House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle 3)

“Nice work!” he said. “Get some string out of that pocket, will you? We don’t want him getting away.” And when Charmain had fumbled out a length of purple string from the pocket, he added, “Have you had breakfast? Good. Tie the top of the bag really tight. Then take it and hold it fast while I get ready. Then we can go straight there.”

“Hluph, hlruther!” uttered the bag as Peter passed it over.

“Shut up,” Charmain said to it and hung on to the bag with both hands just above the purple string. The bag twisted this way and that, while Charmain watched Peter drag loops of colored string from pockets all over his coat. He put red string round his left thumb and green round his right, then purple, yellow, and pink round the first three fingers of his right hand, followed by black, white, and blue around the first three fingers of his left hand. Waif stood on the doorstep, frayed ears cocked, staring up at the process with interest. “Are we going to find the end of the rainbow or something?” Charmain asked.

“No, but this is how I’ve memorized the way to the kobolds,” Peter explained. “Right. Shut the front door and let’s go.”

“Harrabluph!” shouted the bag.

“And the same to you!” Peter said, leading the way to the inner door. Waif trotted after, and Charmain followed with the writhing bag.

They turned right through the door. Charmain was too preoccupied to say she thought that was the way to the Conference Room. She was remembering how easily all the kobolds had vanished and reappeared, and how Rollo himself had sunk into the earth of the mountain meadow. It seemed to her that it was only a matter of time before Rollo sank out of the bottom of the embroidered bag. She kept one hand underneath it, but she was sure that was not enough. With milk dripping between her fingers, she tried to keep Rollo in with a spell. The trouble was, she had no idea how you did this. The only thing she could think of was to use the way she had dealt with Peter’s leaking pipe spells. Stay inside! Stay INSIDE! she thought at Rollo, massaging the bottom of the bag. Each massaging produced another muffled yell from the bag, which made her surer than ever that Rollo was getting away. So she simply followed Peter as he turned this way or that and never noticed how you got to the kobolds at all. She only noticed when they were there.

They were standing outside a large well-lighted cave, full of little blue people rushing about. It was hard to see what most of them were doing because the view was partly blocked by a very strange object in the entrance. This object looked a little like one of the horse-drawn sleds that people used in High Norland when the winter snows came down and made it impossible to use a cart or a carriage, except that this thing had no way to hitch a horse to it. It had a huge curvy handle at the back instead. It had curls and curvy bits all over it. Dozens of kobolds were working at it, climbing this way and that over it as they worked. Some were lining the inside with padding and sheepskin, some were hammering and carving, and the rest were painting the outside with curly blue flowers on a gold background. It was going to be very magnificent when it was finished, whatever it was.

Peter said to Charmain, “Can I trust you to be polite this time? Can you remember to be tactful, at least?”

“I can try,” Charmain said. “It depends.”

“Then let me do the talking,” Peter told her. He tapped the nearest busy kobold on the back. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find Timminz, please?”

“Halfway down the cave,” the kobold piped, pointing with her paintbrush. “Working on the cuckoo clock. What do you want him for?”

“We’ve something very important to tell him,” Peter said.

This attracted the attention of most of the kobolds working on the object. Some of them turned and looked apprehensively at Waif. Waif at once looked sprightly, demure, and lovable. The rest stared at Charmain and the writhing embroidered bag. “Who have you got there?” one of them asked Charmain.

“Rollo,” said Charmain.

Most of them nodded, without seeming at all surprised. When Peter asked, “Is it all right to go and speak to Timminz?” they all nodded again and told him, “Go ahead.” Charmain got the feeling that nobody liked Rollo very much. Rollo seemed to know this, because he stopped writhing and made no kind of noise while Peter edged his way past the strange object and Charmain came after him, holding the bag sideways so as not to get paint on it.

“What are you making?” she asked the nearest kobolds as she went.

“Commission from the elves,” one of them answered. Another added, “Going to cost a lot.” And a third said, “Elves always pay well.”

Charmain came out into the cave feeling none the wiser. The place was huge, and there were tiny kobold children tearing about among the busy adults. Most of the children screamed and ran away when they saw Waif. Their parents mostly moved prudently round to the back of whatever they were working on and went on painting, polishing, or carving. Peter led the way past rocking horses, doll-houses, baby-chairs, grandfather clocks, wooden settles, and wind-up wooden dolls, until they came to the cuckoo clock. It was unmistakable. It was enormous. Its giant wooden casing stretched all the way up to the magically lighted roof; its huge clock-face was propped up separately, filling most of the wall beside the casing; and the cuckoo for it, which a score of kobolds were diligently covering with feathers, was rather larger than Charmain and Peter together. Charmain wondered whoever might want a cuckoo clock that big.

Timminz was climbing about in the massive clockwork with a tiny spanner. “There he is,” Peter said, recognizing him by his nose. Peter went up to the giant works and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Hrrmp. Excuse us.”

Tim

minz swung himself round a mighty coil of metal and glowered at them. “Oh, it’s you.” He eyed the bag. “Kidnapping people now, are you?”

Rollo must have heard Timminz’s voice and felt he was among friends. “Hrluphuph! Hlewafaphauph!” the bag bellowed.

“That’s Rollo,” Timminz said accusingly.

“That’s right,” Peter said. “We’ve brought him here to confess to you. The lubbock on the mountain paid him to make trouble between you and Wizard Norland.”

“Hipughphy hlephy-phiph!” the bag shouted.

But Timminz had gone silvery blue with horror. “The lubbock?” he said.

“That’s right,” said Peter. “We saw him yesterday, asking the lubbock for his reward. And the lubbock gave him the crock of gold from the end of the rainbow.”

“Hiphiphuph!” denied the bag loudly. “Hlephlyiph!”

“Both of us saw it,” Peter said.