by Jim C. Hines
Jig spoke up hesitantly. “I know one, but it wouldn’t help.”
“Let us decide what is helpful,” Barius said. “Perhaps we can intuit some vital fact that you never stopped to consider.”
He wished he had kept quiet. “I don’t think so. It’s not much of a song.”
“Enough protests. Goblins haven’t the intellect to find those kernels of truth hidden within the old songs.”
Jig shrugged and began to sing.
Ten little goblins walked off to drink their wine. Up came the Necromancer, then there were nine. They screamed and they hid and they ran away, But those goblins came back the very next day.
Nine little goblins went looking for a mate,
Up came the Necromancer, then there were eight. They screamed and they hid and they ran away, But those goblins came back the very next day.
Eight little goblins—
“Enough,” Barius shouted.
Jig shifted uncomfortably. “It’s more of a children’s song, really.”
“That is the extent of your knowledge regarding our foe?” Barius had apparently recovered from his injuries, for he pushed himself up and walked over to glare at Jig. “You’ve lived here your entire life, and the best you can do is ‘Ten little goblins’?”
“What about you?” Jig shot back. He had warned the prince it was a stupid song. Why did everyone keep blaming Jig for their stupid mistakes? “You knew what you’d be facing down here. Did you bring anything to help you against the Necromancer?”
The prince’s eyes widened. One hand dropped to his belt, closer to the hilt of his sword than Jig was comfortable with. “I . . . I brought him.” Barius pointed to his brother.
“A good thing for us all that you did, too.” What was he doing? Jig couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. He had seen the prince’s temper. Why was he so eager for Barius to finish him off?
“I saw the bodies in the hall,” he continued. “Your brother killed four of those things. If he weren’t here, they would have killed you as easily as you killed my patrol. If you ask me, Ryslind should start leading this party before you lead us into another trap.”
Nobody moved. Over the course of Jig’s rant, Barius’s face had turned red, then purple. Jig watched him curiously. He hadn’t realized humans could change color. Perhaps they were part lizard.
Jig had never seen Barius, or any human for that matter, get this mad. Still angry people all seemed to react in the same way. Jig braced himself. Yes, here it came. Barius’s open hand caught Jig on the side of his face and knocked him to the ground. This is growing old, he thought as he lay on the floor, staring upward. Still, he would be an expert on ceilings by the time he was through.
“What are you doing, lad?” Darnak asked. “He’s unarmed.”
“I’m challenging this goblin to a duel,” Barius said.
“A what?” Jig turned his head toward the prince. “What’s a duel?”
Darnak raised his hands in disgust. “Have your wits deserted you, man? We’re in the home of the Necromancer, and you want to stand around fighting duels?”
“A duel,” Barius explained, ignoring the dwarf, “is a battle of honor. To the death. As the challenged party, you have the choice of weapons.”
Jig blinked. “What? Darnak, is he serious?”
“You’ve insulted my honor. Choose your weapon. Knives, swords, clubs, even quarterstaves. I saw a pair of spears we could use.” His hawkish nose wrinkled in a sneer. “Your presence has plagued this party long enough, goblin.”
Jig looked around for help. Him, fight Barius? Why not execute him outright and be done with it?
Ryslind looked bored with it all, and Darnak was shaking his head in disbelief. Riana rolled her eyes. “Men,” she muttered disgustedly. Nobody moved to intervene.
“Enough dallying,” Barius said. “Choose your weapon.” He waved his arms in large circles, presumably some sort of warm-up ritual, then practiced a few lunges against an imaginary foe.
What should he choose? As if it made a difference. The only weapon Jig had ever held more than once was a kitchen knife, and he suspected Barius was as skilled with knives as he was with the sword. Either way, Jig would soon be bleeding his life all over the nice, polished marble.
“Choose.”
He can’t just kill me. Not with everyone watching. That means he has to play by the rules. Jig glared at him. “If I win, will you let me carry a weapon again? And no more of your stupid ropes, either.”
Barius laughed. “Anything you like. Ask for my future barony or my firstborn child, it matters not. But ask and let us done with it.”
What would Jig do with a human newborn? Even goblins didn’t eat babies. Too little meat. Did humans typically go around swapping their children? He shook his head and decided he was better off not knowing. “Freedom and my sword. I don’t want anything else.”
“Very well.” Barius appeared close to losing his temper. His cheek twitched, and each word shot out through gritted teeth. “Select your weapon.”
“Fangs.”
Barius blinked. “What? You can’t choose fangs.”
“Why not? It’s a game goblin children play. We call it Rakachak. You bite one another on the arms and legs, and the winner is the one who goes the longest without crying.” He smiled and fingered the three-inch fangs on his lower jaw. “If you want, you can go first.”
Jig patted the short sword at his side, reassured by its weight. Not that it would be much use if they were attacked again. Darnak had told him about the fight, how Barius had cut down his first opponent, only to have it rise again and slash Barius’s shoulder from behind. Stabbing the creature in the throat hadn’t even inconvenienced it. Whatever these things were, they needed to be hacked apart, bludgeoned to a pulp, or dealt with by magic. Or by a hungry fire-spider, Jig had added silently.
Ahead, Ryslind raised his hand and brought the party to a halt. He gestured at the right wall. “Another passageway . . . here.” He spoke in the same dual-toned voice Jig had heard before.
Jig didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. Well, he had liked watching Barius sputter and curse after Jig named his weapon for the duel. Darnak had to physically stop Barius from slicing Jig’s head from his body. Seeing the haughty prince back out of his “duel” and formally ask Jig’s forgiveness was worth almost all the pain and indignity he had endured on this quest.
Afterward, they still faced the same problem. Amidst whatever traps and tricks filled this place, how could they find the Necromancer without dying in the process? In the end, they turned again to Ryslind.
The wizard hadn’t said a word. He pulled a blue vial from his cloak and drained the contents in one swallow. A coughing fit took him, and the vial shattered on the floor. Jig watched as he doubled over and fell. He wondered if Ryslind had grabbed the wrong potion, taken something deadly instead of the potion he wanted.
Ryslind’s eyes glowed brighter than ever when he struggled back to his feet. He blinked and squinted, and finally said, “Too much magic in here. I can’t see anything. Someone lead me to the corridor.”
Darnak had taken it upon himself to grab the wizard’s arm and guide him over the corpses and into the corridor. Once there, Ryslind had begun to walk at a slow, steady pace. He stopped before the trapped tile, gestured at it with one hand, and muttered, “Don’t step here.”
“I think we’re already knowing that much,” Darnak said.
Ryslind ignored him. He pointed out two more tiles before reaching the first fork in the corridor. Without hesitation, he took the left turn. Jig wondered if Ryslind even noticed the other hallway, or if he saw anything but the path his magic showed him. He didn’t seem to see or hear the rest of the party, much to Darnak’s dismay.
“How can I make a good map if you’re racing about like a tomcat on the prowl?” He sketched as fast as he could, but Jig could see that his careful map was devolving into a few lines and arrows. “Can’t even keep track o
f which tiles we’re to avoid. Probably trigger every one if we have to come back this way in a hurry.”
In addition to the traps, there were a number of secret passages, like the one Ryslind had just found. Everything was constructed of the same marble panels, and from time to time Ryslind would point one out at random. Nobody knew how they were supposed to open, for the wizard’s magic allowed him to bypass the normal mechanism. Even as he pointed, his eyes would flash, and the panel would crash onto the ground, often breaking into thick shards from the impact.
Jig got down and crawled through the hole into the secret passageway. “They could at least make the doors taller,” he grumbled.
“You should mention that to the Necromancer when we find him,” Riana said as she followed. “I’m sure he’d love to hear architectural suggestions from a goblin.”
She hadn’t been quite as mean to him since his aborted duel. In fact, she had laughed harder than Jig had ever seen, which only added to Barius’s fury. But that didn’t mean she had forgiven him, either. She merely flipped back and forth as to whom she hated more, Jig or Barius. With Barius up ahead, following his brother, that left Jig as a target for her frustrations.
At least the corridor beyond opened up to let him walk upright and put a few more feet between himself and her barbs.
“Another trap,” Ryslind said. This time it was a thin wire stretched across the floor. Jig’s poor vision meant that he couldn’t see it at all, and he felt like a fool as Darnak guided his legs in an exaggerated motion over the wire. Better this than another attack, though. He wondered how much power it took for Ryslind to sense the traps and the hidden passages. Even tracking the Necromancer at all must take an enormous effort. Jig knew nothing of magic, but he assumed a powerful wizard would have ways to hide himself.
“Do you think this is what the Necromancer wants?” he wondered.
“What’s that?” Darnak snapped. He scowled at his map and drew a quick turn, then made a line to indicate the tripwire. “Do I think what?”
“Well, he has to know we’re here. And he probably knows we’ve got a wizard. So wouldn’t it make sense to force the wizard to use up his power before we actually face the Necromancer? That way, when we finally get through this maze, the Necromancer will be able to kill Ryslind like a bug.” Not to mention what the search might be doing to Ryslind’s already questionable sanity. Those dual voices sent creepy tingles down Jig’s back every time the wizard spoke.
“Aye, it’s possible.” Darnak hurried ahead, forcing Jig and Riana to jog to keep up. When they were closer to the humans and their lantern, he slowed his pace again to draw. As he sketched, he explained. “That’s why we all have to be ready to strike. Only two ways for the likes of us to deal with wizards of the Necromancer’s caliber. Run away, or hit him with a rock.”
“I don’t have a rock,” Jig said worriedly. There were no rocks down here. Had he known, he would have taken one from the lakeshore above.
Darnak’s eyes came up to glare at Jig. “Figure of speech. Your sword there’ll do the job. The trick is to take him out before he can use his magic. Hard and fast, and no hesitation. Let him get a spell off, and it’s your death. I’m afraid you’re right about Ryslind being at the end of his rope, so if you wait for him to save your blue hide, you’ll not last long.”
Jig had no illusions about his skill with a sword. A day ago, he would have taken the dwarf’s advice and thought himself a match for any wizard. Like Porak, he had believed that a good weapon made a good warrior. But Porak now resided in the belly of a carrion-worm. Jig had seen Barius and Darnak in combat, and next to them, he was nothing. Even Ryslind was a more skilled fighter, and he was a wizard. What hope did Jig have, sword or no sword?
“What about your magic?” he asked, searching for another option. “Won’t Earthmaker help you beat the Necromancer?”
“Doesn’t work that way. Earthmaker wants us to choose our own path. He can guide us and give us strength, but where mortals come into conflict, he’ll not interfere.” Darnak stopped and cocked his head. His face wrinkled like a raisin. “Something’s not right. The tunnel changes up ahead.”
“How can you tell?”
“He’s a dwarf,” Riana answered, as if that explained everything. She hurried up to tell the others.
They soon found that Darnak was right. Barius and his brother stopped, lantern held in front of them. When Jig caught up and saw why they had paused, it was all he could do to keep from throwing up.
Not only did the tunnel change, it ended completely. The walls and ceiling stopped, and the cramped passage opened into a huge cavern. The top was too far to see, and the bottom . . . Jig’s stomach knotted just thinking about it. At the far side, he could just see a glimmer of reflected light, presumably from the marble paneling the Necromancer seemed to like so much. All they had to do was cross.
“Bottomless pit, you think?” Darnak asked.
Barius nodded. “ ’Twould be my guess.”
That was when Jig decided they were both as mad as the wizard. They talked about this chasm as if they crossed bottomless pits every day before breakfast. Worse, as he looked at the others, he had no doubt what they were about to say.
“Let us be on our way,” Barius said, right on cue.
“Over that?” Riana demanded.
Good to know that Jig wasn’t the only one who had problems with this. True, the paneled floor continued across the pit, creating a sort of bridge. The problem was that only the panels continued. As far as he could see, they rested on nothing but air. Only thin lines of silver mortar held the panels together. Although Jig knew nothing about bridges, he guessed this wasn’t how they were supposed to look.
Each panel was no thicker than Jig’s thumb. While the others planned the safest way to cross, Jig dropped to his hands and knees and crawled to the tunnel’s edge. Peering over the edge, he saw nothing but blackness beneath the bridge. Wind brushed past his face and pushed his ears back. The walls of the pit were smooth black stone. Not polished like the marble, but still too smooth to climb. What were you expecting? A nice ladder and a sign saying “Here’s the safe bridge for goblins only”?
Something landed on Jig’s back. He shouted and rolled away, kicking wildly at his attacker. Smudge slipped off his shoulder and started to fall, and Jig barely managed to grab one of the spider’s suddenly hot legs. Once he was back in the tunnel, Smudge scurried a good six feet away from the edge and cowered there.
The attacker turned out to be the end of a rope. Darnak and Riana both laughed at him, while Barius muttered something about “stupid, cowardly creatures.” Jig noticed they had each wrapped a loop of rope about their waists.
“Best to be safe when crossing these things,” Darnak explained. He helped Jig up and tied the rope around his waist with a sure hand. “Earthmaker willing, we’ll not be needing this. But I’ve not yet seen a bottomless pit that didn’t have some nastiness hidden away, waiting to knock you to your doom.”
“You’ve crossed these before?” Jig asked.
“Oh, aye. Back when I was a lad, there wasn’t a wizard around who didn’t conjure up his own bottomless pit. They’re less common these days, but you still find ’em lying about in older labyrinths and lairs. They’re useful things. If you can cut a shaft through the entire place, you’ve got some ventilation. Otherwise the air gets stale and things start to die. Not to mention the stink.”
He lowered his voice, as if sharing a secret. “Truth is, they’re not really bottomless. You’ll fall for a while, no doubt, but sooner or later you find the bottom. A real bottomless pit takes too much magic.”
Perhaps that was supposed to reassure him, Jig didn’t know. He saw Darnak take another drink of ale, and decided that strong drink would have been far more comforting. Strong drink he could enjoy back in the goblin lair would be even better.
“Onward,” said Barius. He walked close behind Ryslind, lantern held high to light up the bridge. Riana followed, then Darna
k, still scribbling at his map, and Jig brought up the rear. That meant he would be the last one to step onto those floating tiles.
He watched as each member of the group stepped onto the bridge, and each time he expected the tiles to crumble away at the touch of their feet. The tiles didn’t even wiggle.
The rope went taut, tugging Jig closer to the edge. Another three steps and he’d be on the bridge. What if he fell? What if the wind got stronger and blew him over the edge? Would the others try to pull him up? More likely they would cut the rope and let him fall. Why else would they put him last? This way they could cut him loose without sacrificing themselves.
Two more steps. Maybe the bridge only worked for certain races. Would it support a goblin as well as a human? Magic was funny that way, and he had a sudden, vivid memory of the marble panels that had hidden their dead attackers. Those had felt solid enough, up until they vanished. Was there a trigger to make these panels disappear as well?
One step. Of course. The spell must be designed to wait until the last person stepped out of the tunnel. Only then would it vanish. He was the last one. As soon as he took that next step, they would all fall to their deaths. He was the only one who could save them. He had to get this knot undone. His fingers clawed at the rope, but the dwarf had tied a good knot, and it wouldn’t budge.
“Wait,” he whispered. “Please wait.”
The rope jerked him forward, and he fell onto the bridge. The solid, unmoving bridge. Jig froze. Ahead the others glanced back impatiently. The tiles hadn’t faded. He wasn’t falling. He wasn’t falling! He was trembling so much he couldn’t stand up, but he wasn’t falling.
“You planning to walk, or were you expecting us to drag you across?” Darnak yelled. His voice echoed in the chasm.
Jig tried to rise. The bridge was wide enough. Three tiles wide, which was more than twice the length of a goblin. He would be okay. All he had to do was stand up and walk after the others.