Fallowblade

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  ‘Unpredictably the goblins promised us safe conduct into Sølvetårn. We have been received cordially, and this feast has been given in our honour, to our amazement and suspicion.’

  ‘They are masters of equivocation!’ she warned softly.

  ‘Of that I am aware. Be assured, my captains closely examined the phraseology of their promises before we accepted the invitation. They assured us their victuals would do us no harm and our freedom would not be compromised. Yet, had the goblins vowed to cut us to shreds after our visit, still I would have come to Minith Ariannath. I longed to see you.’

  ‘You carry no sword, though I see they allowed you small sidearms.’

  William said, ‘I brought a blade of gold from King’s Winterbourne. We have manufactured many gold-plated swords during the time since you left us. None like Fallowblade of course. But our hosts made us leave all our bullion outside the doors of Sølvetårn, as a condition of entry.’

  The prince looked so unreservedly steadfast and honest, so chaste, standing there before Asrăthiel; he who had been courageous enough to enter the lairs of iniquity for her sake, though with no adequate defence. ‘Words cannot describe what a joy it is to look upon you again!’ she said earnestly.

  ‘Nor can they convey,’ intervened a musical, derisive voice, ‘what joy it gives me to have reunited two such intimate acquaintances.’

  Both human beings flinched as a tall figure partially eclipsed the candlelight. Zaravaz was beside them, clad in shadows and dazzle, as provoking as insolence and as tantalising as secrets. As ever, his beauty, stature and bearing exacted attention. He smiled, but not as he had smiled before. It was such a look as might be the last sight a condemned man witnessed before his execution; the expression of a hunter who leans to slit the throat of a fallen deer.

  ‘Prithee, condescend to grace my table,’ invited the goblin king, glancing from one guest to the other in the manner of some generous benefactor. ‘You shall be seated side by side.’

  William frowned, manifestly unsettled, but although the demeanour of the goblin king was fraught with sarcasm and sinister overtones, there was nothing overt in his words to give offence.

  When all had taken their places at the tables, the first course was served.

  The banquet was the most socially uncomfortable occasion Asrăthiel had ever experienced. Tension was so extreme as to be almost visible. It was as if the veneer of civility were a pane of thinnest glass, so fragile that the merest ill-chosen word might shatter it into a myriad shards of lacerating violence. No one in the hall, not even the most slow-witted trow, could fail to be aware of the barely battened-down hostility between the two warrior corps. To begin with there was no exchange of words between the groups—none could bring themselves to it. The men strained to behave with utmost urbanity, yet ever and anon their trained reflexes were triggered by a suspicion of alarm, or their knife-edge pride took some subtle buffet, and their hands sought the hilts of their daggers beneath the table. The goblin knights, begemmed with black gauds—morion, jet, hematite, obsidian, rutile and black onyx—took pains to conceal their rancour, but it was evident nonetheless. They looked as if, rather than sharing a table, they would prefer to seize their guests and tear out their throats, and were keenly seeking an excuse to do so.

  The damsel herself endured the dinner in torment of spirit, unsure as to the intentions of the Argenkindë, expecting every moment that a fight would break out, which would ensure doom for the men.

  A low murmur of voices permeated the refectory, but at the table occupied by the goblin king and his foremost officers, William’s company and the weathermage, there was only desultory conversation punctuated by awkward pauses, during one of which, Zaravaz turned to one of his knights and was heard to ask, ‘Is there such a thing as death by boredom?’

  Presently Zauberin made some lewd reference, aside, to his fellow diners, whereupon Asrăthiel heard the goblin king say to his first lieutenant, ‘We will have none of your coarse jests tonight, my rag-rannee.’ Zauberin, thus reprimanded, fell silent.

  Aristocratic trollhästen roamed at will, adroitly, amongst the tables, their glimmering coats washed by the green glow of their manes. As ever, knights and daemon horses mingled amiably. Now and then a trollhäst would extend its expressive head between two diners and delicately remove some viand from a platter. Solemn eagle owls watched over all.

  ‘They are barbaric and uncultured, to dine amongst their horses,’ whispered William’s knights.

  ‘I never thought to see the inside of Minith Ariannath,’ others muttered, as they stared about at the magnificence of the hall. ‘I never dreamed of beholding the fabled setting of their wickedness and revelry.’

  ‘I did not believe it existed!’ said one of the officers.

  ‘Those are fine weapons,’ diplomatic Sir Gilead Torrington said aloud, surveying the armaments displayed on the walls. ‘Marauders were seen to be scouring the battlefields for eldritch blades, but they could find none.’

  Zauberin, his eyelid drooping indelicately, said, ‘No graihyn let fall his sword during those games. Even if there had been any blades to find, no mortal feiosagh could wield them. In the hands of sallagh men, goblin weapons burn and dissolve.’

  ‘In right sooth, they left very little that belonged to them on the battlefield,’ William muttered to Asrăthiel. ‘No blades, no corpses. We saw the way their fallen were transformed.’

  Persisting in his endeavours to engender small talk to fill the difficult lulls, Torrington again addressed the goblin knights. ‘However, there was armour. I recognised your plate; I had seen pieces of it before. People named them “gypsy leather”, and sold them as valuable articles, supposed to bring luck.’

  ‘What kind of luck?’ Zaravaz asked innocently. ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Good, methinks,’ was the sharp reply.

  ‘There’s a fascinating superstition,’ murmured Zauberin, with a contumelious grin which put an end to that topic.

  Waving his hand in the direction of an appetising display of provender Zwist said to the human officers, ‘Pray sample all our dishes. We would not stint those who dine at our tables. Here is a great favourite, smothered in a sauce with bite; we call it “Wolves Eat the Stranger”. Over here is a tasty triumph made with blood plums, known as “Abruptly the Fool Blushed”.’

  ‘You jest, sir,’ William said stonily. ‘Perchance at our expense.’

  Asrăthiel touched William on the arm. ‘No, not at all,’ she hastened to assure the prince. ‘Goblin recipes truly have such names. And I am sure those are delicious.’ She took a spoonful of one of her preferred dishes—a fragrant concoction quirkily named ‘Envision an Avenue of Incense-Scented Trees Leading to a Translucent Palace’—and placed it on his plate, whereupon the prince thanked her with a smile.

  Seated amongst his lieutenants, Zaravaz cast William a glance of bitter irony. ‘Here’s to your continued good health, Your Royal Highness,’ he said, raising high a chalice. ‘I trust the wine is to your taste.’ He took a deep draught from his cup.

  It is probably poisoned, thought Asrăthiel, but it was too late now, for William had already sipped. He took no ill effects, however, and soon proposed a toast to the health of Zaravaz. King and prince exchanged nods with impeccable etiquette, each salutation representing a stab to the centre of the heart and a twist of the knife in the wound.

  William cleared his throat. ‘I, at least, was not aware,’ he said to the eldritch knights, ‘until you spoke to us in parley on the battlefield, why you felt such animosity towards our race. Now that the reason is clear, allow me to point out that in Narngalis certain laws have always been enforced. Earlier generations of Wyverstones banned the lighting of fires under downed carthorses to make them get up, the chaining of dogs, the use of steel-jawed spring traps, cockfighting, bear-baiting, the tying of chickens by their feet in markets, and the beating of animals. Of all kingdoms, Narngalis is the most humane.’

  Lieutenant Zaillian remar
ked acidly, ‘Better to ban cages, chains, wagon shafts and captivity altogether.’

  ‘Better to ban those who deal in such depravities,’ said Zande, scowling.

  Men and goblins watched each other, seething with resentment.

  ‘One is overjoyed to hear your news,’ said Zaravaz, replying to the prince’s declaration, ‘though I am not certain which one. For our part, we have also banned similar abuses of human beings. When our draught-men collapse in exhaustion between the shafts, our kobolds merely prod them until they rise to their feet and stagger a little further. Fire-goading is so outmoded.’

  ‘I perceive that nothing I can say will satisfy you,’ said William, the blood rising to his cheeks. ‘You consider human beings to be no better than animals. That is where man and goblin can never agree.’

  ‘If your heart and mind were not closed against logic,’ said Zaravaz, ‘you would not speak thus. You say your kind is better than other species. Can you navigate like a pigeon, swim like a dolphin or track like a hound? Can you run as fast as deer or see ultraviolet, like bees?’

  William glowered.

  ‘Animals, sir,’ Torrington declared, ‘are not as intelligent or as advanced as human beings. Therefore they are inferior.’

  Leaning towards the foremost of his lieutenants, Zaravaz spoke to them in the goblin language. He bestowed a look of utmost contempt upon Torrington before sitting back in his chair, placing one booted foot on the table and proceeding to whittle an apple with a knife, as if absorbed in the pastime.

  Taking up the debate on his liege’s behalf, Lieutenant Zande said to Torrington, ‘You are gravely mistaken, guest of Zaravaz. But even should you be correct, does possessing superior intelligence entitle one of you boanlagh ny theayee—as is one of our terms for human beings—to abuse another? If, for example, I gave you a blow to the head that addled your brains, would clever men have the right to trample over you because of your stupidity?’

  ‘Nay, but—’ Before King Warwick’s lieutenant-general could frame a reply Zaillian interjected, ‘In any case, there are animals who are unquestionably more intelligent, creative, aware and communicative than some boanlaghyn.’

  ‘I do not believe it!’ Torrington said.

  ‘Perhaps you know what a chimpanzee is?’

  ‘Indeed. They are a species once found in remote areas of Ashqalêth.’

  ‘Before the boanlagh ny theayee rendered them extinct,’ murmured Zwist, helping himself to a slice of ‘Moonlight is Cruelly Deceptive’, a spicy cake profusely decorated with edible leaves of thinnest silver foil.

  ‘Compared to a human infant,’ said Zaillian, ‘or to one of your village idiots, an adult chimpanzee is far more advanced. By your reasoning the monkey should take precedence over the tot, red ommidjagh.’

  ‘That is not what I meant,’ Torrington replied with some asperity. ‘You fail to perceive the point. The druids teach that the Fates gave humankind dominion over all other forms of life, and therefore it is our right to treat animals as we please.’

  Apparently paying scant heed to the exchange, the goblin king chopped off a portion of fruit with swift precision.

  ‘Even if that were true, Sir Gilead,’ Asrăthiel said, joining the debate for the first time, ‘a king has dominion over his subjects but that does not mean he has the right to ill-use them.’

  Torrington lapsed into silence, perhaps in deference to the weathermage, perhaps digesting her words, perhaps thinking of Uabhar and his fate, of which Asrăthiel had notified them in her letters.

  William said, ‘I have learned much on this topic from the Lady Maelstronnar.’

  The knife of Zaravaz suddenly slipped right through the apple, as if he had miscalculated an incision. It flew out of his hand and stuck, quivering, in the table. Every head in the hall turned to look.

  ‘Pray pardon the interruption,’ the goblin king said pleasantly, retrieving the implement and resuming his new hobby.

  Clearing his throat the prince continued, ‘The Lady Maelstronnar has expounded on this subject at length, and her argument has largely won me to your cause. She has told me of certain crows that invent tools, for example, and rats that learn to navigate. I have come to realise that animals are not so very different from us after all—’

  ‘Your breed,’ Zaravaz interrupted abrasively, looking up from his task, ‘takes the position that animals and boanlaghyn can only be said to be similar if animals are found to be doing amazing things, rather than when boanlaghyn are found to be doing surprisingly mundane things. This implies that respect for other species should be measured in proportion to how humanlike their abilities are. It also suggests that animals are only worthy of esteem inasmuch as they are similar to human donnanyn mooar.’ Having tossed aside the apple he uttered the last three words in thundering tones, pounding the table with the flat of his hand, as if unwilling to forbear any longer, even for etiquette’s sake. The noise of the blows resounded throughout the hall, and the owls took flight, swooping and soaring into the cavernous vaults of the ceiling.

  William and several of his men half started out of their seats. A menacing silence enveloped the multitude. Even the daemon horses stood poised like graceful statues. Only a few owls’ feathers drifted down in a lazy rain.

  Then Asrăthiel leaped to her feet. ‘The Glashtinsluight code of honour,’ she cried, ‘requires that the host protects invited guests while they bide with him. Cool-headedness in debate will ensure this code is maintained.’ She looked around, deliberately bestowing her gaze on both parties equally.

  ‘Indeed you have become exceedingly intimate with our ways, Sioctíne,’ Zauberin said with a sneer. ‘Patently you presume to lecture us on our own precepts.’

  But Zaravaz, who now seemed to be intent on paring his fingernails with the knife, said, ‘And the Lady Stormbringer is perfectly right, aachionard.’

  The moment had passed. The Narngalishmen subsided, and the further regions of the hall reverted to their convivial hum. A trow sat at the goblin king’s feet eating the remains of the apple. Asrăthiel made herself swallow some food for the sake of appearances, but she could not taste it.

  At length Zauberin turned to the prince and said, ‘Returning to our previous argument, we grant that your kind possess some benevolent qualities, but all in all, the human race is evil.’

  ‘Quite the contrary!’ William cried.

  ‘Oh, but you are,’ said Zaravaz. ‘Innately. Irredeemably. The eradication of such exorbitant evil must inevitably be an act of moral goodness.’

  The men growled their outrage and disapprobation. Foreseeing the imminent escalation of further antagonism, Asrăthiel intervened again, changing the subject. Loudly she asked William, ‘Your Highness, have you seen the man Fionnbar Aonarán? He was here in these mountain halls but they sent him forth.’

  With her eyes she beseeched the prince to forsake the intensifying argument. He glowered at his host, but eventually decided that circumspection was the wiser choice. ‘Yes, I have seen him,’ he said reluctantly, ‘for he wandered into northern Narngalis. He is deranged, methinks. When first he was found roaming without purpose, he kept seeking ways to end his life. His attempts became increasingly bizarre. By rope and fire and blade he hunted death. He picked fights with swordsmen, cast himself into bonfires, and hanged himself by the throat. Always he survived, yet not unscathed. His body is blackened, his hair burned from his skull, his flesh scarred and puckered. The pain he must have suffered is unimaginable. His person is warped, and his mind also.’

  ‘After becoming immortal,’ said Torrington, ‘he came to realise that immortality has not given him happiness. Unable to find happiness, he wishes to “end it all”.’

  The goblins were listening, many smirking, some chuckling.

  Zaravaz, however, did not smile. ‘For your kind the most wonderful gift of all is life,’ he said quietly, ‘and it should be enjoyed to the fullest. Having received life, the most wonderful gift is the promise of death at the end.’<
br />
  The chamber became noiseless, save for the crackling of flames and the patter of kobolds’ feet as they removed empty platters from the tables.

  ‘Aonarán Toadstone was not born for immortality,’ Zaravaz went on, ‘and is unable to come to terms with it. You, however, Lady Stormbringer,’ he said, ‘were born to it.’

  Asrăthiel was seized by sudden concern for her parents. ‘What of my father,’ she asked, ‘and my mother, who might also have become immortal?’

  ‘Your mother is not immortal, for she never drank the draught. She is merely long-lived. Extremely long-lived. For now, she sleeps, and nothing troubles her pleasant dreams. I daresay your father roams somewhere in the frozen lands of the north. In contrast to Toadstone he has a purpose—to find a way to awaken Jewel to the watch. It might be supposed that his purpose sustains him, even in the face of the nightmare of deathlessness.’

  ‘My wish,’ Asrăthiel murmured, ‘is to journey to those lands and find him, some day. I long to help him and give him condolence.’

  Zaravaz shrugged. ‘Then go with us,’ he said. ‘We have sojourned here long enough. It is time for us to seek adventure elsewhere. Besides, the glories of this place now pall, due to recent intrusions and our memories of the golden caves in which your ancestors so hospitably entertained us.’

  Shocked by this announcement Asrăthiel said, ‘Do you truly mean to depart from the kingdoms of Tir?’

  ‘We have been contemplating the notion of riding out, of travelling north again. We might ride to Ellan Istillkutl where dwell our kith the Ice Goblins, or to Cheer ny Yindyssyn or beyond, seeking the other clans. It is time we rejoined the liannyn. For too long have we been away from them.’

  Recalling that the liannyn were she-goblins, Asrăthiel suffered a pang of jealousy.

  ‘What of your noble mission to save the world from the evil scourge of humanity?’ demanded William.

  ‘We have plans,’ Zaravaz said coldly. ‘You will later learn of them. Do not be in a hurry.’