Cavern Of Fear

14 - The Giving

With a roar, Barda felled the goblins closest to him and swung around, intent on pushing his way towards Azan and the swords. Lief sprang to help him. But before he had taken two steps, there was a brilliant flash and he was frozen to the spot.

At the same moment, the cavern was plunged into darkness. Trembling and blind, his arms and legs refusing to obey his will, Lief stood helpless while confusion reigned around him. The air was filled with cries and moans.

Slowly, very slowly, a little light returned—the faintest red glow, like the promise of sunrise.

Lief began to make out shapes and movement. Barda was standing rigidly nearby, as motionless as Lief was himself. The goblins who had been knocked to the ground were struggling to their feet, with others helping them.

‘Bind the creatures, and make haste!’ ordered a new voice. ‘I cannot hold them for long and keep the light also.’

With dismay, Lief felt his arms pulled behind his back and his wrists tied together. His ankles, too, were tied, though not so tightly that he could not walk. He saw that Barda was receiving the same treatment.

‘Why were they not bound before, Clef?’ the new voice demanded irritably. ‘Surely you realised that the Longhairs would fight when they saw the Gift?’

‘How could they see them from such a distance?’ Clef sneered. ‘Do they have a magic eye?’

‘If you had listened when the old tales were told, boy, you would know that Longhairs have unnaturally far sight,’ snapped the other. ‘You have endangered us all by your carelessness.’

‘And you, Worron, have endangered us all by your delay!’ Clef retorted furiously. ‘The Giving should have been accomplished long ago. Azan and I were fighting for our lives on the sea while you dallied here, daring the anger of The Fear and allowing the village to be—’

‘Do not try to turn attention from your own fault!’ cried the goblin called Worron. ‘And if you do not respect me, Clef, you can at least respect my office and call me by my proper title.’

Clef kept sullen silence, but through the dimness Lief saw his lips draw away from his teeth in a snarl.

Worron waited for a moment, then raised his voice again. ‘I will now release the Longhairs so that we can have more light,’ he said. ‘Hold them firmly.’

The cavern slowly brightened and Lief felt his arms and legs tingling as movement returned to them. Someone seized his shoulders from behind, and he was turned around. Barda was pushed into place beside him.

Standing before them was a wrinkled goblin wearing a long scarlet robe and a tall, stiff head covering studded with red stones. This, it seemed, was Worron.

Worron leaned forward to peer at the prisoners then abruptly drew back, shuddering slightly and wrinkling his nose. Plainly he found Lief and Barda extremely ugly to look upon, and did not like their smell either.

‘Bring them to the Giving Bay,’ he said. ‘The ceremony must continue at once. The Fear is growing impatient.’

With a swish of his robes, he turned and began hobbling back towards the open space.

Pushed from behind, their arms gripped tightly, Lief and Barda shuffled after him.

Dwarfed by the hulking figure of Glock standing behind her, Jasmine pressed her face against the bars of the cage. Lief’s heart lurched.

Kree was sitting on Jasmine’s shoulder, and Filli was peeping from her collar. Jasmine’s hair was damp and tangled. She looked just as she had looked when Lief first saw her in the Forests of Silence.

But then she had been free. It was agony to see her imprisoned.

Jasmine’s eyes were wild as they reached the cage. Clearly she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

‘Lief! Barda! What are you doing here?’ she burst out. ‘How—?’

‘Silence!’ bellowed Worron. He opened the cage door and beckoned impatiently for Lief and Barda to be pushed inside.

‘What are you doing?’ shouted Clef angrily, as the order was obeyed. ‘Surely you do not intend to use all the Longhairs in the one Giving?’

‘Indeed I do,’ said Worron. He looked down, clicked his tongue in annoyance and bent down to replace some of the red stones which had been pushed out of place.

‘But that is madness!’ growled Azan, pushing his way through the crowd to stand by Clef’s side. ‘The Fear demands only one Gift each year. If we keep three of these Longhairs for the future, our people will not have to draw lots for three more Givings!’

Many in the crowd nodded and murmured agreement.

Worron shook his head disdainfully. ‘We cannot keep Longhairs in safety. They are as vicious as they are ugly. Besides—if the Fear is well pleased, it may not demand another Giving for a long time.’

‘It is far more likely that it will demand four Gifts instead of one in the future!’ cried Clef.

Rumblings of discontent began as Worron continued to tidy the stones, not bothering to reply.

‘What are they talking about?’ whispered Lief. ‘What is The Fear?’

‘It is death,’ growled Glock.

Wordlessly Jasmine turned and nodded towards a panel in the wall that loomed behind the cage. Lief’s stomach lurched as he saw what was carved there.

It was a picture of a terrible sea-beast with ten writhing tentacles. The beast had a screaming goblin in its grasp. It was tearing him apart.

‘The Fear is in a cavern called The Glimmer not far from here,’ Jasmine murmured. ‘Every year it demands a living sacrifice. If the people delay, it beats the water and creates great waves that flood the island and destroy the village. They do not dare to defy it.’

Lief turned and stared in horror at the murmuring crowd gathered outside the cage. He saw Worron straighten and hold up his hands, then press them to his mouth. Silence fell instantly.

Slowly moving his hands forward, the fingertips touching, Worron began a curious, high, wordless singing. Slowly the other goblins joined in. The sound rose and swelled, strangely powerful and thrilling.

‘The oldest ones among them draw lots, to see who will be the Gift,’ muttered Glock. ‘This year it was to be that old crone there.’

He pointed at a bowed and wrinkled goblin who was clutching Clef’s arm, urging him to join the singing. Clef frowned and moved away from her, towards the cage. Shaking her head at him, she followed.

‘Her name is Nols. They were preparing her for the Giving when Glock and I arrived here,’ Jasmine added in a flat voice. ‘One of their fishing boats had plucked us, half drowned, from the water. If it had not been for Glock risking his own life by holding me up, I would have perished long before.’

Glock snorted. ‘Risking my life?’ he jeered. ‘Why, I could have held twenty of you, weakling! My talisman protects me from drowning.’

‘Indeed!’ said Jasmine dryly. ‘Will it protect you from The Fear also?’

Glock ran his tongue over his lips and fell silent.

‘They cheered when they saw us,’ Jasmine went on, looking out at the crowd. ‘We thought we were welcome. But they were only rejoicing because Nols is much loved, and they had found strangers to take her place.’

She groaned. ‘We tried to scare them into freeing us by saying we were not alone. We had no idea it was true! Oh, why did you follow us?’

‘What else could we do?’ said Lief sharply, to hide the pain in his heart. ‘You were rushing headlong into danger—and dragging Glock with you!’

‘Glock forced me to bring him!’ Jasmine snapped. ‘He threatened to have me stopped if I did not.’

‘I thought you knew what you were doing,’ snarled Glock. ‘That was my mistake. I fell into water. My fighting spider, which cost five gold pieces, escaped. And now I am about to be sacrificed to a monster.

‘Why did you take this risk, Jasmine?’ Lief sighed. ‘The Girl With the Golden Hair told of goblins in the underground, and made clear they were to be feared.’

Jasmine shook her head stubbornly. ‘A man called Doran the Dragonlover came here. He visited at least twice, and for him it was a place of peace and beauty.’

‘How can you know this?’ Lief demanded.

‘I read it in the Annals,’ Jasmine said. ‘After his first visit, Doran wrote a verse about these people. After the second, he changed the verse, to disguise the meaning of what he had written.’

‘Why?’ asked Barda bluntly.

‘Don’t you see?’ Jasmine exclaimed. ‘Doran wanted the secret kept. He thought we were a threat to the goblins, not the other way around.’

‘Then Doran was a fool,’ growled Barda.

‘You must not say that!’

The companions saw the old woman, Nols, glaring at them through the bars of the cage.

‘You must not speak ill of Doran in this place,’ she repeated in a lower voice. ‘He was a friend to us in ages past. Before The Fear grew.’

‘Come away, Grandmother,’ muttered Clef, pulling her back.

‘They said an evil thing of Doran,’ complained Nols. ‘I could not let it pass.’

‘Doran is only a character of legend,’ said Clef impatiently. ‘It does not matter what they say of him.’

‘Doran was not a legend!’ exclaimed Nols. ‘Was it not Doran who told us to beware of Longhairs and other creatures from above? Was it not Doran who said that some of them were servants of the Shadow Lord? How else did we know?’

‘Doran was real enough. And he was right to warn you,’ Jasmine burst out urgently. ‘But we are the Shadow Lord’s enemies, not his friends.’

The two faces, old and young, turned to look at her in surprise.

‘We came here only to find the secret way to the Shadowlands,’ Jasmine hurried on. ‘Many of our people—our loved ones—have been taken captive by the Shadow Lord. We must reach them, and save them. We must! Before it is too late.’ Her voice trembled as she said the last words.

Lief and Barda glanced at her quickly, surprised by the desperation in her voice. Jasmine had always been determined to free the slaves. But this strong feeling seemed far more personal. And why had she said, ‘before it is too late’?

The expression on Nols’ wrinkled face had changed from anger to something like pity.

‘If that is true, your journey was always in vain,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘The Glimmer is the only gateway to the far seas, and it has been sealed by The Fear.’

Jasmine bowed her head, biting her lip. As she did so, the singing in the background rose to a climax, then died away.

‘Clef! Nols!’ Worron called harshly. ‘Get back! The Giving is about to commence.’