Free Runemarks by Joanne Harris Page A

paid little attention to Maddy or to her companion.
    They were not the only inhabitants of that level. As she hurried along the crowded passageways, Maddy passed dozens of other creatures, all as busy and incurious as the goblins themselves: Tunnel People, colored like the clay of their native earth, with great jaws and tiny, lashless eyes; Mountain People; Sky People; Wood People; even a couple of men of the Folk, hooded and furtive, with traders’ packs on their shoulders and staves in their hands.
    “Aye, miss, there’s always some that’ll trade with the Gødfolk,” said Sugar when Maddy commented on this. “You don’t think you’re the only one what’s found their way down here, do yer? Or that the Eye’s the only gateway under the Hill?”
    Below that there was less traffic, fewer spells. Here were storerooms, vaults, sleeping quarters, food stores. Maddy, who was growing hungry, was tempted to raid these, but goblins are not especially particular about what they eat, and she had heard too many tales to take the risk. Instead, searching her pockets, she found an apple core and a handful of nuts and made a small, unsatisfying meal of these, a decision she was to regret later.
    They moved down toward the river, and here at last were stone lanes packed with spoils and takings. Remembering what One-Eye had told her, Maddy cast
Bjarkán
and searched, but among the webwork of little spells and signatures that crisscrossed the tunnels, among the bundles of feathers, chests of rags, pots and pans, and broken daggers and battered shields, she could find no sign of anything resembling a treasure of the Elder Age.
    Goblins, of course, are terrible hoarders and, unlike dwarves, will steal anything that comes to hand, regardless of its value. But Maddy was not discouraged. Somewhere in all this, she was sure she would find the Whisperer. Rather an odd name for a treasure, she thought, but then she remembered the Dropper, Odin’s ring; his spear, Fear-Striker; and Mjølnir, the Pounder, the hammer of Thor; and told herself that the treasures of the Elder Age had often borne such mysterious names.
    And so she searched on: through old mattresses, dry bones, and broken crockery; through sticks and stones and dolls’ heads and partnerless shoes and loaded dice and fake toenails and scraps of paper and tasteless china ornaments and dirty handkerchiefs and forgotten love poems and balding oriental rugs and lost schoolbooks and headless mice.
    But still, as One-Eye had warned her, she found nothing of value—no gold, no silver, not even a nickel penny.
    “There’s nowt here.” The goblin had grown increasingly restive as they proceeded deeper into the belly of the Hill. “There’s nowt down here and it’s not bloody safe.”
    Maddy shrugged and kept on going.
    “Now if I knew what you were looking
for
…,” said Sugar.
    “I’ll tell you when I’ve found it.”
    “You don’t even know what it looks like, do yer?” he said.
    “Shut up and watch where you’re going.”
    “You don’t bloody
know
!”
    As Maddy followed Sugar deeper and deeper into the Hill, she began to fear that the goblin was right. The Hill was a ragman’s paradise, stuffed from seam to seam with worthless trash. There was nothing resembling treasure here; nothing magical, nothing precious, nothing approaching One-Eye’s description.
    Also it was clear to Maddy that Sugar was as baffled by their search as she was herself. He had repeatedly denied that there was any kind of treasure beneath the Hill, and after consideration she was inclined to believe him. Goblins don’t really understand wealth and are just as likely to steal a broken teapot as half a crown or a diamond ring. Besides, she just couldn’t imagine how a treasure of the Elder Age—a thing of such importance that One-Eye could spend years trying to locate it—would remain for long in the hands of Sugar and his friends.
    No, the more Maddy thought about it, the less likely it