Chapter 19 - Barney on his own

Barney's captor kept a hand firmly over his mouth, and dragged him down a side street, and another and another, until Barney was so hopelessly lost that he would have been unable to find his friends even if he could get away. He struggled feebly, but it was no use. Without his rocks (which had all been used to pelt muggers the day before) he was nothing. He let the large hairy man carry him away.

When the jolting jog of the man carrying stopped, Barney opened his eyes. The street was surprisingly clean. Even the stench was less pungent, although there was still a definite unpleasant odour in the air. Barney rather thought that the cobbles had been swept. He was placed gently on the pavement. He was glad of that, because it is very uncomfortable to be carried on the shoulder of a fat man while he runs, and slightly nauseating. Barney's stomach spun.

"Well, get up boy!" The hairy man growled in an exclamatory manner. Barney got up. The man ushered him into a building. Yes, this part of town was definitely nicer. He was so relieved that he didn't even mind that the building was made of wood. He could see the woodmen in the walls, but they were calm and satisfied and felt almost... friendly. He sat at the table, and the hairy man followed him, checking the road furtively before shutting and bolting the door.

So Barney came to be in the house of Elfin the Shoemaker (although Barney privately thought that his parents had made a severe misjudgement when naming their son - he had never seen anyone less elfin). Elfin made him breakfast and a nice cup of tea and set about informing Barney that they had a mission.
Although Barney did not realise it, this was a huge step in determining his fate. His choice when he heard Elfin speak would determine his whole future. So he didn't listen very closely, because he had not eaten so well for so long that he thought the food deserved all is concentration.

Elfin told a sad story. He was a monumentally unsuccessful shoemaker, his fate determined by the failure of his ancestors so many years ago, when the city was first built. He came from generations of honest but incompetent shoemakers, and he was determined to overcome the past and get out of the city to achieve his true calling - to become a lumberjack. But he needed Barney's help. Barney and his friends, he said, had caused the most excitement the city had seen in years. And so he had decided to ask for their help, as they were obviously survivors. He had carried Barney off during the brawl to make him help. Obviously, he would have preferred the extremely large one, but that one had seemed busy.
The first step to Elfin's masterplan was to rescue Celia. He had seen the girl being captured and carried away in a sack, and in his experience that was never a good thing. So, number one, rescue Celia. Number two, find the giant who had been with Barney and Celia, because it was always an advantage to have a giant on your side when attempting to escape your fate (or indeed when attempting to escape a solidly-walled city. After that he was a little hazy on the details, because he was hoping that they would help him in that department. At this stage his plan involved spiked boots and climbing the wall.
Barney nodded and smiled. He had not really been listening, but he would like more food like this, so he agreed to help. There is a great advantage to being a good cook when you have just kidnapped someone in order to coerce them into helping you escape your like as an unsuccessful shoe-maker in a smelly and rough city.

So, as soon as Barney had finished his breakfast, Elfin got him up from the table and hurried him into his disguise. It wouldn't do for them to be recognised, because the people in the game that weren't good enough to capture the other two would certainly come after him. So Elfin presented Barney with a clever and cunning disguise. It was like nothing Barney had ever seen. Privately he doubted its ability to conceal him. Admittedly, it would disguise his identity very well, but there were definite question marks over the likelihood of his blending in while wearing it. It was large and brightly coloured. It puffed out around the waist like a giant pea, and there were little holes for his arms to come out. Another round section covered his head, with eyeholes and a small slit allowing him to breathe. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with such things, the holes were in entirely the wrong place, and while wearing it Barney could neither see nor hear. From the waist of the costume hung a large number of floppy legs, each a different colour. Barney was to walk through the city disguised as an Immense Multicoloured Water-monster.

Elfin completely failed to see the flaws in this plan. It was his first plan and he was terribly excited. So far it had gone brilliantly. The kidnapping had gone off without a hitch. Well, if he was really honest (which he always was, being an honest but unsuccessful shoe-maker), he had really intended to take all three. And he had not really wanted to have to kidnap anyone. But all in all it was going quite well. So he enthusiastically tied Barney into the costume and put on his matching one. They could definitely get through the city undetected now, he thought with satisfaction.

Barney only allowed himself to be forced into the ridiculous costume because by this time he had realised that his one true love was in vast danger, and he must save her. By saving her he would win her heart and they would get married and live in a stone castle on a rocky island in a lake and be happy forever. So he went along with the plan, because Elfin was difficult to argue with, and anyway, Barney didn't have a better idea. They stepped out into the street.

The plan was not well formed. They did not know where Celia was. Elfin had seen from the corner of his eye a sack being borne away on the shoulders of a man he did not recognise. He wasn't totally sure which street they had taken her down either, which was unfortunate because it meant they would have to start right back at the city square in the centre of the fighting and bloodshed.

And so they made their way to the city square. It was slow going because the disguises were so unwieldy, and Barney kept crashing into things because he could not see properly. But at last they reached the square. They stood in the middle and tried to remember which street Celia had been taken down. Surprisingly, they went completely undetected. A party was going on. There was much rejoicing and much drinking. Several smallish fights had broken out, no more than six or seven men in each one. They were celebrating the fall of the giant. And in celebrating every man in the city square had taken in at least enough liquor to not think it strange to see two Immense Multi-coloured Water Monsters in the middle of their city.

Barney and Elfin went down the street that Elfin had decided was the one Celia had been taken down. As they went further and further along it became obvious that this must have been where she had been taken. She had fought fiercely, because although she was usually extremely sensible, she was ferocious when angered. Bits of sack and drops of blood littered the cobbles. Barney discovered her hair ribbon on the ground a short way down a side street, and they turned down that. From that point Celia had managed to leave tiny clues at each turning. A shoe here, a lock of hair there. But at last the trail ended. Celia had run out of things to leave.

The trail ended in a street much like any other. It was cobbled. The buildings were old, and coated in soot and grime. The stench was horrific. Barney imagined rotting corpses inside every door. They were quite a distance from the centre of the city now. It was not so busy. In fact, there were very few people here at all. No one, actually. The only occupants of the street were two Immense Multi-coloured Water-Monsters.

A door was creaking to and fro in the breeze. Almost like it had been deliberately left open for them. Barney and Elfin, of course, did not even think that it might be a trap. They were both very new to this saving people business, and it didn't occur to them that kidnappers might actually go to some lengths to stop their captives from being saved. So the two Immense Multi-Coloured Water monsters opened the door.
It took some time to get through the door. The thick layer of dirt behind it, coupled with very rusted hinges made it difficult to move, although the wind seemed to have no problem. It didn't open quite wide enough for them to fit through, and they had to bunch up their legs and squeeze through sideways. But finally, they were in the room.

It was very dark in the room. They could not see a thing. "Celia?" cried Barney in an exclamatory manner, not stopping to think that calling out was the perfect way to get discovered and captured. There was no reply. Celia was not in the room. But wait... what was that? A shadow was becoming clearer as their eyes adjusted. A darker square against the wall. Yes, it was a trapdoor. And it was open. Barney crept towards it.

They were forced to abandon their magnificent disguises here. An Immense Multi-Coloured Water-Monster had enough difficulty fitting through a normal door. There was no way it would fit through a trapdoor so much time was wasted in removing the costume. There were a surprising number of buckles and ties holding it up. Barney was so excited by the prospect of finding Celia that his hands trembled as he undid them. He slithered out at last and walked over to the trapdoor.

Now, we all know what a stupid idea it is to follow the evil kidnappers through a trapdoor. It's like standing with a noose around your neck and saying, "hey, you know what would be funny? You should pull the chair out from under me!" That is, of course, if you are saying that to a psychopathic murdering fiend, and not a normal person, because a normal person would certainly refuse to pull the chair out, and completely ruin the simile. However, Bsrney had very little experience with kidnappers, and his judgement was mildly impaired by his concer for his friend. But we will say it was bravery, for the purpose of the story, because bravery is much more admired than stupidity.

So Barney then did something extremely brave. He looked down the trapdoor. It was dark. He thoughy there were stairs, but couldn't be entirely sure. Tentatively, he lowered a foot into the whole (just asking for it to be bitten off by a crocodile). It was not bitten off. It touched a step. Barney stepped down through the hole in the floor.

The steps were rickety. They were made of old wood, long abandoned by the source of Barney's tree-phobia. Unluckily, the woodmen had been replaced by a particularly nasty type of bug whose favourite thing to do was chew through wood until it was just strong enough to hold a single, medium sized man. Barney was not medium sized. It was the first time he had ever been grateful for being small and twisty. Elfin, on the other hand, as has been previously mentioned, was large and hairy. When he stepped onto the staircase, the entire structure collapsed with the sound of a bulldozer crashing into a concrete wall and then falling off a cliff. And they fell.

A great deal of time seemed to pass between the first horrible feeling of unease that came when the staircase began to sway, and the tears and screams of pain as they hit the ground. Actually, not the ground, because they landed on top of the collapsed staircase, but that's not the point. It was a long way down. After that great deal of time had passed, they found themselves lying in the dark on a broken staircase, testing various limbs for breaks. And then, miraculously unharmed, they rose and struggled down the pile to the floor.

The collapsing staircase was the first step in the kidnappers' cunning and dastardly plan. They couldn't help feeling a bit aggrieved that it hadn't hurt their pursuers. But really, once they thought about it, it was more fun this way. Now they could watch the small twisty person and the large hairy person fight their way through several more booby traps, and all to no avail. The head kidnapper laughed an evil laugh. They would never find her now.