The Land of the Silver Apples

Chapter Twenty-nine BETRAYAL

Jack was curled up in his sleeping hutch. It was the middle of the night, not that this made a difference. Without sunlight, things tended to run together. He heard the various bleeps, bloops, hisses, and groans of the slumbering youths.

The opening of the sleeping cave glowed. A will-o’-the-wisp had come down to the opening, which was odd in the middle of the night. Jack turned his back, dully watching the movement of shadows on a nearby wall. Will-o’-the-wisps hardly ever stayed still, and so neither did the shadows. Suddenly, arms reached down and wrenched him out of the hutch. Something clamped over his mouth and eyes. He struggled and kicked, but his assailant was too strong.

Jack felt himself rushed along, as when the youths performed their morning leaps, but this was not accompanied by cries of joy. Whatever held him traveled in complete silence. Jack’s head cleared instantly. His apathy vanished.

What had captured him? It wasn’t a dragon. Not hot enough. Or a troll. Not cold enough. A kelpie? Not wet enough. That left wyverns, hippogriffs, cockatrices, manticores, basilisks, hydras, krakens, and Pictish beasts, about which Jack knew little. Could it be a knucker? He remembered the loathsome body like a monstrous tick engorged with blood. Arms coiled from its sides, anchoring it to the rocks, and others fanned out across a floor deep in slime.

Jack began struggling in earnest, but it did him no good. He heard something hiss, and his arms and legs were clamped even harder. I’ll wait till it stops, he decided. I’ll fight it then. He forced himself to think rationally. It couldn’t be a knucker. Not slimy enough.

Jack’s blood was singing and his heart pounded, but amazingly, he wasn’t afraid. It was a relief to have something happen after so many days of monotony. He understood Thorgil’s joy at awakening the maelstrom.

The headlong flight jolted to a stop, and the creature let him go. He saw shadowy forms around him and attacked. He headbutted one of the shapes in the stomach, causing it to shriek and fall. He turned swiftly to pull the legs out from under another, and just as quickly, he grasped an arm and swung a creature around to collide with more of its kind. But there were too many. They swarmed over him, pinning him down.

“Festering fungi! This one’s as bad as the other!” growled a familiar voice. The battle fury in Jack’s mind vanished. He lay on a bed of squashed mushrooms with the blobby shapes of hobgoblins sitting on his arms and legs. A pair of will-o’-the-wisps, barely enough to dispel the gloom, hovered overhead.

“I hope you’re satisfied, mud man. You’ve made Blewit lose his dinner.” The Nemesis loomed against the dim light, and Jack heard someone hacking and spitting. It must have been Mr. Blewit he rammed in the stomach.

“If you ambush someone in the middle of the night, you can expect trouble,” said Jack.

“Oh, we’ve had nothing but trouble since His Royal Idiocy invited you,” the Nemesis said. He signaled, and the hobgoblins allowed Jack to sit up, but they still held him.

“It was a good fight,” said Thorgil from not far away. “You would have made a decent berserker.” She was being guarded as closely as he.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I acquitted myself well too,” the shield maiden replied. “Knocked out two of the little sneaks and crippled a third.”

Jack saw Pega sitting nearby. “Are you all right?” he called.

“As well as can be expected for someone who’s been pulled six ways to Sunday.”

The Nemesis sniffed derisively. “That’s what you get for driving our king off his head.”

“I never did such a thing,” Pega retorted hotly. “He was the one who pursued me.”

“Oh, I’ve seen your mincing little ways, charming him so he forgets his duties. You asked him to hand over our Hazel and break the Blewits’ hearts. Well, I won’t have it.”

“If you intend to murder us, at least let us die with weapons in our hands,” said Thorgil.

“Murder?” The Nemesis bounced up and down with rage. “Do you think we’re mud men? We have souls and we take care of them, thank you very much. We’re simply going to move you on.”

“To Middle Earth?” said Jack.

The hobgoblins laughed—or they at least made the noise that showed they were amused. To Jack, it sounded like someone choking on a piece of gristle.

“Oh, no,” said the Nemesis, catching his breath and blinking his eyes rapidly. “We’re going to give you exactly what you asked for and send you to Elfland.”

“Elfland?” echoed Jack, hardly daring to believe their good fortune.

“Why not?” said the Nemesis. “I tried to get the Bugaboo to do it straightaway. He was too besotted with Lady Temptation there.”

“I never tempted him!” protested Pega.

The Nemesis signaled again. The hobgoblins let go of their prisoners, scampering out of reach before Thorgil could react. They climbed the rocks and sat there, blobby shadows in the half-light. Mr. Blewit, still holding his stomach, joined the Nemesis.

“Look, I’m sorry I hurt you,” Jack said. He had no ill will against the melancholy hobgoblin, who only wanted to keep a child he looked upon as his own. “Why didn’t you wait until we could talk things over?”

The Nemesis came close enough for Jack to see into his dark eyes. “It wouldn’t have made a difference. Losing Hazel a year from now would be just as painful.”

“What kind of future can she possibly have here?” Jack said. “She’s not made to spend half her life underground. What happens when she grows up? Someday she’s going to look into a pool and know she’s not the same as the rest of you.”

“We’ll tell her it doesn’t make a scrap of difference!” said Mr. Blewit.

Jack couldn’t think of an answer to this. Hazel had never accepted him and ran when he tried to approach her. She might not accept Mother, either.

“There’s no point in arguing. Hazel can’t go,” the Nemesis said flatly. “Anyhow, she’s terrified of elves.”

“Are they really so bad?”

“Worse!” Mr. Blewit hunched his shoulders as though warding off a chill. “You won’t be able to see it. Mud men never do. It’s the glamour, you see. Makes everything look wonderful, but it’s all lies.”

“Then why, since you hate elves so much, do you live next door to them?” demanded Jack. “You despise them. They steal your children. The Bugaboo said there’s not a family here who hasn’t lost one or two little ones. It seems to me that if you lived next door to a pack of hungry wolves, you’d either kill them or move out.”

The hobgoblins looked away and several of them shuffled their feet. Jack thought they looked shifty. Or guilty. It was difficult to tell in the dim light. Finally the Nemesis cleared his throat. “We have been weak,” he admitted. “First we were drawn to elf music and then as time passed—or rather did not pass—we experienced immortality. Oh, I know!” He waved away Mr. Blewit’s objections. “Our motives were pure. Who wants to see one’s parents grow old and die? But we made an evil bargain.”

“Then why not go the whole hog, move to Elfland and be done with it,” said Pega, brushing mushroom spores off her dress.

“And live with those liars?” Mr. Blewit cried.

“Looks to me like you’ve done a good job of lying to yourselves without anyone’s help,” she retorted.

“No,” the Nemesis said slowly. “Blewit is right. The power of Elfland to deceive is dire. Its influence radiates over the entire Land of the Silver Apples, but it is strongest at its core. Here, at least, we have not turned away entirely from the world. We still feel joy and sorrow, but Elfland is hollow. It is a living death.”

“Bedbugs! You don’t half try to scare folks,” said Pega.

“Let’s get moving,” said the Nemesis. The shadows that lurked at the edge of the light now closed in. Jack braced himself for more unpleasantness, but the hobgoblins merely urged him along. There were more of them than he had realized. They came out of the dark and crowded behind the humans. Jack felt their long fingers fluttering at his back.

It was possible to see only a few steps ahead in the glow of the two will-o’-the-wisps. Pillars loomed up and fell behind. The heavy odor of crushed toadstools rose from beneath their feet, and an unseen river flowed somewhere to the right.

Presently, the land broke off at the edge of a lake, with only a transparent shelf of crystal extending over its dark depths. Jack suddenly became aware of the hobgoblins’ intentions. “You’re going to drown us in the whirlpool!” he cried.

“As usual, you accuse us of your failings,” said the Nemesis. “This is the way into Elfland. Don’t pull those long faces at me! You asked for it and now you’re going to get it.”

“We’re even returning your weapons,” said Mr. Blewit. He unwrapped a bundle and presented Thorgil with her knife and Jack with his staff. Jack was delighted to hold the smooth, dark wood in his hands again. He eagerly sought the life force but felt only the faintest echo of it.

“Thorgil, what do you sense in the rune of protection?” he asked.

The shield maiden put her hand to her neck and frowned. “Nothing—no, that’s not true. There’s something. It’s like a chick trying to break out of an egg.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jack said. “Something is blocking the life force here.” He gazed at the dark water with dislike. The feeble glow of the will-o’-the-wisps had little power to light it.

“Enough of this nitter-natter,” growled the Nemesis. “We must conclude our business before the Bugaboo wakes up. Toadflax and Beetle Grub! Awaken the whirlpool!”

Two burly hobgoblins ran out on the crystal shelf and jumped up and down, making it emit a clashing noise that swelled until it seemed the very cavern would collapse. The whirlpool formed instantly, yawning like a grotesque mouth. The hobgoblins ran back, and before Jack could react, they tore Pega from his side and threw her in. “You monsters!” Jack shouted. Pega’s screams faded swiftly as she was sucked into the maelstrom. He didn’t think. He only knew he had to save her. He threw himself after her.