by A. Giannetti
“This must be your grandson,” said his visitor, interrupting his thoughts.
Balbus glanced down and was horrified to see that Elerian was standing quietly by his left side next to Carbo. He was staring warily up at the stranger. “What a fool I am,” he silently berated himself. “I should have sent him up to the loft.”
“How fortunate you are that he is not lost like my own dear nephew,” said the tall stranger as he swept his eyes carefully over Elerian. Hope flared up in Balbus, displacing some of his fear, for it seemed to him that disappointment tinged the stranger’s voice. Elerian’s disguise had held up under the Ancharian’s sharp scrutiny.
The stranger turned away from Elerian back to Balbus. There was no more interest in his eyes, only a cold blackness that was even more frightening to Balbus than the sparks he thought he had glimpsed earlier. “I must continue my search, while you go back to your warm hearth,” he said softly, “but before I go, I wish to tell you that I will pay a handsome reward for information about my nephew and even more for his return.” The Ancharian opened his right hand and showed Balbus a handful of bright silver coins before dropping them back into a small black change purse with a pleasant, jingling sound. “Enjoy the rest of your evening,” said the stranger as he turned away and vanished into the gathering dusk.
Balbus hastily closed the door and was finally able to release Carbo who still seemed determined to attack the stranger if he could only find a way out of the farmhouse. “It is unusual for him to take such a strong dislike to someone,” thought Balbus to himself as he locked and barred his front door. He put up his sword and then sat in his chair with his heart pounding and watched Elerian unconcernedly wrestling on the hearth rug with Carbo.
“If that Ancharian was not a Goblin in disguise, I will eat my boots,” he said softly to himself. “If Tullius can make Elerian look like a Hesperian, then there is no reason why a Goblin cannot look like an Ancharian.” Balbus shuddered as he remembered how close he had come to revealing Elerian’s identity before Carbo interrupted him. “I wonder if he suspected anything,” he wondered to himself. “I expect I shall find out soon enough.” A thrill of fear ran through him as he recalled the pitiless eyes of the stranger.
Balbus sat in his chair and kept watch all night, but the suspicious stranger did not return. After several days passed, Balbus began to hope that Tullius’s disguise had indeed deceived the Goblin. He learned from his neighbors that the tall stranger had visited all the nearby farms. He and his silver were the talk of the neighborhood. Search parties were organized to look for the missing child but turned up nothing. The stranger did not appear again, to the disappointment of Balbus’s neighbors, and soon, the excitement he and his silver had stirred up began to fade.
A full week passed and Balbus began to relax a little, but that very day, disturbingly close to his farm, had he only known it, Sarius and the two remaining members of his troop were feasting on the flesh of a woodcutter they had caught in one of their mantraps. The memory of how the fellow had gibbered in terror when he had found himself surrounded by tall, crimson-eyed Urucs filled Sarius with remembered pleasure. He sipped the wine which he had purchased in Sidonia and reviewed in his mind the fruitless search he had made over the last week.
Wearing the illusion of an Ancharian, he had walked freely among the hilltop folk, but despite a liberal show of silver, no one had recalled seeing any strange child in the neighborhood. Each child that he had inspected with his own eyes appeared ordinary enough, even to his magical senses which could pierce any illusion. He was almost certain now that the Elf had died under the teeth of the vanished lupins. The thought that Elerian might be disguised by a shape change had not entered his mind, for Tullius, living on his own in the forest, had escaped his notice. Sarius’s thoughts were interrupted by Bruscius who was picking his sharp teeth with a sliver of white bone.
“I wish we could get one of those brats we have seen so much of the last few days. They would provide us with more tender meat than the men we have taken in our traps.”
“I do not wish to alarm the farmers,” said Sarius coldly. “As matters stand now, there are a number of men who will gladly bring us information about the Elf in hopes of gaining the silver I have shown them. You will have to be satisfied with the men we have trapped for now.”
“The Elf is dead, Sarius,” said Bruscius positively. “Let us take a few of these tender morsels for one last feast after which we can return home.”
Sarius threw the bone he had picked clean with his sharp teeth into the fire. “Not yet,” he said quietly. “I will wait a few more days to see if anyone comes forward with information. I must deal with Drusus, in any case, before we leave. I believe he is still lurking about, and I mean to find out why he is avoiding us.”
“Waste of time,” grumbled Bruscius under his breath, but he took care that his voice did not carry to Sarius’s ears.
Sarius made one more circuit of the farms over the next several days, but he gained no new information. He talked to Balbus again, but did not give Elerian a second glance, much to Balbus’s relief. Finally, Sarius decided that it was time to forget about the Elf who was almost certainly dead and to turn his complete attention to Drusus. Despite an extensive search by Bruscius and Hagar, no sign of him had turned up, and Sarius cursed the missing lupins frequently, for they would have been invaluable in the search. With his mind made up, he stood up one evening in the cave and addressed his two remaining followers.
“It is time to start the hunt for Drusus,” he said to Bruscius and Hagar. “While I travel to Nefandus for help, I want the two of you to continue searching for Drusus and the boy as well as the missing lupins. Take as many of these dull hunters and woodcutters as you wish in your mantraps, but do not reveal yourselves in any way,” he said with a threatening look. From his black change purse, Sarius took a ring which appeared to be made of plain, unadorned silver. “This is a ring of illusion,” he said as he held it up before Bruscius and Hagar in the fingers of his right hand. “When you wear it, you need only picture in your mind how you wish to look and that is how you will be perceived by all around you. Use it to travel among the farmers on the hilltops in case any new information comes to light. Take turns so that neither of you will feel the full effects of the ring. It can be dangerous to those without mage powers.” Sarius offered the ring to his two followers and then frowned as neither of them made a move to take it.
“It is not Elven made, is it?” asked Hagar hesitantly.
“What of it?” asked Sarius impatiently. “You must bear the touch, unpleasant as it is, for you have no magic of your own to help disguise your shape.”
Gingerly, Bruscius took the ring, even though its touch was distasteful, and put it into his pocket.
“If any come forward with information, reward them with silver,” continued Sarius as he handed his change purse to Bruscius. The purse felt empty in Bruscius’s hands, but he said nothing to Sarius.
Sarius then extinguished the red mage lights on the ceiling. “You will have to make do with firelight,” he said to the two Goblins. “Both of you lack the power to extinguish the lights if there is need.” He then grasped, with his right hand, a large, many faceted ruby that hung from a thin iron chain around his neck. At the touch of his hand, the ruby took on a sullen, red glow, and Bruscius and Hagar saw a dark, elliptical shadow the height of a tall Goblin appear behind Sarius. Sarius turned and stepped through the opening without a backward look at his companions. He disappeared from sight, and a moment later, the portal also vanished.
“Makes my flesh creep when the higher ups do that,” said Bruscius with a shiver. “I don’t hold much with magic myself.”
“I feel the same way,” replied Hagar. “When do you think Sarius will return?” he asked thoughtfully.
“Might be a few days,” said Bruscius. “He will travel directly to Nefandus through the portal, but he will likely ride back with the reinforcements. They don’t like to send to
o many at a time through those portals because of the amount of power it takes to hold them open, or so I hear.”
“Time enough then for us to snag a few of those morsels you were talking about earlier,” said Hagar with a sly grin. “We have the ring to help us now.” He took it from Bruscius’s pocket and put it on a finger. Bruscius immediately saw him in the form of a tall Ancharian. “In this guise, I can scout out the hillsides for unguarded children,” said Hagar cunningly.
“If Sarius discovers what we have done, it will go hard with us when he returns,” Bruscius cautioned him.
“He said himself that we are leaving when he comes back,” said Hagar dismissively. “He will never be the wiser.” The two Goblins put their heads together and began to plan how they would trap their small victims.
A CLEVER TRAP
After the departure of Sarius, Bruscius and Hagar continued to search, with no luck, for Drusus and the missing lupins. They also took turns traveling the hilltops in the guise of Ancharians, inquiring among the residents after the missing Elf child as Sarius had ordered them. When they appeared, one at a time, on his doorstep on different days, Balbus greeted each of them courteously, but he felt a growing dismay, for he suspected at once that each of them was a Goblin in disguise.
“Will they never give up searching for Elerian?” he wondered to himself after the second visit. He began to wonder if they had begun to suspect that Elerian was not a real Hesperian, for both of the false Ancharians seemed unusually interested in the boy. Balbus passed several sleepless nights, consumed by worry, but neither of the Goblins returned for a second visit.
As Sarius had done before them, Hagar and Bruscius offered silver for information about the missing child they were searching for. A second wave of excitement swept through the hilltop farms, but despite the promise of silver, Hagar and Bruscius, as they had expected from the outset, obtained no new information about a missing child. They remained in good spirits, however, for their fruitless search had given them a chance to examine the children of the people they talked to without arousing anyone’s suspicions.
By the time the Goblins finished their circuit of all the nearby farms, they both felt drained of a good portion of their strength. Despite sharing the use of the silver ring Sarius had given them, it had taken a heavy toll of their strength, just as Sarius had warned them it might.
“I’ll not use that cursed ring again,” insisted Hagar when their search was finally complete. “I feel as feeble as a newborn.”
“Let us make our choice of the children then,” said Bruscius. “We have carried out Sarius’s orders, and learned nothing new. There is nothing to be gained by delaying any longer.”
After much deliberation, they decided to take a pair of particularly young and plump children, a boy of seven and a girl of six, who lived on a farm only a quarter mile to the south west of Balbus. “One for each of us,” observed Bruscius.
During their travels, the Goblins had several times observed the pair playing outside in their front yard which was only a few hundred feet from the boundary hedge which protected the farm. Careful inquiry of the neighbors revealed that the parents, out of necessity, often left the children alone during the day while they worked in their fields. They were evidently unaware that their offspring were disobeying their orders to stay in the house with the door locked.
The two Goblins could have easily snatched the children openly, but there was always the chance that they would be seen. Mindful of Sarius’s warning not to expose themselves to the Hesperians living nearby, they were forced to consider more subtle methods of obtaining their prize. This did not displease them. They were, after all, Goblins, and Goblins do not like to act openly if they have a choice. They prefer to act in a sly, crafty manner which, in their minds, demonstrates how much more clever and superior they are to all the other inhabitants of the Middle Realm. Since Hagar and Bruscius were also Urucs, who make up the nobility of the Goblin race, they felt it necessary to come up with an especially ingenious plan.
Eventually, they came up with a scheme which suited them. “We can take the pair of them, and no one will ever know we were responsible,” said Bruscius to Hagar, once they were done plotting. “Everything is in our favor since they will be alone and not too far from the forest’s edge.”
The next day, in the early evening while the sun was still fairly bright, the two Urucs prepared to venture out of the cave where they were staying. Goblins avoid the sun when they can, for it hurts their eyes and makes them feel lightheaded, but Bruscius and Hagar put on black leather hoods as a protection from the bright rays of the sun. They traveled quickly through the forest to the edge of the farm where the little victims they had selected lived. At this time of day, they knew that the parents were still working in a distant field. Swiftly, with little noise, they cut an opening with their knives in the boundary hedge, small enough that it would not be easily noticed but large enough for one of them to slip through. Reluctantly, for it was part of their plan, Hagar put on the ring Sarius had given them.
“We will need to use it only this last time,” Bruscius reassured him.
“Easy for you to say,” grumbled Hagar as he took the form of a large brown hare. Slipping through the hedge on his stomach, he rose up on the other side and carefully looked all around him. Seeing that there was no one about, he opened the small leather purse that Sarius had left behind. It appeared empty, but when Hagar reached inside it, he felt the cool, smooth shapes of silver coins. Anyone who happened by at that moment would have been astonished to see a large hare laying a trail of bright silver coins from the hedge to the front door of the farmhouse. There seemed no lack of coins in the purse, despite its apparent emptiness, and Hagar left a small, bright heap of coins on the doorstep before knocking firmly on the front door. He then ran to the left around the corner of the house and waited. Bruscius remained on the far side of the hedge, out of sight. From inside the house, Hagar heard voices. Through the hole in the hedge, Bruscius saw a window shutter open a crack.
“There is no one out there,” said a young girl’s voice.
“Well, who could have knocked then?” asked her brother. They argued together for a bit, and then, through the hole in the hedge, Bruscius finally saw the front door open a little. “Is anyone there?” asked the boy’s voice. A moment later, a cry of excitement filled the air. “Fabia, look at what is on the doorstep,” shouted the boy. He opened the door wide, and both children tumbled out. At once, they began picking up the coins on the doorstep and stuffing them into their pockets.
“Look, there are more,” shouted Fabia when she finally looked up and saw the shining trail leading to the boundary hedge. The children began racing each other from coin to coin, each of which they delightedly stuffed into their pockets. With dark, predatory eyes, Hagar watched them as they drew closer to the hedge, licking his lips in anticipation of the tender meat he and Bruscius would soon enjoy.
Suddenly, a dark look crossed his face. The children had picked up the last coins but made no movement to slip through the small hole before them. The sight of the hedge so close by had evidently brought them back to their senses, reminding them that the forest they had been warned against by their parents was on the far side of the barrier.
From the corner of the farmhouse, Hagar frowned angrily as he watched them. He and Bruscius might have to chance exposing themselves after all in order to seize the children, something he preferred not to do. Then, a sudden flash of inspiration wiped away his anger. Sprinting away from the house, he ran past the children, still disguised as a hare, and dived through the hole in the hedge, leaving behind another gleaming silver coin as he did so.
“Did you see that Fabia?” asked the boy excitedly. “The hare that just ran through the hedge dropped another silver coin.”
“Perhaps it is a magical hare,” replied his sister with shining eyes, for she was still of an age where she believed in such things. She got down on her hands and knees to look through
the hole in the hedge and immediately spied a small pile of shining silver coins heaped on the short grass on the far side of the hedge.
“Look, Flavian,” she shouted excitedly, “he has left us more silver.” Overcome by excitement, Fabia crawled through the hedge, and her brother followed at her heels, determined to share in the treasure she had seen.
By then, Hagar had already removed his ring and retreated into the forest with Bruscius, but he had left behind more coins leading from the hedge into the trees. The children plundered the pile of bright coins they found by the hedge and then, heedlessly, followed the shining silver trail that led into the shadows under the trees. Just as Flavian picked up the last bright coin, Bruscius suddenly jumped out from behind a tree and dropped a large sack over Fabia, scooping her off her feet in an instant.
“Let her go,” shouted her brother as he bravely attempted to kick Bruscius in the shin, but a moment later, he, too, was scooped up into a sack by Hagar.
Cries for help came from the sacks as the laughing Goblins tied them off and threw them easily over their shoulders. When the cries continued, Hagar and Bruscius pinched the children unmercifully through the coarse sacks with their cruel claws. The shouting quickly turned to sobs.
“Quiet now, the pair of you, or you’ll be sorrier than you are now,” said Bruscius in an ugly voice, and the children lapsed into terrified silence. They still did not suspect that they had been captured by Goblins, for in the shadows under the trees with their dark hoods still disguising their faces, they had taken the pair for outlaws of the human kind. The Goblins began to walk back to their cave with the children dangling upside down in the sacks they carried slung over their shoulders. It was stuffy in the sacks, and both children were cramped and feeling dizzy from the blood rushing down to their heads. Even so, they could hear the Goblins laughing and congratulating themselves on their clever plan through the coarse cloth of the sacks. The blood suddenly froze in their veins as Bruscius and Hagar began to discuss how they were to be prepared for supper.