“Norns!” The terrified whisper could be heard all over the room. “It’s the Norns!
“It’s the Old Ones!”
Norns are the eldest beings in the world. They were there at the beginning of time and they never quite die. Anyone who sees them feels an unstoppable dread because the Norns are the Fates; they spin the threads of the future and foretell what is to come.
The frightful things crouched on the bed, peering at the rows of people watching them. At the same time, on the screen behind them, the cheerful faces of the Barber family vanished, and instead there appeared a landscape of towering black cliffs, lashed by a stormy sea. White spray dashed against the rocks; they could hear the howling of the wind.
The picture moved inland through a cleft in the cliffs and stopped in front of an enormous castle with turrets and towers and places for pouring boiling oil. The windows were barred with iron; blackbirds circled the battlements.
Again the picture changed. They were inside the castle now, in a huge banquet hall, its walls hung with death-dealing instruments and the antlers of slaughtered animals. And then came gasps and cries of “Oooh” from the audience — because what they were seeing was a head.
But what a head! Swollen and loathsome, with hate-filled eyes, a pockmarked nose… a mouth opened to show bloodstained teeth.
The Norns pointed to the picture with their deformed fingers.
“It is the Great Ogre,” intoned the First Norn.
“The flesh-eating Ogre of the North,” pronounced the Second Norn.
“The dreaded Ogre of Oglefort,” uttered the Third Norn.
For a moment the camera stayed on the fearful head. Then it pulled back to show the figure who knelt at the monster’s feet: a young girl with long hair streaming down her back, her hands clasped beseechingly. But just as the ogre’s hands came down toward the trembling girl, the screen went dark.
“It is the Princess Mirella,” said the First Norn in her singsong voice.
“She must be rescued,” said the Second Norn.
“Saved,” said the Third.
“And the ogre must be slain,” said the First Norn.
“Killed,” said the Second Norn.
“Pulverized. Absolutely,” said the Third.
Then all three of them pointed to the audience and with one voice they cried:
“THIS IS THE TASK!”
A rustle of despair went through the Unusual Creatures.
“What about Mr. Barber’s Holiday Camp?” came a voice from the back.
The great bed shook as the fearful females rose to their knees.
“THE TASK IS GIVEN,” screeched all three Norns again. “And any waverers will feel the pull of Hades.”
They fell back on their pillows. Rattling noises came from their throats. The nurses who had brought them in wheeled the bed to one side of the stage, and Nellie Arbuthnot came back, looking shaken. The parrot in its cage had fainted.
“If you make your way to the refreshment room, we will prepare the instructions for the… er… the ogre-slaying,” she said nervously. “You have half an hour.”
The curtains were pulled together and everyone in the audience trooped out of the room — everyone except the people from Number 26, who had no money.
“This is terrible,” whispered the Hag to the troll. “I’d never have brought the boy if I’d known what was going to happen.”
But Ivo did not look frightened. He looked excited.
Behind the curtains, the nurses came with large syringes to inject the Norns and pills to push down their throats.
The minutes passed.
Then a bell rang, the signal that the meeting was going to start again. There was the noise of footsteps of all kinds coming from the refreshment room, but none of them seemed to be coming back into the hall. One could hear the sounds of slithering and limping and shuffling which gradually grew fainter — and then silence. Every one of the Unusual Creatures had made their way down the stairs and out into the street, heading for home.
The curtains parted. The Norns were a little stronger after their injection; they knelt up in the great bed and raked the room with their baleful eyes.
What they saw was a Hag and her familiar, a troll, a small wizard — and nobody else.
The Norns beckoned to a nurse and stuck out their arms, and she gave each of them another injection from her huge syringe — but it made no difference. When the Old Ones peered into the room once more, they still saw only the same four people.
There was nothing to be done then, and the Norns made the best of it.
“You are the Chosen Ones,” said the First Norn.
“You are the ogre-slayers,” quavered the Second.
“The rescuers,” said the Third.
“But—” began the Hag.
She had infuriated the ancient creatures.
“There is no BUT,” screeched the First Norn.
“No BUT whatsoever,” yelled the Second.
“Not anywhere is there a BUT,” cackled the Third.
The bed shook with their rage.
“The others have failed the test,” they pronounced. “On you falls the Glory of the Task. You are the ogre-slayers.”
The room went dark. There was the eerie creak again as the great bed was wheeled away. And the party from Number 26 was left alone.
CHAPTER 5
The Briefing
I think we need a nice cup of tea,” said the Hag when they returned from the meeting.
But even after three cups of tea and five slices of bread and butter in the kitchen of Number 26, they still felt terrible. One minute they had been looking forward to Mr. Barber’s Holiday Camp — and the next they were branded as ogre-slayers and given this appalling task.
“It’s because there’s a princess involved,” said Ulf gloomily. “That’s why the Norns appeared. Princesses always bring them out.”
The wizard was worrying about his mother.
“She won’t like it. She won’t like it at all,” he muttered.
“I don’t know how to slay things,” said the Hag in a worried voice. “It’s not what I do.”
Ivo put a hand on her arm.
“But think what an exciting adventure it’ll be. And we won’t only be slayers — we’ll be rescuers. Rescuing the princess has to be good.”
“Not for you, it doesn’t,” said the Hag sharply. She was still feeling very guilty because she had let Ivo become mixed up in something so dangerous. “You won’t be a slayer and you won’t be a rescuer; you’re going back to the Home first thing on Monday.”
“No I’m not,” began Ivo. “I’m a familiar and—”
But at that moment there was a loud pecking noise at the window, and looking up they saw, caught in the rays of the street lamp, a large black bird perched on the sill. The Hag was just going to open the window when the bird flew through the glass panes, circled the room, dropping evil-smelling black feathers, and settled with its unpleasant-looking feet on the butter.
“A harpy,” said Ulf, looking at the creature’s swiveling yellow eyes. Harpies are messengers from the Underworld and have to be taken seriously. “What can we do for you?”
The bird did not answer. Instead it opened its beak, let a piece of paper fall onto the table, and flew off again through the unopened window.
While the Hag scooped the butter into the trash can, Ulf read out the message.
In strange wavery letters it said:
ALDINGTON CRESCENT UNDERGROUND STATION — MIDNIGHT TONIGHT
Everyone looked at everyone else.
“That station’s been shut forever, since the end of the war,” said Ulf. “It was badly bombed, and the whole line’s been abandoned. We can’t go there.”
“But we have to,” said the Hag. “It’ll be the briefing, telling us what to do. You’ll have to wait here for us, Ivo. I’ll leave a night-light on and—”