In a Glass Grimmly (12 page)

Okay, I’ve got a question for you.

If the goblin is lying, and the sword is just a normal sword, trading your
hand
for it is probably a bad deal. Right?

But I can tell you right now—and I know this from my extensive research on the subject—that the goblin is
not
lying.

Anyone who gives up his hand for a goblin sword will gain all the power of the sword. This sword will give Jack what he has always most desired. Quite truly.

And it will only cost his left hand.

Think of what you most desire. Really think of it.

Okay.

Would you give your hand for it?

Jack stood and stared at the goblin man. It had felt like a game, playing with the sword, until now.

Until he knew that he could have it.

And that it had a price.

“Uh, Jack . . .” said the frog. “Jack . . . is this a joke?”

The goblin man said, “You will be admired by everyone . . .
everyone . . .”
Then he said, “You could give your right hand, if it’s easier to part with.”

“Everyone would like me . . .
everyone . . .
”
Jack murmured.

“Jack, can you hear me?” the frog pleaded. “Jack, this is crazy! It’s just a sword . . . Let’s find Jill and get out of here . . .”

But Jack did not hear him. He was saying, “They will like me. They will love me. They will fear me . . .” He knew it was true. He could feel the sword’s power humming up his arm.

“Jack! JACK!” The frog shouted.

Jack gripped the sword firmly in his right hand.

He looked levelly at the goblin.

Jack nodded.

“Get the apothecary!” the goblin shouted. In a moment an apothecary appeared, a short squat goblin with a black carrying case. He came and took some bottles and bandages from his bag.

The frog was screaming, “STOP IT, JACK, STOP IT!”

Jack paid no attention. “Put your left hand on the velvet,” said the goblin sword-smith. Jack placed his left hand on the velvet.

“With your right hand, raise the sword into the air,” said the goblin. With his right hand, Jack raised the sword into the air.

“When you’re ready, you may cut off your left hand,” said the goblin.

Jack’s heart caught.

“Don’t do it,”
the frog whispered frantically.
“Jack, you will be sorry. So, so sorry.”

Jack thought of Marie, laughing at him. He thought of his father.
It’ll prove that you’re a man
. He held his breath.

The blade began to sing.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Death or the Lady

O
nce upon a time, a girl—limp and unconscious—was carried through the underground darkness of the Goblin Kingdom. She was brought to a massive black palace. It had tall, spindly towers that seemed to have been shaped by the slow drip-drip-drip of underground water. Wings and annexes extended from its center like great black spiders’ legs. Banners of many colors flew from the ramparts and towers—but in the darkness of the earth, each looked merely like the fluttering shadows of colors. In each of the thousand windows, an orange flame flickered.

But Jill did not see the towering black castle. She was, as I said, unconscious.

She did not feel herself passed from the strong hands of the fruit merchants into the even stronger hands of the goblin guards. She did not know that she was being carried through dark hallways deep in the belly of the castle that stood deep in the belly of the earth. She did not see the goblin with the careworn face and the deep, old eyes examining her. She did not feel the heat of his skin so near he could have kissed her, nor did she smell the stale breath of his mouth. She did not hear him call to a dour goblin who waited in a corner; she did not hear the latches of an ornate case snap open; she did not see the long, strange instrument withdrawn from the case; she did not see its sharp end slowly, so slowly, approach her closed eyelids.

If she had, she doubtless would have screamed.

She did not perceive—either by feeling or by sight—the gentle application of makeup to her face with the long, strange instrument. Not of blue to her eyelids nor blush to her cheeks nor red to her lips. She did not know that her hair was being brushed by gentle goblin hands. She did not feel the coolness of the dank air on her body as she was undressed and redressed in the finest silks. She did not feel herself lifted again.

The first thing that Jill did feel was a pinching tightness on her wrists and ankles. Her eyes were still closed, and she felt woozy. The second thing she felt was that she could not open her mouth. Her eyes flew open.

She was sitting on a high throne in the center of an enormous hall. The ceiling towered overhead. The black stone walls were decked with enormous tapestries thirty feet high. Before her, twenty goblins, clad in plate metal and carrying spears, stood with their backs toward her, and beyond them, in single file, stood a line of goblin men so long it wound straight out of the enormous hall.

Jill tried to open her mouth again and discovered that a broad bolt of fine silk had pinned her lips shut. She tried to lift her hands to remove the gag and found that they were tied with the same fine silk to the arms of the throne. She tried to stand up and found that her ankles were tied to the throne, too.

“She is awake!” announced a goblin with a rich voice, a careworn face, and deep, old eyes.

The long line of goblins began to move. Jill watched in mute fear as the first came before her throne. He wore a bright green velvet suit which clashed hideously with his pale green skin. He swept a giant green hat with an enormous yellow feather from his head. He smiled up at Jill and said, “Your Majesty, you are beautiful.”

Jill felt very confused.
Your Majesty?

The goblin smiled more broadly. “You are bright like the moon and beautiful like a flower. I see you, and my heart aches.”

Despite herself, and despite everything else—the bonds, the gag, the apparent kidnapping—Jill blushed.

The next goblin, festooned with silver fabric, announced, “My Queen, you shine like a diamond.” He gazed up into her face. Under his breath, he said, “I have never seen anyone so beautiful.”

Jill’s cheeks grew hot, and she looked away.

The third goblin told Jill he was stunned by her perfect features. Jill was shocked to discover that, beneath the silken gag, she was smiling.

The fourth goblin said that, now that he had seen her, he would dream of her at night. Again, Jill blushed hotly. The fifth goblin admired every single feature of her face. “Your nose is like a small hill, bright and clean. Your cheeks are like pink pillows. Your hair looks like grass. Brown grass. Your head is shaped like a . . .” And so on. Jill giggled to think of someone taking so much interest in the shape of her head.

But by the ninth goblin, Jill was bored.

By the fifteenth goblin, she was testing her silken bonds again.

And by the twenty-eighth goblin, Jill did not care
what
they thought of her.

Which she found very surprising.

Because, at long last, Jill was being admired—worshipped—for her beauty.

Just as she had always wanted.

And, it turned out, she did not like it at all.

The fortieth goblin did not praise her beauty. Instead, he threw himself on the ground and cried, “Queen, I am devoted to you! You are as rare as ivory, as fresh as the spring. I will risk my very life to be your husband. Will you have me?”

Jill stared. She didn’t know what to say. Then she remembered that she couldn’t say anything because she was gagged.

But she didn’t need to. For there was a sudden movement. Two guards had stepped forward from the line of twenty that stood before the throne. They approached the goblin-suitor and slammed the butts of their spears into the stone floor. They barked: “Will you risk your life to treasure and protect this lady?”

“I will! I will!” cried the goblin.

“Bring forth the casket!” the goblin guards yelled. Four other guards came forward with a great iron casket, suspended between two long poles. “In this casket,” barked the guards, every syllable perfectly in time, “are two slips of parchment. One says ‘Death!’ The other says ‘The Lady!’ If you choose ‘Death!’ you will be killed right here on the spot! If you choose ‘The Lady!’ you will become her husband for all the rest of your days, and you and she will spend countless hours together alone, engaging in whatever pursuits give her pleasure. Do you understand?”

“God, yes!” the goblin screamed. “Let me choose!”

Jill, on the other hand, did
not
understand. She fought her silken bonds.

“Submit to blindfolding!” the guards barked, and the goblin was blindfolded. The two soldiers moved behind the blindfolded goblin-suitor and pointed their spears at his back.

The casket was brought directly before the suitor.

Can they make me marry him?
Jill thought frantically.
They can’t, right?

The casket was opened. The goblin-suitor reached in.

He withdrew a small piece of parchment.

He held it before his blindfolded face, his expression contorted with grotesque excitement. Jill stared at him and felt sick.

The goblin tore off his blindfold and examined the paper.

“No!” he screamed, and the two goblin guards standing behind him rammed their spears straight through his body with a horrible crunching, slicing sound. The spear points came out, red and covered in viscera, on the other side. The goblin collapsed—quite dead—on the floor.

I’m sorry. I forgot to warn you that was coming. I was too caught up in telling the story. Anyway, it’s all over now.

Jill, seeing the dead goblin, felt a mix of horror and relief that she found very confusing.

Four goblins ran out from who-knew-where and picked up the corpse and scrubbed the floor clean. All remnants of the hapless suitor were removed, and the line continued as it had before.

A few more admirers came and went. And then, another goblin threw himself on the ground and proclaimed his undying love for Jill.

Jill started in alarm and tried frantically to rip herself from the throne, to save either herself from marriage or the goblin from death.

But the two goblin soldiers came forward and questioned him, and then the four goblins came out with the casket.

Again the goblin drew a piece of parchment from the great chest.

Again, he held it before his blindfolded face as he quivered with excitement.

And again, he removed his blindfold, examined the paper, screamed in agony, and the two spears were rammed through his back. Blood spurted out of his chest as if from a fountain, spraying the casket and the two guards and then, once he had collapsed, dribbling slowly out of his body and running among the cobblestones.

Sorry, sorry! Totally forgot! Last time! Promise!

The four goblins on cleanup duty came forth and scrubbed the floor with red rags, and a minute later, the line was moving again.

Jill felt sick to her stomach.

Goblin after goblin told Jill of her celestial, supernatural, otherworldly beauty. They stared into her face and simpered lovingly at her.

She found it revolting.

And every third or fourth goblin declared his undying love for her, was presented with the casket, and was summarily killed.

After the fifteenth goblin had been stabbed through his back, Jill began to have serious doubts about the fairness of the test. It seemed to her that if there were two slips of parchment in the casket, one saying “Death!” and the other “The Lady!”, she would be married to half the goblins in the room by now.

Three goblins in a row all declared their undying love for Jill, and all of them died on the points of spears. The last one convulsed on the floor, screaming in pain, as blood bubbled up out of his body like a hot spring and flowed all over the floor in crimson waves, eventually lapping up against the throne’s legs like water against rocks on a beach.

Jeez! My bad! Sorry!

Jill stared.
How is it possible,
she wondered,
that not a single goblin drew “The Lady”?
But she did not have long to consider this, for suddenly, standing before her, was Jack.

He looked, somehow, different.

Her eyes traveled from his messy black hair to his eyes—which seemed harder, more resolute, than she’d ever seen them before—to his set mouth, his quivering chin, his shoulders—were they broader, now?—down his thin arms and past his elbows and his wrists and to his hands . . .

She stopped.

Confused? Well, allow me to go back to Jack’s story for a moment.

It was just a short while before that Jack had been standing with the dream-sword raised above his head, and his left hand outstretched on a bed of velvet.

“Don’t do it,”
the frog whispered frantically.
“Jack, you will be sorry. So, so sorry.”

Jack thought of Marie, laughing at him. He thought of his father.
It’ll prove that you’re a man
. He held his breath.

The blade began to sing.

This is where we left off, right?

Just checking.

The sword of Jack’s dreams clattered to the floor.

The frog wept silently.

Neither the goblin-salesman nor the apothecary moved.

Jack looked at them, and then at the sword, and then at his hand.

He felt different. Very different.

He flexed his right hand.

Then he flexed his left.

“What happened?” said the salesman.

“You didn’t do it!” the frog cried. “Hooray! Hoorah! He didn’t do it!”

Jack said, “For a minute there, I felt very con-fused.” He shook his head like he was waking up from a dream. Then he said, “Where’s Jill?”

The goblin, trying to hide his frustration, smiled an oily smile. “Are you sure you don’t want the sword? Everything you’ve ever wanted for will come true! Really! Really and truly!”

Jack’s eyes became hazy again. But again he shook his head sharply. And then he said perhaps the wisest thing that he had ever said. He said: “Maybe I’ve been wanting the wrong things.”

And he turned away from the goblin.

As he walked away, he said to himself, “I want Jill back.”

So he went back to where he had begun and methodically traced Jill’s path. He asked questions and eavesdropped and guessed his way past the stalls of the underground market, through the tall and crooked houses of the goblin city, and finally to the shadow of an enormous, dark castle. There, Jack saw a line of goblin men, winding out of the door. He asked them what they were waiting for. He joined the line, and waited, too.

And now Jill watched Jack step forward from the line, his jaw set, his face hard. He did look different, somehow. But not in his face, nor his shoulders, nor his hands. Perhaps it was just on the inside.

Just as Jill was thinking this, Jack announced, “I want to marry the queen.”

Jill screamed from within her gag. She shook her head frantically to stop him. The frog hissed madly from Jack’s pocket. “Jack! She’s your cousin! Is this legal? I don’t think it is! And aren’t you a little young to settle down? Finally, consider the fact that
they will kill you
! Jack! Jack! Are you listening to me?” But he wasn’t.

Meanwhile, a thrill had run through the Goblins in the hall. “It’s a human!” “There’s a human!” “Is that a human?”

Two guards had stepped forward. They slammed the butts of their spears into the stone floor. “Will you risk your life to treasure and protect this lady?” the guards barked in unison.

Jack looked at Jill and smiled. “Yes. I will.”

“No!” Jill wanted to cry out. “Jack! It’s a trap! It’s not a fair test!” All she actually said was,
“Nnnnnnjjjjjjjtttttrrrrnnnnffrrrrrrttttttt!”