CHAPTER NINE

Meanwhile In the Wisting Woods, on the wooden walkway Jane stood a dozen feet from the second swamp hog. This hog was larger than the one she had just thrown over the railing. It had a head like a picnic basket, and a snout like a dismembered rat. It wore no shirt and its upper body sagged like a blanket over a clothesline. Its arms were long and coiled with muscles. It showed no sign of fear. Instead it seemed to be seething with anger, as though it took the death of its companion swamp hog as personal.

Jane lowered her weight over her pelvis.

The creature snorted as though with derision. This creature knew it was going to get Jane, and it suddenly ran toward her, snorting and squealing with rage and strength and brutal intention.

Only …

Just as the hog lunged, an arrow whistled past Jane’s ear and struck the hog, so that it stumbled and pitched forward with an arrow protruding from its eye. Blood ran like tears.

Jane turned.

A female thrip was swinging through the branches, clinging to the end of a long rope. The thrip had one leg wrapped in the rope while her hands were free to hold a short bow with an arrow already nocked, even though the last arrow had just flown. This second arrow left the bow and whistled through the air to thud into the falling hog, catching the hog in the side of its sagging chest.

The thrip now took hold of the rope with her left hand so that she could unravel her legs. She had long legs smooth as saplings and gentle green. She landed beside Jane, up on the guide rope where she balanced like a tightrope walker, legs swaying, green and brown skirt swaying, belly swaying. Her eyes were wide-set and shining green, and the iris in the eyes was vertical like that of a cats eye. In fact, this elf-like creature looked like a cat, with her button nose and thin lips and ears close to the top of her head. Jane was surprised she didn't have a tail.

The thrip looked at the hog for a moment, analysed it, then nodded, satisfied that it was dead, and she slung her bow across her back. She looked down at Jane.

‘Who have we here?’

‘Who are you?’

The thrip brought her bottom lip in with two sharp teeth, like fangs, pressing dents into her lip. She smiled like she had a secret.

‘I’m the thrip that just saved your life. My name is Trinket.’

‘Are you dangerous?’

‘I am a high thrip and all high thrips are always dangerous.’

Jane looked at the hog. Blood and grey fluid leaked from its eye and a group of ants were already showing interest.

‘I think you killed the hog.’

Trinket put her arms out, light and breezy, and sprung from the rope to land on the boardwalk beside Jane. She immediately crouched and studied the hog. She put her head on an angle and leaned in close to study the wound.

‘A particularly ugly hog,’ she said. ‘I find the uglier they are, the better they look dead.’

She looked at Jane and raised an eyebrow.

‘How did a hog get this far into the Wistern Woods? Where were the city guards?’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘I’m talking about the fact that hogs are forbidden from these woods. There is no way a hog should have got this close to the city of Wyld Fell.’

Jane shrugged.

The thrip stood, and suddenly she looked troubled.

‘I have been away for a long time … I am sensing things have changed around here.’

Jane shook her head to say she didn’t know.

The thrip now took a curious look at Jane.

‘I don’t know you. And I don’t recognise your type? Where are you from?’

‘I am from England.’

‘I haven’t heard of England.’

‘Have you heard of Earth?’

‘Of course. It is the world of myth and magic.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Earth is a land of myth and magic. Some people say it isn't real, but you are now the third person I have met who claims they are from Earth, so I do believe.'

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'I don't understand how you can't believe in Earth.' Jane felt that this was too silly.

Trinket looked back down at the Swamp hog, and shook her head.

‘We have to get this ugly beast off the path.’

Kneeling beside the head of the creature, Trinket put her green hands on its shoulder. Her fingers were long and thin, and her nails were sharpened into little spears.

‘Help me.’

‘This is disgusting,’ said Jane as she knelt beside Trinket and put her hands out to push the swamp hog. Only she hesitated. The hogs splayed legs were skinny and ridged with muscles, all buried under an avalanche of saggy skin. Spattered across this there were islands of crunchy bristles, disgusting little islands that Jane didn’t want to touch.

‘Come on,’ said Trinket.’Help push.’

Jane still hesitated, then she put her hands on the damp rubber skin, and the scabby feeling bristles.

‘Heave,’ said Trinket.

As the hog came up in a roll the rubbery skin made a sucking noise.

Far stronger than Jane, Trinket lifted the top half of the hog a foot into the air, while Jane was barely able to slide the hogs lower half across the wooden boardwalk. Finally the hog teetered on the edge of the path, and with one last shove the hog fell. .

A long moment later there came a distant thud of the hog hitting the floor of the woods.

Disturbed, perhaps, by the falling hog, a mushroom that grew out of a lower branch broke away from the tree and immediately began rising. It bumped the base of the boardwalk before curling around and rising.

‘That’s the second mushroom that has done that,’ said Jane

‘It is mushroom shedding season.’

‘But why do mushrooms fly?’

Trinket looked at Jane with a sort of incredulity, as though she thought the question was silly while the answer was obvious.

‘Do you expect mushrooms to fall?’

‘Yes … that is how gravity works.’

‘Mushrooms don’t obey gravity. They go against gravity and they always have. We even use the largest mushrooms to fly ourselves.’

‘Trinket sprung to her feet, and put out a hand to help Jane up.

Jane took Trinket’s hand.

Trinket said, ‘What are you doing in the woods … Earth girl? How did you get here?’

‘I’m here with a boy named Tom. He and I were going to see the King of Wyld Fell, only Tom disappeared just a moment ago.’

‘When did he disappear?’

‘Just now. While I was busy with the first hog.’

‘Is Tom from Earth as well?’

‘He is, but the people around here seem to know him as Elion.’

The name Elion had the same strange effect it had on the thrip at the bottom of the path. The pupils in Trinket’s eyes widened, and she bit down on her lip, thinking. Then she put a hand to her chest and pressed it in against her heart.

‘He has returned,’ she said quietly. ‘Did he mention me? Has Elion spoken about me?’

‘Why would he mention you? He doesn’t know you.’

‘But he does know me. Surely he mentioned me.’

‘No.’

‘We were close … he and I. He must have been hurt by my … oh it doesn’t matter. I can’t believe he hasn’t spoken about me.’

Jane said, ‘I don’t think he remembers any part of his time here in this world.’

Trinket lowered her voice.

‘The name ‘Elion’ is dangerous now.'

‘Why?’

‘Ever since the King of Coronet was murdered an Emperor has been running Coronet and the Ocean country. He is terribly afraid of Elion returning and he has made a law that the people of Coronet and the Ocean country are not to believe in the prophecy of his return.'

A sudden thought occurred to Trinket, and she asked, 'Did you say Elion disappeared just now.'

'Yes.'

Trinket went to the trunk of the tree and pushed her hand into a groove between two large triangles of bark, Her eyes moved slowly in thought as she felt around blindly. Then she found something, and her shoulder jerked. A small door opened with a rasp of metal on metal. The door was hidden in the side of the tree, its edges so well matched to the tree bark that the door was invisible until it opened.

Through the door was a space that looked like a warehouse that had been carved into the massive tree. The room was illuminated by fire that burned inside recesses spaced around the walls. Stacks of wooden barrels oozed with honey. Behind the barrels was a rail track and a rail platform, with a single wagon standing beside the platform. The wagon was painted a glossy cream, with gold filigree, and bench seats of white leather. The undercarriage was polished bronze

Trinket said, ‘A wagon is missing. Elion has been taken.’

‘You mean Tom.’

Trinket glanced at Jane with a question in the thin line of her lips.

'Let's call him Tom so that we don't have to say the name Elion.'

Trinket nodded. 'What a sensible suggestion.'

'Where does the wagon go if it is taken.'

'The rail line drops from the great woods down to Rivertown. We use the rail to transport yellow syrup.'

‘So we take this wagon,’ Jane pointed to the cream wagon with the gilt edges.

‘No. We can’t take that wagon. It is the King's wagon and only he has the key to unlock it.’

‘We can smash the lock,’ said Jane. She picked up a hammer that lay in a pile of metal tools on the edge of the railway platform. The hammer was heavy. She lifted the hammer and lined up the lock.

‘Good luck smashing the lock,’ said Trinket. ‘It is made of stonemelt mined from Coronet.’

Jane was hardly listening to Trinket. She held the hammer at an angle and traced the arc of it with her mind, then she swung. The hammer missed the lock completely and it hit the boards of the platform. The vibration of the strike went back up the hammer into her hand and hurt like a bugger. Jane looked at Trinket, and Trinket shook her head.

‘What else can we do?’

‘The palace holds the key to the wagon. We must go into the city of Wyld Fell and get the key.'