CHAPTER FOUR

MEETING MORII

The longboat inched forwards, gliding slowly into the tunnel. Lilly could hear the sound of dripping water in what was otherwise complete silence.

Suddenly two tiny jets of flames appeared from either side of the dragon’s head, like flares coming out of his eyes to guide the way. This made Lilly jump and hold on tighter to the edge of the boat.

It was cold in the dark tunnel and Lilly shivered a little. Looking around her she saw small glittering stones starting to appear within the walls, one or two reflected onto the water around the boat. The further into the tunnel she went the more the walls sparkled and glittered, until it looked just like the walls were covered in fairy lights twinkling on and off. This is so amazing, thought Lilly gazing round her; she wondered what sort of rocks they were, to make such a bright sparkle. As the boat rounded what looked like a bend in the tunnel Lilly could see in the distance, daylight!  The end of the tunnel, thought Lilly excitedly and the beginning of Norsonia.

After a short while the longboat passed effortlessly out of the tunnel and into the bright sun of another world. Lilly gasped and blinked her eyes, trying to take in the sights that surrounded her.

She had entered a great lake, which was turquoise blue and crystal clear. In the distance at the far end of the lake was an enormous mountain range with a huge waterfall cascading down.

Directly above the waterfall, arcing from one side of the top of the mountain range to the other was the most brightly coloured rainbow Lilly had ever seen. On either side of the rainbow and seeming to sit all around the mountain top, was a ring of dark cloud, not that high but stretching for as far as Lilly could see. The clouds did not seem to affect the sunshine as the sun was shining over Lilly and as far as she could tell it was shining the other side of the clouds as well!

To Lilly’s right, on the far side of the lake, a river outlet bounded a huge expanse of marshland giving way in the distance to what looked like rocky hills and scrubland.

To her left was a bank of tall, thickly growing willow trees, their branches hanging down and dipping into the water. Behind that Lilly could just make out more dense forest, stretching around into the foothills of the mountains. The mountains themselves seemed to be made of semi-clear, (Lilly thought the word was translucent) rock that was a kind of pink-grey colour. The colours of everything seemed intense, and incredibly clean.

For a few minutes Lilly sat on the longboat completely transfixed … it was so vast, quiet and beautiful.

Lilly looked over the side of the longboat and realised she was looking at the bottom of the lake, it was so clean and clear with reed grass waving around in the gentle currents. A shoal of small, bright yellow and blue fish darted along the sandy lake bottom. The surface of the lake was completely flat and still.  The sun bounced off it here and there making bright and twinkling flashes.

She then looked to her left at the willows and decided that it was the place aunt Alex had told her to moor up. Lilly closed her eyes and thought, go left. Sure enough the longboat glided over to the willows passing under the dark green canopy. The leaves made a sweet rustling sound as Lilly and the boat slid through them.

Once through the canopy of willow leaves, Lilly saw that a small jetty had been built between the trunks of the willow trees. There was a mooring post and a large clearing with a little hut at the far side.

The hut, looked to Lilly very like the beach huts that you find all along the coast in Norfolk. Lilly put her bag onto the jetty then took the coiled rope and carefully climbed out herself. She tied the longboat to the mooring post using the double loop and special knot that aunt Alex had taught her last summer.

Lilly then spotted a neatly folded tarpaulin just to one side and shook it over the longboat covering it all except for the dragon head eye’s, (Lilly noticed with relief that the flames were out!) and snout. Now the dragon looked as if he were wearing a giant headscarf! She grinned at the dragon head and said to it, ‘see you later alligator’ the dragon looked as if he was smiling back at her.

Taking the leather bag with her, Lilly walked across the clearing and over to the hut. She noticed that it was painted the same shade of green as aunt Alex’s cottage doors and it occurred to her that aunt Alex must have brought it here, piece by piece and put it together. No wonder it looked like a beach hut – it was a beach hut. Lilly smiled and looked around the clearing to see if there was any sign of Morii.

She couldn’t see anyone or hear the sound of anyone coming through the forest, she could however hear the sound of a singing bird in there somewhere and, she noted with amazement, a number of very large black and bright orange butterflies, flitting in and out of some bushes that had large, apple shaped, purple fruit on them and bright purple flowers. This was going to be a most fascinating place thought Lilly as she decided that apart from the butterflies and singing bird she was totally alone.

Reaching the far side of the clearing she stepped up onto the small veranda of the hut and opened the door. The smell of aunt Alex’s lavender hit her as she went in and gazed around the little room in wonder.

At the far end of the hut facing her, was a small camp bed with a pillow and sleeping bag. To her right, under the only window was a shelf, made of logs and large flat stones. On this was a small camping gas stove, a camping kettle and a couple of tin mugs. There was also an old biscuit tin, which when Lilly looked in it, had a few tea bags, a couple of sachets of sugar, (like you get in a café), a plastic tub labelled ‘aspirin’ full of small white tablets, which Lilly rightly assumed were in fact aspirin, a teaspoon, two candles and four boxes of matches.

Standing against the left wall of the hut were a small camp table and two folding canvas chairs, three pairs of some sort of boots and a tin bucket with a bar of soap inside it. Hanging from some little coat hooks, were a couple of towels and a wooden clothes hanger with (what looked like suede) clothes of some sort on it. On the table were some coiled strands of leather of different lengths and some more folded clothes, which turned out to be two pairs of soft leather shorts.

Lilly picked up one of the chairs and took it and her leather bag outside into the clearing. She sat in the chair, poured a cup of tea from the large flask aunt Alex had given her and took the note book out of the bag. She took a folded piece of paper, marked ‘MAP’ from the front of the note book, unfolded it and looked at the map Alex had drawn for her.

There in her aunts writing was – NORS WULD (WORLD) there was an N at the top with an arrow pointing upwards beside it. Lilly knew that meant north. Under that was written, THE NORS WULD AND THE LAND OF NORSONIA AS I SEE IT!    ALEX MILLER. 

Under this was the map drawing.

From what Lilly could make out, Norsonia was on the other side of the mountains in what looked like a huge valley, it also looked like the waterfall went down either side of the mountain, Lilly didn’t understand how that could be and made a note to herself to ask Morii, if he ever turned up that was.

She could see the Kort, or castle at the far end of Norsonia surrounded by a city called ‘Bell-da-Hallan’ they both sat on the edge of another lake. That seemed to be the biggest place on the map, with a few smaller settlements or villages scattered around other edges of the lake. The mountain range looked as if it completely surrounded Norsonia. To the East of the mountains was written, THE SEA OF SIGHS, to the west was written THE WASTED LAND (DESERT), to the north it said, FOREST OF CERRYL - unexplored, and to the south – where Lilly was now, FOREST OF FLAX AND FLAX LAKE and on the other side of the lake opposite Lilly was written, THE DRYLANDS – (TARKEN LAND ?) – unexplored.  ‘Phew…there’s a lot more to this place than I imagined’ Lilly exclaimed out loud as she folded the map and put it back in the note book.

Was it just a coincidence that in her world there was the village of Flaxby and in Nors Wuld was the forest of Flax and Flax Lake? ‘There must be some connection,’ she said to herself as she went back into the hut to have a look at the clothes that had been left for her. Lilly had been worrying in the back of her mind that the clothes she was wearing might start to fall to pieces and although she knew this was rather a silly worry, she thought she may as well get changed now, before Morii showed up.

Once back in the hut, Lilly looked at the soft leather shorts, picked the smaller pair that seemed her size and tried to work out how they fastened. She soon realised that they had a kind of lacing at the sides that you had to thread through and pull tight. Once she’d done that they felt very comfy and fitted her quite well.

She then took down the clothes hanger and saw that there was a short sleeved, suede top with the same sort of lacing up one side at the front and a short, soft leather wrap around skirt with a button made of a type of shell she’d not seen before to fasten it. Lilly put it all on; everything fitted perfectly and felt like a second skin.

Next she bent down and examined the boots; they were all slightly different sizes of the same style, a kind of moccasin with intricate stitching. The foot part was a strong supple dark leather and stitched to that were two pieces of lighter coloured suede, a smaller piece that went to the front and over Lilly’s shin and a larger piece that went at the back on Lilly’s calf and wrapped around to the front.

She picked out a pair that looked a good fit and then tried to work out how you kept them on! Lilly noticed there were small cuts in the suede on either side as if something went through them…..ah yes, she thought – the shoe lace things on the table. Once Lilly had worked that out it was easy. By criss - crossing the long leather laces back and forward, round and round her legs she was able to hold the boot firmly in place. They were extremely comfortable and Lilly thought they looked dead cool.

Now thought Lilly – what are these other little bits of leather laces for? She looked herself up and down – as much as she could – couldn’t see anywhere for them to go and decided to wrap then around her wrists in case she needed them for something else.

Lilly folded her jeans and top and put them on the table, what to do now? She supposed she could go and explore a little -outside around the clearing, maybe she would hear Morii coming. First, she thought, I’ll have a sandwich or two. Lilly had no idea of the time or how long she’d been in Nors World but she suddenly felt hungry.

Back outside, Lilly took the tin of sandwiches out of her bag and opened it, there were cheese and pickle or corned beef and so she took one of each and sat back in the chair to eat them.

Without thinking Lilly looked at her wrist to check the time, when she saw the white mark against the brown of her skin where her watch normally sat, she sighed to herself and said ‘you silly girl… no watch’ and looked around for the sun instead. That didn’t help very much because she couldn’t remember where it had been to start with!

There was a sudden rustle in the bushes beside Lilly. She looked round and for a moment couldn’t see anything, then she saw a flash of white as something moved at speed through the dense undergrowth.

Lilly stood up to get a better look and there, peering round a bush was something that looked like a white squirrel but far bigger, in fact it was the size of a large hare.

‘Hello’ said Lilly softly, ‘who are you then?’ Immediately a squeaky voice in Lilly’s head said, ‘Hello…who you?’ 

‘Whoa’… said Lilly, ‘Am I talking to you in my head?’

 ‘ ess I talk you in your hid’ said the creature to Lilly’s thoughts, nodding and blinking it’s gold coloured eyes ‘I hungry ou got food….I Pell.’ Lilly had to smile, this creature which she seemed to be able to ‘talk’ to was really quite cute.

‘Hello Pell, I’m Lilly…would you like some of my sandwich?’ Lilly asked.

‘Pell want illy samige’ said the creature called Pell. Lilly broke a corner off her sandwich and held it out towards Pell. Pell edged forward with little hesitant steps and snatched at the piece of sandwich. ‘Hey! Careful’ said Lilly, rather too loudly, ‘hasn’t anyone taught you any manners?’

Pell looked scared and started to back up. ‘Oh don’t be scared’ Lilly said gently, ‘I won’t hurt you, you just startled me’.

‘Pell scare’ said Pell, still blinking.

‘I’m sorry Pell. Come over to my chair and you can have more sandwich’ coaxed Lilly. She walked over to the chair and sat down, Pell slowly followed. Now that Pell was out in the open Lilly could see that he was more like a chinchilla with very soft thick grey and white fur and quite a thin bushy tail, like a bottle brush. He had large golden eyes and long white eyelashes and whiskers. Now he stood in front of Lilly with his paws held out and his head on one side.

Lilly gave him the rest of the sandwich and this time Pell took it slowly. He nibbled away, turning the sandwich round and round until it had all gone.

‘Do you live in the wood?’ asked Lilly. ‘Pell ive wood.’ Pell thought at Lilly and turned and scampered off into the bushes.

What a strange little creature thought Lilly, and immediately Pell’s little squeaky voice came back at her. ‘Pell strange.’

Oops, I must be careful, thought talk can be as loud as a shout, thought Lilly to herself, I wonder if all the creatures here can communicate like that?

She looked into the bushes and decided that Pell had gone, so she ate the rest of the sandwiches and took the bag and the chair back onto the veranda of the hut and went off to explore.

Lilly had only gone a few steps when she heard the sharp crack of a dry twig behind her; she spun round and let out a little shriek.

A boy, a very good looking boy about her age was standing at the opposite edge of the clearing. He was taller that Lilly, fair haired and very brown. Even from this distance Lilly could see he had the most amazing, almost glittering green eyes.

He was dressed in similar suede and leather clothing as Lilly; trousers with lace-up sides and a sleeveless, open front top. He had a leather belt with a sort of purse attached on one side and a short dagger on the other. Criss-crossing his chest were straps holding a leather satchel and a quiver of arrows. He had a silver dragon band on his left arm and held a longbow in one hand and a large dead rabbit in the other. The boy smiled at Lilly and bent over into a low bow. 

‘Morii?’ enquired Lilly.

The boy straightened up and said, ‘Yay… I be Morii of the Hah-rold, first born of King Litan and Queen Lewold, rulers of all the lands of Norsonia and the people and creatures of speech therein. I am pleased to meet with ye, the most fair and high Lady Lilly of the Inner Wuld.’

Lilly was almost speechless and as Morii walked towards her, she managed a polite, ‘Thank you er…Morii’ and then thought she better add, ‘it’s an honour to meet you too.’ She held out her hand to shake with Morii, but Morii dropped to one knee, letting go of the rabbit as he did so and took Lilly’s hand and kissed it. He stayed there, kneeling in front of Lilly with his head bent.

Lilly didn’t know what to think. ‘Please… get up… Morii’ she muttered. She just wasn’t used to being treated like this it was, well, a bit embarrassing she supposed.

 ‘Yay fair lady, if it so pleases ye,’ replied Morii. There was an awkward silence and at last Lilly decided she should ask Morii to sit down with her.

‘I have some tea if you’d like some’ said Lilly turning to fetch her bag from the veranda. Morii looked slightly puzzled and said, ‘I know not of tay, my lady, but if ye desire to have tay I will have some with ye.’ Lilly laughed at that and Morii started laughing too, although he had no idea what he was laughing about, which made Lilly laugh all the more.

After the laughter had subsided a little, Lilly told Morii, ‘it’s TEA Morii, a hot drink. My aunt Alex always say’s it makes you feel refreshed.’ Morii smiled ‘I shall be glad to drink the tea and I do remember the fair Lady Alex. Ye look very much like her Lady Lilly.’ ‘Thank you,’ replied Lilly ‘and please… just call me Lilly.’  ‘If ye so wish it my lady I shall call ye Lilly, but I must address ye in the old way once we get to the Kort at Bell-da-Hallan. It will be expected and deemed most impolite if I did not,’ explained Morii. Lilly nodded and said, ‘that’s cool.’ Once more Morii looked puzzled. ‘Sorry, I meant that’s fine by me Morii, just Lilly ‘til we get to Bell-da-Hallan ok?’

 Morii did a little bow and said, ‘I am glad to know ye Lilly and now, if it pleases ye, I would cook a supper.’ He picked up the rabbit. ‘I have a good jumper fresh killed,’ he said holding the rabbit out for Lilly to see.

‘A  jumper?’ said Lilly smiling. ‘Er…yes that would be lovely Morii…thank you, I’ll go and get the tea.’

Lilly went into the hut and got the tin mugs and the other chair, then picked up the chair and the bag with the flask in it from the veranda and took them  all to where Morii was. She was relieved to find that Morii had cleaned and skinned the rabbit or ‘jumper’ and was spearing it onto a skewer made from a stick.

Lilly set up the chairs to one side and poured out two mugs of tea. Morii had put down his bag and longbow and was now squatting on the ground making a small hollow in the fine sand of the clearing.

Lilly took the tea and the packet of chocolate biscuits over to where he was and watched as Morii placed flat oval stones around the hollow and took from his purse something that looked like sheep’s wool. He put this into the hollow with some dry leaves, which he had crumpled into tiny pieces and a few more whole dry leaves on the top.

Morii then rummaged in his purse and brought out a piece of flint and a short metal bar. He got onto his knees and elbows and struck the flint against the metal a few times making sparks, which in turn made the wool smoulder. In no time the dry leaves had caught and Morii skilfully put just the right amount of twigs and pieces of wood on the small flames, building and building until there was a good fire.

Morii sat back on his heels, turned both his palms skywards and said ‘thank ye for the fire.’ Lilly sat down next to him, the chairs forgotten. ‘That was impressive’ she told Morii as she passed him the tea. ‘Ye would learn the art Lilly?’ he enquired, pointing towards the fire. Lilly nodded ‘I should love to be able to make a fire’ she replied.

Morii placed two large sticks with ‘Y’ shaped notches at their tops either side of the fire and put a couple of logs on the flames. ‘Now we wait,’ he informed Lilly and took a sip of his tea. 

‘Tea is good’ Morii grinned at her, his green eyes so clear and bright that Lilly was quite fascinated by them. She held out the packet of biscuits to Morii ‘would you like to try one?’ she enquired. ‘Thank ye Lilly I would like that. What are they named?’ asked Morii as he took one and turned it over and examined it.

‘They are called chocolate biscuits Morii’ she said.

‘Shockolak disbits’ said Morii as he put the whole thing in his mouth and crunched away. ‘They are good’ he said spluttering bits of biscuit everywhere. Lilly laughed at him and bit a small piece of hers.  Morii looked at Lilly for a moment,‘ah…Morii needs to learn the art of eating?’ he managed before bursting into laughter himself.

When the two of them had finished laughing and spluttering biscuit everywhere, Morii picked up the ‘jumper’ and slotted the skewer stick over the two ‘Y’ shaped ones. The flames had died down and there was now a glowing heat which Morii used to cook the meat by turning the skewer stick round.

Lilly hugged her knees to her chest and gazed around the clearing. ‘Can I ask you some things Morii?’ she enquired.

‘Yay Lilly, I will answer if I can’ he replied.

‘Well,’ began Lilly, ‘when I first got here, I was eating some bread…a sandwich actually, when this little furry creature came out and sort of talked to me by thinking. He said he was called, er named Pel.’

 Morii smiled, ‘was he grey and white of colour and about this high?’ Morii held his hand above the ground at the height Pel had been. Lilly nodded.

‘Yay,’ continued Morii, ‘he be a Squib, that be true’.

‘A SQUIB?’ repeated Lilly.

Morii smiled and turned the meat again, it was beginning to smell great to Lilly. ‘A Squib is a low creature, but they do sometimes choose to mardle if they want something...may happen he be hungry.’

‘Is mardle the talking thing he was doing?’ asked Lilly.

‘Yay ’tis that. Did ye hear him crooning?’ Morii asked next.

Lilly thought hard for a moment and because she didn’t want to keep asking Morii what he meant with his strange language, said, ‘do you mean singing? I heard what I thought was a bird singing before I saw the ...er…Squib.’ 

‘Yay, tis a strange wail they make,’ said Morii.

He removed the skewer stick from the fire and waved it around a little, cooling it before breaking a piece off and handing it to Lilly.

Lilly took the meat from him and juggled it between her hands, it was hot.

‘Do you eat Squib?’ asked Lilly innocently, looking at the cooked rabbit or jumper and wondering if it had pleaded for it’s life before being shot by Morii’s arrow.

‘For the love of the Gamray….no!’ Morii looked shocked. ‘Ye cannot eat any creature that can mardle, no not even the low ones.’

 Thank goodness for that Lilly was thinking, but said, ‘So a jumper can’t mardle?’

‘No that he cannot, nor a swimmer, nor a ground pecker nor most of the crawlers… but ye would not want to eat a crawler would ye Lilly?’ Morii gave her an enquiring look and bit into his portion of jumper.

‘Er… No I don’t suppose I would,’ replied Lilly as she ate the delicious meat that Morii had cooked for her. Lilly thought, swimmers are fish, ground peckers must be chickens and crawlers, well she supposed that was anything that crawled, in which case Morii was dead right. She didn’t want to eat them.

They sat eating in silence and when she had finished she thanked Morii for the delicious meal.

‘Morii has something for ye to try,’ he said leaping up and running over to the bushes with the purple fruit. He picked two and brought them back to the now dying fire. He took his dagger and neatly cut the fruit in half and gave it to Lilly. The middle was yellow and when Lilly bit into it, it had a wonderful taste like melon.

‘This is lovely. What do you ca….name it?’ Lilly asked, remembering to use Morii’s words.

‘They are named Storbs and they grow all around these parts Lilly. The folk in the village of Storbenn make a sweet drink from them. No one does know if the village is named for the Storbs or the Storbs is named for the village. The drink is named Storbvin and we do drink of it at all the jolly times of the year.’

Lilly thought that sounded great and desperately wanted to ask what the jolly times of the year were, but before she had chance, Morii was talking again.

‘Gamray’s son will be sky bound soon,’ he said knowledgably ’when Gamray’s daughter has departed.’

Lilly looked at Morii with total blankness. ‘I don’t understand… Gamray’s son?... Gamray’s daughter?’

Morii pointed to the now disappearing sun. ‘Gamray’s daughter’ he said, ‘Gamray’s son will follow and then we must rest Lilly, for we have much journeying on the morrow.’

‘Oh I see. The sun and the moon’ said Lilly, ‘so we are going to stay here tonight and then go to Norsonia tomorrow?’

‘Yay that be it,’ replied Morii as he stamped out the last embers of the fire.

‘Can I just ask one last question, please?’ Lilly said hopefully. Morii nodded and did a little bow.

‘I wanted to ask about how the waterfall works. It seems to fall down both sides of the mountain…and the clouds, how do they work? And er… Gamray’s daughter, shines, shows light on both sides of the clouds.’

Morii laughed. ‘Lilly of the Inner Wuld, that be three quests not one. I cannot answer ye tonight. Tomorrow I would mardle with ye all the day if that pleases ye, for it will make the journeying go well.’

Lilly did feel tired, she had to admit and so she told Morii that it did please her to mardle with him all day tomorrow. ‘Where will you sleep?’ she asked, ‘there’s only a small camp bed in the hut.’

‘I will make a bed here and be thankful to Gamray for a good rest,’ Morii told her, pointing to the veranda. ‘Goodeve my Lady Lilly and thank ye for yer companionship.’

With that Morii took his leather satchel and longbow to the end of the veranda. He propped the longbow against the railing and made his satchel into a sort of pillow and lay down, his feet stuck out in front of the hut door. Lilly gazed around the clearing for a few minutes and finally said ‘goodeve Morii and thanks for the food.’ There was no reply, she looked at Morii and saw he was fast asleep.

Hmmm…he must have been very tired from all that travelling, Lilly thought as she stepped carefully over his feet and went into the hut.

Lily got the bucket, soap and a towel and took them down to the water’s edge. The sun had almost disappeared from the sky as she filled the bucket with water and washed her face and hands. The water was soft, cool and refreshing.

As she dried her hands and face, Lilly realised that she had no toothbrush; she also remembered that Morii had good teeth and they were very white, so he must clean them somehow.  Another question for tomorrow she thought.

Lilly took the bucket of soapy water round to the back of the hut to tip it into the bushes; she also needed to pee, so as there was no toilet she went in the bushes for that too! This is going to be so different a life while I’m here, Lilly said to herself.

Lilly went back to the front of the hut and after one more look at the sleeping Morii, she went in and lay down on the camp bed. Lilly pulled the sleeping bag around her, not because it was cold, but because it just felt nice and comforting somehow.

It was now quite dark and the only sound was the distant roar of the waterfall as it tumbled its way down the mountain side. Lilly’s last thought before falling asleep was, Gamray’s son isn’t sky bound yet....