“Come this way,” the heavy-ringed guard spoke with authority, “to the Weighing Chamber.”
“A kind of Weighting Room,” Adam said, but the others were too curious to take any notice of his weak pun.
They entered a bare, circular stone room, where at once they were met by a piteous plea: “I've got three gold teeth! Pull them out! Won't you pull them out, please?”
The four friends stared in amazement at a finely dressed goblin who was swinging inside a cage suspended from a beam made of the same heavy brass. Red in the (ugly) face, he was trying to convince two guards, who were consulting a chart on the wall. They shook their heads, at which the goblin in the cage became more agitated. He began to jump up and down, pulling at something inside his mouth. Finally, with a yelp of pain mixed with triumph, he thrust a hairy hand through the bars of the cage.
“Here, here,” he spoke with difficulty, like one whose mouth is causing him considerable pain. He held out a gold tooth in his open palm. “Add this to the bag…and there are two more!”
One of the guards came across slowly and took the tooth from the caged goblin; he inspected it carefully.
“Well, that seems to be in order,” he said at last. The caged goblin nodded and pointed eagerly to a bag hanging from the other end of the beam. No sooner had the guard dropped the tooth into the bag than the elegantly-dressed goblin began tugging inside his mouth again. The cage swung wildly as the goblin fell to the floor where, kicking and twisting, he grunted and pulled until, with an agonised howl of delight, he jumped to his feet brandishing another gold tooth.
“Put it in the bag!” His words were difficult to understand now. “There’s another—” Both hands were inside his poor mouth. Goblins already had very wide mouths, but this one seriously risked making a barn door of his, Adam thought.
The guard, having added the second tooth to the bag, was now glaring at the writhing goblin. “Hold still! I can’t read the scale. Won’t you hold still, I say!”
The goblin ignored the command. Or rather, in the frenzy to pull out his last gold tooth, he didn’t hear it. By now he was an extraction expert and out came the third gold tooth, along with a howl of tortured glee. Its swollen-mouthed owner finally stood still, holding the tooth out through the bars. With a sniff, the guard ignored the offering and studied a dial on the enormous balance. He looked back at the anxious goblin.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said with obvious disdain. There was a pause, then finally he added, “You may enter the Citadel.”
At these words, the elegant, gap-toothed goblin flung open the cage door with a whoop of joy. His gold tooth flew unheeded through the air and landed at Lar’s feet. The fat goblin clasped his hands above his head and jumped up and down several times while grinning a hideous swollen-lipped grin of triumph at the shocked friends. Victorious, he was led off, with his treasure bag, by the same contemptuous guard. With difficulty, Lar understood the words: “Keep it, do!” as the goblin brushed past him, pointing to the tooth on the floor. Lar picked it up and slipped it into his pocket.
The other guard, who had finished writing an entry in a leather-bound ledger, turned to the travellers. “Next,” he called in a loud voice.
“Go on,” urged their guard, pointing with his heavily-ringed hand towards the cage. One by one, the little band entered the cage until their guard closed the brass-barred door with a clang behind them.
They watched as he sorted their coins into two piles, one of gold and one of silver. Then he carefully hung them from two different hooks at the other side of the balance. He was joined by the guard with the pen. Together they studied the dial, while the four companions looked on curiously. Over to the chart they went and, as with the goblin earlier, they shook their heads. The one with the pen pointed to a column and shrugged. They whispered together, still shrugging, occasionally looking over their shoulders at the caged band. Finally, their guard came over. “You,” he said, pointing to Adam, “out!”
Adam looked at his friends. He shrugged and left the cage without a word. Again, the guards consulted the dial and the chart.
“Fine!” said the guard with the pen. “You may enter the Citadel.” The friends smiled with relief, but he turned to Adam and added, “You may not.”
“I’m very sorry,” said their guard kindly. “You see, there are insufficient means for you all to enter the Citadel—as body weight against precious metal will have it, the young lady, the dwarf and the pixy may enter, but sadly—”
The others refused to enter without Adam, but all Emily’s pleading and charm made no difference, the guards were resolute. Under escort, they trudged heads down to the gateway and out beyond the massive walls.
“Success wanted us all to enter the Citadel,” Emily said to Adam in a tone of voice meant to stop him from suggesting otherwise. “For some reason, I’m not sure why, I feel we have to go in there if we want to get home to our parents.” She looked apologetically at Lar and Palustric, who, as far as they were concerned, were on an adventure. They didn’t seem bothered by her words, so Emily looked up at the turrets of the Citadel that seemed so rich and distant, truly part of another world.
They sat down on the outer bank of the moat, proportionately as small as ants, under the immense walls which enclosed the Citadel, each deep in thought. How could they find more money quickly; enough for Adam to pass with them through the guarded gateway?
The smallest of the company stood up after a while and wandered off. The pixy hadn’t gone far before he came across an old woman wearing a grey habit. Her face was hidden deep within her hood and her feet were bare. The old woman leant on a stick and greeted Lar, “Good day, little fellow. What brings a hoer of land to a place of feather beds?”
Something most unusual in the hooded stranger’s voice stopped Lar in his tracks; despite her twinkling, knowing eyes, she seemed as old as the earth. Before long, they were sitting together on the ground, and Lar poured out his tale. The old woman sat with chin on her chest, so that Lar could only see her hood, but he felt more and more compelled to tell his tale to the very end.
When he had finished the tale, the old woman raised her head, saying, “Here are your friends, who have missed you.” Surely, she could not have seen them coming, Lar thought, puzzled. The others joined the pixy and stared with curiosity at the stranger.
“My name is Sapiens,” that strange disturbing voice came again. “I know your tale.” The three newcomers, like Lar before them, were awed in the old woman’s presence. There was a long silence.
At last, Emily asked haltingly, “I don’t suppose you could give us some advice, madam?”
The hood nodded.
“How can we get the money to enter the Citadel?”
“Had I not heard your tale,” the old woman began slowly, “I should tell you not to enter that place. As things are, you must enter; otherwise, you shall not have what you desire most.”
“Well, I don’t want to be rich,” Adam said, sharply.
“I know your desire,” Sapiens said with a steadiness which made Adam wish he hadn’t spoken.
“You share it with your sister, but you have a hard road to travel and many dangers to face.”
She sighed sadly and lowered her head in thought for a moment.
Palustric, who was the least patient of the group, could wait no longer: “But how can we get the money to get Adam into the Citadel?”
The old woman raised her head, and her eyes flashed. Then she laughed, “Money, young dwarf, arrives walking slowly, but leaves running fast.”
Even Palustric smiled at this, while Lar clapped his hands in delight at another gem for his collection of sayings. The old woman seemed to address Palustric, but they weren’t sure whom she was looking at because of the hood. “There is a way for one of you who is bold enough.” She pointed away from the Citadel. “Down there is a plain, where you will find—” she smiled approvingly at Lar, who was repeating the saying about money in a low voice to memoris
e it. Lar stopped and paid attention at once. “Where you will find a lonely white rock. About the rock, there is a legend here, which is passed down from father to son. The legend is true, for I was here at the time.” She smiled mysteriously. “A long time ago, hereabouts, lived a wicked hobgoblin, who was extremely rich.” Sapiens looked up at the Citadel. “He died in there, you know. He was even more wicked than most of his race.”
Lar and Palustric exchanged glances because they both knew about the wickedness of hobgoblins.
She continued, “When he was dying, wishing to conserve his old habit of harming everyone, he summoned a fairy and entrusted all his treasure to her. He told her to enclose a broody hen made of gold and thirteen golden chicks in the white rock. She enchanted them so that they come out on the last Friday of every month and, invisible, run through the grass and thorns around the rock—”
Palustric was counting on his fingers. “It's only the third Wednesday,” he muttered gloomily.
“Anyone can possess the golden fowl,” the old woman looked around the expectant faces.
“How?” Emily asked.
“You must follow these steps: first, you must get up an hour before cockcrow and before sunrise take enough flax to make a napkin; then, you must tease it, spin it and bleach it, weave it and having finished, place a piece of maize bread in it which you must eat as the sun rises. If you have done well—”
“What?”
“The rock will slowly crack open and dissolve away like chalk in the sea, leaving the golden birds—”
“Are they solid gold?” Palustric asked.
The hood nodded.
“It doesn’t sound easy,” Adam said slowly. “There must be a catch.”
“Pixies can work flax into linen, Master,” Lar said, thoughtfully, in his fluting voice, “but it’s a question of time—”
“You could do it, Lar!” Palustric urged, but the little pixy shook his head.
Emily had been thinking. “You said he was a wicked hobgoblin.” She looked at Sapiens, searching for the old woman’s eyes deep inside the hood. “What happens if you don’t finish the linen in time?”
The old woman nodded. “That’s why I spoke of boldness before. Whoever fails falls under the fairy spell and is doomed to rise every morning to crow the dawn, like a cockerel!”
They all laughed, but Sapiens raised a crooked finger. “It’s not funny, you know. You wouldn’t like it at all!”
“I suppose not,” Emily smiled, “but it seems so ridiculous.” She frowned and then added, “But you said that the hobgoblin entrusted all his treasure to the fairy. What happened to the rest?”
Once again, Sapiens nodded slowly. “So you want turnips for one hundred pigs?” she said in her curious way. “You can have all the treasure of course, but that’s far harder. You must mount a fast horse and draw near the rock. Then, split a pomegranate into seven pieces and spur the horse. As you gallop around the rock, you must eat all the pomegranate seeds, without letting even one fall or leaving one. Then, you must jump from the saddle and sit on the rock—”
Palustric jumped up. “That’s impossible!” he boomed.
Once more, the eyes flashed from deep within the hood.
“What happens if you fail?” Adam asked quietly.
“Your head will spin with dizziness until the day death gives you relief,” Sapiens finished. She raised herself with difficulty to her feet, leaning heavily on her stick.
“I'm going to try then,” Adam said in a determined voice, but followed this by adding less certainly, “I like pomegranates, after all.”
“I knew you’d try,” Sapiens said, and as if everything had all been decided in advance, she reached into her grey habit and pulled out a creamy-orange fruit. “Take this,” she said, “it might help.” She held the pomegranate out in her old and shaking hand.
“Thank you,” Adam said and looked at the old woman with curiosity and with puzzled eyes.
She smiled kindly at him. “There is so much you don’t know,” she placed a gnarled hand on the boy’s arm, “but it's enough to stay true to yourself and be brave. Oh, one other thing,” she added as if she’d almost forgotten, “learn to wield a sword, my boy.” She let go of Adam’s arm and turned to hobble away.
In silence, they watched her go until she was quite a way down the road.
Adam turned to the others and frowned. “Did she say a sword? I wonder who she is?”
“She's as old as the earth, Master,” Lar said, which seemed to be enough.
They fell silent again and watched the stranger disappear from sight.
“She's a wizard!” Palustric suddenly burst out. “She’s one of the Wizards of Enlightenment, that’s who she is! I never thought I’d meet one,” he added in awe. “I didn’t realise till now, but I'm sure. She’s the Wizard of Wisdom.” His voice trembled with excitement and admiration.
“But I don’t understand, why should I learn to use a sword?” Adam said. “After talking to her, I don’t understand anything any better.” He looked at the pomegranate in his hand and shrugged.
“Exactly,” Palustric nodded. “You…we…we don’t understand what we are doing or what lies ahead. For understanding, we would have needed to speak with a different wizard. As it is, we are wiser. We know what we have to do, where and how and, what’s more, she gave you advice for the future.”
Adam looked from the dwarf’s sincere eyes to the pomegranate and shrugged again. “I don’t feel very wise,” he said. Then he took a decision. “Let’s go! But where?” he ended, lamely.
“To buy a horse?” Palustric suggested.
“Do you believe all that legend stuff?” Adam looked from one to the other, but he didn’t see any doubt on their faces.
“Let’s go and buy a horse, then!” he said, convinced.
They found a fine black horse in a village not far from the Citadel. The goblins there were not rich, but neither were they poor. Hard-working was how Palustric described them, and that, coming from a dwarf, was praise indeed. They paid an honest price for the horse, which seemed young, healthy and too lively. Adam had his first doubts at the sight of it. He had been riding a few times with Emily at the stables near his home, but there, they gave children the calm, old mounts. This one was a snorting stallion that stomped and frisked as Emily led him along by his bridle. Adam fell so silent that his friends noticed. In his heart, Adam wanted Emily to take over the task. She was a much better rider than he because she had many more hours’ experience in the saddle. The wizard, though, had given him the pomegranate, he thought, as he glanced unhappily at the magnificent beast next to him.
They entered the plain below the Citadel. Emily was having trouble keeping the stallion under control. Adam, pale as the chalky rock they were nearing, broke out in a cold sweat. He imagined what a life would be like with one’s head constantly spinning.
The rock stood on its own, about the size of a truck from His World. Fearfully, Adam looked from it to the black stallion. He looked at Emily and was about to ask her if she’d take over when he remembered the wizard’s words: stay true to yourself and be brave. He tried to control his trembling knees.
Suddenly, Lar spoke, “Lift me onto your shoulders, Master.”
At that moment, Adam was happy to do anything that didn’t involve mounting the stallion. He didn’t even ask the pixy the reason but took him under the arms and did as asked, marvelling at how little his friend weighed and how he seemed bony, like a cat.
“Go to the horse, Master, I must speak with him.”
Again, Adam obeyed silently so that the pixy whispered into the champing horse’s ear. The stallion’s ear twitched, and it tossed its great head. It neighed mightily, scaring Adam, but then, for the first time, stood still. So did Adam, who stared in surprise at the motionless animal.
“You can put me down, Master,” Lar reminded Adam.
The stallion remained perfectly still and looked more or less like a riding-school horse. Adam’s knees
felt firmer, and the colour slowly returned to his cheeks.
“Thanks, Lar!” he breathed.
“’Twas nothing,” the pixy beamed. “One hand washes the other and both together wash the face, is it not so, Master?”
“I’m sure that’s right, Lar,” Adam said, he didn’t feel like working out the saying just then.
Emily felt in her pocket and fetched out a beautiful, jewel-encrusted dragonfly brooch which she had made. She unclipped the pin of the brooch and handed it to her brother. “I made this, and I know fairy magic it helped me. So, use it to eat the pomegranate seeds—it will help.” She smiled encouragingly at her brother, who looked into her silver eyes and a strange warmth came over him. Strange how much closer he felt to his sister in this world. He took the brooch and handed it with the fruit to Palustric.
“Pass them up to me,” he ordered as he mounted the stallion.
Irritated, Palustric gave them to Emily. “I'm not tall enough,” he said, shortly.
Once he had them in his hands, Adam realised another awful truth. With his hands full, he couldn’t hold the reins. He said as much, in a defeated voice.
“Fear not, Master,” Lar's voice fluted up to him. “Hold tight with your knees. The horse knows what to do. Split the pomegranate, Master, and may Good Fortune be with us all!”
“Don't drop any seeds, Adam,” Emily warned.
“And don't leave any,” Palustric added. “Eat them all!”
Adam studied the pomegranate. He wondered just how to break it into seven equal parts. First, he tested the fruit with his hands, applying just a little pressure, certainly not enough to split it. To his amazement and joy, the fruit divided perfectly in his hands.
“Sapiens!” Adam breathed, at whose name, as if spurred, the stallion leapt forward in a gallop around the rock. With the shock of the charge, Adam was almost thrown, but somehow, he managed to grip with his knees and stay on. The horse galloped smoothly, and Adam felt like he was riding on a carousel at a fairground. He picked at the blood-red seeds. He’d always made a mess digging out pomegranate seeds at home where he’d been sitting at a table, not whirling around on a mighty steed. But the brooch pin spiked the seeds as cleanly as an arrow passing through a straw man, so Adam was able to carry them safely to his mouth.
Whirligig Page 15