by Jean Rabe
Isaam looked away from the crystal, and his black eyes locked onto Bera’s. In that moment they no longer looked piglike and small, but terribly upset, troubled. The intensity of his gaze was disturbing and sent a shiver down her back.
“My magic failed earlier, Bera, but not because I was tired. It failed because something caused it to fail.” He kept his voice low, and she had to lean close to hear him better. “The goblins you seek obviously have magic too. Old and powerful magic, that much I know. They have magic so powerful that it blocks my attempts to scry upon them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is as if I want to look inside a house, but there are no windows and the door is tightly locked. Despite my best efforts, I cannot see inside.”
Bera’s mouth went dry, and she set the bowl of venison in her lap. “How can that be, Isaam? Tell me.”
“I can’t find them, Commander, these escaped slaves that you are so bent on recapturing. Oh, I see the one being brought here, and minutes before that, I spotted another one drinking by a stream lit by a reflected moon. But I can’t find the goblins in any number. I can’t find the ones from Steel Town. They are scored by scars from the mines and they wear the marks of whips. Easy to find, you would think, with my magic, especially given their numbers. But it is impossible, for some reason.”
“Grallik N’sera, the wizard who—”
“He is hidden too by the old magic.” Isaam drew his shoulders back and picked up the crystal, carefully placing it in a pocket of his robe. “I can feel the magic that blocks me, Bera, and I do not like the sensation, insects crawling on my skin. It is a smothering magic. It is not unlike a large cloak that obscures the details of its wearer.”
Bera nodded, as though understanding, but she did not quite, not really.
“It hides something, this very old magic. It hides the goblins. There is no other explanation for why I cannot find them.”
“Maybe Grallik is responsible.”
Isaam spit. “Grallik is a wizard of some renown but not enough to have given him a better station than Steel Town. Perhaps, however, he is more powerful than your reports indicate, and his posting was a punishment for something not in the records. He is more powerful than me, apparently.”
“I doubt that, old friend.”
Isaam dropped his chin to his chest. “Perhaps he did something to block my magic.”
One of the men started singing. Usually it was Zocci who did that first after an evening meal. But it was one of the older men; his voice was not as strong and deep, but the story of the song was good, about the Dark Knights’ victory in the Abyss.
“No, on second thought, no.” Bera shook her head, nearly upsetting the bowl of venison. “Grallik is not responsible for stopping you. If he had such magic, he would have used it when he first fled from Steel Town. We tracked him then, old friend. We found the port where he purchased ships to haul the goblins. Nothing blocked us then. We easily followed him to Schallsea Island too, as you know. And then we—”
“—lost him in these ancient woods,” Isaam finished. “Lost him and all of the Steel Town slaves.”
“Except the one Zeff has captured.” Bera’s hands formed fists, the nails digging into her palms. “Perhaps the goblin being brought here will have some answers for us at last.”
“One goblin?” Isaam chuckled.
“Then find a way around this magic, old friend. Lift the cloak, and put a window in this building you’re trying to look inside.” She picked up her bowl and rose, her eyes daggers aimed at something far beyond their campsite and her sorcerer companion. “Find them, Isaam. That’s an order.”
11
THE STONETELLERS
UMAY AND QEL
The dwarf baby cooed happily. She lay on her back on a patch of soft moss, Graytoes dribbling river water from a jug onto her stomach and taking a long time bathing her. The goblin shooed away small, bright beetles that crawled close as she softly sang an old war tune about a blood-soaked battlefield. She paused in midchorus and told Umay it was one of the few to which she could remember all the words and that it had been one of Moon-eye’s favorites. She started singing again.
“Grallik N’sera—” Her visitor coughed to get her attention and said, “Grallik N’sera,” again.
Graytoes stopped the song. “The hated wizard.” She spit the words out in the goblin language. “Grallik is with Thya, cutting down trees with his magic and—”
“I know where Grallik N’sera is. I just came from talking with him.” Qel knelt, looking between the dwarf baby and Graytoes. She spoke in the goblin tongue, which surprised Graytoes. But she got some of the inflections wrong, and Graytoes had to work at understanding her. “Grallik told me you stole this baby from a village in the Nerakan hills. Had I paid more attention earlier to what you carried, before we came to these woods, had I asked why you had such a child, I would have—”
“Done nothing. Qel would have done nothing.” Graytoes turned slightly away from the young human healer, pointedly ignoring her. She resumed singing until the ballad was finished, then she dribbled water in the baby’s coarse, black hair and twirled her fingers in it to gently massage the scalp.
“Beautiful Umay,” Graytoes said. She rocked forward and picked up the baby, wrapped her in a blanket, and held her close. “Graytoes’s Umay.”
The baby giggled and smiled.
“You stole her.” Qel’s voice had a gentle but distinctly accusatory tone. “I had not paid enough attention. With hundreds and hundreds of goblins, thousands, so much to do and look after, arriving in this forest, I simply did not notice or realize. But now I know. You should not have this child.”
Graytoes clutched the baby with one arm, and with her free hand pointed to her stomach. “There was a baby in here, Qel. Moon-eye’s baby. Graytoes’s baby. The Dark Knights killed that baby. Maybe the Dark Knights killed Moon-eye too. The Dark Knights kill everything. Now this is Graytoes’s baby. Umay, a good, good name. It means hope.” After a moment, she added, “This baby was not stolen. And never will be stolen.”
Qel touched Graytoes’s shoulder. The goblin shrugged off her hand. She made gurgling noises to Umay and scooted away when Qel touched her again.
“Qel, leave Graytoes alone. That is Graytoes’s baby.” Direfang stood over them, having approached so quietly that Qel hadn’t heard him. “Umay could not have a better mother.”
“The one you call Umay is a dwarf,” Qel said, rising to face Direfang. She had to look up catch his eyes. Qel edged around Graytoes so she could again see the baby, who continued to coo and giggle. “I had not been told earlier of the baby’s kidnapping.”
Direfang growled. “If that matter is such a bother, leave this city.”
Graytoes smiled at the words in her defense, but it was clear that Direfang was bluffing. Without Qel, broken limbs would not be mended; more goblins might die. He was posturing and Qel squared her shoulders and tipped her chin up higher in defiance. Graytoes pretended to pay no attention to them.
“The way to the beach is not difficult to find, Qel. Follow the river, and use whatever magic is necessary to find a ship and get back to Schallsea Island,” he continued. “Go if you must. Tell the healers there about this city.”
The healer glared at him, the hard expression ill suited to her otherwise soft features. “I suppose the baby cannot be returned to her home.”
Graytoes hummed softly, trying to mimic the song of a bluebird perched overhead.
“Listen to me, Qel. The baby has a good mother. Graytoes keeps Umay safe. And the baby is home.”
Qel crossed and uncrossed her arms then grabbed her tunic with her fingers, as if needing something to do with her hands. “I had thought perhaps it was an orphan, that baby, a straggler you picked up like Grallik N’sera and like the priest who remained on Schallsea when we left.”
“Horace.”
She nodded. “Yes, Horace, the big priest of Zeboim.”
Graytoes hummed
faster then abruptly stopped. The bluebird flew away. It was common knowledge that Direfang preferred Horace over Qel. “Horace knows goblinspeak,” Graytoes said softly. “Wished Horace would have stayed with the goblin army and Qel would have stayed on her island.”
“What?” Qel asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Go back to that island, Qel,” Graytoes said louder. “Tell Horace to come here instead. Horace would not say such bad things about beautiful Umay.”
Qel shook her head. “A straggler, I thought the baby was an orphan, Foreman Direfang, and—”
“It is good Graytoes does not share your intolerance of other creatures,” Direfang said. “Graytoes loves Umay … even though Umay is a dwarf. And Umay seems to love Graytoes. There is a lesson there, Qel. And there will be no more talk of Graytoes or Umay.” He spun on the balls of his feet and headed toward the home of Sully and Rustymane.
“It is not intolerance that so festers in me,” Qel whispered. She spoke in the common tongue, and Graytoes could not understand more than a few words. “This is theft, a heinous crime to take that baby from her mother. The baby will grieve as it grows, and its mother will grieve forever. I never knew my mother.” The healer stared down at Graytoes, who continued to fuss over the baby, and finally she followed Direfang.
The hobgoblins’ home was one of the first finished using Mudwort’s design, and it was one of the tallest built so it could accommodate Rustymane and Sully and the recently arrived hobgoblin brothers Gralin and Neacha. Qel paused outside, having seen Direfang crouch and go through the entrance. They were talking in the goblin tongue, and she eavesdropped briefly. Sully was worried about food, and Rustymane and Direfang echoed his concern. Gralin and Neacha volunteered to establish regular hunting groups.
She thought about joining the hobgoblins in the discussion and took a step toward the doorway. There were several things she wanted to talk to Direfang about, and finding him alone had proved impossible lately.
“Later,” Qel decided. “When I am cooler and my thoughts are not so troubled by a baby dwarf.”
She padded away, glancing from hut to hut as she went, only a fraction of them finished. She couldn’t see how far the city extended, as clump birches and wide trunks blocked many of the buildings, and the site spread down the next rise.
It would take a long time to build enough homes for all the goblins there … and for the goblins she suspected would join them. She could hardly smell the forest for all the goblins. They had a mustiness about them that, while bearable, was certainly unpleasant.
The sounds of construction filled the air, the noise of hammers and axes and the constant buzz of goblin conversations birthing a headache that settled firmly above her right eye. Qel reached a hand up and massaged her temple, finding that only added to the aching.
“Damn me for coming here,” Qel cursed herself. “Damn me for not thinking this through. Impetuous fool!”
It wasn’t just the dwarf baby that bothered her. She was so terribly out of place. She walked past a goblin trio, all of them with mud-brown skin and one with a malformed foot. They chattered as they smoothed the inside of a depression, trying to make it larger and deeper. All of them paused and gawked at her when she stopped to watch them.
“Damn impetuous fool.” She stomped away as one of the goblins pointed a finger and laughed.
A youngling with yellow skin rushed toward her and tugged on her skirt. It jabbered so quickly, she had trouble picking out the words. It was merely talking about squirrels that were scampering in a big oak and wanting her to watch them.
“That’s nice,” she told it. “But I’m busy.” She spoke in Common, not bothering to pick through her mind to find the goblin words. She’d used her magic to learn their language, pulling the rudiments of it from her friend Orvago and planting them in her own mind. “Run now and watch them some more, the silly squirrels.”
Her frown sent it scurrying back to its clan members. She adopted a quicker pace, hoping to avoid more goblin encounters, while meandering through the growing city and searching. There was activity everywhere—goblins carrying wood, from logs that had them straining under the weight, to clumps of twigs that would be woven into roofs. On a patch of sandy ground, a few female goblins had corralled a group of younglings; it looked like a school of sorts. Even the eldest worked, most of them in a circle scraping at the undersides of animal hides.
“There. Thank the gods.” She fairly ran toward him.
Orvago stood on the highest point of the bluff, near the artful rock that Direfang had planted. He was staring down at the river, oblivious to her approach.
She brushed by a goblin asking her to treat his rash and hurried up the bluff. She yelled and waved, and he crooked his head and raised a pawlike hand.
“I’ve been looking for you.” She sucked in a great gulp of air and tried to catch her breath. “I need to …” Qel put her hand to her temple again, trying to hold back the throbbing in her head.
Orvago settled next to the stone spire, his head coming up to the top of it. “You need to what, Sister Qel?”
Up there the construction sounds were not so loud, and she could hear the river below. She slowed her breathing.
“I need to … I’d thought this important,” she said. Qel didn’t sit, despite his gesture that she should join him. She stood in front of him, shifting back and forth on her heels. She crossed her arms and thrust her hands beneath her armpits. It was a nervous gesture she’d never managed to shake. “I thought leaving Schallsea Island and joining the goblins was a calling.”
He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, reminding her of how a dog in one of the island’s lyceums used to scratch its jaw.
“I’d never known a place beyond the island, Orvago. I was raised there since I was a child, an infant. Left there, I was told, by a passing ship’s captain.”
Orvago raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
“I thought I should see something of the world beyond the island. Some of the others agreed. You did too. Remember? You told me it was a good notion.”
The gnoll continued to regard her. She uncrossed her arms and swung them slowly at her sides.
“But I miss the company of …” She paused and drew her lips into a narrow line.
“Humans?” he finished for her.
She nodded. “I guess. I guess that’s it. I love you, Orvago. And you’re my only friend here. I—”
“—can make other friends,” he said. “You’re wrong. The goblins seem to like you.”
She closed her eyes, waited a moment, and willed herself to stand still. “Some of them like me, I think. And I don’t mind helping them, mending their wounds and tending to the pregnant ones. They are neither good nor evil, and I had expected them to be evil. They simply are.” She opened her eyes and let out a hissing breath as she looked to the sky. A small flock of dark blue birds was dipping down toward the river before disappearing into the pines on the other side. “I miss the island and the buildings and the people, Orvago. I miss climbing the Silver Stair. This work is important, I keep telling myself that. It really is important. It’s not that I mind the goblins. Despite everything, I really don’t mind them. They’re not the monsters I thought. But I don’t like this, being here, being away. Not at all.”
The gnoll rested back on his hands and craned his head up so he was looking directly overhead. “Schallsea Island is beautiful,” he admitted after a few minutes. “Nature sculpted by man. And at the same time nature left to flow its own course. The Singing Creak, the Tilawa Brook, the Pekun Stream.”
“The Zephyr Brook,” she added with a wistful smile. “Musical, that one, a never-ending song.”
“And the Mannewa River. Not quite as long as this nameless river, I would think. And a younger river, straighter and faster and impetuous. This one flows like an old man, wandering one way and then the next, taking its time to get where it’s going. But you know, I think I like this river better.”
/> She paced in a tight circle around him and ended with her back to the river. “The Barren Hills fill the center of Schallsea, reaching practically from one end to the other like the spine of a gentle sea beast rising from the water. I had to walk the length of them one summer. It was a very hot summer.”
They listened to the river and the construction sounds. From somewhere overhead came the shrill cry of a hunting bird.
“Schallsea is but an infant compared to these ancient woods,” the gnoll said. “It was a hilly plateau between mountain chains until the Cataclysm changed the world and the Newsea flooded so much that it formed our island home.”
“I know … and I miss it sorely,” she admitted.
“And you do not want the goblins to know this?”
“No, I don’t.” She turned to face the river. “No weakness. Showing weakness in front of them would not be good.” Tears filled the corners of her eyes. “But I am weak, Orvago. I do miss Schallsea. Maybe I was too young to leave. This is not so grand an adventure as I thought it would be.”
The gnoll’s face was unreadable.
“And I should not have talked to you about this. I should have kept my problems to myself.”
Something splashed in the river below, and the faint laughter of goblin children drifted up the bluff.
“I should not have—”
“You thought yourself an orphan, Qel. But you had family, on Schallsea. You can have family here too.”
“No. I want to go home, Orvago.”
12
THE STONETELLERS
GOBLIN HUNTERS
Zeff tossed the goblin into the center of the Dark Knight camp. It landed with a thud near the fire. Conversations instantly stopped and all eyes were on the wide-eyed creature that shook so hard in fear that its teeth clacked together.
Three more goblins followed, but they were corpses.