The Fairey Flag

CHAPTER INDEX

Within the Unhappy Shadows

Transition

Sixth Sense

Night and Day

Inset Day

The Gap in the Fence

Hello Again!

Retribution

Respects to the Skald

The Skald’s Lodge

Punishment

Something You Might Do For Me

Exercise in the Forest

Meadows

Swangull

Sea Wolves

A Surprise for the Children

An Evening by a Pool

Having Fun?

The Revenge Party

Rebecca and Illyrium

Alex Declines

The Weeping Wood

Timimoun’s Illyrium

The Golden Waterfall

The Emperor Decides

A Piece of Cloth

Into the Waves

Dama of the Vestmanner

A Time to Decide

Where are the Northlanders?

A Night of Doubt

The Moment of Truth

All That Can be Done has been Done

The Tide Turns

The Old Wanderer

A Hard Day for the Living

Arrival

Good Water

The Silent Corners

This is a Wild Place!

Syvä

Return to Illyrium

Summer is Over

The First School Report

Chapter 1: Within the Unhappy Shadows

‘Why do the Wood Dryads, the Naiads of the rivers and Elven of the underground attempt to frustrate my ambitions once more?’ asked the Queen of the Hel in an ancient language once spoken three thousand years before.

‘Why do they conspire against me, with men, yet again? Are the children of women not weak, vain and treacherous? Yet even now, the Elven protect and help them still!’ she said in a voice like low, deep thunder, which brought only despair into the hearts of all those who heard it.

‘Were it not for them, the World of the Living would have been bound once more to my realm long ago.’

She looked out into her vast, cold, dim, grey halls.

‘Yet, no matter!’ she smiled. ‘Soon enough all will fall under my dominion once more, as it used to be. All will then know and fear me again, not only in death, as you do, but in life also.’

Tseth cast her dim, yellow eyes over the multitude of shadows which knelt silently before her, their heads bowed, cowering about her throne.

‘And when that time comes,’ she continued, ‘there will be no respite or relief from my gaze for those who now dwell upon the earth, for my rule will last even there until the end of time itself’.

*

Far above, at the surface, on a dark mid-Winter’s night, a frightened man sat alone, deep within a snow-covered forest. He pulled his cloak tightly about him against the bitter cold and sat absolutely still, as if the slightest movement might attract unwanted attention.

A raven settled silently on the branch of a pine tree high above, tilting its head to one side as it glanced down at the lone figure below. It blinked twice. Snow began to tumble and cascade from the branch and onto the man’s head and shoulders, but he did not move so much as an inch.

He did not move again until almost four months later, and then only when the Spring thaw arrived, but by that time it was far too late for the storyteller.

Chapter 2: Transition

When the long Summer was over, Alex was due to begin secondary school in the nearest town. He lived in a village, Warshal, in Oxfordshire, just large enough for a primary school, but too small to have a secondary of its own.

From being the eldest, he knew it would be quite a come-down to being the youngest again once more in this new school. The older boys in the village had already let it be known to both him and his friends what their new status would be when they arrived there come September, which was next to nothing.

One of the more sympathetic older boys had offered him some advice in the park one day.

‘Wear your hair shorter and spike it up with plenty of gel; that’s if you don’t want to stand out and get noticed. Oh, and you’ll need to learn how to tie your tie the ‘Bardon way’. That’s if you don’t want it nicked, with your neck still inside it!’ he had said, with a knowing grin.

‘And make sure you don’t cross old Biggsy, whatever you do!’ added another. ‘He’s a complete nutter!’

They were of course referring to Wayne Biggar, a boy who, thanks to a quirk of nature, had grown to full adult size by the age of only thirteen. Those who had thought he might grow further still in the years to come - to perhaps even become the Heavyweight Champion of the World, based on his current rate of growth – would, however, be sadly disappointed. He had stopped growing. In time, many of his contemporaries would become taller and stronger, perhaps even within two years or less.

Maybe Wayne somehow sensed this, in some primeval way. Perhaps he had understood what the future would hold, knowing that only the present would allow him a brief window of glory.

It was a window of fleeting superiority of which he would take full advantage, however.

It was with advice such as this that Edward ‘Eddie’ Bardon’s School for Boys seemed less like a school and more like a prison camp to Alex. He wasn’t at all sure whether he was looking forward to going there.

Still, he reasoned, he hadn’t heard of any of the village boys’ having ever met a permanent end at the hands of the ‘inmates’ (or simply ‘Eddie’s boys’ as the boys called themselves), for they all managed to jump off the school bus every night and return to their homes. If any of the ‘year-7-low-life-forms’ (or ‘yevens’ as they were known) had been flushed down Eddie’s toilets and into the sewers, or worse, he was sure he would have heard about it by now.

That reassured him just a little.

In truth, of course, Edward Bardon School for Boys was no different, no better or worse than any other secondary school in any other town or city, up and down the country. All eleven-year-olds had to suffer the same ‘rite of passage’ that involved moving on from primary to secondary school.

It had been that way since time began or, at least, since secondary schools had been invented.

Chapter 3: Sixth Sense

It was as she walked alone, barefoot in the soft white sand between the overhanging branches of the willow trees, that Varis saw her guardian once more. The water nymph was standing some way off, in the still water of the lake. She was waist deep, silently looking down at her reflection in the water.

‘My, you are still so beautiful, Syvä!’ the nymph sighed to herself, a smile upon her face. ‘Such dark eyes, such a pretty face! Your cheek bones are high, your lips as rich as the red rosehips of Autumn. Your black hair is darker even than the shadows cast by the silent trees in the forests of Scythia! Surely your beauty is at least equal to that of any who have ever lived!’

She turned and looked to the girl who was watching from the shore: ‘As is yours, my mistress! Yet, you will have more than beauty, for you will soon take what is yours by right. Then the one who rejected you so cruelly will dwell unhappily in the grey shadows and think upon her dreadful deed for eternity.’

The nymph was no longer smiling.

*

On a small hill, far, far away from the lake, a creature stood under a tall, magnificent tree. Next to it, another sat in the cool shadows of its leafy branches, shaded from the heat of the early Summer sun.

This wasn’t a hill that could have been found on a map in our world. This was a place that lay in another land and another time entirely, yet all the while it lay unseen alongside ours. It was an Otherworld.

‘What’s wrong?’ Penelope asked quietly as she looked down at Anna.

‘I’m not sure,’ Anna replied. She smiled as she looked up at the unicorn, but Penelope saw through the gesture at once.

‘Anna, something has been bothering you for some time now. I am your Vardogyl, your guardian. I know when something is wrong. Will you not share your thoughts, even with me?’

Anna looked out from the hill toward the wide plain that extended out before them.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Penny,’ she sighed, ‘it’s just that I have had this strangest feeling, and it is not a happy one. Something within is stirring me, warning me, yet I cannot find a reason for it’.

The unicorn studied the beautiful Elven woman, searching her eyes for some clue, some sign for a cause for her unease. ‘Then perhaps it is time we asked for help once more,’ it said. ‘Once mid-Summer has passed, there will not be another opportunity again until mid-Winter.’

‘And by then it may be too late to ask for help,’ whispered the Elven woman. ‘I know, Penny. But what if I am wrong?’ She looked once more at the unicorn as if for reassurance. ‘What if I call them here for no good reason?’

‘Since when have you been wrong about such feelings?’ asked the unicorn. ‘When did Anna Yggdrasil last have occasion to mistrust the sixth sense with which she has been so blessed?’

Chapter 4: Night and Day

It was with the thoughts of Eddie Bardon’s school for inmates still at the forefront of his mind that Alex stepped onto the single decker bus that had pulled up. The bus stop was right outside his house. His two sisters, one younger, one older, followed him onto it.

As he looked for a seat at the back, he stopped thinking about Eddie Bardon for the moment; it wasn’t time for that now, anyway. It was early June and he was still in Year 6 at Warshal Primary until the end of July, and there were the Summer holidays still to come. There was plenty of time to think up some survival techniques before then. For the moment he was still top of his school.

September would not be the same for Fiona, however. She instead was moving up in the world, into Class 4 that is, in a school which she had known since Foundation Class. It was where she had spent almost her entire life. Before that, she vaguely remembered Little Otters Nursery, for that was where she had first met her two best friends, Emma and El.

She smiled to herself as she looked out of the window of the bus. School was going to be fun next term. Her new teacher would be Miss Horseman, a young, kind and friendly lady with a cheery way about her. She always seemed to have a smile upon her face and all the children loved her for it.

But just as Eddie Bardon’s was still some way off for Alex, so was Class 4 for Fiona. Spring had only just ended and there were still at least seven weeks of Year 3 to go before Summer holidays had even begun.

Having paid for three return fares to Oxford, their elder sister, Rebecca, folded up the three long rolls of paper tickets and squashed them into her purse. Then she joined her younger sister and brother who had both run to the back of the bus and were now speaking rather too loudly for her liking.

‘Settle down, you two!’ she said to them curtly. On hearing her command, both quietened down at once.

To any casual observer on that number 28 bus, there could be no doubt as to who was in charge. Both Alex and Fiona looked up to Rebecca in more ways than one. Not only was she the eldest by almost three years, but she also had a way about her that commanded their respect. It wasn’t because she went to a ‘posh’ girls’ school, it was something else. She just had a manner that was mature beyond her years, yet she was also thoughtful and caring. They liked her for that, too. She had always looked after them, even when Alex and Fiona had been just babies. At the age of only four, when Alex was one, whenever they went out, Rebecca had always made sure to take an extra nappy and place it in her own backpack as a spare – just in case Mum or Dad had forgotten to take some. She had done the same when Fiona had been born.

That was Rebecca, then and now.

Today’s outing had been their mother’s idea, as they so often were. She had organised for them to go to the New Theatre to see a musical that had recently arrived in Oxford.

It was called ‘Night and Day’ and had come directly from a London West End theatre where it had been a box-office hit. The musical was a fantasy adventure story - suitable for all ages - so the advertisement had said. All the national newspapers had been in raptures about it and Mum had decided that, at thirteen, Rebecca was now old and sensible enough to take her two younger siblings by herself.

Rebecca had been quietly pleased with the new-found responsibility entrusted to her, not that she had any doubts about her abilities, of course!

The bus arrived right on time in Castle Street. It had given them plenty of time to eat at their favourite restaurant, The Pizza Paradise Shack, before the performance which started at 2.15pm.

Being in charge had also allowed Rebecca the opportunity to have a look around Moon Glow and Lagoon, her two favourite shops. Of course, that part of the trip wasn’t something she had mentioned to her brother and sister beforehand. It had been her idea alone, her reward for looking after them.

That was why she had insisted on their taking the earlier bus.

The younger ones finished their last mouthfuls of pepperoni pizza as Rebecca paid the bill. After patiently following Rebecca in and out of her teenage fashion shops, all three then headed down Cornmarket Street towards the New Theatre. They had to queue at the booking office for their tickets, which had been ordered and paid for in advance. All they had to do was collect them.

With tickets safely in Rebecca’s hand, they walked up to the doorman, who expertly tore a strip from each one and gave Rebecca the remaining parts. Then they headed for their seats.

Rebecca looked at her watch. Ten minutes to go until the show started. ‘Perfect timing!’ she said, congratulating herself.

They looked around the auditorium. Even though it was only a matinee performance, all the seats had been fully booked for several weeks and there was not an empty one in sight. There was an air of expectation about the place.

Their seats were in the stalls, the most expensive in the whole theatre. Such was the popularity of the show, they were the only tickets that their mother had been able to find where all three could sit together. For that, she had received little change from sixty pounds.

They unfolded the soft, red, velvet chairs and sat down. They had a wonderful view of the stage, for the seats were quite near the front and towards the centre.

‘The best seats in the house,’ Rebecca told them.

Ten minutes after they had settled, the lights in the warm, snug theatre dimmed and the show began.

Fiona loved the costumes worn by the actors and actresses, Alex really enjoyed the music and the songs. Rebecca, who had had some doubts about coming to see the show at all (thinking it might be too young for her), began to thoroughly enjoy it, too.

At the interval, the safety curtain on the stage slowly came down and the lights returned once more.

To avoid the inevitable queue, Rebecca quickly jumped from her seat and swiftly headed down the aisle, towards the ice-cream seller at the stage front. She treated her brother and sister to a Ben & Mickey’s ice cream, a tub of vanilla for Alex, strawberry for Fiona and, of course, choc-mint for her.

As they devoured them, they chatted briefly between themselves about their favourite parts of the show so far; but soon enough, a bell, followed by a tannoy announcement, warned the audience that the show was to resume in two minutes.

Right on time, the lights faded and the curtains rose once more. Half an hour into the show, the captivated audience watched in awe as a white-robed witch appeared alone upon the stage, as if by magic. She was standing in a wood. The scenery itself was strangely life-like and, with some very clever lighting, it really felt to the audience as if they, too, were sitting amongst the trees.

The children were impressed. Rebecca made a mental note to herself that she might be able to use some of the ideas and stage effects for her art homework sometime.

Then the White Witch who had so suddenly appeared began to sing. The actress was a very beautiful, young woman. Large, brown, enquiring eyes were set in the fine features of her pretty face. A slender laurel of mistletoe sat upon long, blonde hair and two plaits hung from either side of her head.

As she sang, her voice was both gentle and melodic, so much so that all three children were quite mesmerised, captivated by her. Her words drifted through the air and wove a spell throughout the theatre. The audience became spellbound and none moved so much as an inch, even the younger children who usually find it very difficult to sit quite still, were doing so now.

‘Tell me now, what you are,’ she sang.

‘Never let me go,

Tell me now, what you see,

Tell me now, what you see,

Tell me what you feel,

Now you’re near, tell me,

Tell me, what you are.

Never let me go,

Tell me now, what you see!’

Alex recognised it at once. It was a song by Hans Zimmer, for the soundtrack of a film he had seen.

As she continued her song, her eyes slowly moved about the theatre as if she were searching within the audience for something. She first cast her eyes over the balcony above, then to the sides and finally down to the stalls below. As she did so, she caught sight of Alex, Fiona and Rebecca. On seeing the children, she hesitated and fixed her gaze upon them. She smiled and began to hold her arms out towards them as if wishing to embrace them.

Rebecca looked around her, to see if any other people had noticed the singer staring at them, but as she did so, something very strange had happened. The people nearby, in fact everyone in the entire theatre, sat completely motionless, as if they had been transformed into statues. Their eyes were all fixed, staring blankly at the beautiful singer upon the stage. Even the ushers at the back of the aisles were completely captivated by the actress (even though they all had probably seen the show a dozen times already).

It seemed to Rebecca as if everyone had been placed under an enchantment by her song; either that, Rebecca reasoned, or time had somehow suddenly stopped and was now standing still.

The White Witch continued with her song. All the while she was still smiling that same beautiful smile at the three of them, yet it seemed that no-one else had noticed. Rebecca glanced at Fiona and then at Alex. They were smiling back at the actress in a way Rebecca had never seen them smile before. Their faces shone with undisguised happiness and delight.

‘Is it you?’ whispered Fiona, ‘is it really you?’

Rebecca turned back to the stage. The actress tilted her head slightly to one side. She beckoned to all three of them to come to her, to join her there in the wood upon the stage. But in that very same moment, her smile began to fade and a look of sadness and despair came over her. In an instant she seemed tired. Slowly, she lowered her arms to her sides and closed her eyes. Her whole body then appeared to shimmer as if they were now looking at her through slowly moving water. Then she was gone, vanishing from the stage entirely.

At this, all three children each suddenly felt sad; but of the three, only Rebecca did not understand why.

They continued to stare transfixed to where the singer had been standing just moments before. They felt the air around them slowly become cooler, and the leaves on the branches of the trees began to shake and rustle as if caught by a gentle gust of wind. They shivered.

‘Wow! That’s amazing! How did that happen? How did she disappear like that?’ Rebecca asked herself, thoroughly impressed, if not a little unsettled by the experience. She understood now why the show had been such a big hit in London.

Now, with the illusion gone, however, that was indeed what it had been. The singer had disappeared, the song was over.

As if a spell had been broken, the audience let out a collective sigh, and as an adult coughed, the younger children began to fidget again and the sound of crackling sweet-wrappers erupted once more.

The White Witch, who had disappeared so spectacularly from the stage as if by magic, did not reappear, and the show was over some thirty minutes later.

After waiting for the queues in the exits die away, the three children then filed out from the empty theatre in thoughtful silence.

Back in the June daylight once more, they headed straight for the bus stop. They didn’t have to wait long, for the number 28 bus pulled into St Aldates right on time. This one was a double decker. Rebecca took the paper tickets from her purse, unfolded them and presented them to a harassed-looking bus driver. They quickly climbed the steps to the upper level and sat close to the front. Rather than being noisy, as they were on the outward journey, this time Fiona and Alex sat in silence all the way home. Occasionally they exchanged knowing glances with each other.

Such a continued silence was unusual enough for Rebecca to soon notice.

‘What is going on between those two?’ she wondered as she studied them both from the seat behind. She didn’t like being kept out of a secret, especially by her younger sister and brother, and it seemed to her that that was exactly what was happening.

‘So, can I share your secret?’ she asked them. The words of the question seemed casual enough, but the tone instead was demanding. Knowing her as they did, both Alex and Fiona could see that she was expecting an answer, rather like a teacher who turns to a class who has been talking behind their back.

Chapter 5: Inset Day

Five days later, it was Mid-Summer’s Day.

Being a Monday, it would not normally have been a holiday, but as luck would have it, that particular day had been chosen by the headmaster of Warshal Primary to hold an ‘Inset Day’.

It meant school wasn’t open to the children, only to the teachers, and that was all that mattered, to Alex at least. He had heard that Inset Days were something to do with teacher training, whatever that was. Alex thought it strange that teachers needed training; weren’t they teachers already? Not that he minded having an extra day off, of course.

His imaginative mind began to form a picture of what might happen in school on a teacher training day. In his picture, he saw all the teachers at Warshal Primary gathered together in his own stuffy classroom, sitting on Year 6’s small seats, their cramped legs pushed uncomfortably under the little desks. There, the terrifying headmaster, Mr Frogmorten, might stand, towering in front of them by the whiteboard. Alex wondered whether he would be teaching them the twelve-times-table. Of them all, that one was certainly the hardest to learn by far. Perhaps the headmaster had discovered that not all of the teachers had known their times-tables and he was going to have to teach them himself? Even Alex wasn’t entirely sure he had quite got the hang of it, so it didn’t surprise him at all that the teachers might not know it either.

‘So that is what Inset Days are probably all about!’ he concluded with a smile. ‘The teachers are having to be taught in secret about things they should already know!’

*

Not only had it been a day off for Alex and Fiona but, luckier still, it had also been an Inset Day for Rebecca’s school too.

Had it not been for their elder sister being available to look after them, Mum and Dad would never have allowed Alex and Fiona to go there by themselves; but here they were, on an adventure, sitting upon the very top of the Hill of the White Horse, looking out to the North at the wide valley below.

What had made this outing even more fun and exciting than usual was that they were alone, for neither their mother or father, nor any other adult, was there with them. It had helped, of course, that Rebecca had told their parents that the theatre trip had been a success and that both Alex and Fiona had behaved themselves without any fuss at all.

Packed lunches had been made the night before. The trip had been planned in detail by the younger two, working together and co-operating, which was quite unlike them. Even their mother and father had been impressed by the way they had helped each other without so much as a cross word, let alone an argument.

On that night before the outing, as they had settled excitedly in their beds, Alex stared up at his ceiling. He was finding it hard to sleep, but didn’t know why. In the end he gave up and jumped out of bed. He wandered across the landing and peeped into Rebecca’s room, the door of which was always left ajar.

Rebecca was inside and seemed fast asleep.

Disappointed, he wandered back towards his room once more, but as he passed Fiona’s door, he heard her call out in a loud whisper:

‘Alex, is that you?’

‘Yep, it’s me alright,’ he answered quietly.

‘Can’t sleep?’ she asked.

‘Nope!’

‘Neither can I!’ said Fiona.

He gently pushed on her bedroom door and padded into her room. Fiona sat up on her top bunk and switched on her bedside light.

‘Whassup?’ he asked.

‘I’ve been thinking about tomorrow.’

He pondered her words for a moment. ‘Yeah, I know what you mean, Fi!’ he agreed. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, too, tomorrow being Mid-Summer’s Day and all that!’

‘And the theatre visit! Weird, wasn’t it!’ added Fiona before continuing, ‘Alex, I don’t know why, and I know this might sound silly, but do you still have that old medallion that you had once, you know, the one with the eagle on it, with ‘Illyrium’ written at the bottom? It was gold, wasn’t it; really cool, too!’

‘Yep, I do. I thought I’d lost it after Christmas but then I found it again under my bed when Mum tidied up my room last month. D’you really think it’s cool?’ he asked proudly.

‘Yes I do, and don’t ask me why, but I think you should take it with you on our outing tomorrow.’

Alex thought about it for a moment. ‘OK,’ he whispered in a sing-song voice he occasionally used. Its tone was usually a sign to everyone who knew him that his mind had now wandered and he was thinking about something else instead. It usually meant that he was not fully concentrating on what he was saying, or on what was being said to him.

‘So where is that little green stone you used to have, the one on a silver chain?’ he asked her in return. ‘You know, the one with a little unicorn scratched onto its surface?’

Fiona leant over the side of the bed, held up a green gemstone in the palm of her hand and showed it to him. It was attached to a chain around her neck.

‘You probably think I’m silly again by saying this, but I just have this strangest feeling that we should both be wearing them tomorrow, you and your medallion, me and my green stone. Don’t ask me why, I just do.’

Alex didn’t like to agree with Fiona very often, but on this occasion he actually thought that her suggestion was quite a good idea, yet like Fiona, he didn’t really know why either. It was just a feeling that came from within him.

‘OK, I’ll definitely wear it then!’ he agreed.

With that, he quickly but quietly walked back to his room, carefully opened his bedside drawer and picked up the medallion that lay within it. He looked at it in the dim light for a moment or two, turning the pendant over in the palm of his hand before pulling its chain over his head and letting it hang there upon his chest, between the lapels of his pyjama jacket. He crept back into Fiona’s room and proudly held it up to her face as she peered out from the upper bunk.

‘See, I knew where it was!’ he announced in a whisper.

Fiona squinted in the half light. She could just about make it out.

‘That’s great, Alex!’ she said in relief. ‘Knowing you have yours too makes me feel ten times better.’

‘Well, na-night then, see you tomorrow!’ Alex said with a yawn, now suddenly feeling quite tired. Once more he crept out of her room, pulling the door until it was almost closed, and returned to his own.

‘Na-night, Alex,’ he heard his younger sister whisper in reply as he jumped into bed.

All of Rebecca’s senses had told her that her brother and sister were up to something, but unusually, despite all her best endeavours (which were usually quite persuasive), she had been unable to find out what their great secret was.

Why had they pestered Mum and Dad about going to the White Horse Hill on that