The Goblin and the Empire

by JD Cole

  Well, so much for being sneaky. He jumped over the railing and dropped nearly two stories, landing a dozen yards from where they stood. Only one soldier had a rifle, the same new design he’d faced from their buddies —he didn’t see any of the guys from the fight the other night— but the weapon was slung across his back. More importantly, none of them were wearing armor. They were all dressed in casual attire. Hopefully that meant Good Things.

  One of the soldiers slowly walked forward, and Derek matched his steps until they stood an arm’s length apart. The man offered his hand, and Derek shook it as he was greeted. There was no isotope this time.

  “You’re a quick healer, Hood. You were all but dead the last time I saw you.”

  “And when was that?” Derek asked, having never met the guy before.

  “My name’s Marc Tritt. We picked you and Kelli up in the forest, along with your elf-friends and that large fellow with the ray-gun. But your face was all busted up, and your arm was mangled like you’d been wrestling an alligator.”

  Derek closed his eyes at the memory; the alien had pulled his left shoulder out of the socket, crushed his upper arm into pudding, and twisted the entire limb backwards until it was only attached to his body by a limp chunk of torn, dead meat. Unconsciously, he rotated his shoulder and gripped it with his right hand. It was fully healed now, thanks only to Dragon magic.

  Marc turned and motioned to the tall woman, who slowly moved to join them. Derek blinked as he looked at her form-fitted jeans; her legs were incredibly long… impossibly long. A feralman. “This is Sam Vox. She’s a pilot, saved all our asses when the drones attacked us in the forest.”

  Derek shook her hand when she extended it, looking up at her and envying her Amazonian height. She looked at him curiously for a moment, only smiling when their hands broke contact. Definitely a feralman, those fangs looked pretty sharp, and her hair wasn’t quite right, either. It looked like a canopy of small, thin feathers. “Pleased to meet you,” she said. He placed her accent as Bengali.

  “I guess I should say thanks, then,” the Hood replied, looking at both of them.

  “You have every right to be apprehensive,” Marc said. “Look, Valentine’s not a field person. Up until a month ago she worked in an R&D lab. But we’re shorthanded, and with our limited assets, she’s one of the few leaders we could tap. She should have waited for us to advise her, but she was never out to hurt you.”

  “Just capture me, toss me in a cell someplace for interrogation,” the Hood agreed.

  “Not necessarily-”

  “And not unlikely, either. Look, say what you have to say. If it’s important, then let’s get to it. I’m not hosting a cocktail party here.”

  “Right. And, for the record, thanks for not being too rough on the doc. And the bodyguards you tussled with… well, no hard feelings. Now, we’ve got video records for you, if you’re interested in seeing them.”

  “Very.”

  Marc motioned to one of the other men, who produced a laptop computer from his small knapsack. They all moved to a nearby stack of crates where the computer was setup for viewing. It was a brand new SGI model, and Derek was impressed. It incorporated holographic display technology, which was still fairly new. So far, only the Japanese made extensive use of holographic TVs, but there were over a hundred holographic movie theaters scattered throughout the US now, and infrastructure was quickly being invested in for holographic television stations on the assumption that technology costs would soon become widely affordable. Here and now, instead of a flip up screen, four optical rods extended from each corner of the laptop and projected a three-dimensional display above the computer.

  Derek took a moment to stare at each rod, appreciating the engineering work that went into the technology. The rods pulsed trillions of light particles with precise timing so that they crossed paths with particles from the other rods in such a way as to create images with colors and depth that the human eye interpreted differently based on the angle of view. The result enabled true three-dimensional imagery.

  The display contained several floating folder icons. The man touched the folder containing the relevant files, which opened to spill several media files into the foreground. He tapped one and a high-resolution video began playing, hovering in the air before him. In presentation mode, the projector made the two-dimensional video viewable from every angle simultaneously, so everyone gathered around could watch.

  It looked like it had been recorded from a camera on somebody’s helmet. The scene was Nanortalik, and armored soldiers were engaged in a firefight with glassy androids, like the ones that had been shooting people in Boston. “Our mission,” Marc said as he stood beside the Hood, “was to locate the alien’s lair. Our satellites captured its initial attack, when you and Kelli were kidnapped.”

  “That’s how you got the name Timothy Clarkson.”

  “That’s the name you used to buy a plane ticket,” Marc confirmed. “This scene here took place shortly after our incursion into Greenland. Saboteurs inside S2 destroyed several of our critical systems right before this ambush occurred, cutting us off from the world. You recognize the enemy drones?”

  Derek nodded. “Your make, according to Dr. Valentine.”

  “Yeah,” Marc looked embarrassed. “Chamoids. I’d never seen one before this action, but one of our support guys recognized them, told me they were S2 assets. The whole mission fell apart after that. We couldn’t trust our own people to get us out of there.”

  “Just how many of those things are there?”

  “A little more than a hundred, now. Between the op in Greenland and the action in Boston, we destroyed a hundred and seventy eight of the bottle drones. You and your friends helped, obviously. Before the Boston attack, we took down the factory that was manufacturing them. We think there’s still a dozen or so the alien left buried in Nanortalik. The rest are out of play, confiscated by the DoD.”

  “And you guys haven’t been back there?”

  Marc shook his head. “There’s civilians and agents from almost every government in the world crawling all over that place.”

  “Why?”

  “My fault,” the woman named Sam volunteered. “The teams —and you and Kelli and the elves— were surrounded by those bottle drones. I made the call to blanket the area with guided munitions. Good news, it saved you, bad news, it sort of tipped off everyone that something was going on.”

  Marc continued the briefing, but Derek was distracted by a voice in his head.

  “Hood, something is not right…”

  Derek tried to tune Undine out. He hadn’t asked for her opinion on anything, and she seemed to be reneging her pledge to leave him alone unless he called for her. He continued observing the video, listening to Marc’s recounting as the elemental persisted.

  “The jimani woman, she is a spell-caster, I am sure of it…”

  The faeries said jimani occasionally inherited some small control of magic. Fine, Derek whispered mentally, I’ll keep an eye on her. Now leave me alone.

  “She reeks of wind-element… I can taste the tinge of ether-travel on her… and it’s on you, too, where you clasped hands! Master, she has marked you just as her allies did before!”

  Now, that was a big deal. If Leggy McSharptooth could weave ethergates, he was in deep doo-doo. Derek quickly backtracked away from everyone, pointing at Dr. Valentine as his eyes lit orange. “I warned you.”

  His other hand curled into a fist, his cannons springing into place from their sheath on his forearm as he continued backing away. He looked at Sam and aimed his weapon at her. “What’s on your palm? What did you paint me with?”

  Derek’s eye caught movement from the man with the rifle, and the Hood turned to see that he now had a gun pointed at him.

  Marc gave an angry look at his subordinate and gestured for him to lower the rifle. “Everybody stay calm.” He lifted his chin at Derek. “Let’s just put our weapons down. We didn’t come here for a fight.” Marc looked
at Sam, and Derek decided he was out of time. They were going to teleport him somewhere, and that was unacceptable. But just as he began to crouch defensively, the man with the rifle shouted, “No you don’t!”

  Something crashed painfully into Derek’s right shoulder at the exact same time Derek heard the gunshot.

  “Hold your fire, dammit!” Marc shouted, punching the man and yanking the rifle from his hands.

  Derek had been spun around completely and landed on one knee. Gripping his numb shoulder, he looked up and saw the Lady of the Lake, dressed in her white Hood uniform, standing between him and the soldiers. She held two slender swords in her hands, the blades looking like they were made of running water. There was a ghostly song echoing from above, and Derek looked up even higher, toward the catwalk. Veylsa was spinning, falling from the ceiling, and stabbed into the floor between him and Undine. It was human-sized, like it had been for Uther and Arthur. Derek shook his head. “I didn’t summon-”

  “Pick it up,” Undine ordered, not turning to face him. Gone was the meekness in her voice. “I will not allow my master to be killed by the likes of these. Those who wish harm against you must die!” The elemental rushed toward the soldiers; guns were drawn, liquid swords were raised…

  Derek’s hand closed around Veylsa’s hilt.

  « CHAPTER 10 »

  Converging

  Kelli awoke slowly, debating on whether to sit up and start the day, or roll over and go back to sleep. Then she remembered that today was the day the mystics would be opening a gate into the human world for her. She was going to see her family and friends in the flesh again! The Queen all but leapt from under the covers, a huge, eager smile on her face as she got her personal bath ready. At some point she would have the castle staff fussing over this stuff for her, and she wondered how weird that would be. She was perfectly fine with getting herself ready in the mornings. But, she realized, her profession was technically going to be taking care of affairs of state; maybe those servants would come in handy after all. She probably wasn’t going to have the time to get things ready and laid out for herself once this ball really got rolling.

  The day went as most of her others had so far. She found little ways to practice spell-casting, delighted at being able to cause momentary flashes of light around herself, or levitating water between her hands to mold and play with like putty. The sprites were making sure she was as comfortable as possible, and Dufangen, Sorvir, and Brevha visited her at regular intervals for amiable chats, further acclimating her to life in not just the castle, but the Faery Realm in general. Brevha and Sorvir both lectured her about refraining from casting spells until she was fully recovered, and she sheepishly apologized to them both, accepting their advice and promising —again— to follow it.

  As the time drew near for Kelli’s return to her ranch, Dufangen once more tried to convince her to wait just a little longer before bringing her parents here, but the Queen’s mind was decided.

  “There shouldn’t be anything more important than family,” Kelli argued. Dufangen opened her mouth to rebut, then seemed to think better of it and kept silent. “Please,” Kelli said, “I’m not some kind of tyrant. If you need to say something, tell me.”

  “Family is the most important thing,” the Royal Counselor said after several heartbeats of reflection. “And yet there are times when it is not. I fear it will not be long before you begin to realize this.”

  Kelli sat back in her plush chair, then nodded. “My family will have to take a back seat while I watch over the Faery Realm.”

  “I am not familiar with this ‘back seat’, but I think I know what you mean, Highness. And yes, you will face situations as Queen that will demand you push aside what matters most to you in order to do what is right.”

  “Dufangen…” Kelli’s apprehension showed on her face.

  “Highness?”

  “There’s something I need to tell you. My parents, they know we’re coming. I can… I can talk to them. With magic.”

  The Royal Counselor raised an eyebrow. “You have learned this skill on your own?”

  “No. Ben gave my parents a gift. An enchantment. My parents can use it to call to me whenever they want. We’ve been in contact since the night Bennett left.” Dufangen gave no outward reaction, and Kelli looked down. “I hope you’re not mad.”

  After several long moments, Dufangen sighed. “I am not angry, or even displeased. We are all adjusting to this, and despite our need for you to accept your situation, I understand why you hid this.” Dufangen paced a few steps, then turned back to face Kelly. “You did nothing wrong, but I am encouraged that the trust between us is growing to where you can share this with me.”

  “So, I can keep communicating with them?”

  “Of course. And I must also apologize to you, Highness. Your discomfort and anxiety in all of this has been, if I may borrow your phraseology, taking a back seat to my concerns about training you to be our Queen. You have a long road to travel, but I should not have been so dismissive of the way you were pulled from your life and your family. For that, I sincerely apologize.”

  That small reconciliation had somehow lifted Kelli’s spirits, but she wondered if her life as Queen would make it impossible to avoid dealing in deceit like this ever again.

  “One more thing, Dufangen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Scrying, using your spirit to see the world outside... it’s a lot easier for you when you’re on the other side of the Ythsimerin, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, considerably.”

  “When we go to meet my parents, could you scrye Derek? Make sure he’s okay, and maybe... even if we can’t bring him here, I could take a few moments just to say hello to him, let him know we all got home safe?”

  “Certainly, Highness. It will be no trouble at all.”

  It was late evening now, and Kelli all but swam through the wondrous wardrobe provided her. It was filled with regal vampyre clothing, since servants had not been put to work yet tailoring sprite apparel in her size. Even in this guest room, the large wooden cabinet was full of clothes that were richer in quality and variety than any Beverly Hills fashion store could ever hope to stock. Brevha had said the twelve walk-in closets in the Monarch’s actual bedroom were all about the size of this guest room, stuffed from wall to wall with even more clothes. If flying was the best part of this new life, the clothes were the second best! She pushed her hand through all the different choices, trying to decide how best to appear when she picked up her parents… and hopefully Derek, if he wasn’t too busy hunting criminals.

  Kelli’s hand rested on a beautiful gold dress as she thought about her young friend. She had no way to contact him, not the way her parents her could contact her with that pendant. Even if she hadn’t still been weakened from the battle, she did not know how to breach the Ythsimerin, even telepathically. She decided to ask Dufangen or one of the sprites to do this before ripping open an ethergate in front of him. That would be sort of rude, she mused. She wondered then at his welfare. She and Devon had left him to help the humans pick up the mess after the alien had been defeated. It couldn’t really be helped; she’d been in no condition to offer aid, barely having the strength to stand up. But Derek… she decided not to be too worried. If there was a more capable man alive than Derek Hawkins —forgetting her husband, of course— Kelli had not met him.

  Without realizing it, Kelli found that she had pulled several items from the wardrobe to lay across her bed. She looked at them now, then returned and found a few more things to lay out. She chewed her lip, wrinkled her nose, and clucked her tongue as she mentally matched different pieces together. She tried on a pair of trousers that were probably meant for a male vampyre, as they were too wide around the waist. She removed them and tried another pair that wasn’t quite what she wanted, but fit much better. It was a slightly lighter shade of black than the other pair had been. There was a blue, silk, sleeveless blouse that went on next. Instead of buttons, the front wrapped al
l the way around her, and a pair of strings wrapped around her once again to be tied behind her back. Next came a tight, vest-like piece that, once donned, hung low in front and back while conforming to her waist and bust. It was green and bright, like her eyes. Over this, she chose a black, long tailed velvet coat that was lined with red silk on the inside.

  She moved to the mirror, smiling with amusement. She could spend hours just mixing and matching this stuff. Kelli decided this look almost hit the mark she’d pictured in her mind. It looked professionally business-like, but was unmistakably feminine and just slightly exotic. Whoever had filled the wardrobe had done a pretty good job of judging her size. She tried buttoning up the coat, then undoing it again, choosing to leave it open. She struck several poses as if she were a model, then laughed at herself. There were still some choices left to make. Boots or sandals, for instance. She returned to the bed to inspect some more articles of clothing and accessories, at the same time summoning Brevha through mindspeak. It would be fun having her new aunt help her with her hair and makeup.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Kim stood leaning against the wooden gate, watching Tom Ingram groom Kelli’s horse, Orion. Apparently, Kelli had a pretty strong bond with Orion, called him her best friend and everything. Kim had been told Orion was a Tennessee Walker, but that meant nothing to the Silver Knight. A horse was a horse, as far as she could tell. “He should have been back, already,” she told Erica.

  “I don’t know anything about this new world they’re part of,” Erica said. “Maybe he’s with Christian right now, maybe that’s why Chris still isn’t answering me.”