Young Writers Society

83 GOBLIN

The two spiders guarding the doorway moved aside with their pedipalps waving, as if bowing Christian inside, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. The garden, yes; somehow it was easy to accept a garden growing underground, after everything else he had seen. But Imelda, here where Goblin should’ve been. Accompanied by spiders and a banshee and a night-mare, with a crow perched on her shoulder and hellhounds gamboling at her feet though one had swallowed up her brother so long ago.

And those eyes. He could not remember what color her eyes had been before, but he was sure they had not been blue—not blue like this: an untainted azure like a summer sky, beautiful but at odds with her snub nose and black mane of hair. He felt those eyes would seem odd in any human’s face.

“Imelda?” he said in a shaky voice.

She shrugged. “Well, she’s in here too. You should hear her cussing me out for taking her over like this. Incredibly rude.”

Christian’s head pounded. Something poked and prodded at the facets of his mind, not too pushy, yet, but not a friendly presence like Narodnaya. Something still older, wary in its age. It picked at pieces of his thoughts and memories rather than speaking to him.

Imelda cocked her head at him.

“Well, come in,” she said.

Christian’s legs felt like jelly, but he dug his fingers into his hellhound’s fur and wobbled into the room, past the spiders and the other hellhounds and up to the foot of the stairs. When he spoke again, his voice shook more than before.

“Goblin?”

The crow cawed. Imelda sat back down, fluffing her skirts about her knees. “Of course. I realize using a host can create confusion, but given your propensity for reticence, I thought it might help if you were able to talk to someone you know.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Christian said. His head felt fuzzy. It was hard to believe it was not Imelda herself saying these things. He was not sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t this. “How do you know who I am?”

“Oh, I know everyone who goes tramping above me. All their stories, all their thoughts, all their fears. Easy to hear what’s going on if you just listen.”

She stopped for a moment with her head tilted toward the ceiling, where the roots high above rippled like grass in a breeze. Christian listened. He thought he heard the sounds of the battle on the surface, but more than that—the shouts and thoughts and hopes of each person in it. He felt a stabbing pain in his heart, heard a shout of rage and grief from Graham Chelsea, the horse-master, as the contortionist Waylan Ryder was ripped open by an imp—

No, that was impossible. It was impossible he should hear all that, any of that, this far belowground, and yet—he shook his head.

The blue eyes glimmered as she watched him take it in.

“Hard to get used to, I admit, but extremely useful once you get the hang of it.” She leaned forward and gripped the arms of her dogwood throne. “That’s how I found out about you, you see. You can’t imagine how long I’ve waited to meet you.”

“To meet—me? But—” He looked at the knife in his hand. He had nearly forgotten about it; his head felt fuzzier than ever, and the unfriendly probing continued in his mind. The night-mares, he thought. And his hellhound. It didn’t make sense.

“I do apologize for that,” Imelda said, cutting smoothly through his thoughts. He looked at her stupidly. “Well—” with a look at the beast standing beside him, wagging its tail—“I won’t apologize for the hellhound, as you seem to have decided to make him your pet. I should have known it would happen eventually. But the night-mares. They weren’t meant for you.”

“The—” He realized with a thrill of fear that Goblin could hear his thoughts just as Narodnaya could.

“They were supposed to get rid of the others, that’s all. I knew they’d never send you down here by yourself. You are, as I believe they’ve discussed, not exactly the fighting type.”

“I…I came here to kill you,” Christian said faintly.

Imelda smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile at all.

“Let’s not be under any illusions about that,” she said. “You couldn’t kill an ant. You’re here because I wanted you here. You’re here because I wanted to talk to you.”

A voice rang out across the chamber. “That’ll have to wait.”

Christian’s head cleared as he swung about and saw Tirion standing in the doorway with his bow drawn. Morrow hung on his shoulder, looking as though he’d been drugged, but at least he was on his feet.

Imelda frowned at the sight of them. Rather, she frowned at Christian’s hellhound.

“What’s this?” she asked. “Did you even try to kill the elf? Look at his weapons. Utterly useless! A bow and arrow against a hellhound? Nothing could have been easier for you.”

The hellhound’s tail stopped wagging and it hung its head.

“Come on, now,” the accountant said to the hellhound in a shaking voice, “I’m glad you didn’t kill them.”

The beast nuzzled his face, leaving trails of glistening wetness from its nose all over his cheeks and jaw.

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Imelda said. “Useless mutt. Get out of the way.”

“No, stay,” Christian said.

The hellhound looked back and forth between them, confused, and compromised by lying down at Christian’s side. Imelda snapped her fingers; the other three hellhounds bounded over. There was a yelp from Christian’s hellhound. It scrambled to its feet and backed away as the others snapped at its ankles and herded it into a corner with the help of one of the spiders. It snarled, but the spider jabbed it with its chelicerae. The hellhound’s yellow eyes grew stupid and sleepy and then closed as it fell over with a crash.

“No!” said Christian, but as he ran toward it, the other hellhounds growled at him and chased him back in front of the steps. Tirion loosed an arrow at the nearest spider. The spider let out a squeal, which Imelda silenced with an irritable wave of her hand.

“It’s only an arrow.”

“Let’s see how you like it, then,” Tirion snarled.

“Don’t!” Christian cried, but too late. An arrow went singing through the air and into her heart. The accountant held his breath.

Imelda looked at the elf with an eyebrow raised.

“Ouch,” she said. “What was that for, you foolish elf? Not even tipped with iron. Or were you showing off for your boyfriend?”

The blue eyes flashed and turned brown. She crumpled, rolled down the steps, and landed before them with blood trickling from her nose. The crow on her shoulder cawed in alarm and flapped away.

“Imelda?” Christian said. He took a step toward her, but Tirion said, “Don’t.”

Her body jerked and tremored for several seconds; the blood running from her nostrils tracked trails down her cheeks and ran over her lips even after she stilled. A wave of nausea swept over Christian at the sight. He bent over and wretched, but there was nothing in his stomach to throw up. He stood heaving and quaking, unable to look away from her body. His throat closed up. She had taken such care of Conrad, even when he had filled her home to the brim with balloon-animals—she had made Christian dinner, his first night in the park…

“He’s still here,” Tirion said, his eyes darting about the room. “Morrow, we should—Morrow!”

The Rover trembled head to toe as if having a seizure. His eyes flashed between their usual brown and the bright blue that Imelda’s had been—foam spewed from his lips—his trembling intensified—He fell to his knees and stopped shuddering.

“Morrow?” Tirion said.

He leaned down to help the Rover up, but Morrow raised his head and grinned like a shark, his eyes cold and blue. Christian took a step back from him, bumped into the nose of a hellhound, and jumped forward again. Tirion remained frozen in place. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides.

Morrow got to his feet and looked down at his body, examining his own strong fingers.

“Oh, I like this one,” he said. “Strong, a good fighter—and yet so easy to take over it’s almost a shame. Too bad. I like a bit more of a struggle.”

Tirion turned his bow on the Rover.

“Where is he?” he asked. “What have you done with him?”

“Calm down. He’s still in here. Won’t be for long, though, if you don’t put that bow down.”

“Let him go,” Tirion said.

Goblin laughed. It was Morrow’s laugh, Morrow’s voice, and yet it was nothing like his voice: cold and careless, filled with humor as if nothing could be funnier to him than what was happening now.

“Or what? You’ll shoot me? It won’t do any good, you know. He’ll die with your arrow in his gullet, and I’ll switch to someone else.”

Christian curled his fingers tighter around the hilt of the knife that was useless until Goblin left the Rover’s body. His brain whirled in panic.

“You should have taken care of me when I was still in her,” Goblin continued, nodding at Imelda’s prone figure on the floor. “Of course, you still would have killed her, but—”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to kill her,” Christian said in a thin voice.

Goblin shrugged. “She’s dead anyway. Too bad. I liked her. Though she be but little, she is fierce. One of your writers, isn’t it?”

“Shakespeare,” Christian said automatically. He hoped, if he kept talking, Tirion might think of some plan to put into action, but a sideways glance at the elf told him this was untrue. Tirion was staring at Morrow with something akin to horror on his face. His bow hung uselessly at his side.

If only Narodnaya were here, Christian thought wildly. Narodnaya, or his spider, or if his hellhound wasn’t dead in the corner of the room—

“Not dead,” Goblin said with a grin. “Just out of the way. Spider venom isn’t enough to kill a hellhound. Pity. And before you get any ideas—” he continued sharply in response to Christian’s thoughts—“it’s not enough to kill me either.”

Perhaps it was the way he was playing with them, or perhaps the fact that Tirion, who should have been the one to rage and shoot and snap at him, seemed unable to do anything but stare at Morrow’s face. Either way, a spark of anger flared up inside Christian. His ears burned with it.

“Why don’t you kill us and get it over with?” he asked. While they wasted time down here, unable to hurt him, creatures who might have been friends with them under different circumstances were killing their comrades on the surface. If Goblin had not been in this room right now, Christian might have tried to talk down the spiders and other hellhounds, but he did not think they would listen to him with their master there.

“I could,” Goblin said. “It would be easy. Or I could have my pets do it for me, without so much as lifting a finger.”

The hellhound behind Christian growled low in its throat.

“But I like this body so much. And the elf, so lean and strong, and such glorious hair! Now, you—” He looked Christian up and down—“you, I admit, have not so impressive a physique. But the height would be useful. And you have such a kind look, and a smell about you—that would be the books, I imagine. If I wore you now and then I imagine all kinds would think me lovable. But that isn’t why I wanted you here.”

Christian turned the knife over in his hands absently. “What do you mean?”

“Do you really think me so different from the creatures I ally myself with?” Goblin asked. “Come now, Mr. Abernathy. You’ll make friends with hellhounds and spiders but not with me?”

“No,” said Christian. “I don’t think anyone would make friends with you.”

Goblin’s smile tightened on Morrow’ face.

“No? And why is that?” he asked. “No, no need to tell me. All you humans—all your type, everyone—you’re all the same. You’ll make friends with the fairies because they’re beautiful, won’t you? Colorful, twinkling fairies with nice voices and helpful powers. But when someone is as hideous as me—”

His voice had been calm before, but as he spoke it deepened with an anger barely concealed in Morrow’s face. It was as if a shadow had passed over the Rover’s features, darkening them, deepening them. The nose grew bulbous, the eyes deepened until their blueness shone out of shadows, the cheeks were thin and bony, the chin pointed. Christian squinted, for at once he was seeing in the face both Morrow and not Morrow, Morrow and something much uglier than Morrow.

“You’ve listened to everyone else’s story, Mr. Abernathy,” Goblin said. “Won’t you listen to mine?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Christian saw Tirion give the shadow of a nod.

“Alright, then,” he said. Perhaps the elf had a plan. “What’s your story?”