by Jim C. Hines
A narrow white trail wound through the center of the garden to the cavern wall. There, about ten feet up, a wide hole beckoned. Jig hadn’t seen it at first, because some of the vines hung over the entrance like a curtain. That had to be the entrance to Straum’s lair.
He took a deep breath, letting the sweet perfume of the flowers fill his nose. Immediately his eyes watered, and he sneezed three times.
“Sorry,” he said meekly when Barius glared at him.
“The opening is off the ground, and wide enough for the dragon to fly through unimpeded.” Barius thrust out his chest and chin as he faced the rest of them. “We should prepare ourselves.”
The only preparation Jig wanted was a good, long nap. And maybe something to eat. Water would be nice, too. He wondered if it was safe to drink from one of those water streams.
“Come. Before the sun finishes rising.” Drawing his sword, the prince hurried toward the garden.
Jig waited. He wanted to make sure nothing was waiting to leap out and kill whoever went first. Or if something did kill the prince, Jig wanted to be sure he was nowhere near when it happened. But Barius made it to the edge of the mural without incident, and then Darnak’s club prodded Jig in the back, and he followed.
At the garden, Jig saw something he had missed before. A tiny wall of blue fire bordered the entire mural. In the red light of sunrise, the points of flame were almost invisible. The fire also segmented different portions of the mural. Over here, wizards dueled at the gates of a black tower. Another image showed a blue-scaled dragon flying through the clouds. He remembered Ryslind explaining the legend of Ellnorein, and wondered if the mural was supposed to depict a battle from those times.
Jig grinned when he spotted something tucked into one corner. In a tiny triangular panel, a squad of goblins fought a catlike creature. Naturally, the goblins were losing, but Jig didn’t care. He felt a surge of pride at seeing his people in Straum’s garden. It made him feel like he was a part of history.
Looking closer, Jig saw that there were even tiny dark blue flowers, each one with a ball-like tip, to represent all the goblin blood. He overbalanced and fell into the flowers. One hand crushed a troll’s belly while the other flattened the end of a serpent’s tail. More pollen floated up to trigger a second sneezing fit.
Darnak grabbed Jig’s elbow and pulled him upright. “Come on. Once we reach Straum’s hoard, you’ll see something worth gawking at.”
The path through the garden was actually a sort of white grass, so low and soft it felt like feathers beneath Jig’s feet. As they neared the cave, Jig began to wonder why they hadn’t been attacked yet. Surely if Straum’s magic could create water sculpture and flower art like this, he would have no trouble adding a few spells to discourage intruders. Barius was so obsessed with his brother that he hadn’t bothered to look for traps along the path. At least Barius was in the lead, so if anything did happen, Jig would have the satisfaction of seeing it happen to him first.
Despite his worries, they reached the wall of the cavern. There, Darnak took a rope from his pack and handed it to Riana, the lightest in the group. She raised both eyebrows and handed the rope right back.
“Stick my head up there and let Straum burn it off? I think not.”
“My brother is up there, girl.” Barius pointed to an indentation in the grass, one that could have been made by the end of a staff. “I’ve defeated every foe and every trap we have encountered, and I’ll not be stopped by your stubbornness.”
Jig cocked his head. Barius had defeated everything? From the sound of his voice, he believed that, too. And he’d likely kill Riana if she pushed him much further.
“I’ll do it,” Jig said. He grabbed the rope from Darnak. “Boost me up.”
As he scrambled onto the dwarf’s shoulders, Jig wondered what had possessed him. Goblins were cowards—that was what helped them survive. So what was he doing poking his head into a dragon’s cave?
It’s simple—I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I don’t feel like waiting while they argue for the next hour. Perhaps courage was nothing more than impatience. Besides, the sooner he got away from the flowers, the quicker his eyes would stop watering.
His fingers caught the edge, and with some pushing from Darnak and Barius, he managed to swing one leg up. That, he decided, was a mistake. Pain tore through a very sensitive part of his anatomy. He pulled the other leg up quickly and rolled into the cave.
He tumbled over several of the flower vines, and spent the next minute untangling himself from a vine that had torn free and wrapped around his legs. Silence followed. The others waited below to see if he would die a hideous death. Looking around, Jig wondered the same thing.
Two trolls lay dead on the tunnel floor. Wisps of smoke rose from the holes in their chests. Barius was right. His brother had been here.
CHAPTER 14
Straum Heads off a Possible Rebellion
If anything, trolls were even bigger than the ogres had been. Uglier, too. They looked like a cross between giant humans and spoiled apples. Their bald skin was wrinkled and rubbery, and they smelled like old eggs. They also smelled of charred flesh, but that was a result of Ryslind’s magic.
Jig kicked them both to be sure they were dead. Not that most things could get back up with a hole in the chest big enough to crawl through, but Jig wanted to be safe. The trolls didn’t respond, though a few flies buzzed up from the eyes of the closest one.
Smudge leaped off Jig’s shoulder. His legs snapped out in midair, and when he landed on the troll’s forehead, he held a buzzing fly between his forelegs.
Jig watched jealously as Smudge cooked his breakfast. Even flies were starting to sound good. His eyes went to the trolls. Traditionally, the first bite went to the victor, but Ryslind wasn’t around to enjoy the rewards of his kill. His mouth began to water. He had no way to cook the bodies, and raw troll meat probably wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world. Though the wounded area was nicely blackened, and the smell no worse than overcooked carrion-worm. . . .
“What’s taking you so long up there?”
Jig perked his ears at the dwarf’s whisper. Swallowing hastily, he called back, “I was looking for something to tie the rope to. I’m not big enough to pull you up by myself.”
He wiped his mouth and scanned the entrance. No stalagmites, no rocks, nothing that would hold the rope. His gaze returned to the trolls. They were pretty big.
He wound the rope around both trolls’ waists, thinking that dead trolls had turned out to be pretty useful things. He wondered if Golaka had ever cooked troll meat. He’d have to see about bringing some back for her cauldron. If he survived long enough.
Jig poked his head through the vine curtain. “Ready,” he said. Pulling back, he braced himself against the trolls, adding his meager weight to theirs.
Barius came up first, then Riana, and finally Darnak. The dwarf in his armor was heavy enough that the trolls started to slide across the ground. If the others hadn’t heard Jig squawk and grabbed the rope, Darnak would have pulled Jig over the edge and buried him beneath a pair of dead trolls.
“Now this is a proper dragon’s lair,” Darnak said. “Much more to my liking.” He quickly lit the lantern and retrieved his mapmaking tools. As Jig retrieved the rope, Darnak was happily pacing off the width of the tunnel.
“Twenty-five paces exactly. Figure three or four paces for clearance, but that still means a pretty good wingspan on the beast.”
The tunnel was wide, but the roof was only a few feet higher than Barius’s head. If Straum decided to come out for an early-morning flight, there was no place for the group to hide. Indeed, they’d be lucky if the dragon didn’t smash them on his way out.
“Quickly,” Barius said. “My brother cannot be far. We’ve outmarched him, and soon he will be back within our grasp.” With a tight smile, he added, “And he has kindly led me to Straum’s hoard. For that boon, perhaps I shall be lenient.”
Perhaps Straum would welcome t
hem with open arms and present Barius with the Rod of Creation as a birthday gift, too, but Jig doubted it. He wondered if death by dragonfire would be quick. Fire was a painful way to go, but the stories said dragon breath was so hot the victim burned to ash in seconds.
“Should I stay here to watch the entrance?” Jig asked nervously. “To make sure nothing follows.” And to run like a frightened mouse once Straum kills the rest of you. “It’s not as though I’d be much use against the dragon,” he added, trying to sound helpful.
“You will remain with us.” The decisive tone of Barius’s voice squished Jig’s hope of survival. “If nothing else, perhaps the dragon will waste valuable seconds on you, giving us time to execute our attack. Therein lies your usefulness, goblin.”
“Oh.” After that he was too depressed to say anything else.
The tunnels grew warmer as they walked. What did a dragon’s lair look like? A creature that breathed fire would probably want to keep its home as warm as possible. Would there be bonfires and torches? Dragons were supposed to have great piles of treasure that they used as nests. Uncomfortable as it sounded, it did make a kind of sense. Perhaps dragons followed the same logic Jig used when he slept with his few belongings clutched to his stomach. People had a harder time stealing something in your sleep if they had to roll you over to get it.
Not that this technique had ever made much difference for Jig. True, no goblin had taken Jig’s possessions while he slept. They woke him up first. Being awakened and kicked out of the way by larger goblins wasn’t much of an improvement, but it did mean he knew who to get back at later.
At least they were back on good, solid rock. Far easier to run away when the ground didn’t shift beneath your feet and the roots weren’t reaching out to catch your toes.
Jig’s ears twitched. He heard something up ahead, too faint to identify. A whispery sort of sound. Too smooth and rhythmic to be voices. It was familiar, though. He fingered a fang nervously as he walked.
“I see something,” Darnak said. He raised the lantern and aimed the beam forward.
Soon Jig could see it too, a faint blue glow from farther up the tunnel. At a nod from Barius, Darnak shuttered the lantern.
Jig’s eyes were slow to adjust, but his ears made up for that. Over the past few days, he had learned to recognize every sound the group made. From the clop of Barius’s boots to the quiet flap of Riana’s soles to the ring of Darnak’s studded boots against the stone, Jig knew them all. He knew exactly where Barius was simply by listening for the prince’s nasal breath, whereas Darnak tended to grunt with every third or fourth exhalation. As they neared the source of the light, his vision improved as well.
A wide portcullis blocked the end of the tunnel. Black bars as thick as his wrist extended from the ceiling into holes in the floor. Flat iron bands ran across the bars, riveted to hold each bar in place. The bars ended in nasty-looking points, like oversize spearheads lodged several inches in the rock. Jig could envision being trapped beneath those points as the portcullis came crashing down. He winced.
“Behold,” whispered Barius. “The very resting place of the beast.”
Jig moved closer to peer through the bars. Beyond the portcullis, the tunnel opened into a large cavern, and he could see the source of the whispering noise he had heard. A glassy lake filled the far half of the cavern, and the water moved just enough to make small waves on the shore. The lake was small, more of a pond, especially compared to the lake of the lizard-fish. The waves were likewise softer, which was why Jig hadn’t recognized the sound at first.
The shore itself was black sand that stretched almost to the tunnel. The sand sparkled like the night sky, illuminated by blue flames around the edge of the cavern, similar to the fire that had bordered the flower mosaic. Turning his attention to the cavern walls, Jig felt his mouth open in awe.
Shelves had been carved into every square inch of wall, and every shelf overflowed with . . . stuff. Jig had a hard time calling it treasure. True, many shelves glittered with gold and silver coins of all shapes and sizes, stacked into perfect cylinders. But there was far more to Straum’s hoard than mere money.
Weapons played a prominent role in the decor. Swords hung between every shelf, some taller than Jig, others slender as a blade of grass. Jig saw jeweled swords, plain swords, swords with polished steel blades, and swords of hammered bronze. He even saw one that looked like it was made of glass. No surprise that the owner of that sword didn’t last long.
Another shelf was devoted to footwear. Most came in pairs, but here and there Jig saw a lone boot or sandal. For the first time he understood a little of Barius’s greed. If not for the portcullis, he would have run to the shelves and grabbed every pair he could find. Never again would he have to suffer bruised toes, blistered heels, or cracked toenails. Finding his current pair had been fortunate, but this was treasure indeed. He wondered if he would have time to search for at least one pair that fit better. Maybe those blue ones, with the furry white fringe at the top and red flames painted down the sides. That was the kind of dramatic style any goblin would kill for.
There were helmets and bows, books and gem-stones, even a long shelf devoted to what Jig took to be feathers, but Darnak quickly recognized as writing quills.
“What a load of junk,” Darnak muttered. “Aside from the gold, that is. And I could take a liking to that peacock quill there. Could make some fine maps with such a pen. Wonder what kind of nib she’s got on her?”
“Find the rod,” Barius said. “Once the rod is safely in our possession, you may help yourself to any booty you wish. But first, find the rod.”
Riana cleared her throat. “What does it look like?”
Nobody answered.
Jig fought a sudden attack of giggles. He looked at Riana, whose incredulity was plain in her wide eyes.
“You don’t know?” she asked.
“The rod was hidden here thousands of years ago. No man has seen it since, and the bards of old did not see fit to describe it in song.” Was it Jig’s imagination, or was Barius blushing? “I presumed my brother would be able to identify it through his art.”
“I’ve spotted a mess of quarterstaves there, by the waterline.” Darnak pointed. “Could your rod be mixed in with that bunch for camouflage?”
Barius rubbed his hands together like a man preparing for a feast. “Our course is simple. We must search the dragon’s lair before it returns.” He looked up and down at the portcullis, clearly offended that someone had dared impede his quest with such a mundane obstacle. As they waited for him to speak again, it became equally clear that he had no idea how to get past it.
Darnak grabbed one of the bars and gave it a tug. Pressing the side of his face to the gate, he stared up into the ceiling, where presumably the portcullis went when raised. “I’m not seeing any chains or gears up there. Mechanism must be on the other side.”
Jig frowned. If the mechanism was on the other side, and the cavern was empty, who had closed the gate? Riana was apparently thinking the same thing, because she asked, “Are we sure there’s nobody in there?” She and Jig glanced at each other and stepped backward.
“I will not be stopped by iron bars. Not when I am so close.” Barius crossed his arms in princely determination. “Darnak, open the gate.”
Darnak responded by grabbing his wineskin. He sized up the gate, but didn’t appear willing to respond without a drink to bolster his courage. As he pulled the stopper free with his teeth, another voice came from beyond the portcullis.
“Perhaps I can assist you, brother.”
“Traitor.” Barius lunged at the gate as his brother stepped into view. “Not even Father will raise a hand against me for taking your life. Not after this.” He shoved his crippled left hand through the bars.
Ryslind frowned. Mind-damaged or not, he had to know he wasn’t responsible for his brother’s injury. Jig tried to think of something to say, some way to distract them both.
Riana beat him to it. “
He’s inside the lair,” she pointed out. “Ryslind must have been the one to lower the bars.”
“Indeed, that makes sense.” Barius withdrew his hand. “You may have beaten us to the treasure, but you’ll not leave this place without defeating us. Hide behind this gate for as long as you want. You cannot wait forever.”
“Such an abrasive manner, brother.” Ryslind grabbed two of the bars. “In truth, I did not close the gate. But I believe I can assist you nonetheless.”
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. Jig could see the red glow of his eyes even through the lids. As though Ryslind’s magic was a kind of polishing agent, the iron bars began to gleam. Small ripples spread along the two bars he held.
Ryslind released his grip. Smiling at the group, he reached between the center bars and tapped each one lightly. Like the streams of water outside, the bars turned fluid and moved toward the edge of the tunnel. The flat iron crossbeams trickled to the floor. Soon, instead of an impassible gate, only a ring of black liquid ran around the end of the tunnel.
“Illusion.” He tucked his hands back into the sleeves of his robe. “To stop the weak-minded.”
Barius’s sword hissed free of its scabbard. “Steel, to stop the craven of heart.”
“Oh, my brother.” Ryslind shook his head in dismay. “So bold, yet so predictable.” His eyes flashed, and the blade of Barius’s sword vanished at the crossguard.
Barius dropped the useless hilt. “You’ve always been a coward.”
“And you’ve never learned to compromise. It’s why even the goblin beat you at your duel. Your ‘honor’ and ‘nobility’ are chains holding you back. Had the goblin offended me, I would have crushed him.”
He smiled at Jig, a reminder that the goblin had offended him, and that Jig could look forward to a painful death at Ryslind’s convenience. “The poor wretch would die as quickly as I would, were I to meet your challenge ‘honorably,’ sword against sword.”