In the Grip of Time Read online

‘How about I lock up tonight? You should go and enjoy the rest of reverie.’

  Knowing not what he had started, Beghs chuckled and passed the keys to Sawwse, waving good night to her as he left. When she was sure that he had gone, her gaze turned to the bamboo cage. Sawwse’s heart thumped in her chest. She looked down at the collection of keys that Beghs had given her and examined each one in turn: they had each been labelled incorrectly. Sawwse took the rusted bronze key labelled ‘Cage’ and placed it in the lock. Closing her eyes, she turned the key, but the lock didn’t budge.

  ‘Of course,’ she tutted.

  Applying gnome-logic to the situation, she took up an ornate, dark wooden key labelled ‘Bathroom’. Engraved on the key’s grip were tiny open books. Sawwse placed the key snugly into the cage’s lock and held her breath as she turned it. A satisfying click unlocked the bamboo cage. Her heart was beating harder than ever. She reached in and ran her fingers across the bold letters on the book’s spine.

  ‘This has been locked up for far too long.’

  Sawwse slipped the Gnomeopedia into her bag and stepped outside. She sat on a nearby stoop and let her mind fall blank and her breathing slow, humming along with the hundreds of other gnomes.

  --

  ‘“When a living being suffers an unspeakable emotional hurt, they may occasionally transform into a hateful creature known in the local tongue as a Sorrow-Wraith.”’

  Stretching herself out after an accidentally uncomfortable reverie trance (she’d sat on her own foot for six hours without realising), Sawwse hung upside down from the tree branch that had persuaded its way into her room. The Gnomeopedia lay on the floor, open on a page featuring an illustration of a monstrous, hulking figure.

  ‘“These beings return from the dead to roam the land where they were hurt, searching for revenge. If one comes across a Sorrow-Wraith, the best course of action is to run fast and far.”’

  She let out a long whistle before dropping to her feet.

  ‘I think I’d still pick them over the shadow crabs though,’ she said to the squirrel. Her new friend had followed her home after reverie. It tilted its head in response.

  Since returning home, Sawwse had spent all day glued to the Gnomeopedia. She carefully scooped up the tome and held it open in her hands, flicking to a bookmarked page. An illustration of a large, curved building was drawn over two pages. Written underneath in bold text: ‘The Conservatoire of Rhyddinas.’ The Gnehsehgs had described the conservatoire as the height of musical education in Esh’areth.

  ‘Imagine studying in a place like that,’ she said, dreamily. ‘It’s not like it’s dangerous or anything. The Gnehsehgs seem to think the place is wonderful. Why would I be any less able to study there than anyone else?’ Sawwse thought, frustratedly.

  She stared at the illustration for a few moments before carefully closing the book and heaving it back into her bag.

  The quiet sounds of rustling and creaking came from outside Sawwse’s little home as her neighbours took hold of tree branches and set off. It was clearly time for the town meeting. The squirrel followed Sawwse to her window and watched as a hundred or more gnomes swung from tree to tree, back towards the estate.

  Sawwse quickly packed a bag to bring to Dannse’s. She stuffed her flute into the backpack, along with a hand drum, and a few trinkets and charms. Finally, she took her lute from beside her hammock and used a long, hairy string to attach it to the front of the bag.

  ‘Anything else?’

  The squirrel continued to stare out of the window at the gnomes passing by. They both knew that she should go to the meeting, even though every one tended to bore Sawwse to tears.

  She placed her little backpack over her shoulders and sighed.

  ‘Come on then, hop up.’

  The squirrel ran along Sawwse’s body and sat on her shoulder, ready for the journey. A couple of minutes later they were swinging their way to the grand hall of the estate.

  The shape of the hall had always seemed to Sawwse to resemble the inside of a violin. She found a space near the curved back wall alongside some of the younger gnomes, while the Council opened the meeting from a stage at the long thin end of the room.

  The Council rotated the chair of the meeting, and today it was due to be Fuggh Banns. He wore grey robes and despite his youthful appearance, he sported a long, wispy, white beard.

  ‘Welcome everyone. I hope you have all had a long day of pranking, and may you continue to prank for a long time still.’

  Sawwse rolled her eyes. It was customary to start every meeting with some kind of reference to pranks, as it was such an integral part of gnome culture.

  ‘Unfortunately today’s meeting brings with it worrying news. Someone has stolen The Gnomeopedia.’

  A murmur made its way around the room. Sawwse felt a pang of nervousness. She’d assumed Beghs wouldn’t even notice it missing from the dank library.

  ‘This book is dangerous. It gives false impressions about what gnomes are able to do. Yes, it is an interesting artefact that we should keep and respect, but only to illustrate the dangers that occur when certain types of gnome sit on the Council. It was behind a cage for your own protection.’

  ‘The Fugghs of the world are so small minded,’ thought Sawwse.

  The more she pondered it, the more it seemed absurd to her that she had never left the forest. When gnomes had been permitted to roam the continents freely, Emmeline Flowerdew had walked all four continents without harm or hindrance, bringing her music to faraway lands. ‘It’s gnomes like Banns who keep us from sharing in the joys of the world,’ her train of thought continued. Dannse had described to Sawwse the changes which had taken place when Fuggh joined the Council two hundred years back: less outward exploring, more inward looking.

  ‘It is important that we trust one another. We have no need for conflict in the Blue Forest, so please, whoever took the book, come forward now and we will forgive you.’

  Fuggh Banns held out his open arms. Silence preceded another murmur, which circulated the hall. Sawwse kept her place. She knew Fuggh’s platitudes were empty, and that if she came forward, she’d have millions of pranks to deal with. Better to let them stew for a while and then quietly return it at a later point.

  ‘Well, I think it’s time we moved on, isn’t it?’

  The gnomes closest to Sawwse turned to look at her, as she seemed to have been the origin of the words spoken. Sawwse spun around to look for the voice as it continued.

  ‘There is a place for us out there in the world, but they will forget about us if we don’t stop looking at our thumbs.’

  The squirrel on Sawwse’s shoulder sprang onto her head and took another deep breath.

  ‘Sawwse Bohge will be our envoy to the world. The future of the Blue Forest lies at the feet of our young, not in old conservative trolls like Fuggh.’

  Now every face in the hall was looking directly at Sawwse. Many of the younger gnomes were smiling. For want of something more appropriate to do, Sawwse did a little bow, almost unbalancing the squirrel, who dug its claws firmly into her scalp in response. The Council spoke with each other in hushed, hurried tones.

  ‘So, it is you who stole the Gnomeopedia.’

  Sawwse’s nervous voice failed to carry more than a few feet into the hall.

  ‘Well, no, no one actually said that it was-’

  ‘Yes, Sawwse Bohge has the tome,’ the squirrel boomed, projecting into every inch of the hall. ‘She will fill every page with new knowledge and we will all be richer for it. Now go,’ the squirrel bounded gracefully onto a nearby gnome’s shoulder, ‘and run into the world.’

  Fuggh sent his attendants rushing towards Sawwse, but the younger gnomes by the entrance made a path for her to leave by. The next thing she knew she was running out of the hall, exhilaration generating her haste. She clambered out of the estate, and ran to the nearest set of vines. The gnomes gave chase, swinging after her, but they were no match
for the agile Sawwse. In no time at all, she had reached the edge of the Blue Forest.

  The chasing gnomes fell back at the border, but Sawwse didn’t stop. Dropping to the ground, and hurtling through unfamiliar vines, bush and leaves, she ran, and ran, and ran… straight into an enormous sleeping ogre. Fear stopped her breath, her tongue and her movement as she beheld the first non-gnome, non-tiny creature she had ever seen. The ogre opened one eye and raised itself onto elbows, like a sleepy bear.

  Fearing that gnome-breakfast was the first thing on the ogre’s mind, Sawwse’s whole body shook violently as words burst from her mouth, words she had never expected to say, thoughts that she hadn’t even known were possible to articulate.

  ‘Hello-my-name-is-Sawwse-Bohge-please-don’t-eat-me-I’m-running-away-on-an-adventure-and-want-to-be-the-best-musician-in-the-world.’

  The panicked gnome inhaled deeply and watched the ogre slowly stand to his feet. He leant his face down close to her.

  ‘Hello Sawwse Bohge,’ he said. ‘I’m Marius, and I love music too.’

  Chapter 2: Sorrow-Wraith

  Fingerpicking her lute, Sawwse Bohge wondered how many other gnomes were currently hitching a ride in an ogre’s backpack. Not many, she presumed. In fact, having never before left the Blue Forest, it wasn’t even clear how many other gnomes there were in the world. Sawwse stopped her lute-playing while she mused on this for a few moments. Marius, the amiable ogre, didn’t like to complain, so he just let out a simple sigh to signal that he had been enjoying the music.

  His steady, heavy feet shuffled onwards, passing through the outskirts of the forest. The trees here grew further apart and the birds and beasts of the forest gave way to the meditative thrum of cicadas against a gentle breeze. Noticing the new soundscape, Sawwse sat her lute into a space next to her in the backpack. Like a magician revealing a long silk handkerchief, she slowly pulled out a delicate wooden flute from her sleeve, seemingly for her own amusement. Placing it to her lips, she began to reflect and refract the sounds she could hear around them. Harmonising with the cicadas’ chirps, Sawwse somehow evoked their life cycle: two to seventeen long years tunnelling underground, only to emerge and perform a festival of song.

  Marius smiled, a wide, warm-hearted ogre grin. A tear had formed in his right eye and he could only assume it was because of the talented flautist on his back. For some reason, her music had made him think back over his life, the friends he’d made and lost, the deep joys of love, the struggles behind and ahead of him - he shook his head vigorously, as if trying to dislodge his worries. All of that could wait for a few days.

  With the flute still to her lips, Sawwse reached back into Marius’ bag. Her little arms could only stretch so far: past the fungi and berries that the ogre had been collecting, and alongside the hand drum she was still getting acquainted with. Finally, her wiry fingers located a thin cone made of bark, decorated with sticky green and yellow leaves. A small bit of loose string was sewn into either side of the cone. Sawwse continued to play one-handed as she reached behind her, placing the cone on Marius’ head and attaching the string under the ogre’s chin. ‘A festival isn’t complete without a party hat,’ she thought. Her pleasant companion merely chuckled as the tune took on a more upbeat tone.

  At a small clearing Marius paused, let out a quiet grunt and slowly knelt down. He put down his backpack and leaned his back against a tree, scratching an itch in a bearlike manner. The time had clearly come for a rest.

  Sawwse leapt out of the bag and settled against a large tree. She appreciated that there were rhythms to travelling, and was grateful that she’d come across the ogre when she had. Left to her own devices, she was not sure whether her journey would have started out so well. Running away from the Blue Forest was one thing, knowing where to go next was significantly more challenging.

  After bumping into Marius, and deciding he wasn’t a threat, she had opened the Gnomeopedia on the double page of Rhyddinas’ musical conservatoire. Pointing at the page, Marius had grinned widely, and gestured for Sawwse to travel with him. To be honest, she wasn’t exactly sure whether that was where he was taking her, but for now, she was content to accompany the friendly ogre.

  The selection of snacks that Marius had placed on the blanket in front of them was varied. Sawwse had not assumed that the first ogre she met would be vegetarian. She quickly identified about four different varieties of mushrooms which were poisonous to gnomes, but fortunately, there were enough berries and non-poisonous fungi to keep her satisfied for another while.

  For Marius, sharing food with a Blue Forest gnome was still a novelty. The Blue Forest had become infamous for its reclusivity. Though he felt kinship with many forest-dwelling inhabitants, the gnomes’ magic had rendered their forest invisible each time he had walked by. It was a great delight then, when Sawwse Bohge came bounding towards him.

  The ogre was surprised by how much the gnome could eat. For such a slight creature, she seemed to be ravenously hungry. He pointed at the food and then gestured to Sawwse, and then to his smile.

  ‘Oh yes, delicious,’ she replied, hoping this was what he meant and that he hadn’t suddenly decided he wanted something more substantial (and gnome-shaped) to eat.

  Marius boomed in acknowledgement. ‘Good job I picked so many berries,’ he said, as he indiscriminately scooped up a collection of mushrooms.

  The language barrier hadn’t been an issue yet for Sawwse. She had already mastered Elven, a necessity when learning the most beautiful operatic arias, and she’d taught herself Dwarven and the most common of the human tongues with books that Dannse Gan had hidden away in her home. Of course, she had also learnt bits and pieces of useful phrases in other languages too. For example, if she were to greet a Dryad, Sawwse might say, ‘A full and undisturbed growth to you.’ To calm an enraged Eiji, ‘Ra’s blessing for you and your hair.’ And when passing through a Sylaxian swamp, she knew to say, ‘May the great grey slime cover us all in pus.’ However, with Marius she’d had to rely on signage, improvisation and nonverbal language. Their conversation had started in the human tongue, but it was clear that the ogre took umbrage at this. Sawwse had then tested her Dwarven, as it shared some roots with Ogreic, but her pronunciation left Marius none the wiser. They’d switched to Elven and Goblin respectively, but there was about as much overlap as if a fish were talking to a bank manager. The ‘gronks’ and ‘granks’ of Goblin had made Sawwse chuckle, which in turn, had caused Marius to crease up. They decided to revert to their own languages, gesturing when they got stuck. Still, for the most part, they understood each other.

  Sawwse got up from the tree she was sat against and exaggeratedly stretched out. These breaks were mostly for Marius’ benefit, as Sawwse herself did little walking on the journey. Her legs were too short to keep up with an ogre over a long distance, so she generally confined herself to his backpack. However, she used any break as an opportunity to explore the vicinity.

  Two nights had passed since her journey began, and Sawwse had been astonished by all the changes of light she had experienced. The Blue Forest was so dense that gnomes often couldn’t distinguish between day and night. They knew that if the moonlight butterflies were out, their white wings glimmering as they fluttered, there was likely a moon in the sky above. And when the squirrels left their dreys to forage for snacks, that meant daytime. Here, as the trees had thinned out, the large oaks replaced by more slender firs and pines, the cycles of night and day were much bolder and more nuanced, and Sawwse had grown to love the in-between times of sunrise and sunset.

  On the other side of the clearing where they rested, Sawwse noticed a demarcation: a wide row of beech trees separating the spongy, mossy land where they sat, from what lay beyond. Marius’ breaks usually lasted long enough for her to wander around, and the unmistakable croaking of his snores confirmed her decision to explore.

  The ground past the beeches swelled to form a hill dotted with glades. When she was about halfway up, Sawws
e felt a curious breeze. It seemed to speed up as it passed her, before rushing ahead to the apex of the hill. The wind chilled her to the bone. Sawwse heard a loud crack from the same direction, reverberating through the trees nearby.

  She hesitated.

  Thousands of scary stories that Sawwse had been told as a gnomeling stacked up inside her head. Those stories always had the same ending: the headstrong gnome who’d broken the rules and left the Blue Forest came to a sticky end, usually clamped in the jaws of a terrifying, multi-legged creature. ‘It’s way too late for all that now,’ she said aloud.

  Sawwse climbed further up the hill. It was hard going, but the incline lessened as she continued. Something glistened through the trees, instantly familiar from the many sketches and maps of its glories Sawwse had seen in the Gnomeopedia. Could it be the white dome of Doriana in the distance? She’d heard Dannse’s descriptions, and had seen the beautiful maps in the Gnomeopedia, but there it was in real life. The gnome’s mossy-green skin tingled with excitement.

  A thud sounded from somewhere nearby. Sawwse turned, and could have sworn she saw a figure standing at the opening of a glade. But in a flash, the figure was gone. In its place was a dark, thin blade, covered in blood, laying on the dry ground. Her heart began to thump as she tentatively made her way over to it. The hilt had a subtly intricate design, unremarkable from a distance, but fascinating up close. Although it was a thin blade, its length and weight were clearly designed for a human to use, rather than a gnome. With some difficulty Sawwse turned it over in her hands, attempting to make sense of the inscribed hilt. She sensed movement in front of her and let out a gasp. Looking up she saw a creature slowly moving towards her. Its long black hair fell across the ghostly pale face.

  Paralysed with fear, the little gnome could only mutter, ‘Wr-wraith.’

  Twigs and branches snapped underfoot as Sawwse ran back to the clearing where Marius slept. She dared not look behind her, scared of falling into the clutches of the wraith. And yet she found herself smiling, as wide a grin as she had ever smiled. A smile full of promises and anticipation. She had left the Blue Forest, and her adventure had truly begun.