“You were right,” he said. “It was foggy. But still great fun.”
CHAPTER TWO
Chase in the Dark Forest
A couple of weeks later, summer began and the weather turned hot. At long last. After an endlessly long and dreary spring, it came as a welcome change for everyone. Initially, at any rate. For the good cheer soon ended as the temperature rose. The hot air lay above the land like a dome; there wasn’t the tiniest cloud in the sky. The Dark Forest became a sticky oven in which it was hard to breathe. The trees groaned with dryness, and the running tufts of grass plodded oh-so-slowly across the forest floor. The heat itself was bad enough, but it also caused the stinking puffballs to burst of their own accord and scatter their evil-smelling clouds of fungal spores right across the forest. As a result, they proliferated with astonishing rapidity so that some parts of the forest quickly became a no-go zone for anyone with even the faintest sense of smell.
The old tower, with its creaking and squeaking timber beams, also groaned round the clock under the heat all day and all night. During the day, the sun blazed down on the walls so that they heated up. When it cooled down slightly of an evening, the heat retained by the stones continued to make the rooms even warmer. Living in the tower was like living in the midday heat 24/7; it was at its worst in the garret. Bucklewhee couldn’t cope in his clock case any longer. He spent his whole time perched on the outstretched concertina arm, bouncing up and down, trying to create a bit of a breeze.
Primus, on the other hand, spent his time grumpily pottering around the house, not knowing what to do with himself or how to spend the long days. He wasn’t worried by broad daylight – as you might expect someone like Primus to be – but everything had its limits. He absolutely couldn’t be doing with this kind of glaring sunlight, combined with the intolerable heat.
He spent hours on end pacing around the sitting room, his arms folded behind his back, constantly looking out of the window. He scrutinised the sky, hoping to see a small redemptive cloud or a trail of mist. But there was no sign of anything. Instead, a blast of hot air hit him in the face when he stuck his nose out of the window. He would then exhale loudly, pull his head back in, turn on his heel, and continue pacing around the house. The heat was enough to make anyone despair, and that was all there was to it.
The only room which wasn’t plagued by the heat was the little cellar beneath the tower. Primus could, of course, have imagined a more comfortable place, but it was at least cool. What’s more, it meant he could escape from the squeaking of Bucklewhee’s jiggling concertina arm, which was slowly starting to drive him mad and caused him to leave the room even before midday. He would plod at a snail’s pace out of the sitting room, shaking his head, and would heave himself through the dusty kitchen to the spiral staircase. Step by narrow step he would descend, being too worn out to fly. He would pass the big entrance hall, then the boarded-up main door, and would finally reach the cellar. Relieved, he would open the iron gate and would enjoy the cool air which came to meet him.
There he would sit on the floor between the huge wine barrels. Beneath the thick dust, he just made out the words Lignor Tinctus Late Harvest on the barrels which stood in two rows against opposite sides of the cellar walls.
Lignor Tinctus was by far the oldest, most expensive and best wine money could buy. That was of no interest to Primus, though. He had always hated wine, whatever label was on the bottle. Tastes like stock cubes or pickled gherkin juice, he had once declared. He had thus long found the cellar unspeakably boring.
Boring with one small exception. For in the cellar, the lantern cast its light onto something other than wine barrels and cobwebs.
On the first of his heat-induced cellar visits, Primus had sat on the ground, his legs drawn up, and had leaned against one of the big wooden barrels. He looked languidly at the vaulted ceiling, his gaze falling on the cobwebs stretching from one barrel to the next, and then down to the ground. There, something caught his attention. Right in the middle of the floor, illuminated by the flickering lantern, was some kind of sign. It had been chiselled into the flagstones with astonishing precision. Primus examined it thoughtfully. He had of course noticed it years ago; after all, he did live in the tower. However, he had never found out what it might mean. And then he had forgotten that it had ever existed.
Now, though, he slid slowly forwards on his knees and blew the dust off the grooves. He then stood up and walked around the sign, lost in thought. It was a big circle about six feet in diameter. Inside the circle was a baffling pattern that looked like a mixture of algae or creepers. Around the circle, but much closer to its perimeter, was another – fainter – semi-circle with pointed ends. It looked as if the whole odd construction were embraced by a thin crescent, braced by an obscure framework. He scrutinised the etching carefully, then squatted down. Contemplatively, he traced the grooves with his finger. And so the time went by.
Over the following days, he clambered every now and then onto one of the barrels in order to look at the strange sign from above. Sometimes, it was not long until Primus would become tired and would lie down on the barrel and fall asleep there.
As soon as night fell, however, he would race up to the sitting room, would sail with a “WAAAAHEEEEYYY!” out of the window, and would breathe in the fresh air of the garden. Snigg, too, was evidently suffering from the heat, and looked terribly squashed. Primus, as he flew by, would chuck out compliments like “you’re looking nice and tanned” … and would hurtle onwards.
During the sunny days, the grass on the hills in the nearby fields had grown abundantly, and dense reeds surrounded the Snail Creek. To the north east lay the great Lunar Lake, which hugged the edge of the Dark Forest. These were busy days, when the forest dwellers flocked to the edge of the lake in order to escape from the unpleasant air in the forest. The toads’ croaking was audible from far away as Primus made his rounds. Back and forth he flew, through the reeds, along the southern edge of the Dark Forest, before returning via the Snail Creek to the tower. He couldn’t be bothered to do anything else after his exhausting days in the cellar. Visiting the Burdockians didn’t cross his mind for a single moment. And so it wasn’t long today, either, before he had finished his sojourn and came flying back to his garret.
It was a starlit night and it was new moon. All the garret windows were open as Primus lay on his side, reading a thick book. He was finding it particularly easy to read that night as he had put a glowing white stone on the bedpost which bathed the whole room in a pleasantly bright light. This kind of lighting was considerably more agreeable than the usual candles – though the stone unfortunately only glowed once a month. Otherwise it was completely useless and spent the rest of the time lying in the large trunk next to the bed, along with all the other clag.
Primus had found the strange stone ages ago somewhere in the forest, and had taken it home with him. The stone was pointy and triangular, not unlike a thin but very tall slice of cake. You had to look very closely to see that this wedge-shaped curiosity was slightly bent. In all his many years, Primus had never seen a stone quite like it. The glowing material looked strangely dull, rather like some kind of solidified milky liquid or the shiny wax just beneath a candle flame. Its top and under-sides were completely smooth, as if polished by a master craftsman. There wasn’t even the slightest hint of unevenness. The same was true of its bent faces which, moreover, were embellished with a paper-thin pattern made up of wavy lines running into one another. Only the face opposite the stone’s peak looked different. This was worn and scratched, as if a bit had broken off it at some point.
This makeshift bedside lamp was now illuminating the yellowed pages of the book which Primus was reading with his chin propped up on his hand. He had no difficulty reading the old-fashioned script with all its flourishes, and was looking with interest at the illustrations. Or, to be more precise: at the architectural plans. For this book concerned cryptic houses, creepy haunted castles, and bewitched ruins.
Primus was slightly disappointed that his tower didn’t warrant even the tiniest mention. However, there was a whole host of other diversions. There was, for example, a section