The Majordomo scowled and slunk out.
“What’s eating him?” said the boy.
“You were supposed to expect better hospitality, I suspect,” said Mennofar. “They have been trying to insult you.”
In Casimir’s villa, the boy had slept under the eaves of the stable on a reed mat. He had never slept indoors, and certainly not on a bed, before. “If this is bad hospitality, I’m almost afraid to see the good.”
—
The next morning, the boy’s arm was tender and sore. There was nothing to be done about it, but the boy went ahead and poked at it until it really hurt anyway. Neither he nor Mennofar wanted to see the Duke or the Majordomo again, so they simply left without saying anything to anyone. They walked all day. East of Castle Geoffrey, the air slowly grew damper and the land soggier. The undernourished gray-brown grass became greener and deeper. The scrubby little brush grew larger and heavier until it formed great thickets. When these thickets were overtaken by gnarled, fat-bottomed trees wallowing in the soupy mud and garlanded with mosses, they knew they had arrived in the Little Dismal.
Mosquitoes began torturing them as soon as the sun went low, but the stinging ants were thoughtful enough to wait until they made camp. They slept on the road itself, as the packed earth was the only solid ground to be found. Even though the swamp surrounding them was alive with small animals, the boy did not try to hunt. They ate only hard bread and cheese. The boy barely picked at this helping, for he felt feverish and out of sorts.
“I’ve been thinking about my question for the day,” said the boy. “What if Casimir did know? Suppose he had a reason for falsely enslaving me.”
“Interesting,” said Mennofar. “What did you have in mind?”
“Like Casimir, my father is a rich and powerful merchant,” said the boy. “They have some dealings together, and Casimir becomes convinced that my father has cheated him in some way.” He put his palms out. “It’s all in his head, of course, because my father would be perfectly honest.”
“Naturally,” said Mennofar.
“So Casimir has me stolen away and brought up a slave in revenge,” said the boy.
“You took that from The Tale of the Two Knights?” said Mennofar.
“The Tale of the Tortoise’s Reprieve,” said the boy. “Casimir would be the water buffalo, and my father would be the tortoise—or, no, I would. Something like that. Anyway, is that what happened?”
“No,” said Mennofar.
—
That night, the boy’s dreams were filled with wild visions of tortoises locked in mortal combat with knights, and dragons suing water buffaloes in court. The boy slept until midmorning, and only woke then because Mennofar roused him.
“Are you well?” asked Mennofar.
“I don’t feel very good,” said the boy. Despite his long, solid night of sleep, he was tired and achy. During the night, his arm had swollen and turned red. It was very tender to the touch.
“Your wound is making you ill,” said Mennofar. “Miserable though this place is, we should camp here for another day or two while you get better.”
“We can’t do that,” said the boy. “Poor Alice has been the dragon’s prisoner for over a week.”
“You cannot slay a dragon when you are ill,” said Mennofar.
“Can I slay one when I’m well?” asked the boy.
Mennofar considered the question for a moment. “Probably not,” he admitted. “But we do not even know where we are going.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do about that?” asked the boy.
Mennofar said, “Gods, demons and—”
“And dragons, I remember, but we’re not trying to find out anything about the dragon. We’re trying to find out something about the girl. What if you ignored the dragon and just concentrated on the girl?” said the boy.
“I do not think that would work,” said Mennofar. “All such beings cast a shadow. I cannot see anything directly associated with them.”
“Please try,” said the boy.
The boy clutched himself and tried to look as pathetic as he could. Mennofar sighed, closed his eyes and concentrated. He promptly turned bright green.
“You’ve found her,” said the boy. “So my idea worked?”
“Not even slightly,” said Mennofar. “However, it happens that she is no longer being held prisoner by the dragon but by an ogre.”
The boy sat up a little. “An ogre?” he said. “So she needs rescuing from something—”
“More slayable?” said Mennofar.
“Where is she?” the boy wanted to know.
“He has her locked up a few miles from here.”
“A few miles from here? Let’s go.” The boy jumped to his feet, which made him so dizzy he staggered.
“Please reconsider,” said Mennofar. “You are genuinely ill. You need to rest and recuperate.”
“No, I need to rescue that poor girl,” said the boy. “I gave my word of honor that I would.”
Mennofar said, “Yes, well, of course, but—”
“I’ve never given my word of honor before,” shouted the boy. Then, more quietly, he said, “I never knew I could. How would it be if I failed because I did less than my utmost?” He took a few steps but wobbled a bit. “Just how much danger is she in?”
“Quite a lot, I am afraid,” said Mennofar. “Ogres do enjoy feasting on the flesh of young maidens.”
“But he hasn’t killed her yet. What’re the chances that he will soon?” said the boy.
Mennofar closed his eyes and concentrated. He darkened to an inky tone.
“We have to go now,” said the boy.
Mennofar nodded, and began to cache their store of food. The boy tried to lift Magan with his left arm, but the infection had robbed the limb of most of its strength. It was so swollen that he could barely bend his elbow or make a fist. The fingers were hopeless. He could not keep the shield on his arm. “Can’t you help me with this?” asked the boy.
“Perhaps if you tied it on?” said Mennofar. He brought the pitchfork and the knife to the boy. Then he tore a few strips from the cloth used to wrap the knife.
The boy used his right arm to wrestle Magan onto his left. He tied Magan’s straps to his arm. When he was done, he stood up and promptly toppled over.
Lying flat on his back, he said, “All right, which way?”
Some swamps are great muddy plains. Others are vast soupy bowls, very nearly lakes. The Little Dismal was a bit of both. As soon as the boy stepped off the road, the warm mud oozed up between his toes. Soon he was squelching through mud that came halfway to his knees. It was worse for Mennofar, who sank in up to his waist. Although they found firmer footing not long after, there was nothing reliable in any of the ground they crossed. Semi-solid earth would give way unexpectedly to dark, oily pools, and Mennofar had to ride on the boy’s shoulders to cross. From this perch, he would fuss about the rank waters seeping into the boy’s wound, but nothing could be done about it. At other times, the cypress trees gave way to great walls of thatch and brush. The boy had to shove his way through the wild tangle with Magan. Between the boy’s illness and the terrain, their progress was painfully slow. They spent hours crossing just a few miles. Finally, in the midst of a particularly snarled and thickety patch of brush, Mennofar whispered, “We are here.”
The boy looked back at Mennofar. “There’s nothing here,” he said, pushing forward.
Mennofar said, “Perhaps the element of surprise would—” Only he spoke just a moment too late. For as he spoke, the boy burst out into the ogre’s clearing. There he saw the same little wooden hut Plain Alice had seen a few days earlier. The ogre himself lazed on the ground nearby.
The ogre jumped up and roared.
The boy felt his guts go soft and loose. The ogre might have been smaller than a dragon, but he was still twice the boy’s height, six times his weight and plainly much, much stronger.
“Foul One take me,” said the boy. He gave his f
ather’s ring a quick rub for luck.
“You not pretty girl,” said the ogre. “Who you?”
“Who’s there?” came a girl’s voice from inside the hut—it had to be Plain Alice. At least he was not too late.
“I am here to rescue Plain Alice of Middlebury,” said the boy as loftily as he could manage.
“Alice? Who Alice?” said the ogre.
“I’m Alice, you dunderhead,” said Plain Alice from inside the hut.
“You want pretty girl?” said the ogre. “We fight.”
“Yes, we will fight,” said the boy. Then he half sat and half fell back onto a log at the edge of the clearing. Sweat poured off of him. He burned with fever and shivered with chill at the same time. “But first, we rest for a few minutes.”
This confused the ogre, though confusion was familiar enough that it did not bother him too much. “Rest?” he said. “Why we rest?”
To distract him, the boy said, “Why do you like pretty girls so much?”
The ogre squinted at the boy. “Pretty girls taste good,” he said in a tone that suggested it was a silly question.
The boy needed more time to gather his strength. “Um, if they taste so good, well, um, why haven’t you eaten her already?” he asked.
“Not ready yet,” said the ogre. “Girls taste best when they are green and stinky.”
“Green? Stinky? When are they green and stinky?”
“After a few days,” said the ogre, just as though the boy had asked him why the sun was yellow.
The boy shook his head to clear his mind. “What are you talking about?”
“I believe he is referring to putrefaction,” said Mennofar, who had stepped out of the brush. To the ogre, he said, “Do you mean a few days after she is dead?”
“Yes,” said the ogre. “A few days dead, then yum, yum, yum.”
The boy’s already queasy stomach somersaulted at the thought, but he managed not to retch. “But she’s not dead,” said the boy.
The ogre’s tiny eyes narrowed. His face was a portrait of brainless incomprehension.
“Did you forget to kill her?” asked Mennofar.
Slowly, understanding dawned on the ogre’s face. “I forgets to kill her,” he howled. He turned to rush toward the hut.
The opportunity was clear, even through the feverish haze that clouded the boy’s mind. As the ogre turned away from him, the boy gathered the last of his strength. He sprang up and launched himself at the ogre, throwing the full force of his weight behind the pitchfork. He slammed it into the ogre’s back.
The pitchfork bit deep into the ogre’s flesh, but not deep enough to penetrate the thick layers of fat and muscle that protected the ogre’s vitals. The boy injured the ogre, but not nearly as gravely as he needed to.
The ogre roared in surprise. And pain. And rage. He spun to face the boy. The boy hunkered down behind Magan and waved the pitchfork at the ogre to keep him at bay. The ogre batted the pitchfork aside, launching it ten yards from the boy’s hands. He tried to knock Magan aside, too, but it was too firmly tied to the boy’s arm. He wound up twisting the boy’s arm savagely.
Pain shot through the boy’s shoulder. His eyes filled with tears. He didn’t see the ogre coming, and the next thing he knew, his opponent had a great meaty paw around one of his ankles. The ogre spun the boy around in the air. The boy’s stomach flopped and churned. Too well anchored to fly off, Magan whipped back and forth. His arm shrieked in agony, blood thundered to his head and he teetered on the edge of blacking out.
“The knife!” said Mennofar. “The knife!”
The boy bit down hard against the panic. He drew the knife from his belt. The ogre pulled him close and began to lift him in the air. Even hanging upside down, the boy managed to cut the ogre’s flank on his way up, though with little force. He only barely opened the skin. The ogre did not even notice. The boy had a weapon but no way to use it.
The ogre swung the boy high into the air. The boy saw what was coming next. The ogre was going to dash his head open on the ground. He had just one chance. He stuck the knife out as far as he could. When the ogre brought him down with full force, he plunged the knife into the ogre’s foot.
The ogre’s foot was thick and horny, but the point of the knife struck with all the power the ogre intended for the boy’s head. The blade sank hilt-deep in the ogre’s foot, slicing through muscle and snapping bone. The tip of the knife broke through the bottom of the ogre’s foot. The ogre shrieked in pain.
Of course, the boy could have easily had his brains dashed out anyway. But when the ogre fell back in pain and surprise, he let the boy go. The boy had just enough time to bring Magan up so that the force of his landing was taken up by her broad surface, rather than the narrow crown of his head. The landing dealt another fearsome blow to his poor battered arm. The pain swallowed him up, and he blacked out.
When he came to a few seconds later, he rolled over with Magan on top of him to protect himself. He watched as the ogre stood up on his good foot and took one step forward. For a terrifying instant, the ogre loomed over him. But when the ogre put his full weight on his bad foot, it failed him completely. He howled in pain and came crashing down again. The boy had only a moment. Though his head was swimming, he stood and ran to the hut. He threw the bar and flung the door wide open. “Run,” he said.
Plain Alice could not see any of the battle. She tried peering through the cracks, but none of them were wide enough. She did, however, hear all that happened. She cheered when the ogre cried out in pain and was pleased that her rescuer did nothing more than grunt. She thought he might be a seasoned knight or perhaps a canny woodsman, so she was well surprised when the door of the hut flew open to reveal a boy caked with swamp mud. Still, when he managed to rasp out, “Run,” she did.
She burst out into the clearing. The ogre lay in the middle, nursing a nasty wound to his foot. On the far side of the clearing, there was, still more improbably, a goblin, waving frantically at her. “This way,” he called out.
To avoid the ogre, Plain Alice and the boy skirted the clearing and ran toward the goblin. As they approached, he bowed quickly and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Alice. I am Mennofar the Goblin. Your father dispatched the boy and me to rescue you.” Then he started running, too.
“My father?” said Alice. “How did my father—”
“Obviously, that is quite a story,” said Mennofar. “But I think we should save it for when we make it to safety.”
The ogre rose up on his one good foot and started after them. But as soon as his weight shifted to his bad foot, he went down again with a roar of pain. As they fled into the underbrush, he tried to give chase, first by hopping and then by crawling after them, but his progress was so slow that they quickly left him behind.
—
After hours of crawling through underbrush, squelching through mud patches and fording pools of slimy water, they popped out of the trees and onto the Stanhope Road. Plain Alice took two steps toward Middlebury but saw that Mennofar and the boy had both stopped. Mennofar’s eyes were closed, and he was concentrating carefully. After a moment, he opened them and said, “We must go the other way, to the east.”
“But Middlebury is this way,” she said, pointing west.
“Yes, but the nearest sweet water is to the east, and he cannot go much farther,” said Mennofar.
By the look of the boy, Mennofar was right. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. His face was red with fever. Sweat poured off of him, streaking the swamp mud caked all over his body. His arm was so swollen that the straps that held the shield bit into his flesh.
Plain Alice nodded. She untied the shield from his arm. When she knocked the worst of the mud from it, the familiar griffin crest appeared. “Is this Magan?” she said. “How did he— Never mind. Time enough for the story later.”
She slung Magan across her back and they went east. When they got to the cache of food that Mennofar and the boy had left behind that morning, they made them
selves a meal of cold sausage, bread and cheese. The boy ate little. After so many days without food, Plain Alice ate slowly and with great care. Even so, she felt slightly sick. For his part, Mennofar wolfed down his meal. When he was done, he told her how the two of them had come to meet her father and everything that had happened since.
“You took a vow to rescue me when we had never even met. That was brave,” said Plain Alice to the boy. “A little stupid, maybe, but brave.”
The boy only grunted in response.
“We should get going,” said Mennofar.
“Is that such a good idea?” said Plain Alice. “I mean, look at him. He can barely move.”
“Yes, but we’ll need good water if he’s to recover,” said Mennofar. “And it’s not far.”
And so they pressed on. Mennofar led the way while Plain Alice steered the boy in the right direction. When they came to the spot where the road broke out of the Little Dismal and began to rise into the Mountains of Fire, Mennofar showed her where there was a hidden spring just south of the road. There they all flopped to the ground and slept heavily through the night.
—
In the morning, Plain Alice and Mennofar woke early while the boy slept on. Plain Alice washed herself in the spring. While the two of them ate breakfast, she asked Mennofar, “You only ever call him ‘the boy.’ What’s his name?”
“It is complicated,” said Mennofar.
“His name?” said Plain Alice. “How can a name be complicated?”
“It is his story to tell,” said Mennofar. “Or not tell.”
Plain Alice went to check up on the boy and discovered that he was in the throes of a very high fever. He would not wake, so she peeled off his shirt. It was just as well that the shirt was missing one sleeve, for the boy’s injured arm had swollen to twice its normal size. Although there were some nasty bruises from when the boy had braced himself with Magan, the real worry was the punctures from the pitchfork. They were dark purple, wept pus and smelled terrible. She pointed them out to Mennofar.
“They were already foul yesterday,” said Mennofar. “Mucking around in filthy swamp water cannot have helped.”
The Goblin's Puzzle Page 9
