The Goblin and the Empire

by JD Cole

  ~

  Jezrimeli managed to admire the splendor of the theater without showing it, keeping her face passive as Serann led her and the others to where the rescue party was grouped apart from the allied humans and faeries who were planning their assault on Matari. She allowed surprise and curiosity upon spying the VT-4 battle platforms and black-armored humans.

  “Why are there two groups?” She asked.

  Nim pointed to the assault group. “They’re going to Matari to keep the Goblin King distracted. The humans apparently are confident that they can raze Matari as soon as they get word that we’ve rescued the queen’s father.”

  “Those few humans?” Jezrimeli raised an eyebrow, looking then at Lumina.

  “It would not surprise me if they can do it even without Tirapan’s help,” the Paladin admitted.

  The zerivade pursed her lips and blinked to indicate she was impressed. “That’s welcome news if it’s true. That city’s destruction is long overdue… though I’d love to watch it happen myself. I admit those golems look formidable.”

  They quickly reached the rescue group, where Serann addressed everyone. “Everyone, I introduce the Zerivade Jezrimeli Addican.”

  Jezrimeli nodded a casual greeting to the group. “I’ve been told you’re planning a little tour of Gedaschen? I came to find out if that’s the boldest thing I’ve ever heard, or the stupidest.” The zerivade was well-known to several of the war council and she moved to offer more personal greetings.

  Julian walked up to Lumina. “Proctern, I would like to accompany you on the rescue.”

  “I’m no longer a proctern,” Lumina shook his head. “I retired from the college years ago. Just Lumina is fine. You are Julian, if I remember correctly? A Fourth-Mark in the Arsenal?”

  “Yes, sir,” the young soldier nodded. “And respectfully, a proctern is always a proctern.”

  Lumina chuckled. “Well, I do tend to begin lectures when anyone strikes up conversations with me. But let us see what the war council has planned, it is they who will decide who is going on this mission.”

  By now the Hood had moved off on his own, turning away from everyone. “Undine, have you analyzed my ideas? Can your magic make any of it possible?”

  “Yes, Hood, they are devilishly clever ideas for spells that I’ve never heard of before, and you can use my power to do several of those things. Most of the tasks won’t take much magic, but there will be quite a bit of concentration involved. It is a rare sorcerer who can dream up such complex spells.”

  “I’m not a sorcerer-”

  “I know how you feel about magic, Hood. But what you are scheming is to create new spells no one has ever used before. That is the definition of a sorcerer.”

  Derek sighed. “The Paladins are known as ‘technomancers’, right? I have to admit that sounds kinda’ cool. Anyway, there’s no getting around that I need magic to get this done, and the camouflage is what I’m most interested in. How difficult will that be?”

  “The visual component will require extreme focus on your part, as well as practice to understand how all the variables can affect the spell. Although… I could handle it myself if you allow me to share in your skills again.”

  “What I already gave you isn’t enough?”

  “I have gained an understanding of complex mathematics and physics, but I cannot run simultaneous calculations with the speed you perform them. You still needed to help me with that clever eyescope trick you used to deceive the humans, remember?”

  “Fine, I’ll allow it. Camouflage is the most crucial spell I need at the moment. Could you hide something large? Something like a bus from my world? I don’t know how big Lumina’s Ripwingers are.”

  “Yes, the spell would be scalable, it would just take feeding more magic into it and as I said, the amount of magic needed at the individual level is trivial.”

  Satisfied, Derek nodded to himself and sought out Dufangen, who was conferring with her fellow mystics. “Counselor,” he addressed her while allowing the other mystics to listen, “I’ve confirmed with Undine that my idea for keeping us hidden inside the castle should work. I’d like to test it here first to be sure, but I didn’t want to surprise you with her casting spells all of a sudden.”

  “Indeed. Thank you for the consideration, and I gently advise you to never use magic on your own without notifying us like this. I do not mean to be rude, but we have not had time to discuss the gravity of your binding with our elemental weapon. Your use of it is dangerous, and again, I mean no disrespect. It is not your fault Undine has done this to you.”

  “I understand, and for what it’s worth, the only reason I’m even using Undine’s help now is to get Kelli’s dad back.”

  “I see. And exactly how will you use water element to conceal yourself from the shadowlanders?”

  “Lots of geometry and chemistry,” he explained.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Ercianodhon was deep in trance, muttering unintelligibly as his subconscious continued reciting the concentration mantras. His right hand suddenly moved to Tom’s chest, his claws digging into flesh and forcing blood to gush out onto the table. Kirama winced, crying in anger at her helplessness. The Goblin King was making progress even quicker than she feared he would.

  ~

  “This is just incredible,” Kelli smiled at Sorvir. “I mean, I’ve kinda understood this for awhile, but it’s just starting to sink in how much I can help people with the Birthright!”

  For several years now, Kelli had ravenously devoured her lessons in the shi’un classes Sorvir conjured for her. She wasn’t sure how much of this she would be able to retain, but she worked and studied as hard as she could, elated as she progressed alongside the young sprites she shared the memory-classes with. Even Vanessa was caught up in the wonder of the things her daughter was learning how to do. While Kelli could not affect things in the shi’un, she could examine everything and even sense the properties of the shi’un objects with her magic. When her classmates successfully accomplished their different tasks, the Sprite Queen’s ‘sixth sense’ allowed her to understand exactly what had happened and how.

  “It’s like this,” Kelli was explaining a spell to her mother. She opened her palm and created an illusion of a flower on a stem. The stem was transparent, and Kelli pointed to magical energy flowing calmly upward from the soil that the sprites were learning to enchant. The energy acted as a kind of motivator for the cells they made contact with, supplying both energy and endurance to work beyond their natural capacity for a short period without causing any unnatural wear or decay in the process. Kelli then explained the properties of the earth magic and how it could be “configured” for specific purposes like this.

  “Too bad they couldn’t teach you all this at FSA before you graduated,” Vanessa chuckled.

  “They’d probably double the tuition if they could teach real magic!” Kelli agreed. Suddenly her smile faded, and she frowned.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Vanessa tilted her head at the abrupt change in her daughter’s mood. Her concern drew Sorvir’s attention, as well.

  The queen shook her head as if unsure. “Something’s wrong.”

  “I sense it also, Highness,” Sorvir replied, looking around for any possible disturbance.

  Both sprites noticed a shimmer in the corner of the classroom, and Kelli gasped. “Dad!”

  Sorvir caught her shoulder as she began to run towards the apparition. His face was filled with dread. “That is not your father,” he shook his head.

  “Tom!” Vanessa ran past them both before Sorvir could stop her. “Tom! Babe, you’re back!” the queen’s mother tried to reach out for him, but her hands passed right through, and Tom did not acknowledge her. He stared blankly at Kelli, unmoving.

  The shi’un immediately faded to white nothingness as Sorvir stopped concentrating on it. “Mrs. Ingram, please, come back to us,” he warned. “That facade is not Tom Ingram. It is Ercianodhon.”

  “What?” Kelli’s gaze s
hot upward at her cousin. She looked again at her dad, realizing how eerie his expression was. He did not look at anything other than her. “What do you mean it’s Ercianodhon? Why does he look like my dad?”

  “He is using necromancy, Highness,” Sorvir answered, moving to stand in front of her. The gesture was useless, he knew, as he was not really ‘here’ and could not protect his queen from any dark element curse directed at her. “The Goblin King is using your father to try and kill you.”

  “What? How? Is my dad okay?”

  “I do not know,” he admitted. “I have no idea what he is doing to your father to reach you like this.”

  “Tom,” Vanessa sobbed, now standing with her daughter and Sorvir and staring helplessly at the shadow pretending to be her husband.

  “What is he doing,” Kelli cried. “Why is he just staring?” She fixed her gaze on the apparition’s lifeless eyes. “What do you want?” she screamed at him. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  Tom’s image did not reply, as Ercianodhon did not yet have enough of a hold to do more than project his presence into Kelli’s consciousness. But soon… very soon…

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Derek, Nim, Graon and Kassak had moved to sit in some aisle seats farther back from everyone else, where the Hood shared with the rangers what he was about to do. They continued to sit apart from the others for some time, chatting and getting to know each other a little better while giving Undine, residing inside Derek, time to practice crafting her magic at the Hood’s direction. Seated as they were, Undine cast her spells low behind the seats for Derek and the rangers to critique, and each of them quietly murmured their observations to the elemental, coaching her in real-time as she fine-tuned the magic. Derek was surprised at how similar the process was to programming, and when at last he was satisfied with her results and confident that no one was paying attention, he took a deep breath. “Okay, guys, time to see if this works.”

  The elves nodded sternly, and the Hood called inward to the elemental once more, resigned that for now, and maybe the rest of his life, she was his partner. “Undine, let’s do it.”

  He was concerned for a moment when he ‘felt’ Undine inside him gathering her power and concentrating with intense effort. He next gained an awareness from her as she cast the spell, and it was the most exhilarating thing he’d ever experienced, even more so than during his escape from Sen’giza when Kelli’s uncontrolled telepathy joined her thoughts to his. As Undine wove the spell, Derek could see its effects in his mind. The elemental was creating platelets of moisture, joining them together in layers not unlike the nanomachines of his uniform. Each platelet used the others around it to regulate itself to the ambient temperature of the room. Each molecule was strictly aligned to create reflective surfaces, some convex, some concave, and still others perfectly flat. Each platelet was minutely angled in concert with all of the others, creating a cloaking field to bend light around itself. Simultaneously, other layers of platelets reflected the light normally so that anyone inside the concealment bubble could see outside of it like a one-way mirror, if the mirror and everything behind it was invisible.

  Derek nodded at the elves and stood, and they followed him. For all intents and purposes, the quartet was, he hoped, undetectable. Quietly, they stalked down one long row of seating, creeping into another across the aisle. From here, they all crawled over the seats to the next row. There was no sign that anyone saw them: they’d passed the first test. Slowly, they made their way toward Pembruh Meshra who was on stage near the battle platforms. It took them several minutes of movement, purposely crawling over seats to make their careful movement slightly more difficult, and yet no one detected them. Derek looked inward for any sign that Undine was under strain or losing control, but she seemed to be fine, if wholly consumed by her task. He allowed a small part of himself to appreciate how amazing the elemental was, despite what she’d done to him.

  They neared the vampyre, where the second test would begin. While the outer layers of camouflage handled their visual concealment, there were more specialized layers of moisture behind them; one set to trap odors, and the other to dampen and disguise noise. Derek was only slightly jealous at learning that for all his prowess at moving like a ninja, he was as noisy as a nightclub in comparison to the rangers, who were all but silent when they wanted to be.

  Meshra’s head tilted subtly, indicating that he sensed something. He looked around momentarily, then appeared to dismiss his curiosity in favor of conversation with the humans.

  That’s one, Derek thought. He looked down to the elves and nodded again, then moved toward their final, most difficult test. They slowly and quietly walked to the other side of the stage, angling for one of the wizards of the war council, another vampyre named Taryn. He had the same sharp senses as Meshra, but in addition he could sense the use of magic. While Derek’s concerns focused on physical concealment, Undine had suggested testing to see if the spell, as economic as it was with magical power, would alert any moderately powerful mage who wasn’t actively looking for them.

  As with Meshra, the Hood and the rangers crept within arm’s length of Taryn, who was in heavy discussion with Fhert. He too, seemed to catch a sense of something, but Fhert asked him a question and the vampyre lost interest in the faint disturbance. The Hood looked down at the elves, who were all grinning with immense satisfaction. They all understood the ramifications of this magic; their odds of succeeding, and even surviving this mission had just jumped once again. The Hood lifted his chin back toward the assault group where Brevha and several mystics were silently observing them, and the four invisible infiltrators moved back to meet them, this time walking at a normal pace without concern for noise. A few faeries looked around as Taryn and Meshra had, but no one showed any concern.

  “Congratulations, Master Hood,” Dufangen said while he and the elves were still invisible. “That is a most impressive spell. I daresay we have our work cut out for us developing a way for our wizards to detect your concealment.”

  Undine released the spell, and several humans and faeries around them jumped as the Hood and the rangers seemingly materialized out of nowhere. “But not you,” Derek noted.

  “We would have sensed your spell the moment you cast it,” she agreed, “even if you had not told us beforehand.”

  “But since there are no mystics at Gedaschen…”

  Dufangen nodded. “If you are careful with your movements, I believe your new spell will hide you from all but the most powerful sorcerers.”

  “What kind of a spell was that?” one of the war council demanded. “We sensed nothing!” exclaimed another. “There are no spells to completely hide one from a group like this,” one more added, spreading his arm to encompass all of the gathered faeries, each of whom were masters of their individual disciplines; warriors, trackers, and mages all.

  “There is now.” The white Hood walked up the stairs onto the stage, having taken form while everyone else was distracted. “The Hood will become the greatest technomancer of the age, mark my words,” her bright sapphire eyes beamed with pride above her mask.

  “We have one kink to work out,” Derek admitted. He looked over at Samantha. “Flashback, you mind doing a few run-thrus with us? I don’t wanna gain a cloaking ability at the expense of your teleporting.”

  “I get to turn invisible?” Samantha blinked. “Sure, I can’t say no to that!”

  “Actually, we should practice with the whole team. Zerivade, Taryn, Lumina, Julian? Would you mind joining us, too? Things will be even trickier now that everyone knows what we can do and will be looking for us.”

  Derek began walking back to where they’d started in the distant rows, and looked at Undine as she took her place beside him, her face searching him for approval. For the first time he felt something positive, and even warm, toward her. “I finally came up with a suitable superhero name for you,” he said softly.

  “Oh?” The elemental reacted with surprise and more than a little curiosit
y.

  “From now on I’m calling you Lady MAE. Mae for short. Or maybe The Lady. I’ll have to think on that.”

  “Lady… My?” Undine absorbed her new alias for a moment before Derek explained.

  “M A E, it stands for ‘Magic Assisted Engineering’.”

  “Ah, I see. I was actually just thinking that I am pleased to be called a ‘Lady’ once more.”

  Derek paused for a moment. “Did King Arthur name you ‘Lady of the Lake’?”

  “He did. I have a fondness for the name.”

  “I mean, I can just call you that, then-”

  “No, Lady MAE is perfect. Mae for short. Maybe The Lady.” Though she was masked, her smile shone through her eyes. “The Lady of the Lake was a regal water faery. I am a superhero vigilante.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Jimani.”

  For the first time, Ercianodhon’s apparition spoke. Kelli jumped in fright, as did Vanessa. Sorvir’s mind raced. There had to be something he could do here… but he knew there wasn’t.

  “Highness, no matter what happens, remember your lessons, all the things you’ve learned in here!”

  Kelli looked at him confused. “What?”

  The best thing he could do would be to break the shi’un and race to warn Dufangen and the others. But that would leave the Queen here alone with the Goblin King. Sorvir was torn; he did not want to leave Kelli alone suffering in fear. Even if he was only gone for a quarter hour, Ercianodhon’s tortures could seem like decades in the dream realm, with or without a shi’un spell.

  Tom’s ghost image stepped forward and made the decision for him. Waving his arm, Ercianodhon forcibly dismissed Sorvir and Vanessa from the dream, taking control of the shi’un and causing their dream forms to blow away eerily, like dust in the breeze.