by Robin Jarvis
His sister shrugged.
“It’s magic,” she said flatly.
Gamaliel rubbed his tiny eyes with his mouse’s paws then shook his head in irritation.
“I’ve had enough of this stupid shape,” he declared.
Closing his eyes and summoning his strength, he muttered his own name over and over. The usual wergling passwords didn’t work on him, due to the weird, hodgepodge nature of his transformations. Only remembering his true self had changed him back last time, and he hoped it would do so again
The fur and feathers that sprouted from his skin began to itch, and his wide beak became soft and spongy, before diminishing into his face where his round nose popped back into its normal place.
His arms grew longer, and the delicate paws were podgy hands once more as the fur on his feet shriveled to reveal his familiar pink toes.
A moment later he was slipping his shoes on and checking that no stray feathers remained and that his ears were the same size they used to be.
The Finnen sluglung uttered a groan at the change. Gamaliel’s ludicrous shape had enthralled him.
“You’ll be in big trouble if Meg catches you like that,” Kernella warned her brother.
“Old Green Teeth doesn’t scare me,” he replied. “I’m more interested in getting Finnen back to his old self. If this water has the power of change in it, then surely it can change him back. If we only knew where the magic came from, we might have a clue how to use it.”
Kernella scratched her hedgehog chin. “Maybe it leaks from an enchanted pool up there in the forest?” she suggested. “But wherever it comes from, you don’t have a hope of changing Finnen back. You’re nowhere near clever enough.”
But Gamaliel was not listening. A new idea had suddenly flashed into his head, and he reached out his hand to touch the cauldron’s glistening limestone sides.
“Stop!” Kernella cried. “Don’t get that water anywhere near you, just in case!”
The boy paid no attention to her and ran his fingers over the cold, wet lumpy stone.
“What if it’s the cauldron itself that’s magic?” he said excitedly. “There are lots of stories about such things, wishing pots that can never be emptied. Tollychook’s favorite is the one about the bowl that fills itself with whatever is asked for.”
“That’s silly,” his sister said, dismissing the notion with a loud raspberry that made Finnen gurgle with laughter.
When he tried to copy it with his own froglike lips and sticky tongue, he made an even wetter, more squelchy noise that went sputtering throughout the cavern, bouncing from wall to wall.
Clutching his rippling stomach, he shrieked with delight and doubled over, hooting and gargling.
“He’s worse than a baby,” Kernella tutted. “Just listen to him.”
By now Finnen was rolling on the floor, blowing rude, fruity sounds and finding each one funnier than the last.
“Oh, be quiet!” Kernella scolded. “You’ll give me a headache. We’d best be getting back. Meg will be wondering where we’ve got to. Ugh, I don’t want to eat raw eels and slimy mold.”
“I wonder …” Gamaliel murmured to himself. “What if … ?”
He turned to look at Finnen, who was still on the floor but blowing much quieter raspberries.
“Finnen,” he called. “Come over here.”
The sluglung blinked at him then lumbered to its ugly splayed feet.
“What are you doing?” Kernella asked. “We have to go! That Meg is completely mad, you know. There’s no telling what she’ll do if we’re late for her feast and make her cross.”
“This way, Finnen,” Gamaliel continued. “That’s right, come across the bridge. I’ve thought of a very funny game you can play—much better than making those noises, much, much better.”
“Gambo,” the sluglung droned. “Me like playums, me like big ha-ha.”
“Good,” Gamaliel said, smiling. “Now, listen to me. Before we start the game, this very funny game, you have to climb up into this nice big pot. Do you understand?”
Finnen nodded vigorously and was already hauling himself up the side of the cauldron by the time Kernella’s hedgehog came hastening over the bridge to join them.
“What are you doing to him?” she demanded, seizing hold of Finnen’s jerkin and pulling him back down by it.
Gamaliel grunted with frustration. “Let him go!” he told her. “If we can get him in the water, then speak the wergling passwords—it might change him back.”
“Poo!” she retorted. “That’s a stupid idea. It’ll never work. He’ll just get wetter than he already is.”
“Have you got a better suggestion?”
Kernella pursed her hedgehog lips and scowled. “No,” she admitted.
“Then let’s not waste any more time.”
“Do you really think there’s a chance he’ll change back?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth a try.”
Kernella relented. “All right then,” she said, letting go of Finnen’s jerkin. “But before he goes in …”
She closed her eyes and whispered under her breath. With a shake of her shoulders, the hedgehog form was gone and she was a plump, freckled werling girl once again.
“What are you doing?” Gamaliel asked.
His sister made no answer but turned to Finnen and looked into his bulging amber eyes.
“If you do change,” she said in a sad and quiet voice, “then you won’t take orders from me anymore. So this is my last one.”
She tilted her head back, braced herself, then took a deep breath and commanded: “Kiss me!”
“Kernella!” Gamaliel cried.
“Shut up!” she snapped back. “I’ve tried for years to get Finnen Lufkin to notice me, and this might be my only chance—even if he is all sluggy and horrible.”
Finnen stooped over her, his great repulsive face drawing close to her own.
“Kerboo,” he said.
Then his wide mouth pushed forward, and his lips touched hers.
Kernella held her breath and they kissed.
Gamaliel shook his head in disbelief. He would never understand his sister.
Suddenly Kernella tore her face away and began wiping her mouth frantically. She had endured it for as long as she could.
“Yeurch!” she said, retching. “That was disgusting! It was all cold, like kissing frog spawn! Erk! I want to be ill.”
“Climb into the cauldron, Finnen,” Gamaliel said, taking no notice as she continued to cough and gag.
The sluglung obeyed and slid down into the overflowing pot. Black water slopped and spilled everywhere, and he splashed about in it happily.
“Now!” Gamaliel told his sister. “Repeat with me the passwords.”
Kernella stopped grimacing, composed herself, and together they chanted.
Amwin par cavirrien sul, olgen forweth, i rakundor,
Skarta nen skila cheen
Emar werta i fimmun-lo.
Perrun lanssa dirifeen, tatha titha Dunwrach.
Finnen’s eyes grew wide as he stared back at them. The two werlings clasped their hands and waited expectantly.
Finnen sank down into the water until it closed over his head, and the Tumpins looked at each other, hardly daring to breathe.
Another drip fell from the ceiling.
It plopped into the cauldron, and a moment later Finnen erupted from the surface.
He was still a sluglung, and he gave a tremendous belch.
“I knew it wouldn’t work.” Kernella sniffed.
Gamaliel hung his head. He didn’t know what else to try. If Yoori had been there, he would have suggested something. But he was dead, and Gamaliel buried his face in his hands.
“Why does everything go wrong?” he murmured. “Why can’t I do something right—just once?”
Kernella crossed the bridge again and tutted at him from the cliff top.
“Get him out of that pot,” she said crossly. “I’m not going to was
te another minute in here. I’m going to go catch up with that Meg and see what her feast is like. After kissing Finnen, I reckon I could stomach anything.”
Opening her wergle pouch, she rummaged inside and decided to be a squirrel again.
Gamaliel felt useless. He had come to rescue them, but now he too was a prisoner; and how long would it be before Meg grew bored of them and forced them to drink the dark waters and become just like poor Finnen?
“Gamboo,” the sluglung said above him.
The boy looked up. Finnen was leaning over the rim of the cauldron with a silly smile on his toadlike face.
“Looksee, looksee,” he burbled. “Me findum.”
While submerged beneath the black water, he had discovered the goblet that he had drunk from earlier that night and was now pushing it toward Gamaliel for him to see, like a dog that has unearthed a treasured bone and was proudly showing it to its master.
“Very nice,” Gamaliel said in a sad, dejected voice. “You’d best get out now.”
“And thissum!” Finnen spluttered, thrusting his other hand forward and opening his fist. “Was in sludgy muck. Me likey, me keepum?”
At first Gamaliel didn’t bother to look; he assumed Finnen had found a pebble or something only a sluglung could find interesting.
“Me give to Megboo,” Finnen continued. “Is shiny, is pretty.”
There was such a merry delight in his voice that Gamaliel turned to see just what it was, and he stared at the open palm.
It was dripping with black sludge, but there in the middle a small bright object glittered in the lamplight—a silver fire devil.
“I’ve seen that before!” the boy exclaimed. “Or one just like it. It was ’round the High Lady’s neck when she changed from that old gypsy. What’s one of those doing here?”
Across the bridge, Kernella was about to sniff the bundle of squirrel fur she had ready in her hand when she paused and glanced over to see what her brother was blathering on about now.
“That’s it!” he was crying, almost jumping up and down with excitment. “That’s the secret, and you found it all by yourself!”
Finnen gave a frothing laugh, not understanding why the boy was so overjoyed, but he had a vague notion that it was something he had done and so was very pleased with himself.
“Me did clever?” he asked.
“Very!” Gamaliel declared. “Oh, this must be the answer, it must!”
He gripped Finnen’s hand and closed the large squishy fingers over the talisman to make sure it was gripped firmly. Then he took a step back, cleared his throat, and in a loud, commanding voice said, “Now listen to me and do exactly what I say.”
Finnen grinned. “Is thissum game?” he asked. “We play big ha-ha now?”
“Oh, yes,” Gamaliel promised. “This is the game and you must obey or it won’t be funny.”
The sluglung nodded.
“Close your eyes,” the werling told him. “That’s right. Now hold on to that shiny trinket very tightly and try to remember your life above ground. Remember the sunlight shining through the trees, remember the stories of your old nan, remember who you used to be, remember … you are Finnen Lufkin … you are Finnen Lufkin.”
The foolish smile wilted from the sluglung’s face as he listened to the boy’s words. Strange, bright pictures flickered in his sluggish mind: a green, dappled world, a kindly old face, himself secretly entering the Silent Grove and paring slivers of bark from the Lufkin beech—a terrible feeling of shame and guilt …
“Me … me is … Finnen …” he uttered thickly.
“Yes,” Gamaliel urged. “The greatest wergler of us all. You fought Frighty Aggie. You remember her, you must!”
A nightmarish creature leaped through the sluglung’s thoughts. It was a monstrous fusion of spider and wasp. He saw it rearing above him, then sensed the tormented soul locked deep within.
He shivered and squeezed his froglike eyes even tighter shut.
“You are Finnen Lufkin,” Gamaliel persisted.
“Finnen Lufkin …” the sluglung said, and his fist gripped the fire devil fiercely.
A vision of the candle sprite came crashing into his head, and he let out a terrified shriek, then his eyes snapped open and he stared first at Gamaliel, then over to the cliff top where Kernella stood, gawking.
“I am Finnen!” he yelled. “I am Finnen Lufkin!”
And with that, Harkul the fire devil in his fist burst into white flame. The cold fires blazed through the soft sluglung bones and clammy flesh as Finnen was wreathed in a blinding column of light. The dark waters within the cauldron hissed and boiled, and the magical flames went shooting to the rocky ceiling.
Every shadow retreated, and the immense cavern was filled with an intense, dazzling glare.
Astonished at the power he had unleashed, Gamaliel staggered back, and the token of fur fell from Kernella’s fingers.
A bellowing scream came raging from the sluglung’s mouth, but quickly the voice began to change into one the Tumpins recognized.
A loud CRACK! rent the chamber, booming out into the surrounding emptiness. With a snapping and splintering, the limestone that smothered the cauldron flew apart, and the iron vessel within shattered in three great pieces to the clangorous din of a great bell exploding. The black waters it contained were flung up into the air and slammed into the ceiling before pouring down again, gushing past the towering stalagmite and crashing to the ground far below.
All was dark again.
Thoroughly drenched, Gamaliel rubbed his eyes as they tried to focus in the renewed gloom. Then he shouted with joy.
Sitting amid the wreckage, looking dazed and confused, his long fringe hanging wet over his eyes, was the familiar and extremely soggy figure of Finnen Lufkin.
“What’s going on?” the startled boy asked, peering around him. “Why am I sopping and slimy?”
Gamaliel was too elated to reply with anything that made any sense, and Finnen looked over to where Kernella was standing with her mouth still hanging open.
Finnen swept the hair out of his eyes, then examined the silver talisman in his hand.
“What’s this?” he asked. “What … ?”
The question remained unspoken. The memories came racing back, and he remembered being forced to drink the dark waters.
With a defiant shout, he leaped to his feet.
“We have to get out of here!” he cried sharply. “As fast as we can.”
“Good to have you back with us.” Gamaliel beamed.
“Time for that later,” Finnen said, dashing past him and running along the narrow bridge. “I’ve been trapped down here long enough. We have to escape.”
He ran up to Kernella. The girl seemed flustered and awkward and turned away shyly when he looked at her.
“Was I gone long?” he asked. “I can’t remember much of it. Were you all right?”
The girl’s discomfiture eased immediately. “Y-yes,” she stammered. “Takes more than a few hundred sluggy things to frighten me.”
Finnen flashed his smile at her, and she felt her heart quicken in the way it always used to.
“Good,” he said with a wink. “Now, let’s get out of this evil pit.”
Hurrying up behind, Gamaliel spluttered, “But there’s only one way—the way I came—and that’s heavily guarded. We’ll never get through.”
Finnen chuckled softly. “Oh, there’s another way,” he said. “That much I do remember. Follow me.”
And so they hurried from the cavern and ran down the seven steps, into the passage beyond. One more turn and they would be back on the path that ran alongside the underground stream.
Anxious to flee that horrible place, they charged blindly around the corner and ran straight into a pair of sluglung guards.
CHAPTER 18 *
THE RACE TO THE TOP
THERE WAS A RATTLE OF rusted armor as the werlings collided with the sluglungs, and both Kernella and Gamaliel were sent sprawling to the
floor.
The guards gazed balefully down at them, then peered at Finnen curiously. One of them sniffed him and scowled.
“Megboo wants the they to go feast,” he said. “Why you no shobbled no more? Why you not as us?”
Finnen eyed them warily. If they were to call for reinforcements, their escape would be ruined.
“I wanted to change back for a little while,” he said slowly. “I’ll be like you again very soon.”
The guards turned to each other and scratched their ugly heads.
“Us not shobble and mooty back,” they mumbled, beginning to get agitated. “Us stay sluglung all times, us like sluglung. Megboo like sluglung! The Big She no like you shape.”
Raising their notched swords, they pointed the corroded blades at the werlings, and their faces grew dark with suspicion.
“You come now,” they ordered. “To Megboo. The Big She will see, She will know.”
Finnen looked around, searching desperately for a way out or a diversion, then, to his surprise, he heard Gamaliel pipe up in a bright, chummy voice.
“Morning, lads! Been a long night, hasn’t it? You hungry? I’m ravenous. Can’t wait for this feast of yours. My favorite food is bramble pie; what’s yours?”
The guards looked at him blankly.
“Wiggly sliggly eels,” one of them said.
“Yessum,” echoed the other. “Me swallowum head first.”
“Sounds delicious,” Gamaliel enthused.
Kernella sucked in her cheeks and frowned, wondering if he had gone mad.
Gamaliel licked his lips. “But what was your favorite food up top?” he asked mildly.
The sluglungs blinked in puzzlement.
“Mugluk ukbah?” one mumbled.
“Come on,” the boy cajoled. “How long have you been down here? Surely you can remember something as simple as that? Everyone knows what their favorite food is—or used to be. Let me guess, some type of pasty?”
The guards shuffled unhappily. They had not thought of the upper world and their former lives in many long years. Such things were forbidden, and it pained their slow brains to try. They squeezed the hilts of their swords, and one of them began muttering to himself.
“What are you doing?” Finnen hissed at Gamaliel.