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

“No we are not!” Charmain said. “The lubbock stuck out its egg-laying prong and got you in the back just before you went down into the earth. Didn’t you say just now that your back hurt you?”

Rollo’s eyes popped at Charmain. He believed her. His mouth opened. Waif scrambled hastily away as he began to scream. He threw the pot aside, he drummed his heels in a storm of dry leaves and yelled until his face was navy blue. “I’m a goner!” he blubbered. “I’m walking dead! There’s things breeding inside of me! Help! Oh, please help me, somebody!”

Nobody helped him. All the kobolds backed away, still staring in horror. Peter looked disgusted. One lady kobold said, “What a disgraceful display!” and this seemed so unfair to Charmain that she could not help feeling truly sorry for Rollo.

“The elves can help him,” she said to Timminz.

“What did you say?” Timminz snapped his fingers. There was sudden silence. Although Rollo continued to drum his heels and to open and shut his mouth, nobody could hear the noise. “What did you say?” Timminz said to Charmain.

“The elves,” Charmain said. “They know how to get lubbock eggs out of a person.”

“Yes, they do,” Peter agreed. “Wizard Norland had had lubbock eggs laid in him. That was why they took him away to cure him. An elf came yesterday with the eggs they’d taken out of him.”

“Elves charge high,” remarked a kobold by Charmain’s right knee, sounding very impressed.

“I think the King paid,” Charmain said.

“Hush!” Timminz’s brow was wrinkling right down into his nose. He sighed. “I suppose,” he said, “we can give the elves their sled chair for nothing, in exchange for them curing Rollo. Curses! That’s two commissions we won’t get paid for now! Put Rollo to bed, some of you, and I’ll talk to the elves. And I warn all of you again not to go near that meadow.”

“Oh, that’s all right now,” Peter said cheerfully. “The lubbock’s dead. The fire demon killed it.”

“What?” shrieked all the other kobolds. “Dead?” they clamored. “Really? You mean the fire demon that’s visiting the King? Did he actually kill it?”

“Yes, really,” Peter shouted through the noise. “He killed the lubbock and then he destroyed the eggs the elf brought.”

“And we think he destroyed himself too,” Charmain added. She was fairly sure none of the kobolds heard her. They were all too busy dancing, cheering, and throwing their small blue hats into the air.

When the noise had died down a little and four sturdy kobolds had carried Rollo away, still soundlessly kicking and screaming, Timminz said seriously to Peter, “That lubbock kept all of us in fear, it being the parent of the Crown Prince and all. What can we give the fire demon to show our gratitude, do you think?”

“Put Wizard Norland’s kitchen taps back,” Peter said promptly.

“That,” said Timminz, “goes without saying. It was Rollo’s doing they were taken away. I meant, what can mere kobolds do for a fire demon that it can’t do for itself?”

?

??I know,” Charmain said. Everyone was respectfully quiet as she went on. “Calcifer and his…er…family were trying to find out where all the King’s money keeps disappearing to. Can you help them do that?”

There were murmurs from all round Charmain’s knees of, “Easy, that is!” and “That’s no problem!” and quite a ripple of laughter, as if Charmain had asked a stupid question. Timminz was so relieved that his brow unwrinkled entirely, making his nose—and his whole face—twice as long. “That is easy to do,” he said, “and costs nothing.” He glanced across to the other side of the cave, where at least sixty cuckoo clocks hung, all wagging their pendulums in sixty different rhythms. “If you come with me now, I think we should be just in time to see the money going. Are you sure the fire demon would be pleased by this?”

“Absolutely,” Charmain said.

“Then follow me, please,” Timminz said. He led the way toward the back of the cave.

Wherever they were going to turned out to be quite a long walk. Charmain became as confused as she had been on the way to the kobolds’ cave. They were in half-dark the whole distance, and the route seemed to be all bends and sharp turns and hairpin corners. Every so often Timminz would say, “Three short steps and turn right” or “Count eight human-size steps and turn left, then sharp right, then left again,” and this went on for so long that Waif became tired out and whined to be picked up. Charmain carried her for what seemed more than half the way.

“I must explain that the kobolds here belong to a different clan,” Timminz said, when at last there seemed to be a little daylight ahead. “I like to think that my clan would have managed better than they do.” Then, before Charmain could ask what he meant, he went into a flurry of sharp rights and slow lefts, with a couple of zigzags thrown in, and she found they were at the end of an underground passage in cool, green daylight. Marble steps all greened over with mildew led up into some bushes. The bushes must once have been planted on either side of the steps, but they had grown to fill the space entirely.

Waif began to growl, sounding like a dog twice her size.

“Hush!” Timminz whispered. “No noise at all from here onward.”

Waif stopped growling at once, but Charmain could feel her small, hot body throbbing with hidden growls. Charmain turned to Peter to make sure he had the sense to keep quiet too.

Peter was not there. There was only herself, Waif, and Timminz.

Charmain, wholly exasperated, knew just what had happened. Somewhere along the confusing way, when Timminz had said, “Turn left,” Peter had turned right. Or the other way round. Charmain had no idea at what point this had happened, but she knew it had.

Never mind, she thought. He has enough colored string round his fingers to find his way to Ingary and back. He’ll probably arrive at Great-Uncle William’s house long before I do. So she forgot about Peter and concentrated on tiptoeing up the slippery, mildewed steps, and then on peering out from among the bushes without rustling so much as one leaf.