Gherkin related stocks rose an average of 20 points during the last fiscal year. For that, and other great facts, read on!
***
I stood a while, waiting for Grott to say something, but infuriatingly, he didn't.
"Well?" I said, "What's happening? Now, call me fussy, but the complete transfiguration of my bedroom tends to kind of catch my attention, so to speak."
"Oh, don't worry," said Grott, smiling patronisingly, "I've just melded the tower with this old lady's house, it's a standard camouflage system."
Why is it Grott's personality had to swap around randomly every time I saw him? It was getting on my nerves. One minute he was smug, the next, plain odd, then he'd be running around in blind panic. I decided to change tack.
"Are you alright, Mrs Fengleworth?" I said, adopting my extra loud talking-to-old-ladies voice.
"Yes dear," said the aforementioned old lady, grinning at me myopically, "It was a bit of a shock when all these people went and appeared in the middle of the kitchen, but once I saw it was your lady friend and some of her friends, I thought it would all turn out for the best."
An important question immediately occurred to me.
"Didn't you.. umm... notice the house had completely changed?"
The old woman turned and peered around her disturbing Zarfang/Old lady antechamber hybrid.
"Yes," she said at last, "I suppose it does look a bit different, now you come to mention it. Still, it's nice to have a change, isn't it?"
I looked at her dubiously, hoping this behaviour didn't mean I'd have to check up on her more frequently in future. While I was busy thinking about this, Mrs Fengleworth started to speak again.
"Still, it's lovely to see you, dear. Haven't seen you in ages, must be a year or more. Where've you been?"
At this, I couldn't help but notice that Grott's expression change to one of worry.
"What did you say?" he said, suddenly.
"I said, I haven't seen him in ages," said Mrs Fengleworth patiently, gesticulating in my direction as if the point needed clarification, "Him, over there."
Her face brightened as she remembered the standard solution to all problems.
"Tell you what, I'll put the kettle on, shall I, and we'll have a nice cup of tea presently. I think I've got some biscuits somewhere," she said, winking in a conspiratorial way in Grott's direction, seemingly completely at ease with his "takes a bit of getting used to" kind of appearance.
Grott beckoned to the rest of us, and we crowded in around him, the non-gnome component stooping to hear what he was saying.
"Listen," said Grott, quietly, "Things are worse than I though. We were supposed to arrive a week or so after we left. To tell you the truth, with things the way they are, I half expected this to happen. We might not be able to spend long here."
There wasn't much the rest of us could say to that.
"Don't worry," I said, trying to put at least a relatively brave face on things, "We shouldn't need to stay too long."
"So, Mrs Fengleworth," I said, brightly, straightening up, "How's Mr Nibbles? I haven't seen him around here."
The old lady's expression seemed to darken for a moment.
"They took him off me," she said, looking troubled, "They said we weren't allowed to keep pets."
The temperature in the room seemed to have suddenly dropped.
"Who's they?" I said, already knowing I'd regret hearing the answer.
"Those... metal people. The ones that wizard sent. You know, the one who reckons he's taking over the world, or something."
Oh dear. It didn't look as if the quality of living had increased substantially in the Howling wastes in the time since I'd left.
"Metal people?" I asked.
"Yes, metal men. They said we couldn't keep any pets, and I wasn't going to give up Mr Nibbles, and then they came and took him off me." She looked even more worried. "They said they'd be coming back."
"When?" said Maevrin, who was looking as concerned as I was at this disturbing chain of events.
"They said they'd be coming back tonight. Still," she said, suddenly brightening, "There must have been a mistake. I'm sure what they say they do in that factory's not true. I mean, they'd never allow it, would they?"
I stared at her in disbelief. Just what had our adversary been up to since we'd left?
I walked over to the window and looked out. What can I say? For somewhere known as the howling wastes to have taken a decisive turn for the worst probably tells you all you need to know. Suffice to say, if I hung around there any length of time, I'd be taking my holidays in Mordor. A nightmarish, twisted landscape greeted my eyes, tongues of flame occasionally licking its distorted surface, black clouds of smoke rising menacingly from vents in the rock. There was a disturbing feeling the land itself would burst upwards into the sky if it could, as if to escape, but was somehow pressed down by layers of corruption. I became suddenly aware of a vast, nightmarish shape rising in the gloom - the outline of a huge, fortress-like tower rising impossibly far into the black sky. It was standing exactly where Eldrigar's tower had stood. I pulled the curtains hurriedly.
"How the hell did you survive in the middle of that?" I said in disbelief.
"There didn't seem to be much else to do, really," said Mrs Fengleworth stoically, "I just stay inside, and the metal men bring me my ration, same as everyone else."
There was a heavy silence.
"What factory was that?" said Nigel suddenly, "You said something about taking people to a factory?"
"Oh yes," said Mrs Fenglworth, a complex series of expressions usually adopted by the user of a past it's sell-by-date memory when they're trying to dredge something up, "I think it was that gnome's place. That gnome's sandwich place, or something...."
"Barry the gnome's sandwich manufactory?" said Nigel excitedly.
"Yeah, that's the one. I expect that's where they've taken Mr Nibbles."
She looked suddenly sad.
Nigel looked thoughtful.
"Anyway," I said, hurriedly, thinking it better to change the subject "All we have to do is stay here and wait. I take it we're safe here for the time being?"
"Yes," replied Grott, "We are. From the outside, the cottage we merged with looks just the same. In fact, unless anyone were to walk up and actually knock on the door, there's no way they could ever find us."
He stopped and thought for a moment.
"Oh yes, I suppose that would a bit of a problem, wouldn't it. You know, you're going to laugh when you hear this, but that actually never occurred to me?"
"And what would that be?" I asked, a serial killer style smile materialising on my face. "I do hope you're not going to say something that will bring on one of my turns..."
"Your friend, or whoever it is we're suppose to be meeting -- he'll never find us when we're camouflaged like this."
That had to be the number one sinking feeling I'd had so far - and I'd had a fair few to compare it with.
Another thought, even worse than the last, occurred to me. I turned a sickly countenance in the direction of Mrs Fengleworth.
"These... visitors, the ones that are supposed to be coming tonight - how long would that be from now?"
"Oh," said Mrs Fengleworth, with surreal calmness, "I suppose that would be in a few hours."
One possible route of escape flickered into my mind.
"So can't we just leave?" I asked Grott, "Or just move somewhere else?"
"No," he replied, predictably, "We can't move for six hours or so - we have to wait for the energy reserves to build up so we can break free of this building."
"Grott, dear," said Mrs Fengleworth, while I gradually expired from certain doom syndrome, "I've just noticed - I didn't know you could talk..."
This was enough to drive my nerves over the edge.
"WAAAH!" I bellowed, waving my arms in the air, "WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW?"
I passed a hand across my brow. It seemed I hadn't thought this one through...
Maevrin shot an "Oh what an intrepid leader.." look at me, which was hardly fair, and Mrs Fengleworth looked positively offended. Nigel looked as if he was worried enough on his own, without my help, and Gorgrod maintained his usual blank expression.
"There's no need to shout," said Mrs Fengleworth pointedly, evidently thinking this to be the most inappropriate thing possible, "Now, I've got some kippers I can cook up for you, if it'll make you feel better."
Kippers! Surely not kippers! Ever since I'd entered the kitchen, I thought I'd detected something wrong, and now I'd realised - it was the smell of kippers! Even now, the memory of all those years of intolerable haddock smells seemed to whiffle up into my memory with unnerving speed.
I hurried out of the room, muttering something about wanting to think things over, my mind full of grim, kipper related memories as I hurried up the stairs.
For a while, I paced about in my room, not really thinking about anything concrete, which was pretty much all I could come up with in circumstances. If you can't do anything sensible, wander about and gibber quietly to yourself, that's what I always say. After a while, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in, then," I said, tersely.
Maevrin poked her head around the door cautiously.
"Are you alright?" she asked, "You went a funny colour. At least, not one I've seen you go before."
"Alright, alright," I said, wearily, "Come in."
Maevrin entered and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me with a mixture of concern and dubiousness. After a while, I stopped pacing about, and turned to face her.
"Well, everyone's got a weakness, OK? Mine happens to be the smell of kippers."
"Kippers?" said Maevrin, the expression of dubiousness waxing visibly.
"Yes," I said, "Kippers. You see, my parents had a fishmonger's shop. Still do, so far as I know."
My eyes must have taken on a dangerous glint, as Maevrin looked slightly worried.
"Fish was the problem - fish, I tell you," I continued manically, "I couldn't stand all that fish, all day every day. Fish, this, fish that - it drove me crazy. Can you imagine a more tedious fate? I ended up running away from home, to become a wizard. I'd heard about my Great Uncle from family friends, though my parents didn't talk about him much - they didn't think wizardry wasn't a good career path in the modern world. If it didn't centre around fish, and fish related industries, they weren't interested."
Maevrin seemed to struggle to work out what to say to this.
"Hmm, so you're telling me the reason why you wanted to become a wizard is because you didn't like fish?"
"Well, yes," I said awkwardly. Come to think of it, as a tragic/heroic back-story, it was a bit of a let down. I wished I'd included a dragon, or something.
I slumped down the chair by the computer.
"I ended up finding this empty tower, thinking it would be a good start. Didn't work out quite the way I'd planned, I suppose."
There was a short silence.
"Hey, don't be so down on yourself," said Maevrin, smiling suddenly. "You're only doing what you think is right - my parents never approved of my stamp obsession either, you know."
Her unexpectedly kind words caught me somewhat by surprise, and I stared back for a moment at her, trying to make out clearly the expression behind those impenetrable glasses. I'm sure it will come as a great relief to readers that at this moment, Nigel entered the room.
"Hey," he said, "I've been thinking."
"Err, yes?" I said, suddenly feeling embarrassed that I'd not been giving the certain doom scenario we were facing the full attention it deserved.
"The situation's like this, right? We can't leave yet, and we have to find this guy you're after, so that means leaving the tower, right?"
I'd realised this myself, I suppose, it was fairly obvious. I just didn't want to think about actually doing it. The only other thing I wished was that Nigel wasn't one of those infuriating people that won't stop saying "right?" whenever he was explaining something.
"So these whatever-they-are things are going to come here, right? Here's what we do - we go and sneak back into the factory, and create a diversion, so they don't bother coming to the tower. Best chance we've got, I reckon. Grott and me know this sneaky back way into the factory; there's an old tunnel that used to house an offal conveyor, and it leads to a derelict building across the road - we used to use it to creep in when we were late for work. We could get the chance to meet up with your friend while were out there, and you never know, we might even be able to rescue that old biddy's dog while we're at it."
I supposed I'd got to hand it to him. The only concern I had was that a group of highly skilled commandos would probably have trouble pulling off that kind of mission, whereas we... well, let's just leave it at that. I shuddered to think of the hidden dangers there could be out there, in that unnatural darkness that surrounded the tower.
"Still," I thought ruefully as I stood up, "We've got to start saving the world sometime..."
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