scar is not distracted. He is filled with the single-minded determination of one who has hit rock bottom and found out it hurts. The star sparkles more brightly as he draws near. It is taking on a shape, but Scar cannot see it. The water is deeper than he had expected. He is running out of air, and everything is going black and wiggly. His lungs are about to burst, and so are his eardrums, because he has forgotten to breathe out through his nose, and the pressure is higher near the sea floor. He reaches out. His hand closes around the star. It is surprisingly smooth, hard, and hollow, with a large hole in the top. But he does not have time to think about it now. He kicks hard for the surface.

His head breaks the surface, and he gasps for air. He has never had anything so sweet pass his lips. And he had eaten pure sugar as a child. He floats on his back for a moment, just breathing, clasping the star with all his might. He is not going to dive back down there. He looks over at the shore. The crowd has dissipated. Clearly, nobody wants to be held responsible for the preventable drowning of a children’s entertainer. Scar smirks. There will be no-one to fight him for the star. The fools. And then he looks at what he holds in his hand.

Scar had not realised that stars looked like this. It is much longer than it is wide. It is hollow, with a large hole in the top, at one end. Underneath the hole, a long narrow bit with a flat end pokes downwards. The end is level with the flat bottom of the other end of the star. The whole thing is not much bigger than a small woman’s foot. In fact, it looks a lot like a woman’s shoe. A very nice woman’s shoe, it is true, but a shoe all the same. For a moment Scar is extremely disappointed. He can feel his whole future flooding away from him. His happy visions of piles of jewels, of gold and silver coins heaped in a treasure room, of antique guns with diamond bullets, are fading rapidly. He almost throws it away, but something stops him. It has started to glow.

* * *

The Gods

Julius Rufus Pegasus, father of Sameus Rufus Pegasus, God Omnipotent over all lands west of the great ocean was sitting on his sofa. A pretty servant girl was feeding him grapes. He grinned. This was the life. Omnipotence. Immortality. A pretty servant girl feeding you grapes. Useless sons being stabbed in the back and composing terrible poetry was nothing in the great scheme of things. The plan to bring his son into the family business, so to speak, was well underway...
“Julie!” A young God, omnipotent only in a small region in the very far south (and thus not omnipotent at all), burst through the door. The servant girl jumped as she fed her master a grape, and accidently punched him in the mouth. He frowned and waved her away.

“This had better be good news,” he bellowed at the young God. In fact, he did not care very much if the news was bad. All could be fixed with a wave of the hand, by one such as himself. He just did not like being interrupted. Particularly by some young upstart who felt it was acceptable to call his superiors ‘Julie’. Julius Rufus Pegasus really hated being called Julie.

The young God quivered. There was good news, but there was also bad. Which should he tell first?

“Out with it!” bellowed Julius Rufus Pegasus.

“The pirate has found the shoe,” the young God announced, a jolly and insincere grin cracking his face.

“What’s the bad news?” Julius Rufus Pegasus sighed.

“Your son has completely disregarded your instruction and is on a pointless quest to rescue the girl he has been composing those terrible poems for.”

Julius Rufus Pegasus groaned. He had known this, of course, deep in the recesses of his mind. He was omniscient, after all. He had just been choosing to ignore the knowledge. Apparently it was time to take a greater interest in his son’s quest.

* * *

The shoe sparkles like nothing Scar has ever seen. It glitters, and shines with an inner light that has no source. Rainbows seem to be stretching out from it. And Scar sees that this is worth so much more than a stupid star. It is obviously magical. It probably has a genie in it. Or a direct connection to the Gods. For once, Scar is right about something, although the Gods will never let him know that. He swims to shore.

That night, Scar sits in the tiny room he has rented at the most disreputable inn in town, and rubs desperately at the shoe, waiting for the genie to pop out. He sleeps with his door and windows locked, fingers tight around the shoe.
That night he has a dream. A genie comes. It is wispy and bad tempered, but shows him the way to a city with golden walls and a diamond road. In the city, thousands of supremely rich men fight to buy the shoe.
When he wakes, he tucks the shoe out of sight in his bag, buys provisions with his pay from the ship, and sets out to sell his shoe.

Chapter 29 - Travels of Hermits

What has happened to the hermits since we last encountered them? Have they been slain by enormous angry things? Have they tamed the EATs? Have they accepted Joseph as their leader? Or have they all mysteriously died of fish poisoning shortly after his arrival?

The answer is that none of these things happened. As you may recall, Joseph’s defeat of the Enormous Angry Thing brought great glory upon him, and he was elevated to the illustrious position of community leader. He was given the best of brides, and there were great hopes for him to provide children who were as brave, heroic, averagely intelligent as he so obviously was. However, after a few weeks, the hermits began to catch glimpses of Joseph’s true, cowardly, nature. He refused to hunt another Enormous Angry Thing. He would not fish from the rock in the fastest flow of the river, the rock specially designated as the fishing spot of leaders, for fear of being washed away. The hermits were denied the best fish in the river, because they hid under the leader’s rock. They began to become disillusioned with their new leader. As winter came upon them, they grew cold, and there were rumblings of revolt.

But Joseph was a navigator, and his true talent lay in steering people in the direction he thought they should go. He saw the true reason his people were unhappy. It was not that he had refused to fight another Enormous Angry Thing. It was not that he would not swim the rapids of an ice-cold river in which lurked untold monsters, in order to bring fish to them. It was not that he had not supplied any children in the few months since his arrival. The people’s anger stemmed from the need to worry about these things. They had been exiled a great many years ago, for minor wrongs that had mostly been forgotten. And now this small group led a lonely, inbred existence in the isolated caves of the Eastern reaches, punished for the sins of their grandparents. Now they knew no other life. They were cold in winter, and lost family to exposure every year. The Enormous Angry Things were becoming more and more daring, and soon would force them out of the relative comfort of their caves. And above all, they were sick of all the fish. Fish, every day, nothing but fish. And though they were friendly to the few strangers who arrived, welcoming them into the fold and sharing their fish, honouring those who defeated the beasts, and helping them on their way, the hermits were always disturbed by strangers. Strangers reminded them of what they were missing.

And so Joseph thought and thought. He watched his people shiver. He saw the Enormous Angry Things become even more enormous as they put on weight and grew thicker fur for winter. He asked subtle and tricky questions of his wife and few friends, gleaning from them all the information he could about the origin of the community.
The society from which their ancestors had been banished was the very city towards which Barney, Sammy, and Celia had been travelling when they had left the hermits. Barking mad people were obviously not conducive to the manufacture of quality shoes.
Joseph came up with a plan. He spent weeks on it, making sure it was watertight, and writing his speech. A good speech takes time. A leader does not just stand before his people and make it up as he goes along. He works on his speech for ages and ages, until the floor of his cave is littered with screwed up paper (or in Joseph’s case, leaves and animal hides, because paper was very rare in that part of the world). Then he practices in front of the mirror, over and over, until he can recite the whole thing without a mistake, even adding expression and hand movements, and in places of extreme importance, shouting. Only then can he appear omnipotent before his audience.

Then, after weeks of practicing, perfecting his movements by staring at his distorted reflection in the ice at the edge of the river, Joseph called a meeting of the community and incited rebellion.

“People!” He shouted, “There is a world out there! A world where winter does not mean shivering in caves amongst the skins of the few animals caught over the year! A world where winter does not equate with starvation because the fish are trapped beneath the ice! A world where people need not live in fear of being gored to death and eaten by Enormous Angry Things, in the night! This is a world in which you believe you are not welcome, but this is not true. It is not you that is exiled, it was your ancestors. There is no reason for your suffering! Come with me, and we will journey to the land of your fathers, where there is warmth and freedom of choice at mealtimes. We will cross the seven rivers! We will pass through the mountains! We will skirt the edge of the desert, so we don’t die of thirst! Who’s with me? Who is claiming their rightful place in the world?”

A fearsome howling filled the air, as the hermits, in their excitement, reverted back to their ancestral type and were overcome by the urge to bay like dogs.
Joseph began to have doubts about the wisdom of his undertaking.

However, these doubts were soon alleviated. Throughout their final winter in the caves of the Eastern Reaches, the hermits occupied themselves with preparation for their journey. Sammy, Barney, and Celia may have gone with only small bags of belongings and some leftovers, but that was not how the hermits rolled.
They rationed themselves, and dried what fish they had left. A large band of the more physically able young men gathered together and felled an Enormous Angry Thing while it was sleeping. They dried the meat for provisions, and made new clothes from the skin and fur. When spring first came, they were ready.

And so they set out. The journey was long, and hard, but they were well prepared. Maps drawn long ago by the first ancestors to be exiled had lain unused in the deep recesses of the caves for years, except in particularly harsh winters, when the oldest and driest would be used to get the fires started. They followed an easier path than they had chosen for their visitors, moving downstream to cross the river at its widest but shallowest point. After many long days of trekking through barren lands and climbing sheer rockfaces with full packs, the view began to change. Where craggy golden hills had formed the horizon, they were replaced by a flat line of green fuzz that stretched out as far as the eye could see, in both directions. They were nearing the forest.

The plan was simple. They would approach the city by the back gate, where unwanted citizens were ushered out of the city, thus avoiding both the confusion of the two golden roads, and the strict security system at the main gate. They would make camp in the forest near the gate, biding their time and slowly infiltrating the city. The women had been practicing making slippers out of the hide of the Enormous Angry Thing for weeks. Once a comfortable position had been established, they would stage an uprising from inside the city, enlisting the help of those on the fringes of society, under threat of expulsion from the city. It could not fail.

As they drew closer to their goal, the land flattened. Straggly weeds began to grow, and intermittent shrubs. These were replaced by taller trees, thin and sickly, which in turn gave out to bigger trees. It grew dark in the forest, as thick leaves began to block out the sky, solid boughs forming a roof above the travellers. The path became indistinct in the prolific undergrowth, and landmarks became few and far between. One moss covered tree trunk looks very much like another, in the dark.
But Joseph was a navigator by profession, and would never admit he didn’t know the way. He tramped confidently on, deep into the forest, ignoring the misgivings forming in the back of his mind, cast by the smothering silence and the odd blue glow the brambles seemed to be giving off. His trusting tribe cheerfully followed their leader into the depths of hell.

For the last day or so, occasionally, out of the corner of his eye, Joseph had seen things. A bramble had seemed to visibly grow. A bough had seemed to move position. Joseph put these things down to the wind, even though he knew that there was no wind that could pass through the thick forest. But now, the trees seemed to watch him. The knots and craggy bark of their trunks formed faces, with eyes that followed him as he marched into doom. He gave the order to stop their trek for the night, claiming to believe that they could not find a better campsite, although they were not in a clearing, and the ground was choked with vines, and bushes whose thorns leaked a disturbing blue liquid. In reality, he stopped because he was a coward and he knew it. It was in his nature to hide from what he feared, and the only way he could think of to do that was to wrap himself in blankets, close his eyes, and wish very hard that he was at home with his mother.

As they placed down their packs, Joseph slowly became aware of two things. The first was that the forest was no longer silent. Vines hissed as they snaked towards the intruders. Branches cracked and snapped as they moved. The trees seemed to murmur, and then to growl. Joseph began to question the wisdom of his choice of campsite. The second was that somewhere along the way, one of their number had been silently and surreptitiously claimed by the forest.

Joseph closed his eyes. He pictured his bedroom clearly and in great detail. He pictured his mother, smiling at him, and handing him a plate of food. He willed himself back into his bedroom, concentrating on it like he had never concentrated before. He opened his eyes. Nothing had changed, except the forest had closed in even more. It was completely black now, except for the strange blue light given out by the thorns. Vines were strung between the trees, separating him from all his companions except Arnold, who stood next to him. There was the scrape of flint, and a spark lit up a few metres to their left. The spark lit a prepared torch, bringing some welcome light to the forest. The torch lit up the man’s face, showing joy at the light turn suddenly to surprise and horror, as a thorn bush leapt from the ground and buried its sharpest spines into his scalp.

It was his screams that did it. Joseph had seen his face before he dropped the torch. The man attacked had been called Jack, and had come to be almost a friend over the past few months. And so, although his hands were shaking, and his lungs did not seem to be working properly, Joseph decided that the time had come to take action. His mother had always told him of the importance of being assertive. Now was the time to make her, and his people, proud. Now was his time to be a hero. Although, said a little voice in the back of his head, my mother won’t actually find out if I die a hero. I could just run for my life.

He did not run, though. He began to think. First of all, he told everyone to be quiet. It seemed that if you did not draw attention to yourself, the forest did not know you were there. Then, as the forest quietened, he honed his navigational skills. He had never been a very good navigator, but as we all find, in stressful times, hidden knowledge begins to surface. Unfortunately, most of it was useless. The square root of sixty-four is eight. Eighty percent of a iceberg’s volume is underwater. There are twenty-eight species of clownfish, which make their homes among the sea anemones, eating scraps of fish. Joseph stifled a groan. Interesting, but irrelevant. He needed something that would help him navigate the endless maze of twisted trees and sneaky vines. Navigation was hard enough on the sea, under clear skies, with the stars as guides. Here, the stars could not be seen. There was no river to follow. The climate was uniform inside the forest – north could not be found by judging the amount of moss on each side of the trees. Not that he had any desire to touch the trees if it could possibly be avoided. He imagined it would result in a lot of pain. And to top it all off, the trees in this forest moved! There was no question of following the path they had made, or using landmarks, because they were all in different places, and would probably lead them straight into the heart of the forest, where the Gods only knew what waited for them. And suddenly, a thought came to him. They had seemed to be walking in a straight line. People walk in a circle when lost because one leg is the tiniest fraction shorter than the other. If he could work out which of his legs was shorter, and by how much, he could adjust their path for the amount they had turned, and lead his people back out of the forest, compensating for his shorter leg by turning in the opposite direction every now and then. He whispered his idea to Arnold, who began to measure Joseph’s legs with a strip of cloth. They were going to escape.

Chapter 28 - Queen of the Elves

Where did the elves take Celia? More importantly, why did the elves takes Celia? All became clear shortly after she was so rudely carried off.

The elves weaved effortlessly through the thick forest. The trees seemed to politely step aside to let them past. They ran fast; the trees blurred before Celia’s eyes. The elf that carried her seemed not to notice her weight as she hung like a sack over his shoulder. She could see the forest though his body. It was highly disturbing. But he ran smoothly, and she was barely jarred at all.

After an hour or so of running, the elves began to slow. The forest was beginning to look familiar, even upside down and through the translucent body of a moving elf. This part of the forest could never be forgotten. There was the tree from which Barney had hung helplessly, and had to be rescued. There was the thorn bush that Sammy had hacked to pieces with his sword.

If you have ever been carried off by elves, you will know that it is not a particularly pleasant experience. Elves are fascinating and noble creatures. They are also utterly convinced of their own superiority, and treat all other species with either a condescending tolerance or a scornful abhorrence. Usually if you are unfortunate enough to be carried off, you fall into the latter category, and only extreme good luck can save you. Contrary to popular belief, elves do not spend their time singing and dancing in joyful harmony – singing is something they only inflict on prisoners as a form of torture. One note at sufficient volume can rupture an eardrum.

Humans had always fallen into the first category, never being considered enough of a threat to be taken seriously. However, this was changing. People were destroying the forest, moving further in by the day. They were encroaching on the elves’ territory in the depths of the forest, and awakening the souls of the trees, which had long lain dormant. And the trees were angry, disturbing the pleasant lives of the elves and making them furious. And so the elves had come up with a plan.

Celia fell into neither category. Unbeknownst to her, her mother, who had died giving birth to her, had been an elf. An exiled elf to be sure, banished from the forest for loving a human, but an elf all the same. And not just any elf. She had been the last remaining descendent of Femmur, Elf-King of the East. He had been magnificent, leading the 501 year rebellion of ancient times, which had gained them the peace of the forests. When the elves had discovered the identity of the beautiful young female they had banished, they spent years searching for her, but it was too late. Now they had found her daughter.

As they reached the path Sammy had created with his Godly power, when he was looking for her, Celia realised what was happening. Those elves didn’t give up easily. When the trees had taken her, she had been carried by the vines above the brambles. They had dropped her suddenly, and everything had gone black: she had either fainted or been knocked out. And when she had awoken, she was dressed in a silver-green shimmering shift and a crown of leaves, and was being propelled toward a tree that had grown into the shape of a throne. She had not even thought of elves. They had been very quiet and were almost invisible, after all. She realised now that they must have been there, waiting to officially crown her, when Sammy had come to rescue her. She shuddered to think how close she had come to being their queen – if Sammy had been less God-like in his rescue attempt, if he had been a few minutes later....
They reached the coronation clearing. It was dark, but for green-tinged light that split the air in rays. Dark green mosses draped over branches and coated gnarled trunks. Leaf litter lay knee deep over the forest floor, blue-spiked brambles trailing over it. And everywhere, everywhere were the vines. The looped and twisted, snaked around trunks, criss-crossed, net-like, in the canopy. Celia could feel their tension. They were ready to spring into action at any sign of trouble.
And so they did.

Celia was not one to go down easily in a fight. She may have been supremely sensible, but even the most sensible of us sometimes take on more than we can handle, if the sensible decision in unpalatable. So instead of making the sensible decision, bowing to the demands of the elves, becoming their queen, and then slowly destroying them from the inside as revenge for kidnapping her and possibly killing her friends, she fought. She didn’t really have a plan. Or any weaponry. She had no magical power. She was not a god. She was alone. But sometimes a little determination can be all you need.

She took the only course of action available. She waited until the elf holding her had placed her on the ground, then grabbed him by the ankle, and bit it. Hard. Until then, the elves had been completely silent. With that single bite, she made two discoveries. Firstly, and most importantly, elves have a very low pain threshold (seriously, how much can it hurt to be bitten on the ankle by an average sized teenage girl). Secondly, there is a reason elves don’t talk. The noise it made could have shattered bone.

All the other elves stopped in their coronation preparation and turned to look. The chief of the clan, who was polishing the crown of silver leaves jumped, and dropped it. It fell into the leaf litter, and had to be polished all over again. The two female elves who were preparing the throne, draping soft blankets of moss over the twisted branches jumped and tore the sheet, and another covering had to be found. The elf-guard, who surrounded Celia, trained their arrows into the nearby forest, believing that any noise that horrible had to be a warning of intruders. The bitten elf did not correct them, being too embarrassed at shrieking because their queen had bitten him.

And so Celia had time to make her escape. There was great confusion and consternation over the assumed intruders, because it had always been believed that nothing and nobody could pass the sentries undetected, and certainly not pass by the entire guard to invisibly attack the primary treasure guard. They must be using magic, the elves thought. Somebody has put a hex on our head huntsman and guard. They disliked magic; they felt it was cheating and unsportsmanlike. This made them angry, and they began to hunt the filthy cheaters who dared enter their territory. There was much more shrieking.

In all the noise and confusion, Celia slipped out of reach of the embarrassed head huntsman, who was now rolling on the ground, groaning in imagined pain, because he had convinced himself that some evil magic was being worked upon him. She slithered through the leaf litter until she was entirely coated in filth, and well camouflaged against the forest floor. Slowly, carefully, she crept beneath the brambles, holding her breath so she wasn’t accidently caught on a thorn.

When she reached the edge of the clearing, she looked back. Fifty elves were running about confusedly, shouting angrily at the magicians who were making themselves magically invisible in the surrounding forest. One elf was calmly polishing the crown. The two females were frantically weaving another moss sheet. Three more were being magically tortured. She slipped out beneath the vines.

Here she ran into trouble. The brambles were thicker outside the clearing. She could see the iridescent blue poison dripping from the thorns. She had no idea where she was. The path Sammy had forged on his rescue mission had either disappeared, or entered the other side of the clearing, because it was nowhere in sight. She pushed on regardless, because at that moment she thought dying painfully, and alone, strangled by poison brambles in an evil forest across the sea from home, was preferable to spending another moment in the company of creatures that made noises like that.

There was no path through, so she made one, pulling the brambles aside, grabbing them in the bare spaces between the thorns and yanking. This worked well for about half a metre. Then she miscalculated the distance between two thorns, and a drop of poison touched her hand. She stumbled, shaking it off, and fell full length into the thorn bush.

It hurt. Everywhere. There was sharp, biting pain, where the thorns cut her, and she could feel warm blood trickling down her legs. There was dull, thumping pain, where she had hit the ground, and bruises where forming. But above all, there was searing, burning pain of the poison, where it ran over her skin and seeped into her wounds. She screamed and screamed, tears washing her face.

The elves began to sing. It was a horrendous noise, designed to distract a magician to the point where he cannot use his magic because he is curled up in the foetal position with his hands over his ears. “We will come for you... we will come for you... with trees and vines and poisoned arrows... knives and spears and clubs... we will come for you...”

The forest sprang to attention and began to move. The brambles that had caught Celia twisted up to form a cage. Trees formed a circle around it, vines twisting around. She was well and truly trapped, but did not notice because she was too busy screaming in pain.

Why did I run? She wondered. I could have been a queen. I could have worn a crown and bossed the elves around. I could have controlled the forest. And then the pain overcame her, and she fainted.

Unsurprisingly, the elves did not find the magician. When they found Celia in the cage, they were very angry. They took her roughly back to the coronation clearing. They gave her the antidote, forced her into a silver green dress, and sat her on the throne. The coronation was beginning.

Celia was still a bit groggy. She remembered it had taken Sammy days to recover from the poison, and he still wasn’t back to normal. Obviously the elf antidote was more effective than the one Sammy had been given. She did not feel any pain from the moment the antidote was given. She was, however, slightly dizzy. It felt like the world was going in fast forward around her, and she could not move to get out of the way. So she sat on the throne and watched as the elves formed two almost invisible lines on either side of a long carpet of most. She watched as the leader advanced slowly up the aisle, circle of silver leaves in outstretched hands. She sat still and silent, as the crown was placed upon her head, and bound there. And as she felt the crown of leaves bind itself to her, weaving through her hair, she felt something else. Power.

Celia had never had power. Her father had ruled the farm with an iron fist, and had never listened to her. Even on this journey she had felt powerless. The boys were willing to follow her lead when she had a sensible plan, but they all knew she wasn’t really in charge. Nobody in the world could stop Sammy when he decided to do something, and Barney, in his own way, was just as stubborn. Now, before her, lay a sea of faces who watched her expectantly, waiting for her command as coerced queen of the elves. They didn’t seem particularly bright either, which she took as a plus. They would do anything she told them, as long as she didn’t try to escape, suggest cutting down the forest, or use any magic. She didn’t think she would have any trouble following those self-imposed guidelines, because experience had taught her that escape was impossible, the trees, when angered, were terrifying, and that she was entirely lacking in any form of magical ability. But she knew what she wanted to do as queen.

And so, Celia, Queen of Elves, began to plan.

Chapter 27 - The Fate of the Exiled (what became of Princess Evie)

The trek around the city wall was long, hard, and hot. The sun reflected off the wall. It dazzled them and hurt their eyes. It burnt their faces. The heat made them sweat and wish that they had brought more water. Sometimes coloured spots danced before them, but it was just their poor eyes playing tricks on them. Soon even Barney was reconsidering how much he cared that poor people were being forced out of the city by a greedy King. He was even wondering why he had been so worried about Evie. He’d only known her one day. Maybe she was a horrible person who would not appreciate a heroic rescue involving days of roasting and blisters, and possible encounters with vicious trees and poison thorns.

The wall all looked the same. It made it hard to judge where they were. In the distance there was the forest, looking deceptively innocent, like a kitten that has just been ferociously attacking a mouse and taking enormous pleasure in eating it, before lying down for a quick snooze. The mill was in silent motion, too far away for the sound to travel. They followed the wall for two days. The city was surprisingly large, considering its sole export was shoes. At night, they slept in the open, their heads on piles of spare clothing.

On the third day, the forest drew nearer and began to look menacing. Barney was sure he could hear vines slithering. Several times he noticed the woodmen, which seemed to have been frightened off by the forest last time, following him. He was frightened. He knew Celia was too, because she kept reminding them of the plan. Over and over, every few minutes, she reminded them to have the knives ready when they entered the forest. She walked very close to Sammy. Barney could not help feeling a little annoyed. Even though, if he really thought about it, Celia was a little annoying. People who are never wrong get a little tiresome after a while. Sammy did not seem to mind Celia invading his personal space. Barney suspected that he had been deliberately prolonging their mission in search of the shoe. He also suspected that Sammy was a little frightened of the forest too. After all, he had been attacked and poisoned by psychopathic vines and had nearly died. Sammy was not one to admit fear though.
By mid-afternoon, the forest had closed in to within a few metres of the wall. It was cold, now, in the shade of the twisted trees. The light was taking on the strange green quality again. They began to imagine the trees were whispering. Celia produced a strong length of rope from the big bag, and tied it about their waists to prevent separation. They all took out their knives and held them at the ready. They continued into the depths of the forest, sliding as close to the wall as possible.
As darkness fell, the undergrowth grew thicker. Vines clung to the smooth wall, dark green against the gold. Thorns the size of Celia’s nose, but sharper, protruded from tendrils as thick as her arm. They dripped luminescent blue, and seemed to have eaten into the solid metal of the wall, clinging like the jaws of a pitbull on a tasty leg.

Our intrepid travellers paused to confer. The way forward did not look pleasant. The undergrowth was waist-high and rustling ominously, and a net of vines criss-crossed the path. However, a heroic rescue is less heroic if incomplete. And so they decided to continue.

Sammy severed the nearest vine with his shiny, new, sharp, sharp knife.
It split with a satisfying thunk. Sammy stood still. A hissing, slithering sound was coming from the trees. It was getting louder.

Suddenly, all the vines across the path, all the vines on the wall, burst into motion. More rushed out of the trees, closing off the path behind them, snaking up behind them and over their heads. The more they struggled, the more they hacked at with their knives, the faster and more violently the vines came, until they were caged. The sides were thick and solid, with only a few places where the strange green light came through. The walls ran with poison. Barney, Sammy, and Evie huddled together in the middle of the cage, avoiding the blue fluid.

Suddenly, the cage was yanked sideways. As the cage lurched, they were thrown roughly to the side, falling over, and the poison splattered on them.
The luminous liquid burnt like acid where the droplets landed. Red blotches appeared on skin. Barney’s whole face was covered with it, when a huge glob splashed down from the roof of the cage. He shrieked in agony. Screamed and screamed until his voice ran out, and all he could do was moan and try to wash his face with tears. The pain subsided slightly when the warm, salty tears cut through the poison on his cheeks, but every time he felt a little better, another splash would fall on him. And so he moaned and cried, curled on the floor of a cage of poisoned thorns, and thought his mission was a complete failure.

Sammy curled protectively over Celia, shielding her from the rain of poison. His intentions were good, as they always were, but his weight pressed her into the floor of the cage, and the shark-tooth sharp thorns cut into her, leaking poison into her blood. She writhed and screamed. She convulsed uncontrollably, and frothed at the mouth. She fainted.

Sammy shook her. He was hardly affected at all by the poison. His recent brush with death appeared to have helped build up an immunity to it. He lifted Celia and sat her on his knee, away from the thorns. She whimpered, and he whispered to her that everything would be alright; he would make sure of it. He was having trouble believing his own words though. If only Barney would stop making that awful noise, maybe he could think up a plan.

Plans had never been Sammy’s strong suit. He was more of an action person. Bellow, and charge, that was his motto. It didn’t appear suited to this particular situation, though; he had tried it. He thought his hardest, until his brain began to hurt. Celia, who always made the plans, was incapacitated, as was Barney, who would be second choice of plan-maker out of the three. But although Sammy was not particularly good at plans, he was never one to lie back and watch while people were pulled through forests in cages of poisoned thorns, by psychopathic trees.
Just as his brain felt like it was about to explode from all the thinking, it came to him: he was almost a God. Surely he must have some special powers, even though his strength seemed to have deserted him after his last trek in the forest. He closed his eyes, and concentrated very hard, imagining the poison being sucked back into the thorns, and the thorns receding into the vines, the vines unwinding, so the cage no longer surrounded them.

The cage stopped moving. There was a slurping noise, then a rustling. Sammy kept his eyes closed for a few moments, just to be on the safe side. Then he opened them.
The cage was gone, it was true. Barney had stopped moaning and seemed to feel fine. Celia’s eyelids fluttered, and the slight blue tinge that had invaded her cheeks disappeared. When she looked up at him and smiled, Sammy almost burst with happiness. He had saved them all with his excellent plan. And then he looked up.
Twenty sharpened sticks were pointed at him. One had a red shoe with a sharpened stiletto heel on the end. Sammy reached for his knife.

An arrow whizzed past his hand, out of nowhere, severing his belt. Fortunately, his new pants were perfectly fitted and did not need a belt. He peered into the trees in the direction the arrow had come from. Not a leaf stirred. He put his hands up. Even at full strength, he had been killed in a fight with only seventeen men. Here were twenty, and an unspecified number of invisible archers. So Sammy, for the first time in his life, surrendered. He was feeling a little woozy from exercising his Godliness anyway.

People melted out of the trees. Not actually out of them, but from between them. Ten, twelve, twenty. But they weren’t people exactly. They were human height, slender, delicate, but seemed somehow translucent, which explained how they had blended in so well with the forest. Their clothes seemed woven from leaves, plant fibres, and small twigs. Each carried a bow with a perfectly taut string, and a quiver full of terrifyingly sharp arrows. Elves.

Sammy was suddenly very glad he had decided to go quietly. He did not like elves. They were sneaky.

The elves closed in. They were in a circle, arrows trained on Sammy and Barney. Mostly on Sammy, who, even at mortal size and swaying with the exertion of using his godly powers, was still more threatening than Barney. Celia still lay at Sammy’s feet.
If Sammy had realised what the elves intended, he would have drained his last drop of power, spent all his strength, and given up his life to prevent it. If Barney had realised, he would have thrown himself in their path, called up the woodmen he had spent his whole life in fear of, and destroyed them. But they did not realise, and the elves had picked up Celia and carried her away before her friends could move.
Sammy and Barney started to chase them, but the men with the pointed sticks barred their way. Sammy bellowed ferociously and waved his dagger, but had no strength left to call on his Godly powers. Barney bellowed too, and tried to draw his sharp new knife, but found he had lost it in all the commotion. And so Celia was taken away by the elves, and Barney and Sammy were herded in the opposite direction by a group of ragged men with sharp sticks.

The place they were taken was a clearing, with rustling trees around it, and a great many poison vines. There were huts built from old branches, and vine cages hanging empty in the trees. And there, in front of the central hut, stood Princess Evie, in a crowd of bedraggled, rough, and frightening people.

Chapter 26 - A Cunning Plan is Formed

Barney kept to the shadows. He was good at that. The sun had disappeared so all that remained was a purple tinge in the sky to the west. He could hear the sounds of the city as it prepared for the night. Guards in white uniforms marched purposefully to their posts on the corners of the streets. Order had to be maintained. Every time Barney heard the crisp slaps of their triple-reinforced, steel-trimmed, midnight-black boots (well-polished), his heart raced and he pressed himself into the wall and thought invisible. He followed the trail of progressively large shoe stores into the city centre.

At first, there were small, family stores, with homes above them. From the windows came smells of dinners cooking, and sounds of families – “DINNER!” “Harry stole my rabbit!” “It doesn’t have tentacles, Simon. It’s a piano.”

These streets led to boutiques, where shoes were custom-made. These were just closing, and the streets were full of well-dressed middle-aged people locking doors and exchanging polite goodnights. He had to wait until the guards were distracted by business people insisting on their stores being watched closely, before he could slip past – “You see, I have a very valuable order half-finished...”

After the boutiques, he found himself back in the centre of the city, where the enormous stores were still open. They never closed, and the citizens shopped tirelessly all day and night. Owners and workers of other stores came at night, to buy or just see the competition. It was loud and busy. Barney slipped in with the crowd and thought inconspicuous thoughts. He floated through the crowd to the store he had last seen Celia and Sammy.

It was a truly gigantic building. Not as large as the palace, of course, but larger than any building Barney had been inside. Golden light flooded out of the windows. It looked warm and inviting. Everyone inside was smiling. Even the doorman was smiling, although he looked like he was working hard at it. He waved Barney through, grinning widely and artificially. Barney walked across the foyer, admiring the fine stone floor and walls. Marble, he thought. Well-polished. There was a map on the far wall, depicting the many departments of the store. Barney examined it. Women’s, special occasion – that looked promising. 4th floor, back right section. Barney started up the stairs.

Barney’s first guess was wrong. Sammy and Celia had finished examining all the shoes in that section several hours before, and had moved on, via women’s formal, and were now resting in the comfortable chairs in the women’s casual – indoor section. It didn’t take Barney too long to find them though, following the logical progression through women’s shoes. When he found them, Sammy was sleeping peacefully with his head on Celia’s shoulder. She was holding his hand. Barney felt a slight pang of jealousy, but then remembered his mission.

“They took her away! They just took her! They were taking people away, and she tried to stop them, and they took her too, and I got away. We have to save her!” Barney said in a rush. Celia looked at him sleepily. Sammy did not stir.

“Let’s go!” Barney cried. Celia shook Sammy gently. He mumbled and opened his eyes slightly.

“What happened? Who’s in trouble?” Celia asked.
“Evie!”
“Who’s Evie?” mumbled Sammy, still half-asleep.
“The girl who was with us today. She’s a princess. The guards took her, and a whole lot of other people, and made them leave by the back door of the city. They tried to make me go too, but I escaped. We have to save them!”
“You escaped guards?” Sammy sounded sceptical.
“I saw them!” Barney insisted, louder than he had intended. Heads turned. He lowered his voice. “I saw them! And one grabbed me, but I escaped.”

Something in his voice must have told his friends he was telling the truth, because they leapt into action. Sammy yawned widely, stretched and stood up. Celia followed his example, suggesting retiring to an inn to formulate a plan.

Immediately upon finding an inn, they set about making a plan. This mostly fell to Celia, because Barney was quickly descending into a state of panic that was decidedly not conducive to cunning plan formation, and Sammy, for all his strength and bravery was, it must be admitted, slightly lacking in the cunning plan department. Celia’s plan was this:

Wait until morning. Buy food and clothing for an expedition into the wilderness beyond the city limits. Include in the shopping some large knives, or at the very least shoes with stiletto heels. Leave the city by the main entrance, because the back gate apparently could not be opened except by the guards. Follow the wall around to the back gate, staying out of the forest as far as possible. Search for the princess.

That was as far as she could get, having a very poor supply of information. In simple terms, they were going to take the ‘guess and hope’ approach. Nobody argued though. By the time Celia got to the end of the plan Sammy was asleep and Barney was sniffling to himself.

And so, the following morning, as soon as they woke up, the three friends went to buy supplies. They bought bread, cheese, apples, large canteens of water, and several sharp knives. These items went, along with spare clothing, into a large bag that Sammy was made to carry, because he was the biggest. Thus prepared, they began their mission.

Chapter 25 - Barney Encounters a Princess

Princess Evie was a little strange. Her whole family thought so, when they could be bothered. Mostly they didn’t bother, though. Even in a royal family, the youngest of twelve rarely gets any attention. She didn’t mind this, though. She was perfectly content with herself, which was what made her strange. Her whole family, the whole city, it seemed were obsessed with bettering themselves. And not only that, but bettering others. Education, culture, cuisine, endless beauty treatments, and of course a vast variety of shoes. While her family learned, and preened, and changed their shoes, Princess Evie would wander vaguely past them, singing to herself.
And so it came to be that Princess Evie was wandering the streets of the City of Shoes, daydreaming and singing quietly to herself, a song she had just made up. Sometimes when she was daydreaming, Evie forgot to look where she was going, but it didn’t matter because people usually got out of her way, and she walked very slowly, so it didn’t hurt if she crashed into a building. Today, however, someone else was not looking where he was going.

Barney had been thinking. He was thinking about how pretty Celia looked, how much he had enjoyed sending logs to their destruction, and why Sammy was mad at him. Sammy had not spoken to him for four days, since accusing him of stealing a letter. As if he would touch paper. Barney shuddered at the thought. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had not even seen the girl in the ball gown and bare feet until he walked into her. It was a gentle collision. Their bodies met with the force of a weakling hitting a pillow. The expression of surprise from both parties was not exclamatory. The girl let out a gentle “Oh.” Barney turned red and stammered an apology. Close personal contact was not something he was used to. And they each went on their way.

But Barney’s omnipotent fate would not leave the encounter at that.

Barney, Celia, and a somewhat surly Sammy had left the mill that morning. They had not stayed their full two weeks, due to Sammy’s insistence that he was better, and the mill owner’s constant yelling. Not to mention the curious phenomenon of workers not returning from their days of felling in the forest. They had put on their clean clothes, breakfasted, and taken the little money they had earned, and set off.
There was a long wait outside the city gates, but they had at last been begrudgingly permitted entry. Once inside, they had begun their search for the perfect shoe to replace the one that Barney had so inconsiderately lost. This was more difficult than they had expected. For a city that consisted almost solely of shoe shops, producing and selling upwards of 50,000 pairs of shoes a day, there were surprisingly few sparkly, high heeled ones like the missing one. They were also handicapped by Sammy’s occasional balance problems, and total refusal to speak to Barney. Barney was the only person to have actually seen the shoe, and was needed to identify an appropriate replacement. Every time Sammy saw a shoe he thought might be right, he had to suggest it to Celia, who relayed it to Barney. So far, none of his picks had been anything like the shoe Barney had described. He was starting to think Sammy did not know what “high-heeled and sparkly” meant.

It was not long before Barney once more encountered the girl. It is bad enough to walk into someone once. The second time in one day is awkward. The third is amusing. But four times in one day? There are larger forces at work. Barney was, by this stage, monumentally embarrassed. The girl did not seem to be, though.
“We mustn’t fight it,” she said, and linked her arm through his.

Sammy seemed to defrost a bit after that. By mid-afternoon he was speaking to Barney once more. However, the shoe-hunting seemed to be going worse and worse. Sammy was now picking up shoes that did not look remotely like Barney’s description. How, Barney wondered, did you get ‘brown and sensible’ out of ‘high-heeled and sparkly’? But Barney didn’t dwell on it. He was relieved Sammy was speaking to him again, and had a strange floating feeling. It was almost like the world did not hate him today.
So, while Sammy smiled and pointed out shoes to Celia, Barney and Evie wandered behind them. Evie hummed cheerful songs and pointed out interesting things. It was a good afternoon. At some point, they became separated without really noticing. Barney just looked up and found his friends were no longer in from of him. For some reason, he did not really mind.

The city of shoes was not all opulence and riches. There were corners tucked away where poorer people lived, and less successful shoemakers sold misshapen boots from roadside stalls. But these places were small and well-hidden. The King did not like poor people. He did not like ugliness, dirtiness, bad smells, or things that were broken. And so he got rid of them. Officials in gold-trimmed uniforms politely shepherded those citizens too poor to pay the considerable taxes, out a small and inconspicuous back exit from the city, avoiding physical contact for fear of soiling their well-pressed white suits. The poor people rarely protested. There had not been an uprising for year, because everyone was so used to the treatment. After an area had been cleansed of the poor, it was then cleansed of dirt, refurbished, and made into hotels for wealthy tourists.

The King was not an evil man, it must be understood, merely fastidious and greedy. He was kind to children and cats, and fair in his settlement of payment disputes. He just did not like mess.

Barney and Evie stumbled into one of the poor areas that day. They had somehow been separated from Sammy and Celia, who had last been seen heading into the back corner of the largest outlet shoe shop of the city. The sun was setting over the golden wall, and a rosy glow was cast over the city. Barney and Evie turned a corner and were shocked by the sight that met their eyes.

Evie, being the youngest of twelve, and the black sheep of the family, had never paid much attention to her father’s policies. She preferred to wander, daydream, and sing. When she saw the line of tired, ragged men and women being escorted out the back door, she did not believe it was her father’s doing, and first the first time asserted her rank upon people.
She rose up to her full height, lifted her chin, and thought royal thoughts. She straightened her back, and breathed deeply, and practiced her most snootily royal tone in her head. She marched over to the guards.
“Stop that, this instant! I command you to release these citizens, and allow them return to their homes!” She commanded.
Barney was very impressed. If he had secretly been marching people out the back gate of a city, he would have stopped and released them immediately. The guards ignored her.

Evie repeated her command: “I am Evie, twelfth child of the King, princess of the city and the lands around it. You will release those prisoners, or the King will hear of it!”

This time the guards laughed. “Threatening us with the King? This is the King’s doing. We are merely following orders. We should have you thrown in a dungeon for impersonating a royal person.” The head guard approached as he was speaking.
It is an awful thing to suddenly realise that your father is not who you thought he was. Evie felt an odd sinking feeling in her stomach. Her head filled with fuzz, and she could not think properly. She had always believed her father to be a good man, if a little preoccupied with shoes. To find out suddenly that he was keeping the city clean by turning poor and unsuccessful people out of their homes was a terrible shock.

Evie was so busy being shocked that she did not realise what the guards were about to do. Guards crept in.

All of a sudden, a guard stood on either side of Evie, and each clasped an arm in a firm grip. Another guard stood beside Barney. There were not enough guards to spare two for him, and they didn’t think he looked like much trouble.

They were wrong.

Barney was small and twisty, but his journey had strengthened him. The walking, the hard work at the mill, and the struggling against assailants on his doomed rescue mission had strengthened him physically. His experience in the forest of silence had reminded him that people were the least of his worries, and had strengthened his will. Barney fought.

He struck the man holding him, hard, with an elbow in the belly. The man “oofed”, and bent at the waist, but did not release Barney. Barney did it again. The guard wrapped both arms around him and lifted him from the ground. Barney kicked out with his feet, struggling. A lucky kick caught the guard in the side of the knee, and he dropped Barney, clutching at his knee and moaning. Barney stood up and ran after the group.

The guard was not completely useless, though. The King was a very particular man, and his employees were not chosen simply for their excellent grooming practices. He grabbed Barney by the leg, pulling him to the ground. His grip was tight. Barney could feel it cutting off the blood supply to his foot. He kicked out at the hand with his free leg, but missed, catching himself on the ankle-bone, sending a juddering pain up his leg. He thrashed about. The guard changed his hold, forcing Barney upright and shoving him forward. Barney’s leg collapsed under him. His position on the ground put him at the perfect height, as the guard bent over him. He brought his elbow up into the guard’s groin.

The struggled had lasted less than five minutes, but as Barney crawled out from under the moaning guard, the gate swung shut with a loud clang, and an air of finality. The back door of the city was less fancy than the front, smaller but solider, made of some sort of thick metal. Barney limped over to it. It was perfectly smooth. There was no way to open it. And Evie was on the other side. Barney hit the gate as hard as he could, but all it did was hurt his hand. The guard behind him had stopped whimpering and was getting up. Barney limped away as fast as he could, back into the city.

Chapter 24 - Out of the Forest

Time melted. Time itself did not melt, because that would cause chaos and disaster for all the worlds in all the universes in existence, and I would not be able to tell the story of Barney’s great escape because I would not exist due to an unfortunate incident in which I fell back in time and killed my own great-great-grandmother. What I really mean was that it became difficult to judge the time due to having their having lost their watches in the City of Thieves. Also, it was dark and the forest all looked the same. They walked around in circles for a long time, attacked from all sides by brambles and rogue branches. Finally, they stumbled upon a thin trail. The trees became less active. The forest grew lighter, although the light still maintained that mysterious green quality that had been present earlier.

It was sunrise when they stumbled at last from the forest. Pink morning light sparkled brilliantly off the magnificent golden palace, glittering in a thousand diamond windows. The city was just awakening, and was quiet and still, but for the sleepy movements of a few dedicated workers trying to beat the rush. A great wall of gold bricks encircled the city, three times the height of a man, and much more dazzling. Barney could just make out a shining road that lead to a pair of ruby gates in the east wall. He did not understand how they had believed the City of Thieves to be this place. The City of Shoes was so rich, so prosperous, so beautiful that it could not be mistaken. They had made it.

Unfortunately, the city was much further away than it appeared. Among Barney’s many failings was an inability to judge distance. He had assumed the palace to be only ten floors high, twelve in the towers, with an area not larger than six or seven of Farmer Johnson’s fields. In reality, it was thirty floors, not including the basements, and thirty-five in the towers. It sprawled over the space a medium-sized town would normally occupy, and was centred upon a courtyard of truly fantastic dimensions. It was also a very long way away.

So it was with resignation and nausea brought on by poisoned brambles that they set off once more. The feeling of elation that had struck them as they emerged from the forest quickly ebbed, and they were left exhausted and suddenly very aware of their bedraggled appearance. The land that edged the forest was unpleasantly brown and muddy. Acres upon acres of desolate tree stumps spread before them. In the distance to the left, a sawmill growled furiously.

Elfin left them there, marching with renewed vigour towards his true calling at the mill. His experience in the forest had only increased his yearning to spend the remainder of his life cutting down trees.

The rest trudged tiredly in the direction of the ruby gates. The poison from the bramble barbs was only now making its effects realised. Sammy, who had suffered the worst, felt his muscles twitching disconcertingly as he walked. Agony seared through his body, the pain radiating in from his scratches. But he walked on, pretending it did not hurt. People who were resurrected by the Gods after being stabbed in the back during a brawl with seventeen armed assailants did not succumb to bramble scratches.

It took them hours to reach the gates. Sun was well past halfway on its journey across the sky when they arrived at the diamond road. It was busy around the gates. Travellers arrived in rich carriages (cars were strictly forbidden on the diamond road, for fear of leaving rubber traces), and left in expensive-looking shoes. Merchants came and went, only the wealthiest and most attractively attired allowed through the gates. Hundreds of people bustled and milled around before the gates, hoping for the privilege of being admitted. Only one area was clear. Nobody stood near Barney, Sammy and Celia. Even the poorest of the merchants who were turned away skirted around them. They were struck by the sudden, horrifying realisation that they would never be let in. No guard would allow into the diamond city a giant in a ripped, bloodied shirt, who was swaying slightly and had a odd, contorted expression of unspoken pain, a twisted young man covered in mud, and a girl wearing a crown made of leaves.

And so, after standing dazedly before the gates of their long-awaited destination for a few moments, they turned away in despair and began the long trek back towards the forest, and the saw-mill.

When they reached the saw-mill, darkness was falling. The mill was enormous. Huge logs lay on conveyor-belts that rumbled as they fed them slowly onto screaming circular saws. A man shouted orders and waved his arms as several workers operated various machines for lifting, sorting, and transporting wood. An enormous truck was being loaded with logs for transport. Sawdust was pouring into another from something that appeared to be part vacuum cleaner and part wood-chipper. The whole scene was noisy, busy, and just a little unpleasant. A haze of exhaust rose in a cloud above it.

The office was constructed out of rough-hewn wood. Obviously no time had been wasted on it. It was not large, and there was no glass in the windows. Surprising really, considering the amount of forest that had been cleared. They must have made a considerable profit out of the clearance, but clearly none of it had gone towards improving the appearance of the business – or, from the look of the sleeping quarters just beyond, into the living conditions of the employees. That did not occur to our heroes at that moment though, because Sammy had just collapsed at Celia’s feet.

A man responded to her cries for help, eventually. He wandered out of the office, apparently unconcerned that a young man was lying unmoving immediately outside his place of work.

“Hello,” he said placidly, “How may I help you?”

Being untrained, and therefore ill-equipped to cope with unconscious young men lying outside his office door, he had decided to ignore the young man and hope that he was just having a snooze while he waited to apply for employment. It could happen, he told himself firmly, turning to Celia. He had decided to pretend Barney was not their either, because Barney was giving off a distinctly unpleasant odour.

“Something’s wrong with Sammy,” Celia said, with a slight hysterical giggle. She slapped herself mentally. This was no time to stop being sensible. But all she could do was say, “make him better, make him better, make him better!” over and over, until the office-worker began to regret his decision to speak only to her.

Barney stepped in then, showing his deeply hidden competence in times of crisis. “He was poisoned by the brambles in the forest,” he told the man. “Do you have an antidote or something? I think he is dangerously ill.”

The office man dithered quietly for a moment, deciding whether to listen to the smelly one or to continue to focus on the girl, who was at least normal looking, if a little unstable. Sammy moaned and began thrashing violently. The office man made up his mind. He retreated into his office and closed the door.

At this, Barney kicked up such a fuss that it drew the attention of the foreman of the work crew, who stopped ordering people about and came over to see why someone was climbing in the office window, yelling at the top of his lungs.

The foreman was an exceptionally competent man. He took over immediately, telling Celia and Barney to step back. He produced a vial of green fluid from his pocket. Kneeling on the thrashing Sammy, one knee on his chest, the other on his left arm, holding him down, the foreman forced open Sammy’s jaws and emptied the contents of the vial into his mouth. Sammy stopped moving and lay limp on the dirt. Celia hiccupped back a sob.

It took all three of them, plus the office man, who was persuaded to leave the office and attend to them under threat of firing, to manoeuvre the unmoving Sammy into a bunk in the sleeping-quarters. They had to stop for a rest three times on the way. They lay him, now an unnerving shade of turquoise, on the closest bed to the door. Barney couldn’t help noticing that very few of the beds looked like they were used frequently: the ones at the back of the room were draped in what appeared to be mosquito netting but turned out to be spider-webs. Sammy was covered with a blanket, and the others herded back to the office.

For three days, Sammy lay in silence. The blue-green faded from his skin. He seemed somehow smaller. He stirred on the fourth day, but no-one rejoiced, because there was no-one there to notice. From the moment of stirring, he recovered remarkably quickly. In seconds, he was awake. In minutes, standing up, stretching, walking a few steps. Waves of tiredness hit him like a line of trucks, but he fought them off and ventured outside. Bright light hurt his eyes and sent stars dancing across his vision. The sky was unnaturally blue, and the sounds were unnaturally loud. He saw Barney gleefully operating the machine that fed logs into the saw, and an unexpected burst of joy hit him. He really was quite fond of the boy. From a distance. He waved, but Barney did not see him. He made his way slowly to the office, stopping every few steps to rest.

Inside the office, Celia sat at the desk. She was clean and pretty. Her curls tumbled glossily over her face as she bent over something she was reading. It warmed Sammy’s exhausted heart to see her. A smile made its way onto his face, uninvited. He stood in the doorway for a moment, just looking. He would have to write her that letter sometime.

“Celia,” he said.

Celia jumped. Then she shrieked and tore across the room, throwing her arms around him with a force that sent him stumbling. She hugged him enthusiastically, then disentangled herself, looking a little embarrassed.

“Good to see you out of bed,” she told him. “Are you feeling better, then?”

“Yes,” he said unnecessarily. He wobbled slightly. Celia made him sit down, even though he didn’t want to. She went back to her work, one eye on him all the time.

Sammy had a bit of a snooze then, just for a few minutes.

He awoke to a strange silence. The machines had been turned off. The sky was dark in the windows, and the lamps had been lit to glow brilliantly. Unfortunately, although they were very bright, the light did not spread far, so the room was a pattern of light and dark, full of shadows and dark figures in silhouette. The buzz of chatter filled the room. Eventually, the buzz thinned and he could make out individual voices. A small, bent figure talked excitedly about his day of cutting logs. Sammy had never seen Barney so happy. There was Elfin, looming over the group and agreeing in an exclamatory fashion with everything a smaller man who yelled a lot said. And there was Celia, telling the group excitedly about how Sammy had got up today, how he was nearly better. He smiled to himself. She really was lovely. He stood up and made his way over to the group.

The next day, Barney and Celia had to work again, to pay for Sammy’s cure; for their board; for their food; and for clean clothes. They would have to stay for two weeks to pay for it, they were told. That did not make much sense to Barney, who for all his faults was not deficient in intelligence. Surely if they were only staying the extra week to pay for their food and board, if they didn’t stay the extra week, they would not need to pay for it. It seemed as though the mill was having trouble finding people to work. Certainly, everyday fewer workers returned from the forest. One day a whole tractor disappeared. But Barney was enjoying getting his revenge by feeding trees to saws, and Celia was insistent about Sammy needing his rest. Barney did not want Celia to be mad at him, so he said nothing, and they went about their work.

Sammy was looking a little peaky, actually. No-one liked to say anything, but he seemed shorter, somehow. Less muscular. Almost normal sized. If by normal sized you mean a normal sized professional rugby player. His torn and bloodied clothes had been replaced with a set belonging to an ex-worker who had failed to return from the forest one day. They were greenish grey and not magnificent at all, but his clothes were beyond repair. He tucked his dagger into a rope about his waist.

While his friends worked, Sammy took a piece of paper and a pen from the office, and set to work. Soon he was concentrating so hard his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. He wrote:

Deerest Celia
I love u a lot. Wil u mary me. I mite not get to bee a God but if u mary me i wil not keer abowt that. I wil bee the hapiest man ever. Wen u smile it makes me worm inside. U ar the prettyest girl i hav ever seen, even tho i lived with the Gods and there was serving girls. U ar very smart and allways no wat to do wen there ar things on fire or we ar lost. I think we shud have a wedding lik jo’s only nicer and u can weer a pretty dress. We can find a little howse and hav flowers in the gardin. We wil live happily ever after. I love u mor than i can say. U make me want to rite poetry but i don’t know how. Please love me back and mary me.
Love Sammy.

He put the pen down, brain exhausted. Now all he had to do was give it to Celia. He would just have a rest first. He lay in his bunk and closed his eyes.
While he slept, a rogue gust of wind swept through the building. The letter fluttered off the table and floated gently away.