The Thief and the Beanstalk (Further Tales Adventures) (12 page)

But where did these behemoths come from? Were they invaders from somewhere else on the vast cloud island, who seized control of the castle when its owner departed?

An alarm sounded in Nicks brain, and he remembered to check on the spider-head just in time. He didn’t see the creature when he turned around, but the web was quivering. He looked up and saw it dropping from above, suspended from its thread, and reaching for him with both forelegs. Nick slashed with his knife and sliced the fingers off the end of one leg. A black-red fluid spattered the rocks below. The spider-head let loose a high-pitched squeal that stung Nick’s ears. He didn’t wait for a counterattack. He jumped out of the crevice and flew to the front door. Without hesitating, he slid underneath and entered the giant’s castle.

On the other side of the door, Nick found himself in a gigantic hall, thankfully alone. It didn’t seem possible to build anything this big, with a ceiling so high and walls so distant from each other. It was constructed with the same distorted architecture as the outer walls. The walls heaved and curved in random fashion. Straight
lines were scarce to be seen. A handful of twisted columns, positioned without symmetry, rose to support the domed roof. It felt more like standing in a cavern than a hall.

The ceiling was decaying. Chunks had fallen out, and the sun streamed through those gaping holes, thrusting swords of light through the dusty air. The ever-present crows had found their way through the gaps, and they glided, screeching, in the vastness overhead.

There were still remnants of beauty in the hall, but decades of neglect and abuse left them utterly ruined. Tapestries on the walls were mostly shredded, and the parts that were still intact were so dirty that their designs were obscured. There had been furniture, but now it lay in splinters. There had been great marble sculptures, but only the shattered pieces remained.

Nick was so shaken by the encounter with the spider-head, he’d forgotten to breathe. He inhaled deeply. Then he clapped a hand over his mouth to keep himself from spitting up. The time he spent getting accustomed to the smell while hiding outside did not prepare him for the putrid air inside the castle. He tried breathing through his mouth, but that was worse—he could actually taste the foul odor.

On the opposite side of the hall, an archway led into the kitchen. Nick recognized the scene at once, from the painting of the giant in Jack’s gallery that had given him such a fright. The kitchen table with tree trunks for legs
was still there, and a few of the familiar chairs stood around it. These were among the handful of pieces of furniture that were still intact.

A gaping fireplace occupied the far wall of the kitchen. A fire was blazing there, its flames leaping ten feet high. The dead boar, its hide removed, was mounted on a skewer above the flames.

The skewer was being turned, but not by hand. A thick rope came through one of the holes in the ceiling. It was threaded through an iron ring that stuck out from the stone wall above the fireplace, and knotted to the handle that turned the skewer. The rope rose and fell, pulled taut and relaxed; and as it did so, the boar spun over the fire. Nick wondered what was making the rope move, and then remembered the turning sails of the wind machine on the castle tower.

On each side of the hall, smaller arches led to hallways into the rest of the castle’s interior. Nick heard bellowing and heavy footsteps coming from one of those passages; the sound echoed back and forth across the cavernous hall. The ogres were approaching.

Hiding places were plentiful in the rubble on the floor. Nick crept into a smashed piece of pottery that hid him from view. He peeked through a crack and spied on the ogres as they came into the room. Basher was blathering incoherently, but the rat-ogre seemed to understand him well enough.

“Can’t you even wait until it’s cooked? Fine, then,” the
rat-ogre said. Holding the end of the skewer, he pulled the boar from the fire and tossed it onto the table. “Eat it raw”

Basher sat and tore into the beast with ravenous glee.

“I’ll get my own dinner. Another flags up, anyway. Besides, I have to make certain nothing is blocking the road after that windstorm.” The rat-ogre took his blood-stained sack and headed across the hall to the door. He turned before leaving, and snarled back, “And don’t sleep the time away while I’m gone! You know what needs to be done around here!” The rat-ogre left without closing the door.

Nick was glad to see one of the ogres leave. Now if Basher would go, he could explore the castle and seek out its treasures.

From the table in the kitchen came the loud sounds of slurping, chewing and crunching. Nick watched Basher licking his fingers, one by one. Red juice was rolling down the ogre’s face like a mountain stream. He had consumed the boar with amazing speed. What was on the table was no longer a recognizable animal; it was just a pile of gnawed and broken bones. Basher reached one arm across the table and swept the whole mess onto the floor. Then he folded his arms and rested his head upon them. Before a minute passed, he was snoring loudly.

Nick came slowly out of hiding. This was his chance to explore—until Basher woke up or the other one returned to the castle, whichever came first.

There were two hallways to choose from, leading to the wings of the castle. Nick let his nose decide. While the general stench in the castle was hard to take, the stink that flowed from the hall on the right seemed unbearable. He chose the one to his left.

It was time to steal a fortune of his own.

Jack and his men approached the crest of the hill. The horses struggled to pull the wagon up the steep grade, even though only Jack was riding now. Henry walked in front, guiding the pair of horses, and Roland and Bill walked beside the wagon. The young men were ready for combat. They wore leather armor, with swords at their sides and bows slung across their backs. Spears and other weapons were heaped in the back of the wagon.

From behind the hill, they saw only the upper reaches of the beanstalk. When they came to the top, the entire growth would come into view, less than a half mile away. As that moment approached, the excitement grew among Jack’s men. They glanced at one another, smiling nervously. And they looked back at their master riding in the wagon. But Jack did not meet their gaze. He kept his eyes on the great dark cloud that seemed ready to smother the Earth like a pillow over its face.

A hundred feet shy of the top, Jack told Henry to stop
the wagon. Roland went to help the old man, but Jack waved him of. He clambered down, then signaled for his men to follow him up. When the old man was almost to the ridge, he went to his hands and knees and crawled the final yards. His men did likewise. Four across, they came to the edge on their bellies and, for the first time, saw the awesome beanstalk in its entirety, from its deeply driven roots to the point where it practically vanished high above.

Jack looked at his men. They were thrilled, amazed, and a bit frightened. Natural reactions, Jack supposed. For him this was a distant memory revisited. But for these three, it was a strange and magical intrusion into their ordinary lives. Jack had never revealed to even his most trusted servants the absolute truth of his story of the beanstalk and the giant. Over the years, they watched him paint the scenes in finer detail than any imagination could conceive. They saw the long-dead hen and the staggering cache of golden eggs in his vault. But Jack knew that, despite all that evidence, his servants were still sure it was all nothing more than a fabrication. Like the rest of the folk in this land, they came to regard him as a harmless eccentric who enjoyed spinning a tall tale. And who could blame them for doubting?

But now the beanstalk vaulted into the heavens before their eyes, more massive than any living thing they’d seen, and a surreal dark cloud straddled the land. Jack could imagine what his men were thinking. Here was
proof of the existence of otherworldly things. And if the beanstalk was real, then it was all real: the man-eating giant, the castle in the clouds, the fantastic treasures.

Their eyes sparkled with tears of wonder. Seeing the look on one another’s faces, all four men laughed softly.

“It actually happened,” said Roland, the first to speak. “And you really climbed that thing, all the way up, didn’t you?”

“All the way,” replied Jack with a grin, wiping his eye with his sleeve.

“And the giant, and the giant’s wife?” asked Bill. “Just like you painted them?”

“Just like that.”

“It can’t be,” said Henry.

Roland closed his eyes and opened them again. He seemed surprised that the beanstalk was still there.

“Look there,” said Bill, pointing down. There was a group of men around the foot of the beanstalk. Some sat smoking pipes. Others rested in the shade of a little ramshackle farmhouse. They seemed to be waiting.

“Henry, are those your friends from the forest?” asked Jack.

“I … I can’t tell from here,” said Henry in a tight voice. “They might be.” He clearly didn’t like the possibility of encountering those thugs again. The four of them had taken the forest road on the way to the beanstalk, and when they passed the spot where the assault took place, Henry couldn’t stop his limbs from shaking.

“Does anyone see the boy?” asked Jack. None of them did. Jack thought for a while, tugging at his silver beard.

“Henry, I need to ask a favor of you,” said Jack.

“Yes, Master Jack.”

“I’d like you to get a closer look at those men. See if it isn’t the same gang that set upon you in the forest. And tell me if that skinny boy is with them, perhaps dressed all in black. If you approach from that direction, you should be able to get close without being seen.” Jack indicated a place farther south along the ridge. There a thicket extended from the edge of the farmland, quite close to the beanstalk, and grew up the hillside.

Roland saw Henry begin to tremble as Jack issued his instructions. “Master Jack, let me go instead. Henry’s had one run-in with that crew; he doesn’t need another.”

“That’s good of you, Roland. But Henry, I think you should be the one. Only you can recognize the band of thieves for certain. Also I want a runner, not a fighter, and I know you are swift of foot. If you’re in danger, promise me you’ll just run back here as fast as you can.”

“I will,” said Henry. Roland frowned, but he knew better than to argue.

Henry ran a hand across his forehead and through his hair, and sighed deeply. “Well, the sooner gone, the sooner back.” He started off, moving quickly but carefully, staying behind the crest of the ridge where he could not be seen by the men in the valley below.

Jack watched him and considered the other reason he
wanted Henry to go.
Better to face your fears sooner than later, Henry. Trust me on that
.

Henry moved south along the ridge until he reached the area above the thicket. Trees grew more than halfway up the slope, so he would only be out in the open for a short time before reaching cover. He moved as fast as he could across the exposed ground, watching for loose rocks under his feet and glancing over at the gang at the base of the beanstalk. No one turned and pointed in his direction or gave any other indication that he was seen.

Ann would have loved to see this,
he thought as he glanced up at the towering plant. She certainly put up a fuss when Jack said she could not come. But Jack must have known there would be danger. And with this band of villains about, it was no place for a young girl.

As Henry drew closer to the beanstalk’s trunk, darting from tree to tree, he noticed a change in the woods around him. Everywhere else in the land, leaves still clung to the trees and bushes. But near the beanstalk, the branches were bare except for a few leaves that stubbornly hung on, brown and dry. The grasses were dead and crisp weeks before their time. The earth itself was as arid as a desert. He kicked up a thin cloud of dust with every step.

Henry heard a strange mix of noises in the ground beneath him, one like a hiss, another like rolling subterranean thunder. It wasn’t hard to guess the cause of
these strange effects: The milky green roots of the beanstalk were everywhere.

Moving stealthily forward, Henry drew within a stone’s throw of the beanstalk. He crawled on his belly under a dying evergreen shrub that shed its needles at the slightest touch.

A few feet to Henry’s right, the earth heaved and split open. A massive green thing, round and muscular as a snake, humped up through the opening. His heart was pounding so wildly he could hear it thumping inside his chest. Then the monstrous thing vanished again deep into the soil. It was one of the mighty roots of the beanstalk, perhaps shifting itself to probe deeper for more water. It reminded Henry of a whale he once watched coming to the surface of the ocean and diving again into the foamy gray depths.
Its thirst must be incredible,
Henry thought,
to sustain such growth. No wonder it’s sucking the earth dry, even stealing life from the vegetation around it
.

“Remember what you’re here for, Henry,” he muttered to himself. He turned his attention to the men gathered around the beanstalk. His teeth ground together as he recognized the murderous crew that attacked him in the forest and stole the trunk of books.
As if any of them could read,
he thought. Henry’s anger grew as he recognized the vilest one, tall and toothless. That was a face he could never forget.

Henry was surprised to discover that his fear had
almost vanished. He found himself enjoying the excitement of his mission. Spying on this evil collection of thugs was a small but satisfying measure of revenge.

He studied them for a while to see if a small boy dressed in black might be among them.

The hallway was long and dark, narrow for ogres but wide as a river to Nick. It was dirty, but not as cluttered as the kitchen or the great hall. Nick was on edge as he ran down it, because there was nowhere to hide. He knew the rat-ogre was off on some errand, and he could hear Basher’s snores even here. But could he be sure those were the only gigantic beings in the castle?