chapter 1

THE CROOK OF THE MOUNTIAN KING’S ELBOW

1

It’s dark in ‘ere . Dark and cold it is, like your dead mother’s smile used to be. The walls seem dim, damp and clammy, even though they ain’t really. Look at you. Could be mid winter outside it could, for all I know, for all YOU know you lazy little wanker. It ain’t though, it’s summer. Do you ‘ear me? SUMMER! All the girls will be ‘alf naked out there, in the fields. All boobs an’ bent over they’ll be, like every dream I ever had.  D’you hear me?  Boobs and bent over! And where am I? Plonked in ‘ere like the ‘alf dead.... Why do you ‘ave to keep calling me back? Eh? You shouldn’t be in ‘ere anyways! A godffer like you should be running round outside in the sunshine. Your dad wants you out there he does, needs you out there. We all do, need you out there, becoming strong. Won’t do any of us any good if you takes a liking to the indoors of things. Why do you sit in ‘ere in the dark anyways? It aint normal it aint. Woe betide us all I say. A little curse on us all you could be, a pale greasy little ghost of a curse...eh?...Any road up!

Another story is it? And what if I don’t tell eh? What will you do then? Eh? Oh don’t pout, I ‘ave a story for you. A smashin’ story it is. One as been passed down from donkeys ago, fairy story they calls it....Well you just make yourself comfortable you little poppet. After all I am your favourite aren’t I eh? I am the best rememberer aint I? I takes you on journeys don’t I? Speaks proper, like the writings Eh?  Much better than that saggy titted horror that used to entertain your dad behind your mother’s back. Before all ‘er teeth fell out and her nipples started banging her knees that is. She’s crap she is anyways. I don’t know why you bothers with ‘er. She don’t as know her arse from her elbow story wise. And she mashes her words when she talks. All spit an’ gummy porridge she is. How can you lay there an’ listen to ‘er? She makes me feel sick she does.

*

Any road up

 Is you layin’ comfy like?

Where shall I start?

*

At the beginnings of things

*

Once upon a time there was a village, a cursed village it was, and all of the people were pinched and hungry. Hungry hungry hungry, as it hadn’t rained for as long as anyone could remember, and nothing much would grow, bald as a coot the ground was, cracked and dusty. The crops were weedy in the fields and the harvest was dreadful, year upon year upon year. But the good folk of that village stayed put though, too hungry or stupid to move away and find better they were. So what was to be done? Well the head spirit man, before he died, told the village that the problem was that the distant mountain wouldn’t let it rain. Holding the clouds back he was behind his mighty rocky shoulders. The only way to save things was to appease him, make him feel special. The villagers had to prove to the mountain just how marvellous they thought he was. How big. How strong. How important to the scheme of things. The spirit man said that once everyone had convinced the mountain that the people of the kingdom thought he was fantastic, then the mountain king in all his majesty  and kindness would let go the rain clouds and it would rain.

Trouble was that just then the spirit man died. A big bird dropped a rock on his head it did, as the spirit man was off up the shops. The bird was taking the big rock back to its nest for some reason known only to it’s feathery self, and it lost its grip. The rock fell through the air like bad news and hit the spirit man smack where it hurts. Well without a spirit man to guide them and no suitable replacement available, the villagers had a meeting. They decided amongst themselves to send young lads up the mountain with offerings every time there was a new moon. This was the wrong thing to do of course, but the only man with a plan was dead. The villagers did what only stupid people could do in that situation. They got it all really wrong. What else could they do?

Now nobody really knew what was up the mountain  as it was a good few days walk away. A few had been up there in the past and told of a huge still freshwater lake teeming with rainbow coloured fishes that jumped out of the water waiting to be caught by even the most clumsy of people, and so it proved to be from what the lads who came back said.  The lake was surrounded on three sides by sheer moss covered green bluffs that ran right  up the side of the mountain for hundreds of feet . Everyone that had ever seen the lake had told of its magical atmosphere, of  it’s specialness. So then, because of that, because of the specialness, the villagers decided to leave their offering at the water side. That would be where the mountain would want his offering they thought. Somewhere nice, somewhere pretty. The pity was that it still would not rain and a few of the boys that had been sent up the mountain hadn’t come home. Some told of a stone giant called “Jimmy” that would scream and smash folk with his big boney club and nanch on their bones, but that was just talking. No one had ever seen or heard Jimmy, the story was fuelled by the disappearance of the few brave lads that would never return.

Now as it happened the job of taking the offering up the mountain fell to Arvey. Arvey was a strapping lad, big and strong and not afeared of  no one. “I’ll take it up” he said “An’ woe betide any Jimmys that tries to eat upon me! I shall teach him a lesson as he won’t forget. Sure as eggs is eggs.” Not scared of  anybody that was our Arvey. And I am sure that he would have done very well, very well indeed, had not been for his step mother. Wicked she was, wicked and selfish. She wasn’t from the local villages roundabouts. Arvey’s step mum came from quite far away. She had settled in the village by accident almost, met Arvey’s dad and they had got married after a short courting and a tuppeny upright. Well she had had enough of the village by now. No rain. No food to speak of. “Let’s go” she would say to Arveys dad “Let’s move away, back to my village. There’s food there, easier it’ll be. I shall be most pleased if you would consent and come with me.” Promised him allsorts she did should he go, but Arvey’s dad wouldn’t entertain it

“Wouldn’t be fair on the lad,”  he would say ” All his friends are here. And anyway the rain will come soon and the harvest will be as she used to be all green and bountiful. Mark my words woman.” He said “You’ll see!” but she wouldn’t see. Didn’t want to. Then one night she had a dream. A fish came to her and whispered all fishy like in her ear. Told her to go to the warlock down in the valley and get a 30 day sleeping potion. “Give the potion to your step son” said the sneaky little fish “ tell him that it will offer him protection from the stone giant, once, and only once he has placed the mountain’s offering by the waterside. Then the lad will fall asleep for 30 days, even if he doesn’t starve in his dreams, you can persuade your husband that the lad is dead when he doesn’t return. Then after a time you can use your charms upon your husband and carry him away to your own place and family many miles away.” This the wicked step mother did, down into the valley she went and bought the potion from the scary warlock who seemed to be expecting her. Then the night before Arvey was due to set off up the mountain she gave the potion to him and explained that it would make him invisible to Jimmy once he had lain the offerings down by the lapping waters edge, but not before. Arvey thanked his step mother and told her how lucky he was to be loved by someone as special as she. “ I shall thank all of the gods for you when I am by the edge of that magical lake” he said “and if the lake is as magical as they say, then the gods are bound to hear me and bless you” Arvey’s step mother kissed his forehead and told him to sleep as he would need all of his energy for the morning.

The morning came. Bright brittle cobalt blue and cold it was like polished crysophrase. Off Arvey went, off up the mountain with the village all there to see him off. All waving and cheerful they was, all cheerful cept for Arvey’s step mum. Cried all day she did, cried and lied, but such is folk. The village waved Arvey up the mountain till he had all but disappeared. The village watched his back lumbering further and further away till he was but a tiny brown speck on a sandy patch work blanket Everyone agreed that if anyone were to come back it would be the boy, should anyone please the mountain it would be Arvey.

Arvey walked for  two days. The path way wound up and up and up, steeper and steeper, round and round and round, into the clouds and beyond. The nights were fitful freezing cold endurance tests under a bitten off  fingernail of a moon, the days warm and friendly. Foot followed foot along the way as the pathway turned from a barely visible trail into nothing more than a guess. “Head for where the clouds look angriest” he had been told, and this is what he did. He felt as though the mountain was watching him in the way that he himself would watch a bug crawl up his arm before flicking it off. His legs ached and the blood pounded in his temples step after step. But when he stopped, the view! How many stories were in his field of vision, how many lives could he see from up here. When he rested he sat with his back to the frowning mountain, looking down on the world stretched out before him like a picnic blanket. Everything was still, but not silent. The grass whispered at him, the birds cawed and sang of his approach, the wind scurried around him, drying his sweat and making him cold. The village had disappeared long since, he now looked out over distant lands he didn’t know, ruled over by Lords and Kings he had only heard of by listening to the bigguns around the fire. And there, like a thin shining blue thread, the furthest away was the sea, or at least what might be the sea. Arvey had dreamt of the sea since he was a boy, of the tall ships and foreign places, of mighty castles and fantastic palaces bright as rainbows. There would be riches to be made and adventure to strap across his broad shoulders. Arvey had told himself that that would be where he was off, that would be his target when he returned from the mountain, off to sea, to be free as the wind that whipped his ears and bent the long grass.

At nights Arvey would listen out for the stone giant. He was certain that the mountain would send Jimmy out to crunch and munch on his bones. After all Arvey didn’t belong there did he, and the mountain must have felt the thud of Arvey’s uninvited paddle like feet marching up to the lake all day every day. Arvey was happy that he surely would hear a giant coming and have the chance to hide, but not tonight. Arvey had found a stream and he figured, quite rightly as it turned out, that the water must be coming from somewhere, and that somewhere according to him, must be the lake, so now all he needed to do was follow foot over foot. He was very lucky mind. As we all know that water comes from everywhere and anywhere it can, up through the ground it comes mostly, then spends all its time trying to find the sea, rabbiting amongst itself and gossiping about which way to take, but this water, this crystal icy water all tumbling over itself came from the lake, where it overflowed like a bath with the taps still on.  Arvey settled down to try and sleep, the water of the stream gurgled, rushed and spluttered. So much noise did the water make that Arvey felt sure that if Jimmy were to come calling he would not hear his approach. Arvey tried to hide himself as best he could in a soft moss covered hollow under an old dead tree trunk, there was just enough room to hide there and wait for morning. Earlier that day Arvey had picked up a magpie that had chosen to follow him, he spent most of the day talking to the bird for want of something more interesting to do. He became convinced that the bird were a spy that would betray his approach to the lake, but the bird would not fly away, stubborn like that it was. The bird chose to keep him company, never straying close enough to be within Arvey’s striking distance. It watched him now as he snuggled down in the hollow with his blanket across him. Arvey threw the bird a biscuit from his pack and closed his eyes. “You be my eyes young Mr bird, be my spy tonight and you shall have more biscuit in the morning you shall, and don’t be flying away to tell your master the king that I come. Watch for Jimmy Mr bird and wake me should he appear sniffing out my bone marrow for his supper”

Later that night Arvey was woken in a panic by the magpie pecking at his hand. The night was dark and the stream whispered urgently  to itself. His eyes wide open in fear Arvey listened hard, trying to pass over the white noise of the water and hear the distance. There! Was that a step? There again! A step and a sniff like as should come from a great big old running nose. If it was Jimmy then he would have a giant nose, on a giant face, and he would have giant ears and hear everything surely. Arvey pushed himself back into the hollow almost too scared to breathe in case those elephant sized ears would hear him. There was another step some way in the distance, a loud step as though a great weight were being plonked upon the ground, a great weight like a giant’s foot, then another almighty sniff, then a rumble like a large animal purr. Another step, but thankfully they weren’t coming closer, but one step for a giant would take him a long way, one step for a giant would be many steps for a boy from the village. The giant, for it must be the giant, was a long way behind the tree that hid Arvey in the moss hollow, if the giant stayed that side of the tree then all was safe, unless he smelt Arvey with that big horrid giant of a sniffy nose. The giant grumbled again, then coughed an almighty cough that rolled like thunder.

“AHHH!”said the giant, “AHHH....AHHH....AHHHH!!!!” Then the beast sneezed

“CHOO!!”

with such violence that the whole mountainside shook, shook to it’s very foundations. Arvey put his hands over his ears, the tree trunk that he hid behind rolled forward, and anything that wasn’t attached to the ground took flight in the force. It was like a ferocious mini twister that sprang up exploded in chaos and then died almost as quickly. Arvey pressed himself into the ground and closed his eyes tight shut, the tree had moved almost far enough to reveal Arvey’s resting place. Again the giant grumbled and growled and then to Arvey’s joy began to walk away, coughing as he went. He wanted so much to look at the giant but was too terrified. No one in the village would believe that Arvey had almost met Jimmy face to face and lived to tell because the giant had a cold and couldn’t sniff out  his hiding place. He listened to the giant walking away until he could no longer hear its footsteps. So there was a Jimmy, a huge monster of a beast that wandered the mountain. Arvey decided that he must travel by night from now on as there was very little in the way of cover this far up the mountain. Hiding places would be scarce from here on in. The giant had gone and Arvey’s mind turned to the magpie who had woken him by pecking his hand. Where was he? “Psst!” whispered Arvey hoarsely “Mr Bird! Where are you Mr Bird. I owe you a biscuit. Mr Bird!” but the magpie was nowhere to be seen. After a while Arvey’s eyes began to close, the fright had worn him clean out and he fell into the first deep sleep since he had left the village.

When he woke the sun was full in the sky and he felt warm to his bones. He peered over the trunk of the tree, there was no sign of Jimmy, but the aftermath of his sneeze stretched for quite a way, the grass lay flat to the ground as thought it had been pressed by a heavy roller like as Lords would have for their front gardens. By the look of things the giant had been but a few feet away. Arvey collected his things together and was just about to settle down when something caught his eye. It was the magpie laying in the grass quite obviously in pain. Arvey looked at the magpie closely. “Looks like you have a busted wing Mr Bird, no more flying about for you. Now” he said picking up the magpie and stroking the back of his head “Now if this were the village one of the women would pull your neck and take you for the pot, but the village it aint. And I am off to the magical lake, and if ‘tis half as magical as they say then I would imagine a few drops of it’s water might as fix your wing good and proper” he wrapped the bird up in a cloth from his pack “So you will have to come with me my friend. Now I was going to travel at night for fear of Jimmy, but your busted luck changes things I reckon. One good turn deserves another. We shall set off now and trust to my luck, which appears better than yours. Even if you don’t get fixed up at the lake you will stay with me and come back to the village where I shall feed you like a lord. No bird that ever lived will have eaten as much as you. You will grow fat from my hand I promise Mr Bird. In fact even if your wing does mend I doubt you should be able to take off due to the scran in your belly. For you saved my life Mr Bird and for that I shall ever be your servant. You must be in quite some pain my friend. Nothing I can do about that I am afraid, but it will ease after a while I shouldn’t wonder. Come, let’s find this lake, do this business and then we can return home,. My t’is nice as to have someone to talk to Mr Bird. Before you came along I swear I was starting to go mad......”

Arvey spoke to the bird as he climbed the way alongside the stream, sometimes having to gingerly pick his way across from one side of the water to the other. As the sun was at the juggler’s very apex before it’s fall behind the mountain he saw the emerald green cliffs rear up for the first time. They rose in an awesome semi circle like the devils outstretched and encompassing cloak, an evil thought made rock and thrown up as a threat, as though they were waiting to crash down upon cowering world  below. “See Mr Bird, we are almost there. It’s the cliffs it is, and at the bottom of the cliffs is the lake. And I will ask the mountain to let go the rain, to mend your wing broken by a sneeze, and bless my step mother for her kindness. For Mr Bird, once I am at the water’s edge I can take her potion and Jimmy will not only be unable to smell me, but I will be invisible to him also my friend. We are nearly there....” Arvey’s pace quickened, the aches and scrapes from the ascent fell away from his legs, he had begun to doubt the existence of the lake, but now he was nearly there. He thought of the rain he would unleash, What a hero he would become. He heard the village all cheering as he returned from the mountain king with cool rain at one shoulder and Mr Bird his new companion perched upon the other. The stream climbed upwards and then became a steep waterfall. Arvey picked his way up the hill alongside the waterfall with the magpie under his arm. Up and up and up and up the hill he went using his free arm to help him climb.

At the top of the hill the lake stretched out in front of  him with the sheer  angry cliffs it’s backdrop. The crystal water was still, not a ripple broke the surface. “Look Mr Bird here we are, we made it. Can’t as see any leaping fishes as such, but this must be it I reckon. Now we need to find somewhere to put the Mountain kings present then the rest of the time is ours my little friend, but first this” He dug into his bag and pulled out the potion, he unscrewed the top of the phial and drained its contents “ There. There we are. Now we won’t be disturbed by having ourselves eaten by sneezing giants in need of handkerchiefs like a tent.” Arvey felt around in the pack for the offering for the king of the mountain. He brought out the bag of food and laid it in the bronze bowl that the villagers thought would please the king. Arvey bowed “Lord of the mountain” he shouted at the cliffs” I bring an offering from the village of Lumpton, We are a poor people us, farmers and workers of the land we are your mightiness. We humbly beg that if this offering pleases you enough, you will let the clouds go from behind your lofty shoulders and allow the rain to fall upon our fields and upon our heads and all the heads of our friends and families. Let it rain your highness....” Arvey had rehearsed what he had to say many many times. He had been schooled by the villagers, who all chipped in the sugared words they thought would move the mountain, but now Arvey forgot what he was supposed to say. “Er let it rain Mr mountain king,....um... there are people that want to move away from the village, no that’s not it” Arvey stumbled and shook his head. He had become very dizzy. “Mr Bird!” he called ” Mr Bird I think I am in some trouble.” Arvey fell to his knees at the waters edge, he splashed his face with the ice cold water “Mr Bird, I fear I must let you down, I am sorry my friend,” on all fours he shook his head. At that moment Arvey saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life looking up at him from the water. “Mr Bird! I fear I am dying. Angels! I can see angels!”  Her hair was green and waved about her head with the movement of the water, huge blue eyes looked up at him, she smiled.  Arvey was laying on the ground by now, his breath shallow and a darkness crept into the corners of his vision. The lady’s head broke the surface of the water

“You have come” she said “You have come, where so many have failed. What is the matter with you? Are you enchanted? You there!!” Arvey could not speak the darkness was all about him now. He could feel nothing. His vision was a mere pin prick of light, a pin prick filled with a face of such striking beauty. The strangest thing was that he felt the kiss of his step mother once more upon his forehead burning like embrocation it was, then all his pain had gone with a wooosh, all the aches and worries of what was happening to him drained away. There was just a huge arching cathedral like nothing that his body seemed to belong to. All was dead carpeted silence and a warm delicious smooth chocolate darkness.