Trevor and the Dragon - Part 6

19.

‘How apt,’ said the Wizard, ‘the farmer is a cow.’
‘My name is John Dylan,’ said the cow, ‘I am an Agent of Change, assigned to find the Ring of Argo. A ring which you and your organisation stole. Now – hand it over.’
Trevor goggled at John Dylan. He looked precisely like a cow, only, if you looked closer you saw that beneath his front hooves were two thick grey fingers and a misshapen thumb, and his rear hooves were just a little too long – perfect for standing on your hind legs, in fact.
Trevor also saw that that, Agent of Change or not, he was still a cow in nicked and rusty armour with a dirty sword, surrounded by very large men with very big longbows, and a maniac with a sonic disruptor.
‘I am Merlyn of Persia,’ said the Wizard with a bow, ‘I have heard of you, John Dylan, defender of Prezema, it is an honour to be in your presence.’
‘Then perhaps you will do me the honour of lowering your gun,’ said Dylan, stepping forward and raising his sword once more. All around him bowstrings groaned as the archers drew them back. ‘Unless you would like to explain to the Agency why you are stealing a valuable and dangerous artefact?’
‘I am not stealing the Ring, John Dylan,’ said the Wizard. Smiling his cold, stone smile, he slipped the gun back into his robes and raised both hands. ‘Lower your bows,’ he commanded, and the Dragon Rouge archers obeyed immediately. ‘We are the Army of the Dragon Rouge, and dedicated to the pursuance of peace and truth. We took the ring, Agent Dylan, recognising it as a dangerous artefact, as you say,’ the Wizard reached into his robes and brought out a large, ornate, rather battered ring. ‘But our mission,’ he said, as Dylan took a step towards him, ‘was to find that boy.’ The Wizard pointed at Trevor.
‘Me?’ Trevor exclaimed, as the tent was once more filled with the groan of tightening bowstrings – only now the arrows were pointed at Trevor. ‘What the bleeding hell have I done? I was just minding my own business!’
‘This boy is an agent send from the future,’ said the Wizard. He reached once more into his robes, and brought out a small white tablet, which he threw to Dylan. ‘Look at the readings, Agent Dylan, this boy is a Killian, from over a thousand years in the future. It is my belief that he been sent here to steal the Ring of Argo.’
Agent Dylan stared at Trevor, who spluttered angrily. ‘What a flipping cheek!’ he said at last, ‘That berk over there,’ he pointed at the Wizard, ‘isn’t no Merlyn of Persia, he is—‘
Trevor never finished. One moment Dylan was staring at him uncertainly, and the next there was a flash of blinding light.
When Trevor had blinked away the blinding after image all that stood where Dylan had been was his swords, bent neatly in two and glowing white.
‘As I said, captain, we can not be seen to oppose the Agents of Change,’ said the Wizard.
‘No my lord,’ agreed Thomas Hook.
Trevor caught a momentary glimpse of the Wizard’s cold and grinning face as he lifted his black scarf to cover his eyes once more. Where his eyes should have been were two open pits of white hot blazing fire.
‘Now then,’ said the Wizard Aeoson. ‘What are we to do about you, Sir Lee?’
But when he turned around Trevor had vanished.

20.

‘Right, that is it!’ snarled Trevor. ‘We are getting out of here and we are getting out now!’
‘WHAT ABOUT ROBERT COLCHIS?’ asked the Chunk.
‘Keep your voice down!’ hissed Trevor. ‘Have you got woodworm in your brains or what?’
Trevor was crouched behind the tent. When the Wizard had blasted Dylan he had whipped off his spectacles and promptly vanished while everyone was watching the unfortunate Agent evaporate. After that it had been an easy matter to simply slip out of the tent. He was still invisible - apart, of course from two reptilian eyes, the only part of him he was incapable of rendering not-visible, despite years of frustrating practice – and the muddy field was filled now with confused shouts and the clank of armour, the panicked knights almost as invisible as Trevor now in the rapidly falling snow.
‘Listen, Chunk, I want us out of here right this second,’ Trevor whispered, as two horses flew by, followed by the pale, doughy face of the boy Trevor remembered first encountering in the cowshed. Trevor was tempted to make himself visible again and give the boy a fright, but decided that at this point discretion was probably the better part of valour. Or possibly, in Trevor’s case, it was the better part of stupidity. Instead he turned to the Chunk again. ‘I don’t care where we go, or when we go, just get us out of here right now you stupid piece of junk, or I swear I’ll eat you right here and now!’
‘BUT WITHOUT ME—‘
‘I built you, dozy,’ Trevor snarled, ‘it might take me a while in this backwards place, but I can build another. Now get us out of here, or the next time I see you, will be when I’m sitting on the bog!’
The Chunk was silent, and Trevor, for once, waited patiently. He was, after all, telling the truth. He had created the Chunk on the planet Mab, a place where machines and computer didn’t work; and yet he had still managed to create the most advanced time and space travel machine in history out of, essentially, clever wood. So what if he was in some Dark Age armpit on the outer edges of the 101 Realms? He would find his way to a more advanced world, and rebuild the Chunk. All of that would be immaterial, of course, if the Chunk simply listened to reason got them the hell out of here, or (much less desirable) the Wizard found him and chopped his nut off.
‘BUT ROBERY COLCHIS—‘
‘Is a bleeding Maltrusion Dragon!’ Trevor snarled. It had, he noticed, become ominously quiet, and he imagined – with very little stretch of his extremely limited imagination – the Wizard gathering his archers and firing up his big, nasty gun. Bob can look after himself – and he’s done a runner! So we should do the same, you thick twig!’
‘I DON’T THINK HE HAS RUN AWAY,’ said the Chunk.
‘Of course he’s run away you idiot!’ Trevor snapped, howling in frustration. ‘Wouldn’t you run away you dozy sap?’
‘IF HE HAS RUN AWAY,’ said the Chunk, ‘THEN WHO IS THAT OVER THERE?’
Trevor looked up. ‘Oh … bumholes!’ he exclaimed.

21.

Trevor crawled around the back of the tent. As he crawled through the icy, stinking mud the Chunk kept trying to buoy him up, ‘WELL DONE’, it said, and ‘I AM VERY PROUD OF YOU,’ and ‘YOU ARE A CREDIT TO YOUR PEOPLE.’ Trevor kept a surly silence. He had decided, unequivocally, that he hated the Chunk with every ounce of his being, and as soon as he was on the beach at Halruga, was going to start his barbecue fire with the horrid little thing. His first Halrugan sausages would taste so much the sweeter, knowing that the Chunk had been cooked alongside them.
Bob the dragon had sailed out the snow like a great ship, roaring and spitting flame in fury. The dirty knights had scattered in panic, and in the whirl of snow and the scream of bolting horses the great dragon had landed in the centre of the camp fire, rising twenty feet into the air, its wings snapping open with an ear-splitting CRACK! as campfire sparks flew in a vast cloud mixed with the snow, and it had roared with terrifying ferocity, every nightmare of this simple little land embodied in one terrible, impossible monster.
‘Oh, bleeding hell, not again,’ Trevor had sighed.
This, in a nutshell, Trevor thought, perfectly encompassed his life. He tried to be good, to quietly do his work, and be nice to people, he even – on occasion – shared his chocolate, but there was always some bumhole twit trying to save the world and in the process getting him into trouble. It had happened with his best friend Maxwell Jones, with that pyromaniac Billy Barker, with Barty Pugg, and even the usually sensible Dr Arcania had took into his head to get all heroic – hence Trevor’s current predicament; lost in time, lost in space, and now he too was losing all sense.
Bob Colchis was the latest idiot to lose his marbles over some daft quest. What was it with people and quests? Trevor’s only quest in life was to find a nice beach, lay back and get as fat and sunburnt as Killianly possible. Trevor had watched in deepening despair, and then cold resignation, as Bob had roared into the Wizard’s tent in a whirl of arrows and flame.
‘I suppose now I’ll have to go and rescue that dozy twonk,’ he sighed.
‘I SUPPOSE YOU WILL, YES,’ Chunk replied. ‘AND MAY I SAY THAT I HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE UPMOST CONFIDENCE—‘
‘No you may not!’ Trevor snapped. ‘Shut your word hole!’
By the time Trevor had crawled around to the back of the tent the canvas was aflame, and from inside he could hear shouts, the clang of steel, and, more ominously the high woop-woop-woop of the Wizard’s deadly gun. Trevor blinked twice, vanished once more, and crawled under the tent.
Inside was darkness, and sudden silence. Trevor blinked again, and the darkness resolved into green shapes as his reptilian vision pierced the night.
To his left a number of soldiers was beating at the canvas where a small fire still burnt, the now thickly falling snow clearly visible through the tattered canvas. To his right was another knot of soldiers, their arrows pointing in uniform lines at the far end of the tent, despite the darkness.
Immediately in front of Trevor, his back to him, stood the Wizard, his bald head gleaming green in Trevor’s night vision eyes – and in his hand something else gleamed too. A sword.
‘Ah, Maltrusion, I can’t express enough how indebted I am to you,’ said the Wizard in his deep gravely voice. Flame flared suddenly and the tent was filled with torchlight. Trevor winced and blinked again, and the suddenly intense green light turned once more into the shadowy interior of the Wizard’s tent – and at its far end, lying on his side and breathing shallowly, was Bob the dragon.
The Wizard walked around to Bob’s head, and now Trevor could see that several arrows were sticking out of the dragon’s scaly hide, and at its head stood Captain Thomas Hook, a large axe held in his hands, poised above Bob’s staring eye.
‘I don’t imagine such a brutal creature as you can understand, Maltrusion, but you have played your part admirably,’ said the Wizard, running the tip of his sword up Bob’s snout. Bob, Trevor noticed, did not even shiver, and he felt a sudden flash of anger. He stalked closer, unseen by the soldiers. ‘You led Sir David Hylton to me, and through him I gained this,’ he held up the dirty, ancient ring. ‘But even better you brought the Agent to me, and by returning gave me a convenient monster to hang his murder on. Thank you so much for all of your help, monster. And now,’ the Wizard stopped beside Hook, who stepped back. He raised his sword with a faint smile on his grim white face, ‘And now, I shall deliver your head to these peasants, and become a legend in this world.’
It occurred to Trevor afterwards, as he sneaked, completely unseen, behind the grinning, bloodthirsty archers, around the edge of the tent, and finally right behind the Wizard, that at this point he should have said something witty and cool. ‘Deliver this, sucker!’ would have been good, or perhaps, ‘Feel my wrath, smelly wizard’, or, even better, ‘I’m the only legend around here, bub!’ but as it was Trevor realised that he had probably left it a little too late as the Wizard was just about to hack Bob’s head off, and, anyway, he couldn’t really think of anything clever.
So instead Trevor had leapt forward and bit the Wizard’s bottom as hard as he could.
The Wizard let out an agonising howl, dropped both his sword and the Ring of Argo, and leapt a good six feet into the air. Trevor let go, and turned just as Hook raised the axe in both hands and prepared to bring it down on Bob’s head with all his might. Trevor leapt forward once more – Drop that, sucker, I won’t axe twice, he thought later – and head butted Hook square in the centre of his face. Hook’s eyelids fluttered, and he fell backwards without a sound, the axe still held above his head.
‘Get on your feet dozy!’ he shouted, turning back to where Bob lay.
The Wizard stood in front of him, his sword levelled in one hand, the other held to his bottom. ‘You damned interfering boy,’ he snarled, ‘Do you really think a child could stop me?’
He leapt forward, his sword slicing toward Trevor’s throat in a killing arc – and was suddenly plucked off his feet, his bald head pincered between two enormous talons.
‘See ya, baldy,’ said Trevor with a wave, and Bob, rising up and tearing the tent to shreds, hurled the Wizard over his shoulder and into the night.
‘Climb on my back!’ Bob bellowed.
‘Who made you the boss of me?’ Trevor demanded.
‘Just do it!’
Trevor took a standing jump and landed neatly on the dragon’s back. With an enormous sound Bob launched himself into the air. Arrows whizzed by and the clatter of armour and confused shouts arose – but were lost almost instantly in the howl of the wind as the dragon rose up into a raging blizzard.
‘Thank you!’ gasped Bob. ‘You save me! I knew you were—‘
‘Shut up, death breath!’ Trevor spat. ‘Now, you wooden idiot, will you get us out of here?’
‘OF COURSE,’ the Chunk replied.
Trevor waited, and then, his patience snapping, screamed: ‘Go on then!’
‘BUT,’ the Chunk answered, ‘I ALREADY HAVE.’
And through the whirling snow, rising like a dream in the night, rose the highest tower of the Watchmen Academy, and at its crest, warm light glowing at its windows, was the big green coconut of the headmaster’s office.

22.

Bob landed in the grounds of the Watchmen Academy, and waited while Trevor climbed down from his back. He stepped forward slowly, looking up at the few lights that twinkled in the school’s dozens of towers, and beyond that, unseen except for a glow in the distance, the little village of Virporta.
‘Is it very different in your time?’ Bob asked. Trevor turned and looked at him blankly. ‘The Watchmen Academy, is it different in your time?’
Trevor turned back to look at the tallest tower, rising like a strange lighthouse in the stormy night. In his time the Watchmen Academy no longer existed. He had stood beneath a windowsill on one of those towers, and watched as one by one the towers fell. But before Trevor could speak, the Chunk replied:
‘WE CAN NOT TELL YOU WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE, ROBERT COLCHIS.’
Bob smiled, his massive teeth flashing. ‘Of course not,’ he said.
‘WE ARE SORRY THAT WE WERE NOT ABLE TO ASSIST YOU IN YOUR QUEST, ROBERT COLCHIS,’ said the Chunk.
Bob smiled even more widely, ‘Oh, but you were,’ he said, holding up his massive claws. Between two of his wicked red and green talons, almost too small of be seen, Bob held the elaborate, ancient ring.
‘You nicked it off the Wizard?’ Trevor exclaimed.
The dragon frowned at the word “nicked”, but nodded nonetheless. ‘The Wizard dropped it when you bit him,’ Bob replied. ‘That was an unusual strategy, Killian.’
‘I’ve used it before,’ Trevor replied, remembering with wicked zeal the time had bitten another monster’s bottom and stopped it dead.
Bob the dragon looked at the Ring of Argo, and then closed his hand around it. He looked up the welcoming sight of the Watchmen Academy, and beyond that the village, his home, his friends, and his bed. Being a hero was his life, his destiny, but it was, Bob had realised, a hard and dangerous destiny, and it was nice to be able to come home again.
‘In the end I suppose we made quite a good team,’ said Bob, turning back to Trevor, ‘You know there are more missing pieces of the Key of Argo…’
But Bob found he was talking to a whirl of shapeless snow. Trevor and the Chunk had vanished. He let out a frustrated growl, then lowered his head, shook it, and laughed.
Still laughing the dragon took to the air, and flew home.

23.

Trevor opened his eyes and let out a whoop of delight.
In front of him stretched endless sands that rolled on and on to the horizon as far as the eye could see in both directions. Beyond the beach a glorious, iridescent purple sea rose and fell with a sound that was almost like a sigh of pleasure. Three suns painted golden light across the sky as they set slowly in the north.
‘HALRUGA,’ said the Chunk, ‘AS REQUESTED.’
‘Halruga,’ Trevor replied, ‘At blinking last.’ He kissed the Chunk, and decided, all in all, he could probably find something better to burn for his barbecue.
He was still thinking about his inaugural barbecue – the first of millions – and what he would cook first, when a low rumbling noise made him look up and Trevor saw a massive space ship appear from the sands behind him and rise vertically into the air.
‘What was that?’ Trevor asked, squinting up at the rapidly receding craft.
‘THAT WAS THE SHIP ISADORA DOLPHIN, DEPARTING FOR KHRONOS,’ the Chunk replied.
‘Oh.’ Trevor picked up a likely looking piece of drift wood, and walked down the beach. It was, he thought, strangely quiet. ‘Chunk, why was that ship leaving for Khronos?’ Trevor asked at last.
‘BECAUSE OF THE JICKER,’ the Chunk replied.
‘Because of the what?’ Trevor exclaimed.
‘THE JICKER. THE PERIOD THAT IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS THE SURF DECADON. THAT PERIOD IS COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE JICKER.’
‘Oh,’ Trevor spotted a circle of blackened stones, and though vaguely that would be handy for his barbecue, but something was bothering him. ‘What is the Jicker, Chunk?’ he asked at last, and even as he said it, Trevor, unaccountably, felt his heart sink.
THE JICKER IS THE PERIOD IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE DECADON, A PERIOD OF TEN YEARS OF SUN AND IDEAL SURFING CONDITIONS—‘
‘Oh well—‘
‘IN CONTRAST,’ interrupted the Chunk, ‘THE JICKER CONSISTS OF THREE YEARS OF HEAVY RAINFALL AND OCCASIONAL TSUNAMIS. THIS PERIOD OF RAINFALL IS FOLLOWED BY BLIZARDS, HIGH WINDS AND THE SEAS FREEZING OVER. THIS PERIOD GENERALLY LASTS FIVE TO SIX YEARS, FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF THAWING, HEAVY RAINFALL, AND THEN, AFTER A PERIOD OF TEN YEARS, THE SURF DECADON BEGINS AGAIN, A PERIOD OF GLORIOUS SUNSHINE AND BEAUTIFUL SURFING CONDITIONS.’
In the silence that followed this pronouncement Trevor felt a large heavy drop of rain fall onto his snout. The sky had darkened perceptibly, and, in the distance, he heard the beginnings of a high and fierce wind.
‘IF YOU WILL EXCUSE ME I HAVE EXHAUSTED MY BATTERY,’ said the Chunk. ‘I WILL NOW SHUT DOWN TO RECHARGE,’ and without another word the little piece of wood became still and dead around Trevor’s neck.
Trevor sat on the sands, and watched the sun set.
Very soon the little drops of rain turned into very big drops of rain.
Very soon the calm sea began to heave.
Not long after that sand began to whip along the shore in a stinging curtain.
Trevor reached into his pocket, took out a chocolate bar, and began to munch it. As he ate he picked up the Chunk and looked at it in the dismal wet night.
‘I wonder where I can get some matches?’ he murmured.

End.