by Jim C. Hines
Slash’s expression brightened. “Here you go,” he said, handing over his weapon.
Veka set her staff against a tree and marched back into the tunnel.
“What are you doing?” Jig asked, hurrying after her. Her triumph over the pixie had obviously damaged her mind. What did that say of him, though? He was the one following her back into the tunnel.
“Chapter Four: The Trials.” She handed her firestarting stick to Jig. Her hands gripped the shaft of the spear near the bottom. “All Heroes must overcome a series of harder and increasingly dangerous obstacles.”
Jig stopped, momentarily puzzled. “Why do the obstacles always get harder? Why wouldn’t the Hero face the most dangerous one first? The rest should be easy after that.”
Veka ignored him. Raising the spear, she thrust the point at the center of the snakes.
Every head, except those few supporting the creature’s weight, lashed out at Veka. Four sets of fangs sank into the wood of the spear, wrenching it from her hands. Smudge curled into a ball on his shoulder pad, and Jig smelled burning leather.
Splinters flew as the snakes ripped the spear apart. The thought of what those snakes would do to a goblin nearly made him throw up. They were clearly ravenous, some of them so desperate they were actually trying to swallow the broken bits of wood before spitting them to the ground.
Jig gathered up some of the splinters and used the firestarting stick to light a small fire on the side of the tunnel, then studied the snakes more closely. If he wasn’t mistaken, the pixie had made a mistake when she created this monstrosity.
“Stupid hobgoblins can’t make a decent spear to save their lives,” Veka muttered. Jig grabbed her sleeve and tugged her back outside.
“So did you kill it?” Slash asked, a wide grin on his scarred face.
“I need your help,” Jig said, cutting Veka off. “Help me butcher one of those dead bats.”
“I’m a hobgoblin warrior,” Slash said. “I don’t do that kind of work. And where’s my spear?”
“I’ll help,” said Braf. “I was getting hungry again anyway.”
Jig didn’t bother to explain. He and Braf worked together, cutting chunks of meat from the body while Slash stormed off to search for a replacement weapon. Veka watched, her arms crossed.
“What do you plan to do, beat them to death with raw meat?” she asked. “That’s the best plan the great Jig Dragonslayer can devise?”
“Come on,” Jig said, scooping some of the meat into his arms. His shirt would be ruined, and it would take ages to get the smell of dead bat out of his nose. Even before he dropped the meat, he could see the snakes quivering eagerly. The pixie’s magic seemed to bind them in place, but the heads stretched and strained toward the smell of food.
Jig was happy to oblige. He tossed every bit of bat meat at the snakes, trying not to watch as the heads fought one another in their eagerness to gorge. Then Jig retreated back out of the tunnel to wait.
“What did you do?” asked Slash. He had returned empty handed, and the glare he aimed at Veka’s back promised murder. “They’re not dead. I can hear them from here.”
“Give it time. It will die soon enough,” Jig said.
“Poison?” Grell guessed.
Jig shook his head. “Most poisonous creatures have some immunity to toxins.” He peered into the tunnel. The flames were dying again, but he could just make out the shape of the creature. Already several of the heads drooped to the ground. This was working even better than he had expected.
“What did you do?” Veka demanded.
“It’s what the pixie did. She bound those snakes together, but she didn’t think it through.” They stared at him. “Look, that thing just ate most of a giant bat, right?”
Braf nodded.
“What happens next?” Jig asked.
“Dessert?” Braf guessed.
“What happens to the food?”
Grell snorted. “If you’re me, it builds up in your gut until you need some of Golaka’s special mushroom juice to get things moving, and then—” She broke off, hobbling past Jig to stare at the creature, following the lines of the snakes’ smooth, unbroken bodies back to the juncture. “They can’t—”
“The back part of those snakes got lost when the pixie put them all together,” Jig said.
Grell pursed her lips. “Poor thing. That’s a horrid way to die.”
Jig was all too happy to let Veka be the first to climb over the dead snake creature. Even though Smudge was cool and calm, he still half expected one of those heads to lurch to life and sink its fangs into Veka’s leg. Only when she was safely past did he stop worrying about the creature.
That simply meant he could resume worrying about other things, not the least of which was what he would say to Kralk when and if they found their way back to the goblin lair. “Let’s see, our ogre escort was killed by his sister. We lost the ladder to the upper tunnels. And oh yes, the pixies have conquered the ogres and should be coming along shortly to do the same to the goblins.”
Jig tried to console himself with the fact that he was unlikely to survive long enough to see that invasion. This tunnel seemed to slope downhill, carrying them deeper into the mountain and farther from home. Even if they evaded the pixies, the odds were good he would never make it back to face Kralk.
It was scant comfort.
It’s not the pixies you should be worried about.
The voice of Tymalous Shadowstar, coming after such a long silence, made Jig jump so hard his head slammed into the top of the tunnel.
“What is it?” asked Braf, his face barely visible in the dull glow of Veka’s firestarting stick.
“Nothing.” Jig rubbed his head and glared upward. Where have you been? I could have used some help down here. I had to fight an ogre and a snake thing and what do you mean it’s not the pixies I should worry about? Do you remember the Necromancer? He was just one pixie. Now we have— He didn’t actually know how many pixies had taken up residence in Straum’s lair. —more than one, he finished.
That pixie was not the original Necromancer, Shadowstar said. Don’t you remember?
I try not to. But Shadowstar’s prodding had brought the experience back to the surface: the smell of decaying flesh, the screech of the Necromancer’s voice as he gloated about killing the original Necromancer and stealing his magic.
He wasn’t from our world, Shadowstar said. Whether he came willingly or was exiled, he left his world behind to enter ours. The pixies below haven’t done that.
But I saw them! I saw the snake creature that pixie created. And what about the ogres? They—
Shut up and listen, Jig.
Jig blinked. Rarely had Shadowstar sounded so abrupt.
The pixies haven’t left their world behind because they’re bringing it with them. That’s why I couldn’t reach you. Even gods have limits, and my power doesn’t extend into other worlds.
The snow, the strange colors, that’s—
It’s an imbalanced juxtaposition of realities, said Shadowstar, escalating Jig’s headache from “pained throbbing” to “Dwarven drinking party inside Jig’s skull.” It’s a bubble.
That was better. Jig could understand bubbles. So what’s going to happen?
I’m not sure. Shadowstar actually sounded embarrassed. It may be a temporary thing, a transitional zone to help the pixies to acclimate to this world. Or it could become a permanent pocket of their world within yours. I suppose it could also pop, to further the metaphor. In that case, I imagine the magic of the pixie world would simply disperse.
Jig’s headache was getting worse. What do you expect me to do about it?
I don’t know, snapped Shadowstar. I was the god of the Autumn Star, remember? A god of evening, of peace and rest. Protector of the weary and the elderly. I didn’t spend a lot of time repelling pixie invasions.
Jig stopped so suddenly that Grell bumped into him. Up ahead, Veka turned back to ask, “What’s the matter?”
; Let me make sure I understand this, Jig said. You, a god, can’t set one metaphysical foot down there, and you have no idea how to fight them. Yet you expect me, a goblin, to take care of it? To beat an army of ogres, pixies, snake-monsters, and whatever else they fling at us, and also to push their little world-bubble back into their world?
Bells jingled, Shadowstar’s equivalent of a shrug.
Jig glanced at his companions. A hobgoblin, an old nursemaid, a warrior who was more likely to kill himself than the enemy, and a muckworker with delusions of wizardry. Is there anything else you want to tell me before I go back to getting myself killed?
Veka and her hobgoblin friend. They’re cocooned in the magic of the pixie world. I’m guessing they’ve been enchanted. The pixies are probably watching every move you make.
Jig massaged his skull, trying to ease the pounding in his head. His fingers warmed, swelling with a brief pulse of healing magic. The throbbing receded slightly. Thanks.
He glanced ahead to where Veka was impatiently tapping her staff on the ground. Slash was right behind her. At least Veka had destroyed the hobgoblin’s weapon. Still, an unarmed hobgoblin could beat an armed goblin nine times out of ten, and the tenth time applied only when the hobgoblin was asleep.
So everyone here either had orders to kill Jig, or else they were controlled by pixies who would also kill him.
With an exaggerated sigh, Veka plopped herself down and drew out her spellbook. The spellbook was worse for wear, little more than a handful of ragged pages. She picked one and, after shooting an annoyed glare at Jig, began reading. Behind her, Grell sucked on a candied toadstool.
Is there any way we can break the enchantment? Jig asked.
Not that I know of. They may not even realize they’re being controlled. Sorry.
I don’t suppose there are any other gods I could talk to?
Tymalous Shadowstar didn’t bother to answer.
CHAPTER 6
“True heroism requires the wisdom to find the proper path, the courage to face all obstacles, and the magic to blast those obstacles to rubble.”
—Aurantifolia the Blackhearted From The Path of the Hero (Wizard’s ed.)
Veka walked with her firestarting stick in one hand and the pages of her spellbook clenched in the other. Her staff was clamped beneath her arm as she muttered under her breath, reading through the tattered pages. She had already rapped Braf in the head twice and knocked one of Grell’s canes from her hand, but she couldn’t help it. She had to keep reading. For the first time, as she read through the mystical incantations and charms, things began to make sense. Her body tingled with magical energy just waiting to be released.
A bit of ash dropped onto the instructions for distilling pure bile from rat corpses. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with the rat bile once she had it, but with so many pages damaged or burned, she was picking up a lot of random tidbits. One page gave instructions for calling fire from river stones. Another listed step-by-step instructions for planting elvish corn, which apparently required the use of a platinum-gilded spade and water collected from the morning dew of an oak leaf, all of which was way too much trouble for a silly vegetable.
She grabbed another page. Most of the spell was illegible, but as far as she could tell, it was supposed to turn the caster invisible. In the margins, the previous owner had scrawled a note in blue ink:
Fire-breathing cat guarding Lynn’s chambers can apparently pierce invisibility spells.
Veka crumpled that page back into her pocket and picked another. Before she could start reading, another chunk of ash fell onto her wrist. She jumped, blowing frantically to dislodge the burning ash. Her staff clattered to the floor, stirring dust into the air.
Jig whirled, his sword halfway out of its sheath. He and Slash had squeezed past her to lead the group, which would have irritated her if she hadn’t been so absorbed in her spells.
She ignored him as she squatted to retrieve her staff. Chunks of rock and dirt covered the tunnel, a far dingier place than the smooth, polished stone of home. Ogres dug ugly tunnels. In several spots, rough wooden planks were wedged against the walls and ceiling to provide extra support.
Jig still hadn’t relaxed his grip on his sword. He didn’t trust her. Veka saw the way he had been watching her ever since she returned. He was jealous, threatened by her victory over the pixie. That was why he had shoved her aside to fight the snake creature. She would have defeated it eventually if he hadn’t been in such a hurry to prove himself.
“Be more careful,” Jig said at last. “I don’t know when those ogres are going to come back, and we don’t know what else might be hiding down here.”
Slash laughed softly. “Don’t worry, if the ogres show up, I’m sure she’ll use her mighty magic to stop them.”
Veka’s ears grew warm. She brought the dying flame of her firestarting stick closer to the pages and kept reading, hiding in her book. The stick had burned down until it was as short as her thumb. Soon she wouldn’t have enough light to read.
She sorted through the pages until she found the illumination spell. Old water damage smeared part of the middle, but most of the spell was still legible. She had tried this one before, in the privacy of the distillery. If she could find a way to create light without fire, it would make the muck work so much safer. In the past all she had managed was to burn herself.
But now her eyes devoured the page. “Nothing more than a basic transference and enhancement enchantment, really.”
She blinked. She didn’t even know what that meant, though the rhyme was catchy. Her mind was clearly leaping ahead, instinctively grasping more advanced concepts of magic. Her heart pounded as the arcane instructions became clear. She squinted at the damaged section. “Probably talks about providing an initial source of light, like the spark to start a fire. Pretty basic spell. Not so much generating magical light as stealing it from somewhere else.”
Her fist tightened around the firestarting stick. First she needed to use the binding spell to tap into the surrounding magical energy. “That should be simple. There’s enough magic trapped in this place to light up half the world.”
“Hush,” said Grell, poking her in the backside with one of her canes.
Veka ignored her. She spread her fingers, drawing a web of magic in the palm of her hand. The silver lines connecting her fingertips were far stronger than anything she had managed before. “That’s only the first part of the binding. The magic needs to be linked to the light itself in order to manipulate it.”
Veka smiled as she studied the binding. The silver lines weren’t true light. Bringing her hand closer to the page didn’t illuminate the words, nor did the light cast any shadows. The others didn’t seem to notice it at all. Her hand felt warm . . . healthy. She began to mutter the second part of the binding, then changed her mind.
“Why bother? The words are useless, a crutch for the weak-minded.” Her hands flexed of their own volition, and the silver web bowed outward. A tendril of light crept through the air until it touched the flame of the firestarting stick.
“Interesting,” she muttered. “Magic is more sluggish here. Probably an ambient effect of the sterile nature of this world.”
Veka stared at her hand, trying to understand the words coming from her own mouth. More sluggish than what? She tried to convince herself she was simply remembering passages from her reading. Josca liked to use big words, many of which Veka still didn’t understand. What was the historical unification of mythological heroism anyway? So she blurted out a few strange phrases as she cast her spells. It was part of her growing awareness, nothing more.
Josca did say the Hero would tap into previously unknown reserves of strength and power as she traveled along the path. This crisis had simply helped her discover those reserves.
She giggled. She should have snuck away years ago instead of waiting around for Jig Dragonslayer to teach her his worthless flavor of magic.
“What’s so funny?” Slash
asked.
Without thinking, Veka pushed the flame with her mind. Orange light leaped from the end of the stick, splashing as it collided with Slash’s nose. The firestarting stick went dark.
Slash’s nose lit up like a muck lantern with an oversoaked wick. He leaped back, smacking his head against the wall, then falling as he tried to scramble away from his own nose. Dirt and dust swirled around his body. “What did you do to me?”
“Quiet,” Veka said sweetly. “We wouldn’t want the ogres to hear you.”
Jig had turned around, his hand again going to his sword. The tunnels had widened a bit, back at the junction where the ogres’ tunnel breached a larger one, but Jig still had to squeeze past Braf to reach her. “What happened?”
She tossed her firestarting stick aside. “The light was dying. I made a new one.”
“Take it off, goblin,” said Slash, “before I—” Veka shook her staff, rattling the beads and trinkets at the end. Slash cringed and took a step back. A gleeful giggle tried to escape her lips at the sight of his fear, but she fought it down. Heroes didn’t giggle. “Calm down, hobgoblin,” she said. “Right now I’ve only channeled the light to you. Would you like the flames as well?”
Slash’s eyes crossed as he stared at his nose. The orange light turned his face pale, almost white. Veins traced dark lines throughout his nose, especially around the nostrils. “Could you at least dim it down a little? You’re giving me a headache.”
“He looks like a pixie flew up his nose,” Braf said, grinning. Slash stepped toward him, and that grin vanished.
Veka thought she was going to explode from sheer joy. She had cast a spell. She had mastered the magical energies around her and harnessed them to do her bidding. And she had shown that stupid hobgoblin a thing or two in the process. That would be the last quip he made about her magical abilities. He was lucky she hadn’t done anything worse.
“The light is pretty powerful,” Jig said. They had left the ogres’ tunnel behind, crossing once again into familiar obsidian, and the orange light reflected from the rock for a fair distance in both directions.