Stepping off of the magical, travelling map, rolling it into a scroll and sliding it back inside her sky blue satchel, Mapella looked around with a mixture of trepidation and awe at the grim inner sanctum of the Sorceror, Kolciber.
In spite of its ornate architecture; the towering columns of ebony that held up its ceiling; the frightening murals and carvings depicting monsters, fire and torments that seemed to cover every inch of the room; the colossal, obsidian idol of a terrifying, three horned, fire-tongued and dragon-winged demon and the large, jet black cauldron like a feeding bowl between its taloned feet, it had the air of some wild beast's dark, subterranean dwelling.
And then, from somewhere deep below them, Mapella and her ghost-like companion heard a terrible, loud roaring, howling, screeching and wailing and then, shivering, the spirit said,
“I’m afraid. What if Kolciber catches us. He may put me back in that dark prison or do something even more terrible to me”.
But Mapella had more courage.
“Don’t worry”, she replied, “Azram Mazra is watching over us. I am sure of it”.
And then, using the magic quill that her master had given her, Mapella drew a short silver sword and a small, round golden shield on the air which, becoming real, fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
Then, picking them up, she said to her timid companion, “There now. If Kolciber does show himself then he shall have a fight on his hands”.
But then, suddenly, the eyes of the huge, black demon idol lit up with a bright, blood red glow and, creaking and grating loudly, the mouth of the idol opened; its bottom jaw falling to the ground like the gangplank of a ship.
Then, emerging from the darkness of the idols cavernous throat and striding down, over its long flame-like tongue, towards them, came the evil wizard Kolciber, garbed entirely, from head to foot, in a black suit of armour with a black, three horned helmet and visor on his head, masking his face and, hanging from his shoulders, a long black cape which billowed behind him.
“You have courage, stranger; coming here and facing me”, he said to Mapella as he drew forth a long, flaming broadsword from the scabbard on his back, “But, like all who dare to oppose me, I shall feed your flesh and wretched soul to my demon masters”.
Mapella raised her sword and shield bravely.
“My Master, Azram Mazra is greater than those you serve”, she replied.
The dark wizard only threw his head back and laughed.
“Ha! How little you know”, he said, “My masters rule his world too. Wherever there is evil, they are king”.
And then, raising his blazing blade, the dark wizard gave out a terrifying yell that sounded more beast-like than human, charging towards her.
But, suddenly, the timid spirit that was cowering behind her shouted, “ I remember now. I remember who I am”.
And, as Mapella courageously and unflinchingly stood her ground; to her utter surprise, the spirit rushed headlong towards the charging black-clad sorcerer, passing right through his dark armour and into his body.
“What?”, asked Kolciber, all of a sudden bewildered; stumbling in mid-charge and falling helplessly to his knees, “What am I doing?”.
Then, to Mapella’s further astonishement, Kolciber took off his horned and visored helmet and, underneath was a face that she recognized; the face of the ghostly prisoner she had rescued.
“I remember it all now”, said Kolciber, sombrely, “When the demons came to Ormalu, I was just an ordinary mortal but they tempted me with dark powers; told me that I could have everything I wanted and that they would make me king but only if I locked away my soul in a magical prison”.
Now, understanding what had just taken place, Mapella smiled.
“I have restored your soul to you”, she said, happily, “That must have been what my master, Azram Mazra sent me here to do”.
Kolciber nodded, thanking her and then declared, “Henceforth, I swear that I will no longer be a tyrant but a good king; the kind of king that the people of my country deserve”.
Mapella was happy to hear the difference that she had made to the king and his people but then; in a sudden, bright, blazing flash of rainbow colours, she was no longer in the palace of Kolciber but in the gigantic workroom of her master Azram Mazra.
“You have done exceptionally well, Mapella”, he said in a warm, booming voice, his two immense eyes shining, like celestial spheres, with happiness as he gazed down upon her, “The land of Ormalu is safe from the powers of darkness, at least for the time being”.
But Mapella was curious about something, something that had been nagging at her and, kneeling before him, she asked, “Please forgive me, great Azram but, if it is not too impertinent a question,
why do you make Maplands?”.
Reaching down one of his enormous hands, as vast as a sandy beach, he gently lifted her up and then, taking her outside of his workshop, held her up high so that she could see the starry skies of his world and, looking up at all the trillions upon trillions of stars, she gasped in wonder.
Then Azram told her, “Aeons ago, I vowed that I would use my magical knowledge to solve all the great problems of the universe; find a way to end war, poverty, famine, disease and all the other evils inflicted upon mortals by the forces of darkness and I created the maplands; real, living worlds in miniature, so that I could study them. When I have made the perfect mapworld, a world of total and everlasting goodness, then I will have found the answers I am seeking”.
Comments
Linda Wigzell Cress | July 28, 2012 - 14:32
A good tale, plenty of scope for further adventures. One small punctuation point, 2nd para last line. should read 'wild beast's dark....'
Linda
well-wisher | July 28, 2012 - 15:53
Thanks, Linda.
I have corrected the mistake that you spotted.
It would be nice to write further Map girl adventures.
Glad you enjoyed it. Your comments are greatly appreciated.
Sooz006 | July 31, 2012 - 16:58
Then, picking them up, she said to her timid companion,...I don't think you need the then here. You have four paras in succession beginning with then or and then
This is fine, but I wonder whether one as great as he would admit to also serving a master.
the colossal, obsidian idol of a terrifying, ... If you're aiming for a young readership be careful of words like obsidian, however here it is great. It's good to throw in a word now and again to broaden a kid's vocabulary.
“My masters rule his world too. Wherever there is evil, they are king”... I'm not sure about blazing blade here.
“ I remember now. I remember who I am”... ha like this is the time to sit down and reminisce... love it, best sentence in this chapter so far. He reminds me of the cowardly ghost in the children's TV show.
Okay, I hate this, but only for one reason ... it feels like an ending. You can't leave it there. You have got a cracking story. Not original in it's idea, it has elements of Weaveworld and many other fantasies in there, but it's still a great base. The two characters work so well together. I think it would be a tragedy to leave it like this.
My main quibble is to look out for bleaching words like began, started and rather and watch out for word reps like all the thens at openings of paras.
There is an entire novel begging to be written. You'd be nuts not to to write it.
well-wisher | August 1, 2012 - 10:21
Thank you for your constructive criticism, sooz.
I do have a bad habit of repeating words like ‘then’
and I agree with many of your other observations.
I may not really be the best person to write Children's fiction, to be honest.
When I was a child I was watching 18 rated horror and fantasy movies; going mad with nightmares and then watching a lot more of them.
My father was a doctor, you see and my mother, a nurse and neither of them had much time to supervise what I was watching on TV/Video, so my leanings are, quite often, towards dark and unconventional things.
But I saw these same dark unconventional things in the childrens literature I read; the sadism and puritanism of Roald Dahl (He loves to punish characters that he disapproves of in quite cruel and callous ways, even children) and that same cold, cruel, callousness is in Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking glass; then there’s the anarchic menace of Dr Seuss's The Cat In The Hat and the morbidity of Barrie’s Peter Pan.
I have heard it said that CS Lewis was a terrible misogynist who preferred little girls (though not in the way that Lewis Carroll is alleged to have) to full grown women; thus Lucy Pevensie dies young in a train crash rather than growing up while Susan grows up and becomes a woman but turns her back on Narnia.
And what I find, personally, is that a lot of really good children’s literature is the outpouring of disturbed and unhappy minds and that’s what makes it so appealing; the fact that it dares to be grotesque and harsh and shocking and bleak and do things that conventional wisdom tells us are more appropriate for adults than for children.
I think that those unpleasant things can stimulate the mind of a young person in a beneficial way. They can make them more reflective about life.
My favourite kids movies when I was growing up were Watership Down (Blood, violence, rabbit fascism, horror and despair balanced out by the courage, compassion and comradeship of the central characters) and Time Bandits (A meaningless, uncaring universe and a bleak but darkly comic ending in which the parents of the central character (An eleven year old boy) are blown up and turned into smouldering lumps of ‘pure evil’, leaving him an orphan with an uncertain future).
I think Time Bandits is sort of absurdist in tone. God is portayed as uncaring and possibly as mad as everything else in the film but Sean Connery's smile at the end adds a warm note; a bit like "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" at the end of "Life Of Brian".
Nowadays, of course, little boys are probably playing things like Grand Theft Auto and perpetrating virtual acts of mindless violence which I’m sure is much worse for them than the horror videos I used to watch because they’re not encouraged by them to think.
Sooz006 | August 1, 2012 - 10:32
I so agree with you. When I do school workshops I always use the same word to work a lesson around. MURDER. nothing like a good old murder to stimulate a youngsters mind. I've had a few disapproving looks from teachers a time or two.
And again like you I was brought up on horror. Between the ages of six and nine, I lived with my father. Every Saturday night at nine o'clock I would watch a series called Thriller with him, followed by Hammer House of Horror, all would be well until he left me on my own on a Monday night to go to the buff lodge until the early hours of the morning. I'd be beaten if I left any lights on in the house and getting from Lounge to bedroom turning lights off behind me was one of the greatest ordeals that I have ever had to go through. The last light was between me and my bed, but 'they' were under the bed waiting to grab my legs. I used to jump from the lightswitch onto my bed and then lie for hours with my head under the blankets while 'they' roamed my bedroom.