Don't Let the Fairies Eat You (30 page)

“Will you be ones to make such a deal?” the leading goblin asked. He appeared calmer and more serene than any woodcutting or sketch of goblins that the boys had ever seen. “You are Calden Nobody, child of Damian Grounder and Rachel Humruck. Your friend is Belfry Green, child of Amber Green and Peter Guskchov. Do you know the significance of this?”

“We are children of men’s lust and women’s wombs,” Calden said.

“And
we
are not.” The goblin shook his head. “We are children of earth and grass, of wind and water, of day and darkness. As we spring forth from men’s shadows, so do we return, and perhaps we give the world a little laughter in our passing centuries. We are wild things, as hard to kill as the world itself, child. To make an agreement, you need not threaten, for doing so is fruitless coming from a boy such as you. All you need do is ask. You two wish to carry the bag?”

“We do.” Calden nudged Belfry then.

“We do,” Belfry said softly.

“You should run, boys, for neither of you want this curse,” Dalmer said, but the old man was ignored.

“And who shall carry this bag, and thus, pay the price as Jon Dalmer has done?” asked the calm goblin.

“Belfry will,” Calden said, nudging the other boy again. “Won’t you, Belfry?”

Belfry nodded solemnly. “I suppose, with all that gold, there’s no worry that I’ll need to run so much on raw feet.”

Half the goblins began to giggle and were shushed by the other half, who themselves struggled to withhold their laughter. “Very well,” said the leader. “Brothers and sisters, let us make a bag of human flesh, from which a man may reach inside and find the worthless metal that bears the imprint of a king or lord or god. Belfry Green will hold this bag for sixty-six years, and if it is ruined and tonight’s agreement is made in vain, then he will forfeit his soles.”

At that, the goblins swarmed over Calden, yanking him to the ground and tearing at his clothes. “What is this?” the boy roared, fighting uselessly against the little fair folk. “Belfry will hold the bag!”

“Yes, he will,” said the goblin leader. “And from you, we will make the bag.”

Calden scrambled for his knife, but it flew away from him just as his clothing did, and scissors swiftly pierced the flesh over his chest. The boy’s roaring turned high-pitched and horrible, but no one worried that anyone would hear the screams beyond the graveyard. Slit skin peeled away from poking ribs and hips, from lithe arms and legs, and the flesh was passed along the goblins as they began the work of making leather.

“Belfry Green will carry the bag and pay the price,” the goblin leader went on. “He will carry this bag in worry, if such a thought should occur to him, and he will carry this bag in guilt, as Jon Dalmer has done, for he was a boy in this unhallowed graveyard once, and he had a friend, and he paid a price.”

Within minutes, not a spot of skin remained on Calden’s writhing red figure and not a true word came from his throat. The goblins then lifted him, marking their hands with red splotches, and dropped him into the open grave next to Jon Dalmer.

The goblin leader bent his scissors and twisted them until they formed a long shovel, and then he handed it to Belfry. “Bury him and seal your deal.”

“No!” Calden screamed.

Belfry took the shovel and chucked a splotch of dirt over Calden’s red flesh. “Don’t worry,” he said, making quick work of the burial. “Your true story will be told and I will carry the bag. Everything you told me to do, I’ll do.” Soil fell onto Calden’s eyes, into his open mouth, and over his red limbs and torso. Then soil fell onto the wriggling layer of soil, and next layer wriggled less, until at last, nine layers had been laid and Calden was heard and seen no more.

The goblins worked for three hours and a minute fashioning the bag, and their leader himself placed it in Belfry’s hands. “If you return home before dawn, all that emerges will be gold,” he said. “If you arrive an hour past dawn, all that emerges will be silver. Two hours or more, and all that emerges will be copper. If the sun sets before you return, you will receive only dirt, as your friend did.”

“I didn’t know they made coins out of dirt,” Belfry said, and the goblins cackled again. He made to leave right away, but then he noticed Dalmer having trouble walking, as the old man had been abducted without his cane. Belfry stashed the magic bag inside his shirt and took the old man’s arm, helping him hobble out of the graveyard.

“You should hurry off without me, boy,” Dalmer said. “You won’t make it to town by dawn at this rate, and your friend will have died for less than gold.”

“Not to worry,” Belfry said, and he did not abandon the old man. “Calden said he didn’t care if money was gold or silver, so long as it was ours. So I don’t think he’d have a problem with it.”

“Is that so?” Dalmer asked. “I’m sure the goblins would have a hearty laugh over that.”

They did.

Once in the land of a thousand demons, the two named Io and Nao tried to steal the land’s thunder and fire. Both were good with their hands. The fat one, Io, crafted a great brass horn, only he made it backwards so that when the fat end was placed in his mouth, he could suck the sound of thunder from the next storm, and thus steal it all from the land. The sinewy one, Nao, crafted a stone oven, only it opened inwardly rather than outwardly, to welcome the heat inside from the next great fire, and thus steal it all from the land.

With their weird devices in hand, the demons went off in search of a village of mortals. A great storm began to brew in the sky, and the fearful creatures huddled inside their homes to wait it out, meaning there were plenty nearby for when the demons’ plan came to fruition. Rain pounded the fields and rooftops, lightning crackled, threatening to light up any of the wooden homes, and thunder roared through the clouds.

“When the thunder dwells in my horn, I will blast the noise at my will and deafen the mortals, and then watch them scurry in panic, their speech useless,” Io declared.

“When the fire dwells only in my box, I will spit sparks at the mortals and burn their clothes and houses, and then watch them dash in fear, naked and homeless,” Nao declared.

The two agreed that they could best steal the elements and achieve their amusing goal by taunting the lightning and dodging it at just the last moment while standing on a rooftop. The house would ignite, and there would be great fire and thunder at once, ripe for plucking and robbing from the land.

Io and Nao hopped onto the nearest residence with a wooden roof and began to dance around, waving their instruments overhead. “In all my days, lightning hasn’t struck me, so lightning won’t like my song!” they chanted. “I say the lightning isn’t up to muster, so lightning’s reach mustn’t be so long! Lightning flashes and begs for thunder’s roar, but seems to me it’s all a show! Lightning’s been too limp to strike, too flaccid to give us woe!”

The black storm clouds sparked angrily and a burning fork of lightning shot toward the two mischievous demons. Exactly as they planned, they leapt from the roof at just the last moment, and the house burst into flames. Thunder wasn’t far behind the lightning, and fire lived best in the flash of its ignition, so Io sucked at his horn and Nao opened his box, pulling thunder and fire into the devices.

At once, the fire of the house puffed into smoke and the storm above became quiet but for the patter of rain and the blowing of wind. Then the sounds of giddy laughter echoed beneath the dark cloud, as Io and Nao danced again in victory. The lightning stabbed angrily at them once more, but they merely had to side-step it to avoid trouble, for Nao’s box had stolen its fire.

“Now I’ll blast thunder at my leisure,” said Io.

“Now I’ll blow flames at my leisure,” said Nao.

A door slid open at the next flash of lightning and the two demons grinned at what they saw. From the house with the smoking roof came a family of a man, woman, and infant, and they were fixed under a terrible confusion. Just as Io and Nao were about to unleash their new powers, the man and woman took to their knees and bowed respectfully to the demons.

“You have stopped the fire, and saved our home and our lives,” the man said.

“We are indebted to you,” his wife added.

The unorthodox show of gratitude paused the demons’ malice for maybe half a minute, and then they snickered, wordlessly agreeing that this display of subservience would not save the family’s hearing or dignity.

They readied to let loose their terrible thunder and fire—only they couldn’t. Io shook his thunder horn and not a sound emerged. Nao rocked atop his box, but not a single spark flew.

“I didn’t consider how to expel the power when I made my horn,” Io said.

“The same is true of my box,” Nao said.

Io turned his horn around to blow from the small end, as a horn is meant to be used, and it sucked desperately at his face until his voice was ripped from his throat. Nao pulled the doors of his box outward, as an oven is meant to be used, and it sucked greedily at his heat until a chill had taken his body.

Io’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“Our devices were made only to take, not to give,” Nao said, his teeth chattering. The two jumped away from another fork of lightning. The family remained bowing nearby, as if awaiting the demons’ captured might—as if mocking them.

Io shook the horn over his head and pointed it toward the ground.

“Yes, that will free your voice and my heat, and we will teach these mortals to fear us,” Nao said nastily, though it hurt to move his frigid limbs.

The two began to smash and bust their horn and box against the ground, denting the brass and stone until cracks tore across their surfaces. Another bolt of lightning made the final blow, descending toward the demons and shattering the horn and box. Io’s voice returned to his throat and Nao’s heat returned to his body. The two sighed with momentary relief, and then lightning, thunder, and flame swept around them.

“It is only a storm!” shouted Io.

“A mighty noise, nothing more!” shouted Nao.

The demons weren’t so certain after a moment as flames reached after them like fingers and tongues, as thunder made their speech useless, and as lightning prodded them. They felt a presence, as if the elements had found a voice and body that could touch the demons and harm them.

“Who is here?” cried Io.

“Who is after us?” called Nao.

A small shadow broke through the tempest surrounding the two and they realized it was the son of the man and woman who’d emerged from the smoking house.

“It is only a baby!” Io said, laughing.

“A mortal whelp, nothing more!” Nao said, cackling.

“Insolent demons,” a great voice bellowed from within the infant. “The tools of the land do not belong to spirits and filth, but to the gods, and your foolishness shall be punished.”

With that, the lightning ran from the baby’s fingers like veins of blood, the fire spilled forth like breath, and the thunder slammed like a giant’s hammer. The faintest touch of thunder and fire blew and burned the infant’s chest as the elements channeled through him, but it was nothing to what wrath came upon Io and Nao.

The demons were stung, burned, and beaten, and when the elements found they’d had enough, the two were swept up in a mighty wind, into the black storm cloud above. They cried and shrieked and begged for mercy, but the storm would not release them on the land, and so the cloud carried them west, over the sea, away from home and kin forever. Fire and thunder then returned as normal to the land of a thousand demons, and no one was foolish enough to try harnessing them again against their will for a long while.

Artania considered the curse of her life to be the crushing poverty in which she lived that forced her to choose between begging and leg-spreading. She chose the former. Her fellow beggars considered the curse of her life to be having been given such a royal-sounding name by her mother, which would’ve better suited her in an alternative career. So, she shortened her name to Art, and made herself as miserably-dressed and non-royal as any beggar.