The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (9 page)

“
They eat it, poor wretches,” Emrys said. The children marveled at this information. “They’ll swallow a gold coin whole if they get their little green hands on one. Pop it right into their mouths and gulp it down. Half the time they’ll choke to death—it gets stuck in their wee throats. If that don’t kill ’em, the gold is poison to their system and makes them dreadful ill. But that doesn’t stop ’em from wanting it.” Emrys shook his head. “You’d be shocked at the lengths they go to.” He leaned closer. “Want to see?”

They eagerly agreed
to this. None of them had ever seen a goblin, after all, and Emrys seemed to think it was perfectly safe.

So
off they went.

CHAPTER FOUR

A Goblin Mystery

They rowed across the water until they reached the stony ledge on the other end of the flooded quarry. There, they climbed out of the boat and walked up the slope toward the mighty metal door.

A few feet in front of the security
door, Emrys opened a small hatch and pulled down a periscope, like one might find on a submarine (Archie’s newest craze, having completed his flying machine).

Emrys beckoned Jake forward, cordially offering him the fir
st look through the periscope. After all, he was the owner of the mine, not to mention the fact that goblins had established their colony on
his
property without asking anyone’s permission.

“Y
ou can observe them through the scope without them noticing you. It’s camouflaged in the landscape. I like to come up once a week or so to make sure they’re behaving,” Emrys said. “Haven’t checked on ’em in a while. You’ll see we put up nets twenty yards outside the door to help keep them off. By this time of day, with the sun going down, the nets are probably covered with goblins. Yes?”

“No,” Jake said in surprise, peering through the periscope. “T
here’s a crowd of them gathered around the base of one of the tree trunks. So those are goblins!”

“I want to see!” Dani cried.

Emrys stared at Jake. “They’re not on the nets? Are you sure?”

“Are they little green creatures
, about knee-high, with big heads and little skinny bodies? Pointy ears, gold eyes?”

“Aye, that’s them,
” Emrys said, sounding confused. “May I?”

Jake stepped back so the head dwarf
could confirm it.

Emrys grasped the handles of the
periscope and stared through the viewer for a moment. “Hmm…” He turned the periscope this way and that. “The boy’s right,” he said after a moment, turning to Ufudd. “There’s something going on out there. I’d best go see what’s got ’em all riled up. This won’t take long. You’re welcome to come along and see the goblins if you like,” he told the children.

Dani gasped.

“You’ll be safe behind the nets, dear. Don’t worry, we dwarves have been dealing with the greenies for a very long time. Occupational hazard, you might say. Where there’s gold, there’s goblins.”

“
So, they’re not dangerous?” she asked.

“
Aye, unless you’re a pixie!” Ufudd said.

Emrys explained this remark: “Tree goblins mainly eat grasshoppers and other insects, but they’ll gobble down a pixie without even thinking about it if they happen to catch one.”

“So will birds, since they all share the trees,” Ufudd said, nodding sagely.

“Yes, b
ut they’re still
goblins
,” Archie pointed out.

“Well, it’s true n
one of the goblin species are what you might call lovable, but the greenies are relatively harmless, especially to folk of your size. Granted, they can be vicious when they’re cornered. They’ve got the claws and teeth to do some damage if they feel threatened. But in general, they’re more scared of you than you are of them.”

“Master Emrys knows how charm ’em,” Ufudd said.

“Harrumph.” The head dwarf glanced at Jake. “I do think that at least Your Lordship ought to come along and see them, since they’re on your property, after all.”

“I’d be glad to.” Jake
welcomed the chance to step out onto the surface world again, among the trees and grass and sky. He could barely wait to get a breath of fresh, country air after these few hours underground.

Emrys stepped forward to undo variou
s complicated locks on the huge hydraulic door.

Jake tilted his head in thought.
“Do you think I should have the goblin colony removed?”

The head dwarf
gave a noncommittal shrug. “Nuisance that they are, I don’t really know where else they’d go, poor little wretches. I can’t speak for others, but myself, I can’t help but feelin’ a little sorry for ’em.”

“I don’t,”
Ufudd said flatly. “They remind me of this one’s Uncle Waldrick, only smaller. And green.”

Jake arched a brow at t
he elderly dwarf in amusement, while Emrys stepped onto another weight-triggered mechanism; the massive door opened slowly with a puff of steam. Then Emrys put on a pair of little, wire-rimmed spectacles with darkened glass lenses to shield his eyes from the sun. “I’ll go first. You stay back a bit until I figure out what’s got them in a fuss.”

Emrys march
ed out.

Jake and the others
followed a few cautious paces behind him, as instructed. The moment they stepped out into the fresh evening breeze, rich with its autumn smell, the pink and orange sunset dazzled their eyes after the twilight underground.

Emrys was wise to carry his dark glasses with him.

Since
the kids’ vision had not yet adjusted, they could hear the chattering of the frightened little goblins, but missed the startling sight of them rushing back up into the trees by the hundreds.

By the time the world came back into focus for them, they would not have seen the tree goblins anyway, on account of their chameleon-like skin.

When Jake had seen them on the ground, they had been the same pleasant green as the surrounding ferns and mosses. But as they scampered up the tree trunks, holding on and climbing with their large yellowed claws, they began turning brown and grayish; and when they vaulted back up into the branches, some of the goblins turned red, others yellow or orange, depending on the colors of the autumn leaves in the trees where they hid.

Emrys walked about twenty yards ahead and pulled up a section of the sturdy brown netting that protected the door to the goldmine. He ducked under it, then walked over to where Jake had seen the goblins gather.

The kids watched the head dwarf walk around, looking up into the trees, and then searching around on the ground.

Emrys suddenly stopped, staring down at something by his feet.

“Did you find something, Master Emrys?” Archie called.

The head dwarf glanced over grimly and nodded, beckoning to them.

“No thanks, think I’ll stay back here,” Dani said with an uneasy glance at the colorful canopy of trees overhead.

Isabelle
stayed back with her behind the safety netting, and little Ufudd remained to guard the girls, but Jake and Archie hurried out to see what the head dwarf had found.

Emrys gestured to them to
slow their strides as they approached. “Be careful, don’t step on them.”

“What is it? What have you found?”

He pointed at the ground.

Jake looked down
then and saw them: three dead goblins.

T
heir little greenish bodies were but stiff, dried husks, as if all the life had been sucked clean out of them.

Alarmed and yet fascinated at this morbid sight, the boys bent down slowly, staring. Jake was surprised to find how the other goblins of their colony had apparently laid out their dead, arranging them in a row on a mossy stone veiled by a tuft of tall grass.

The first looked newly deceased, but the other two had obviously been dead longer.

“
What do you think happened to them?” Archie murmured, poking at one with a twig.

“
Honestly? I have no idea.” Emrys shook his shaggy head uneasily. “Pixies didn’t do this. They’ll set traps for tree goblins to protect their own people among the branches. But pixies can’t do this.”

“Do you think
they might have found some gold somehow and eaten it?” Jake inquired. “You said it made them sick.”

Emr
ys shook his head. “It doesn’t look like that when they die of gold poisoning, either.”

“May
be some other disease, then?”

“Not
one that I know of,” Emrys said.

“
Maybe they fell out of the trees and broke their necks,” Jake suggested.

“
That would be extremely strange. They’re born up there, it’s their natural habitat.” Frowning, Emrys glanced up into the trees again. “Maybe I can lure one down to tell us if any of them saw what happened.”

He reached into
the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a small nugget of gold. Lifting it toward the treetops, he gave a low whistle. “Come on, now, I know you’re up there. Look at this here! Nice shiny gold. Come on down and have a word with your old pal, Emrys.” The head dwarf let out a few sharp, chattering sounds, at which the boys glanced at him in surprise.

He shrugged. “I’ve picked up a little of their language over the years.”
He did it again, clicking his tongue in a way that was difficult to imitate.

It was enough to sna
re the tree goblins’ attention. Of course, the real lure was the little gold nugget in his hand. Jake watched in wonder as a few small silhouettes crept cautiously down the tree trunk, head first. You could just barely make them out, so well their chameleon-like skins matched the mottled tones of the bark.

As they moved c
loser, it was easier to see them despite their inborn camouflage. Their movement gave them away, along with the gleam of their yellow, catlike eyes.

They wore tattered remnants of brownish rags around their waists for clothing. As three of the creatures crept into position a few feet above Emrys’s head, chattering warily, not taking their eyes off the gold nugget, Jake noticed that they had na
sty sharp teeth. They looked like some strange blend of minor devils, squirrels, and tree frogs.

Emrys used the gold nugget to persuade the goblins to explain what had happened to their dead companions
.

Jake and Archie
listened to the exchange, mystified by the quick, staccato sounds the creatures made—even more so by Emrys’s attempts to answer them.

“What are they saying?” Jake prompted at last.

Emrys shook his head with a frown. “This one here, with the tip of his ear bitten off—you see him?”

The boys nodded.

“I call him Striper. He’s usually one of the friendlier ones. Striper says this is the third day in a row that they’ve found one of their colony dead.”

“Really!” Jake said
. “No wonder they’re upset. Did he see what happened?”

“Striper
says he doesn’t know for certain what happened to the first two, but this third one today, he claims he witnessed the whole thing.”

“What did he see?”

“Striper says he was just sitting on a branch eating a chestnut when he happened to look over to where this one, called Momp, had wandered off by himself and was sharpening his claws against a stone. Then Striper says a black cloud floated up and suddenly surrounded Momp.”

“A black cloud?” Archie echoed.

“Or a bit of fog, or a wisp of smoke, or something like that. That’s what he said.” Emrys shrugged.

Jake furrowed his brow in confusion.
“What happened next?”

“Momp went stock-
still, staring straight ahead like he was frozen, while the black cloud swirled around and around him. A moment later, it disappeared, and as soon as it flew away, Momp fell over, stone dead.”

The boys were silent, trying to make sense of this mystery.

“A black cloud…” Archie pushed his spectacles higher up onto his nose in thought. “I wonder, could it be some kind of gas escaping from the mine?”