"You all right?" Marian asked, tipping my head back to look at my nose. She grimaced. "Looks broken to me."
I touched my nose. Definitely broken.
"Here," Robin started, tucking his new knife away.
"Don't touch me!" I yelled, throwing my arms up to ward him away from my nose.
"All that tipping your head back is going to do is make you swallow the blood. Put your head like this and hold here." "Here" was just below the bridge of my nose.
"I'm not—"
"Just shut up and do it," Marian said.
I shut up and did it and the bleeding stopped.
"It still hurts," I said.
"You're welcome," Robin said.
We went back up the stairs and joined Feordin, who'd commanded his magic rope to tie itself around the first goblin's neck. At this point he was sitting next to the goblin, holding onto the rope and holding onto the knife, which was also pressed against the goblin's neck.
"Now that we're all here," Feordin told the goblin, "how about if you start at the beginning?"
The guard's orange eyes glanced our way, evaluating the situation. I saw his Adam's apple bob as he gulped. "What," he asked, "beginning?"
Feordin gave the rope an extra twist. "You might want to start by telling where the real Princess Dorinda is."
"There isn't one," the goblin gasped.
"What?" Feordin demanded.
"Ease up," Marian said. "You can't get answers from a dead man."
"Or a dead goblin," Robin corrected.
Marian shot him a warning glance.
Feordin loosened the rope a smidgen.
"Who's the little blond sweetie?" I asked.
The goblin licked his lips. "She's Dorinda, but she's not a princess. I mean, she's the only princess there is and she's the person you know as Dorinda, but she's not really a person. I mean—"
Feordin said, "I think we're just going to have to kill him and start again with somebody else."
"No, wait," the goblin begged. "I'm trying to explain. She's a shape-shifter. She was accidentally created when the Wizards' Guild magically built this castle as a playground for the governor's children. The wizards put too much power into it. At first she was just a shapeless ball of excess magical energy. Then the High Mage came through the portal to check on everything, and the energy wrapped itself around his wizard's staff. It hid in the faceted crystal knob at the top." The goblin held up his fist to indicate the size. "Each time he cast a spell she got stronger, and finally she gave herself a form outside of the staff. She destroyed the Wizards' Guild—if you came in through Sannatia, you probably saw the hole where it used to be."
Feordin tightened his grip. "Keep talking," he growled.
"She found that she could use the staff to take the life force from the people of Sannatia. It left them ... flat, looking like portraits, but it gave her the ability to change her own appearance."
Skeptically, Robin asked, "Then why aren't you hanging over the mantelpiece?"
"We goblins swore allegiance to her," he said, cringing away from the point of the knife. "We promised to help her."
"To help her what?" Feordin asked.
He gulped, knowing we wouldn't like his answer. "To rule the world. But she knew she had a lot to learn first. That was all right: she was patient. She decided that the best way to learn, and to be in a position of power when she was ready, was to pose as King Ulric's child. First she used her magic to kill his surviving sons and his latest wife. Then she took on the form of a tiny baby and had one of the goblin women bring her to the king, saying that she was the daughter of a farm girl with whom the king had spent a night the previous summer. It's happened often enough before that he couldn't remember one way or the other. He was told the mother had died in childbirth. The king believed the story and raised Dorinda as his own."
So much for Ulric the Fair. I didn't say that. I said, "But why did she return to Sannatia?"
"To change. To grow. Once she takes on a form, she keeps that form forever unless she casts another spell. So, she came to Ulric looking like a month-old baby. A month later she had to cast a spell to look like a two-month-old baby. Human young change rapidly. She used up all the power stored in the staff from the original inhabitants of Sannatia. Us goblins"—he cringed, knowing our reaction—"we gave her new people. Every time someone came to investigate the town, we'd take them prisoner and hold them in the dungeon until Dorinda returned. She'd come and she'd use the staff on them. That way, she was able to give herself the appearance of growing older. But this time some members of the Grand Guard got in the way. They thought she was being kidnapped and raised a fuss."
"But in the end!' I said, remembering the latest portrait, "she used them to power her staff."
The goblin nodded.
"So why is she still here?" Robin asked.
"She needs more people to advance to the next age. The dungeons were empty and the guardsmen weren't enough."
"Us?" Cornelius squeaked incredulously. "She's going to use us as raw material for her shape-shifting spell?"
The goblin nodded.
Cornelius pursed his lips, considering. "This doesn't make sense," he muttered. "A magical staff isn't like a battery that needs recharging."
"Cornelius," I warned between clenched teeth. The last thing we needed was a looping goblin.
He turned on the goblin. "Using the staff shouldn't drain it of power. I think you're making all this up."
The goblin cringed. "No—really. The staff was damaged, that's why it doesn't retain power. When Dorinda and the High Mage were fighting, the staff dropped. A piece broke off the crystal. She didn't notice right away, and by the time she did, the piece was lost."
Incredulously Cornelius said, "The staff broke and she didn't notice?"
"It was a very small piece," the goblin explained.
Marian cleared her throat and we all looked at her. And no doubt we all were thinking the same thing—that this explained the tiny crystal we had gotten from the troll statue. But nobody said anything, not in front of the goblin. As unobtrusively as possible, Marion tucked the crystal into the neck of her gown as Cornelius said, "So she's waiting for us to be brought to her at the top of the tower. Who's likely to be with her?"
"Nobody," the goblin assured us. "She doesn't like anyone to see exactly how her spells work."
Robin said, "Except that eventually those guys who went to fetch Felice from the dungeon will be coming up to let Dorinda know they couldn't find her."
I hoped they couldn't find her.
"We should go up now," Marian said. "The longer we wait, the worse it'll be. We don't want to be caught on the stairs between Dorinda coming down and guards coming up, and us with only three knives."
Feordin put his face right up to the goblin's. "I think we should slit your throat here and now," he said. "But my softhearted friends probably won't let me. But if I even think you're going to make a sound"—Feordin tapped the knife on his shoulder, the blade grazing his neck—"that'll be the end of you. Understood?"
The goblin nodded.
Feordin pulled him to his feet, and we started back up the stairs.
37. DORINDA
The door was just far enough away that we couldn't be sure if Dorinda had heard the fight and was waiting for us, or if we would take her by surprise.
We decided to assume she hadn't heard. Instead of bursting in, we opted for stealth.
Very gently Nocona eased the door open a crack. I was too far back to see what he saw, but Marian, looking through the space between Nocona and Cornelius, turned to give the rest of us a short nod. Silently Nocona opened the door the rest of the way. I tried not to wheeze, though with the state my nose was in, each breath sounded like a snore.
The room was dominated by a huge wooden table cluttered with scrolls and papers and assorted wizardly-looking apparatus: animal skulls and mysterious tin boxes and vials of colored liquid, some of which bubbled and smoked. Eight-foot-tall pic
ture frames were stacked against the walls, blank white canvas turned out toward us. Directly across from us was a door, which led outside to a balcony. We only had a narrow view of the balcony through the doorway but were relieved that Dorinda was in plain sight. Standing on a box so that she could look over the edge of the parapet, she was throwing pieces of toast, presumably to the moat monster.
I glanced around and couldn't spot anything that looked like a wizard's staff. Dorinda's chipmunk was there on the table, still in its cage. Still in its wonderful mood. As I watched, it walked over to a chunk of bread that had been placed inside the cage and peed on it.
Carefully we stepped into the room.
Our goblin prisoner didn't make a sound.
We didn't make a sound.
Dorinda whirled around, pointing the staff at us. There was a crackle of pink light and the faint smell of ozone like you get during a lightning storm.
My muscles froze halfway between one step and another. I felt my heart stop beating, my lungs stop taking in air. I knew the others were similarly affected, for there wasn't a sound out of any of them.
"Stubborn troublemakers," Dorinda said, jumping down from her makeshift stool.
Two goblins came in from that part of the balcony we hadn't been able to see.
Liar! I thought at our goblin, immobilized with the rest of us.
Dorinda walked beyond me. I strained my eyes to follow her. Nothing. She said, "This one has betrayed us."
The goblin. Good.
One of Dorinda's goblins asked, "Will you put him in a picture?"
"No. The life force of goblins doesn't get absorbed properly." She must have gestured, for the two goblins stepped behind me, then came out, carrying their compatriot, Feordin's rope still trailing from his neck. You'd think that'd be a pretty clear indication that he hadn't betrayed her willingly, but Dorinda nodded to the parapet. Without a word the two guards tossed him over the side.
If my stomach hadn't been freeze-dried like the rest of me, it would have turned over at the thought of our prisoner, fully aware but unable to twitch, plummeting to the ground.
"Now," Dorinda said, "my pictures. Let's see." She walked among us, occasionally tipping her head or holding her thumb out the way you see artists do. Evaluating. My eyeballs were beginning to dry out from not being able to blink. "I think ... not all together. That would be too cluttered. This one and this one." She pointed out Robin and Nocona. "With this one in the middle." That was Thea. "And ... All right, this one too in front." Feordin. "The walnut frame with the metallic trim, I think. With the stairs as background."
The goblins picked people up and rearranged them.
"The two men to the rear," Dorinda instructed.
The goblins set one of the huge frames behind my friends.
"Fine. Only ... they all have weapons except the woman." She turned to her two goblin guards and looked them over. "Here, give me that." She took the spiked mace one of them had in his harness and approached Thea. Then, as though on second thought, she pried the goblin knife from Feordin's fingers and placed that in Thea's hand and bent Feordin's fingers around the handle of the mace. "Somehow that looks more appropriate."
Dorinda pointed the staff at them. There was, as the goblin had told us, a crystal knob at the end, cut into hundreds of facets so that it sparkled madly. There might have been a chip missing; I couldn't tell. Not that it made any difference now.
Again there was the delicate tracery of pink around the head of the staff. And almost instantly after, a blue flash.
"Oh," Dorinda snarled, obviously annoyed. "They moved."
I had thought so too, but feared it was my imagination, wishful thinking. Apparently Dorinda had to thaw us out before immortalizing us on canvas. For on canvas was where Robin, Thea, Nocona, and Feordin were. But they'd only had half a second. What could I do in half a second? I was about to be flattened, and Mom ... whatever was wrong with Mom would have to wait until the game played out to its natural end without us.
Dorinda stood there caressing the staff's crystal. Finally she roused herself. "All right. These three get an outside scene."
"What about the one in the dungeon?" one of the goblins asked.
"She'll get her own frame," Dorinda said. "I like these three together. They look like a family. Husband and wife and grandfather."
Husband and wife? Me and Marian? Me and Noah?
The goblins carried us onto the balcony and put a frame behind us. Dorinda aimed the staff at us. Half a second, I thought. Half a second. Had Cornelius and Marian seen? The staff sparked pink, and I threw myself onto the floor and rolled.
In my tumbled view of floor and ceiling and floor and ceiling, I saw that Marian had dodged to the left. I heard a crack! and smelled Cornelius's trademark sulfur. A moment later there was a roar like a cannon had exploded half an inch from my ear, which was Cornelius's magic and Dorinda's colliding midair.
I scrambled to my feet, launching myself at one of the goblin guards before my brain had time to register how dizzy I was. I more fell on him than tackled him, but in any case he lost his footing and we both went down.
He didn't have any weapons in his hands—after all, he'd been busy carting us and the frames about'—and that was the only thing that saved me.
I grabbed his helmet by the nose protector, raised his head, slammed it down on the pavement. The tapestry-like ground gave slightly, but still his eyes crossed, then rolled up. I did it once more, just to be sure. I rolled off him, putting his unconscious bulk between me and the others, and looked up.
Cornelius and Dorinda were still flinging magic at each other. I couldn't tell who was winning, though possibly they had a feel for it. Both had sweat pouring off them, and you could see the tendons sticking out in their necks as they concentrated.
Marian, however, looked in serious trouble. She was grappling with the second goblin guard, but he had managed to get his knife out. Flat on her back, she was holding him away with straightened arms; but when her strength gave out, that knife was going to plunge right into her throat.
I grabbed the knife from the unconscious guard but didn't even have time to stand, before the pain of holding iron numbed my fingers and made me drop it.
OK. So no weapons. I didn't dare hit the goblin on the back of the head, because I was afraid that extra force would be enough to collapse Marian's arms. So I kicked him in the side, which wasn't enough to disable him, not with the chain-mail tunic he was wearing, but I hoped it would distract him enough that Marian could push him off.
It didn't.
Marian's arms were beginning to tremble with the strain, and the knife inched that much closer to her skin.
With all my might I kicked again, just as Marian's left arm collapsed. The knife plunged down. But between my kick and Marian's far arm buckling, the goblin was thrown off center. His knife cut her throat, deeply, but at least it didn't decapitate her.
He was in a position that I could kick him in the face, which I did, as hard as I could. He fell off Marian and put his hands up to protect his face. Straddling Marian, I kicked his knife hand, and finally he dropped it.
Marian grabbed it up and plunged it into his neck.
I dropped to my knees beside her. As soon as it was over, I began to get dizzy from my own viciousness. But it was necessary, I told myself. It was self-preservation, and saving the life of a friend.
It was, in its own way, exciting.
Not fun. Not nice. Not pleasant. But exciting.
"You all right?" I asked Marian.
But I could see she wasn't. She had a gash on her left side, which I hadn't even noticed before, and it was bleeding badly. And she was patting around her neck and chest as though to see if she'd been hit anyplace else.
Then I saw what she was really doing. She pulled the sliver of crystal out from where it had fallen when the goblin's thrust had sliced through the gold chain. "Don't let her get it," Marian said in a voice made faint and raspy by the wound in her thr
oat.
A little voice.
A voice I had no problem hearing, for everything around us was quiet.
I looked up and saw the wizards' duel was over. Dorinda watched us with a triumphant gleam in her eyes.
Behind her was Cornelius. He was as flat as the images in the castle halls, as flat as Thea, Robin, Feordin, and Nocona, except that he hadn't been standing in front of a canvas. He must have been falling at the time Dorinda's magic cut through his defenses, and so he was at an angle, partly on the parapet, partly on the flagstone floor, like a sticker stuck in a corner.
"Give it to me," Dorinda commanded.
I looked at the crystal in my hand. Marian was too weak to stand. I didn't even have a weapon. What could I do?
Dorinda moved in closer, the picture of sincerity. "Give me the crystal, and I will spare your life. I will spare the lives of your friends." She pointed at Marian, who'd closed her eyes, who may in fact have already lost consciousness. "I can heal this one, and I can return the others to their original forms. Give me the crystal."
I thought, Maybe she's telling the truth.
Then I thought, Probably not.
I popped the crystal in my mouth and swallowed.
Dorinda lunged, so she was only the length of the staff away. "You've got to be joking," she said. She no longer attempted to sound trustworthy and reasonable. "You know I can have that cut out of you. Now spit it out."
She thought I was bluffing. She thought it was still in my mouth. And she didn't dare flatten me, because then she wouldn't be able to get to the crystal.
"The guards I sent down to the dungeon for your last companion will be here any moment," she reminded me. "Will you stand by and watch as we cut her open first?"
I didn't think there was anything they could do to Mom. They hadn't been able to see her even before Cornelius had used his Invisibility spell. And there was nothing I could do. The only way I could help—if I could help—was to end this game as quickly as possible.
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