Aurelius and I (15 page)

This last remark had particularly grasped my attention. I was once again forced to ask myself what an eight-year-old human, protector or otherwise, was supposed to do in the face of the army of darkness that had apparently descended upon the forest. Before I was able to voice such thoughts however, the king continued with his speech...

“And just in case you were harbouring any thoughts of escape, you shall also be in the company of Brutas, our village’s head bodyguard. He’ll keep you in line.”

Brutas, who had, until that moment, been standing behind the king doing his best to look mean, appeared horrified at the suggestion that he might also be sent out of the protection of the village and into the clutches of the Tundrala. His already oversized eyes widened to three times their usual size and he could be visibly seen to be gulping for air.

“I don’t know that that would be such a good idea, your worship,” he said after a few seconds, his voice trembling. “What if the village were attacked? Without me here to organise our forces it would be a disaster, and we can’t be too careful with the presence of so many of The Professor’s men here in the forest.”

“An excellent observation, Brutas. That’s why I put you in charge, you always think of the village before yourself” agreed the king, without the slightest trace of irony. I thought to myself how strange it was, the way in which the wisdom of experience so often combined with the naivety of old age within the elderly. “Could you perhaps recommend an appropriate replacement to travel in your stead?”

As the cowardly warrior turned to select a member of the royal bodyguard that represented the village’s finest, bravest soldiers he found that all were just as cowardly as he, and had run off into the undergrowth to hide at the very suggestion of danger.

“Well,” said the king on noticing his army’s sudden absence, “it looks like you may have to go after all, Brutas.”

“But, my lord, I...”

“I will go.”

Brutas’s cowardly exacerbations were silenced by a voice from behind him. It was a strong voice, a confident voice, the voice of a true warrior. It was the voice of Princess Ophelia.

“Ophelia, my love, it is very brave of you to make such an offer, but I cannot allow it. You the last surviving heir to the throne, if anything were to happen to you there would be nobody to rule after I have passed.”

“But grandfather, you are always telling me that a good leader must have strong character, and that character can only be built through experiencing life’s trials and surviving - how am I to truly experience life if I am to be constantly shielded from it?”

“Well...”

“And in any case,” she continued before her grandfather’s elderly mind had time to process her argument and arrive at a suitable new excuse for her to remain with him, “you don’t seem to have any other options, given that we need Brutas to guard the village.” She spoke this last sentence in a sarcastic tone which betrayed her disapproval, while simultaneously shooting Brutas a look which made it clear that she had seen through his cowardice. A look he did his best not to see.

“Very well, my child, you may go,” sighed the king. “Brutas, hand her your sword.”

“But sir, this sword was given to me by my father before he died, it is the made from the sharpest and strongest metal, it is the best weapon our village has.”

“And that is precisely why Ophelia must have it, for it may well be that she herself will one day become the best weapon this village has, but that can only happen if she survives this journey.”

Brutas begrudgingly placed the sword in Ophelia’s hands. In addition to this she was handed a strange looking, bejewelled satchel by the king. “Here, you will need this, but use its contents wisely,” he warned. “And please be careful.”

“I will,” she promised.

The old man kissed his granddaughter’s head and, with tears brimming in his eyes, told her how proud he was of her. Then, turning to me he added, “Charlie, a great burden hangs upon your young shoulders now. You are not only the protector of this forest, but also of the royal legacy, I trust that you will have the courage and the conviction to guard both with your life.”

I nodded that I would, although inside my stomach churned at the thought of such a burden. My parents had only recently argued over whether I was responsible enough to walk the dog by myself and now it seemed that millions of lives were dependant on my success in a role that had been senselessly bestowed on me, a role I had no clue as to how to fulfil.

As our unlikely threesome left the village in search of trouble, I couldn’t help but wonder how fate had come to change my life so radically in such a short space of time. And whether it had made a mistake in doing so. I said nothing of this as we left the village, cheered on by hundreds of expectant fairies, and tried to portray an air of confidence whilst privately praying that the dragnor had been mistaken in his observations.

We had been walking for so long that the sky was starting to lighten as the night began its drawn-out but inevitable submission to the coming dawn. Due to my vastly superior size, I was, unsurprisingly, a good deal faster than my two companions and as a result it had been decided that each of them should travel about my person in order that we achieved maximum possible momentum toward our common destination – Ophelia sitting in the breast pocket of my shirt, while Grahndel looked out over my shoulder from his position in my backpack.

I had spent the majority of our journey silently pondering why I had agreed to come on such a trip, and how on earth I had convinced myself that deliberately seeking out danger in such a manner might help me to locate my missing dog. My two fellow travellers had, however, been far from silent – in fact they had bickered mercilessly from the first moment and, having been deprived of sleep for longer than at any previous point in my young life, I was beginning to lose my patience.

“I don’t care whether you’re royalty or ragamuffin, in my opinion a girl’s place is at home where she can be looked after, not out in the big wide forest where who knows what could happen to her, and certainly not on important and dangerous missions like this one,” Grahdel asserted, knowing full well his words would only serve to agrivate the princess. “Having females on the frontline makes warfare more dangerous for everybody, every dragnor knows that.”

“Well I’m no dragnor,” Ophelia snapped. “And I’m glad of that fact too if you’re anything to go by. How can you suggest that women don’t have the stomach for war when you yourself do everything in your power to shy away from any situation where there is the slightest chance that some harm may come to you? You’re only here now because you’re a prisoner.
My
prisoner.”

“Don’t be so ridiculous. I could have escaped a thousand times by now if I’d wanted to. I only remain because my warrior’s instinct will not allow me to shy away from conflict. I have no doubt our enemies shall quake in their boots when they hear that ‘The Destroyer’ has arrived, for they shall understand how one comes by such a name.”

“Er, let me guess, you picked it yourself because you thought people would be less likely to want to fight ‘Grahndel the Destroyer’ than ‘Grahndel the Surrenderer’?” retorted the tiny fairy. “I’m not scared of you; you may have my whole village fooled, but I see you for the coward you are, and so does Charlie, don’t you Charlie?”

I gave no answer, merely trying to ignore her whining.

“My dear girl, what you fail to understand is that more sophisticated warriors, such as Charles and myself, appreciate that a truly skilled fighter must always be aware of when the better option is to flee and regroup, isn’t that so, Charles?”

“JUST SHUT UP, BOTH OF YOU!” I yelled. “I’m sick and tired of your bickering. To be honest, I don’t particularly care what you two think about anything. I don’t even really care whether Captain Blackheart is or isn’t here. All I really care about is finding my Carpet Dragon... I mean Sabre-toothed Fletchling... I mean dog.”

My outburst was followed by silence, the kind of silence that comes from a mixture of shock and embarrassment, like when your teacher tells you off for talking and makes you look like an idiot in front of the whole class and you get really angry because, even though you just want to smack them one for embarrassing you, deep down you know that they’re right and really the one who has embarrassed you is you.

It was Ophelia who was the first to speak again.

“I’m sorry about you’re carpet dragon,” she said. “I know you must be very worried about him. I know how worried I was when my parents first went missing, I was worried I’d never see them again.”

“Thank you for your concern,” I replied, feeling somewhat guilty that I had taken my emotions at having lost a pet for a few hours upon somebody who had lost their parents for much longer. “How long have your parents been gone for?”

“I was just a child when it happened” she replied in a dejected voice, before quickly adding; “Oh, but I’m sure we’ll find your carpet dragon much more quickly!”

“I hope so,” I said. “So what happened to your parents, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It was many, many moons ago - our village was not what it is now. It was not built upon stilts back then, but based upon the very floor of the forest. It was a much larger, and more developed community than the one you saw today. There were countless different craftsmen and entertainers and dozens of large, and beautifully crafted buildings where people could meet to eat, or to drink, or to dance. There was even a palace.

“Then, one day, there was a great flood and everything we had built was destroyed. At first we had ignored the rain, merely sheltering from it inside our homes, lighting fires and telling stories to keep out the cold; after all, we fairies have always lived in this forest, so it was not as though rain was a stranger to us. But this rain was different. It fell more violently than any other rain had ever done and it was relentless in its attack. It just kept coming.

“After a time our great civilisation began to crumble under the weight of the water and we were forced to seek shelter in the trees. For many fairies though, it was already too late; they were washed away by the tremendous waters, never to be seen again. Even those who made it to the trees found life to be a difficult and dangerous experience. Food was scarce, and we were forced to risk life and limb in obtaining what little there was available. On top of this, many of the larger birds who inhabited the treetops saw us fairies to be their own source of sustenance.

“Unable to allow himself to stand by and do nothing while his subjects lived in such misery, my father, who had recently been made king of the village by my grandfather’s abdication, took it upon himself to find a knew home in which his people would be able to live in safety.

“Taking with him the village’s best warriors and craftsmen, he fashioned a sailing vessel from some of the discarded human creations that he found floating in the flood waters and set sail for new horizons.

“My mother had made it known to him that it was a plan she greatly disapproved of. She loved my father very much and begged him to stay with her and I and wait for the flood waters to rescind. When he refused, she beseeched him that he allow us to come too, but he had insisted that such a mission was far too dangerous for a woman to undertake, much less a child. He told her not to worry and promised us to be back within three moons. It was the first promise he ever broke.

“After more than a dozen moons had passed, my mother could take the anguish of waiting no longer, and so set off in her own boat, with her own accompaniment of warriors, in search of my father. That was the last I ever saw of either of my parents.

“Eventually the flood waters rescinded and many unsuccessful searches were made for my parents and their crews. In the meantime we had rebuilt our village on the very same spot upon which it had already stood, only higher up. Some of the more influential figures within the community had pressed the idea of leaving our current location in search of new, less flood-worthy lands, but my grandfather had refused to even consider such suggestions, for he knew that, if his daughter and her husband were still alive, his only chance of being reunited with them was to stay where he was and patiently await their return. We have thus far been waiting for more than half of my life.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said, feeling guilty that I had ever shouted.

“Don’t be,” she replied, forcing a smile. “I’m a fighter, just like my parents taught me to be, and I’m going to find them one day, you mark my words.”

“But how do you even know their alive?” Grahndel asked, callously.

“I just know,” the princess snapped. “I can feel it. It’s just instinctive. Just like I knew Charlie wasn’t like the other humans.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Why is it that you, or any other magical creature I’ve come across for that matter, has not been remotely scared that the human they are face to face with might put them in a jar and sell them to a museum? Do you guys have some sort of internal radar that lets you know that I am a Protector or something?”

“You’re a protector?!” Ophelia asked, a look of shock usurping her tiny features.

“Really? You’re kidding me?” said an equally stunned Grahndel. “Wow, a real live Protector, here, in our forest. Who’d have thought it. I’m so sorry about trying to burn you to a crisp earlier, I never would have done so had I had any inkling of your stature.”