“We went into the past,” said Brian. “Then we came back to the present. This little machine must send us back to whatever time we can see. We’re supposed to go back and get the coronet.”
“Whoa.”
“Even better. We know that we are going to go into the past. Because by the time we were just in, we’d already gone back into the past. He told us so. So what we need to do is find the scene where we recognize the coronet, and go back and pick it up.”
Gregory inspected the plaster coronet. “It has to be just like this one, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Brian.
Gregory nodded. “Let’s start looking,” he said.
The trees were particularly bright that day. The air was particularly cold. As Kalgrash crossed the field, a blue-striped scarf wrapped around his neck and trailing behind him on the taller weeds, he sniffed and smelled the snow that would soon be falling. He kicked an acorn along the leaf-clogged path, watching it jump and roll unevenly.
He had sometimes considered setting off on a journey. From his youngest days, when he had looked on in indignation as, in storybooks, wandering knights had slain trolls, he had dreamed of wandering off, a few key possessions like his mug, his clock-under-a-glass-bell, and his silver tea ball slung in a pack on his back. He had dreamed of finding an evil knight and chopping off his head, just to even the score.
When he was older, he had sometimes had a more mature version of the same dream: the dream of putting everything away carefully in its place on the shelves and in the cabinets, of finally extinguishing the fire in his stove and cleaning out the ashes, and of taking that same pack, locking his front door, and rattling the handle to make sure it was locked, and of walking away. He would wander through the yellow wood, past houses that softly sighed smoke into the autumn sky, and he would leave the hills he knew; he would head into the world.
He had never quite figured where he would go. Perhaps he would go north, and cross the border to Canada secretly. He would continue north as little towns turned to single red cottages, then to just the occasional trailer spotted in the woods, then, finally, just the great wilderness, the bush. Perhaps he would make a pilgrimage to the North Pole, where his ancestors had lived. He would stand there in the snow, with the tundra ice-locked all around him, and feel the cold whipping by; and he would dance and sing where millennia ago the trolls had howled their songs at the northern lights. And then, perhaps, he would turn home.
He would trek back over the miles, back to those same woods he walked through now. He would walk across that bridge, and find his home dark, but as he had left it years before. He would only need to take the things off the shelves, to light the fires where the grates had been empty, and he would settle down with a book again and idly turn the pages, looking at the illustrations. He would spend the summers splashing in the water of the river, and he would tell his friends about his travels. And so things would go on. He had always thought of setting off on a great journey like that.
He passed through the Tangled Knolls. The forest floor of the Haunted Hunting Grounds glowed yellow with fallen leaves. They had not yet turned crisp here. They simply shuffled around his feet as he walked.
He continued onward, although the path stopped at Fundridge’s Folly. He continued as the slope grew steeper, as boulders pushed their way with more regularity out of the ground. Finally, he pulled himself upward by grabbing tree trunks, the spiky claws of his feet clutching the rocks beneath him. The wind picked up as he headed up the slope.
He had decided that he would have to meet the man who had made him. He did not like to imagine what it would be like, what sort of feeling it would be to see the gnarled hands that had soldered together his heart and brain. He went, in a way, more to say good-bye than to say hello. He would meet the tinkerer, the Norumbegan who had designed even his teeth, and he would speak with him. He would prove to himself that he had surpassed his maker’s expectation—that he was brighter, kinder, happier than any tinkerer could ever plan. Then he would coldly leave. He did not expect the interview to be a pleasant one. He would tell his maker how the Game had gone, what sort of things he himself had been doing since he was first wound and placed in motion, and then he would shake the man’s hand and nod, and say good-bye, and walk down the mountain to return to his home, to return to his mulled cider and his fireside, but with a new start.
Thick groves of pine trees were sprouting up about him now. A little stream, padded with moss, ran beneath a wood of tightly woven firs. It was starting to freeze. Kalgrash could feel the clouds moving up from the south—he wasn’t sure some magician wasn’t pulling them up. He could feel them scattering snow over suburbs and cities, impatient to get to the mountains. He could feel the chill that they pushed before them.
At about five-thirty, he found the door in the boulder. There was the plaque that read WEE SNIGGLEPING and the tiny door into the enchanted workshop. There was a note tacked to the door that read GONE SKIING. The troll couldn’t read it, but guessed its meaning.
A cold wind had sprung up. Kalgrash nodded slowly and grinned, although he didn’t quite know why. He looped his scarf around his neck several times and looked out over the tops of the pines to the far blue mountains and the clouds that raced across them. He picked up a bit of granite with a sharp edge, then scratched into the door the symbol that meant his name—the only thing he knew how to write. He looked at the GONE SKIING sign and said to himself, “Okay.” He tossed the rock up into the air, over his shoulder, and it landed in the pale grass. He began wandering down the mountain, against the bitter wind.
By the time he crossed the bridge over the River of Time and Shadow, it was blue evening and softly snowing.
In the crypt below the cathedral, the boys found the tombs of emperors. Each had a likeness of the ruler sleeping on its lid. Each was carved with the emperor’s deeds. The first, whose statue they had seen in the town square, posed proudly on the prow of a leather ship as his fleet sailed over the clouds. Hovering above the sea, he hacked at a serpent with his ax. He hunted in the forests of primordial America. He built a scraggly set of towers on the mountaintop.
They passed an architect-emperor, holding a T square, compass, and plumb line. He frowned slightly, resting on his bier, as if he still worried about some matter left unfinished. The bas-reliefs on the sides of the sarcophagus showed him directing the construction of the City of Gargoyles.
Brian and Gregory walked down the line of emperors, watching as the Realm of Norumbega grew and battles were fought. They saw the coming of the Thusser—also men with pointed ears, but with lines scored under their sunken eyes. Gradually, the tunics and robes of those depicted in the carvings were replaced by knee breeches and long, buttoned coats. But always, the emperors in their resting place wore the robes of state first worn what must have been centuries before, when the first king came flying in his leather boat from the Old World.
They all wore the same robes; but each king wore a different crown.
The second to last was the little gray dwarf they had seen at the ball. He was lost in the robes of state. Their marble sleeves hung down the sides of the tomb.
The last emperor was the young blond man whom they had seen at the hunt. He was not slumbering on his tomb as the rest had been, but was instead depicted as if just wakened from a nightmare—sitting up, wide-eyed. He stared into a simple, dark, carved archway on the far wall.
The bas-reliefs on the side of his sarcophagus depicted him in various situations: in white tie, in the company of others similarly dressed, at a party; playing tennis in a V-necked sweater; sitting on a throne, a look of uneasy determination on his face, his finger jammed into his cheek to support his head; sitting in the forest with the other young men and women of the realm, wearing flat straw hats and drinking—and in the background, there were Thusser, watching. Then, abruptly, in the next panel he was dressed in a suit of armor, atop a crenellated tower, looking out over the forest. The mountains were coated in metal. A
dark army gathered at the foothills and in the trees and in the sky, shaking weapons toward those on the tower.
The final frames were scratched into the stone by an amateur. They were little more than stick figures and boxy houses. They showed people stalking through the streets of the City of Gargoyles, wearing strange masks, holding guns that shot thick clouds of gas. The next showed the emperor deep in conversation with another crowned king, a king with sunken eyes, over what looked to be a chess-board. In the final one there was nothing but a picture of the city empty, with a trickle of water shown dripping through the cobbles.
The figure sat atop his coffin, the royal robes disheveled and slipping off his left shoulder. He stared into the darkness beyond the arch.
Crude letters were carved above the door in several languages. In English, they said STAY OUT.
“Come on,” urged Gregory, heading toward the archway.
“Wait,” cautioned Brian, but as his friend had already run into the next chamber, he followed.
Gregory stood in another room, down a short flight of stairs. On the far side was a black panel.
“Is that black place flat?” asked Brian. “Or is it a hole?”
Gregory shined his lantern toward it. No light shone within it. They halted, blinking. The void, abruptly, was laced with a blue spark. When it was gone, they were not sure it had been there. The darkness beyond the arch waited patiently.
Brian carefully made his way down the stairs and walked to Gregory’s side. They advanced on the panel.
Gregory reached out to touch it. “It’s a portal,” he said.
Something moved near the ceiling.
Brian flashed the light up over their heads.
Something moved.
The beam tossed across it.
Descending silently were great messy globs of gray that hung on sprouting stalks like thick saliva hanging on a string.
Brian and Gregory stood, frozen, as the bulbs dropped slowly toward the ground and stopped their descent in midair at varying heights all around the boys.
Softly, his breath quavering with fear, Gregory started to move back toward the crypt, winding his way between the lumpy masses.
The sacks hung, silent; then, one by one, shuddered.
And as the boys watched, all around them, fingers and elbows pressed against the pulpy fabric of the sacks, and the cocoons began slowly to tear open. Brian yelped, and dodged through the hanging masses as blind, gray arms groped their way free and yanked hungrily at the air.
A hand pawed at Brian’s coat. He wrenched himself away and jolted into Gregory. All around them the room was filled with uneasy motion, with popping chrysalids and fumbling arms.
“We’ll never make it!” said Gregory.
“We’ve got to!”
“We’ll—”
Brian had been grabbed—his legs tottered underneath him. There were chilly fingers on his face.
“Help!” screamed Brian. “Gregory!”
Gregory struggled backward. He grabbed on to the monstrous, lukewarm arm and yanked at it. Others were plucking at him now.
“Help!” Brian called again. He flung himself out of the grasp of one silent beast, but other arms were pulling at him, and Gregory was slashing all around him with his Swiss army knife.
It was a morass of wakening beasts, and they were in the center of it. The things were pulling themselves free. Now a leg was uncurling, starting to step tentatively on the floor. Jaws were biting at the Plasticine sacks.
“We’re not going to make it!” said Gregory.
Brian yelled, “I’m summoning Jack! I’m using his emergency grenade!”
“No!” said Gregory. “We’ll lose! We’ll forfeit!”
“But if—” Brian started gagging. A hand was across his mouth. He fell to his knees.
He pulled the grenade out of the pocket of his backpack.
He felt teeth perched on his shoulder, ready to bite.
He threw the summoning grenade into the mob of crawling limbs.
It was time to lose the Game.
There was a hiss and a blast of smoke, and through the tangle of alien bodies there was Jack Stimple, arms crossed, smiling. For a moment he did not even acknowledge the hands that nuzzled him dumbly.
Brian pulled the hand away from his face and jerked his shoulder out from under the teeth. He struggled forward.
“Jack! Help!” cried Brian. “Jack!”
“Brian Thatz!” he called. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” said Brian. “Over here! Help!”
Jack Stimple reached into his pockets and drew forth some throwing stars.
He began to throw them at Brian.
The boy threw himself to the floor and watched the first throwing star cut into a nearby sack with a sickening smack. Gray blood drooled from the wound and splattered on the paving stones. Brian began to crawl across the floor, bending low as, above him, arms struggled free of the globs.
Gregory pulled himself across the floor just ahead of Brian. His lantern clanked along the floor. They saw Jack’s feet pacing through the tide of chrysalids and arms and veiny legs.
A groping hand grabbed Brian’s hair. He screamed in pain as Gregory crawled ahead. Jack turned and wove his way toward them. Brian caught a glimpse of Jack holding a knife.
Gripping his own hair by the roots, Brian tried to wrestle with the hand. His lantern fell to the floor and shattered. The hand jerked back; Brian threw himself forward, his eyes wild as the oil from the lantern exploded. The creature in the sack began to burn. The flames licked at the stringy webbing of the cocoons, catching, spreading.
The creatures jerked spasmodically as they attempted to rip free of their sacks.
Brian ran, half-standing, forcefully jostling his way through the tangle of cocoons.
Gregory had reached the top of the steps and was holding up his lantern, squinting into the smoke and crush of alien bodies, now freed and writhing. “Brian! Brian!” he shouted. “Brian?”
Brian forced his way out of the bags. Bodies—pale, strange creatures—were moving now about the room, completely free of the sacking that had held them.
Jack Stimple screamed. Gregory strained, but couldn’t see what was happening to him. Brian was at the foot of the staircase, scuttling upward. Gregory reached down a hand and pulled Brian to his feet.
They turned to see the room. Great flames were billowing where the lantern had fallen. Indistinct nude figures moved about between the hanging cocoons, a few of which still shuddered with burning creatures trying to escape. A black tar of webbing ran slowly through the cracks in the floor. Jack Stimple was nowhere to be seen.
The two turned and ran breathlessly from the room, back into the crypt. Behind them, the fire blazed, the creatures mewled and screamed.
Now, a specter-show flashed on, glowing green—Norumbegans lined up, families, all of them sadly clutching a few possessions, dressed in long coats. An officer was checking them off as they passed into the room where the flames and screaming came from.
“They’re going through the portal,” said Gregory. “All of them. They’re emigrating to another world.”
“Let’s get out of here,” said Brian. They kept running for the exit.
Back through the cathedral they ran.
“Where are we going?” asked Gregory.
“Two choices,” said Brian, puffing. “Two choices. I’m thinking…we saw that coronet two times on the blond guy—that last emperor—once on the Haunted Hunting Grounds, once on the barge out on the lake.”
“Down to the lake!” shouted Gregory, and they forced their way back through the cathedral door. They clattered down the avenue toward the water.
The last emperor and the archbishop, glowing green, sledded past them on greased platters. The emperor wore a knit cap instead of his crown.
“Boys!” yelled Jack Stimple from behind them. “Come back, boys! I was fighting the guardian creatures, not you! It’s all a terrible misunderstanding!??
?
“Keep running,” said Gregory. He looked at Brian. Brian didn’t look well. He was breathing very heavily, his glasses slipping. They barreled past the weird facades of elfin palaces.
A metal disc whizzed past them and struck a pillar. The two charged breathlessly into the darkness, the lantern rattling in Gregory’s hand. Brian stumbled forward as a metal disc buried itself in his backpack. They heard Jack Stimple curse behind them.
They turned into an alley and clattered along past grinning gargoyles, up tight staircases that led onto little courtyards; they could hear Jack pounding down toward them. They darted through a door.
Jack leaped into a house, following the glow of the lantern. Spirits sat around a great oval table, laughing and serving themselves beets and roast duck. Servants bowed and retreated, keys spinning in their backs. Jack looked around, then charged through a door on the far side of the room, through the illusion, disturbing it as if it were motes of dust in a sunbeam.
Out on the street, Gregory and Brian barreled through a grand parade. The band wore flat straw hats and striped blazers, and blasted some rousing, thumping tune (“The Mighty Flag of Murias”). Kids licked Popsicles and waved to brothers playing the tuba. Brian and Gregory leaped through phantom ticker tape, past a flower-strewn carriage that carried the gray dwarfen emperor. They hurtled through the Norumbega Girl Guides.
Jack burst out onto the street in the wake of the boys and stood, squinting angrily as the Norumbega majorettes smiled ecstatically and marched right through him. He plunged into the flute section, scampered through the pipe-organ-on-wheels, and raced along in the wake of the lantern as the parade faded, leaving only scattered bits of luminous confetti.
Brian and Gregory turned down a side street once again, vainly trying to keep track of directions. The lantern light bobbed along the dark walls, picking out mouths and fangs of stone.
Behind them, Jack yelled, “I’ll find you! You need your light! I’ll find you!” Then, a second later: “We’re in the final turn of the Game, so I’m allowed to kill now! I’m finally allowed to kill!”