by Jim C. Hines
A hollowness came over him as he realized he had no place to return to. His home was no longer safe. He was as lost as Riana.
“I can’t go back,” he whispered, more to himself than to the elf.
“You can.” She looked about frantically. “They only let me stand watch because elves need less sleep than dwarves or humans, and they were exhausted from all the fighting. You won’t have another chance to get away.”
Jig shook his head.
“You goblins are as stubborn as . . . as that dwarf.” With that pronouncement, she turned her back on him and stared into the tunnel.
Jig sat there confused, and eventually decided goblins simply weren’t meant to understand the minds of surface-dwellers. He had almost fallen back to sleep when he heard her ask, “Do you think we’ll make it?”
“Not really,” Jig mumbled, and then he was asleep.
When Jig next awoke, he found Darnak’s face hovering over him.
“Argh,” Jig muttered, trying not to cringe. Waking from a dream to see Riana had been startling. Darnak was a nightmare all by himself. The dwarf had pulled his hair and beard into numerous rope-like braids, and Jig felt like he was under attack by a floating monster with black tentacles and a crooked nose.
“Get up. You’ve had yourself a better night’s sleep than the rest of us, and it’s time we were moving.” He tossed a chunk of something round and brown onto Jig’s lap, followed by a few strips of dried meat. “You’re lucky to be getting any meat at all. His majesty wanted you to have nothing but bread. He said you’d be sharing Riana’s waterskin. Don’t get greedy—I don’t know when we’ll find fresh water, and Earthmaker’s a busy god who doesn’t like to waste time on water purification magic.”
Jig nodded. He tore the meat with his teeth, and his mouth watered instantly. How long had it been since he last ate? His stomach protested that it had been weeks. Could it have been only yesterday that he was back in the lair, suffering through muck duty?
A few seconds later, the meat was gone, and Jig stared warily at the bread. He had heard of this crusted stuff from Golaka, but had never encountered it himself. Golaka said adventurers often carried it as a part of their rations, but that it was unsuitable for goblin palates. Studying the bread, Jig was inclined to agree with her. A dark brown shell covered a lighter interior of dry foam, visible where Darnak had torn the chunk from a larger loaf. He touched it to the tip of his tongue, but the bread had no taste. Like licking a rock.
He tried a nibble. Like chewing a rock, too. But the others were eating it, and those two strips of meat weren’t going to keep his stomach happy. Jig shrugged to himself and smashed the crusted side of the bread onto one of his fangs. He swiftly tore it into manageable chunks, and soon the bread joined the meat in his belly.
Bread didn’t taste like rock after all, Jig decided. Didn’t taste like much of anything, really. He noticed that the humans had spread some sort of yellow grease over theirs. Though whether that was to improve the flavor or to make it easier to swallow, Jig didn’t know.
“Water?” Riana handed him a bloated skin, then walked away without ever meeting his eyes. Was she angry with him for not running away last night? Or had she simply reverted to her usual cold self?
Not that it mattered. Jig was more comfortable when they treated him like a prisoner, or at best an untrustworthy guide. He wasn’t used to kindness or consideration from anyone, let alone his captors.
So he didn’t know what to say when Riana returned a few minutes later and handed him a long sheathed dagger. Jig stared in disbelief. “Where did this come from?”
She pointed. Down the tunnel, two hobgoblins lay facing the ceiling, one atop the other. Each had a black-fletched arrow jutting from his neck. He looked at Ryslind. “Oh.”
He started to draw the knife. More of a short sword, really. The blade stretched the length of his elbow to fingertip, and it was heavy. The pommel and crossguard were simple brass, and the hilt was bare wood, but this was still the grandest weapon Jig had ever held. He shoved the blade back into its sheath, then drew it completely free.
“Are you mad?” Barius loomed over them both, his sword ready. “Let this creature have a blade of his own, and you’ll soon find that blade plunged into your back.”
“What if we’re attacked again?” Riana countered. “Where would we be if Jig hadn’t found that old sword when we were in the hobgoblin pit?”
“You’d trust a goblin to defend your person?” Barius shook his head in disbelief, but his sword remained level with Jig’s throat. “I could understand if you secured a knife for your own safety, but to hand it over to this blue-skinned monster is absurd.”
Riana spat on the floor by Barius’s feet. He looked down, momentarily speechless, and when he looked back up Riana had a knife in her hand. “What made you think I didn’t secure one for myself?”
“Enough,” Darnak snapped loudly. “Put them away before I crack all your skulls. Barius, let them have their pig-stickers. They know well enough what will happen if they cause trouble.”
The prince’s sword hissed back into its scabbard. In a low voice, so Darnak wouldn’t hear, he said, “Do not cross me again, elf.”
As Jig tucked his new sword through his belt, he glanced at Riana. Whereas his sword was plain and well-used, hers was trimmed in gold, and even sported a blue gem in the pommel. She grinned at him as she slid it back up her sleeve.
“That blade looks as fine as Barius’s sword.”
“It should.” She glared at the prince’s back. “It’s his.”
Feeling bolder now that he was armed, Jig walked back to the corpses and took a large belt pouch for himself. Dumping a few corroded coins on the floor, he tied the pouch at his waist, then dropped Smudge inside. “Only until my shoulders have a chance to heal,” he promised.
Once everything was repacked, new oil poured into the lantern, a few last touches made to Darnak’s map, and everyone had eaten enough to take the edge off their hunger, they proceeded to sit around for another hour while Ryslind meditated. The life of an adventurer appeared to consist of roughly six parts boredom to one part stark terror, or so it seemed to Jig.
“What are we waiting for?” he asked.
“Silence,” Barius hissed.
“He’s needing to clear his mind and renew his focus,” Darnak said softly. “Those tattoos on his arms are a spell, one that keeps him ever open to the power he uses for magic. Far better than books or scrolls, but a permanent spell is a permanent burden, and if he doesn’t stop to rest, the spell could snap, leaving him powerless when he needs it most.”
“What about his eyes?” Jig asked. “Is that a part of his magic?”
Darnak grinned. “Nah. He did that to himself a year or so back. Thought it would make him look scarier or some nonsense like that. Turns out he got the spell wrong, and he hasn’t figured out how to make it go away. The glow gets worse when he’s pushed himself.”
When Ryslind’s eyes shot open, they looked almost human, with only the faintest trace of red. “I am ready.”
Barius and Jig again took the lead as they neared the lake. They passed several side passageways, but Jig was out of his territory now, and when asked where the tunnels led, could only shrug and say, “The lake is this way.”
He didn’t like leaving unexplored tunnels behind them, but better to hurry past than to go sticking his nose in places where a large paw might rip it from his face.
The rush of water grew louder. Their cautious whispers became shouts, as anything less was drowned out by the noise from the lake. A fine mist coated Jig’s face and tickled his ears. Soon he was constantly flicking his ears in protest.
The tunnel widened, and then the walls peeled back completely to reveal an enormous cavern. Dark red obsidian gleamed as if polished, the water having renewed the rock’s shine. The walls stretched out of sight to either side.
“What are those?” Riana pointed to the ceiling.
Jig could barely
make out the clumps of green, but he knew what they were. “They’re just rocks.”
A long time ago, malachite formations had striped the walls and ceiling near the entrance as well, but hobgoblins and goblins had taken the green needles of rock for jewelry and decoration. They still existed over the lake, beyond easy reach. Some were as long as Jig’s sword, though malachite made a poor weapon.
“They look like green porcupines.”
Jig nodded rather than admit he didn’t know what a porcupine might be.
The lake itself was black, with white foam cresting the waves that crashed against the shore. In the distance, toward the center of the lake, the water rushed with even greater violence. To Jig, it was no more than a blur of waves and whitecaps, but the others stared worriedly at whatever it was they saw.
“That’s a bloody whirlpool,” Darnak shouted.
“The way to the lower tunnels is through that?” Barius yelled at Jig.
Jig nodded, trying to project confidence and calm. In truth, he hadn’t a clue how to get to the lower tunnels. They were the ones who had mentioned going through the lake. A sense of self-preservation kept goblins from even trying to venture into the water.
“I sense power here,” Ryslind said. Though he alone didn’t shout, somehow his voice pierced the roar of the water. “No natural lake could sustain a whirlpool for long. If the lake bed itself were cracked, the water would soon drain into the tunnels beneath.”
“Wager the way through is at the bottom of that twister?” Darnak asked.
Jig wanted to laugh. All this way, past goblins, hobgoblins, and carrion-worms, to face a dead end. But would the adventurers face reality and turn back the way they had come? He doubted it. More likely they would continue on, stubbornness pushing them all to their deaths. The only question was whether they would drown first, or if the whirlpool would batter them to a bloody pulp.
Something slipped out of the water and began to crawl toward them. Oh yes, that was the third possibility. They could all die from lizard-fish poison before they even made it to the lake.
“Lizard-fish,” Jig yelled, hopping and pointing and scanning the shore for others.
“Ugly things, aren’t they?” Darnak drew his club and calmly waited while the lizard-fish crawled closer.
Jig had never seen a living lizard-fish before. This one was as long as his arm, with clawed front feet and webbed rear feet that dragged behind in the sand. The round head had slits for a nose and a wide mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth that could rip flesh from the body so cleanly you wouldn’t even notice. The eyes bulged like white bubbles that had been stuck to the skull as an afterthought. Most dangerous, Jig knew, was the line of two-inch spines that started at the back of the skull and ran all the way to the tip of the lizard-fish’s long tail.
“The spines are poison!”
Darnak ignored him. The dwarf watched as the lizard-fish drew nearer. When it was only a few feet away from the dwarf, it raised its head and hissed. The blue tongue flicked out, and the spines lifted threateningly.
Threatening or not, Darnak didn’t appear to care. He waited for the lizard-fish to finish hissing, then calmly stomped its skull into the rock. “Stupid little beasts, too.”
Stupid they might be, Jig thought, but there were a lot more lizard-fish than there were adventurers. Even as he watched, several more emerged from the water and crawled toward the dwarf. Barius stepped forward to join him. His sword impaled one of the creatures and flipped it back into the water. Another attacked with a sudden burst of speed, only to die beneath Darnak’s heavy boot. Even as Darnak wiped lizard-fish guts from his boot, however, more were racing forward to attack.
“Back,” Barius shouted. Jig rolled his eyes. He and Riana had already retreated to safety.
The others joined them farther up the tunnel. Nothing followed. The lizard-fish wouldn’t come this far from the water, it appeared.
“We could stand there until we were hip-deep in the things,” Darnak grumbled. “They’d still keep coming. Not a brain in the lot of ’em.”
Like goblins, Jig thought suddenly. Swarming to their death and hoping to overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers. But he said nothing.
“All it takes is one slip, one moment of carelessness, and those spines would be the end of us,” said Barius.
“Then I guess we’d better stay on our toes, eh boys?” Darnak grinned.
I was right, Jig realized. They won’t turn back. They probably don’t know how to retreat. As they continued to discuss how to get past the lizard-fish, Jig walked to the end of the tunnel and stared at the beach. The lizard-fish had returned to the water, leaving the dead bodies behind to rot. Something else would no doubt come along to feast on the remains. Carrion-worms, perhaps. Or maybe some other creature scavenged the lakeshore. That was how the cycle worked.
At least that was the way things were back home. Who knew what life might be like lower down? No goblins had ever explored much beyond their own territory. Nor had anything from the lower depths ever emerged into Jig’s world. Which was probably a good thing. In fact, for all Jig knew, the lizard-fish might be there as much to keep the monsters of the lower caverns trapped below as to keep those from the surface out.
Still, he wondered if things would be different there. Jig’s world was a constant battle for territory between goblins, hobgoblins, and the other creatures. But the world below belonged to the Necromancer. Maybe he would keep the creatures under his control from charging off to be senselessly slaughtered every time something came through the entrance. The monsters there might actually win battles from time to time. Jig’s imagination conjured an image of a patrol all his own, returning to the lair with the bodies of the adventurers dragging behind them. There was cheering and shouting and singing. Songs that weren’t about goblins getting themselves killed.
He didn’t care if he was the one leading the patrol. Even to be a part of such a group, to work with other goblins to win battles, would be a thing worth all the treasure in Straum’s lair.
Reality intruded as Jig remembered the sound of Porak’s last gurgling breaths, right after Barius’s sword poked out of his back. Jig shook his head, angry at himself for his silly fantasies. Goblins were nothing. The natural hierarchy meant the deeper you went, the stronger the monsters. That was why goblins lived here, closer to the entrance than any other monsters. Things had always been that way, probably since the day Ellnorein made this place.
“Goblin, get in here,” Darnak yelled.
He joined the others. Ryslind held out five vials of a dark green liquid. “This is an antitoxin,” he said. “I had hoped to save it for emergencies, but I see no other way to survive the lizard-fish.”
Jig took one of the small vials and stared at it with suspicion. What had died to create these potions? he wondered, remembering what Riana had told him about the blue powder. And how had Ryslind known to bring antitoxin? Was this common practice among mages? Maybe so. If Ryslind was a normal mage, Jig could understand why people would try to poison them.
The others drank it down, even Riana. If anyone had reason to doubt the mage, it was her. Jig shrugged and swallowed his own potion in one gulp. After all, it couldn’t be worse than bread.
The potion tasted salty, and it was thicker than he expected. A thin, slimy coating clung to the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat. This would save him from the sting of the lizard-fish? He didn’t understand how, but what did he know about magic? If Ryslind said this would work, who was he to question? Nobody else seemed to have any doubts.
“We have a half hour. Maybe more for the goblin and the elf, as they’re smaller. Come.” Ryslind rose and strode back toward the lake. Darnak hurriedly finished drawing a small lizard-fish on the map, marked it DANGEROUS, then rolled the whole thing up and tucked it into a hard leather tube. As they walked, he used a block of sealing wax to waterproof the seams. By the time they reached the shore, Darnak’s precious map was safely tucked into his pack.<
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“Follow,” Ryslind commanded. He walked straight toward the water, ignoring the lizard-fish that scurried up the beach. Darnak and Barius killed them as they approached, but Ryslind appeared oblivious.
What was he planning to do, just swim out to the whirlpool? The wizard’s hands began to move in small circles, fingers pointed toward the surface of the lake. Jig waited for a flash of lightning to kill the lizard-fish, or a magical bridge to suddenly appear over the water. As he stared, a lizard-fish ran up and jabbed Jig with the spines of its tail.
Cursing, Jig grabbed his knife and stabbed at the lizard-fish, which dodged to the side and ran off. Lizard-fish weren’t terribly bright, however, and it ran straight into the path of Darnak’s club. I guess I’ll find out whether or not this potion works.
He looked back toward Ryslind, and his eyes widened. Ryslind had begun to walk across the surface of the lake. As Jig stared, Barius followed his brother. Jig hurried after them, not wanting to be the last target for swarms of angry lizard-fish.
He and Riana reached the edge together, and only then did he see what Ryslind had done. “It’s frozen,” he whispered. A path of ice several yards wide led straight toward the center of the lake. “Incredible.”
“But at what cost?” Riana asked. At Jig’s confused look, she said, “Where does he get all that power?”
Jig shrugged. Magic was beyond him. All he knew about wizards was that you were smart to get out of their way, and lucky to do so with your skin intact. He was more interested in knowing how he was supposed to walk along the ice path without slipping.
Several of the lizard-fish started to follow, but Ryslind’s spell had an added bonus: lizard-fish didn’t like ice. Some of them took a step, then backed onto the shore shaking their claws. Others, apparently more stubborn than the rest, tried to run after the party. Their legs danced like marionettes as they tried to minimize contact with the ice, and eventually they slipped out of control and splashed back into the water.