A Visit to Forbidden Forest

A Visit to Forbidden Forest

  By Bruce Halison

  Copyright 2012 Bruce Halison

  ISBN: 9781476194462

  *****

  A Visit to Forbidden Forest (Story ref. no.: C9)

  Francis Mahkota was too preoccupied trying to solace his friends’ uneasiness with the fact that he lost the whole kit and caboodle of sorcerers’ wands. Right in the jungle where he was too high-spirited showing the magic tricks to his classmates, some wands had grown out wings inscrutably, and flew away, just like that.

  Brady wasn’t a good-tempered man. He was the one in charge of safekeeping the sorcerers’ gadgets. He was sort of reprimanding Francis, condemned Francis to recompensed the terrible loss as this catastrophe occurred.

  ‘The goddamn wands,’ said Brady, ‘are belonged to crooked witches and wizards, wicked mountebanks alike, congregating in a community called the Dark Aggregate!’

  ‘It sounded terrible,’ said Francis, worryingly. ‘What must I supposed to do now?’

  ‘Go find the lost wands,’ suggested Brady, ‘or just replaced ’em!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t be enough…’

  ‘Yea! It wouldn’t be enough,’ Brady snapped grumpily, ‘you’ve only two ways, go to the jungle, or go to hell.’

  *****

  Going into the jungle would mean bidding defiance against witches and wizards who lived secluded lives in the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps Francis could travel through the rim, looking superficially for some of the lost wands.

  He sashayed into the rim of Forbidden Forest, searching high and low for the vestiges of the lost wanders’ whereabouts. Once in a while he was despondently contemplative of his misfortune. He wondered how the wands would grow out wings and flew away without first any sorcerer stood aside and enchanted. He might as well ruminate over the notion how to explain it to Brady, or the worst, the Dark Aggregate, if the worst comes to the worst when he couldn’t find one at all.

  Half a day had been through and he trod to and fro, asserting the so-called compulsory efforts, notwithstanding to no avail.

  It was such an unwise decision to find same things in the same location over and over again, even if he knew exactly they weren’t there, simply perching on the branches or overflying past through him just to get his attention. It was high time to reconsider his crazed notion – venturing into the Forbidden Forest. Why not? Either way he was gonna die. It was a consolation if he’d got a chance to see the unseen.

  Let do this like a forlorn hope!

  *****

  Like adage said, misfortunes never come singly. Francis’s very first step into the Forbidden Forest had gotten caught by a wizard who went for a postprandial walk, the considerable odds indeed.

  ‘I guessed you don’t want your life anymore,’ said the wizard, he was like a little hopping mad. ‘Tell me! How long you’d been here!’

  ‘I just entered!’ said Francis. ‘Oh my…’

  ‘I damn hate people telling a lie,’ the wizard chided. ‘Now tell me the truth! What you’ve seen!’

  ‘I really just entered,’ protested Francis, ‘I saw a wizard who blamed me like he wanted me to tell a lie…’

  ‘Curse you!’

  ‘I apologized for trespassing,’ said Francis, ‘but if it isn’t that important I wouldn’t be so much as talking with dweller of Forbidden Forest.’

  ‘WHAT IS IT!’ exclaimed the wizard.

  ‘A box of wands,’ said Francis, ‘sorcerers’ wands turned into butterflies and scudding away by ones and twos.’

  ‘You are such a lousy enchanter!’ said wizard, ‘how could someone not able to control things in his hand?’

  ‘It wasn’t me who enchanted!’ said Francis, ‘the box was on the floor when I showed off some magic tricks to my friends. I don’t have such a talent to enchanted wings out of a box of wands!’

  ‘Sound familiar,’ said the wizard, he was ruminating over something, ‘enchanted wings arisen from dead objects.’

  ‘Now the owners of the box were blaming me for the loss of the wands,’ continued Francis, ‘I don’t want to offend any sorcerer, especially those from Dark Aggregate.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ asked the wizard.

  ‘They blamed me…’ replied Francis.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Dark Aggregate,’ said the wizard.

  ‘Why in the name of hell you know about the Dark Aggregate?’ asked the wizard shockingly.

  ‘My friend Brady told me,’ said Francis, ‘isn’t it a very famous congregation?’

  ‘NO! HELL NO!’ shouted the wizard, ‘It had been the historic nightmare way back to twenty years ago.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ the wizard started murmuring to himself, ‘the flying wands! What should I do? I am gonna die, we all gonna die… Damn it! Last time we’d missed one… Such a deadly consequence… it was… it was too fast…’

  ‘Hello,’ said Francis, reminding the wizard his presence. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Hey boy,’ said the wizard at all once, ‘you friend… What is his name again?’

  ‘Brady.’

  ‘Brady, does he know anything about the Dark Aggregate?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Francis, ‘they kinda entrusted him to take care of the box.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the wizard, ‘this is it! The same old Dark Aggregate who always find innocents to work for ’em!’

  The wizard finished his words, turned around and left.

  ‘Hey,’ said Francis, ‘can I go into the forest. I have to looking for the sorcerers’ wands.’

  ‘I have to find ’em too,’ said the wizard, ‘come with me. I wanted you to meet the other secluded sorcerers in the Forbidden Forest… Just bear in your mind, in another leisureful occasion, we can have killed you!’

  *****

  It turned out that the wizard was named Bobby. What a cute name and cool, ill-matched characteristics! His unkind appearance had belied them all. For God’s sake, it was what the dwellers of formidable Forbidden Forest meant to be.

  ‘Is that any possibility I find back all the lost wands?’ asked Francis somewhere in their journey.

  ‘Oh good God, kids nowadays,’ sighed Bobby. ‘It is of utmost important to find out the wands!’

  ‘Good,’ said Francis, totally innocent of everything might happen. ‘Gotta return ’em, Otherwise, Brady and I are goners.’

  ‘You really know nothing, don’t you?’ asked Bobby, ‘kids nowadays. Gah! Warm in the bed, know nothing worldly about two decades ago.’

  ‘I don’t need to know anything, so long as my ass’s safe,’ said Francis trippingly.

  ‘No one’s ass is safe, especially you,’ Bobby snapped back. ‘If you return the wands, it can mean the end of the world.’

  ‘I don’t know anything of your business,’ said Francis.

  Silence prevailed for a moment, twittering of birds and high-pitched droning of cicadas were stopped as if to give way to their conversation.

  ‘Twenty years ago,’ Bobby finally explained, with somewhat despairing flow of words predominated, ‘vicious sorcerers conspired to set up an underground organization named the Dark Aggregate. They resorted to all manner of forbidden charms, going through unstoppable unruliness, leaving half the world overdriven.’

  ‘Half the world?’ asked Francis, ‘which world? Are you telling a story? I studied history but none of this…’

  ‘The Dark Aggregate rewrote history swifter than any non-sorcery historian,’ explained Bobby, ‘they’re about to continue their course till they get everything… everything at all…’

  ‘How it had ended up twenty
years ago?’ asked Francis.

  ‘The dwellers of the Forbidden Forest broke their oath,’ said Bobby, ‘they burned their bridge and left here to battle deadly in such secular world once and for all. We did indeed kill ’em all but one… the most artful one… People entitled him The Planner.’

  ‘Seemed like you guys hadn’t uproot the organization,’ said Francis guessingly.

  ‘Yea, sooner or later The Planner will return with his grisly hand full of entrails belonged to whoever had at the time opposed him and whomever they hate.’

  ‘It meant the dwellers of Forbidden Forest?’ asked Francis.

  ‘It meant all dwellers of the world, especially you,’ corrected Bobby horrifyingly.

  *****

  They arrived where the other secluded Forrest’s dwellers were. They’d already gathered there awaiting their arrival as if Bobby had previously informed them by some kind of occult mean of telepathy.

  ‘Now Francis,’ demanded Bobby, ‘tell us all, what do you know anything about your friend Brady and what his business had to do with the Dark Aggregate, anything at all.’

  Francis was amazed at the enormity of the mass. That was a lot of genuine sorcerers waiting for his speech. He was unprepared, and an impromptu speech could be quite a surprise for him especially in front of the prestigious audients.

  ‘Ur… how to start this…’ stuttered Francis. ‘I know Brady since time immemorial, it meant, I know him long time ago…’

  ‘Go on…’ prompted Bobby. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Contemporaneous with me, twenty years old,’ said Francis. ‘Are you guys doubted him?’

  ‘Just to make sure,’ said Bobby, ‘do you recall how your childhood was? The moments with Brady, of course.’

  ‘Yes, we were together,’ said Francis confirmatively.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t lie?’ Bobby reconfirmed.

  ‘I didn’t lie once since I arrived here,’ rejoined Francis.

  ‘Good, the boy is clear,’ concluded Bobby. ‘Someone from the Dark Aggregate had utilized him, I presumed.’

  ‘What about the lost wands?’ reminded Francis for his own good.

  ‘That’s a piece of cake so long as they’re within our territory,’ said Bobby. ‘We believed that the wands are stalking us. Enemy can bewitch us at the right time through those doggone, flying wanders you’ve brought forth. But the tactics were so lame, they can’t literally hurt us with some wands of inferior quality like this. Don’t know why they still did it.’

  ‘We will settle those little gnats at once,’ said one of the sorcerers. ‘We’ve an important assignment for you, my boy.’

  ‘Francis Mahkota,’ he introduced himself trippingly.

  ‘Yea Francis, bring your friend to the location appointed tomorrow,’ said the sorcerer, ‘never reveal to anyone about our conversation here, and never ever mention to anyone, especially your friend, Brady.’

  The conversation was interrupted when one sorcerer came. He brought a bundle of wands with remnants of their wing attached wryly to them.

  ‘Get ’em! It was confirmative the wands hailed from the Dark Aggregate!’

  *****

  The nightfall had befallen. Francis was too late to walk back home by the shroud of gloom looming large in the Forbidden Forest. The council of Forbidden Forest agreed that he slept in. In the morning he should continue.

  The rigid soil of Forbidden Forest wasn’t a nice bed to perch on. Listening to sorcerers snoring loud in their sleep, Francis stayed wide awake nonetheless. He was a little nostalgic, meanwhile worried about how Brady could reprimand him and such gravity of vituperation from a friend was literally meant disdainful and unbearable.

  Up to his feet, silhouetted against the moon, Francis could see through the place and pinpoint every sorcerer’s sleeping location with some effort. The catchy toolbox of wands was placed behind a sorcerer. It was so convenient. Everyone there wanted him to care about their story, but no care about his, for Brady could’ve been killed him once he learned that Francis had lost the wands and couldn’t find them back. How could he speak his pieces? No way! That’s it! No one would care. In the dead of night, he might as well settle it all by himself.

  Francis tiptoed through the row of sleeping sorcerers, arriving at length a sleepyhead who brought up the rear.

  A little of his stratagem his mischief come off in time. Retrieved the box, breathed forcedly slow and steady, he managed danced like feather in the choir of monotonic snoring. By the dim of the moonlight he could help himself escaping the Forbidden Forest. A little challenging proposition, he was quite frozen in a rictus of terror that night.

  *****

  Francis ran helter-skelter, as fast and furious as he could, squarely to where the Brady lived. In the doorstep several eyes fixed on Francis as he panted forcefully like a swine. He was embarrassed to become the focus of strangers’ attention. Tension was suddenly built up and palpable as it was the meeting where Brady stood chicly amongst them – the infamous Dark Aggregate. All were the ill-looking men and women who hadn’t smile in return as Francis nodded complimentarily at them.

  ‘This is our boy!’ introduced Brady, ‘he was the key person who indirectly responsible for Dark Aggregate bobbing up like a cork! Francis Mahkota!’

  ‘Brady, hey Brady,’ whispered Francis, ‘I’ve brought back the toolbox of sorcerers’ wands. See, they’ve got the wings…’

  ‘I knew,’ said Brady, ‘I enchanted it.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Francis. ‘Wait, you’d enchanted and then you asked me looking for ’em? I can’t get it.’

  ‘Will be explained it later,’ said Brady, ‘for now, we’ve a very important tasks awaiting us. Time to reclaim our honor!’

  Bundle of mosstroopers hollered as Brady’s announcement had made. They were high in their spirits, stood up ready to go and marched in the Forbidden Forest.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ prompted Francis, ‘you, Brady, got to tell me what’s going on before setting out!’

  ‘Yea we’re gonna do some halieutics,’ said Brady, ‘know what is halieutics?’

  ‘Fishing?’

  ‘That’s right, we called it fishing, and we are now departing,’ said Brady, ‘to the pathetic little piscary.’

  ‘I don’t know how to read between lines,’ said Francis, kinda losing his temper, ‘what’s what!’

  ‘Follow us! We shall show you the bad, bad “fish”…’

  *****

  They’d arrived at the rim of Forbidden Forest, moving very stealthily with trained dexterity, to the different locations as if previously appointed. Francis was following close to Brady who concentrated something in the Forbidden Forest.

  ‘Damn!’ said Francis, finally realized. ‘You’re “fishing” the Forbidden Forest dwellers!’

  ‘That’s right, my boy,’ said Brady, ‘but you’re a late bloomer, aren’t you?’

  ‘You knew they’ll once again break their oath and come after me,’ said Francis, connecting the dots for everything happened ever since the winged wands flew away. ‘You used me as bait!’

  ‘Not exactly bait,’ corrected Brady, ‘fishes will eat baits. They’re as too kind sorcerers as friars. Wouldn’t hurt a worm.’

  ‘You!’ Francis was clumsily tongue-tied. ‘Since when you’d hung up with the wicked guys?’

  ‘Hung up? I’ve always been there, from day one the Dark Aggregate was formed,’ explained Brady.

  ‘Good God!’ surprised Francis, ‘I know you. You are The Planner! Just like what Bobby said!’

  ‘Yea, I’ve plan everything including letting the secluded rats explained to you who are The Planner,’ said Brady. ‘Wasn’t that I’d respected you as my true friend?’

  Francis was fully dumbstruck, watching the crooked smile hung wickedly at Brady’s victorious face. He didn’t so much as look at Francis as he spoke haughtily.

  ‘I want no part of these,’ said Francis, ‘you’re the killer, the villain, the conspirator!’

/>   ‘Oh my boy, I’ve already consider you’re part of this esteemed organization,’ said Brady, ‘why demur and why reject?’

  ‘Why bother?’ Francis snapped back. Before Brady could turn his face on him, Francis had already fled away into the Forbidden Forest. Brady was mad as a hatter, he gestured and order his underlings to bring him back immediately before Francis wrecked the plan on time.

  Francis could rid of everyone who chased him behind. He headed directly to where the secluded sorcerers were. Unfortunately, everything was too late, for they’d already gone. Perhaps broke their oath once again, went out looking for him at one blast.

  Francis couldn’t muster up his courage to go back. He rambled to and fro, right there in the lair of secluded sorcerers, exhausted of all his ideas on how to survive by his own. Perhaps he needed weapon. He could fumble through the lair like mouse, looking for the good piece of sorcerous contraption. They should have some of these cached away for emergency use, and perhaps he could find a magical mouse trap at his wits’ end.

  *****

  The secluded sorcerers, a total of seventeen of them, had caught right in the entrance through perfectly maneuvered ambuscades. They were waylaid and disarmed by dark magic conjured by the Dark Aggregate.

  ‘Hello my friars,’ greeted Brady, ‘it had been long time since you’d exterminated my men. You shouldn’t have left one by then.’

  ‘I heard you turned yourself into a baby, befooling a child of contemporaneous age named Francis Mahkota into your wicked plan against the world,’ said one arrested sorcerer, ‘one thing I really wonder, how about your puberty for second time?’

  Brady was sickly infuriated by his remark. He spanked him several times to teach him a lesson. The sorcerer didn’t even wink his eyes.

  ‘Cut their throats,’ ordered Brady The conspiratorial Planner, ‘all of ’em! We’ve no time fooling around with ’em!’

  *****

  A flash of strong light sent out from somewhere in the Forbidden Forest. Several of the ambushers who held down the sorcerers had gotten hit and down they fell. It gave opportunity for the sorcerers to retaliate while Francis showed up from the gloomy forest dramatically.

  ‘You bonehead!’ burst Bobby, ‘don’t just cat-walking there! Come here and help us!’

  ‘On my way,’ came the invigorative reply Francis thus ventured forward, shooting whatever moved with the wand he harvested from searching the sorcerers’ lair. It seemed the wand was far better than his imaginary magical mouse trap after he threw the sorcerers’ lair into disorder.