The City Of Horns

The City of Horns
Marmalade's Prophecy



Somewhere over hills and streams, across mountains and through valleys and caves, and over, and through all other sorts of interesting places there stood a little village. It was as beautiful a village as you ever did see, with bright red roofs and pretty little gardens.
Surrounding this village was a forest, a place of magic and enchantment where fairies, trolls and many other sorts of magical creatures lived. The forest was called Horn forest, and the Village was called The City of Horns, because the word city sounded so much better than the word village and the people who live there loved horns so very much. They love all types of horns, especially trumpets and trombones. They even liked the type that grew on their pet goats that they rode to get around town.
They were very little people, which was very good for the goats. They stood one and a half feet tall, had really big ears and very shiny noses. Their most unusual feature though was the hair on their eyelids. Beautiful, shiny white hair that stood straight up if they were having a bad dream.
Now in this city, there live a little boy named Joseph. He was a regular boy, nothing special about him, or so his teacher said, but there were those in Horn City who thought otherwise. Among them a balding fairy called Marmalade. Who exactly is Marmalade you ask? Hold your goat! As the people of Horns say, I am about to get to that.
When Joseph was a baby his mother carried him to the hall of declaration. This was where all mothers brought their babies so that they could hear something important that their child was going to do in the future. The declaration hall was run by Marmalade, and a very successful business he did too.
Marmalade was a tiny little fairy, with bright blue wings and a long white beard which he curled every day. He was very protective of his beard since he no longer had any hair on his head. He kept himself very fit and exercised regularly, jogging around and around the city in mid-air saying "Go Marmalade! Go Marmalade!" and puff, puff, puffing as he went. When Marmalade saw Joseph that day he became very excited. He twirled and flew around doing the most wonderful summersaults in the air. It had been quite a few years since anyone had seen Marmalade put on such a show. He started to make his usual speech, he puffed out his chest and cleared his throat and said.
"In the workings of the world, every creature has its purpose. Each will do something important. Some will do for many, others for few, but neither is more important than the other."
Then he flitted over Joseph' head, sprinkling fairy dust as he went, perched himself on Joseph's nose and said,
"This child will mend what is broken and find what is lost."
All the people in the hall ooohed and aaahed, he made it sound so very important. Oh yes, great things were expected of Joseph.
Many years went by and Joseph hadn't done anything of note. It was in fact quite the opposite, he was always going where he shouldn't, riding all over town on his little goat Alfred and making a nuisance of himself. He galloped though Mr. Baxter's bakery. He trotted through Mrs. Pontons petunia's. He rode right on to Mr. Pipelip's porch and snatched his pipe right out of his mouth. In short he was nothing but trouble. No matter what Joseph's parents did, Joseph would not behave as a good little Horn boy should.
His goat Alfred was no better. He ate the neighbor's flowers and nibbled on their clothes as they hung out to dry. Why just the other day Mr. Moolman was walking around with a hole in his pants and didn't even know it, all because of Alfred.
While Joseph was making mischief all around town, Marmalade's reputation was suffering. The town's people were beginning to say he was losing his touch.
"Look at all the fuss he made over Joseph," they said, "And the boy is nothing but trouble."
Soon very few people were going to the declaration hall. That didn't bother Marmalade. Now he had more time to fish. He knew he was right about Joseph, and he knew that what was going to happen was to happen very soon.
One day, while playing with Alfred in Horn forest, Joseph wandered too far. Beyond his forest stood another forest that was just as beautiful. There was magic in this forest as well, but not good magic, because this forest was controlled by a bad wizard called Hodgewinkle.
Many years ago when Hodgwinkle was young, he was a good wizard. Back then his forest was also part of Horn forest and he was a good friend to all who lived there, but he got into a nasty fight with a horn wizard named Baliwalken over a bag of fairy dust, and was banished from Horn forest and forbidden to come back in or contact anyone. Now I know your thinking that Hodgewinkle's punishment was sort of mean. Not really, he behaved quite badly. Wizards can make big awful messes with all that magic they have at their fingertips, and he did start the fight.
Hodgewinkle was so angry at being banished from Horn forest that he has disliked horns ever since, both the people and the instrument, because they made so much noise of the happy sounding kind. He had tried for years to keep then quiet. He tried casting spells and making potions, but nothing worked, because Horn forest was protected by a magical spell made by the four fairy sisters who were protectors of the forest. There was only one way to break the fairy's good magic. He would have to get something from Horn forest. It could be a rock or a bug. In fact it could be anything. Then he could cast a bad spell on it and send it back into Horn forest. A silencing spell was what he had in mind. He so wanted to keep those pesky Horns quiet.
How would casting a spell on one little bug affect the whole forest you ask? Because everything that is in Horn forest not only lives in it but is part of it. So to cast a spell on something from Horn forest, even the tiniest little ant, was to cast a spell on the whole forest. But in two thousand years since the spell had been cast nothing had come out of the forest. Not even the silliest little bug would ever leave Horn forest and go in Hodgewinkle's realm. They were all reminded of the danger of such an act very often by the High Bugger, Cornelius, at the weekly Bugs Are Us convention.

K.Vassall

(PS: I will finish typing out the rest later)