Arrabella Candellarbra - A.K. Wrox

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was just too great. Oh, what she wouldn't give to find out just how great and how hulking he really was.

      The others continued to talk and to argue but Arrabella barely heard them. After all who wanted to think about a Rat, no matter how unusually sized the rodent was, with Langley in such close proximity. It was all she could do not to throw herself at his feet and attach herself, Prince Jim-style, to his rippling legs.

      'A-hem,' Jim cleared his throat loudly. His eyes had turned a luminescent traffic-light green as he watched Arrabella eyeing Langley - and Langley eying her back. 'Would it be too much trouble for you to join us? Or would you two rather have your own private quest in the Quiver bushes over there?'

      Arrabella thought about it. Langley clearly did too, as he cast his glance around for a bush to serve his purposes.

      'Oh for the love of Sundays on a Monday when it should really be Tuesday,' interrupted Gary. 'Pay attention everyone. As I was saying, I don't believe the fluffy white Rat was large; any more than the trees and plants and flowers suddenly grew tall around our heads. But, I have heard tell of a certain kind of nectar that will actually shrink a person - or a fairy. I believe that very nectar must have been within the buttercup cup from which you drank, my lady.'

      'But, but… I don't want to be small forever,' cried Arrabella. 'How can I possibly be the holder of all the powers in all of the lands if I could be defeated by a Froggystomp?'

      'We must go on regardless,' said Gary, full of wisdom as ever. 'Only a certain kind of fungus can cure us and it certainly won't be found near here. It grows only in the wilds of the Wackydoo Wanges.'

      'But my magic will be diminished to the mere flicker of a match. We may as well just quit now.'

      Prince Jim glowered at Arrabella, still not completely forgiving her for putting dibs on the luscious Lord's affections. That thought made him look at Langley and lust overtook him once more. 'Well all I can say, my Lord, is I'd love to see if all of you has diminished in size.'

      Gary gave Jim a piercing stare. 'Fair Prince, right now you are being neither fair nor princely. Must you continue with your comments and your overtures, all 1812 of them, toward our Lord when it is clear his devotion lays elsewhere?'

      Jim pouted and stamped his foot and hopped and scowled and finally kicked at the tree which, while childish in the extreme, did serve to remind them all of the Rat and, more importantly, the door.

      'We must not give up, and we must not quarrel amongst ourselves,' Gary pronounced. 'Our destinies are forever united now; or at least until we fulfil those destinies.'

      The wizard stretched his arms out wide, to encompass them all in a big baloo-hug. 'And I believe our destiny begins with that door!'

      CHAPTER THREE

      Through the Looking Glass

      Gary's talk of entwined destinies was not really what forced the hands of our adventurers - they simply couldn't stay in the meadow a second longer in their miniaturised state. The danger was far too great. A bumball bee, the size of a small plane, had buzzed dangerously close and was returning for another flyover. Scarier than that, was a black windex spider, spread out like an eight-legged army tank, who was coming their way, trailing a silver web thicker than Langley's thigh behind her.

      Arrabella got to her feet and reluctantly walked toward the door, reaching out one delicate hand to turn the wrought-iron door handle.

      'Here goes nothing, or something, or anything for that matter,' she whispered, and pulled the door towards herself. She was just about to step forth into territories unknown when one thick, oily and forceful arm shot out and barred her from entering.

      'No, my dear heart, love of all loves, fearless and...'

      'Blagh!' cried Jim, sticking his fingers down his throat. 'Get on with it before we're all too ill to leave.'

      Arrabella stepped aside to allow the smooth-talking Langley to enter first. For all that he looked good though, sometimes she wished he'd keep his pillow-lips closed. After all, she'd been going through doors first her entire life.

      Gary and Jim huddled behind Arrabella; Arrabella clung to Langley's waist - because she could; and Langley strode fearlessly through the little door.

      The door closed behind them with a bang and slam and the Four found themselves enveloped in a darkness so dark and consuming that they thought they would suffocate.

      Jim groped behind him for the door, to open it and allow a little light to penetrate but all he felt was the bark of a tree. 'The door, it's gone!' he cried.

      Gary joined Jim, and with much oohing and aahing from the little fairy, Gary also groped in the darkness for the door.

      'It is here,' the Wizard said, 'way down near my shoe. The door has shrunk, shrivelled even. Or we've grown. That's it! We've grown. But I don't understand, we haven't consumed any fungus. What is going on?'

      Nobody was listening to Gary's ponderings as they searched the darkness for each other to cling to. 'We must stick together!' cried Arrabella, reaching out for Langley's hand.

      'My dear, Arrabella,' Langley exclaimed breathlessly, his voice also thick with desire. 'I hardly think this is the time, why don't you hold my hand instead?'

      Arrabella, grateful for the darkness that hid the deep flush of embarrassment that burned across her face, dropped the log-like appendage that she'd mistaken for her Lord's muscular arm.

      Then quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and given the circumstances a little too soon for Arrabella, there was… a light! A bright light - as bright as a mensa-star and as warm as any of the suns - seared itself through the darkness. Involuntarily, the Four raised their arms to their faces to shield their eyes from the blinding brightness.

      A lamp-post. Really?

      That incredibly intense iridescent light was coming from a lamp-post. And a rather old-fashioned lamp-post at that; with a tall wrought iron pedestal and a little square glass box containing the source of the illumination, which apparently lit up the entire land around them. A land that was inexplicably covered in snow.

      A land-lighting-lamp?

      Beside the lamp-post, immobile and dazed, terrified and traumatised, stood an odd little creature with the head and torso of a man and the legs and hooves of a goat.

      'Ooh, a faun,' cried Prince Jim, jigging his heel-clicking jig and clapping his hands in glee. 'A fantabulously-furry, hopefully friendly faun!'

      Meanwhile over by the lamp-post, the faun shook his bearded head gravely and creased up his eyebrows, taking in each of the warriors in turn.

      Finally he said, 'Why have you come here? Why here, of all the lands and grounds and lakes and deserts and circus tents, why did you have to happen into this one?' The faun was wringing his hands as though trying to shake something nasty and itchy and probably a little icky from them.

      'The Queen of Turkish Tarts will have your heads if she finds you. And my head too, just for talking to you. You must flee. Go. Flee. Now!'

      The little faun, trembling with terror, paced backwards and forwards, sidewards and slantwards, all the while muttering: 'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,' over and over again. The wretched state of the fretting faun tugged at Arrabella's over-ripe heartstrings so she placed a hand on his shoulder, halting his step.

      'My dear friend, whatever can be so awful, so dreadful, so harrowingly, heart-wrenchingly horrid that it would make you behave so?'

      'Friend?' cried the faun, coldly. 'Don't call me friend. She'll hear you. Or the trees will hear you and tell her. Or the little birdie will tell the trees to tell her. You must go, run, flee, disappear, skedaddle, get the wiggly-whoops away from this place. The Queen of Turkish Tarts will be making her rounds

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