Goblin Stories XIV
Teddy Breaker woke up and rubbed his eyes, not sure why he’d woken up so early. It was still dark and his parents were fast asleep, as were his two little sisters (Pest 1 and Pest 2). He tried to go back to sleep, but then he heard voices outside. That must have been what woke him. He got up and went to investigate, a brave move for an eight year old, but Teddy didn’t know the meaning of fear, mistake, asparagus and many other words.
He wrapped himself in his small blanket and left the rickety wood house where his family lived. The rest of the village was equally rickety due to a lack of good lumber. Few trees grew in this rugged land, so few that many people burned manure or peat to stay warm at night. The Land of the Nine Dukes was poor, and Duke Bentley’s holdings were the poorest of the nine. People here made due with what they could.
“Two knights went after me and I got them both hopelessly bogged down in a swamp,” a voice said. Teddy came closer. He didn’t recognize the voice, and there were other sounds, like something wet splattering on the ground.
“And there was that mercenary, the one with the crossbow,” a voice said outside. “He thought he was so tough! Ha! I tricked the darned fool into crouching down on top of an anthill. He should have been a dancer with the way he jumped around that day.”
At first Teddy thought there were two people outside, but they sounded too much alike. It took him a moment to realize there was just one person and he was talking to himself. That didn’t strike Teddy as odd. People here raised sheep for a living, a boring and lonely job out on the grassy hills. Quite a few of them talked to themselves, many calling it thinking out loud.
Teddy opened the door and stepped outside to greet the visitor. Basic manners demanded you invited in strangers, especially at night, and as poor as Teddy’s family was they weren’t so desperate to leave a man out in the cold. The full moon offered plenty of light when he looked around and spotted the guest pasting a poster onto the side of their house. It was a goblin.
This wasn’t odd, either. Goblins were common in these parts and were frequently driven off. Men would throw rocks at them to make them leave, but they never actually chased one. It was a well known fact that goblins wanted people to chase them to lure them into traps. Sensible villagers knew this, but every so often a visiting merchant or soldier would make the mistake of going after one and end up covered in sheep dung.
Goblins were an unusual bunch, and this one was very unusual. He had green skin and black hair, and his eyes were bright blue. His clothes were covered in bugling pockets and he wore a backpack loaded with all kinds of strange things. The goblin also had a bucket of paste, a brush and a stack of posters.
“Hello,” Teddy said. “Would you like to come in?”
The goblin stopped what he was doing and stared at Teddy. Putting one hand on his hip and pointing his brush at Teddy, the goblin declared, “You don’t invite the most feared person in the Land of the Nine Dukes inside! You run from him.”
Teddy looked around for this feared person. The village streets were empty except for the two of them. Confused, he asked, “Who is this scary person?”
“Why me, of course. I’m Ibwibble the Terrifying, the most feared goblin in a hundred miles. Knights and soldiers have faced me and lost. If you wrote my accomplishments down you’d need a book to hold them all, and a second volume for the things I’m going to do.”
Teddy rubbed his eyes and looked at the goblin again. “I don’t think you’re scary.”
The goblin staggered back. “Not scary? Me? I’ll have you know that I have a history going back twenty years of mischief and mayhem. You’d be wise to run away this very second. Lots of other people didn’t and they lived to regret it.”
“You don’t look very scary,” Teddy told Ibwibble. “Are you sure you’re not mistaking yourself for someone else?”
“Quite sure.”
Teddy looked at the poster Ibwibble had pasted to his family’s house. Teddy could read a bit, but his father had warned him not to let people know. Duke Bentley didn’t like peasants reading and punished them when they did. But Teddy didn’t think the goblin would tell on him or that the duke would listen if he did.
Pointing at the poster, Teddy asked, “Why did you put this up?”
“This is a wanted poster,” Ibwibble said proudly. “You put the picture of a wanted criminal on it and write down what they’ve done. If you’re offering a reward for catching them you write that down too. I made this batch all on my own.”
“But it’s your name and your picture.”
“Exactly! I’ve done things no goblin has even considered and been chased halfway across the continent for them. But these days nobody chases me. They don’t even know who I am. I will not be ignored! So I’m putting up wanted posters to get the attention I deserve.”
That didn’t make much sense to Teddy. He tried hard not to draw attention to himself, and his parents did the same. The Land of the Nine Dukes wasn’t a nice place to live, and it only got worse when soldiers, knights and sheriffs noticed you. A person could get arrested, beaten, imprisoned or fined if that happened. Fines were worse than the rest, and there were families that needed years or even generations to pay them off.
Not sure what to say, Teddy changed the subject. “Do you have any candy?”
Ibwibble looked surprised. “You don’t take candy from strangers.”
“You’re not a stranger. You’re Ibwibble the Terrifying.”
Igwibble frowned and scratched his head. This was a form of tortured logic that only children and goblins understood, and he had no defense against it. He eventually shrugged and said, “You got me there. Let me see what I’ve got.”
The goblin put the brush in the bucket of paste and set down his wanted posters, then went digging through his many pockets. He took out piles of stuff, including a file, fishing lure, ball of twine and a set of keys. Ibwibble eventually turned up a piece of taffy wrapped in wax paper and handed it over.
Teddy ate the candy and handed back the wax paper. Ibwibble asked, “You’re sure you haven’t heard of me? I’m very famous and terrifying.”
“No,” Teddy admitted. “People here don’t like goblins much, but they’re not scared of them. They’re scared of the tax collector.”
That got Ibwibble’s attention. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. They say the tax collector will come tomorrow and take away most of our wool and food. Dad and the neighbors are going to try to hide our sheep in the hills before the tax man comes so we don’t lose them, too.”
“A fierce beast, this tax collector,” Ibwibble said. “It must be a huge monster with big nasty teeth to eat so many sheep. No sheep means no milk, and no milk means no cheese.” Ibwibble shuddered. “No cheese.”
“Dad said if the tax collector didn’t used to be so bad, but with the wars going on it’s getting worse.”
“It’s no wonder people aren’t chasing me anymore with a scary monster like that around,” Ibwibble declared. “That just figures. I spend twenty years building a reputation for mayhem, and what happens but some slimy monster with tentacles and bat wings shows up. How am I suppose to compete with a giant, fire breathing monsters with twenty eyes that eats everyone’s sheep? It’s unfair, totally unfair.”
“Do you have any more candy?” Teddy asked.
Ibwibble leaned against the house. “No, I’m out. This wouldn’t happen in Charlock. They wouldn’t stand for some horrible, drooling monster wandering around terrorizing villages. Forsothia wouldn’t put up with it. Even Mad King Ludwig wouldn’t put up with this. Ket Kingdom might, what with their king being dumb as a bag of hammers. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said. His father was scared of the tax collector. The village was poor, but when wars were going on the tax collector didn’t care. His parents thought they could lose half their flock if they didn’t get them to safety in time.
Ibwibble kicked his stack of wanted posters and sent them flying. “Well I am not putting up with this. There’s only room for one source of mayhem around here, and that’s me. If this tax collector thinks he can just march in here and start eating people and burning down houses, he’s got another thing coming!”
With that Ibwibble grabbed his brush and bucket of paste and marched out of the village. He raised his brush like a sword and shouted, “This tax collector won’t know what hit him! And when I’m done with him I’m going to make sure people remember me, with business cards and a marketing plan! You haven’t heard the last of Ibwibble the Terrifying!”
The goblin was nearly gone when Teddy’s dad came outside. “What was that shouting about?”
“Don’t know,” Teddy said, and went back to bed.
The tax collector didn’t come the following day, or the day after that. This gave the men plenty of time to hide their livestock up in the hills. Four more days went by without the tax collector appearing. A few hopeful villagers wondered if maybe they’d been forgotten about.
But the tax collector did come, ten days late and accompanied by fifteen soldiers armed to the teeth. For a while it looked like the soldiers were here to seize all their property, but to their surprise the soldiers had no interest in that. Instead they guarded the tax collector and posted their own wanted posters for Ibwibble.
The tax collector wasn’t nearly as scary as Teddy thought he would be. The man was young but he limped and walked with a cane. He had a black eye and cotton wrapped around both his shins. His clothes looked like someone had tried to clean dung off them and not done a very good job. He and his men also came on foot, which was very surprising for an important man.
Addressing the gathered villagers, the tax collector said, “Before we begin, I am formally posting a bounty on the goblin Ibwibble, the so called Terrifying. His crimes include assaulting a duly appointed agent of Duke Bentley, assaulting soldiers working for Duke Bentley, stampeding horses owned by Duke Bentley, burning my private carriage and other lesser but still odious crimes. The man who brings in Ibwibble, dead or alive, will receive a reward of one hundred silver coins.”
Villagers went to the tax collector and began making this season’s payments. Teddy walked over and studied the official wanted poster, posted not far from the ones Ibwibble had put up himself.
“A hundred silver coins,” Teddy said. “He’ll be mad it’s not gold.”
He wrapped himself in his small blanket and left the rickety wood house where his family lived. The rest of the village was equally rickety due to a lack of good lumber. Few trees grew in this rugged land, so few that many people burned manure or peat to stay warm at night. The Land of the Nine Dukes was poor, and Duke Bentley’s holdings were the poorest of the nine. People here made due with what they could.
“Two knights went after me and I got them both hopelessly bogged down in a swamp,” a voice said. Teddy came closer. He didn’t recognize the voice, and there were other sounds, like something wet splattering on the ground.
“And there was that mercenary, the one with the crossbow,” a voice said outside. “He thought he was so tough! Ha! I tricked the darned fool into crouching down on top of an anthill. He should have been a dancer with the way he jumped around that day.”
At first Teddy thought there were two people outside, but they sounded too much alike. It took him a moment to realize there was just one person and he was talking to himself. That didn’t strike Teddy as odd. People here raised sheep for a living, a boring and lonely job out on the grassy hills. Quite a few of them talked to themselves, many calling it thinking out loud.
Teddy opened the door and stepped outside to greet the visitor. Basic manners demanded you invited in strangers, especially at night, and as poor as Teddy’s family was they weren’t so desperate to leave a man out in the cold. The full moon offered plenty of light when he looked around and spotted the guest pasting a poster onto the side of their house. It was a goblin.
This wasn’t odd, either. Goblins were common in these parts and were frequently driven off. Men would throw rocks at them to make them leave, but they never actually chased one. It was a well known fact that goblins wanted people to chase them to lure them into traps. Sensible villagers knew this, but every so often a visiting merchant or soldier would make the mistake of going after one and end up covered in sheep dung.
Goblins were an unusual bunch, and this one was very unusual. He had green skin and black hair, and his eyes were bright blue. His clothes were covered in bugling pockets and he wore a backpack loaded with all kinds of strange things. The goblin also had a bucket of paste, a brush and a stack of posters.
“Hello,” Teddy said. “Would you like to come in?”
The goblin stopped what he was doing and stared at Teddy. Putting one hand on his hip and pointing his brush at Teddy, the goblin declared, “You don’t invite the most feared person in the Land of the Nine Dukes inside! You run from him.”
Teddy looked around for this feared person. The village streets were empty except for the two of them. Confused, he asked, “Who is this scary person?”
“Why me, of course. I’m Ibwibble the Terrifying, the most feared goblin in a hundred miles. Knights and soldiers have faced me and lost. If you wrote my accomplishments down you’d need a book to hold them all, and a second volume for the things I’m going to do.”
Teddy rubbed his eyes and looked at the goblin again. “I don’t think you’re scary.”
The goblin staggered back. “Not scary? Me? I’ll have you know that I have a history going back twenty years of mischief and mayhem. You’d be wise to run away this very second. Lots of other people didn’t and they lived to regret it.”
“You don’t look very scary,” Teddy told Ibwibble. “Are you sure you’re not mistaking yourself for someone else?”
“Quite sure.”
Teddy looked at the poster Ibwibble had pasted to his family’s house. Teddy could read a bit, but his father had warned him not to let people know. Duke Bentley didn’t like peasants reading and punished them when they did. But Teddy didn’t think the goblin would tell on him or that the duke would listen if he did.
Pointing at the poster, Teddy asked, “Why did you put this up?”
“This is a wanted poster,” Ibwibble said proudly. “You put the picture of a wanted criminal on it and write down what they’ve done. If you’re offering a reward for catching them you write that down too. I made this batch all on my own.”
“But it’s your name and your picture.”
“Exactly! I’ve done things no goblin has even considered and been chased halfway across the continent for them. But these days nobody chases me. They don’t even know who I am. I will not be ignored! So I’m putting up wanted posters to get the attention I deserve.”
That didn’t make much sense to Teddy. He tried hard not to draw attention to himself, and his parents did the same. The Land of the Nine Dukes wasn’t a nice place to live, and it only got worse when soldiers, knights and sheriffs noticed you. A person could get arrested, beaten, imprisoned or fined if that happened. Fines were worse than the rest, and there were families that needed years or even generations to pay them off.
Not sure what to say, Teddy changed the subject. “Do you have any candy?”
Ibwibble looked surprised. “You don’t take candy from strangers.”
“You’re not a stranger. You’re Ibwibble the Terrifying.”
Igwibble frowned and scratched his head. This was a form of tortured logic that only children and goblins understood, and he had no defense against it. He eventually shrugged and said, “You got me there. Let me see what I’ve got.”
The goblin put the brush in the bucket of paste and set down his wanted posters, then went digging through his many pockets. He took out piles of stuff, including a file, fishing lure, ball of twine and a set of keys. Ibwibble eventually turned up a piece of taffy wrapped in wax paper and handed it over.
Teddy ate the candy and handed back the wax paper. Ibwibble asked, “You’re sure you haven’t heard of me? I’m very famous and terrifying.”
“No,” Teddy admitted. “People here don’t like goblins much, but they’re not scared of them. They’re scared of the tax collector.”
That got Ibwibble’s attention. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. They say the tax collector will come tomorrow and take away most of our wool and food. Dad and the neighbors are going to try to hide our sheep in the hills before the tax man comes so we don’t lose them, too.”
“A fierce beast, this tax collector,” Ibwibble said. “It must be a huge monster with big nasty teeth to eat so many sheep. No sheep means no milk, and no milk means no cheese.” Ibwibble shuddered. “No cheese.”
“Dad said if the tax collector didn’t used to be so bad, but with the wars going on it’s getting worse.”
“It’s no wonder people aren’t chasing me anymore with a scary monster like that around,” Ibwibble declared. “That just figures. I spend twenty years building a reputation for mayhem, and what happens but some slimy monster with tentacles and bat wings shows up. How am I suppose to compete with a giant, fire breathing monsters with twenty eyes that eats everyone’s sheep? It’s unfair, totally unfair.”
“Do you have any more candy?” Teddy asked.
Ibwibble leaned against the house. “No, I’m out. This wouldn’t happen in Charlock. They wouldn’t stand for some horrible, drooling monster wandering around terrorizing villages. Forsothia wouldn’t put up with it. Even Mad King Ludwig wouldn’t put up with this. Ket Kingdom might, what with their king being dumb as a bag of hammers. What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said. His father was scared of the tax collector. The village was poor, but when wars were going on the tax collector didn’t care. His parents thought they could lose half their flock if they didn’t get them to safety in time.
Ibwibble kicked his stack of wanted posters and sent them flying. “Well I am not putting up with this. There’s only room for one source of mayhem around here, and that’s me. If this tax collector thinks he can just march in here and start eating people and burning down houses, he’s got another thing coming!”
With that Ibwibble grabbed his brush and bucket of paste and marched out of the village. He raised his brush like a sword and shouted, “This tax collector won’t know what hit him! And when I’m done with him I’m going to make sure people remember me, with business cards and a marketing plan! You haven’t heard the last of Ibwibble the Terrifying!”
The goblin was nearly gone when Teddy’s dad came outside. “What was that shouting about?”
“Don’t know,” Teddy said, and went back to bed.
The tax collector didn’t come the following day, or the day after that. This gave the men plenty of time to hide their livestock up in the hills. Four more days went by without the tax collector appearing. A few hopeful villagers wondered if maybe they’d been forgotten about.
But the tax collector did come, ten days late and accompanied by fifteen soldiers armed to the teeth. For a while it looked like the soldiers were here to seize all their property, but to their surprise the soldiers had no interest in that. Instead they guarded the tax collector and posted their own wanted posters for Ibwibble.
The tax collector wasn’t nearly as scary as Teddy thought he would be. The man was young but he limped and walked with a cane. He had a black eye and cotton wrapped around both his shins. His clothes looked like someone had tried to clean dung off them and not done a very good job. He and his men also came on foot, which was very surprising for an important man.
Addressing the gathered villagers, the tax collector said, “Before we begin, I am formally posting a bounty on the goblin Ibwibble, the so called Terrifying. His crimes include assaulting a duly appointed agent of Duke Bentley, assaulting soldiers working for Duke Bentley, stampeding horses owned by Duke Bentley, burning my private carriage and other lesser but still odious crimes. The man who brings in Ibwibble, dead or alive, will receive a reward of one hundred silver coins.”
Villagers went to the tax collector and began making this season’s payments. Teddy walked over and studied the official wanted poster, posted not far from the ones Ibwibble had put up himself.
“A hundred silver coins,” Teddy said. “He’ll be mad it’s not gold.”
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