"Right... come on now," urged Gee Tee. "Put that back, we haven't got all day. We've been down here long enough, and there are a couple more items I've yet to show you." Turning, he stomped off towards the corner once again.
Sliding the sword gently back into his sheath, Peter turned and followed the old dragon over to where he stood with a pile of wooden bows, some much taller than he was.
"RIGHT! No more guessing games." Picking up a gorgeously smooth wooden bow, that when standing on the floor came right up to Peter's neck, he allowed the young dragon to run one finger along the not quite taut string. "Now surely even you, my young friend, will have no trouble in working out which famous English hero this longbow belonged to."
This, at least, they had covered in their history lessons, back in the Purbeck Peninsula nursery ring, all those years ago.
"ROBIN HOOD!" he cried, astounded that Gee Tee would have his bow.
"Oh yes," replied the shopkeeper. "He did, of course, have two bows, a much smaller one for hunting and this longbow which he used to fight the Sheriff of Nottingham's men. It was the stand out weapon of the time, and when issued to the army it was said a skilled military archer could fire off around twelve arrows a minute and pierce armour from more than two hundred and fifty yards away. Robin, no doubt, would have been able to easily exceed that. Normally bows were made to measure depending on your height, so we have to assume this one was made specifically for him. What a lot of people don't know is that the longbow was invented by the Welsh, to fight off the English. Elm was their preferred choice from which to make this fine weapon, while the English choose yew instead."
"What's the string made of?"
"I believe that hemp was soaked in some form of glue for most of the bows. One thing I'd really like to know about this bow, is whether or not the wood that it's formed from came from the churchyard at Papplewick. Such trees were proven, for both humans and dragons alike, to possess medicinal, spiritual and symbolic qualities. If the wood did originate there, that would indeed make it even more special than I already believe it to be."
"Why is it so good?"
Picking it up, the old shopkeeper offered it up, along with an arrow from a nearby quiver, to the young dragon.
"See for yourself," he said mischievously.
With a hint of trepidation, Peter accepted, sure he was about to make a fool of himself (not for the first time today) but in the spirit of things, he was willing to give it a go.
Pointing to the far wall, furthest from where they were standing, the old dragon said,
"Pick one of the runes on that wall, focus intently on it, and see if you can hit it."
It was all Peter could do not to laugh.
'If I get a shot off and it goes in vaguely the right direction, it'll be an absolute miracle,' he mused.
Lifting the bow, he found it considerably more comfortable to get into position than he'd thought he would. Facing the direction Gee Tee had pointed in, he nocked the arrow, carefully pulled back the string, more worried about catching his fingers than about where the arrow would go, and focused on one particular rune on the far wall. What happened next was surreal. Without doing a thing, almost as if controlled by someone else, his vision just zoomed in, right into the rune he'd chosen. Surprised more than a little, his fingers let go of the string, the arrow shooting away at a speed he could barely see, even with his enhanced abilities. A whistling 'TWANG!!' trumpeted down his right ear. A human wouldn't have had a hope of seeing it whizz through the air. Amazingly, well, to him anyway, was the fact that the arrow hit the rune he'd been aiming for, dead on, before clattering harmlessly onto the floor.
"WOW!" he sighed.
"Wow indeed," added the shopkeeper. "Good eh?"
"More than good."
"Anyhow, one last thing," ventured the master mantra maker, snatching back the bow and placing it back on top of the pile, "before we really have to get to the reason we came down here for in the first place."
Dodging and weaving past Peter, the old dragon proceeded back down the line of swords and things dangling off hooks, his young friend dutifully following, until he stopped in front of the large canvas rucksack that he'd spotted earlier, hanging over two hooks.
Turning, the old dragon held up one finger, before adding,
"I like this, I really do. It's one more of my favourites."
It was then that he did the strangest thing. Flipping open the top of the rucksack, he gathered up a handful of nearby swords, weapons and armour, and started stuffing them into the canvas holdall.
'That's never gonna work,' was Peter's first thought, but not for very long, because before he'd even had time to finish the thought, the old shopkeeper had already managed to force more into the average looking bag than it could possibly accommodate... but it had. And the old dragon just kept on going, and going, and going. In the end, he must have put about ten or fifteen times the amount of stuff that could possibly fit into the relative space of the rucksack, and still there was no hint of anything poking out of the top. There had been no deception, he'd been checking for that, making sure his friend hadn't been trying to pull a fast one over on him.
"This, my young friend, is a 'Traveller's Bag of Capacity' and the mantra that's woven into its fabric is incredibly difficult to stabilise. Originally used by plant hunters scouring the planet for new and interesting species, the bag provides almost limitless space, as well as making sure the items placed inside are kept safe and free from harm. The plant hunting dragons found that the species they put in there would last many years and still come out in exactly the same condition they went in, in the first place. I believe there are only a few left in existence."
"A TARDIS backpack," he announced. "Cool!"
"A what?"
"Don't tell me you don't know who... oh, of course not. Never mind."
Gee Tee's scaly head frowned as he decided to move on.
"And so there it is child... the best of the rest. And now the time has come to move on to the reason we're here," announced the master mantra maker, waving the flimsy looking sheet of parchment around in his hand.
Interested and worried, Peter waited patiently to find out what his friend had come up with.
"I'll explain what I have here, and what it involves. In no way are you committed to going through with this. If you don't want to do it, then I totally understand, but as far as I know this is the only way for me to fully appreciate what you told me about your young friend Richie, and how you believe it affects the prophecy. Okay?"
Peter nodded. Gee Tee continued.
"This, youngster, is a mantra devised by the master himself... Leonardo da Vinci!"
That piqued his interest.
"Of all the mantras, artefacts, spells, hexes, runes and magical items that I've come across in my life, the ones connected with him have always been the most special. Some mantras or magical bonds that have been created seem clumsy or forced, but not his work, which is some of the finest I've ever seen. He was a true craftsdragon. You can feel the work, dedication, the love and commitment that's gone into nearly everything he's fashioned. I would so have loved to have met him, pinned him down (not literally) and picked at his brain (again, not literally) found out what drove him on, where his ideas came from, and how he designed and produced some of those amazing magical devices, spells and mantras. Not only was he far ahead of his time in the human world, but he was down here as well. Anyhow, this particular mantra of his allows two dragons to share a memory, totally and utterly."
Starting to open his mouth, the old dragon held up a finger to stop him.
"Unlike if you were just to project an image at me and I could choose to accept or reject it, this mantra will, if you're willing to give it a go, let me relive everything from that moment or moments in exact and minute detail. But before you agree, you should know that, of course, it's not quite as simple as that... it never is. Not only will I see the memory, but I'll share everything else about the events, the sounds, the smells, as well as your feelings... both the physical sensations and whatever else was running through your mind. This is something that will almost, in essence, allow me to be you and know everything about you at the time of the event in question. I'll know what you were thinking and it's quite possible that your deepest darkest secrets will make themselves known to me. Once it's over, I will still retain all the information, as if I've lived through that particular moment in time. It's not something to be used lightly... if ever at all. But it is the ONLY way I can think of that might convince me that what you say about the prophecy is... true!"