Goblins (19 page)

Knobbler looked at the three sorcerers, cowering among drifts of lychglass dust on the cobbles in front of him. “Did you do that?”

“Of course!” fibbed Fentongoose. “Open it, you said, and we, ah. . .”

A long, discordant creak drowned out the rest. The Keep’s gate, freed of its lychglass seal, was swinging open, letting out a smell of dust and dry air; letting in the moonlight. The goblins stared in silence for a moment, then surged forward, big ones trampling small ones underfoot, small ones scrambling over the big ones’ heads, swirling into the halls of the Lych Lord like a smelly sea.

The new Lych Lord sat upon his throne and felt the ancient power of Clovenstone course through him. It was not all it might be yet, and wouldn’t be until the star came closer, but it thrilled him all the same as he began to realize what he would soon be able to do. He looked out over his throne room and saw how the squirls and splodges of different-coloured metals on the floor made a map: hammered silver for seas and rivers, green copper for the forests, bronze for the moors and burnished brass for deserts, gold and platinum and lapis lazuli for cities. He looked out across the world that he would rule: the cities that he would conquer, and the kingdoms that would pay him tribute. . .

And he saw his friends stood there, looking up at him with worry in their faces, and remembered he was Henwyn of Adherak as well as the Lych Lord. It touched him to see how concerned they were. “It’s all right,” he said, forgetting for a moment about his destiny, his vast new power. “I’m still Henwyn. I’m not going to be, you know,
evil
. . . Magic can be used for good, as well, can’t it? Skarper, my friend, I won’t desert you. Look!”

He let the powers of Clovenstone lift his hand and flex his fingers. He felt it raise the hairs on the nape of his neck. He whispered words he’d never heard before, and something like a smoke enveloped Skarper. When it cleared, the goblin’s shabby clothes had changed. The old jerkin he had found himself had turned into a fish-bright hauberk of silver scales, and there were golden rings upon his paws and a circlet of gold about his head. Even his shoes were made of gold, etched with threads of slowsilver and studded with rubies. Skarper looked down at himself and flinched in surprise. Coins cascaded from his sleeves.

“You wanted treasure?” asked Henwyn. “You will have more treasure than a goblin ever dreamed of!” And he saw Skarper’s eyes shine, and felt glad that the first deed he had done as Lych Lord was something generous. To give your friends what they had always wanted; wasn’t that the best use of power?

Next he turned to Princess Ned. She took a step away and held up one hand, palm towards him. “I do not want riches, Henwyn,” she said.

Again the magic prickled; he felt all the branchings of his nerves tingle as it surged through him. Smoke wrapped the princess. When it blew away, she was not dressed in finery; she still wore the same patched frock and bog-soggy boots, and the necklace around her throat was still just string and stones. But the lines of laughter on her face had smoothed themselves away; her long hair had turned from grey to gold. She looked at the hand that she still held out, upraised in front of her, and she saw that all the creases and crinkles of age were fallen from it, and it had become soft and white again. She was a girl, as young and beautiful as she had been on the long-ago Tuesday when Fraddon hoisted her ship from the choppy seas off Choon Head. She touched her fingers to her lineless face and Henwyn, looking on, saw wonder there, then a little fear, then dawning joy. He had found the thing she wanted too. Who wouldn’t want a chance to live again?

“See?” he said. “I have rescued you after all. I have rescued you from time.”

Skarper looked up at his words. He had been so busy admiring the fine new rings and silver wristlets which Henwyn had magicked for him that he had not even seen the transformation being wrought on Princess Ned. Now he stared at her, and despite his new riches a little creeping feeling of unease came into his mind. He was remembering what the princess had said about power, and what power did to people. He remembered her saying it, sitting on the sofa in her cosy old ship, with her knees drawn up under her chin and her nice grey hair spilled over them. He had liked her that way; she looked prettier now, more like a storybook princess, but less like herself. He wanted the old Ned back. And he missed the old Henwyn too. He’d wanted a friend, not some all-powerful Lych Lord who dished out magic presents to his companions, and did who knows what to his enemies. . .

Skarper shook his paws, and the new rings flew off and landed clattering on the floor. He took a step backwards, and the ruby-encrusted shoes Henwyn had made him felt heavy and uncomfortable. They clumped across the metal map as he turned and fled between the silent Dragonbone Men to the stairs.

“Skarper?” he heard Henwyn call behind him. “Skarper! Come back!”

The Dragonbone Men skittered into life, sprinting after Skarper with their strange, stiff-legged run, but Henwyn halted them with a gesture. “No, let him go.”

Skarper glanced back over his shoulder as he reached the top of the stairs, and saw the Dragonbone Men freeze in mid-stride. Then he tripped over his strange new shoes and pitched forward. “Bumcakes!” he cried, curling into a ball like a scared hedgehog, putting his paws up to protect his head, and his mail coat rang upon the stones as he went tumbling head over heels down the long spiral of the stairs.

Princess Ned looked up at Henwyn. No, not Princess Ned any more; Eluned. Ned was far too ordinary and mannish a name for someone so young and beautiful. She said, “He is afraid of you, my lord.”

Henwyn laughed. It seemed such a strange idea, that anyone should be afraid of him. Little Nuisance crept out from beneath his cloak, and Henwyn worked another spell – it was easy, once you got the knack – and turned him from a dull brown dragonet into a perfect miniature dragon, his scales blazing with rich colours.
Isn’t that what a dragonet must dream of?
thought Henwyn.
To be a proper dragon?
He almost made him dragon-sized as well, but decided he had better wait until his powers were stronger and he was quite certain of his dragon-taming abilities.

Nuisance hiccupped and let out a little flare of orange flame, which startled him so much he took flight and went whirring away to hide among the ornate carvings which ringed the chamber. Henwyn felt irritated, and a little sad. Did no one appreciate his kindness?

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked Eluned.

“A little,” said Eluned, and she looked so beautiful that Henwyn could not resist changing her clothes for her; her homespun kirtle kindled into bright silk, and splashes of bog mud on her skirt’s hem became lush knots of gold embroidery.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’m not like
him
. . .” He pointed to the ash of the old Lych Lord, sprinkled down the steps of the throne. “I’m going to do good things. All this magic is waiting to be used, you see. It needs harnessing, power like that. Like a wild horse or something. That’s what Clovenstone is for. I’ll use the magic to bring rivers to the deserts of Zandegar! I’ll use it to build fine palaces for my sisters, and a new cheesery beyond compare for my dad. I’ll use it to throw down bad kings and tyrants everywhere. That lout the king of Choon, for instance; I’ll show
him
a thing or two!”

If Ned had been herself she might have told him that that’s how it starts; you set out to punish bad people and end up punishing anyone who does not think exactly as you do. But she was not herself; an unusual meekness had come over her. The magic that Henwyn had called upon had not just made her young again, it had turned her into everything Henwyn thought a princess should be: beautiful and ladylike and a bit wet. Deep inside her somewhere, muffled, the old Ned struggled to break free, but the new one just stood there, drooping picturesquely and gazing up adoringly at Henwyn while he told her of his plans.

“Of course, I shall need an army,” he said. “Goblins would be best. Oh, why did Skarper have to run off like that? I would have made him captain over all the goblins of Clovenstone. Still, there are plenty more to do my bidding, I suppose. I expect they will all be knocking on the door when they know that the Lych Lord has returned. . .”

The goblins were not just knocking at doors; they were kicking them, headbutting them and smashing them down with axes as they milled through the lower levels of the Keep in search of treasure. At the sight of all those riches the alliance between the different towers had unravelled in an eye blink; Mad Manaccan’s Lads fell upon Chilli Hats and Growlers fought with Blackspikes, none wanting to let another tribe grab the best of the loot. After that, the members of each tribe started fighting among themselves. The floors of the treasure chambers grew slithery with spilled blood and dropped coins; fallen torches kindled small fires in piles of torn-down tapestries and smashed-up furniture, until the walls were flickering with the spiny shadows of the goblins, all thumping and throttling and hacking and impaling one another.

Through the din strode Knobbler, with old Breslaw hurrying at his heels, and all the biggest and fiercest of his goblin mob about him. With him, too, went Skarper’s batch-brothers, Yabber, Gutgust, Bootle, Wrench and Libnog. They had seen other hatchlings like them being bludgeoned by greedy Chilli Hats or kebabed on the long spears of Growlers, and they had decided that the safest place to be was next to Knobbler.

“Leave that!” the king bellowed at two small Mad Manaccan’s Lads carrying a golden shield. “That’s mine!” he roared, thumping another looter. But each time he was tempted to turn aside and stuff his own pockets with the shiny stuff he saw, Breslaw would lean close to him and whisper, “There’s a greater prize here, Knobbler. The Stone Throne, remember? Rest your fat goblin bum on that and all these treasures will seem only toys and trinkets.”

Knobbler grunted and looked around, squinting through the eye-slit of his bucket. “Where is it then? This throne?”

Breslaw jabbed a claw towards the ceiling. “Up.”

With another grunt, King Knobbler stomped towards the nearest stairway and started hurrying upwards. But he had only climbed a few floors when one of the other goblins, sharper-eared, said, “Listen! What’s that?”

It was a rattling and a crashing and thudding, faint at first but growing louder, and coming from somewhere above them. Soon even Knobbler could hear it inside his bucket. Mixed with the steady thumps and crashes there were yelps, and an occasional woeful cry of “Bumcakes!”

Round the bend of the stairway there came bounding what looked like a small wheel made of hair and metal. It bounced off a landing three stairs above the one where Knobbler stood and struck him square in the belly, knocking him backwards. He cannoned into Breslaw, who cannoned in turn into the goblins behind him, and they all went sprawling down to the landing below in a dropped-pot clatter of dinged armour and lost weapons.

Knobbler was the first to recover (it was reflexes like that that had made him king in the first place). He snatched up his sword and looked around angrily for the thing that had struck him down.

The thing uncurled and peered up at him.

“It’s that little runt!” he growled. “That Whotsisname. . .”

Skarper whimpered and hid his head in his paws again, as if that could protect it from the king’s wrath. Still dazed from his long tumble down the Keep’s stairs, he couldn’t imagine how Knobbler and the rest had come there.

Breslaw sadly shook his head. “Skarper,” he said. “What’s got into you, turning against your own kind and taking up with nasty softlings?”

Skarper peeked up at him. “They’re not nasty. They’re my friends.”

“
Friends?
” roared Knobbler, swinging Mr Chop-U-Up. “Goblins don’t have
friends
!”

Skarper yowled and threw himself sideways as the massive sword swished down. It missed him by a whisker and bit deep into the stone of the stairs.

“Get him!” roared Knobbler, trying to tug the blade free, but the goblins behind him were still untangling themselves, bruised and groaning. None of them had the chance to grab Skarper as he sprang up and scampered frantically over them and through a doorway at the far end of the landing.

Knobbler finally prised Mr Chop-U-Up out of the stair and made to go after him, but Breslaw grabbed him by the ankle. “Up!” he said. “The Stone Throne, remember?”

Knobbler nodded. “Get him, Dungnutt!” he bellowed again, and his second-in-command set off on Skarper’s trail. Knobbler straightened his helmet and started on up the stairs, running now, because he had worked out that Skarper’s softling friends must be somewhere inside the Keep as well, and he didn’t want them getting to the Stone Throne ahead of him. Up, up, up he went, past landings and doorways. Some of those rooms they passed were stuffed with treasure, and one by one the goblins who had followed him slunk off, bored with the long climb and eager to stuff their pockets. Soon only Breslaw was left, and Yabber, Gutgust, Bootle, Wrench and Libnog, who were too wary of the old hatchling master’s watchful eye and massive mallet to desert.

And then there were suddenly no more stairs to climb, and they all emerged behind Knobbler on to the metal map that floored the throne room.

Eluned keened with fright. Her memories of recent days had blurred when Henwyn made her young, but the memories of her girlhood were suddenly fresh and clear again, and the sight of Knobbler reminded her horribly of the night the Blackspike Boys had raided Porthstrewy and killed her mother and her father.

The goblins stood in a bunch at the head of the stairs. They saw the waiting Dragonbone Men, and the Stone Throne. Breslaw and the others drew back in fear, leaving Knobbler to stand alone before the gaze of the dark figure who sat waiting there.