William Alexander - Goblin Secrets

“Well,” Thomas said. “This is unsettling.”

The mask revenant tilted its plaster face to one side, and regarded the goblin in silence.

“What would you, old vizard?” Thomas demanded to know. He rapped the tip of his cane against the stone floor with an impatient clacking noise.

The mask drew closer, gliding over the surface of the floor. It raised the scepter and struck.

Thomas moved quickly enough to keep his head, but not quickly enough to keep his hat. The scepter knocked it to the floor, and struck again. This time Thomas drew his cane-sword and parried.

“I made you myself!” the old goblin roared. “I have played you many times to perfection! If you have any fighting skill, it is by my own instruction that you have it. And I will thank you not to heap further abuse upon my hat.”

The Iron Emperor answered by knocking Thomas’s cane-sword aside. The blade bounced away across the floor. The mask-figure shoved Thomas over backward with its free hand, and then it removed its own face. There was nothing behind the place where the mask used to be.

It reached down to mask Thomas with itself.

Rownie was already running and shouting. He reached Thomas’s sword and snatched it up, but before he could put the weapon to any kind of use, the imperial mask shattered into several plaster pieces. Its body faded, the air softening until nothing stood there. The crown struck the floor, clattered and rolled, and then was still.

Nonny came up the staircase with a sling in her hand, and Patch came limping behind her. Rownie cheered to see the both of them, a wordless shout of happiness and relief. She had found Patch. Nonny had found him. Graba hadn’t killed him with her birds.

“Thank you, my dear Nonny!” Thomas said as he climbed to his feet. “I am so very much obliged, and my heart sings to see you both safely here. However , I really do wish you had not smashed that mask. That plaster had soaked up well over a century of theatrical brilliance, and as I recall it was not an easy thing to make.”

“Shut it, scowly trousers!” Essa came sprinting from the other end of the tower and knocked both Patch and Nonny to the ground with a tackling hug. Patch held his leg and winced. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” said Essa. “Are you hurt? Is it bad? Are you actually drowned and you just came back to haunt us? I hope not. I would hate it if you said even less than you usually do.”

“Not dead,” Patch grunted. “Just soggy. Found driftwood to hold on to.”

A bird mask, now embodied, swooped above them and flew among the whirling cogs and levers of the clock. Another followed.

Thomas scowled. “Does anyone have the slightest idea why this might be happening?” he asked. “Anyone? And, Rownie, I will have my sword back, thank you kindly. You were very brave to reach for it, but please wait until we’ve trained you in the use of swordplay before you start swinging one of these about.”

Rownie handed over the blade. “I get to learn swordplay?” he asked, his voice hushed and reverent. This was quite possibly the most magnificent thing that anyone had ever said to him.

“Yes, of course,” said Thomas, impatient. “It is a skill that actors must have. Epic combat unfolds in a great many of our performances.”

“And this means that a great many of our masks know how to fight, yes,” said Semele. “That is not currently a helpful thing.”

More masks pulled forward, snapping their strings or yanking their nails from the walls. The air beneath them thickened into bodies, and embodied masks surged through the tower. Only the River remained in its place.

Another armed mask revenant approached the troupe. It seemed to be smiling at first, its carved expression light and jovial—but then the face tilted, and from that angle the same mask took on a look of sober intensity. It held a curved sword.

“This is Bidou,” Thomas announced. “I will face him.” The old goblin brandished his own blade with a flick of his wrist, and stood ready. His pride had clearly suffered in his earlier duel.

“Weapons,” Essa said. “The rest of us need some. Rownie, there’s a crate of sharp things right over there, and you should help me fetch them please.”

She set off across the tower floor. Rownie followed. He tried to watch out for moving gears and flying masks and also other sorts of masks, but that was too much to watch out for so mostly he just ran.

Essa found the crate she wanted and pushed it over. Metal rang against stone as a great big mess of weaponry spilled out. “Grab a halberd,” she said.

Rownie thought she had said “Graba” at first, and looked wildly around—but then he pieced together what she had actually said. “What’s a halberd?”

“If an ax and a spear had babies, they would be halberds,” Essa told him. “It’s a pokey-pokey weapon for convincing things that are taller than you to stay back, please. Here’s one.” She handed it to Rownie and grabbed another.

A bird mask swooped down at her on silent, newly solid wings. Rownie shouted a warning. Then the mask broke apart in midflight. Essa ducked as pieces of it fell around her head.

“Nonny!” Thomas roared from across the tower. “Please do not break any more of our masks!”

“Especially not that one over there!” said Essa, pointing. “It’s my favorite!”

“Which one?” Rownie asked. It was difficult to pick one mask out of the roiling chaos. “The blue one?”

“No, the one next to it, the one named Semmerling. Doesn’t it look like a Semmerling to you? That blue one might also be my favorite, though. See its eyebrows? Those really are fantastic eyebrows. Oh, hey, be careful of the giant.”

She shoved Rownie to the right and leaped to the left. A giant boot came crashing down between them.

Rownie looked up. The mask he had worn looked down. It reached for him with new and giant hands. Rownie swung wildly with his halberd, tripped, stumbled, and rolled out of the way. Giant fingers grasped at the empty air above him.

Rownie picked himself up and slashed at the giant’s boots, but the boots were thick and tough—or at least made of air pretending to be thick and tough—and the halberd only scuffed one.

“I bet you can’t turn into a burnbug!” Rownie called up to the giant.

The giant ignored the taunt and reached for him again, to crush him or to eat him or else replace Rownie’s face with its own and play at being a boy who had once played a giant. Rownie didn’t bother running away. Its legs were very much longer than his, and it would catch him if he ran. Instead he took three steps backward.

The giant followed. A swinging, tree-size piece of clock swung into it and knocked the mask away from its imagined shoulders.

The giant body faded. The giant mask fell. Rownie caught it before it hit the ground. He looked up, grinning—but everyone else was busy, and no one had noticed his victory.

Rownie saw Patch throw juggling knives through ghostly mask-bodies, convincing the masks that the bodies were not actually there, and then catching each mask as it fell.

He saw Nonny fire her sling in the air, trying to keep the bird masks away without breaking them.

He saw Essa face off against her favorites.

He heard Thomas roar invectives in the midst of his own duel.

He heard Semele keep several masks at bay with old and heavy words.

Rownie set the giant mask carefully down on the floor, hefted his halberd, and went to help Semele. He had to swing his way through many phantom mask-bodies to reach her.

Semele ended her chant, and dozens of masks clattered to the floor in a wide circle.

“This is an excellent curse we are fighting,” she said. “This is a curse to be commended and admired. The bond between mask and performer has been twisted, and now they wish to play those who have played them.”