Will Power

by A. J. Hartley

  This was where I found myself now. The goblin unfastened the buckled straps and tossed me the rolled blanket without another word. I stood there doing my world-famous impersonation of a fence post, waking only when the parcel hit me in the chest and fell into my hastily raised arms. It—or perhaps I should say he—grinned broadly and walked away. I watched him go.

  His grin had been genuine and yet somehow alarming. It reminded me that he was a goblin, for his jaw was heavy and his teeth were over-large, but it also seemed so ordinary, so human. Before I could take my eyes off him, Lisha appeared silently beside me.

  “Will?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, my eyes still on the back of the receding goblin. “I . . . I’m really not sure.”

  “We should talk,” she said.

  “Yes, we should,” I echoed distantly.

  “Will! Look at me!”

  I turned slowly and met her eyes. They pooled at me in the twilight.

  “We made a mistake,” she said. “That’s all. We were given false information and, without any reason to doubt it, we believed it.”

  We. The extent of her mistake was getting mistaken for one of them. I, however, had . . .

  Don’t think about it.

  I nodded and managed a smile, but it was a thin ruse. She knew as much, knew also that, for once, I didn’t feel like talking after all, and she respected that. She touched my cheek and walked over to where Mithos and Orgos were studying a map.

  I sat on a log, dazed with shock. How could I have been so stupid? I had trusted my eyes and ears and, as a result, fallen for the oldest theatrical ploy there is. I was taken in by the desire to believe something preposterously convenient was real. I had forgotten to read between the lines. I had known something was wrong but I just went on standing there like the idiot in the pit who thinks everything on the stage is real because a few paid con men tell him it is. It had all been a show, just storytelling and spectacle, and I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. I had risked my life for the “fair folk” and—and here was the scorpion in my underpants—I had killed for them.

  Now morals aren’t my strong suit, and I still had a hard time thinking of the goblins as people exactly, but my glorious ride with the cavalry, my brave defense of the city, and my valiant raid on the Falcon’s Nest fortress were beginning to look a little tarnished, as if my heirloom silver tankard had turned out to be made of oven-baked cow dung. The “fair folk” had said that all the light-against-dark, good-against-evil rubbish that I’d been laughing at my entire life was actually true, and I had believed them. They had told me that every old tale, every fairy story about ogres and goblins, every half-baked morality play aimed at children and the mentally deficient was right, and the world as I had always known it was wrong. Beauty (of the right kind) really is virtue, they had said, and ugliness (someone else’s) is evil. And I had believed them. Cynical Bill, Will the realist, had polished up his sword and gone out goblin slaying, glad to be doing his bit for goodness and light and fluffy bunny rabbits. I should have known Garnet couldn’t be right.

  I had known, too. Kind of. A bunch of things had not seemed right. I should have just listened to my hunches and not to those dandified idiots in Phasdreille. Well, from here on it would all be Will Straight-from-the-Gut Hawthorne.

  “Feeling better?” said Orgos.

  “Yes,” I lied. “The blanket helps. How long did it take you to realize what was going on?”

  “Not long,” said Orgos. “But that was because they told us and we believed them. Maybe we would have believed Sorrail if our positions had been reversed.”

  “You don’t really think that,” I said.

  Orgos shrugged. “Well, we also had the evidence of how they treated us,” he went on. “They were suspicious because we had been caught in the company of one of their greatest enemies, but we had our looks on our sides, which, frankly, helped.”

  “They believed you because you’re black?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

  “It made it a lot less likely that we were working with the so-called fair folk, said Orgos.

  “But they kept you locked up,” I said, not sure who I was trying to convince or what I was trying to justify.

  “Like I said, they were suspicious of us, and most of that fort hadn’t been lived in for decades. Their rooms weren’t much better than ours.”

  I frowned and said nothing.

  “Come on,” he concluded. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can eat. I have a feeling you’re going to like these people.”

  I gave him a quick look, but the remark seemed to have been genuine enough, so I said nothing and followed him.

  We wended our way through the swamp trails and the light faded fast. In half an hour it was almost too dark to see. Since no one produced a torch or lantern, I edged closer to the pack and studied the ground ahead. Orgos said that “they” had good night vision. I grunted and kept walking without even bothering to ask where we were going.

  We came upon a thicket of healthy young pine trees, all slender and stretching skyward like wading birds, and as I paused to study the trees, the column of goblins dwindled to nothing. I stopped, glancing wildly about and wondering if I had been led out here as part of some elaborate and ghostly hoax. Even Orgos had gone.

  “What the? . . .” I began. Then what I had taken to be a dark pool showed movement and Orgos was there.

  “Come on, Will,” he whispered. “You’re the last.”

  I approached cautiously.

  “I can’t see you properly,” I said. “It’s a tunnel?”

  “Kind of,” he said. “Here, take my hand. I’ll show you the way. You’ll like this place. It was hollowed out of the rock perhaps a century ago, maybe longer, and has been carefully maintained so that the swamp water is sealed out. Lately the damp has become a greater problem as the forest above it has fallen into decay. How much longer it will be livable, I don’t know. But, for the moment, it is more than just a hiding place on the enemy’s doorstep.”

  “Assuming the ‘fair folk’ are the enemy,” I muttered.

  “That, you will have to figure out for yourself,” he said, with the carelessness that suggested the matter was self-evident.

  “As you have done?” I pressed.

  “Yes, Will. As I have done. You still aren’t sure?” He asked this with a note of surprise in his voice and turned toward me so that I could just about make out the light of his eyes in the gloom.

  “Not yet,” I replied a little frostily.

  He was unaffected by my tone and, in truth, I didn’t know why I had taken it. He just shrugged and turned back to the descending passage, pulling me slightly toward him as he stepped down. There was a hole, no more than a yard across and almost invisible in the long grass, and in it was a tightly spiraling stairway. I fumbled for a rail, grabbed an outcrop of bare and polished rock, and lowered myself in. Feeling for the edge of each step with my foot, I descended slowly into the darkness, until I could smell smoke and candle wax. Then, quite suddenly, a yellowish light played over my feet. I took two more steps and then bent down to peer into the chamber below.

  A broad cave spread out around me and firelight flickered on the walls. Voices raised in song and laughter rose from below and, if my ears did not deceive me, I thought I caught the familiar clink of pewter mugs. Things were looking up.

  Briefly. The moment I made my appearance on the stairs, a strange hush fell on the chamber. Faces turned toward me and the last patterings of speech trickled into nothing but the roar of the fire. Their gazes fell on me and held me, their eyes burning quietly and their mouths closed. Somewhere one of their immense bears growled.

  I faltered, and then, seeing Mithos turn back toward me, continued my descent, slowly, watchfully.

  “Come on, Will,” said Mithos, with a deliberation which refused to acknowledge the change in the assembly’s demeanor. “Let’s get you a drink.”

  I looked at him
expressionlessly and stepped down, half expecting the two of us to be overwhelmed in a rush of hostile goblins overturning tables and chairs, shrieking and raising heavy, cruel weapons.

  Instead, the swell of conversation grew again, gradually at first, returning to normal in a matter of seconds. The goblins turned back to their food and to each other and soon after that there was singing and the sound of a small harp.

  I gave Mithos a hard stare as soon as the last face was turned from us. “What the hell was that? Are you so sure these are the good guys? They look like the only reason they haven’t slit my throat yet is because they’re saving me for dessert.”

  “Cut it out, Will,” said Mithos, stern now.

  “They aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet . . .” I began.

  “Do you know how many of them you killed when you came with Renthrette to the Falcon’s Nest?” said Mithos, his eyes glittering hard and black.

  “We came to rescue you!”

  “And did it never occur to you that we might not need rescuing?”

  “No!” I said loudly. “No, it bloody didn’t. And you know why? Because these half-animal degenerates attacked us in the mountains and did their best to kill us all. You have a pretty damn funny way of picking friends. Is it part of your bloody adventurer’s code? Do I have to hack one of your legs off before you’ll consider me a buddy, too? With friends like this, who needs . . .”

  He stepped up close enough that I could feel his breath on my face when he whispered, “Do you remember how that fight started, Will?”

  I said nothing.

  “It started,” he said in the same scarily hushed tone, “when you assumed that the beasts that had come into the cave had come to attack us, and you threw a stone.”

  “A pack of wolves and some grizzlies marched into the place we were bedding down! What did you expect me to do? Offer them tea?”

  “I’m just saying that you started it, and it might have gone differently. If we hadn’t given Sorrail an excuse to ‘rescue’ us, we might have all gotten a clearer perspective on this thing. . . .”

  “Oh, of course!” I shouted suddenly. “It’s my fault! How very surprising. When in doubt, blame Hawthorne. Thanks for the encouragement, Mithos. I’ll tell you what; I’ll just go and drown myself in the swamp, save everyone the trouble.”

  “Fine.”

  “What?”

  “Fine. Go and drown yourself. You know where the stairs are.”

  “What,” I stuttered, “now?”

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Will,” said Mithos, walking away.

  I had a good mind to go right back up, but it was damn cold outside and wandering around the swamp at night—or, more likely, sitting sulking just out of sight of the stairway—wasn’t what you might call a grand night out. If I didn’t manage to drown myself as threatened, I’d probably get eaten by something long and slippery. At least the goblins had a fire. I’d stay right where I was. That would show them.

  It turned out they had a good deal more than just a fire. They had a banquet including roast pork, two kinds of wine, and three kinds of beer. Initially, of course, it was all dust and ashes in my mouth, torn as I was between doubt and misery, guilt and anger, but that passed fairly quickly for reasons that will become rapidly apparent. The pig was stuffed with rosemary and sage and was served with a thick fruit-based sauce. There were half a dozen different cheeses, all excellent, ranging from a firm-fleshed but delicate yellow smoked to a full-bodied blue that you could cut with your finger. There was some kind of venison pâté served with crusty bread, and mushrooms stuffed and sautéed with buckets of garlic. There was a pot of highly spiced beans that warmed me more than the fire.

  And then there was the beer. After the gnat’s piss they drank in Phasdreille, this was like liquid divinity. One was a lager, golden and sharp with a hoppy aftertaste that woke you up and suggested another mug. There was also an ale: nut-brown and rich with a hint of spice, like afternoon light on a leather chair. Lastly, there was a stout, full bodied and velvet-smooth, black and opaque with a head like fresh cream. I had one of each, and by the time I had gone back for seconds, I was slipping my arm around the shoulders of the meanest-looking goblins and suggesting we play some cards. I took another mouthful of the herbed pork, swilled it down with a gulp of ale, and the idea that these good fellows around me could possibly be the enemy faded like a memory from childhood. And in my inebriated state, oscillating between sublime insight and rank stupidity, the quality of the goblins’ beer seemed like a perfectly good reason to switch sides in a war.

  The following morning, I still wasn’t sure if that last thought had been genius or insanity. Last night I had felt at one with the goblins and with the cosmos generally, which is something good beer often does to me. Today, waking bleary-eyed with a dull ache in my temples, cold in my bones, and with a company of goblins about me, some of whom still shot me looks that would have skewered a horse, I wasn’t so sure. In my lowest moments, I reflected that climbing into a leaky stone pit under a marsh with a goblin army, complete with its bear mounts and wolf scouts, was rather like smearing myself with honey and then sitting on a wasps’ nest, though these wasps had stingers several feet long. This wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the goblin community as a whole had been busily extending the hand of friendship, but no one wished me good morning and suggested hangover remedies. Nobody brought me breakfast, showed me the way to a freshwater spring outside in the swamp-forest, or told me where I could best relieve myself without nettling my bum. Conversations would peter out as I walked by, and small, slanted eyes would follow my path with, if not actual hostility, then at least suspicion. Once one of them muttered to his companion and felt the edge of his knife thoughtfully. I found myself walking aimlessly around and staying out of the way, afraid that falling asleep or bumping into someone would give them the opportunity or motive to slit me some new orifices. In the circumstances, how I felt about them hardly seemed relevant.

  Orgos thought otherwise, but rather than lecture me himself, he called over a gaunt-looking goblin with brownish skin and lively green eyes. “This is Toth,” said Orgos. “He is a worthy soldier and a respected bear-rider. Mr. Hawthorne,” he said, turning to the goblin, “wants to know why your people do not regard him favorably.”

  The goblin turned to me and shrugged expressively. “They see the way you look at them,” he said, in a gruff voice that sounded like it should come from a larger frame, “and they remember your attack on the Falcon’s Nest. Some of them may have respect for what you were trying to do, but it is grudging at best. You fought for their enemy, an enemy that has stolen everything from them and set out to wipe them out utterly. You can see why they are a little leery of you. Let me see your sword.”

  I drew it, grateful for something that didn’t require me to speak. He peered at the blade.

  “Yes,” he said. “One of ours, very old. The gilding on the hilt is new but the blade is excellent and will stand many reforgings should it take damage.”

  “They don’t reforge,” I said. “They either grind them down or throw them away and get new ones.”

  “Yes,” he said, and he looked sad somehow. “I know. Except, of course, that new really means old. Our ancestors forged these blades and few now have the skill to remake them—none, I think, in Phasdreille. Some of our men still have the skill, but since we left Phasdreille we have had neither the raw materials nor the equipment to make more than a few good blades a day. It is not enough. Meanwhile the enemy use the swords we stockpiled over decades and throw them away when they need repair.”

  “Is that true of the stonemasons, too?” I asked. “I got the impression that most of the repairs to the city were sort of shoddy.”

  The goblin called Toth nodded solemnly. “My people were once great builders,” he said. “Before the Arak Drül came—those you call the ‘fair folk’—we relied upon our hands and our wits, and we made fair and mighty things.”

 
“So how did they take over?” I demanded, feeling defensive.

  “Guile,” he said. “Deception. And there is no doubting their military prowess. Their energies go into ornamentation and into war. They may not build castles or forge swords, but they have learned to use both as well or better than those who made them.”

  I nodded. Ornamentation and war. The former for the bland, vapid entertainment which was designed to stir neither mind nor heart, and the latter to ensure that no one entered their world uninvited, and to make all other parts of the world look like theirs.

  Toth wasn’t done. “They also had access to some power we did not recognize until it was too late,” he said. “We still don’t fully understand it, though I suspect it will come into play in the struggle which approaches. We welcomed them into our city because they seemed to have much to share with us, but by the time we realized how little substance there was to what they offered, strange things had already begun to happen.”

  “What kind of strange things?”

  “Most of the people around were like us, but many were different, their blood mixed with other races in generations past. It was not a problem, until the Arak Drül came, and then—almost overnight—it was a problem. Many who had stood with us turned against us, and a new hierarchy was established, one which centered on the pale, blond newcomers. Their king came to Phasdreille and there were enough people of his complexion that he soon took over. One night, the Pale Claw sect—a guild of Arak Drül assassins and politicians—led a series of raids. My people’s leaders were arrested, many were executed, and others were banished. From then on, the city became a dangerous place for us. Within a month, our property was being confiscated in accordance with the new laws, so we left the city: some fleeing, some driven out. We left with only the clothes on our backs, and the Arak Drül chased us to the mountains, butchering all they could. They took the city—our city, generations in the making—and all it contained, without fighting a single real battle.”