The Shadowy Path - 23. Chapter 23

Josel

A nudge to his side forced Josel to wake-up. "What?" Josel grunted and turned to look at Zdain, though the darkness made it difficult to see him.

"The goblin! It's alive," the boy said in a hoarse voice, coughing.

Despite fatigue, thirst and hunger, a glimmer of excitement made Josel's heart race. At the same moment, a small moan came from behind the bars. Josel crawled forward towards the sound. The creature moaned again, and from the darkness he could make out the goblin's white hair.

"Can you hear me? Don't be afraid," Josel said, putting his mouth close to the bars. His throat was so dry with thirst that it hurt to speak.

The goblin made a sound that sounded like a sob.

Only now did Josel notice that the goblin was not lying on the floor, but sitting with its head hanging down.

Ignoring his sore throat, Josel spoke: "We are prisoners, like you. I am Josel and this is Zdain. Do not be afraid." He tried to keep his voice comforting, but he was not sure he could. At least the goblin did not moan anymore.

Despite his injuries, Zdain also dragged himself closer. Josel was worried about the boy's condition. Monteilon desperately needed care, but unskilled and in the middle of a dark cell, Josel had no means of helping him.

Feeling guilty, Josel focused his attention back to the goblin. "This is the cellar. We're on the other side of the bars. What's your name?"

Whether the goblin understood the words or not, it raised its head. "Plinkinenkak, Qo-Xakinenkaiu Qo-Likkimeiu Plinkinenkak," the goblin said in a shrill voice.

"What did you say?" Josel asked with astonishment.

"That means Plinkinenkak Xakinenkai's and Likkimei's daughter Plinkinenkak," the creature pronounced in clear common language.

"Plinkinenkak?" Josel double-checked.

"Yes. Plinkinenkak from the southern land of Qoi-Tenque." The goblin was now staring directly at Josel from the darkness.

"Why are you here in the realm of humans?" Josel asked.

"Humans..." Plinkinenkak began, but immediately snapped back in a huff: "I'm not a goblin!"

"You're not?" Josel repeated without understanding.

"Just because a woman is small does not make her a goblin," a sour voice said from the darkness.

"How then...", Josel started, but was immediately interrupted.

"Because I'm a little person, a midget, a dwarf, a runt – whatever you want to call me! And a dark-skinned Southerner whose hair was dyed white by an asshole slave trader. Then I must inevitably be a fairytale goblin. That's fine with you, you can pretend that the ugly dwarf isn't a human, but a different species. It's probably amusing to you morons. You have found a creature you can take to the circus and laugh and point your fingers at it. Whatever. Just sneer, roar and guffaw! We're going to die here, so in the last moments of my life, I'm happy to hear laughter."

Josel did not know what to say. "Sorry," he mumbled, embarrassed.

"Do you think I care about your apology?"

"How do I know?"

"I don't care. I don't care if you shove your apologies where the sun doesn’t shine. Haha!"

The tiny woman's words and her mocking horse laugh infuriated Josel. "I saw you at the market with the slave trader and I would have helped you if I could. But since you're such a bastard, I'm glad I didn't."

Silence fell in the basement. Soon, the woman shook her head, in a way that made her white hair shimmer for a moment. "So, you were at the market. In that case, you must have felt sorry for the little goblin being beaten by the slaver. Just as you would have pitied a puppy. Should I be grateful that you consider me worthy of a smelly animal?"

The words dripped with derision. That made a thirsty, hungry and tired Josel even angrier. So he did not mince his words either. "I was wrong. Just because you're the size of a puppy and bark like a dog doesn't mean you're worth half as much."

Unexpectedly, the stranger let out a long, high-pitched laugh. Zdain hissed also in surprise, and Josel did not know what to think. Had she gone mad?

Then the little woman spoke again: "You have guts! For once, someone knows how to respond in kind. I think I'll take back what I said about your apology after all."

"Do you think I care about your refusals?" Josel said, letting the amusement be heard in his voice. It made the woman giggle again.

"Okay, so I'm Plinkinenkak. You can shorten it to Plink, since you Dimalis can't pronounce the long names of the South."

"I'm Josel and..."

"Dakaassu Zdain, lunkenpkeenk...plinetaak", Monteilon said in a foreign language - a bit tacky, but still.

"Vat hakeentaa!" the woman replied, delighted at the darkness. "Lunkenpkeenk plinetaak, Zdain. Kos nak otkoon plantaak neetaat?"

"Feeren ketenkuu", Zdain said, to which Plinkinenkak commented in common language: "Oh, that a friend taught you? Really?"

Josel interrupted and asked Zdain: "From whom did you learn their language?"

"That's my own business."

The answer was surprisingly rude, and Josel had to grit his teeth to keep from snapping something offensive back.

Fortunately, Plinkinenkak's question saved the situation. "Tell me, who are you and how old are you?"

Josel began: "I'm sixteen years old, and Zdain is probably..."

"I'm the sa-same," Zdain tried to say, but most of it was buried in ragged coughs.

"He sounds ill," Plinkinenkak said.

"They beat him up badly," Josel said as Zdain gasped in pain. It was miserable to listen to.

"I was also beaten up by those motherfuckers. I guess they were disappointed that I wasn't the goblin from legends. Then they threw me in here to die," Plinkinenkak said. "The bitch smells funny. It's like there's something seriously wrong with that woman. I have a good sense of smell. And sharp eyes and ears. I guess that's compensation for being short, haw, haw!"

Josel told Plinkinenkak about the woman upstairs and the fact that the real mistress of the house was hanging dead on the cellar wall. He did not say why they had come to Marta's house or what they had talked about, but he mentioned the attempt to leave in the night, their capture and the assault on Zdain. Plinkinenkak interjected with a few laughs and indignant grunts.

"How old are you?" Josel asked next.

"People think I'm ten because of my size, but to the surprise of many, I'm twenty-six. It's sometimes hard to prove it when you feel like ordering something stronger in a wine house. But for me, wine is the best liquid for messing up my head. The advantage of being small is that you don't have to drink much to be in a good mood, haha!"

Josel rolled his eyes in the dark. He was not used to hearing that from a woman.

Plinkinenkak was not finished yet. "Sixteen…so you are wet behind the ears. Can you even drink? Beardless youngsters rarely do. I do, by the way."

"Are you growing a beard then?" Josel tried to be funny.

"Lucky me, my jaw is bare. Girls in this country seem to have more problems with excessive hair growth than we do in Southlands. Too bad, I've never had a white girl."

"Had a girl?" Josel repeated, quite thunderstruck.

"Yes," Plinkinenkak said. "What's the big deal? Oh, you northerners have strange ideals about sexual intercourse. In the South, we don't look at gender when we're surprised by lust. You miss a lot."

Josel did not bother to pursue the subject, but asked: "Does everyone in Southlands talk so dirty? "

"At least the younger ones, though sometimes I'm too chaste. I come from a good family," Plinkinenkak confessed with a chuckle.

It took an hour, maybe another. Josel tried to kill time by asking Plinkinenkak about her homeland and how she had travelled across the sea to Ipalos. The small woman spoke at length about the wonders of Southlands, which Josel had only read about in books. Everything seemed different in the South: the forests were dense jungles, the air was so hot and humid in both summer and winter that the heat was stifling, and many animals were so strange that it was hard to believe they existed.

"How did you get caught by the slaver?" Josel asked.

Plinkinenkak smiled and began to tell. "Quite a common situation. The parents are well-off and the daughter would have enough money, soft bedding and glittering jewellery. But the girl wants something else. She wants to see the world outside her own backyard. So, I said goodbye to my family. Or rather, I ran away and took a boat across the sea to Andiol. I had a few months to wander around before that devil Burh snatched me up and brought me like a freak of nature to be gawked at by the market folk."

"Did the slave trader really think you were a goblin?" Josel wondered.

Plinkinenkak snorted. "That swine would think a perch was a toad if someone bought it as one. But this time he decided to fool his audience. That's why my hair is smeared white. From what I have learned about Isaak Burh, he is the greediest, most savage male creature in the world. I really don't want to see that bastard again. Or if I meet him, I'll kill him, hehe." The woman laughed harshly and then fell silent.

But Josel did not want to give up so easily. "Do goblins really exist?"

"How do I know? I haven't bothered to find out. I've heard enough about the fucking goblins in the last few days," Plinkinenkak said, and Josel knew it was not wise to ask more.

* * *

The hours crept by. Josel chatted with Plinkinenkak from time to time, but nothing very interesting came out of her. He was puzzled by a little Southerner who talked about weird things but spoke the common language of the North surprisingly well. As if something did not add up.

As fascinated as he was by Plinkinenkak, Josel was more concerned about Zdain. The boy had taken no part in the conversation at all since the beginning. He just huddled on the floor of the cell without saying or doing anything. Only the occasional croaky coughs told him that Zdain was awake.

"Are you okay?" Josel whispered, touching the boy's sleeve.

"No," came the choked reply, but Josel could do nothing to help.

He hoped that Monteilon had not lost his will to fight. Watching the beating had been horrifying; then Josel had feared that Fake Marta and her henchmen would kill Zdain. But they had not, and that kept hope alive. Perhaps they were being kept alive for some purpose.

They sat in silence until Plinkinenkak's voice was heard again from the other side of the bars: "We have to get you out of here. This cellar is no place for little boys."

"I'm not a little..."

"Yeah, right! Do you want to get out of here, little boy?"

"Of course I do, but you know as well as I do how impossible that is."

"Nothing is impossible for Plink," the woman boasted, then asked: "Do you have anything sharp? A metal spike or something?"

"What are you doing with that?" Josel muttered, but she made no reply. After a moment's thought, he said: "How about a belt buckle, it's got a spike in it?"

After Josel had handed his belt to Plinkinenkak, there was a faint rattling and grunting from the other side of the bars.

"This lock is easy, but I usually have better tools," Plinkinenkak said as she fiddled with the shackle attached to her leg.

As she continued to pick the lock, Josel held his breath, hoping. This was their only chance. Their captors would not release their prisoners, as the rotting corpse of the real mistress of the house proved.

"Ha!" Plinkinenkak suddenly squealed in triumph and jumped up, letting the chain hit the floor. Now free, she moved to the cell door and began to rattle the lock. Only now Josel realised how small Plinkinenkak was: certainly not much more than four feet.

"Rusty...still...not...phew...about...no," the woman huffed, shaking her white-haired head.

After that, nothing much happened for a while. There were muffled clangs as Plinkinenkak turned a metal spike inside the lockcase. Time passed and Josel began to fear that she would not be able to open the lock. He realised he had not thought about escape beyond getting the locks open. Was the door at the top of the stairs also locked? And what was behind it? Would they step through the door into the arms of Fake Marta and her underlings?

Then Plinkinenkak let out a barking laugh and pulled open the barred door. Josel gasped with excitement and rose from the floor so fast that his head was spinning.

"Out of the cell. Help your friend!" Plinkinenkak whispered.

Josel leaned towards Zdain. "Hey Monteilon, let's go. Let's get out of this creepy cellar," he said, shaking the boy lying on the ground.

Zdain coughed and tried to get up, but could not.

Josel took the boy's hand to lift him up. The touch made Josel flinch. Zdain's skin felt burning hot.

"You have a fever," Josel said worriedly, still feeling Zdain's forehead.

Plinkinenkak was waiting at the cell door, tapping his foot impatiently on the stone floor.

Josel yanked Zdain up by his armpits and pulled him to his feet. The effort was enough to take his legs out from under him, and he had to lean on the bars for support. Luckily, Zdain stumbled to his feet and Josel half led, half dragged him out of the cell door.

"We'll never get past the guards," Josel said to Plinkinenkak.

"You're right. That's why we'll break the window," the woman replied, pointing to the opening in the back wall of the cellar that let light in.

The window was high up, almost at the roofline. Josel had no idea how they could break it. With Plinkinenkak ahead of him, she groped her way through the darkness towards the back wall of the cellar. Zdain seemed almost unconscious, and had to be supported at every step.

The pale light from the window was not enough to illuminate Plinkinenkak's face. As close as she stood to Josel, only the white glow of her hair could be distinguished. Zdain leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. It was clear that he would not last long on his feet.

Fortunately, Plinkinenkak was quick to explain how they should proceed. "All right, you brats. This is how it's going to work: you lift me up so I can break the window. Then we'll help each other out of this fucking trap."

"How are you going to break the window with?" Josel asked.

"With these chains, so let's get to work! You have to lift me, Josel-boy, if you can with those bony arms."

"My arms aren't bony!"

"Lift me up, don't argue," Plinkinenkak commanded.

"Keep your mouth shut and I'll lift."

"No, you can lift better when you're angry. Get to work, you scrawny kid!"

Without answering, Josel bent down, grabbed Plinkinenkak by the waist and began to push her up the wall towards the window. The woman would get a verbal thrashing in retaliation for her foul language, Josel decided. But only when they were safe and far enough away from Marta's house.

Lifting Plinkinenkak was more difficult than Josel had first thought. The time in the cellar without food or water had sapped his strength, and the position was not the best either.

"Higher!" Plinkinenkak rushed.

Josel tried and managed to push the woman a little closer to the window. They could not give up, they had to keep going. Maybe together they could make it. "Monteilon! Come and help!"

"Why?" Zdain asked in a very weak voice.

"If you want to get out of here, come."

It helped that Zdain grabbed Plinkinenkak by one leg. When they pushed together, the woman rose higher. Judging by the painful grunts, the effort was hurting Zdain.

If only Monteilon could hold on a little longer, Josel hoped, and told the boy to push as hard as he could. Soon Plinkinenkak shouted that she was high enough. Josel heard her above him, banging furiously on the window with the chains. The glass shattered almost instantly, splinters falling to the basement floor.

Josel tried to keep his grip firm, though his hands were shaking with fatigue. Monteilon gasped for breath and had the shivers, but he did not loosen his grip.

Plinkinenkak whispered something in her own language. Perhaps something encouraging. A light breeze of fresh air told Josel that the route did indeed lead outside, and not into other parts of the house. That gave him the strength to hang on.

When Josel was sure that they could not hold Plinkinenkak up any longer, the weight on his arms suddenly eased. The woman had cleared the window opening of sharp glass shards and was now climbing through the frame into the open air.

"Chop-chop!" Plinkinenkak called out and crawled out of the window.

With a hoarse cough, Zdain slumped against the wall. It was impossible to imagine him supporting anyone with his arms. Thus Josel decided to let Plinkinenkak pull Zdain by the arms, while he himself would push him by the legs. But he did not even have time to hurry Zdain before it was too late.

* * *