The third goblin told Jill he was stunned by her perfect features. Jill was shocked to discover that, beneath the silken gag, she was smiling.
The fourth goblin said that, now that he had seen her, he would dream of her at night. Again, Jill blushed hotly. The fifth goblin admired every single feature of her face. “Your nose is like a small hill, bright and clean. Your cheeks are like pink pillows. Your hair looks like grass. Brown grass. Your head is shaped like a . . .” And so on. Jill giggled to think of someone taking so much interest in the shape of her head.
But by the ninth goblin, Jill was bored.
By the fifteenth goblin, she was testing her silken bonds again.
And by the twenty-eighth goblin, Jill did not care what they thought of her.
Which she found very surprising.
Because, at long last, Jill was being admired—worshipped—for her beauty.
Just as she had always wanted.
And, it turned out, she did not like it at all.
* * *
The fortieth goblin did not praise her beauty. Instead, he threw himself on the ground and cried, “Queen, I am devoted to you! You are as rare as ivory, as fresh as the spring. I will risk my very life to be your husband. Will you have me?”
Jill stared. She didn’t know what to say. Then she remembered that she couldn’t say anything because she was gagged.
But she didn’t need to. For there was a sudden movement. Two guards had stepped forward from the line of twenty that stood before the throne. They approached the goblin-suitor and slammed the butts of their spears into the stone floor. They barked: “Will you risk your life to treasure and protect this lady?”
“I will! I will!” cried the goblin.
“Bring forth the casket!” the goblin guards yelled. Four other guards came forward with a great iron casket, suspended between two long poles. “In this casket,” barked the guards, every syllable perfectly in time, “are two slips of parchment. One says ‘Death!’ The other says ‘The Lady!’ If you choose ‘Death!’ you will be killed right here on the spot! If you choose ‘The Lady!’ you will become her husband for all the rest of your days, and you and she will spend countless hours together alone, engaging in whatever pursuits give her pleasure. Do you understand?”
“God, yes!” the goblin screamed. “Let me choose!”
Jill, on the other hand, did not understand. She fought her silken bonds.
“Submit to blindfolding!” the guards barked, and the goblin was blindfolded. The two soldiers moved behind the blindfolded goblin-suitor and pointed their spears at his back.
The casket was brought directly before the suitor.
Can they make me marry him? Jill thought frantically. They can’t, right?
The casket was opened. The goblin-suitor reached in.
He withdrew a small piece of parchment.
He held it before his blindfolded face, his expression contorted with grotesque excitement. Jill stared at him and felt sick.
The goblin tore off his blindfold and examined the paper.
“No!” he screamed, and the two goblin guards standing behind him rammed their spears straight through his body with a horrible crunching, slicing sound. The spear points came out, red and covered in viscera, on the other side. The goblin collapsed—quite dead—on the floor.
* * *
I’m sorry. I forgot to warn you that was coming. I was too caught up in telling the story. Anyway, it’s all over now.
* * *
Jill, seeing the dead goblin, felt a mix of horror and relief that she found very confusing.
Four goblins ran out from who-knew-where and picked up the corpse and scrubbed the floor clean. All remnants of the hapless suitor were removed, and the line continued as it had before.
A few more admirers came and went. And then, another goblin threw himself on the ground and proclaimed his undying love for Jill.
Jill started in alarm and tried frantically to rip herself from the throne, to save either herself from marriage or the goblin from death.
But the two goblin soldiers came forward and questioned him, and then the four goblins came out with the casket.
Again the goblin drew a piece of parchment from the great chest.
Again, he held it before his blindfolded face as he quivered with excitement.
And again, he removed his blindfold, examined the paper, screamed in agony, and the two spears were rammed through his back. Blood spurted out of his chest as if from a fountain, spraying the casket and the two guards and then, once he had collapsed, dribbling slowly out of his body and running among the cobblestones.
* * *
Sorry, sorry! Totally forgot! Last time! Promise!
The four goblins on cleanup duty came forth and scrubbed the floor with red rags, and a minute later, the line was moving again.
Jill felt sick to her stomach.
Goblin after goblin told Jill of her celestial, supernatural, otherworldly beauty. They stared into her face and simpered lovingly at her.
She found it revolting.
And every third or fourth goblin declared his undying love for her, was presented with the casket, and was summarily killed.
After the fifteenth goblin had been stabbed through his back, Jill began to have serious doubts about the fairness of the test. It seemed to her that if there were two slips of parchment in the casket, one saying “Death!” and the other “The Lady!”, she would be married to half the goblins in the room by now.
Three goblins in a row all declared their undying love for Jill, and all of them died on the points of spears. The last one convulsed on the floor, screaming in pain, as blood bubbled up out of his body like a hot spring and flowed all over the floor in crimson waves, eventually lapping up against the throne’s legs like water against rocks on a beach.
* * *
Jeez! My bad! Sorry!
* * *
Jill stared. How is it possible, she wondered, that not a single goblin drew “The Lady”? But she did not have long to consider this, for suddenly, standing before her, was Jack.
* * *
He looked, somehow, different.
Her eyes traveled from his messy black hair to his eyes—which seemed harder, more resolute, than she’d ever seen them before—to his set mouth, his quivering chin, his shoulders—were they broader, now?—down his thin arms and past his elbows and his wrists and to his hands . . .
She stopped.
Confused? Well, allow me to go back to Jack’s story for a moment.
* * *
It was just a short while before that Jack had been standing with the dream-sword raised above his head, and his left hand outstretched on a bed of velvet.
“Don’t do it,” the frog whispered frantically. “Jack, you will be sorry. So, so sorry.”
Jack thought of Marie, laughing at him. He thought of his father. It’ll prove that you’re a man. He held his breath.
The blade began to sing.
* * *
This is where we left off, right?
Just checking.
* * *
The sword of Jack’s dreams clattered to the floor.
The frog wept silently.
Neither the goblin-salesman nor the apothecary moved.
Jack looked at them, and then at the sword, and then at his hand.
He felt different. Very different.
He flexed his right hand.
Then he flexed his left.
“What happened?” said the salesman.
“You didn’t do it!” the frog cried. “Hooray! Hoorah! He didn’t do it!”
Jack said, “For a minute there, I felt very con-fused.” He shook his head like he was waking up from a dream. Then he said, “Where’s Jill???
?
The goblin, trying to hide his frustration, smiled an oily smile. “Are you sure you don’t want the sword? Everything you’ve ever wanted for will come true! Really! Really and truly!”
Jack’s eyes became hazy again. But again he shook his head sharply. And then he said perhaps the wisest thing that he had ever said. He said: “Maybe I’ve been wanting the wrong things.”
And he turned away from the goblin.
As he walked away, he said to himself, “I want Jill back.”
So he went back to where he had begun and methodically traced Jill’s path. He asked questions and eavesdropped and guessed his way past the stalls of the underground market, through the tall and crooked houses of the goblin city, and finally to the shadow of an enormous, dark castle. There, Jack saw a line of goblin men, winding out of the door. He asked them what they were waiting for. He joined the line, and waited, too.
* * *
And now Jill watched Jack step forward from the line, his jaw set, his face hard. He did look different, somehow. But not in his face, nor his shoulders, nor his hands. Perhaps it was just on the inside.
Just as Jill was thinking this, Jack announced, “I want to marry the queen.”
Jill screamed from within her gag. She shook her head frantically to stop him. The frog hissed madly from Jack’s pocket. “Jack! She’s your cousin! Is this legal? I don’t think it is! And aren’t you a little young to settle down? Finally, consider the fact that they will kill you! Jack! Jack! Are you listening to me?” But he wasn’t.
Meanwhile, a thrill had run through the Goblins in the hall. “It’s a human!” “There’s a human!” “Is that a human?”
Two guards had stepped forward. They slammed the butts of their spears into the stone floor. “Will you risk your life to treasure and protect this lady?” the guards barked in unison.
Jack looked at Jill and smiled. “Yes. I will.”
“No!” Jill wanted to cry out. “Jack! It’s a trap! It’s not a fair test!” All she actually said was, “Nnnnnnjjjjjjjtttttrrrrnnnnffrrrrrrttttttt!”
Meanwhile, the hall exploded with sound. Goblins screamed and shouted at Jack. “She’s ours!” “Leave her alone!” “No humans allowed!”
“Bring forth the casket!” the goblin guards yelled, and four other guards came forward with the great iron casket, suspended between two long poles. Again, they explained the task. “In this casket,” announced the four guards in unison, “are two slips of parchment. One says ‘Death!’ The other says ‘The Lady!’ If you choose ‘Death!’, you will be killed right here on the spot! If you choose ‘The Lady!’, you will become her husband for all the rest of your days, and you and she will spend countless hours together alone, engaging in whatever pursuits give her pleasure. Do you understand?”
Jack gave a curt nod.
Jill strained against the bonds on her wrists and ankles. No, Jack . . . No . . .
Jack was blindfolded. Two soldiers pointed their spears into Jack’s back.
The casket was brought directly before him.
Its lid was drawn back with a slow creak.
Jill watched, no longer breathing, as Jack’s hand moved toward the casket’s iron darkness.
“Wait.”
It was Jack’s voice.
“Wait,” he said again. “Do you swear, on the honor of your kingdom and your queen, that this is a fair test?”
There was a pause. The great hall was deathly silent. Then one of the goblin guards, the one with the rich voice and the careworn face and the deep, old eyes, said, “It is a fair test.”
“On the honor of your kingdom and your queen?” Jack pressed him.
There was another pause. Finally, Jack heard, “On the honor of the kingdom and the queen!”
Jack nodded. He slipped his hand into the chest and withdrew a piece of paper.
Jill had not drawn a breath for a good minute now. Her head felt light. She could not feel her hands or her feet.
Jack put the piece of paper in his mouth and began chewing.
For an instant, Jill had no idea what was going on.
Then the hall erupted.
“What happened?”
“What’d he do?”
“Stop him!”
These cries and more exploded from the goblin men. They clambered upon one another and pointed and howled.
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, damned 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 Glass,” she said.
The goblin Begehren started as if he’d been hit in the gut. He said, “The what . . . ?”
“The Seeing Glass.”
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 Glass . . .”
&
nbsp; “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 Glass. I know where it is. But no one has sought the Glass 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 Glass 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 shining 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 Glass.”