CHAPTER 14

Hope springs eternal, they say. Even when James is a slave working in the rigour of the Mersea salt mines. Even when Helen has become a sex-slave? Even when Wulfstan doesn’t know where those two love-birds are? Even when Mortan is expanding his foulest power?

The only light was Tippi’s escape from Billington.

However, none among the protagonists knew where each other was. Perhaps it was best that they didn’t know. In so many cases ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

The world, the world of Dunara, the civilized world was at risk. At greatest risk. Evil forces were undermining the very fabric of all that was considered precious, fundamental to the creation of any sentiment of genuine humanity. Was it always to be like this? Was the force of moral good to be constantly destabilized by malevolent influences?

Yet it had to be so. Without death there is no life. Without destruction there is no creation. Without imprisonment there is no freedom. Without mistrust there is no trust. Everything is relative…even relativity itself.

***

Wulfstan pondered how he could possibly find out how James and Helen were. Where were they? Were they indeed alive? Recrimination, doubt, futility were pressing in his mind. What should he do now? Send charmed messenger birds? Fly friendly dragons? Unleash the dogs of war? Seek refuge and meditate in an isolated hermitage?

Wulfstan entered the tower of his keep. At its height, safely protected from all the mishaps that could befall the sacred things of his kingdom, was the library of the arcane. He stepped up the helical stairs. Reaching the top, opening the iron-wrought door, he crossed into a room filled with stacks of shelves upon which were contained ancient chronicles, archives and other manuscripts. The largest volumes were securely chained to the shelves. Wulfstan found his way to a corner where he felt the most valuable of these books were kept. There was no title on it. It was just known as ‘The Book’. But he knew that it must contain the solution to the terrible predicament the world, his world was found in. He opened the book at random. This was the way it was to be consulted. On the page opened quite by chance the answer could be found: the true answer.

He read:

‘There is a way your enemy may be defeated. It is through the power of a supernatural being. This power is contained in creatures that live beyond the world of time and space. You must seek them out with your entire mind and all your body. They may be found in distances beyond all known galaxies or they may inhabit places only a stone’s throw from where you are.’

There was the solution! This was the year of the Dragon. Surely a dragon could save. The dragon, the only mythical creature featured in the Chinese zodiac, an especially auspicious sign symbolising power, nobility, honour, luck, and success. Yet, as with humans, dragons were ambivalent beings. Simply put, there existed good dragons and bad dragons. Wulfstan reminded himself of the painting an ancient artist had frescoed on the end wall of his castle’s banqueting hall. It described a damsel being rescued from an evil dragon by a knight in silvery armour. The painting was of course, an allegory. The damsel personified the town of Dunara, the dragon the evil forces of the arch-fiend, the knight the alliance of virtuous nations in defence of the kingdom. The message was clear however. But where could a dragon be found? And was it going to be a necessarily honourable beast?

Wulfstan bethought himself of where dragons could be lurking in his lands. On top of mountains? In deepest chasms? Across swampy wastes? He remembered a summer’s solitary walk to the summit of a mountain known as the Pyramid Peak. He had started climbing from a place known as The Holy Island, a bewitched village by the sides of a deep lakelet with a magical colour imparted by crystals dragged into the water from underground caves. By noon the atmosphere had transmuted itself into a torrid heat. He was thirsty yet no rivulets were to be espied and his container was now empty. It seemed as if all the earth’s water had escaped deep underground beneath the rugged limestone cover.

He turned a corner on his jagged path and beheld an extraordinary site. Before him spread a scattering of enormous holes in the rock dug by action of rainwater. Could water be found at the bottom of them? With rounded sides they looked like giant pots made for a colossal breed of beings ready to cook their soups in. Certainly, from one of them arose a cloud of smoke.

Could this be a dragon’s lair? At that time Wulfstan did not explore the chasms further. He was alone. He wanted to get back in one piece. Quickly he hurried away from the weird spot.