AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We are leaving, then,” said I. “Oberon has given me passage on condition I become his fool.”
“Ha! He fears you,” said Cobweb. “The Puck trick worked. The shadow king fears my little fool.”
“I am not your fool,” said I. “And things did not go well with Oberon. He doesn’t have the flower I need to take to Theseus to secure Drool’s release, and he doesn’t know how to change Bottom back into normal.”
“We’re not done yet,” said Cobweb. “Help me drag this dead one to the middle of the room.” I did as I was told, since it appeared that Cobweb had settled into her role as my mistress whether I cared for it or not.
“Have a sit by him,” Cobweb demanded. She yanked the bolt out of the goblin’s chest with a grunt and handed it, dripping green with gore, to me. “This will be a cracking frolic with so many. You might be leaping over rivers by morning from the overspill.”
And so she gathered the frightened, painted fairies, who seemed to have no will left of their own, and the frolic began, just as it had with the three of them in the forest before. But now a hundred fairies plus three dropped their robes and danced around me and the dead goblin—light firing in the air like exploding fireflies among them and the fairies rising from the floor until they were a whirlwind of color and life and power. Each hummed a high song that would have been barely audible had there been only one, but now it sounded like a hive of melodious bees, a hundred notes creating an all-enveloping harmony. My muscles and mind sang with the power of it, the life of it. These creatures turned the tides, made the trees blossom, the mare foal, clouds grow fat with rain, lightning crack the sky—these creatures, more than men, together made a god, brought the glory of nature to the now. But still, fucking squirrels at dawn.
And the dead goblin sat up. “What?”
“Ahhh!” said I, somewhat surprised.
The fairies ceased their dancing and gathered round the undead goblin.
“He going to eat us?” asked one wan fellow with a milky eye, a still-healing scar running from his nose to his ear, the point of which had been clipped off by the slash that took his eye.
“Not today,” said Cobweb, pushing her way through. “Oi, goblin, did you kill the Puck?”
The goblin looked around at the fairies gathered round him and even with his fearsome teeth and eyes, it was clear he was terrified—his wits set to go wobbly any second.
“Fetch Gritch,” I told Moth. “He’s outside.”
“No goblins,” said a woman fairy, dark of hair, bright scars across her ribs that might have been gills if she were a sea creature, or the lines made by fingers tipped with blades.
I lifted my jerkin and pointed to my knives. “He’ll not hurt you. I’ll see to it.”
Moth returned, dragging Gritch by a long ear, the goblin submitting completely for the chance to see his dead friend.
A goblin smile is not a pretty thing to see, yet those two, in a pair, nearly brought water to my eyes. Gritch embraced his friend and marveled at the healed wound in his chest. They shared grunts and whispers, and, still holding his friend, Gritch turned to me. I shook my head and pointed to Cobweb.
“Ask your mate if he killed the Puck,” she said gently.
Gritch whispered to his friend, then said, “Yes.”
“For silver,” the reborn goblin said.
“Who gave you the silver?” I asked.
“A human mortal. A little one.”
“A little one? A woman?”
“No, a man. A short man in black. In the forest. He gave silver to kill the Puck. I didn’t want to, but silver.” He touched the silver armlet.
“Did the mortal carry a crossbow?”
“Yes.”
I looked to Cobweb. “Burke, the duke’s watchman. Blacktooth’s leftenant.”
“Those wicked fucks,” said Cobweb.
“Aye,” said Moth. “Wicked.”
“Aye,” said Peaseblossom. “Fucks.” She scratched herself. “Who?”
“They shaved our bits,” explained Moth. She’d put on her black gown. She patted the sash. “I kept the razor. Never had a razor before.”
The resurrected goblin looked around again at all the fairies staring down at him with a mix of dread and scorn. “I don’t want it,” said the goblin. He took the armlet off and held it out, beckoning for someone to take it from him. “The Puck were a shit, but he were good to me. Silver.” He began to weep.
“Did you kill the young Athenian in the forest yesterday?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “No Athenian. Take the silver.”
Cobweb pulled me aside, whispered in my ear, “He won’t last long. Maybe an hour. Maybe less. He was really quite dead.”
“Give it to your friend,” I said. “Give it to Gritch.”
Gritch took the heavy silver armlet but didn’t put it on, only held it in his talon, as gently as if it were a baby bird. I called to him and gestured for him to come away from his friend for a moment. He did. “We need to go, mate. I need to get the fairies out of the castle, off this mountain, before the sun comes up. Will you help?”
He looked back at his friend, who looked the very picture of the goblin forlorn.
“Cobweb says he won’t stay alive long,” I said. “You should say goodbye.”
Gritch nodded. “I will help.”
“Gritch,” I said, grabbing the silver ring in his ear and tugging at it gently with each word. “All the sodding fairies.”
“They are the shadow king’s fairies,” said the goblin.
I held up the crossbow bolt still dripping with his friend’s blood. “All the sodding fairies, Gritch.”
“Talos, my friend, comes too?”
“Of course,” said I.
“All the sodding fairies,” said Gritch.
Act III
Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those
that are fools, let them use their talents.
—Feste, Twelfth Night, 1:5
Chapter 15
Of Perspective and Squirrels
“There’s the horn,” said Cobweb. We sat at the edge of the forest watching Gritch watch his friend Talos die for a second time that night.
“I don’t hear it,” said I. “Do you hear it?” I asked Bottom.
“I do,” said the weaver, listlessly waving to his long ears. He was pouting, and rightly so, for Oberon had not transformed him back to a man before we left the castle, and I hadn’t the heart to tell him that it would not happen. Although I held some hope for his recovery, as being near the massive fairy frolic in the harem seemed to have restored him somewhat. His hands were no longer covered with coarse hair and his voice was less of a bray than it had become.
“Do you need to go to Titania?” I asked Cobweb.
“I think not. Not today.”
“Will she not visit some wrath on
you?”
“I’ve had enough of the night queen and shadow king and their bloody wrath. We’ll stay with you. Get your mate out of jail. Won’t we, mates?” she called to the other fairies.
“Aye,” said Moth, “she sent my brother and our other mates there.”
“What?” said Peaseblossom. Since reaching the forest, the simple fairy had been fascinated with her newly shaven bits and was resolving a furious wank by an oak tree, her back turned for privacy. “Right. Me too,” she said. “We should find Moth’s hat with the tongues. I quite fancied that hat.”
“Why wouldn’t they come?” Cobweb said, cradling her head in her hands. “They only had to run a little bit and they would have been free.”
Gritch and Talos, both some sort of officers among the goblin soldiers, had cleared a path out of the Night Palace, ordered the guards on duty to stand down and let us pass. Cobweb bade the harem fairies to follow her, but when we threw open the doors they cowered by the walls, backing away from the door as if a monster might come through it any second.
“Come on, then,” Cobweb begged, but the harem fairies hid among the cushions and draperies, as they had when I’d first come into the harem. “The goblins won’t hurt you, go on.”
But they had stayed, terrified to leave, more afraid of the unknown than the familiar horror.
“Cobweb,” I called. “We have to go, love. Perhaps they’ll follow at dawn when they change.”
She strode over to me like she was facing down an enemy, tears of frustration, perhaps anger, in her eyes. “They can’t come out of here after they change. They couldn’t run into a goblin city with no one to lead them, even if they did leave here.” She turned. “Come on, you cowards, come be free of the shadow king’s blades forever. Come to the forest where you belong.”
I put my arm around her shoulders and she shook me off. “Help me with the doors,” she barked. Inside, one brave fairy, the bloke with the clouded eye and clipped ear, peeked out from behind an arras.
“Bolt the doors behind us,” Cobweb called to him, pushing her door shut.
