Goblins (11 page)

They had taken the rubble of the ruins there and heaped it into a shapeless, ramshackle hall, moss-thatched and draughty, which they named Bospoldew in honour of their king, an ancient, bloated, toad-like thing called Poldew of the Mire. There he squatted, lit by moonbeams poking through the rotting thatch, and fiddled with scraps of mist which blew in through the glassless windows.

In the Lych Lord’s day the boglins had known the knack of weaving mist; they’d plaited it into traps and snares to catch unwary travellers in the great marshes to the north, and no enemy had dared to approach Clovenstone from that direction, for fear that they’d end up as boglin snacks. For years beyond number the secrets of mist-weaving had been lost, but lately Poldew had begun to feel a tingling in his webbed fingers, and now, as his boglins crowded close to watch him with their lamplike eyes, he looped the strands of mist around his finger ends, and twisted, and pulled, and knotted, until a pale cat’s cradle stretched like a web between his hands.

“Look!” he bubbled delightedly, holding the little snare aloft. “The mist obeys us! The mire is waking up again!” He let go of it, and it drifted upwards like a smoke ring to hang beneath the mossy rafters. He made another, and scowled thoughtfully for a while, wondering how best to use this gift. “Find me some softlings,” he said at last. “Fetch ’em here. Soon ’drakes will be stirring down in the deeply pools and we’ll need hot softling blood to fetch ’em to the surface and fresh flesh to tame ’em with. With ’drakes’ help we can spread the mire and drown all Clovenstone in lovely marsh, but not without ’drakes, and ’drakes won’t rise for nought but blood. Find me some blood to wake them with, my dears.”

“B-b-but there
in’t
no softlings in Clovenstone,” said one of his war chiefs.

Poldew shot out his long, pink, muscly tongue, snatched up the chief and swallowed him whole. A wide, contented grin spread across his face as he crunched and munched. “Find me softlings,” he ordered, spitting out the bones.

Skarper slept late next day, as goblins will when there are no other goblins to kick them awake or steal their bedding, and they don’t have to worry about fighting for their breakfast. When at last he opened his eyes, it took him a long moment to remember where he was. There were no piles of straw as soft and clean as this in Blackspike. . . These wooden walls were not the stones of Blackspike. . .

He was in a little narrow cabin or storeroom on the bottom deck of the old ship, and daylight showed through the gaps between the planks. He scrambled out from under the old blankets which Princess Ned had given him and set off to see what was happening. Outside his cabin door there was a porthole, and through the glass he saw low grey clouds rushing over Clovenstone on a south-west wind, with spokes of sunlight spiking down between them, trailing over the ruined rooftops.

Skarper looked around the cabin. There were shelves on the walls, and on the shelves sat little knick-knacks; things that Princess Ned had brought with her to Clovenstone or found upon her walks among the ruins since. Some of them looked valuable, or at least shiny, and with a goblin’s instinct he started to fill his pockets with them, quickly assembling the beginnings of quite a decent hoard. Then, feeling hot and angry at himself, he stopped, and slowly started to return the things to where they belonged. Princess Ned wasn’t some goblin to be robbed and sneaked from: she’d been –
kind
, Skarper supposed was the word.
Hospitable
, even. He could tell that she didn’t think well of goblins generally – she had looked quite afraid of him when he was first introduced – but she hadn’t said, “Eugh, a nasty goblin, he’s not coming inside
my
ship-balanced-on-a-building.” No, she’d mastered her dislike and smiled and welcomed him. It seemed to him suddenly that it would be pretty mean, low-down, gobliny sort of behaviour to steal her knick-knacks.

So he left the cabin and climbed a companionway to the upper deck and peeked into the larger cabin where they had all sat and talked the night before. They were there again, and when the princess looked up and saw Skarper standing uncertainly in the doorway her eyes went wide and her face pale and for a moment she looked scared, but then she smiled and said, “Master Skarper. . .”

“Skarper!” said Henwyn happily. “Won’t you join us?”

Skarper was a bit unnerved by that – he wasn’t used to people being pleased to see him – but he trotted in anyway. There had been some eating going on, and all kinds of breakfast things were still laid out on a long table under the window: fresh baked bread, goat’s cheese, honey, and a pot of Princess Ned’s tea.

While Skarper was piling his plate, Carnglaze said, “Tell me, Princess, in all your time here, have you ever found a way to get inside the Great Keep?”

“Not that there’s any point now,” said Fentongoose wistfully, and his hand went to the place at the base of his throat where the Lych Lord’s token used to hang.

Ned looked at them thoughtfully. Then she shook her head. “I have never looked,” she said. “Let old evil lie, that is what I say. Besides, I have a great dislike of. . .” (She stopped herself; looked warily at Skarper.) “But Fraddon has looked in over the Inner Wall sometimes,” she went on, “and he says the Keep is sealed tight.”

“You have never heard of the secret way?” asked Prawl.

“No,” said Ned, looking blank.

“I never heard of any way in,” said Skarper, through a mouthful of toast. “Old Breslaw is the only one in Blackspike with any brains, and he never mentioned no secret way.”

“But it must exist, all the same,” said Fentongoose. “Stenoryon spoke of it.”

“Stenoryon?” Skarper’s ears pricked up.

“Who was this Stenoryon?” asked Henwyn, always eager for a story.

“Stenoryon,” said Fentongoose, “was a loyal servant of the Lych Lord, who fled to live in secret among the lands of men after his master’s fall. It was he who founded the Sable Conclave, so that there would be sorcerers ready to take up the Lych Lord’s mantle once the magic woke again. It was he who made that prophecy I told you last night.”

“He is also said to have made a map,” added Carnglaze. “
Stenoryon’s Mappe of All Clovenstone
, on which the secret way into the Keep was shown, for any who knew how to see.”

“Ah,” said Fentongoose sadly. “That map! It would have been the greatest treasure of our order. But it was lost. Stenoryon’s grandson took it with him when he returned here, hoping to enter the Great Keep himself. That was many years ago.”

“A foolish thing to do,” said Carnglaze. “He should have waited till the star rose.”

“The goblins killed him, no doubt,” said Prawl. “The stupid creatures plainly have no loyalty left to the Lych Lord or his memory.”

“No use for maps either,” said Princess Ned. “I expect this wonderful map of yours was flung into some stinking pit to rot.”

It was! It was!
thought Skarper. He was quivering with dark excitement at the thought he had actually touched and studied this fabled map. No doubt Stenoryon’s grandson was one of the treasure hunters the Blackspike Boys had caught trying to sneak through the Inner Wall; his skull was probably one of those that decorated Knobbler’s kinging chair. The map he carried had meant nothing to goblins, who had flung it into the bumwipe heaps, where Breslaw found it. But Skarper could not recall seeing any secret passages marked on it.

“What do you mean, ‘
those who know how to see it’
?” he asked Fentongoose.

“That must remain a secret of the Sable Conclave,” replied the sorcerer shiftily.

“Only those of us who have studied long in secret and forbidden books could hope to understand how to see the secret pathway hidden in the map,” agreed Prawl.

“It’s probably just slowsilver ink,” said Princess Ned. “Slowsilver used to be mined here in olden times. Ink made from it is invisible, unless you burn some more slowsilver in a magical fire and look at the writing by the light of it. Nobody uses it any more, but in Stenoryon’s day. . .”

The three sorcerers tutted and humphed and looked crossly at her. What was the use of guarding mystical secrets down the generations if it turned out that perfectly ordinary people like princesses had known them all along?

“All very interesting,” said Carnglaze. “But not much use without the map. It seems to me that this quest of ours is finished, Fentongoose. I say we start packing our stuff and making ready to return home to Coriander.”

“Not today, you won’t,” said Ned. “You will rest, Master Carnglaze. You are quite safe here. Fraddon is certain that the goblins will not trouble us. If they were going to come, they would have come last night, he said. He has gone up into the Bonehills to speak to others of his kind about this comet, and what it means. He would not have gone if he thought that we were in the least danger.”

Skarper had stopped listening. He took an apple and went out on to the balcony to eat it, and watched cloud shadows sliding up the face of the Keep.
Treasure!
he kept thinking.
The Lych Lord’s dearest treasure, just waiting to be looted! If only I could get my paws on that map. . .
He scowled at his old home tower. He could visualize where the bumwipe chamber lay inside it, and where in the bumwipe heaps the old map was hidden; he’d rolled it tight and buried it good and deep, where no passing goblin would grab it to wipe his bottom on.
I know just where to put my paws on it
, he thought bitterly,
if only Blackspike wasn’t stuffed full of goblins who want to kill me.

And then, like a revelation, it came to him. Blackspike
wouldn’t
be stuffed full of goblins who wanted to kill him! Not
tonight
it wouldn’t! He remembered the announcement that King Knobbler had made the night before, just before Skarper interrupted him. Tonight was the night of his big raid on the eastside towers! Apart from old Breslaw and a few dozy guards, the Blackspike Boys would all be off killing
different
goblins in Sternbrow, Grimspike and Growler.

Skarper clamped a paw over his mouth to stop a yelp of excitement slipping out. Did he really dare to slink back into Blackspike and steal that map? Of course he did! He was a goblin! Slinking and stealing was what goblins were best at!

But how could he get there? There were miles of woods and rivers and ruins between him and the tower. There might be more trolls, or cloud maidens. There’d certainly be those woody twigling things; they’d seemed safe enough when the giant was around, but there was no knowing what they’d do to a goblin they caught alone amongst their precious trees.

So don’t go alone
, he told himself slyly.
Get one of these softlings to come with you, just as far as the wall. . .

Not the sorcerers; they’d want the treasure for themselves. Not Princess Ned; she had no love for goblins. That just left. . .

“Henwyn!” he said, ten minutes later.

The breakfast party had split up. Fentongoose was talking with the princess, while the other members of the Sable Conclave had volunteered to do some digging in the vegetable patch. Henwyn was being helpful too, wheeling a barrow of dung and straw from the cowshed to shovel on to Ned’s rose bushes. He looked happy enough to set the heavy barrow down and talk. Skarper jumped up on the heap of dung, which kept his toes nice and warm while also bringing his face more or less level with Henwyn’s. “I hope you’re not angry with me for not telling you I was a goblin yesterday,” he began.

“Well. . .” admitted Henwyn doubtfully. “I do think you might have mentioned it. I didn’t realize you goblins come in all shapes and sizes. That’s a detail the songs never bothered mentioning. It was very embarrassing when those sorcerers saw that I don’t even know what a goblin
looks
like.” He sighed. “I wish I was a real hero.”

“You
are
a real hero,” said Skarper encouragingly. “You rescued us all from Knobbler’s lot.”

Henwyn just shook his head. “That was Fraddon’s doing,” he said.

“You walloped Knobbler with your sword,” Skarper pointed out.

“I stunned him, but I didn’t slay him,” Henwyn said. “So it doesn’t count. And apart from that I’ve done no heroic acts at all. I was beaten by a troll. I was beaten by the twiglings. I was even beaten by cheese.”

He looked so dejected that Skarper felt quite sorry for him. He glanced round quickly to check that no one else was nearby and said, “What would you say if I told you that I know how to find Stenoryon’s map?”

Henwyn didn’t say anything, but the sun seemed to be coming up behind his eyes. “The
Mappe of All Clovenstone
?” he gasped. “The map that shows the secret way into the Keep?”

Skarper nodded, and tapped his nose with one claw. “I’ve seen it,” he said.

“We must tell the others!” said Henwyn eagerly, and would have turned and run to tell them there and then if Skarper hadn’t grabbed him by his tunic sleeve and held him back. “Hsssst!” he said angrily. “What did you think I was tapping my nose with one claw for? That means ‘Shhh!’ It means ‘secret’! It means, ‘Let’s keep this ’tween ourselves.’”

“Oh, sorry. I thought you had an itch.”

“You don’t want to tell the sorcerers,” Skarper reasoned, “because they’re rubbish, and what’s more, they’re evil.”

“Well, they keep
saying
they serve the powers of darkness,” said Henwyn, “but they all seem quite nice really. I don’t think Princess Ned would have invited them to stay the night and let them weed the vegetable patch and everything if she thought that they were really evil sorcerers.”

“Well, this is your chance to show them all you’re a real hero. Come with me, and we can find that map and get inside that old Keep and get our paws on all the Lych Lord’s stuff.”

“His greatest treasure. . .” whispered Henwyn, and in his imagination he was suddenly far from this garden, being welcomed back into Adherak at the head of a column of hay-wains laden with gold and jewels. “I could build a new cheesery for Father,” he murmured, “and stone houses for Herda and Gerda and Lynt. And I’ll hire the best harpist in the Westlands to write ‘The Lay of Henwyn’, and make sure he gets all the details right. . .”

Then his face fell. “No. I would feel wrong, sneaking off without telling Princess Ned. She’s been so kind.”

“You can share some of the stuff with her when you get back, if it makes you feel better,” Skarper promised. “There’s bound to be books and maps and spells and things in there that a lady of her learnedness would want. Give something to Fentongoose’s bunch too, if you must; something harmless. But if you tell them before you go, they’ll want to come too, and then they’ll be the ones the harpists end up writing songs about, not you.”