“I smell something from the upper earth,” he heard one say suspiciously.
“It’s the child,” another said. “There’s a draft blowing from the palace.”
The great doors of the palace were wide open, and Mika waited for a moment when there were no black-clad soldiers going in and out. He darted up the steps between the guards so quickly that they didn’t even turn their heads.
“That was too close,” Floam whispered. “Slow down, there’s a goblin ahead.”
Mika moved softly, following the goblin ahead of them, hoping he would lead them to Robin. They followed him through many halls made of the same shiny black substance as the outside, arriving at a high archway, through which the goblin went. Mika, coming behind him, found himself in a large room with a very high ceiling.
At the far end of the room was a black throne. There were heavy black and red hangings everywhere. Around the walls of the chamber, about halfway to the high ceiling, a balcony ran, which was reached by steps that began at the doorway they had just come through. Dozens of Fire Fairies were chained at intervals along this balcony.
Mika ran quietly up the steps and around the balcony until he was at a point above the throne. There was a Fire Fairy chained there. Floam knew him, and whispered, “Flick, be quiet.”
Flick started, but couldn’t see them, and Floam reached out and put a hand on his arm. “It’s Floam, and Prince Mika.”
Flick smiled joyfully. “How did you get in?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Mika whispered. “Listen.”
The goblin they had been following was kneeling before the King.
“Get up,” said King Krustigrubb. “What’s the news?”
“There’s fierce fighting, Your Majesty. King Klux’s army is trying to get into the kingdom in the east, the Fire Fairies are storming the entrances to the west, the water sprites are flooding the southern entrances. The Flower Fairies and the Blue Elves are attacking at all points. It takes all our forces to hold them back.”
“Let’s let them in,” King Krustigrubb chuckled wickedly. “Send runners to every entrance, tell them to fall back and let the attackers into the tunnels. Lure them in and get them separated and lost.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We have more sense than to go into a trap like that,” Mika whispered. “I hope.”
“Glauz and all the other magicians are making magic so strong it’s never been equaled,” the messenger went on, “and our magicians are struggling hard.”
King Krustigrubb frowned fiercely. “Tell those lazy magicians I’ll sentence them to the mines if they let Glauz get ahead of them! Get out! Carry out my orders and be quick about it!”
The goblin retired hastily, leaving the King muttering.
“Robin is in the dungeons under the palace,” Flick whispered. “As you leave this room, turn to the right, and take all steps leading down. I don’t know any more. If only I could get away!”
“They’d be sure to miss you. You’re shining directly on the throne,” Mika said. “I promise you that when we get Robin safely out, we’ll invade this place and free every prisoner.”
Flick sighed. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
Mika grinned at that, and made his way around to the steps and down again, turning right as he reached the bottom.
6
PURSUIT THROUGH THE DARKNESS
They had only gone a little way when they came to steps leading down … and down, and down. At intervals along the way there were Fire Fairies chained to the wall, and Mika stopped at each one.
The first one told them they were headed in the right direction, and as they went on, new corridors opening in all directions, they would surely have lost their way if it hadn’t been for the Fire Fairies. Each one directed them a little farther. At last they came to a fairy whose name was Kling.
“Wait,” he said. “There are goblins with him now, but they don’t stay long. Go down that passage there and wait. It’s not used any more.”
“We’re nearly there then?” Mika asked eagerly.
“Yes, the baby is just around the corner. Shhhh! They’re coming!”
Mika, carrying Floam, hurried away down the unused passage and stood very still. They could see Kling slumped against his wall. In a minute three goblins appeared.
“Stand up and shine, you worthless creature,” one of them said as he passed, poking Kling with his club. They went on, disappearing up the stairs.
Then Kling was beckoning to them, and they hurried to him. “They’re out of sight,” he whispered, “but don’t make any noise. They come back to inspect the child every hour.”
“Where’s Robin?” Mika asked impatiently.
“You’ll see him. Go down this passage here. Good luck.”
“Thank you for your help,” Mika said. “We’ll get you out of this. There’s a war going on, you know.”
“I know,” said Kling, and they hurried away.
The corridor went straight for about a hundred yards, then made a sharp turn. They could see light ahead, and when they came up, found it was another Fire Fairy. The passage ended in a small room, like the one in which Mika had found Floam, with the same kind of grating before the entrance.
“We know what to do about that anyway,” Floam said cheerfully, leaping out from under Mika’s invisible cloak. “Hello there, Glite,” he said to the Fire Fairy in the room.
The fairy jumped. “Floam! How did you get here?”
Mika took off his cloak. “Where’s my boy?”
“Prince Mika!” Glite exclaimed. “The baby’s asleep over here behind this screen. I put it in front of him so I wouldn’t shine in his eyes.”
“Wake him,” Mika said. “No, don’t. He might make a noise. Take the screen away so I can see him.”
“He’s perfectly well,” Glite said. “I’ve kept him warm and told him stories to keep him amused.” He moved the screen and there lay Robin, sleeping peacefully. Mika was so relieved to see him that he leaned against the iron grating weakly.
“Is there any way out except through the main entrance to the palace?” Floam asked.
“Only one. There’s an opening in here, which goes down, and I know how it works, because the stupid things brought him in this way and I saw how they did it.”
“If we start out through a tunnel under the palace,” Mika said thoughtfully, “we may never find the way out. We should try to go out the way we came in.”
“With you carrying all three of us under your cloak, and Robin probably waking up at the wrong time. We only have an hour before they come back.”
“I think it’s the safest plan,” Mika said. “Stand back, I’m going to open it up.”
They stood aside, on either side of the iron grating, while Mika began the incantation. As he said the last words, the wire in the grating pulled apart easily, “We’d better hurry.” He squeezed through and picked up the baby. He put on his invisible cloak and started to pull aside the mesh again, but stopped, listening. Someone was coming.
“Quick!” Mika said. “I thought we had an hour. Open up the underground passage. Hurry!”
Floam darted through into the chamber. They could hear harsh goblin voices coming closer. Glite was pressing frantically at various sections of the shiny floor, saying the same word over and over again.
“Zimbrr, zimbrr.” He couldn’t find the right stone to press.
The goblin voices were louder now. “I don’t see why they want to move him,” one of them said.
“If the King says the mines, the mines it is,” said another.
“Keep at it, Glite,” said Mika. Out of the small bag hanging at his waist he took one of the precious grains of goblin dust that Flumpdoria had given him.
Suddenly there was a shout as the goblins turned the corner. Mika had on his cloak and was holding Robin. All the goblins could see was two Fire Fairies where one had been before.
“Zimbrr!” Glite said, pressing on another section
of the floor. “Ah!” he exclaimed. A stone in the floor was moving, disclosing a steep, narrow stairway leading down.
“Take Robin between you,” Mika said hurriedly. “Go on down. I’ll be right after you.”
Robin woke as they stood him on his feet, and said, “Go home!” Floam and Glite said, “Yes, yes,” and “There, there,” and hurried him down the steps.
Mika turned to face the goblins, who were shouting with rage. “Open it!” one of them shouted. “Be quick!”
Another goblin was fumbling with a bunch of keys. Mika, whom they couldn’t see, of course, stepped softly to the grating behind them, pushed his hand through it, waited until the goblin with the keys was just under him, and carefully dropped the grain of goblin dust down his neck.
“Eeeeee!” the goblin screamed as the grain of dust touched his skin. “Oh, oh, oh! Goblin dust! Butter, butter, butter!” he shouted as he began running back the way he had come.
Mika hurried down the stairs after the others. Glite said, “Bdooooosh,” and the stone in the floor closed above them.
Mika picked up his little boy.
“Daddy! Daddy! I can’t see you,” Robin said, feeling Mika’s face with his little hands.
Mika hugged him. “I’m here, even if you can’t see me. Be a good boy and don’t make any noise. We don’t want the goblins to get us again.” Robin was very quiet then, and put his arms around Mika’s neck as he was carried along.
“It will take them some time to catch that goblin with the keys,” Mika said. “So they can’t follow us this way very soon.”
“Saved! Saved!” Glite said, skipping along.
“Huh,” said Floam. “Saved except for the fact that we’ll probably be lost for years in these underground tunnels.”
“Oh,” Glite said in a small voice.
“We must go up,” Mika said. “Any way that slants up.”
“They’ll follow our footprints,” Glite said gloomily.
“Not along here. Look, the floor’s made of stone.”
Passages opened in all directions, and they turned into any corridor that slanted up even a little, for they were a long way beneath the earth.
“I’m hungry,” Robin said, so they all stopped and ate a little before they went on.
The air was clammy, the walls became damper, and water dripped from the roof. “Thank goodness for light, anyway,” Mika muttered as he strode along. Robin felt heavier and heavier but he couldn’t put him down. Robin could walk neither very fast nor very far.
They had been walking for about two hours now, and if they didn’t get out soon, the goblins were bound to find them. The floor now was not stone, but earth, but they found no footprints of anyone having gone before them. They toiled on silently, each saving his strength, to last until they should reach the top.
Suddenly Mika stopped. “Quiet,” he whispered. “Listen.”
They all listened, and heard the sound of running water.
Carefully they crept forward, turned a corner, and there, right in front of them, was a river, its black waters running swiftly.
“Well,” said Mika.
They were in darkness except where the Fire Fairies cast light around them, and the far side of the river was not visible. There was a rocky ledge about ten feet wide along the bank. They turned to the right and followed it.
They passed several passages opening onto it, and then—the ledge just ended, diminishing to a point against the walls of the tunnel through which the river flowed. Where the ledge ended iron rings were set in the rock, and to these rings rowboats were tied. The little party stood looking at them in silence.
“There are no oars,” Floam said at last.
What should they do? Mika thought. Surely the river was safe, or the goblins wouldn’t use it. They wouldn’t go in boats on a river that might sweep them into a raging torrent or over a waterfall. And it must come out somewhere.
Just at that moment they heard voices far off, shouting to each other. There was only one thing to do. Mika selected the largest, strongest-looking boat, and set Robin in it. He began to untie the rope that moored it to the iron ring.
“Look in all the boats for some kind of oar!”
“Here’s one!” Floam and Glite tugged it out of the bottom of a smaller boat.
“That’ll have to do. We can’t wait.”
Floam and Glite jumped into the boat as Mika got in carefully and shoved it out into the current. The river began to carry them swiftly along.
“Get under my cloak,” Mika said. “We don’t want them to see us.” They were just in time, for they saw the gleam of torches back on the ledge, and goblins running about.
“They’ve missed their boat,” Mika said. They could see goblins embarking in the other boats, pushing off from the channel walls.
Mika tried using his oar as a paddle, but he didn’t seem to be doing much good. The boat was a fairly large one by goblin standards, but Mika was too large for the boat, and the oar was only about as long as a baseball bat.
“The river’s carrying us very fast,” Glite said hopefully.
“It’s carrying them just as fast, and of course they knew where the oars were. But they haven’t seen us yet. If the river is wide enough, we may be able to let them pass us.” He turned the bow of the boat toward the farther shore, but in almost no time at all it scraped against the rocky wall on the other side of the river.
“It’s too narrow,” he said, disappointed. “We’ll just have to keep ahead of them, if we can, until we come out in the open.”
“How do you know we will come into the open?” Floam asked.
“Most underground rivers come to the surface sooner or later.”
The goblins were nearer now, and there was no sign of the river coming out into the sunshine. Mika stopped trying to paddle with his oar, and reached for his bag of goblin dust. He would have to make every grain count. The light from the goblin torches hadn’t reached them, but it soon would. Until then there was only blackness around them. They knew when the river made a turn by the boat scraping against one rocky wall or the other.
Then the light from the goblin torches touched the fleeing boat and a great shout went up. The goblins could be seen rowing madly, and soon the foremost boat bumped into the stern of theirs. Mika, forgetting the Fire Fairies, stood up, his sword in one hand and goblin dust in the other.
As his cloak fell away from Floam and Glite, they became visible, shining brightly. A yell went up from the goblin boats and clammy hands clutched at Mika’s ankles.
The goblins couldn’t see Mika, who still wore his cloak, but they had grasped the first thing their hands encountered. Mika leaned down carefully—he couldn’t waste any—and placed a grain of dust on the damp, four-fingered paw that gripped his ankle. The paw was withdrawn swiftly.
“Owww! Owww! Turn back! Butter, butter!”
The other goblins paid no attention to him, but continued trying to get into the boat with Mika. The goblin, in his frenzy, leaped into the water and tried to swim to shore, but the water bore him along beside the boats.
Mika raised his oar and swept it in a wide arc over the attacking boat, knocking three goblins into the water, then threw a grain of goblin dust full into the horrible, grinning face of a goblin that had managed to scramble into the boat. With a cry he fell back into the water.
They came a place where the current suddenly ran more rapidly, and for a moment their boat drew a little ahead of the goblins. Mika took this opportunity to open his bag of goblin dust and take out a third of what he had left.
There were three boatloads of goblins, and he was going to chance a single blow at each of them, hoping to get away in the confusion. The first boat had already caught up again. Mika raised his arm high and threw his handful of dust, trying to scatter it so it would fall on as many as possible.
Screams and howls rose deafeningly, as goblin after goblin jumped into the river, oars fell overboard, and at last there was only one bewildered
goblin left in the boat. He appeared dazed and afraid to move, for fear he would touch a grain of the dust scattered in the bottom of the boat.
The next boat was upon them, and Mika served them the same way, with much the same result.
“Only one to go!” Glite sang, dancing about in the boat.
The third goblin boat came up swiftly, ten goblins rowing as hard as they could. Two stood in front, ready to grasp the side of Mika’s boat when they came near enough. Mika waited for them, with his last handful of dust.
When the goblins were about five feet away, the leader shouted, “All ready! Let it go!”
And all at once ten oarsmen gave a mighty heave on their oars, and their boat shot ahead and rammed into Mika’s boat with such force that Mika lost his balance.
He stumbled, threw up his arms to steady himself. His sword flew out of one hand, the goblin dust out of the other, scattered on the water. One grain fell on the leader of the goblin boat, who collapsed, thrashing, into the water.
The eleven goblins left crowded to the edge of their boat, now alongside Mika’s, and began to scramble aboard. In despair, Mika began picking them up bodily, throwing them into the river. They hung onto the side of the boat, trying to climb in again.
Floam and Glite were battling furiously with a goblin each. The boat rocked dangerously, swinging round and round as the fight went on. Mika had a hard time keeping from falling overboard, being so much too large for the boat. He snatched a club from one goblin and knocked him into the water with it, and knocked another off the side of the boat where he was climbing in.
Six goblins were clawing, scratching, hitting at Mika, dragging him down into the bottom of the boat, where the baby crouched, cowering. Mika struggled to stay standing, throwing them off as fast as he could. He began to feel faint and sick, for goblin scratches are poison, and he had a great many. He was bleeding badly from them and knew he couldn’t last much longer without some healing ointment. His cloak had been torn off and trampled in the bottom of the boat long ago.
Wearily he fought them off. Glite had been hit with a club, and lay barely glowing in the bottom of the boat, where he had pushed himself in front of Robin. Mika was growing weaker and weaker, barely able to drop goblin after goblin overboard, knowing they would climb back in.
Shadow Castle Page 5