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The following morning, Lower Realms time, found me once again treading the stone-paved pathways and cobbled boulevards of the caverns of the Goblins, with Miss Mayfield Westwood needing the apparent support of my left arm. Nobody was paying us any significant attention, as far as I could tell; of course, that was no guarantee that watching eyes were not fixed on us from every vantage point. Indeed, the whole ruse would be worthless if at least one pair of eyeballs did not pass over the pair of us with great interest indeed. The demesnes of the Goblins are as varied in appearance as anywhere in the human world. There are many mean and dingy streets and squalid buildings in some parts - frankly I have spent all together too much time in them - while elsewhere the deployment of considerable wealth and taste allows for spacious accommodations for important people. The plaza we had just entered tended firmly towards the latter end of the spectrum. It was a wide-open square with grand buildings of classical design on all four sides, elegant and imposing edifices acting as testament to the indispensable functions undertaken within each one. The square itself maintains an air of quiet probity, with carved stone urns planted with the decorative fungi we Goblins prize so much, separated by public seating and the occasional tinkling fountain which were just about the only thing giving the appearance of life and movement. Elsewhere in the caverns, a spacious piazza like this would be awash with Goblins of all ages, taking what passes for the air around here: running children and harassed mothers, great-grandmothers supported by stout canes and sheer willpower, and aged grandfathers hunched over their tobacco pipes and unhurried gossip. But this square was always strangely deserted, as if the concentration of power and responsibility in the surrounding buildings cast a repellent field that deterred all but the most determined visitor. The Court of Probate was set back slightly from the square, as if ashamed to be seen in the company of the more important establishments to either side. Even so, it was built to the same grand scale, with a flight of wide stone steps leading up to a portico supported by rows of Doric columns. The portico guarded a pair of high doors of deeply-polished dark wood and brass, now standing open, allowed a view of a mosaic tiled floor and yet more columns within. As we approached, a figure in the wig and black robes of an important lawyer emerged from the doorway, hurried down the steps barely glancing in our direction. The three of us were the only living things visible. We had arrived early for the appointment with the Judge. There was nobody at the reception desk. Very unusual; normally a place like this would be guarded by some resolute old matron with all the steely-eyed suspiciousness of a dragon guarding her young. It didn't matter; I knew the way, having been here several times before. In any case, it would just have been a matter of interpreting the building directory plainly on display on the wall just inside the entrance. I directed Mayfield, who was clinging to my arm demurely, to the grand staircase that led to the corridors on the upper floors. We made our way up the stairs, my shoes padding softly on the polished marble. Mayfield's feet were silent too. There were no other sounds, as if there was nothing moving in the building anywhere; everything seemed deadened mysteriously. We pressed on, with me doing my best to appear oblivious to the sudden silence around us. There were several turns in the stairwell just to get to the second floor. The building designer had decreed that the ceilings were to be high and imposing, and the steps low and wide, so we were forced to go around and around as we climbed. As we approached the third turn, there was a sound from behind, startlingly loud in the silence that surrounded us. "Okay sister, hold it right there!"
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Part 49