The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Seventeen:Ghosts

Knut listened carefully to my suggestions. I asked for cloven hooves and forked tongues. Horned heads and bat-like wings. He gave my visions form, molding them in his mind before releasing them out into the real world. The newly reincarnated goblins crawled around at our feet, watching Knut with fiery eyes. Waiting to be given their purpose. I had a very distinct one in mind for them. "You have a knack for designing warriors, Precious," Knut said as a goblin with spiraling black horns and a horse's long face sprang from his brow.

"Not warriors. Torturers." I corrected him, admiring the things I'd helped create. Each one was made to torment, to inflict pain. They had claws like knives and teeth that could rip out a man's innards in a single bite. Their bodies were covered in dark skin, fur and scales to help them melt into the darkness of the night. "But we aren't done. Can you make goblins that look like humans?"

"Certainly." Knut grinned at me. "Just tell me what you want."

"First, I want you to create goblins that look like Rolland and Rhys just as they were the day they were hanged," I said. I pictured them in my mind's eye. Their filthy faces streaked with the sweat of dread. Their bodies swaying from the taut rope. Their heads tilted at unnatural angles. My fingers dug into my throne's petrified wood. "Then," My breathing was ragged, unsteady. "I'd like a copy of myself, just as I was that day."

"You have very special plans for your dear brother, I see." Knut cackled. " You've drawn your inspiration from your own religion, turned my goblins into demons." He waved his hand across the expanse of newborn goblins before us. "With these terrors, we'll drive him completely mad. I absolutely love it."

The next goblins he conjured took the shapes of my older twin brothers. They stood at the base of the platform side by side, staring at me, waiting for Knut's craftsmanship to be judged. They bore the same ugly, masculine faces, their bodies marred with the twins' old scars. Each had only eight fingers. Greasy blond hair curled against their brows over their dark brown eyes. No detail had been overlooked. Yet they were...off. Knut had chosen to mimic their appearance from after they'd died. Their faces had a ghastly paleness, their eyes just beginning to go milky. Blue and purple bruising circled each of their throats. "What do you think? Did I do well?" Knut asked.

Well? It was as if he'd peeked into my darkest nightmares and given the horrors that haunted me form. My eyes shifted away from them as bile burned the back of my throat. "Yes." I mumbled.

"Now, it's your turn." He giggled. He was having far too much fun. "Father made your doppelganger for me last time, the one that took you place at the gallows. Let's see if I can do better." Knut flinched slightly as a goblin soul escaped his body. It churned, taking shape in the air above our heads. This one seemed to take longer to create as he worked to include every single freckle and scar. Every gash across my back. Every minuscule detail. When she was finally complete, she landed softly beside the goblin twins and turned to face my scrutiny. Knut let out a deep sigh as he finished. "Not a pleasant sight, is she?" He turned his gaze away from his own work.

Quietly, I left my throne and descended from our platform to get a closer look. My double met my eyes as I dropped from the final step, sending stabbing pain straight through my gut. So, this is what I looked like that day. I thought, suppressing a shudder. Suddenly, Knut's gentler treatment of me that day made a lot more sense. The girl before me seemed like a stranger. Her face foreign. Her gold hair had been shorn close to her scalp hurriedly, without care, leaving patches of uneven length and scrapes and cuts on the scalp. The milky eyes staring at me were large with fear. Their gaze was unfocused as if she were looking at something far in the distance rather than the woman in front of her. They were the eyes of a wounded animal caught in a hunter's snare. The girl was covered in scratches and grime, her dingy shift hanging off of her exhausted body, its back dyed deep red with blood from the many wounds that had been etched into her flesh. All three of them reeked of death and piss, the scent so real I almost believed that everything that had happened in the past few days had been a dream and that I would soon wake up back in that horrid prison.