Fiend of the Seven Sewers

by Steven Butler

  ‘I can’t believe you made Flott and Lickspittle call you the boss!’ I laughed, trying to sound as mocking as possible. ‘As if a skrunt like you could ever be the boss of anything…’

  ‘I’M NOT THE BOSS!’ Grogbah interrupted me again.

  ‘What?’ This was getting very confusing.

  ‘I said…’ the ghost sneered, ‘I’m not the boss, I’m Prince BLUNKING Grogbah. I don’t do scuffly boss-work. I’m far too fancy-floofy for that!’

  ‘W-well, who is it, then?’ I stammered, feeling more perplexed by the second. The familiar swoosh of fear instantly bubbled back into my belly. If Grogbah wasn’t the person I’d been brought here to see, there was a chance my uncle might still be looking for revenge. ‘Is… is… is Oculus back?’

  ‘Haha!’ Grogbah pointed at me and howled. ‘Frankie-Trembly-Trunks thinks his uncle’s out to get him. Woooooooooaaah!’

  ‘Who am I supposed to meet?’ I yelled. ‘WHO?’

  ‘That would be me…’

  I jolted with alarm as an unexpected and very gruff voice spoke in the shadows.

  With all the muddle of being shoved through the green curtain and coming face to face with the lumpish face of Prince Grogbah, I’d failed to notice a second goblin sitting in the alcove.

  ‘Now I’ve got your attention,’ he rasped, before rocking his chair back, crossing his arms behind his head and clomping his booted feet onto the table. ‘Do you know who I am, boy?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  The corner of this new goblin’s eye twitched and the edges of his mouth curled downwards. Clearly, he thought I should know who he was.

  ‘You should be quiverin’ in your wimbly-pimbly little human panty-bloomers, in the presence of the boss,’ the goblin continued. ‘Allow me to introduce myself properly.’

  I watched with wide eyes as the creature gulped down the last of his goblet of grog, stood up and swaggered towards me.

  The boss was a beast of a thing – as tall as I was, which is practically unheard of for a Barrow Goblin, and twice as wide. He was wearing a similar uniform to Flott and Lickspittle, except his was blood red and every bit of it was covered in shiny medals and decorations. He was also sporting the curliest moustache I’d ever seen.

  ‘Tell him, boss!’ Lickspittle cheered with her head stuck through the curtain. ‘I love this part!’

  ‘I am Captain Pugnacious Grumpwhistle,’ the goblin barked as he reached my side of the table. He grabbed a metal helmet that had been hooked on the back of a chair and plonked it on his head with a dull CLOMP.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I just stared silently.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, boy?’

  ‘He’s Pugnacious Grump—’ Flott and Lickspittle began in unison.

  ‘Yes, thank you, you two!’ Captain Grumpwhistle cut them off. ‘I can do me own introductions!’

  He paused for a moment and straightened out a wrinkle on the cuff of his uniform.

  ‘… Commander of the Royal Guard of Barrow Goblins. Baron of Battles, Squasher of Scrumplets…’

  I still didn’t know what to do or say, so I carried on staring.

  ‘…Clouter of Clamlies, Knocker of Ninkumpoopers…’

  I shook my head. What did this brute of a goblin want with me? I could understand why Grogbah might seek revenge, but I’d never even met Captain Grumpwhistle before. He had no reason to want to squish me!

  ‘…Destroyer of Dungles, Brute of the Brine Beds…’

  Grumpwhistle was clearly starting to get annoyed that I didn’t know who he was and he glanced at Grogbah for support.

  ‘Tell him why you’re here,’ the ghost-prince squealed with excitement. ‘Go on!’

  ‘I have official commands to snitch you away and bring you to the court of—’ Grumpwhistle began.

  ‘Banister boy thought we were in cahoots with that jangle-moaner, Oculus Nocturne!’ Grogbah guffawed, cutting in. ‘You wish, dungle brain!’

  ‘Snitch you away and bring you to the court of—’ the goblin commander tried again, but Grogbah interrupted once more.

  ‘He’s come to take you to someone far scarier than Oculus-One-Eyed Whinger-Nocturne!’

  ‘And bring you to the court of…’ Captain Grumpwhistle tried a third time, shooting a threatening glare at the spook-prince.

  Grogbah spotted the angry look and mimed zipping his wonky mouth shut.

  ‘… the court of…’

  ‘QUEEN LATRINA!’ Grogbah whooped, spinning in circles and clapping his tiny hands. He floated back down until his nose was almost touching mine again. ‘My moomsie wants a serious word with you…’

  ONE LAST LOOK…

  I don’t remember too much about who spoke or what happened next, my reader friend. My head felt like someone had reached inside and swizzled my brains up with an egg whisk.

  Before I had time to run or cry or make my escape, I was dragged through a back door of the Itchy Urchin pub and down a narrow staircase, which descended steeply to a rickety wooden jetty, bobbing about on the breaking tide.

  I’m sure Grogbah would have been cheering and hooting as he floated about, loop-de-looping around us, but the only sound I could hear was my nervous heart thumping in my ears.

  You see, I’d read about Queen Latrina in books with Grandad Abe, but it’s very easy to forget these things aren’t just fairy tales and scary bedtime stories. If those dusty old tomes in the hotel library were telling the truth, she was a TERRIBLE gurnip that even the bravest ogres wouldn’t mess with! A royal rumpscallion! A bloodthirsty bully, infamous for sentencing the cruellest and most GUT-SKUDDLING punishments on anyone who got on her nerves or didn’t obey her every wish.

  Right at that moment I knew two things for sure. Firstly, I’d massively underestimated Grogbah and his tricksy ways, and secondly… I WAS DOOMED!

  The goblin officers and their captain led me along the jetty in the direction of the beach, and for a second I thought we were going back to dry land. No such luck.

  We reached a point where the street on the promenade above juts out to sea alongside the pier and I was quickly pulled over to a big circular sewer grate that trickled dirty water and smelled like Granny Regurgita after she’s eaten too much cabbage and bungbean stew.

  There was a jangle of keys – I remember that bit – and right before Captain Grumpwhistle yanked the grate open on its ancient hinges and bundled me inside, I… well… I know this might seem a bit smooshy and dribble-wordy, but I turned and gasped when I saw The Nothing To See Here Hotel. My brilliant home. I’d almost never seen it from the outside at night… at least not from the gloomy shadows under the pier… and I hadn’t realised how honkingly beautiful it was before.

  Completely invisible to human eyes, it was dazzling to mine. The domes and turrets were gleaming in the stormy sky, and thousands upon thousands of windows twinkled like the lights on a Drooltide tree.

  Behind those windows, I knew our guests would be getting ready for bed, nattering in the garden, drinking bluebottle brandy on the observatorium veranda, or just curling up with their loved ones – and that’s when I thought of mine.

  Everyone I knew. Mum, Dad, Nancy, Maudlin, Ooof, Granny… Everyone who could save me was inside the hotel, and none of them had a clue where I’d gone.

  I glanced up and saw the lights were still on in Granny Regurgita’s tower-bedroom at the top of the building, and then… it was over. My family and friends, my pet pygmy soot-dragon and my life at the hotel vanished as I was carried into the sewers and the iron grate swung closed behind us with a huge and echoey

  INTO THE DARK AND DOOKY DEEP

  It was pretty clear straight away that we hadn’t entered just any old human sewer tunnel.

  Don’t get me wrong… I haven’t exactly spent much time in them, but unless I’m seriously mistaken, sewer systems don’t have little lanterns in the shape of grinning goblin faces on the walls, and a royal canoe with gold-and-green seats docked in the sludgy foul-smelling stream of water
.

  ‘Get in,’ Grumpwhistle grunted. He’d been wearing a face like a smacked bottom ever since I told him I didn’t know who he was, and now in the flickering glow of the burning lamps, he looked meaner and more dangerous than ever. ‘Now!’

  ‘Yes! Hurry up, Banistump,’ said Grogbah as he floated over to the front of the narrow boat and kneeled on the edge. ‘It’ll be honkhumptious to see what Moomsie has in store after she lays her eyes on the revolterous human who snuffled her magnificent son. She’ll be angrier than a lava-imp in a rainstorm and I’ll be right by her side when she has you squished, you murderling.’

  ‘You’re lying, GROGBOG!’ I barked at the little goblin prince, trying my hardest not to burst into tears. ‘You were stupid enough to step on a sleeping fly-trap’s tongue! I had nothing to do with it!’

  ‘Oh, shut your mumble-hole,’ Flott groaned, barging me into the canoe. I stumbled down and toppled onto the nearest seat, nearly falling straight over the edge and into… I don’t want to think what was down there. ‘All this gripin’ in the pipin’! It’s a wonder you haven’t given us all nogginache.’

  With that, Grumpwhistle and Lickspittle hopped in after us and we were off.

  The goblin captain turned in his seat and jolted the spluttery motor to life with a hefty whack. It was older-looking than the yell-a-phone and steamed and hissed like a kettle as we started chugging along through the tunnels.

  ‘I can’t wait to park my peepers on the goblin city again,’ Grogbah tittered at me as we left the mooring behind us. ‘After all this time stuck haunting a squivelling snotling like you, and never being able to get too far from that rotsy hotel, I finally realised that if I want to travel as far away as my squibbly hometown, I’ve got to bring you with me. I’m a genius!’

  Nobody replied.

  ‘I bet I’ll get a hero’s whoppsy welcome!’

  * * *

  After a little way, the lanterns along the sewer walls ended and we passed into a cold and dismal gloom, followed by total dreadful darkness.

  Now, if you’ve read any of my books before, you know that Frankie Banister would never let you get bored with all the details of a canoe ride that went on FOR EVER in the dark! I’m not even joking! The canoe juddered along for such a long time that after a while I actually stopped silently sniffling about my family and started wondering if this was the terrible fate I was going to be punished with.

  I know I’m one-quarter troll and can see like it’s daytime in this kind of dooksy place, but there was nothing to look at anyway. Yep! If there’s one thing I learned on that terrible night, it’s that if you’ve seen one sewer, you’ve seen them all… especially when you travel for what seems like a stinky eternity.

  At one point, it got so dull that Lickspittle serenaded us with a rendition of the goblin classic song, ‘Who Left That in Grandma’s Hat?’

  Just when, out of pure brain-bungling boredom, I was starting to think that meeting Queen Latrina would actually be wonderful… things changed.

  To begin with, it was only that the tunnels started sloping downwards and the flow of water was getting faster, but then strange, illuminated shapes began to appear out of the gloom ahead of us – and, was it me, or could I hear a distant rumble echoing up the pipes?

  As we approached the glowing shapes, I saw that they were in fact ENORMOUS mushrooms, growing through the brickwork on either side of the water. First one, then ten, then hundreds! I’d never seen anything like it. The bulbous things were bigger than the sun umbrellas around the swimming pool back at home, and shone in ghostly oranges and pale blues above our heads.

  I remember thinking that Mr Croakum, the hotel gardener, would have cried with excitement at these bizarre growths, but at that time I had no idea how much more bizarre my night was going to get.

  Before long, the distant rumble became a not-so-distant clamour, and our chugging canoe was whizzing through the toadstools at a tremendous speed.

  ‘Woohoo!’ Grogbah cooed from the pointed bow of the boat. ‘I love this part! We must be near!’ He reminded me of Viscera Von Tangle, holding on for dear life at the front of the food trolley, and I felt another pang of sadness.

  Not for long, though…

  The narrow sewers widened as we sailed into an entire forest of mushrooms. Almost immediately I started spotting magical creatures, like fungus fairies and poison-punks, whizzing between the massive plants’ stalks. We nearly crashed into a nokken (a Norwegian water troll) as it surfaced right in front of us, and a family of pond-gorpers had to dive to safety when our canoe splashed through their laundry pool.

  And then?

  WELCOME TO GRADIBASH

  The giant mushrooms had been so dense and thick, I hadn’t noticed the open mouth of a sluice-gate rushing up towards us. There was a great surge of water and a tremendous splash as we rocketed out of the gloom and into a light that was so blinding, I nearly toppled backwards off my seat in the canoe.

  ‘Ha! I did that the first time,’ Flott laughed, grabbing me by the shoulder and steadying me. ‘Only takes a weensy second for your eyes to adjust.’

  I squinted and tried to see through the rainbow-glare that hit us, then nearly fainted when our surroundings came twinkling into view. It was a scene I’d looked at loads of times in my great-great-great-grandad’s old black-and-white photo albums.

  There was no mistaking it – we’d just arrived in Gradibash; city of the Barrow Goblins.

  ‘Here we are,’ Captain Grumpwhistle said, slowing down the frantically puttering engine.

  ‘We’re here!’ Grogbah yelled in his annoying little voice, and started fussing with his phantom clothes, making sure there weren’t any wrinkles. ‘Wee!’

  ‘Good,’ Lickspittle joined in. ‘I’m starvatious. Let’s head into the warrens and get some noshlies.’

  I swear to you, my reader friend, every impressive thing I’d ever seen before that moment suddenly became boring and ugly. I couldn’t believe my peepers! It was exactly like the copy of the map I’d seen visiting Abe’s office down in the Briny Ballroom.

  We’d emerged into the Great Cistern Lake at the centre of the city and – well – the Dark and Dooky Deep wasn’t dark and dooky at all!

  All around us, the limitless buildings rose up the walls of the cavernous cistern like tea leaves clinging to the inside of a giant teacup, and everything was illuminated.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Grogbah suddenly squealed. We all jumped and stared at the little ghost, hopping from curly-toed shoe to curly-toed shoe. ‘My hero’s welcome! They’ve come to greet me!’

  Grogbah pointed to something behind us and we turned, startled to find the excited faces of thousands upon thousands of goblins staring in our direction.

  ‘Oh, blunkers!’ Grumpwhistle mumbled to himself. ‘I wasn’t expecting that!’

  They were everywhere! The dockside was so jam-packed with jostling goblins, it looked like any second now they were all going to start plopping off the edge into the water. There were crowds on the bridges and packs of whooping underlings on every balcony I could spot, and all of them were waving flags and banners that said… that said…

  ‘WELCOME, DEADLING!’ Grogbah read out loud. ‘That’s me!’ He turned to Captain Grumpwhistle and started flapping his arms like an agitated rooster. ‘Quick, Pugnacious, take us over to the marina. I want to meet my adoring subjects.’

  Grumpwhistle groaned under his breath and steered us towards the thronging docks.

  The hordes of excited goblins started cheering louder and louder as we approached, until their voices were echoing all across the city.

  ‘My people and peoplets!’ Grogbah sobbed. ‘Be still, my clunkered heart!’

  By the time Flott and Lickspittle had tied the boat up to the quayside and we’d climbed the stone steps onto the dock, Grogbah had already flown ahead and was curtsying like a broken jack-in-a-box.

  ‘It’s true, I have returned!’

  There was an odd moment of sudden silence
as the crowds drew in a sharp breath and the five of us stared back at them in their hundreds, not quite knowing what to do. After a minute of nudging and pushing, a thin smartly dressed goblin with a bald patch on the top of his head stepped towards us.

  ‘Umm…’ He looked more nervous than I felt. ‘Umm…’

  I spotted a little badge on his lapel with the same symbol as the desk-sign in Bambus Boatswig’s office.

  M-T-T-T?

  What was it again? Something about magical tourists, travellers and… I couldn’t remember the rest.

  ‘M-m-m-my name is Grub,’ the scrawny goblin stammered. ‘Grub Crackshins.’

  ‘Don’t be shy, good peasant!’ Grogbah beamed, taking another bow and a few curtsies.

  ‘My name is Grub Crackshins, and on behalf of the city of Gradibash, I’d like to welcome you and hope you have a plunkly stay.’

  The mass of excited goblins hollered and shouted and waved their banners.

  ‘Oh, you’re too kind,’ Grogbah simpered. He opened his wonky mouth to speak again, when the little travel-goblin called Grub turned to him and…

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said to the ghostly prince. ‘Would you mind keeping it down for a minute? I’m trying to welcome the deadling and you’re ruining it a little bit.’

  THE DEADLING

  Grogbah looked like he’d been smacked around the chops with a wet kipper.

  ‘WHA—’ he blurted. ‘But I’m Prince Gro—’

  ‘Shhhh!’ an elderly goblin-granny hissed. ‘Skuddle off, will you?’

  The little ghost wailed like a banshee who’d missed breakfast and threw himself at a pile of crates and old ropes.

  ‘We don’t normally do all this for deadlings,’ Grub said after a pause. He turned his attention to me. ‘But we’ve never had a human visit the city before, and we thought it would be a blunkin’ shame if we didn’t show you a beamly nice time before Queen Latrina has you…’ He mimed squashing something in his hands, then grinned at me like it was the best news in the world.