Melforger (The Melforger Chronicles) (2 page)

OK
, he thought.
So now there’s something wrong with my head. Great. I better go see Dr Ferrows and find out if I’m going crazy.

He pursed his lips.
As long as she doesn’t go and tell mom. If she finds out I’m ‘seeing things’ with everything
else
that’s stressing her out at the moment…

He lay back, gloomily shaking his head, and closed his eyes. The tune had an annoying way of lurking just beneath his thoughts and he soon found himself humming it again. When the strange colors emerged into view again, he forced himself to ignore them, humming louder and turning his thoughts back to the pipe he’d been trying to make. He focused hard on imagining himself carving the instrument, seeing the shape in such minute detail that he soon forgot about the colors.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

Fergus yawned and stared blankly into the distance as the three goats munched on the berries. Although he had come to adore the Forest as they travelled through it, it was hard working for Mr. Wesp. Aunt Firda had said that he was an important man with lots of money and Fergus should try to learn how to become a trader, but if having money meant you had to act (and smell!) like Mr. Wesp, then he thought he’d prefer to live more like the Forest people.

A bright green lourie shrieked in the leaves above and made him jump. He giggled with delight as it spread its wings, showing off the fiery red feathers underneath, and soared away around one of the trees. The only birds he had ever seen in Miern were the crows. They were big black birds that lived near the waste dumps making their horrible squawks.

He suddenly felt his mouth flood as a delicious smell of roasting meat drifted past. He realized what it meant though, and with a worried gasp, he scrambled to the wagon and stood on top.
Peering
over the bushes nearby, he saw that a big clearing had been cut away. Broken vines and branches littered the floor and in the middle of the mess was the old trader sitting by a huge fire. You weren’t allowed to make fires in the middle of the Forest! Even Fergus knew that; it was the first thing you were told when you came into the Forest. What was Mr. Wesp thinking? There was another rolling boom of thunder and Fergus looked up hopefully, urging the heavy clouds to hurry.

W
esp lifted his mead bag to his mouth and took a long draft. Under his free arm rested the leather case, his hand stroking the straps that held it closed. He stared into the flames, watching as they crackled and danced, the roasted peacock carcass set to one side.

The breeze strengthened and became damp and cold, so he stood up and made his way to a pine branch propped against the wagon which he seized and up-ended onto the fire. He stepped back as it crashed down, embers flying up in a small storm, but as he turned to sit down again
, there was a strange movement under him - a shifting sensation that stopped him in his tracks.

Wesp stared around trying to determine what it was, when, with a soft tearing noise, several tiny cracks appeared in the ground right in front of him. He moved backwards, staring curiously as the splits spread out across the clearing, when suddenly, the centre buckled and collapsed in a shower of sparks as the bonfire completely disappeared. A jagged hole appeared out of the smoke and dust and widened outwards rapidly as great chunks of ground gave way and fell through.

Wesp fled, stopping only when he reached the edge of the clearing where he clung to a tree trunk. Bits of the fire that had caught on hanging vines were still flickering away along the sides of the hole. He peered over the edge, which was only a few feet away from him, and was just in time to see the bulk of the fire tumbling down in a glittering cloud through the darkness.

He pulled himself backwards, fighting dizziness. It was so far down! The flaming logs had been bouncing down the side of a trunk like tiny rag dolls when he spied them, and must have fallen a hundred yards after that before they disappeared into the blackness below. He had no idea the platform was so high above the ground…

Panting, he stared around and then flinched in shock as he saw where he had been sitting.

“No!” he rasped, his eyes darting around the mangled ground.

A sound behind him made him jump but it was only the boy who had skidded to a halt next to him, a shocked expression on his face as he took in the hole.

“Where
is
it?” hissed Wesp, spinning to stare in dismay again at the gaping hole - right where he had been sitting. A tight groan escaped from his throat. “It can’t have…”

“Sir?” quavered Fergus.

“My leather case!” Wesp scrambled to crouch down at the hole’s edge, staring into the darkness. “No, no… it can’t…” He clutched at his face with dirty hands. “My money…”

Fergus crawled carefully around to the opposite side of the clearing, peering down into the dusty darkness until he suddenly spotted something underneath the lip.

“Mr. Wesp, sir!”

“What? What is it? Can you see it?”

“Sir, there’s a small tree hanging upside down and your bag’s stuck on it!”

“Where?” Wesp nervously leaned over and spotted the bag twenty feet down, hanging from a branch it had caught on.

“No!” He tilted his head back in despair and then stopped, turning to slowly look at the boy. “You… can climb can’t you?”

“Uhh…. yes, sir, I’m the best in the whole of the Docks.”

“Time for you to earn your way then,” said Wesp. “I think you’re going to fetch my case, yes,
Fergus? When you get it, your aunt will find out how good you’ve been when we get back. Think how proud she’ll be.”

Fergus looked over the edge. “But what if it falls? If it breaks…” 

Wesp clenched his fists in rage and marched through the brush up to the boy. “You’re lucky I let you travel with me for the last two weeks! And feed you! Any of the other good-for-nothing orphans like you in Miern would kill for the chance!” He took hold of Fergus’ neck in a painful grip, and walked back around the hole’s edge, forcing the boy in front of him. “Now get down there and fetch my case!” With a shove, he pushed Fergus towards the edge.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

Fergus rubbed his neck and sat down at the lip of the hole, legs dangling over. It wasn’t
that
different to climbing around back in Miern, really. He just needed to be careful – especially with the rain really starting to come down. He moved forwards and then paused as a rotten smell suddenly hit him. It seemed to be coming from the hole, so he started breathing through his mouth and eased himself over the edge.

Gripping ripped branch ends and vines, he lowered himself until he reached the trunk of the hanging sapling, its roots splayed and stretched taut, securing it to the solid ground above where Mr. Wesp was crouching. It should have been completely dark underneath, but the dusk light spilling through from the newly created opening revealed a landscape of formless shapes; the nearest ones dull brown and ochre, fading into sullen greys and charcoals as they stretched into the gloom.

The case was snagged on a small branch jutting out about half way down the dangling tree, so Fergus wrapped his arms and legs around the trunk and shimmied his way down, inch by inch. It was a strange sensation hanging over this dark emptiness. Everything was undefined and murky, although he could see rain drops shooting down in front of him, crystal-bright as they entered the hole, and then disappearing as they sailed downwards.

“Come on, hurry up!” The trader had slid on his stomach to the edge and was looking down at him.

Fergus rubbed the rain from his eyes with a sleeve and then gripped a branch with his hands as he edged his feet down to another branch below. Heart pounding, he got closer and closer to the case until it was only a few feet away. Slowly, slowly, just a few more inches… 

There was a ripping sound and the whole tree shuddered, dropping a few feet before jolting to a halt again. Fergus’ hands slipped off the trunk to send him falling downwards for a split second, before he crashed into a branch lower down. He frantically circled the trunk again with his legs, and stayed in that position, breathing hard and shaking.

“It’s getting wet with the rain, sir,” he whimpered.

“You’re almost there,” came a feverish hiss. “Think of your aunt!”

Fergus sniffed and looked up at the case hanging just above his head. Reaching up carefully, he took hold of the strap and tried to pull it off, feeling the coins inside shift awkwardly.

“It’s too heavy!” he shouted, eyes half closed to avoid the rain that was now falling fast and hard. “I don’t think I can do it. I’m scared, sir... I want to come back up.”

“You useless gutterpig!” screamed the trader. “You stay right there, don’t move!” With that, his shadowy shape disappeared from above the hole.

Fergus tried to blink the rain out of his eyes, and as he clung tightly to the tree, things started to come into focus in more detail. Around him, huge round trunks materialized slowly out of the musty blackness, rising up smoothly from the depths below. They were almost like the pillars of the Gerent’s palace, but these were much,
much
bigger. Even the smallest one he could see was thicker than a house.

Looking up along the underside of the path they walked on, he could make out the massive branches that grew out from the trunks. Wrapped around them and between them were millions of vines in a kind of thick, natural weave. A few hundred yards away, another eerie beam of light pierced the darkness. It was beautiful, and the rain that was falling twinkled like tiny crystals through the light. Fergus stared in wonder at it, forgetting for a moment where he was.

His quiet reverie was quickly shattered by a hard wet smack across his head, and for one brief moment he thought that Mr. Wesp himself had climbed down to beat him.
Batting around his head with one arm, his hand brushed against what turned out to be a slender length of coarse rope.

“Tie up the case to the rope!”

Fergus shuffled the rope through his fingers until he reached the end of it and then threaded it through the case handles before looping it over and through itself a few times.

“All right, Mr. Wesp, I think I’ve tied it,” he called, when the makeshift knot was tight.

“Make sure nothing falls out of it! If you lose anything, anything at all, you’ll regret it, boy!”

The rope snapped tight as the trader pulled on it and then, with a few rattles and clinks, the case slowly lifted in jerks upwards. Fergus followed it as best he could, carefully unhooking the bag every time it got caught on something. He could see Mr. Wesp’s face above, stretched tight with the effort as he hauled in the rope - when the hanging tree suddenly tore away completely from the ground and plummeted.

Feeling himself dropping with a sickening rush, Fergus threw his arms upwards and somehow managed to hook his fingers in the open side pocket of the case. It stretched to breaking point but held and, with a jerk, he swung wildly through the air. Above him, there was a shriek as the trader was pulled towards the edge with the sudden extra weight.

The tree tumbled down past Fergus and the last of the roots whipped his legs painfully as it fell away into the darkness below.

“Help!” 

Spinning uncontrollably, he looked up and saw the trader’s torso, crouched at the edge, fighting to regain control of the rope. He was clenching his teeth as the weight of the boy and the moneybag pulled him closer and closer towards the lip of the hole.

“Let go!”

“Sir, please, I don’t want to die!” wailed Fergus.

“Let go of the bag!” yelled the trader through clenched teeth. His left foot slid forwards in the mud and for a split second he lost control of the rope. The case lurched downwards, stopping with a jolt as he regained his footing.
But not before there was a small tear in the seam, and from the top-most pouch a couple of shiny coins glittered as they tumbled downwards.

“No! Don’t let them drop!” The trader h
eaved back as hard as he could, his heels digging into the ground and Fergus saw the rope and then the case strap slide up over the edge. And then he found himself within reach of the edge, so he quickly threw a hand up to seize a vine. With the sudden reduction in weight, the trader staggered backwards out of view.

Fergus swung a leg up over the side and levered himself onto the ground, rolling away from the edge. He hugged his knees and tried to catch his breath, but instantly dissolved into quiet sobbing.

“Enough of that.” Mr. Wesp was lying against a trunk, panting. He looked down at the leather case clutched to his chest and then added, “I don’t want to ever hear you speak about this.” He nodded back at the hole. “Else you’ll learn exactly how far down it goes in that hole there. And next time you won’t find me there to save you.”