The Thief and the Beanstalk (Further Tales Adventures) (18 page)

“Hello, little man,” Gnasher said, baring his fangs. When Finch saw the wicked face at the entrance to the hole, he crammed his fist into his mouth, muffling his own scream. Gnasher stuffed his free hand into the opening. Finch turned and ran out the other side. But as he emerged, a larger hand crashed to the ground in front of him, a wall of pebbly, warty skin, and it appeared so suddenly that Finch ran into it before he could stop. Another hand came down behind, and the hands clapped together with Finch caught between. Only his head and the tops of his shoulders were sticking out above, and his legs dangled out underneath. He still held the knife, but he could not move his arm to wield it.

At first Finch was so startled he did not realize he was in the grip of a monster. Then he felt himself rising as Basher stood.

Basher, seeing and holding a human for the first time, grunted with curiosity. He lifted the man to his nose and sniffed deeply, closing his eyes as he enjoyed the scent of fresh, exotic meat.

Finch looked at that huge mouth and the awful rows of yellow teeth, some sharp for tearing and some blunt for crunching. He tried to squirm out of the ogre’s grip, but he could do no more than wiggle in futility.

Basher was amused. The brutish ogre’s mouth opened in a grin so impossibly wide that it threatened to continue past his ears and split the ugly head in two.

Finch screamed anew as Basher raised him up and opened his mouth wide. Then the scream sounded different because Finch was
inside
the mouth, and the lips had closed behind his head and across his shoulders. In that stinking wet blackness, he felt terrible teeth on both sides of his neck that began to press together.

Gnasher’s voice came screeching through the hole in the wall. “Basher! I know you, pig! You better not be harming that one—I want to talk to him first!”

With a grunt of disappointment, Basher withdrew his prey from his mouth. Finch was not moving now, except for a barely perceptible trembling. His eyes stared into space, wide-open and unblinking, and his face was cold and pale. With a guilty look, Basher wiped Finch’s head and shoulders across the fur of his vest, trying to clean the drool off before his brother arrived and learned what he’d been up to.

Inside the prison room, Gnasher passed Nick into his other hand, gripping him around the waist.

“Let me go! Put me down!” yelled Nick. He pummeled the ogre’s hand with his fists.

“Put you down?” said Gnasher. I ought to put you down my throat, for all the trouble you’ve caused, little morsel. Helping Mother escape—what a vexing, interfering breed you little folk are! But perhaps I should not be angry. After all, this is an opportunity to learn more about your kind before my brother and I descend on your world.

“Let’s collect your friend, shall we? And then we can get to know each other in my room. So many questions spring to mind; I must have the answers.”

Gnasher left the room and turned down the corridor to the castle’s rear exit. He paused at the shelves full of weapons to allow Nick a good long look. “See them boy? Soon to be wielded on your people.” The pride was evident in the ogre’s voice.

Gnasher opened the door and stepped outside. He saw his brother prodding the man with his finger. The man’s eyes were open, but he was not moving. Basher grinned sheepishly as Gnasher approached.

“What have you done, idiot? I told you not to harm him!” snapped Gnasher. He held out his open hand. Basher reluctantly gave up his prize. Finch fell limply into Gnasher’s palm, still holding the jagged knife. Gnasher flicked it away with his fingernail. He brought Finch up for a closer look and shook him a little, but there was no reaction.

“Bah. He’s not dead, just scared nearly to death.” Gnasher turned to Nick. “Is he always such a coward? How come you don’t seem so frightened?”

“I guess I’m used to being pushed around by stupid bullies, and he’s not,” Nick said.

Gnasher sneered. He raised Nick to the level of his mouth and made a purposeful display of his sharp yellow teeth.“Then come with me, my little morsel, and I’ll invent new reasons to be afraid.”

Gnasher turned back to his brother. “Basher! Stay by this rope until I return.
Don’t
let me catch you sleeping this time. Understand?”

Basher nodded enthusiastically. He pointed at Nick and Finch and whined like a dog begging for scraps.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get your share,” Gnasher said, “after I get my answers.”

Gnasher went back in the castle. With Finch in one hand and Nick in the other, he crept softly along the corridor—as softly as an ogre could creep. When he reached the great hall, he peered around the corner and into the kitchen.

“Forget it, Gallinor. You won’t catch her again,” Nick said loudly, in case Gullinda was near.

Gnasher’s lip curled on one side. “You give her too much credit.”

The ogre went to the opposite corridor and headed for his room, the tower room. Even he held his breath as he passed the corridor that led to Basher’s festering
abode. When he reached his door, Gnasher put Finch on the floor. Finch lay on his back, staring up with glazed eyes, not moving. Just for safekeeping, the ogre used his toes to pin Finch to the floor. With his free hand, he reached inside his vest and pulled out a chain that held an assortment of keys, large and small. He used the largest key to unlock his door.

Gnasher picked Finch up again and stepped inside. “Welcome to my lair,” he said to Nick, grinning. “Oh, I forgot—you’ve been here already, haven’t you?”

Nick did not answer. Gnasher tightened his grip. Nick felt a great pressure on his ribs and the breath being squeezed from his lungs. He opened his mouth and tried to draw in air, but couldn’t fill his lungs.

“You’ll answer me when I pose a question, morsel,” Gnasher said. Nick was still unable to speak, but he nodded. Gnasher relaxed his grip, and Nick gulped at the air.

Gnasher walked to the high table that stood near the center of the room. He put Finch and Nick down on its wide surface. “Move and I kill you. Understand?”

“Yes,” Nick said in a raspy voice, rubbing his aching chest. Finch was still not responding.

Gnasher looked over his cages and selected the two with the narrowest gaps between the bars. With a pair of his smallest keys, he unlocked the doors. He shook the cages and dry white bones tumbled out, clattering musically on the tabletop. “I must take better care of
my pets,” the ogre said. He set the cages side by side.

“Now,” he snarled at Nick. “Get in.” He was pointing to the smaller cage.

Nick walked into the little jail. Gnasher grabbed the back of Finch’s shirt between his thumb and finger and dragged the man inside the other cage. The ogre locked both doors and tucked the keys inside his shirt.

Gnasher lowered his face, inches away from the bars of Nick’s cage. A demon grin bent the ogre’s mouth. It was an expression calculated to frighten, but Nick refused to drop his gaze or step back as the ogre’s hot, foul breath washed over him. His little fists clung tight on the cage’s bars.

“I will give your friend a short time to recover,” Gnasher said, “and then the questions begin. In the meantime, let’s see if I can sniff out where Mother is hiding. I look forward to our next little chat, morsel.”

Gnasher left the room and closed the door softly behind him.

Nick heard Gnasher lock the door from the other side. He slumped to his knees and rested his head against the bars.

Finch woke suddenly from his trance, screaming and thrashing on the floor of his cage. He rolled from side to side and punched at phantoms in the air.

Nick stood up and went to the side of the cage closest to Finch. “Finch! Stop it! Look at me, Finch!” he yelled, trying to make himself heard over Finch’s hollers. A few
of the animal bones were left on the floor of Nick’s cage. He seized one and hurled it between the bars at Finch’s cage. It struck the side loudly.

Finch looked around, and when he saw Nick, he stopped screaming. The man’s eyes were huge. A strange, frightened smile emerged on his face. He started to laugh, a mad giggle that chilled Nick to the bone:
“Hee hee hee hee hee
…”

“Stop that!” said Nick.

Finch went on laughing. Nick threw another bone at him in disgust. It struck Finch on the shoulder, but it had no effect.

Nick wondered what he could say to get Finch to shut up. “The ogre will come back if you don’t stop!”

That did it. Finch went silent instantly. His eyes darted around, taking in the amazing sights of Gnasher’s room: the sketches, the inventions, the angry red forge, the heaving bellows, the dark pool of water in the center, and the grinding cogs and wheel of the wind machine high above.

“What is this place?” he said at last. His voice was hoarse from screaming.

“It’s the ogre’s room. Gnasher’s room.”

Finch pressed his face between the bars. “Gnasher?
Gnasher?
What’s he going to do to us?”

“Ask us questions first. I don’t know what happens then.”

“They’re going to eat us, aren’t they? Aren’t they!” Finch’s voice cracked in fear.

Nick ignored the question. “Finch, is anyone else up here with you? Toothless or Squint?”

Finch squeezed his eyes shut and pounded his forehead against the bars. “I told them all to wait—that I’d deal with you myself.”

“Will they come anyway, if you’ve been gone for long?”

“No. I told them to stay put until I returned. And they will.”

Nick knew it was true. There would be no rescue—not that he could count on Finch’s band for help after he’d betrayed them.

Gullinda could not get into this locked room to save him either. And besides, Nick truly hoped that she was miles away by now, on her way to a better life.

And Greeneyes? He didn’t even seem real; it was folly to hope for him to intervene. He was just the mysterious figure who set events in motion and perhaps watched, amused, to see how things would come out in the end.

“This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be here,” Finch muttered.

Nick couldn’t believe how much he had feared this pathetic man a few hours before. Back then, he’d been afraid to look Finch in the eye. Now the villain lay curled up like a ball on the floor of his cage, and Nick could scold him like a child.

“No? Where should you be. Finch?”

“I should be a baron by now. In my own castle.”

“So that’s where you came from. What happened? Why aren’t you?”

Finch was chewing at his fingernails, staring at nothing.’I … I had to run. They were going to hang me. Said I killed my brothers.”

Nick shook his head. “But you did kill them, didn’t you? Let me guess: because they were in your way.”

Finch closed his eyes. “They were weak. They weren’t worthy. It should have been mine, the barony”

So you went on the run and put together your nasty band,
thought Nick.
And everything was fine until you followed me up the beanstalk.
The hair stood on Nick’s neck when he remembered the beanstalk and the easy path it offered to the ground. Gnasher was no fool. He might realize that if people were here again, then a new beanstalk must have brought them.

“Finch! Listen to me!”

Finch opened his eyes and looked vacantly at Nick.

“Finch, we can’t tell the ogres about the beanstalk, no matter what they do to us. We can’t make it that easy for them to get down.”

Finch’s expression darkened. Suddenly Nick was staring back at the old Finch again, angry and cruel. “Listen to you, Nick. Always the hero. Such a good little boy. What a fool you are! You had the gold in your grasp, in Jack’s house, but you decided to have an adventure. You
had it again in this castle, but you decided to be the hero. And now look at you. Take a good look, boy, because this is how the real heroes end up: eaten alive, one way or the other.”

Finch’s words were like venom spreading in Nicks blood. He clapped his hands over his ears, but Finch only spoke louder.

“Are you proud of yourself, Nick? Because its not just you that’s doomed now!
You
summoned this infernal cloud. Now how many of your countrymen will suffer because of what you’ve done—crushed like beetles under their feet? Imagine the screams when they see the monsters coming, Nick. If only you could be there to witness it. And if only they could know who brought this suffering down on them. Your name, boy—they’d all die cursing your name: Nick, the thief who fancied himself a hero. Ha!”

“Shut your mouth!” Nick screamed at last. He flung another bone at Finch, but it clattered off the side of the cage. Finch threw back his head and laughed.

Nick curled up on the bottom of the cage with his back to Finch and drew his knees to his chest. It took all his resolve to make it this far, and suddenly there was nothing left inside. He needed arms to cradle him, but there were only bars around him. He needed warmth, but there was only cold iron and stone. He needed solace, but there was only the raving madman nearby.

His mouth opened in a soundless cry. Finch was
right: This was his own fault. There was nothing left to face but the return of Gnasher and whatever final horror that would bring. The room grew dim, and as Nick felt the sleep of exhaustion take him, he made a wish that he would never wake up.

Footsteps. Thumping, loud and heavy. The scratch of a key inside a lock, and hinges squeaking
.

The sound seemed to go on forever, until at last there was the loud crash of wood against stone as the door to the tower room opened wide.

Nick willed himself awake from his deathly slumber and saw Gnasher at the door. The ogre stepped inside and locked the door again. Locking it against Gullinda—who else? Knowing that she was still free gave Nick a small measure of relief.

Gnasher came directly to the table. There was dark purpose in his stride.

Finch retreated to the back of his cage and clung to the bars. He cowered and moaned with fear as Gnasher lifted his cage.

On your feet, I see. Found your courage yet, little man?” Gnasher gave the cage a shake. Finch did not respond; he only quivered and turned his face away from the ogre.