They were still travelling together toward the land of the fairies. John had spent several weeks in the mushroom kingdom, and so he had forgotten about the forest path. He had also forgotten that the closer they got to the land of the fairies, the more magic there was in the forest. The leaves were walking and talking among the forest floor. The rocks could talk. And the mushrooms could walk and talk. Although, as John knew, most of the mushrooms lived in the mushroom kingdom. But they also encountered mushrooms occasionally on the forest floor now that they were walking.
Benjamin the Mouse asked Kolet if these mushrooms were part of the Mushroom Kingdom. Kolet didn’t know. She had been so sheltered in the palace that she had been exposed to very little of the outside world.
Aurora had had a very similar upbringing to Kolet, but Aurora thought she had read somewhere that there were renegade mushrooms outside the domain of the Mushroom Kingdom. She also thought there were also mushroom merchants and traders who travelled through the forest looking for things to bring back to the kingdom to sell.
John, who had read up extensively on the history of the mushroom people during his stay in the castle, was able to point to a civil war 300 hundred years ago in which there were two different claimants to the throne, and that the losers of this Civil War had split off from the main Mushroom Kingdom. John suspected that the walking and talking mushrooms that they encountered outside of the mushroom kingdom were their descendents. Although, the more John thought about it, the more he realized that he had read about several schisms, conflicts, and excommunications in the Mushroom Kingdom history, and it was difficult to say off-hand which one was the origin of these outside mushrooms. Maybe it was a combination of all of them? John thought about asking some of the mushrooms they encountered, but the general consensus among the group was that this could be considered rude, so John kept his mouth shut.
They did, however, exchange brief words with the talking leaves and some of the talking mushrooms, and they heard stories about two vicious rabbits who had been terrorizing this part of the forest--eating leaves and mushrooms alike. The odd thing about these rabbits was that they looked so cute and fluffy and harmless, but they were deadly to the small leaves and mushrooms.
Benjamin sighed when he heard this. “It was a mistake to allow those dragons to travel with us,” he said.
“I hope they haven’t harmed too many of the creatures in this forest,” said John. “I’ve grown very fond of the mushrooms myself. What should we do?”
“We can’t do anything at the moment,” said Benjamin the Mouse. “But given how much trouble they’ve been causing around here, I suspect it won’t be long before we meet them again.”
They continued walking through the forest. The closer they walked to the land of the fairies, the more magical things they encountered. Pretty soon it was not just the leaves, the mushrooms, and the rocks that could talk. The various forest wildflowers began shooting out greetings. And some of the flowers were even walking around. “We must be getting close to the land of the fairies,” said John. “We’ve encountered so many magical things so far.”
“I think we’re only a few days away at most,” said Benjamin the Mouse.
However, as they soon discovered, not everything was safe and peaceful here. They were nearing the land of the fairies, it is true, but they were still in the forest. And there is always danger lurking from somewhere in the forest. A lizard suddenly emerged in front of their path. To John, the lizard looked enormous, although even in his panic there was something in the back of John’s mind that recognized that part of the reason the lizard looked gigantic to him was that John was still in his shrunken state. But the lizard was easily a foot long, and had a huge mouth. It also had a sticky tongue that it used to grab its prey. And the way the lizard lunged toward them, they knew immediately that it was dangerous.
The lizard passed by John and Benjamin, and went straight for Princess Kolet and Aurora, who screamed and tried to run off the path. The lizard scrambled after them. “Keep running Princess!” John shouted. “We’ll worry about the lizard.” As John yelled, he ran up and tried to jump onto the lizard’s back. He wasn’t quite fast enough, but he did manage to grab the lizard’s tail. For a few seconds, the lizard dragged John through the dirt as it continued running. (The lizard didn’t even seem to notice that John was hanging onto its tail.) But then John tried to get to his feet while still being pulled forward by the tail. John tried to dig his heels into the ground as he was being dragged along and then pull on the lizard’s tail to stop the lizard. He strained his shoulders trying to pull the lizard back, but it was no good. Despite John’s effort to get some sort of leverage against the lizard, he just kept getting pulled along the ground.
Benjamin the Mouse was running alongside John. “Do something quick!” Benjamin shouted. “The lizard has almost caught the mushrooms!”
“I can’t stop him,” John yelled back.
The lizard flicked its sticky tongue, and almost caught Aurora.
Now, Benjamin was just a small brown forest mouse, way too small to attempt to fight the lizard. So instead, Benjamin darted in front of the lizard’s feet to create an obstacle. The lizard’s foot hit Benjamin, and the lizard stumbled. Just to slow the lizard down even more, Benjamin bit the lizard’s leg as the lizard was stumbling. He sank his little white mouse teeth as deep as he could into the lizard’s leg, and caused the lizard to yell with pain.
While the lizard was slowed down, John, who had been unable to stop the lizard himself, decided to climb up the lizard’s back. The lizard turned his head to try to catch John, but since John was located on the lizard’s back directly behind his head, the lizard couldn’t catch or eat John with his tongue.
John wished at this moment that he had a sword with him--wouldn’t it have been nice if he had been carrying a sword when he had met Catherine out in the woods, and the sword had been miniaturized with him. He could have used that weapon to stab down at the lizard. But as John did not have any weapons, he just hit the lizard’s head with his bare hands.
The lizard had a big thick head protected by thick scales, and he hardly noticed John’s pounding. But he was irritated by John being on his back, and he turned his head from side to side trying in vain to grab John with his tongue. While the lizard was distracted, this allowed enough time for Aurora and Princess Kolet to disappear into the underbrush of the forest.
Once John realized that the two mushrooms had made their escape, he decided to think about how he could get off of the lizard’s back. He looked around for a good place to run to, then he slid down the lizard’s side, and then ran towards a bush as fast as he could. John dived into the bush, narrowly avoiding the lizard’s sticky tongue, which flashed out at him as he hid inside the bush.
The lizard walked around the bush, grumbling and flashing his tongue around and trying to get at John. But the lizard was too big to get in under the branches of the bush, so John was safe for the moment. John climbed up the branches to hide himself even more into the thick of the center of the bush.
“Don’t worry,” said a voice. “He can’t get you here. Stay perfectly still, and eventually he’ll give up.”
John looked around to see where the voice was coming from. “Who are you?” he whispered as loud as he dared.
“Over here,” said the voice. John looked over, and saw a snail on one of the branches of the bush.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” said another voice, and John looked over to see a small woodmouse on another branch. “This is our bush. If you bring the lizard in here, you’ll endanger us all”
“It’s okay,” said yet another voice, and John looked to see a frog on a different branch. “The lizard can’t get in here.”
“I’ve got friends on the outside,” John said. “A mouse, and two mushrooms. The mushrooms can talk.”
“Of course,” said the snail. “This is the border land with the land of the fairies. All the mushrooms can talk. Almost everything can talk here.”
“Yes, of course,” said John quickly. “But how can we stop the lizard?”
“That lizard?” asked the frog. “His name is Dagon. Nobody has been able to stop him yet.”
“We all live in fear of him,” said the woodmouse.
Outside the bush, the lizard was still wandering around slowly, eyeing the bush, and trying to get inside.
“But if he’s been terrorizing you all for so long,” said John, “then you have to stop him somehow.”
“Be our guest,” said the frog. “See if you can stop him.”
“I can’t stop him by myself,” said John. “But if we all worked together…”
“If you have a plan,” said the snail, “We’d love to hear it.”
It was at this moment that Benjamin the Mouse entered the bush. “Ah, there you are John,” he said.
“No, go away,” said the woodmouse, panicking. “Find your own bush to hide in. You’ll bring the lizard in here.”
“It’s okay,” said Benjamin. “He can’t get through the branches.”
But it was at this exact moment that the lizard decided to try to enter into the bush. It stuck its head in through the branches. It couldn’t get much more than its head in at first (the branches were dense enough to stop the lizard’s body from getting in) but it flicked its sticky tongue out to try to catch some food. On the lizard’s second attempt, he actually caught the snail’s shell on its tongue. The snail tried to hang on to the branch, but as the lizard’s tongue pulled back it, the snail soon lost his grip, and was yanked backwards through the air towards the lizard’s mouth.
“Help me!” yelled the snail as it flew through the air.
As the snail flew by, John leaped up to grab hold of the lizard’s tongue, but this resulted in John also getting caught in the tongue’s stickiness. Then, both John and the snail were pulled to the lizard’s mouth.
John was just large enough that by holding his arms up, he was able to become taller than the lizard’s mouth, and thus temporarily blocked himself from getting pulled into the mouth (and also the snail, who was besides John on the tongue). But the lizard was used to this problem, and this is what he used his front claws for--to push unwieldy food into the mouth. The front claw came up, but John was able to push back against it for a time while the lizard’s mouth worked itself up and down trying to chomp down on John.
It was at this point that a tiny arrow hit the lizard right in its face, beneath its eye. The lizard yelled in pain. It forgot about John and the snail, and John was able to pull himself and the snail free from the stickiness of the tongue, and they dropped to the ground.
Another little arrow hit the lizard in its nose. The lizard at first instinctively charged angrily forward in the direction of the arrows (intending to eat whoever was shooting him) but when two more arrows came flying, the lizard turned around and ran in the other direction. There was a great cry, and several small creatures ran past John and the snail and started pursuing the lizard. In a flash, they all disappeared from sight.
John and the snail were on the ground panting with relief. From the underbrush emerged Kolet and Aurora. “Oh thank goodness,” Kolet said, running to embrace John.
“Are you alright?” asked John.
“Yes, I’m fine. When you were able to distract the lizard, we ran into the bushes to look for help, and we found some.”
A group of miniature men emerged from the undergrowth. To John’s eyes, they looked exactly like a human, except they were small--about the same size as John himself--possibly just a little bit taller, but not by much. And yet, they were too small to be gnomes, and too big to be pixies. So what were they?
It was Benjamin the Mouse who recognized them first. “Brownies!” he said. “How did you find them?”
“I’m not sure. We just ran into the bushes, and there they were!” Kolet said.
“I guess we got lucky,” added Aurora.
“It’s not luck,” said one of the Brownies. “We’ve been hunting that lizard for a while now.”
“He’s been creating trouble in this part of the forest for a long time.”
“Well, we’re very grateful to you,” said John. “You’ve saved us.”
“Yes,” said one of the Brownies. But the way he said the word (and the way he didn’t say anything more) made John feel slightly uncomfortable.
Benjamin the Mouse was also worried, because Benjamin was the only one in the group that knew about the legends of the forest. (John was a newcomer to the forest, and Kolet and Aurora had been sheltered inside of the Mushroom Kingdom their whole life.) Benjamin knew that the Brownies had a reputation for being difficult to deal with. “We thank you very much for your help,” Benjamin said. “We should probably get going.”
“Hold on,” said another one of the Brownies. “Just who are you exactly?”
“Simple travellers through the forest,” said Benjamin, trying to avoid the question.
“You’re a mouse,” said the Brownie slowly. “And the other two are mushrooms. We know your type.” But then the Brownie turned to look at John. “But who are you exactly? You're not a Brownie. You look just like a human, but…”
“There are many strange creatures in the forest,” said Benjamin. “Does it matter who this one is? We simply wish to be on our way.”
“Well you see,” said another Brownie, “It matters because of the rabbits we captured.”
John and Benjamin exchanged glances, and then it was finally John who spoke first. “What rabbits?”
“They claimed to be travelling with a mouse, and a human who had been shrunk down to a small size.”
“And,” another Brownie continued, “they also claimed that they had been travelling with this mouse and this shrunken human when they arrived at the Mushroom Kingdom. We notice that you are travelling with two female mushrooms.”
Benjamin the Mouse sighed. “They are not really rabbits,” he said. “They are dragons who’ve taken the form of rabbits.”
“Aye, that’s what they said,” another one of the Brownies said. “They’re your friends that we found, alright.”
“They’re not really our friends,” said John. “They wanted to travel with us, but were not helpful companions.”
Now it was the Brownies turn to pause. “But they are with you, right? You entered this part of the forest together?”
“Well…,” Benjamin the Mouse hesitated.
“Yes, they are with us,” John admitted. “But we aren’t responsible for them.” No sooner had John uttered these words, then he realized he had made a mistake. This was certainly the way he had been viewing the situation in his own head, but it did not sound good when he said it aloud. It sounded like he was trying to avoid taking responsibility for his travelling companions. And that’s certainly the way Brownies viewed it.
“Well, that’s not the way we see it,” said one of the Brownies. “I think you’d better come with us. We’ll take you to your friends.”
The Brownies had spears and arrows and even swords, so John and Benjamin the Mouse didn’t even try to resist. They allowed themselves to be taken, and Kolet and Aurora followed as well.
“Listen,” said John. “Whatever you think we’re responsible for, the Mushrooms have nothing to do with it. They never even met the rabbits. We didn’t even meet them until after we had left the rabbits.”
The Brownies just looked at each other, and then one of them said, “Yes, but the Mushrooms are with you, are they not?”
“Well, yes, they're with us now,” John said.
“Don’t worry,” said another Brownie. “We’ll sort all of this out in a moment.”
They were brought into the Brownie village. It was hidden away under the bushes, but once you entered by crawling through a bush, you could see a street, and buildings and houses--a whole little village all hidden away under the bushes.
And in the middle of the village were two rabbits, who were tied up with string, and in cages. There was no mistaking which rabbits they were--not that John ever had any doubts about it from the moment the Brownies first mentioned it.
And, the rabbits recognized them as well. “It’s the human,” said Starrof. “Human. Untie us, and we swear we will never eat you.”
“All of our earlier promises to eat you will immediately be reversed,” said Klangor. “But if you leave us tied up like this, then we will most definitely eat you.”
“How long have you been tied up like this?” John asked them.
“Two days,” said one of the Brownies.
“That’s not right,” said John. “I understand you don’t want to let them escape. But you have to let them at least move around a little bit. You can’t keep them bound up for two days straight.”
“Do you know how much damage these two did to this part of the forest?” asked another Brownie.
“Not exactly, no,” said John. “I mean, we could make some guesses. We know what they’re capable of, at least. But they never harmed another creature when they were in our company. They wanted to, but they didn’t. After they left our company, well, we heard some rumors, but we don’t know anything for sure.”
“Are you going to tell us?” asked Benjamin the Mouse.
“They ate some of the talking leaves,” said one Brownie. “They ate some of the talking flowers. They attacked one of the Mushroom Kingdom and tried to eat them, but they were driven back by the mushroom soldiers.”
“That’s impossible,” said John. “We were in the mushroom kingdom the whole time. We would have known if they attacked.”
“Which mushroom kingdom were you in?” asked one of the Brownies.
For a second, John didn’t understand the question. Then he slapped the palm of his hand onto his forehead. “Oh… of course. One of the breakaway rebellions I read about in the mushroom history. They must have formed their own separate kingdom. That explains all the different mushroom travellers we saw along the forest road.” Turning back to the Brownies, John said, “So the rabbits didn’t actually eat any of the mushroom fok?”
“They tried,” said one of the Brownies. “But the mushroom warriors were too well organized.”
“Well, that’s a relief at least,” said John. “I’ve grown rather fond of the mushroom folk. I would hate to think that my travelling companions had been responsible for any of their deaths.”
“The problem, though,” said Benjamin the Mouse, “is that here on the borderland with the Land of the Fairies, almost everything is sentient. If Klangor and Starrof were eating talking flowers, then that’s a loss of an intelligent life just as sure as if they had eaten a person, or a mouse.”
John sighed. “Yes, you’re right,” he said. John turned to the Brownies. “Well,” he said, “What do you want to do with them?”
“They have violated the laws of the forest,” said one of them. “They must be killed.”
Benjamin the Mouse coughed slightly. “As I understand it,” he said, “the law of the forest states that no animal may eat another animal. But animals are allowed to eat plants.”
“Not talking plants,” one of the Brownies objected.
“I don’t believe that was ever clearly stated anywhere,” said Benjamin. “Certainly in the part of the forest that I am from, no one ever talked about plants being included in the law of the forest.”
“Of course it wasn’t talked about there,” said the Brownie. “But things are different here in the borderlands.”
“There is but one forest, and one law,” said Benjamin the Mouse. “I understand your anger completely. We are as upset as you are about the behavior of Klangor and Starrof. But I do not think you could execute them under the law of the forest. You could banish them from your lands, perhaps. But not execution.”
“They have caused great havoc in our lands,” said another Brownie. “They must be punished for it somehow.”
“I have a proposal,” said Benjamin. “Before we parted company, they were travelling with us to the land of the fairies. I suggest that they be allowed to continue to travel with us to the Land of the Fairies, as originally planned. When we get to the Land of the Fairies, we will let the fairies decide what to do with them. The Fairies can judge them for their crimes, and we will abide by whatever decision the fairies decide.”
“We will not free the rabbits!”
“No, I don’t expect you to,” said Benjamin. “You can keep them bound with your string. You can even travel with us if you want. And when we get to the Land of the Fairies, you can present your case to the Fairies, and tell them everything that the rabbits did yourselves.”
The Brownies murmured slightly, and eventually one of them said, “We will need a moment to confer with each other.”
“Of course,” said Benjamin the Mouse.
The Brownies retreated slightly away, and huddled together and talked in low voices, but after a time, they returned.
“We agree,” one of them said, “But we will send a group with you. The rabbits will stay tied to the string, and we will lead them through the forest, not you.”
“Fine,” said Benjamin.
“When we get to the Land of the Fairies, we intend to ask the fairies to punish the rabbits. And we will also ask the fairies to punish you, as they see fit, for bringing these rabbits into our land.”
“We didn’t exactly bring them,” said John. “They decided to travel with us.”
“But we’ll explain all of that to the fairies ourselves,” said Benjamin. “And then we agree to let them decide.”
“Very well,” said the Brownies. “You will stay in our village tonight. We will feed you, and give you a bed, but we will also put a guard on you to make sure you do not escape.”
“We agree,” said Benjamin.
“Not that we have any choice,” muttered John.
The Brownies left, and John turned to talk to Benjamin the Mouse. “What do you think the fairies will do to us?” John asked.
“I have no idea,” said Benjamin the Mouse. “How would I know?”
“Well you’d know more than me,” said John. “I’m not even from this forest. You must have heard something about what the fairies are like.”
“The fairies have always been very mysterious,” said Benjamin. “No one knows much about what they do. Very few have journeyed to their lands. In fact, you’re one of the few people who has visited the Land of the Fairies.”
“Well, yes, for one day,” John said. “But I don’t know what they’ll do.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” said Benjamin the Mouse.
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