In Which I Get Lured Away By A Nice Aroma And Meet A Witch

A NOTE ON THE DESTRUCTION OF GALANTHUS:

Actually, it turns out it’s a jolly good thing that fair Galanthus sank into the sea. Much later on, I read up on the town – slightly out of guilt from being a possible instigator of its implosion – and it turns out that Galanthus was home to the highest number of racists per square metre on the entire continent. The town had also held the title of ‘Scam Capital of the Six Kingdoms’ since 1243, and three separate hate groups called Galanthus their home, these being: The Anti-Troll League, The Elf Punchers, and the rather ambiguous General Loathing Society. All in all, they were a rotten bunch and you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them.

*****

And thus, our journey to save my darling Astra was nearing its end. We had successfully traversed the Great Valley Road; we made it over the dreaded Klinghorns in one piece (except for Dedmiht, who died); we boldly crossed the accursed Goochi Desert, where I lost a hand and we gained a pirate; we navigated the treacherous Mines of Mupplecock and Edgar was magicked into a stupid worm; we crossed the Sea of Piss and discovered and then sort-of destroyed the fabled ice town of Galanthus; and now, now, finally – the end of our quest was in sight.

Well, almost. Obviously we had to encounter one more idiot first.

We were setting up camp for the evening in a flowery meadow when a strange scent caught my nose. Caressing the inner lining of my kingly nostrils was a peculiar blend of spices and herbs utterly alien to me. The smell was intoxicating and delicious, and my hungry nose devoured it, gobbling up the aroma from the air like an elephant draining an oasis in one unbelievable huge honk.

I wanted more smell. I needed more smell. My nostrils were not big enough. Dash it all, why did I have such useless tiny nose holes? I gripped them and attempted to open them wider so as to hoover up more of the scent. It was bewitching – beguiling, so it was! So consumed was I by the delicious fragrance that I quite forgot my colleagues and wandered away, nose upturned, snorting up giant globules of air like a greedy anteater. I was entranced, enraptured, enchanted, enamoured and enslaved. And there I found it: nestled in secret between two enormous boulders, a crooked wagon was waiting, its chimney trailing a thin plume of deliciously whiffable smoke.

The wagon was strange. It wasn’t made of wood, nor any building material I’d ever seen. I approached gingerly and prodded its dark purple surface, and it wobbled. Could it be– no, surely not. That would be too silly. I prodded it again. No, it had to be! Was it… made from… cabbage? Was this a big purple cabbage on wheels? A cabbage carriage? Who in their right mind would craft a carriage from—

“Come inside, dearie,” creaked a voice from within, causing me to leap a foot in the air.

“Erm… no I’m fine thank you,” I replied, but then the scent collared me by the nose hairs again and I couldn’t help but climb inside.

Upon entering I found myself nose to nose with an astoundingly wrinkled old lady. Her nose was half a foot long if it was an inch, her earlobes were long and floppy, and her hands were slow and soft, that unique old person kind of soft, baby soft; actually no, softer than that; so soft that they made the gentle smiling cheeks of newborn babes look like gravelly jowls of goblins. She smiled at me and showed a mouthful of glittering silver teeth to match her glittering silver eyeballs.

“My name is Boomlay,” said the old lady, and I internally rolled my eyes because nobody ever has a normal name, do they?

“Alright,” I sighed, “and what can I do for thee… Boomlay?”

“I was expecting you, King Athelstan,” said Boomlay.

“Yes, apparently everyone is these days,” I replied.

“I have a message for you regarding your quest.”

“It’s doomed?”

“Your quest is– hey, what? How did you know?” asked Boomlay.

“Somebody beat thee to it. I received my dark prophecy a few weeks ago.”

“From who?”

“Tall lady. She kept calling herself a wizard. Disappeared in green fire. Left her shoes behind.”

“Oblivia! Blast it all, she wasn’t supposed to prophesy your doom. That was my job!”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and examined the cabbagey interior. It looked pretty much just how you’d expect the innards of a cabbage to look.

“I can’t believe it,” said Boomlay. “I’ve been parked here for days, brewing delicious malevolent fragrances every hour, working on the perfect blend to attract your nose and your nose alone, and she’s already been and prophesied you! Unbelievable. Oh, I worked so hard.”

“I don’t mean to be rude but – isn’t it a little late in the quest to be dishing out grave prophecies anyway? The wicked prince’s castle is a day’s ride away now. What’s the use of letting my company ride this far, only to tell us it’s all useless at the last leg?”

To my horror, the old woman began to weep. She blew her gigantic nose on a grey handkerchief and her shoulders bounced up and down with the force of her sobs. I felt deeply uncomfortable and began to stand up and vacate the cabbage, but was seized by the damnable fingers of my stupid conscience. I sat back down opposite the sobbing woman and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

“Oh, balls to it. Fine. Boomlay, listen. Thou can still prophesise my doom, if it please thee.”

The woman’s sobs slowed, and she looked up at me.

“What?”

“I don’t mind. Thou hast gone to much effort. T’would be a shame if it was all for naught.”

“I don’t know… it wouldn’t be the same,” sniffed Boomlay.

“Look, we can make believe, okay? I’ll exit the cabbage, and thou must entice me inside once more. I will act as though I am completely unaware, and thou can prophesy my doom. Does that sound fair?”

The old lady wiped her tears from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I suppose… yeah.”

“Okay.”

I climbed out of the cabbage and stood back in the meadow, rocking back and forth on my feet. I whistled a tune. After a minute, the thin plume of smoke drifted over to me once more.

I approached the cabbage again.

“Come inside, dearie,” an eldritch voice shrilled.

I parted the cabbage leaves and squeezed into the giant purple vegetable once more.

“Hello,” I said, making myself comfortable.

Boomlay watched me with her little silver pupils.

“I have been expecting you… King Athelstan,” she grinned.

“Oh, have you now? Goodness, that is quite something,” I replied. I was never very good at acting, I’m afraid.

“I have lured you here through dark magic, because I have a prophecy regarding… your sacred quest,” whispered the witch.

“Surely not?” I gasped.

Boomlay cackled and handed me a small silver gravy boat with a long curved spout. I raised an eyebrow. This must be her thing; maybe each magical person has their own little flourish when predicting doom and despair. Why does nobody ever prophesy anything good, I wondered. ‘I prophesy that you will have a lovely evening and get a good night’s sleep.’ That would have been nice.

“Now… rub the lamp,” said the witch.

I looked around me but could see no lamp anywhere besides the one dangling from the ceiling. I reached out and gave it a stroke.

“No, not– you’re holding it,” said Boomlay, wrestling to keep her evil composure. “You’re holding the lamp. Rub it.”

“It looks like a gravy boat to me,” I replied, turning it over in my hands. “What kind of lamp has a spout like that? How would the light escape? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s a gravy boat.”

“Lamp,” scowled Boomlay.

“No look, really, thou seest the gravy goes in the top here. Thou just take off the lid and-“

The instant I lifted the little lid from the gravy boat, a rush of unearthly wind burst forth from within, knocking me backwards. I flopped around on the floor of the carriage like a bewildered salmon as the evil mist slithered all over my regal body. It felt as though I was being licked by a gang of deviant eels.

“Shiiiit! Shiiiit!”

“King Athelstan, behold! You have summoned a genie from the lamp.”

I peered through the gaps in my fingers as I lay curled up and foetal on the carpet and saw above me, floating a foot off the ground, a fantastical figure wreathed in purple smoke, belched forth from the gravy boat. Its arms were folded and it was regarding me coolly. I struggled back into my seat. As the wisps of dark vapours surrounding the shadow figure began to withdraw, my eyes were able to fully inhale the demon I had summoned.

It looked like nothing I had witnessed in all my travels. The strange apparition had a gleaming domed head with a faint frizz of straggling hair around the sides, swept up and draped across its crown. It had stubble, a beard of three days’ growth with a thick moustache. It wore strange rectangles of glass in front of its eyes, the glass held in a thin metal frame that rested over its nose and hooked around its ears. Its torso, pillowy and gaudy, was clad in a large white garment with a stiff collar and buttons up the front, and tied around said collar was a strange blue strip of fabric, knotted at the neck to hang down the front of its body. I shuddered at the ghastly visage.

“Whomst be-est thou, O dreadful spirit of the Gravy Boat that is at once a Lamp and sauce dish with spout?” I quavered.

The apparition regarded me a moment, then turned to Boomlay.

“Uh, what did he say?” it asked the old woman in strange, foreign tones.

Boomlay looked slightly annoyed. “He asked you what your name is.”

“Oh right. Sorry.”

The spirit turned back to me, and I withered under its frightful gaze.

“Hullo,” it spoke. “My name’s Ian.”

“Ian,” I cried. “A name both eldritch and a-cursed, to be sure. Aye, Ian!”

The spirit turned back to Boomlay with a look of confusion.

“He likes your name,” she explained.

“Mighty Ian!” I cried as the apparition turned back to me. “From whence doth thou hail?”

“Explain where you come from, Ian,” said the old lady.

The gravy boat demon coughed a bit, and shrugged.

“I was just at the office one day working late on day – I work at an accounting firm you see – and I suddenly got this weird feeling in my head, like I was being sucked through a thin straw, and I just appeared here, with Boomlay. She tells me she summoned me from a parallel realm, and that I have unearthly wisdom, or something. She summons me every now and then and asks for advice. It used to be annoying, but I suppose I’ve gotten used to it now. It breaks up my evenings and it fills the gap between X Factor and Game of Thrones.”

I gawped at the spectre, allowing its strange intonations and odd words to sink into my headbrain.

“Office? Parallel realm? X Factor? Spectre, I know not of what thou speaketh!”

“Look,” said Boomlay, “Ian is my genie. I performed a spell and I summoned him. You can ask him one question. It used to be three but due to budget cuts we’ve had to lose the other two. So what’ll it be?”

“I can ask anything I want?”

“Yes,” said Ian and Boomlay in unison.

“And there you have it. Your question has been answered.”

“Wait! That wasn’t my question. T’was but a statement.”

“No it wasn’t, it had a question mark,” countered Boomlay.

“How wouldst thou know if it had a question mark? Thou cannot hear grammar,” I protested. “I want another go.”

“Right, fine,” said Boomlay. “But this is the last one.”

I sat back in my seat and stroked my royal chin. I had to ask just the right question, a question that would set me sailing bold and true on my quest for rescue Astra. I toyed with a few ideas – I could ask if success would be ours, or if anybody else would die or be turned into a chubby little worm, or if I would best the wicked prince when the time came for us to duel, as surely we must in a few chapter’s time. But these questions seemed unimportant. Where my Astra was concerned, there was only one question of any import.

“Astra,” I breathed, “as we speak here and now, is she okay? I must know this.”

Mighty Ian looked blankly at me a moment, then, from a compartment sewn into his strange britches, pulled a small, metal, rectangular object. It winked obsidian in the lamplight. The apparition prodded the object, and it sprang to life, glowing pale blue, illuminating Ian’s ghastly visage. With his fingers he pressed various points on the object, and strange images flickered momentarily across its surface.

“Prithee, what devilry is this?” I asked.

Ian looked up, inconvenienced by my curiosity.

“Oh, er, I’m just Googling the plot. Give me a sec to fire up Wikipedia. There’s bad signal in the spirit realm.”

“Googling?” I turned to Boomlay. “Pray tell old woman, what is this ‘Googling’? And whence is Wickapedium ablaze?”

She shrugged and bit into a gleaming red apple, then spat it out and retched.

“Bugger. Always forget which ones are poisoned and which aren’t. And I don’t know, he uses that weird shiny square thing to tell us about the future.”

Ian was hard at work, his fingers a-blur poking the glowing bit of metal.

“Okay,” said he. “Whereabouts are you on your quest? Have you crossed the Goochi Desert?”

“Yes, a couple of weeks ago, actually. It’s very pretty.”

“And Edgar has been turned into a worm?”

Sigh.

“Yes…”

“And Dedmìht is-“

“Yes, yes, he died ages ago.”

Ian gave me an odd look, then went back to his curious Googling box.

“Right, okay. So at this point in your quest, the Queen is… oh.”

“‘Oh’ what?” I cried, leaning forward, stepping on Boomlay’s foot by accident.

“Well, ah, it’s nothing really. Yes, she’s okay. Astra is okay. You don’t have to be concerned about her wellbeing.”

“But what made thou say ‘oh’?”

“I’m sorry, but you’ve had your one question. That’s all I can do you for, I’m afraid. Maybe another time, yeah?”

“But… but Astra…”

“Astra’s fine, honestly. Don’t worry. You’ll see her soon enough.”

My face lit up with joy. Soon enough! I would see her soon enough, once more! Oh joy of joys how I missed her! Callooh! Ca-fucking-lay! Then I caught Ian looking at me with a strange watery half-smile. He was really devilishly ugly, and the sad drooping grimace that was smeared on his lips didn’t help the effect one bit. He patted me on the shoulder lightly.

“You’ll be alright, mate. Don’t worry,” he said.

I laughed, warmly, reaching out to ruffle the hair of the spirit.

“I am not concerned about mine own wellbeing, sir. If thou hast not yet noticed, I’m short five knuckles. Yet this grave wound doth pale into insignificance when I picture the face of my love.”

Ian winced, presumably at the sight of my stump, which I was presently waving around to make my point. He patted my shoulder once more, then by some arcane whatevery his smoky form was sucked back into the gravy boat with a soft ‘whup’ that sounded like someone sucking a runny egg through a straw. I had been cradling the boat in my lap, and felt slightly violated by Ian’s diving headfirst into the gusset of my britches. I placed Ian and his condimental vessel on the cushioned bench beside me.

Boomlay had apparently become bored of the fortune-telling exercise and was busy picking herbs out of her teeth.

“So…” I offered. She looked up and noticed the lack of Ian.

“Oh, right, I see you’re all finished. Did you find the answers you sought?”

“Well, not really.”

Boomlay scratched the end of her beaky nose.

“Nobody ever does, really – not now that you’re only allowed one question. Everyone always gets too giddy and asks something silly.”

“I think I did that too.”

Boomlay offered me a sympathetic smile, and then held out her palm.

“What?”

She wiggled her fingers.

“You want paying?”

She nodded.

“What! You lured me here, predicted my doom, and didn’t even do a good job of it. You ought to pay me. Besides, I don’t have any money. I lost it all in the desert. Now bugger off.”