“Ahem,” the Dwarf king grunted. “Well, of course I ‘member all those grand times we had together, don’t ya know. Though I don’t quite know what yer talkin’ about with that dragon an’ such. As I ‘member it, I jus’ about saved yer skins.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered.
“I think all this gold has gone to your head,” Jinx said.
“Gold! Tee hee!” Pugglemud giggled, but after a moment, he recovered from his mirth and a stern expression came to his face. “The point bein’,” he said (and now he stood up in his throne, and hooked his thumbs in his magnificent gold belt so that all could see it), “I be known as King Reginaldo now. And you’ll be callin’ me that.”
Pugglemud gazed down upon them as if he expected something to happen. It was as if, Kendra thought, he was waiting for them to shout out “King Reginaldo” all at once—and, in truth, part of her felt compelled to do just that. In fact, she suddenly felt a strange loyalty to the Dwarf king, and she started to fall to her knees.
Then Uncle Griffinskitch thumped his staff against the gold floor, and the soft thump broke Kendra’s momentary trance.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered. “I can see you have some magic at work in your court, King,”—and here Kendra found herself gazing upon the Dwarf’s belt—“But remember: You are not the only one who is able to cast such enchantment. Or do I need you to remind you of your trousers?”
Kendra muffled a giggle as she recalled the time when they had first met Pugglemud. The Dwarf had not believed in Uncle Griffinskitch’s magic then, but to prove his wizardry, the old Een had caused Pugglemud’s trousers to start on fire.
“Well, ahem,” the Dwarf king muttered, eyeing Uncle Griffinskitch’s staff with caution. “There ain’t no need to go bringin’ that up. We’re just all old pals after all.”
“Indeed,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted.
“But Pugglemud—I mean King Reginaldo,” Kendra stammered, “Why are you, I mean—er, how did you—,”
“What she’s trying to say,” Jinx interrupted, “is how in the name of Een did you ever become a king? The last time we saw you, you were sitting in the rubble of the castle of Krodos with every monster known to Eenkind coming toward you to get its share of gold.”
“Gold!” Pugglemud repeated, giggling so that all could see his gold-capped teeth. “Tee hee! Ah, yes, all that wonderful gold. Tee hee! Well, that’s a tale fer sure. But perhaps it’d be better fer another time, don’t ya know. What about you wee folks? I reckon yer still lookin’ fer that fancy-smancy treasure of yers, eh? The box of what’s-it-now?”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered. “We found our Box of Whispers. We’re on a quest of another kind.”
“Eh, an’ what’s that?” Pugglemud asked. “Ya ain’t come to steal all me gold, have ya now?”
“I do say!” Professor Bumblebean declared. “What would Eens do with such treasure?”
“Swim in it, of course,” Pugglemud declared. “That’s what us Dwarves do.”
“We’re not interested in gold,” Uncle Griffinskitch told the Dwarf gravely. “We’re searching for a door.”
“Well, we got a lot o’ doors about here,” Pugglemud said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll sell ya one if ya like.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, and Kendra could tell that it was the type of humph that meant the old wizard was growing impatient.
“It’s a special door we’re looking for,” Kendra explained to the Dwarf king. “It’s called the Door to Unger.”
“Well I ain’t ever heard of no such door,” Pugglemud said. “And I ain’t ever heard of a land of Unger either. Them critters ain’t got no proper kingdom like me, King Reginaldo IV. So how can there be a door to a place that don’t exist no how?”
“Aye,” Uncle Griffinskitch returned wearily. “But we seek the door nonetheless.”
“What ya need to do is find some Ungers,” Pugglemud said, leaning forward in his throne. He had a strange gleam in his eye, reminding Kendra of the look that she had seen in the gatekeeper.
“And I suppose you know where to find some?” Jinx asked.
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Pugglemud replied mysteriously. “But first things first. I don’t want ya to be thinkin’ that King Reginaldo don’t know how to treat guests. We’ll have ya come to the royal hall fer some grub tonight, don’t ya know.”
“But we need to be on our way,” Kendra said with an anxious tug on her long braids. “We have to find the Door to Unger, you see. It’s really urgent, and—,”
“What’s that?” Pugglemud said, his face going red. “I suppose the hospitality of the Dwarves ain’t good enough fer you Een folk?”
“No, of course it is,” Uncle Griffinskitch said. “We would be happy to dine with you, King. My niece is just eager to complete our journey, but it certainly can wait one night.”
“It’s all settled then,” Pugglemud said cheerfully. He snapped his greasy fingers, and a small Dwarf servant appeared before him.
“My Lord?” the Dwarf asked. He had a very short beard, and Kendra guessed that he was just a boy.
“Show these folks up to a room so that they can freshen up before grub time,” Pugglemud commanded.
“As you wish, your majesty,” the Dwarf boy returned with a bow.
“I don’t like this one bit,” Kendra whispered to Oki as they followed the servant out of the grand hall. “I just don’t trust Pugglemud.”
“Me, neither,” Oki said. “What do you think he’s up to?”
“I don’t know,” Kendra replied. “But something smells rotten in the land of Umbor.”
“Well, I hope it’s not dinner,” Oki said, rubbing his furry tummy. “I’m looking forward to a decent meal tonight!”
THE DWARF BOY LED KENDRA and her companions to a small guest chamber in the depths of the palace. It was a rather gloomy room, for though everything in it was made of gold, there were no windows and no fresh air.
“There are only two things that Dwarves seem to prize,” Professor Bumblebean said after the servant had left them. “And that is gold and darkness. I suppose it’s an honor to have a room with no view.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered.
In any case, the weary travelers had just enough time to change their clothes and wash up before the servant boy returned to escort them to dinner. The banquet hall was a large room decorated with golden tapestries and carpets and fitted with a long table and many chairs. Of course, the table and chairs were rather too big for the tiny Eens to sit at comfortably, so Pugglemud had ordered his servants to bring in bricks of gold for each of them to sit on and, in this way, they could reach their place settings.
“Look, Kendra,” Oki said, tugging at the girl’s sleeve. “Even the tablecloth is made of gold.”
“They must know how to spin gold into cloth here in Umbor,” Kendra commented. “I guess everything really is made of gold here.”
“Well, I hope they don’t serve gold for dinner,” Ratchet declared. “That would be too rich for my diet!” The raccoon laughed out loud at his own joke, though Kendra and Oki could only groan.
Then Pugglemud entered the room, and took his seat at the head of the table. He had changed into a golden robe with a ridiculously frilly collar, but he was still wearing his sparkling gold belt.
“Well, good evenin’ to ya,” Pugglemud greeted. “I hope yer all hungry, ‘cause we’ve got quite a feast prepared for ya. But first let’s have a toast, eh?” The strange Dwarf king wrapped his greasy hands around his goblet and raised it before them.
“And to what occasion or event shall we toast?” Professor Bumblebean asked.
“Why, to gold, of course!” Pugglemud replied. “Tee hee!”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, but he raised his goblet all the same.
“Well, bring out the soup, I says,” Pugglemud declared, and by this command, several servants scurried into the room
and set a large steaming bowl before each guest.
Kendra stared into her bowl. The soup was thick and white and had a peculiar smell. “Just what is this?” she asked, making a face. “It smells like . . .”
“Turnips!” Oki squeaked.
“Ugh!” Ratchet scowled.
“Shh!” Kendra said, but luckily she, Oki, and Ratchet were sitting at the opposite end of the table from Pugglemud, so he couldn’t hear their comments.
“Whoever heard of turnip soup?” Oki moaned.
“Maybe it’s a Dwarf specialty,” Kendra suggested.
“Let’s just hold on for the next course,” Ratchet said. “Maybe we’ll get something better.”
“No, that would be rude,” Kendra said in a low voice. “We have to eat what’s put before us.”
“Thankfully, I have something to help us out of this predicament,” Ratchet whispered. He reached into his vest and produced a small pouch.
“What’s that?” Oki asked.
“I call it Dinner Thinner,” Ratchet replied. “Just sprinkle some on your soup and it will slowly disappear. Pugglemud will think we’re eating it—but we won’t have to taste a drop!”
“For once, an invention I like!” Oki squeaked, and he eagerly sprinkled some of the transparent powder from the pouch onto his soup. At once, the bubbling white liquid began to shrink.
Kendra cast a glance at Pugglemud to see if he was paying any attention, but the gluttonous Dwarf was busily slurping back his own soup. With a shrug, she took some of Ratchet’s powder and dashed some into her bowl. Ratchet did the same, and then all three of them pretended to lift their spoons to their mouths every few moments to make it look like they were eating.
“Good grub, eh?” Pugglemud said. “Nothin’ better than a good turnip, I say!”
“The best I ever tasted,” Ratchet returned, though Kendra thought he said it with a little too much enthusiasm.
“Well, there’s more to come,” Pugglemud said, snapping his fingers for his servants. “Bring out the salad!”
“Thank goodness,” Oki whispered to Kendra and Ratchet. “Imagine it! Leafs of crispy lettuce, plum ripe tomatoes, and sticks of wonderful orange carrots!”
But no such feast arrived. Instead, the Dwarf servants began hustling in with golden platters heaped with none other than—turnips. There were purple ones, red ones, and white ones, all cut into slices and arranged together on a bed of turnips leaves.
“Ah!” Pugglemud. “Turnip salad. Me favorite, don’t ya know!”
“Good thing we’ve got lots of Dinner Thinner,” Ratchet said with a sigh.
If the rest of the party was dismayed by the abundance of turnips, Kendra could not tell. They all seemed to be enjoying their dinner well enough and now Professor Bumblebean, in between bites, began to engage Pugglemud in conversation.
“I do say,” the Professor declared, “will you tell us now, kind sir, how it is that you managed to escape the Castle of Krodos and arrive back here none other than a sovereign monarch?”
“Eh? Whatchya callin’ me now?” Pugglemud snorted.
“Why, a king!” Professor Bumblebean replied.
“Oh, why yeah, of course,” Pugglemud said. “Well, I guess I could tell ya, now that . . .”
“Now that what?” Jinx asked suspiciously.
“Eh? Oh, nothing,” Pugglemud said, wiping his sleeve across his mouth after a forkful of his salad. “Jus’ now that we’ve begun dinner. That’s all.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered. “Well, get on with it then.”
“Well, like I was sayin’,” Pugglemud said, “there I was a-sittin’ there in the pile of gold (tee hee!) and rubble left over after the castle was destroyed. I was jus’ a mindin’ me own business, of course, when these critters all closed in around me. There were them Unger gang, and Goojuns, and Krakes and all those nasty types of fellers. Well, I rolled up my sleeves and as each of those nasties came in at me, I dealt ‘em each a fierce blow, don’t ya know.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted, and now he rapped his staff loudly against the table. “I do think, King Reginaldo, that we’d like to hear the truth. Why don’t you tell us what really happened.”
“I reckon I’ve done forget how much fun you Eens ain’t,” Pugglemud sighed, looking uneasily upon Uncle Griffinskitch’s staff. “Well, it ain’t no account anyhoo, I reckon.”
Kendra cast a look at the Dwarf king and noticed that he once again had a strange gleam in his eye. He’s acting very strangely, she thought. Even for Pugglemud.
“Well, let’s get goin’ on the main course,” Pugglemud said, interrupting Kendra’s thoughts. “Then I’ll be tellin’ ya the whole yarn about Krodos.” He snapped his greasy fingers, and now the servants began bringing in covered platters for the main course.
“Finally,” Ratchet said. “Some real food.”
But when he lifted the cover from his platter, what should he find but a mound of—what else?—turnips! There were slabs of roasted purple turnip, covered in steaming turnip gravy, served with a side of orange turnip mash.
“This is all your fault, Oki,” Ratchet hissed at the mouse. “You think so much about turnips that you’ve manifested an entire feast of them.”
“Well, in all fairness to Oki,” Kendra said, “he’s actually been trying NOT to think of turnips.”
“Blah,” the raccoon growled, and he broke out his pouch of Dinner Thinner for the third time.
As they slowly watched their dinner shrink from the magic powder, Pugglemud continued with his story.
“Well, ya see,” the Dwarf said, “there I was sittin’ there when the critters all come up to get me. So I tries to hide meself away in all that rubble. And there I found it, lying there in all that mess.”
“Found what?” Jinx asked.
“His belt,” Uncle Griffinskitch answered for the Dwarf. “It has some magic charm, doesn’t it, King?”
“Why, of course,” Pugglemud said. “I found it lyin’ there in all that treasure. So I says to myself, ‘Why, that there looks like a might fine belt o’ gold.’ And I put it on, see.
“Well, right about then, one of them Ungers come at me, but I’ll be durned if he couldn’t lay a claw on me. He just bounced off me. The belt protected me, see. So, I says to that feller to go on and leave me alone. And he obeyed! He jus’ turned around and left me alone.”
“A fine piece of enchantment, I do say,” Professor Bumblebean declared with interest. “I’ve never read anything about such a belt in any of my books. I wonder where this magical adornment originated.”
“Well, that I ain’t know,” Pugglemud said. “But that dragon had collected all sorts of treasure in that castle lair of his, don’t ya know. So I reckon he stole it from some wizard or another.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, and Kendra could not help but to notice the concern in that humph. She knew that the old wizard was having the same thought as she: an object as powerful as the magic belt would be very dangerous in the wrong hands. And if anyone has the wrong hands, it’s Pugglemud, Kendra said to herself.
“This belt has allowed you to become king, hasn’t it?” Jinx asked wearily. “You’ve got all the Dwarves under your command.”
“These fellers made me king,” Pugglemud declared. “I’m a hero to ‘em, see. Why, us Dwarves ain’t so different from you Eens. We don’t like them Ungers and Orrids and such no more than you do. We’ve always been livin’ under their shadow, scared of them nasties. But not no more. Now us Dwarves will run the show, don’t ya know.”
“Because you’re the most powerful?” Uncle Griffinskitch asked, stretching tiredly.
“Exactly,” Pugglemud replied, draining the last of his goblet. “Oh durn—Hiccup! I done gone got the hiccups again. Now I’ll have ‘em for hours.”
“I have something that can help you out there,” Ratchet announced proudly.
“Eh? And—hiccup—what’s that?” Pugglemud asked.
&nb
sp; “Oh no,” Kendra groaned. “Not another magic powder?”
“I call it Easy Sneeze,” Ratchet explained for all to hear. “One sprinkle and you start sneezing so hard that your hiccups will stop.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kendra said. “Who wants to have the sneezes instead of the hiccups?”
“Well, I haven’t—,”
“Yes, we know,” Uncle Griffinskitch interrupted. “You haven’t worked out the kinks yet.”
“I think we’ll just—hiccup—move onto dessert,” Pugglemud said, rubbing his beard suspiciously. “Maybe that will—hiccup’—stop ‘em.”
“I do say,” Professor Bumblebean said with a long stretch. “I do feel rather tired suddenly. I suppose a bit of dessert will hit the spot before a fine long slumber.”
“Let me guess,” Oki said to Pugglemud with a sigh. “Turnip ice cream?”
“Why, of course!” the Dwarf answered with glee. “Ain’t any other—hiccup—kind, is there?”
AFTER DINNER, something continued to tug at Kendra’s mind. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew something was terribly amiss in the land of Umbor. How to describe the feeling? It was like having an itch in the very center of your back that you just want to give a good scratch, but no matter how far you stretch, you just can’t reach it. And so it was with Kendra now.
She tried to speak with her uncle about it on the way back to the guest chamber, but the old wizard had grown so tired that it was all he could do to crawl into his bed and erupt into loud snores. Jinx and Professor Bumblebean had soon followed suit, and now only Kendra, Ratchet, and Oki were awake.
“I guess there’s nothing like a good meal to put you to sleep,” Oki observed. “Unfortunately, we didn’t eat a thing!”
“Yeah, I guess it’s more Een cake for us,” Ratchet said, digging into his pack and handing out a handful of the dry (and now quite stale) foodstuff to his friends.
“Hmm,” Kendra murmured, with a long, thoughtful tug on her braids.
Kendra Kandlestar and the Door to Unger Page 7
