The Goblin's Curse (29 page)

Keelie had to distract Peascod. He already seemed to be having a hard time concentrating, so if she talked, maybe it would keep his attention focused on her.

“Maybe we can work together to stop Tavyn,” she suggested. The idea of cooperating with Peascod appalled Keelie, but she would do whatever it took to get the Compendium away from him.

“I have a better idea.” Peascod began reading in a strange language Keelie didn’t understand. She’d read elven words, and she knew they didn’t sound like this. Yet it still sounded familiar, sort of like the guttural language she’d heard spoken between the goblins.

The pull of magic began, enveloping her in skin-tingling waves.

Keelie didn’t know what to do. The goblins seemed to be winning the hand-to-hand combat against the faire folk. The dragons were flying overhead again, but they couldn’t blast the attacking goblins because they were too close to the humans.

The trees screamed in her mind, and she started to fall, weakened by the magical onslaught. She reached out and clung to one of the Galadriel’s Closet support beams.

Then, in the chaos of the fighting, Keelie saw a face she hadn’t seen since the Redwood Forest. Tavyn was striding purposefully toward her, ignoring the fighting all around him and looking more like the goblin on the tarot deck and less like an elf. He was carrying the pot with the goblin tree, which smirked at her.

Keep cool!
Keelie knew she couldn’t show fear. “Done lurking in the woods?” she asked calmly.

“You are finished, Keliel Heartwood,” the little goblin tree said.

“I wasn’t talking to you.” Keelie glowered at the traitor treeling. “You staged your own tree-napping.”

Tavyn extended a taloned hand toward Peascod. “The book, vermin.”

Peascod ignored the goblin-elf and continued to read from the Compendium. A high wind blustered through the faire and the sky darkened as if the sunset was on fast forward.

Tavyn cried out, growling commands to the armored goblins behind him. He got no response—his army was cowering as the sun split into two, then four, then again and again until it seemed as if many setting suns surrounded them. The pull of magic was stronger, too, and reminded Keelie of the magic at the rift.

Keelie held tightly to the aspen branch and closed her eyes against the disconcerting light. She sent out her tree sense, trying to anchor herself with the truth of the forest. Green, unchanging … and suddenly—gone.

The bell on the jester’s hat rang loudly, and its distorted jangle filled the entire faire with the weight of discontent and unhappiness.

Gravity started to pull sideways, and she felt as if every molecule of her body was being disassembled. Her last thought, before all the air was sucked out of her lungs and the world turned inside out, was that she would love to have that purple and blue dress with cap sleeves hanging in the window of Galadriel’s Closet.

Whoosh!

She was being transported somewhere, but much faster than in her whooshing travels with Herne or Dad. It was like being in a swirling vortex, or a spinning carnival ride on hyperdrive. Her shoulder banged painfully against a solid surface, and she opened her eyes a crack. She’d hit the door of Galadriel’s Closet.

She gripped the wood (oak, from Georgia) of the shop support tighter in an attempt to stay in the faire. Dresses and costumes from within the shop zoomed out of the windows and door as the increased pressure pulled them around Peascod, who seemed to be at the center of the vortex. Clanking armor sailed toward the conjuring jester, along with statues of dragons, wooden swords, and chickens from the nearby petting zoo. If an object wasn’t nailed down, it was making its way toward him. Hapless goblins flew through the air.

Opposite the deluged jester stood Tavyn, his feet squarely on the road, an arm across his face to protect it from the Renaissance Faire objects pummeling him on their way to Peascod. A turkey leg hit him on the forehead, and he let go of the goblin tree. It was sucked away as if by a giant vacuum cleaner, screaming, “Save me, Master!” before vanishing into the spinning tornado.

Tavyn didn’t even look in the little goblin tree’s direction.

Tarl the mud man held on to a post of the Wing-A-Ding shop while two goblins shielded their heads as pewter wine goblets and fairy wings from the shop assailed them. The shopkeepers and performers clutched counters and were flattened against walls, unable to stand. Dulcimers and flutes from the music shop whirled around the goblins; more turkey legs smacked them, and one goblin howled with fury as a Steak-on-a-Stake drove into his thigh and stuck there like a meat pincushion.

Above it all, Finch and Vangar flew, spouting flames as they winged their way over the faireground, prepared to attack. Another wave of turkey legs rushed toward Peascod, but he couldn’t see them because of the accumulated Ren Faire souvenir T-shirts flapping around him.

The trees in the faire spoke in a wave of green.

Where are we? We do not feel the sun, nor feel the dirt in our roots.

Shepherdess, this is wrong. We can’t feel the Earth.

Stay calm.
Keelie sent reassuring waves of magic their way, glad to feel them in her head once more.

Tavyn motioned with his hands and uttered a word that reverberated all around and sounded, gong-like, in her skull. Keelie had underestimated the amount of magic the half-goblin could wield. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Everything stopped whirling and dropped to the ground, including the turkey legs.

“It worked,” Peascod said.

“Of course, you fool.” Tavyn scowled at the jester.

Keelie looked up at the sky and around the faire. They were encircled by an eerie darkness, and a strange pink moon cast a weird, dusky glow on the faire. Some stars twinkled in the background. The sky was not a Colorado sky, but the ground around her was the same. The faire was a mess—the path covered with debris, the windows of the shops broken by flying merchandise.

Something was missing, and when Keelie realized what it was, her heart skipped several beats. There were no Rocky Mountains. It was all empty horizon.

Peascod made an elegant bow, one leg extended. Then he rose and lifted his hands outward and spun around, shouting, “This is my faire, where the jester shall rule, and the subjects shall be loyal to me.”

Mimicking Peascod’s moves, Toshi circled around him.

“What did Peascod do?” Keelie gasped. She remembered Peascod mentioning “dimension travel.”

Tavyn peered down his nose at her. His pointed ears peeked through his thick, silver-shot dreadlocks. “I thought you had studied the Compendium.” He used a condescending tone of voice that reminded Keelie of Niriel.

“I did,” Keelie said. “It seems to have layers it decided not to reveal to me.” Like moving an entire faire to a different dimension. She definitely hadn’t read that chapter—she would have remembered it.

“The book reveals what it wants when it wants.” Tavyn flicked his eyes over at Peascod, who had an idiotic grin on his grotesque face. His mask was gone, shattered by the debris, revealing the necrotic skin beneath.

“The fool has lost his mind.” Tavyn turned to Keelie.

She pointed at Peascod. “So, I take it he used goblin lore to … ”

“Move the High Mountain Renaissance Faire to a different dimension.” Tavyn yawned, as if not caring about the danger he, too, was in. It seemed Peascod would do anything to get his freedom.

“What dimension?” Keelie asked, as if she knew one from another.

“It might be the one between the human world and the spirit world.” Tavyn looked around. “Hard to tell. Far from the reach of human, fae, or elven intervention.”

“Can you send us back?” Keelie wanted the Rocky Mountains, and she wanted to be back on good ol’ Earth. She’d had enough of spirits and gods. She didn’t want to meet up with whatever lived in this neighborhood.

“I’ll need the Compendium.”

“Well, you know where to get it. Your jester has it.” If Tavyn could move the faire back to the Earth, maybe she could do the same. It was a stretch, but she was desperate. She didn’t trust him. He had aspirations to become a god to the dark fae.

A line of fire landed near Tavyn’s feet and he jumped back. Keelie did too.

She looked up in the sky at Finch flying overhead. The dragon circled around, coming in for another attack.

The goblins went on the rampage again, taking advantage of this latest distraction. The shop owners and performers were losing the battle, despite the fresh dwarven troops fighting valiantly alongside them. Fatigue, despair, and confusion seemed to be written on the humans’ faces. The dwarves fought on with grim determination.

Thomas the Glass Blower staggered toward Keelie, blood bubbling from a wound in his chest. He collapsed on the road, and the goblin behind him waved his bloody sword and roared in victory.

“No,” Keelie shouted. She started to run toward the fallen merchant, but Knot leaped in front of her, causing her to trip. She landed hard on her knees but still managed to keep from breaking Hrok’s branch.

“Meow too dangerous.”

Thomas lay crumpled in the clutter-strewn, dusty lane, and his eyes dulled as life faded from his body.

twenty-three

Peascod glared at them from the road in front of Galadriel’s Closet. Toshi shook its head, but smiled as it looked directly at Keelie, and then clapped its little wooden hands.

“Seems as if we have our first human casualty.” Tavyn arched an eyebrow.

“Tsk. Tsk. The first of many casualties, including you, Tavyn,” Peascod called out. He clung to the Compendium, looking drawn and pale as his puppet soared toward the goblin-elf. “Although I should thank you for giving me that idea about moving the faire to this dimension. We can take care of our business unimpeded.”

Keelie sent a “thanks a lot for nothing” glare at Tavyn.

Tavyn held out his hand and the puppet stopped. It couldn’t move, immobilized by magic.

“Peascod. I tire of your games.” Tavyn’s voice deepened. He pushed his hand forward, and the puppet zoomed back and slammed into Peascod.

Keelie didn’t know what was wrong with Peascod, but it really looked like the jester needed to be in the hospital. He appeared to have aged in the past hour. But she couldn’t feel sorry for him—he had brought this fate onto himself. Remembering Cricket, Keelie couldn’t forget that it was Peascod who had killed the harmless little goblin.

Toshi floated in front of her.

Keelie recalled Sally saying that a poppet could store magic. What if Peascod had put his own life essence into the puppet?

Destroy the puppet. Destroy Peascod.

But how?

Tavyn’s eyes flared with pure disgust as he glowered at Peascod. “I will deal with you later.”

He turned to Keelie, and his eyes widened when he saw the branch. “I think I will take that gift from our friend Hrok.”

He’d recognized the branch. It was all suddenly clear to Keelie. “You
are
a tree shepherd.”

“Surprise!” Tavyn grinned, showing sharp goblin teeth. “My grandfather was a tree shepherd. Who’d guess the power would arise in me when I embraced my goblin side?”

A goblin tree shepherd. Hrok had read it right. Keelie stared at Tavyn, horrified.

Fire poured down from the sky, nearly hitting the goblin. Finch had zoomed in. Tavyn aimed a blast of magic up toward the retreating red dragon.

“I have work to do. Call off the dragons, or I will order my goblins to kill each and every human found within this faire, children included.” Tavyn kicked Thomas’s body.

Repulsed, Keelie wanted to blast Tavyn with green magic—but what if he could turn it against her? He was a tree shepherd too. Dad was right; she didn’t know enough about her own magic to be able to fight with anything but luck.

“I don’t know how to reach Finch or Vangar when they’re in dragon form.” She shot a dark look at the goblin-elf. To think that people made comparisons between the two of them. Except for that halfblood thing, and being tree shepherds, they had nothing in common.

“I suggest you find a way,
tree shepherdess
.” He flashed a smile at her, as if he found the situation amusing. He beckoned the goblins to bring Mara and her daughter forward. A goblin ripped the toddler from her mother’s arms. Little Ava screamed and Mara reached out, crying for her daughter.