Sample Chapter

1.

            “I think I’ve found it,“ shouted a tall, willowy young woman. “See where those children are?” Almost breathless with excitement, she hurried in long easy strides over the ankle-twisting terrain of volcanic rock. Some distance further down the slope her husband was panting with the exertion of keeping up. He paused, breathed deeply and slicked perspiration through his wavy black hair.

            Three young children with mischievous smiles and copper skins, giggled as the woman approached from below them. They were sat rather precariously. Their short chubby legs dangled over the ledge of a gully that curved and dipped towards the broad entrance of a cave.  It was a place the woman recognised immediately, even though eighteen years had passed since she had last seen it.  Her narrow, close-set eyes blinked rapidly. She was both serious and elated at the same time. Her head twitched and turned, bobbing her long ponytail of mousy hair as she tried to take everything in at once.

            “Hi,” she said quickly to the children, hardly taking any notice of them. “ Phil, over here, I’ve found it,” she yelled.

                 “Great!” he wheezed. His sturdy boots could be heard clattering over the rocks. The children giggled again.

            “What are you lot laughing at?” The young woman joked as she mopped her own brow. In her grey-blue eyes there was a glint of mischief that signalled how she had been as a child. 

            The children exchanged glances.  This seemed to cause them to giggle for a third time. They were three almost identical sun-burnished bodies of about six or seven years old, although the one on the left looked a little senior to the one on the right. They were crowned with black curly hair, although the one on the left had long springy ribbons and the other two had endured a cut closer to the scalp. They were certainly well fed, podgy even.

 “They says he’s dead!” said the boy on the right.

“Who’s dead?” asked the woman, bewildered by the statement.

            “No-one’s seen him in ages,” added the boy in the middle.

            “Seen who?” the husband enquired. He’d appeared at the top of the opposite ledge.

            “The magic man, the old wizard” said the boy with longer hair.

            “Mr. Peru,” added the boy in the middle.

            “He’s inside his cave. Dead and rotting he is,” continued the boy on the right.

            The husband, Phil, or Philian Fosslepride to quote his name fully, had crouched on the ledge. Now he jumped down to join his wife, Polinella. The children could see that this bright-eyed man in the white canvas trousers with the muddied white collarless shirt and grey waistcoat was barely a thumb’s width taller than her. His wide grin framed by a slightly unruly black beard and moustache, seemed to be a permanent fixture.

                 Polinella Fosslepride had turned stony-faced, however, and her husband’s comforting arm about her shoulders had done little to change that. Something had shaken her – something the plumper child in the middle had said. “Dead and rotting eh?” repeated Phil, not taking any of the youngsters very seriously.

                 Polinella brushed hair out of her eyes as she interrupted him. “Just now you mentioned a Mr. Peru,” she said to the middle child. “When you said that, did you by any chance mean Yew Hugh Peru?”

            The child looked down at his feet.  He was swinging them from side to side as if he was reluctant to answer. The boy on the right was less worried about it. “Of course it was Yew Hugh Peru,” he said, having made the surname Peru sound like proo. “My name’s Peru,” he added. “My mum called it me.”

            “And my name’s Yew,” continued the boy on the left with the longer hair.

            “And I’m Hugh,” said the tubby one in the middle.

            “Yew, Hugh and Peru,” said Philian Fosslepride with his ever-present smile, “well well well.”

            “He was the most famousest famous person in the whole world,” stated Peru. “That’s why mum named us after him.”

                 Polinella just about managed a knowing smile.

            “He could do magic,” continued Yew. “He was the only person in all the world that could magic.”

            Philian flicked a nervous glance at his wife. He knew she could do a magic turn herself, her and her two stepbrothers, Moon and Wump. He’d never actually witnessed her do it. He now knew better than to ask Polinella to demonstrate her disappearing trick. It was the surest way possible to inflame that fiery temper of hers.

            “Boys, get away from there. It’s not safe for one thing and for another it’s not respectful.”

            Philian and Polinella Fosslepride both heard a woman’s sharp voice, but of course neither of them could see her. The three boys could. They turned to look at her and obediently started to scramble to their feet. “Sounds like the mother,” said Philian. Polinella agreed with a stern nod.

            The boys were dusting themselves down as a woman arrived with an armful of green plants. She was about to tell them off some more, but she was rather taken aback by the site of two obvious strangers in the approach to Yew Hugh Peru’s cave. Her bronzed features showed that she was very likely to be the mother of these children, although she seemed a lot leaner than one might have expected. “I do beg your pardon,” she started. She sent Philian and Polinella a weak, fleeting smile. “I didn’t realize there was anyone else here. There usually isn’t – specially where you’re standing.” She glanced at the cave entrance. ”You’re not thinking of going in there I hope.”

                 “Well…” Polinella began.

            “We came in search of one Yew Hugh Peru,” intercepted Philian with a beaming smile, “but so far all we have found are three delightful children called Yew, Hugh and Peru.”

            “They say that he is dead,” continued Polinella.

            The woman, the mother of Yew, Hugh and Peru, seemed a little flustered and at the same time a little suspicious. “Seems that way,” she said. “What would you be wanting with him anyway?”

            “Call it a trip down Memory Lane,” replied Polinella. “I haven’t stood in this spot since I was a little girl.”

            The mother looked slightly shaken. She turned on Philian. “And you?” she said. “Have you been here before? Have you ever stood in that very spot before this day?”

                “Never,” gushed Philian. “My interest in the old chap is almost purely scientific. I’m an anthropologist with the University of Octaganotha you see, but naturally I’m also here to support my wife as well.  I am Dr Philian Fosslepride by the way, and this is Polinella.”

            At least two of the children giggled. The mother dropped her harvest of desert plants and ripped into the children with a severe telling off. When she turned her attention back to the two adults before her, she made no real apology. She seemed fascinated by Polinella. “When exactly were you here before lady?” she said, rather as an order than a polite question.

                 “Eighteen years ago,” said Polinella. “I was just eleven years old.”

            “The time when Popadogatwig last vented it’s anger,” added the mother as she snatched a quick glance behind her at the mighty volcano that dominated the surroundings. “Then you must be the Polinella, one of the three children that helped save our island that day.”

                 Polinella would have answered, but she was a little embarrassed, and anyway, Philian spoke before she had a chance. “She was indeed one of those three children. That’s why she’s so keen to come back and see how the place has changed after all those years.”

            “Look children! Take a good look!” the mother urged. “That there is Polinella, the real Polinella, one of the three children that went inside the volcano on the day the bad one was destroyed.” The children stared back wide-eyed and fascinated. “And now you’ve come back to us,” the woman continued turning her attention to the adults once more. “Wait till the others in the village get to hear about this.” Polinella smiled and the mother turned her attention to the cave entrance once more. “You are one of the few people to ever go inside there Mrs. Polinella, and you know as well as any how foolhardy it would be to go in there uninvited. I keep telling the men folk to block off the entrance. It’s a danger, and besides it should be kept as a sort of shrine. Madrix the stonemason was talking of doing a statue to put here.”

            “Are you so sure that Yew Hugh’s dead?” asked Polinella.

            “Oh yes, he’s dead alright. He hasn’t been seen since before ‘Thanks Day’ and that’s not his style at all. He spent many an hour deep in there in that cave he did, but he would always come out to enjoy the sunlight at some point every day. He often used to walk to the village and back.”

                “Perhaps he’s sick, too sick to come out. He may have passed out in there.”

            “He’s a magician, a wizard,” continued the mother. “If he were sick, he could have done something about it.”

                 Polinella looked at her husband. “When I was here before, this place was a lot scarier than it is now,” she stated. “Remember I told you about the invisible messengers called sneergoths? They rushed through the ground beneath our feet, relaying messengers to the evil Menghis Bad-Baladin in his home within the crater of Mount Popadogatwig. By night the landscape teemed with dark hooded creatures called blatchers? Then on three occasions, giant birds, yeagles that Bad-Baladin had conjured attacked us, but you know, in all that time Yew Hugh’s cave was as open as you see it now.”

            “That’s right,” continued the mother. “He has that many booby traps, so many confusing tunnels and so many bits of his own magic working for him in there that no-one could ever reach him. A few have tried and all have failed or perished.”

                “Atrwsian!” Polinella suddenly uttered. “Now where on earth did I get that from? It just seemed to pop into my head.”

                “Sounds like something to do with Yew Hugh Peru,” said Philian.

            “Yes it was a password. It opened the door into Yew Hugh’s actual living quarters. Fancy me remembering that.”

            Philian was fishing for his notepad and pencil. The three children were each trying out the word. The mother didn’t know what to make of it all. “What was that word again?” asked Philian.

                 “Atrwsian,” Polinella replied with her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

     “Atrwsian,” mimicked the children from above.

            Philian hurriedly wrote it down, but he wasn’t satisfied with it. “How do you spell that?” he asked.

                 Polinella ignored him.  “Come on, we’re going in,” she said.

            Philian was still smiling but at the same time he appeared anxious. “Now wait a minute Pol,” he started.

                 “There’s no other way. We’re going in,” Polinella reasserted. She moved in a confident gait towards the entrance of the cave.

            The children became excited. “She’s going in the cave,” hissed Yew.

            “She’ll get deaded she will,” added Peru.

            The mother was considerably more agitated. She prowled the ledge like a wildcat. “Now wait,” she called. “Wait there until I come down.” She rounded on her children. “You stay here and keep away from the edge. I won’t be a moment. She disappeared out of sight.

            Philian had moved only a single step. “Polinella!” he called more firmly.

            She stopped but did not turn around. “Come on Phil! We didn’t come all this way to be stopped by a few booby traps. If he’s in there I want to find him.”

            The mother hurriedly rounded the sweeping curve that led to the cave entrance. Now that she was on their level she appeared smaller than both Philian and Polinella had realized. “To go in there is insane,” she shouted.

            “I’ve always been a bit like that,” answered Polinella. “People say my eyes are too close together.”

            The mother moved as far as Philian, no further. She seemed justly scared of the gaping hole at the threshold of Yew Hugh Peru’s cave with the faint hint of greenish light within. “Now look,” she started to plead. “You seem like decent folks, and you Polinella are something of a heroine on this island. I can’t stand by and watch you do something as madly dangerous as that.”

            “I, or should I say we, are going in, “Polinella replied. “There is far too much at stake here. I couldn’t possibly just turn around; turn my back on him – dead or not. If all goes well, we’ll report back to your village when we get out.”

            “No, that’s crazy,” pleaded the mother. She looked as though she was about to drop to her knees.

            “Just where is your village?” asked Philian.

            “Over there,” she replied. She pointed to a direction where Polinella had once paused with Moon, Wump and Grundelin Hissensteem. It was the place where eighteen years ago they had stood before a tangle of spider webs to post letters of love and kindness in blatcher holes.

            “It’s called Blatcher Woods. You can’t miss it,” the mother continued. “It’s the only village around here anyway, but look forget about that now…”

                 Polinella was at the cave entrance looking in.  Fist-sized stones hung from pit props in there somewhere, bathing the interior with their own greenish phosphorescent glow. "Phil can you light the oil lamp,” she said. “I don’t trust that green light.”

            “Take a good look at the sky and the sun Polinella,” the mother called again. “You go in that cave and you will never see either again.”

             “Phil!” Polinella called sharply.

            Philian looked at the mother and shrugged. He stuffed the notebook and pencil in his pocket and began to remove a sort of knapsack affair from his back. “It seems were going in,” he said rather sheepishly. “When my wife gets an idea like that in her head, dangerous or not, there is no stopping her, believe me!” He untied an oil lamp from the outside of the knapsack and fished in his pocket again for his lighter.

            “The mother’s eyes looked wild. “Sacrilege!” she muttered. She took hold of Philian’s arm as he fumbled with the oil lamp. “Try and talk some sense into her for pity’s sake,” she pleaded. She paused and then let her hand fall from his shirtsleeve. “I’m going back to the village to get some of the others.” With that wild look still in her eyes she backed away, then turned and scurried out of the gully.

            Philian joined his wife at the cave entrance and peered into the dark greenish silence within. He took out his small pocket-sized notebook again and tore out a few blank pages from the back. “What did you do that for?” Polinella asked.

            “If we’re going to be wandering around in a maze of tunnels, we’ll need to be able to find our way out again. All I have to do is place a small piece of paper near each turn that we make, and that should guide us back to the entrance.”

                 Polinella smiled. “Come on, let’s see what we shall see.”

            She led the way into the wide cave with its bone-hard jagged walls and floor. The ceiling seemed a lot lower to her than she had remembered. Philian followed behind, a lighted oil lamp suspended from his left wrist and his concentration set on the task of shredding the small sheets of paper with his free hands. "Keep that thing still," Polinella soon nagged above the echoing sound of their plodding boots. The downward slope had evened out. The supporting wooden props with the luminous stones hanging from them had appeared. Polinella became confused, caught between the quiet stillness of the green light and the dancing shadows produced by the swinging lamp.

            Philian started to take more notice of what was around him. It was much cooler than outside like most other caves he had known, but it was unusually dry and clean. He'd been in many caves in his time and they had always been wet, muddy, mossy places with dank smells.

            The entrance soon disappeared, so that even with the light from the stones and the oil lamp, it became much dimmer. Polinella didn't walk with the trusting confidence that she had done all those years ago when she had followed Yew Hugh Peru and the others towards the curious underground home. No, it was strange to be in here again at all. To be in here without the dwarf silver-haired wizard leading them was downright dangerous.

            The cave split into two. The route to the left curved away into eerie obscurity. The tunnel to the right was blocked. A huge cube of rock had at some time dropped rather unevenly from the ceiling and slammed into the floor, making further progress in that direction completely impossible.

            "Which way do you think?" joked Philian .

                 Polinella laughed out loud. Her voice echoed down the awaiting tunnel. "I think I'll choose left." She moved steadily into the open mouth of the second phase of their journey, carefully surveying the walls, ceiling, floor and the way ahead as she moved.

            Philian placed his first small square of paper in the middle of the floor where it could not be missed. He hadn't even stood up straight again when a deep, sad sigh reached through the tunnel and flushed them with a rush of cool air. The little square of paper took flight, much as Philian and Polinella felt like doing at that very second. It performed brief aerobatics and disappeared somewhere behind them.

            Not put off, Philian set down a second piece of paper. He looked down the murky length of tunnel and paused before taking his fingers off it.

            "I don't remember it being that creepy in here before," Polinella muttered.

            "Most curious," added Philian staring into the gloom. "I wonder what caused that." He stood up straight and stroked his beard as he pondered.

            "Come on!" urged Polinella. "Creepy or not, it's going to take more than that to put me off."

            "Yew Hugh magic do you reckon?" Philian asked as they carefully moved forwards again.

            "Most probably, can't think what else it could have been."

            A short distance further the tunnel split into three. The left branch appeared almost too small to navigate and would seem to lead them in the wrong direction. The largest, central route seemed somehow too obvious. They both agreed to test the right path. It was well lit with green glowing stones.

            Holding the oil lamp aloft, Philian pushed past his wife and took a first step inside. He bent and put another piece of paper on a floor that was now gravely, even sandy in patches. "Is it okay?" asked Polinella.

            "Yes I think so."

            As he spoke there followed a sound like soil being poured through a sieve. Dust, gravel and even sizeable pebbles rained down over Philian's head. Something above him was shifting and grating as rock moved against rock. Polinella tugged at his waistcoat. He spun around, shook his head and then backed up well clear of the entrance. The awful noise ceased. The air was alive with minute particles of dust.

            Philian leaned against the cave wall and grinned. "There again, perhaps not," he said.

            They followed the central tunnel, travelling onwards without incident as it twisted and buckled. In places the marks of Yew Hugh Peru's pickaxe blade were clear to see. In places they had to duck low to avoid banging their heads. They were not surprised when they eventually came to a chamber with four tunnels leading from it. Even so, Philian at least was beginning to show some concern. They were quite deep inside this cave now, and he was becoming less certain that his paper chase idea was going to get them out again.

            “This part feels familiar,” Polinella muttered, although she didn’t sound too sure. “I’ve a feeling that the second tunnel from the left is where we went.” She took a step in that direction but Philian stopped her.

            “Wait!” he said, and with his free hand he dragged his notebook from his pocket.

            “What are you up to?” she said as he flicked through some pages.

            “That magic word you mentioned - here we are.” He looked around at the various entrances before him. “Atrwsian!” he said  as if he was offering a sweet to a child. Not surprisingly nothing happened.

                 Polinella looked on rather dazed. “What’s that supposed to do?”

            “It’s a magic word isn’t it?” Philian answered. “It’s a positive word. It opens doors and the like. Just thought it might help, that’s all.”

            Her husband’s thoughts on the matter reminded Polinella of when she was on this island as a child. Calling out positive things, words of love and affection had been the best weapon against adversity then. “Well okay then,” she said, “try it again, only see if you can’t put a bit of feeling into it this time.”

            “A bit of feeling?”

                 Polinella nodded.

            “The word is ‘atrwsian’ right?”

            She nodded again.

            With arms spread to encompass all four entrances, Philian howled a long moaning, “atrwsiannnnnn”! Polinella laughed when nothing happened. “Very well then, you try it,” he said, sounding a little hurt.

                  “Atrwsian!” Polinella shouted. The word was barely past her lips when a whooshing sound reached their ears. Sand and more dust poured from a roof somewhere unseen. A rush of wind butted them like a giant goat. Polinella was thrown roughly against the wall behind her and Philian was tossed back down the tunnel from which they had arrived.

            More stunned than hurt; they picked themselves up and looked to the second tunnel from the right. It alone was softened by a curtain of gently falling dust. A green stone in there was swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

            “Well that’s one tunnel we know to avoid,” Polinella said.

            Philian was picking up the battered remains of the useless oil lamp and any of the squares of paper that he could salvage. “I think that is exactly the way we should go,” he answered without even looking up. The glass was gone, but he held up the twisted metal remains of the dead lamp.

            “What brings you to that conclusion?” asked Polinella.

            “It was that tunnel that answered to…you know, the good word. Perhaps that rush of air was the door that you spoke of. Perhaps it’s just through there, open and beckoning us in.”

            “I don’t think so.” Polinella smirked, but with a hand over her mouth she swept through the dust curtain.

            At first, this latest tunnel was not really any different to the others. The floor was softer in places, but the tell tale marks of Yew Hugh Peru's pickaxe blade decorated the walls and roof.  The props seemed thinner as if they were just adornments or places to hang the light-providing green stones. There was nothing apparent that could have been the source of such a powerful blast of wind. Even so, Philian issued a stern warning. "Don't even think about saying that word in here, not without warning me at least."

            The tunnel narrowed and dived deeper into the ground. The ceiling shrunk quickly away from them. This was natural cave now. It bore little evidence of the wizard's hand. The green stones were spaced unevenly in any convenient niche. Polinella advanced with rapidly shrinking confidence. She didn't remember anything like this when she had visited before.

                 Following close behind, Philian noticed the change in her. "You all right Pol?" he asked.

                 "Alright? No, not really. This doesn't seem right."

            The ceiling became higher still. Many of the green stones were hitched in lofty places too, often tucked behind small jags of rock. The narrow gorge through which they ventured was sunk in a sinister shadowy gloom.

            They arrived unhurt in another open chamber. To the left a pile of sandy, gravely material trailed upwards towards a flat curtain of rock. A single green stone placed at the highest point of the pile illuminated the grizzly remains of a half-buried skeleton. Directly in front of them was a wall with a deep weathered gash, making it look as if it was a wicked mouth leering at them. Greenish skeletal fingers peeped over the bottom lip like a ragged protruding tooth. As Polinella and Philian moved closer, so the rest of a skeleton appeared. A long arm sagged away into the jaws of this natural trough, and there the rest of the body melted into the darkness.

            There were just two tunnels for them to choose, unless they elected to go back. The words of a mother from a place called Blatcher woods were ringing in Polinella's ears at that moment - "Take a good look at the sky and the sun Polinella. You go in that cave and you will never see either again.”

             "You're not going to shout that word again are you?" Philian moaned.

            "Yes, come on, it's worth a try."

            "In a place surrounded by skeletons?"

            She looked around again just to be sure. "Yes I think so." Philian was now crouching beside her. "You ready?" she continued. Philian winced and nodded. "Atrwsiannnnn!" she called in the same manner as she had done before.

            They waited and nothing happened. The last echoes of her shout and the following deathly hush were more terrifying than any violent rush of air. "Try it again," urged Philian. "I'll join in this time."

                Polinella gave a tiny nod of affirmation and took his hand. "Okay, after two…one…two!" They both cried out against the silence. Their voices buzzed around them, bouncing from one wall to the next. Then way off in the background before silence came again, there was a different sound, a door creaking open perhaps.

            "In which direction did that come from?" Philian cried. Polinella looked to the first tunnel, the one next to the gaping slit in the wall of rock. She thought it might have come from in there but…. There followed another creaking sound, another heavy door sliding roughly over dry rock. It was clearer this time. It certainly came from within the tunnel that veered sharply to the right, the one that twisted, descending even further below ground.

            From somewhere in front of them a door slammed shut. Stone slapped against stone with such anger that the vibrations jarred through their feet like electricity. They both paused, hardly daring to breathe. They waited for the second slam but it didn't happen.

                 Polinella looked a whole lot less sure of herself now. Her eyes were rounder, looking to Philian for help. "What do you think?"

            He studied the dimly lit surroundings. "Well?" she continued. "Do we go backwards or not?"

            "No, not for the moment anyway," Philian answered. He scratched his beard. "You say you don't remember this part of the cave system?"

            "No, it's too natural. I don't remember a place with a roof as high as it is in here."

            "Hmm - well in that case."

            "In that case we take that route," followed Polinella, making the decision for him as she pointed to the right. She strutted off, slipping and slithering as she descended into the chosen tunnel. "Let's see if that creaking was indeed an opened door."

            Philian was nearby. He wasn't directly behind her, but she could hear his breathing. The descent levelled out somewhat, but the route was tortuous. The floor was angled upwards to the left so that it was hard to walk. She looked up to the roof. It was lost in the lofty darkness it was so high there. "This wasn't right," she told herself. It was getting darker by the minute. There were very few green shining stones in here, and those that Yew Hugh had placed (miraculously), were high above her. 

            She felt like turning back, but instead decided to call to Philian for reassurance. She took one more step and the floor suddenly flattened. The green stones shrunk to pinpricks of green light before they abandoned her completely.

            She felt weightless. Am I falling? Her feet kicked out, but there was nothing to kick against. Polinella felt a tight sickness in her belly. It was pitch dark, as dark as a blatcher's cloak.

            A hand clamped her wrist. It wasn't large, but it was strong and determined. She heard the sound of sand and pebbles tipping into an empty void. Then she heard Philian's voice sounding unnaturally distant. "Polinella!" he was yelling. "Hang on! I've got you."

            And she felt herself being drawn upwards. Sand flowed over her face, finding her eyes and mouth. Like a rag doll she was being pulled through it. She felt solid ground beneath her hips.

            She was being dragged sideways, and as she spat sand from her mouth the light seemed to grow again. Philian was crouched next to her. She saw the worry in his eyes and she flung her arms around his neck. "I didn't like that," she bleated.

            Philian helped her on to unsteady feet. They both looked with astonishment at the place where she had trod and fallen. There was no sign of a hole or of cascading sand. It was just an uneven, unbroken cave floor.

                 "How…?" Philian started to say, but Polinella touched a quivering finger to his lips.

            "You know how," she said. "I think we've come the wrong way, don't you?"

            More than a little shaken, they retraced their steps to the chamber with the four tunnels and the smashed oil lamp. They followed Polinella’s original notion. It appeared to be sound. It was a tunnel with a hard glassy floor and a low ceiling. It twisted somewhat and made the occasional sharp bend, but on the whole it had a good feel. It was indeed the beginning of a lengthy but uneventful phase of their journey.

            They hadn’t reached anything that represented the old wizard’s home, but they were growing in confidence. Philian laid his small squares of paper at the turns and Polinella made lots of encouraging noises.

            Then without warning…

            They were in a perfectly ordinary tunnel – half an oval with a flat, solid floor. The light was good and Yew Hugh Peru’s tell tale pickaxe marks adorned the walls like small comforting signatures, but a perfectly carved stone doorway had appeared a few paces in front of them. Silently, and as secretively as the hole in the floor had healed itself in another passage, this piece of man or wizard-made masonry formed before their eyes.

            Neither Polinella nor Philian wanted to believe what they had just seen, but the emergence of a heavy greenish door with a grotesque doorknocker was even less welcome. The following appearance of Yew Hugh Peru himself, wild, unusually mean looking and clutching a heavy club, literally knocked the two explorers sideways.

            Philian clung to the wall of the cave. He was speechless. Any attempt to say something became a mere hiss of air over his front teeth.

                 Polinella was not much better, but she managed to hoarsely whisper his name. In body he looked just like the curious little man she had known all those years ago, but there was something in the eyes, the mean look, that she didn't remember at all.

            Yew Hugh Peru, if that is who he was, did not respond to her. Instead he raised the club threateningly.

            "He's not going to charge us with that thing is he?" Philian eventually managed to whisper. He moved into the open.

            "Mr. Peru!" Polinella called more definitely. "Mr. Peru what are you doing? It’s me, Polinella." She spoke as his thin, club-wielding arm darted forward. "You remember me don't you?"

            Philian watched as in slow motion the heavy wooden club with a leather handle rotated through the air. His whole body felt like stone. He couldn't even move his head. He watched as the club took one last turn. The heavy end pointed squarely towards the centre of his forehead. He could hear the voice of his wife. That seemed to be in slow motion also. "Noooooo!"

            The blow was cold but soft as if he'd been hit with the wet end of an ice-cream cone. The coldness seemed to pass clean through the middle of his head and out the back. There was no sign of a falling club, and no pain.

            Yew Hugh Peru's aggressive stare melted into an unnatural grin. Polinella couldn't really remember him looking like that either. She remembered a rather stern, serious little wizard with a sparkle of profound intelligence in his eyes. This creature before her now looked more like a clown. Nevertheless he turned to her and spoke for the first and last time in a hoarse voice that seemed equally unfitting. "Use the word here and there, that special word here - and - there." He followed his instruction with a tired sigh.

            As if there had been some powerful suction pump beneath the soles of his feet, Yew Hugh Peru was sucked silently into the floor. Polinella and Philian were staring at a greenish door with a large doorknocker fashioned into a distinctly unhappy looking long-nosed human face.

            "Was that him?" gasped Philian.

            "Well not exactly I don't think, no," Polinella replied . "It kind of looked like him, but the expressions and the voice were not as I remembered at all. This doorknocker is exactly as I recall it, however.  I remember how Wump was totally floored when Yew Hugh shouted - well the word, you know, and the door slowly opened on its own."

            "Here and there," Philian muttered, almost as if he were repeating Yew Hugh's words to himself. "Use the special word here and there." He looked to Polinella. "What do you think? Should you say it again - here?"

                 Polinella nodded. "It was here that he used that word. I'm sure of it."

            Philian braced himself. He flattened himself against the wall and set his feet apart. “Atrwsian!” Polinella called once again.

            The doorknocker became instantly fluid like living skin. It's grotesque ‘keep out of here’ glare softened into a stupid grin. There followed a painful scraping sound as the door shuddered open just enough to fit an arm through the gap. A waft of warm sickly air rushed out at them.

            "Urrgh! What was that?" said Philian, screwing up his nose.

            "It did that before," said Polinella, "not make that smell, but just open a little bit like that. I think I have to say the word again. “Atrwsian!" The door jerked into life again making a very unsteady job of opening wide enough for them to pass into Yew Hugh Peru's living quarters. There were features that Polinella instantly recognized, but the smell wasn't one of them. Apart from the fact that it looked as though someone had galloped a horse around this half natural, half hewn-out subterranean gallery, there was a feel of decay and neglect about the place.  On the table of solid rock where Greycorn had once been laid in a stretcher, were a half-emptied goblet, a food encrusted knife and a dirty plate with the mildewed ribcage of a rock rabbit clinging to it.

             "We did it! We're in!" exclaimed Philian. He circled around in an attempt to take in all the confusion in this very unhappy looking room.

            "Not much of a victory though, is it?" Polinella replied. "We haven't found Yew Hugh Peru have we? Not really. That thing we saw beyond the door certainly wasn't the real thing, and just look at the state of the place."

            "He's not normally this untidy then?"

            "This place isn't just untidy. It's been wrecked."

             "I wonder where he can be," Philian said. "It doesn't seem to me that he can be home at all, either dead or alive."

            "Take that door for example," said Polinella. She pointed to a place to the right of an alcove where Raega and Graecia, two mysterious winged guardians had once appeared. There, hung a splintered door with a hole in it big enough to step through. "He was always very particular to close that behind him when he went that way. I think it led to the room where he used to work on his spells and other goodness knows what secret things." She sighed with disappointment. "But you're right. If he was alive and well, he would have shown himself by now; shown his real self that is, not some dreadful apparition."

            "Well if that's where he used to work on his spells as you say, we'd best take a look." Philian was already picking his way around an overturned wooden bench and a twisted wicker bath chair. Polinella joined him as he pulled away the last remnants of Yew Hugh's private door.

            "I often wondered what lay beyond," remarked Polinella as they crossed the threshold into a narrow corridor. There was little to see at first. A broom lay on the floor. A mounted trophy of a two-headed cat-like creature sagged on a wall. An arrangement of the green luminous stones had been fashioned into a chandelier that clung to the ceiling, and there were three more doorways. Two of them had been similarly bashed in.

            They found a simple bedroom with a bed that had been half burned. A coating of soot extended from the charred remains and fanned over the far wall. The second door was completely off its hinges. It lay in pieces in what could only be described as a junk room. There were piles of old books and papers. Most were pulled over and muddled with the broken globe, the bits of old candle, a couple of dozen used quill pens and other bits of household paraphernalia.

            Philian stepped into the chaos and briefly examined a couple of the books before standing up and shaking his head. This left the one door that was perfectly intact, and seemingly untouched by the troubles that had raged through the rest of the place. It was not painted. The grain of the wood could be detected through the veil of green light. A grotesque face, not made into a doorknocker, scowled at the two new intruders.

            There was no handle, so with some trepidation, Philian pushed gently. The eyes of the warty, wrinkled gargoyle next to his hand seemed to turn and look at him. If looks could kill, Philian would have been dead at that moment. He pushed a little harder. There was not the slightest hint of any movement.

            "Here and there," said Polinella.

                 "What?" Philian had stood back and he was looking at the door with some frustration.

            "That apparition of Yew Hugh told us to say ‘atrwsian’…" Before she could finish her sentence, the wrinkles and warts of the dreadful face on the door smoothed into the features of a pretty, smiling woman. The wild spikes of hair dropped into soft curls that framed the cheeks. The door didn't shudder or grate, it squeaked open. Dust rushed out to greet them with another strong waft of dry decay.

            "We had to say it ‘here’," Polinella continued, "that was at the main entrance, and then say it again ‘there’ which is of course…"

            "Here," laughed Philian. "Yes I realize that now. Come on, let's take a look." He stepped into the room and almost immediately recoiled. "Not nice," he blathered quickly, "not nice at all."

            "What is it?" Polinella was wide-eyed, more than a little apprehensive.

            "I think we've found your Mr. Peru."

            With urgent steps, Polinella pushed past her husband and entered the small room. She gasped. She clamped a hand to her mouth. She was indeed in that most secret of secret places where Yew Hugh Peru had studied wizardry for so many years. Not any more - in a room that was floor to ceiling at the back with filled bookshelves and various curiosities, there was a large ornate desk with more shelves rising from it. The dry, bleached white skeleton of the old man was slumped over the front of that desk. He was still sat squarely in his high-backed chair. Without a breath or movement of air in there, a layer of dust had covered the shelves, the desk and even his stark white bones.

            Philian entered and enfolded Polinella in his arms. He turned her head away from the revolting sight and gently patted her hair. "I'm sorry," he said. "Not a nice way to find him was it?"

            "It's horrible," Polinella breathed into his waistcoat. "I wonder what could have happened to him."

            Philian stopped patting. He was looking with distaste at the unfortunate remains of Yew Hugh Peru, but it led him to notice something else. The left arm of the skeleton hung limply, pointing directly towards the floor, but the other arm was resting on the desk. The index finger was pointing to an empty dust-free rectangle. Something had certainly been taken and not so very long ago. The shape suggested that a large book had rested there. Perhaps it had been the white leather-bound volume that the old wizard had pondered over for so many years; the book that he knew as The Ice Spells of Krollinad.