Part 17 (1/2)
Jack finished chewing the paper. He stood up and removed the blindfold.
”Well?” he said, swallowing the last pulpy pieces. ”Which one did I choose?”
The goblin guards stared at him, gaping. The frog stood up in Jack's pocket and shouted, ”How do we know? You ate it, you idiot!”
”Well,” Jack replied, making his voice loud enough that everyone in the hall could hear it, ”why don't you check what's in the casket now? If the remaining piece of parchment says 'The Lady!', then clearly I chose 'Death!'. If, on the other hand, the remaining piece says ”Death!”, I must have chosen 'The Lady!'”
There was another moment of silence in the hall, and then, from within her gag, Jill began to laugh.
She couldn't help it. She laughed and laughed and kept laughing.
The goblin with the deep eyes and the careworn face was saying, ”You see . . . well . . . it's not strictly . . .”
But the other goblins clamored, ”He's right!” ”It's common sense!” ”What's the other piece of paper say?”
The goblin with the deep eyes glanced worriedly out at them, and then cast a dark look at Jack. He walked up, reached into the casket, and held the paper aloft. He closed his eyes as if he were very angry with himself and said quietly, ”It reads, 'Death!'”
A roar went up from the goblins in the hall. They shouted angry imprecations at Jack, cursed their own luck for arriving too late, d.a.m.ned the goblin with the deep voice for allowing a human to take their queen. They were so angry you could have colored each goblin's face with that green that the crayon company makes, and you would have gotten it just about right.
Jack sprung up onto the throne and removed Jill's gag from her mouth. She was grinning. ”You crazy fool,” she said. He ripped the silken cords from her ankles and wrists, and she threw herself into his arms.
And then they turned around. Twenty goblins guards with glistering spears were arrayed in a circle around them. In the center stood the goblin with the careworn face, the rich voice, and the deep, old eyes. He did not look happy.
CHAPTER NINE.
The Descent Once upon a time, a boy named Jack and a girl named Jill landed roughly on the stone floor of a small room.
Goblin guards swarmed into the room behind them, followed by the goblin with the old eyes. He walked slowly. It looked as if he always walked that way, as if there were nothing in the world that could make him hurry, nothing in the world that worried him, nothing in the world that those old eyes had not seen.
”Clever.” His rich voice reverberated through the small room. ”I was outwitted. Begehren is not often outwitted.”
Jack and Jill pulled themselves to their knees. Jill squinted balefully up at the goblin.
His uniform was the same as any of the goblin guards'. But the age and wisdom in his face made him look as much like the other guards as a swan does a duck.
”Nor do I enjoy it,” he added. ”So tell me, and tell me swiftly: What is it you want?”
Jill pulled herself to her feet. ”We want the Seeing Gla.s.s,” she said.
The goblin Begehren started as if he'd been hit in the gut. He said, ”The what . . . ?”
”The Seeing Gla.s.s.”
Around the walls of the room, the goblin guards began muttering to one another. Begehren rubbed his hands together.He muttered, ”You do, do you? The Seeing Gla.s.s . . .”
”Do you know where it is?” Jack demanded.
Jill said, ”Of course he does . . . just look at him.”
Begehren stared into the middle distance. Then, quite suddenly, he roused himself. ”What? Oh, yes. The Seeing Gla.s.s. I know where it is. But no one has sought the Gla.s.s for a thousand years.” His deep eyes scoured their faces. ”How do you know of it?”
Jack hesitated. But Jill said, ”We swore we'd find it. We swore on our very lives.”
The goblin smiled. ”Ah. But to whom did you swear?”
”An old lady,” said Jill.
”A crazy old lady,” added Jack.
Begehren's eyes narrowed. ”She didn't happen to have pale blue eyes and a face eerily like a babe's, did she?”
Jack and Jill nodded warily.
”Ah.” Begehren smiled. ”The Others have come to your kingdom. Too bad for you. And how,” he asked, ”are you supposed to carry the Gla.s.s back to this 'crazy old lady'?”
”What do you mean,” said Jack. ”Is it . . . very heavy or something?”
”Is it heavy?!” The goblin laughed. ”It is the greatest treasure horde in the history of the world!”
Both children now started as if they had been hit in the gut.
The goblin's eyes glazed over as he spoke: ”It is a treasure so great a king could trade his kingdom for it and be counted a wise man. The ancient writings say that the sun becomes dim when the s.h.i.+ning face of its riches is revealed to the sky. Pilgrims would travel the world over just to look at it. It was the pride, the guide, the purpose of the Goblin Kingdom.
”You see, the golden age of the Goblin Kingdom lasted a thousand years,” Begehren went on, and his voice was deep and rich as polished wood. ”We were ruled by wise, errorless sages. And they made every decision by consulting the Seeing Gla.s.s.”
Jack was about ask, How do you consult a treasure?, but Jill hushed him.
”They consulted the Seeing Gla.s.s, and, as wise as it was valuable, it always told them the truth. It was, as I said, a golden age. But alas,” the goblin continued, ”we live now in an age of error; we see, not with the Gla.s.s, but dimly. For there came a day, one horrible, dark day, when something evil erupted from the belly of the earth. It was ma.s.sive and vicious-a beast unlike anything ever seen before. It sought to lay waste to our kingdom. We arrayed our vast armies against it and gave our lives to defend the kingdom-and our Gla.s.s.
”The tales that survive from those days of war, when the fate of the goblin people was in flux, are our greatest epics, and our greatest tragedies. For in the end, though our soldiers fought to the very death, they were no match for the beast from the center of the earth. For the Eidechse von Feuer, der Menschenfleischfressende.”
”The what?” said Jack.
”The Eidechse von Feuer, der Menschenfleischfressende,” the goblin repeated.
You want to say that word, don't you? How could you not? I mean, come on. It's like thirteen syllables.
Here's how: I-DECK-SUH VON FOY-ER, DARE MEN-SHEN FLYSH-FRESS-ENDUH.