2.6 Daffodils and Petunias

“So, why are we here again?”

Silven regarded the grave at his feet, and then looked back up towards the village at the sudden sounds of alarmed shouting. But it was only two peasants fighting over who had to get up next to stir the pot. Gigglewick still lay in ruins. Silven wondered if he should be sending some carpenters this way to help heal the wounds he had inflicted... or whether the lazy pigs had already got more help than they ever deserved. It was quite the predicament, really.

Olgred puffed out his cheeks in frustration. “For our fortunes, that’s why. We have mention of a quarry here, so it has to exist. It wouldn’t be mentioned if it wasn’t to be discovered. But it’s a hidden quarry, isn’t it? Only the oldest and craziest remembered it. And that means it’s packed full of treasure, and something else. The last King Vooluk quarry to be found contained... a schematic!”

Silven blinked. Olgred pressed on. “You know, a plan for how to build weapons and armour. Ever see those pointy swords? You know, the really pointy ones? Well, that was from the schematic that Drencit the explorer found about twenty years back.”

Silven took a step back from the grave. “Hold on. In all the centuries of skill passed down from blacksmith to blacksmith, I think we can make whatever we damn want. You’re telling me go in here and we’ll suddenly be hammering away at, oh, I don’t know, knobbly swords?”

Olgred’s eyes gleamed. “Who knows what shapes can be conjured up from the esoteric masterworks of yore. The Mighty Days of Cleverness is a bygone age, master. We only get stupider as time goes by. It’s common, err, knowledge.”

Wisely, Silven decided to cut the conversation short. “Indeed, some of us do. Come on, let’s do this before someone wanders... never mind. Take your time.”

Olgred clawed at the mound of earth and stood back with a yelp. “It’s like rock, master. We need a shovel.”

Silven scoffed and took over, but, as his companion said, the merest sod refused to budge. He sighed. “This is getting more convoluted by the minute. We’ll pick up a shovel at the farm.”

They had decided to go grave robbing at midnight, so nobody challenged the pair as they climbed up to Layesey Farm. Silven quickly grabbed a hoe and trotted off back to the makeshift graveyard at the edge of the village. The blade buckled beneath the iron soil. He growled with rage and rejoined Olgred at the top of the hill. “When you say a shovel.....” Olgred only nodded and moved off between the rows of turnips. “Oh, master, master!” came the sudden joyful cry from beyond a small shed.

Silven stalked over to his kneeling deputy. His patience was growing thin. This seemed far too much like adventuring for his liking. His mood did not improve when he saw Olgred’s hands cupped not around the handle of a tool, but the stem of a cheerful yellow flower. He raised one eyebrow. “A daffodil!” cried Olgred, as if that was enough of an explanation. The second eyebrow decided to join the first. “But didn’t you say you’ve been here before?” quizzed Olgred.

Silven deigned to give a single nod. Olgred groaned with despair. “Master, if you want to grow rich and powerful, I advise you start looking out for these-” Silven dropped to his knees, shot out a fist and moved to grind the petals into oblivion, but at his first angry touch, the plant vanished in a puff of purple smoke. Olgred clapped and whistled. “Yeah! One down, I take it? Well, I do believe that makes two-hundred and seventeen more daffodils to find. They grow all around the kingdom, sir.”

“And they’ll make me, quote, ‘rich and powerful’?” snapped Silven, curling and uncurling his fists mindlessly.

Olgred’s eyes widened. “I didn’t say, well, I’ve never really thought, err, they’ve got to, haven’t they? Haven’t they?” Silven glared and plunged off into the field.

Finally, a bona-fide shovel was procured, and the two merchants descended towards their grim destination. “I take it you’ve followed my instructions?” said Silven slowly.

“Oh, yes!” squealed Olgred. “Our mages are weaving a solar wave spell as we speak, ready to blast the new advisor and butler to Silverviews across the land. It’s all one update now, though. I’ve taken the cautious decision to go ahead and call it Mapler. It’s the words map and-”

“Yes, I get it,” Silven groaned. They walked in silence for a minute. “But drop the ‘e’. It’s edgy and cool. All the hip updates will be doing that soon.”

The pair tiptoed through the mounds until they reached the plank bearing the name ‘Folborn’. Olgred got to work, the shovel cutting through the soil like smooth butter. Silven stood and observed the work like the regal god-merchant he had become.

It took only a minute or so to reveal the coffin. Together, they hauled it out, trying to block out the rattling of bones within. Olgred leapt back into position, dug a few inches more, and hit an impenetrable layer of earth. “Maybe we need that hoe?” suggested Silven hopefully, but Olgred shook his head. “No. We’re stuck. I thought this Folborn dude would be buried over the entrance, ready to rise from the grave and defend his secret to the end of time.”

“Very poetic. But very absurd,” retorted Silven, brushing away dark clods from his shirt. “If we need answers, I think we’re looking in the wrong place.” He turned his head towards the coffin, his eyes never leaving Olgred. “You open, I’ll cover you.” He slid his sword silently from its oiled scabbard.

Olgred opened his mouth, hesitated, mumbled something, and forced his feet towards the coffin. Before he could change his mind, he heaved open the lid and staggered back as clouds of fetid dust billowed out into the night sky. A spider with too many legs wriggled out and dropped onto his shoe. He whimpered and shook a hand pathetically at the opening. “Oh, don’t be such a child,” Silven snapped. He edged closer, raising his gleaming weapon above his shoulder. Something clanked as the bones settled. The hoot of an owl rose eerily above him. Deep within the tomb, a dark shred of cloth enveloped most of the remains. Silven covered his nose and slowly drew back the shroud. Beneath, in the collapsed joints of a skeletal hand, there was something wrapped in a square of parchment. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and plucked the note from its deathly prison. He raised his voice above his friend’s gasps and read aloud.

“If you are reading this, you must be getting bored and want to start a new quest to take your mind off things. You have made the right choice coming here, for there is no goal more perilous than that of the super-secret cult to which I belong. If you wish to know more, just pop on by to my cottage just up the road, first one over the bridge on the left, with all the pretty petunias up front. Help yourself to a pot of tea from the chest in the first cupboard. And, if you’re lucky, I won’t have been dead too long and there’ll still be some unmouldy biscuits in the tin by the fireplace. No, that delicious recipe is even more secret than the cult. PS, if I’m in that horrible period between freshly buried and pure skeleton, apologies for the smell. Folborn.” Silven looked at the key in his palm. He squinted through the murk over the river and stared at the first cottage on the left. It only had one wall. “All that for nothing,” he sighed. “Come on.”

Out of principle, he marched up to the splintered door lying in the middle of the front room and turned the key in the lock. “There,” he proclaimed triumphantly, and ducked beneath a dresser as lazy heads in the refugee camp turned in his direction. He looked around at the chaotic tangle of brickwork and bric-a-brac filling the remains of the building. “So, Olgy. Here we are. On with the ques- on with the R&D.”

Olgred drew his travelling cloak tight about his shoulders and shivered. “Getting a bit chilly, isn’t it? Anyway, let’s get to the secret entrance.” He scrabbled around in the wreckage and tapped at the foundations. “Or maybe not. No underground lair. Oh, why has the fireplace collapsed?”

Silven held up one finger. “Aha! Good lad. It’s a puzzle, a real treasure hunt. He mentioned a biscuit tin by the fire. Our answer, or at least another clue, is in there.” It took a good ten minutes to sift through the rubble by the ruins of the chimney. By then, the light of dawn glimmered through the bare framework of the single wall. Finally, Olgred unearthed an obnoxiously flowery metal case from beneath the planks of a chest of drawers. He pulled back the lid and retched as the pungent smell of year-old biscuit filled his nostrils. “Fifflenurf in a wheelbarrow! What is that recipe? Is there- is there meat in there? Eurrgh!” Silven leant forward and took the tin from his shaking companion. An abhorrent squelchy pale green mush clung to the bottom half of the tin. And beyond that.... nothing. “I think our friend had a little bit of a ‘biscuit’ habit. You know, not biscuits, ‘biscuits’.” Olgred looked up, his face blank. Silven moved on. “Never mind. The important thing is there’s no clue. And keep your nose out of that tin. I need you vaguely sane for our next board meeting.”

Olgred shook his head violently and stood up, hands on hips. “Hmmm, just thought of something, boss. Wasn’t there a part about tea? Think teapots, tea chests, stoves. That must be the first step.”

Silven winked. “I like it. And then, the next thing will suddenly appear in the middle of that goo. Let’s get to work.” That search ended equally as fruitless as the first. The scorched stems of the petunias by the doorstep also proved unable to help, and also a little depressing, if you used them as a representation of the many young lives cut short in the Terrorknight massacre. Olgred was promptly banned from all forms of poetic reflection for the remainder of his employment at Silverlink, and the puzzle went on.

To be more precise, the puzzle went on for another two hours. It was approaching midnight by the time Silven called a rather huffy halt. He stamped over to a chair and threw himself down, head in hands. Olgred hovered nearby and mopped sweat from his brow silently. “We’ve covered every inch of this hovel,” his master snarled from his sulk-spot. “We’ve listed every possible anagram from the message. We’ve counted notches in the key. We’ve followed charades from figures in those child’s drawings pinned up in the pantry. Let’s face it – there’s nothing here.”

Olgred pulled a miserable grimace. “Maybe those knights took the good stuff. They certainly helped themselves to his tea.”

Silven thumped a hand hard against the chair. “Why did he even get himself killed like that? The old man was obviously tangled up in something important. If it was all for me, well, he wasted his time.” He stood and kicked back the chair angrily. “What a mess! A total dead end!”

“Steady!” Olgred yelled as Silven snatched up a brick from his side.

“Let’s try again, shall we?” Silven roared. He strode over to the remains of the hearth. “We’ll put this over here....” He leapt across the room and held up the biscuit tin. “And swap this for the slab of meat in the pantry....” He returned a second later with a fistful of withered petunias. “And put these on the counter by the sink. What fun!” He pounded over to the remains of a bookshelf and tore at charcoal pages. “And if we’re really daring...”

He jumped back as a sickly green light flashed around the room. Together, the pair stared into the depths of the swirling portal looming over the fireplace.

“Oh,” said Olgred.

“Ah,” said Silven.