The Grim and Grimmer Box Set: Grim and Grimmer

By Ian Irvine

Over a million copies of Ian Irvine's fantasy novels sold.

It's not easy to be a hero when your bum is the size of an airship and you're bobbing around the ceiling, mocked by angry dwarves.

The Fey Queen, Emajicka, is stealing the children of Grimmery for her Collection. She bathes in their nightmares to relieve her own. There is one nightmare she wants most of all.

If Ike had stayed home that Tuesday, he would not have been expelled from school, betrayed a princess or robbed a murderous queen. He would not have been tied to an insane imp desperate to eat his liver. 

He certainly would not have floated across a strange land on an impossible rescue mission, powered by exploding manure. 

Nor would he have tried to escape via that disastrous troll-bum door.

But can he ever escape the Nightmare Queen?

Reviews of Grim and Grimmer

"The funniest horror story you'll read in a long while – Ian Irvine is a master of fantasy and this is the best yet." Good Reading

"An extraordinary fantasy world. Fast and furious and very funny." Reading Time

"A fun adventure for upper-primary readers. Recommended." Bookseller and Publisher

"The Grasping Goblin takes the two reluctant heroes on a very wild ride. A grand adventure." Aussiereviews.com

"I gasped and laughed my way through these three books." Dee White, Kid's Book Capers.

"A wonderful tale. Delightfully dark and delicious." Jacq Ellem, hittheroadjacq.com

"The fun explodes off every page." Richard Harland, multi-award winning author of Worldshaker. 

"Fantasy genius Ian Irvine manages to create a world which is believable, thrilling and funny all rolled into one." Aussiereviews.com on The Headless Highwayman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Santhenar Press
• Release date: May 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393140696

Book preview

The Grim and Grimmer Box Set

The Grim and Grimmer Box Set

Ian Irvine

Santhenar Press

The Grim and Grimmer Box Set

Santhenar Press

www.ian-irvine.com

ISBN (paperback) 9780648285441

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Copyright © 2019 by Ian Irvine

All rights reserved.

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Map of Wychwold

Contents

The Headless Highwayman

1. Ten Years Ago

2. The Enchanted Pen

3. The Door

4. Lord Monty

5. The Queen’s Collection

6. Nuckl

7. Thieves’ Kitchen

8. Thieves’ Honour

9. The Mysterious Bag

10. Onion Breath

11. The Trioculars

12. Theft in the Night

13. The Impossible Quest

14. The Night-Gaunt

15. Rocket Fuel

16. The Wyrm’s Lair

17. The Wyrm Turns

18. The Stolen Heart Bones

19. Fear and Failure

20. External Combustion

21. The Dung Balloon

22. Utter Humiliation

23. Blud-Blaggard Spike

24. The Reluctant Princess

25. The Nightmare Cabinet

26. The Fey Queen’s Bedchamber

27. Pip-pip-pip

28. The Troll’s Behind

29. Strange Revelations

30. A Reckoning

Acknowledgments

The Grasping Goblin

1. You Fool!

2. Nothing Can Stop Us Now

3. Cat Fight

4. The Notice

5. The Black Funnel

6. Spleen

7. Bile

8. The Demon’s Bargain

9. You Suck

10. Shatterscar

11. The Howling Hermit

12. Frozen Lightning

13. Blind Over the Abyss

14. Ike Dies

15. Seventh Sight

16. The Broom of Doom

17. Mid-Air Mayhem

18. Metamorphosis or Madness?

19. The Cryptic Concealment

20. Gobbeloon

21. Dibblin the Doughty

22. Trapped

23. In a Dungeon Dire

24. Clangor

25. The Blistered Peak

26. The Battle of the Bridge

27. Pook

28. Poetic Justice

29. The Boastful Boy

30. The Doomed Rat

31. The Fall of the Tree

32. The Guardian Without the Gift

33. The Witness

Acknowledgments

The Desperate Dwarf

1. Ike’s Bum

2. You Have to Help Us

3. The Seeing Glass

4. It’s Not There!

5. Stop it, Stop it!

6. The Red Rider

7. Fluffia

8. The Unicorn Shoe

9. A Gnome in the Night

10. Mama-jicka

11. He’s Turning You!

12. You’ve Got to Get Rid of Her

13. The Demon Shears

14. Big Brother

15. Stink Nails

16. The Halls of Corruption

17. A Reunion

18. The Deception Diviner

19. The Electric Net

20. The Sentient Cell

21. A Terrible Reversal

22. Dissolved Dimensions

23. Achernix

24. Con Glomryt

25. First of Three

26. The Best of Three

27. The Door Opens

28. Clastibus Bazlt

29. The Dwarrows

30. Shizzt

31. Thieves in the Treasury!

32. Eyes Within Eyes

33. The Nightmare

34. Animated Armour

35. On the Other Head

36. You’re Still on Trial

37. Kerr-chunnk!

38. Backwards

39. Inner Conflict

Acknowledgments

The Calamitous Queen

1. The Sprite

2. Head Versus Body

3. Claudius the Cornicle

4. The Break-up

5. The Dirigible Dinghy

6. Blind Hatred

7. The Horseshoe Cave

8. Blast it!

9. A Bag of Body Parts

10. An Impossible Conflict

11. Eye Stalks

12. Demon Versus Sprite

13. The Pocket Universe

14. Flogaree’s Phial

15. The Gift

16. Jealousy

17. A Bald-Faced Lie

18. A World in a Room

19. The Triple Door

20. Just One Little Kiss

21. The Last Day

22. The Rooftop Sea

23. Unsynchronised Swimming

24. Power Potion

25. Oops!

26. The Meringue Cloud

27. The Haunting Horn

28. Lirallel

29. The Little Bang

30. You’ll Have to Ask Nocty

31. The Potion Master

32. The Reckoning

33. The Defence

34. Save the Children

35. The Reluctant Princess

36. The Traitor and the Gift

37. The Feast

38. Treachery

39. A Gizzard Full of Gnomes

40. Moonrise

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books by Ian Irvine

The Headless Highwayman

Grim and Grimmer Book 1

The Headless Highwayman

Book 1 of Grim and Grimmer

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Santhenar Press

www.ian-irvine.com

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Text copyright © 2010, 2019 by Ian Irvine

Cover art copyright © Martin McKenna, 2010.

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All rights reserved.

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First published by Scholastic Australia, 2010

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

1

Ten Years Ago

‘N orthgate has fallen,’ said the general, polishing his biceps with a pumice stone. ‘Soon Grimmery will be ours.’

‘It will be mine!’ said the lady in the shadows. Her voice was ice gliding on bedrock. ‘Have you taken the Gate Guardians?’

The general flexed his silky biceps, admiringly. ‘We’ve got the whole clan. They’ll be in your dungeons by nightfall. You can see to them yourself.’ He twisted his fists in opposite directions, wringing necks.

‘Even the children? You’ve got all the children?’

His condescending smile faded a trifle. ‘All that matter. All the ones with the Gift.’

As the lady shifted in the darkness, her skin shone like a silvered glacier. ‘Who’s missing?’

‘The youngest, a four-year-old boy. But he doesn’t have the Gift. He’s quite useless, apparently.’

‘Your orders were to take every child.’ She pointed a silver finger at the general’s chest. His heart went crack, like an iceberg splitting apart, and he fell, dead.

The lady beckoned to her guard, a thin, sweating man whose grey skin was the flexible leather of a bat’s wing. ‘Gaunt, find the boy. Do whatever it takes.’

Gaunt’s eyes shone as if her words had lit lanterns behind them. ‘Oh, my lady, my precious lady, I’ll find him.’

2

The Enchanted Pen

If Ike had stayed home from school that Tuesday, he would never have betrayed a princess nor robbed a murderous queen. He would not have been tied to an insane imp that was desperate to eat his liver. He certainly would not have floated across a strange land on an impossible rescue mission, powered by exploding manure.

Nor would he have tried to escape via that disastrous troll-bum door.

But Ike went to school. That sweltering Tuesday he was failing another science test when an ink bomb landed on his desk, turning his test paper into an inland sea.

Sammy, Ike’s worst enemy, sniggered.

Behind him Gertie whispered mockingly, ‘Oick! Oick!’, meaning dumb yob.

Ike spun round. The kids in the back row were quietly chanting, ‘Ike, Oick, Ike, Oick.’

‘What really happened to your parents, Oick?’ said Sammy. ‘Is it true they were shot for being spies?’

‘I heard the government keeps them in a secret prison for traitors,’ said Gertie, rotating a pencil in the chasm between her front teeth.

‘No, his folks sent Oick here because he was so useless,’ said Len, ‘then ran away so he’d never find them.’ He snorted so hard that green mucous spray-painted his test paper.

‘T-that’s not true!’ said Ike.

‘Then where are they?’

Ike could not reply. His first memory, when he was four, was of a stranger carrying him through lightning and rain, then abandoning him to an old couple he had never seen before. Though Ike felt sure his mum and dad were dead, he clung to the hope that they were still searching for him. It was the one positive thing in his life.

‘You,’ said Mister Flogger, icily. ‘Come here, boy.’

‘Awkward Ike’s in trouble,’ said Sammy, and soon they were all chanting under their breath, ‘Awkward Ike, rah, rah, rah! Awkward Ike, rah, rah, rah!’

As Ike scrambled up, his left foot caught the leg of his desk, which toppled with an almighty crash. The class roared.

Ike trudged up to the headmaster’s desk and stood there, swallowing painfully. Flogger, a tall man with a mouth like a tear in a garbage bag, barked, ‘Test paper!’

Ike held out his ink-sodden paper.

‘What did you do that for?’ said Flogger.

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘Sir!’

‘It wasn’t me, sir.’

A magnificent fountain pen, a streak of gold and precious blue stone, lay on the front of the cluttered desk. Ike wondered what the pen would be like to draw with. Drawing was the only thing he was good at.

A blowfly, heavy with eggs, droned across the office and settled on Flogger’s head, bzzz, bzzz. Ike watched, fascinated, as it lifted and landed on the desktop.

Flogger rubbed his knuckles, then whacked. After wiping the squashed blowfly off on a tissue, he held it above the bin and caught Ike’s eye as if thinking, you’re rubbish too, boy.

I’m not! Ike thought. And one day I’m going to prove it.

Flogger picked up a biro and began to mark Ike’s answers, X, X, X. Ike stared at the beautiful fountain pen, wishing it was his. He’d never owned anything good. He reached out to stroke it but, as his finger touched the gold, a girl’s despairing cry echoed through his head.

They’ve killed the queen and they’re coming for me. They’re breaking the door. Help!

Ike looked wildly around the room but saw only vacant stares and gaping mouths. No one else had heard anything.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ snapped Flogger.

‘Nothing.’ Ike knew he had not imagined the cry, so why hadn’t anyone else heard it?

Flogger studied Ike’s last answer, scowled and gave it a huge red X. ‘The lightest element isn’t uranium. It’s hydrogen. That’s why they used it in airships.’

‘Oh!’ said Ike. All the elements sounded the same to him. ‘Sorry.’

Flogger reached across the desk, then said sharply, ‘Where the devil is my fountain pen?’

The beautiful pen was gone. Ike’s throat turned to sandpaper – when things went missing, or anything odd happened, he was always blamed.

The headmaster unfolded like a carpenter’s ruler and stalked around the desk. ‘Turn out your pockets, boy.’

‘I didn’t go anywhere near it,’ Ike lied.

‘Pockets, at once.’

Ike slid his hands into his trouser pockets, felt the pen and his heart went thump. Scalding waves rose up his freckled face as he handed it over.

‘I didn’t take it.’

Ike had been brought up honest. He would not take a paperclip that wasn’t his.

The headmaster put the pen in his desk drawer, turned the key and his fury faded. He looked old, tired and – Ike could not believe it – terribly sad. ‘What I have to do hurts me more than it does you, boy.’

‘Sir?’ Ike had never understood why people said the things they did, but the pit of his stomach began to burn.

Then something white wriggled out of Flogger’s starched hair, and Ike gaped. The blowfly had laid its eggs on the headmaster’s head and in the heat they were already hatching. The sight of those white maggots squirming on to Flogger’s forehead was worth any punishment.

Flogger wiped his brow, smearing squashed maggots across it. One ended up in a bristly eyebrow, still wriggling – oh, joy!

‘What are you smirking at, boy?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘I gave my word,’ Flogger said quietly, ‘and Lord knows I feel responsible, but what more can I do? I’ve wasted ten years trying to make something of you but there’s nothing inside, is there?’

‘Sir?’ Ike had no idea what Flogger was talking about.

‘It can’t go on.’ Flogger’s twisted mouth turned down. ‘Boy, you’re expelled.’

‘Expelled?’ It was like being hit with an axe. No, it was the end of the world.

‘Get out. Go!’

Ike turned, his stomach throbbing, and stumbled past the ocean of mocking faces towards the door. But then he stopped. He could not leave this way, utterly defeated. He had to go with his head high, even if it only lasted a minute.

‘Sir?’ he said, turning back and straightening his shoulders.

‘What now?’ cried Flogger.

‘You’ve got a maggot in your eyebrow, sir!’

The classroom exploded and, for the first time in Ike’s life, the kids weren’t laughing at him – he even saw a grudging admiration in their eyes. Ike bowed, strode to the door and bolted.

Outside, the sun was a blistered ball of bronze and the tarred playground burned like a furnace lid. His little triumph ebbed away as he headed towards his guardians’ farm. He’d always been a bother to them. What were they going to say now?

He could not bear to slink back to their crumbling farmhouse, which smelled like boiled gumboots, and confess why he’d been expelled. He was kicking a pebble along the path, wishing himself on another planet, when a weight slipped into his trouser pocket.

The pen.

Flogger had locked it in his desk drawer, yet it was in Ike’s pocket again, as if by magic. As soon as Flogger discovered the pen was missing, he would call the police, and if Ike tried to take it back he’d be arrested. He had to get rid of it.

He slipped through the fence and across a paddock to an old farm shed, open at one end. It was even hotter inside. He touched the pen but heard nothing this time. The pen was heavy, almost solid gold. How could he throw away something so precious?

He had to try it first. He took the cap off and drew a horizontal line on the smooth wall. The ink was a deep, velvety black, the line a crack in the wall, extending all the way to forever. Wishing he could follow it to the ends of the earth, Ike drew a vertical line down to the floor, then across and up again to make a rectangle. It was the size of a door, so he drew panels on it, a keyhole and a knob.

It was a very good drawing but, as Ike did the last shading, the knob rose out of the wall like a real knob. He reached out with a shaking finger.

The knob could not be real – but it was.

3

The Door

Ike looked out through the open end of the shed. Three thin cows tugged at the dead grass; a bald crow was pecking grubs out of a tree. When he turned back, the knob was so cold that ice was forming on it. On the door too, though the wall was almost too hot to touch.

The door had to be magic, and it must be due to the pen, but why had it come to him? There was nothing special about Ike. He was tall for his age, but gangly and too clumsy to be any good at sport. No good at anything but drawing, he thought gloomily, and what use is that?

Loud noises and bright flashes made him jump, rain stung his skin, and sometimes it hurt just to breathe. All his life he had felt like a fly stuck in honey; he often wondered if he belonged here at all. But if he did not, where did he belong?

Ike pressed one hand against the icy door, wondering what was on the other side. It had to be better than this land of drought, misery and failure. Yet he hesitated, afraid of the unknown and, especially, the uncanny.

A police siren shredded the stillness. They’re coming for me, he thought. Help!

At once, Ike realised that he had echoed the girl’s cry. Why had he heard her, and what was the link between them? Was she on the other side of the door? Maybe he was supposed to let her through.

Ike’s knees wobbled as he turned the freezing knob. The hinges groaned like a boy sentenced to life and the black crack widened. It was dark on the other side.

As he eased his head through, raindrops patterned his face like tears of joy. He couldn’t remember the last time it had rained. A sweet fragrance drifted on the breeze, reminding him of jasmine flowers. What was this place?

Behind him, the police car hurtled up the road in clouds of dust. The bald crow squawked and toppled backwards off its branch, dead. Ike took that as an omen, if he stayed here.

He stepped through the door into the sweet air and, for a moment, felt as though he was floating. Lightning silvered the distance; thunder grumbled contentedly. The storm was moving away. Ahead he made out the shadows of huge boulders, moonlight touching their white tops like icing on patty cakes.

Ike took a last, longing look at the pen. He wanted it more than anything, but no one was going to call him a thief. He was about to put it in the shed when the door slipped from his fingers, swung shut and vanished.

He had no idea where he was; he had nothing to eat or drink, yet he felt only relief. This is my place, he thought. I belong here. And maybe, just maybe, Mum and Dad are here too, looking for me.

The night was warm. He pushed through sweet-smelling shrubs to the boulders and began to climb one, up to the beckoning moonlight. He was hoping to see lights from the top, but when he reached it he saw nothing but higher boulders.

He was daydreaming about finding his family when something howled in the distance – a wolf or some big cat. Ike flattened himself on the boulder, realising that he had made a mistake coming here. Better to be arrested than eaten.

He tried to draw a new door on the rock, but the nib made no mark; all the ink was gone. Wherever he was, there was no way back. How had Flogger, the least magical person he had ever met, come by the pen anyway?

Now he made out a peculiar sound, like air rushing in and out of a pipe. And what was that faint, unpleasant smell? The hairs on the back of his neck rose. There was someone, or something, behind him.

Ike glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing in the shadows. He scrambled from one boulder to the next until he reached the tallest, the size of a small house. He had no idea what was behind him but, if it followed, he would be able to see it in the moonlight.

The boulders were clustered on the steep edge of a hill. Beyond, a shoelace of white road stretched across the landscape until, below him, it curved round the base of the hill into shadow. Lights in the distance might have been a house or village.

No, the lights were speeding along the road, bright lamps lighting the way ahead. He squinted into the darkness. Was it a car? It did not look like one, and blurred shadows were moving ahead and behind it.

As the lamps approached, the shadows became riders galloping beside a coach drawn by four horses. Now another movement caught his eye, down to the left – a band of horsemen, lurking between the trees around the corner. Robbers, armed with swords, waiting in ambush.

Ike’s heart gave a painful thud. If he did nothing, the people in the coach could be killed. But if he ran down, the robbers might kill him too. What was he supposed to do?

He could not let those innocent people be hurt; he had to warn the coach.

As Ike was about to scramble down, a heavy hand struck his shoulder and a peculiar, squeaking and rumbling voice said, ‘Stay here.’

He turned and gasped, for a man stood there, dressed in black like a highwayman of old. A cloak of midnight billowed out from his shoulders, though there was no wind. He wore shiny black boots and a rapier jutted from a sheath at his right side. In his left hand he carried a large hat with a feather in it.

And he had no head.

4

Lord Monty

‘W ho are you?’ cried Ike, backing away.

‘Lord Montmorency Bartilope, at your service.’ The headless highwayman bowed low, presenting a gruesomely hacked stump of neck. He swept his hat to the side with a flourish as extravagant as a king’s signature, then settled it on his stump. ‘You may call me Monty. And you, sir? What is your name?’

‘Ike,’ he croaked.

‘Just Ike?’ said Monty in a frowning kind of voice.

How could he talk when he had no head? ‘Yes,’ Ike lied, for he’d always been embarrassed about his full name. It was so wrong.

‘Odd,’ said Monty. ‘Deuced odd. You don’t look like an Ike to me. Still, a man of honour must take another man at his word – until he proves false.’ He took off a glove and extended his right hand.

Ike shook it dazedly and was astonished to discover that Monty’s handshake was not only firm, but warm. Clearly he wasn’t a ghost, but how could he have his head chopped off and still be alive?

Ike glanced towards the road. The coach was approaching rapidly, while between the trees the robbers were as still as fence posts in their ambush.

‘I’ve got to warn the coach,’ he said hoarsely.

‘No, it’s the royal coach, Ike,’ said Monty. ‘The princess’s coach.’

That only made sense if Monty was a lookout for the robbers. Ike tore free, skidded down the steep, mossy side of the boulder and raced down the hillside. Prickly shrubs tore at his arms and legs but he hardly noticed.

Gasping for breath and scratched all over, he burst out on to the white road, waving his arms and shouting, ‘Stop! Robbers! Around the corner.’

The coachman roared and heaved on the reins. The coach, which was drawn by four enormous white horses, skidded sideways across the road, rocking on its wheels and almost overturning. The escorts reined in their grey mounts.

One horse shrieked and went up on its hind legs, its forefeet pawing at the air. Its muzzle was more like a snout full of pointed teeth; its flared nostrils glowed red as a furnace. Its rider drew a sword whose blade flickered with dark fire. The other riders also raised weapons.

The coach settled back on its wheels, the springs groaning. The riders, three men and three women, surrounded Ike. All were tall and slender, the men handsome, the women beautiful, though they had fierce features. Shining marks on their faces, hands and arms were like patches of silver foil.

A seventh rider emerged from the other side of the coach astride a huge red horse. She was not as tall as the others, but she took his breath away. Her hair was a black flood, her eyes, rubies touched by candlelight. A woven net of diamonds adorned her brow and her skin, entirely silver, shone in the moonlight.

Ike was staring at her when someone screamed, inside the coach. He spun round, and in the blazing lantern light he saw a pretty blonde girl, no older than himself, clawing at the window.

‘Help!’ she cried, her nails squealing down the glass. ‘Please help me.’

Her voice rang in his mind, like that call for help when he’d touched the pen. It was the same girl. Ike started forward but in an instant the fire-flecked swords were pointing at him.

The riders turned to the silver-skinned woman and she nodded, though no one had spoken. She looked at Ike and smiled. ‘Thank you for warning me.’

Cold slithered up his backbone. Something was terribly wrong. ‘Lady?’ he said, his voice going squeaky.

The blonde girl shouted, ‘You stinking traitor! She’s murdered the queen and she’s going to kill me. This is the end of Grimmery.’

What had he done? Ike took another step but the closest rider touched her sword tip to his throat. It burned like acid and he froze.

Someone inside the coach hurled the blonde girl back on to her seat. An enchanted cord, moving by itself, tied her up; a gauzy kerchief gagged her. The coach turned, crushing the bushes at the side of the road, and he caught the scent of rosemary.

But then it got worse, far worse. Ike heard the robbers galloping up the road, and it slowly dawned on him that they were not robbers; they were rescuers.

The silver-skinned lady walked her horse across and frowned down at him. ‘Do I know you?’

Ike jerked his head sideways. He could not stop shaking. How could things have gone so wrong?

Her lip curled. ‘No, you’re just a worm.’ She raised her voice and quoted, ‘At the seventh hour of the seventh day of the tenth year after the Guardians’ Fall, when the princess is slain –’

‘Slain?’ whispered Ike.

‘The princess must die at that moment, so the book can be burned. I thank you for making it possible.’

‘What book?’

She laughed mockingly. ‘You don’t know anything, do you?’

The coachman cracked his whip above the heads of the coach horses and they threw themselves against their harnesses. The coach moved off, faster and faster. The six riders whirled their mounts and followed.

‘Who are you?’ Ike whispered, dazed by the majesty and the terror of the silver-skinned woman.

‘I am Emajicka.’ She galloped after the coach.

He was watching them disappear into the night when the people he’d thought to be robbers exploded around the corner, waving weapons in the air and roaring in fury.

‘That swine betrayed our princess,’ bellowed a sentry from halfway up the slope. ‘Don’t let him get away.’

What had Ike done? The princess was going to be killed at the seventh hour of the seventh day, and it was all his fault.

5

The Queen’s Collection

Aburly, black-bearded man galloped at Ike as if intending to run him down. As Ike sprang aside, the rider struck him across the head and raced after the coach.

‘Hold the traitor,’ he yelled over his shoulder.

Ike fell to his knees, dazed, and the right side of his head felt like one huge bruise. More riders galloped past, then he was lifted from behind. He tried to pull free but an arm like a plank pressed against his throat.

‘Emajicka murdered the queen last night,’ the man holding Ike said, brokenly. ‘If she kills our princess, how can Grimmery survive?’

‘I’ll deal with this scum,’ said a rougher voice, the sentry from up the hill. ‘Put a rope around his neck; that’ll get the truth out of him.’

‘And then?’ said a small, stocky woman dressed in grey.

The sentry’s jaw jutted like the toe of a jackboot. ‘He dies a traitor’s death.’

‘He’s just a boy,’ said the woman, staring at Ike. ‘He can’t even be fifteen.’

‘If he’s old enough to betray our princess, he’s old enough to pay for it.’

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Maysie,’ said the sentry, ‘time was when the Fey could not enter Grimmery uninvited. Now they raid at will, destroying our crops, burning our villages and carrying our children off to Feyrie for Emajicka’s dreadful Collection. What does she want them for? What does she do to them?’ He ground his knuckles into his eyes. ‘My daughter! My beautiful, lost daughter.’

Maysie cried out, and her round face grew as hard as the sentry’s. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.’

‘Lilpili was only five when they took her in the Tithing.’ The sentry choked. ‘Curse the Nightmare Queen! Curse our treacherous Gate Guardians! And curse this miserable boy to all eternity.’

Ike trembled. What terrible place had the pen brought him to? He wasn’t sure he was going to live long enough to find out.

While the other man held Ike, Maysie dropped a loop of rope over his head and pulled it tight. ‘Who are you, lad? Tell me no lies.’

‘I’m Ike,’ he whispered, sweating droplets of blood.

‘Who paid you to betray our beloved princess?’

‘Glmmff.’ The rope was cutting off his air. Maysie eased it back. Should Ike mention the pen, the princess’s cry for help? No, that would seem even more suspicious.

‘No one,’ he said. ‘I saw you from the top of the hill and I thought you were robbers. I was trying to save her.’

‘The truth!’ roared the sentry, thumping Ike in the belly. ‘Or you die.’

He did not know what else to say. Half an hour ago he’d been wondering whether to turn the doorknob. How could this disaster have happened so quickly?

The black-bearded fellow came galloping back. Foam covered his horse’s flanks and rage burned in the man’s small eyes. ‘Well?’ he said, without dismounting.

Maysie told him what Ike had said.

‘He’s lying.’ The black-bearded man stared into Ike’s eyes as if he could read what was inside his head. ‘Where have they taken the princess?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ike cried. ‘I’ve never been to this place before. Please, you’ve got to believe me – I was trying to save her.’

‘Get the truth out of him, then take him to Ambra for public execution.’ The black-bearded man clouted Ike over the ear and galloped off.

‘Fetch a whip, Maysie,’ said the sentry.

Maysie came back with one. Ike was bracing himself for the fall of the lash when the shrubbery rustled beside the road.

‘Who’s there?’ said the sentry, drawing a sword. ‘Show yourself.’

The headless highwayman emerged, hat jauntily perched on his neck stump. ‘Lord Montmorency Bartilope, at your service,’ he said in that squeaky rumble.

Maysie took a hasty step backwards. ‘Prove it!’

Monty swept his hat off and bowed low.

She let out a muffled squeal, curtsied and said in an awed voice, ‘Lord Monty, your attacks on the Fey Queen’s servants are legendary. What –’

‘I know the lad. I will speak for him.’

‘I don’t see how you can help, Lord Monty,’ said the sentry, uncoiling the whip, ‘but speak freely.’

Monty flicked specks of dust off his tailored coat, adjusted the angle of his hat. ‘Ike isn’t a traitor. He is not a citizen of Grimmery – or indeed, any of the lands of Wychwold.’

‘Can this be proved?’ said Maysie.

‘Very simply.’ Reaching out with the tip of his rapier, Monty touched Ike on the right arm.

A green spark shot straight up. Ike felt a stinging pain, like an electric shock, then he was torn from the man’s grip and thrown on to his back.

‘Aah!’ he gasped, rubbing his arm, which had gone so numb that he could not move his fingers. ‘What have you done to me?’

‘Do you see?’ said Monty. ‘Outlanders jump at the touch of steel. He’s not from here.’

‘It’s proof enough for me,’ said the sentry, ‘but he still betrayed our princess. We must get after her. I’ll put him in your custody, Lord – if you are willing?’

‘I will take charge of Ike,’ said Monty.

‘And escort him to Ambra for trial.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. Nuckl will make sure he doesn’t get up to any tricks on the way.’

‘Nuckl?’ cried Maysie. ‘Sir, is that wise?’

‘Nothing escapes Nuckl,’ the sentry said grimly. ‘And rightly so.’

He headed towards his horse, which was cropping a shrub by the road. Ike sat up, shaking his arm. Who, or what, was Nuckl?

But this worry was as nothing compared to his catastrophic blunder. The princess had called for help and Ike had betrayed her. Why hadn’t he listened to Monty? But then, why would he think that a headless highwayman was telling the truth?

The sentry returned, carrying a cage the size of a birdcage. Ike could not see what was inside, for the top half was covered by a leather hood.

As the sentry set the cage down, something moved inside it, giving off waves of a hot, sulphurous reek. The sentry locked a black collar around Ike’s neck and attached a cord to it.

‘What’s that for?’ Ike said, struggling to his feet.

‘To tether you to Nuckl. Don’t move – you wouldn’t want to alarm him.’ The sentry nodded to Maysie.

Alarm what? Ike could not stop trembling.

Maysie gingerly raised the hood. The sentry, holding a second collar on the other end of the cord, thrust his arm into the cage. There came a wild flapping, a shriek of outrage, then a thump on the inside knocked the cage over. The sentry whipped his hand out, wiping blood off on his shirt and cursing.

‘Come forth, Nuckl,’ he said. ‘Meet your new prisoner.’

6

Nuckl

Abright orange creature sprang from the cage, small wings fluttering, and shot at Ike’s face. In the dim light he saw a triangular, large-eared head, a pointed chin and a wide mouth savage with teeth.

A barbed wingtip scraped across his forehead, a pointed knee whacked his bruised ear, then Nuckl settled on Ike’s left shoulder, digging his sharp toes in. He had a runty, vaguely human body, far more claws than seemed necessary, and waves of heat were boiling off him, singeing Ike’s ear and cheek.

‘Nuckl will be your guard, and tormentor, all the way to Ambra,’ said the sentry with a thin-lipped smile. ‘And until the trial is over.’

‘What is he?’ cried Ike, shuddering.

‘He’s a guard-imp,’ said Maysie. ‘The cord is enchanted, and so are the collars. Neither you nor Nuckl can free yourselves until the job is done – and you have paid him.’

‘We don’t mind,’ said Nuckl, his teeth close to Ike’s ear. Ike jumped, for the imp’s voice was irritatingly shrill. ‘We’re going to be the best of friends.’ Nuckl’s little hands felt Ike’s head, neck and shoulders, then his belly. The claws pricked into him with every movement and Nuckl’s heat seared him everywhere it touched. ‘Is it plump? Is it juicy?’

‘What are you doing?’ cried Ike, pushing the imp’s hands away.

‘We loves live liver, we does,’ Nuckl shrilled. ‘And best of all, if we only eats half, it grows back. Eat and grow, eat and grow – it’s like magic.’ He made an unpleasant purring sound.

No one else seemed to find Nuckl’s behaviour unusual, but Ike’s insides were throbbing. Why did he have to pay Nuckl for guarding him? And how?

The sentry nodded to Monty. ‘We will meet again in Ambra. Good luck with your own search, Lord.’

‘Thank you,’ Monty said forlornly. ‘You’re too kind.’

The two men and Maysie mounted their horses and rode off. Monty absently scratched his sword-hacked stump, clapped his hat over it and turned in a circle. Ike gained the impression that he was staring into the shrubbery – or would have been, if he’d had a head. Shortly he let out a loud, vulgar whistle.

‘How can he talk without a mouth?’ Ike said to himself.

‘Talks through his bum,’ Nuckl cackled. ‘Bum diddly bum-bum.’

Ike started, then had to look away and block his mouth, for a great bubble of laughter was welling up inside him. He saw Monty turn towards him and tried to hold it back, but every time he thought about Monty speaking through his bottom Ike nearly choked. Laughter exploded out of him until he was half blinded by tears.

‘Have I missed something?’ said Monty, the brim of his hat wrinkling into a frown.

‘Didn’t miss the saddle, I’ll bet,’ chortled Nuckl.

Ike almost snorted his back teeth out.

‘Oh, very funny,’ Monty said coldly. ‘I’d thought better of you, Ike, after all I’ve done for you.’

Ike stifled his laughter with his fist as, with a merry jingling, a gigantic horse trotted out of the darkness. At least, it looked like a horse, if you didn’t count the two red eyes the size of jellyfish, the pair of sabre teeth protruding a handspan over its lower lip, and the club-shaped tail that could have swatted a vulture out of the air. A linen napkin was tied neatly around its neck and the stains on it appeared to be blood.

‘Ah, Naggerly,’ said Monty. ‘Change of plans, old bean. We’ve got to put our search on hold while we take the young fellow to Ambra. Sorry about that.’

Naggerly turned his head from side to side, as if to study Ike with each eye. Ike took a hasty step backwards. He liked horses, and had ridden one a few times, but Naggerly’s sabre teeth looked too sharp and well used.

Nuckl snarled. Naggerly inspected the little creature, then snapped his teeth.

‘Yuk! Onion breath!’ Nuckl said shrilly.

He flew round Ike’s head until Ike was half wrapped in the enchanted cord, which was icy cold and stung. He tore it away and Nuckl, who was trying to hide behind Ike’s head, fell off.

He came zooming up again, landing with a thump on Ike’s shoulder and piercing him with ten toe claws. Whimpering, Nuckl pressed one leathery wing against the side of Ike’s head, as if seeking his protection. Naggerly sneered at the cowardly creature.

‘Naggerly?’ Monty said sternly. ‘You haven’t been eating onions again?’

‘Not so much as a shallot,’ said Naggerly, in wistful tones. ‘I know how they bring you out in hives.’

Ike’s mouth fell open. The horse could talk?

‘They don’t,’ said Monty. ‘It’s the smell I object to.’

‘Now you know how I feel,’ muttered the horse.

Nuckl fell about laughing. ‘Botty bomber, botty bomber, bam, bang boom.’

‘Enough!’ snapped Monty. ‘Show some respect, you two.’

Naggerly’s grin faded and he stood still while Monty mounted him. Nuckl blew raspberries on his orange arm and laughed until he choked.

‘Ready, Ike?’ Monty said stiffly, and now the source of that squeaky rumble, plus the vaguely farty smell that hung around him, was perfectly clear.

Ike nodded, not trusting himself to speak in case he exploded again. He was the prisoner of a headless man who talked through his bottom and, even if Monty was taking him to his doom, it was still the funniest thing Ike had ever heard.

They set out for Ambra, Ike walking beside the horse. Nuckl remained on his shoulder, every so often prodding him with a steel-tipped claw, which zapped him like an electric shock, and sniggering.

When Nuckl grew bored with that, which took a long time, he began to nip at Ike’s throat with sharp little teeth and breathe blistering fumes into his ear. Nuckl talked droolingly about the succulence of Ike’s kidneys and the tastiness of his eat-and-grow liver.

Ike wasn’t laughing now.

7

Thieves’ Kitchen

After Ike had been trudging the road for another hour or so, the sun rose. Nuckl tucked his head under his wing and slept, grunting and salivating all the while.

Monty was slumped on Naggerly’s back, the hat covering his stump. How did he see? For that matter, how could he still be alive? And what was he searching for that made him so sad?

Despite having no head, he was friendlier than anyone else Ike had met here. Monty had a kind heart and the only time he’d hurt Ike – by touching him with his rapier – he’d done it to save his life.

‘Er, excuse me, Monty,’ Ike said quietly. ‘Can you tell me where I am and how I got here? And ... and who the princess is, and all that?’

Before Monty could reply, Ike added, ‘And the book. What’s this book that the Fey Queen can’t burn until she’s killed the princess?’

There was no answer, and shortly he made out explosive snores coming from the vicinity of the saddle. Monty was asleep as well. What, when one was headless, was the difference between sleep and death, Ike wondered drowsily.

As he plodded on, eyes closed, Nuckl lifted off his shoulder. Too tired to open his eyes, Ike was drifting into sleep when he felt a cool breeze on his stomach and the prick of little claws.

‘Succulent spleen,’ whispered Nuckl.

Ike looked down dully. The imp had undone several shirt buttons and was prodding Ike’s stomach. Pink drool dripped from the corner of Nuckl’s mouth and his sharpened teeth were bared.

‘Piquant pancreas. Luscious, lovely liver.’

‘Aah!’ Ike cried. ‘Get away.’

He tried to pull Nuckl off but the imp sank all twenty claws into his belly. Nuckl’s orange skin was like hot, jagged coals, cutting and burning at the same time. Ike wrenched his bleeding fingers away, gasping.

Nuckl looked up at him, grinning slyly, bared his teeth and lunged.

Whack! Naggerly’s club-like tail slammed into the imp, ripping his claws from Ike’s skin. Nuckl went spinning across the road, screeching, until he was brought up by the enchanted cord and fell into the dust.

The imp lay there for half a minute, then began to flap his wings like a chicken having a dust bath. After flying back to Ike’s shoulder, he crouched there, shooting sullen glares at Naggerly. The horse’s withers shook; again Ike gained the impression that he was laughing.

‘Thanks, Nag,’ Ike said, weak with relief.

Naggerly’s clubbed tail struck Ike in the stomach, lifting him off his feet. He hit the road, so winded that he could not draw breath.

The horse’s eyes radiated fury. ‘Never–call–me–Nag.’

‘Sorry, Naggerly,’ Ike gasped.

Nuckl snickered and clapped his wings, enveloping Ike’s head in dust. Ike sneezed and rubbed his belly, which had twenty bloody scratches across it and throbbed inside and out. It reminded him that all he’d had to eat, before he’d gone to school twenty-four hours ago, was a piece of burnt toast.

‘I don’t suppose we’ll be stopping for breakfast any time soon?’ he asked.

‘You can’t eat Nuckl’s food,’ said Naggerly. ‘And if you tried Monty’s, I’m afraid it would not go well for you.’

‘What happened to him, anyway?’ said Ike. ‘How come his head’s been cut off, yet he’s still alive?’

‘Lord Montmorency would not like me to gossip about his tragic private business,’ said Naggerly stiffly.

‘We’ll bet he wouldn’t,’ cackled Nuckl. ‘The Topless Torso wouldn’t want that story to get out.’

Naggerly raised his tail menacingly. ‘Enough, imp!’

Nuckl crept under one upraised wing, his eyes like twin peepholes into a furnace. ‘Nogginless nincompoop,’ he whispered.

After an uncomfortable pause they continued down the road.

Thump, thump, thump. Ike slowly roused. He was hanging head down, his nose rubbing against something firm and hairy. He groaned and opened his eyes. He was tied to the rear end of Naggerly, and with every step his face thumped into the horse’s hindquarters. It wasn’t the best view he’d ever woken to.

‘Afternoon, lad,’ said Monty, unfastening the ropes and swinging Ike down on to his feet. ‘It won’t be long now. I expect you’re a trifle peckish.’

‘I could eat my own liver –’ Ike broke off, glancing sideways at Nuckl.

‘If there’s any left when we’re finished with it, we’ll butter it for you,’ the imp screeched, and laughed like a hyena.

‘There’s an inn not far ahead,’ said Monty. ‘We’ll stop for the night, but it’s a den of thieves and vagabonds, so be careful. Don’t say anything about the princess.’

‘I don’t know anything about the princess,’ Ike said. ‘Not even her name.’

‘It’s Aurora,’ said Naggerly.

Monty cleared his, er, throat, as if warning the horse to say no more.

‘For goodness’ sakes, answer the lad’s questions,’ whinnied Naggerly. ‘Since he’s going to die, he might as well know what for.’

‘Very well,’ Monty said irritably. ‘What would you like to know, Ike?’

Going to die was so much worse when said aloud. ‘W-where am I?’

‘In the land of Grimmery.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In the centre of Wychwold.’

Ike frowned. He had never been good at geography, but he knew when he was being kept in the dark. ‘What’s outside the centre?’

‘The lands of Gobbeloon and Kyboldia, assorted jungles, deserts and wildernesses ...’

‘And Feyrie,’ screeched Nuckl. ‘You left out the best place, stump-neck!’

Monty drew himself up, stiff with outrage. ‘You forget yourself, imp!’

‘Severed sconce, bat-less belfry, naked noggin,’ squawked Nuckl. ‘Don’t lose your head, highwayman, aha-ha-ha.’

Naggerly raised his club tail.

‘Just a bit of fun,’ muttered Nuckl. ‘Some people can’t take a joke.’

‘What’s Fairy?’ said Ike.

‘Feyrie,’ said Monty. ‘Er –’

‘It’s the land ruled by the Nightmare Queen, Emajicka,’ said Naggerly.

‘Why do they call her the Nightmare Queen?’ said Ike.

The imp froze. Naggerly exchanged glances with Monty. Monty’s hat turned left and right as if he was shaking an invisible head.

‘The tale isn’t fit for your young ears, lad,’ he said after a long silence.

After adjusting the bloodstained napkin with his right hoof, Naggerly began to crop the short grass by the side of the road. Monty nudged the horse with the toe of a boot and, after an insolent pause, Naggerly moved off.

Ike could not stop thinking about the Nightmare Queen. Despite her odd, silvery appearance, Emajicka was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Then he remembered the look in her eyes and his stomach throbbed. She had murdered the queen of Grimmery; she was going to kill the pretty princess and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

‘Who are the Fey, anyway?’ said Ike.

‘They’re Fey – just Fey,’ said Monty.

‘Why do they have those silvery tattoos?’

‘They’re not tattoos. The more silver their skin, the more magic they can do.’

‘And the blacker their spells,’ said Naggerly, snorting grass husks into the air. ‘These wretched herbs give me hay fever. I’ll take raw flesh any day.’

After digesting this chilling pronouncement, Ike said, ‘Emajicka’s skin was all silver, so she must be really powerful.’

‘The greatest sorcerer of our age, some say.’

‘And the wickedest,’ said Nuckl, wide-eyed. ‘Ooh, what nightmares she’ll harvest from the pretty princess before she kills her.’ The imp did a jig on Ike’s shoulder, drooling stinging saliva all over his ear. ‘We’d do guard duty for fifty years for Aurora’s tender little liver.’

Monty drew his rapier. Nuckl sheltered under one wing again, though Ike gained the impression that the imp was not hiding from Monty but rather from the Fey Queen, wherever she was.

‘What’s Emajicka going to do to the princess, Monty?’ said Ike. ‘What did Nuckl mean by harvesting nightmares?’

‘The shame!’ said Monty. ‘The infamy. Oh, that poor, sweet girl. I can’t bear to speak of it.’

After a pause, Ike said, ‘Why does the Fey Queen want to kill Princess Aurora, anyway?’

‘To get Grimmery back,’ said Monty.

‘How does killing her –’

‘Enough questions, lad. My head is throbbing unbearably.’

‘How can it, when it’s been cut off?’ said Ike without thinking. ‘Sorry, Monty. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘No offence taken,’ said Monty wearily. ‘I don’t know why my head throbs or how I can still feel it.’ He yanked his hat further down and rode on.

‘Throbs with guilt, doesn’t it?’ Nuckl said slyly in Ike’s ear. ‘But not as much as you do, traitor.’

‘Drop dead, imp!’ snarled Ike, who did not need to be reminded of his folly.

‘Immortal, we imps are.’ Nuckl spat nitric acid in Ike’s ear then perched on top of his head and would not let go.

Ike wiped his ear and followed Monty. His feet were blistered, his ear ached, his belly throbbed and he was sore all over. But that was nothing compared to the memory of Princess Aurora clawing at the coach window. If he hadn’t interfered, she would have been rescued. Now she was going to suffer and die, and he was to blame.

I’ve got to do something, he thought, but there was nothing he could do.

Ike followed Monty up the stairs of the inn into a large room with a counter along one side, a fireplace on the opposite wall and tables and benches in the middle. Several dozen patrons were eating, drinking, and talking anxiously about the murder of the queen and the betrayal of the princess. Ike wished he could shrink to the size of a flea’s handkerchief.

‘Monty!’ cried a large, red-faced woman who was carving slices from a joint of meat on a spit. She lumbered to her feet, beaming.

‘Lord,’ said a small, black-haired man, stirring a cauldron full of dumplings with a pirate’s cutlass. ‘We heard how you robbed the Fey Queen’s personal courier last week. That, sir, was a hold-up worthy of the best of us.’

‘Too kind,’ said Monty, his hat brim curving into a smile. ‘Too, too kind.’

The patrons surrounded him, acting as if a headless highwayman was an everyday visitor. He shook their hands, tilted his hat politely and headed for an empty table.

Ike was creeping after him, trying not to attract attention, when Nuckl shot up towards the ceiling, pulling the collar tight around Ike’s neck.

‘Here he is,’ screeched Nuckl, ‘the lout who betrayed your princess. Look at the stinker. Look, look!’

8

Thieves’ Honour

In seconds, Ike was surrounded by furious thieves. The men clenched scarred fists; the women shaved hairs off their brawny forearms.

‘Let’s show him the justice he deserves,’ cried a woman with a pinched, weasel face and two fingers missing from her left hand.

‘Now then, Gloriosa,’ said the small, dark-haired man, calmly spearing the grapefruit-sized dumplings with his cutlass and piling them on a wooden platter. ‘Don’t menace the lad. Let’s hear what Lord Monty has to say, first.’

‘Ike says he was trying to save the princess, Titanio,’ said Monty to the small man. ‘I’m taking him to Ambra for trial.’

‘And then?’ Titanio said.

Monty sighed, a low-down, chair-shaking rumble. ‘If he’s proved guilty of betraying her, as seems certain, he must die.’

‘I didn’t betray her deliberately,’ cried Ike. ‘I thought I was warning the coach.’

‘So in your trial, you plan to use the defence of stupidity?’ said the small man.

‘Er –’ Ike did not know what to say.

‘If your actions result in the princess’s death, your foolishness can’t save you.’

‘Look at him blushing,’ cried Nuckl, landing on the top of Ike’s head. ‘The scurvy dog is guilty, guilty, guilty – and we has first dibs on his liver!’

With a flick of the wrist, Titanio hurled a steaming dumpling at Nuckl. Splat. The imp, blasted off Ike’s head, landed on his back on the floor and something flew out of his mouth – a set of wooden false teeth.

The thieves roared with laughter and Nuckl’s orange skin went demon-red. He snatched the false teeth, crammed them in, then covered himself with his wings.

Ike raked scalding chunks of dumpling from his hair. Titanio strode across, picked up the whimpering imp and stood him on Ike’s shoulder.

‘That’ll teach you to keep your gob shut,’ Ike said out of the corner of his mouth. ‘False teeth? Ooh, what a scary imp you are.’

The imp ran a barbed wire tongue across Ike’s neck. Ike clenched his fist, noticed Titanio’s eyes on him and thought better of it.

‘Very wise,’ said Titanio. He tapped Nuckl on the head with a burglar-black wand, saying in a commanding voice, ‘Sleep, imp, until you are called to wake.’

Nuckl began to snore, swaying back and forth on his little feet.

‘We’re all thieves and outlaws here,’ Titanio said pointedly to the rest of the room, ‘and we observe the thieves’ code. We mind our own business, we don’t confess and we never dob.’

He snapped his fingers at a black-haired girl who was carrying tankards of beer on a tray. ‘Daughter, fetch food and drink for Ike. Treat him like an honoured guest.’ His eyes twinkled as he spoke to her.

‘Sir?’ said Ike quietly. ‘The riders who went after the princess … I don’t suppose you’ve heard if they …’

Titanio shook his head. ‘Emajicka was too fast for them. She got away with our princess, no one knows where.’

The thieves returned to their benches, glaring at Ike and muttering to one another. He took a seat in an empty corner. Shortly the girl appeared, carrying a platter of roast pork, a sweet potato baked in the coals and a dumpling the size of Ike’s fist. She was about his own age, but small like her father, with a pale, oval face and big black eyes that seemed interested in everything, even himself.