We Have One Chance... To Get Everything Right

A story for you.

Breathless with the excitement that only elevenses can create, Timothy opened the jar, expecting it to be filled with warm, golden peanut butter. It was, up to a point, but as he dug in his knife it hit something that was decidedly un-peanut-like.

Timothy frowned with his face and scooped with his knife (for to frown with his knife and scoop with his face would have been an altogether silly way to react), revealing what could only be described as a very tiny bird, covered in peanut butter.

This was unexpected, and so Timothy jumped, inadvertently dropping his knife on the worktop with a metallic ‘spang’.

The tiny bird coughed crossly, and got to its feet.

Timothy watched in awe as the tiny bird hopped clumsily across the counter, heading in the general direction of the sink. Once there, it hurled itself into the empty basin with a ‘plop’, and looked up at him expectantly.

“Oh,” said Timothy, somewhat slow on the uptake as was his wont, “you want a wash?”

The bird rolled its eyes as if to say, “duh,” which was quite impressive for a bird, and inclined its tiny head in affirmation.

Very gently, Timothy turned the tap to the 'on' position.

Extremely gingerly, he squeezed a drop of washing up liquid onto his thumb, rubbing the teeny tiny bird’s head to create a washing up liquid / peanut butter lather.

Utterly softly, he attempted to rinse the soapy mixture from the tiny, delicate wings.

“TIMOTHY!” bellowed a voice from the doorway, “HELP ME BRING THE SHOPPING IN FROM THE CAR!”

Seriously slowly, Timothy looked down to his hands, which he had involuntarily clenched into fists at the shock of the sudden noise.

All he could see was a mess of soap and peanut butter. One solitary feather was the only evidence of the un-peanut-like visitor. And poor young Timothy, never saw anything magical again.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Full chapter list here.

Morning had officially broken over The Facility.

“Tim and Al are here today to talk about their quest for a magic amulet,” Jeremy Kyle announced to camera.

Almost immediately upon his arrival and ages before they had time to object, he had led them through a maze of twisting corridors to a room that turned out to be the set of his popular daytime television talk show. They were now seated on uncomfortable chairs in front of an audience of ragamuffins and ne’er do wells, none of whom had anything of interest or value to say. They were totally loyal to Jeremy Kyle, and would defend him to the death if the need ever arose. He rewarded their devotion with signed photographs and free plastic tumblers of weak tea on the regular occasions when the heating broke.

“OooOooOoo,” the audience trilled in unison, which was a little unnerving.

“Why don’t you start us off, Tim?” Sir Jez suggested. “Tell us a bit about the amulet and what you want it for.”

“Oh, I don’t want it for my own personal use,” Tim said hastily, “I was trying to get hold of it before it fell into the hands of evil doers who would use its power for- well, for evil. And actually, I’m not even sure whether it’s me who was chosen to do it.”

“The prophecy is quite vague,” Al interjected helpfully, “it could just as easily be about me, or about that guy over there.” He pointed to a youngish man sitting a few rows back, who was of moderate good looks and possessed a full head of fair hair.

“It’s definitely not me,” the young man squeaked defensively, “I done quest duty last year. Fought a Lesser Spotted Snodrog and everything.”

“OooOooOoo,” the audience chorused obediently, although nary a one of them had the first idea what a Lesser Spotted Snodrog was.

“Really,” Tim said, “a fully grown one?”

“Not quite,” the audience member admitted, “it was a three quarter length one. But I sorted it right out.”

“Well good for you,” Tim said in what he hoped was an encouraging way rather than a patronizing one.

“Cheers mate.”

“Alright,” Jeremy shouted across them all, “alright, calm down, it is MY SHOW you know everyone, it’s called the JEREMY KYLE show, the name’s written on the wall and everything.”

“Yeah but in Comic Sans though Jez,” an overly familiar runner spoke up in an apparently temporary fit of madness.

“What did you say?” he fumed, his face turning the vibrant reddy colour of juice in a beetroot jar.

“Nothing,” the techie replied, “what? Did you say somefink Mr Kyle? Only I couldn’t hear you if you did….”

“You were making snidey comments about my font choice again, weren’t you?”

“No Mr Kyle,” he replied, “indeed I was not! The very idea is repellant to me!”

“Comic Sans,” Jeremy explained through gritted teeth, “enables me to appear young and fun, rather than the greying ball buster that TV sometimes makes me out to be. Comic Sans is the most empathetic font that there is.”

“Yes sir, Mr Jeremy, Lord Kyle, sir,” said a waitress, who shouldn’t even have been there. His anger was such that it made even innocent bystanders feel compelled to apologise for behaviour they hadn’t engaged in.

“That’s alright,” he told her condescendingly, “I’ll let you off. This time.”

“Thank you sir, you’re very kind sir,” she curtsied mimsily, backing away – although how she managed to do both of these things from her position of seated in the back row of the studio crematorium was a mystery, and would remain so for a long time.

“Anyhoo,” Kyle coughed, remembering the matter at hand as though it were a first idea goldmine. “This amulet. Where is it now?”

“Inside that dog,” Al said innocently, pointing at the dog.

Tim rolled his eyes.

“Way to announce it on national telly,” he said without moving his lips. “Now everyone and his great auntie Nellie knows where the bloody thing is. If that mutt makes it out of this place alive it’ll be a bloody miracle.”

Brian the dog whined mournfully. He was unable to link to everyone in the room telepathically, it would have been too much mental effort and he was very tired from the effort of holding in the amulet till he got to his masters.

“And what does it do?” Jeremy inquired, as if he hadn’t been keeping up with other parts of the story at all.

“We are not at liberty to discuss that information,” Al said in an attempt to redeem himself after his earlier faux pas.

“This is a talk show,” Jeremy Kyle said impatiently, “therefore people are expected to talk.”

“Well you never gave us the option of not being on your stupid show,” Al pointed out, “you offered to help us out and then brought us down here, to the cold and wet of your terrible studio.”

Jezza was incensed.

“How dare you call the program stupid?” He raged, “how dare you? It’s as intelligent and empathetic as a show can be.”

“In what way?”

“I try to help people!”

“You’re about as helpful to people as Bargain Hunt.”

Kyle thought about this for a second. He decided it was impossible to gauge what that meant. Different things to different people, most likely.

“Why don’t you stick to what you’re good at,” Al suggested, his hackles aroused. “Shout at some schemey single mums or something.”

“What a good idea,” Jeremy said with a sly grin. “Who wants to meet one of the worst mums they’ve ever seen?” He turned to the audience to enquire.

There was a cacophonous roar of applause, which he took as an encouraging sign.

“Great,” he said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, “right. Please welcome to the stage… Bracken Lee McCracken!”

Chapter Twenty Three

A chapter featuring Adric. Happy 47th, Doctor Who... As ever, links to previous parts can be located here.


Adric felt for his bow tie on the bedside table only for his fingers to grasp dry, empty air.

"I'm not at home," he said groggily.

He tried to sit up, and gasped in pain. This reminded him about the incident with The Gang Who Must Not Be named, the gun, and the shower of broken glass that had mostly ended up implanted in various of his limbs.

"But," he said thoughtfully to the room, "this isn't the hospital either. That would be a bit lighter, and I could hear people coughing and making other ill noises from other rooms. And a nurse would have heard me talking by now, due to my lack of volume control, and they would have come through and told me to keep it down for goodness sake."

He considered.

"A nurse!" he remembered suddenly. "That nurse last night wasn't a real nurse! She was an un-nurse!”

Adric was flabbergasted that he hadn’t realized this right away. It was so obvious!

“She's orchestrated my removal from the hospital...” he pieced it together in his mind. “And she made sure Tim was out of the way before she did it! That means she must know something about his history and thought it wasn't worth the hassle of involving him. He always saves the day."

Adric allowed himself a minute or two for a brief montage of Tim running around battling things and selflessly saving people from mortal peril. For some reason the soundtrack was the Saturdays, whom he did not much care for. But on the plus side, Tim was wearing some rather delightfully figure hugging jeans.

However, now was not the time for introspection or even flights of fancy. It was time for action.

With difficulty, Adric sat up and swung his legs - perfectly honed from years of badminton - over the edge of the bed. His bare feet met cold linoleum with a grimace.

He stood up, wobbling slightly, and moved forward through the dark. His plan was to keep going until he found a wall - simple but effective, you'll probably agree, assuming that you’ve been paying attention. It worked for Nicky and Bracken, after all. They found the door almost instantly.

The only trouble in this particular case was that Adric still had a piece of glass from the accident in his left ear which the hospital had missed, and it was affecting his balance in the negative. He was favouring his left side, essentially walking not in a straight line, but a sharply curved one. The end result was that he went round and round in circles.

This would have looked hilarious to any guards observing him through the highly expensive night vision cameras installed in all the rooms, but fortunately for Adric's dignity they were all engaged elsewhere. Unfortunately for his health, all the circling made him so dizzy and confused that he eventually fell over, and lay in a hospital-gowned heap on the floor.

"Timothy," he whispered uselessly, before his eyes closed and he fell into darkness once more.

* * *

Timothy, the man himself, had not really left when the so called nurse had told him to. Years of questing had instilled in him a perpetual sense of suspicion – although he liked to call it curiosity - and mistrust of all authority figures. This sometimes got him into scrapes but on this occasion was well justified.

After apparently leaving, Tim hid behind the bins to see what the 'nurse' - 'if she's a nurse then I'm a hedgehog sailor,' thought Tim grimly - would do next.

Sure enough, she gave Adric a jag, failing to warn him beforehand or give him a sweetie afterward as a real nursing professional would have done. Another clue was the way she plunged the syringe – full of a highly suspect green liquid - into his side like a person more used to stabbing people up might do, rather than in the manner of one who is looking for a vein in an arm or other limb.

She was then joined by someone in two balaclavas (for extra mystery) who helped her lift Adric's ungainly frame into a waiting vehicle.

Tim was formulating a rescue plan when he felt warm breath on his ear, and turned to see three figures in black, all wearing the designated two balaclavas too.

"Who are you," he inquired, engaging them all in combat at once. Tim had learned some sweet martial arts moves on a quest involving a lot of Ming, he knew swordplay from a time travelling one where he'd met king Arthur, and he knew how to rumble from watching Westside Story 38 times.

"Who do you work for?" he continued, lightly maiming one of them in the arm.

The heavies failed to answer, even in quip format. They just kept coming at him, wordless and powerful.

"Alright," Tim said, "you lot are the strong but silent type. I can appreciate that. Not really my cup of tea, but whatever."

Without any of them realizing what was happening, he tied two of them together using their own shoelaces, which was his signature move.

"Your move, El Nombre," he said to the third and biggest guy.

El Nombre paused.

"How did you know my name?" he asked, which was arguably rather foolish given that it could have been a bluff, in which case he would have given away his identity for no reason.

"We've met before," Tim explained, "don't you remember? We teamed up with a dwarf to defeat an evil wizard who had taken over your village and forced your mother to marry him."

"Tim?!" El Nombre squawked incredulously, "oh my god, I totally did not recognise you! It's been what, five, six years? How have you been?"

"Oh you know, doing away," Tim replied. "What about you, you're on the side of evil now? What's going on there? You were a freedom fighter when I saw you last!"

"It was inevitable really," El Nombre explained, removing the top balaclava with a practiced flourish. "given the events that ensued after you left."

"But Micky Chinnigan was dead! The village was saved!"

"Wizard Chinnigan wasn't dead," El Nombre shook his head emphatically. "You may remember I made a joke about the fact that we never saw the body, so he would probably return, like in one of your soap operas."

"But he was in a burning building that exploded to the ground! It melted all our beards clean off! Nobody could survive that!"

"Well maybe he did an illusion and we only thought he was in there. Whatever happened, he certainly wasn’t dead.

He returned one day when I was at Market and burned my home to the ground, my wife and mother trapped inside. I still hear their dying screams as I returned on Joel, my aging donkey. If only he had gone faster, perhaps I might have saved them... But no, it is not the fault of Joel. He did all he could, helping carry the bucket of water to put out the flames like a trooper."

"Then what happened? Did you swear you would have your vengeance?"

"I did. But Chinnigan was long gone. His diabolical laughter echoed around the village for the rest of the night and much of the following day, but I could not follow the trail. It was fragmented into giggles and cackles that flew every which way on the autumn wind."

"So you became a mercenary?"

"I did."

"What better way to discover your evil doer than by networking with other evil doers yourself."

"Quite. I was not about to let him get away with his crime."

"So what happened then?"

"I knocked about doing petty work for a little while," El Nombre rumbled, "then I travelled north to Peru. I saw on Chilean Gumtree website that there was some mercenary work going on there. That is how I came to be with my current employers."

"The clan of the cape."

"I couldn’t possibly comment on the identity of my employer, señor."

"No," Tim agreed, "of course not."

They scuffed their feet against the ground awkwardly for a while, like young children in the school playground whose mums have told them they have to play together.

"So have you been instructed to fight to the death, or incapacitate, or what?"

“‘Despatch’ was the word used, if I remember correctly. ‘By any means necessary.’"

"I thought as much. What would you say to taking me alive? I'm rather interested in this clan of the cape, and if I'm not very much mistaken then they have taken my partner prisoner."

"Why?"

El Nombre clearly hadn’t clicked that the partner in question was the very person he himself was helping to kidnap.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Tim said, "but I would like to find out. You can kill me afterwards, if you like?"

"Its nothing personal," El Nombre asserted, "it's a contractual obligation merely."

"of course as a mercenary," Tim began,

"I can be as cut throat as I wish," El Nombre continued, "yes, I am aware of that. But I have my sense of honour to consider."

"You consider it honourable to kill an old friend for money?"

"I consider it honourable to finish the job I am paid to do."

"Surely the clan of the cape didn't say anything so specific as 'kill Timothy Mahogany-Barnes if you get the chance'? I would imagine their instructions to be a lot more vague. 'Despatch anyone who gets in our way by any means necessary,' or something like that.”

El Nombre looked uncomfortable.

“Well I mean technically I wasnt really in your way, was I? In fact I was rather out of your way. I was hiding behind a bin, for crying out loud."

"Spying on our highly secret activities," El Nombre pointed out.

"The natural response of the seasoned adventurer," Tim reasoned, "you must empathise with that?"

El Nombre studied him carefully.

"Oh what the hell," he said, "come on then, let me 'take you alive'. I can't promise you'll stay that way once we get there, though."

"No no, of course not," Tim grinned in elation, "cheers for this mate."

"Not at all," El Nombre replied, tying his hands behind his back with a loose knot.

"Taking this guy alive," he told one of his colleagues, manhandling Tim roughly into the back of a black car with tinted windows. "He took the others out. I think that certain members of the facility might like to extract that feeling of smugness to teach him a lesson."

El Nombre's companion grunted disinterested assent. He was thinking about the sausages he was going to have for his tea. He'd been looking forward to those sausages all day. Mmm, sausages.

Tim gave El a nod of thanks, and put his head down so as not to draw any more attention to himself than was necessary. Adric was in the car in front, and he couldn't afford not to be awake to see where they were going.

"Oh no you don't," El said gruffly, tying a blindfold around his eyes.

But it was made of chiffon, and Tim could see through.

“Thanks again mate,” he whispered, barely audible above the car’s 80 gigawatt engine.

“No problem,” El replied, without moving his lips or opening his mouth. “Now shut up.”

And so, as part of a convoy, Adric and Tim moved towards the mysterious facility where almost everyone else mentioned in the story was being held.

Chapter Twenty Two

I have broken 40k! Exciting times. This is a shorter chapter than the rest to celebrate. Chapters 1-21 here.

Aloysius was lost.

Not that he’d known where he was going in the first place, but now he knew even less. The majestic mountains had looked pretty large from a distance, but now he had reached them they turned out to be two dimensional cut outs placed at right angles to form the walls of a fiendishly difficult maze.

He suspected that the amulet was at the centre, partly because the crudely drawn scribble on the scroll included a bunch of squiggles with the word ‘amulet’ written in a circle in the middle, and partly because the bag lady who wasn’t really a bag lady had told him in a sonorous voice,

“Go to the middle of the maze in the majestic mountains and there you will find that which you seek.”

That which he sought was of course the amulet – it wasn’t rocket science, really.

Al squatted down on his heels awhile, to check whether things were any clearer from a lower perspective. That and he was feeling a bit tired. The huge purple mountains on their wooden bases gazed back at him, impervious to his ninja examination skills.

“Hmm,” he said to himself, standing up too quickly and getting a head rush for his trouble.

It was then that he heard the siren song of the amulet for the first time.

The sound pierced his heart like an arrow tipped with a delicious cherry flavoured poison, echoing around his brain like the ghost of a love never spoken out loud. It was one part the best song you ever heard; one part the sweetest voice you’ll ever know; two parts the truest joy you’ve ever experienced, and a just a dash of the bitterest pain imaginable. The Skinny gave it five stars, and promptly exploded from the excitement of it all.

Without knowing he was doing it, Al moved towards the sound, like sailors of yore being lured to the rocky shores of the sirens’ island. And him with a classical education as well. How humiliating.

He followed it left and right and left and right then straight on then right, right, left, straight, and so on, till eventually he was at the central point of the maze which had eluded him for nearly half an hour. The space was littered with skeletons, people made of stone, and other horrific evidence that the amulet was not to be trusted.

However, the jewel itself was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s making the noise then,” he wondered aloud, looking around him to see what he could see.

In the furthest away corner he could just make out a rather lovely collie dog, lying asleep in a wicker basket. Al wasn’t sure at first, but as he approached he thought that the sound was definitely emanating from the pooch.

He was torn. Should he wake the sleeping animal, which was having one of those dreams where it was chasing something – a cat, most likely, or possibly a squirrel – and seemed quite content? Or should he wait until it woke up on its own? Who knew how long that would be, dogs are notoriously heavy sleepers. Even a fire alarm at 4am won’t rouse them from their slumber.

In the end, he was saved, because the dog woke up of its own volition.

“Hello there,” Al said, “is it you who’s been doing that strange and beautiful singing?”

“Yes,” said the dog, who could talk, “but it’s not because I want to. I ate something that disagreed with me, and now I can talk and dance and I can’t stop this constant blasted singing.”

“Oh,” Al replied, “I am sorry to hear that. What was it that you ate that has affected you so?”

Of course Al had his theories about what the dog must have eaten to be so transformed, but it would have been bad manners not to allow it this opportunity to hold forth on its woes. It may have been suffering in this way for years without ever having the chance to vent its frustrations, and Al was experienced enough in the ways of being alive to know that this was a dangerous way to live.

“I’m not sure,” the collie dog began slyly, “for I eat a lot of things. At first I wondered if it was a shoe I took from one of those bodies, but I’ve chewed on hundreds of shoes like it before and never had a problem. Then I wondered whether perhaps it was the old eggs I took from a nest that had fallen from a tree in the forest on the other side of the island. But they were too foul smelling and sulphuric to be the source of this strange and beautiful gift of mine.”

“Have you eaten anything else unusual of late?” Al prompted.

“Well now that you come to mention it,” the dog said, “there was the magical amulet that lives at the centre of the maze. I did eat that the other day.”

“Why did you do that?” Al enquired.

“To keep it safe,” the dog explained, “whilst I transport it back to my master.”

“And who is your master?”

“The head of the clan of the black cape, of course,” the dog informed him scornfully. “It’d be a member of staff from the Battersea Dogs Home, sending me on my own to a mysterious island to eat one of the most evil artifacts in history just for safe keeping.”

“Who is the head of the clan of the cape?” Al asked, not really expecting a sensible answer.

“Hell if I know,” the dog replied, expectedly. “Some ponce in a fancy cape. Wears a mask as well. Not sure why, in front of me. It’s not like I’m going to sell my story to the papers. I’m a dog.”

“A talking dog, though,” Al pointed out encouragingly, “that’s pretty good.”

“I’m not actually talking,” the dog explained wearily, “I’ve set up a telepathic link between us for the purpose of exposition. And I’m only able to do that due to the power given to me by the magical amulet that’s sitting in one of my bellies.”

“One of your bellies?” Al was perplexed.

“Yeah, one of them. Dogs have two stomachs, genius.”

“I thought that was cows?”

“Yeah right, because cows have the monopoly on extra bellies. That is so species-ist,” the dog complained.

“Sorry,” apologized Al. “I didn’t realize it was such a sensitive subject.”

“People never do.”

“So you’re going to head back to the clan now, are you?”

“Guess so.”

“Can I tag along?”

“Don’t you want the amulet for yourself?”

“Well, I’ve been told to get it before they do, but there’s not a lot I can do about that now is there. So it’d be interesting to meet my nemeses, I think.”

“They’ll probably kill you or something,” the dog warned.

“Oh, I’m sure they probably aren’t that bad.”

“Well, OK. It’s your funeral.”

And so Aloysius followed the dog out of the maze, and down to the well.

Dawn was breaking as they reemerged into the woods to the south of the city.

It was time to meet the clan of the cape.

Chapter Twenty

Links to 1-19 here.

The bag lady that was actually a bit of a Galadriel rip off had given Al some quite useful advice. One of the first things she had told him was on no account should he trust messages brought to him by animals, because that was a cutesie thing that bad guys did to try and lure you away from the true path. So when he was accosted by the carrier pigeon sent by Tim and Adric to warn him about the presence of Dennis and his interest in the amulet, he followed her advice and smothered it with a pillow of lichen.

He was by this point walking through a wooded area to the south of the city, in search of an old well that doubled up as a means of transportation to the mystical island where the amulet was hidden.

The trees were very old here and the wind whistled through the whorls of their gnarled branches as though singing a sad and wistful song of times gone by. Perhaps it was remembering warm golden harvests, when it blew crops around to the annoyance of the farmer, who hated getting barley in his eye… Or perhaps it was remembering beautiful frozen winters, blue in hue, where it breezed across icy lakes and ruffled the bonnets of rosy cheek skaters…

But we could sit here and speculate as to what the wind was feeling nostalgic over all day and never reach a conclusion. Such is the way that many long winters evenings fly by in my house. Yet it matters little what we say, for the wind is far too private to ever clear up the mystery of why he is sad. He just is, that’s all.

So Al was walking through some ancient woods, and listening to the wind, and thinking of Bracken and Esmeralda and wondering how he could love two women that were so very different. And then he thought that perhaps in the old days, not as old as the ones the wind was pining for but more towards the start of his acquaintance with Esmeralda, that maybe the two women hadn’t been so very different then. When he first knew her Esmeralda had been ambitious, yes, but a lot less bloody minded about her pursuit of all things science, and a lot more fun and inclined to do things socially. It was the first time she came back from her travels that he had noticed she was more conservative, deeply focused on her work, and quite boring to be around.

He was musing on these memories when he came across a clearing, which contained a lot of flowers and small rabbits, and also the well for which he had been searching.

“Score,” he said out loud, scattering bunnies in all directions as they registered his presence for the first time, “that was much easier than I anticipated.”

Al walked towards the well, exercising caution. If finding it had been this easy, there must be some other catch involved.

As he walked, he felt very much as though he was being watched. This was a feeling he had been experiencing ever since finishing his chips and going for a turn with the bag lady who wasn’t a bag lady. It was almost as though four tiny lasers – or two small wee little pairs of beady eyes – were boring through his jacket and into his back. It made him feel nervous, but there again he was already pretty nervous about the whole finding a cursed magical amulet and keeping it out of the hands of evil. So it all kind of evened itself.

As it happened, he was being followed, still by those two beaky goblins from before, the ones who work for someone bad and mean. Sometimes you are justified in your crazy, hysterical paranoia, and you are genuinely being followed by a couple of mythical beings who would quite like to kill you and eat your toes. With your shoes still on. Goblins are kind of weird. By human standards, at least.

Al hadn’t worked out who was following him, which was down to sheer luck for the goblins because they hadn’t been doing a great job of keeping hidden. They’d left tracks, talked a bit too loudly, shouted ‘Scubbers!’ at Al and then ducked behind a rock which was not actually large enough to obscure them effectively... The only thing that kept him from discovering them was his own fear that the follower might be something big and scary that he wouldn’t be able to deal with. Prolonging the inevitable was one of Aloysius’s trademarks.

The well was quite pretty. It was made of pearly coloured stone and had tendrils of sweet pea growing up the side, which were in bloom even at this time of year. This is what singled it out as a magical well, as opposed to ordinary water producing one, or the type that you would put a Japanese ghost in for safekeeping.

Al reached the side and peered down into the darkness. He couldn’t see the bottom, which suggested it ran comparatively deep. There again it was nighttime, and he hadn’t thought to bring a torch. Mainly on account of the fact that he didn’t own one, and never had. His father had pronounced them a waste of batteries after a particularly farcical camping trip with the lads when Al was a baby, and refused to have them in the house from then on. It had proved embarrassing when he was going through his Duke of Edinburgh camping expeditions, but beyond that Al hadn’t really missed the presence of torches in his life. His mother had felt the strain quite badly, but we don’t have time to go into that here. Suffice to say she was quite highly strung in certain very specific ways.

He ran his fingers over the smooth stone of the well. It was warm to the touch, and almost felt as though it were alive. It was sort of pleasant but at the same time really rather creepy, Al decided.

He felt around each brick, looking for the secret one that the bag lady had informed him would start the teleportation equipment inside the well. Sods law dictated that he went almost all the way around the thing feeling every single stone before he located the on button two to the left of where he had begun. However, he did not allow himself to be irritated by this. He merely pushed it in, and waited.

At first it seemed as though nothing was going to happen at all.

“She’s tricked me,” he thought in dismay, “she’s bollocking well taken me for a ride!”

But then the ground began to shake and clouds of golden steam erupted from the well, enveloping Al in a sea of fragrant vapours. When the mist cleared, he was not just outside of Edinburgh anymore.

Our hero glanced around at his new surroundings, feeling slightly queasy from the journey but avoiding the temptation to fall to the ground curled into the fetal position crying for his mother. This was no mean feat, as every fibre of his being was suggesting that this was the only sensible course of action to be taken at this point in time.

He was standing in a bright patch of sunlight which turned out, when he looked up, to be the joint effort of three different suns. In the distance to his right he could make out a vibrant blue body of water, to his left there was a forest of trees as big as redwood trees, and behind him lay a range of majestic purpley-green mountains. It was all quite breathtakingly beautiful, and for a few moments Al forgot to breathe as a subconscious mark of respect.

“Nice, isn’t it,” remarked a passing snail.

“Lovely,” Al agreed, remembering how to operate his breathing apparatus again just in the nick of time.

“Here to find that famous missing amulet, are you?”

“No,” Al lied unconvincingly, “I’m visiting a friend.”

“Nobody has lived here for thousands of years,” the snail replied in neutral tones.

“They’re thinking of moving here,” Al said, “and they should be here by now to scope out the place. So I said I’d come along after work and offer my help.”

“Nobody’s come through yet,” the snail told him. “I’d have seen. There’s only one way on and off the island, the way you just came. And I am the guard.”

“You’ve been here all day then?”

“All day every day for the past seven hundred and twenty two years,” the snail announced, puffing out his chest with pride.

“Well that’s annoying,” Al said, “she might have texted to let me know she was going to be late.”

“She, eh,” the snail said wisely. “Well what more can you expect from a girl? Their heads are full of flim flam and fiddle dee dees. She’s probably been curling her ribbons and forgotten to keep track of the time.”

“Isn’t that a bit sexist?” Al asked, amused in spite of himself.

“You’re not in a politically correct bedtime story here, mate,” the snail replied crossly. “I can be as misogynistic as I like. I have my rights.”

“Anyway,” Al said in an attempt to move the conversation forward a little, “if she turns up could you tell her which way I went?”

“You haven’t gone anywhere.”

“No, but I’m about to.”

“But you haven’t though.”

“But I will.”

“What if she turned up right now?”

“Well she hasn’t, and I genuinely don’t think she will,” he replied.

They waited.

Nobody appeared.

“Bye then,” Al said cheerily, heading in the direction of the majestic looking mountains.

“Wouldn’t go that way if I were you,” the snail called after him, but his voice got lost on the wind and Al didn’t hear the warning.

“S’really dangerous,” the snail said, more to himself than anyone else.

“What’s really dangerous?” Asked one of the goblins, appearing in a puff of perfumed smoke as Al had just done.

“Are we talking proper hardcore danger, or just mild discomfort?” Asked the other, appearing in similar style.

The snail looked like it was about to explain when the first goblin picked it up and ate its head, passing the rest to his colleague.

“Who do you think was speaking?” he enquired through the rubbery mouthful.

“Dunno,” his colleague replied unhelpfully.

‘Ow,’ thought the snail, who remained alive for almost three full gruesome minutes after being cut in twain.

The goblins sniffed the air, located Al’s smell (which happened to be Old Spice, somewhat preemptively for a man in his early twenties), and set off in pursuit.

Somewhere far away, their boss switched from watching the CCTV footage to using the magic pool you can see stuff in and that.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapters 1-15, should you be interested. Or deeply bored.

Al was in a quandary.

He didn’t know whether he should call Adric’s on/off boyfriend and get him to come to the hospital or not.

They were very much off at the moment, due to an altercation in the lighting section of Ikea that Adric had mentioned in passing but refused to go into. But they were bound to get back together eventually, either from habit or a sense of duty or a fear that this relationship was the best either of them was ever going to do. And surely being in hospital bleeding all over the place after a drive by shooting counted as extenuating circumstances, break or no break.

Adric’s other half was a highly strung organic sous chef named Timothy. He played the violin badly, and classical guitar reasonably well, and he had aspirations of becoming a gentleman farmer one day. Al had never met him, but they had talked over the phone a few times.

He looked up the number on Adric’s phone and went for it, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble later.

Timothy was at the hospital almost literally in the blink of an eye.

He was dishevelled, which was unlike him – not that Al knew that, having never met him in real life before.

“Hello,” he said, sticking out a hand to shake, “you must be Aloysius. I’m Tim.”

“Sorry to meet you under these circumstances,” Al said, shaking obediently.

“Oh well, not to worry.” He awarded a penetrating look, and Al noticed that his eyes were a sharp, tinkling azure green. He’d never seen such a colour in nature before.

“Thanks for getting in touch,” he was saying, “I really appreciate it. Adric would be too stubborn to ask the hospital to call.”

“That’s OK,” Al said, flushing slightly as he realised how intently he had been examining the other man’s eyes.

“So where is he?”

Aloysius led him down a corridor, up a few floors, left, right and so on. They didn’t pass many people along the way, as Timothy observed.

“Quiet tonight, isn’t it,” was how he put it.

Al nodded shyly.

When they reached his room, Adric was sitting up in bed, wincing dramatically.

On seeing Timothy he paled slightly, then gave him the beginnings of a quavering smile. He raised an eyebrow at Al, who looked away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh fine,” he said robustly, “just a few stitches and a bit of blood loss.”

“Eight hundred and seventeen stitches,” said a passing nurse, sticking her head round the door to get a better look at Tim’s piercing optical equipment, “and about twelve pints of blood.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Adric whispered conspiratorially. “Nurses, eh.”

“She isn’t exaggerating,” Al corrected him, “there was a lot of glass.”

Tim sat down on the bed beside Adric. He didn’t seem to be listening.

“Were you… working?” Adric asked him, suddenly serious.

“Always,” Tim replied, smiling sadly. His eyes weren’t smiling though. And that made him look more sad than he would have done if he hadn’t smiled in the first place.

“I think I was onto a lead, but it’s only a hunch really.”

“Um, I guess I should be going now,” Al said, loath to intrude but concerned it would be rude of him not to say goodbye.

“No,” Tim said, “please stay. I don’t want to leave Adric alone.”

“Why,” Al said, puzzled, “are you going somewhere?”

Tim looked pained.

“He has to,” Adric said understandingly, “he’s been working on this quest for absolute ages.”

“Quest?” Al asked incredulously. “Like, quest in the sense of searching for holy grails and slaying dragons?”

“That’s the general idea,” Tim said, “although dragons are all but extinct now so the remaining ones have gone into hiding.”

“That’s lies,” Al said without thinking.

“Heh, you’ve gone native,” chuckled Adric, descending into a horrendous coughing fit that sounded as though he wouldn’t stop until he produced at least one lung.

“I can’t leave your side when you’re like this,” Tim said, “I’ll have to find the amulet another day.”

“But the trail will go cold,” Adric said, “What if you miss your chance? The prophecy said-”

“The prophecy can go hang,” Tim spat angrily, “I’m sick of all these damned prophets going on about how I’m the only one to do this that and the next thing. Twenty years this has been going on and what have I got to show for it?”

“You’ve got me,” Adric said bravely, taking Tim’s hand.

“Yes, but I met you at book group, not as part of some ridiculous jaunt halfway across the world in search of some ancient cursed object that some masked crazy person wants to use for evil.”

“I was at one of the climactic showdowns,” Adric said, wanting to be involved.

“Yes dear, you were,” Tim relented. “And you were only passed out for about two thirds of it.”

“I fought a centaur,” Adric told Aloysius proudly, “I hit him ever so hard with a baseball bat.” His face fell. “But then he shot me with a bow and arrow. How is it that I’m still alive, Tim?”

“The wiccan priestess brought you back using a spell,” Tim sighed as though he’d been through this several times. “But in return she took parts of your brain that are used to retain information, which is why you now forget things all the time and had to give up your job as an investigatory journalist. You always forgot what you’d learned before you could write any of it down.”

“Oh yes,” Adric lied, “I remember you telling me.”

“Anyway,” Tim said, “it’s probably a false lead anyway. The amulet thing.”

“What does this prophecy actually say?” Al enquired curiously. “Like the actual verbatim words.”

“Ice and wind and fire and rain… yadda yadda… man of average good looks and fair of hair… must destroy the amulet to defeat the maiden fair.”

The three of them ruminated.

“Average looks and fair of hair,” Al pondered.

Tim and Adric looked at Al, with his average to good looks and his fair hair.

They looked at one another.

They got sidetracked from the point at hand whilst gazing into one another’s eyes. The altercation in Ikea was long forgotten now.

They looked back at Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe, the secretly aristocratic library assistant.

“Hold on a second,” Adric said slowly, as though a thought was dawning on his brain, “that description isn’t necessarily just of you, Tim. If anything, you have amazing good looks.”

“You do have the most enchanting eyes,” Al agreed. “Although I prefer Bracken’s.”

“Oh well, each to their own,” Tim shrugged charmingly.

“What was I saying?” Adric asked. He had decided to milk this newly introduced ‘forgetful’ character trait for all it was worth whilst he was still in the scene.

“You were saying that I could probably be the guy in the prophecy,” Al said, “as could hundreds of other young men across the globe.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim agreed, “you totally could. I was never specifically named in this one. I guess I just assumed it would be me because usually they come to the door with my full name and address and everything.”

“So,” Al said patiently, “do you want me to find this amulet thing for you so that you can stay here and look after Adric?”

“I WOULD LIKE YOU TO STAY,” Adric whispered in caps lock, temporarily remembering he had another weird character defining thing that wasn’t really working out so well, namely the volume control issue mentioned in previous chapters.

“Tell me what I have to do,” Al said, “I’m not busy tonight anyway.” He looked out of the window, which he had just noticed. The moon was almost full and the sky was made of purple.

“It’s all in the scroll,” Tim said, “if you’re sure you’re up for it. I feel kind of bacd just letting you go off and do this… have you ever been on a quest before?”

Al thought back.

“Yeah,” he said, “I have. Once rode across Surrey on horseback to locate a special brand of plant food for our gardener, who I loved like he was my own father.”

“Were you successful?”

“I was.”

“Was there peril involved?”

“There was some mild peril. I wasn’t very good with horses, there was a chance that the shop on the other side of Surrey wouldn’t even have the stuff… there were risks, certainly. Maybe not the sort of thing you’re used to, but I can think on my feet at any rate.”

“Not all of my quests involve monsters and certain death,” Tim said comfortingly. “I’ve had a few mundane ones. Everybody has to start somewhere.”

“But this one will have danger?”

“Probably.”

Al steeled himself with a deep breath, and took the scroll from Tim. It was made from ancient yellow parchment and the remains of a heavy green wax seal still clung to it like little bits of green wax stuck on paper.

“Right then,” he said bravely, “I guess I’ll be off.”

“Thanks for doing this,” Tim said genuinely, “we really appreciate it.”

“Yes, thank you,” Adric added. “I’ll cover for you at work tomorrow.”

“You aren’t going back to work tomorrow?” Tim said, shocked.

“I’m the only one who has all the keys.”

“Well I’ll take them along and pass them to whoever is covering for you.”

“I dunno, with two people off it’ll just be the part timer and she might not even come in once the gossip about today has done the rounds. It will have escalated to the point where she probably thinks we’re both dead. Actually, where’s my mobile? You still got it Al?”

Al handed it over.

“There see, she’s texted her condolences about my death to whoever inherited my phone. She wants to know when the funeral is.”

Al rolled his eyes.

“Text her back and tell her,” Tim suggested with a conspiratorial wink. “Then tomorrow you can ring her up pretending to be your own ghost. It’ll be hilarious.”

“That’s a bit mean,” Adric said thoughtfully. “And she’s got a bad back.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything,” Tim replied.

“She doesn’t anyway,” Al interjected, “she’s faking it. Can’t you tell? When it’s quiet and people aren’t looking at her she stands up straight and even does a little bit of ballroom dancing.”

“No way!” Adric appeared to be genuinely shocked.

“His memory problem,” Tim surmised wisely, “it’s a blessing and a curse.”

“OK,” Al said, “well I guess I’d better get on with it. I’ll ring you in the morning to let you know how its all going.”

“That would be lovely. We are completely rooting for you,” Tim said enthusiastically, “and here’s a little leather pouch of magical fairy dust for luck.”

“Are you taking the mickey?”

“Are you the part timer?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

Al did not find this argument especially comforting, but by this point in time he was very tired and hungry and just wanted to get out of the hospital. He’d check out the contents of the pouch later on, in conjunction with the scroll and preferably after some chips.

For want of a better exit, he saluted them, and marched stiffly out of the room.

They didn’t say anything for a while.

“Why did you never question the prophecy before?” Adric asked. “Haven’t you been searching for that amulet for two years now?”

“Oh at least,” Tim admitted. “I don’t know, I just assumed it was me. It has been me, so many times. Although certainly none of the other signs of destiny have been in place for this one – I was starting to wonder. But if the prophecy is really talking about Al, he’ll have it sorted by the end of the night probably.”

“I’ll still let him have the day off work though.”

“Oh yeah, quite right.”

They smiled at each other and held hands and gazed out of the window into the moonlight. It looked like it was going to be a nice night.