Beyond the Deepwoods (28 page)

Twig went weak at the knees. He was confused, frightened. He racked his brains, trying to make sense of the words he was hearing. He
had
heard the soft insistent voice before, that much was certain. And yet…

‘Can you really have forgotten,
Master
Twig,’ came the voice again, and the air hissed with a nasal snigger.

Twig fell to his knees. The rock was cold and clammy to the touch; the mist grew thicker than ever. Twig could barely see his hand in front of his face. ‘What do you want of me?’ he whispered.

‘Want of you? Want of
YOU
?’ The voice broke into raucous laughter. ‘It's what you want of
me
, Master Twig. After all, you did summon me.’

‘I s … s … summoned you?’ said Twig, the faltering words weak and muffled in the dense fog. ‘But how? When?’

‘Come, come,’ the voice complained. ‘Don't act the innocent little woodtroll with me. “Oh, Gloamglozer!” it said in a desperate voice that Twig recognized as his own. “
Please. Please. Please. Let me find the path again
.” Do you deny you called me?’

Twig trembled with horror as he realized what he'd done. ‘But I didn't know,’ he protested. ‘I didn't mean…’

‘You called me, and I came,’ said the gloamglozer, and there was a menacing edge to the voice now. ‘I followed you, I looked after you. More than once I led you out of the perilous situations you had got yourself into.’ There was a pause. ‘Did you not think that I was listening, Master Twig?’ it went on, more gently now. ‘I'm always listening: listening for the stragglers, the loners, the ones who don't fit in. I help, I guide, and eventually…’

‘Eventually?’ Twig murmured.

‘They come to me,’ the voice announced. ‘As you have come to me, Master Twig.’

The mist thinned once more. It floated in the air like flimsy twists of cobweb. Twig discovered that he was kneeling next to the edge of a cliff. Inches away from him the ground fell away into pitch blackness. Behind him were the rolls of pungent cloud, and in front … Twig cried out in fear and alarm. In front, hovering over the void, was the hideous grinning face of the gloamglozer itself. Calloused and warty, with thick tussocks of hair sprouting out of its long snarling face, it leered at Twig and licked its lips.

‘Come to me,’ it coaxed. ‘You called me and here I am. Take that final step, why don't you?’ It held out a hand towards him. ‘You belong with me.’

Twig stared back, unable to tear his gaze away from the creature's monstrous face. Two horns curled to thin sharp points; two yellow eyes fixed him in a hypnotic stare. The mist grew still thinner. Around the gloamglozer's shoulders was a greasy grey cloak which fell away into nothingness.

‘One small step,’ it said softly, and beckoned. ‘Take my hand.’ Twig stared down at the bony taloned fingers. ‘That's all it takes – for someone like you, Master Twig – to join me,’ the voice continued seductively, and the yellow eyes grew wide. ‘For you are special.’

‘
Special
,’ Twig whispered.

‘Special,’ the gloamglozer repeated. ‘I knew that from the moment I first heard your call. You had an overwhelming longing; an emptiness inside which you yearned to be filled. And I can help you. I can teach you. That's what you really want, isn't it, Master Twig? You want to know. To understand.
That's
why you left the path.’

‘Yes,’ said Twig dreamily. ‘That's why I left the path.’

‘The Deepwoods aren't for you,’ the gloamglozer went on; flattering, insistent. ‘Not for you the huddling together for safety, the hiding in corners, the fear of everyone and everything outside. Because you are like me. You're an adventurer, a traveller, a seeker. A listener!’ Its voice became hushed and intimate. ‘You too could be a gloamglozer, Master Twig. I can
instruct you. Take my hand and you'll see.’

Twig moved a step closer. His ankle jarred. The gloamglozer – still hovering in mid-air just beyond the Edge – trembled. Its monstrous face contorted with pain. Tears welled in the corners of its yellow eyes.

‘Oh, what a time you've had of it,’ it sighed. ‘Constantly on the look-out. Never out of danger. Always frightened. But the tables can be turned, Master Twig. If you'll just
take my hand
.’

Twig shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other. There was a rattle and a clatter as a flurry of dislodged rocks bounced down into the chasm. ‘And look like
you
?’ he said.

The gloamglozer threw back its head and roared with mirthless laughter. ‘But have you forgotten, my vain little one?’ it said. ‘You can look how you will. A mighty warrior, a handsome prince … Anything. Imagine it, Master Twig,’ it went on enticingly. ‘You could become a goblin or a trog,’ and as it spoke Twig found himself face to face with a succession of characters he recognized only too well. There was the gyle goblin who had led him from the colony, the flat-head who had helped him out of the mire, the trog who had tripped Mag and pointed the way to the air shafts.

‘Or how about this one,’ the gloamglozer purred. Twig stared back at a red-faced individual with fiery hair. ‘Didn't I hear you thinking how
nice
it would be to stay with the slaughterers?’ it wheedled. ‘Or perhaps you'd prefer to be a banderbear,’ it said, shifting its shape again. ‘Big, powerful – no-one messes with a banderbear.’ It sniggered unpleasantly. ‘Except wig-wigs, of course.’

Twig shuddered. The hovering creature knew everything. Absolutely everything.

‘I've got it!’ the gloamglozer cried, turning itself into a squat brown creature with knotted hair and a button nose.