The transition for Tommy hadn’t been anywhere near as hellish as what Jennings encountered. It was comfortably quick, and before he knew it, he stepped out of the same rugged oak tree doorway the very way he had entered it. The only difference was he was now covered in soil and plant roots from head to toe, which clung to his clothes even when he tried to brush them off.
The roots were alive and made Tommy squeamish, as he plucked each one off him. The large gateway door closed over, changing into solid oak again. Once his vision cleared, Tommy gazed in wonder at the most beautiful skies one could ever have dreamed of. Clear purple heavens lit up a beautiful white rock that lay ahead of him.
The thought of discovering this new world excited him. Trees surrounded him, but these were not like the withered and mossy trees that bordered Jacob O’Malley’s farmland. These trees appeared to ignite their surroundings like candlelight, reflecting the golden brown leaves that covered their roots. Spectacular colors enhanced the main pathway that lay behind the white rock. Strong, pleasant smells of rosemary and incense rose around him and cleared the remaining residue of stench the horrid assassins had left.
Tommy was exhilarated. The smells grew stronger with every breath he took. His body began adjusting to the atmosphere, when he fell onto his hands and knees, vomiting what little he had eaten earlier in the old world.
“Your body is just adapting to the new air,” a tiny high-pitched voice called out.
Tommy slowly got to his feet when he heard the strange voice.
“Who’s there?” he asked. There was a short silence, and Tommy found himself wondering what had happened to the rest of the group. Feeling isolated in a strange place gripped him with an unsettling feeling.
Rustling came from the gorgeous woodlands to the right of him along with the sounds of small feet puttering close by.
“Show yourself,” he demanded.
The creature seemed to defy gravity the moment it appeared on top of the white rock, leaping gracefully. “Don’t be alarmed, we are safe for now,” it said, scouting around for any sign of unwanted trouble.
It took a little while for Tommy to recognize his friend. “Peter?” Tommy gasped.
Peter’s ears stretched into a straight point like the east and west points of a compass, revealing white fluffy hair all over them with the exception of a black lined streak. His hair was whiter than ever, reflecting the forest lights in the background. Tommy noticed that even Peter’s attire was different. Sticks, leaves and branches, all finely stripped, made up his clothes, with ripped leggings and brown boots. But the most peculiar characteristic about Peter was in his face. The face now appeared too feminine to belong to a boy.
“What happened to your ears?” Tommy asked.
The creature kicked its feet high into the air and laughed as it rolled upon its back.
“What are you?” Tommy asked, with a light hesitance.
“I’m a nymph. My real name is Ariel,” came her soft reply. “I was sent to the old world disguised as one of you, to guide you back.”
“What is this all about?” he asked.
“It is not for my lips to tell, little Master…we don’t know who could be listening,” she whispered. “But you will know everything soon.”
“Shouldn’t we go back through the tree?” Tommy suggested, pointing at the great oak, only to discover that it had shrunk and changed to a shrub.
“Why would we want to do that?” She laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to things here,” she said, leading the way onto the colorful leafy road. “We must get moving, I’m taking you to the Stained Castle. All will be revealed to you then.”
She knelt to the ground and rummaged through several leaves to pull out a living vegetable from its root.
“Where are we?” Tommy asked.
“We’re in the new world,” she announced, showing Tommy lands as far as he could see from the top of the white rock. “This is Abasin.”
“It’s so big,” Tommy gasped.
“You’ve no idea,” Ariel replied excitably. “Take this, it will build up your strength,” she added, handing Tommy the vegetable plant creature. Its legs moved, but the body of the vegetable seemed unresponsive.
“Yuck! What is this?” Tommy asked in disgust, holding one of the squirming tentacles up by the tips of his fingers.
The nymph sighed. “It’s food. You have to eat,” she ordered, leading the way forward.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Just eat, Thomas. The sooner you eat, the sooner you will feel better, and the sooner we can get moving,” she called back, impatiently.
Tommy closed his eyes tight and braced himself to take his first bite of the vegetable. The tentacles flopped lifelessly to one side. It had a sweet texture mixed with an incredible savoury taste that took the nausea away from him almost instantly.
“What about Benjamin and Sebastian?” he asked, sounding a little more alert.
“We had to separate you. It’s safer that way,” came her quick reply.
“But we all went through the same way,” Tommy insisted, sounding doubtful. The nymph took another look at the messy boy who had food stains on his chin.
“Like I said, you’ll get used to how things work here,” she tittered. “Do not fear. There will be other protectors at their gateways to guide them to the Stained Castle.”
“What’s the Stained Castle?”
“A safe fortress. It once belonged to a great king, long before these dark ages,” she explained.
Tommy couldn’t help but pose more questions to the nymph, his mind growing ever more interested in the fascinating new world of Abasin. But out of the numerous questions he had buzzing around his head, Tommy Joel knew which one concerned him most.
“How far is it to this castle then?”
***
Sebastian’s hands frantically clawed the muddy earth in search of his large glasses.
He’d managed to brush off the soil and squirming shrubs before the new air made him throw up and lose his glasses in the process.
“Where are you?” he cried aloud in frustration until a blurry object appeared, holding his glasses with one finger. Grabbing them, Sebastian quickly fixed the legs of his glasses around his ears.
Once his frames were fixed upon his face, Sebastian could see the grubby fat creature he had so curtly snatched his glasses from.
“That was so rude,” came the sharp greeting.
Unwilling to converse with the creature, Sebastian turned around and speedily walked toward the gateway in search of Peter, keeping a close watch over his shoulder. Failing to notice the doorway had already closed, he bounced off the solid oak tree and landed backwards in the sludge. As he hit the surface, his glasses flew off his face and landed back into the hands of the fat creature.
“Well, this is going to be interesting,” the creature said, sighing. “I can see you’re a right handful.”
“Give them back!” Sebastian shouted, rubbing wet splatter marks of mud from his eyes as he swiped for his glasses.
“Give what back?” the creature teased, before it eventually handed the boy his eyewear.
“What in the world?” Sebastian gasped. His jaw hung open as he studied the offbeat figure dressed in dungarees and gray cotton overalls. Its nose was pointy and it had overgrown bumblebee wings sprouting from its back that glistened in the light. A mop of thick brown hair reached down to its eyebrows to accompany its circular chubby face. The creature was fat, but appeared capable and strong.
“Are you sniggering at me, human?” it asked.
“I do not snigger, I’m a respectable Englishman,” Sebastian replied, trying not to smirk.
“Englishman? What is that? I’ve never heard of one of those before.”
“By golly. Englishmen are polite, strong, decent folk, unlike creatures such as…whatever you are,” Sebastian rambled, showing off his self-educated manner.
“I…my filthy whatever human…am a noble knighted whatever pixie,” scolded the creature, speaking with a noticeable but funny lisp.
“Knighted, huh? I see. Shall I call you Sir Pixie then?” Sebastian teased.
“My name is Cecil Baskin,” he growled back, but his timid voice and funny lisp spoiled his threatening demeanour. “You have a name, I presume.”
“Sebastian Cain,” Sebastian said proudly.
“I’m guessing those pillars below your torso work then,” Cecil suggested, pointing a funny looking walking stick at Sebastian’s legs.
“Of course they do,” Sebastian snapped.
“Well then, you will have no problem keeping up with my wings now, will you?” Cecil snapped back. It was clear that they misunderstood one another and this made Sebastian untrusting and Cecil irritable.
“I am not going anywhere with you in this bog,” Sebastian whined, only to have Cecil Baskin’s stick knock repeatedly on the side of his head, which the boy tried to ignore. Sebastian mumbled, trying to excuse himself from Cecil’s presence, but instead he was interrupted with a tap on the head with every word he spoke.
“Will you stop that!” the boy finally yelled, boldly reaching out to grab the stick off the agitating pixie.
Cecil’s wings began to tire, causing his stumpy body to float lower until he could only muster enough strength to hover face to face with his human companion, panting out of breath. A smug smile crossed Sebastian’s mud-covered face.
“You need a diet, Mr. Baskin.”
“I’ve been sent to protect you,” Cecil said, as he spat spittle on the swampy ground.
“That’s one nasty habit you’ve got there,” Sebastian said.
“You have to come with me…your friends will be waiting for us,” Cecil insisted.
“Why didn’t you say so? We could’ve already been on our way out of this dump,” Sebastian groaned in disgust as he looked around at the barren wasteland of swamp. “I do hope you’re smart enough to get us out of here.”
“Of course I am. I’m a Knight!” Cecil said boastfully.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Sebastian sighed, rolling his eyes.
“I…I don’t know…but I didn’t achieve my Knighthood for nothing…now kick your feet up, it helps when walking through these lands. We have a long way to go, so I guess we’ll have to eat soon. I brought some pots and pans with me to make a stew while we camp,” Cecil said.
“If you think I’m camping in this wide open hovel with you, you’ve got another thing coming,” Sebastian mumbled under his breath as they moved toward a massive mountain that hung over the entire scenery of swamp hills and mudslides. Glancing over his shoulder to talk to the hovering pixie, Sebastian felt another stinging tap strike his head.
“Eyes front, boy-o, walk while you talk,” commanded Cecil.
Nothing seemed to have any life around these parts of the new world. Sebastian noticed the emptiness in the lands afar, after the great oak tree shrunk to a tiny shrub in its place. Pieces of dead trees and rotted logs poked out everywhere from below the mire the further they trekked.
“W-what happened to this place?” Sebastian asked, scanning the wasteland of oozing swamp.
Cecil sighed. “This was once the greatest forest in all of Abasin, before it became the Black Swamp. A wicked politician, betrayed by the False One, was cursed here and his body was transformed into this sludge.”
Sebastian glanced below his feet and started to lose his nerve. “You mean I’m walking on—” he cried out, climbing on top of a nearby log as far above the sludge as he could possibly get.
“Not to worry, young Master, I assure you he’s a long time dead, or so I’ve been told,” Cecil insisted, reassuring Sebastian with an encouraging wink. “Take my hand, child. I won’t let anything bad happen to you, no matter how unfunny you seem to be,” he teased.
Sebastian hesitantly took hold of the pixie’s warm and prickly hand. With one light tug, Cecil safely lifted the boy into the air and set him down into the sludge.
“Chop chop,” Cecil continued, hovering beside the boy as Sebastian pushed and pulled his legs through the deep muck.
“This is revolting. Where are we going, exactly?” Sebastian grumbled, taking long strides.
“To the Stained Castle. That is where your friends are headed,” Cecil said quietly tapping him on his head using his stick once more. “Northeast, Sebastian Cain…eyes front.”
Cecil pointed, directing the tired and filthy boy across the great swamp toward the overgrown mossy mountains in front of them.
“And to think…this was my only good suit,” the boy sighed to himself.