Chapter 3 - A day’s journey from here...
Tom and Howel started down the mountain and into the valley. The path was steep and at times quite slippery. Near the top, the trees were small and stunted, the vegetation coarse and scratchy, mainly heather and gorse. Lots of rock and shale underfoot made the going quite slow at times. As they moved down the mountainside the trees became bolder in appearance the shrubs greener and other foliage grew, making it softer underfoot. This made walking easier but no less tiring. After several hours of walking, stumbling and the occasional fall by Tom, they found themselves in what could only be described as a forest at the bottom of the valley. Here the trees were tall, every hue of green, some almost yellow in appearance and the odd copper beech tree interspersed amongst pines, yews, and other evergreens. It was very wild. It looked as if he may have been the first-ever person to set foot in here. Totally undisturbed virgin forest.
There was a sudden crack and a pop, Howel had turned back into Howl and Tom was left standing there. Ahead he could see an old man of Afro-Caribbean origin, walking through the woods. He had a staff in his hand which he leaned on heavily to walk and over one shoulder hung several dead rabbits which were freshly caught, and a brace of pheasant. On the other shoulder hung a bow. He walked slowly and steadily as if with purpose but with a distinct limp, he had the pain of age carved into his face.
Tom froze as he didn’t know whether this was one of the “less friendly” people Howel had spoken of. Suddenly, behind the old man, Tom saw what can only be described as a hideous creature silently creeping up behind him. The ‘thing” walked upright like a man but had scales like a fish, flaming red hair and terrible looking teeth, brown and sharp like barbed ivory thorns, long claw-like nails at the end of sinuous fingers and a look of cold hate on its face.
“Look out!” Tom shouted.
Before the word, ‘look’ had even left his lips the creature sprang. As he did the old man turned with unusual agility for someone of his age........... and then the most amazing thing happened, without seeming to move, the man appeared beside Tom, bow stretched, arrow already loosed and flying, as if in slow motion towards the thing. His aim was true and just before it struck its heart, the hideous monster turned to fire, then smoke and then vanished in the wind.
“What on earth was that!” exclaimed Tom in a highly agitated and squeaky voice.
“Thank you,” the old man said, “must be losing my touch, he almost got me that time, and I almost got him. That dear boy was a trygall," said the old man.
“What do you mean by almost got him? I saw the arrow hit him and he disappeared in a puff of smoke,” said Tom, “don’t tell me you missed him, and he’s still out there.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Tryg, he does that all the time.”
“All the time!” exclaimed Tom, his voice getting higher with each word.
As he spoke, the smoke reformed and the trygall appeared next to them. This time, however, he was different, still ugly, pug ugly in fact, but with a sense of peace about his face and an ‘almost’ smile on his face.
“Allow me to introduce you, this is Tryg, my personal trygall, I am Flintock the Elder, and you are? ...
“Tom..., Tom Jones,” he said with some trepidation.
“And what are you doing wandering in the woods all alone young Tom?” Flintock said in a teasing sort of voice.
“Err. Walking my dog?” Tom replied, raising his intonation at the end of the sentence which turned it into a question.
“Yes of course you are," said Flintock replied with a sceptical voice, “and where is your dog?”
“Well here,” Tom replied pointing at Howel in Jack Russell mode.
“Call that a dog?”
“Yes," Tom said sheepishly.
“What’s his name then?”
“Err... Howl?” He said, again sounding more like a question than an answer.
“Well I’ve never met a dog with a name like Howl,” he said, “a big purple dragon called Howel, however, that’s a different matter.”
There was a pop and there stood Howel, all sixty feet of purple dragon with a slightly embarrassed look on his face.
“How did you know?” Tom asked.
“Well, I am a great wizard, I have sight beyond sight, I understand things you have never heard of or dreamed of, I have power beyond power, and knowledge beyond knowledge, but mainly....," he paused for dramatic effect, “I saw you coming," he laughed.
“Hi Flintock, how are you, and how’s Tryg?” asked Howel.
“We are both well, thank you. I saw you coming so I caught us all some supper, you both must be hungry after your journey. There is a hut I have prepared just through this thicket where we can safely stay the night, I have placed many enchantments around it so no one and no thing can find it or see it.”
Tom didn’t mind the no one, but the no thing bit was a little unnerving.
“Oh, and by the way, the limping old man thing is just a ruse until I was sure who was coming.”
As he spoke, Flintock morphed into a much younger man, his skin was almost ebony black, but he was tall, upright, strongly built and Tom could see that he had quite a handsome face with high cheekbones and two symmetrically cut scars on each cheek, “and I’m sorry about the little game Tryg and I play, it keeps us both on our toes you understand.”
Tom didn't like to say so, but no, he didn't understand. They all walked deeper into the woods, there was a small clearing, and in the clearing, there stood a hut, or at least the remains of a hut. It was small; no bigger than a garden shed. It was tatty, run-down, broken, overgrown with ivy and had a hole in the roof.
“How are we going to sleep in that? It’s too small, we won’t all fit in," Tom declared.
Flintock cut him short.
“Oh, it’s not that bad, looks can be deceiving, it might be quite nice inside,"
“I don’t somehow think so," Tom muttered under his breath as he walked all around the outside of the garden shed before going back to the front.
The door swung open, and they entered in, Howel now in his doggy mode for obvious reasons. The door closed behind them. It was very dark, but there they were, one boy, one wizard, one trygall and a sixty-foot dragon, now the size of a small dog.
As Tom’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom and as torches, candles and candelabra were magically lit, he could not believe his eyes. They now all stood in a great hall with doors on all sides, a vaulted ceiling with windows around to let in the light, a huge table in the middle, comfortable chairs, sofas, and cushions all around the room and a massive fire burning in an enormous inglenook fireplace at the far end of the room. It seemed as big as a football pitch, and yet he knew that they had entered a small hut. Tom at once exited the building, ran around the shack and back into the front door.
“Like I was saying, it looks a bit rough on the outside, but once you’re in, it can be quite comfortable.”
For once Tom didn’t know what to say. His thoughts were racing, his heart was pounding, but he was silent. He wanted to say something, but he was so overwhelmed, so excited that he just couldn’t find the words.
Flintock broke the silence, “come, let us eat, Tryg, make yourself useful and get the dinner on.”
He threw the rabbits and pheasant to the trygall who then bounded down the hall to the far end to prepare food.
“Can he cook then?” Tom asked, finding his tongue again.
“Oh yes, trygalls are very fine cooks, they have an instinctive knowledge of herbs and spices, they can forage for nuts and roots and from very little produce a very fine feast indeed.”
“What else can they do?”
“Well, magically little. As far as magical powers, they are a bit of a one-trick pony. They are firemasters.”
“Firemasters?” questioned Tom.
“They can, as you saw earlier, disappear into smoke, reappear out of the smoke, they can also turn into a fiery torch and can control fire in any way they want, raining fire onto their enemies, moving fire around or even bringing any fire into themselves thus removing it from whatever is burning. Trygalls are powerful friends but fearsome enemies, it was Tryg who lit all the torches and candles when we entered.”
“Why is he called Tryg?”
“They all are,” answered Flintock.
“How come?”
“They just are....... No imagination I suppose.”
There was a small cough from the other side of the table, it was Howel.
“Excuse me for mentioning this but is it not rather impolite to talk about someone behind their back, it is not even more impolite to do so when they are but a few feet away and in earshot.”
“I was just asking,” said Tom, "there is so much that’s different, so much I need to know, so much I need to ask.”
“The boy is right, there is much he has to learn, not just about trygalls, but about the whole land of Trymyll.”
“Well, he could have asked me,” Howel said in a slightly sniffy voice.
“Sorry," said Tom “now don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s difficult to have a discussion with a sixty-foot purple dragon, or even a Jack Russell dog, it just doesn’t seem natural, if you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t think I do,” Howel said in a very haughty voice.
“Hey, go easy on the boy, this morning, he had never seen a dragon, let alone one which talked, it must be strange, give the lad a chance.”
“He was happy to hear about dragons earlier.”
“Now he has met a trygall and has learnt a little of them.”
After a while, Tryg came over and signalled to Flintock that the dinner was prepared. Flintock waved his hand calmly towards the table, as he did so, the food appeared, plates high with hot steaming food. It all smelled delicious and Tom, Flintock and Tryg tucked in eagerly. There was a roasted hare, rabbit pie, stuffed and spiced pheasant, potatoes, greens, carrots, and even peas. Tom avoided the greens. He was not impressed with Tryg’s table manners as he ate with his hands and threw the bones over his shoulder.
While they ate, Flintock drank a very frothy looking ale, Tryg was drinking what looked like herb tea, and Tom had fresh, homemade lemonade.
Tom soon realised that Howel was missing.
“Where’s Howel?” he asked.
“He doesn’t eat with us; he’ll be back after he’s eaten. He’ll find a deer or two or maybe an ox. It’s not pretty to watch, but he is a dragon after all.”
Tom wasn’t sure if he was joking or telling the truth but decided not to dwell on the thought.
“So, tell me young Tom, where are you from? Tell me a little about yourself.” Flintock asked, of course, he already knew all there was to know but asked anyway.
“Well, not much to tell really, I am Welsh, from a small mining town in the south of the country, I only have my mum at home, my dad left when I was a couple of weeks old and took my brother with him. I was doing okay, but my ma was ill, so I was looked after by this posh couple, Mr, and Mrs Hadley Smythe, who turned out to be Howel in disguise. Don’t ask me how though. And it was Howel that brought me here, but you know that of course don’t you.”
“Well, I was the son of a tribal chief of the Yoruba peoples from Benin in West Africa. I was bought here as a young boy because my natural and latent magic powers frightened my people. Had I not fled all those years ago with my great-uncle, who was a hidden wizard of great power, the tribe would have probably killed me.”
“What’s a hidden wizard?”
“A hidden wizard, well it’s a wizard who lives an ordinary life, never showing their power or magic in any way. They also suppress their inner aura for want of a better description, so other magical people cannot sense their power, so, for all intents and purposes, they are just ordinary people.”
“Why would they want to hide then?”
“Well, often they are there in secret to look after someone special and to protect them. For my great-uncle, it was me he had to protect, in secret and out of sight. Hidden.”
“Wow, are there many hidden wizards then?”
“Who knows, if we knew, they wouldn’t be hidden would they. Now, eat up," said Flintock, “Llewel the Elder will arrive in the morning. You must get a good night's sleep as we have far to go tomorrow and in the days that follow.”
Tom was shown a room to the side of the main hall. It was a bedroom, the bed in the centre of the room was probably bigger than his old bedroom. Apart from the bed, there was a big leather sofa, a small desk with a lit candle and chair, and a bookcase full of old leather books all set out on a stone slab floor with a red patterned rug. The rug had a dragon pattern woven into the middle which looked the same as the one on his ring. There were drapes around the bed which heralded the same motifs as the carpet. In the fireplace, there was a roaring fire with a large leather padded Chesterfield chair next to it which looked both warm and cosy. The room was probably bigger than most houses back home! On the bed were his own pyjamas, on the floor his slippers, and hung beside the bed his old dressing gown. He could hardly believe his eyes, but that was a feeling he was becoming used to now.
He quickly got changed, went over to the washbasin, and was not surprised to find his toothbrush, flannel, and towel there. In fact, he didn’t think anything much would surprise him now.
He washed, cleaned his teeth, and jumped into bed. He slept a fitful and dream-filled night with dreams of dragons, trygalls and wizards, castles, mountains, caves, his father, his brother, and the ring which he dreamt was glowing and emitting a bright light like a beacon in the dark signalling to the whole world that he had arrived.
Somewhere in the distance, he could hear his name being called, repeatedly. But this was not the voice of Hadley-Smythe, Flintock or Howel, or anyone he could remember, but somehow it was a voice he recognised. But from where.............?