M Series: Magical Tales from the Hidden Continent

By Shashi Warrier

Series BlurbWhy a 'M' series? Much of what makes for a masterful story starts with the letter M... Mysteries, Magic, Monsters! The M series promises to be a marvellous mix of all three. Book BlurbMany years ago, the Lord of All Magic, fed up with the intrusion of humans into the lives of magical beings, withdrew to a continent in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that he hid, by magical means, from the sight of all humans outside. As the two tales from the hidden continent show, life with magical creatures can never be dull...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Children's
• Release date: Apr 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9789353578909

Shashi Warrier

Shashi Warrier is the author of The Hidden Continent, Suzy's Gift and five thrillers: Night of the Krait, The Orphan Diaries, Sniper, Noordin's Gift, and The Girl Who Didn't Give Up. Hangman's Journal is a semi-fictional biography of the last hangman of the erstwhile kingdom of Travancore and The Homecoming is a novel based in Kashmir.

Book preview

THE BLUE KANGAROO

The Blue Kangaroo

Wandering through the forests of the Hidden Continent, the Lord of All Magic found a large blue diamond so beautiful that it took his breath away for a moment. In its depths he saw a flickering flame in the shape of a kangaroo, and named it Blue Kangaroo. And then, since he had no use for beautiful jewels, he blessed it and tossed it away by a river.

Since he had blessed it, it became a lucky jewel. Someone found it by and by, and became the ruler of the kingdom of Campbridge that grew around a bridge built near the camp by the river. The King of Campbridge wore the jewel in his crown, which became famous as the Kangaroo Crown. He wore the crown only on very special days, because it was so heavy it gave him a headache if he wore it more than ten minutes at a stretch. So his crown and its jewel stayed in his throne room when the crown was not on his head. One day, when a maid was polishing the crown by the window, a passing dragon saw the Blue Kangaroo gleaming in the sunlight, and grabbed the blue diamond off the crown and flew away with it.

Hearing the maid scream, some of the King’s soldiers came running just in time to see the dragon flying off westward with the jewel shining in its mouth. They were helpless to do anything, but let loose a volley of arrows, some of which struck the dragon in its soft underbelly before it got out of range. The soldiers consoled the maid as best they could, and told the King about the loss. With the loss of the jewel, the king’s luck came to an end. He died childless, and the kingdom came under the rule of a regent instead of a king. The regent, an honest man whose name was Mark, said when he was made Regent: ‘I rule the kingdom on behalf of the true king.’

‘How will we know the true king?’ asked a courtier.

‘Our first king was a commoner before he found the Blue Kangaroo and became King,’ said Mark. ‘The next true king will be the one who will restore the Blue Kangaroo to the crown of this kingdom.’

‘Whoever brings back the Blue Kangaroo?’ asked the courtier. ‘No matter who?’

‘Bringing it back is not sufficient,’ said Mark. ‘Whoever restores it to the crown. For only a good and lucky man will give up such a wonderful jewel.’

When the old king had become king, he found that his kingdom was full of scoundrels of all kinds, thieves, murderers, burglars, smugglers, and so on. So he hired a lot of policemen and gave each of them a copy of a book that he called The Gallery of All Scoundrels.

This book contained a picture of the face of every criminal they ever came across, and it was magic. Whenever criminals came anywhere near it, it would recognise them and fall open at the right page, no matter how the criminals tried to disguise themselves. Besides, when any policeman caught a criminal, his face would immediately appear in all copies of Gallery of Scoundrels, which was also something wonderful.

The criminals all called it The Book of Our Faces, Facebook in short, and it was the only thing they were afraid of, because if you saw someone’s face in Facebook, you knew he was a thief or a pirate or something. After Mark announced that whoever brought back the Blue Kangaroo would be crowned King, all the criminals in the kingdom began to look for the jewel. And so did all honest people who had time on their hands, and wanted to be King.

They all knew that the dragon had flown westwards, so they spread out in that direction as far as they could go. The years passed, and no one found the Blue Kangaroo. The regent died, to be replaced by his son, Mark II, who in his turn was replaced by his son, Mark III, and so on. What Mark I said about the true king being the one to bring back the jewel became legend and spread far and wide, until almost everyone on the Hidden Continent got to know of it …

Like I said, almost everyone.

The Country Without a Name

At the western tip of the Hidden Continent, by the seaside with a long beach enclosed by the Sheer Cliffs, was a small country without a name. To its east were the Purple Mountains, which few people had ever crossed, and, east of that, the Quicksand Bogs, where no one was safe because the quicksand kept shifting, and would swallow up anyone unlucky enough to step in it. The north, south, and east of the country were covered by the Stormy Sea, under which lurked the Treacherous Reefs, which could cut through the hull of a ship as if it were made of cheese.

And then there were the pirates. Pirate ships flying the pirate flag, the skull and crossbones, sailed the seas all the time, ready to capture treasure from other ships, and to capture people and hold them to ransom. The worst of these was Deadly Dirk, who seemed to know all the tricks of the sea and all the little islands and coves where a ship could hide, and a crew of fifty dreadful men, who had looted more than a hundred cargo ships in the wide ocean.

The magical creatures on the continent didn’t like to cross the Purple Mountains or the Quicksand Bogs or the Stormy Sea, either, so they kept mostly to the middle and the eastern end. The people in this western country didn’t have many visitors, and knew very little about other lands and other people, and called their own simply The Country. The Countrypeople didn’t believe in magic either, and managed quite well without it. And, of course, they’d never heard of the Blue Kangaroo or the luck that it brought its owner.

Sam was the King of The Country. He lived in a palace, of course, like most kings, and he was sort of rich, with a treasure-house with his gold and jewels standing behind his palace, the best of which was a flaming blue diamond fixed to his crown. He had found the diamond, alongside some old arrows with strange markings, in a forest where he’d gone hunting. He wondered about how the diamond had got there, and wanted to return it to its owner, but no one ever came along to claim it. All visitors were welcome to have a look at the treasure-house and its contents, because Sam wasn’t greedy and wanted to return the diamond to whoever owned it. And to help visitors figure who the owner might be, he kept the arrows beside the crown.

He never wore the crown, or even his kingly robes, and he was just like other people. He didn’t expect people to bow to him or to call him Majesty or anything, and when he went for a walk in the evening you’d hear lots of people call out to him, saying, ‘How’s it going, Sam?’ And King Sam would answer, ‘Very well, thank you, Sir (or Madam), and how is it with you?’ And so on.

The citizens had only one complaint about Sam: he didn’t have a queen. And so, as time passed, people, especially the ladies, began to ask the king on his evening walk, ‘When are you getting married, Sam?’

Sam would reply, with a smile, ‘When I find the right princess!’ And with that The Countrypeople had to be satisfied.

When the worst-ever storm broke out on the Stormy Sea, it lasted three whole weeks. When it was all over and the sun shone over a flat sea, fisherfolk found a bearded man lying on the beach between the cliffs, exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. He said he’d been washed overboard off a ship by high waves in the storm. Of the ship there was no sign, but from what the man said, it had come from a far country which lay to the east, across the mountains and bogs. The Countrypeople took the man to a hospital and let him rest and eat well until he was better, and then sent him to the King’s Court.

‘What’s your name?’ asked the King.

‘Emanon,’ said the man. This was a lie, but Sam didn’t figure this out because he and his people knew nothing about the names that people in other lands had, and were in any case very trustful.

‘Where are you from?’ asked King Sam.

‘From far away in the east, across the mountains and the quicksand and everything,’ said Emanon. This much was true, but Emanon didn’t want to say exactly where he came from, which was Campbridge. Emanon’s face was in Facebook under the name Deadly Pirate Dirk, along with a note saying there was a reward of a thousand gold coins for his capture.

‘And how did you get here?’ asked Sam, who didn’t know much about Facebook, or the world beyond the mountains, and wasn’t really interested.

‘Our ship sailed into a great storm and a wave took me overboard when I went out on deck to see how bad it was.’ This, for a change, was true. Dirk had been inspecting the crates of stolen goods tied down on the deck when he was swept overboard by a giant wave.

‘How did you get past the Treacherous Reefs, then?’ asked Sam.

Emanon shrugged. ‘Just luck, I guess.’ This, too, was true, but Emanon had managed to remember the positions of the stars as he floated along, and was sure he could find his way back through those reefs.

‘What do you do for a living?’ asked Sam.

‘I’m a sailor,’ said Emanon, which was partly true, because he’d been a sailor before he became a pirate.

‘Not much sailing here,’ Sam said. ‘You can fish, or learn another trade, and settle here if you wish.’

‘Give me a boat, and supplies,’ said Emanon, ‘and I’ll sail back home. It might take me a week or two but I think I can do it if another storm doesn’t blow up.’

‘Are you sure you can get past the reefs?’ asked Sam.

‘Yes,’ said Emanon. ‘I know a few things about the sea that should get me through.’ This was true. He did know more about the sea than any other sailor alive.

‘Very well,’ said King Sam, ‘It’s going to be a couple of days before your boat is ready. I hope you can keep yourself