“Icky!” said Herky. But he ate some of the bread; there was nothing else for him.
I was worried that we might run out soon, but when I closed the packets they seemed as full as they had the very first time I opened them. I smiled. Though the map had lost its usefulness after we foolishly left the path, at least this bit of Granny Pinchbottom’s magic was still working.
We decided to sleep. I gave my brain a strict command that I was not to roll over. It wasn’t that far to a drop that seemed to have no end.
• • •
I don’t know how long I had been sleeping when Herky’s voice woke me. When I opened my eyes to scold him I saw that he was asleep himself. He was jerking and twitching and muttering “Cold and dark, dark and cold! Nothing, nothing, nothing!”
After a moment I realized he must be dreaming about the North Tower. Remembering the horror of the place, I laid my hand on his forehead. This seemed to settle him, and soon he was sleeping peacefully again.
I did not go back to sleep myself. I still had my eyes open when Fauna whispered, “William?”
“What?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Me too.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Keep going.”
“That’s what I thought.”
A while later we did just that.
Before long the wall to the left disappeared as well. Now we had about a foot and a half of path—and that was it. On our right and our left was a sheer drop to a depth we could not guess.
By the light of the amulet I could see the path curving through the void ahead of us, winding left, right, rising, dipping, disappearing into the darkness.
Far beneath us I could hear the sound of a rushing river.
The path grew narrower—a foot wide, then less. Every step became a matter of life and death. I felt like I was walking along the edge of a giant razor. And still I thought I could hear footsteps behind us.
We began to grow tired again, but there was no place to rest. More than once I stumbled in my exhaustion.
The path stopped at a sheer wall. For a terrifying moment I thought we were blocked, that after all this we would have to turn around and go back. But when I lifted the amulet a little higher I could see an opening about eight feet to our right. There was even a way to get over to it—if you consider a ridge of stone as wide as your hand a way to get somewhere.
We didn’t have much choice. Slipping the silver chain over my head, I flipped it around so that the amulet hung against my back. Then I pressed my belly against the wall and began inching toward the opening.
Herky came close behind me. His long, nimble fingers and toes seemed to make this fairly simple for him.
Fauna came last, her face set and grim.
I felt better when I put my hand around the edge of the opening—and better still when I pulled myself inside and saw that it went on for a way. Taking the amulet off my neck, I thrust it back out so Fauna could have light to finish the trip.
Once she was inside we began walking again. It wasn’t long before the tunnel began to grow narrower, more enclosed. Looking up, I could see the rock ceiling above us, something I had barely seen in all the time we had been in the caverns. Soon the ceiling grew lower. The walls grew closer together.
“I don’t like this,” said Fauna.
I didn’t like it either. “Herky,” I said, “run ahead. Come back and tell me how small the tunnel gets.”
“You bet, William!” Scurrying between my legs, he disappeared into the darkness. A few moments later he came dashing back, scrambled up my legs, and put his hands around my middle. Then he jumped down and ran off again. When he returned the next time he climbed all the way to my shoulders and put his hands next to my head.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Measuring!” he replied as he jumped down and disappeared into the darkness. After a bit his voice came back down the tunnel. “I think you fit, William!”
I didn’t particularly like the sound of that. I turned to Fauna. She shrugged. I knew what she meant: What else was there to do?
I started forward. Before long I had to drop to my hands and knees. The stone was smooth and cold beneath my fingers. Soon the ceiling was so low that I began to scrape my head. I stuffed Igor’s bear into the bag Granny Pinchbottom had given me, then tied the bag to my foot. Dropping to my belly, I began to crawl.
The sides of the tunnel grew so close together that they began to scrape against me. I felt as if I were being squeezed by a giant hand. Hoping Herky was right when he said that I would fit, I stretched my hands ahead of me, and pulled myself forward.
“Hiya!” said Herky, sticking his face into mine. Then he thrust out his longer fingers and messed up my hair.
“Herky!” I yelled, “don’t do that!”
“William mad?” he asked, sounding hurt.
“Just nervous. How much further do I have to go?”
“Herky go check,” he said, turning and moving easily through the tiny space that was giving me such trouble.
He didn’t come back.
“Herky?” I called.
No answer.
“Herky?”
No answer.
“He’s probably playing some kind of game,” said Fauna from behind me.
I pulled myself forward, hoping she was right.
The tunnel grew even tighter. I couldn’t move to the right or the left, couldn’t raise my head more than an inch or two without running into the rock. Against my will I began to picture the vastness of what lay above me, the mountain of rock held up by—what?
My out-of-control imagination saw it slipping, crushing me deep in the earth where no one would ever find me.
“Stop!” I commanded myself out loud.
“Why?” asked Fauna.
“Sorry. I was talking to myself.” Staring ahead, I shouted, “Herky!”
No answer.
I pulled myself forward, wondering how accurate his measurements had been, and whether I might soon find myself hopelessly jammed into this ever-diminishing tunnel. Tighter it grew, and tighter still, until I felt as though I were breathing stone.
I began to think little things were crawling over me. The fact that nothing seemed to live down here didn’t stop my frenzied imagination from inventing “rock-worms”—nasty creatures that burrowed through stone and human flesh. I began to imagine them working their way into my skin.
Forward, slowly forward, ever more cramped. Would the tunnel become so tight it would scrape away the cloak and collar I had tucked inside my shirt? I slid back a few inches and picked up the silver chain in my teeth, to keep the amulet from being squashed between my chest and the stone floor.
“Are you all right?” whispered Fauna from behind me.
“Yes,” I replied, though that was only half true.
“Does it get any better?” she asked nervously.
I spit out the amulet chain. “Not as far as I can tell.”
She didn’t reply. Lifting the amulet with my teeth again, I crawled forward. Soon the tunnel was so tight that I couldn’t bring my arms back to my sides. They were extended full length in front of me, and that was where they had to stay.
My nose began to itch.
Inching forward, inching forward, I came to a place where the space between the roof and the floor of the tunnel was so narrow I wasn’t sure my head would fit through. When Herky had checked the size of my head he had used nothing but his hands. How accurate could his measurement have been? If I went forward, would I jam my head into a place from which I could never release it?
“Herky!”
No answer. Where had he gone?
And then, behind us, the sound of goblins laughing.
Fauna grabbed my foot. “Did you hear?” she hissed.
“I heard!” I replied. Turning my head sideways, I squirmed forward. Cold rock pressed against my temples. Pulling with my fingertips, pressing with my feet, I moved another inch
, then stopped. I could go no further. Let the goblins laugh. They couldn’t get at me here anyhow.
“William!” said Fauna. “Keep going!”
“I can’t!”
But that wasn’t true. When I moved my head to the left I found a spare half inch. Emptying my lungs to make myself flatter, I pushed forward again.
Something cold and scaly grabbed my hands and began to pull.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NILBOG
In a matter of seconds, and despite my screams of terror, I had been pulled from the tunnel. My face was bleeding, my ribs felt as if Hulda had been kneading them like bread dough, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it was trying to beat its way out of my body.
Looking around did nothing to calm me; I faced a ring of goblins, in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Their clothes were ragged, their long feet bare. They had large eyes and even bigger ears. Some had knobby heads and bulbous noses, others huge mouths filled with pointy teeth. All were grinning at me unpleasantly.
I did not see this by amulet light. The silver chain had caught on a rock as I was dragged from the tunnel, and the amulet had been ripped from my body. The light now came from odd torches carried by three of the goblins. Each torch consisted of a stick with a basket at one end. The baskets were packed with the glowing fungus we had seen when we first entered the caverns, though this variety seemed even more luminous.
As if losing the amulet wasn’t bad enough, once the goblins had me out of the tunnel one of them lifted me into the air while another detached Granny Pinchbottom’s bag from my foot.
“Give that back!” I shouted.
The goblins just laughed.
I was glad I had put the cloak and the collar inside my shirt before we entered the caverns. But the fact that the goblins now had Igor’s bear nearly broke my heart.
“William?” called Fauna from the tunnel. “William, what—?”
“Fauna, go back!”
My warning was too late. A goblin with particularly long arms had reached into the tunnel and grabbed Fauna’s hands. A few moments later he had dragged her out. Though she looked as battered and bruised as I felt, she launched into a stream of angry cursing. Her language did little more than make the goblins snort. One took her knife and dropped it into the pouch he wore at his side.
“Herky!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
The little goblin crept out from behind one of the others. “Herky bad!” he whispered miserably.
“I told you not to trust him,” said Fauna.
“What shall we do with them?” asked the biggest of the goblins, who had a nose the color and shape of a sweet potato.
“Take them to the King!” cried another.
“The King!” cried the others. “Take them to the King!”
I was swept from the ground and thrown over the shoulder of one of the goblins. Another goblin did the same with Fauna. Then they set off, singing:
A present for the King,
A present for the King,
There is nothing better than
A present for the King!
It’s something young and sweet
And maybe good to eat!
There is nothing better than
A present for the King!
They sang without stopping until I didn’t know what would be worse: being eaten by the King or having to hear the stupid song one more time. My only consolation was that at least we were going in the right direction.
As we traveled I was astonished by the goblins’ wild energy. Not only did they sing, they climbed, jumped, ran, wiggled, and bounced all over the place. It seemed there was always one or another of them scrambling up a stalagmite, swinging from a stalactite, crawling up a wall, leaping overhead, or in one way or another being somewhere besides the floor of the cave. At some points there were more goblins in the air than on the ground.
I might have found this all hilarious if I had not been trapped on the shoulder of a goblin who was acting just like all the others—which meant that every now and then I found the floor suddenly about ten feet further away than it had been, or realized that the goblin carrying me had just leapt over some bottomless-looking pit that I would never in a million years have considered crossing without a bridge.
When the goblins started playing leapfrog across a narrow stone bridge that stretched over a pit of molten lava I just closed my eyes and prayed for the journey to end.
After what seemed like hours a cheer went up among the goblins. I opened my eyes. We were on the edge of a cliff.
Below us lay Nilbog.
“All right, boy, now you walk!” said the goblin who had been carrying me. He swung me to the ground. Before I could recover from my ride he yanked my hands behind my back and bound them with a rough cord. Fauna’s goblin did the same, which started her cursing again.
As we picked our way along the narrow path that led down the cliff I had time to study our destination.
Nilbog was far bigger than I had expected. Housed in a vast cavern, it was lit throughout by the same glowing fungus the goblins used for their torches. The fungus grew alongside the paths that meandered through the city, wound around the poles that had been erected wherever two paths crossed, filled window boxes, and even covered entire roofs. Several large areas were oddly dark, as if something had happened to the fungus, but overall there was so much of it that the whole city was suffused with a dim greenish glow, as if dawn was always coming but never arriving.
It was a city of stone and water. On the far side of the city a wide river rushed over a tall cliff, creating a huge underground waterfall. This river flowed through the center of the city, where it was crossed by numerous oddly constructed bridges, most of them covered by the glowing fungus. Water collected in pools and reservoirs, then poured out in streams that sometimes disappeared into the tops of buildings and then flowed out the bottoms.
Rivers and streams flowed in from other directions, too. All of them ran toward the center of the city, which was its lowest point, to gather in a large lake. In the center of the lake, rising from a stony island, stood a castle. Seven towers sprouted at odd angles from its sides. Rickety bridges stretched from tower to tower, and even from where we stood I could see goblins scrambling along them.
As we entered the city I was astonished to see huge jewels—emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds—used as decorations on the bridges. The streets and paths wound this way and that, seemingly without plan or destination. After a while I realized that the place was almost totally free of straight lines and corners. The buildings were all helter-skelter, higher on one side than on the other, rounded at the edges. Oddly enough, it looked kind of cozy.
What made the city frightening were the thousands of goblins running madly about the streets, swinging from the lampposts, leaping from roof to roof, and screaming at the darkness. I thought to myself, It’s as if everyone has gone crazy. Then I remembered what Granny Pinchbottom had told me.
I remembered the few moments I had spent in the tower where the goblins had been imprisoned. The goblins had been there for over a hundred years!
I shivered.
Goblins screamed about “wicked humans” as we passed them in the streets. More than once things were thrown at us. But the goblins who had captured us also seemed intent on protecting us, and they shouted at the others to leave us alone, because we were “presents for the King!”
• • •
A long stone bridge stretched from the shore of the underground lake to the castle. Pillars carved in strange shapes lined the edges of the bridge. Huge jewels studded its surface.
We entered the castle through tall wooden doors that opened into a long hall leading to the Throne Room. We had nearly reached our goal. But how was I going to put the collar on the King?
The Throne Room was vast and filled with goblins. They were hooting, screeching, hanging from the ceiling. In a couple of places circles had formed around pairs of goblins who were pulling ea
ch other’s noses in what seemed to be some form of ritual combat.
Great urns of glowing fungus—some sitting on the floor, some mounted on tall columns—provided the weird green light by which we saw all this.
At the end of the room, on a dais four steps high, stood a stone throne.
On the throne sat a wooden box.
Goblins began to scream and jeer as our captors hustled us along the huge hall. Soon we were standing in front of the throne. An old goblin wearing a golden chain around his neck sat on the third step of the dais. Was he the King? If so, why was there a box on the throne?
“What do you want?” asked the old goblin.
“We have a present for the King!” said our leader.
The old goblin nodded. With a groan he got to his feet and climbed to the throne. I expected him to move the box and sit down. Instead he rapped sharply on the top of the box.
“Who is it?” asked a gravelly voice.
“It’s Borg, Your Majesty,” said the old goblin. “There is someone here to see you.”
“All right,” grumbled the voice. “Open the door.”
The old goblin moved his hand to a latch and swung open the entire front of the box. I gasped. I don’t know what I had expected to see inside the box; some tiny goblin, perhaps. I know I had not expected to see the enormous goblin head that was actually there. That was it—just a head; an ugly head, with green skin, fiery eyes, and a mouthful of ferocious teeth. On its brow sat a golden crown studded with large jewels.
The King’s eyes shifted from me to Fauna, then back again. “Where did you find them?” he demanded.
“In the tunnels,” said the leader of our group.
“Invaders!” cried the King. “What are you after?”
Before I could think of an answer the old goblin who had been sitting on the steps walked down and stared in my face.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“William.”
“William of Toad-in-a-Cage Castle?” he asked in surprise. To my surprise, he sounded happy.
I nodded.
“I thought so!” he cried in delight.
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