Beast & Crown

by Joel Ross

  Ji shrugged. “If we stick around, the queen will flatten us.”

  “We can’t do nothing!” Roz said. “We can’t simply watch people getting hurt.”

  “Then close your eyes,” Ji snapped, suddenly angry. “They’re trying to kill us, Roz. The Queen, Proctor, the soldiers. You think they care if we get hurt?”

  Roz hunched her shoulders and bowed her granite-flecked face, while Sally’s tufted ears drooped. For a long moment, nobody spoke. Ji heard his own breath, ragged and harsh in the narrow tunnel.

  “Nobody cares about us,” Ji told them, “except us. “

  “Protecting the city is the honorable thing,” Sally growled, more quietly than usual. “Even if they hate us.”

  He scowled at her. “Have I ever cared about honor?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I have not.”

  “Innocent people will die,” Roz told Ji.

  No innocent people, Nin said. Just the evilqueen. Ogres will burst from tunnels and overthrow her in an eyeblink.

  Ji flicked an ant lion from his shoulder. “You stupid ogres should’ve stayed in the stupid mountains.”

  Not stupid, Nin said, almost sulkily.

  “If the ogres attack the queen,” Roz told Nin’s urn, “the entire realm will fight back. It won’t be one raid, it will be a whole war.”

  “Let the realm burn,” Ji said, his eyes stinging. “I don’t care.”

  “We cannot simply—”

  “I don’t care!” he lied.

  “But if we stop the ogres—” Sally started.

  “How?” Ji interrupted. “How can we stop the ogres?”

  Roz quietly told him, “You’ll think of a way.”

  “I don’t know a way,” Ji said. “Look at us, Roz. We’re monsters, we’re mistakes. And worse, we’re servants. We’re worthless, we’re nothing.”

  “We’re better than they are,” Roz said.

  “You are!” Ji said, almost accusingly. “You’re better than them! Not me. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not letting us risk our lives for this stupid realm.”

  Sally’s tail pouffed. “Why are you in charge?”

  “Because I don’t care about honor, Sal,” he told her. “I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I don’t care if I’m good or bad. I don’t about anything except you.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “All of you.” Ji picked up the ant lion he’d flicked. “Even Nin.”

  Roz shifted her grip on the urn. “There’s truly no way to stop this?”

  “Not that I can think of.” Ji dropped the ant lion onto his shoulder. “If we ever get out of this burrow, we’ll ask Ti-Lin-Su for advice. Okay?”

  Sally tugged at her bracelet. “Okay.”

  “Will she even talk to us?” Chibo asked. “Isn’t she a recluse?”

  Ji almost laughed. “She studies weird creatures, Chibo. Believe me, she’ll talk to us.”

  What did the wreck lose?

  “‘Recluse,’ Nin,” Roz explained. “Like a hermit.”

  Oh, we understand now! Nin said. What did the hermit lose?

  While Roz rumbled softly into the urn, Sally led them along a passageway with lumpy walls. From there, she headed into a wide tunnel with swirly grooves in the walls.

  She stopped in a chamber where three bamboo poles rose from dark pits. The sweet smell was almost overpowering—and delicious, like warm blackberry jam on honey bread.

  Ji’s mouth watered, and Chibo said, “I’m starving. Flying takes a lot of energy.”

  “You haven’t flown anywhere,” Ji told him.

  Chibo flicked a wing at Ji. “Oh, now you’re an expert on sprites.”

  “Let’s slide down the poles,” Sally said.

  “Um.” Ji eyed the dark pits in the cave floor. “Or not.”

  “I’m not certain they’ll hold me, in any case,” Roz said. “And I can’t carry the urn while—”

  “Hai-ai!” Sally yipped, her ruff rising. “That one’s moving!”

  One pole swayed gently, and a scratchy clicking sounded in the pit beneath it. Faint at first, then louder. Something was climbing toward them from the darkness.

  “More light.” Ji hustled Chibo away from the poles. “Sally, get back!”

  Sally smiled wolfishly—well, wolfpup-ishly—and prowled closer to the pits. She didn’t say anything about facing danger with honor, but Ji knew she was thinking it. He stepped in front of Chibo as the bamboo pole swayed faster.

  The scratchy clicking went scratchclick scratchclickscratchclick.

  Then a small pink hand appeared, followed by another hand—and a tiny goblin head rose into sight. Followed by the rest of the goblin, about half normal size, with bright-pink skin and no teeth. And not wearing a collar.

  “A baby!” Chibo fluted. “A goblin baby! A gobbaby!”

  The little goblin pointed at Sally. “Ka-ute!”

  “Oh, great,” Sally muttered. “Even goblins think I’m cute.”

  “She is highly capable, as well,” Roz told the goblin, then curtsied. “It is such a pleasure to meet a young Kultultul.”

  “Very ka-ind.” The goblin hopped from the pole to the cavern floor. “I beg you will pardon me, but I thin-ka you should not be here.”

  “Than-ka you for telling us,” Ji said, remembering to bow. “We’re sorry we’re in your burrow, but we’re lost. Um, where’s the nearest exit? “

  “I don’t mean in our burrow!” The little goblin gestured with tiny belly-arms. “I mean here! In this ka-ave.”

  “What is this cave, anyway?” Chibo asked, inhaling deeply. “It’s my favorite.”

  “Yeah,” Ji said. “It smells delicious.”

  “Delectable,” Roz rumbled.

  The goblin cocked its pink head in confusion. “You tease? You tease me?”

  “No, no,” Sally purred. “This cave smells gooooood.”

  “Delicious?” The goblin’s belly-hands wiggled in glee. “Your favorite?”

  “Yeah.” Sally peered into the dark pit. “What’s down there?”

  “Poop! Our poop! That’s where we poop! You’re smelling our poop!”

  35

  AFTER A MAD scramble away from the goblin latrine, Ji leaned against a tunnel wall and caught his breath. For a minute, nobody spoke. Then he told Roz, “I have an idea.”

  Roz didn’t answer, her four-fingered hand still clapped over her mouth in horror.

  “What?” Chibo asked Ji.

  “Let’s never speak of this again.”

  “I can still smell it,” Sally moaned.

  Roz lowered her hand. “Ti-Lin-Su never mentioned latrines.”

  “‘My favorite!’” the little goblin quoted, woofling a giggle. “‘Smells so gooooood.’”

  Ji crouched in front of the goblin. “Now that we’ve made you laugh, can you show us a way out of here?”

  “Of ka-ourse,” it said. “Happy to help. You are ex-kallent people.”

  “Why, thank you,” Roz said.

  The little goblin nodded solemnly. “I’ve never met anyone so polite about poop before.”

  “We’re special that way,” Ji said.

  “Follow me!” the goblin said. “This way, please!”

  A long moss-carpeted tunnel widened into a series of mushroom gardens; then a winding passageway opened into a chamber packed with weird-shaped pillars. Sally and Chibo helped Roz squeeze through while Ji looked away—for her “privacy”—and then they marched into the gloom. Exhaustion weighed on Ji’s shoulders. He trudged onward, one scaly foot in front of the other, his sandals scuffing along the squiggly ridges in the floor. The scent of coal smoke grew stronger, masking the syrupy smell.

  Finally, the ramp opened into a cave where merry bonfires cast a rosy glow against stalagmites and statues.

  “Welcome to my home ka-vern!” the little goblin said. “A great honor to bring you.”

  “The pleasure is all ours,” Roz said. “Such a lovely cavern.”


  “Where’s the exit?” Ji asked. “I mean, please, if you’d kindly . . . ”

  He trailed off when five little goblins hunched closer, jabbering in Goblish. With their cheery pink skin and lack of beaver teeth, they looked like grinning piglets on two feet. The first goblin chattered and the newcomers chuffed happily. One gazed in awe at Roz, and the rest bowed to the tip of Sally’s tail poking from under her poncho.

  Chibo giggled and Ji smiled for a moment—then his blood chilled.

  A dozen adult goblins watched them from the shadows deeper in the cave. Snake-shaped clubs swayed in the goblins’ fists. A few wore shirts of woven pebbles, their belly-arms tucked behind the armor, and none wore collars.

  “Free goblins,” Ji whispered. “And I don’t think they like us.”

  “At least the gobbabies like Sally,” Chibo said.

  Three warrior goblins shambled closer, pebble armor rattling, and Ji gulped. “Politeness might not work this time. Chibo, get ready to shine bright enough to blind them. Sal, when I give the word—”

  The first goblin kid shuffled between Ji and the grown-ups, woofling in Goblish. The warriors didn’t respond. The little goblin woofled more and the warriors kept not responding. Then the little goblin barked—and the warrior goblins chuffed in amusement.

  “Deleka-table?” one asked.

  The little goblin nodded. “That is what they said.”

  “The latrine?” another said. “A delicious stin-ka? They are more gracious than the politest Kultultul!”

  “Thank you ever so much,” Roz said faintly, giving a curtsy. “Though nobody is more courteous than Kultultul.”

  Chibo swirled his wings in a shimmering bow and said, “Ka!”

  The rest of the adult goblins hunched forward, suddenly welcoming after hearing the story of the sweet-smelling latrine. Apparently that’s how you befriended goblins, by complimenting their poop.

  “We’re hoping to find an exit,” Roz told them, after what seemed like nineteen hours of polite chatter. “If you’d be so kind.”

  The goblins woofled. Then the little goblin said, “This way, please! I’ll show you. Not far.”

  The goblin kid took them to a narrow chamber at the top of a ramp. A statue of a bird-snake rose at the end of the chamber, and the pale light of dawn seeped around its rough-hewn stone.

  Relief bubbled in Ji’s heart. “Daylight!”

  “Where?” Chibo asked.

  “Straight ahead.” He led Chibo forward. “Past the statue.”

  “That’s a statue?” Chibo asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Fresh air.” Sally inhaled deeply. “Finally.”

  Ji squeezed past the statue and found himself facing a high stone wall. Light glowed from a rectangular opening just above his head. An exit! He rose onto his tiptoes to peek through and saw a cobblestone path and the bottom of a wooden building.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “A ka-nal drain,” the goblin kid said behind him.

  “A canal drain?” Ji watched ginkgo leaves tumble along the path outside. “But where?”

  “Next to a canal, you doolally trout,” Sally told him, poking her furry snout around the statue.

  The little goblin’s pink face turned pinker. “The grounds of the palace! Between inner wall and outer wall. There is stables and ponds and shrines and hills.”

  “And soldiers,” Ji said, when boots appeared on the cobblestones.

  “They patrol all day,” the goblin said. “Back and forth.”

  Ji groaned. Why wasn’t anything ever easy? He slumped to the other side of the statue. “We’re stuck here until nighttime.”

  “Good.” Roz set the urn down. “It’s safe here, and I’m exhausted.”

  “Me, too,” Sally said.

  “I’m already asleep,” Chibo said.

  Not us! Nin said. We’re widey wake! You want to know an old ogre recipe for pickling cabbage?

  “Hush, Nin,” Roz said.

  Chibo stretched out on the chamber floor, using his backpack as a pillow. “I wonder how sprites sleep.”

  “Try ‘silently,’” Sally said.

  “Maybe we sleep in the air. Gliding high above the ground.”

  In cloudy beds, Nin said. Fluffysoft and white.

  “Well, I’m not dozing off underwater,” Ji said, stifling a yawn. “No matter what mermen do.”

  “You’re a terrible merman,” Sally told him. “You still have legs.”

  “At least I don’t have a tail, cuddlebunny.”

  “You barely look merman at all, though,” Chibo said. “Just a few scales here and there.”

  “Plus his eyes glint red in torchlight,” Sally said.

  “They do?” Ji asked.

  “Hush,” Roz said again.

  Silence fell . . . for about ten seconds. Then two goblins knee bobbled into the chamber with a pot of rice and beans and a sack of steamed buns.

  Ji’s stomach grumbled, but Roz politely refused the meal. She refused three more times before thanking the goblins profusely and taking a delicate nibble of a steamed bun. “It’s okay now,” she rumbled. “You have to say no three times to be courteous.”

  Roughly seven seconds later, the empty sack was draped over the empty pot. Chibo licked his fingers, lying at the base of the statue. Still chewing, Sally draped her poncho over him, then curled into a catlike ball on the floor. Roz brushed crumbs from her dress and pulled her hood over her face.

  Ji hugged his knees to his chest, his belly full and his eyes aching. But he needed to stay awake, he needed to plan ahead. Once night fell, they’d sneak outside and . . . what? Find Ti-Lin-Su? What if she refused to help them? What if she couldn’t? What if they were trapped in monster bodies . . . forever?

  Questions swirled in Ji’s mind. His eyes stung but his eyelids drooped—and the last thing he saw before falling asleep was a row of Nin’s ant lions marching toward the canal drain.

  36

  WHEN JI WOKE, daylight glimmered from behind the bird-snake statue. He yawned and stretched, then turned to watch Sally and Chibo sleep. He smiled at the sight of Sally’s face, her tufted ears twitching and her muzzle trembling with her snores.

  Then he gazed at Roz. Her hood had slipped, and her horn gleamed in the light. Her skin looked like flecked granite and her face was . . . bonier, sort of. Stronger and squarer. Still, when he saw the book propped on her lap, his smile widened. He wished she were awake, so they could talk. Or at least she could read to him. It was stupid, but he sort of missed her.

  The sounds of the street tumbled into the chamber from the canal drain. People talked, wheels clattered, soldiers marched. Ji listened sleepily, then drifted off again, the smile still tugging at his mouth.

  The next time he woke, things weren’t so peaceful.

  The day had turned to early evening behind the snake-bird statue, and Chibo was stumbling around the chamber in circles, his wings outstretched, the tips brushing the walls. He staggered, caught himself, then kept going. On what felt like his twentieth circle, he bumped into Roz and knocked her book to the ground.

  “Chibo,” she said, “please don’t—”

  “Sorry!”

  Chibo reached for the book and stepped on the splayed-open spine.

  A crack sounded and Roz lost her temper. She got a little scary when someone mistreated a book. She snapped at Chibo, and maybe her glare didn’t actually set the air on fire, but Ji definitely smelled smoke.

  Chibo burst into tears. “I didn’t see the book, Roz! I hate this, I hate it!”

  In a heartbeat, Roz wrapped Chibo in a hug. “Shhh, it’s okay. We’ll find Ti-Lin-Su and she’ll tell us how to break the spell.”

  “Not that,” Chibo sobbed. “I don’t care about that. I hate not seeing! It’s not fair!”

  He cried into Roz’s neck, and his skinny shoulders shook. She murmured to him, her eyes shiny, until he quieted in her arms. Then she lifted her gaze to Ji, and despite her trollish face she looked strong and
scared and good. Ji wanted to tell her how he saw her. Instead, he crossed the chamber, slipped the book into her handbag, then tucked her cloak around her shoulders to keep her warm.

  “How’re your eyes?” she asked. “They’re a little red.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “You keep rubbing them.”

  “They’ve ached since the Rite. Maybe merman eyes need salt water or something.” He blinked a few times. “They’re not that bad. Where’s Sal?”

  “Here.” Sally prowled into the chamber, and one of her ears cocked at the sight of Chibo dozing in Roz’s arms. “I got hungry.”

  “You find anything?”

  She tossed Ji a ripe persimmon. “One for each of us.”

  “Thanks.” He took a crunchy bite. “Yum.”

  Sally handed Roz a persimmon. “Nin, d’you want one?” She peered at the urn when Nin didn’t answer. “Is Nin still gone?”

  “They’re off scouting, I think,” Roz said.

  “There’s a few ant lions in the papaya plant.”

  “Yes, but with most of them elsewhere, Nin apparently isn’t able to communicate.” Roz took a delicate bite of persimmon. “They seem to require a certain minimum population. No individual ant lion is intelligent—it’s the entire colony that is self-aware. The colony is a single animal, made up of hundreds of parts. As I said before, Nin is the unified entity of—”

  “O-kay,” Ji said, standing. “I have to find those pits again before the sun goes down.”

  “The latrine pits?” Sally asked. “What for?”

  “What do you think?” he said.

  Ji wandered around the big cave, praising the bonfieryness of the bonfires until he found a goblin kid to guide him to the latrine. When he finished his pit business, the goblin complimented him—he didn’t ask why—then led him through the moss-carpeted tunnel and mushroom farms to the long stone ramp.

  “So you were born here?” Ji asked.

  “Of ka-ourse, yes.” The goblin shifted its torch from one belly-hand to the other. “Than-ka you for asking. I’ve never left the burrow.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Not onto the aboveground!” The goblin shuddered. “But I would love to tunnel into other burrows, to meet other Kultultul. “

  “Oh,” Ji said. “I guess you’re stuck here, huh?”