“Time to see Edgard, I think.”
The legendary witch Pushana appeared to be addressing a suit of armour in the corner of her workroom. Which was odd. But what happened next was even odder. She waved her hand in a spiralling motion with a strange twist at the end and muttered a few words under her breath. In response, the armour made a series of metallic creaks as it awoke. A strange and frightening head emerged from the top of the armour, and inhuman hands appeared at the end of the previously empty arms. Hands with long, pointed purple fingernails. The entity in the armour twisted his head from side to side, as if testing the movement, then two purple flames sprang to life atop his head. “Hello, old friend.” Said Pushana. The Knight Possessed nodded in reply.
They left the cottage quietly. Pushana lived in a remote, wild and uninhabited part of Hopeless, Maine. Despite her significant abilities and her striking appearance, only the storytellers wrote of her existence. And that was pretty much the way she liked it. Living surreptitiously on Hopeless Maine allowed her to carry on with her magical business, undisturbed by the attention she would inevitably receive elsewhere. Islanders shunned the area where she lived as it was fabled for incredibly dangerous beasts, lethal undergrowth, and strange, fatal hauntings. Pushana neither corrected this misconception nor did she stop herself from starting a few rumours for fun.
“Something is coming to the island, something I cannot allow. This place suits me and I do not want to leave, not yet anyway. I fear we may have a battle ahead Sir Knight.”
The Knight Possessed simply shrugged. They walked in silence for a while. It was not far to the shoreline, a twenty-minute walk at most, and the normally threatening wildlife of the island gave the pair a wide berth, so they were not inconveniently waylaid.
They had to walk along the black beach for a while until they came to a break in the cliffs. Looking up, Pushana could see the raggedy rope ladders and steps that led up the rock-face to a ledge on which a ramshackle structure was perched. Whilst it looked small from down here, Pushana knew that the rock shelf went quite a way back into the cliff.
This was Edgard’s home, from where he conducted his business of beachcombing. Many things washed up on the shore of Hopeless, Maine. Many were worthless detritus, it’s true, but amongst the flotsam and jetsam were things of value, things one could trade. Given the ragged rocks, ruthless tides, epic storms, and the horrendous proliferation of monsters living in the sea, it was a dangerous profession, but Edgard seemed both adapted to it and proficient.
Pushana and The Knight carefully climbed up and looked around. The ramshackle occupant of the ramshackle home was not currently about, so Pushana made herself a pot of tea using a kettle she found and a fire she started in an old grate and settled into an old seaweed-strewn chair made of old boxes. The Knight stood behind her silent and immobile. He did that a lot. Presently there was a scrabbling noise, and the creature known as Edgard, or the beachcombing spearman, appeared above the edge of the floor and climbed onto the ledge. He looked at Pushana nervously. “Smell, you do.”
“Hello Edgard” said Pushana calmly.
“Why you here? Hurt me? Him,” he gestured at The Knight, “Him, hurt me?”
“We’re not here to hurt you Edgard. I like you Edgard, remember?” Pushana made a small motion with her hand.
Edgard dipped his head, furrowed his brow, then looked up, “Help me, you did, once. Edgard thanks you. What you want?”
“I know you have something, something washed up recently, a book”
“Many book Edgard have. Some not wet. Some valuable I reckon.” His eyes lit up at the thought and he licked his lips.
“Oh, this book has no value for you. And it might even kill you. I will be doing you a favour taking it off your hands.”
“Kill Edgard?” He looked worried now. “Your book, I think. I get it for you now.”
Without a further word, Edgard shuffled off to the back of the ledge where various piles of ‘treasure’ he had combed from the beaches were laid out. Some were metal objects, some textiles, some unidentified. One was a big pile of books. Edgard walked right past this pile and went to a rickety shelf. He came back with a single book.
“This one, I reckon.” He offered it to Pushana.
She took it and glanced at its cover. “Thank you Edgard. Yes, this is the one. You may not realise it, but I have done you another favour today.”
“Bad feel. The book.” Added Edgard.
Pushana nodded, “I will leave you in peace. Be careful out there Edgard, please let me know if you find any more bad feel books.”
Edgard nodded. “Parting well.”
Pushana took a length of cloth from her coat and wrapped the book carefully. Stood up and left, with The Knight following. Edgard watched them go.
–◊–
Back in her cottage, Pushana laid the wrapped book on a table in the middle of her workspace and then took a jar of powder down from a shelf. Uncorking it, she carefully laid out a line of the slightly shimmering powder, encircling the book. She took some strange blue candles out of a locked box, placing three, one each in a tall candle holder, to form a triangle around the book. When she lit them, they burned with an eerie blue, unflickering flame. Finally, she passed five times clockwise around the table muttering sounds under her breath, and twice anticlockwise muttering the same sounds backwards. Only when she had finished did she unwrap the book.
“Be ready. We should be safe, but I would like you to be ready just in case.” The Knight nodded.
Pushana opened the cover of the book. There was an uncanny noise, like a distant howl. She glanced at the title page. Whatever the script was, it was not English, but Pushana appeared to understand it well enough.
“This is indeed The Book of Tentacles. With this, I should be able to locate the disturbance.”
As Pushana skimmed through the pages there was a louder noise – a sort of a squelch. Then the pages started to rustle of their own accord. Pushana stepped back, and a film of green slime appeared on the edges of the book. The pages became blurry and green, dark and misty. It was hard to make out the words and images as they dissolved into murk. As she watched intently, a green protuberance thrust its way out of the book, followed by another. Thin strands of slime clung to them and stretched out as they pushed through. It was clear now that they were tentacles. There were five now, and they all stopped for a moment and appeared to sense the room. There was a moan, and they started rising again. They were swelling in size, and had very nearly reached the ceiling.
“Enough of this nonsense.” And Pushana waved a hand and incanted some quiet words. The tentacles screeched, but just softly, and stopped moving.
“I cannot let you out. Certainly not here. And not until you do my bidding. I have a purpose, and you will help me. But I promise you, when my mission is over, I will set you free. For now, you must return to your literary prison and bide your time.” She waved her hand once more, and the tentacles retreated. Soon the book was just a book again, just like any other. She extinguished the candles, tidied up the powder carefully back into the jar, and placed the jar back on the shelf. Retrieving the cloth she had used earlier, she re-wrapped the book and tucked it under her arm.
“Come,” she addressed The Knight Possessed again, “We are very short on time.”
Story inspired by artwork from Nicolas Rossert

(art by Fnic, story by Keith Errington)