Chapter one
The Home Hand
A mystical mirror presented to Zelphinia was by far one of the most useful things that the mad Mandrax queen, Mull Moody, had ever given her. Unique, the mirror allowed its allocated owner several hours a year of free vision anywhere in the world. Why one would want to give such a prestigious object away was unknown. But then so was the depth of Moody’s madness. One minute smiling, the next shouting, Moody’s mind was an undiscovered minefield. Pressured by the mirror’s time limit, Zelphinia knew it was imperative that she use it wisely. Standing before it she shuffled back and forth. Choosing to use her time to track a mystical creature, she examined the glass with exhaustive curiosity. Alcohol, amongst other concoctions, did little to improve the frivolous moods that she inflicted upon so many. As she stamped her foot on the floor, her steel heel caused clinging cobwebs, insect skins and scales to fall from the gargoyle heads they had gathered on. Tossing the contents of a goblet she had been drinking to the floor, she held it out for more…
“I’m supposed to enjoy it, not endure it!”
Glancing over the oblong mirror and past a cauldron of melted wax, she frowned fiercely at the pixies, ghouls and gremlins who were congregating beneath a large chandelier in one corner of the room.
“Fill it, you flaming idiots! Any second now, something may materialise and if I miss it you lot will be more messed up than you already are!”
Her blood bubbling with impurities, she was impossible and intolerable. Cowering from the mere tone of her voice, they pushed their superior, Spoon, forward. Sizing up her mood and shying from it, he dragged his deformed foot towards a rack of brown barrels. Remembering the one that had fallen and maimed his foot many years ago, Spoon took a jug and held it carefully under the nozzle of the nearest, which he hoped would be a better barrel of booze. The positive trickle of liquor was quickly overshadowed by a sharp tone.
“C’mon!” Zelphinia demanded aggressively. “I’m drying up here.”
Her hand fluttering up and down with the shakes, Spoon knew she was unstable, unpredictable, and at times, totally unapproachable. Falling over his feet, Spoon scooted silently towards her and, nervously lifting the jug, he poured her a better drink. Zelphinia felt the goblet to be full and without a shred of gratitude, waved him away. A large swig of the stuff lined the back of her throat, sliding like treacle around her tonsils.
“Now where was I…?”
Glancing back into a place far too pure for the likes of her, she ogled Orchid Valley through ambitious and angry eyes. As she raised the goblet to her mouth for a second swig, she saw movement in the mirror and, stepping closer with a penetrating glare, she saw the unicorn Faustino raise his head from hibernation.
“Lift off at last,” she sneered…
2
Orchid Valley