crispina kemp

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

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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.