The Disappearing Dwarf

by James P. Blaylock

  Jonathan agreed to the plan. It made little difference if they explored the tunnels at noon or at midnight. He was fairly sure that he’d rather spend the night tramping through the caves in search of a way out rather than trying to sleep. Such an atmosphere as existed beneath the tower would be bound to have a bad effect on dreams.

  ‘Let’s bring these two suits,’ Jonathan suggested. ‘We’ll give them to the Squire.’

  ‘Capital idea,’ the Professor agreed. ‘They’re right up his alley.’

  Jonathan found a broad expanse of serviceable cloth and laid it out over the stones of the floor, then he piled the ape and alligator costumes onto the center of the cloth and discovered, finally, that the alligator suit lacked a hand. There seemed to be no point at all in carrying along an unusable suit, so the two of them tore into the costumes until they finally found the hand at the very bottom of a sadly deteriorating trunk. Beneath the rubber alligator hand lay a folded trunk lining – an old, yellowed square of parchment patterned with random lines and faded script. A series of elf runes were visible in one corner. The Professor pulled the parchment out of the trunk while Jonathan dug two candles out of his pack. The heap of ape and alligator parts was quickly forgotten.

  ‘This appears to be a map,’ the Professor observed, pointing out an arrow in the top right below the word ‘north’. The Professor leaned over the parchment and sniffed at it. Then he held a corner over a candle and eyeballed it closely. In the candlelight glowing through the parchment, the ink appeared to be a dark purplish color, and the Professor announced, to Jonathan’s surprise, that it was octopus ink.

  ‘This is a pirate map,’ he said decisively. ‘There’s no mistaking it. Who else uses octopus ink? No one. This is the real thing.’

  ‘It’s pretty old though,’ Jonathan said. ‘This stuff must have been down here for a hundred years.’

  This map couldn’t have been,’ the Professor declared. ‘It wouldn’t have lasted any hundred years. Someone hid it here, and I bet I know who it was.’

  ‘These candles aren’t worth much,’ observed Jonathan as he shook the melted wax of This hand. ‘They’re half gone already. Let’s roll this thing up and get out of here.’

  The Professor rolled the map tightly and tied it round with strips of cloth. Jonathan gathered the corners of the cloth on the ground and pulled the whole pile into a bundle, tieing of the top with another cloth strip. The Professor shouldered the pack, and Jonathan slung the bundle ponderously over his shoulder. In the last guttering light of the two candles, they left the strange cavern and once more made their way back to the cellar where, without wasting any time, they lit their torch. In the fuming, sputtering light they strode away after Ahab down the third tunnel toward the Cavern of the Trolls.

  5

  Goblins

  The tunnel didn’t slope at all, but seemed to run directly along the ridge which rose above the tower. It occurred to Jonathan that if such were the case, they were farther from the surface with each step they took. Soon, however, the tunnel curved around sharply to the left and angled away in a downriver direction. They trudged on for what must have been a mile, the path neither rising nor falling enough to worry about. It narrowed so at one point that they had to crawl along for twenty yards on their hands and knees, covering their trouser legs with red clay. The Professor heartened to find that the floor of the tunnel was no longer rock, and some twenty yards later he discovered the crooked end of a tree root thrusting through the ceiling.

  Just ahead of them, the tunnel began to drop away, and the two debated in the flickering torchlight whether to follow it or return to where they had found the tree root and dig their way out. Neither, however, was in a digging mood, so they pushed on, following the twistings of the corridor as it wandered along through the earth. Jonathan realized all of a sudden that he was monstrously tired. The costume on his back seemed to be weighing more by the moment, and he began to consider the wisdom of just putting the suits on. But the idea of the two of them tramping through subterranean tunnels dressed as an ape and an alligator seemed a bit on the ludicrous side, so he abandoned it.

  The tunnel widened just then into a cavern about half the size of the Cavern of Malthius. The Professor whispered that this must be the Cavern of the Two Trolls. And though they knew that whatever trolls might have inhabited it a century before would have long since moved on, both of them trod along stealthily, squinting into the dark recesses ahead of them. They found themselves, finally, at the opposite end and saw in the distant reaches of the tunnel that stretched out before them a bit of light shining in the darkness. There was no mistaking it. Two hours earlier they would have assumed it was sunlight and popped right along toward it. But Jonathan’s pocketwatch said it was almost eight o’clock in the evening. The sun had been dropping swiftly an hour before. The light, moreover, seemed to shrink and grow and dance on the walls of the cave, very much like the light of a flickering campfire – the fire, perhaps, of a pair of trolls or a company of goblins or a band of robbers.

  It wouldn’t do to make their presence known before discovering what exactly lay ahead, so they smothered the torch. Then, by the light of a single candle, they untied the bundle of costume parts and crawled into the things. Jonathan shoved the expanse of cloth into the backpack and pulled the ape mask over his head. The Professor did the same with the alligator head. Sweating inside the suit, Jonathan shouldered his pack, and the two of them went creeping away down the tunnel toward the fire, Ahab following along behind. The cackle of crazy laughter echoed up the tunnel, and Ahab growled in reply. Then came the ragged piping of a goblin flute and the hollow thud of a copper gong being struck with a stone mallet. From the shadows of the tunnel they watched the party of goblins that sat about the fire roasting fish. One kept shoving fish carcasses into the sprigs of stuff that passed for hair on his neighbor’s head. The second goblin, unhappy at having his hair combed with fish carcasses, fetched the prankster a great smack with what appeared to Jonathan to be a river squid, flailing at him until the squid was reduced to parts. Then the two of them fell to poking and punching each other, to the huge delight of their several companions.

  ‘Let’s rush at them,’ Jonathan whispered through his ape mask. The Professor nodded ponderously, and together they rushed howling at the little band of goblins. The two involved in the fish war rolled about on the cave floor, biting and scratching, and obviously assuming that this new howling was simply jolly shouts of approval from their companions. Their fellows, however, left off their cackling at the sight of the approaching ape and alligator now sailing at them out of the darkness. Then the lot of them shrieked and bowled away down an adjacent tunnel. The two warriors rolled into the fire, scattering burning sticks. The one who’d been so free with the fish bones leaped up, his ragged shirt in flames, and dashed off. He was followed close on by his opponent, and their shrieks died away finally in the distance.

  Jonathan and the Professor lost no time in shedding the costumes and bundling them up once again in the makeshift bag. Both noticed, almost at once, that a cool, fresh breeze was blowing along the tunnel. Fifty feet farther along they saw the deep blue-purple of the night sky beyond the dark arch of the cave mouth, and they emerged finally into the warm evening, midway up the steep slope of an oak-covered hill.

  Some mile or so to the north rose the stone tower atop Hightower Ridge. Below it they could see the pinpoints of light shining through shanty windows in the swamps and the dark line of the Oriel winding slowly along the floor of the valley. Directly below them shone the lights of Hightower Village and, Jonathan was quick to point out, of Hightower Tavern where there were hot meat pies and poached salmon as well as bottles of ale.

  Ahab seemed to sense the truth in Jonathan’s observation, for he promptly began to pick his way through the chaparral and around the boulders on the moonlit hillside, heading toward the lights of the village. Jonathan and Professor Wurzle followed along, the dark cave mouth disappearing in the shad
ows of the oaks behind them.

  ‘You know,’ the Professor said, ‘perhaps we shouldn’t be too hasty here.’

  ‘We’d better be,’ Jonathan replied, ‘if we want anything to eat. The tavern probably doesn’t keep late hours. Besides, I’ve had my fill of wandering through caves.’

  The Professor nodded in agreement. ‘I’ve had enough of that myself, although it’s a pity we didn’t have a chance to explore the upper rooms of the tower. Tomorrow’s another day, though.’

  ‘That’s just what I said to myself when that squid had me by the leg,’ Jonathan answered. ‘And speaking of tomorrow, I’d like to spend a quiet day on the river, birdwatching perhaps, or hunting clams – something adventurous.’

  The Professor stopped and sat on a great chunk of smooth granite, producing his notebook and pen from inside his shirt. ‘What I meant about being hasty,’ he said, sighting down toward the river over his thumb, ‘is that we’d be foolish to lose track of the location of the cave mouth. I have the feeling that we didn’t begin to really explore those tunnels. I’d like to come back some day with a trade barge and haul that elephant out of there.’

  ‘Haul it out how?’ Jonathan asked. ‘Do you plan to cut him up and carry him up the stairs?’

  ‘That’s just the point. There’s more to that cavern than meets the eye. If that elephant was hauled down there, then there’s some sort of grand entrance that we know nothing about. And how about those goblins chasing away down that side tunnel? Where were they going? And the door? We’ve got to figure out how to open it. There’s justification, I think, for a scientific expedition here, and I plan to propose it to the Exploration Society during the fall symposium.’

  Jonathan nodded his head, relieved that the Professor hadn’t suggested that the two of them undertake the expedition by themselves. In a moment the Professor had roughed out a crude map complete with landmark sightings and distance approximations.

  A half hour later, dirty and tired, they pushed in through the door of the tavern and slumped down at a table in the corner. A woman in an apron looked askance at the toothy alligator head that poked out through an opening in Jonathan’s bundle. The past year, however, had seen such strange times that she took whatever came her way pretty much in stride, or at least seemed to. Jonathan pulled the bundle out of the way and stuffed it under the table, loosing the ape’s head in the process. The thing rolled out, bumping against the woman’s shoe.

  ‘I see you carry an ape head,’ the waitress remarked.

  ‘After tonight,’ Jonathan explained, half truthfully, ‘I wouldn’t go anywhere without it. It’s wonderfully useful when a person runs into trouble.’

  ‘No doubt.’ The woman picked the thing up and handed it to Jonathan. ‘It looks like my late husband, only he wasn’t useful for much of anything. What do you want to eat?’

  ‘Roast beef,’ Jonathan answered promptly, ‘and a plum pudding.’

  The waitress gave him a look of re-evaluation – a look that implied that Jonathan also had a great deal in common with her late husband. ‘We have a cold joint of beef in the larder and a loaf of black bread. And we have a bit of cheese and a tub of pickles. But we don’t have any plum pudding.’

  ‘We’ll have all of that then,’ the Professor said. ‘And a pitcher of ale and a plate of milk for the dog here, too.’ He pointed without looking toward the alligator snout poking out from beneath the table. Ahab had, unknown to the Professor, wandered away and fallen asleep in front of the door, taking advantage of the cool breeze that blew in off the river.

  ‘Anything you say,’ the waitress nodded slowly. She bent over and patted the peeling nose of the alligator. ‘Good pup,’ she said. Then she turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘She thinks we’re crazy,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Evidently so. There might be unlooked-for consequences to carrying around these outfits. People don’t often enough take the long view.’

  Jonathan nodded in agreement as through the door came Lonny Gosset, the milliner. ‘Mr Gosset!’ Jonathan shouted. ‘By golly!’

  Surprised, Gosset sat down at their table and ordered a pint from the waitress. ‘Well well,’ Gosset said. ‘What ho, eh? Chasing devils again are you? Transporting cheeses?’

  ‘Neither. We’re on holiday,’ the Professor explained. ‘We’re on our way toward linkman territory, down beyond the Wood. We’re off to see the Squire.’

  ‘The Squire is it,’ said Gosset, who was one of the Squire’s most ardent admirers. ‘Fancy that. On holiday. I haven’t been on holiday since I was a lad. I have a shop to see to. Trade’s picking up. Everyone needs a straw hat in this heat. I can’t make them fast enough.’

  The three of them sat about discussing the millinery trade, Jonathan and the Professor cutting off hunks of beef and cheese and bread. Ahab joined them almost as soon as the food arrived and drank the milk which the waitress had set down in front of the alligator. Jonathan was itching to have a look at the treasure map as was, probably, the Professor. But instinct told him that it was a dangerous business displaying such items in public. Finally, however, curiosity and anticipation overcame instinct; so, when late in the evening he and the Professor and Gosset were the last customers in the tavern, he suggested to the Professor that they unroll the ‘papers’ they had found in the trunk.

  Wurzle untied the rolled parchment and flattened the map onto the cleared table top. Jonathan and Gosset bent over the thing as the Professor traced lines and read sections of faded lettering. The terrain on the map was very obviously along a major river – a river much larger than the Oriel, evidently near the sea. The place names were foreign to all of them – even to the Professor, who had traveled extensively in his time.

  Gosset thought that the map was a wonderful thing, but being far-sighted he could make nothing of it. Neither Jonathan nor the Professor bothered to point out the fact that it was a treasure map. They had a high regard for their old friend Lonny Gosset, of course, but that, quite reasonably, was immaterial under the circumstances.

  Most puzzling of all the notations on the map was the legend scrawled across the top – merely the word ‘Balumnia’, the name, possibly, of the city along the river or of the country where the river lay. The whole thing was a mystery. The name seemed vaguely familiar to both Jonathan and the Professor, although neither knew why. It seemed to Jonathan that he had seen a reference to Balumnia in a book by Glub Boomp, and the Professor recalled having heard once of a Balumnian toothed whale, although he couldn’t remember where or when. Gosset observed that the word meant nothing as far as the millinery trade went. In the end they were little better off than they had been as mapless adventurers and were, in truth, a bit deflated. The very age and appearance of the map, not to mention the wonderful fact of its having been written in octopus ink, seemed to promise chests of pearls and coin and jewels. The three of them sat silent over the sad remains of their dinner, Jonathan and Professor Wurzle feeling oddly cheated, and Lonny Gosset sound asleep and threatening to tumble from his chair. He lurched finally and jerked awake with a wild look in his eye and shouted ‘Gabardine and wool!’ very loudly and pointed at Jonathan, ‘Wha?’ he said, waking up altogether. ‘Have I been asleep? I suppose I have.’

  ‘Quite all right,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘I’ve been working all day,’ Gosset said by way of apology. ‘I’m making a wizard’s cap. If I’d known what was involved in it, I wouldn’t have taken the commission. Seems like a lot of foolery to me. And all the time I’m stitching the thing and soaking the materials, there he is, shaking toads at it and chanting this and that and whispering over the thing.’

  ‘Who?’ Jonathan asked excitedly. ‘What magician? Does he want a tall hat?’

  ‘Tall? I should say he does. I told him the thing would never stay on, but he said he’d put a spell on it and make it.’

  ‘Miles the Magician?’ the Professor asked.

  ‘Meelays?,’ said Gosset pronouncing the name correctly.
‘He’s the one. Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jonathan answered. ‘And unless I’m a truffled cod, he’s just the man to consult when it comes to unfathomable maps and distant lands.’

  The Professor nodded and waved at the waitress who was reading a book near the bar.

  ‘Where is this magician?’ Jonathan asked Gosset. ‘Is he staying in town?’

  ‘He’s staying in this very inn.’ Gosset put some coins on the table. The Professor, however, insisted on buying Gosset’s ale.

  ‘You haven’t a magician upstairs, have you?’ the Professor asked the waitress when she brought their change.

  The woman rolled her eyes. ‘You’d be friends of the wizard then,’ she said, a flat note of finality in her voice. ‘I should have thought as much. He’s up there now, burning herbs in Room Four.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll just go up and have a word with him,’ Jonathan said, hauling out the ape suit. ‘Good old Miles. He should get a bigger thrill out of this than those goblins did.’

  The Professor looked like a man who thought it was too late in the evening for larks. The waitress looked as if she knew all along that it would come to such a thing as ape suits. Gosset was asleep again.

  Jonathan put on the suit, shook debris out of the mask and pulled it on. Then he took the mask off and turned to the Professor. ‘What if I burst in with the ape suit on but wearing the alligator head?’

  ‘He’d know something was wrong right away.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Jonathan said. ‘We wouldn’t want to ruin the effect.’

  The waitress nodded. ‘You’re not going to kill him are you?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

  ‘Kill him!’ Jonathan cried, horrified. ‘We’re not crazy.’

  The waitress nodded again. Jonathan set out up the stairs, laughing inside the ape mask at what Miles’ reaction was likely to be. Room Four was easy to find, there being only two numbered rooms on the second floor. Even through his mask Jonathan could hear the sound of chanting through the panel door. The smell of smoking herbs – especially sage, orange blossom, and lilac – came wafting out from underneath. Jonathan knocked twice, hoping he wasn’t interrupting anything beyond some harmless meditation.