by Philip Reeve
In one such street Dr Prong led them to a tall, narrow building which looked almost as stern and lonely as he did himself. In an effort to make it cheerier someone had planted bay trees in tubs outside the door, and put up a knocker in the shape of a winged head – a trophy which Henwyn and Skarper recognized, for it had been the symbol of the Lych Lord and the ruins of Clovenstone were full of such things. It seemed to be the only sign that Carnglaze needed.
“The knocker is new, since my time,” said Dr Prong, lifting it, and rapping briskly on the door. After a short time there came a sound of bolts and deadlocks being undone. The door creaked open just a crack, and a hideous face peered out.
“Woddyer want?” it growled.
Skarper let out a frightened yelp and darted behind Henwyn. He couldn’t help himself. The face belonged to Knobbler, who had once been King Knobbler, the biggest, toughest and most ruthless of all the goblins of Blackspike Tower. The other goblins had lost all respect for him when they found out that he wore pink fluffy knickers under his armour, and he’d had to give up the whole kinging thing and come to work as servant and bodyguard to Carnglaze, but he was still a terrifying figure to poor Skarper, who had sometimes seen him bite the heads off smaller goblins just for “looking at him in a funny way”.
“I know you,” said Knobbler, glaring at Henwyn. “You’re that softling, Hedwig.”
“Henwyn,” said Henwyn.
“Hmp,” said Knobbler. Then his gaze fell on Skarper, peeking out from behind his friend’s cloak. “And I know you too! You’re that troublemaker, Skratcher. . .”
“Skarper,” said Skarper.
Knobbler’s yellow eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Are you looking at me in a funny way?” he growled.
“Oh no! No! Not a bit!” said Henwyn and Skarper at once. But they were, and so was Dr Prong, because while they had been talking Knobbler had opened the door a little further, and they had seen that the former king of Blackspike was wearing a flowery, full-skirted dress with a frilly white apron over it.
“Master Carnglaze,” said Knobbler, slightly defensively, “says that ‘goblins are neither male nor female’. That means that if I find it more comfy to wear a dress, I can. And I do find it more comfy to wear a dress.” He leaned towards the visitors slightly, clenching his massive fists. “Have you got a problem with that?”
“Oh no! No! Not at all!” they all said, and Henwyn added, “It is very fetching, really. But we are actually here to talk with Carnglaze.”
Knobbler grunted and shoved the door shut. Henwyn and Skarper exchanged a quick, bewildered look as they stood waiting on the step. Behind them, Dr Prong shook his head and muttered softly, “Children’s tales. . .”
The door opened again. This time Carnglaze himself stood there, smiling at his visitors. “Henwyn! Skarper! Welcome! This is a surprise! I was not expecting you! What brings you here? Do you have any more treasures from Clovenstone for me? The stuff I brought back after my last visit is selling fast; I shall soon need more. Come in! Come in! Oh, and you too, Dr Prong!” he added, calling out to the philosopher, who had turned and was walking sadly away from the house which had once been his.
They all went inside; through a big room where objects and artefacts from the Lych Lord’s time were arranged on shelves and tables like a museum with price tags, and then upstairs into a cosy, curtained parlour where Carnglaze’s wife came bustling to meet them. Henwyn and Skarper knew her: a plump, cheerful woman, she’d come with Carnglaze that summer when he brought his string of packhorses over the hills to Clovenstone to fetch away more treasures. But behind her stood someone they did not know; a young woman who rose nervously from the chair she had been sitting in and backed away, as if she wanted to hide herself from the visitors.
“This is Zeewa, my niece,” Carnglaze explained. “She has come all the way from Musk to visit me.”
Henwyn bowed, and Zeewa nodded back. She was a tall, big-boned young woman, as dark skinned as her uncle, her hair done up in tight rows of tiny plaits. She wore a fine dress of some Muskish fabric and silver rings glittered in her ears, but she seemed nervy and ill at ease. Around her the air shimmered, and something about that shimmer made all Skarper’s hair stand on end, and his tail begin to tingle. His sharp goblin ears detected sounds that the humans around him could not hear: thin whisperings and a faint, high-pitched drone.
“If you will excuse me, my uncle. . .” said the girl, and she turned and went hastily from the room.
Carnglaze tutted sadly. “A fine young woman, but troubled. She came here in the belief that I was a sorcerer and could help her with certain . . . difficulties that she is having. But of course I am not a sorcerer, just a humble merchant.” He looked hopefully at Henwyn’s pack. “What have you brought from Clovenstone? Some new treasure from the deep storehouses?”
“Only cheese,” said Henwyn, setting the pack down.
“Ah, that explains the smell,” said Mistress Carnglaze. “I’ll take it to the cold store.”
“It is a gift for the High King,” Henwyn explained. “Ned said he must have all sorts of treasure and things at Boskennack already, so we thought cheese instead.”
“Very sensible, I’m sure,” said Carnglaze, wafting the smell of Clovenstone Blue away as his wife went out with the cheese. “But why do you wish to see the High King?”
They explained, while Knobbler served spiced wine in pewter cups, and the Carnglazes and Dr Prong all listened carefully. “So that is why we must see his majesty,” Henwyn finished. “When he hears of the dwarves’ intentions he is sure to send a few heroes and a band of men-at-arms to defend us.”
But Carnglaze looked doubtful. “Oh dear! Oh, I wish I could be so sure. You see, dwarves have arrived in Coriander too! Not mining or anything, just a small embassy, come to see the High King for themselves. They are led by someone called Chief Surveyor Durgar. He and his friends are staying at a tavern called The Sleepy Mermaid while they wait for an appointment with the High King. I have not heard why they are here, but I suspect they hope that the High King will give his blessing to their plans for Clovenstone!”
“The rotters!” shouted Henwyn, leaping up. “Of all the sneaky. . .”
“It seems to me,” said Dr Prong, “that you must make sure the High King hears your plea before the dwarves can tell him theirs.”
“Prong’s right!” agreed Carnglaze. “And I think it can be arranged. I have the ear of the High King.”
“Eww!” said Skarper.
“That is to say,” Carnglaze went on, “his majesty will listen to me. He has bought several statues from me for the gardens of Boskennack. I shall send Knobbler with a message first thing tomorrow. I am sure that the High King will see you as soon as he can.”
Carnglaze was as good as his word. At low tide the next morning Knobbler went hurrying along the causeway to the High King’s castle, wearing his fanciest frock and bearing a letter that explained the urgency of Henwyn and Skarper’s mission. But kings like to do things in their own good time. Three days passed, and still the two friends were lodging at the house of Carnglaze, awaiting their summons to Boskennack.
At least they knew their dwarvish rivals were waiting too. Each morning Skarper left the house on the Street of Antiquaries and went scampering goblin-fashion over the city’s rooftops and chimney pots until he reached the tavern called The Sleepy Mermaid. By listening to the potboys and ostlers who lounged about in its courtyard on their breaks, he soon learned that the dwarves had rented rooms down in the cellar. (It was obvious, when you thought about it, that dwarves would feel more at home underground.)
For someone who had grown up slinking and sneaking around in the goblin mazes of Blackspike Tower, it was easy to creep unnoticed down the steps into the gloomy, paved area outside the cellar entrance. The cellar had a door and a window, and the dwarves kept the door bolted and the windows shuttered, but Skarper’
s sharp goblin ears had no trouble hearing their gruff voices as they talked together inside. There were four of them: Surveyor Durgar, his daughter Etty, and two lesser dwarves, Langstone and Walna, who seemed to have come along mainly to carry things and be scolded by Durgar. Each morning Skarper heard Durgar tell the others, “We must send word to Boskennack again. We have to see that bigling king at once, so we can give our side of the story before these goblins and their friends can ask his help.”
“The bigling king would not help goblins, would he, Dad?” asked Etty, the first morning.
“Who knows, with biglings?” Durgar had replied gloomily.
It was all welcome news to Skarper. The dwarves were no closer to a meeting with the High King than he and Henwyn were, and they did not have Carnglaze to speed things along for them. The more gloomy Durgar got, the better, as far as Skarper could see.
Then, on the third morning, Skarper was caught. He was hanging from a water pipe that ran down the wall beside the cellar window, listening to Durgar grumble inside, when suddenly someone took hold of his tail by the ginger tuft on the end and tugged it as if it were a bell pull.
“Bumcakes!” said Skarper, losing his grip and landing with a thud on the cobbles below.
The dwarf girl, Etty, was looking down at him. She must have come outside very quietly while he was busy listening to the others. Usually the scent of her would have warned him, but Mistress Carnglaze had made him wash that morning, and the clean ungobliny odour of the soap still clung to him, spoiling his sense of smell. Not only that, but Etty had been using the same soap – it was a Coriander speciality, made from kelp and sold in big cakes at the Soapmarket – so she smelled just the same, and not like a dwarf at all.
“Ugly gargoyle!” she said angrily. “What are you doing? Spying, I’ll be bound!”
There was no point in denying it. “I have to have some way to pass the time,” Skarper said. “We’re waiting to see the High King, just like you.”
The girl’s anger faded. After being cooped up in a cellar with only three grumpy dwarves for company, she was glad of somebody new to talk to, even if he was only a goblin. “Oh, isn’t it boring?” she said. “We’ve been waiting for days and days. And my father won’t even let us leave our rooms, for fear we’ll be jeered and pointed at by biglings, or trampled by their great big horses, or run over by their mighty wagons.”
“How did you get here?” asked Skarper, thinking that the dwarves should have got used to being pointed at and trampled if they’d come along the main road like Henwyn and himself.
“Through the tunnels, mostly,” Etty said. “Dwarves mined all this country long before biglings came, and a lot of the tunnels are still open. They are quicker than your roads, and we travel easier in the dark. But oh, I would dearly love to see something of this city of men! Is it very splendid?”
“Why not come with me now and take a look?” asked Skarper.
“Because you are a foul goblin!” said the girl, shocked. “Because you’re a sneaking, thieving maggot man who’ll murder me most probably!”
“No I wouldn’t!” said Skarper (although actually he did have a vague, goblinish plan to kidnap her and send notes to her father saying things like Leave Coriander NOW or you’ll never see your girl again).
Etty looked hard at him. “No,” she said, “I don’t believe you would.”
“Well, come on then,” said Skarper. “It can’t do any harm, unless your father finds out.”
Etty shrugged. “We dwarves mostly sleep by day. They’re all off to their beds now, and they think I was in mine ten minutes ago.”
“Come on, then,” Skarper said.
The girl pulled her black glass goggles out of a pouch on her belt and put them on as she followed Skarper up the steps, out of the basement shadows. Skarper wondered whether he should kidnap her straight away or wait a bit. He decided to wait: she was a sturdy little person, and seemed more than able to look after herself. In fact, he realized, kidnapping her would probably be impossible unless he could find Henwyn and persuade him to help, and he was fairly sure that Henwyn did not approve of kidnapping.
So he abandoned the kidnap plan and came up with an easier one. He’d just learn all he could from Etty about the dwarves and their designs on Clovenstone. As he followed her through the streets he began thinking up cunning questions which would make her reveal all sorts of secrets about the dwarves and their schemes.
But Etty had questions of her own.
“Why such big houses?” she asked. “And why so many?”
“Softlings – biglings as you call them – are big folk,” said Skarper. “And they have a home for each family, if they can.”
Behind her tinted goggles Etty’s eyes were two O’s of amazement. She turned around, staring up at the tall fronts of the houses. “Just one family in each of these great places? Oh, what wanton waste!”
“Don’t dwarves have houses, down underground?” asked Skarper, pulling her out of the path of a passing cart.
“Oh no!” said Etty, and began to tell him in great detail about how dwarves lived. In their great dark burrows each family was allowed one small cell. They did not need much space because they had no possessions; they just signed out the clothes and tools and lanterns that they needed from communal stores, and returned them when they needed them no longer. It sounded horrible to Skarper, but he kept listening politely, and went “Oh!” and “Mmm,” and “Really?” whenever he felt that Etty expected it of him. By the time they reached the flower market he had learned far more than he could hope to remember about the ways of the dwarves, and each new thing she saw set Etty off on a new tale of Life Underground.
“Oh, so these are flowers! They are pretty! All we see of flowers usually is their roots, dangling down through the ceiling where a burrow goes too close to the surface. I’ve often wondered what the top parts look like!” Then the sight of all the people milling about among the market stalls caught her attention, and before Skarper could think of anything useful to say about flowers she was off in another direction. “Aren’t there a lot of different jobs for biglings? With us there are only a few. You are a miner or a smith or a surveyor, or a farmer or a warrior or a dwarfwife. I should have liked to be a surveyor like my pa, but the Head says I’m to be a dwarfwife, so that’s that. In two summers’ time, when I am old enough, I shall be wed to Langstone, Father’s deputy.”
Skarper had seen Langstone at The Sleepy Mermaid. He was a rather pompous young dwarf, with a splendid, gingery, forked beard, which he kept combing the tangles out of with a little bone comb. Hurrying to keep up with Etty as she strode on through the market and out into the streets beyond, Skarper wondered who had the right to tell her she had to get wed at all, especially to someone like Langstone. “Who is this ‘head’?” he asked breathlessly. “I remember old Glunt mentioning him. . .”
Etty stopped and stared at him. “Of course! You don’t know about the Head! Poor you! Imagine having to live without the Head to guide you and tell you what you must do!”
Skarper recalled the shining head he’d seen upon the shields and banners of the dwarves. “Who is he, then?” he asked again. “Some super-dwarf? A king?”
Etty laughed. “Dwarves do not have kings! Kings are just people, and might have silly ideas, or make bad decisions based on nothing but how they happen to be feeling that day. That is why all the wisest of the dwarves got together, long ago, and made the Brazen Head.”
“So it’s a statue?”
“Yes, I suppose so. And it tells us what to do.”
“You mean it talks?”
“Not in words; not speaking, like. But the overseers write questions for it on stones, and it answers on other stones. It is magic, I suppose. Dwarf magic. Smithy magic. It tells us what to mine and where, and it decides whether young dwarves should become miners or surveyors or farmers or whatever.”
“But what if they want to decide that for themselves?” asked Skarper, who would have hated having some bossy Brazen Head telling him what to do. “Like you: you want to be a surveyor, so why can’t you? Why can’t you do what you want?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t work!” said Etty. “What if everybody wanted to be surveyors and nobody wanted to be a miner? What if everyone decided to be farmers? ‘The Head Knows All, and the Head Knows Best’, as we say in Dwarvenholm. Like at the moment, it must have known we were going to have a war with you goblins because it has been telling the overseers that we need more warriors. And more dwarfwives, of course, to have babies to replace the dwarves who fall in battle.”
“But why have a war at all?” said Skarper. “Why come pinching our slowsilver when you could go and mine something else, in some other place. It’s not like the north is a busy place. It’s not like it’s crowded.”
Etty shook her head firmly. “The Head has told us to mine slowsilver,” she said. “For years it has been asking us for iron and tin and bronze, but now it wants slowsilver, and the only fresh slowsilver we know of is at Clovenstone.”
Skarper decided that he definitely didn’t like this Head.