Goblin Hero

by Jim C. Hines

  She should have expected this. Jig had seen her true potential back there in the pit. He felt threatened. He preferred the old, pitiful Veka. Josca had warned of the jealousy a Hero could expect from those closest to her. She touched the comforting outline of the book through the outside of her cloak. Veka was a victim of jealousy, just like Li’ila from chapter five: The Descent.

  And when Li’ila had flung her attacker to the ground and bound him with the mystical energies of the earth, she drew her sacrificial moon blade and demanded of him, “Why do you accost me here, as I enter the domain of the foul one to complete my destiny?”

  And the frightened mercenary responded, “Have mercy, Li’ila. I come on behalf of your husband, who wishes only to save you from these powers that have seduced you into dark witchery.”

  “This is how he proposes to save me?” the astonished Li’ila demanded. “Using a hired thug to accost me in the dark and drag me back to his cottage?”

  Too cowed to lie, the mercenary hung his head and said, “Not precisely. He hired me to cut out your heart and bring it to the temple of Plinkarr, that he might purify your soul.”

  Like Li’ila’s husband, Jig feared her and hoped to do away with her before she grew too powerful. That didn’t explain why they had killed Slash, too. Then again, Slash was a hobgoblin. How much reason did they need?

  Veka turned around. Maybe she should go back. Jig might try to hide and flee from battle, but she was Veka. She had the power to defeat ogres and goblins both. She grinned, remembering the giddiness of riding the giant bat through the pit, her cloak billowing, her hair blowing in the wind. All she lacked was her staff.

  She scowled, trying to recall where she had lost it. She had been trying to release the spell on Slash. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to undo the magic, and then . . .

  “He kicked me!” Remembering that indignity was the final insult. She rubbed her scalp, feeling the blood clotted to her hair. Of all the ungrateful, cowardly, hobgoblinish things to do! It made her feel a little better about his ugly demise.

  She wouldn’t have been so upset if it were Slash who had been planning to kill her. She was a little surprised he hadn’t tried already. But to hear Jig and Grell talking about who should be the one to stab her . . . “They wanted to kill me.” The words sounded distant and unreal.

  Her throat hurt, as though she had tried to swallow a rock, one with lots of corners. “I went to Jig for help!” How many times had she imagined the day he would see her potential and share the secrets of his magic, teaching her the things he had never shared with any other goblin.

  He had seen her potential all right, and it had terrified him. Jig was no Hero. Nor was he a Mentor. What kind of Mentor plotted the murder of his own apprentice? Even if she had never officially been his apprentice.

  But Jig had failed. He had made a mistake, killing the hobgoblin first. Veka was no longer the helpless fool everyone thought she was. She would go back there and show Jig Dragonslayer what real magic could do. She would—

  She glanced at her legs, which refused to budge. She pinched her thigh and winced. Why couldn’t she move?

  She tried an experimental step backward, toward the bottomless pit. Her legs obeyed, but when she tried to go forward again, her muscles went rigid.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Maybe it was a curse of some sort. She wouldn’t put it past Jig. She turned around and tried walking backward toward him, and again her body rebelled. She could flee, but she couldn’t go back to confront him.

  “Trying to fight Jig Dragonslayer will get you killed, either by Jig himself, or by the pixies searching for him,” she whispered.

  One hand reached up to touch her lips. That was her voice, but it certainly didn’t sound like anything she would say. Though it was a reasonable point. Assuming the pixies were searching the pit, they would eventually find this tunnel.

  “Jig means well, but he’s going to get every last goblin killed.”

  It was her mouth. Her voice. Her teeth that nearly pierced her fingers when she grabbed them and tried to stop herself from talking. She waited to make sure the voice had finished before asking, “What’s going on?”

  “Currently, you’re standing in a tunnel with your fingers in your mouth.” The inflection was slightly off, emphasizing different syllables and blurring the sentence together so it sounded like one long word. The fact that her fingers were still probing her lips didn’t help her enunciation much either.

  “Who are you?” She folded her arms and braced herself. Her legs twitched, but she tightened the muscles. She might not be able to walk back to the others, but she could stop herself from leaving. “I’m not budging until I get some answers.”

  “Fine. My name is Snixle,” Veka’s own voice said, sounding exasperated. “I’m the guy who helped you cast that illumination charm on your hobgoblin friend. The one who guided you through the levitation spell. The one who helped you take control of that bat before he could eat you. I’m the guy trying to save your life, who can teach you far more powerful magic than anything you’ve done so far, but only if you get out of there. It’s much more difficult to teach the dead.”

  Veka started to argue, but her lips refused to open. Her neck and jaw muscles began to cramp as she struggled against herself.

  From the direction of the pit, a faint purple light began to fill the tunnels. “Pixies.” She couldn’t tell if she or Snixle had been the one to speak.

  Veka frowned. “The pixie following us was pink, not purple.”

  “Which means there’s probably a second pixie. Lights combine into new colors. Don’t you goblins know anything? If they’re sending another pixie out into your world, they must really want your friend Jig.”

  The rock in her throat grew sharper at the mention of Jig’s name. “Why him?”

  “Look, if I promise to answer your questions, will you please get out of the tunnel? We passed a crevasse near the floor a little way back. You can hide down there.”

  “Heroes don’t hide,” Veka said. “If these pixies are coming for Jig, they won’t expect me. I’ll have the element of surprise.”

  “I’m sure that will be a tremendous comfort when your bones begin to grow through your skin. Look, no matter how surprised they are, they’ll either kill you on the spot, or they’ll wrest control from me and make you fling yourself into the pit or slam your own head against the wall until your skull cracks. You can fight me, but you won’t be able to resist them. Is that really how you want to meet your end?”

  “I can—”

  “No, you can’t,” Snixle said, cutting her off. He sounded absolutely certain. “Not yet, at least. You can’t save your people if you’re dead. Do you really think the pixies would send anyone but their strongest warriors to hunt in your world?”

  Reluctantly, Veka allowed Snixle to take control of her legs, hurrying back a short distance. A smell like damp seaweed marked the place. She lay flat on the ground, feeling the outline of the opening, an irregular crack on the edge of the floor. She hadn’t even noticed it before. Snixle must have been attuned to her senses for some time.

  She should fit, though it would be tight. The ground beyond angled sharply downward. She heard water trickling from overhead. The crevasse extended up as well.

  “Goblins have a rule about surviving strange tunnels,” she muttered. She pulled her cloak tight around her body and slipped her feet into the hole. “A rule for figuring out which ones are dangerous.”

  “What rule is that?”

  “They’re all dangerous.” She scooted deeper, grimacing as her hips and stomach scraped the rock. By now the approaching pixies were bright enough for her to distinguish the individual colors. The left side of the tunnel was more pink, while the right was bluer. If they found her here, wedged halfway into a hole, they wouldn’t even need to attack. She would die of humiliation.

  The soles of her boots touched the far side of the crevasse. She squeezed her fingers in next to her sto
mach and pulled. Her feet searched for traction, anything she could use to help drag herself through. This was worse than the time a group of older goblins had threatened to plug a privy with her.

  No, on second thought, it wasn’t quite that bad.

  Her hand slipped, scraping skin from her knuckles. Gritting her teeth, she reached down and tried again, straining and tugging.

  The edge of the crevasse scraped her stomach as she finally slid inside. She clung to the rock as her feet searched for traction. The crack fell away at an angle, passing underneath the tunnel. Water trickled along the bottom. Already it had begun to soak into her cloak.

  “They’re almost here,” Snixle whispered. Without warning, her hands relaxed. Only Snixle’s control of her jaw kept her from screaming as she slid into the darkness.

  She stopped moving almost at once as her legs jammed into the rock. Cramped as it was, it would be nearly impossible to really fall. The hole dropped more sharply here. She lay on her stomach, staring up at a crack of light with one leg dangling into the drop-off. The other pressed against the rock, bracing her in place.

  As the pixies passed, their lights briefly illuminated the crevasse. Water and brown sludge covered the rock. A quick glance showed that same sludge now covered her cloak and boots. She waited until the light disappeared, then pushed herself up.

  “What are you doing?” Snixle whispered.

  “The pixies are gone. I’m getting out of here.”

  “There will be others. Pixies and worse. They’ll be even more vigilant now that the queen has awakened. All they care about is eliminating every possible threat to the queen’s safety.”

  “The queen?”

  “She came over before, asleep in a shell of magic to protect her from the shock. This place is so warm and dry. Even with all of the changes below, the transition will be quite a shock. But soon she should be ready to leave the dragon’s cave. She might already be on her way. That’s why they must capture Jig Dragonslayer.”

  Veka decided right then that the next one to mention Jig Dragonslayer’s name would get a knife in his gut. “Why does everyone—?”

  Her jaw clamped shut. Through pressed lips, she heard Snixle say, “This place isn’t safe. We have to go deeper. Then we’ll talk.”

  The water was cold enough to chill her hands and arms, and her sodden cloak was beginning to weigh her down. Gritting her teeth, she pressed her hands against the rough stone and lowered herself farther, searching for footholds in the algae-slick stone.

  Her stomach rumbled as she climbed. How long had it been since her last meal? Heroes’ stomachs weren’t supposed to rumble. Of course, Heroes weren’t supposed to have to squirm down dark, tight, wet holes, talking to themselves and hoping their friends didn’t come along to stab them in the back either.

  Her fingers slipped. She dropped hard, landing in a shallow puddle on a ledge. The rock fell away by her ankles. As the water soaked into her undergarments, she closed her eyes and fought for control. When she thought she could speak without screaming, she said, “We’re deeper.”

  Snixle didn’t argue. Maybe he heard something in her tone. “The tunnel slants back down toward the pixie cavern. If we’re lucky, we can just follow the water all the way home.”

  Veka rested her head on the rock. “We’re running away from two pixies so we can drop in on a whole army of pixies?”

  “Most will be busy preparing to escort the young queen to her new home. This place still isn’t safe for her. There are a few ogres roaming free, not to mention you goblins and hobgoblins. But no pixie queen likes to wait. Everyone will be concentrating on her, so depending on where this drainage crack leads, we should be able to get you out unnoticed.”

  “Why do they want Jig?” Veka asked.

  She felt Snixle taking control of her hand, running through the familiar motions of the binding spell. She recognized the enchantment; he was trying to create light. “It’s no good,” she told him. “Without a source of light, the spell won’t—”

  Her fingers began to glow from the inside with a soft green light. The bones and veins in her hand appeared as dark shadows.

  “That is why they wish to capture Jig Dragonslayer,” Snixle said. Veka suspected it was supposed to sound dramatic, but mostly it just irritated her. “That is why they would want you as well, if they knew what you could do.”

  “They would?” Knowing the pixies would want to capture her made her feel a little better. She stared at her hand. “They want us to make light? I wouldn’t think that was a problem for pixies.”

  “The magic of your world follows different rules. Your magic is richer, full of power, but also rigid. Learning to manipulate magic here is like learning to breathe stone. We can learn faster if we have a practitioner of your magic.”

  “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asked, turning her hand. Even her claws glowed.

  “I used myself as the light source,” Snixle said.

  The dragon’s cave. When she and Slash had gone to spy on the pixies. The pixie who found them in the tunnel had been this exact shade of green. But she remembered defeating him. She had told the others how she bested him. “You changed my memories from Straum’s cave.”

  “No, you did that all by yourself,” said Snixle. “You swung at me with your staff. That’s when I cast my spell. By the time you got back to the others, you must have convinced yourself you’d killed me. We control the body, not the mind. We can’t touch your thoughts or emotions. Well, the queen can, but not the rest of us.”

  Veka shook her head. “I remember hitting you, and then—”

  “Your staff only brushed the tip of my wing. Then you turned around and dragged your friend out of the tunnel.”

  “He’s not my friend.” So why had she bothered to drag him out, unless that had been Snixle’s doing? He must have enchanted them both. “That’s why Grell stabbed Slash. They knew you were controlling us.”

  “They must have,” Snixle agreed. “Jig’s smarter than I realized.”

  Jig hadn’t been threatened by her after all. He wasn’t afraid of her. He was afraid of Snixle and the pixies. To him Veka was nothing. Just like she was to every other goblin.

  “Why did you let us go?” she asked, her voice dull and flat. “Why not turn us over to your queen when you had the chance?”

  “I . . .” Snixle’s voice trailed off. Her shoulder blades flexed, and she stared at the ground. After a moment, she realized these were Snixle’s movements. He must be flexing his wings. A nervous gesture? “I’m not strong enough,” Snixle said. “If I tried to force you both, I was afraid you’d break free. I thought I’d let you and the hobgoblin go back so I could try to learn more about you, maybe find something that would help me earn the queen’s respect. She was so depressed at the thought of leaving our home. I never imagined you held the key to this world’s magic.”

  Her spellbook. “That’s why you wanted me to hide from the other pixies,” she said. “So you could keep me for yourself.”

  “If I bring you to the queen, she’ll reward us both,” Snixle said. “Veka, right now they mean to cleanse the mountain, to kill every last hobgoblin and goblin. Come with me, and maybe we can show her she doesn’t have to kill you. She may let your people leave peacefully.”

  Veka shook her head. She didn’t like the sound of that may.

  “Look at what I’ve already shared with you,” Snixle said. “Imagine what else we could accomplish. You can tap into the magic of your world. I can teach you to use that power to save your people. Jig Dragonslayer wants to fight us. The queen won’t like that. She’ll order you all killed. She’ll send more pixies up into the tunnels to—”

  “I thought you couldn’t use magic here,” Veka interrupted. “Our tunnels should be safe.” She frowned. If that was true, the two pixies who had flown through above should have been powerless.

  “I couldn’t,” Snixle said. “But the strongest warriors can wrap a bit of that magic around themselv
es when they leave the safety of our home. It’s like a magical blanket. They have enough power to fight you goblins at least. Eventually our magic will fill this entire mountain. Then all your people will be destroyed, unless you help me.”

  “I know what you’re doing,” Veka said, shaking her head. “This is the Temptation of the Hero.”

  “The what?”

  “Josca wrote all about it. This is part of The Descent, where the Hero is tempted away from the Path, drawn by promises of power and glory. You’re trying to trick me into betraying my companions.”

  “The same companions who wanted to stab you in the back?”

  That was a good point.

  “We need you, Veka,” Snixle said softly. “There’s a limit to the power we can bring from our own world. We’re exiles, every one, and we would be killed if we tried to go back. We must learn to live in your world. Help us, and you could be the savior of our people. Our people and yours as well.”

  Before Veka could answer, a loud snarl rose from the darkness below.

  “What’s that?” asked Snixle.

  Veka’s stomach tightened. “Tunnel cat.” Naming the beast made her mouth go dry. She nearly lost control of her bladder. Which, given that the tunnel cat was creeping around beneath her, would have only made the situation worse.

  This chimney of rock would be the perfect hunting ground for a tunnel cat. They had little fear of water, and their paws could find purchase on the smoothest stone. Prey would be hard-pressed to escape in such close, treacherous confines.

  “Can you take control of the tunnel cat?” Veka asked. “Like you did with the bat?” Her heart pounded as she imagined herself returning to the goblin lair astride her own pet tunnel cat. She could almost hear the terrified screams of the goblins as they fled. Hobgoblins might be able to train the tunnel cats, but Veka would master them. She—

  “No,” said Snixle, shattering her fantasy with a single syllable. “The bat was stupid and frightened, both of which made it vulnerable to my magic. I doubt this beast shares those weaknesses.”