The Ogre of Oglefort

CHAPTER 16 The Norns

After they had sent the rescuers off to save the Princess Mirella and slay the ogre, the Norns fell into a deep sleep.

They slept for days and days, snoring gently in their bed in the cave deep under Aldington Crescent underground station.

And while they slept, the ghosts went around and around in the ghost train along the deserted track, and the Harpies roosted and the rats scuttled about, and water dripped from the roof.

When at last they woke, the Norns were very woozy, not quite certain where they were and how much time had passed. They sat up slowly and stretched out their skinny arms, and the nurses who had been dozing in the back of the cave came forward with syringes and gave them injections and handfuls of pills, which they popped into their mouths.

Even so it was a few more days before the Norns remembered about the princess and the ogre. Then the First Norn said, “Ogre slain?”

And the Second Norn said, “And princess saved?”

“Must be,” said the Third.

All the same, they thought they had better make sure. The magic screen was brought down in the lift by the Norns’ attendants and set up in a corner of the cave. Then the Norns were wheeled over, the necessary words were said — and the screen flickered into life.

As before the picture showed the wave-lashed cliffs, then the forest path which led to the castle — then the castle itself.

There were no ogres to be seen in the great rooms of the castle — perhaps the monster was already dead and buried? And no sign of the rescuers either.

But now the picture traveled down and down, into the dungeon and past it — into a dreadful torture chamber full of smoke.

The smoke swirled and rose and blotted out what was in the room. They could make out nothing at first; there was only the smoke… or was it mist… or steam?

Then the hellish vapor cleared for a moment and they saw a truly terrifying sight. The hideous ogre, far from dead, was standing beside a boiling cauldron. He was wrapped in a kind of shroud; his fiendish face was twisted with rage; his great forefinger pointed at something which crawled like a tortured beast of burden on the floor.

At first they could not make out what this apparition was; then to their horror they saw that it was the Princess Mirella! The princess in sodden, filthy clothes, too terrified to rise to her feet, groveling like the lowliest animal. They could not make out what the ogre was saying, but his contorted face and the pitiless pointing finger made it certain that he was pronouncing her doom.

The screen went dark and the Norns, in their rumpled bed, became extremely agitated.

“Princess must be saved,” said the First Norn.

“And ogre slain,” said the Second.

“Slain utterly,” said the Third.

But that wasn’t all. Something had to be done about the rescuers who had failed so spectacularly in their mission.

“Rescuers must be punished,” said the First Norn.

“Pulverized,” said the Second.

“Obsquatulated,” said the Third.

But who could they send? They had tried to find proper warriors at the meeting of Unusual Creatures and they had failed. Too frail to leave their beds, the Norns peered hopelessly at the empty platform.

The ghost train went past. The white-faced specters stared blankly in front of them. Water dripped from the roof.

“Who?” said the First Norn.

“Yes, who?” said the Second.

When a princess is in danger, something has to be done. This is a rule which binds all ancient creatures.

They went on swallowing pills, shaking their wobbly heads.

The ghost train came around again and still nothing occurred to them. Their eyes were beginning to close. What they wanted desperately was to sleep and sleep and sleep.…

With a great effort they shook themselves awake. The ghost train came in sight for a third time.

The Norns looked at one another. They struggled to their knees again. They stretched out their bony arms.

“Stop!” ordered the First Norn as the train drew level with the mouth of the cave.

“Stop!” said the Second Norn.

“Stop absolutely!” demanded the Third.

The train slowed down, stopped. The door opened a crack, opened a little farther, opened completely — and the specters’ white dead faces stared out in puzzlement.

The ghosts in the train were not there for nothing. The sins they were being punished for by circling the circle line forever and ever all had to do with traveling.

Now they were bewildered. The train had never stopped before — it just went around and around.

But it had stopped.

And the doors never opened.

But they had opened; they were sliding slowly apart. And, not quite believing it, the specters glided out onto the platform.

There was the Honker — a very old ghost with one leg and a crutch who had done nothing when he was alive but honk and spit and let out huge, revolting gobbets of saliva which got on the seats and the floor of the train for other passengers to slip on.

There was a ghost in city clothes and a bowler hat who had sharpened the point of his umbrella like a rapier and stuck it into the feet of any passenger who got in the train ahead of its owner. The umbrella still had bits of skin and blood clinging to it even now.

Behind him came the Aunt Pusher — a bruiser of a ghost with great hands like coal scuttles. He had pushed his aunt off the platform and under a train because he wanted her money, but when her will was read he found that she had left everything to a lost dogs’ home, and after that he went mad and started pushing everyone under trains who looked like her and wore a hat with feathers.

Two women ghosts glided out next. The Bag Lady was a fat ghost wearing a flannel nightdress and carrying a number of bulging shopping bags. During the war she had sheltered in the underground to get away from the bombs, but instead of lying quietly on the platform like the other shelterers, she had spread out a whole lot of clothes and blankets and pretended she had a family who was coming and had kept the other people away. Once she had turned away a young couple and they had gone back up the staircase and been caught by the blast from a bomb and been badly hurt.

The Smoking Girl was a very young ghost hung all over with gaudy scarves and floating shawls, and she would have been pretty except that her fingers and the corners of her mouth were stained yellow with nicotine. She had smoked a hundred cigarettes a day, coughing and blowing smoke at the other passengers on purpose. There was nothing she liked better than breathing her poisonous fumes into other people’s lungs.

There was even a Headless Ghost, the Chewer — whose head was so stuck up with chewing gum that he had left it on the train.

But there was one more ghost to come! He came slowly, and at first he was only a gray wavery shape — a space, a nothingness. But what a nothingness! A cold and hopeless emptiness; a pit of such pointlessness and despair and fear that those who came near felt that life had no sense or meaning.

“The Inspector!” whispered the other ghosts, and stood back to let him pass.

The wavery shape became more distinct. It was the figure of a man in a uniform with shiny buttons whose merciless dazzle pierced the eyes — and in his hand a ticket puncher with which he had punched the tickets of the passengers who were on the train.

But no face. Only two eyes, narrowed to slits, and a mouth set in a slimy calculating leer. The Inspector had had power over the specters when they were alive, kicking off passengers whose tickets were not in order, pushing them out onto the platform, separating mothers from children, making sure that trains stuck in tunnels for hours — and always talking about “the regulations” to justify his cruelest deeds. His creepily soft call of “Tickets, please” had sent shivers down their backs, and even now they were afraid of him.

The Inspector seldom spoke. He did not need to. His ticket puncher, which once had pierced paper, could now pierce ectoplasm.

The Norns looked at the ghosts and were pleased with what they saw. The ghosts were deeply disgusting. Ectoplasmic spit is probably the nastiest substance there is, and the Honker had just produced a gobbet of it, which landed in the lap of one of the nurses. The Bag Lady’s phantom knickers had risen from one of her shopping bags and were drifting around the cave, looking for a victim. All the garments in her bags could wrap themselves around people’s faces so that they couldn’t see.

But that wasn’t what pleased the Norns. An ogre might not be scared of ghosts that were just disgusting. He himself was probably disgusting, too. No, what was terrifying about these ghosts was the sheer evil and selfishness that seemed to hang over them like a black mist. There is nothing more frightening than specters who have lived with cruelty and viciousness day after day, and even the Norns, used as they were to strangeness, found themselves shivering. One murderous deed may be forgiven but these ghosts had practiced evil morning noon and night.

“Ogre must be killed,” began the First Norn.

“Ogre of Oglefort,” said the Second Norn.

“Killed absolutely. Finished,” said the Third.

“Frightened to death,” said the First Norn.

“Terrorized,” said the Second.

“Pulverized,” said the Third.

“And the rescuers must be punished,” said the First Norn.

“Horribly.”

“Cruelly.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult,” said the Aunt Pusher, smiling his horrible smile. “Ogres are afraid of ghosts, ev-eryone knows that.”

“What about our reward?” asked the Ghost with the Umbrella. “What do we get if we do the job?”

The Norns blinked at each other. They were not used to rewarding people — but the ghosts just stared with their relentless eyes.

Then, “Train will be rerouted,” said the First Norn.

“Not just around and around,” said the Second.

“Different stations,” said the Third.

“Junctions,” said the First Norn.

“Branch lines,” said the Second.

“Tunnels,” said the Third.

The ghosts were satisfied, nodding their horrible heads.

“How do we get to Oglefort?” asked the Bag Lady.

“Orders will be given,” said the First Norn.

“Instructions,” said the Second Norn.

“Information,” said the Third.

The Norns were now exhausted. The nurses came forward with syringes to give them an injection but nothing could stop the Old Ones from falling asleep. One by one their heads fell forward on to their chests, they slid down under the bedclothes… they began to snore. And the ghosts glided back onto the platform and into the train and sat staring out of the window at the dark tunnel — and waited.