Gregory said, “Did you build the ogre?”
“Yes. Yes. So?”
“So it’s a machine?”
“Would you stop it with the questions?” shouted Sniggleping. “Yes. Nothing you’d understand. Yes.” He began to mutter, pacing back and forth, his hands forced into gnarled fists, his wrists flexing this way and that. Gregory and Brian continued to stare at him. He looked up after a moment and shouted fiercely, “Don’t look at me like I’ve just sat on your pet goldfish! So the ogre’s a fake, all right? Do you know how hard it is to find an ogre these days? No—no! Not just hard! Impossible. Im! Poss! Ib! Ul!”
Brian assured him, “We didn’t mean to—”
“Do you know how long it took me to make that ogre? Do you know the technologies necessary? Do you know the scaffolding that has to be assembled every time we want to wind the thing up? Does that sound like fun? No! Does it sound easy? No! No! No!”
He stormed over to a table, threw around some sprawling blueprints, and finally flung a few off the balcony at the boys. “And look at these!”
The papers drifted to the ground, sliding against one another as they came to rest. Brian and Gregory inspected them. Gregory said, “Burk and Daffodil. Burk. Whoa.”
“Yes, yes, YES! They wanted servants down at the mansion. But no, they couldn’t be silent servants, they had to talk! And no, they didn’t just have to talk, they had to have a whole history. Personalities! Do you know how long that took? Weeks of nailing and wiring and summoning!”
He wrinkled his lips and kicked a gremlin-formed banister. After a minute, he looked up again. “Oh, you don’t understand, do you? It’s the little things that make a Game good.”
Brian protested, “We’ve appreciated it a lot.”
Gregory said, “Yeah, when you’re being killed by something cool, you really appreciate the hard time and effort someone—”
Brian said, “We didn’t mean to upset you or make it seem—”
“Why? Who am I? Just an ‘elf’! Living under a rock! Oh, wait! I’m supposed to live in a tree, right? And HAND-MAKE DOUBLE-FUDGE COOKIES! ‘Oh, what wonderful wafers! What great wafers you have, elfy!’ IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE THINKING? HUH? HUH? THAT’S IT, NO? NO?” He bellowed, then kicked a chair full of blueprints so hard that they flew up into the air and slid in a heavy mass across the floor.
Gregory looked at Brian.
Brian seemed to have suddenly thought of something awful. He had frozen. He didn’t look well.
Sniggleping collapsed back into a cluttered chair, his knuckly hands wrapped around his face. He slouched in the seat as blueprints of a three-headed pterodactyl slid out from underneath his rear.
Brian said carefully, “What other…what other creatures have you made that have been difficult?”
Sniggleping glared out from between his fingers. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You’re going to have to figure the Game out for yourself. No, no, no, no, no. Sniggleping’s too clever by half. Hah. No, it’s not all me, kiddies. Some of it was here long before me. Some of it was imported from distant places. Some of it stumbles in from other worlds when the stars lock up.” He dropped his hands from his face and stared at a chandelier that lit the place, draped with drying bow ties. “And to do it all with amateurs,” he said wearily. “I used to work on the city, when the Emperor Taskwith was here. When the People of Norumbega were here. Before they all fled. And now?”
Brian asked quietly, “The troll,” he said. “Did you make Kalgrash?”
“He’s one of mine,” said Sniggleping. “Miserable job. Never really worked out all the kinks. He gets seizures whenever the Ceremonial Mound is active. Hallucinations. It runs complete haywire with his brain. Oh,” he said, frowning at the boys, “I guess I should stick to what I’m good at, hmm? Little elfy? Stick to what he’s good at? Huh? TOWN HOUSE CRACKERS—” He yelled, banging his fist, “THAT RIGHT? MAKING! YOUR! TOWN! HOUSE! CRACKERS?!?”
The latch rattled. The door swung open, creaking slightly on its hinges. A dark cape blocked most of the sunlight from outside. The creature stepped in, ducking to avoid hitting its head.
“Thank God you got here,” said Sniggleping. “They’re driving me loopy.” To the boys he said, “Speculant.”
The Speculant was about eight feet tall, and was far bonier beneath his heavy black cape than any human could ever have been—even if their legs, like his, bent backward at the knees. He wore a black hat with an exceedingly wide brim over a face that consisted of little but an impossibly long, spiky nose, not unlike Kalgrash’s—almost, in his case, a beak. His alien skin was the kaleidoscope browns of a moth’s wings. Spiny fingers like jointed twigs clutched at the cape, flexing and pulling restlessly.
“Don’t stay and talk,” said Sniggleping. “Take them away. How you let this happen, I don’t know.”
The Speculant spoke. His voice was deep and grainy, and sounded as if it were echoing in a tunnel. “The darkness fell on the Flower That Speaks No Riddles, and—”
“Oh, don’t give me that.”
“Come,” ordered the phantom-like figure, sweeping his gaunt arms in a wide gesture. “The Boundaries that are set in fire have cried with their siren voices, for you stepped through the Bounding Stones into the Unwritten Places, where no hand has scrawled with Quill Supernal.” And then he repeated, “Come with me.”
The boys moved slowly toward the door, the towering Speculant falling in behind them, his fingers clutched together in front of his chest.
“Uh, good-bye,” said Brian.
Sniggleping answered, “Just shut the door.”
So they did.
They stood outside, once more in the glaring daylight and the chilly breeze.
“Follow,” beckoned the Speculant, and he glided off into the wood.
The two moved to keep up with him. The Speculant loped up rock faces, drifted down pathways, and floated between the trees, occasionally turning silently to wait for them.
Gregory watched Brian walk along ahead of him. Brian seemed preoccupied. He was frowning slightly, and did not speak.
Finally, they reached the remains of a ruined square tower that jutted out of the boulders and dreary grasses of the mountainside. “It stands from the epoch when these mountains,” said the Speculant, “were coated in metal, when from the Gulf Unknown the Enemy issued.” He ducked inside, and the two friends followed him.
The interior of the tower was a void, most of the floors evidently having collapsed centuries before. They walked down an old staircase into the shadows of a deep basement. There were occasionally passages branching off to the sides. When Gregory asked where these went, the Speculant just replied, “The corridor of Truth lies closed; the darkness of the Unspoken Void yawns closer.”
“Huh?” said Gregory. He tried to catch Brian’s eye, but Brian wasn’t listening. Brian looked miserable.
“The Day approaches when the Vast One shall be greater than He Who Found the Key. Then shall we all be left upon the Plain That Has No Name.”
Gregory coaxed, “Oh, come on…they could give the plain a name! Any old thing would do!”
“When the Time of Naming arrives, then shall the unnamed and unnameable be called by its True Name.”
“I’ll bet it has a name, and you just can’t remember it, you sly devil.”
The Speculant swiveled around, his cape settling around him slowly. He grated, “The Unnameable has no Name. Truth cannot be concealed behind Fiction. The Casket of Deliverance has found the Pearl of Wisdom lacking, and the Bone of No Sight shall, in the latter—”
“Okay,” said Gregory. “You win.”
The Speculant waited.
“Really,” said Gregory. “Ten nothing. Your game.” He nodded. “More walk, less talk.”
The Speculant nodded triumphant, turned, and walked on.
They came to a dimly lit chamber, in which there were broken arches and columns all around them. The Speculant continued out into the center of the floor, his feet whispering o
n the dry dust. Gregory and Brian followed him.
When they reached him, standing by his side amidst the fallen columns and echoes, he swept up his arms and chanted in his gravelly voice. The words fluttered through the chamber, echoing and re-echoing, until finally they faded.
Silence closed back in around them, save that they heard, only faintly, an odd, sandy shuffling in the unlit recesses and colonnades. “This way,” beckoned the Speculant, and he drifted away across the floor. He led them to a small archway, beneath which they ducked, and up a ladder. He halted at the top.
With a heave, he reached above him and shoved a heavy iron disk to the side. Light streamed in from above. He climbed the last few rungs. They followed. Gregory, at the top of the ladder, looked back down toward Brian. He was concerned. Brian was moving slowly. It looked like something was weighing on him. They went up the ladder.
They found themselves blinking and squinting in the bright sunlight, closely surrounded by an entangled knot of hemlocks. They were in a small clearing at the top of a thickly wooded knoll. A ring of tall stones was there. Nearby was a tent, with Jack Stimple’s hat hanging on the tent pole. When they looked at their feet, they saw that there was no sign of the manhole cover that the Speculant had thrown aside. “Do not look for the passage. It would not take you back where we came from. Now follow me.”
The figure darted into the underbrush and followed a hectic, zigzag course down the steep side of the knoll. The two tripped and climbed after him, finally emerging from the trees.
They discovered, finally, where they were. They had come out on top of the Ceremonial Mound. Now they were back by the burnt-out snowmobile, in the midst of the Tangled Knolls.
“Do you see where you are?” said the Speculant.
“Yes,” said Brian.
“Very good. The Game must now continue. Do not venture off the paths. You are but Pawns. You can be Taken. Go.”
“What do you mean, ‘Taken’?” asked Gregory.
“Snatched up in moment,” said the Speculant. “By a gaunt hand.”
Gregory smiled. “Great. Well, it’s been nice talking to you. Thank you very much.”
Brian suddenly exclaimed, “Wait! We’re going to need the boat to get back into the cavern! It’s at the wrong end of its route!”
The Speculant nodded his proboscis. “Yes. Go.” He pointed forcibly toward one of the many paths that led away from the Ceremonial Mound.
Gregory and Brian left him standing there. They walked away, into the forest.
He turned and climbed back into the hemlocks of the Mound.
Idon’t know what all that was about,” said Gregory. Brian didn’t answer.
Gregory continued, “I mean, beyond the obvious. The Plain That Has No Name. The Plateau That Cannot Be Uttered. The Butte We Just Don’t Talk About.”
“Yeah,” said Brian.
“What’s the matter?” asked Gregory.
“Gregory…,” said Brian. He didn’t continue.
“Come on. We need to think about how to get past the ogre.”
Brian nodded. After a minute, though, he said, “I’m worried about Kalgrash.”
Gregory said, “You think he’s a machine.”
Brian frowned. “And I think he doesn’t know it.”
Gregory clamped his hands under his arms. He bit his lip. “Hey,” he said, his face brightening. “I got it. I think I’ve got it!”
“What?”
“The next object we have to use. To get past the ogre. I figured it out.”
Brian rubbed his scalp. He said, “I wasn’t even thinking about that.”
Gregory, caught up in his own enthusiasm, began kicking a stick back and forth across the clearing. He chased it. “Aren’t you going to ask?” he said.
Brian sighed. “Go ahead.”
“Snarth has no eyes. He found us with his sense of smell.” Gregory kept playing soccer with his stick. “What we have to do is get rid of our smell.”
“Uh-huh,” said Brian. His eyes were on the ground.
“The perfume! The scentless de-scentifying perfume! We have to put on the scentless perfume from the basement.”
Brian nodded.
Gregory passed the stick to Brian. The stick hit Brian’s leg and stopped. Gregory said, “Aren’t you proud of me?”
“Sure,” said Brian, like he wasn’t.
“What’s wrong?”
Brian shrugged.
“The house,” said Gregory, slowing down. “This means we’re going to have to go back to the house. I don’t even want to know what’s going on in there by now. This is going to be terrifying. A real adventure.”
“Your Uncle Max said Prudence would be safe.”
“Yeah,” said Gregory, “but are we?” He slapped Brian on the arm. “Let’s go,” he went on. “We’ll talk about how we’re going to get in on the way.”
Gregory set off, and Brian followed him.
“Can we just not talk for a minute?” said Brian.
“We need to have a strategy.”
“There are other things we need to talk about.”
“Look,” said Gregory, “we’ll see Kalgrash on the way, okay?”
Brian nodded. Gregory was walking ahead of him, so he didn’t see.
They found their way through the Tangled Knolls and wandered through the woods. The leaves were somber—dark browny violets and lusterless browns. As they crossed the Golden Field toward the Troll Bridge, they heard Kalgrash singing to himself in a high, whistling voice. The words were not in English.
He was fishing off the bridge, humming and singing some weird waltz. He reeled in his line and swung the rod over his head in a flourish. He cast far off down the river.
He saw the boys walking toward him down the bank.
“Howdy!” he crowed. “How did things go? Solve it all yet?”
Gregory and Brian waved feebly and walked solemnly across the bridge toward him. Their caps were missing, their overcoats bore dark, dirty stains, their scarves sprouted numerous pulls, and their blankets hung slightly out of their bulging backpacks.
“Hey, hey, hey! What’s the matter?”
“Um, hi,” said Brian.
Gregory walked forward and went behind the troll. Kalgrash protested, “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Just stand still for a second,” Gregory ordered quietly. He ran his hand along the troll’s slick back. “I’m looking for something.”
“Gregory…,” warned Brian.
“What’s wrong? Hey, are you taping something back there? ‘Kick me’ or something?”
Gregory said, “Here. Feel this.”
The troll bent his elbow backward and poked with his spindly finger at the spot where Gregory had tapped. “Oh. Back acne again. It used to happen all the time,” he explained nervously.
Gregory said, “See, Kalgrash…”
Brian interrupted him. “Gregory,” he said. “I don’t know…”
“What?” said Kalgrash. “Tell me.”
Gregory explained, “We’ve just been up to the top of the mountain. We found some elf or something…someone named Sniggleping. He makes magical mechanical creatures and people. He…told us about them. He said that they have holes in their backs, where you have to stick a key to wind them up.”
“What do you mean? Oh, hey…yeah, sure, funny.”
Gregory and Brian looked at each other. “No,” said Brian. “We’re not kidding.”
“Oh, come on. You’re kidding.”
Brian and Gregory just were silent. Kalgrash looked from one to the other. Kalgrash said, “You’re trying to convince me I’m some machine?”
Brian said gently, “I’m…afraid so. The elf talked about fits that you might go through when there’s magical activity at the Ceremonial Mound. The fits…they sound like what happened the other night. When you were visited by those ‘evil spirits.’”
“But, I see them! Wabimalech the Destroyer, and Flaëlphagor the Drooling One. They come to my house
! They pull things off the walls! You saw the mess they made…”
Brian shook his head. “We saw you lying on the floor, in some kind of a coma. If you hadn’t told us it was evil spirits, we would have thought that you’d just had a fit and broken everything up. There was really no sign that anyone else had been there. We just assumed it.”
“I’ve seen them!” the troll protested. “More often than I’ve seen you! That’s what they do—they spend their nights carousing, breaking things up, and their days watching television and eating Count Chocula out of the box.”
Gregory turned away, frowning, and leaned his palms on the railing of the bridge.
Kalgrash said, “Hey, I bet you guys are kidding me, huh? A little joke, and you’re about to yell surprise or something? I mean, it’s not my birthday or anything, is it?”
“Kalgrash,” Brian interjected miserably, bowing his head.
“What?” said the troll. “What?!?”
Brian asked quietly, “Why did you follow the Speculant’s commands? What makes you want to stop people on the bridge and tell them the riddle?”
“Well, I just…I feel it. It’s just who I am. It’s what makes sense. What do you mean?”
“I think…,” said Brian, “…I think that maybe it’s what you were made to do…I don’t mean that in a way like…” But he couldn’t think of anything else to say, and they all fell silent.
Hesitantly, the troll reached back and felt the spot on his back again. It was unmistakable—although invisible, there was a small metal ring there, where one could insert a key. Suddenly, the troll protested, “But I have all my memories! I remember everything! Well, not everything, but some things. I just can’t be a machine.”
“It…it doesn’t matter, Kalgrash,” Brian soothed awkwardly.
“I’m not a machine! I’m not! I’m not! I’m not!” shouted the troll. His shout turned to a whimper. “I’m not.” He paused, staring down between the slats of the railing to where slick boulders glistened beneath the frigid river water. “My memories…what about them?”
“Programmed,” said Gregory from the railing.
Brian glared at Gregory, and quickly supplied, “The elf, he said he’d made complete memories for the servants up at the house. He…”