Cecil dug through his pouch and guzzled a bottle of his trusty healing remedy. It was the perfect time to rest up. “Stay in sight,” he ordered from over his shoulder, wheezing heavily to get his strength back.
Sebastian tried to run to his protector after the shoe tree fired out one of its closest shoes toward him.
“Mr. Baskin, I really think we should…” Sebastian called out, his voice trailing off.
“Boy?” Cecil called, irritated at the unfinished conversation. “Sebastian Cain!” he called again like a father would his son.
The pixie struggled to get back on his feet then spun around to face the grove, groaning because of the painful state his overused wings were in. With each trailing step, Cecil dragged his tired feet toward the largest tree. He noticed something struggling in front of him the instant he entered the grove.
“Sebastian?” he asked cautiously, flabbergasted at the sight of the knotted shoes and laces that enfolded the boy. “Let go of him!” Cecil bellowed, trying to take flight to avoid a sudden attack. It took only a few shoes to get the better of the stout pixie. Laces tightened and knotted themselves around his bruised wings and brought Cecil’s bumpy flight to an instant halt. The boy and his protector had now become two more unfortunate casualties of the ruthless shoe tree.
In unison, the shoe tree finished wrapping its captives up by binding their arms and legs together so that they were unable to move an inch. Sensing danger, Cecil’s fairy instantly shot out of his breast pocket in time and sped through the web of laces in search of help.
It had only been a few minutes since their capture when heavy stomping shook the ground. Trees rustled from afar in opposite waves, disturbing the creatures that lived in them as their nests cracked and fell. Each captive caught glimpses of a wide hairy creature that approached. It was terrifying, for only their eyes remained uncovered. They’d expected to see something enormous, but what emerged was surprisingly nothing of the sort.
The troll lunged out of the woods and leaped directly within firing range of the slinging shoes.
“Oh, I smell you,” he threatened. His humungous nose sniffed the different scents in the air. The shoes wasted no time in their persistent attack, but the hairy troll effortlessly brushed them away, dodging several more that attacked from both sides. He moved with elegance, reaching Tommy in seconds. In one flick of his razor sharp fingernail, he promptly cut the boy down before taking his first prize away from the shoe tree’s den.
The troll leaped out of reach of the tackling shoes and unravelled the petrified boy, slicing off the smothering laces. Tommy was so glad to breathe normally again that he failed to focus on whom and what had freed him. When he finally studied the troll’s daunting features, Tommy scurried backwards, fleeing from the ugly sight. It was a miniature troll, just over a century in age, and had tiny pointed ears with no hair to cover them (unlike Ariel’s). His bright yellow eyes were his most distinguishing feature next to his large nose and his round, blunt teeth.
“Where do you think you’re crawling to, little scamp?” the troll asked.
“My goodness, does everything in this place talk?” asked the boy. It wasn’t the smartest of questions one could ask of a troll, especially a troll that had just met a human for the first time.
“What are you? Stand before me,” growled the troll, stomping the ground while he marched over to the boy. Tommy scarpered along the dusty ground and withdrew toward the shoe tree. “Don’t go back in there,” the troll commanded, pounding his large hairy feet on the damp earth.
“Better those things than being eaten up by…whatever it is you are,” Tommy cried.
“Ha! Be my guest. I don’t eat ignorant silly bodies anyway,” the troll sneered back. Tommy paused to look over his shoulder at the mass of shoes hanging lifelessly and almost in range of him. “If you go back in there, I won’t follow after you,” the troll warned.
“Let me be,” Tommy snapped.
“Relax, human. I’m not like the giant trolls from the Bothopolis Forest, I can tell you. They’d already have you cooked for breakfast by now. My name is Cackerin. Ban Pan Cackerin to you,” the troll snapped, spitting over the boy’s face and pushing his nose against Tommy’s.
“Are you a villain?” the boy boldly asked, trying to get straight to the point.
“That all depends from where you’re standing, chap. Do you see a villain?” the troll grunted, before marching back into the grove.
It took the troll even less time to retrieve the others from the intertwining mess of laces. Ariel was the last to be rescued. Flapping her arms to break free, the delirious nymph accidently whacked the troll on his big nose, which wobbled back and forth. “Nice to see you too,” Ban Pan said sardonically, helping Ariel to her feet.
“Oh Ban Pan, I’m so happy it’s you,” she sighed, hugging the troll.
“Of course it’s me. What else has my smell?”
“My old socks,” Cecil answered.
“You don’t wear any socks, Mr. Baskin,” Sebastian sniggered as Cecil raised him out of the laced sheath.
“Precisely the reason.” Cecil winked back holding his nose.
Tommy and Sebastian laughed at Cecil’s remark before they noticed each other. Taking a deep breath in disbelief, Tommy gazed at the familiar face of the posh boy he had briefly met in Warwickshire and was overjoyed to be in company with someone human again.
“Hey! Silver-spoon head!” he called to Sebastian and gave him a welcoming handshake.
Sebastian smiled, fixing his large glasses with one hand while greeting Tommy with the other. “Thomas, right?”
“What in heaven has happened to Peter?” Sebastian asked. A baffled look showed on his face, until Tommy explained the nymph’s real identity.
“Extraordinary!” Sebastian circled Ariel, studying her face at every angle.
“What is that thing?” Tommy asked, pointing to Sebastian’s appointed guardian. The tired pixie gave Tommy a grouchy stare, offended by the boy’s disrespectful tone.
“That’s my protector, Cecil Baskin. He calls himself a knight but I’ve never seen one like him before.”
“I thought for a while I was dreaming this whole thing. But now you’re here, it’s really real. I can’t believe it,” Tommy replied.
“I can. I’ve seen this place in my dreams,” Sebastian whispered, staring out at the evening sky.
“Let’s go talk to big stinky here,” Cecil joked, humoring the boys as they approached the troll.
“Sir Cecil Baskin, I’m glad you made it,” Ariel smiled as she bowed her head to the knighted pixie.
“We’re lucky to be alive after the attack we encountered,” Cecil went on, coughing as he told Ariel the story of his horrendous ordeal.
“And Lemis? Is he dead?” Ariel asked.
“I can only hope,” Cecil replied, hissing from the excruciating pain still throbbing at his tiny wings.
“What about Benjamin?” Ariel asked.
“Nothing yet,” frowned Cecil.
“You are the first friendly faces we’ve seen since the Black Swamp,” Sebastian added.
“Black Swamp?” asked Tommy, turning to Ariel for an answer.
Cecil interrupted, pushing the boys away from the grove by a tap of his stick. “Never mind all that. Come on, less chatter boys and more wander. Legs forward and eyes front.”
“This smell is rotten,” Tommy blurted out loud, holding his nose as he stepped away from the troll.
“That’s right. Nothing smells as bad as us trolls. Not even the pixie’s footwear,” grinned Ban Pan proudly.
“Tell that to the Nockwire,” Ariel mumbled, joking privately beside Cecil Baskin, who let out a strong and abrasive laugh.
“You’re kind of grouchy, aren’t you?” Sebastian asked, sneering back at the brazen rescuer.
“You’re lucky that’s all I am. Not all of us trolls are as tame as I,” Ban Pan warned.
“How did you find us?” Ariel asked the troll, her excitement and wonder evident.
“One of your fairies sought my help. When my nose perked up, I just knew it was you,” he said assuredly as Cecil’s fairy fluttered back into the pixie’s breast pocket.
“I’m so glad to see you. I thought you had been killed in the battle at Bothopolis,” Ariel said smiling with relief.
“Done for? Ban Pan Cackerin?” the troll said indignantly. “Don’t be ridiculous, why I’m the only one I know of who can make it through shoe trees without getting entangled,” he rambled. “By the way, I suggest you find another way to your destinations. There’s no way beyond that shoe tree even if you could get by it. Its forest is too thick and dangerous.”
And with that, the troll simply turned his back on them and marched away without even so much as a goodbye.
“Where are you going?” Cecil demanded.
“To the Stained Castle, of course. The trolls have been summoned there for an emergency meeting.”
“Everyone has,” Cecil added.
“That’s where we’re going. We might as well go together,” Ariel called.
“Ha! Travel with other kinds? Now that I do not do,” the troll scoffed, marching away.
Ariel looked to Cecil for support. “Well, what do you want me to do? He doesn’t travel with other kinds,” he whispered back to the anxious nymph, holding out his hands. “No troll does.”
“You’re the knight here,” Ariel said, encouraging the pixie to exercise his authority over the stubborn troll.
“I’m just a protector, not a negotiator,” Cecil insisted.
“Order him.”
Giving out a long groan, Cecil rolled his eyes and fluttered his little wings, taking small flying leaps to catch up with the stomping beast.
“Wait, Ban Pan, there is something I forgot to mention,” Cecil said finally.
“You’re welcome, now quit pestering me,” Ban Pan muttered in reply.
“No, not that,” Cecil insisted.
“Ha! Talk about ungrateful. What is it then, ungrateful knight?”
“This human is the reason we have all been summoned to this emergency meeting,” Cecil explained to the troll, pointing to Sebastian.
“And Tommy, too,” Ariel added.
“Let’s not forget Benjamin,” interrupted Tommy.
The troll instantly paused in his march and turned his massive hairy feet back round to face the mixed group.
“So, they do have names,” the troll scoffed, gesturing to the group to come closer. As the four approached him, Ban Pan bent down to face the guardians and whispered. “There is a better way to the Stained Castle than this one, but first you must give me something, something of reasonable value.”
“I knew you were a villain. And a cheat at that,” Tommy accused.
Cecil swiftly knocked Tommy on the head with his trusty stick to prevent the mouthy boy from insulting the troll further.
“That’s enough lip from you, boy,” Cecil insisted while Sebastian covered his mouth to keep himself from laughing at his friend’s sudden chastisement.
“Are we bargaining, Ban Pan?” asked the nymph.
“Of course we are…I wouldn’t be much of a troll if I didn’t.”
“We really don’t have time for this nonsense,” the pixie suggested, the flutter of his wings showing his exasperation at the troll’s stubbornness.
“Zip it, Gramps,” Ban Pan mocked. Cecil screwed his face up at the annoying creature. “I cannot believe that the Council chose you two to protect the Children of Abasin. Good grief, of all the civilians they could have picked,” Ban Pan continued.
“You know of the Children of Abasin?” Cecil gasped.
“Every soul in Abasin knows about The Three That Are One. I don’t know of one who hasn’t heard of that prophecy,” sighed Ban Pan, frowning at Cecil and the two boys.
“What is he talking about?” Tommy asked, looking between Ariel and Cecil for an answer.
“You mean to tell me you boys don’t even know about your own future?” the troll began to tease Tommy, chortling to himself.
“Why don’t you shut your trap, you big furry fungus, before I help you shut it,” Tommy barked. Cecil and Sebastian reached out simultaneously to hold the boisterous lad back.
Ban Pan pointed at Tommy while laughing loudly. “You, my boy, are hilarious…look at the size of you and still you would dare take on a troll.” Ban Pan laughed a little longer until he shot back a serious look that frightened Tommy to his core.
“You, scamp, are this world’s last hope,” he muttered slowly. “The prophecy foretold three human children would return from being cast out of Abasin and come of age to kill the False One and take over this kingdom. This makes you three the most important people in this entire world right now, as well as the most hunted. And you don’t even know it.” Ban Pan chortled again and shook his head.
“Well, we weren’t told anything until now,” Tommy admitted, turning his blameful gaze toward Ariel and Cecil.
“My dreams,” Sebastian whispered to her.
“I told you they were true,” Ariel muttered.
“You didn’t tell me about the killing part,” Sebastian snapped back.
“That’s enough!” Cecil roared at the troll. “You’re scaring the boys.”
“If they’re scared now, what use do you think they’ll be on the battlefield? The way you two are mollycoddling them, you would do better to hand them over to Saul while you can and pray for a quick death,” the troll replied.
“I’m not scared,” Tommy declared, interrupting both creatures as he walked toward the troll with courage and conviction.
“Then I think Abasin maybe in luck with you at the helm, chap.” The troll smiled in respect to Tommy.
“I-I’m not afraid either, I just wrestled a bull horse with wings, you know,” Sebastian added after a few seconds of awkward silence.
“That a boy.” Cecil smiled to Sebastian, motioning for him to keep his large glasses from sliding off his nose again.
“You will lead us to this castle, no bargains necessary.” Tommy barked his order as if the ability to command came from somewhere deep inside him.
The new world was already changing them and they could feel it. Tommy’s eyesight had altered and his confidence was growing to an almost fearless high. All Ban Pan could do with the bold little human was obey his orders.
“Very well…Prince of Abasin,” the troll replied, placing his claw on his heart.
“Um…before we fulfil any prophecy, we’re going to need a decent pair of shoes. I’m a size six,” Sebastian spoke up, motioning the troll to cut down a new pair of shoes from the grove.
Tommy kept close to the troll as the group began their journey together. The others trailed behind along the edge of the enormous cliff side Cecil and Sebastian had flown up.
The edge stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. The road was tiresome and dangerous, but if they were lucky enough not to be deterred from it, its route would eventually lead them straight to the Stained Castle, just as Ban Pan had promised.