Fairy Lies (16 page)

Lamia Lou laughed and patted his back. “Thometimeth I think you love me for my tathty grath.”

“You know that’s not true, Sweet Lips!” said Herbert.

“Let’s get out of here before they get all mushy,” said Tobi, shuffling to the edge.

After thanking his friends once more and saying goodbye, Jak started down the narrow trail. Tobi had already hurried ahead, scrambling past the parts where the trail got narrower or disappeared altogether while Jak climbed down the cliff using small cracks in the rock.

“There you are, Jak boy!” chirped Tobi an hour later. “That was fun! Say, did I ever tell you what a good swimmer I am? I bet I can beat you to the other side, just like I beat you coming down. What should we bet? How about if I get across first, you carry me on your back when I get tired?”

“No bets, Tobi. I don’t care who gets across first, as long as we get across. That water looks awfully fast.”

Jak had gone swimming only a few times in his life, but Tobi didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid, and plunged in without waiting. Unsure of how deep the river might be, Jak took a tentative step off the bank and was immediately yanked off his feet. He flopped onto his back, coming up a moment later spitting silt-flavored water and wishing he’d thought to transmogrify something into a boat. Although Jak tried to aim for the other side of the river, the current was too strong and he was dragged downstream, his arms flailing and his legs kicking wildly. He watched helplessly as the river carried his backpack and provisions out of sight. Then Tobi was splashing toward him, swimming circles around Jak and chortling in his face. Before Jak knew it, the
little goblin had shoved him onto a floating log and hauled him to shore.

“I won! I won!” the raccoon goblin cried, hopping up and down. “This is the first time I’ve ever won anything!”

Jak groaned and tried to pull his body onto the shore. The river was still trying to drag him downstream, and he was exhausted as he finally worked his legs onto dry land. “You didn’t win anything,” Jak croaked, coughing up water. “I never accepted your bet.”

“Don’t try to get out of it now, Jak, my friend,” said Tobi, rubbing his hands together. “Don’t worry, I won’t make you carry me up the cliff, although . . .”

“Forget it,” Jak said as he heaved himself upright, water sluicing off his hair and clothes. “Thanks for helping me, but I . . .” He sighed and shook his head. The raccoon goblin had saved his life. “All right, I’ll carry you, but not until we’re on level ground.”

“Sounds good to me! Now, which path do you think we should take? I like this one!” The little goblin disappeared up the faint hint of a trail, chuckling to himself.

Jak shivered in the shade of the rock wall as he climbed. His sodden clothes clung to him, his wet shoes made footholds slippery, and he had to force his numb fingers to work. When he finally reached the top, he flung himself down on the dusty ground, exhausted and eager to soak up the sun’s warmth.

“There you are, Jak! What took you so long?” asked Tobi. “Why are you lying there like that? Time’s a-wasting! We’d better get moving.”

“
Now
you’re in a hurry,” grumbled Jak, covering his eyes with his arm. “I’ll get up in a minute. You have no idea how tired I am. All I need is a little rest . . .”

“Jak, I think something’s coming. It sounds pretty big, and I . . .” Tobi’s voice faded off to silence, but Jak was only half awake and didn’t notice.

The ground shook under Jak. He made a waving motion with his free hand and grumbled, “Leave me alone, Tobi. I said I’d get up in a minute.”

“What is it, Doreen?” said a deep, rumbling voice. “Is it human? Poke it and see what it does.”

“I’m not going to poke it, Curtis,” replied a softer voice. “I don’t think it’s human anyway. Look at the shape of its face and those cheekbones . . . I think it might be a cat goblin.”

Jak grunted and rolled onto his side. He was having the oddest dream, yet it seemed so real. The strange timbre of the voices, the brush of warm fur against the back of his arm . . . Jak’s eyes flew open, and he sat up so suddenly that his forehead smacked the nose of the stranger bending over him.

Jak rubbed his forehead. His eyes grew wide when the stranger patted her now-bleeding nose with a lion’s paw. She was a sphinx, one of the monsters that inhabited the desert, and, with the head of a human and the body of a lion, it was a creature that most people tried to avoid.

“Ow!” the sphinx exclaimed, giving Jak a reproachful glance with long-lashed eyes the color of the sky. “That hurt.”

“Sorry,” said Jak. “You surprised me.”

“What happened, Doreen?” growled the sphinx with the deep voice. Jak shrank back when he saw the craggy face of an older man with a ruff of lion fur. “Did the goblin bite you? Let me at it!”

“Calm down, Curtis! He didn’t bite me. I just bumped my nose, that’s all. I have to apologize,” Doreen said, turning to Jak. “He fell off a cliff this morning and hurt his shoulder. He’s not usually this grumpy.”

Thunk!
A small stone hit the ground beside Jak, raising a puff of dust. He jumped to his feet and spun around. Another stone whizzed past him and hit Curtis. “Hey!” the sphinx roared. “Who threw that?”

A small figure popped up from behind a low hill and hurled another stone at the sphinxes. Jak seemed to be the only one who saw Tobi. Doreen yowled when the stone hit her.

“Stop it, Tobi!” Jak yelled.

“Run, Jak! I’ll hold them off while you get away!” shouted the raccoon goblin.

Doreen whimpered as she tried to lick the spot where the rock had hit her. Curtis frowned and shook his massive head. “No one hurts my mate without answering to me!” he roared. The sphinx bounded forward, but his leg went out from under him and he crumpled to the ground.

“I’ll take care of this!” said Jak, and launched himself toward the hill.

He had nearly reached the boulder that Tobi was
hiding behind when the goblin stood up again, a rock ready in his hand. Seeing his friend, Tobi shouted, “Run, scoot, skedaddle, Jak!”

“Stop throwing rocks!” Jak shouted. “You’re just making them mad!”

Tobi was looking behind Jak when the little goblin’s eyes suddenly went wide and he turned and darted away. Jak glanced over his shoulder. Doreen was running toward them in great ground-eating bounds with her eyes narrowed and a snarl on her lips. He turned to run away himself, but before he’d moved, she’d passed him.

“Please don’t hurt him, Doreen!” Jak yelled after her even as he tried to catch up. “He thought he was helping me!”

Jak had never seen Tobi run so fast. The goblin scampered across the uneven terrain as if it were flat. He soon reached a plain covered with low-growing grass.

Doreen stopped before the grass began and sat down on her haunches. “I wouldn’t go there if I were you!” she called after Tobi, who had crossed onto the grassy plain.

Jak caught up with her a moment later and ran past her after his friend. “Stop!” Doreen shouted. He kept going, but a moment later the sphinx tackled him, knocking him to the ground so that he sprawled at the edge of the grass. “But Tobi . . . ,” he spluttered.

“Just ran into the Land of Forgetfulness,” said Doreen, pinning him down with a paw. “You can’t follow him there. If you do, you’ll both be lost. I like you, young goblin, so I had to knock you down. You remind me of my
youngest cub, and I’d want someone to knock him down if he was about to do something foolish.”

“Tobi! Come back!” Jak yelled as loud as he could. When the little goblin kept running, Jak struggled to get free of the sphinx. “He’s my friend! I have to stop him!”

“Don’t you understand?” Doreen asked. “You go into the Land of Forgetfulness and you’ll lose your memory. You won’t remember why you’re there, and you’ll wander around aimlessly until you starve or something else that’s lost in there eats you.”

Jak stopped struggling. Doreen was right; he couldn’t go in there, at least not now. He said, “I don’t have time to waste. I have to get to Oberon’s forest as fast as I can. Do you think Tobi’ll be all right until I can come back to get him?”

They both looked to where the goblin was scampering across the grass. Jak realized that Tobi was no longer running away when his friend flopped down on the ground and began to roll over, then stopped and kicked his feet in the air. “He’s playing!” Jak said in surprise.

“It looks as if he’s already forgotten why he’s there,” said Doreen as she took her paw off Jak. “He should be fine for a while. He’s a fast runner and can probably get away from most predators. I wouldn’t leave him there for long, though.”

“I won’t,” Jak said, getting to his feet.

They walked together back to where Curtis was lying on his side, licking his injured shoulder. Jak crouched down beside him and took a good look at the injury; it
reminded him of something he’d seen before. “I think Curtis pulled it out of the socket,” Jak said, glancing up at Doreen. “I once saw a cat goblin who did the same thing. My uncle fixed it by pulling it straight.”

Doreen drew in a quick breath and glanced from Jak to her mate. “Do you think you could help Curtis?”

Jak nodded slowly. “Maybe, but it’s going to hurt, so he’s going to have to promise not to snap at me or anything.”

“Oh, he’ll promise,” Doreen declared. “Won’t you, Curtis?”

“I’ll do anything if you can make this pain go away,” groaned the male sphinx.

“Hold him down, will you?” Jak asked.

“Gladly,” replied Doreen, and sat on her mate.

Curtis lay his head on the ground while Jak took hold of his paw. Digging his feet into the rocky soil, Jak leaned back and pulled. Curtis’s head snapped around and his lips curled back when he snarled. Jak tugged with all his strength until he felt the shoulder pop back into place.

Curtis shuddered. Turning his head to whuff at his mate, he said, “You can get off me now.”

“Are you all right, Curtis?” asked Doreen as she stood up.

Her mate clambered to his feet and shook himself. “Much better,” he said, testing his weight on his shoulder. “Thank you, young goblin. You are a cat goblin, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” Jak replied. It didn’t seem the right time to explain that he was also half human.

The sphinxes were taller than he was, and Curtis’s
muscles were particularly impressive, though now that he was no longer in pain, he looked friendly and kind. Glancing at Doreen, Jak smiled. He thought that their faces could have been those of a middle-aged couple in the human world and was surprised by how comfortable he felt around them.

“He reminds me of our Tomi,” Doreen told Curtis, then turned to Jak and said, “Tomi is our youngest. You never met a nicer sphinx.”

Curtis tilted his head to the side and studied Jak. “I see what you mean, Doreen. There is a resemblance. Not to be rude,” Curtis said to Jak, “but what exactly are you doing here? We don’t get many visitors, cat goblin or not.”

“He said he’s going to Oberon’s forest,” explained Doreen.

Jak nodded. “Is it very far from here?”

“It can be,” said Doreen. “Unless of course you know where you’re going.”

“What my mate means,” Curtis told him, “is that it would be easy to get lost on the way unless one had a guide. We can show you if you’d like. We don’t have any more pressing engagements today, do we, Doreen?”

“Not at all,” she said, smiling brightly.

The sphinxes took up position on either side of Jak as they walked. “So,” said Curtis. “What happened to the rock thrower?”

“He ran into the Land of Forgetfulness,” said Doreen.

“He didn’t really mean any harm,” Jak told them. “He’s my friend Tobi, and he was just trying to help me.”

Curtis chuckled. “He probably thought we were going to eat you.”

“Most people are afraid of us,” Doreen explained to Jak. “Although
you
don’t seem to be.”

“What can I say?” said Jak. “You’re part big cat and I’m part cat goblin. I almost feel as if we’re related.”

“So do I!” Doreen said.

“I am worried about Tobi, though,” said Jak. “Will he remember things once he leaves the Land of Forgetfulness?”

“After a while,” Curtis told him. “A few creatures have wandered out of the Land in our direction. Some sphinxes would take advantage of their memory lapses and eat them, but Doreen and I try to help them when we can. It takes some a couple of hours, others nearly an entire day before they remember much of anything. Everyone is different.”

Jak nodded. “I’d like to get Tobi out as soon as I can, but I don’t have much time. Is there any way to walk through the Land of Forgetfulness without losing your memory?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Curtis.

“I’ve heard that you’ll be all right if you write yourself notes, reminding yourself why you’re there,” Jak told him.

Curtis chuckled. “That may be true, but then you’d have to be able to write, wouldn’t you? I’ve never mastered that feat,” he said, flexing one of his front paws.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you going to Oberon’s court?” asked Doreen.

“Someone I care about very much was kidnapped and taken there,” said Jak. “I have to get her out before something bad happens to her.”

Curtis winked at his mate. “Ah, his lady love!”

“Yes, she is, but she’s a lot more than that,” said Jak. “She’s Titania’s daughter, and if I don’t get her back to the fairy queen, there’s likely to be a war.”

“Oh, dear!” said Doreen. “This sounds so complicated!”

“Speaking of complicated, do you think we should take the upper pass or Snake Valley?” Curtis asked Doreen.

“The upper pass is shorter,” she replied.

“Then the upper pass it is!” said Curtis. “We’ll just have to hope that Sinovia has gone to lunch.”

“Who’s Sinovia?”

“Another sphinx, but she’s nothing like us,” said Doreen. “She has wings.”