by Alexey Pehov
“The man’s no fool!” Glo-Glo chuckled, stuffing a huge piece of meat into his mouth.
“Why are they so generous all of a sudden?” I asked, looking at the obelisk glowing in the darkness.
That was a real sight, let me tell you!
“We’re valuable prisoners. And tomorrow we don’t have to walk. We’ll probably hang about here for at least six days. We can relax.”
“But how do you know all that, greeny?” asked Mis, handing me the flask. I nodded in thanks.
“I’m a shaman, after all,” the goblin said resentfully. “Two hours ago, just after the swamp, a raven arrived with a message for Shokren.”
“Can you read at a distance, too?” I asked in amazement.
“Of course not!” Glo-Glo retorted. “But we goblins have good hearing. Much better than you hulking brutes. I heard Shokren telling Bagard about it. Basically, the instructions were to lead the detachment into the Nameless City and wait at the Obelisk of the Ancients for another detachment to arrive. And that detachment is still at Bald Hills, so they have to walk for at least six days to get here.”
“By the way, you don’t happen to know how far it is from here to the Eastern Gates of Hrad Spein, do you?” I asked the shaman, trying to sound casual.
Glo-Glo shot a quick glance at me from under his knitted brows and answered, “If you mean in your leagues, I don’t know; I don’t understand your distances. But in days … well, you’d be tramping for two full weeks or more, but I’d get there in a week and a half, if I really wanted to. And the orcs and elves could do it in a week, if they were desperate. Do you think your friends are still waiting for you?”
I shrugged. “Even if they are, they think I’m still underground.”
“Or dead,” Glo-Glo said to cheer me up. “Your bracelet’s been destroyed, and the one who gave it to you might think you’re deceased.”
“Couldn’t you get a message to them?” I asked the goblin, hoping the shaman would work a miracle for me on the spot.
“How? Ask a little bird, or a moth? Things like that only happen in fairy tales. Come on, let’s get some sleep. We can talk as much as we want tomorrow. It’s almost midnight.”
* * *
Nightmares are the bane of my life. And after Hrad Spein there wasn’t a night that passed without some beastly horror descending on me. That night I dreamed I was back in the room with the ceiling moving down, only this time there was no hole in the floor, and all I could do was run from one corner to the other, waiting to be flattened.
I woke up. Judging from the moon, there were still about three hours to go until dawn. The torch left by Olag had gone out, and no one had thought to replace it with a new one. Four campfires were blazing away merrily in the clearing, and the obelisk was giving off quite enough light for me to see the orcs lying around here and there. The only one not sleeping was the one tending the fires.
Everyone was asleep, and it would have been a magnificent chance to escape, if not for Shokren’s cursed magical circle. I wondered if Glo-Glo could have broken the orc shaman’s magic, if he didn’t have the mittens on his hands. I’d been pondering a crazy idea for two days, thinking about freeing the old goblin from his magical shackles. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the locks holding the mittens on the goblin’s hands had proved to be pretty tricky, and there was no way I could ever get them open with an ordinary sliver of wood. I needed some thin piece of metal, and neither I nor Mis nor Glo-Glo happened to have a little trinket like that. There was nothing I could do but wait for a stroke of luck that would allow me to open the miniature locks.
Purely by chance, I happened to glance at the remains of our meal, and my jaw dropped open. Sitting there on a piece of fried salmon was a dragoatfly. And nearby there was a flinny, struggling to open the tightly closed top of the flask of wine. My heart started pounding furiously. Whatever I did, I mustn’t frighten him off!
I cautiously propped myself up my elbow and whispered, “Hey, flinny!”
He jumped and swung round, pulling out his miniature dagger. The dragoatfly also abandoned its meal and flew across to its master, trembling slightly. Unfortunately, this flinny was a stranger and he didn’t look anything at all like Aarroo g’naa Shpok. Even the little fellow’s curly hair was black, not gold.
“Push off, beanpole!” the flinny said, waving his ridiculous little weapon menacingly.
“I didn’t think flinnies were thieves.”
“I’m no thief!” the lad exclaimed resentfully. “This food doesn’t belong to anyone!”
I clicked my tongue reproachfully. “It belongs to me, and you know that perfectly well.”
“Oh, all right!” the flinny growled irritably, mounting his dragoatfly.
“Wait!” I whispered hurriedly.
“What do you want?” he asked rather impolitely, but the dragoatfly stopped and hovered in the air.
I struggled desperately to find the right words. “I want you to take a message for me.”
“No way!” the little squirt snorted. “I don’t want anything to do with your lot!”
“I’ll pay!”
“No way! What could a prisoner have that’s worth anything, when the orcs search him five times a day?”
But the little rotter was still in no hurry to fly off. He waited. Just in case I might suddenly manage to find something.… And I did find something. Shokren had missed the gift from the dead elfin king. Perhaps he hadn’t sensed it, or perhaps the ring didn’t have any magical powers, and the heartbeat in the black diamond was just some kind of trick. Whatever the reason, the ring had been on my hand all the time, hidden under my glove. But now I would have to part with it.
It was a shame to let the precious thing go when I’d had it for such a short time, but at least now I could put the dead king’s gift to good use. I remembered Kli-Kli saying that flinnies were crazy about all sorts of rings. I took the glove off my hand and even now, in the light of the white obelisk and the cold moon, the little light was still flickering in the depths of the stone, following the crazy rhythm of my heart.
“Oo-oo-ooh!” the flinny exclaimed in a surprisingly shrill voice.
The little creature couldn’t take his eyes off the ring. I sat down, and the dragoatfly landed at my feet. I took the ring off my finger and rolled it in my hand, allowing the black diamond to catch the sparse rays of moonlight and transform them into a spectacular display of icy flame. I think the flinny was in a state of absolute ecstasy.
“Is that valuable enough for you to do a simple little job?”
The lad pulled himself together enough to nod, but he didn’t take his eyes off the prize.
“I am Iirroo z’maa Olok of the Branch of the Lake Butterfly. What do I have to do for this?”
“Can you free us and lead us away without the orcs noticing anything?”
“No,” he said with a sigh of regret. “Perhaps there is something else I can do for you?”
The flinny was politeness itself.
“I will give you the ring, if you will deliver a message.”
“Agreed! What is it, who is it for, and where are they?” the little news peddler rattled off.
“Fly to the Eastern Gates of Hrad Spein, find Egrassa of the House of the Black Moon or Milord Alistan Markauz, and tell them that that Harold is alive, and a prisoner of the Firstborn. The orcs also have the Horn, and they are taking me to the Labyrinth. And also tell them where you met me. Is that clear?”
The flinny repeated every single word like a parrot. I nodded and put the ring down on the ground. The dragoatfly immediately landed on the precious item, and the flinny, hurrying in case I changed my mind, tied the ring to the belly of his little flying mount.
I watched all the details and, to be quite honest, I felt a bit nervous. The doubts gnawing at my heart were perfectly understandable—the lad had been paid in advance, but would he do the job or just fly straight home, and then laugh with his relatives at how smartly he’d diddled one of t
he beanpoles?
Something must have shown in my face, because the flinny cast a quick glance at me and chuckled sympathetically.
“Relax, man. We always do the job, that’s professional etiquette.”
What damn fancy words he knew! Well, if it was “professional etiquette,” I definitely could relax.
“They might not be at the gate.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” the flinny said with a nonchalant shrug. “I’ll look around for them. How long ago could they have left?”
I reckoned it up.
“Three or four days.”
“Excellent! Good health, man!”
“When will you reach the entrance to Hrad Spein?”
“At noon today,” the flinny replied. Seeing my look of amazement, he chuckled. “We have our own little secrets when it comes traveling round Zagraba, otherwise the news we carry would be too old to have any value.”
“Hurry, flinny.”
“Don’t teach a cock to crow, man! What you have given me is priceless, so, out of simple politeness, after I find your friends, I’ll warn the right people. Forward, Lozirel!”
Before I could even ask who the flinny had decided to warn, the dragoatfly had disappeared into the night sky, bearing away the tiny little rider and my great big hope.
“Let’s hope the flinny will find your friends and they can get us out of this in time,” said a voice behind me. I started and swung round.
Glo-Glo was gazing at me with a mocking smile. The old goblin had been awake all the time I was talking to the flinny.
* * *
In the thieves’ profession, one of the indisputable virtues is being able to wait. On the roof of a building, in a dark, dusty cubbyhole, up to your throat in shit—it doesn’t matter where you are or who you’re waiting for, but if you’re patient, you’ll always be lucky. So after the flinny flew off, I tried to put him out of my mind, otherwise the time would have dragged catastrophically slowly.
Four days went by, and the orcs still weren’t thinking of leaving. The Firstborn didn’t pay any attention to us, except for Olag checking to make sure we weren’t getting up to anything, and Fagred casting dark glances in our direction. It’s no secret that all our knowledge of orcs is based on idle fantasy and legend. Not many of the authors of scholarly works on the race of the Firstborn have actually seen any Firstborn in the flesh. And so in my mind (especially after my brief encounter with orcs in the cabbage field and in certain waking dreams), the Firstborn were cruel, coarse, unrefined creatures, and all in all …
All in all, their personalities were so much like elves’ that sometimes I was absolutely amazed. But then, what was so very astonishing? They were close relatives, the darkness take them! The only difference was that the orcs couldn’t bear even the smell of outsiders and thought all other races were greatly inferior to themselves.
I personally had been expecting them to keep us on starvation rations, give us a thrashing every day, stick red-hot needles under our fingernails, and commit other similar atrocities. But that wasn’t the way things were at all—no one had any intention of touching us (a couple of pokes from Fagred didn’t really count), they fed us remarkably well, and our food was exactly the same as what they ate, although we didn’t get us any more wine.
The weather improved, the wind carried the clouds away to the south, toward the Mountains of the Dwarves, and once again the sky had that astounding autumn blueness that harmonized so well with the yellow leaves of the trees. And it got a bit warmer, too. It was probably the last, or perhaps second-to-last, more or less warm week in the year.
* * *
Ravens arrived for Shokren twice, but we could only guess at what was in the messages that were delivered. Glo-Glo spent all day huddled up under his old patched cloak, replying sarcastically to our questions or making meaningless remarks about my conversations with Mis. The old shaman’s main occupation was mumbling to himself. Either the old goblin had gone completely gaga, or he was preparing some kind of spell, despite the mittens. The second assumption was probably the right one, since Glo-Glo shut up the moment any of the orcs appeared, and when Shokren’s face hove into sight on the horizon, the old shaman pretended to be asleep.
At first Mis wasn’t much inclined to make heart-to-heart conversation, but after a while the man from the Borderland proved to be a fine conversation partner. The warrior’s wound was gradually closing up and the orcs paid him absolutely unheard-of attention by giving him a clean rag and some kind of ointment to help it heal. Glo-Glo stuck his nose in the ointment, seemed satisfied with the result, and advised Mis to change the bandage as often as possible, then he went back to playing his whispering games.
On the fifth day Olag came over with Fagred, who was smiling and had a coil of rope in his hands. The unpleasant thought immediately sprang to mind that someone was going to get eliminated.
“Get up, moth!” Olag told me.
As you’ve probably already guessed, this suggestion distressed me so much that I stayed sitting on the ground.
“Where are you taking him?” the goblin interceded for me.
“None of your business, greenie!” Fagred growled.
“Get up, moth! Shokren doesn’t like to be kept waiting! Or do I have to get you up?” Olag asked.
Sensibly accepting the fact that Shokren was not the gallows, I got up, and Fagred immediately put a noose round my neck and wound the other end of the rope round his hand. I was led off to the shaman on this improvised lead.
Shokren was talking to Bagard about something, but when he saw they’d already brought me, he cut the conversation short.
“Pero at za nuk na tenshi,” [Lead it after me.] the shaman said, and set off toward the obelisk.
There are times when I really regret not knowing orcish.
Fagred tugged on the rope, almost breaking my neck, and dragged me off after Shokren. Olag walked alongside and gave me an occasional push in the back. They led me along just like a sheep to the market fair! Naturally, I didn’t wax indignant, because being stubborn was a very good way to get a poke in the teeth from Fagred.
They brought me to the edge of the forest, and Shokren sat down on the ground and fixed his thoughtful gaze on me. Of course, no one suggested that Harold could sit, so I had to stand there with that stupid lead round my neck and act like a bored idiot. The shaman seemed a bit upset that his hard-stare treatment hadn’t produced the desired result. He frowned and said, “I need to clarify a few details of the way you appeared in our forest and find out how you managed to get the Horn. Will you answer me, or shall I tell Fagred to hang you up for a little while?”
“I’ll answer,” I blurted out hastily.
“Sa’ruum,” [Shaman] hissed Olag, who was standing behind me.
“I’ll answer, sa’ruum,” I repeated obediently.
“Good. If I sense that you’re lying to me, Fagred will hang you up.”
I squinted at the huge orc’s happy face. The bastard was just dreaming of Shokren catching me out in a lie.
Then the questions came thick and fast. Naturally, despite the orc’s threats, I had no intention of blabbing about the Commission. Four days of idleness had been quite enough time to invent a plausible cover story, go over all the moves, and modify a couple of them, so that in the end not even my inestimable acquaintance, the head of the Order of Valiostr, Artsivus, could have told the truth from the lies, let alone some orc shaman. And so Shokren and my two guards were treated to the heartrending story of an old and very rich count who commissioned this thief to get a Horn I had never heard of for his collection.
I was given heaps of gold, helped to get to Hrad Spein, and after that it was in the hands of the gods. I took the Horn, collected the emeralds along the way, and then somehow found myself in Zagraba. How had I got there? I had no idea at all, not a clue. Some sort of magic, tricks of the darkness. How had I got hold of the Key? That was very simple, Mr. Sa’ruum, sir. It was already in that count’s c
ollection, the elves must have sold it to him.
At that Olag snorted loudly, letting the entire forest know what he thought of the idea of elves selling their own relics to men, but Shokren told the warrior to be quiet and started asking me his endless questions again. How had I got to Hrad Spein? With what kind of group? Were there any elves in the group? Sure, if I told you there were elves, you’d mark me down as one of the elves’ cronies.
“There weren’t any elves,” I blurted out, and immediately regretted it.
Fagred’s face suddenly had a really, really pleased expression.
“That’s a lie,” Shokren answered me in a bleak voice. “In the city of Chu you and your monkey friends killed some of our warriors. Fagred was the only one who managed to get away. Hang him up!”
“You killed my brother! He was wounded!” Fagred yelled, and tugged on the rope so hard that I fell to my knees, scrabbling at the tightening noose.
What a shame we didn’t finish you off, too! I thought. Darkness, what a stupid way to get caught out! Talking to the shaman was as hard as talking to Vukhdjaaz. I had to improvise again.
“There were elves! There were!” I squealed as I saw Olag throwing the rope over a branch of the nearest tree. “Only they weren’t real elves.”
Shokren held his hand up to tell the warriors to delay the torture for a moment.
“What nonsense is this, little monkey! What do you mean, not real elves?”
What was that I used to say? If you tell a lie, make it a really big one!
“They were bastards!”
“We know without you that all elves are bastards!” Fagred said, and he tugged on the rope again.
“No! I mean their fathers were men, and their mothers were elfesses!”
The more incredible a falsehood is, the more like the truth it sounds. I didn’t know if what I’d just made up was even possible (I hadn’t heard of anything of the sort anywhere), but the orcs swallowed the bait—hook, line, and sinker. The Firstborn didn’t have a very high opinion of elves in any case, and when they heard something like that, they believed it was true straightaway. I think Olag cursed, and the very sight of Fagred was frightening, but absurd at the same time: I thought he was going to be sick. Shokren rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
