“Yes, my precious?” the Faerie King responded, his hand stroking the head of the smaller figure.
“Did we do good? Do we get our reward now?”
The king’s machine body brightened in what, it seemed, was the equivalent of a malicious smile. “All in good time, my dear,” his metal voice said, “your parents are under my control now. There will be time enough for you to be revenged on them at your leisure.”
Humunculus leaned down so that his lamp-like eyes were level with Bill’s. “As for you, my fine young fellow, your reward awaits you back at our city. It will be long and, I fear, somewhat uncomfortable.”
Brianna crouched down out of the wind as the flying machine tore across the heavens. She’d always regarded poultry as the laughing stock of the avian world (with the exception of pigeons - everyone thinks they’re ridiculous) but it turned out that given a sufficient chicken to person ratio (in this case around 200:1) and encouragement, they could move as fast as an eagle. Admittedly, there was nothing aquiline about the way the plane flew, it was more a case of a blunt force being applied to gravity and friction, but Brianna was certain she’d never moved this quickly, at least not when horizontal.
“Tally ho!” Flaxbottom cried as they banked to avoid a rain cloud. These were becoming rarer as they headed further south and, despite their height (something Brianna tried not to think too much about) it seemed to be getting warmer. Not as warm as her mother’s temper right about now, Brianna thought. She smiled at the mental picture formed by Duncan D’Isordly having to explain how it was that the virgin had escaped with the mad chicken woman and her air chariot.
The discomfort of Mother Hemlock was, however, only a minor bonus. Brianna had made her mind up as she’d left the mystical isle/tourist attraction, but cheesing her mother off was certainly the icing on the cake. Very frosty icing.
It had taken seconds to persuade Permanence Flaxbottom to join her in this daring mission (as Brianna had described it), though rather longer to gather the squadron together, divest the more randy members of their new clannish mates, and install them in the Amy. Flaxbottom had complained that the highland air was bad for discipline, not to mention the local poultry, and had been only too willing to risk the wrath of the witches for the sake of adventure.
They’d also be breaking a record. It was 150 miles as the chicken flies from the clanlands to her destination. She had realised, on that ridiculous island, that she needed to follow Bill wherever he’d gone - whether that was as worried lover or avenging angel would depend on what he’d been up to in the meantime. And, looking at that stone arch embedded in the ground she’d realised. There was a portal she could use and there was a way for her to survive in the Darkworld. And both could be found far in the south.
Chapter 32
THEY FOUND THE BODIES IN the chancellor’s chambers behind the audience room. One was already dead and the other close to it. “That’s General Snark,” Aggrapella said as Thun lowered her gently to the floor. She swayed a little but the colour was returning to her beak-like face.
“What happened to Montague?” Chortley asked. “He was chief of the household guard when I was last here.”
Aggrapella flushed. “He was incompetent and so I replaced him with Snark,” she hissed.
“And whose idea was that, I wonder?”
Chortley knew the answer to that question. Bently had persuaded Aggrapella to remove a loyal, albeit rather brutal, officer with this, this… “Where did he come from, anyway? I’ve never heard the name.”
“I don’t know,” Aggrapella sighed, “he was just there when I got rid of Montague. Bently said he’d be the ideal replacement.”
“Well, you won’t need to worry about his pension,” Chortley said as he went over to the other body. “Hello, this one’s still alive, but he won’t be for long. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Chortley rolled the figure onto it’s back. “Hello Sebastian,” he said, “seems the traitor was betrayed in the end. How fitting.”
“Am I going to die?” Sebastian de Grey croaked, looking down at the dagger protruding from his chest.
Chortley smiled. “Oh yes, but I have it in my power to make your transition to the other side quick, or a slow agony. Now, tell me what happened.”
De Grey, whose pale face had whitened even further, sucked in a shallow breath. “That wretched hobgoblin,” he muttered. His eyes closed but shot open again when Chortley shook him. “He had us lock up the guard, then he attacked us.”
Aggrapella kneeled beside the stricken man. “Where has he gone?”
“My lady, I am ssssorry,” De Grey whispered, “I ttthought he acted for you.”
“Where has he gone?” she repeated.
De Grey’s eyes flickered open. “To rejoin hiss masss…”
Aggrapella shook De Grey, but he was dead. “What did he mean?”
Chortley stood up. “What do you think, Clegg?”
“Well, his master is the Faerie King, but the only portal in this region was destroyed in the battle last year.”
“Oh dear,” Aggrapella said, shaking her head, “oh dear oh dear.”
Chortley grabbed her by the shoulders. “What is it, sister?”
“I fear the stones have been rebuilt.”
“What?” Chortley yelled, pushing her away from him in disbelief.
Aggrapella threw her arms out. “Well I didn’t know, did I? He said it’d make the perfect backdrop to my ceremony and, after all, the magic would stop any danger from the other side as it did before!”
“Except that he has the staff and that grants access both ways. You idiot, you’ve locked the army up and we’re going to face a Faerie invasion!”
Chortley turned away from his sister, who was reduced to speechlessness for the first time in her life. “Clegg, go down to the dungeons with the countess and release the troops,” he said, not noticing the colour drain from Clegg’s face, “and then send proclamations to all the lock-ups in the county ordering the immediate release of all imprisoned soldiers. Instruct them to march to the stones immediately. My sister will sign the orders.”
“I’m not staying here!” Aggrapella snapped. “I want to see that hunchback’s head on a pike, and I’d quite like to be the one who puts it there.”
Chortley shook his head. “No, only you can order the release of the prisoners and the muster of the army. Clegg here will know how to write it…economically. You may join us as soon as you’ve discharged your duties here.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Aggrapella cried. “I’m the countess around here, not you! I rule!”
“And if you don’t want your reign to be the shortest in history and to end with the invasion of the country by hordes of goblins, then I suggest you do what I say. You’ll have plenty of time to put me in my place once I’ve put that faerie in his.”
A shadow loomed over Chortley’s shoulder. “Thun not want go without lady.”
Chortley sighed as he looked up into the guileless face of his finest warrior. “She will be safe. You are needed. Many goblin heads to cleave.”
The barbarian’s face lit up at this prospect. He glanced at Aggrapella who gave a brief nod as her cheeks flushed.
“Okay,” Thun said. “We go now?”
“We go now.” Chortley sheathed his sword and sprang for the steps. “Hurry now,” he cried, “and follow fast. To the stones!”
#
The machine called Humunculus was enjoying himself. They’d arrived back at the settlement that afternoon and now the robot proletariat were gathered around an open fire outside the walls to hear their leader speak. Daven and Nessa had been lashed to a stake nearby, as their children ran, singing, around their feet.
Despite his situation, Bill was intrigued. Minus had said that the machines were inhabited by the souls of criminals and Bill had believed the wizard had simply lied when he’d met and rescued Daven and Nessa. While he didn’t have telepathic powers, Bill felt certain that
the two adult robots were innocents. And it seemed he was correct, as he hadn’t been betrayed by them but rather by their children. He wondered what terrible crimes the young souls in those machines must have committed to be sentenced to soul transportation and how unfortunate it had been for their parents to have given birth to such a brood.
He had been dumped on the wet grass, hands and feet chained, and propped up against a rock to watch the festivities. There was nothing stopping him getting up and hopping off. Except, that is, for the ever-vigilant army of machines who’d spot him and catch him within a couple of strides. So he sat there, feeling more lonely than in his entire life. Even Sebaceous had deserted him, it seemed, as Bill hadn’t seen the lizard since he’d woken up in the clearing to find Humunculus standing over him. Bill didn’t blame his reptilian friend. If his description of the power of the source was true, he’d be getting himself and his family as far away from this part of the Beyond as possible if he had any sense. And Bill couldn’t get the image of Brianna out of his mind. It felt as though his wedding day had belonged to a different lifetime, but it could only have been a matter of days. If he’d been more committed and spent less time moping around wondering whether he was doing the right thing, he might have been somewhere else when the lizards had come for him. But his head had been so far up his own arse he’d been an easy target.
But, above all, it was the staff that played on his mind. It had been in his room at Hemlock’s Farm, but he couldn’t help thinking that his abduction was part of a larger plan and that he would see the staff again. What would happen, he wondered, if the staff were united with the box. He knew that it worked like a magical amplifier, so he could only imagine what would happen if it were combined with a source of great power. Like a fuse to a keg of gunpowder. Bill shuddered.
“My friends, the freedom I promised you is at hand!” Humunculus cried, somehow contriving to make his mechanical body whirl around the fire in a blur. “This boy has furnished us with a source of ultimate power; power enough to reunite our tortured souls with new bodies.” The machines slapped their artificial hands together in a deafening, seemingly unending, thunderclap.
“And then, my friends, we shall be revenged! The Darkworld will fall, the Brightworld will fall and then we shall conquer this world and all three will be under my dominion!!”
The applause halted, its echo rebounding from the hills. After a few moments, Humunculus stopped. “I mean our dominion of course,” he cried, “for there will be realms to spare for my faithful generals.”
Still no applause.
“That means you, idiots!” Humunculus roared, pausing in his dance momentarily before bounding off to the sound of thunder.
Bill closed his eyes. If he’d thought things were black when he faced the king at the stones, he could hardly have imagined that, less than a year later, he would hand Humunculus the key to worlds domination. Suddenly, quietly, he sobbed.
And then he thought. Where in the world was the dragon?
Chapter 33
BRIANNA BANGED ON THE HEAVY wooden door before leaning into the meagre shade offered by the rockface. She looked back down the path she’d climbed, remembering the last time she’d been up here - when Bill had been with her. Everything had changed since then. She didn’t need his staff to find out where the door in the mountainside was, it was marked with a sign that read:
Your money or your life
Ha Ha
Not really
Cash paid for food
There had obviously been traffic along the path recently as the thistly desert grasses had been trampled down and, if she squinted, she reckoned she could see a dust cloud on the horizon that might have been a merchant caravan heading towards the mountains. Or an enemy army. Sighing, Brianna turned back to the door and pounded it until, finally, it creaked open.
“What’s you want?” said the nose that poked out of the darkness within. “Travellers due tomorrow. Caravans. You are not caravans. Where your furry dice?”
The voice behind the nose gave a yelp as Brianna kicked at the door and forced her way in. “Oi!” it said. “We a goblin horde, you cannots treat us likes that.”
“Look, just take me to Rasha and be quick about it,” Brianna said, stepping past the still invisible door warden and heading down the spiral staircase within. It had been months since she’d been down here, but she had a good sense of direction and, in all honesty, needed little more than her sense of smell to show her where most of the goblins were.
#
Rasha, however, had changed. He spun round when he heard her call and ran towards her. “Friend Brianna!” he called, his arms wide.
Brianna held him for as long as her nose could tolerate and then stood back. She looked around the torchlit chamber. “Why did you set up your headquaters in Minus’s lab?” she asked. “Isn’t it creepy with all those coffins lining the walls?”
Rasha shook his head. “Goblins isn’t easy to creep, and this is the seat of power of the mountain, so I conducts business here.”
“You’ve grown since I saw you. Are you eating properly? And getting enough sleep?”
“Yes, I is big now, nearly full-growed. And I sleeps and eats okie dokie, not as much of either as I would like, but I is doing fine.”
“And all is well down here? I see you’ve set up trading arrangements. There’s a caravan coming in tomorrow, I’m told.”
Rasha climbed up onto a roughly made table and sat, his face now at Brianna’s eye level. “Yes, though they a bloody nuisance. They comes all this way, then can’t manoeuvre up narrow mountain path. This time tomorrow, the way will be blocked. Jack-knifed caravans everywhere, you see.”
“And the trolls in the valley?”
“Oh, they keeps themselfs to themselfs. We not heard much. They says we cannot use the pass but they don’t have no heart in it since wizard died. Some goblins tells me they is talking of going off and finding nice bridges to live under. They say all this trolling has got out of hand and they wants to go back to old days when things was simple. So goblins say.”
Brianna brushed the desert dust from her jacket. Flaxbottom had landed in a salt pan out on the plains and it had been a long walk to the door in the mountainside. “And how are you doing? I guess you’re running the place?”
“No, Grippa is Chief Goblin, but I is the King’s Brain so I can do the thinking while he does the fighting,” Rasha said with a shy smile.
“Who is he fighting?” Brianna asked, “You haven’t been attacked have you? I mean, I know the legend of the treasure vaults of the goblin mountain will, by now, have become, um, legendary, but, after all, it’s a goblin mountain.”
Rasha was waving his claws. “No, friend Brianna, goblins does not need others to fight. Goblins is very good at fighting themselves. But what is it you is coming for, not just to visit poor Rasha?”
“Well, it was partly to visit you,” Brianna lied, “but also to ask for your help. And it’s a lot to ask. But Bill’s in trouble and we’re the only ones who can help him.”
“Friend Bill? Where is he? What has happened?” Rasha’s hideous face was contorted with genuine concern.
Brianna drew in a deep, musty, breath and leaned in closer. The other goblins in Rasha’s Chamber of Thinking leaned in, but backed away again as Brianna raised an eyebrow in their general direction. “He’s been captured and taken into the Darkworld. I want to follow him, but the only way I can do that is inside the mechanical suit. Do you know where it is?”
“It is where you left it. Broked.”
“Good. Do you think you can fix it?”
Rasha shrugged. “Maybe. We is damn clever.”
“But then, there’s the problem of the blocked passageway to the Darkworld.”
“The one you said was to stay blocked?” Rasha said, “What was, no way, ever to be opened cos that would be stupid and dangerous?”
Brianna nodded. “That’s the one - how long do you think it would take to clear it? Damn
it, I wish I’d thought of coming here sooner, I guess it’ll take weeks…”
“We cleared it soon as you left,” Rasha beamed.
“What? You mean you went against my express instructions as soon as my back was turned?”
Rasha smiled. “You bet. Goblins get bored very quickly and this kept the big muscle knuckleheads busy for months. But don’ts worry, we keep it strictly guarded. No-ones comes in without my say so.”
Brianna stood up, leaned over, and gave the goblin a kiss on his forehead. “Come on then, we’ve got a robotic suit to mend.”
#
Chortley pulled on the reins and Horace slid to a halt in a flurry of thin equine legs. Horace’s brother, Percy, had told him all about the mad ride through the night he’d endured and Horace was certain that he was currently carrying said fruit-cake on his back. The talk across the stable wall had been in that particularly sarcastic way horses have of communicating their displeasure at having to do anything as crass as carrying someone on their back, let alone a fat man whose wits were currently enjoying a holiday in the sun somewhere.
Unfortunately for Chortley, Horace was not a horse in the same class as his late brother. Indeed, had it not been for his exceptional pedigree, Horace would have found himself pulling a cart along the streets of Montesham if he was lucky, or helping keep wallpaper in place if he wasn’t. Horace was knock kneed, cross-eyed and possessed a digestive system that would be classed as a weapon of mass destruction in another universe. But he had been the only horse in the stable.
Chortley swayed in the saddle, wafting away a particularly noxious smell that seemed to have been following them. He could hear the thudding of Thun’s feet as the barbarian loped along. The man was incredible, he could run at the pace of a horse and seemed tireless. “Thun, stop!” Chortley hissed as he swung his leg over Horace’s back and alighted with a squelch on the muddy track. Horace’s back relaxed, pulling his stomach in with predictably noisy results.
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