by Jeff Grubb
Bunniswot pointed. "See! Kindness and forgiveness!"
"I know naught of that," Renders put in, "but I can say that the Toede I have encountered is very different from the one I told of in the tales. He is smarter and cannier, and perhaps a little wiser."
"He is different," interrupted Taywin. "Had I known it was Toede we captured a year ago, I would have had him slain, for he once endangered my father with foolish and cruel games. But this Toede risked his life for others. True, his life seems easily lost and easily restored, but it was risk all the same."
"Risk is not nobility," said the Abbot.
"Wisdom," put in Kronin, "true wisdom."
"Kindness and forgiveness," said Bunniswot.
"Honor!" shouted Rogate.
"Bravery!" bellowed Charka.
"Silence!" shrieked Judith, and the walls bulged outward at her fury. "This is a testimony of fools. You cannot agree among yourselves what nobility is, yet you prattle on about how Toede is one way or another. I render my judgment against all of you…"
"Please," said Toede quietly.
The words lacked the unctuous, haughty tone that had been heard so often inside these walls. Even Judith was silenced by the sudden hush in Toede's voice.
"A testimony of fools is still a testimony," said Toede, feeling the blood drain from his face as he spoke, "and I thank them for their kind words, even if they are sometimes misguided. However, their crimes and follies ought to be punished in their own times. They should not be judged for appealing on my behalf."
Toede felt his knees give way and the hard impact of them striking the floor. He continued, "I have been sent
on a fool's errand, and that errand is done. If I am more noble dead than I was alive, so be it-few get a chance to rewrite their own eulogy. I am ready to return to my eternal rest."
Behind him, he heard Groag say softly, "Toede, I…"
Toede shook his head. "Sort out for yourself, everyone, who's running the show after me. Groag, if you apologize, and quit trying to imitate me as I was, you might just get good at the job. The rest of you, clear out. Her ladyship might not agree with me, and you'll be the next to go."
Toede closed his eyes. "Lef s get on with our lives. And our deaths."
Judith looked at Toede for a long moment, as Toede swayed, waiting for the blow to fall.
Then she held her sword out, touching Toede's shoulders lightly with the ebony tip. "By what powers, I grant you your nobility. Arise, Lord Toede of Flotsam."
But Toede did not arise. Instead, he pitched forward in a dead faint, and would have tumbled into the crocodile pit if not for Groag.
Epilogue
Wherein final matters are sorted out, and Our Protagonist finally becomes Our Hero.
Flotsam was alive with celebration. The Lower City danced with pixie lights and congratulatory fires. Most of the buildings wrecked in the battle were now the sites of large bonfires, and smaller flames rose up from torchlight parades. Every now and
again, a magical illusion would stride across the sky, or a gnomish smoke-rocket would spiral up over the city and burst in half a hundred streamers.
Mobs milled in the streets as the survivors partied and compared war stories. Were the tales to be truly believed, Toede had wrestled bare-handed with the undead minions, while the rest of the population cowered in their hiding places. In the main courtyard before Toede's (formerly Groag's) manor, gnoll and kender and human mingled and bragged and drank. The defeat of the necromancer seemed to have unified the races and dimmed more recent memory. The gnolls and kender were now seen as rescuers, not invaders.
Bunniswot was highly visible, encamped next to the fountain, reading Toede's volume on government to three very interested young ladies. Kronin wandered through the crowd, smiling, and if a piece of jewelry or a coin pouch suddenly came loose in his proximity, he "found" it
very quickly, then moved on. A large fire had been built in the center of the court, and over it two huge oxen were spinning slowly on iron spits, turned by gnolls. Groag stood on a slightly raised platform of green wood and basted the rotating carcasses. He looked up toward the outer balcony and smiled, raising his ladle in salute.
Toede returned the salute with a heft of his mug and took a long pull of the Jetties' best ale. The Jetties had survived both Jugger and the Undead War, and instead of leveling it, the highmaster of Flotsam had proclaimed it official alehouse of the Toede Restoration.
Lord of Flotsam, he corrected himself. Ordained by the pit itself, and recognized by the people. Let the dragon highlords argue with that.
Toede took another pull, his nostril hairs bristling at the scent of burned blood, which was not coming from the ox1 roast.
He did not turn around. "You've come at last," he said. A statement, not a question.
Judith responded in her steely voice. "How are your injuries?"
Toede's entire side was bandaged, his left arm wrapped tightly to his body. "Several ribs are cracked. One's pulled loose entirely and is nudging my lung. My shoulder's separated in three places."
"Meaning?" asked the hell-maiden. "Better than usual," said Toede. "A priest of Shinare patched me up fairly well, and in exchange I gave him the part of town where the whale landed to set up a church. So I get full-time healers and a clean-up job."
She moved closer to the seated hobgoblin to observe the festivities, the flames reflecting darkly off her polished skin. If any of the revelers saw a silver-skinned Abyss-spawn chatting with the new Lord of Flotsam, they thought better than to mention it. Ever.
"I've been expecting you," said Toede. "You've changed your mind?" Again, a question but phrased politely.
"No," said the enforcer of Takhisis. "I gave my judgment and stand by it. You have your life until someone else chooses to take it."
"Did you have the power to make me a lord? Really?" asked Toede.
"Did you have the power to make Rogate a knight? Really?" responded Judith.
"A Toedaic Knight," corrected Toede, and forgetting his bad arm, he tried to gesture to a tattered banner on the wall. "And chief bodyguard."
"And the others?" said Judith. "Have you meted out suitable rewards and punishments?"
Toede set down his ale and ticked off things on his good hand. "Bunniswot has been made chief historian and head scribe, since there has been a huge demand for Toede's Wisdom.' Kronin has been made chief game warden, with Taywin as his assistant. The first thing they did was deputize the entire kender clan. Charka has been officially recognized as the master of the swamps and given access to the surviving libraries, while Renders has been made chief librarian emeritus."
"They all tried to kill you," said Judith. "Multiple times."
"Yes, but better the devils you know," said Toede. "Pardon the offense."
"None taken. And Groag?"
"He's become quite a decent cook in the past two years, so he will continue to serve as my chef," said Toede, then added with a smile, "He is also my food-taster."
"I see," said Judith. "Most suitable arrangements. Each gains what they desire, and the responsibility that goes with it."
Toede swore there was a hint of amusement in her voice. He ventured, "And what of your 'punishments'?"
"The quality of enlightened mercy is underdeveloped in the Abyss," said Judith. "It turns out that Old Jugger was one shy of his quota. So I had the Abbot and Castellan bound to a mile-wide expanse around a near-empty landmark, and turned Jugger loose in that area."
"You think they can outrun Jugger?" said Toede.
"I think they are concentrating on outrunning each other," said Judith dryly.
There was a silence between the two, hobgoblin and hell-maiden. Then Toede ventured a question. "If you are not here to pull me back…?" He let the question drag out.
"I thought I should explain," said Judith quietly. "About nobility."
"Am I noble?" asked Toede.
"Do you feel noble?" she responded.
Toede thought for a mom
ent "No. At least not in the terms of what I once thought was nobility: title, rank, prestige. And definitely not in terms that everyone else talks about: honor, wisdom, kindness."
"Don't worry. You are as black-hearted as they come. Your newfound nobility only provides a larger array of resources and allies. If anything, you are more dangerous now than you were when that dragon ended your first life," Judith said.
Toede gave a sigh. "I'm glad you said that."
The pair watched the mob swirl beneath them. "If s not over yet," Toede said. "The necromancer's attack unified these people, and he is still out there."
"I do not think that a major problem," said Judith. "You know the near-empty location I spoke of? The necromancer's castle was perfect for my needs, as zombies do not count in Jugger's total." Another pause, broken by the distant howls of the gnolls.
Judith put a silver hand on his shoulder, and Toede jumped at the soft warmth. "We look forward to your return to the Abyss."
Toede reached beneath his chair and pulled out a small silver tube. He turned in his seat and presented the tube to Judith.
"This is?" she said.
"A small scroll made from the metal of the amulet you melted," said Toede. "A souvenir of our encounter. It has a full and accurate account of my accomplishments and actions, my strengths and desires, and hopes for the future, in the hopes that I may be of service to you."
Judith turned the scroll tube over in her hands. It did not melt at her touch. "What you're saying," she said, with a hint of amusement, "is that this is your resume?"
Toede smiled broadly. "If Abbot and Castellan are typical of your middle management, you need talented servants badly. Just don't rush my recruitment."
At that Judith broke into a smile, and out over the city several gnomish skyrockets exploded at once, illuminating that silver smile into a beacon that could be seen far out to sea.
And deep within the Abyss, there was another smile, one that threw new mountains upward and dislodged half a hundred fiends, as the Dark Mistress herself was amused by what was to come.
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