Read Ebook: The Story of the Three Goblins by Taggart Mabel G

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 128 lines and 12510 words, and 3 pages

They made the boat fast by tying the rope to a large piece of rock, and feeling that their hardest work was coming walked bravely over the sands, carrying a boat-hook which they had found in the boat.

They soon came to a dark cave in the rocks. In front of the cave was a big dragon which breathed fire out of its mouth and roared like hundreds of lions. The goblins, after trying many times, managed to creep over the rocks behind the dragon, and throwing the dust which the rabbit had given them into its flaming eyes they at last, after a hard fight, killed the monster and entered the cave.

The goblins looked round in the darkness for the serpent of which they had heard, but they could not find it.

At last, when they were sadly thinking of going back to the boat, Red-Cap cried out that he saw something yellow in the dark shadow of a rock.

It was the serpent's tail!

They all ran after it, shouting loudly, and it led them some way down a rocky passage.

It went very quickly, and they had to run very fast to keep it in sight; but at last they caught it, and after a sharp struggle--in which poor little Red-Cap nearly lost his life--killed it.

The three little brothers stood looking at the dead serpent, and while they were looking it seemed to change! It moved! and grew thinner and darker, and the bright yellow colour turned to orange, and from orange colour to red, and then redder! and redder!! and redder!!! until they saw--that it was no longer the serpent, but the Red Feather for which they had come so far to look!

At that moment a bright light seemed to shine, and standing near the goblins was a lovely lady.

"Goblins," she cried, "welcome to the cave of the fairies. Long have I waited for this happy day, when my kingdom should be once more restored to me. You must know that many years ago the wicked wizard, Tom Tiddler, cast over me a cruel spell. I and my people were forced to leave our fairy isle, and wander in the shape of birds in the Big World. We were told that never would the spell be broken until three goblins should enter the cave in search of a feather. We therefore stole your Royal Red Feather, and hid it in our cave. No sooner had we done so than the cruel wizard turned it into a yellow serpent and put a terrible dragon at the entrance of the cave. Our friend Rowley the frog told your father that we had stolen the feather, and as soon as you were old enough we gave you the wish to undertake this journey. But for your courage I should still be in Tom Tiddler's power. In return for your bravery I now charm your Red Feather. Henceforth any goblin holding it in his hand shall have his wish--whatever it may be--granted." As the Princess said these words she touched the Feather with her wand.

The goblins thanked the lovely Princess many times, and asked her to send for them at once if they could ever help her. They then took leave of the fairies and started for home.

They sailed again over the sea and found the rabbit waiting for them. They jumped on the rabbit's back and off they went. When they got to the place where they had left the sack of gold and silver they found it had been dug up ready for them, and standing by it was a big blue bird with a red beak and red legs.

"Jump on," said he, "and I will pull you; I am Pukeko, the fairies' servant, sent to take you back to the mountain."

They thanked the kind rabbit, and jumping on the sack went on their way. They had not gone far when they heard a great noise behind them, and looking round saw Tom Tiddler trying hard to catch them.

Before Tom Tiddler could touch them, however, Blue-Cap pointed the Red Feather at him, and said, "I wish you to become a snail!" and Tom Tiddler turned at once into a crawling snail.

"He can never hurt any one again," the goblins cried with joy. "His treasure now is ours. Hurrah!"

They soon reached home, and Old Black-Cap was very pleased to have them back safe and sound.

"My dear sons," said he, taking them in his arms, "the kingdom is yours. Rule it well together, as together you have found the Feather. I am an old man now, and shall be glad to see you on the throne."

Old Black-Cap and his sons gave a mushroom feast to celebrate the goblins' safe return. They invited the rat, the rabbit, the pukeko, and Rowley the frog, and they all enjoyed it very much and lived happily ever after.

They had sown the whirlwind ... and were reaping extinction!

And Julian found a kindred feeling in the vast capacity for sheer destruction that Astran had hinted at tonight.

If the answer lay in Ganymede with its dual civilization of Terran mutants and their descendants, and the original Ganymedean race, he meant to visit that stupefying world of cabals and intrigues and unrivaled luxury.

Julian stood alone at last beside the spacer where lay Narda's unconscious form. He glanced up into the ultra-marine skies blazing with myriad fiery roses, and gazed at the red ruby that was Ganymede reflecting the great Red Spot of the parent world.

Finally Julian entered the spacer and tenderly raised Narda's head to pour Sulfalixir down her throat. First he had to take her where she would be cared for, and then ... and then.... With a sigh he took the controls and set the drive. In seconds he was soaring, above the deserted plains.

Like a shallow bowl hooded in starlight, the secret Ganymedean landing fields came rushing upward as Julian coasted the muted spacer, descending in a great rush of wind.

It seemed deserted and bleak, coldly uninviting. There was a brief jar as Julian made contact and brought the small but almost invulnerable semi-cruiser to a partial stop. His fingers were still over the banked keys when it came with mind-shattering suddenness--a burst of intolerable light! The spacer trembled, shuddered like a living thing. Instantly the hidden depression was alive with shadow-shapes as the first shot struck home. Again the livid-orange flare blotted out the starlight with a macabre radiance, and Julian reeled against the panel. He had time for but one thought: "Hidden! Secret, eh!"

The darkness now was but faintly suffused with the shimmer of starlight, and great sections of the sky were blotted out. He came up against a solid barrier and realized he was in the city. Ahead loomed a vast shadow whose upthrust towers caught glimmers of faint luminescence.

"The Temple!" he breathed, and darted like a hunted animal into the silent sanctuary. He didn't deceive himself that he would be inviolate, although that was the law; but it was a respite. Time to get his bearings in the damnable city of darkness and tortuous ways.

Once within the lofty nave of the temple, Julian took swift stock of his surroundings. It was illuminated with surpassing skill, soothing, caressing almost. But it suddenly struck him that the perfection of the workmanship had a double purpose--it served primarily to mask the impregnability of the place. It was a veritable fortress instantly convertible if the need arose. It had been built to withstand a siege!

Ahead of him was a lofty, jewel-encrusted altar. But no idol was enthroned there. No inscription even. Only the raging inferno of a miniature atomic-vortex held under control by some unknown means and enclosed in a transparent substance which he rightly judged to be an illusion, and was a field of force, in reality. There seemed to be no exit anywhere, except the entrance through which he had come. Julian had suddenly come to the end.

The silver-grey eyes remained fixed, the slightly narrow skull immobile; outwardly, he seemed absorbed in the photo-plastic record. But the long, fragile finger of his hand pressed one of the gems that studded the milky whiteness of the Jadite chair on which he sat. Imperceptibly the jewel depressed. In the open hearth before him, a burning log of aromatic wood crackled and sent up a shower of sparks like shooting stars against the blue glory of the aquamarine glass columns that flanked it.

"You see, intruder, you're standing in a radio beam that controls a Neuro-flash. The slightest movement disturbs the beam, which in turn releases the "flash." A most deplorable accident...." His voice trailed into a melodious undertone faintly etched with laughter. Then he rose and flung back the folds of his jewelled scarlet robe, bright as fresh blood, with a gesture of fastidious elegance.

Across an invisible, if lethal barrier they met.

"My entrance is but a detail," Julian answered. His eyes traveled slowly, noting the shock of translucent hair, the silver eyes, then paused briefly at the power-rapier hanging from Fermin's belt. For a second he had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh at the ghastly irony of it. After waiting for hours in the secret passage, he had to blunder headlong into the presence of the one being in all Ganymede he would have avoided at all costs!

"I sought sanctuary and there was the Temple-nave. It's inviolate, isn't it?"

"Of course!"

"But obviously, I couldn't remain in the Temple forever, so ... I had to find an exit."

"Continue, please," Fermin's voice was a smooth purr.

"The atomic vortex drew my attention and I found beneath it what I sought. Then, when I came in here and saw you absorbed in those records ... why, I hesitated...."

Fermin chuckled, if anything as vulgar as a chuckle might be said to issue from those chiselled, aristocratic lips, but his face was ashen as his hand grasped the neutralized hilt of his Power-rapier.

The savage Felirene licked its golden muzzle and gave a muffled roar as if tired of waiting, its prodigious musculature rippled under the metallic sheen of its priceless fur. Fermin stroked it caressingly.

"See, even Sappho has lost patience. I regret I must subject you to the Psycho-graph--that is, unless you prefer to tell me the reason for your visit of your own accord." The mellifluous accents were a study in modulation--clear, precise--sardonic.

Julian had a flashing remembrance of what a Psycho-graph could do to him. It had happened once before during his twenty-nine years of existence. He relived for an instant the burst of dazzling light, the agonizing fury in his brain, while voices that mocked and danced and probed penetrated deeper and deeper into his consciousness until they became a searing Babel in his mind. Julian had vowed it would never happen again. Suddenly he blanked his mind with swift ruthlessness.

And with the same savage ruthlessness he struck. A tiny paralysis beam flashed from the ring on his left little finger and stretched out the Felirene without a sound. His right hand already had sought the Power-rapier and the flashing blade described a scintillant wheel before him. But Fermin's reflexes were quite as swift. His own blade leaped into his long, aristocratic hand, as he sought cunningly to back toward the Jadite chair.

"Damn this pink fog!" he exclaimed through clenched teeth.

Behind him the muffled stamp of scurrying feet and the metallic scraping of power-rapiers became distinct; oaths and imprecations in various dialects grew loud.

He swerved aside into a half-concealed doorway to hide his progress, for it wouldn't do to have his pursuers see him. A badly aimed power-beam from an old-fashioned heat-ray gun splashed off a wall not a block distant, in incandescent fury. "The fools!" he thought contemptuously. But his eyes scanned the buildings for a sign of the "Paradisiac." He was beyond fear--beyond emotion even. But what bothered him in a sort of dazed wonderment was that the word "Paradisiac" should have been frozen in the neutralized telesolidograph. For his assignment as part of the "Plan" was to meet another member of the Dekka, a Techno-Star, at the "rendezvous!" How Fermin, the Arch-Mutant had managed to obtain that information was incredible! It was an index to plans and forces he had not previously conceived.

But the problem now was to find the Paradisiac, he had merely a matter of minutes in which to seek concealment. And in this world of tortuous cabals not to speak of instant death, no blatant signs advertised pleasure, shelter or concealment. The latter was an art that was subtly applied to itself. One either did, or did not, know where to go. Sanctuary was there for the asking--at a price. But the signs were only for the initiate to recognize.

With his rapier-scabbard, he tapped a series of sounds, and the wall seemed to part, just wide enough for him to squeeze through the aperture. Behind him, the incredibly resistant plastic wall had closed.

After what seemed eternity--in reality seconds--the wall before him slid silently aside. A long corridor stretched before him. It led to the public rooms. The sudden shock of overwhelming relief had the quality of vertigo. The quadrangle walls seemed to lose solidity and become curved. He shut his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, the wall on the left side of the quadrangle bore a message in brilliant letters as if they'd emerged glowing from the plastic substance itself. It was a message and a question:

"PUBLIC ROOMS NOT NEUTRAL. DISGUISE DESIRED?"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet