"You'll need to snooze more than a night to improve on that ugly mug of yours,” Garrich riposted the inventor's earlier taunt.
"Just where did you pop in from in such an all fire hurry?” Parndolc put to his brother.
"I was chatting with our master.” Unwilling to alarm the others, Maldoch did not bring up the matter of conversing with the dark mistress too.
"You were at the Hollow?"
"There's no other place in the whole of Terrath to make that call."
Parndolc shuddered. “Draesdow gives me the creeps."
"It's not exactly on the top of my list of sightseeing spots,” agreed Maldoch, “but it has been a popular site of late for visiting Goblins."
Garrich paused repacking his rucksack at talk of his brethren.
"That is strange,” murmured Parndolc, “not to mention suicidal. Why would any Westie opt for making a one way trip to that hellhole?"
"They were obviously scouts, looking for a shortcut east to spy out the lay of the land prior to the big strike. Nobody bothered telling them they couldn't make it through."
"That's the price you pay for being an underling,” philosophized Parndolc. He grinned evilly in the fading red light.
"I don't find dead Goblins all that amusing,” muttered Garrich.
"From the signs visible, I'm betting the invasion of Carallord is set to happen soon,” concluded Maldoch.
"So that's why you magically jumped in on us and doused my campfire,” guessed his brother.
"I'm feeling a sense of urgency, Parny. We're nearing kick-off and I don't intend dropping the ball."
"How did lizard lips react to your popping out? He's no fan of magic. It's the only thing I liked about him."
"My powers don't work inside the Hollow, so I had to walk out of Draesdow to translocate. I've kept that secret from Soran so far. It keeps the old spook on his toes. Righto, Parndolc. I want you to get your butt up north."
"Ale country!’ said the technical wizard, beaming and clapping his hands eagerly.
"You're not going there for a drinking binge. I want you to avail yourself to the Dalcornes. Maybe they'll find a use for your inventiveness."
"Not that I mind heading up country to nobly protect Dwarf breweries, but why there, Mal?"
"Carnach has always wanted to get its meat hooks into the northland. Even if Ahnorr does make a play for the Upper Wade, his goal will ultimately be to drive for Frelok Pass. That's where he outmaneuvered Ghranu and hung him out to dry. He'll be wanting to jumpstart the invasion on the bones of his old coup."
"From a military standpoint, the invaders won't want to bypass the Dwarf citadel. That'll leave an unplucked thorn in their rump just waiting to fester,” Garrich mused unasked.
Pleased at the boy's contribution, Tylar Shudonn's education shining through youthful apathy, Maldoch affirmed with a nod. “Omelchor won't let his Goblin general be that stupid. He's already made sure the symbol of the Dwarf kingship got hit hard even before the first punch of round one has been thrown."
"What's the boxing analogy in aid of?” queried Parndolc. “Has something happened up at Dalcorne High?"
Relating the dire episode of the attempt on the Dwarf King's person, Maldoch finished his sad tale by saying, “I left him fighting for his life. It wasn't a battle he stood a chance of winning, Parny."
"Says you!” the technical wizard retorted angrily. “Why didn't you tell me when you called from Pendalth? I could have..."
"What? Hiked a thousand leagues overnight? Had you strapped one of your rockets to your bum and fired it up, you still would have arrived too late. Your primary job was babysitting Garrich, and you nearly failed in that."
"I might have done something for Dalcorne!"
"Attended his funeral. Dalcorne Senior is by now moldering in the family crypt. Look, you can still help ... but the son, not the father. A wizard, even a non-magical hammerhand such as yourself, is direly needed up at the Dwarf capital. My bones are telling me that's where the deciding battle will be fought. Anything that happens in Anarica is going to be secondary. That notwithstanding, have the Crown Prince send word to Lindan Holbyant to be on his toes. Not one of us knows for sure Omelchor's timetable, but I'm picking the broad start date for the impending strife will be next spring, certainly no later than early summer. Only an idiot would try assaulting the Dwarfs in wintertime. Garrich and I will meet up with you again at the fortress hopefully before things get out of hand."
Sulkily accepting his lot in life, Parndolc enquired, “What'll the two of you be up to before then?"
"Bringing a rescue party together, starting off at Lorrens."
Garrich finished tying up his pack. “Who's out there?"
Maldoch squirmed in his burnt boots. “The finest cobbler this side of Westknoll."
"Who was she?"
Maldoch pretended not to hear the question. With a million and one things to consider, he had no need for an added distraction.
Not to be put off, Garrich persevered. “You know who she is, wizard. Don't deny it."
"You're going to persist with this, aren't you boy?"
"You betcha."
The spellcaster heaved a sigh of surrender. Lorrens lay half a day's walk behind the cloaked pair and Maldoch's newly purchased boots were killing him. They pinched his blistered feet, making each step an exercise in pain. Garrich nagging was an unwelcome extra discomfort. For the three months since parting company with Parndolc, Goblin and wizard furtively made their way eastwards off-road, avoiding the frequent detachments of soldiers moving in serious columns along the realm's byways. And every day Garrich grilled the reticent sorcerer over the identity of that mystery woman encountered back in Wivernbush. Maldoch had clammed up, refusing to cater to the boy's infatuation, but Garrich's pushiness finally wore him down.
"I suspect what she is, not who, Lenta,” he enigmatically told Garrich. They had resumed their travel identities.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You've fallen for her, boy. Big mistake. Do yourself a favor and forget her. You'll be better off for it. Women only break your heart. I'd suggest you take a cold shower beneath the next waterfall we come across, except where we're heading water is in chronically short supply."
Cleverly sidetracked by the limping wizard, Garrich glanced at the range of bare peaks undulating the skyline on his left. “Those are the Shieldrock Mountains, right? There's nothing south of here but swamp and jungle."
"About time your sense of direction improved. Who said we're going to stay traveling south."
"So where are you taking us?"
"To work on your tan.” Maldoch chuckled. “Two years cooped up in Earthen Rise has left you with a complexion as pale as a swan's."
Rolling up the sleeve of his cloak, Garrich stared puzzlingly at his olive skinned arm while he walked.
They made camp that evening in a thicket-like copse of evergreen scrub oaks, the stiff and waxy leaves providing a buffer against autumn's cool breath. Bedding down beneath the low chaparral branches rustling in the breeze, Garrich munched on his half of the rabbit he snared and which Maldoch cooked for supper. As always, the barefoot wizard was sitting by their small fire poking at the guttering flames with a stick. His troublesome boots were off to one side, removed so he could apply a soothing salve to his blistered heels.
"Explain this Destiny set up to me,” entreated the Goblin.
"Have you a spare century?” joked the wizard.
Garrich shrugged. “Maybe. I don't know how long my kind live for."
"A shade over fifty years, if they make it far enough to expire of old age."
"That's stuff all."
"Quality counts more than quantity, boy."
"That's easy for you to say, old man. You wizards are immortal."
"Not quite, but near enough,” said Maldoch. “Anyhow, Destiny and Fate go hand in hand like bread and cheese. They are as elemental as air and water, fire and rock."
"Yes, but what
are they?"
"Shapers of the future,” elaborated the wizard. “Think of yourself as driving a cart and coming to a fork in the highway. How do you choose which road to take? If your horse bolts and careens off down one fork, you immediately blame Fate. After all, anything dreadful that happens to you in life gets put down to bad kismet. Destiny is the flip side of that coin. Say you decide to take the other road, impelled perhaps by a favorable sign or at the urging of a local by the wayside. Were you not destined to go that way from the very start of your journey? Those are the principle forces at work guiding the lives of all creatures, from worms to whales. Am I making any sense?"
"Some,” accepted Garrich, chewing the cony meat thoughtfully. “Anything nice is Destiny, something rotten is Fate."
"Broadly speaking,” said Maldoch, nodding slightly.
"But I fail to see the relationship between Good and Evil."
"That is simple. The followers of Light are steered by the noble urgings of Destiny, knowing that by being true to one's heart, dreams can ultimately be achieved and pure goodness attained along the way—in theory, anyway. Fate is a blacker kettle of fish. Those devils treading the unconscionable path of Darkness are driven by evil machinations and purposely drag innocents down with them."
"Are either of them escapable?” the Goblin asked after swallowing his well-masticated morsel. He was still not entirely comfortable with the notion of being a mere tool of Destiny.
"Depends. Over the centuries I've made a casual study of these divergent controlling forces and come up with this incontrovertible conclusion: if you are destined for greatness, then that's what will fall on your shoulders no matter what steps you take to avoid it. What form that assumes, however, rests largely on the individual. A person can be fated to eminence even after swapping sides."
"Is Omelchor such a person?"
Maldoch toyed with his poker, extracting it from the campfire to indolently watch a nodule of flame bobbing on the charred tip of the crooked spindle of wood before a puff of wind extinguished it. “Sadly so, Garrich,” he granted. “My brother, like me, was always meant to be a wizard of some note. Only he elected to stray over the fence and throw in his lot with the baddies."
"Parny said as much,” Garrich related to the spellcaster. “He said also that a lot of things can be put down to something he terms Lady Luck."
"My practically minded brother would. Most times he puts bugger all credence in faith, yet he'll happily ascribe happenings to pure chance. Maybe he's right from time to time, and his philosophy does apply to Omelchor in this case. Whatever the root cause of his impulsion, Omel did switch one set of beliefs for another."
"That's one example of good turning bad. Have there been instances of the reverse happening?"
"Of Evil being swayed by Good?"
"Yep."
"Only one insofar as I know of,” declared Maldoch. “You."
Garrich choked on his next bite of tasty rabbit.
The wizard spoke over the boy's coughing. “Shudonn raised you, at my behest, with the correct values. You were taught right from wrong, instilled with morals, etcetera. All that doesn't excuse the fact that you are Goblin by birth and the Carnachians are, shall we say, corruptible thieves and killers. You, Garrich, are the saving grace of your kind. Fate probably earmarked you to be a faceless warrior, but Destiny moved through me to make you its champion. I have a strong feeling that you're ordained to wind up being more than just the liberator of the Eastern Realms. You just may be bound to become the redeemer of the West."
Sobered by that presumption, the Goblin ate the rest of his meal in ruminative silence as evening slipped away into night. Folding his cloak about him for warmth afterwards, Garrich quietly asked before rolling over to sleep, “Do you think you were destined to find me all those years ago?"
"I believe so,” Maldoch answered with profound sincerity.
The young man closed his eyes, comforted by that conviction.
The pair broke camp at first light and continued in a southerly direction, using the easternmost mountains as a guide rail. Their pace was slow due to the wizard's hurting feet, so by midmorning they had barely traveled one whole league. Maldoch called a halt and slumped onto a knoll of bare earth protruding up out of the clumps of hardy tussock. Garrich squatted nearby as the wincing wizard slipped off his boots and smelly socks to rub his achy feet, relieving the soreness with a fresh application of balm.
"I don't get it,” said the Goblin.
"What?” snapped Maldoch, made irritable by more than his blisters. His weather bones were predicting that the perennial autumn overcast would soon unleash a drenching, and he was in no mood for getting soaked.
"This race war of yours is due soon. If being the champion of realms is my destiny, shouldn't I right now be where the thick of the fighting will take place? Parndolc's headed up north. Maybe I should've accompanied him. What are we doing out here in the boondocks, Mal?’ Garrich dropped the Sulca alias as soon as civilization was left behind.
The wizard chortled deprecatingly. “You didn't think we were going to go it alone in the upcoming trials?"
"I hadn't really considered it,” Garrich said in all honesty.
"Do so. My master instructed me in a dream vision to assemble a special company for this venture to up the odds for our success. I must bring together a champion from each of the Fellow Races, along with a famed national talisman of theirs, in time for the outbreak of hostilities. This convergence has been twenty years in the making and you bear the honor of being the first of those defenders assembled."
"I'm your Goblin,” Garrich said dubiously. “So what's my talisman?"
"Tylar's sword,” returned the wizard. “Admittedly it's a bit of a stretch for the imagination, but that blade is a genuinely recognizable symbol to the Anarican armies."
Garrich was flabbergasted. “It is?"
"Shudonn owned that broadsword long before you came on the scene, boy. He wore it strapped to his side religiously during his final days as an instructor at the military school. Every recruit who passed through there knows it by sight or reputation, so wear it with pride. The armies of the princedom will rally to that upraised blade like moths to a flame."
The importance of Tylar's weapon quadrupled for the amazed youth, as did the burden he shouldered. “How many others will be joining us?"
Taking a swig from the waterskin beneath his robes, Maldoch listed, “A Treesinger, a Sandwalker, and someway or another an Underlander."
"Have my fellow champions also been groomed from infancy for their role?"
"None of you were preselected as guardians of the nations,” said the wizard, “at least not by me. Destiny works in mysterious ways and could have conceivably lined up these individuals hundreds, even thousands of years beforehand. In answer to your question, two that I know of were picked at random by their respective leaders after meeting certain criteria."
"What sort of criteria?"
"The usual hero stuff ... courage, brawn, a touch of smarts.” He smirked beneath his impressive hoary beard. “Plus a healthy respect for me."
"What of the champion for the Highlanders?"
"That was easy, or it will be. One of the Dwarf royals should suffice and that power axe of theirs will do nicely as a talisman."
Garrich thought about things a bit more. ‘You didn't mention someone for the realm of Men."
Maldoch gave a guilty cough. “That would be me."
"You're a wizard!"
"What tipped you off ... my looks or magic."
"I figured wizards were a distinct race all their own. It never occurred to me that you guys are..."
"Human? Boy, if you were privy to all the truths of Terrath you'd cringe to know that I am more human than any Anarican who has lived, is living, or is yet to live. And that's no idle boast.” Maldoch sloshed another mouthful of water down his throat.
Scratching his straggly fuzz of a beard, Garrich frowned. “This is too confusing. I'm repr
esenting Carnach, yet I'm a Goblin by birth, not nature, and my charm is an Anarican blade crafted by a Dwarf swordsmith. You, a wizard, are championing on behalf of the princedom of Men, with who knows what as your talisman."
Patting the rune inscribed stave at his feet, the spellcaster publicized, “The Maker Staff, and it's of elvish origin."
"More incongruity,” groaned the youth.
"Life isn't black and white, but shaded with annoying gray areas. Although you never get used to them, you do accept them.” Maldoch tossed the muddled Goblin his nearly empty waterskin. “As your feet are younger than mine, go look for a stream and fill this up. Don't neglect to top up your water bottle too. We've a long, dry walk ahead of us."
A couple of hundred yards distant from the seated wizard, Garrich nosed out a pocket of rainwater pooled in a depression deep enough to fill their canteens from. Kneeling, he hesitated plunging the flaccid waterskin into the dark oval. He had not gazed at his reflection since that revelational day when Maldoch immobilized him with magic before exposing him as a Goblin. Garrich made a cursory study of his sparsely bearded face before rippling the watery mirror with the neck of the leather bottle, bubbles popping to the surface as the waterskin filled up. He knew what he was, not who he was.
Returning to find the wizard booted and on his complaining feet ready to move again, he handed over the bulging waterskin. Maldoch draped the strap over his shoulder and, tucking the water carrier under his cloak, announced, “We're taking a shortcut."
"You're leading me into Troll country, aren't you?” Garrich said to his guide.
Parndolc he counted as a friend. His relationship with Maldoch slipped into one of the wizard's gray regions.
"Grab hold of my staff, Garrich."
The Goblin obeyed, but questioned, “I thought you detested long distance jumping?"
"Ruining my boots only hardens my dislike of translocating. However, since we're now racing the hourglass and there's no quick way around or through the Shieldrocks, we're forced to go over the top of them.” Incanting the appropriate spell, the world dissolved around the wizard and Goblin, the greens melting away into a void of nondescript, bumpy grayness before substance reformed into firmer yellow-browns.
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