by Jean Rabe
The traitor Grallik N’sera was to blame for the demise of Bera and the rest of the knights, Isaam would report. Grallik’s specialty was fire magic; it was well documented in his records. Grallik had brought down a column of flame in a part of the woods that was especially dry. Yes, Grallik started the firestorm and perished in it, causing the deaths of Bera and the rest of her knights. That was what Isaam would tell the council.
Only he had been able to escape, he would tell them, and only because he had a spell that allowed him to float above the earth. The spell did not allow him to carry the weight of another.
Bera would receive posthumous honors.
Isaam would miss her more than a little; he had served with her a long while. She was a brave commander, though doomed.
Isaam floated east, flying higher to avoid the flames and the smoke that continued to shoot toward the cloudless sky.
MUDWORT’S REFUSAL
Mudwort heard Graytoes’s call, amazed that the yellow-skinned goblin could accomplish such stone-telling on her own. Perhaps she’d underestimated Graytoes. Or perhaps Graytoes had found a great well of magic inside in a moment of desperation.
Mudwort was well aware that a portion of the great Qualinesti Forest was burning but not all of the forest. The red-skinned goblin had ranged far to the north and was off by the coast. She was safe from the flames and the smoke. She couldn’t see or smell them, and she was glad she couldn’t.
She knew the forest burned only because when she touched the end of the spear to the earth, she could peer through the ground effortlessly. It no longer required a spell. Her magic was growing. She’d chanced to look in on Direfang moments past. Her vision of their first meeting in the Dark Knight mines had made her curious about his well-being.
That’s when she’d noticed the flames and taken in the scope of the firestorm. Doom was enveloping the goblins and their hobgoblin leader.
Mudwort would miss Direfang above all the others she’d left behind, and perhaps she would miss Graytoes too. But she was too far away to save them, and it was none of her business anymore.
She hoped they died quickly and without much pain and that the winds scattered their ashes and bones so nothing touched. She did not want their spirits returning to be trapped forever.
“Direfang is remembered,” Mudwort mused. “Direfang was a good, good friend.”
Within minutes she felt sand beneath her feet. She’d reached the beach. She liked the feel of it and let her toes sink in. Every sensation felt more intense to her. Mudwort knew it was because of the magical spear; it had heightened everything-her ability to stonetell, her spells, her hearing and sight and all her senses. It would take quite some time to discover all the magic inside of the god-tossed-away weapon.
Mudwort heard voices again, the rustling leaves to the east talking to her, crying out to her. “The forest aches,” they said. “The forest bleeds and dies. The forest hurts.”
“Only a part of the forest,” Mudwort returned contemptuously. “And only for a while.” She remembered looking at the young pines on the opposite side of the old, muddy river. “The forest will be born again. Maybe better. The forest will not be dead for long.”
The leaves persisted, as did another voice.
“Saarh,” she murmured, recognizing the voice finally.
“Yes. Mudwort, do something.”
Mudwort shook her head so hard, her necklaces became tangled. She wore all she had, even the pretty one with all the sapphire stones she’d feared another goblin would take from her. She didn’t fear anything or anyone anymore.
“Mudwort, do something,” the voice repeated.
“Do nothing, Saarh. Shut up, Saarh.” Mudwort discovered shortly after leaving the clearing that Saarh, or the spirit of Saarh, was lodged inside the spear. That was why Mudwort hadn’t been able to see Saarh when she’d peered into the future; she saw only the spear. And that was because Saarh was inside the spear. There were other spirits in there, too, older ones, but none of them as interesting as Saarh. Mudwort didn’t listen to any of the others. She’d already explained to Saarh that there was nothing wrong in abandoning Direfang and his following. “Direfang will be born again, like the forest will be born again.”
Mudwort continued north, walking closer to the water so the voices of the leaves would be harder to hear, the surf drowning them out.
“Can’t do anything anyway,” Mudwort said after several more minutes had passed and Saarh had lapsed into brief silence. “Too far away. Too tired. Not enough magic inside. Too, too far away.”
“There is enough magic in the spear,” Saarh argued.
Mudwort wondered how and why Saarh had put herself inside the weapon-perhaps her means of achieving immortality. Mudwort also planned to live forever but not inside the spear.
“Mudwort’s treasure, this spear.” She liked the sound of that phrase. “Mudwort’s spear.”
“Chislev’s spear,” Saarh corrected.
Mudwort shook her head again, all the necklaces rattling.
“Chislev didn’t want it. Chislev forgot it. Chislev left it behind in the forest, and Saarh found it. Saarh-”
“-left it for Mudwort to find,” the old shaman returned.
“Chislev left it for Mudwort to find.”
“Chislev threw it away.”
“Chislev hid it,” Saarh corrected again. “Chislev brought Mudwort here to find it.”
“No.”
“And to use it to save the forest.”
“No.”
“And all the creatures in it.”
“Shut up, Saarh!” Mudwort slammed the end of the spear into the sand, but her mind instantly was flooded with images of burning trees and smoldering corpses of goblins and deer.
“Too far away, Saarh. Too far away to help. Mudwort refuses. Happy here.” Mudwort slammed the spear harder into the sand, thinking that might rattle Saarh and make her be quiet.
Mudwort was instantly surrounded by flames. “Mudwort refuses-”
“-to let the forest die,” Saarh finished.
Mudwort didn’t know if the spear had brought her into the heart of the burning woods or if she had done it of her own accord. Suddenly smoke crawled into her lungs and her feet blistered from the flames. She didn’t spy any living goblins, but there were husks here and there that once might have been goblins or men, blackened, curled things that smoldered and smoked and added to the unbearable, hot stench of the place.
She coughed and waved her free hand in front of her face.
“Mudwort refuses to let the forest die. Saarh knows Mudwort’s heart. Mudwort will not let Direfang die. Mudwort will not let-”
“Shut up, Saarh! Shut up! Shut! Up!”
Then Mudwort saw the fire as though she were a bird flying overhead. It was a massive blaze, all orange and red and gold with roiling clouds of black puffing away like the earth was a great furnace being stoked explosively. The image reminded her of the ore being smelted in Steel Town. “Hell Town,” the knights used to call it. The forest was worse: “Hell Forest.”
The fire was worse than the earthquakes and volcanoes, and though she wanted to ignore it or deny it, Mudwort knew that it was within her power-the spear’s power-to do something about it.
All chance, it was, she thought, that she would stumble across the spear in one of her earth visions and decide to pursue it. Chislev had nothing to do with it. Saarh played no part. It was all chance and Mudwort’s curiosity. There was no destiny or god involved. Her damnable curiosity.
But she was flying over the heart of the forest fire, so she might as well use the spear’s power and do something.
Mudwort imagined that the sky high above the forest was filled with rain clouds. There was nature magic in the spear and in her, and she could use both to get rid of the smoke and fire. She was choking on the smoke. She’d save herself, she thought.
“Just to save Mudwort.”
She felt instantly weak, as if she’d been punched in the
stomach by a Dark Knight. She heard the fire roar all around her, and she heard rumbles and blasts of thunder. She felt the ground tremble and knew that it came from a bolt of lightning that had shot down from the clouds she had summoned.
“Save Mudwort.” She invested more energy into the storm she was creating and was rewarded when a raindrop struck her upturned face. “More,” she coaxed. “More and more.”
The sky opened up, and Mudwort felt as if she’d been punched again and again. The magic she used was that strong, draining.
“More.”
Direfang could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with smoke. His feet burned from a fire that had worked its way through the ground. It was difficult to make out the goblins still alive and fighting around him, much less those crumpled on the ground. Nkunda had fallen a few moments earlier, and Sallor had too. He’d not heard any recent whooshes from Grallik’s spells, so the wizard might be dead too. He could barely see the knights ahead of him.
Some of the knights had fallen from inhaling the smoke, some to goblins still fighting through the hellish firestorm, some to Grallik’s spells. The hobgoblin lumbered forward, tripping over a body and rising back up without registering whether it was a knight or one of his kinsmen he’d stumbled over.
“That one is mine!” Bera had spotted Direfang through the haze and charged toward him. “He killed Zocci. He is mine to kill!”
Direfang crouched to meet her. His knees nearly buckled when he took a deep breath and inhaled embers. He wanted to scream at her, but he’d lost his voice. He wanted to shout at her to leave the goblins alone, to let them have their freedom.
Instead he swung the axe with his fading strength. It still had its magic power. It sliced through her sword and continued on its deadly path, cleaving into her breastplate and dropping her. Her eyes froze as she reeled backward, amazed to have been bested by a stinking hobgoblin, amazed to be dying.
He tried to pull the axe free, but it was lodged too firmly and he was too weak. He fell next to her corpse and closed his eyes.
A moment later the incredible deluge began. Rain began to pummel the ground and drench the living and dead. Steam spiraled up from the earth, and Direfang opened his mouth and drank deeply.
“Should have left Umay in that village with those dwarves.” Graytoes’ face was streaked with tears. She sobbed and rocked back and forth, thinking about Moon-eye and Mudwort, Direfang and everyone who had been important in her short life. She refused to think about the hated Dark Knights, as she wanted her last thoughts to be only about the good things she had experienced-especially Umay. “Beautiful, beautiful Umay.”
She lifted the baby higher and kissed her forehead. She thought she saw Umay smile, but it might have been her mind going sour. The haze was too thick to properly see anything.
She held the baby close in one arm and stretched her free hand to the ground. It was so hot, she burned her fingers thrusting them into the earth. Graytoes thought she might brush Mudwort’s mind again, maybe tell her old friend good-bye.
She rocked the baby as she feebly sent her senses off toward Mudwort then crouched over Umay as the storm struck, the rain coming so hard at first that it was hurtful. Graytoes had never been in such a monstrous, horrible, wonderfully welcome storm. Surely there had never been such a powerful, violent, magnificent storm of life-saving rain!
For a moment Graytoes thought she’d found Mudwort, an image of the red-skinned goblin coming clearly in her mind and, strangely, not far away. But then the vision vanished, replaced with something that tugged at her curiosity, something magical and marvelous, something resting lightly on the earth, close.
Come find me, she thought the marvelous something said.
Through the hammering rain, Chislev’s spear called to her.
DIREFANG’S CITY
More than a thousand goblins, and all the Dark Knights, perished in the fire from what Direfang could tell. Grallik had survived, though barely. He was being treated by Horace on the bluff where the stone spire once stood. The wizard was scarred all over from fire, all of his skin looking wet with blisters, no doubt appearing hideous as far as men and elves were concerned. Because of that alone, Direfang knew the wizard would forever stay with the emerging goblin nation.
Maybe that was good, Direfang thought. The wizard had given so much of himself.
The hobgoblin had not been able to find Mudwort or Thya, the greatest of his band’s stonetellers. But Draath had survived, and the Skinweaver had vowed to teach promising younglings the art of working magic through the earth. Graytoes said she would help too. Jando-Jando stood behind her.
Direfang silently regarded the yellow-skinned goblin. Umay was tucked in a pack on her back, wrapped in a faded cloth with metallic threads in it. Graytoes leaned on a spear she said she’d found in the forest the night of the fire. It was a crooked wooden thing that was charred in places and from which dangled a couple of yellow and green feathers that appeared as if they’d just been plucked from a bird. When the light hit the spear just right-or when Direfang looked at it from an odd angle-the spear looked different, singular, dotted with gems and seeming to be straight and perfect and smooth. But that might be his mind teasing him, so he dismissed it from his thoughts. He had more important things to worry about than Graytoes’s spear.
The surviving goblin horde had decided to follow the river east, to where the forest met the base of the dwarf mountains.
They would build their new goblin city there, fashioning earth bowls like Mudwort had taught them and cutting down trees that Orvago would mark as best for building. Some would make their homes in nearby caves-those goblins who preferred the earth all around them. And if no caves could be found, Draath and the other stonetellers would fashion some. He hoped the dwarves would not take exception to the goblins’ presence.
More goblins would come, called through the earth. Graytoes said she intended to continue the calling. She also claimed that she would teach Umay how to stonetell, and that one day she would pass the old, crooked spear along to her dwarf daughter.
It would take a very long time, Direfang knew, to establish a firm foundation for the goblin nation. He would grow old and die before it was strong and a force to be feared and respected.
But it would happen; he was never sure before, but he knew in his heart that the goblin nation would be forged. “Finally free,” he said.
AFTERWORD
DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT
Goblin Rituals Regarding the Hereafter
They burn their dead fellows, the goblins and hobgoblins of Neraka and the ogre mountains.
Burn them until the air is filled with a thick, hot stench that settles firmly in your mouth and permeates every thread of your body.
Burn them until nothing is left of the corpses but bits of bones, and those they scatter so nothing touches. The ashes are left to the wind.
I am Horace, a loyal priest of Zeboim, the Sea Mother, who joined a band of escaped goblin and hobgoblin slaves fleeing from the Dark Knight mining camp called Steel Town. A human, the goblins were loathe to accept me, and I did not mind that they kept their distance. I needed only their safety in numbers while we passed through the mountains and to better land. In exchange, I offered my healing skills.
I found the goblins’ funerary practices odd, so I studied them to discover what was behind the bizarre rituals. I am ever curious, and at the time, there was little other than goblins and their handling of the dead to occupy my attention. As their pyres burned, turning to ashes the corpses of those goblins and hobgoblins who died to old age, disease, and grievous injury from beasts they’d fought, I’d listen to the survivors elaborate on the dead.
“Lurker is remembered,” I recall a burly hobgoblin saying. “Lurker was kind, eating only roots and berries and not eating the meat of beasts. Lurker loved to watch the rabbits and ground squirrels, and wanted to save them rather than kill them. Lurker is remembered.”
“Calor is remembered,” another said
. “Calor liked the darkness best. Calor thought the light showed too many ugly things. Calor slept when the sun was high so the ugliness was hidden. Calor is remembered.”
“Ren is remembered. Ren pulled the wings from butterflies and ate the tiny legs. Ren worked hard in the mines. Ren is remembered.”
“Stump-Arm is remembered. Stump-Arm was the strongest of the Marsh clan, able to drag two sacks of ore in one hand. Stump-Arm once wrestled a pig, but that was in the Before Time, when Stump-Arm was free. Stump-Arm will return to a good body now, one with two hands, and one that will grow to be even stronger. Stump-Arm is remembered.”
The goblins conduct the “memory” ceremony to let the spirits of the dead know they are revered and missed and that they are welcome to return to the earth. As long as someone is “remembered,” they are tied to their kin, one goblin explained. Those who are forgotten are more likely to drift.
My people bury their dead, under the earth or more often at sea so Zeboim can better embrace them. The Dark Knights in the mining camp put our brothers in polished armor and placed their swords atop their chests, fingers folded across the pommels. The dead are then ready to properly enter the world beyond.
My people believe there is a place where spirits dwell beyond this harsh, blood-soaked land, a place where they may meet the gods. But I discovered the goblins and hobgoblins of Neraka share no such belief. They claim to revere no gods, saying that Chislev and Zeboim and Reorx and the others did nothing to help the goblins and instead turned blind eyes to the injuries the goblins suffered in slavery.
They claim to need no higher beings. And they say they have no desire to mingle with them after death.
“The gods ignored goblins; let goblins ignore the gods,” the saying goes.
And yet they believe that their spirits persist when their bodies die. They believe their spirits return to the earth.
