The Good Goblin

by C M F Eisenstein

  Darantur had surmounted the mountain which was veiled in pristine snow. The journey had taken its toll on the dwarf; for three days he did trudge, without rest or sleep, the steep and foreboding massif so that he might reach the dragons that awaited him.

  The city of Palu’don, for many years, had grown far too small to provide a homestead for all its denizens. Emperor Palu’don himself had decried that the Dwarven Empire should expand along the great range of mountains that stretched far to the north and east. Providence, fortunately, had seen fit for two otherwise inexplicable events to occur. Firstly, the great brood of dragons that claimed the summits and deep caverns had grown tired of their enclosed lands as well as the constant, fractious bickering and miserable incidents that occurred between their two races. And secondly, all of Darantur’s five older brothers and sister had taken ill with a bout of the flux, leaving him the eldest capable of any ambulation. The dragons sent word to Palu’don that they wished to meet to discuss the terms of their departure and how their erstwhile homes should be bequeathed to the dwarves. Darantur had been given a single boon, a sole token, from his father for the journey: an ornate flask encircled with emblazoned lines of lustrous, white gold and imbued by a visiting loran enchanter with the gift that any liquid contained within the vessel should never freeze no matter how pernicious winter’s grasp on the container would be. It was thus how Darantur came to stride the mountain tops with a frost frozen beard and a chilled body, but with a mind afire as the brightest of stars and a vessel filled with mead used to fuel such brightness.

  A host of dragons rose before him. Forty dragons did he count in total, but perhaps there were indeed half or double that present, for while his mead had given him much vigour to press on through the tundra and stave off the cold, it too had addled his mind. Darantur stood mightily before the gargantuan beasts that towered to heights many dwarves high. His cloak bellowed in the wind and the glacial sheen of his axe glistened at his side as he stood stalwart in the snow, flask in his hand, and drinking deeply from the vessel. The dragons chuckled; never had such humour been known at such heights before; while Darantur thought his comportment audacious and resolved, the dragons took his staggering for a bibulous halfling. The dragon of primacy among those gathered was a staunch and broad-chested behemoth. Its raven scales were fringed with snow and golden eyes regarded the dwarf amusedly. Despite the inebriated dwarven representative, the black dragon and the others in attendance admired the halfling for merely being able to have survived the mountainous traverse - perchance a test in of itself. The golden-eyed dragon plucked the flask from Darantur’s hand with a grin and passed the vessel between its lips and swallowed the container in its entirety, intending to compel the dwarf into sobriety for the negotiations. Shocked and dismayed Darantur drew his axe and threatened that should the dragon not return his flask he would eviscerate the creature where it stood, but promptly the dwarf lost his balance and fell upon his rump, snow puffing up about him as he crashed. The dragons laughed again, but no smile came from the dwarf. It was like this that Darantur did not move, nor did he speak; truly the dwarf did not twitch a muscle for hours. The dragons were dumbfounded and intrigued by the sudden character Darantur had assumed and so they too did stay upon the mountain’s summit and gaze at the muted dwarf. While some dragons slept others watched, and while some stretched their wings, others talked. Darantur only blinked his deep-set eyes.

  When near upon a full day had passed did Darantur once again stir. The black dragon crested the hill leading to where the dwarf had previously sat. With a determined air Darantur marched through the waist-deep snow in the direction where the black dragon had emerged from. The twenty or eighty dragons exchanged bewildered looks and followed the determined dwarf. Darantur stopped before his quarry: a great mound of dragon excrement. With his axe and his hand, he clawed through the ordure, a sight that even made the dragons’ eyes grow wide in disbelief. Minutes later he emerged from the malodorous work, flask in hand, and wiping the vessel against his garb he again drank deeply from it.

  This was the tale of how Darantur and his flask had gained the utmost admiration and respect of all dragon-kin, his steadfastness told for generations unto other dragons. The spirit that Darantur displayed upon that mountain top spoke fathoms to the black dragon and hence did the dragon parley with the dwarf and left the dragon-held massif to him and the Dwarven Empire. And so the great halls and homes that came to be built below where Darantur stood that day were to become honoured with his appellation.

  Amyia laughed. Hilloc had narrated the story with such verve that she thought it was quite possible that he had spent most of his day practising it for their appreciation. Tac’quin even chortled tacitly; the dragon was of the opinion that the party of dragons which had met with Darantur were far too generous with their approval of the dwarf for such a lowly act, but nonetheless the story had been enticing to hear.

  Scores of suspicious looks continued to be shot at the quintet, more so at Tac’quin than any other member of the party. Lorans were indifferent about the sight of a dragon, but the other races continued to wear eyes stretched with apprehension. Dragons had always lived in peace with others of the land, never preying upon them or their livestock. But the most notable cause that engendered distrust in the other races towards dragons was due to their isolationist tendencies. No dragon had ever mingled with another kind and few people knew that dragons in fact were capable of speech. It was in the recesses of drink, imbibed by those with ignorance and boredom, that rumours and aspersions would be cast, for any member not part of a known circle gave birth to the infant of mistrust.

  “The more important question,” said Palodar in an enthusiastic voice; “is it filled with mead?”

  Hilloc beamed. “Only the finest this dey. The most palatable fermentation infused with generous measures of red-bell hone’, reght from the great Darantur Hone’ Guild!”

  Palodar grinned at the embellishment. “And what price do you ask, Hilloc?” he asked, keenly eyeing the merchant.

  Hilloc seemed to consider the value of the item with a scratch of his beard and a rub of his nose, his eyes too darted to one corner in great thought. “A fair amount I be’a thinking. Somethin’ quite fair… fair indeed. A price far below the height of knoll an’ only a touch above a blade ‘o grass,” stated the dwarven merchant genuinely, his lips only slightly curling.

  Palodar put his hand on the merchant’s shoulder. “No gold or coin do we have, friend. A barter must suffice.”

  The countenance of the merchant shifted. He held a kindly face, but it belying something beneath the surface. The obsequious dwarf opened his hands in submission. “What type ‘o merchant would I’a be if I said no te a barter.” He was pensive a moment then said, “Perhaps that breviary ye friend carries? Nonce do religious wares fetch adequate prices.”

  Amyia sent a malice-filled and baleful stare towards Palodar, who without seeing it could tangibly feel the hairs on his neck twitch around in a fluster. He began to haggle. “Even if the moons were to crash down to our lands, I could not deprive my friend of his holy scriptures and hymns.”

  With each stride along the path they drew nearer the entrance into the peripheries of Darantur, and with each step the merchant’s affability evanesced more and more. Minutes of haggling lingered until Hilloc broke off the negotiations. “No deal may be’a reached here!”

  Hilloc’s hands were covered with perspiration and even Palodar considered the dwarf to be far too disconcerted for a simple bartering.

  “Faring ye well,” cried the merchant to the party and ran off in front of them. Hilloc’s heart was pounding and his blood was a boil. Sweat wrapped itself around him entirely and in his rush he did not feel the flask slip from his hand. Darantur’s vessel hit the ground with a light thud and a swish of liquid. Palodar saw the item fall from its erstwhile monger. He ran to the container, dodging many other passing dwarves and people that stretched to well over five and six feet. Picking up the fla
sk he searched the road ahead for any sign of the merchant, but not a trace was to be seen.

  Palodar rejoined his companions and looked at the item with intrigue.

  “A rather odd fellow,” stated Cezzum from beneath his hood, “after your bantering he became nonplussed I think.”

  “He did indeed,” agreed the dwarf while removing the cap from the vessel and sampling its contents. “But no falsehood about the mead! A finer brew I have not tasted in months.”

  “Coulds I try?” said Amyia, her mock, meek, pleading voice portrayed too weakly to convince the others of its sincerity; they all laughed at the enthusiasm to taste the drink that lay there within. Palodar passed the flask to her with a cheerful mien. She took it and drank fully, too fully Tac’quin thought and it nudged the flask from her lips with its maw. Amyia protested as she lapped up the drops that had fallen on her lips.

  “I wish you to walk into Darantur, not flounder about – dwarven mead is often thought to be the same as all meads, but a single mug can remove fivefold more senses than a keg of elven or the brew of man,” orated Tac’quin, looking after Amyia’s interests and perhaps her faculties as well.

  Amyia frowned ruefully at the dragon and handed the drink back to Palodar. “I’s like this drink!” she cried, “tastes sweet as honey.”

  Palodar with fain satisfaction of his tongue, gullet and stomach, carefully placed his newly found, most prised flask into his knapsack.

  “A mistake I think you have made, brother,” said Cezzum; “the taverns, alehouses and inns throughout Darantur will be dry by this eve!”

  Palodar chuckled and Cezzum felt a fist slam jovially into his back.

  “Perhaps just the taverns then,” corrected Cezzum with an unseen smirk.

  “Perhaps just them,” agreed Amyia happily.

  The party caught sight of the small entrance into Darantur just off in the distance; with their goal in the offing, they continued to march along the road, occasionally having to dodge the path of large caravans and wagons and loping teams of horses and ponies and donkeys. Amyia almost received a trampled foot from one of the animals as she barely managed to strafe in time as a mercenary’s horse brushed by her. With an unusually warm body, she thought to herself, dwarven mead is very strong.

  The six-foot oak doors stood imposingly before the companions. They were of a thickness that made most other oak doors in the world appear utterly effete. Solid iron beams and rungs reinforced the already stalwart carpentry. Above the open portal, upon the arching rock face, engraved in superbly polished silver, rested the coat of arms of Darantur: a dragon sitting atop a mountain, its tail receding into the mountain itself to form the haft of an inverted dwarven axe which lay inside. The majority of travellers pressed forth on the main road, but those seeking swift entry into the dwarven borough, and were without encompassing wares, left the hardpan and passed through the entryway. Two lorans stooped their heads as they entered the passageway, only scarcely managing to walk comfortably adjacent one another in the small space inside. As the party approached, a column of dwarven children skipped out, fore and rear guarded by two tutors. The children were filled with conviviality and vibrancy as they eagerly strode into the outdoors, presumably off on an educational trip of some manner.

  Standing athwart the entrance into Darantur were two dwarven guards. Their eyes were unusually deep and a sullen countenance besieged them, but whether or not this was a true reflection of their emotions or simply the play of shadows that their thick helms cast upon their brows, the companions could not tell. A medley of lustrous chain, quarries of steel plate and umber dyed leather formed a magnificent hauberk that hung to the guards’ knees from where a pair of tawny leather breeches covered their legs and were finally stuffed into cuffed boots that were the colour of sable hues. As with any military institution’s personal that were not at war, their footwear was astonishingly clean and bore a sheen that might cause one ailed by blindness to glimpse light for the first time.

  Akin to the militia that stood as safeguards along The Great Road, the two sentries before them grew tense as the quest-bound troop of four approached; the sight of a dragon and a halfling whose body and features were veiled from sight induced enough concern to do so.

  “Halt!” cried the one sentry in the tongue of Valaku. He pointed imperiously at Palodar. “Approach.”

  The companions stopped a few feet before the guard and turned to face Palodar; he grinned. “I will return presently,” he said and walked forwards to meet with the sentry.

  Tac’quin caught sight of the other lookout fingering a small crossbow hidden behind his cloak and right leg, the other, the dragon noticed, let his hand rest atop the pommel of his sword as Palodar drew closer.

  “What business does a dragon and…” the guard paused a moment to consider what Cezzum was, “… a shrouded halfling have within our halls?” The dwarf’s voice was hoarse and carried with it an astringent tone. The guard was without a beard. It was a feature unheard of within dwarven society except in one circumstance: when an enlisted soldier was remiss in their duties; their punishment was to have their beards shaven from them so that one and all would know of their failings. Palodar smiled at the guard, but postulated that although the dwarf before him had failed in some task, the chastisement he endured would make him all the more inimical towards his current duties and interlocutors.

  Amyia strained to hear what her dwarven caretaker was saying; she could only discern that Palodar was engaging with the other dwarf in Valaku.

  “Hostility grabs your heart, friend, why? When the very race that gave unto Darantur these mountains stands before you,” said Palodar, thinking an admonishment might be the more prudent manner to initiate a dialogue with the dwarf.

  The guard scoffed and retorted, “I care not where the borough comes from; it was before my time. I do, howe’er, recall accounts of bloody affrays between us and them, and a repeat shall not occur on my watch.”

  “But you say you care little for the frivolities of the past yet you hearken to events that too preceded your birth? An entente exists between our races, what right have you to bring to bear your own judgement on this matter?” Palodar was enjoying the badinage, it had been many moons prior that he was last able to converse in Valaku; his fluency in the language far more evident than in ænglix.

  The guard shifted his hauberk. He appeared flummoxed by the rejoinder and as his only recourse said, “I said what business have you four in Darantur?”

  “Our business is of our own.”

  Frustration grew upon the brow of the inquisitor. “What of the veiled halfling yonder? Be he a dwarf? He appears rangy.”

  “He is a votive prior from,” – Palodar quickly construed the least likely place the sentry might have knowledge of and let his imaginative fancies replace his wit – “Keethran. He is the first dwarven prior come to spread the muted word of the beatific goddess Ilumpsy. He is veiled for none may partake in the glory that is his face until the sermon is fulfilled and the goddess so wishes.”

  The dwarven guard leaned to one side and looked round Palodar’s shoulder to stare curiously at the prior. Cezzum remained solemn and transfixed on his spot. His bowed head and reverence that exuded from him as he clutched to his breviary was intoxicating. The guard raised an eyebrow. “Spread the muted word?” he asked.

  Palodar mentally clubbed himself for his words. “Aye! Of course, the muted word, more often than not, my friend, far more can be said with silence than with words,” he added, nodding emphatically. He leaned closer to the sentry and whispered to him in a conspiratorial tone: “If you ask me, I think his order has been siphoning the fumes from volcanoes for far too many a year, but they paid us well to bring him here.”

  The guard glanced at the prior once more and then stood at attention, seemingly convinced of the story. “Hmpf,” he snorted, “and what of the child of men? Or is she of the fabled pevrin race?” The last jibe the guard added as a sardonic annoyance towards Palodar, for
the pevrin were a race of halflings rumoured and spoken about for eons, but never seen and their existence was generally considered the verse of myth.

  “Nay you dotard,” cried Palodar, becoming frustrated with the obstinate dwarf, “she is a bairn!” Palodar grew tired of explaining every facet of their company which would never have occurred to other parties wherein a dragon did not comprise a member of. He digressed and began to fiddle with his full beard. “Bit of a chilled wind that assails us this day I think,” Palodar taunted, “I am fain indeed that I have an embracing beard to weather the cold.”

  The sentry standing opposite his taunted partner chortled loudly and the guard in front of Palodar grew florid. Before the dwarf could respond, either with words or by drawing steel to challenge Palodar, Tac’quin defiantly leapt before the two lookouts. They immediately reacted, the one levelling his crossbow at the dragon the other unsheathing his sword and fixing it at Palodar’s belly, ready to thrust. Tac’quin’s dragon-tongue voice boomed for all those in the vicinage to hear. “We have stated that our business is of our own! You knaves have but two options left. Let us pass or maggots shall fill your nostrils by this eve.” Tac’quin’s tail swept around his rear and loomed before the dwarf with the crossbow, whose suddenly wan face eyed the spear-like tail. An ashen plume of smoke escaped from the nostrils of the dragon and Tac’quin pertinaciously let slip from his maw a seething drop of liquid fire that burst on the path below its claws, accentuating its remonstration.

  Both guards quivered and all traffic on both The Great Road and the path leading to the entryway halted, staring at the scene unfolding before them. The wafting vapours from the drop of fire flitted into the beardless sentry’s nose, inducing him to tremulously lower his weapon and place it back into its scabbard. The other guard lowered the crossbow, his fingers trembling frightfully from what terrible end that was but moments away; accidentally, he let a bolt shoot into the ground; the shock from the unexpected projectile’s release almost caused him to collapse.