No Country for Old Gnomes
Page 1
No Country for Old Gnomes is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by D. S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Map by Kevin Hearne was originally published in Kill the Farm Boy by D. S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne (New York: Del Rey, 2018)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Hearne, Kevin, author. | Dawson, Delilah S., author.
Title: No country for old gnomes / Kevin Hearne, Delilah S. Dawson.
Description: First edition. | New York : Del Rey, [2019] | Series: The Tales of Pell ; 2
Identifiers: LCCN 2018051284| ISBN 9781524797775 (Hardcover) | ISBN 9781524797782 (Ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.E264 N6 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018051284
Ebook ISBN 9781524797782
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook
Frontispiece gnome illustration: iStock/benoitb
Title page border: iStock/jcrosemann
Title page and chapter opener ornament: Vecteezy.com
Space break ornament: iStock/mxtama
Cover design: Scott Biel
Cover art: Craig Phillips
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map
1: In a Cave Just Positively Riddled with Blood and Gecko Toes
2: Beset by Naked Halfling Malice
3: Beneath the Sweaty Onion Flesh of a Rogue
4: Across the Lea and Fuming in the Tenebrous Darkness
5: On the Dew-Slobbered Slopes of the Honeymelon Hills
6: Aclatter with a Surfeit of Brooms in a Strategic Mobile Habitat
7: Inside an Oven Disturbingly Full of Bones
8: Afoul of the Fearful Cabbage Pastor of Misree
9: Calculating the Air-Speed Velocity of a Laden Chicken Shack
10: Through a Cold Blü Sky Bereft of Fluffee Egges
11: Spread-Eagled Uponst a Divan of Questionable Provenance
12: Surrounded by Distressingly Beardless Chins and the Grumbles of the Elderly
13: Under the Grim Weight of an Implacable Iron Toe Ring
14: Under the Salubrious Influence of a Most Potent Boning Tea
15: Flushed as Red as Lingonberries and Longing for a Redo
16: Concerned About Hairy Palms and Sadly Lacking Eyeliner
17: In a Very Pretty Place Where Foreshadowing Intimates Trouble
18: Wrapped Warmly and Perhaps Too Tightly in the Arms of Unwanted Hospitality
19: Athwart a Company of Tendentious Trolls and Halflings
20: Under the Boastful and Bestial Eye of a Dignified Sylver Ungulate
21: Surrounded by Clandestine Wonders and Embroidered Coveralls
22: Suffering from a Distinct Lack of Toes on a Gurney on a Train in a Tunnel
23: Under Assault by Salty Mermaids
24: In a Shop Rife with Suspiciously Familiar Tchotchkes
25: Outside the Grimful Walls of Bruding
26: In the Steamy Demesne of Dwarvelish Delight
27: Surrounded by Phantasmal Apparitions and Dusty Chiffarobes
28: Mired in the Viscid Gelatin of the Figgish Fen
29: Under the Obfuscated Guise of an Old Acquaintance
30: High Above a Caprine Abattoir and Acres of Bad Architecture
31: Near a Gourmet Selection of Hotly Contested Muesli
32: Amidst a Whirlwind of Blood and Viscera and Beard Hairs
33: Besplattered by Blood and Positively Riddled with Boons
34: Over a Moist Black Cardigan Lovingly Embroidered with Bats
Epilogue: Buffeted by Ebullient Winds of Surpassing Kindness
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Other Titles
About the Authors
“Look, building anticipation is great and everything, but I think the most important thing to consider is—”
—THIBAULT CHERKMERKIN OF THE CHEAPMEAT CHERKMERKINS, famously before hurling a fish in the face of his mother-in-law, thereby starting a food fight that lasted three weeks and that he ultimately lost
Enter three witches.
What they entered was not a race. It was, in fact, a cave of ominous portent, which was different from a regular cave in that it possessed a spooky lighting concept. This was achieved by kindling a fire in the cave and then covering it with the black iron bottom of a cauldron, in which something eldritch may or may not be stewed. But let’s be real: No one ever bought a cauldron and installed it in a cave to make a mundane soup. It was always, always, going to be an eldritch stew. Especially since they’d brought the requisite bucket full of entrails, pouches of herbs, and assorted dried eyeballs.
“Thrice the bundled cat hath mewed—” the first witch said, in perturbed disbelief that one cat could have so much to mew about.
“Then let him out of the dang sack!” the second witch said, her exasperation clear. “You know he hates it!”
The cat in question mewed again and was thus released from his torment. He ran out of the cave like his tail was on fire. Which it was, as he’d accidentally run too close to the flames.
“It’s time, sisters! It’s time!” the third witch intoned, like she was somehow better and witchier and closer to the spheres than the other two witches.
The first witch sighed and rubbed her temples. “Gather ’round the cauldron, then, and let’s get on with it. Magick waits for no one.”
“Did you just say magick with a k?” the second witch asked. “And why would you say ’round instead of around?”
The first witch looked a bit sheepish. “I read in Better Brooms and Cauldrons that it made things more official, and since you insist on wearing hand-knit tunics covered in kittens, someone has to put in the work at adding some ambience.”
“Witches are supposed to have cats! It’s right there in the handbook!”
“One cat,” the first witch said, now on the attack and looking down her nose. “A familiar cloaked in night to do thy dark bidding. Not seventy-three strays milling about the house. Every time I visit your place, I leave smelling like an outhouse crossed with a wharf. And the hair!”
“If you can’t use Malefichant’s No Hair On There spell, are you really a witch?” the second witch sniffed. Her kitten-covered tunic was the requisite black, but it was coated in a thick layer of cat fur and stained a particular shade of brown that could only be called Tuna ’n’ Vittles.
“Enough!” the third witch cried, clawed hands in the air. “We’re running out of time!” She cleared her throat, spat a phlegmglobber into the fire pit, and began.
Double, double toil and mess
The fire’s hot and I hate chess—
“What’s that?” the second witch broke in. “You hate chess?”
The third witch drew herself up tall. “I do.”
“But how is that relevant to the spell—”
“It rhymes!” the third witch spat. “Rhyming is more important than meaning.”
“But you could’ve gone with bless, dress, guess, less…” The first witch trailed off. She was not a poet and she did know that well, but she could rhyme when the moment required it.
“If you have a better spell up your sleeve, please continue,” the third witch said with that horrible sort of sweetness that suggests a punch to the schnozz might work better for all involved.
“Ahem,” the first witch said. “Continuing.
In the poisoned duodenum throw
Three fat toads and a tortoise named Joe—
“Joe?” the second witch screeched. “But he was my favorite thatch tortoise!”
“They’re a pestilence,” the first witch said, her voice quite stern. “And they were warned. As I said, ahem.
Filet of eel and dab of butter
Add salt and pepper, marinate overnight in apple juice
Roast at three-fifty for an hour—
“That’s not the spell; that’s a recipe for eel casserole,” the third witch hissed.
“Then I’ll go on, shall I?” the second witch asked sweetly. “Now, AHEM.
Wool of llamataur, tongue of bat
Eye of newt and a fuzzy hat
Adder’s arse and gecko’s toes
Into the pot the whole mess goes!
Each witch bent over to pick up a bucket, and they all dumped their ingredients into the cauldron with a hearty splash.
“Cool it with a pint of blood
Then the charm will be real good.”
The third witch bent over again and held a large, red-splashed bucket overhead with a dangerously sloshy sound.
“Ye gods!” the second witch cried. “Where’d you get all that blood?”
“Er,” the third witch said. “The, um, shop?”
“You did not! Liar!”
Before she could be questioned further, the third witch dumped the entire bucket of blood into the cauldron, turning it into a gooey red mess that smelled like pennies and farts.
“And that was way more than a pint!” the second witch continued. “That was absolute gallons of blood. And it wasn’t nice and cool, because then it would be all coagulated, like a giant, jiggly scab, and it would’ve made a terrible splash. It was hot and fresh. It’s probably not even going to cool the dang charm. It’s going to make it hotter. What if the charm’s not real good, like the spell says?”
“Then I suppose the coming war will be less warrish,” the third witch said peevishly, and then muttered, “Or possibly more warrish.” She shook a gnarled finger at them. “Honestly, ladies, we met tonight to try to hurry things along with this war and throw the entire country into chaos and strife, and you’re more concerned about the source of random buckets of blood. It was barely a pint, if that. Got it from a sick baboon. Not a problem at all. Not even two cups. Call yourself witches.”
“That’s gaslighting, that is!” the first witch shouted. “You pretending like there’s no problem when there’s obviously a problem and then downplaying or diminishing our feelings, all to throw us off the scent of your unexplained and honestly alarming abundance of blood.”
“Barely a thimbleful,” the third witch said, dropping her first, far-smaller bucket into her second, enormous bloodstained bucket with a clang.
“I don’t think I like Girls’ Night Out anymore,” the second witch whined. “We could’ve stayed in with a bottle of Moscato and read the saucy bits of an anatomy book out loud in funny voices.”
“What’s done is done,” the third witch said, but she grinned in a way that reminded the other witches of sharks and used-broom salesmen. When the third witch realized the other two were staring at her, she straightened and plastered a polite smile on her face. “So, when shall we three meet again?”
“Uh, I’m busy,” the first witch said.
“Yeah. My cat’s sick,” the second witch added.
“Which one?”
“Er, all of them. For the foreseeable future.”
The silence grew very uncomfortable.
“Fine. Bye, witches,” the third witch said, swinging her blood bucket as she sauntered out of the cave.
“Where’d we find her again?” the second witch whispered to the first witch.
“At the Ye Olde Meet-Up Bulletin Boarde,” the first witch said. “We needed a third for the spell. But she looks different than her picture.”
“Definitely more evil,” the second witch agreed.
“And what was that about chaos and strife and starting a war? I thought we were doing a spell to help the Bruding Boars win their jousting competition?”
“Oh! I almost forgot.”
The second witch pulled a gold-and-brown scarf out of her bag and tossed it into the now terribly bloody-looking cauldron. Although the spell had suggested blood would cool it down, the cauldron now somehow seemed even hotter, the red glop inside viciously boiling and bubbling and almost growling as it cooked. The scarf twisted and twirled on the liquid’s surface, briefly forming the shape of a triangle.
“What’s that mean, I wonder?” the second witch said. “Almost looks like a gnome hat.”
“A gnome hat?” The first witch blew a raspberry. “That’s preposterous. Nobody cares about gnomes! Maybe it means our jousters will win first, second, and third place! I so hope we win. Go, Boars!”
They left together, buckets swinging, and went to find a bottle of Moscato.
Neither noticed the surfeit of portent in the air, wafting from the coppery-smelling cave, probably because the second witch smelled so strongly of cat urine.
But the portent was there nonetheless.
“Never trust quotes placed at the beginning of chapters as if they were diamonds of the brain. They were probably written by a halfling expressly for the purpose of deceiving you.”
—GNOMER THE GNOMERIAN, in the Fourth Gnomeric Cycle,
In a hole in the ground there lived a family of gnomes. Not a yucky, moist, gross hole filled with worm tails and old chicken bones, nor yet a dusty, crusty, sandy hole entirely lacking modern plumbing and ergonomic seating: It was a gnomehome, and that meant tidiness and comfort.
In this particular moment, however, there was strife. There was, in fact, a Mighty Row. Onni Numminen had finally had enough of his twin brother’s ungnomeric antics.
“Offi, you can’t wear that thing to the Midsummer Shindig. It’s ridiculous.”
Offi looked down, the gaslights flashing off his glasses. “Why not? It’s a cardigan. All gnomes wear cardigans. And you must admit it’s tidy. I’m following all the rules.” He tugged his scraggly beard in a way gnomes did when they thought they were getting away with something, which only annoyed Onni more.
“But it’s black! With rabid purple bats on it!”
The very sight of the thing nearly made Onni’s brain short-circuit. Tidy sweater, never better! was one of the very first gnomeisms every gnomelet learned in gnomeschool, but it was assumed the sweaters would be in bright colors and feature embroidered ducks, pineapples, or tulips, cheerful symbols of gnomeric togetherness. It was true that Offi had knit himself a finely crafted cardigan, but it was entirely the wrong color. What kind of gnome would wear black? And then he had gone and lovingly embroidered creepy purple bats on it, their eyes made of shiny red buttons. Offi was correct: Technically, there was nothing wrong with it. But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Offi Numminen wasn’t being…gnomeric.
And that was the worst thing a gnome could do, outside of stealing pudding or shaving off his or her beard.
“You can’t wear it to the shindig,” Onni repeated, tugging his own scruffy beard in exasperation. “I won’t allow it.”
Offi gave him a dark look, in part because that was one of only two looks Offi could give these days, the other being one that said that life was merely a slow trudge toward death and Offi’s soul was a black repository for pain.
Onni hated both looks, and gnomes weren’t supposed to hate anything, except an untidy sock drawer. And halflings. And anyone who called them “knee-high,” since they had their own knees and were appropriately taller than said body parts.
“I can so wear it, and I will, and you don’t get to allow me anything. I’ve tried to be like you, Onni, and where did it get me? Nowhere. Pretending to be happy never made anyone happy. Do you know what it’s like, being me, and you being you? Knowing everyone thinks my twin is the poster boy for gnomeric youth? By dinkus, they gave you a medal that straight up says PARAGON OF GNOMERIC YOUTH on it. And I have to stare at it all the time.”
He glumly glanced to where the medal hung on a plaque amidst dozens of other medals proudly proclaiming things like EXEMPLAR OF TOGETHERNESS and TIDIEST CARDIGAN and SPIFFIEST HAT and WOW, WHAT A GNOME. And then they both glanced to Offi’s identical plaque, which featured only one sad, smallish medal, reading EATS PUDDING WITH MINOR GUSTO.
For once, Onni tried to see things from his brother’s point of view. Onni considered himself a foine boy, and not only because he had three FOINE BOY medals. But he tried. He actively wanted to make his parents proud by being the most gnomeric of gnomes. He got along. He spouted the gnomeisms whenever appropriate. He did his best to be round, affable, and clean and to wear only the brightest colors.