crispina kemp

Continuing the story of Thredwyl’s adventure. Read it all FOR FREE on Thredwyl’s very own site

* * *

Thredwyl would rather the door to Professor Angelus Margev’s inner sanctum was left open, if only a crack, lest he needed to run. Except, where exactly would he run to? There was no escape from the professor’s apartment, its outer doors closed, their latches and locks well out of Thredwyl’s reach, even on tiptoes. Yet to leave the door open at least allowed him to reach the relative safety of Daisy – if he needed.

If he needed? Aye, he didn’t know what the professor intended in coaxing him into this place, alone, without Daisy, but Thredwyl didn’t trust him.

“You may close the door,” the professor said.

“I’d rather it’s open. The draught, the air – my chest.” Thredwyl forced a cough, though in truth this inner sanctum was less heavy with incense than the previous room, the professor’s study – the study where Daisy was trawling the intranet, whatever that was, hunting for folklore references to the gobelings, or the Kupies as Thredwyl knew them.

“I said close it,” the professor repeated and, without rising from the seat he’d already taken, the door behind Thredwyl whispered shut, the only sound the click of its catch. “These old places, so draughty.”

How now was Thredwyl to escape? He looked at the cram of furniture, more like a storeroom than a place for sitting. Chests tall, wide and low, tables large and small, chairs of several designs and repair. None sat flat on the floor, all had legs. With a fleet smile, Thredwyl acknowledged the plethora of hiding places here. He heaved a breath and let it go. He felt more confident now.

“Well,” the professor said in impatient tone, “are you to stand at that door, or are you to venture further in? Come, I’ll help you on to a chair.”

Thredwyl quirked his mouth, an appraising eye cast at those seats. To sit was comfier than to stand, and he’d be able to slip down easy enough and run. And run to where? To beneath any of these high-legged pieces of furniture of course. Thredwyl nodded assent, eyes scanning for what looked the comfiest.

“That one,” he said, and walked towards his chosen chair, a deep cushioned seat with wrapped around sides. It was near to that crystal wall that they’d called a window. Beyond was a garden, all colourful around a patch of green. “Might we open that window?” Thredwyl tapped on his chest, he really was poorly.

And the fool of a professor agreed it. He scooped Thredwyl up and onto the chair – gently done – and in a continuation of movement, he opened the window.

Thredwyl sighed, “Oh, much better.” Genuinely said, for if he must he could now jump out of the window.

Professor Angelus Margev didn’t immediately sit but first fiddled with Thredwyl’s full-skirted coat. “Not silk or satin. Not woven at all. And the breeches – if I might.”

“Nix, you might NOT!” Thredwyl slapped the interfering hand away.

“As you will…” The professor sat, taking the chair nearest the door.

“And what do you want us to talk about?” Thredwyl might be vertically challenged – a phrase learned from Daisy – but he’d not allow this professor, who anyway reeked of lies and disguises, to grand it over him. Nix and nay, he would not.

“We might start with Grandma,” said the professor. “How is she these days? Quietly retired now her acts of creations are done?”

“Gran…retired? What do you know about the Great Grandma?” Thredwyl frowned hard at the professor. Grandma’s misnamed acts of creations were far from done. In truth, there’d been but the one act and, according to the jawman at the Mother’s Meeting, that one was still slowly unfolding.

Thredwyl felt a little uneasy at the smile that crept across Professor Angelus Margev’s deeply graved face. “As I understand it, my Lord rolled her into a cloak, no more to create. For is it not my Lord, now, who is this world’s sole creator?”

“Er?” What the crazies was the professor talking about? “I know nothing about your lord. And none but the Great Grandma is our world’s creator. She’d smite your arse, she would, if she heard you say that.”

“And my Lord would smite you, and consign you to Hell, and shrivel you to a crisp, if He heard you say that,” the professor returned.

Thredwyl jumped to his feet, though his balance was iffy, stood as he was on the deep cushion. But he wouldn’t sit still for that kind of talk. Though he did admit to himself, much of what the professor said had slipped straight over his head. “And who is your lord?”

“My Lord,” the professor blustered. “He Of The Unspeakable Name.”

“Ah.” Now it clunked into place what the professor might be about. But was it a wonder at first it had left Thredwyl dumbfounded. That was a story terrifically old. “But you have it all upside down. It was Grandma drew that cloak over herself, saying she’d have no more truck with that upstart, that pipsqueak, that jumped-up gault. We thought him dead, so long with no tale told.” That’s what the jawman had said; he’d said few jawmen cared to tell it now for it only yielded him disinterested yawns.

“Pip…jumped…? And do sit on that chair, not stand there with your dirty feet. And dead? DEAD! My Lord is not dead. He appointed me to watch over this…this, his creation.”

“His?”

This Land of Giants wasn’t a place outside of Grandma’s Magnificent Unfolding Creation – two could play at that Capitalising Game. This Land of Giants was merely the upper storey to the three Dol-lands. The attic above the attic, so to speak. A lately-come sort of addition, a post-diluvian loft conversion.

With no thought of obeying the professor, Thredwyl dropped to his bottom, landing with a little bounce upon the deep cushion. He needed to think more on this. He repeated the jawman’s tale in his head. Grandma’s act of creation continued unfolding after she’d created the Kupies, the Nixies, and the Fernamon from the Three Strands of Rock, Water and Fire. She then ventured into more complex forms. But she didn’t always get it right, and over the eons there had been many a terrible creature made by mistake. Yet in the end, she found a way to combine all the qualities of the first three tribes and these complex forms she called Man and His Kind. But they were unruly, aggressive, not very intelligent, so she confined them to this, the attic’s attic, saying there they must stay until they had learned to be kind to their Kind.

All very well, but then had come that upstart, that pipsqueak, that jumped-up gault.

But that must have been after the Giants (Man and His Kind) had named the stars, for that’s where Grandma had long ago been born.

That jumped-up gault arrived in a great flash of light, rumbling his jealous commands across the sky.

Aye, the sky, thunder, lightning, all features not known to the first tribes.

“Upstart,” Thredwyl said. “Your lord-with-the-unspeakable-name is a fraud.”

There, he had said what hadn’t been said since Grandma drew her cloak over their heads, so they’d no more be troubled by all that squittery-jittery nonsense.

Aye, Grandma had thrown it over them, not this professor’s nameless lord.

Thredwyl stood again on the chair, fists now shoved into his hips, hard and challenging.

The professor wasn’t unmoved; his face turned decidedly red. “With just one word I could have you grovelling at my feet, begging for me to keep quiet of this.”

“Oh, aye?” Thredwyl challenged. Did the professor have that particular magic?

As the professor began to smile in gloatish fashion so the skin on his face began to change. It plumped-out. The graven lines of age disappeared. He stood taller. That shock of white hair fell now like a wondrous bright light around the professor’s shoulders and down to his waist.

By the Scruffy Fringe of Grandma’s Grimy Knickers, Thredwyl had been right, this professor was not as he first appeared. Where had been a person aged now stood a being most-perfect. And if there was one thing Thredwyl disliked above all else, it was perfection. A perfect façade too likely hid a nasty innard. Besides, perfection rankled him, a reminder of his long-ago accident that left him physically marred. He turned his head so as not to see.

“Does sweet little Daisy know what secrets you hold?” asked Professor Angelus, self-proclaimed servant of the jumped-up dictator, devious deceitful guardian of Man and his Kind.

“And does Daisy know what secrets you hold?” Thredwyl asked in return.

Continuing the story of Thredwyl’s adventure. Read it all FOR FREE on Thredwyl’s very own site

* * *

Thredwyl, a creature of the deepest caves, from the widest caverns to the tiniest bone-constricting cubbies, needed no light to feel safe. Yet the darkness that now engulfed him in Daisy’s school bag rubbed him sore. And the smell! What had Daisy been putting in here?

She hadn’t explained about the distance. Aye, she had said five miles, and that was by bus. But what was five miles to him? And she hadn’t explained about the near-enough mile she had to walk first, ‘cos, as she explained while they waited at the bus stop, Oldham House – the Doleys’ five storied Georgian abode – wasn’t in the ruffing village served by that bus. Jiggledy-jig, jaggedly-jog, he feared his teeth might be jolted loose as she half-strode half-jogged down the connecting lane. And then that interminable wait. Couldn’t she open her school bag a jot to let in some air? Did she really fear he would stick his head out and alarm the oldsters of Oldham? All Thredwyl wanted was a small gap so he could breathe.

At least now the worst of his journey was over. They were close to destination. How did he know? Not from any constant – nor occasional – report from her. She hadn’t spoken to him once since they boarded the bus. No, it was the difference in her step and how it jarred through his body. She was no longer walking on a hard surface, but on what, in saying of Oldham House, she had referred to as a ‘lawn’. A green springy open place with a nice integral smell. So why didn’t she let him out of this bag, so he could enjoy it?

The lawn gave way again to hardness, followed by a distinct coolness. Within a short span the jolt-and-jar, which had tortured his body, ceased. He heard a sharp rap, though as with the other noises he’d heard since she’d zipped him into here, it was muffled. A knock, but not the familiar hammer on stone.

Moments passed during which, in the stillness, Thredwyl began to recover his equilibrium. At least, he didn’t feel so bilious, and his muscles began to loosen and unknot. Then his transporter, Young Daisy, grown impatient, began to shuffle from foot to foot – or so Thredwyl guessed from the rhythmic jostle. He puffed out an irritated sigh and tried very hard not to clench his teeth.

Ah, at last, a response. He heard the (muffled) creak of an old door opening.

“Daisy, Daisy Doley!” exclaimed a deep rumblesome voice. Professor Angelus Margev, it must be. “But what are you doing here, out of term and on a Saturday? It can’t be homework to do. A summer project perhaps? But no mind, you find me alone. Do come in.”

The temperature inside Daisy’s school bag suddenly dropped, and what little Thredwyl could smell of the external environment – beyond the nauseating whiff of the bag – changed from fresh to cloying. This was a new smell to Thredwyl, slightly reminiscent of Fleur’s wicked perfume. Thick, sweet, and – Thredwyl grimaced – acrid.

“And what work have you for us today?” said the rumbling voice of Professor Angelus Margev. “I know I said my computer was yours to use, but a text or a call is always polite. I could have been otherwise involved, don’t you know.”

“I…” Daisy sounded stunned, like this wasn’t the usual greeting. “I wanted to surprise you. I’ve an astounding discovery I think you’ll like.”

“A discovery is it? Then you must follow me through to my study,” Professor Angelus Margev said.

And I must come out of this bag. But first she had to set that bag down on the ground. “Woah-there, watch my bones.”

He waited, holding hard to his patience, while she unzipped the bag.

The relief that flooded Thredwyl was more total than peeing after having held it too long. Light, blessed light. And air. He took a deep draught – and choked on the sweet acrid smoke that hung thick in the air.

Daisy, seeming impatient to display him, grasped him tightly around his waist and heaved him out of the bag, never mind waiting for his lungs to settle. She set him down on the floor.

“Stay,” she said, as if she were Fleur commanding Helas the Hound.

With hand to mouth and narrowed eyes, Professor Angelus Margev peered down at him. But that wasn’t close enough. He dropped to a chair, all fancily styled with bits wrapping around, and strained forward.

Thredwyl turned, not to cough in the professor’s face.

“I’ll open the window,” Professor Angelus Margev said and signed for Daisy to do it. “It’s the incense, Good Fellow, nothing illegal, nothing. My, but you are a surprise.”

“You know what he is?” Window opened, Daisy took the chair beside Thredwyl, who having finally stopped coughing, stretched and eased his cramped muscles.

“He’s for real, too.” Professor Angelus Margev peered even closer. “My but I’ve not seen one of these since…since…since. They used to be commonly seen, you know, in the mines, even after the Church forbade trucking with them. The burgeoning scientists claimed them hallucinations – illusions, delusions. That’s what they said. And the little fellows never did talk. Or if they did none reported it. No, I thought them all gone from this world. Well well well, an actual gobeling.”

“A gobeling?” Daisy said. “Don’t you mean goblin?”

Beside her on the floor, Thredwyl shuddered. That was a name not heard in Dolstone for nigh on an eon.

“Goblin, gobeling, same thing. Kobold, Kofey, Cuppy, Cubbie, all the same word. Remember what I said of the slide of ‘gee’ to ‘cee’, and sometimes back again. And ditto the indistinction of ‘pee’ and ‘bee’. The name is old, very old. It means—”

“Dweller of the caves,” Thredwyl cut in.

“Indeed, the cubby-dweller. And he speaks.” Professor Angelus Margev seemed to glow, but improbably…darkly.

There was something of this professor that Thredwyl didn’t like. There seemed to be some untruth about him, but Thredwyl couldn’t see what. He seemed as old as Daisy had said. And yet he did not. An old Nixies’ saying sprang to mind: Whitened hair and wrinkled flesh an aged chappie does not mesh. According to his cousin Chrean, who claimed himself wiser by an aeon, the saying referred to the lust the staid old Stones often retained. But Thredwyl was sure lust wasn’t the problem here. No, though Thredwyl admitted he didn’t know how age affected these Giants, perhaps somehow different to how it manifested amongst the Nixies and Kupies, yet something other seemed wrong. That shock of white hair, those deep graven wrinkles, yet no trembling hands. Thredwyl did not trust him. When the professor held out his hand Thredwyl backed away.

“Daisy,” Professor Angelus Margev waved that same hand at her. “Why don’t you make us all a nice cup of tea and take it through to my inner sanctum. Then you can return here and delve into our intranet to your heart’s content and find all you can on the folklore on kopies and cublings while your friend and I have a…yes a chat.”

“But….” That wasn’t what Daisy wanted. “We were hoping you’d know a way of….” Her voice trailed to silence beneath the look the professor shot at her.

“Daisy thought you might know a way of sending me home,” Thredwyl said. Then wished he had not.

“Oh yes, I’ve a way,” Professor Angelus Margev chuckled.

The words, the chuckle, the look: Thredwyl couldn’t deny there was something…evil…about the professor.

“Oh yes, I’ve a way,” the professor repeated. “And one that must be executed without much delay. But first, that chat, hey?”

Thredwyl didn’t like the sound of that. That professor knew slightly too much. And the curve of his lips when he said of knowing a way to send him back. Crushed, was that his intent? Crushed, as were the Stones in a mine? Oh, Grandma, what did I do when I stole that spell from you?

He didn’t yet know what the trouble, but he knew that it brewed.