The princess nodded.
"What's his name?"
"Chipmunk," the princess said.
"Clever name," I said.
Robin, helping me to my feet, stomped on my toes.
Marian said, "Do you and Chipmunk want to go home?"
Dorinda nodded.
"All right, then." Marian handed her the cage. "We've got to go quickly and quietly."
Dorinda nodded solemnly. Although her size made her look younger than she was, her sad eyes were of someone who was much older, someone who had seen more of the world than any ten-year-old should have.
Take-command Marian put her arm around the princess's shoulders.
The princess said, "Do you know about the back way?"
"The back way?" We all looked at one another.
"It's a secret shortcut."
I shook my head. "We left one of our people in the dungeon," I said. "We have to go back for her."
"The dungeon's where it leads," she said. She nodded toward the back door.
"I'll check it out," Cornelius said. He opened the door. Beyond was a deserted hallway, a mauve-colored one. There was only one door, way down at the far end.
"This way." Dorinda dashed ahead of us.
"Dorinda," Marian said, not quite daring to shout. "Honey."
Dorinda got to the door a full five yards ahead of us. Robin and Feordin were in the rear, dragging Nocona between them.
"Wait!" I called.
She flung the door open anyway.
My heart almost stopped, but she said, "See, nobody here," and disappeared through the door.
We followed her, all of us.
And found ourselves in what had to be a goblin barracks room.
Filled with goblins.
Dorinda stood in the midst of them.
I heard the door slam shut behind us. Dorinda said to the goblins, "Arrest these clowns."
We could have put up a fight. After all,
we
already had our weapons drawn.
On the other hand,
they
outnumbered us about five to one. And they had us surrounded. And they were rested and well fed and uninjured. And it took them about two seconds to get
their
weapons drawn. Other than that...
"Here we go again," Cornelius muttered.
We let our swords clatter to the floor.
Several of the goblins hustled forward and searched us for hidden weapons. They took my dagger, which Thea had just gotten around to returning, and relieved Robin of several knives and files and assorted whatnot. They also found Cornelius's knife and Marian's gauntlets of power.
Dorinda sat down on one of the cots. Her feet dangling over the edge, not quite touching the floor, she said, "They have a companion in the dungeon. Somebody go fetch her, too."
I should have known,
I told myself. Given the way this game had gone at every other stage, I should have known Rasmussem wouldn't give us an ordinary blond-haired, blue-eyed princess to rescue.
"What about this one?" one of the goblins asked, indicating Nocona, his arms bound behind his back with Thea's belt. "Is he one of ours?"
"No," Dorinda said. "But it's a good idea. Tie them all, then bring them up to the tower. I'll meet you there." The goblins saluted by raising their swords. Just like they'd been doing in her bedroom. She left, carrying her nasty pet chipmunk with her.
The goblins jostled each other for the privilege of tying us up, and naturally those who won were the strongest and meanest. The one who did me almost broke my arms getting them behind my back—despite the fact that I was cooperating—and tied my wrists tight enough to cut off the circulation.
We ended up with three guards; the rest settled back to doing whatever it is that off-duty goblins do. Our guards had knives that were almost as long as our swords, and these they never put away. In the hall, they waved the knives under our noses and shoved us and bounced us off the walls and called us names rather than just telling us where they wanted us to go—which would have been easier on us, but I guess not so much fun for them. Where they wanted us to go turned out to be back to the turret with the stairs. Up we went.
And up.
And up.
And up.
The higher we went, the narrower and steeper the stairs became, especially after the fifth-floor landing, which was where the castle building ended and the tower corkscrewed out and up into one of the absurd towers we had seen from the ground. We went single file, which was all there was room for: first a goblin, then Feordin, then Cornelius, Robin, Marian, the second goblin, Nocona, me, Thea, the third goblin.
Ahead of me Nocona tugged and strained at the belt around his wrists—the belt Thea, and not one of the goblins, had tied. Which probably meant it wasn't as tight as our ropes. I know I couldn't budge my hands. I stayed close, hoping to hide his struggles from the goblin behind Thea.
Finally his right hand came loose. Nocona caught the belt with his thumb to prevent it from dropping and becoming obvious. He was quick enough that I was certain even Thea behind us hadn't noticed.
Now what?
I thought.
Nocona stepped on the heel of the goblin ahead of him.
The guard stumbled, half falling into Marian, right ahead of him. He whirled around, holding his long knife to Nocona's throat. "You eager to die?" he asked.
I stood real close to Nocona to hide his loose arms from the rear guard, who was crowding us to see what the excitement was.
Nocona, gagged, said nothing.
"Crazy man is eager to die," the goblin said to his companion, to both companions: the guard who'd been in the lead had stopped to watch, too. The goblin sliced his blade through the gag, just hard enough to draw beads of blood across Nocona's cheek.
Nocona never flinched.
"Crazy man," the goblin repeated. He flipped one of Nocona's braids.
Nocona looked past him. He looked at Marian. He spat out the remnant of gag and said to Marian, "Sorry,
Feordin.
"
Marian's eyes widened slightly, that was all. I didn't see any reaction from Feordin, and I didn't look at any of the others.
"No talking," the guards chorused.
"I was just worried about Feordin's
rope,
" Nocona said. Then, to have it seem to make sense to the guards, he added, "Being too tight."
"Never mind and no talking." The middle guard spun Marian around to face forward. "And you"—he jabbed Nocona with the index finger of the hand that still held the knife—"you'll look just the same in the Lady's picture whether you have a tongue or not."
We started back up the stairs. Again I kept close enough to block Nocona's hands from the rear guard. The trouble with that, of course, was that I blocked his hands from Thea, too, so that she couldn't see what was going on. Nocona slipped the belt off his right wrist. He moved both hands to the front. I took that as my signal. I threw my weight backward, falling onto Thea, who fell on the rear guard.
Nocona whipped the belt around the neck of the middle guard and yanked.
I heard a scuffle at the front of the line, but the curve of the stairs prevented me from seeing what was happening. Not only that, but the guard Thea and I had landed on was trying to squirm out from under us. Somewhere under all that cursing and flailing was a knife long enough to skewer Thea and me both.
"Hurry up!" I yelled. I pressed back, knowing I was squashing Thea, but hoping to hamper the goblin. Together we slid down another two stairs, but the curved walls kept us from ending up all the way down on the fifth-floor landing.
Nocona whirled around with the dead goblin's knife.
My words played back in my memory:
You're just taking things out on me because you're worried that you're turning into a werewolf.
Seeing Nocona standing there over me with that knife in his hand, I suddenly had a mental image of the moment I'd betrayed him. When I pushed the image away, I got Wolstan, watching me from across the campfire, his eyes red and hungry.
As Nocona's were now.
He raised the knife.
I rolled to the right, slamming myself into the wall, digging my elbow into Thea's stomach.
There was nowhere to go.
I kicked Nocona's knee and he pitched forward, breaking his fall by putting out his left hand, which slammed into my face. A wave of nausea swept over me, and for a second I thought I was going to pass out.
Do that and you'll die over a broken nose,
I told myself and forced things back into focus.
Nocona's attention had momentarily been diverted from me. He was on his side, but I could see him jam the knife down with both hands and remembered, too late, how I'd instinctively rolled out of the way of that knife. And left Thea exposed.
I kicked him in the small of his back, and he let go of the knife and rolled toward me. I heard Thea groan, which was wonderful—proving she was still alive. But the next moment Nocona brought his knee up sharp into my groin. I curled around the pain, then tried to whack his head with mine, though the entire area around my nose was throbbing. I only hit his shoulder. He put both hands around my neck and started to squeeze. Each breath brought the taste of my own blood, and there wasn't anywhere I could move.
Somebody grabbed hold of my hair, which was weird because Nocona had both his hands around my neck.
The goblin!
I thought. In all our grappling with each other, we'd forgotten the goblin.
But there was a hand in Nocona's hair too, and both hands pulled in opposite directions.
"Marian," I gasped. Evidently they had overpowered the lead goblin and freed themselves. Of course it was too late for poor Thea. "Let go."
"Knock it off, you two," Marian snarled.
And Thea, her voice muffled, said, "And get off me."
Obviously she wasn't as badly dead as I had feared.
In a moment Robin and Cornelius came around the corner. "Everything under control?" Cornelius asked.
"Yeah," Marian said shortly. "Right."
We finally got untangled, and I saw that it was the goblin guard that had Nocona's knife in him.
Oops.
Nocona pulled it out of the goblin's chest to cut Thea's bonds, and then mine.
"I'm sorry," I said, holding my hand to my nose, trying to stop the bleeding. "I thought—"
"I am not," he announced to all of us, "a werewolf."
Cornelius said, "Harek, I think we're going to have to overrule you on this one."
Me?
"But...," I sputtered. "I never..."
Silently Nocona slipped the knife into his belt. Then he took the second knife from the corpse's hand and tossed it to Robin. Not that I could have used it—it was probably iron—but it sure didn't look like the thought ever crossed his mind. Still never saying a word to me, he headed back up the stairs.
"You all right?" Marian asked, tipping my head back to look at my nose. She grimaced. "Looks broken to me."
I touched my nose. Definitely broken.
"Here," Robin started, tucking his new knife away.
"Don't touch me!" I yelled, throwing my arms up to ward him away from my nose.
"All that tipping your head back is going to do is make you swallow the blood. Put your head like this and hold here." "Here" was just below the bridge of my nose.
"I'm not—"
"Just shut up and do it," Marian said.
I shut up and did it and the bleeding stopped.
"It still hurts," I said.
"You're welcome," Robin said.
We went back up the stairs and joined Feordin, who'd commanded his magic rope to tie itself around the first goblin's neck. At this point he was sitting next to the goblin, holding onto the rope and holding onto the knife, which was also pressed against the goblin's neck.
"Now that we're all here," Feordin told the goblin, "how about if you start at the beginning?"
The guard's orange eyes glanced our way, evaluating the situation. I saw his Adam's apple bob as he gulped. "What," he asked, "beginning?"
Feordin gave the rope an extra twist. "You might want to start by telling where the real Princess Dorinda is."
"There isn't one," the goblin gasped.
"
What?
" Feordin demanded.
"Ease up," Marian said. "You can't get answers from a dead man."
"Or a dead goblin," Robin corrected.
Marian shot him a warning glance.
Feordin loosened the rope a smidgen.
"Who's the little blond sweetie?" I asked.
The goblin licked his lips. "She's Dorinda, but she's not a princess. I mean, she's the only princess there is and she's the person you know as Dorinda, but she's not really a person. I mean—"
Feordin said, "I think we're just going to have to kill him and start again with somebody else."
"No, wait," the goblin begged. "I'm trying to explain. She's a shape-shifter. She was accidentally created when the Wizards' Guild magically built this castle as a playground for the governor's children. The wizards put too much power into it. At first she was just a shapeless ball of excess magical energy. Then the High Mage came through the portal to check on everything, and the energy wrapped itself around his wizard's staff. It hid in the faceted crystal knob at the top." The goblin held up his fist to indicate the size. "Each time he cast a spell she got stronger, and finally she gave herself a form outside of the staff. She destroyed the Wizards' Guild—if you came in through Sannatia, you probably saw the hole where it used to be."
Feordin tightened his grip. "Keep talking," he growled.
"She found that she could use the staff to take the life force from the people of Sannatia. It left them ... flat, looking like portraits, but it gave her the ability to change her own appearance."
Skeptically, Robin asked, "Then why aren't
you
hanging over the mantelpiece?"
"We goblins swore allegiance to her," he said, cringing away from the point of the knife. "We promised to help her."
"To help her what?" Feordin asked.
He gulped, knowing we wouldn't like his answer. "To rule the world. But she knew she had a lot to learn first. That was all right: she was patient. She decided that the best way to learn, and to be in a position of power when she was ready, was to pose as King Ulric's child. First she used her magic to kill his surviving sons and his latest wife. Then she took on the form of a tiny baby and had one of the goblin women bring her to the king, saying that she was the daughter of a farm girl with whom the king had spent a night the previous summer. It's happened often enough before that he couldn't remember one way or the other. He was told the mother had died in childbirth. The king believed the story and raised Dorinda as his own."