“If you are a Mystery Beast, then all is explained. Surely a Mystery Beast could pronounce the rituals as even a true person could.”
She seemed to be arguing with herself.
She faced me.
“Are you?” she demanded. “Are you truly a mystery beast?”
“I am Arukh.”
“Are you a mystery beast?”
“Nanhama said I wasn’t.” I was almost amused. I wanted to see where she was going.
“Aye,” she replied, “some would say that was an error on her part. I think she had some choices and took the one that would trouble her least for the moment. Mark my words, it’ll haunt her down the road, especially if you live.
“We’ll argue about you, about what you said in there, for years.
“Yes,” she said, thinking out loud, “Nanhama called you for a noncreature, but she acknowledged the rituals of death were properly done. Troubling indeed. Lots of questions come out of that, but no tasty answers.”
She paused, following after her own thoughts.
“What do you think?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“I saw Meg Alam’s body,” she said.
“And?”
“There’s no way she could have said all you claim. Not with an arrow in her like that. Her lungs were filled with blood.”
“So.”
“Something supernatural at work. I don’t know. If you are a Mystery Beast, then fine, it all makes sense. If you aren’t, then there was powerful magic at work in that room. Either way...”
Abruptly, she stopped.
“You saw the Mermaids,” she said, harkening back to an earlier part of my tale.
“I did.”
“Tell me of them?”
She listened rapt, as I talked about the Mermaids. I spoke of my impressions. Of the way they sang and the way I felt about them.
I found that the more I spoke, strangely, the more I had to say. She listened attentively.
“I’ve never seen them,” she said. “But I’ve heard of them. Holy folk of the Selk, perhaps the holiest.”
“They are...” I searched for a word, “...special.”
She nodded.
“You know,” she said reflectively, “out in the Mountains my old gran-”
I grunted quizzically, I hadn’t heard that word before.
“The mother of my mother,” she explained.
“Aah.” What did that mean? I thought about it. It sounded a bit like the Goblins, High mothers and Low mothers. That must be it, I thought. The mother who’d birthed her.
“My Gran,” she said, “she used to wonder if we were the only people to survive the Second World. She thought perhaps in other places unknown and lost, little pockets of true people might have endured under the ice for a time.”
“I mean, how were we to know for sure? We were trapped in the cave, labouring to bring the Third World forth. It’s possible, others might have survived to live in the new place.”
She gave me a strange nervous little smile
“Heresy I know,” she said, “but there you have it. Who’s to say it’s not true?
“So tell me,” she asked, “when the Mermaids speak, does it sound like the true speech?”
I stared at her.
She stared back, her eyes questioning.
I thought about it.
“I have spoken of the Mermaids,” I told her finally. “I would tell you what you want to hear. But truthfully, I do not know. I say this, there is a truth in their songs.”
She nodded, considering this.
“Fair enough.”
We sat quietly, for a while.
“You know,” she said finally, “it’s a big world.”
“Arrah,” I agreed.
“Larger perhaps than we dare to realize.”
I grunted.
No one stopped me as I walked out of fringes beyond Dwarf City and made my way back to the Downriver.
I thought about the Mermaids.
Damn them, I decided. They had no right to live in a world like this. I had done what was asked. I had the gold the Selk had paid me, the gold I had taken from the street shaman, and the lesser coins I had taken from the prostitute and my victims. I had no cause to be dissatisfied.
And yet, the Prince lived and a Mermaid was dead, and somehow this offended me. The Prince lived and there were ruined bodies in marshes and alleys, and somehow this offended me.
I was exhausted by the time I finally made it back. Iron Pants seemed surprised to see me, but who knows with Trolls. He watched me as I stalked back to my hole and closed it in after me. It was strange, I was too tired to bluster and growl, but the other Arukh got out of my way anyway.
Later, the Little Arukh found me in the Lodge, eating.
“Speaking to Goblins,” she told me, excitedly, her voice pitched over the sound of the feeding drums. I stared at her.
“Speaking,” she repeated. “Speaking. Words and talking.”
“I catch Goblin,” she said, grinning. “Not kill. Lift to smash brains out. Goblins squeals. I stop. Say ‘tell me.’”
Amazing.
“Goblin cry and wail. Say nonsense. Say ‘spare me spare me’. Angry, not tell me good things. Lift to smash brains again. Stop. Say ‘tell me of Brave Tohkzahli.’ Say ‘tell me of Vhoroktik.’”
Now she was interested in Vhoroktik? I felt a passing discomfort. Vhoroktik had shown no liking for me. I did not like her following me, but I liked the thought of her following an enemy less.
“Tell me,” I said finally.
“Vhoroktik takes Khanstantin’s name. Now Vhoroktik-Khanstantin. Chosen leader of Brave Tohkzahli.”
Then her face fell.
“Mothers say Brave Tohkzahli fought against Mothers will. Mothers disband Brave Tohkzahli for disobeying.”
“Mothers pay blood price for Tohkzahli deeds. The other kingdoms return the price. Mothers demand blood price for Tohkzahli.”
Blood price was the compensation Kingdoms paid for the shedding of enemy blood.
I frowned. That didn’t make sense. If the Tohkzahli had operated without the Mothers authority, then the Mothers had no claim on blood price. And if they were disbanded, how was it that a new leader had been chosen?
“Vampires pay blood price. Dwarves pay blood price. Only humans not pay, but then after, they pay.”
All combatants paying blood price for the interloper? That was even stranger. Blood price was never paid quickly, but only after much argument and haggling. It didn’t make sense that the warring Kingdoms would pay blood price, would return blood price, to a Kingdom which at best, renounced all involvement and at worst stood as a trespasser without right.
Perhaps there was more to the Brave Tohkzahli’s actions than any suspected.
Perhaps, despite the words, the Tohkzahli had acted for the Mothers?
The Mothers were moving against the Horsemen?
No. They didn’t want a war, that was why they’d disavowed the Tohkzahli, I thought with mounting excitement.
But the Vampires had paid blood price anyway, because they wanted the Mothers as allies.
And the Dwarves and Horsemen had paid blood price as well... because they didn’t want the Mothers to enter the war!
No, I concluded, the Mothers weren’t moving against the Horsemen.
The Mothers were moving against the Prince.
A slow grin spread across my face, frightening the Little Arukh.
The Mothers.
I squatted at the Goblin Wall, staring patiently at the massive stonework. Around us was the Goblin city. Most of it was underground in complexes of burrows. The ground arched and rolled with elaborate tunnels, some of which heaved above ground. Sometimes as you walked along paths in the Goblin city yo
u could feel things rumbling underground. Hills rolled which were not truly hills, some grass covered slopes, others steep and gleaming with daubed plaster. The little Arukh was with me.
The Goblins worked small, I thought. Their burrows were woven as much as built, wood frames latticed and bound together in triangles and circles, small stones added to the framework, and covered with layers of matting and plaster. Bark for waterproofing, leaves for insulation.
But not the wall, I thought. The wall was massive stonework fitted together. It looked more like Giants’ work.
Giants had built the Goblin Wall for them? That was a startling thought.
Why build it in the middle of the Goblin City? Unless the Goblin City had outgrown it?
Or, unless, as was rumoured, there were treasures within...
A crowd had gathered about us, mostly diminutive males and Hobgoblins. Except for the wild girls, female Goblins seldom left the burrows. Mothers never.
A Handmaiden came forward.
“You are known to us, Child of the Ara,” she stated.
That wasn’t the formal greeting. I tried not to let surprise show.
“The other: She is not known to us.”
“She is mine,” I replied, feeling the words grate in my throat. I supposed I’d never get rid of her now. Not until I woke with her knife in my neck anyway.
The Handmaiden nodded.
“We have received your supplication. What do you desire from us?”
“I seek audience with the Mothers.”
“This is forbidden,” she said. “No Ara may lay eyes on a Mother.”
But I had, a long time ago.
“I seek it nevertheless.”
“What could the Mothers grant you?”
I grunted. “Justice, vengeance, the righting of wrongs.”
I paused. “An army, an assassin, the death of a Prince.”
A murmur ran through the crowd gathered about us. The Handmaiden stared hard.
“Remain,” she said finally, “a higher one will come.”
We waited. The sun climbed high in the sky, burning our skins. The crowd waxed and waned.
Another Handmaiden appeared. This one was tall, even for a female Goblin, who were generally taller than their males. She stood perhaps a little less than half my height. Her body was stolid and blocky, her belly was bare exposing long caesarian scars.
“I am by rite of birth, Highest of Handmaidens, servants to the Mothers. Your petition goes no further.”
“I come,” I said, “a daughter, demanding audience with the Mothers.”
“The children of Ara are denied the Mothers’ love,” the Handmaiden replied.
“It is said that the Mothers’ love encompasses all the things in the world.”
She nodded. “All things, except the children of the Ara,” she replied.
“And does the Mother love her other children?”
“The love of the Mother knows no bounds.”
“Does the Mother love her daughters, the clever girls?”
“The Mother takes joy in the clever girls.”
“And does the Mother love her Totzakl children?”
“All her children are dear to the Mothers heart...” she paused, “except for the children of Ara, who are merely pestilence upon the earth.”
I grinned, showing sharp teeth.
“Then on behalf of the Totzakl and on behalf of the clever girls, I come to speak to the Mothers.”
“They can speak for themselves.”
“They cannot,” I replied, “their voices are stilled.”
“And why are they still?”
“They have been cruelly murdered, their lives ended, their voices stilled, their flesh defiled. I come to you with the scent of their blood in my nose and their death pains in my heart. They cry out for vengeance and I bring their cries for the Mothers’ ears.”
“A child of Ara?” she asked. “Speaking for Totzaklinh and Ahnklin? Why?”
“I...” I hesitated.
“The Totzaklinh care for their own,” a bold Hobgoblin said.
“The Totzaklinh have fought,” I said, “the Brave Tohkzahli have shed their blood for vengeance, and still the dead cry out in my ears.”
“The Brave Tohkzahli are disbanded...” she said carefully, “for now.”
For now? Which meant not at all. What were the Mothers doing?
“The Brave Tohkzahli did not heed the Mothers wisdom’,” she said. “They are no more.”
“For now,” I said.
She smiled broadly and inclined her head to me.
She spoke loudly, not to me, but so all could hear. “Heed the fate of the Brave Tohkzahli, blinded to the Mothers’ wisdom they fell from the Mothers’ love. Consider their lesson before you let loveless creatures fill your ears with lies.”
I went cold.
“You know,” I said softly.
“The Mothers know all,” she smiled serenely.
“You know,” I insisted.
She shrugged.
“And Totzaklinh and Ankhlin lives, these mean nothing to the Mothers.”
“The Mother loves all her children,” she replied blandly. “But the Arukh.”
“The Mothers do nothing, while blood flows,” I accused. “As it was in the beginning, blood flows to pollute the world.”
There was a stir in the crowd.
Suddenly, I felt tired and very cold. I should have expected nothing more. The sterile goblin females that he had cut to pieces were worthless to the Mothers.
“He will come,” I said, “he will come, and he will dig the Mothers from the burrows, his hands will tear your roofs, and he will reach down and seize Mothers and babies and he will spit them on a stick.”
A hiss rippled through those gathered. What I had spoken had come very close to obscenity. The Handmaiden looked outraged, her face contorted, as if she did not know whether to vomit or scream.
“And do you know why?” I asked.
“Begone, creature of lies,” she commanded, screaming.
“Because he can,” I snarled. “Because he can, and for him, that will be reason enough.”
“The interview is ended,” she yelled back at me. “You come to us thinking you know of blood and vengeance! Your knowledge is not the hundredth part of the Mothers’! Yet you would spill blood only for the simple thoughts in your head? You would replace the Mothers’ wisdom with your base lusts?”
“Your audience is denied. Your requests are rejected. Your heart’s desire comes to nothing.”
She stood abruptly and began to walk away. A squad of Hobgoblin guards stepped in behind her to bar us from the path they called the Mothers’ Passage.
“You mock me,” I snarled at her back. “But I know this. There are lives cut short. There are children, people, your people murdered...”
She never turned.
I sat waiting. Moments drew on. The crowd grew restless around us.
“The High Maiden will not return,” a Hobgoblin warrior said, not ungently.
I felt a sense of terrible wrongness. It should not end like this. I thought I’d understood, but it didn’t make sense.
“Go away, Arukh,” the warrior said softly, almost kindly, “your kind are not wanted here.”
I sighed.
“We won’t kill you if you leave, we owe you that. But if you stay, no choice at all.”
Time to go. I climbed to my feet.
The crowd dispersed.
On the edges of the Goblin domains a little Goblin waited for us, sitting on a pole.
“Greetings great Sister,” she said. “Mothers’ love upon you. If you want it.”
I stared, not just at another atypical greeting.
A Wild Girl.
“I know you,”
I said softly.
“You had my life in your hands once,” she replied. “You let it go then. I hope your mood has not changed.”
I nodded.
“How is it that you knew where to wait for us?” I asked.
“There are Wild Girls stationed at every gate we thought likely,” she replied. “We knew you’d come. You’re not very bright, not really. But you are stubborn.”
Stranger still. Why would they have needed to do that? Why couldn’t they have just followed me?
“The Mothers have denied your petition?”
Didn’t she know? Another mystery. I knew too little of the Wild Girls, I decided.
“How is it that you know of my petition and not its answer?”
“A monster petitions Vampires and Dwarves? Goblins next? You were expected.”
“The petition is denied.”
“Aah,” she said. “We thought so.”
We?
“Foolish creature.” She asked, “you think all the Mothers have to do is wish it and the Humans will melt away?”
I blushed hotly, for I supposed that on some level, I had believed it. I had seen Mothers dead, and yet, on some level, I still believed they made and marked the world.
“The Mothers have done what they deem sufficient to protect their children, to show the Horsemen their power, they will do no more.”
They deem sufficient?
“What do the Wild Girls deem sufficient?”
She smiled apologetically.
“The disputes of Handmaidens and Wild Girls, this is not a conversation to share with obscene beasts.”
I stared, trying to fathom shapes in these murky glimpses of the Goblins’ world. I’d believed everything came back to the Mothers. But the Wild Girls seemed to be a sort of power of their own. A lesser power, but a power nevertheless. I remembered my earlier encounter with her.
“Are the Brave Tohkzahli truly disbanded?” I asked.
“So the Handmaidens have decreed.”
Handmaidens decreed? Interesting choice. I tucked it away to think about it later.
“And what do the Wild Girls decree?”
She laughed, exposing neat little goblin teeth, refusing any answer.
The Mermaid's Tale Page 33
