Chapter One

Between the two rivers, in the towering, bulgesome city of Tullgotha, there lived a small, neatly-bearded knohm named Razzles.

Razzles lived in a little stone cottage, a mere hop, skip and a jingle away from the lower Tullgotha city centre. He fondly referred to the dense knot of rambunctious architecture and ramshackle hovels about his home as ‘the city centre'; but Tullgotha was, in reality, a series of enormous concentric terraces, cut into a hillside and stacked precariously like a gargantuan wedding cake. The lowest level, therefore, had no centre. Yet it felt like the centre to Razzles.

Down here beneath buildings with wildly overhanging, wood-beamed upper floors and drunkenly warped slate roofs, he could feel the beating heart of the city. Down here, lost in a maze of narrow back streets and winding cobbled alleys, even a small knohm could rise above the ground and build a life for himself. Down here was where it all happened. At least, this was where it all happened for Razzles.

Razzles' ownership of his own stone home was unusual, as urban knohms are commonly fond of tunnelling up into garden sheds or unguarded broom cupboards. Sometimes they can be found clustered below the floor or ferreting away in the thatched ceilings of other folk's houses, from which they can be quite difficult to dislodge. But Razzles had done remarkably well for himself over the years, surpassing knomic-norms within the diverse society of Tullgotha.

His homely cottage had once been little more than an underfloor hutch where he had eked out a living trapping mice and cultivating mushrooms in dank corners. But then, Hob had arrived: a hobnibblin from the hill country of Pindh, with a suitcase full of lichen, looking for a place to stay the night. He slept under a pile of Razzles’ unwashed laundry and never moved out. It was the arrival of Hob that resulted in Razzles starting up in business. With money coming in, Razzles had constructed a cranny for himself and a couple of nooks, then alcoves and closets, chimneys, attics, passageways, porches and even a wine cellar, until eventually, his home felt truly palatial, for a knohm. Thanks to Hob, Razzles now lived the good life.

Razzles had an appreciation for the noble knomely pursuits of loafing, cavorting and disporting. He knew a fine dangly hat when he saw it, he understood the value of pastel-hued hosiery and he certainly would not be seen out and about without a display of nifty little bells on the tips of his long-toed, loosely-laced, light-lilac shoes. Life in the world of business suited Razzles nicely.

It was the business that had procured Razzles a rather wondrous eye. Not a natural eye of humours and nerves; an eye of artifice. But more about that later.

Razzles' life was transformed thanks to the pale-green midget that he simply referred to as 'Hob' - having never made an effort to learn to pronounce his true nibblin name. In fact, it was because Razzles understood nothing Hob said that the frustrated nibblin ended up relegated to the attic, learning how to translate everything, scribbling out endless notebooks and homemade dictionaries - which Razzles promptly sold.

When unoccupied, the pair often found themselves strolling aimlessly round the city's stores and taverns, looking at fishing rods, evaluating the optimum spot on your average lawn or contemplating the comparative merits of diverse toadstools. It was as they were setting out on one of these leisurely strolls one sunny morning that they had been approached by a smug little creature called a renling.* A local street vagabond, this renling was Fürgůïnðërb. He was scavenging around the cobbled streets of Lower Tullgotha picking bits of straw from piles of old horse dung with a long pair of fine bone tweezers.

*Renlings are scrawny little beings with long, flapping, hare-like ears and strong, clawed feet. Despite their diminutive appearance, they are agile and surprisingly rugged. They often live below ground in anything from spontaneous scrapes to elaborate, ancestral burrows enhanced to a greater or lesser degree with various architectural elements and crafted fixtures. They like wearing clothes (or often capes) with pockets because a good renling is adept at hoarding and collecting and almost always has pockets full of 'stuff'. Most have hidden pockets and pockets within pockets, secret little spaces stitched who-knows-where. They love anything to do with secrets: having them; keeping them; telling others that they have them; telling others that they can't say whether they have one or not.

Perched upon Fürgůïn's right shoulder was a small mammal that he had named Niggit (Niggit was a hairless, ihmpish little creature of the Tibmibling Ovularus genus). Because Niggit loved to chew at bits of old straw, Fürgůïn often spent the early hours of the morning gathering them for him, although he wasn’t always too careful where he found them: floorboards of an inn, off-sweep from a market, places horses had been. He would deftly extract a straw with his tweezers (which were also handy for grooming his ears and removing accumulated wax) and let his pet chew on it for a while.

Often he would reclaim the thoroughly nibbled straw, which was by then malleable enough to weave into hats, baskets, and sometimes, even small carpets, which in turn Fürgůïn would sell at the knohm markets.* It wasn’t much of a living, but it was sufficient for a renling with few needs and a diet consisting mostly of fungus.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

* Legend has it that back in the Knohm-Renling wars (otherwise known as the great beard-pulling and ear-yanking campaign of 1323) whole platoons of renlings survived by hiding in the stables of Groll (then the capital of the knohm world) making baskets and eating cheese made from tibmibling milk. Sadly, some rather wilful tibmiblings resisted milking and so the intrepid renlings were forced to eat the tibmiblings. When no tibmiblings remained, the renlings ate the baskets followed by whatever untreated straw they could scrape up and eventually their own clothes.

On that warm, lazy morning, Fürgůïn had strolled along the foot-worn cobbles of the city streets feeling the freshness of the air slowly dissipate just before the crowds gathered. He liked this time of day, it felt clear and full of promise. The market traders were setting up in the square and the crows hopped about hopefully, looking for scraps. Scavenging with his tweezers, Fürgůïn whistled softly to himself whilst his tibmibling nibbled away contentedly.

At about the same time, the knohm Razzles emerged from an important meeting regarding his work in the flourishing area of Knomo-Niblic translation. He had received glowing commendation for his extensive and detailed notebooks, and had been awarded ‘the eye of excellence’ in recognition of his contributions to the field. This 'eye' was a small, artificial, orange orb shot through with swirling patterns and worn in a monogoggle in the manner of an eye patch with a strap. There were two additional levered lenses on the rim of the eye that could be adjusted, angled into position, as needed. It was a fine eye and Razzles would wear it with pride.

Stepping out into the sunshine, he and Hob had found themselves on a bright Tullgothan street with time on their hands and an eye to show off. Fürgůïn initially didn't notice the knohm and nibblin loitering some way down the street since he was deep in thought, straw-gathering. There were things on his mind that had been spiraling around for a few days now as the result of a peculiar dream. He had dreamt of lush, moss-carpeted woods, so tangled they might have been woven. Within the woods was an old chest. He would have forgotten all this if it weren't for the books in the chest. As he walked on, his peaceful, whimsical whistle took on a slightly discordant tone, not a nice tone: a droning murmuration.*

* A mature burrowing renling is blessed with a variety of whistling hairs (known as pika) located about their bodies; these in association with inflatable sacs and an imaginative approach to posturing, extend the sonorous repertoire of renlings greatly. The pika of a renling lost in thought will often thrum gently, creating a barely-audible susurration. #see end note 1

It was in this distracted state that he had strayed across Razzles and Hob. Fürgůïn’s attention was caught by the strange behaviour of the knohm. It appeared that the stalky, little fellow had little purpose in life other than to mosey around raising his exuberant, bristling eyebrow at passers-by and winking at his reflection in the diamond-leaded windows and distorting bull’s eyes of the market square. Fürgůïn was intrigued.

This pair just might be the kind of company he needed for the daring ventures slowly taking shape in his mind. Fürgůïn knew that the woods in his dream had been more than just woods: their twisting forms were a part of The Forbidden Forest at the edge of The Devoid. That wasn’t the kind of place you wanted to visit on your own, or indeed visit at all given the choice. But in the chest in the forest had been a pair of unusual books. Truly, truly unusual books…

Dark things were gestating now within his renling brain, stirring his intestines, building into a cacophony of barely-concealed cogitating that agitated every whistling hair about his body in all of their susorrificophonic wonder. Fürgůïn had known instinctively that the books were unusual as soon as he had seen them, but what made him absolutely certain was that when he had awoken he found himself clutching the books.

Initially, he had sprung up, knocking the books to the ground, jumping away as from a snake. Someone must have sneaked in during the night, tucked the things under his arms. Sometimes things going on around you get into your dreams. He had squinted suspiciously about him, then bent to examine the books: a pair of heavy, leather-bound volumes with metal corners, hinges and clasps. They certainly looked unusual. The covers were embossed, with old gold pressed into all of the sunken letters and ornate patterning. They had felt weighty and rich in Fürgůïn’s unsteady hands.

Unfortunately, these treasures hadn’t remained within his grasp for long. They had been stolen from him, all except for a few pages, torn out in haste. He had barely begun to explore the intriguing tomes before they were gone, and now their contents lurked in his thoughts, a restless weight on his brain like a toad on a walnut.

He had been a fool to try reading the books out in the open, in the daylight where others could see. Why hadn’t he been more careful? He should have known The Squealers would notice. Those rats see everything. Still, maybe he had salvaged enough, seen enough: the chest in the forest; the books in the chest; drawings in the books; a device and a great dark hole. It was crying out to him. It was surely his destiny

A journey to the Forbidden Forest would require company though, not just any company, a certain type of company. Fürgůïn thus hoped Razzles wasn’t much of a traditionalist as knohms and renlings had a bit of a bad history. *

* Tension, often ran high between knohms and renlings, ever since the assassination of the knohm Arch-Duke Furryhand by the renling Ravealot Punchup who was a member of the activist group "The BlackToenails" gang, which in turn was the cause of the great Knohm-Renling wars and The Thousand Days Head Cuffing.

Sauntering up to the knohm and his nibblin associate, tibmibling on shoulder, Fürgůïn casually commented, “Nice eye.” Then, before the knohm had time to absorb the compliment, Fürgůïn offered his tweezers to Razzles and asked, “Do you like feeding animals?”

Taken aback, Razzles eyed Niggit suspiciously, but he didn't like to say no to anybody, so he politely asked, “What does it eat?”

“Straw,” said Fürgůïn simply. Razzles later regretted not checking the details.