The Good Goblin

by C M F Eisenstein

  The air was crisp outside, carrying with it an invigorating bite as if a great cook had spiced it with the essence of rejuvenation. Cezzum wondered at how such a refreshing breeze could occur in caverns so far beneath the land and within a mountain so deep, but he simply let the thought fly from him as he partook greedily of the restoration on offer and chose rather to accept and marvel at the dwarven ingenuity instead. A diffuse effulgence radiated from the prism above the farm, indicating it was an hour when all good people should still be holding fast to their dreams; the high mountains above saw daybreak far earlier than the lands below; the dwarves knew that their mornings were governed by the towering peaks above, and so they chose to ignore the pesky clutches of daybreak for a little longer each cycle.

  Cezzum stretched, pulling from his body every knot of sleep that had sneakily curled themselves into his muscles. “What is the hour?”

  “Oh, somewhere between three or four strokes past the middle night,” replied Palgrin with a pre-dawn merriment that was only capable from years of inculcation. The dwarf’s eyes turned passive. “Why do you bring that?” – Palgrin indicated Gnarlfang – “it is safe here; even perhaps your last haven.”

  Cezzum rested his left hand on the sword’s hilt. “Many places have I seen over the past days, most of them warranting a sword at one’s side, especially for one such as I. The world is far from safe, and that much more removed from what it should be. If it takes the curve of a blade to linger within this world then forever shall a blade remain at my hip.” Cezzum contemplated what he had just said, and was filled with dread. His response had been one he had not intended. A life removed from the tribulations of the everyday had made him peaceful, calm and good. Cezzum longed for that old life once again - the peace that it brought; the ease of life without trials. He thought on it more and perhaps it was not that life he wished for. The brother, the friends, the companions he had met and come to love, and all the amazing wonders he had witnessed, gave unto him more happiness than he had known before. Cezzum seemed to know, for the first time, that since he had started his journey, his old life was dead. From the first step he had taken in the direction Filburn had instructed him to, the old Cezzum was but a phantom flitting somewhere behind his new eyes. He only hoped now that this new Cezzum, this new him, possessed the same heart. But he too knew why he clung to Gnarlfang, for it was a necessary evil to do harm in order to preserve what he had only recently come to love. Regardless, the revelation of it all still nettled him greatly and as much as he kept his hand steady upon the hilt, he too wished he could unfasten the weapon from his side.

  “It is sad, is it not,” said Palgrin reflexively, “that the world is so distant from what it should be, and that we must cling to these wicked means simply to exist in a way we were meant to... yet do we not still war when war is unnecessary? Doom upon a whim.”

  Cezzum only nodded in response.

  “Please, walk with me goblin,” earnestly asked the dwarf.

  The two haflings walked together in the furrows, amongst the incipient saplings. Palgrin brushed a verdant leaf with his hand, caressing it. “Tell me, Cezzum, why do you bear this burden of facing your own kind for the survival of another; other beings, that for as long as antiquity has told to us, has only meant to do harm to yours.”

  Cezzum carefully considered the question. It was clear to the goblin that Palgrin hid beneath the inquisition an agenda of a shrouded nature. “For reasons that are beyond my own person; to maintain an oath; to fulfil a promise to Filburn unto whom I swore my duty – a man, although dire in need, who bequeathed to me with the first mote of kindness I had ever known. It was thence, when I partook in his visage gripped by death, that I took his charge as my own.”

  Palgrin made a show of surveying the crop fields under the attenuating light and said, “An evasive answer, Cezzum. You have already given account, at length, of the phagens and Filburn, but what I asked is why did you take his missive? Easily enough you could have strayed from the path of your kin by simply dismissing the missive; no malignancy would have rested upon you for doing so; men and dwarves have done far less before.”

  “I-,” Cezzum struggled for words. He had thought on the very question whenever a respite granted him solitude, but it seemed unfathomable to convert his musings into speech; the goblin attempted it with much difficulty. “It is an answer I cannot give thee, for it too evades me. Mayhap when Filburn dubbed me, a goblin, a creature loathed by all, a brother, kin, that it unwittingly bound my heart to this journey. My mind only later emerged from the rigours and turmoil caused from that, at first, frightful choice – of this Palodar can attest.”

  “But to be called kin is not unique; other goblins would have given you the title as well, I am sure,” replied Palgrin; his shadowed eyes were cogently fixated upon the goblin’s.

  A wave of dejection rippled through the goblin as thoughts and memories long past surged within him; the squalls, which were memories wished to be forgotten, battered at the fore of his mind. Cezzum became crestfallen. “Many years heard I those words from my kin, but forever did their meaning sound naught but hollow to mine ears. I, Palgrin… I, was different…”

  Goblin and phagen society were never a pleasant one for Cezzum, and if any other peoples who did not take pleasure in the raping, the pillaging and the flaying of the weak were asked, a similar, more vehement answer would be given than Cezzum’s. Phagens and goblins would not consider their ways malign or even care to think that their actions were evil, for how can evil indeed be judged without the quality of that which is not - the moral state working in opposition. How truly could a nation be judged evil if good were a quality that was unknown? Phagens and goblins are not creatures without their own ways, their own ethics however, but in their stead, they clutch to ones that have never known what lies beyond. It was for this very reason that Cezzum, brought into being with an unfamiliar alignment to his kin, endured great madness to be free.

  Goblins were a peculiar culture in that they held to no predilection as to where they lived, often dwelling with their internecine kin – phagens – beneath the ground and mound in great warrens, or deep within dense forests, or even occasionally under the mantle of great mountains; wherever the eyes of the others did not roam and the legs of those did not pass closely; it was there that these two races abided.

  Cezzum, for his early life, called the Yfelgod Mountains his home, as so they were named by the writings of men. His tribe consisted only of goblins who had carved out an intricate town of warrens far within the mountain’s belly. It was not unheard of for goblins to live completely isolated from their lofty phagen kin; however, as clan strength was paramount to the fractious nature of warring tribes, and the strength of phagens complemented the agility of goblins, together they made far mightier kinfolk than apart. But as fate would have it, Cezzum’s brethren found the aegis of a mountain sufficient power for their society and thus sought not the aid of phagens.

  It was in this place that Cezzum the goblin was born. Ripped from his mother’s womb at three months; his first sight was that of the art of their incarnation. Cezzum’s eyes were blurry, opaque and struggled to focus as a male figure loomed towards a slenderer one. But since the goblin race relied heavily on their feral instincts, it was no more than a few seconds before Cezzum could gaze with clarity and perceive the darkness as something less obscure; he could even stumble about upon his own two feet. The male goblin, barely gleaned moments before, brought the iron-wrought pommel of his dagger crashing down upon a female’s head. She dropped to the floor, blood weeping from the schism in her head. The she-goblin clawed viscerally at her sire, her only means to avoid mating; if she could stave off, flee or slay her mate she would not be taken against desire, and the male, for failing in his attempt, would be torn asunder in humiliation at the whim of the town’s denizens. Her nails bit deeply into the goblin, pulling with it swathes of blood begrimed flesh. The hilt of the dagger careened into her skull once more. Her eyes roll
ed and rested. A confluence of two crimson rivulets streamed together upon her brow. Her resistance crumbled. She let herself became limp. The male tore from his body his tasse and with sanguine carnality mounted his conquest with fervour. Piercing her with ardent ferocity, the goblin bellowed his triumph with great cries while his Wa’rak, his mate victim, howled out keenly between fits of silence. The sonorous sound filled the caverns with the wail of life. Some goblins halted at the scene to cheer on the spectacle; most were indifferent and scampered about on their various duties. Drops of sweat plummeted from the sire’s chin, splashing excitedly into the passive eyes of the she-goblin, as he extricated himself from her loins. Retrieving his tasse he strode away; his victim gathered herself up and went back to her previous task of sorting a compendium of books for goblings; it was as if the entire occurrence was but as common as a fly dogging a perspiring farmer. In three months, she too would be in the position to have her young ripped from her womb. She wiped away the blood from her head so that it would not drip upon the books. It was an indifferent affair.

  Cezzum was lifted from the ground and brought to gaze into the two, bright yellow orbs of his mother’s eyes. His body was felt and manipulated; his limbs calculatingly measured. Cezzum’s mother grinned with dry satisfaction and placed Cezzum into a vat of foul cleansing resin. He returned his mother’s care, but the satisfaction that had laced his mother was displaced with utter disgust, Cezzum would never come to learn why.

  Yet not always did Cezzum find the time he grew up with his kin to be grotesque. Goblins may have been vile by many measures, but through the centuries they, as a race, had mastered the art of raiding; part of that mastery was the knowledge of language, that their foes may be always understood and their last words, spoken with reluctant breath, be heard and shared and communally delighted upon. Cezzum, and a cadre of eleven other goblings, were taught the tongue of men and women, ænglix. As the second turn of the world finished since Cezzum’s arrival, he had become adept at both Kig’n and ænglix and had already, for some time, fended for himself within the tribe, for at the turning of the first year of age, all goblings were discarded to the hospitality of their community, receiving either begrudging hospitality or death. Cezzum’s internal exile lasted until the turn of the fourth year, when the fraternal nature of the goblins placed its surviving young within the moulding folds of its horde.

  For three more years did Cezzum linger within the mountain warrens, compelled to learn the ways of the blade, to be cunning and ruthless with its edges, to severe anatomy that would cripple an opponent with but a slight touch, and naturally, a regime of ever increasing and rigorous exercises for the refinement of his alacrity. It was in his spare time, within the dead of night and gloom, when grog filled dreams ran amuck among the minds of the unconscious, that he stole into the learning rooms and partook greedily of the literary works of great ænglix writers kept not for education but language alone; Cezzum overturned tradition. Years trickled away as such. Cezzum’s mind grew vastly different from his goblin appearance. While the goblings with whom Cezzum had endured exile with adapted to the community, mating, drinking and the first tinctures of slaughter, Cezzum found himself drifting ever more away from his brethren. He kept a small straw pallet at the farthest end of the main street, tucked furtively out of site by means of an armourer’s shed; the great dormitories he found too sordidly rambunctious.

  At the age of ten, still exceptionally young in the grand lifespan of a goblin, but of a time considered to be prime for their malign arts, Cezzum was called to his first raid. A company of forty goblins clad in metal, leather and hide and bearing arms of all assortments, crouched silently in the underbrush of the wood’s eaves. Cezzum and another goblin by the name of Trazil were designated the pickets for the night’s bloody work. The cold metal of Cezzum’s two daggers knocked back and forth against the skin on his thighs as the two goblins sidled swiftly towards the barely budding lumber village. They reached the wall of one of the outer homesteads and pulled themselves up to the window. Within the lambent candlelight sat a family of five breaking bread at a wooden table. Trazil’s mouth curled wickedly. Cezzum became anxious as he saw no sentries wondering through the village. His fellow scout then dropped his grip from the window sill and turned to strike two flint sticks together, emitting an orange spark. A rustle of leaves and brush and tiny twigs announced the raiding party was charging. Without waiting, Trazil launched himself into the homestead; Cezzum watched in horror.

  Within but seconds Trazil had plunged a dagger into the neck of the eldest son and slit the throat of the hoary bearded man sitting at the table’s head. Suffering screams suffused the stillness when the woman saw two of her beloveds gushing and fumbling. The stream of goblins then rushed past Cezzum, curving around the homestead and set to the village proper with enthusiasm. The woman’s cry was soon echoed by others. Trazil pounced upon the second eldest son, gouging out his throat. He smashed his fist hard into the youngest child’s head, sending her flying off her chair and slumping to the ground. With prodigious speed he leapt at the mother who sat pressed against her chair, frozen in shock. He hit her with great force and the two tumbled over backwards, Trazil pinning the human on her back. Fists clawed and pounded down upon the woman and her clothes were ripped off, often incumbent with skin and red hues. Trazil’s face was alight in the ecstasy of his defilement. He tugged, scratched and fondled at her breasts and groin, playing vilely with his victim.

  Suddenly Trazil found himself ripped backwards off the splayed woman, a dagger in his shoulder and an arm around his neck. Reflexively the goblin knocked his attacker off with a resounding blow of his elbow and turned to face him. Cezzum staggered backwards regaining his balance; Trazil’s mien was covered with disbelief. Trazil looked at the dagger in his shoulder then back at Cezzum. No words were exchanged and between them the sheer hatred for each other was palatable. Trazil reached for his remaining razor at his hip and charged at his kin. Cezzum steadied himself. As the two closed, Cezzum snatched the thrusting arm of Trazil and let his body become limp causing both to crash to the ground. Cezzum swiftly recomposed himself and climbed atop Trazil’s body, plunging his second dagger through his fellow’s weapon arm, pinning it to the wooden hardboards. A balled fist smashed into Cezzum’s head, he returned it with two of his own. Cezzum brought his right leg round and pinioned Trazil’s other hand beneath it. With great might Cezzum gripped the neck of his kindred and began to crush the goblin’s throat with utter enmity. Cezzum’s thumbs dug through the jade skin, passing into tendons and muscle until either suffocation or loss of blood caused Trazil to expire in an ever-decreasing spasms of futile flailing. As Trazil’s life was confirmed to be lost, Cezzum rushed over to the woman, her chest still heaved with life. The woman’s blue eyes locked onto Cezzum and she alone knew the deeds of the goblin. She bled profusely, Cezzum could not tell if she would live through the night or not, but despite her fate sealed by Trazil, he helped and urged the woman to her feet. Torn shreds of cloth did little to cover her nakedness as Cezzum gathered her daughter in his hands and proffered her swiftly to the woman. With a gesture and a plea in ænglix, Cezzum beseeched her to flee through the window, to take flight southwards to the next village, out of the returning route of the goblin raiders. As the woman clambered clumsily through the window a faint smile graced her lips, or perhaps Cezzum merely conceived of the gesture in his mind; then she was gone.

  The seditious goblin pulled his dagger from Trazil’s shoulder and placed it at his hip. His body was tremulous and his gorge rose to the point where he began to retch. The turmoil of his deeds assailed his mind. He stumbled to the homestead’s door and pulled it slightly ajar. The vista of carnage raged before him. People lay and stumbled about with fewer limbs than normal and those dazed few who staggered hither and thither soon found goblins leaping on their backs; they were cut down as wheat before the scythe. Those that had managed to find a weapon were overwhelmed by numbers; the battle for the humans wa
s lost before it truly started. Cezzum silently closed the door on the grotesque and escaped through the window. He stood on the grass verge that met the wooden wall of the house; no sign of the woman and her child could be seen; he was happy for that. His entire body and mind were in upheaval, but at that knowledge he found a mote of consolation. Cezzum dashed back to the woods and then turned in a direction he knew passed by no goblin or phagen hordes. It was the route that was destined to take him to the Wyvern’s Nape. Cezzum never knew that the woman and child lay in charnel repose but ten feet away from him as he fled in the dead of the night.

  A shimmering ocean of painful radiance welled within Cezzum’s eyes as he finished his tale. “A more honest answer than that I cannot give to thee,” stuttered Cezzum ruefully, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air to cure a fettered spirit that no other treatment could mend.

  Palgrin crossed the short sward of arable land that had grown between them as Cezzum had talked and he had followed, having listened intently throughout; he embraced the goblin within the bowering verdant leaves of the field. “Forgive me Cezzum, Lauret and Casena put faith in you,” said the dwarf earnestly. He released his hug and with his two, Palodar-like hands, held the goblin’s shoulders. “It was ill of me to question it. Past deeds do not define us immutably, that is why there is the morrow. Continuity is often more important than singular deed, but a sound history, one that shows true virtue of character, well that, that is an auspice of great value, and you dear goblin are a mine of gold. I beg your mercy at my indiscretion in judgment and I thank you for what you have shared.” Palgrin slapped Cezzum’s upper arm in good spirit and with a passionate voice said, “Now come we must awaken your friends. Gilly and I worked through the eve and prepared three gunny sacks of goblin armour, garments and crests that should fit all of you snugly, well, at least snugly upon you! It was good chance that I procured the raiment of five, fallen goblins, for I assumed a human and loran party would be their claimants; thus, some phagens died needlessly, unless you are to count the satisfaction I gained from the deed. No matter now, your guises are set and I say they shall strike fear into any who look upon you! Now let us hurry the day grows too quickly for slow tasks.”