Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing Read online

  He tried to think about his parents, but he had no memory of them, so that wasn’t easy. He spent a while rummaging around at the very back of his brain, in case that brought up any clues, but with no luck. The gauntlet and the sword were the key. He was sure of it. They’d help him discover the truth one day.

  Slowly, gradually, Ben’s eyelids began to get heavy. He did his best to fight it, but after just a few short minutes he drifted off to sleep.

  Ben woke up. His candle had burned down almost all the way, and now only a tiny flame danced above a pool of liquid wax. From elsewhere in the house he could hear the rasping of Uncle Tavish’s snoring.

  There had been another sound too, Ben was sure of it. Something had woken him up. Something that—

  BLOOP.

  Ben sat up in bed.

  BLOOP.

  There it was again. The sound seemed to be coming from the wooden trunk at the foot of the bed.

  BLOOP.

  Ben threw back the covers, crossed to the trunk and lifted the lid. Inside the trunk was a graveyard of old shoes, broken toys, interesting bits of wood and various other things he’d collected over the years.

  BLOOP.

  He dug around until he found a small rectangular metal box, then balanced it on the palm of his hand. After a moment, a small wooden bird popped out on a spring and said:

  “BLOOP.”

  Uncle Tavish had invented the little gadget to detect magic. He’d named it the Automated Magic Detecting Device, because interesting names weren’t really his strong point.

  The bird popped back inside the box. Half a second later, it popped back out again.

  “BLOOP-BLOOP.”

  Ben looked around. The bird was only supposed to pop out when there was something magical around. One bloop meant it had detected magic. Two bloops meant it had detected vast quantities of magic.

  So what was it picking up on now? The sword had magical properties, and the gauntlet was a rare double-blooper. But they’d been up here all night; why had the device chosen now to—

  “BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP.”

  Ben jolted in shock. The Automated Magic Detecting Device had never given three bloops before. Ben had a vague memory of his uncle telling him that three bloops were very bad news indeed.

  “BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP-BLOOP!”

  The device began to vibrate violently. There was a faint hiss from Ben’s hand as the metal suddenly became too hot to touch. He dropped it just as the spring went rigid and the frantic blooping turned into one long blooooooooooop.

  There was a sudden knocking, like somebody rapping their knuckles on the door. The knocking wasn’t coming from downstairs though. It was coming from inside his bedroom.

  It was coming from the wooden box with the gauntlet inside.

  There were no windows in Ben’s room, but a chill draught made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The candle’s flame spluttered and flickered, plunging the room into darkness for a few moments.

  The sound from the Automated Magic Detecting Device rose, becoming an ear-splitting squeal that quickly became too high-pitched for Ben to hear. He could feel it though, like a drill at the base of his skull, making his head ache.

  The light returned, and Ben knew right away that something in the room was different. The knocking from the wooden chest grew louder and more frantic, the box itself hopping about in time with each violent thud.

  There was the sound of rustling velvet from above. Ben’s eyes crept towards the ceiling. The knocking from the box became the splintering of breaking wood as the gauntlet smashed its way free.

  Ben tried to cry out but his throat had gone tight. There, half hidden in the shadows on the ceiling, was a white-faced figure in a flowing black robe.

  Diving off the bed, Ben grabbed for the gauntlet. At the same time, the glove seemed to leap towards him. His fingers found the metal just as six huge spider-like legs snapped around him and dragged him, kicking and squirming, into the pitch-black folds of the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing’s cloak.

  The inside of the cloak was lit by a tornado of swirling purple sparks. Ben felt a prickling pass through him, as if every atom of his body were shooting off in different directions.

  The cape swished shut. The purple sparks vanished.

  And Ben was gone.

  Ben fell, flapped his arms for a bit then thudded against a solid stone floor. He looked up and saw the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing clinging to the ceiling with its spider-like legs.

  There came a short scream from within its cape, and the dark fabric billowed open. Ben rolled to the side just in time to avoid Wesley, who hit the floor with a crunch, an “oof” and a faint whimper.

  A moment later Paradise fell from within the cape and landed heavily on Wesley’s back. She sprang to her feet, jumping clear just as three heavy bundles of material tumbled from within the ghoul-thing’s robe and thumped, one at a time, on the back of Wesley’s head.

  “Ow,” he said, then he rolled over, sat up and blinked. “What happened? Where are we? How did we get here?”

  Ben pointed towards the ceiling, but the Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing was nowhere to be seen. “Where did it go?” he said.

  “Where did what go?” Wesley asked, glancing nervously upwards.

  “The Moon-Faced Ghoul-Thing.”

  Wesley let out a yelp. “It was here?”

  Paradise unravelled one of the bundles of material. “This is my robe,” she said, pulling it on over what looked to Ben like a big Babygro. Paradise spotted him looking at her. “It’s a sleepsuit,” she sniffed. “No jokes.”

  “How can you be so calm?” Wesley whimpered. “Aren’t you worried the ghoul-thing might come and, I don’t know, eat our faces off or something?”

  Ben’s eyed widened. “Well, I am now.” He wrestled himself into his tunic, shorts and boots. “But we may as well be fully dressed and worried.” He looked Wesley up and down. “Why are you still wearing your butterfly costume?”

  Wesley wriggled uncomfortably. “The fastener is stuck. It won’t come off,” he admitted.

  Paradise took a wing in each hand, placed her foot in the middle of Wesley’s back, then pushed and pulled at the same time. With a rrrrrip, the wings tore free of the body stocking.

  “Well, that’s one way of doing it, I suppose,” Wesley muttered, slipping his bright-red wizard’s robe over his head. Once dressed, he reached into one of his long, drooping sleeves and rummaged around until he found a pair of shoes.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got a light in there, have you?” asked Paradise. The room they were in was dimly lit, making it difficult to see much of anything.

  Wesley shook his head. “No. I haven’t replaced the sun in a jar that Ben broke,” he said, wriggling his feet into his shoes.

  “We’ve got two choices,” said Ben. “We can stay where we are…”

  “What, and wait for the ghoul-thing to come back?” Wesley yelped. “Are you mad?”

  “Or we can go and look for a way out.”

  “What, go into the dark and risk bumping into the ghoul-thing?” Wesley whimpered. “Are you mad?”

  “Well, can anyone else think of a better idea?” Ben asked.

  “I can,” said a deep, booming voice that rolled like thunder towards them. Ben and Paradise both tensed. Wesley ran in circles, squeaked once then fell over.

  Two shutters rolled upwards at opposite ends of the room, letting light flood in through a pair of colourful stained-glass windows.

  They were in a large room with stone walls and an impossibly high ceiling. Imposing bronze statues stood at every corner – statues of the man who currently watched them from his ornate throne.

  At least, Ben assumed he was a man. Even sitting down, he was the biggest human Ben had ever seen. He could almost have given Dadsbutt the ogre a run for his money, and Ben wondered if he might be a miniature giant.

  His skin was dark and wrinkled like old leather. The lower half of his face was covered by a black beard
that was flecked with streaks of grey. It came to a point several centimetres below his chin, and looked sharp enough to have someone’s eye out.

  He wore angry-looking golden armour that was all spikes and sharp corners. A headpiece rose up from the back of the metal suit, forming the shape of a snake-like mouth that looked to be swallowing his entire head. Deep-red jewels shone in the snake-helmet’s eye sockets, and Ben would have sworn they were staring directly at him.

  “Hello, children,” the man said.

  “Wh-who are you?” Ben asked, although he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “My name,” said the man, his lips drawn back into a dangerous-looking smile, “is Lord Scarrabus.” “Ha! See? I told you he was real,” cried Wesley, who’d leaped back to his feet. He chewed his lip. “Why am I saying that as if it’s a good thing?”

  “You’re Lord Scarrabus?” asked Ben.

  “I am.”

  “The actual Lord Scarrabus?”

  “That is correct.”

  “The real actual Lord Scarrabus?”

  Lord Scarrabus tutted impatiently. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am the Lord Scarrabus. The actual Lord Scarrabus. Anyone else who claims to be Lord Scarrabus is a liar because – and I really can’t emphasise this enough – I am Lord Scarrabus.”

  The real, actual, accept-no-substitute Lord Scarrabus leaned forward in his throne and gazed at the children in turn. “And you three are in very serious trouble indeed.”

  Wesley let out a loud sob and blew his nose on his sleeve.

  “You left no offering,” Scarrabus told them. “You ignored the traditions. You disobeyed the rules of the feast.”

  “N-no we didn’t,” Wes yelped. “We left loads of offerings. We were at it for ages. You couldn’t move for offerings round our way!”

  “He’s right,” said Paradise. “We did. Something on every step, like the tradition says.”

  Ben didn’t say anything.

  “I thought you might say that,” sneered Scarrabus. “They all say that. At first.”

  He sat back in the throne. To begin with, Ben had thought the chair was made out of old driftwood bleached white by the sun. Now, though, he could see what it was actually made from.

  Bones.

  Lots and lots of bones.

  Its high back had been fashioned from dozens of ribs that curved around Lord Scarrabus almost like a cocoon. The throne stood on four skeletal feet, and both its arms had bony hands with spindly fingers at the ends. It was either the greatest or most terrible thing Ben had ever seen, he couldn’t quite decide.

  “Where are we?” Paradise asked.

  Scarrabus gestured towards a window on their right. It was tall and imposing, and featured a stained-glass image of a purple dragon vomiting fire over a group of screaming villagers. Through the colourful panes it was just possible to make out a forest of dark, twisted trees.

  “Goonderslarg,” said Scarrabus.

  Wesley’s jaw dropped open and his eyes went wide. “The demon dimension?”

  “No, a different Goonderslarg,” said Scarrabus. He tutted again. “Of course the demon dimension. How many Goonderslargs do you think there are?”

  Ben puffed out his cheeks. “Four?” he guessed.

  “What do you mean, ‘four’? Of course there aren’t four. There’s just one!” Scarrabus replied, his voicing rising until it was almost a roar. He thudded both fists against the arms of his throne, and Wesley let out a sob of panic.

  Scarrabus clenched and unclenched his fingers, then cricked his neck. This seemed to cool his temper, and when he spoke again his voice was low and matter-of-fact. “My servant brought you here because you failed to lay your offering.”

  “But we didn’t!” insisted Paradise.

  “Oh,” intoned Scarrabus, “but you did.”

  “Oh but we didn’t!” cried Wesley. Ben and Paradise leaped back as a surge of energy crackled from Wes’s fingertips and scorched the carpet at his feet.

  Scarrabus raised an eyebrow. “A wizard. Interesting,” he muttered, drumming his fingers on his throne. The tick-tick-tick of his fingernails on the bone echoed around the hall. “Most interesting. Do you know what happens to wizards in Goonderslarg?”

  Wesley swallowed nervously. The energy that had shot from his fingers had stopped as quickly as it had started, and he had no idea how to fire it up again. “Something nice?” he said hopefully.

  “That depends,” said Scarrabus. “Would you consider having your magic drained from you drop by drop until you are nothing but a shrivelled lifeless husk as something nice?”

  Wesley’s throat was suddenly very dry. “Not particularly,” he managed to say.

  “And as for you two,” he said, turning to Ben and Paradise. “I’m sure I can come up with something equally unpleasant.”

  Ben took a deep breath. He glanced back at his friends. “In that case, there’s something I really need to say.”

  “And what might that be?” asked Scarrabus, raising an eyebrow.

  “Run for it!”

  Wesley and Paradise tumbled through a door at the back of the room. Ben fell through behind them and pulled the door tightly shut.

  They had emerged into a hallway with two sets of stairs – one leading up, the other down. Ben raced for the steps leading down, but Paradise caught his arm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Paradise wobbled unsteadily and shook her head. “It’s… That’s not down,” she said.

  Ben and Wesley both looked down the stairs. “Yes it is,” Ben said.

  “No, it looks that way, but…” Paradise glanced at the steps leading upwards. “That’s down.”

  “She’s gone mad,” whimpered Wesley. “Leave her. It’s what she’d want.”

  “No it isn’t!”

  Wesley hitched up his robes and set off down the stairs. “Don’t listen to her. She doesn’t know what she’s saying!”

  Beyond the door, Ben heard the thudding of footsteps. Grabbing Paradise, he charged down the stairs behind Wesley. “Up, down, doesn’t matter. We just need to get out of here.”

  At the bottom of the steps, Wesley turned left and continued on down a second set. He immediately ran upwards past Paradise and Ben.

  “Er … what are you doing?” Wesley asked, stopping beside them. “Why are you upside down?”

  “We’re not,” said Ben. “You are.”

  Wesley gave a snort. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why on earth would I be upside down? You’re on the ceiling.”

  “We’re on the stairs,” Paradise insisted. “You’re the one who’s on the ceiling.”

  “I think I know the difference between being on the stairs and being on the ceiling,” Wesley said. No sooner had the words left his mouth than his face went pale. “Unless… Oh no.”

  “Oh no what?” asked Ben.

  “Goonderslarg,” Wesley said. “Demon dimension. Different rules. Things don’t work the same here. So up could be down, down could be up, sideways could be inside out, wrong way round, back to front…” He quivered with panic. “We might never find our way out of this castle!”

  Paradise rolled up her sleeves. “Good job you’ve got me then,” she said. “Like I told you, up here will take us down.”

  She started downwards up the steps, but the rattling of the door handle made Ben catch her tunic and pull her back down upwards.

  “Can’t go that way,” he yelped. “Follow Wesley, quick!”

  He and Paradise took the steps two at a time until they caught up with Wesley. Sure enough, the spot where they had stood was now the ceiling. They looked up in time to see the wooden door open, revealing an upside-down Lord Scarrabus in the doorway.

  “You can’t escape, little ones,” Scarrabus warned. “This castle is impossible for anyone but me to navigate. Run away and you’ll be lost in the labyrinth forever.”

  Paradise flexed her fingers. “That sounds like a challenge,” she said, then she set off down th
e stairs that led upwards towards the ground high below.

  Ben and Wesley clattered after her. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “Half and half,” she admitted. “It’s hard to find my bearings. Everything keeps shifting around. See?”

  She stopped abruptly. Ben and Wesley were only a few steps behind, but Paradise now appeared to be running straight up a wall. She stood there, sticking out from the brickwork like a nail.

  “You’re on the wall,” Wesley said, in case nobody else had noticed.

  “I’m not,” Paradise said. “From my point of view I’m still on the floor. Try it.”

  Tentatively, Wesley closed his eyes and stepped forwards. When he opened them, he gave a little gasp. “Now Ben’s on the wall,” he said. His face went pale. “And so’s Scarrabus. He’s coming. Leg it!”

  They raced onwards, upwards and side to side, following Paradise’s lead through the twisty-turny innards of the castle. Scarrabus followed, never running, just stalking them relentlessly. He was in no rush. He would catch them sooner or later, and “later” would probably be much more fun.

  Paradise darted into a side passage off a corridor. A split second later she emerged through another junction twenty or so metres up ahead.

  With a frown, she stepped backwards and immediately appeared back round the first corner, right beside Ben and Wesley.

  “OK, this is getting weirder,” she said. “And harder. It’s making less and less sense with every step.”

  “It’s pretty cool though,” said Ben. “Check this out,” he added, leaping into the mouth of the passageway. He landed back in the original corridor, but much further ahead. Unlike Paradise, though, when Ben emerged he was upside down and standing on the ceiling.

  “It’s shifting,” Wesley fretted. “The rules of reality are jumbling up.”