Gathering of the Titans: The Tol Chronicles Book 2

by Robert G. Ferrell

  He laid the papers on a table. “Wow. Looks like things did go down the way Plåk said. I guess I’ll have to downgrade his case file from murder to unintentional people-slaughter.”

  “That will be a great relief to him after nine hundred years, no doubt.”

  They both laughed.

  “Nine hundred years,” Tol continued after a moment’s silence, “It’s always amazed me that he remembers anything at all from that long ago. I’ve only lived five percent that long and my brain is already so full of memories I don’t think there’s room for much more.”

  Selpla got that look on her face all males, no matter the species, innately recognize. “I hope you have room for at least one more,” she said in a low, husky voice while pulling her pretty laced chemise over her head. “I’ll try my best to make it worth the storage space.”

  Tol picked her up by the waist and carried her effortlessly over to the strategically-positioned daybed nearby. “I’ve already evicted some useless stuff about my first-grade teacher’s bad fashion sense to make room.”

  The next morning found Tol still there. After breakfast they both decided that if this was to go on any longer they’d better do the ‘getting to know you’ thing and be done with it.

  “I’ll start, I guess,” Selpla announced over the rim of her cup, “As you probably are already aware, being a detective and all, my father is a wealthy architect named Erminian. He designed a lot of the larger buildings in Goblinopolis, Cladimil, and Dresmak, not to mention Xovcastra in Asmagon, Erolossma and Woklopen in Solemadrina, Zilond in Spleroste, Yiks Island in Frespiola, Rebrugge in Hividz, and a bunch more. He even designed the newest wing of the Royal Complex for your brother.”

  “Ah yes, the ‘Aspet loves Tragacanth’ wing. It’s got dioramas of historical events, famous places, busts and paintings of famous people, and so on. It’s sort of secondary schola history class all in one shot. Or so he tells me. I haven’t actually been there.”

  “I heard there’s a diorama devoted to you shutting down Namni and Pyfox, too.”

  “Really? Who would want to see that? All I did was smash an ugly statue that deserved to die.”

  “Apparently it was heroic enough to get you knighted. Must have been pretty significant.”

  “You were there, too. How heroic did it appear to you?”

  “I couldn’t really see much over Kurg and Lom.”

  “Oh, well,” Tol shrugged, “Those are the breaks. So, how did you get from spoiled rich kid to celebrity reporter?”

  “I have three brothers, all older: Ikren, Fatuhl, and Basik. All three of them became architects—graduated from Tropsalla Technical College, up the street. They’re spread out all over the world now: Ovinis, Rublosq, and Spleroste, respectively, last I heard: all doing their thing quite successfully.”

  “You didn’t feel the urge to design buildings, eh?”

  “I tried my hand at it, believe it or not. I am just not the architect type. My buildings looked like something that might spring up out of the cesspool in The Effluent: oddly-shaped and probably impossible to build.”

  “I’d be willing to bet you’re better at that sort of thing than I am. I can’t draw a straight line with two rulers.”

  She giggled. “Straight lines played no part in my designs, I can promise you. So anyway, I was the black woolbeast of the family in several ways. I was the only female, as my mother died when I was four; I was the only non-architect; and I was not at all a good student, whereas my brothers were Dean’s List all the way. I did attend universitas on and off for years—I went through most of the majors in the catalog, in fact—but I think it broke my father’s heart when I finally decided to take my degree in journalism at Loca Arts Institute instead of mathematics or one of the sciences at Tropsalla Tech. He did pay for my college, true, but my graduation party was nothing like the ones my brothers got. There are a lot of architects in my father’s contact database; not so many journalists.”

  “Not a real happenin’ scene, eh?”

  “Mostly elderly friends of the family and relatives who didn’t think I could stick with anything long enough to finish a degree. It was over in an hour, and that includes the photo op.”

  “Bummer. I’ll bet I could have spiced things up.”

  “My father would never have invited a common edict enforcement officer. Of course, now that you’re a Knight of the Crimson and brother to the king you’re on the ‘A’ list.”

  “Funny thing, snobbery. So, what was your childhood like?”

  “We spent a lot of time after mother died in places like Aspolia and Terimpu, although Goblinopolis was always our home base, as it were. The different cities sort of blur together for me: I’ve memories of people and buildings and such, but I can’t tell you exactly what city we were in at the time they happened. I really didn’t have any close friends because we moved around so much. Father had to drag us along wherever his job took him, although we did have a live-in nanny and teacher. I got to see him a lot more that way, though, so looking back I can’t really complain. Also, I had been around the world by the time I was ten.”

  “I went to Fenurian once,” Tol said, a trace of irony in his voice.

  “There’s not a lot left of it, I hear. That’s a shame. There were nice galleries and workshops there. It was something of an artists’ colony, or at least that part that wasn’t high tech factories, anyway. I hope it doesn’t lose its personality when it gets rebuilt.”

  “Personality comes from people. As long as the people are still there, the buildings won’t matter that much. It may evolve or revolve or convolve, but it will still be recognizable as Fenurian.”

  “I hope you’re right. I was rather fond of the old city.”

  “So, your childhood was spent globe-hopping from one exotic port of call to the next. How did you get interested in journalism?” Tol asked, taking another piece of toasted flokmeal dough.

  “Our house, wherever we lived, was always full of people in the social register. I got to know a lot of them and hear their stories. Gradually I came to realize that investigating and retelling those stories was something I enjoyed and had a talent for. At first it was just the glamorous people who interested me. When I started asking questions and getting more proficient in background profiling, however, I found that there was always something in every person’s life I didn’t expect; some sad or tragic or scandalous event that made the investigation at least as interesting as the story itself. I always loved the videoz newscasters, too. When I got into college and discovered that the way you became one of those was to major in journalism, everything just fell into place for me, career-wise.”

  “You always seem pretty relaxed on the news.”

  “Actually, I still get nervous in front of the camera. But we have teleprompters, acting coaches, and a whole bunch of tech stuff to keep us from crashing and burning too often.”

  “Yikes. All that support just to read the news. Must be harder than it looks.”

  “Well, the difficulty is that you only get one chance to read it and make it sound good, because even though the broadcasts are usually delayed, we don’t have the luxury of multiple takes most of the time. That is a lot harder than you might think. Especially when there are difficult-to-pronounce names of people or places. Most of the work, though, is investigating the story and putting all the facts together in some form that is interesting. There are also a bunch of people behind the scenes: camera operators, directors, copy writers, fact checkers, editors, proofers, gaffers, light techs, sound techs, and a whole lot more.

  “How do you pay all those people?”

  “Advertising, mostly. Those ads for cereal and prams and razzle that annoy or entertain you cost the advertisers a lot of money, depending on the length of the ad, where we run it, and how often. Without them there wouldn’t be any videoz, like it or not.”

  “I suppose I never thought much about it.”

  Selpla poured them both another mug of stankabru. “So
, enough about me. Let’s hear your story. Up until the Pyfox thing, I mean.”

  Tol took a long sip and sighed. “Compared to your hoity-toity exotic locales and celebrities in the bathroom childhood, it ain’t much. Growing up I was the jock and Aspet was the geek. I played sports and he spent all his time futzin’ around with circuit boards and gizmos with dials, switches, and little green screens. Now, of course, he’s the smekking King and I...”

  “You’re the Premier Knight Protector of the Crimson! For the love of Hork, that’s mighty impressive by itself.”

  “Maybe, but who gave that to me? My brother the geek. My point is that I thought he was wimpy and worthless, albeit very smart, when we were kids and look how wrong that turned out to be.”

  “You were the older brother. You were probably just mad because he didn’t want to play sports with you.”

  “A little, I guess. I was also mad because I wanted to do some of the stuff he was doing, but I didn’t understand it. I sort of took that out on him.”

  “You’re kidding. Really?”

  “Yep. Used to sneak in and mess around with his electronic stuff when he wasn’t home, but I could never even figure out how it worked. It made me angry.”

  “Too bad you didn’t have any sisters. They would have realized what was going on and probably helped you two to communicate.”

  “There...there were two sisters, once.”

  “Two sisters? What happened to them?”

  Tol stood up and walked over to a window to look out at the bright sunshine shimmering and dancing over Selpla’s flower gardens. “Ever hear that childhood vaccinations can be harmful?”

  Selpla thought for a moment. “I remember some fearmongering about that a few years back, but it was all disproven.”

  “It isn’t all malarkey; they just spread the wrong alarm. I had two sisters, twins, named Resu and Vesu. They were the youngest.

  There was a really tough strain of yample beast fever going around— one of those that had spread to goblins—and mother had taken the twins in for their vaccinations. They were about a year and a half old at the time. A feverish yample beast actually came crashing through the wall of the clinic and trampled nearly everyone in the waiting room. My sisters were the only fatalities. After the death rituals we were never again allowed to speak of yample beasts or the twins around the house. Any mention of either set my father off in a fit of pique. My mother refused to discuss them at all.”

  “That’s simultaneously the most tragic and yet darkly amusing family story I believe I’ve ever heard,” Selpla said, taking his hands in hers in sympathy. Tol shook his head, as though to clear it of the memories, and then continued. “Aspet the brain won a full academic scholarship to Mernalview Polytechnic and majored in...” he pulled a laminated card out of his beat-up old wallet and read it with some effort: “Digital Technology, with a minor in Cultural History.”

  “It’s so sweet that you carry a copy of his diploma around with you,” Selpla said. Tol ignored this.

  “When I finished secondary schola I’d had it with books and classrooms, on the other hand. I enlisted in a Tragacanth Inland Guard regiment and served most of that four-year hitch at Fort Ullglava in the absolute middle of smekkin’ nowhere.”

  “Oh, yeah, I visited there once on a follow-up about a soldier who got into a fight on the GRUC. Not exactly a social destination. Laudable grain fields, though,” Selpla smirked.

  “The farmers’ daughters were about the only perk. After I got out I went through the EE academy in Goblinopolis and I’ve been doin’ that ever since.”

  “Where were you born?” Selpla asked, sipping her stankabru.

  “On Berquin Avenue in South Sebacea. A couple blocks north of the corrections facility.”

  “Hard to think of a tougher neighborhood than that.”

  “True. Except that even the street thugs seemed strangely respectful of children. I don’t remember any kids getting snatched or even particularly harassed by anyone but other kids. Of course at the time I thought that was normal, but as my cop career progressed I found it more and more atypical of rough neighborhoods. Being an adult on Berquin was a daily crap shoot. Being a kid was not. I don’t know why. I do remember the heavy, concertina wire-topped fences around the scholas and the armed crossing guards, though.”

  “Depressing.”

  “The nice thing about being a kid, as I said, is that you think whatever is happening to you is normal so you don’t worry much about how everyone else does it. My first girlfriend lived on Berquin, too: three houses up from us. Her name was...Ki...Kim... Kimia. Haven’t thought about her in years. How about you? Long string of jilted lovers?”

  “Not really. Most of the guys I met were society jloks who lived in their own little cocoons of wealth, insulated from the real world. That was acceptable when I was the same way, but after I became a reporter and found out how most people live—scrabbling day to day just to make enough money to eat and pay the rent— their shallow self-absorption turned me off. I’m not sure whether I could make it on my own if I suddenly got tossed out on the streets myself, but I find people on the outside of the golden curtain to be much more genuine and trustworthy in general. By that I mean verbal contracts and such are more prevalent and more likely to be honored among the common people. Many of them still believe that a goblin’s word is his bond. You won’t find any of that in the society pages. It’s written contracts for every little thing, and woe betide any who leave the tiniest loophole.”

  “So, no serious relationships, then?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘serious.’ If you mean ‘relationships that moved into the prenuptial stage,’ I’ve had several. I’ve been engaged to be married at least six times, in fact; I’ve lost count. If, on the other hand, you mean relationships where I actually intended to spend the rest of my life with someone; no. The engagement game is just another high society convention: you give a girl an expensive ring and in return you get to call her your fiancé for a while. It doesn’t really change your relationship, and when she gets tired of you and another goblin offers her a nice ring, the players change places on the stage. The play, however, never stops. How about you? Any near-missus?” “Nah. I had a few short-term girlfriends here and there: mostly waitresses, shop clerks, and one animal control tech, but I never felt like I could offer much of a life to them on a beat cop’s salary. When it became obvious I wasn’t going to propose anytime soon they wisely decided to look elsewhere. Plus, being a cop’s mate means you never know whether your spouse is going to make it home from work in one piece. That additional constant worry is too much for most girls, and I can’t blame them for feelin’ that way. It takes a strong goblin to be the mate of a street cop.”

  “Is it really that common for a girl to ‘shop around’ like that?”

  “Don’t misunderstand: it’s not that they are overly material or superficial; it’s just that being married is often the easiest way to survive out there. Combining your efforts and incomes can mean the difference between living on the street and living in a nice little house. Girls are looking for husbands for a variety of reasons, romantic love certainly included, but they can’t afford to waste their prime child-bearing years courting, or being courted by, someone who is not mate potential. I’ve never had a problem with that; pragmatism is an essential survival skill.”

  “That’s a lot to think about. Thanks.”

  “No prob. Wanna grab some lunch somewhere? We can go to one of your favorites around here; if I can afford it, anyway.”

  Selpla laughed, “Let’s hit Eske’s. It might have been a little steep for a Sebacea street cop, but it’s well within the means of a Crimson Knight Special Investigator with an office in Justice Hall. I happen to know between your EE salary and your Crimson stipend you’re doing quite well for yourself these days.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forget about that sometimes.”

  “When are you going to move out of your little bachelor pad in Sebac
ea and into something more suited to your new station?”

  “I dunno. Hadn’t given it a lot of thought. That’s my home. I guess when I’m no longer a bachelor, if that ever happens.”

  They sat at Selpla’s favorite table in Eske’s, an upscale bistro in the heart of Tropsalla, across from the Rococo entrance to Tropsalla Leisure Club and Gardens. Selpla ordered a green salad with crumbled Askadeon curds while Tol picked at his artfully- arranged grilled filet of growling-beast with fresh bumpershoot vinaigrette.

  “Am I supposed to eat this or compose an incisive essay about it?” he asked.

  “I doubt it matters to Eske, so long as you pay for it at the end, Tol.” Selpla replied, giggling. A sudden thought struck her. “Where did you get the name Tol-u-ol, anyway? Doesn’t really sound very traditional to me.”

  “In fact, tradition was what got me here. I was named for my grandfather Tol-u-mez and my grandmother Olona in the family tradition started by my great-great-grandfather, who was lousy at picking names but fond of hyphens. He thought they sounded all high-falootin.’ How did you get yours?”

  Selpla pushed a curd crumb around her plate with a fork tine. “My father designed a resort on Yiks Island off the coast of Frespiola called the ‘Sellestra Placidum.’ At the time it was his most elegant and famous creation; it essentially cemented his reputation as a world-class architect. I had the fortune, or misfortune, to be born two weeks after the ribbon-cutting, when his name was being bandied about by every major architectural review magazine in connection with said resort.” She shrugged, “I am named in honor of that achievement: Sel-Pla for Sellestra Placidum.”

  Tol ruminated over this for a moment. “Well, I’ve heard a lot worse reasons for peoples’ names. I ran across one street kid whose name was Denova Here. He told me he was named that because when they gave the birth registration form to his father, he saw the blank line that said ‘Baby’s Name Here’ and thought he was just following instructions.”