The Ogre of Oglefort

“I don’t suppose she’ll come again,” he said. “She just wanted to see if you were all right.”

After another hour the boat came in closer to the shore, the water became calmer, and wearily the others raised their heads. They were sailing along a spectacular coastline of high jagged mountains and sheer cliffs. There were no harbors, no villages, only the seabirds swooping and crying: guillemots and kittiwakes and terns.

“How can we land?” wondered the troll.

The grumpy boatman did not answer. And then they saw a gap in the cliffs, and a small sandy bay with a rickety-looking jetty.

“Is this it?” asked the Hag. “Are we here? But there’s no castle.”

“It’s inland. You have to walk up through the trees.” And then, “I’ll take you back if you like. It’s a pity to see the little lad going to his death.”

But it was too late for that. They climbed stiffly out onto the jetty and down onto the sand. In front of them lay an opening fringed by bushes. It had begun to rain.

They were wet through and tired even before they began their trek inland along the overgrown path. It ran beside a small and sluggish stream covered in waterweeds and green slime. Every now and again a blister of gas came to the surface with a sinister plop.

“Methane,” said the troll.

The trees between which they walked grew gradually taller as they came away from the sea. They leaned toward each other; lichen hung down from the branches. The birds that screeched above them now were not white like the seabirds, but black—rooks and jackdaws and crows.

In the mist and rain it could have been any time of day.

“Oh dear,” said the wizard. He had stepped on a heap of toadstools oozing something yellow, like pus.

Ivo carried the sword over his shoulder like a rake. It had been a nuisance all the way. There had been no detailed instructions with the map the Norns had given them; they were just told to make their way from the landing stage to the castle and slay the ogre. Ivo had longed for this adventure but now he thought that they must have been mad to set off so ill-equipped.

The Hag had brought a small suitcase with the foot water, the magic beans, and some underclothes for herself and Ivo.

Suddenly the troll stopped dead and pointed. An animal was peering at them through the bushes, staring with fierce and uncannily intelligent eyes. It was about the size of a badger but they could not make out its shape in the poor light. An air of menace came from it, and in a moment it had vanished.

They walked on wearily through the strange unpleasant wood. The path sloped slightly upward now but still there was no sign of a clearing.

“My goodness,” said the Hag, staring down at the ground. She was used to weird things that slithered about in the Dribble but the pale gigantic worm crawling across the path in front of them was like nothing she had ever seen. It was the size of a serpent, but its body looked soft and wet and swollen, as though it had lived inside something warm and moist. The gut of an enormous animal, perhaps, or even . . . of a giant.

They trudged on silently. Ulf was looking grimly at the unhealthy trees; they badly needed thinning; dead branches littered the undergrowth. Trees were like people to him; he couldn’t bear to see them badly treated.

After another hour, Ivo stopped.

“I can feel it,” he said. “I can feel the castle.”

The others wanted to say that one cannot feel castles but it was true that they, too, were aware of something looming toward them. Then the mist rolled away slightly and there it was.

It was exactly as they had seen it on the Norns’ magic screen: enormous, with turrets and towers and places for pouring boiling oil; but no one was pouring oil or anything else. It had a deserted look, like the castle in Sleeping Beauty: silent, bewitched, and sad.

“Well we’d better get on with it,” said the troll.

They walked up a sloping meadow and across a drawbridge slung over a murky-looking moat. The chains were rusty, the boards creaked, but no one challenged them. Nor did anyone stop them as they passed through the gatehouse. A huge kennel stood beside the gate, but there was no sign of a guard dog.

Still in silence they walked across the courtyard—and stopped dead.

In front of them was a grating in the stone—and coming though the bars . . . was a hand.

It was a human hand, pale and desperate as it twisted and groped and searched. Now a second hand joined it, larger than the first, and then both hands twirled and searched and groped, their fingers frantically curling and uncurling on the iron bars. And as the rescuers stood with beating hearts they heard voices from below.

“Oh when will it happen?” said the first voice.

“Is it my turn yet?” wailed the second.

“I cannot bear it,” moaned the first voice again. “I cannot bear the waiting.”

And all the time the pallid hands groped and writhed like the tentacles of some imprisoned creature, searching for the light.