by Dave Duncan
Yes, it was bluster, but barbarian flavoring did not hide the taste of cold truth. This was Death Bird’s destiny, which had been predicted for twenty years. The Gods’ decree was being fulfilled at last and there was nothing any mortal could do abou it, except maybe the imperor. The ultimate limits of the disaster had always lain outside even Rap’s ken.
Inos thought of the unlamented Proconsul Yggingi who had started this war in trying to acquire a word of power that did no exist. She thought of Rap’s misgivings about the coming of the millennium. She thought of the dwarvish evil he had seen brewing in the ambience … Anything was better than thinking of the people dying all around her in the rose garden.
That night the royal guests from Krasnegar were entertainers by the goblin chiefs in the Kinvale stableyard. Death Bird’s deputy in the Kinvale area was his nephew, Quiet Stalker, an unusually tall goblin, and dangerously young. Inos did not like the way he looked at Kadie, but then she did not like the way any goblin looked at—or to—anyone!
Giant Feller explained that Krasnegar had a female chief. The freakish institution presented social difficulties and provoked much garbled discussion. In the end Quiet Stalker issued a decree, which was then translated: Inos and Kadie would eat in the corner, away from the central fire that was the place of honor Gath would sit with the chiefs as official Krasnegarian delegate
Gath’s ash-pale face broke into a smile at that news. “Barbarians!” his sister whispered furiously.
“Sorry, Kadie. You just have to accept that you’re naturally inferior! “
“Furs off!” Giant Feller said.
“What?” Gath stared in horror at the strip of leather the goblin was offering him. As the fire blazed up in the middle of the courtyard, the assembled chiefs were pulling off their buckskins. That shoelace was formal wear.
“Now we’ll see who’s inferior!” Kadie crowed, and flounced off to the designated women’s quarters by the water trough. Shuddering with cold, Gath removed Inos’ fur robe and his doublet and his sweater and his shirt and his undershirt. He handed them to his mother with an appalled glance, and she turned to leave while he still had pants on. There was nothing else she could do.
Grunts of surprise from the goblins … “Say about arms!” Giant Feller demanded.
“Had a fight,” Gath admitted. The chiefs crowded around to admire the raw swellings on his knuckles and the purple-yellow bruises covering his forearms. Suddenly he had some status.
Inos headed for the horse trough. When she looked back, he was clad in the skimpy loincloth, kneeling close to the bonfire. The goblins’ skin looked dark green in firelight. Gath’s gaunt shape was a shimmering pale wraith in their midst, but already turning pinker. His far side, which she could not see, was probably blue.
“Oh, well, the doctor did say to keep him warm,” she said. But Kadie was past seeing jokes. Kidnapped princesses were fine in romances. Rap had always joked that Kadie, were she ever to be carried off by a handsome imp on a white horse or even a jotunn in a longship, would not merely enjoy every minute of it, but would also instruct her captor in the correct procedures. Reality was different. She was understandably crushed by the goblins’ barbarity. Her eyes were dry, but they had a strange, jittery look to them. Pale and shivering, she huddled close to her mother, and barely nibbled the abundant roast cow that was brought across to them. And yet she was coping very well for her age.
Inos kept an eye on Gath. He was managing to sit erect. He had no need to make conversation, of course, only stay conscious.
And Inos herself, who had so royally blundered into calamity? She decided just to keep her mind on the children. Nothing else was as important-not her kingdom, abandoned and perhaps falling into chaos, nor her husband, lost somewhere in an Impire tottering before the onslaught of the millennium, nor the uncountable victims of this war. She could do nothing about any of those. She must concentrate on the twins and herself. They were three penniless refugees among thousands, perhaps millions, and they had no way home. This was the worst disaster of her life.
After the food came the entertainment, which was provided by Death Bird’s son and the gardener. Then a couple of captured legionaries were brought in and the chiefs took turns with them. Fortunately, Gath was not invited to share in the fun, although he had to watch. Inos and Kadie were luckier, being required only to listen. For Inos this yard was a scrapbook of happy memories of life and fun among the Kinvale horses. She knew every stall in the stable, and could remember most of the horses that had inhabited them all those years ago. Now it echoed with screams that went on and on and on, for hours. Die! she kept thinking. Die! Die!
It was still not as bad as the rose garden.
Finally, when the last man choked to death on his own blood, Inos and Kadie were summoned to the center, to stand outside the circle of chiefs. The men sat cross-legged on the dirt, grinning up at her with their angular eyes and fearsome teeth. As warriors, they had much to grin about. She positioned herself as close to her son as she could, trying not to look at the caked blood in his flaxen thatch. Logs crackled and sparked on the fire-chair legs and picture frames, mostly. She was on the downwind, smoky side, of course.
Gath looked up. “I agree to what he wants, Mom.”
“You do? Why?”
“I’m not quite sure yet, but I know it must be all right.”
“Er, thank you, dear.”
Quiet Stalker spoke. Kneeling behind the young leader, grayhaired Giant Feller interpreted.
“Says friend of Death Bird friend of all goblins.”
Inos was not a subject of the imperor. She was his ally, but there was nothing in the treaty about making war on his enemies. “Am friend of goblins,” she agreed.
“Asks if also friend of imperor?”
“Yes. “
She feared that remark would be suicidal, but it wasn’t. Goblins admired courage above all and apparently bravado also. Nodding in approval, Quiet Stalker spoke again.
“Asks if know imperor?” Giant Feller explained. “Met him long ago. Very old man now. “
Even before that answer was translated, she saw that it was wrong. Odd-shaped eyes glinted suspiciously in the firelight. “Is dead! Young imperor now. “
That should hardly be a shock-Emshandar had been in his nineties-but now the goblins would wonder why she had not known.
“Forgot! Met young imperor long ago, too. Was only child. ” She could have said that Gath had seen Shandie in a vision the previous summer, but she was certainly not going to.
She didn’t understand that episode herself.
Quiet Stalker said something too fast for her to guess at, and there was a brief exchange of remarks around the bonfire. No one seemed to argue with the young leader. Then the older man translated the decision.
“Sun rises, send to Death Bird, send children.”
That was a real relief, and the best result she could hope for. Death Bird had a smattering of impish culture, and if there was any shred of hope for her and the twins in this new goblin kingdom, then it was with the goblin king himself, Rap’s old friend. But there was more to come.
“This night, lies with Quiet Stalker.” Giant Feller’s finger pointed at Kadie.
Inos and Kadie said, “No!” in one voice. The goblins grinned.
Gath whispered, “Mom!” urgently.
“You chief woman Krasnegar,” Giant Feller said. “Say want friendship. Order daughter sleep with goblin chief! Make good friendship. ” He was barely translating now, just repeating Quiet Stalker’s words in a clearer pronunciation.
So Inos would have to try her royal occult glamour on the whole goblin high command. She drew a deep breath—
At her feet, Gath raised a skinny pale arm. “Let man speak!” The chiefs guffawed, but Quiet Stalker nodded with a gleam of anticipation.
“pink one speak.”
“Krasnegar women are very wild,” Gath said, staring in tently across the fire. “My sister is very, very wild! Can th
e goblin chief tame this girl?”
Giant Feller had trouble passing this on, and when he did, the chiefs all rolled on the ground with mirth.
Very quietly in the hubbub, and without looking round, Gath said, “You can do it, Kadie. They haven’t noticed.”
Noticed what? Inos stared angrily at the blood on the back of his head and wondered if the blow had knocked out his wits. A fourteen-year-old boy must know what sort of sleep was intended, surely? He couldn’t be that innocent! Then she glanced down at Kadie, but her face was so white and rigid that it conveyed nothing at all, a china doll bundled in a fur cloak. She looked years younger than she had that morning when she interrupted the council meeting.
“Give orders, chief woman!”
Inos felt a whirl of faintness. Once she had expected to be married off to a goblin and the prospect had so repelled her that she had contemplated suicide. She could not abandon her daughter to this abomination without a fight …
Suddenly Gath was shouting in true guttural goblin. “Am man, give orders! Hear treaty?” He waved at Kadie. “Lies with Quiet Stalker only. No others. No help! Say if can tame her?”
The chiefs were following his jabber better than Inos could. How had he learned their tongue so fast?
“Can tame!” Quiet Stalker insisted, leering.
“Take girl, then. ” Wave at Kadie, then Inos-“Old woman sleep alone.” Wave at all three with three fingers-“See sun, go to Death Bird. All of us!” Again three fingers. “Are friends? Is treaty?” A whispered aside: “Trust me, Kadie!”
Quiet Stalker nodded vigorously. “Is treaty! Are friends.” He sprang to his feet and made a swashbuckling leap over the fire, then hauled Gath to his feet and embraced him to confirm the deal. Inos watched in frozen horror as her son pushed his sister toward the green horror-and Kadie went. How could she possibly trust Gath’s prescience this far? He was only a child, he did not know. Kadie seemed to trust him, but she was no older.
“No, Gath!” Inos lurched forward to intervene. Gath turned and grabbed her, but he staggered giddily, and they both almost fell.
“It’s all right, Mom,” he whispered hoarsely, leaning hard on her. His eyes were wild and brilliant, close to hysteria. “Remember Ollialo? My birthday gift to Kadie?”
The rapier? What good was that, five hundred leagues away in Krasnegar? The kid’s brains had been addled! He was crazy. With no sign of effort, the young goblin leader had lifted Kadie and headed for the sheds-a child in thick furs being carried off by a muscular savage in almost nothing.
“Idiot!” Inos cried, struggling to free herself from Gath’s tight embrace. He clamped a hand over her mouth, and again they both teetered off balance. He must be hallucinating that Kadie had come wearing her sword, concealed below her robe. But Inos had watched Kadie put that cloak on and knew perfectly well that she was not armed with as much as a nail file. And even if Kadie had sneaked the rapier by her, the goblins would have seen the scabbard protruding below the hem.
Quiet Stalker stopped at a ladder that led up to the hayloft. He set Kadie down. She moved aside, bowing. Apparently she had guessed the correct goblin etiquette, because he went clambering up ahead of her. Inos expected her to run then, but she began to climb submissively after the goblin.
Gath removed his hand from his mother’s mouth. ” ‘Sawright, Mom!”
The rest of the chiefs were scrambling to their feet, the social evening completed.
“Woman sleep there!” Giant Feller commanded, pointing to the shed where the shovels and barrows were stored. “Kadie!” Inos cried, as her daughter vanished into the darkness behind Quiet Stalker.
“Clothes, Mom!” Gath begged, still clinging to her. “You took my clothes away! Help me, I’m frozen. ” Shivering, he tried to whisper in her ear and his voice broke, half crying, half laughing. “It’s all right, Mom, all right! She has her sword! I know you can’t see it, because it’s a magic sword, Mom! “
Gods have pity! He was mad.
And he kept on raving in a wild whisper, his voice lurching between boyish treble and a manly tenor she had not heard before. “She’s worn it every day since I gave it to her, and nobody ever notices it unless she wants them to and we thought it was great fun that you never noticed she was going around with a real sword on all the time and I set it up so that only one goblin gets her tonight-“
“What? You’re crazy. How do you know-“
“Watch! She drives him back with the sword and he breaks his neck and the others all make a big fuss but they accept it and the three of us all sleep safely together and everything’s all right and who cares what happens to these murdering brutes?”
Sheer madness, but not surprising. He had cracked under the strain, was all. He was only a child. She shook him, and he was not too big for her to shake. “Stop it, Gath! Control yourself ! Now, tell me how you knew how to speak goblin like that.”
He blinked, and his eyes filled with tears. “Huh? Oh, if I spoke in impish then Giant Feller repeated it in goblin, right? So I just said what he was going to say. It’ll be all right, Mom!”
More insanity. How could he foresee something and then stop it happening?
“There!” Gath said. “Told you! “
Inos whirled to stare again at that black opening that had swallowed her daughter. Suddenly Quiet Stalker came into view-wearing nothing, his back to her, moving backward. It was over in an instant. He kept on retreating until he stepped on air. He back-flipped out the doorway with a shriek and fell clear to the ground. The other goblins were busily dressing themselves again and they only looked up when they heard the scream. A moment later Kadie appeared at the top of the ladder, hands on hips, staring down in triumph. There was no sign of a sword, although she had discarded her cloak.
Quiet Stalker had landed on his head. Inos had seen that. Now all the goblins had rushed over, hiding the body, shouting in fury. She stared at Gath’s idiotic grin. Her daughter had just killed a man.
“That’s Death Bird’s nephew!” she cried.
“Well, he’s dead now. Serves him right. Give me something to wear, Mom! I’m freezing!”
Inos began to strip off her cloak. “But what happens when Death Bird finds out?”
Gath smiled weakly. “Dunno! I can’t see tomorrows.”
Questionable shapes:
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee.
— Shakespeare, Hamlet, I, IV
TEN
Minds innocent
1
“And then the bishop looked under the pillow!” Andor said. Rap had already been laughing. At that climactic punch line he almost fell off his horse, something he had never done in his life. His guffaws raised a flock of tiny red birds out of the hedges in terrified flight. The horses flicked their ears, but kept up their steady clopping.
When he had wiped away the tears and sucked some air back in his aching lungs, he gasped, “I don’t believe a word of it!”
“Absolutely true!” Andor said. “Strawberries everywhere! The Gods are my witness. Would I lie to you, Rap?”
“Well … it wouldn’t terribly surprise me.” But Rap grinned when he said it, because Andor had been grinning when he asked.
Three days with Andor … it was impossible to stay mad at Andor. His word of power could have no effect on a sorcerer, for a single word could only magnify an existing talent, but in Andor’s case that talent was charm. He had been purposefully wielding that charm on Rap for three days, in an unbroken outpouring of concern and reminiscences and funny stories.
They were riding up the wide valley of the Frelket. A day’s ride behind them, the river sank away in despair under palm trees and the sands of the desert. About a day’s ride ahead it would
be a mountain torrent, but here it nourished a little local paradise, an oasis within the withered hills. Most of the native forest had been stripped from the flatland and replaced by rich farms; the valley walls were terraced as if combed by giants. The land looked alive and fertile even now-two days until second moon, and already there was a smell of spring in the air. The sun was hot, even at this altitude.
Second moon was the time for Timber Moot-Rap put thoughts of Timber Moot aside like an unwanted fish bone. He refused to believe that the Gods ever created indispensable mortals. Inos would find someone to deal with the goblins for her.
The Mosweeps were an icy curtain across the head of the valley, a parade of giants. Usually they were shrouded in cloud. Today they were close enough to touch, every pinnacle and glacier sparkling. They rose almost sheer from the foothills-up and up and up until they seemed to overhang. They had grown a lot since his last sight of them, a week ago. They were aweinspiring. They were daunting.
Noticing his interest in the scenery, Andor chuckled. “I was thinking, Jalon should see that! He’d go into a trance! Wouldn’t be able to speak for days!”
“Then let’s keep him ignorant, shall we?” Much as Rap was looking forward to meeting the minstrel again, he knew Jalon was capable of wandering off in a daydream and disappearing for hours at a time. This was no kindergarten. There were no more towns ahead. The Mosweep Ranges were colored Imperial on Imperial maps, but trolls had no maps. This was frontier country, where legionaries might appear at any time to ask travelers where and why they were going … which reminded Rap that he was not sure of that himself. “How far do you suppose this road goes?”