Chapter 21 - The Plot Thickens.
There was an audible pop as they all appeared back, just outside the city walls of Blaenoraid. They walked to the city gates where the guards at once stood upright and greeted High Elder Brangwen Binning, it was not that they ignored the others, they just didn’t see them.
“I must say, your cloaks are quite impressive, one hardly knows you’re there unless one is looking for you," Bangers said.
“That’s the idea, a little invention of our own," replied Jon.
“Very impressive for one so young. Llewellyn, you must introduce me to your young accomplice, Tom of course I know, we met in the council chamber, but in all the commotion, I have not yet been introduced," she said nodding towards Jon.
“This is my eldest son, Jon.”
“But Llewel said they had no magic, he said that Jon couldn’t even light a match, he said that Jon was a phobl, and Tom’s magic was all fake.”
“Well, I assure you; they are both fine and gifted wizards. They have already slain three Blue Dragons and rescued a Golden Dragon and her whelp from a poacher.”
“Llewel and Asmodeus both told me they had none and yet I know they escaped from my dungeon within a couple of hours of being locked up there and returned with you to rescue me from that fool Llewel. The stupid man even managed to lock himself up with me.”
“Not him actually,” said Tom, “my brother and I locked him in when we came looking for you.”
“Came looking for me? Why would you do that? To avenge for what I did to you?”
“No, we had half a hunch that you were not yourself, so we came back to find out why, and who was doing it. We found you chained up in your own dungeon but before we could rescue you, Llewel and the two guards came down to see you, I’m afraid we could not resist the temptation and locked him in there with you," said Tom.
“Oh boy, was he mad when he found the door locked, he hollered and screamed in his squeaky little voice, then he got the two guards to do it as well, banging on the door and making such a racket, but for some reason, no one heard the commotion.”
“That’s because, before we left, I wove a sound-dampening spell around the entire cell, so no one could hear him anyway. In fact, it’s still there, so they still can’t hear him," Tom laughed as he said it.
“And what about the time freezing spell, for want of a better description? One of yours I expect Llewellyn.”
“No, also Tom. As I said, they are both very gifted wizards.”
“So, what happened to the Dungeon Guard? I do hope you didn’t kill any of them.”
“No, luckily they are all safe, just a long way away, I apparated them across to the other side of Trymyll. They should be back in a few days if they walk fast,” said Flintock, smiling.
“Why luckily?”
“Sorry,” Jon interjected, “I thought we were being attacked and I sent a bolt of energy up the corridor and blew the wall out of the guardroom.”
“No matter, walls can be replaced, lives are more precious and harder to replace,” she said philosophically.
Llewellyn interrupted, "It’s late now and the boys must be tired. We’ll take you up to the Residency of the High Elders, you can stay there overnight quite safely, and we will talk more on the morrow.”
With that, the days business was concluded, Bangers went to the residency, a sort of six-bedroom hotel for visiting High Elders, the boys were sent back to where they were staying to make their own supper and then bed. Llewellyn and Flintock returned to the alehouse where they were interrupted earlier by the boys and continued to talk over another pint of ale and a roast chicken.
The next morning Llewellyn and Flintock went over to the residency to pick up Bangers.
“We are here for High Elder Brangwen Binning,” Llewellyn told the steward, “please tell her that we are here.”
“Sorry, you’re too late, I’m afraid she’s gone.”
“Gone? We arranged to pick her up here at eight o’clock this morning. When did she leave?”
“About an hour ago, the Elder himself came and collected her, and they left together.”
“But that’s impossible, are you sure?”
“Oh yes sir, we all know the Elder, it was definitely him.”
Llewellyn and Flintock turned and left the same way they came in.
“Why do you think the Elder wanted her? How would he even know she was here?” Flintock asked.
“Simple, it wasn’t the Elder who collected her, it was someone else.”
“But surely the steward would know?”
“How could he, no one sees his face, not even a finger appears from beneath his cloak. The steward would hardly know his voice as so few have heard him speak. No, our friend Bangers has been escorted out of there by someone just dressed to look like the Elder," Llewellyn said in a very frustrated voice.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Oh, believe me, I know. I was with the Elder at seven this morning.”
Flintock didn’t pursue the comment but asked, "So, who collected her and where is she now?”
“If we knew that, we would have a lot of answers. Come, I have an idea. Let’s find the boys.”
They went back to where the family Jones was staying. He still didn’t know where they were as Llewellyn apparated him and Tryg in rather than show him the door. Flintock decided that it was not within the city as charms and dweomers had been set around the city walls to prevent apparating. But, he thought, ‘I could be wrong because he had already witnessed Llewellyn apparate within the city walls.’
Llewellyn explained what had happened to Bangers to the boys.
“After all we went through to get her out of Dolydd, she’s been captured again?” Tom said.
“How do you know it wasn’t the Elder who took him?” Asked Jon.
“Trust me, I know, I know exactly where the Elder was at the time, he was supposedly picking up Bangers, and it was nowhere near the residency.”
Flintock also accepted that as a reasonable explanation, Flintock was not with Llewellyn at the time either, so he presumed that Llewellyn was, as he had said, with the Elder around seven in the morning and as usual was being secretive about it.
“So now what?” the boys said.
“Where’s your map of Dolydd Castle?”
“Here in my pocket," Tom pulled it out, "it’s a bit screwed up," he flattened it out as best he could and laid it on the table, “now what?”
“Can we see Bangers on the map, back at the castle?”
“No, she’s not there, neither is Llewel the Loser,” oh, how Tom loved that name!
“Then put the quill on the map and ask it where they are.”
“Who?”
“Either of them it probably doesn’t matter as I suspect they are together.”
Tom laid the quill down and the boys concentrated on Bangers.
The quill leapt from the map and onto a new sheet of parchment.
“Well, that confirms she’s not in Dolydd," Llewellyn muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
The quill pen scribbled and scratched to reveal a system of caves, in the caves, were Llewel and Bangers plus seven other named wizards, but they had no idea who they were. At the centre was clearly marked a further presence, but it was unnamed and unidentified.
“Very strange,” Llewellyn said to himself, "very strange indeed. Where are these caves.?” he said aloud.
The boys looked at the quill as if to ask the question. The quill wrote a heading on the map, but in very fancy writing...
The Dragonlands of Trymyll.
“So, they have hidden in the Dragonlands. I bet I can guess where as well, The Blue Mountains!”
The quill continued...
The Blue Mountains, by way of a sub-heading.
“Amazing,” said Flintock, “how did you teach the boys that bit of magic?”
“I didn’t, they worked it out themselves. Don’t ask me how.”
“And don’t ask us, we haven’t a clue, we just did!” exclaimed Jon.
Then Flintock added, "Damnation! Not a place for the faint-hearted. I can think of so many places I would rather go.”
“Why?” Tom inquired.
“As you may have surmised, Blue Mountains means Blue Dragons. Hundreds of them, hundreds, and hundreds. Not a nice place.”
Llewellyn chimed in, "Not only dangerous because of the dragons, but vile and stinking of rotting flesh. I warn you now, you will be sick. It is the vilest place on earth.”
“I didn’t think we were on earth.”
“Well, we are, sort of, but in a slightly different dimension.”
That’s another conversation Tom decided not to pursue for the moment.
There were six little pops as they all appeared on top of a ridge overlooking the Blue Mountains. Howel had also appeared next to them, though when they left Blaenoraid he was a small dog carried by Tryg. As usual, Tom was still awestruck at the immense size, strength and power that exuded from his shimmering, well-muscled, yet slightly plump body. Sat on the great beast’s neck was Tryg. He had also come to do battle.
“Good morning, Llewellyn, Flintock, Jon and Tom," he said in his posh Oxford accent, "I refuse to greet and be civil whilst in the guise of that half-breed dog.”
They all returned the greeting to both Howel and Tryg. Tryg, of course, said nothing as usual but did manage a smile, or at least as best he could. It’s quite difficult to smile when your mouth is full of hideous looking teeth, sharp like barbed ivory thorns, but you could still see the warmth in his face.
“Why are you here?” asked Tom, not in a rude way, but a curious inquiring sort of way.
“To, if necessary, fight alongside you. A Purple Dragon in his prime, like me, can take on many Blue Dragons and defeat them in a fight to the death, also, of course, I can play mind tricks with some of them, but not all. You see, with their tiny brains I can easily turn them to do my will instead of theirs.”
“Cool," said Tom.
“Of course, I prefer the more intellectually challenging game of psychological warfare to fisticuffs," Howel said with a visible grin.
It was soon put to the test. A few moments later four Blue Dragons flew overhead staring down on them from above. Howel looked up at them and launched into the air. Howel flew up to them, through their tight formation and onward into the clouds. The four Blue Dragons followed him upwards. But at a slow pace, not an attacking speed, their throats were not even glowing, they were not, it appeared looking for a fight. A few seconds later, one Blue Dragon fell from the air crashing into the rocks below where its fire chamber burst and the whole dragon seemed to instantly cook in its own combustion. Seconds later a second, then a third, shortly followed by the fourth Blue Dragon all fell from the clouds and were dashed on the jagged rocks below.
Howel swooped down and stood again next to the four wizards,
“Nice work," said Tom, "how did you defeat them so quickly?”
“Simple dear boy, I persuaded three of them that they couldn’t fly, so they just plummeted down to the jagged rocks below to their ultimate demise, the fourth dragon thought he was smart and above such mind tricks, so I flew straight at him and with one mighty blast, I cooked his head. Blue Dragons are the most stupid of dragons, those were even more stupid than normal, they followed me up into the cloud not looking for a fight, but out of curiosity to see where I was going. I do believe they should not be called dragons at all but instead, have some inferior name more suited to their very secondary existence.”
Tom loved the poetic way that Howel spoke. He had missed his old dragon friend these past months.
“And I have missed you too young Tom,” Howel shot the thought straight into Tom’s head without speaking.
As they moved down the mountains, the stench came up to meet them. It wasn’t the dragons that had just died, although the smell of the burning flesh of the first to fall was unpalatable, it was the rotting corpses of hundreds of half-eaten ox, cows, pigs, deer and even the odd weird wolf that filled the air. A few minutes later, Tom said hello to his breakfast, as it spilt out and onto the mountain path. That set Jon off and moments later they were both puking until there was nothing left to throw up. Everyone was looking quite green with nausea. Tom then held the stone on top of his staff sending out waves of soothing anti-emetic magic into everyone else. They all felt a lot better, but Tom could not do the same for himself and no one returned the favour. So, they had to carry on down with Tom feeling worse and worse while the others felt better and better. He liked being a healer but wished he could heal himself.
They looked at the map, the cave entrance was in the hill after next, they needed to be careful now not to be spotted. They pulled up their hoods and then they were all but invisible because of their cloaks, Howel went into ‘undignified mode’ and reappeared as a small Jack Russell, but this time, not the usual white, black, and tan colour, but of a colour to match the rocks and mountain on which they were walking. Tryg disappeared into a wisp of smoke which then followed the little party down towards the cave. They arrived at the cave entrance and Tryg reformed out of the smoke. There were still seven wizards, plus Llewel and Binning and the unknown one deep in the cave.
“Tom and Howel, you stay here and guard the entrance, I’ll take Jon, Tryg and Flintock and see what we can find in the cave.”
Tom agreed readily as he felt safe with Howel and caves were not his favourite place, if it came to a fight, they would be better off with Jon anyway.
They moved into the cave. They had only gone a short distance when the unknown one disappeared from the map.
Around the mountain a thunder of Blue Dragons emerged from the clouds, this time Tom could see evil intent in their faces, their chests were glowing almost white with the build-up of fire they had worked up in their bellies ready for a fight, someone had obviously tipped them off. Howel reappeared in all his glory and launched off towards them. Five of the Blue Dragons peeled off to go after Howel, the others, about six turned down towards the entrance of the cave. Tom backed into the cave entrance.
The others were now some way into the cave complex. There were torches lit and hanging at regular intervals, Tryg noticed and noted each one as they passed them and as they passed by, each one went out, leaving their escape route in complete and utter pitch-black darkness. As they rounded the last bend, the tunnel opened out into a vast cathedralic cavern with massive stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rising to meet them. There in the centre of the cavern stood a group of wizards with one very noticeably short wizard who seemed to have assumed authority, Llewel, and one slightly stout lady wizard who was, of course, High Elder Brangwen Binning. They stayed in the shadows as they moved down towards their prey. Tryg then took out all the torches at once, there was a scurrying sound followed by shouting and cursing, a few seconds later all the torches re-lit. In the centre of the cavern stood Tryg with eight mauled and several unconscious wizards, and an amazed, slightly frightened looking but unharmed Brangwen Binning. Tryg was vicious but effective, he could see perfectly in the complete darkness and completed his task well. It was not the way Llewellyn wanted to handle the situation, but Tryg knew it would be easier to seek forgiveness from Llewellyn than to ask permission, especially as trygalls cannot speak.
Meanwhile, back at the surface, the six Blue Dragons flew at speed towards the cave, each intent on a little light supper. Stupid as they are, they crashed into the cave entrance and were unable to move as they were all both tangled together and had their heads and necks jammed in the entrance. There was much snapping of teeth and biting each other as each fought for dominance in the cave, all the time becoming increasingly stuck in the tight entrance hole. Tom could see the build-up of fire in their guts, he knew they were going to blow soon, and if he were in the way, he would be roast dinner. He couldn’t outrun the fire when it came but he hoped he could block it.
“Staff," he quickly wove an impenetrable and hopefully fireproof shield between him and the Dragons. They all seem to explode their bellies of fire towards him at the same time, he could feel the heat as his shield glowed first red, then yellow, and finally white-hot with the intense heat. He could hear them screaming as the flames were contained and bounced back and directly onto their stupid heads. He was fighting hard to hold it in place and knew he could not hold it for long. But, almost as quickly as it had started, it was over. He dropped the shield and was sick again. The entrance of the cave was filled with the burning flesh of the Blue Dragons. In their stupidity, all had perished, instead of Tom; it was they who were roast meat. Tom decided at that point that he really hated the smell of burning flesh, even if it was dragon flesh, in fact, especially if it was dragon flesh.
He illuminated the end of his wand and used it as a torch as he ran down into the cave. It was not many minutes before he had reached the others. He hadn’t thought about what he was running into, for all he knew there could have been a great battle going on and he could run straight into the firing line. But he just had to get away from the entrance and away from the smell of burning flesh. He was quite horrified by the scene which greeted him, but for a moment he didn’t care and ran straight to his father and grabbed him around the neck sobbing.
“Calm down Tom, it’s all right, we are all safe and thanks to Tryg, none of us are even hurt. Now tell me what’s the matter?”
Tom tried to relate the story in between sobs.
“Six Blue Dragons......stuck in the cave mouth........massive fireball.......put up shield........fire bounced back.....cooked them all alive......terrible screams...... terrible screams......, hate the smell........of burning flesh........ What happened.......here?”
“Well, not what we had planned, well actually we didn’t have a real plan, we were going to decide what to do once we had surveyed the scene. But before we could, Tryg here, a one-man army, put out all the torches, sorted the wizards out quite viciously, and this is what we found once he re-lit the torches a few seconds later. Not pretty I’m afraid.”
Tom composed himself and said, "I must start work immediately.”
Tom took his wand and went to each wizard in turn, starting with those who seemed in worse shape but leaving Llewel until last.
“Don’t worry about them, look that dreadful trygall has mauled me, quick, come and stop the bleeding, I think I’m going to faint. I am the most important wizard here, so I should be treated first not them," Llewel whined.
Before long, each wizard seemed to be in a cocoon of ever-changing light. Tom even went over to Bendy and cocooned her, as although physically unharmed, she was in a state of high shock and looked terrible, finally, he went and attended to Llewel.
“How long will healing take?” asked Flintock.
“No idea, I expect Llewel the Whining Loser will be first as his wounds are superficial. Bangers might be the longest as her wounds are to her emotional wellbeing rather than physical. But some of them are quite gravely injured, so it could be weeks for some," Tom had no idea where the concept of emotional wellbeing came from as it was not a phrase he had ever used but decided it must be the wisdom of the wand.
“Well. we don’t have weeks, we need to be out of here and on our way, there may be reinforcements on the way.”
“What about them?” Tom nodded towards the prisoners.
“We’ll take them with us, all of them. Flintock, are you able to apparate this many people in one shot?”
“Easy-Peasy," he replied, "where to?”
“Back to Blaenoraid and into the dungeons. Jon, take their wands, all of them.”
“What if they won’t give them over?”
“Ask them if they want another round with a trygall.”
Jon quickly produced seven wands and took them to his dad. As they had been taken legally, Llewellyn was able to quickly destroy them.
“Where’s the other one?”
Llewel claims he doesn’t have one.
“Tryg, come with me, we need a word with Llewel,” Llewellyn said this in such a way that he knew Llewel would hear.
“I haven’t got a wand; you took it yesterday. Keep him away from me! NO! Keep that animal away!”
“Prove it.”
“How do I do that?” he snivelled almost in tears.
“I can extract your wand from you if you have it, and you know I can. If I find a wand the size of a matchstick on you, I’ll walk away and just leave my friend Tryg with you.”
“No! No! No! Don’t do that, I don’t have one, I haven’t had time to go back to the wand tree, it’s several days journey from here and you know I don’t apparate. Please, don’t let him near me.”
Now he was crying. Tears and sweat ran down his face, washing the grime of years from his matted beard.
“Wand” he whispered in Llewel’s ear, "wand of Llewel Mathias Gaynor appear.”
Nothing happened.
“Well, that’s a first, Llewel Mathias Gaynor wasn’t lying.”
“How do you know my whole name; I have never spoken it to anyone.”
“Well, Llewel Mathias Gaynor,” he said it louder so that everyone could hear, "Well, Llewel Mathias Gaynor,” he said again “that is for me to know and you to worry about, especially now all your compatriots know your whole given name as well. Quite a big worry I should think.”
He turned to Flintock and the boys, “Right, let’s be out of here.”
They went to apparate.
Nothing happened.