THE WIZARDS at PENTLEGOB or The search for Mervyn

The Wizards at Pendlegob wore furrowed brows, Mervyn the ancient Wizard of Prydain had to be found and released from his prison cave that was guarded by the mythical giant dragon that lives under the valley of Havergrapff only then would Mervyn be able to save the magical Isles of Prydain from the evil forces of the Kormeon sea monsters that were seeking to dump their ghastly cargoes of naff metal on the unsuspecting population of the Gaelxlses.

The journey down had been especially fraught, particularly the ill fated attempt to avoid the seven bridge trolls that have been getting fiercer every year by using an incantation to divide the waters of the river Hafon the chief kite wizard had only been able to remember half the spell so that they had driven into a wall of water some way across. It would have been much safer to have taken the Emfloughty even though this involved going through the forest of Death with the risk of being sucked along behind a giant fume breathing monster for hours on end.

Even in the village of Ustamekter things were not as they should be either- the fire in Ye Olde Blue Bell Inn absorbed rather than emitted heat ,( but that was not totally unusual), the heat that should have come out of the fire seemingly had been redirected to the beer pump pipes so that the Fulmars Original Ale steamed gently in the frosty atmosphere (Fulmars ale was so named because it was clarified with the use of the evil smelling vomit that seabirds spit out when they are annoyed by somebody stamping on their eggs-though how this was collected was anybody's guess!)

By now the most of the Wizard of Pendlegob were in the pub, but Willie Weatherwise had only just arrived , he was it fact lucky to have got a drink as the elf who ran it had started to whistle unrecognisable tunes- a sure sign that he was about to shut for the rest of the week. Willie Weatherwise nearly hadn't made it at all, he had been experimenting with the giant tank of Crayfish that the Institute of Meteomagic had just bought from Merica, and he had been trying to get the Crayfish to simulate the worlds weather magic in their movement patterns, unfortunately the instructions were written in complex Merican which they didn't understand too well and all they had succeeded in doing was to annoy the Crayfish so much that they had decided to actually run the worlds weather themselves (in fact they had bought the wrong breed of crayfish they wanted the weather simulator but had ordered the stimulator model)-consequently he had been followed down the Mfloor by a variety of ghastly weather phenomenon such as tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, snow etc. which were now attacking Ye Olde Blue Bell Inn in an attempt to get revenge.

Back at Pendlegob things were very much warmer, the Hogmeistercooker, Grimble had arrived in his executive Volva and once he had recharged the gas storage reservoir the broiler rumbled away having been turned up well beyond the safety point.

Due to the very low ceilings of that particular premises the senior elected Wizards of Pentlegod had had to forego the usual pointy hats that Wizards wore for the standard head gear of Pentlegob, a grotty plastic hard hat nicked from a magic building site with a magic lamp emblem on the front.

It was now the next morning and breakfast was being cooked by some and incinerated by others .The Wizards breakfast was traditionally a huge greasy pile of baked beans, sausages and eggs that often made them feel queasy half way through, consequently there was a queue of various species of birds hungrily waiting for the (often regurgitated) leftovers .

The previous evening the Wizards, under the influence of powerful ales bought from various magic markets had talked large and loud about the death defying feats that they would endure in order to free Mervyn from the cave, now however in the cold light of the late morning many of these brave claims seem to have evaporated. It was eventually decided that they would journey to the great cave of Funandoom to look for Mervyn. Naturally the way (as in all Wizard sagas) involves going through a dark and dangerous forest for Chapter after Chapter rather than getting in the car for a pleasant drive. None the less after donning their magical underground apparel and passing many a curse on their hats and lights in order to get them to work and passing through the great forest on Pandmoor they eventually arrived at the habitations of the guardians of Funandoom.

The guardians of Fundandoom were according to the first chapter of the Great Book created when giants had intercourse with daughters of humans producing men of great renown-if this were so it must have been many years ago as it was perfectly obvious that if any of them had had intercourse in recent years it was unlikely to be with anyone's daughter. In fact females were rarely seen up there at all due to their reputation for concocting nasty stories about various parts of their bodies and for farting most of the night.

However the Wizards of Pendlegob had generally had good relations with the guardians and they inquired as to the whereabouts and dangers of the great dragon that was reputed to imprison Mervyn. The news was good, the great dragon was said to be much reduced in size and powers and was rarely seen in person preferring to operated her powers remotely via wires and various agents ,and they were welcome to search the cave of Funandoom for Mervyn , though they were warned that many before them had done so and had either never returned or gone even madder.

The Guardian of the day also told them the interesting information that the Dragon was now much more interested in the cave on the other side of the valley known as Dooneyogof, which could be because Mervyn was actually imprisoned there rather than Funandoon , however it was very unwise to go there today due to the appallingly strange weather that had suddenly afflicted the Ustrramekter area the previous night. The guardian commented that it was almost as the weather gods had been especially annoyed with somebody in the area. Willy Weatherwise shuffled his feet and muttered that there were going to be a lot of seriously fryed up Crayfish back at the Meteomagic centre next week.

The guardian suggested that they speak to their own Sage Ekvil Sejon who spent most of his time down the bottom of a small hole at the back of the guardians palace, they were however warned to be very careful to pronounce all words carefully or they would waste the rest of the day listening to a lecture on how to speak properly. Sure enough as they wandered around behind the palace they saw a woolly hat bobbing up and down behind a pile of rocks and found the sage poking around in the bottom of a rather small muddy hole.

Ekvil Sejon was in fact quite pleased to see them as he had had enough of digging at the bottom of that particular hole and was always glad to tell anyone that was prepared to listen about his latest theories on where the unexplored caverns might exist and he invited them back to the great library in the guardians palace.

The Sage showed them his latest magic technology, a box with wires called a resistance thaumogragh and another called a micromagicgraviogradiometer with which he had been probing the unknown areas around Funandoom.

(By now you have had 2 pages of this drivel, which is quite enough for this issue, so look forward to the next Peleobates when the Wizards of Pendlegod don't meet the Dragon but encounter the virtual reality monster of their nightmares the Cereubian 3 headed dog Michael and its keepers Bn-n-n-n-d://www:linda.co.nightmare.)

Note- the characters in this saga are entirely frictional and any resemblance with living or dead persons is just a nasty coincidence.

Author: 
Kerry Klatchit