The Chameleon Shop

A gentle rain was falling when Jett, Kaylee and Willy set out the next morning. After being in them for days, Kaylee’s clothes did not smell the best. In fact, the smell of them this morning had closely resembled her father’s old socks, so she was glad to leave them with the villagers who had kindly loaned her a tunic and some leather pants. They left the Spirit Realm in happy moods, but these dried up with the rain, as the menacing threat of the caves grew nearer.

They followed the river which had grown a bit more vigorous as they neared Mount Beaton. In fact vigorous enough now to boast the occasional glorious waterfall. There were natural wonders Kaylee could never have imagined. Rock formations thrust from the ground and straight up for hundreds of feet, like rocket ships, as well as gracefully arched stone bridges, which looked like they could only have been made by fairies. At that moment, Kaylee laughed to herself. In this place, fairies or some other magical creature, likely had built them.

Dodging falling pinecones from the giant conifers above them was amusing at first, until a few scored direct hits with Kaylee’s head. Willy jumped off her shoulders to go exploring now and again, but would always catch them up.

Jett was as curious about her world, as she was about his.

‘Am I the first person from my world to come here, or have there been others?’ She asked him as they walked under the shade beneath the giant trees and then out into grassy sun filled patches of meadow.

‘Oh, no there have been a few others over the long years.’ Jett told her. Kaylee looked excited by this revelation.

‘Do all animals in this world talk? I know the Pegasus didn’t.’ She said.

’No, only the special ones ... like Messenger Cats,’ he grinned, huge glistening white fangs in the pink gums of his ebony face; his large amber eyes creased in merriment. ‘I take it cats do not speak in your world?’ Jett asked Kaylee.

’No, sadly, they don’t. And they are quite a lot smaller than you lot. But you’ll be pleased to know that they are as loved and spoilt as Gods, by some people.’ She laughed thinking of her dotty elderly neighbour who had four grossly overfed cats.

The sky darkened to violet, edged with a brilliant crimson sunset, as they approached the foot of the mountain. They had been walking along a wagon track next to a low fieldstone fence, for quite some time.

On the old stone fence, Kaylee saw someone sitting there. She had to take a second and even a third look. She wondered if the Shaman had slipped some funny mushrooms into her dinner because she could swear that the thing sitting on the low stone wall was the round egg-shaped body of Humpty-Dumpty, only he was more of an orange shade than white.

She found herself humming that familiar childhood nursery rhyme and didn’t mean to speak aloud, but slipped out the last part ‘... all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men ─’

‘What’s that dear?’ Jett asked her.

Kaylee felt embarrassed and changed the subject, ‘Who is that sitting on the wall, he looks familiar?’

‘Oh, that looks like Bruce. He’s one of the Pumpkin People.’

When he noticed them, Bruce waved cheerily at them with his pewter mug. ‘Ello,’ he said and took a swig from his mug, dribbling the liquid carelessly down his tight-fitting shirtfront. Judging by the old stains on it, he did this often.

‘Hello Bruce. Fine evening for it?’ Jett replied.

’That it ‘tis.’ He smiled. ‘Ere, where you two off to then?’ Bruce asked.

’We’re going to the caves to talk to the dragon.’ Kaylee replied.

Bruce’s eyebrows shot up in shock and he wobbled precariously before yelling ‘Ahh!’ as he and his mug toppled backwards over the fence, landing with a dull thud and leaving a pair of holey striped socks, one with a huge toe poking out, sticking up in his place.

Kaylee could not hold back the laugh, as she sang ‘... and couldn’t put Humpty together again!’ Jett stared at her as if she had two heads, until she ran to the fence to make sure Bruce was all right. She lent him a hand back up.

’You want to be careful, you know,’ she told Bruce, who had cider dripping from his rather fat nose and the near empty tankard still clutched in his sausage-like fingers. ‘Most accidents happen within ten minutes from home.’ She was grinning wickedly.

Instead of getting mad though, Bruce cracked up laughing, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!’ He paused to catch his breath, slapping the thigh of his trousers in silent mirth with his free hand, as tears leaked from the creased corners of his eyes. Then off he went again with another burst. ‘Aha! ... aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!’

He perched precariously on that stone fence, laughing so hard that he spilt whatever cider had remained in his mug and more tears overflowed his eyes. Eventually he laughed so long, Jett frowned and said, ‘He appears to be alright. Let us move on shall we, while we still have light.’

‘He appears to be totally nuts, if you ask me.’ Kaylee said smiling and shaking her head.

As they walked away, Bruce eventually quietened down. He muttered to himself, ‘Me? Nuts? I’m not the silly sod going into those caves though, am I?’

Not far past the wall where Bruce had his fall ─ Oh dear, Kaylee thought, I’m never going to get Humpty-bloody-dumpty out of my mind now ─ she saw at the base of the mountain, dozens of little round grass-covered hills, where smoke was rising from little chimneys protruding from the mounds. There were homes beneath the turf with round windows and doors, along with pretty little gardens behind picket fences.

’These are the gnome men and women of the Earth Realm,’ Jett told Kaylee. ‘Stay close now. They are a little wary of strangers ever since a rogue group of men from the Fire Realm decided to play a game with a few of them, tossing them to each other like a ball.’

There were dozens of these little people, engaged in various activities outside of their quaint little homes. They looked similar to humans except more stocky and compact, only about the height of an eight-year-old child. They wore simple homespun clothing in browns and greens, topped off with pointed hats like the kind Kaylee had had at her five-year-old birthday party, only ─ not shiny.

Most of the gnome men had beards and were busy at the moment with rakes and forks, tending garden patches and milking goats. A few of them pushed wheelbarrows of fruit and vegetables, to-and-fro, between their homes and sizeable garden patches.

Kaylee thought they were simply delightful.

Willy had caught up with them but with such an array of food in sight he was immediately off again, helping himself to one of these barrows of produce, unobserved by the busy lady-gnome working nearby.

The wheelbarrows were being trundled towards their little homes, which from what Kaylee could tell, looked as though they might possibly lead directly into the mountain. She wished she could traipse through to check, but was brought up with better manners than that.

‘Oh, Willy,’ she scorned, watching him insolently pilfer fruit from the barrow.

’Leave him be,’ Jett said. ’It might pay for us to accidently leave him there for the time being, anyhow. If he comes with us, he’ll probably end up as bug-bait!’

The Gnome people watched her suspiciously, as she wandered past, but did not trouble her while she was with a Messenger Cat.

The more she looked around at their little houses, the more Kaylee laughed. She slapped her hand over her mouth, realising it probably sounded a bit rude to the Gnome people.

’Do tell, what amuses you so?’ Jett asked her. She was still bubbling on the inside about the Pumpkin person, but she could not help but notice that the houses round here looked very familiar.

’Well,’ she explained to Jett, ‘in my world a famous movie maker did a film of a story with houses and small folk quite similar to these ─’

‘Oh, you mean young Master Tolkien?’

Kaylee gasped, ‘You’ve heard of The Lord of the Rings?’ she was very surprised.

’Oh yes. Young Master Tolkien visited us many years ago, when he was just a small lad, near the age you are now. You’ll find many of your great story tellers have been temporary visitors in the Five Realms, at some time in their lives.’

The rounded turf houses of the Gnomes of the Earth Realm were scattered over both sides of the old tunnel. The tunnel that had in the past, been the main trade route through from all the realms on this side of the Byagal Sea, to the Water Realm on the other side.

They could see the honeycomb shaped caves, where the entrance used to be. The dark holes in the combs which looked as big as a car were terrifying. Betina had told Kaylee they were home to nests of evil things, nasty, creepy, crawly things. Fear seemed to waft off those eerie caves along with the smell of rot and decay.

Kaylee adjusted her backpack a little, as it was rubbing her shoulder a bit raw. She looked at Jett and gulped. ‘We have to go through there?’ Her voice disappeared in a high squeak at the end.

’Through those combs and beneath the Earth Realm is where the Dragon chambers are. If you want to know why you are here, that is the best place to find your answers. However, I will not lie to you. It will not be easy. In fact, it is likely to be very dangerous. Hopefully, if we are very quiet, we can sneak by and escape notice from the evil eyes that dwell within.’

’And if we do attract them?’ She asked dubiously.

’Well, we will perhaps pray .... and very likely fight. Or possibly ... die.’ He said quite matter-of-factly and started walking into the caves.

His confidence was reassuring, but as she followed him in she said, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ She wondered if she should just turn around, return to the iron gates and try to find some other way back from the volcano.

However, she knew that was taking the coward’s way out. Her father had not been a coward and she did not want to shame his memory. Therefore, swallowing her fear, she bravely followed the huge black cat into the towering honeycomb of caves.

Her courage lasted precisely until they left the sunlight and the darkness swallowed them, its breath of dampness and rot seeping into their very skin. Kaylee clutched Jett’s tail, scared to death she would lose him in the maze of combs, making him jerk with fright. He relaxed with a chuckle. He had forgotten she did not see in the dark as well as cats could.

At first, it was very quiet. However, before long, they began to notice small scratching sounds. Like something crawling along the walls and over the papery shell of the combs. It sounded like fire crackling or a bowl of Cocoa-Pops when you first poured milk on them.

First, she heard it on one side of the cave and she drew closer to Jett. Before long, she could hear the sounds on the other side of the cave. When she could finally hear them above her, she stood bravely fists clenched, swallowed and said naively, ‘Ok I don’t know much about praying but I’m ready to fight.’

To her surprise, Jett answered, ‘Well I’m not!’ and under his breath he said, ’God, I hate bugs! We are outnumbered here a-hundred-to-one. Sometimes you have to run away and fight another day. Climb on my back!’

Gasping for breath and bent over her knees with a painful stitch in her side, Kaylee looked at Jett lying, panting in the long grass. They were just inside the woods of the Spirit people, where they’d run from the creatures in the cave.

‘What ... were those ... things?’ Kaylee panted.

‘Giant spiders, scorpions, wetas, snakes, bats even ... creatures of the night and dark places.’ He stared at the tunnel with loathing and a solitary shiver travelled all the way down his spine.

She looked back to the entrance to the caves. It was at least a couple of sports fields away. Above the entrance, she could see a few of the creature’s long feelers poking out the upper levels of the papery nest. They twitched, tasting the air, searching for them, but they quickly shrank in fear from the sun’s light, back into the dark interior of their combs.

’They do not like the light, so we are safe for now, but come nightfall ...’ Jett did not need to finish this statement.

‘But the sun is going down; it’s almost night time now.’ Kaylee clutched his fur, pinching his skin slightly.

It hurt Jett a little but in his nice-natured way, he did not complain. He was just about to suggest approaching the Spirit people for help when a dark-winged horse dropped gracefully down from the darkening sky. He trotted up and down the wood’s edge, searching.

He spied Kaylee waving to him and galloped towards them. When he was near, he shook his head up and down in their direction. A silver bell round his neck tinkled as he did so. ‘He wants you to go with him.’ Jett said. ‘Opal is the ancient and wise one in the Wind Realm. She must wish to speak with you. You will be safer there for now.’

‘Ancient? Is she like your grandmother or something?’

‘More like my grandmother’s grandmother.’ He said.

‘What about you?’ Kaylee asked, concerned for her new friend’s safety.

’I’ve been here all my life. This is my home Kaylee. I will find help with the Spirit people. We will meet again.’