The Royal Mark – part two

Part one here . . .

“No, no,” said Raedaiphos, “we don’t kill him yet, Father won’t know what’s happened to his pet and we want him to know don’t we?”

The other brothers sniggered as Raedaiphos hauled Aellyn by the scruff of his neck from his contraption to the royal boat, whilst one of the servants released the Merdragon’s head and pulled it on board. The royal fleet then returned to shore and proceeded straight to the castle.

They burst into the King’s chambers bringing the scent of the lake with them. The King looked up from his papers.

“Sons?”

Phairithrap stepped forwards “Your Highness, I . . .”

There was a sharp jab from Istydil’s sword correcting him.

“I mean webring you the head of the Merdragon, the savage beast that has devoured all our fish and his human helper,” Phairithrap pushed Aellyn forward. Aellyn didn’t know what to do, his word was no good against the six princes, “if only the Merdragon’s head could talk,” he wished.

Aellyn and the Merdragon head was pushed further forward towards the King, causing Aellyn to stumble. Aellyn put his hand out to brace his fall and it brushed against the slimy, scaly dragon’s head. As he did so he could swear he felt the twitch of muscles underneath the Merdragon’s skin. The courtesans earlier words ran through Aellyn’s mind, “The seventh son of a seventh son,” weren’t they meant to be magic? Aellyn reached over and placed his hand more deliberately on the Merdragon’s scaly skin, again it felt like his touch brought life to the still head, like a spreading warmth. Aellyn spread his hand wide over the scales, the head roared to life,

“Who captured me?” the Merdragon’s head demanded.

“My sons,” replied the old King proudly.

The Merdragon’s eyes swivelled madly in their sockets, the courtesans on seeing this believed that the Merdragon could see everything in the room, even behind him.

“I have never seen these snivelling wretches in my life,” roared the Merdragon “but I have seen this impertinent soul,” the Merdragon’s black serpentine tongue flicked forwards towards Aellyn.

“Yes, your helper,” said Seostyrap, who as usual wasn’t displaying much intelligence.

“A human! My helper!” roared the Merdragon, his tongue slapping Seostyrap’s cheek forcibly “Of course not, he is the one who slayed me!”

Phairithrap appealed to his father directly, looking him in the eyes ”You believe this creature over your sons?”

The King who knew his sons too well sighed “Yes”.

With that the six princes fled the King’s chambers leaving Aellyn, his hand still on the Merdragon’s head, the Merdragon’s eyes still roving wildly.

“You can put your hand down now,” said the King.

Aellyn dropped his hand, the Merdragon stilled, lifeless once more.

“You have one more task. Go and say goodbye to your Smithy ‘father’” instructed the King.

Aellyn turned and left the room, headed out of the castle and towards the Smithy where he knew his father would be. As he crossed the small courtyard facing the Smithy, he caught a glimpse of movement of a roof top here and around a corner there. His senses prickled but it was already too late, the six princes and their men ambushed Aellyn, he did not stand a chance, blow upon blow reigned down and just as his knees sank to the floor, Aellyn could see through his swollen eyes his father and the other Smithies emerge for the Smithy’s dark doorway, weapons grabbed from the mending benches in hand. They rushed to Aellyn’s rescue, beating back the princes and their men until the last cowardly prince fled. Aellyn’s Smithy father gave Aellyn his hand to pull him up from the dust.

“You have something to say to me?” he asked.

Aellyn staggered to his feet “Yes, you aided me in my attempts to reach the Merdragon, without your help I’d have never have reached him, even though you knew what success would mean. You came to my rescue when the Princes attacked, with no thought for yourself, even though I had spared no thought for you. I couldn’t think of a better father, the question is with all the things I have done to you and had thought to do, would you want me as your son?”

Aellyn’s father reached to embrace him “Of course”.

Fairy tale woods

I am a very lucky girl and I feel constantly blessed (when I try not to think about the size of my mortgage) about where I live. One of the many great things about where I live is that even though I live in London, literally at the end of my road is an expanse of woods and beyond that a fantastic park (and not the trimmed flower bed kind either, it’s the sort of get your boots muddy kind which is a lot more fun).

When I was a kid my dad insisted on a tradition of the Christmas Day walk, something (despite Mr. Lacer’s grumblings), I’d have liked to continue, however thinking about the logistics of it now I don’t know how he did it, as by the time we’ve cooked and eaten Christmas lunch there’s not much light left! So I’ve moved the tradition a little bit, for the last few years we’ve had a New Year’s Day walk and this year’s New Year’s Day walk was in the park (another great thing about where we live, there was a number of locations we could have chosen from).

I love how the area I live in inspires me as a writer, we moved here 3 1/2 years ago, prior to that I was interested in writing, I always have been but inspiration was a little lacking. I was toying with a couple of ideas; a murder story set in some grim metropolitan future and a present day superhero story, both I realise now inspired by the area I was then living in, which was the Docklands in East London, a very futuristic location. But then I moved to where we are now and it’s a lot older part of London, with history going back to kings, you can almost feel the history and pretty much as soon as I moved here the inspiration kicked in, although I still think my futuristic murder story and superhero story ideas are ok (I wrote about a couple of chapters for each) I doubt I could go back to them now, now my writing is older, more colourful and has more adventure. The area I live in actually has quite a lot of (published) authors in, I wonder if this area inspires them the same way?

Anyway back to my walk, as I’ve mentioned in earlier  posts I’m a little obsessed with fairy tales at the moment and the patch of park we chose echoed my obsession perfectly. A wooded area, it had lots of little hidden spaces, ancient warped cracked trees, tinkling streams, bright patches of reds amidst the winter grey, hidden blossoming pink flowers in secret clearings, bare branches frosted with lichen, definite inspiration. I took some photos, I just wish I had a better camera, I have an old Cybershot with only a digital zoom and it is showing it’s age, I’d love a camera with a better lens and an optical zoom. Anyway here’s some of the photos I took.

Elephant tree (if you look in the middle of the tree, the trunk going towards the camera looks like an elephant’s trunk, there’s even an indentation that looks like an elephant’s eye and the bulges of the trunks to either side of the ‘elephant’s head’ look like ears!)

So, a fun family morning out, Boy Lacer even got out and had a wander without holding someone’s hand(first time he’s done that outside) and Girl Lacer had an explore with Mr. Lacer, whilst me and Boy Lacer tried to find our way back to the entrance and as happens everytime I go to this particular bit of wood, I got lost! I thought I found the entrance and was about to stand and wait around around for Girl Lacer and Mr. Lacer and then thought “hang on, where’s the pond gone?” you see the entrance we came through had a pond, it then occurred to me that there must be two entrances. Luckily this entrance did have a map and I realised I was completely and utterly the wrong side of the wood, so heading south again and going off the what looked completely and utterly straight on the map path, I eventually made it back to the pond and the entrance to find Girl Lacer and Mr. Lacer already there!