The Chameleon Shop

There was a fork in the road up ahead. Two old signs sat at the top of a thin worn post, one pointing left, the other right. A few years ago the villagers had used the road they were on, which headed straight for the tunnels. However, Wilfrey’s crone and her dark magic had blocked the tunnels. Now the Viking people had no choice but to take the left road of the fork, leading up the Mountain to Wilfrey’s castle. They now had to settle for what terms they could.

Jett, Kaylee and Willy followed a road beside the river towards the lands of the Spirit Realm. Past the fork in the road, rows of grapevines lined the fences of paddocks they passed. As they crossed over a shallow part of the small river, they saw that the water had dropped so low that the bridge which crossed it, was no longer necessary.

The road they walked was a long one and Kaylee soon grew very tired, not being used to so much walking. She tried not to complain, but lagged behind a bit until Jett took pity on her and told her to climb on his back for a spell, now and then.

On and on down the road, over hills, through meadows, across streams and over stone fences they travelled the long, weary day. Kaylee’s thoughts drifted to home and her mother.

Betina had pulled her aside before they had left ─ in a hurry, thanks to Willy ─ and told her that she had seen a woman (whose description had to be Kaylee’s mother) in the crystal ball. She had been crying and talking to a man dressed in dark blue, wearing a strange flat hat.

Kaylee knew this was probably a Police Officer and she felt very guilty for worrying her mother so badly. She had to find a way to get home as soon as possible, whatever that took.

She looked around the barren landscape. It was growing a little greener as they neared the Woods of the Spirit Realm; beyond that stood the foot of the great looming mountain.

A dot ahead of them in the road, Kaylee had been observing, began to grow larger. It appeared to be a small cat walking towards them. However, as it got closer, the dot that seemed like a normal sized cat grew larger and larger.

Realisation finally dawned on her. Oh, wow! Another Messenger Cat, Kaylee thought, delighted.

This one was a fluffy ginger and cream colour, with striking green eyes. Remembering how smoochy Jett had been, Kaylee eagerly rushed forward to pat the huge fluffy cat.

She was not at all prepared when it lifted its paw, quick as a striking snake, and swatted her sideways into a bush before Jett could warn her.

Kaylee was more surprised than hurt and looked at Jett for an explanation, confusion all over her face.

‘Not all of us are as good-natured as I, I’m afraid,’ he explained a little sheepishly.

‘Thanks for the warning!’ she sulked.

The ginger cat paced back and forth, then growled at Jett, ’Who is that?’ Meaning the slightly shaky girl, with an equally shaky monkey gripping her hair tight enough to bring tears to her eyes.

As Kaylee climbed out of the bush, she found her backpack had fallen off. She picked it up and bashed the dust off against her jeans, irritably.

‘Now, now Topaz. We must work on your social skills some time. This is Kaylee. She has come here with a magic key, likely Dragon magic. We believe it was probably made by the gnomes of Mount Beaton. The reason for which, we are yet to discover, but it must be important to the Realms that we find out. So if you would please refrain from injuring the girl, it would be much appreciated.’

‘I don’t do nice,’ Topaz snarled. ‘Out of my way girly, I’ve got stoneys to track.’

‘Stoneys?’ Kaylee asked Jett, frowning.

‘Gargoyles.’ He replied, as though this would make any sense to someone not from these lands. Kaylee raised her eyebrows at him, in a ‘huh?’ gesture and turned to Topaz.

‘Aren’t they stone statues that don’t move?’

‘Not here. Thanks to Wilfrey, they move and spy and do nasty things to lost little girls like you. So quit wasting my time so I can find them,’ Topaz said, her huge ginger tail flicking sideways and catching Kaylee in the eye as she passed. Willy the monkey screeched and shot down her leg.

Jett explained in more depth, ‘Gargoyles are nasty creatures, with ears like bats and a smile of razor teeth that would make your hair stand on end. They’re usually accompanied by the odd hagar ─’

‘Odd what?’ Kaylee began to interrupt but Jett raised a finger of his paw to silence her; he wasn’t finished explaining.

‘—Great, black, hairy beasts that would be doglike if they didn’t have the face of a wild boar, tusks and all. Fearsome creatures which look as though they were spat up from the bowels of hell, created from spells cast by Wilfrey’s crone.’

Kaylee’s face froze as she looked past Topaz and she lifted her hand, pointing with a shaky finger. ‘Something like those then?’ She mumbled.

Jett pounced in front of Kaylee, eyes narrowed and growling deeply. Topaz had joined him to face three gargoyles, stone grey with pointed ears like a bats and sinister red glowing eyes. They flexed their long bony fingers, emphasizing the sharp talons on the ends of them. They were smiling in a very sinister fashion and making disturbing clicking noises with their razor sharp teeth.

‘What do we have here?’ one of them hissed and spoke as though his nose were blocked, which it may well have been, with cement.

Topaz stalked fearlessly towards them. She might be grumpy, but she was very brave and fierce. ’Three dead gargoyles if they don’t start running. How fast can stone run?’

One of the other gargoyles raised a large bull horn to his hard stone lips and blew. The trumpeting sound rang out and bounced off the surrounding hills. They soon heard growling sounds emerging from the distant trees and a dust cloud began to rise as two hagars came running.

As they drew nearer, Kaylee saw with horror, they indeed had faces like wild boars. They were only half the size of the huge cats though and Jett and Topaz had little trouble in swiping them aside with their strong paws, or pinning them down to give a powerful bite.

The gargoyles, Kaylee soon learned, had a terrible design fault; they did not take sudden impact very well. A good hard hit to them and they shattered like a dropped light bulb. After the first one did this, slammed to the hard ground beneath the weight of Topaz and dissolving in a cloud of grey dust, the other two stoneys took off running awkwardly on bandy legs, leaving the hagars to finish the fight.

Kaylee hid trembling in a bush and wished she could do something to help, but she was unarmed and more likely to be in the way. She felt like crying or screaming, but eventually the hagars yelped and gave up, joining the now running gargoyles in their retreat.

Now that the immediate danger had vanished, Kaylee cautiously approached Jett, who seemed relatively unharmed, except for a small tear to his ear. It was bleeding a little. He licked his large paw and rubbed it over the tear a couple of times.

The monkey was now clinging even more fearfully round her throat, half choking her. She loosened Willy’s grip and said to Jett, ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, yes don’t worry about me dear. Those silly beasts are no match for us, more of a nuisance than anything. Stoneys only have a chance if you do not see them coming. But now they’ve seen you, it won’t be long before Wilfrey knows you’re here.’

‘I’ll follow them, make sure they keep running,’ Topaz said. ‘Maybe I can stop them before they get to him. Best you keep your pet close, Jett.’