Hilda - The Challenge (54 page)

"Gods, I wonder who has such a taste," said
William, "most of that is an attack on the eyes."

Hilda nodded. "I know. It's interesting to
see how much garbage is produced. So, ready for another ghost
meet?"

"Sure. I ain't afraid of no ghost," William
giggled.

It earnt him a frown from Hilda who then
opened the door. They went down the stairs again, this time not
needing a torch. They'd been here before.

The ghost was nowhere to be seen. It howled
once in a while, but kept itself hidden.

"Hey, ghost! Come out where we can see you.
We need to talk." Hilda magicked up two chairs, on which they sat
down. "We're not leaving until we've talked to you. And you'd
better make it snappy or we're going to make things really hard on
you."

William wondered if she was referring to his
non-existing second plan.

They waited. And waited quite a while, their
only source of entertainment being their chatting and the howls of
the ghost that did not show up.

"Not really snappy, is it?", William
commented.

"As I said, ghosts have no sense of time.
We'll just wait."

A loud howl later the ghost hung before them,
again at a safe distance.

"Well, look who we have here," Hilda took
control of the situation. "I'd love to ask you to sit down, but
that would be a bit odd."

"There are only two chairs," a hollow voice
said.

William tried to keep his surprise under
control but failed miserably. He did leave the talking to Hilda,
that evidently was the safest thing to do.

"Right..." Hilda made a third chair
appear.

The ghost went and hovered over that. "Thank
you." It seemed to wait for more.

"So, what brought you here?", Hilda asked as
if she was talking to someone she had not seen for a while.

"An opening," was the simple and hollow
answer. Then the ghost howled again, be it moderately loud. "I take
it this annoys you. I mean to annoy."

"I must say that I have heard nicer sounds,"
Hilda agreed. "Now, what opening brought you here? This is the
King's Castle and he's a bit ticked off with the sound you
make."

"Oh. That is good." The ghost howled full
force for a moment. That probably was its way to tell the world how
pleased it was.

"Actually that is not good, because a
ticked-off king is not good for the people. And ticked-off people
are very bothersome to deal with, which in turn will anger the king
even more."

The ghost rose up from the chair and bobbed
down again. "And all that because I am here?"

"Quite, yes."

A loud and long howl was theirs to not enjoy.
"I had no idea that my presence here would have such an impact. I
am happy here, this is a good ghosting place."

"Crappedy crap, you don't get it, do you?",
asked Hilda. "This is not the place for you to be, ghost. You had
your own place to howl, and you got here by accident. Now you will
show us where that opening was that you came through, and you will
go back through it."

"No." The ghost sounded very determined. And
even more hollow. "My old place was no fun. People were not scared
of me there."

"So it is scaring them that you want, not
annoying them," William pitched in.

"The scaring comes after the annoying," the
ghost replied.

"I beg to differ. You seem to be uncertain of
what you want. You first claimed annoying, then you claimed scaring
and now you claim both," argued William.

Hilda stared at her wizard, not really
understanding what he was getting at, but since he had the ghost's
attention, she sat back and let him have a go at it.

The ghost was silent for a moment. "But isn't
scaring a higher level of annoying?"

"It is definitely not. I have worked with
books and language for many years, and there is no book that I have
found which would underwrite your statement. Annoying people will
in the end make them nervous and break down. If you scare people,
they will in the end either get used to it or turn against
you."

"Ah." The ghost sounded now mostly hollow. It
seemed to become unstable a bit, more and less opaque.

Hilda now got William's meaning. He was
trying to confuse the ghost. "I agree with the wizard," she told
the ghost. "And you don't want to be there when people turn against
you. That is when they bring in the heavy artillery, like witches
and wizards. Now, you may have gathered that we are a witch and a
wizard. What does that tell you?"

"Uhm... that the people are scared already?"
The ghost clearly had problems coping with being questioned like
this.

"No, dumb ass," William said, "they are
getting smarter. You won't get away with the same old routine over
time. People understand by now that all they have to do is call in
the help of wizards and witches to deal with a ghost. They hire the
ghostbusters, as it were."

"And that's us," Hilda said, "and you see
that it works when they call us."

"It does?" The ghost was losing ground by the
minute. "I am still here, am I not?"

"Yes, you are," William confirmed as he got
up. "The question is: for how long..." He drew his wand and
conjured up a set of weird looking utensils. He just did his best
remembering the objects he had seen in the Ghostbusters movie long
ago. "Perhaps you care to know what these things are."

The ghost hovered away from the chair and
hung over the assembly of strange things. "Do I need to know?"

Hilda grinned to herself. So far they had
managed to keep the ghost from howling for quite a while already,
and whatever it was that William was doing: it worked!

William tried to feed Hilda some information
about the fake equipment as he was explaining about what looked
like a mutilated vaccuum cleaner. "See, this thing is what we use
for Slimers."

"What are slimers?", the ghost asked.

"I beg your pardon? You don't know what
Slimers are? The silly round ghosts that spit around slime and
other goo? We have this magical tool to simply suck them up. Once
they're inside this, they can't escape." William patted the vaccuum
cleaner. "Good thing, works perfectly."

Hilda got up as she wanted to join in the fun
and grabbed another device. It looked like the cup of a giant
blender. "This is what we have to put the small ones in," she told
the ghost.

William stood back and watched Hilda go on,
biting his tongue to keep from laughing.

"See, the smaller ghosts, as you probably
know, are not that fast. So we only have to wait for one to zoom
by" -she took the lid off the cup- "whack it over the ghost" -in a
fierce and fast movement she whacked the cup over the ghost- "and
close the cup." Which is what she did. Then she stared at the
transparent cup. "Suck an elf. It worked." She shook the cup a few
times. A faint howl came from it as the ghost was frantically
moving around.

William was totally flabbergasted. "How the
hell did you do that?"

"Not sure. It looked like a good thing to
try." The witch held up the cup. "See, we warned you." She looked
at William. "What are we going to do with it?"

"Good question. How about we give it to the
king, as a present? I don't know if it is a common thing for a king
to have his own ghost in a... blender."

"Shiny!! Let's go and do that!" Hilda grinned
a wide smile. She watched how William made all the strange
equipment disappear, including the three chairs, and then they
walked up the stairs again, and down the long corridor that took
them to the courtyard.

Many eyes followed them as Hilda carried the
big cup to the king. "King Walt, we have your ghost. Here it is,
all yours." She put the cup on the table, in front of the chubby
royal man.

"That is... the ghost?" The king picked up
the cup and reached for the lid.

"I would leave that on, King," William said,
"unless you want to be the first king with a ghost in his garden.
They're pretty hard to catch."

Quickly King Walt put the cup down. "Yes, I
thought the same. I was just making sure the lid was on tightly."
He blushed for a moment. He got up and thanked the witch and the
wizard. "I will see to it that a proper compensation will be
brought to your home, dear magical people. And thank you ever so
much for this speedy operation. It is definitely not pleasant to be
a king when you have to sit... there." He pointed at the small seat
that had probably hurt his extensive royal rear quite a bit.

The witch and her wizard remained near the
castle until the entire staff had entered the castle again. They
then went inside with the king.

"The ghost told us it had come in through
some opening. It is probably a good thing to let some good people
check the cellar and make sure that there are no openings left that
should not be there," Hilda warned the king. "Otherwise there is no
saying what will come through that opening next."

"Yes, yes, my thoughts exactly," King Walt
nodded as he handed them both a glass of wine. A servant offered
them a tray with a choice of handmade chocolates.

"Oh, chocolate!" Hilda grabbed a handful and
happily munched away.

William took one and was happy with that.

"I am really grateful that we have such a
fine working relationship, dear witch and wizard," Walt said as he
lowered himself on a comfortable couch.

They chatted for a short while longer, and
then the magical couple left the king, fetched their brooms and
made for home.

The days after catching the ghost went by
rapidly. The couple was preparing for the challenge which now was
coming close.

"Today we have to pack up and go there,
William." Hilda lay in his arm, close to him. She enjoyed the
feeling of closeness and the strength in his arm with which he
pulled her even closer to him for a moment.

"Yes. I know. We did all we can do, I think.
And we can count ourselves acquaintances of Gurthreyn."

"As if that helps," the witch snorted.

William doubted it too. The experience of
meeting the magician had drifted to the back of their memories, and
they both considered it a very strange kind of dream by now.

As they were getting up and ready, the sound
of trumpets rang through the air.

"The king is here," said the house. "And he
did not come alone."

"You don't say..." William peeked out the
window. "Good grief. Looks like he brought half the country."

"Don't exag- Crap, looks like he brought half
the country," Hilda said as she looked out with him.

As they were dressed already, they stepped
outside. One does not keep a king waiting.

"Dear honourable witch and wizard," said King
Walt from inside the carriage. "We thought it only proper to come
to you on this day and inform you that we wish you all the magic
you need to make this challenge a favourable one."

Before either of the two could say something,
the trumpeteers blew their hearts out, and the crowd started
cheering like crazy. It left the magical couple completely
flabbergasted. A relatively small delegation of the enormous amount
of visitors came to them, to personally wish them well. There were
about ninety people in that group.

After a few hours the horde left the area
again; they heard the trumpets' sound long after the group had
gone.

"Shiny, wasn't it?", said Hilda.

"This was... wow." William had an arm around
her shoulders. "I'd never have expected that."

"No, really. This was quite a surprise."
Hilda looked up at her wizard. "My hands hurt."

William took her hands and kissed them.
"Better now?"

"No, but it feels nice. Could you do that
again?" Blue sparkles flew from her eyes.

With a grin, he kissed her hands again.

"Thank you. Now we should get ready to leave,
sweet man."

It did not take them very long. They had been
preparing for a while already, their luggage had been pre-shrunk
even. With brooms in hand they left the house and Hilda put the
large iron chains around it. She mumbled something extra and
William was a bit worried as he sensed her feeling through their
bond.

"We are coming back, Hilda."

The witch stared at her house. "I hope you
are right, William. This is just in case. If we don't make it, then
in five years the chains will disappear."

"You must come back sooner. I do not want to
be chained up for five years," said the house.

"I know," Hilda said with a nod. "We're going
to do our best. Five years of chains is not good for your
paint."

William was a bit surprised. Did he just hear
her brave and boisterous witch sniff away a tear?

As she turned to him, nothing showed of it.
"Come. Let's go."

They mounted their brooms and flew away. They
had decided, a few days ago, to make a detour to the castle, but as
the king was still on his way there, they looked for the caravan
that was going there. That was quite easy. They flew low over the
crowd and along the carriage, raising a few hundred people to cheer
again, and then they turned their brooms toward the east.

The couple had planned plenty of stops, so
they would not arrive at the labyrinth totally exhausted. It took
them a full two days, in which they did nothing remarkable, but
they spent a lot of quality time that way. The challenge hung over
them like a tangible thing, and they did their best to to ignore
it.

In the afternoon of the second day, they
passed through the magical field that separated the labyrinth of
Gurthreyn from the rest of the world. They had been expecting it,
and yet again, as happened with their previous visits, they had
their load of nausea hitting them by surprise.

The large terrain outside the actual
labyrinth looked peculiar. There were tents, people, horses and
brooms. Lots of banners with the sigil of King Herald were put
everywhere, but the lack of wind made the banners look remarkably
pathetic as they hung down listlessly.