Fiend of the Seven Sewers

by Steven Butler

  ‘Princess, you’ve saved us…’ I wheezed.

  ‘Oh, good!’ Viscera replied, wedging her hands on her hips. ‘Shall we go, then?’

  ‘HONKSWALLOP!’

  ‘I’m not sure about this,’ Mrs Morkie stammered. ‘I’ve been in the clunk for seventy years at least. What if it’s all different out there in the great wudgie world?’

  ‘You can do it, Morkie!’ Gully squeaked. He had already shrunk down to the size of Viscera Von Tangle and was standing next to her on the wonky brick in the middle of the wall. ‘It’s actually quite fun!’

  ‘He’s right,’ I reassured the giant cuddlump with a huge grin. I was practically buzzing with excitement. ‘Just think, you’ll be able to stand up. You’ll be free to stretch your legs!’

  ‘Good gracicles,’ Mrs Morkie chuckled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘Mum and Dad will find you a warm place at the hotel, I know they will.’

  ‘Me!? Staying in a wiffly place like The Nothing To See Here Hotel?’ Morkie fanned her face with her enormous fuzzy hand. ‘I can’t believe it. Will there be tea?’

  ‘More tea than you could ever drink!’ I smiled. ‘And squillions of different kinds!’

  ‘Oh, I’m as giddy as a gunkle!’

  ‘Then get on with it!’ Viscera moaned.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Morkie said, trying to calm herself down. She looked at me with an expression as if to say, Show me what to do…

  ‘Here.’ I handed Mrs Morkie the jade cutlery handle and she took it carefully between two of her stumpy claws. ‘Now all you have to do is bang it on the ground and shout, HONKSWALLOP!’

  ‘Righty-ho,’ Morkie muttered. She scooted along on her bottom to where the stone floor was a little more even and raised her hand. ‘Wish me luck.’

  With that, the gargantuan creature brought her hairy hand down with a thump and shouted the special word. There was a fizzing noise and the air seemed to pop and sizzle as Morkie vanished down to the size of… of… well, she wasn’t exactly as small as Viscera and Gully, but she was small enough.

  ‘Oh, bust my boogles!’ she cried. The giant cuddlump was now about the size of a moss gremlin and she started spinning around the cage, hopping and twirling. ‘I can stand! I can straighten my limbies without hitting the walls. I’m as free as a frumplet!’

  Now it was my turn.

  I quickly put on my purple jacket, kneeled on the cold stone and picked up the slither of jade that Morkie had dropped when she started prancing about.

  ‘HONKSWALLOP!’ I shouted as I banged the green object down, instantly feeling magic zig-zagging around my fingers. In an instant, the ground rushed up to meet me, and there I was – the size of a thumb for the first time since Trogmanay.

  RUN FOR IT!

  ‘Bleurgh!’ Viscera Von Tangle walked across the floor stones towards me and grimaced. ‘You’re a lot uglier up close.’

  I slightly wished I could say the same about her, but it was AMAZING seeing the piskie princess in so much detail. Her hair looked like it was laced with silver threads and the puffy caterpillar-silk ballgown glistened with pinks and greens like the shell of a beetle as she swished.

  ‘Frankie!’ Gully yipped, as he flung his arms round my neck and smiled so widely I thought his face might crack. ‘This is TERRIFIC!’

  ‘It takes a bit of getting used to,’ I said to my faun friend. ‘But we don’t have much time. With only one jade handle, and a broken one at that, I don’t know how long this spell will last.’

  ‘What do we do now, my lumplet?’ Mrs Morkie thudded over. It was funny that we’d all shrunk but she was still so much bigger than us.

  I turned and looked up at where Impya was standing near the bars of the cage, a look of total confusion on her face.

  ‘Okay, Impya,’ I said. ‘Let’s go…’

  The Slime Wife stared down at us, blinked a few times, then opened her mouth and…

  ‘I DIDN’T AGREE TO THIS!!’

  ‘Aaaagh!’ Morkie and Gully cowered, smacking their hands over their ears.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ Morkie wailed. ‘Quieter! Much, much quieter.’

  Impya rolled her eyes, then got down on her knees and whispered.

  ‘I didn’t agree to any of this,’ she hissed. ‘You didn’t ask me before you tinkered yourselves all tiny. Impya wanders alone!’

  ‘Impya, this is our only chance. Please help us,’ I said in my most serious voice. ‘You can’t leave us here for ever.’

  The Slime Wife thought for a moment, eyeing us the way someone eyes the pieces of a game of chess, planning their next move.

  ‘Too dangerous,’ she finally said. ‘You’ll be grunched, or squelched, or scrumbled.’

  She shifted as though she was about to stand up, when Viscera Von Tangle rushed in front of me.

  ‘Now, you listen to me, you frogspawny old FRUMPLE!’ the princess hollered. ‘Everyone is small enough to fit through the bars of this stinksome cell now, and you know the way out of Gradibash, don’t you?’

  ‘Like the back of my hackled hands,’ Impya muttered.

  ‘Then you’re going to help us get out of this rottly zoo and away from here, or I’ll send out an order for hordes of piskies to yank on your yungles and prickle you with pins for the rest of your life!’

  Impya gawped at the tiny barking princess.

  ‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND???’ Viscera shrieked.

  There was a long pause, until…

  ‘Fine,’ Impya said. ‘But don’t blame me if you get caught and cut up into snacks for that crunkodile down at the palace…’

  * * *

  In no time, the Slime Wife had placed me and Gully in one of the pouches that hung from her wooden staff. Viscera was standing in a little glass bottle that dangled next to us, and Mrs Morkie was trotting along close behind Impya’s heels.

  ‘Stay very quiet,’ Impya whispered as she squeezed out through the cage and into the night. ‘The guards around here are bored and dangerous. They’ll grind us into grunion gravy if they catch us.’

  I watched with my heart pounding in my chest as the Slime Wife stole silently into the darkness, crossed the little stream, and began to make her way around the open garden at the centre of Grimegorn.

  Whenever I had been marched off to the Predator Parade Theatre, I was always surrounded by armed goblins and chattering tourists, so I’d never had the chance to properly look into the other exhibits before. I couldn’t believe the size of Queen Latrina’s magical menagerie. There were HUNDREDS of creatures in this place.

  We passed a fenced pen filled with stomping dungles, a cage with a sleeping nifflehog inside, and even three massive water jars containing a mergully, an anemononk and a family of kulpies.

  There were petting areas with grumplings and garvils, cages of puddle nymphs and hobyahs, and a vast pool filled with a slowly pulsating hungletub.

  ‘All these unfortunate magicals,’ Gully said as he peered into the shadows. ‘What do we do about them? Can they be rescued?’

  ‘We can’t do anything like that until we’ve escaped ourselves,’ I said. ‘Mum and Dad will know what to do once we’re back at the hotel.’

  Gully nodded but didn’t reply.

  ‘That’s enough jabbering, you two,’ Impya whispered as we passed a boggart-meat burger stall. ‘Even tiny voices can get us caught in all this silence.’

  The Slime Wife grabbed Mrs Morkie by the hand and pressed herself into the narrow shadow behind a ‘GIFTSHOP THIS WAY’ signpost as a battalion of goblin guards suddenly marched across our path. We all held our breaths as the squat things clomped off in the direction of the polar pludges, and Impya didn’t dare to make a single movement until they were long out of sight.

  ‘See what I mean?’ she hissed.

  Once the way was clear, we headed past the grizzigulp enclosure, round the pook pens and finally stopped at a large metal grate where the stream trickled its way out through the wall.

  ‘Nearly there,’ Impya whispered
, squishing her way inside. ‘Hold on to your haunches.’

  We passed along a stinky drainage tunnel and through a second grate on the other side, and then…

  We were outside the high windowless walls of Grimegorn with the wonderful sight of Gradibash spreading out below us, shimmering and sparkling as it slept.

  ‘We did it!’ I cheered. For the first time in weeks, The Nothing To See Here Hotel felt within reach. ‘I knew we’d get out of here.’

  ‘Honkhumptious!’ Morkie gasped as she looked down at the great city. ‘It’s been so long!’

  ‘We’re not safe yet,’ Gully said. ‘We’ve got to get down to the docks without being spotted.’

  ‘It’s all downhill from here,’ I replied. ‘Everyone’s snoring in their beds. If we keep quiet and stick to the shadows, we can make it there in no time.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Viscera joined in. ‘Banister boy is right. Slime Wife, ONWARDS!’

  We glanced up to Impya, towering above us.

  It was clear from the look on her giant face that she had no intention of going into the city.

  ‘Please, Impya!’ I pleaded before she’d even opened her mouth. ‘Just down to the water’s edge.’

  ‘I got you out of the clunk,’ she croaked. ‘Impya stops here.’

  ‘Oh, come now, dear,’ said Mrs Morkie, trying to hide the look of worry on her face. ‘It’s not far, and you know the way better than any of us. Please…’

  ‘I can’t be seen in the city. They threw rocks last time! It’s back to wandering the warrens and plodding the pipes for me.’ Impya shook her head, then lowered the end of her staff to the road so that me, Gully and Viscera could climb out of the pouch and bottle. ‘Go quick and go quiet.’

  I stumbled onto the giant cobbles and helped Gully climb down after me. Being the size of a piskie made even the tiniest of drops seem daunting.

  ‘Is everyone in one piece?’ I asked, checking that Viscera and Morkie were all right.

  ‘I’ve never felt more alive,’ Viscera chuckled.

  ‘Can you at least point us in the right—’ I turned to where Impya had been standing only seconds before. She was gone.

  ‘That’s that, then,’ Gully stammered nervously.

  ‘Does anyone have a map?’ Morkie whimpered.

  TROLLEY DASH

  Being only as tall as a human thumb, and without Impya to help us get through the city, left an empty and nervous feeling in the pit of my belly.

  ‘We just have to head downhill, I think,’ I said to Mrs Morkie. ‘We’ll reach the Great Cistern Lake eventually. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Which way do you think we should go?’ Gully asked.

  I took a moment and looked at our options. To our right, Ramscottle Street led towards the palace of Queen Latrina. That was the route Grumpwhistle and his grizzly guards had taken when I was first brought to Grimegorn.

  ‘This way leads straight to Latrina,’ I thought out loud. ‘I don’t fancy getting any closer to that horrible glob-gob than we have to.’

  ‘What about this?’ Gully said, pointing to the left, at the only other route we could take. It was a steep and narrow lane that snaked off through a ramshackle part of town.

  Mrs Morkie wandered closer to the mouth of the lane and inspected the signpost that pointed along it.

  ‘Gutterplug Alley,’ she read. ‘What do you think, Frankie?’

  ‘Let’s go,’ I replied. ‘Anything is better than heading towards Queen Latrina.’

  ‘I CAN’T WALK ALL THAT WAY!’ Viscera Von Tangle huffed as we were about to set off. ‘I’m royalty! A princess doesn’t go rambling down alleyways to skuzzly old docks, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mrs Morkie said, confused. ‘How do they get about, then?’

  ‘A princess is carried!’

  ‘Ah, righty.’ Morkie rolled her eyes. ‘We’re all teensy-squeensy, but I’m bigger than you three titchies. Why don’t you climb on my back and I’ll carry you all? We’ll get to that dock in a jif—’

  ‘I’VE GOT IT!’ I suddenly blurted, making the miniature-sized cuddlump jump. ‘Sorry, Morkie, I didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘That’s all right, dear,’ she smiled. ‘But… erm… what have you got?’

  I’d only put my bell-hop jacket back on right before shrinking, and I’d not been concentrating enough to think about all the other trinkets and tats I had stuffed in my pockets. Reaching inside, I shifted my fingers past the folded photographs and…

  ‘Here!’ I grinned, pulling out a little disk of coiled metal. ‘I forgot this was even in here.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Gully.

  ‘Is it a penny?’ Morkie joined in.

  ‘It’s the room-service trolley!’ I said. ‘It’ll get us down to the docks in a tinkle of the time.’

  Mrs Morkie frowned at me and felt my forehead.

  ‘I think you might be a little exhausted, my lumplet.’

  ‘No, no, you don’t understand,’ I said, handing the cuddlump the silvery disk. ‘I’m not bonkers! It’s enchanted to swizzle up small when it’s not being used. You just have to click the centre to uncurl it.’

  ‘How marvellous!’ Morkie giggled. ‘Go on, then.’ She went to pass the trolley-disk back to me, but I stopped her.

  ‘I mustn’t,’ I said. ‘The trolley unravels to exactly the right size for the person who’s using it. If I press the button, it’ll turn into a tiny thing and we won’t all fit on. You’re much bigger than us, Morkie. You do it.’

  ‘Hmmmm,’ the cuddlump mumbled. ‘Let’s have a look, then…’

  There was a small CHINK as her hairy thumb clicked the centre of the silver disk and it immediately uncurled into a cart that was about half the size of what it would be back at the hotel.

  ‘That’s splendifferous!’ Mrs Morkie gasped. ‘Your coach awaits you, Princess!’

  ‘About blunking time!’ Viscera snipped back.

  With that, Morkie lifted us all onto the top of the trolley, stepped up onto the back of it and pushed us off with one foot.

  ‘What if we crash?’ Gully asked as we neared the top of the steep alleyway. He grabbed the lip of the tray nervously.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I smiled, hurrying over, and clutched the little rail too. ‘Part of the spell is that it can’t topple over. All we have to do hold on tight and…’

  Mrs Morkie gave one last push and we were off, clattering our way between the narrow and wonky houses. ‘Freedom, here we come!’

  ESCAPE!

  ‘Faster, Furball!’ Viscera Von Tangle cooed as we whizzed round another bend in the alleyway. ‘GET A MOVE ON!’

  ‘All right! All right!’ Mrs Morkie huffed and puffed behind us. She gave another push with one foot, like someone on a human skateboard, and before long the trolley was hurtling along at a brain-boggling speed.

  On either side of us, the dark and sleeping goblin dwellings were practically a blur. Houses and little boutiques, public baths and food shops all raced past as we reached the bottom of the winding lane with an enormous jolt.

  Suddenly we were on a wide deserted boulevard of fancy-looking goblin fashion houses and museums.

  ‘I know this place!’ I whooped. We had emerged onto Hungdunkem Avenue. ‘We’re going in the right direction! Head for THAT, Morkie!’ I pointed to the towering Gradibashi Opera House in the distance, remembering that it stood right next to the docks.

  ‘We’re going to make it,’ Gully beamed at me. ‘We’re actually going to escape this dreadful city.’

  I smiled back at my faun friend and felt a tingle of hope creep up my spine. Just the thought of seeing Mum and Dad again made me giddy with excitement. I’d already decided that the very first thing I was going to do once we arrived at The Nothing To See Here Hotel was to go straight to my room and hug Hoggit, my pet pygmy soot-dragon. Gully would just love him, I knew it…

  ‘Ummmm.’

  Viscera caught my attention and I turned to see what her worried whine was all ab
out.

  ‘Am I losing my plonkers or did the buildings just change colour, Banister boy?’

  I glanced around the city and… Viscera was right. What had been shadowy, sleepy streets had started to glow in an eerie blue light.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Morkie yelped behind us. ‘The toadstools! They’re waking up – it must be morning!’

  My excitement and hope turned to a feeling of dread as the whole of Gradibash emerged into view. All around us the giant mushrooms that grew on every street corner got brighter and brighter.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ I yelled to Mrs Morkie as we careered round the bend onto Prawk Prong Street, then zipped across onto Snootle Boulevard.

  Suddenly there were goblins emerging on the pavements as they opened the fronts of their shops and restaurants.

  ‘Aaaaagh!’ a flamboyantly-styled goblinette screeched as we zoomed past her. She was putting a sign out on the pavement advertising her relaxation mud spa, and our trolley bounced straight over it, making her topple backwards onto her doorstep. ‘RUMPSCALLIONS! ROTTLERS!’

  By the time we passed the opera house, the toadstools were fully lit and we were in plain view to the waking public.

  More and more goblins were walking out onto the streets and, as if from nowhere, there were carts and omnibuses trundling into our path.

  ‘Look! Escapees!’

  ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY!’

  ‘CALL THE GOBLIN GUARD!’

  I winced as we tore straight underneath a double-decker omnibus being pulled by a harnessed foozle. The room-service trolley narrowly missed its huge wheels as it zipped out the other side and continued to speed downhill towards the docks.

  ‘We can still make it!’ Gully cried as Morkie swerved the trolley just in time to miss a little line of terrified goblin children heading to school in their matching uniforms. ‘There’s still… oh no! Oh no! OH NO!’