Goblins (17 page)

Then he blinked away his tears and saw the boglins, about thirty feet below him, ungainly as frogs as they scrambled from stair to stair. And Poldew of the Mire looked up and saw him looking down, and reached behind him to take a blowpipe from one of his hunters. . .

At that same instant the tip of the firefrost stem broke off in Skarper’s paw with a lovely glassy chime. With tinking, chinking sounds a web of tiny cracks spread down the stem and rushed out to fill each stair, the clear crystal structure whitening as if with a sudden frost. Then, with a tuneful crash, it burst into tiny fragments, which hung in the hot air for a moment like a smoke, still in the shape of the twining stairs, before falling back into the lava, taking the surprised boglins with it. Glop, glop, glop, they went, dropping one by one into the hot lake, and then one last, particularly large GLOP, which was Poldew.

Skarper scrambled back into the antechamber and opened his paw to look at the treasure he had stolen, but that had shattered too, and when he breathed on it, it lifted from his palm and blew away like a little spreading cloud of ice crystals.

“Bumcakes!” he said, and went after the others, wondering what they were going “Ooh!” and “Oh!” and “Ah!” about on the other side of that big door, and hoping it was treasure.

Knobbler and Breslaw watched the straggles of smoke which had been boglins fade like disappointed sighs above the lava lake. “Well, that’s that then,” said Knobbler grumpily. “The bog boys can’t get up there now. But nor can we.”

“Maybe we can. . .” said Breslaw, thinking hard. “Maybe there is another way. . .”

“What?”

“You remember that softling yesterday; that beardy one? Said he could do magic? Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe
he
could get us into the Keep!”

They had climbed so far that it seemed they must be very high, halfway up the tall Keep already. But, of course, the lava lake lay deep beneath the Keep, and the antechamber they had climbed into was actually part of the Keep’s cellars. They stepped out of it into a huge space, its roof held up by black pillars. The broad copper flues, as wide as massive trees, emerged from the floor and rose up through the ceiling, carrying the heat and magic of the lava lake up into the rest of the Keep. The light which slanted down through high windows far above had a rusty colour, because the windows, like all the openings of the Lych Lord’s Keep, were webbed with lychglass.

It was what the light revealed that had made Henwyn and Princess Ned go “Oooh!” and “Ah!” This massive cellar was where the Lych Lord had kept his larger treasures. There were ships there: great warships and caravels; dragon-prowed longships won in battles against the pirates of the Nibbled Coast in olden times. There were coaches decorated in gold and silver and narwhal ivory; there were golden towers such as the Leopard Kings from the lands beyond the Musk Desert used when they rode to war upon the backs of elephants.

There was a carriage carved from one huge semi-precious stone, with gold ornaments on its roof in dragon-shape, and Henwyn’s dragonet escaped from his pouch and went whirring up to squeak at them.

There were chariots, and palanquins, and slender little sailing boats. There were kites big enough to carry a man, hanging from the roof on long wires. There was a sort of carriage that looked like a little room made of silver metal sitting on four small wheels, with a long prow poking out at the front, and a little statue of a lady with silver wings standing on the very tip of it. Skarper peered in through the windows at all the lovely red leather seats and a walnut shelf with little clocks set in it.

“I’ve read of this,” said Princess Ned, running her fingers through the dust on the curving mudguards. “It is the
Rolls Royce Silver Shadow
; a chariot which the Lych Lord fetched here by magic from another world.”

“Where do the horses go?” asked Henwyn.

“It needed none,” the princess said. “It was powered by sorcery. Here is your treasure trove, Henwyn. These things must be worth kings’ ransoms.”

“Even if we could slip these longships in our pockets,” said Henwyn, “there is no way out of here, is there?”

“Back down the Firefrost Stair into the mire,” said Ned. “I expect the boglins will forget us in a day or so.”

“Ah,” said Skarper.

They turned to look at him.

“About the Firefrost Stair,” he said. “It sort of cracked. Went all to pieces. Nothing to do with me. It just smashed. It was a once-only kind of thing. Cheap and nasty.”

“Accursed magic!” said Ned. “So we are trapped here in the Keep? I suppose at the top we might find a way out, and be able to signal to Fraddon; he should be coming down from the Bonehills later today.”

“Or perhaps Henwyn’s cloudy girlfriends will see us. . .” suggested Skarper.

“They’re not my
girlfriends
. . .” said Henwyn.

On the far side of the strange museum they found a staircase, and started up it. (“I never realized that adventures involved quite so many stairs!” said Ned.) The stairs led through a doorway, curled around inside the Keep’s thick walls, and emerged into a wide dining hall with long wooden tables down the centre, silent as a tomb, empty except for the dust, and the red light which strained in through the lychglass on the high, thin windows. Not as cold as a tomb, though, for the flues rose from floor to ceiling and sent out broad branches which vanished through the walls, so that it was like standing in a spinney of great copper oaks. The flues gave off a faint heat, filling the quiet room with the smell of warm metal. There were little doors and hatches set into their sides. Skarper opened one and peered in, and the light of the lava lake spilled out into the room, reflecting off the burnished inner curves of the flue. It reminded him suddenly of the lights he’d seen, or thought he’d seen, inside the Keep.

“Maybe somebody opens these sometimes,” he said nervously, “and the light shines out.”

“Who?” asked Henwyn. “There’s no one here. There aren’t even bones. Everyone must have fled before the place was sealed up. Look at the dust on the floor. The only footprints are ours. Not even a spider lives here.”

“Pity,” said Skarper, who was feeling peckish and could have done with a nice plump spider. “What are we going to eat in this place?”

It was a good question. None of them had eaten since the night before, and, although they were all too polite to mention it, the main sound in the Keep was the rumbling of their empty bellies.

“I have some flour in my pack,” said Henwyn. “And some water. . .”

“Wonderful,” grumbled Skarper. “We can make
glue
. . .”

“There must be kitchens here somewhere,” said Henwyn. “Larders. Perhaps there will be something there.”

“After all these years?” snorted Skarper. “If the Lych Lord left any loaves in his bread bin they will be stale as stones by now.”

“There might be something,” said Ned. “This is a strange place, and perhaps time does not pass here as it does outside. These chairs and tables have not rotted or grown wormy. . .” She settled herself gratefully in one of them and kicked her shoes off. “I’ll sit and wait, and let you young people search the rooms around and see if you can find the Lych Lord’s larder.”

On Henwyn’s shoulder little Nuisance flapped and squeaked.

“Look!” said Henwyn. “I think he’s got the scent of something! Is it food, boy? Can you lead us to the larders?”

The dragonet took flight, whirred once around Henwyn’s head and shot across the hall and through a low, open doorway in the far wall. A moment later he reappeared, hovering just inside the door and squeaking at the companions as if to say, “Follow me,” before darting out again.

“I’m sure he understands every word we say!” cried Henwyn. “He’ll lead us to food and water.”

“Take care!” called Ned, as Henwyn hastened after the little dragon with Skarper at his heels. “Don’t get lost!”

“We’ll be all right,” said Henwyn. “You said yourself – nothing lives here.”

His words went whispering away up staircases and chimneys into the highest parts of Clovenstone; into the ears of the ones who waited there.

Evening was already falling in the world outside the Keep. The three sorcerers, who did not fancy spending another night alone at Westerly Tower, were making plans to leave.

“We have to assume,” said Fentongoose sadly, “that our friends were all eaten by those bog creatures.”

“Poor Princess Ned,” said Prawl sorrowfully.

“Poor Henwyn,” sighed Carnglaze.

“Poor what’s-his-name,” said Fentongoose. “You know, the little one with the tail. . .”

“Poor
us
,” said Carnglaze, “left alone and defenceless in this fearful place.”

“I don’t think we are cut out to be evil sorcerers, brothers,” said Fentongoose. “If we were truly evil, we would not feel such sorrow at the deaths of our friends. We would just go, ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ or something. I think we should leave this place and take our chances on the moors. With luck we shall find a southerly-bound barge at Sticklebridge and be back in Coriander by the turning of the month.”

And so they crammed what provisions they had rescued from the wreck of Princess Eluned’s ship hastily into their packs and went hurrying out through Westerly Gate with the low sun in their eyes, bidding a glad goodbye to Clovenstone.

Clovenstone, however, had other ideas. As they passed beneath the shadow of the gate-arch, something landed heavily on the road in front of them, straightened up, fixed the startled sorcerers with a beady yellow eye and growled, “’Allo!”

More goblins landed all around, swinging down on greasy ropes or just jumping out of windows and down from nearby roofs. A red-capped Chilli Hat jabbed Fentongoose in the bottom with his three-pronged spear; a Blackspike Boy knocked Carnglaze’s pointy hat off.

“That’s enough of that, lads,” growled a gruff voice, and King Knobbler himself swaggered out in front of the sorcerers, picking his teeth with the point of Mr Chop-U-Up. Six of his biggest goblins stood close behind him, idly swinging flails and brandishing complicated axes with home-made eye-gouging attachments.

“We come in peace,” said Knobbler. “And you lot will come in
pieces
,” he added wittily, “unless you does what we asks. You’re coming with us.”

“But
where?
” they all wailed, as grimy goblin paws seized hold of them. “But
why?
”

“Grab ’em and gag ’em, lads,” called old Breslaw, from a safe place at the back of the goblin mob. “Quick, before they can do spells and stuff on us.”

Fentongoose opened his mouth to protest that he couldn’t really work magic, but instantly a grimy goblin sock was shoved into it, and one of Knobbler’s lads hoisted him on to his shoulders. The other sorcerers, kicking and struggling, were treated likewise. “Your magic’s going to get us into the Keep,” Knobbler explained, and the goblins set off towards the Inner Wall.

“But we don’t have any magic, it’s all a mistake!” Prawl tried to say, but all that came out through his gag was a muffled murmuring.

“I know what you’re doing,” said Knobbler, waving his fearsome sword at the sorcerers. “You’re trying to work spells, in’t you, and turn us into frogs or logs or something? Well, save your magic for when we get to the Keep. If I hear another peep out of you before then, Mr Chop-U-Up here will be getting acquainted with your squelchy bits.”

In their chamber near the top of the Keep, the Dragonbone Men had been waiting for a long, long time. For most of it they had not even been aware that they
were
waiting. They had slumped in those narrow niches in the walls like forgotten dolls, not sleeping, for they did not sleep, not dead, for they had never been alive. But there were windows in that high place of theirs, and even through the scales of lychglass that had grown across them the pale light of the new star had crept. It lit reflections in the flakes of slowsilver which served the Dragonbone Men for eyes, and they awoke. When they heard the voices of Henwyn and Skarper and Princess Ned come drifting up the Keep’s stairways they had roused themselves and paced with solemn, birdlike steps to the flue which rose through their floor, and opened the door in the side of it, and climbed in, one by one.

The glow of the lava lake so far below shone through the thin sheets of stuff that they were made of, and showed the shadows of their dragonbone skeletons beneath. They were so light that the heat coming up the flue was almost enough to buoy them up – almost, but not quite. They spread their capes of dry skin like paper wings and descended slowly, following the scent of men down this branch and that of the immense system of flues which spread through the Keep like a copper tree.

Skarper and Henwyn made their way meanwhile down dusty corridors, up little stairs, through armouries and guard rooms. Racks of armour stood in rows. Helmets watched with empty eyes as the intruders passed. Skarper helped himself to an old leather tunic, made for some human warrior; it was scratchy and musty and it came down past his knees, but it felt good not to be wandering about nude any more. Henwyn found a pair of leather gauntlets and put them on. The dragonet was flying excitedly ahead of the companions through the lofty rooms, but every few minutes it would loop back to land on Henwyn’s wrist and nip his fingers, urging him onwards.

At last Nuisance screeched and came to a stop, flapping in mid-air outside a low, half-open door. Henwyn and Skarper hurried towards it.

“Is this the larder, boy?”

“Maybe there’ll be honey! Honey keeps!”

But it was not a larder. It was a mews where hawks and hunting birds had been kept back in the Lych Lord’s time. Jesses and lures hung from hooks on the ceiling, lit by the evening sunlight filtering through the scabs of lychglass on the window. Empty perches lined the walls, and plumed hoods stood in a row on a shelf above. One of the great copper flues passed through this room from floor to ceiling, and the air tasted warm and dry.

“There is no food here,” said Henwyn. “Come on, little Nuisance. Larder. Where’s the larder?”

He turned to leave, but Nuisance would not let him. With a mewling cry the dragonet darted in front of him and flapped its wings in his face, driving him back into the room, then whisking away to hover and mewl above a long wooden tray which rested on a stone shelf beneath the window.

Skarper and Henwyn went closer. “Eggs. . .” said Skarper.

“A dozen. Do you think they’re fresh? We could scramble them. . .”

“Don’t be soft!” said Skarper. “They’re dragon’s eggs. Well, dragonets’. Probably poisonous or magic or something. Look: that one’s bust. Maybe it’s the one little Nuisance hatched out of. . .” He looked up, and the Lych Lord’s star winked in at him through a crack on the lychglass which sealed the window. “Look! That must be where Nuisance squeezed out. . .”

“Could we get out that way?” asked Henwyn.

“Never. We must be halfway up the Keep by now, and we can’t fly like a dragonet can. There’s nothing outside but a long drop to a sticky end.”

Henwyn, who had been working at the edges of the crack with his swordpoint, stopped. “I can’t widen it anyway,” he said. He felt an odd sort of relief. It was thrilling to be exploring the Keep at last; he was almost glad that there was no way out.

Nuisance mewed again, fluttering to and fro over the tray of eggs. Henwyn looked closer, and saw several of the eggs give small movements. He thought he could hear the dragonets squeaking and struggling inside. “Well, I hope they don’t hatch,” he said. “It’s bad enough having Nuisance nibbling and pecking at me all the time; I don’t want his eleven brothers and sisters having a go, too.”

Skarper picked up the shards of Nuisance’s eggshell. Thick, it was; not eggstone-thick, but nearly. “Maybe he wants you to help them,” he said. “I ’spect in olden days there was mother dragonets or men or goblins or something to look after this place and help the dragonets to hatch. Look; that hammer hanging on the wall. . .”

Henwyn looked. Sure enough, a little hammer dangled there, but before he could reach for it strange sounds filled the room; a rushing and a rustling; a slither and a scrape.

Skarper and Henwyn looked at each other. By the time they realized that the sounds were coming from the flue it was too late. They turned in time to see a copper hatch swinging open, and the Dragonbone Men stepping out.

There were four of them. Their hollow bodies had been folded out of sheets of dragon-skin parchment; their arms and legs were brittle arrangements of dragonbone. Inside their chests, stiff leather cogs revolved. Their heads splayed into wayward points, like tall crowns. Behind the eyeholes of those parchment masks there was a glint of slowsilver. They made little ticking noises, like clinker cooling in a grate. Their tiny feet, which were made from dragons’ claws, went
scritch
and
snick
as they stepped from the flue, and their dry capes settled around them like corn husks.

Henwyn raised his sword. Nuisance squeaked with alarm and fluttered up to hide in the folds of his cloak. Skarper just stood and stared as the creatures surrounded them.

“What
are
they?” he hissed at Henwyn.

Said Henwyn, “I’m not sure. But I think. . . In the old, old tales the seven sorcerers who raised this place made seven servants for themselves. Dragonbone Men, brought to life by magic. They were the most dreadful of the Lych Lord’s warriors. But towards the end the magic left them, and they became just mannequins again. That’s why they were not there to help him at the Battle of Dor Koth.”

“Well, they look as if they’re brimful of magic again now,” said Skarper.

“Adherak!” roared Henwyn, suddenly and at the top of his voice. The noise scared Skarper and Nuisance, but it did not seem to trouble the Dragonbone Men, who just stood and watched as the cheesewright swung his sword at them. One caught the blade as it descended; another lashed out at Henwyn with a hand like a bundle of ivory hooks. Henwyn let go of the sword and leapt backwards just in time to avoid being ripped open, and the slashing claws ripped his clothes instead.

Back to the egg-tray, breathing hard, he waited for the next blow, but it did not come. The Dragonbone Men stood still again, and watched him. Their eyes glimmered with something more than the reflection of the star outside. They stared at Henwyn; at the bare white skin which showed where his torn tunic hung open. They stared at the grim, winged face of the amulet staring out at them. The mouths of the Dragonbone Men were slots; their tongues were dried-up knots of dragon tendon which they rattled inside their hollow heads to make rustling, clattering noises like rattlesnake tails.

The rattling sounds formed words.

“Welcome,” whispered the Dragonbone Men.

“We have waited. . .”

“So long. . .”

“What are they talking about?” asked Henwyn in a whisper.

“That’s Fentongoose’s amulet you’re wearing!” Skarper hissed back. “They think you’re him! The leader of the Sable Conclave! The Lych Lord’s heir!”

“I didn’t know!” whispered Henwyn. “I found it in the ruins! I’d forgotten I even had it!”

“Well don’t tell them that,” Skarper warned. It seemed to him that amulet had saved their skins. If these Dragonbone weirdies wanted to treat Henwyn like the Lych Lord come again, that was fine by him.

“Come with us,” clattered the Dragonbone Men. “Come with us. Let us lead you to your throne of stone.”

The sun had set, and the Lych Lord’s star was blazing in the top of the sky like a squib that never went out as the goblins carried their captives through the gateways of the Inner Wall, past the shabby glasshouses where the Chilli Hats’ peppers grew, and up the last steep streets to stand at the foot of the Keep. It was the first time since the Fall of Clovenstone that so many goblins had been seen all together in one place and not fighting each other. Grimspikes and Growlers, Slatetops and Chilli Hats, Blackspikes and Browbeaters. As the host tramped up the final weed-choked ramp to the black gate they sang the old goblin marching song:

Goblins come!

Goblins come!

From Clovenstone with horn and drum!

To the Lands of Man with fire we come!

Over the mountains,

Over the moor,

Goblins are marching,

To war! To war!

. . .which wasn’t entirely true, because this was a raid on the Keep, not the lands of men, but they hadn’t had time to think of a song about the Keep, and it was certainly true that they had fire, in the form of scores of flaming torches, and horns and drums, which they used to accompany their singing, making a horrendous din. Anyway, if Knobbler really could open the Keep, maybe the man-lands
would
be next. Even goblins knew that there were meant to be powerful magics in there along with all the treasure. Maybe King Knobbler’s goblin armies would be able to conquer the whole world. . .

At the front of the army, old Breslaw stepped up to the gates and thumped thoughtfully on them with his teaching mallet. They let out a low bonging sound, muffled by the sheath of lychglass which covered them like cataracts on an old goblin’s eye.

King Knobbler watched him. The king had put on his new fighting hat, a huge dark helm which he had captured from the king of Growler. It covered his head like an upturned bucket. In fact, it
was
an upturned bucket, but it was a very fancy one, with a spike on the top, a bull’s horn stuck to each side, and a long slot cut across the front like a letter box, through which the king’s mad yellow eyes blinked out. He motioned to the goblins who stood behind, and they dragged the battered, frightened members of the Sable Conclave out of their ranks and dumped them among the nettles at the king’s feet.

“Go on then,” Knobbler growled. “Open it.”

The three sorcerers clung together, trembling and making little
eep
noises.

“OPEN IT!” bellowed Knobbler, so loudly that the echoes slamming off the gates blew the sorcerers’ hair and beards out behind them like a gale while the goblins standing nearby all levelled spears, swords, pikes and spiky egg-whisk things at them.

“Very well,” said Fentongoose, although he had never felt less capable of doing magic in his whole life. He raised his hands, shut his eyes, and said in as loud and commanding a voice as he could manage:

“OPEN!”