A cry echoed along the corridor and Chortley remembered. He charged into the darkness, heedless of the shouts of the others. That sound pulled at his very soul, he could no more resist running towards it than he could stop himself pulling out the last toenail of a particularly recalcitrant torture victim.
“Help!” it seemed to cry, even though that was not the word that entered his ears. But he was too desperate, too crazed to care. He ran until he was out of breath then, stopping, looked ahead and behind. He was quite alone. The cracked squad and the witches were somewhere behind him, hidden by a curve of the tunnel, and ahead was only dripping blackness. And sobbing. Chortley listened.
#
Brianna swung her arm round, catching Aligvok a glancing blow to the head, but she fell to the ground as pain erupted from behind her knee. She twisted over to see Marcello standing above her, staff in hand, Bently next to him waving his knife at Bill, who’d lunged in her direction in an attempt to catch her as she fell.
Muscular, tanned, arms appeared around Marcello’s chest as Negstimeaboi lifted him from the ground and threw him across the room. “You not hit lady!” she bellowed. Bently leapt at her, but Ambler grabbed him by the collar, wrenched the knife from his grip and pinned Bently to the floor.
“Didn’t you hear her?” he hissed in the hobgoblin’s ear, “You not hit lady.”
Aligvok cleared his throat. “Oh, very dramatic. And yet I still have my knife at the throat of this young man. I suggest everyone remains still so that I don’t accidentally slit it.”
Brianna sat up. “Why are you in league with him?” she said, pointing at Marcello who was lying on the floor inert. “I thought you feared him.”
Aligvok laughed. “Me, frightened of that old charlatan? I think not! But he was right about one thing: this boy, if he is an elemental, has the power to refill the orb.”
“Why does that matter to you? You already have a body,” Brianna responded before taking in the perfect features and blonde locks of the figure in front of her. “Oh.”
The wizard nodded at Ambler. “You will let him go.”
“And why would I do that?”
Aligvok rolled his eye. “Because otherwise I will kill this boy.”
Ambler shrugged. “Why should I care?”
“Oh come off it,” sneered Aligvok, “I know your sort. You’re one of the good guys, you won’t sit there and watch as I kill an innocent.”
Bill’s mind, which had been entirely preoccupied with the point of Aligvok’s knife and its proximity to his jugular, now began reflecting on the sad truth that he was, indeed, an innocent. The prospect of dying was bad enough, but to leave this world with nothing to regret except that he had nothing to regret was tragic.
“You do not know my sort at all if you think I would shirk hard choices,” Ambler said, keeping Bently pinned to the floor with his knee. “I judge that, were our faerie friend to be released, he could endanger more than one innocent life.”
Negstimeaboi, sat atop an unconscious Marcello, stirred. “No, my warrior. It not right that girl should lose love.”
“What?” Ambler said.
“What?” Bill said.
“What?” Brianna said, as her cheeks flushed.
“She pretends, but I know. I a woman in love too,” Negstimaboi pronounced. “Let little goblin man go, maybe boy not die. We handle king when he come.”
Without saying a word, Ambler got up, hoisted Bently to his feet and shoved him in the direction of Aligvok.
“Thank you,” said the wizard, “now, if you would be so kind as to keep our female friend here restrained, I will proceed.”
Bently extended a claw and prodded Brianna in the back with it. If it were possible, he did it apologetically, but nothing could be allowed to stand in the way of his master’s return.
“Now, you will channel your power into the orb, or your girlfriend here will suffer,” Aligvok hissed, twirling his metaphorical waxed moustache.
“I’m not his girl…” began Brianna. “Oh, what the hell. William Strike, do you hear me?”
Bill, who was being dragged by girlish arms that really oughtn’t to be so strong, twisted his head to look at her. “What is it?”
“Will you marry me?”
If this were a play being performed in one of the cheaper theatres in Varma’s lower quarter, the cast would, at this point, freeze. Silence and darkness would fall over the set as the spotlights would illuminate the two doomed lovers facing their eternal separation.
As it was, however, Aligvok yanked Bill’s head back with a snarl as the chamber echoed to the sounds of the struggle.
“What?” Bill cried, feeling as though he might have missed something important.
Brianna paused for a moment. She’d said it in a rare moment of impulse driven by the fact that Bill was about to die, his life force drained into an orb so that an evil king could be reborn. And then she reflected that all of this was still true.
“I said, will you marry me?”
“Put your hands on the orb, now!” Aligvok snarled. “Or she dies.”
Bill fought against the wizard’s hideous strength so that he could see Brianna. Even now, with death very much on the menu, a part of him wondered if this was a wind-up and that she would, as his soul leached away, chuckle at him and mutter “idiot!”
But then he looked at her, struggling against the metallic grip of Bently, his claws digging into her back. Ambler and Negstimeaboi were huddled together to one side, tears streaming down their faces, frozen like a dreadful audience watching the inevitable but unable to act.
Brianna struggled fitfully. Their eyes met. “Yes!” he shouted. “I love you Mrs Strike!”
She stopped moving. “What makes you think I’m taking your name?” she said. “I asked first, so I get dibs.”
Their first row as an engaged couple was cut short as Bill’s hands were placed against the orb. It felt as though it were made of ice and he gasped as his hands emptied of heat and a sensation of creeping, frozen, death began to fill his arms and edge towards his heart.
#
It was getting colder as Chortley jogged through the darkness, his torch held out in front of him. He felt as though he’d been running for hours, but he knew that was just the oppressive loneliness of the blackness in front of him and chasing behind.
He stopped, his footsteps continuing to echo for a moment, and listened. He could hear nothing except the dripping of water in the increasingly moist tunnel and the distant shuffling of his comrades as they followed. At least he hoped it was them he could hear.
The sobbing had stopped some time ago. It was if he’d been lured into isolating himself from the company like some stupid, impetuous fool. And now, here he stood, alone, and with no idea of what lay lurking outside the torchlight.
Chortley drew in a deep breath, hefted the torch again and plunged into the darkness. He was exhausted, weighed down by command and, to tell the truth, the burden of having to constantly make it all up as he went along. Chortley was a man who liked a plan - preferably written up on nice, white parchment with neatly drawn straight lines and a different colour ink for marking completed tasks. He didn’t like feeling as though he was tied to the front of an elephant with a firework up its arse.
He stopped again. There was something there, he’d seen light reflect from something shiny as he waved the torch around. He edged forward, torch in one hand, sword in the other. What was this emotion that froze his limbs and caused his hands to shake? Could it be terror?
Something flashed to his right, he saw teeth.
Chortley screamed.
#
Bill felt old. He could hear Brianna bellowing and then, moments later, shrieking in pain. But it seemed to be a sound coming from far away. A peace began to descend on him like a dark blanket that promised warmth and an end to his struggle if he’d just let go his final grip on the world. His energy almost gone, Bill’s spirit hung by its fingernails over a gaping chasm as dead
ly as it was metaphorical. His soul was the sweetest treat, the biggest concentration of power, and it was drawn, irresistibly downwards by the terrible gravity of the orb.
“Somebody is in for a leatherin’” said a voice on the edge of his hearing. He let go.
When he awoke, it was to see the wrinkled face of Gramma Tickle looking down at him. And Brianna was also there, her smile growing as she saw life return to his eyes.
“What happened?” he managed.
Brianna chuckled. “Gramma happened,” she said, “and Bently and Aligvok got a leathering.”
Bill tried to sit up, but his strength gave way. Muscular arms grabbed him under his shoulders and heaved him into a sitting position.
“Lover boy too weak,” Negstimaboi said, her eyes still moist with tears.
Looking at each other, Bill and Brianna agreed, telepathically, to put a pin in that particular matter, for now. But it warmed his heart to see her smile, just a little.
Aligvok, Bently and the still unconscious Marcello lay in a corner of the chamber, watched over by Ambler, who was now armed with a sword in one hand and a staff in the other.
“Alright, cock?” Gramma said.
“I’m alright. Thank you,” Bill said, smiling, “but what are you doing here?” It was beginning to occur to him that this hidden laboratory was about as secret as a politician’s sexual proclivities.
“I did some faggling, lad,” the old woman replied, winking in a way that was meant to suggest cunning and intelligence, but which actually made her look as though she had something in her eye. “I thought, who’d know what to do with that little oik?” Gramma jerked a thumb at a small figure Bill hadn’t previously noticed before, standing next to Ambler with a dagger in its hand.
“Rasha!” called Bill. The figure didn’t turn around, but it did go very, very still.
Brianna shook her head. “It’s not Rasha, Bill, but it’s one of his kind.”
“Anyway,” Gramma continued, “I said to meself, I said, who’d know what to do with that little oik? Jessie ‘emlock, that’s who. So I went to the farm and Flem were there and told me she’d gone to Crapplecreek. So I went there next and they said she’d gone off with yon brother and, after a lickle persuadin’, they said they’d all gone south down the Wong Way. So I followed. It weren’t difficult, I ‘ad a lickle ‘elp from the Wing Commander and her new experimencal flying machine. Gave me the willies it did, to be up so high, but she said it were safe. Somethin’ to do with wearin’ thermals.”
Gramma stopped for a moment, as if to make sure she hadn’t left any cunning or cleverness out of the account. “But then I found out the valley were stuffed full of Stone Trolls and some of them were very cross, so I legged it out and found the path that led to the doorway. I got ‘ere just in time to see that little sod poking our Brianna in the back and I got a bit cross.”
“You should have seen it, Bill,” Brianna said, smiling, “Marcello’s staff jumped up off the floor and whacked Bently before knocking out Aligvok!”
“Yeh, there ain’t a lot to work with down ‘ere for a witch of the earth, but his staff still had some live wood inside. Quite enough for a decent leatherin’.”
Bill nodded towards the goblin. “But what about him?”
“Oh, I got asked by the dwarfs to sort out a lickle trouble what they were ‘avin,” Gramma said, “and he were the lickle trouble. Mind, it turned out he’s not such a bad lad after all and me and him came to an understanding on the way ‘ere.”
“What sort of understanding?” Brianna asked, unable to resist.
Gramma smiled. “He understands that if he don’t behave ‘imself, he’ll get a leatherin’. Mind, he’s not the real troublemaker here, neither is that hobnob over there,” she pointed at Bently, who was sitting on the floor, head bowed. “No, it’s them wizards -the one what looks like a lickle girl and our friend Marvello over there.”
“Marcello,” corrected Brianna.
“That’s what I said,” Gramma snapped, “and anyway, don’t interrupt your elders, girl. There’s plenty of leatherin’ to go round.”
Brianna smiled coyly. Bill warmed up a little.
“Now, from what our Brianna says, Marzipan, he could be a bit of an ‘andful when ‘e wakes up. So, we ‘ave to faggle out what to do sharpish. I’ve got his staff, but I reckon it’s nothing more than a stick wi’ apprehensions.”
“Pretensions?” Brianna suggested.
Gramma shot a look at her. Her flow took a lot of building up and she didn’t like it being interrupted. “But if he got hold of your staff, lad, then we might be for it. I suggest you yank it out of yon stone.”
Bill nodded and, with the help of Negstimeaboi, stood up, swaying a bit. “I can’t do it, Gramma,” he said, “I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“Oh stop your scriking and take the staff, only you can do it.”
Negstimeaboi took hold of one arm and Ambler the other. The two of them dragged Bill across to the orb, which was now glowing again with a faint light that, Bill realised, was the energy he now lacked.
He was released as he stood in front of the stone. He rocked on his ankles and put his hands out to steady him. Falling forward, he reached out for the staff. His fingers wrapped around it and he pulled gently, flexing his weak muscles as he felt the staff slide towards him. Ambler caught him as he fell backwards again, pulling the staff with him, and the orb went out.
Bently screamed.
Chapter 22
Chortley rubbed his arm, wincing as his fingers ran over the seeping wound that Velicity had bound tight with cloth torn from the hem of her petticoat. He could see the legs of the creature as it lay crumpled on a stone shelf built into the wet brick wall, like some sort of bed for trolls. It was surrounded by the cracked squad, and Thun’s arse was doing a good job of almost completely concealing Chortley’s attacker.
“Thank you,” he said.
Velicity smiled, and it was as if his monkey-brain had turned up the dimmer switch as his mind filled with light. “It was foolish of you to be so far ahead of us,” she replied, “any further and you’d have been beyond help.”
“I know it was you who saved me, I felt your wind blowing through the corridor - it knocked us both off our feet.”
“Well, there wasn’t enough water for Mother Hemlock to work with,” Velicity said, blushing, before she moved closer and whispered. “And she’s not as fast as she used to be.”
Chortley shivered from the delightful and remarkably invigorating effects of Velicity’s breath on his skin.
“She may be slow, but she ain’t deaf yet,” Mother Hemlock’s voice echoed from where she stood, regarding their prisoner. She shook her head, then stalked across to where Velicity and Chortley sat in the light of a torch balanced in a mess tin.
“As if we weren’t in enough trouble already,” she said.
Adrenalin cleansed Chortley’s mind of any pleasant thoughts and he was back in the grim, horrible reality of a dirty tunnel and a wet backside.
“Mind, I don’t think we need to look for the portal no longer,” Mother Hemlock continued, deriving satisfaction from being the only one there with the faintest clue of what was going on, “I reckon we passed through it when we opened that door back yonder.”
Chortley pulled himself up against the wall, both for dramatic effect and because his glands, having hosted a brief debate on the proposition that flight was preferable to fight, were now trying to take possession of his legs and his conscious mind was having trouble coming up with reasons why they shouldn’t bugger off this instant.
“You mean, we’re in the Darkworld now?” Velicity said, mercifully taking on the burden of being the one who, knowing the answer already, nevertheless feels compelled to ask the question.
Mother Hemlock nodded gravely. “Yes, though I suspect our new friend here is just as far from home as we are.”
“What?” Chortley managed, “I assumed it was a goblin. Mind you, all I really saw was teeth
.”
“No, not a goblin. In a way, what we has here is much, much worse. Your attacker, lad, was one of the fair folk. Oh, she’s in a bad way and doesn’t much resemble how she’d look when properly fed and in her own country, but there’s no mistaking it. There’s an elf on that shelf.”
#
Bently?
The trembling figure cowered in the corner, his master’s voice echoing around the inside of his skull.
Are you there, Bently? I have been alone for so very, very long.
“Master?” Bently replied, drawing surprised glances from the others.
Bently! I thought it was you! There was a pause that might have contained some quiet psychic sobbing. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
The hobgoblin fell onto the floor, clutching his head and rolled from side to side.
“I tried, master, and I nearly succeeded, but for the old witch.”
“Oo are you callin’ an old witch,” echoed Gramma’s voice, “I’m just a lickle old lady, everyone knows that.”
You must free me, Bently. I am all alone in here. They’ve all gone and left me for what seems like years. I fear that I am going mad!
Bently covered his eyes, as if he could hide in the darkness, but he knew he couldn’t hide from the voice in his head. “Please!” he cried, “help me release my master, I beg of you, help me. I can’t stand it any longer!”
“What the bloody hell is goin’ on?” asked Gramma.
Bently looked up at her. “I hear him, in my head. Before, it only happened when I touched the staff, but now I can get no release. It is unbearable.”
“Hearing voices in your head what command you to do stuff. We ‘ave a word for people like you where I come from.”
“Mad?” ventured Brianna, drawn into the gravitational well of Gramma’s slipstream of consciousness.
“No, we calls ‘em priests,” she replied. “But anyway, lad, you can’t expec’ us to let that bastard back out where ‘e might do ‘arm, can you?”
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