‘Go into the other room, no, go outside onto the main branch and walk along it some way, when you hear the ‘ping’, press the stone on your scabbard, and then return.’
Moss disappeared out of the cave entrance, and after a few moments Mec indicated to Kel it was time to press the stone, which he did. Almost instantly there was a loud ‘ping’ from Kel’s scabbard, and he nearly dropped it in surprise, and was still looking in amazement at the device when Moss returned to the room with a grin on his face.
‘That’s the nearest thing to magic I’ve ever experienced.’ said Moss, hanging on to the scabbard as if his life depended upon it.
‘Is it now,’ Mec rejoined with a grin, ‘wait until you see the next item I have for you.’ He hurried away to return with a small gourd bowl containing a little water and a small black stick with a white mark on one end.
‘If anything is magic, then this is.’ said Mec as he place the bowl on the floor of the room. Rummaging about on a shelf, he produced a small piece of bark and placed it on the water in the bowl, and then put the black stick on top of the floating piece of bark.
Before their eyes, the piece of bark together with the black stick, slowly rotated on the water, eventually coming to rest pointing towards the doorway.
‘Now that’s what I call magic.’ said Mec, sitting back on his stool and waiting to see what reaction it produced from the two youths.
‘What makes it turn?’ asked Kel, giving it a poke with his finger and watching in fascination as the little black stick on it’s piece of bark gyrated round, to slowly come to rest pointing in the same position as before.
‘We don’t know,’ replied Mec, ‘but wherever you take it, and how ever much you spin it around, it always points in the same direction, and that’s towards the Greater Sun at about the time of the midday meal.’
It was Moss’s turn to twirl the black stick around, which he did several times.
‘This is another piece of equipment I think you should take with you on your expedition, the reason being if you just wander about in the forest, you could well go around in circles, and not know it. With this device, you can check that you are going in a chosen direction, and more or less in a straight line. Let me show you.’
Mec arose from his seat and picked up the little bowl.
‘If I wanted to go towards that room over there, all I have to do is make a little mark on the side of the bowl,’ which he did, ‘And then make sure that the stick points towards it. If I go off to one side, the stick will no longer point in the direction of the mark, so I just turn until it does line up, and walk on, and here I am in the other room.’ said Mec, his voice fading as he disappeared into the small room opposite.
‘This is the only piece of the black pointing stick we have ever found, so look after it very carefully.
Kel wondered what other magical things Mec might have hidden away in his caves, but didn’t like to ask. And then a bright idea formed in his mind which he hesitated to mention for a moment, but then the excitement of it overcame his reluctance and he blurted it out.
‘You know that clear body shell you used for the light maker? ‘Well, if we could get another one, and cut it to fit the top of the pointing bowl and then seal it together with juice from the stave plant, the water would not run out if it got tipped over.’
‘And we wouldn’t have to worry about carrying water to keep filling the bowl up, and we could still see the pointing stick.’ It all came out in one long burst, and Kel was a little out of breath as he finished.
‘Now that’s good thinking,’ said Mec, ‘I’ve got some old insect cases somewhere, and you can have a go tomorrow and see what you come up with. Now, before you two can go off on your exploration, there’s one job I’d like you to do, and that’s get rid of the new creature which you found hiding under the bark on the main branch not far from here.
‘It will be good experience for you both, working out how you will do it, and then you must try to get others of your respective groups skilled in the matter, or at least interested in the method of disposing of the creatures.’
‘You said you knew of a ‘Dust Ball’ or something like that, which was poisonous to just about everything, where can we find it?’ asked Kel.
‘I know where to find them, but it isn’t easy and will involve a journey up into the next level of the forest.
‘The bag-like structure is easily broken when they are ripe, and they would have to be ripe to be effective, so you will have to work out some means of transferring them down here without endangering yourselves.’ Mec wasn’t going to make it easy for the two.
‘May we come here tomorrow and discuss it with you’ asked Kel, a little worried that his taller and slightly larger companion might take the initiative and come up with an answer to the problem before he could.
‘Yes, you may, but make it as early as possible in the morning as there will be a lot to do if we are going to go up to the next level, and I would like each of you to bring one other from your group so that they may learn from what we are about to do.’
‘Make sure it is the brightest member of your group, for they will have to learn how to rid the area of these new creatures
