by Paul Stewart
The towers of Undertown were still before him, but flat now against the sky in the fading light. Despite all his efforts, he was still making dismal progress. Every breath was an effort; every step a gamble. Panting noisily, he slipped and stumbled, grazing his knuckles and cracking his shins. And then, just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, something up ahead of him caught his eye; something that reminded him that in Screetown things could always get worse.
It was lying on a flat slab of rock: bright blue, furry, crushed. He approached cautiously, a numbing dread pounding in his temples. From its beaky snout and curved claws, Rook recognized the dead creature at once.
‘A lemkin,’ he gasped, and prodded at the desiccated body with his foot. A fine white dust trickled down from its mouth and empty eye-sockets. Rook looked away, but not before noticing that there was grey-green moss clinging to the rock. There must be water close by¡ Perhaps the lemkin had come searching for it - and perished in the process. Rook drew his sword and peered into the shadows.
From his left, he heard a soft, murmuring trickle. Water - running water. A broken pipe, maybe; or a little spring. Rook moved towards the sound, his senses on fire and his head spinning - the promise of the cool, refreshing water battling with the need to remain on his guard.
He climbed over a squat, rounded rock that looked like nothing so much as a grazing hammelhorn. The trickling sound grew louder. There, bubbling up from the ground in the shadow of two moss-covered slabs of rock, was a small spring. It overflowed and spread out, before disappearing back into the earth. The muddy ground around it was dappled with the footprints of numerous creatures - both predator and prey. Rook had just seen what had happened to the lemkin. He had no intention of suffering the same fate.
Keeping a close lookout, he crouched down - sword ready at his side - cupped his hands and plunged them into the small pool; and again, and again …
Water had never tasted as good¡
His thirst quenched at last, Rook undipped his water-bottle and dunked it into the clear water. Glugging bubbles hit the surface as it filled, and he glanced nervously round, terrified that some prowling Screetown creature might have heard.
Was that something glinting in the shadows? he wondered, his heart racing. And what was that smell? Steamy … Stagnant…
‘Hurry up, he muttered and shook the bottle under the water, trying to force it to fill more quickly. The air bubbles came out in a rush - then stopped completely as the water gushed in. Rook pushed the cork into place and was about to attach it back on his belt when he heard a noise behind him. Soft and slithering, it was - and the steamy, stagnant odour seemed to grow more intense.
Grasping his sword, Rook spun round. At first, he couldn't see anything untoward. Just rocks and shadows.
There's nothing there, he tried to reassure himself. It's just my mind playing tricks.
But even as he thought it, he realized that he was wrong. His gaze fell on a glint of light. It was a tentacle; a moist, translucent tentacle writhing out of a black crevice and probing the rock above. And as he watched - horrified, unable to tear himself away - a second tentacle appeared. Together, the pair of them gripped the rock, quivered and tugged. The next instant, the glistening top of a jelly-like creature appeared from the narrow crack. It squeezed itself up out of the gap, like tilder-fat oozing from a split barrel.
‘Earth and Sky!’ Rook gasped, stepping back.
With a slimy squelch, the last of the great gelatinous creature eased itself out of the crevice. Trembling and wobbling, it resumed its more normal form. With a sickening jolt of recognition, Rook realized just what it was. The three flickering eye-bumps, the slimy transparent skin with the veins pulsing beneath it; the probing tentacles, the fluttering belly-frill, the vast body quivering with anticipation …
‘A rubble ghoul,’ he whispered.
The name was enough to make every hair on his body stand on end. He had pored over descriptions of them in the library treatises he'd read, descriptions that had revolted him even then. But now, up close, he felt a wave of nausea wash over him.
Slurping loudly, the rubble ghoul slithered over the slab of rock, its three eyes glistening in the gloom. Rook took another step back. At the edge of the slab now, the creature flapped its belly-frill and rose up, seemingly weightless, into the air. It pulsated as it moved, like bellows - in, out, in, out - sucking in the humid air, and blowing it out again, as hot and dry as the blast from an oven.
Rook took yet another step back. The creature came closer. It was clearly thirsty - but then rubble ghouls, he knew, were always thirsty. Not for running water though. Even as he edged towards the babbling spring, Rook knew it wouldn't save him. No, the rubble ghoul took its sustenance from living bodies, sucking every drop of moisture from its victims. Lemkins or librarian knights, they weren't fussy what they drank.
At the next faltering step, Rook's back thudded against rock. He could go no further. He was trapped.
The rubble ghoul hovered before him, slurping and hissing. In, out, it went. In out. The air all round grew hotter, drier; the stagnant odour made him gag.
All at once, the great pulsing creature tilted back to reveal a huge iris-like opening at the centre of its quivering belly. Rook stared in horror as, slowly but surely, it began to open. A shower of bright pink suckered tentacles flipped out and danced in the scorching air.
The colour drained from Rook's face. What could he do?
∗
Like a clump of noxious toadstools growing out of a grimy Undertown clearing, the Hive Towers - headquarters of General Tytugg and his elite hammerhead guard - gleamed in the fading light. Lamps had already been lit both inside and out. Dull, flickering yellow light glowed from the small windows in the towers and cone-shaped roofs; torches fixed to the walls and the sides of the notorious Gates of Despair blazed. The rank odour of the burning fat mingled with the general filth - fungal, fetid, and foul.
Inside, the shadowy building was one vast, spartan open hall. At its centre was a great fire, the stinkwood logs the goblins preferred blazing fiercely The flames were intensely hot; the smoke, pungent. Above the brazier hung a series of bubbling pots, each one tended by mobgnome slaves, their chains bolted to the floor. At the sides of the building, there were staircases leading up to platform after platform - all secured to the curving outer-walls but with no inner-walls to close them off into rooms. There were no secrets in the Hive Towers.
The whole place was seething. There were hammerhead goblins in every corner; rough and rowdy, their voices raised, and spoiling for a fight. Even those asleep on their hammocks strung out beneath the roof-beams were snoring, snorting, thrashing about and cursing loudly in their dreams.
Some were on duty, guarding the gates, the walls and the roofs. Some were at table in the slop-corners; others were seated on wooden benches tending to their equipment - patching rents in their jackets and re-soling their boots, cleaning blood from their swords and sharpening the vicious jags on their battle-scythes.
As a mobgnome slave scurried past a group of them, a jug clasped in her scrawny arms, one - a tattooed individual with a ring through his nose - stuck out a boot. The mobgnome went sprawling, her face thudding down into the rank, mouldering straw, her jug smashing and the hammelhorn-milk it had held slopping over the floor.
‘Lick that up, clumsy slave-filth, the hammerhead snarled.
Outside, a dozen or more - massive specimens, each of them, with heavy armour and bearing the scars of numerous hard battles - were locked in mock-combat, so fierce that it looked like the real thing.
Passing between the lot of them, a returning battalion of goblin guards was tramping up the stairs to the bulging armoury with a consignment of seized weapons. Their victorious voices boomed round the hall.
That'll teach them Undertown scumsacks not to mess with us, one grunted. ‘Whatever made them think they could get away with manufacturing weapons like that? And right under us noses!’
H
is neighbour chuckled. ‘D'you hear that factory-master squeal when we strung him up?’ he said. ‘Like a stuck woodhog, he sounded.’
‘Bled like one, too, another chipped in.
‘Still, the weapons'll come in useful, the first hammerhead muttered, patting the great bundle of scythes, swords, maces and crossbows he and his neighbour were carrying between them. ‘Rumour has it, there's a fresh contingent coming in from the Goblin Nations.’
Further down the stairs, a couple of goblins snorted dismissively.
‘Goblin Nations, one of them said, hawking and spitting down the stairwell.
‘Milksops, the lot of them, said the other. ‘Settled down in villages just like that Free Glade scum, they have!’
Every self-respecting hammerhead goblin prided himself on his independence; with a weapon at his side and his birthing-bundle on his back, a hammerhead was always ready to pick up everything he owned and move on. Or should have been. Recently, though, several of their number had been tempted to settle down in permanent dwellings in the Goblin Nations; they'd become merchants, trappers - some, it was reported, were even taking up farming¡
‘General Tytugg will soon whip ‘em into shape, came a voice from further up the stairs, and a cheer of derision and anticipation echoed round the building.
General Tytugg himself was unaware that his name had been mentioned. He didn't hear the raucous cheering, nor the spontaneous boot-pounding of approval that followed. Standing on the raised platform jutting out from the first storey, he only had eyes and ears for his prisoner.
‘You will tell me, Huffknot,’ he said, his voice gruff and menacing as he jerked the lugtroll's head sharply back. ‘Of that, I give you my word.’ He pulled a long rusty pin from the lapel of his leather battle-jacket and held it close to the lugtroll's terrified face.
‘But … but I don't … I don't know anything,’ he protested, his chains jangling. ‘Not a single thing. Really, I don't. I'm at the beck and call of any who enlist my services …’
‘Tut-tut-tut,’ Tytugg clicked softly and shook his head. He traced the point of the pin lightly down the lugtroll's bulbous nose. ‘I'm disappointed in you, Huffknot.’ His voice grew harsh. ‘I don't like being disappointed.’
‘You've got to believe me!’ the lugtroll pleaded.
‘When you starts telling me the truth - the whole truth, Huffknot - then maybe I shall start believing you,’ said the general. He turned and inspected the three small pots set out in a line on a trestle-table. He selected one at random, unstoppered it and sniffed the thick orange liquid inside. ‘I wonder what this one does?’
Eyes wide and body quivering, Huffknot watched as the general poked the pin down inside the pot and withdrew it. A bead of orange clung to the sharpened point.
‘Hold out your arm, Tytugg demanded.
Huffknot did as he was told, the chain fixed round his wrist clanking as he moved. General Tytugg seized the arm, jabbed the pin into the skin and stood back to observe.
Almost at once, Huffknot felt the tiny pinprick burn, and he watched helplessly as his arm began to swell.
‘Interesting, said the general. ‘Forgive me, Huffknot, but I thought you said the pots contained cosmetics - for the shryke-sisters. Feather-balm, you said. Beak-gloss. Cold cream…’ He poked at the swollen arm. ‘Yet it seems to work like … well, poison.’
Huffknot grimaced. ‘I … I didn't know. She told me that…
‘Who told you?’ General Tytugg demanded. Above and below, the hammerheads paused and looked round as his angry voice rose up above the general hubbub.
‘I … I don't know her name, Huffknot whispered.
Without a word, the general seized the second pot, pulled out the stopper and dipped the pin inside. This time, as he pricked the lugtroll's flesh, the skin developed an angry red rash that spread up his arm and down to his fingertips. And, as the pair of them watched, the whole area erupted in a mass of tiny pustules. Tytugg thrust the pin into the bottle a second time and held it close to Huffknot's face.
‘Hestera, he blurted out. ‘Hestera Spikesap.’
‘I knew it!’ the general cried triumphantly. ‘Hestera Spikesap … He savoured the words. ‘Hestera Spikesap -the hag what ministers to that parasitic lardbutt, Vox Verlix, He turned and called down to a hammerhead guard sitting on a wooden bench, hardening his crossbow bolts in the fire. ‘I owe you a barrel of woodgrog, Smutt, he shouted. ‘He was coming out of the Palace of Statues.’
The hammerhead looked up and grinned toothlessly. ‘Sir, he shouted back.
The general turned back to Huffknot. A thin-lipped smile spread across his leathery face, revealing an incomplete set of brown, jagged teeth. ‘Looks like I've struck gold with you, he said.
‘But I don't know anything, believe me. I'm her slave. I have to do what I'm told,’ Huffknot babbled. ‘I was to deliver the pots to the shrykes, just as I told you, and return with a phial I would be given in return.’
Tytugg shuddered. ‘Shrykes,’ he muttered. ‘One day, so help me, I'm going to wring every one of their scrawny necks. They've got it coming to them…’ He looked up, eyes blazing. ‘A phial of what?’
Huffknot shrugged. ‘Your guards arrested me before
The general spat. ‘Something to do with that Vox Verlix, no doubt,’ he snarled. ‘I've been meaning to pay that great fatsack another visit for quite some time.’ He ran his fingers up and down his knife. ‘Unfinished business, you might say. It's about time he learned who really governs Undertown, He frowned. If I could just get into that rat-trap of a palace of his…’
He fell silent, deep in thought. Then he turned on Huffknot. His face was grim, his voice menacing.
‘But of course!’ he said, an evil smile playing on his lips. ‘Hestera Spikesap's slave, you say. Well I'm sure you know your way round Vox's palace - where those traps are and how to avoid them. How, for instance’ - Tytugg leered at the hapless lugtroll - ‘a goblin who wanted to pay our so-called Most High Academe an unannounced visit might get into his personal chamber?’
‘Unannounced visit?’ said Huffknot. ‘Personal chamber?’ He trembled. ‘I … I'm just a kitchen slave.’
General Tytugg turned away. He picked up the third pot and tugged the cork free. An acrid odour - like rotting oaksap and tildermusk - filled the air. The lugtroll blanched as the general plunged the pin into the black potion it contained. He stirred it three times, then turned back to the lugtroll and held the steaming pin inches from the bulbous nose.
‘No, no!’ Huffknot shrieked. ‘Not that one¡ I beg you¡ Please¡ I'll tell you everything¡ Everything!’
Grasping his sword, Rook slashed desperately at the hideous gelatinous creature that reared up before him, its huge mouth writhing with tentacles. But it was no good. With a sudden beating of its belly-frill, the rubble ghoul surged forwards and swallowed him whole. It was like being smothered in scalding tar.
Rook couldn't cry out. He could barely breathe. He felt the tentacles attaching themselves to his face, his arms, his legs. He struggled, but could not move. The sword was wrenched from his fingers. Soon, his heart would stop and the suckers would start their work. He would be drained like the hanging carcass of a hammelhorn.
Helpless, he peered through the translucent body of the suffocating creature. He could just make out the towers of Undertown. With a sharp pang of despair, he thought how they looked farther away than ever …
All at once, there was a hiss, a shudder - and the rubble ghoul's mouth suddenly gaped in an involuntary spasm. Rook was spat out with such force that he was slammed into the rubble beside the spring. Something round and leathery almost hit him on the head as the creature spat again, and seemed to curl up into itself. Rook looked down. It was his water-bottle - empty now, and dry as a bone.
At that moment, the rubble ghoul let out a bloodcurdling screech and turned from purple to red, three jets of steam hissing noisily from its eyes. Its translucent body bubbled and popped, like water boiling in a cauld
ron. A glass phial shot out of the writhing rubble ghoul and shattered on the rocks beside Rook.
The hover tincture, Rook murmured.
No librarian knight's equipment was complete without the antidote to the bite of the hover worm, the notorious Deepwoods predator. Here in Undertown, they were seldom encountered, and yet the small glass phial was considered a good-luck charm. Rook had good cause to thank it now. The antidote that acted against the horrific swelling caused by the hoverworm's bite was clearly fatal to the rubble ghoul.
With a small sigh, the creature flopped down onto a slab of rock. The last vestiges of moisture evaporated away. There was nothing left but a fine, dry membrane -with Rook's sword resting at the very centre.
Rook climbed to his feet and crossed over to the rock. Already the hot humid air was turning the remains of the rubble ghoul to dust. He stooped down for the sword, wiped the blade on his trousers and returned it to its sheath. Then, as he turned to leave, something caught his eye.
He stopped.
Not something, he realized, but someone - silhouetted against the sky just above him. Rook sank to his knees. He'd been hunted, almost died of thirst, been swallowed whole then spat out again, only to be cornered by … By what ?
‘I give up, he murmured. ‘I can't go on …’
The figure held out a hand. ‘Varis would be very disappointed to hear that, said a familiar voice.
• CHAPTER THREE •
THE SUNKEN PALACE
Rook could scarcely believe his ears. That voice¡ He recognized that voice. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he squinted up into the light. He saw an untidy shock of fair hair, a turned-up nose, arched eyebrows over glinting blue eyes …