by Jeff Grubb
When they at last came within sight of the Southeast Gate, Toede turned to Groag and said, "Right, then. You try to walk in. Don't mention me or your own name. If they give you any trouble, come right back.
"But what are you…?" asked Groag.
"I'll be making a contingency plan," said Toede sweetly, and walked off toward the end of the caravan line, where
an ox-drawn wain laden heavily with wheat waited its turn. The farmer, a thin whipping pole in hand, was standing by the oxen's yoke. He was already staring at the pair. The rest of the wagon crews were scrupulously ignoring the hobgoblins.
Toede bowed low, at the waist, to the farmer. The farmer smiled, the sun catching the few remaining teeth in his mouth. Groag shrugged and padded off toward the main gate.
If anything, the second attempt went more poorly than the first, no doubt because Groag lacked even Toede's skills of bluff and bluster. Specific mention was made of what body parts Groag would lose if he ever darkened the gate again. A duly chastened and threatened Groag quickly beetled to the back of the caravan line, only to find Toede waiting there, in pleasant conversation with the human farmer.
Toede looked over at Groag and said brightly, "In you go." He patted the side of the hay-laden cart.
Groag stared at Toede until the highmaster had to motion jerkily with his head. Groag climbed uneasily into the wagon. Toede looked around to see if they were being observed, then followed. Both hobgoblins burrowed into the wheat, and the farmer took his position up next to the oxen.
The wain smelled slightly of rot. The wheat was obviously the last of the winter crop. There was a rustle of hay and a low whisper from Groag. "What next?"
Toede hushed him. There was a sharp crack of the whip on oxen backs, and the wagon began to creak forward, the noise nearly drowning out conversation.
"The farmer recognized us, at least as being part of the previous administration. More brains than teeth, that one."
"What?" said Groag Toede snarled as quietly as possible. "I told the farmer you were a former "hob-gob" notable, seeking to visit your poor, sainted mother. That sob story, and the promise of a pouch of coins, bought us this passage."
The cart stopped, and both hobgoblins fell silent. Then it rumbled forward again, and Toede resumed. "Actually, I think it was the promise of the coins that got us this far. It's nice to know some things in Flotsam haven't changed. I was also gathering information. Apparently our regent, Gildentongue, has set up some kind of church. What do you know of the Water Prophet?"
"Only the name," came the answer. Another stop. This time they heard an official voice loudly questioning the farmer. The words were indistinct, but Toede and Groag both felt the hay shift around them. Toede felt something definitely long and spearlike slide against his leg. The guards were no fools. They were poking spears into the hay to look for riders. The only question was if the guards were thinking in terms of human or hobgoblin size.
It appeared to be the former, since the wagon soon lurched onward. After about twenty seconds or so, Toede said again, "We should be clear, let's drop away."
Groag whined quietly, "My bones ache. Can't we just ride a while?"
Toede whispered back, "Of course. Just remember that we promised the farmer a pouch of coins. Why don't you pay the man? I seem to be fresh out."
There was a silence, then. "I see your point. We should be off."
The pair scrabbled their way to the back of the hay pile, dropping as carefully as possible from the wagon, so as not to alert the drover. They were aided by the murkiness that was part and parcel of Flotsam's existence, at least in the lower city. There could be an army of dragon high-lords forty feet away, and no one would notice. If anyone saw them (and there were several on the street who might have noticed a hay wain extruding a pair of hobgoblins), they decided to keep it to themselves. That, too, was the nature of Flotsam.
As the pair scurried into the lengthening shadows of an alleyway, Toede was laying out his makeshift plan.
"Right, from here on in, it should be easy. We find Gildentongue and demand he hand the city back over to me. Threaten popular revolt. Threaten to bring the dragon-armies back if we have to. You may have to take a message to the highlord, but they should remember you. First we find Gildentongue."
He looked up and saw that Groag was staring down the alley. There was a crowd of people standing there, their backs to the hobgoblins, watching something in the street beyond. They were shouting, like fans at a cockfight.
Toede frowned, and the pair stalked carefully down the alley, picking their way among the debris and waste. Toede found a few crates near the entrance, and climbing them raised the pair slightly above the human heads, but close enough to the walls to remain unnoticed.
The crowd lined both sides of one of Flotsam's market streets, where normally there would be vendors' stalls and merchants hawking their wares. Some sort of pageant or parade? thought Toede. The crowd was in good voice, at least. Perhaps a public execution?
Peering around the corner they saw the cause of the excitement. A great, wagonlike bier thundered along on heavy, solid wood wheels. Twenty strong men and ogres, naked to the waist, sweated and strained against anchor-cable-sized ropes to lug it forward. Atop the bier was a whip-master and some gent in priest garb that Toede had never seen before.
And Hopsloth and Gildentongue.
"Somehow I don't think finding Gildentongue is going to be the problem," said Groag quietly.
The draconian caught Toede's eyes first, his scales glittering like ancient coins in the westering sun. His head was like that of a human-sized dragon, all spikes and whiskers and teeth, with red, cunning eyes. Most of his body was wrapped in garb similar to that worn by the priest, but of obviously finer cut and fabric: a brocaded undergarment covered by a crimson apron running from neck to ankles, bound by a sash of woven gold. Gilden-tongue's thin, clawlike arms were free, and he was motioning to the crowd, acknowledging their adoration, and touching the medallion around his own neck.
Hopsloth occupied the bulk of the bier and accounted for the majority of the weight. He was a huge, hulking abomination, more frog than dragon, save for thin wings situated a third of the way down his back. And his eyes. Hopsloth had dragon eyes, the type of eyes in which was revealed a malicious, independent intelligence.
Hopsloth looked miserable, Toede thought. He hated anything dry, and those sea breezes that reached this far inland couldn't be enough to comfort his brooding hulk.
They were within earshot now, and the voice of the gent in priest's garb could be heard-ragged and ravaged from trying to outshout a multitude.
"Cheer, O Flotsam!" he bellowed. "Cheer in honor of the great Regent Gildentongue, First Minion and High Priest of the Faith of the Water Prophet Holy Hopsloth. All hail to their wise and wondrous rule!"
The words all ran together in a chanted litany.
"Hopsloth?" said Groag, a chuckle catching in his voice. "Hopsloth is this Water Prophet?"
"A front for Gildentongue's takeover." Toede nodded sagely. "More than I expected from a draconian. And I'm disappointed in Hopsloth. But let's see how they react when the real Lord of Flotsam appears!"
Toede would have jumped down from his perch and pushed his way through the crowd, were it not for a sudden cobblestone sailing through the air, striking the chanting human priest full in the face. The human dropped to his knees, his face a mask of blood, spitting teeth.
"False prophet!" came the shout with the rock. "False god!"
Toede froze. "Trouble in paradise," he noted quietly.
Gildentongue was not taken aback by this in the least.
"Let the accuser step forward and show himself."
The rock-thrower did nothing of the kind, but the other Flotsam citizens gladly stepped back to reveal him. He was a tall, beet-faced man, and Toede wondered how much of the bravery in his blood had been fueled by grog.
Groag gurgled next to Toede, "I know that one. Used to be your cook."
"Step forward," said the draconian, his voice cold and level.
The human remained immobile, his eyes staring at the stones before the bier. "False prophet," he said, more quietly this time.
"Step forward," repeated Gildentongue. "Look at the face of the true prophets."
The human remained in place, eyes down.
"Look at us!" Gildentongue bellowed, and raised his hands. Twin balls of greenish flame erupted from his clawed paws and exploded, one to either side of the human.
The human looked up suddenly, staring the draconian full in the face, and froze again, like an insect caught in ice or amber.
"Step forward," said Gildentongue.
The human began a slow, lurching walk forward, as if his legs were newly made and as yet untried. His face, still locked with Gildentongue's gaze, contorted in pain.
"Kneel," said Gildentongue calmly.
The human swayed, then dropped to his knees on the pavement, hard.
"Bow," said Gildentongue. "Touch your head to the pavement in honor of the Water Prophet."
The human dipped forward and rapped his head, hard, against the pavement before the bier. Next to Toede, Groag winced.
"Again," said Gildentongue.
The human dipped again, and a sharper rap resounded along the parade route. No one shouted now; no one breathed.
"Again," said Gildentongue "Faster."
This time the human bobbed forward, and there was the sound of something breaking as he slammed his head against the pavement. Then back, and forward again, bashing his face into the blood-colored spot forming before him. By the sixth repetition, the human's face was a bleeding smear. By the twelfth, it was an unrecognizable slab of red meat.
After the twenty-first repetition, the man slammed his head against the pavement and lifted it only a few inches above the street before striking the ground again as his entire body collapsed.
"Such is the fate of those who doubt the Water Prophet," proclaimed Gildentongue.
He nodded to the whip master, who snapped his instrument over the backs of the slaves. With a grunting groan, they resumed their tugging. The bier rolled over the bloody human, one wheel crunching a leg in the process.
The crowd shouted, though to Toede's ears their enthusiasm sounded a little more strained than before. Then they surged forward after Hopsloth's passing, the first ones thinking of looting the body, the ones farther back of looting the looters.
Toede leaned against the wall. Gildentongue was flashier than the highmaster had remembered him, and crueler as well. But just as short-tempered, it seems.
Toede looked over at his companion. Groag was paler than normal, almost a greenish shade, and his hands shook slightly as he brushed the hair out of his face.
"Any thoughts?" asked Toede.
"I think," said Groag in a wavering voice, "that this is not going to be as easy as you think."
"I think," said Toede with a scowl, "you may be right."
Chapter 5
In which Our Protagonist realizes that his reputation and social status has slipped downward, considers the nature of life, and demands to be taken seriously.
By the time dusk claimed Flotsam fully, and the small lamp urchins scurried from light post to light post with their long-handled wicks, Toede and Groag had retreated to the common room of a rundown inn near the south wall.
The inn was called the Jetties and had seen better days, none of them, Toede wagered, during his lifetime. The exterior stairs and porch were rotting away, and the walls were dirty stone, the grit of the city only barely covering scrawled graffiti. The interior was little better, the lathe and plaster walls pitted from numerous brawls. The graffiti artists had moved inside as well, and switched from paint to knives, incising new designs on the dusty woodwork.
Still, the owner, a wide, battle-scarred gentleman, had not spit at them when they asked about rooms. That alone put this dive leagues ahead of the last three places they had stopped. Apparently Gildentongue had issued some decree that this was an acceptable mode of treating non-humans, at least when addressing anyone who looked like Toede.
it was abundantly clear that Gildentongue held the city in the grip of fear. If the protester at the parade was any indication, the choices were death or belief in Holy Hop-sloth, the Water Prophet.
The Water Prophet. Toede rolled the name around in his mouth as if it were a wafer made of hard salt. He had pieced together the entire story from a few people on the street-at least those who would talk to them.
There were three types of humans in Flotsam nowadays. First and foremost were those who would flee when Toede approached, as if he carried a blood-drenched dagger and wore nothing more than a lunatic grin. From these he got nothing. Several seemed to recognize him, and fled all the faster, clutching their small medallions as they scurried off.
The second group of humans were even more insulting. They treated both Toede and Groag as if the two had been recipients of a sudden spell of invisibility cast by a slightly demented wizard. Their eyes seemed to lock on something slightly to the right or left of the hobgoblins, and they breezed past, oblivious to their existence. Toede tried to commit their faces to memory for eventual revenge, but had to abandon this idea after the dozenth such incident. Not to mention, to a hobgoblin all humans look alike.
But there were a few in the city who would dare being seen talking to a hobgoblin. These were beggars, sailors, layabouts, and similar dredges, along with a handful of nonhuman servants who were working toting bales and sweeping streets. They would talk to anyone. Indeed, a few seemed to be talking to themselves when Toede joined their conversations.
A one-eyed goblin servant with a straw broom told him that the story of Lord Toede's death had swept through the city like a smoldering fire in dead, wet brush-slowly jumping from bard to bard, and from bar to bar, met with toasts and small smiles.
An ogre that was carrying rusted metal to the dock told him that at first the tale was disbelieved. People thought it part of some plot of the highmaster's to draw out dissent. When a week passed without Toede's reappearance, all assumed that, whatever the cause, Toede was gone.
A woman who looked half sea elf told him about the carnival that followed, a week-long celebration that ended in a series of bloody confrontations between the townies and the local detachment of the dragonarmy. It was then that Gildentongue, Toede's "faithful" liaison with the highlord armies, stepped forward to calm the troubled waters and announce his own revelations.
A street preacher said Gildentongue revealed that Hop-sloth, a unique and divine creature, had been sent by the True Gods to lead Flotsam to greatness. Toede had been Hopsloth's first student and minion but grew greedy, and sought to keep that power and wisdom for himself. Gildentongue, being sensitive to the true nature of Hop-sloth the Water Prophet, shared this revelation with all, and had proved to work wonders for the city in the few months of his reign.
Gildentongue had made good his promise, acting as the Second Minion (the late, unlamented Toede being the first) of the Holy Hopsloth. The city wall was rebuilt, said one beggar. The nonhuman trash of hobgoblins and kender that roamed the streets was exiled, said another. The green dragons and their riders were sent inland to a new base, and Gildentongue's Flotsam was granted a degree of autonomy, said another. About this time the medallions appeared. Holy Hopsloth had cured the sick. Holy Hopsloth drove the sharks from Flotsam Harbor. Holy Hopsloth was an agent of the were-insects from Nuitari.
Toede took it all in, discounting the bulk of it. Hopsloth was about as bright as a bag of lampreys and incapable of communicating any advanced theology beyond a desire for his next meal. The former highmaster originally thought he had been given the beast as a joke, a satire of the highlords' own elegant dragon mounts. For Hopsloth was no more a servant of the greater gods than Toede was king of the kender.
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No, Toede thought, Gildentongue has proved himself as politically astute and slime-ridden as ever. Gildentongue would have had a hard time following Toede's illustrious (if apparently misunderstood) reign. So the draconian borrowed a page from before the war and set up his own church, of which he was the mere spokesman.
Give the people a few bones and musty miracles, and you're set for life.
The pair of hobgoblins had shuffled from inn to inn looking for quarters, or at least recognition, until they had reached the Jetties.
Now Toede surveyed the room. A drunken barbarian sprawled on a nearby bench, snoring softly. A trio of domino players lazily laid down their tiles with occasional clicks. An old man with a pipe was immersed in a musty tome. A few sailors chatted and lied over drinks. A hooded priest in a voluminous, ragged robe, worshiper of some abandoned god, was propped against a far wall. The serving girl had vanished soon after the hobgoblins' arrival, and had not reappeared since.
And lastly Toede and Groag, a pair of ragged, ratty-looking hobgoblins with no appearance of nobility, or even adequacy.
Toede sighed. The good news was that it was unlikely to get any worse. The bad news was it was at the moment unlikely to get any better.
The smaller hobgoblin had vanished fifteen minutes earlier, abandoning Toede to the cold stares of the other patrons and his own dark thoughts. Toede had wrapped himself up in his tattered cloak and sulked. If sulking had a sound, it could be said that he was sulking loudly, but as it was a (mostly) silent practice, the only noise being the crinkling of his forehead skin, that dry flesh crinkled more tightly. Groag brought a pair of ales to the table, smiling.
"Where did you get those?" said Toede sharply.
"Comes with the room," said Groag, clambering up onto the bench across from the former highmaster. Neither hobgoblin's legs touched the floor, but Groag swung his back and forth, while Toede's limbs hung motionless like pieces of dead meat.