The reign of Istar t2-1

by Margaret Weis

  "My mamma and daddy told me magic was beautiful," the kender sobbed. "They said they had never seen it before, but they knew it was good. They wanted to see it so badly but no one would show them. They told me that humans weren't all bad, and maybe someday a human or an elf would show us some magic if we were patient with them. They didn't think humans would hurt them, but the humans did. The humans hurt them, they hurt my mamma and daddy a lot and I couldn't help them because I was too scared and I hid, and when the humans were gone, I had to bury them and say the goodbye prayers like they taught me. I was too scared to help them, even when they were really hurt bad. I wish I had magic then so I could have helped them. They wanted to see magic so bad." He shook as he wept, his face hidden in the elf's clothes.

  The goblin realized that his hands were clenched into cold, trembling fists. Something burned in his eyes; it was hard to see. Slowly, the goblin unclenched his hands and covered his hot face with them. He hated weakness, he had hated it all his life, and now he was filled with it. He hated himself for it, and it was all the kender's fault — the damned, weak, stupid, wretched kender. Wet streams flowed down the goblin's cheeks, and he bit his lower lip until he tasted blood.

  Tomorrow, he thought. Let tomorrow come fast.

  No stars were out. A tall fire burned just up the slope of the hill, visible through the thick trees and under-brush. The crickets called from all around.

  "So you think you know how to handle that elf girl?" the grinning guard said. "You think she's not too much of a match for you?"

  The smiling guard had turned to face his companion, who was bending over to pick up firewood. The goblin drove his knife into the grinning man's lower back, straight through his leather armor. The guard knew instinctively he was going to die, the pain was so great. He was terrified and tried to scream, but the scream wouldn't come out through the goblin's calloused hand that was clamped over his mouth and face, twisting his head back with incredible force. The man reached back to grab his attacker, but agony filled his head and made him forget everything. The goblin let the body sag to the ground.

  "You bet I can handle her," said the guard picking up the firewood. He crouched down to adjust the load in his arms, reaching for a few more pieces. "Good redeems its own, they say, and I'm gonna redeem that elf girl before she gets to Istar. She's gonna know the ways of man, and I'm gonna be the head priest. They can have the other slaves. I've waited too long to pass this one up."

  He picked up the last piece of wood, and the goblin slapped his hand tightly over the man's mouth and pulled him into his hard chest. The razor-sharp blade sliced swiftly through his throat. The man knew what was happening, but could do nothing to stop it, and trying to scream did nothing useful at all.

  Then it was quiet again in the night woods, and soon the crickets began to chirp. Everything smelled of blood.

  The goblin grinned, wiped off his blade, and moved on through the wood. He felt no weakness at all now, not with the spell of magical strength the elf had cast upon him. He thought he could lift a horse now if he wanted to, maybe ten horses. And he wore a ring that altered the sounds around him, so a man would think he had heard an owl hoot if the goblin spoke, or heard the wind blow if he walked up. It was too good to be true. In his excitement, he barely noticed the cold.

  The main encampment of Istarians was on the hilltop, packed tightly around the bonfire in the chill air. Down the slope, in a clearing, half hidden from the hilltop by trees, was a cluster of several wagons and all the Istarians' horses. The elf had scouted ahead with his spells and reported finding slaves in one wagon: an elven woman, an old dwarf, and three children — human or elven, he couldn't tell. The other three wagons were empty. The kender's estimate of twenty men was close; the goblin guessed twenty-four — twenty-one now that he had killed three men in the last few minutes of circling the camp.

  The elf and minotaur were down by the wagons, attacking the guards there. The elf cast a spell that silenced the minotaur's rattling chains. The goblin crouched down, pulled a thin, ceramic flask from a leather pouch on his rope belt. It was time. Uncorking the lid, he drank the contents, screwing up his face at the bitter taste. Wiping his mouth, he stood up, tossed the flask aside, and moved toward the firelight in a crouch. He had to reach the top of the hill before the kender arrived with the fireball.

  Every step of the way, the goblin pictured the sword. He saw himself holding it instead of his machete, and saw himself after he made his wish, the one wish, the only wish. The thought almost made him hurry too fast and give himself away to the humans, who were directly ahead of him. He dropped down behind a tree and faded into the darkness. He was only two hundred feet from the fire on top of the hill.

  "It's not like we're killing real people, you know." The human who spoke kept his voice low, but his tone was sure and knowing. He shifted his stance, and his armor clinked. Chain mail, maybe with plate. "You and I, we're real people. We know the difference between right and wrong. The great gods blessed us with vision that no other race has. That's the vision to see our destiny. We're not like the mongrel races who see only to the next day's meal. They don't deserve to breathe our air. By the blessed gods, do you want to live in a city with goblins?"

  There were two men ahead of the goblin, thirty feet away, near a pile of brush and branches from a fallen tree. He could see them well in the firelight. One wore metal mail, the other riveted leather. The goblin guessed that the one in mail was a leader, maybe a knight. The man would be hard to kill if this wasn't done right. The goblin wondered if he should just go around them, but he hated leaving anyone alive behind him, especially people who didn't want to live with goblins or breathe their air.

  The man in the riveted leather looked away from his companion, his grip loosening on his spear. "No, Your Reverence," he mumbled.

  The goblin froze. Gods of Istar, he thought, a priest. Perhaps a priest that could tell what you were thinking!

  "Well, neither do I," said the mail-armored man, looking at the other with a half-grin. "No one does. You know what kinds of evil things goblins do, don't you? Well, certainly. We have to destroy them, and you know that's right. And kender. Forgive my asking, but would one of the gods of good ever have created a kender?"

  "They — " The other man stopped, obviously trying to think this out carefully. "They aren't… I mean… kender, they cause trouble, I know, but — "

  The mail-armored man snorted good-naturedly. He looked away at the distant bonfire in the center of the camp, surrounded by the secure clutter of bedrolls. The dim firelight was reflected in his polished steel breastplate. "You're trying to tell me that kender aren't as bad as goblins, right?"

  The leather-armored man took a breath, thought better of his answer, and said nothing.

  "So you DO think kender aren't as bad as goblins." The mail-armored man sighed. "You think we're doing wrong, is that it? We're doing the will of the gods of good and the Kingpriest of Istar, and it's wrong?"

  "No." The man seemed badly frightened. The goblin could barely hear the answer. "No, that's not it, Your Reverence."

  "Ah," the cleric said, the misunderstanding apparently cleared up. "The captain said this was your first campaign. I know it's hard, and everything seems confusing at times. Maybe all the time, right?"

  The other man looked at the ground and seemed to nod in the affirmative, unwilling to speak.

  The goblin's worst fear was eased. If the priest could read minds, he wasn't doing it now. The goblin studied the ground ahead of him, then reached into a side pocket and pulled something out. He couldn't count on a clean kill through mail armor, so he'd have to use the potion's powers and work around it. He slowly crept out from the tree's shadow.

  "It was confusing for me, too, when I started." The cleric suddenly sounded strangely vulnerable. "It was terrible for me at first. I wasn't worried about fighting goblins, but other things threw me. We had to fight dwarves once. They put the fear of evil into me, with their shifty little eyes
and ratty beards and stumpy bodies. They fought like" — the cleric dropped his voice and turned his dark eyes on the recruit — "like the Seven Evil Ones were in them."

  There was only silence after his words, except for the distant crackling of the fire. The wind seemed to be picking up around them.

  "It was a terrible war in the mountains," said the cleric in a low voice. "I saw my friends crushed by avalanches, shot by bolts and arrows. They lay in my arms with their limbs hacked away, begging me to heal them. The dwarves did this to us in the mountains. They didn't fight like humans. They weren't human. They were evil reborn. I saw it all then, and I came to believe at last in their evil. I wish to the gods even now that there had been a better way for me to learn than to have gone through that. I'll not see my friends die in my arms for that again, bleeding away and me not able to stop it because all my spells were gone to others wounded earlier." The cleric's eyes were like dancing black flames.

  The cleric reached up, patted the other man on the back. "I like you, boy. You remind me of the way I was, before the war in the mountains. I wish you could always be like that. I really do. You're a lot happier for it."

  The leather-armored man coughed and dared a weak smile. The cleric smiled back at him. The leather-armored man reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

  Something moved across his feet and crawled up his legs.

  The man jumped when he felt it. Something had him by the feet, and he lost his balance and fell over, dropping his spear. The cleric began struggling and slapping madly at his thighs. He was seeing tall grass and vines and roots and briars and saplings knot themselves around his calves like iron chains. The two men opened their mouths to shout or scream. No cries sounded. Instead, the crickets chirped more loudly, the wind blew harder, night birds called. The men on the hill by the fire went on about their business.

  The goblin came swiftly out of the darkness. He whipped a flexible wire over the cleric's head, twisted the wire around his neck, and pulled it tight in less than a second, snapping the cleric's head back with great force. The cleric's eyes bugged out; he fought to get his fingers under the wire but found no space. His tongue came out between his teeth, and his eyes stared, white, at the stars. The man on the ground struggled to get free of the vines and grass that tightened over his legs and chest and arms and reached up for his face, and he screamed and screamed and heard only the crickets and the night birds and the wind in the trees above.

  Then the cleric collapsed, falling backward into the grasping grasses and vines, and the dark shape released the garrote and looked at the fallen man with cold eyes. The leather-armored man saw it and believed the cleric about the evil then, he believed it all, and he screamed like a madman right up to the end. And no one heard him.

  It's all too good to be true, thought the goblin.

  "Where in the Abyss are they?" muttered the captain, heedless of the sleeping men around him. He had to be the captain, the goblin decided, though the man wore no armor. His bearing and movements marked him at once as a man who was in charge. "Hey, you!" he shouted to the sentry standing across the camp. "Get out there and tell those two dung-eaters that the fire's dying, and they're to get their fat asses back up here with the wood right now. And tell them I want to see them afterward, too. If they've got time to hunt squirrels, they've got time for a few other things I've got in mind for them. Go!"

  The sleeping men slept on. The chosen soldier saluted with a grin and took off into the woods, passing the unseen goblin and leaving the bearded captain to slap at mosquitoes and gnats. "I hate being out here," the captain muttered. "I hate all of the camping out crap, with little things that bite and sting. The wilderness doesn't give a damn about me or my rank or anything. I can't fight back."

  The goblin looked at the soldier heading into the woods. The man wasn't likely to find the last two bodies, covered up as they were, but if he kept going he'd soon find the first three. Time was running out. Hidden behind a cluster of saplings, the goblin rubbed his arm muscles and looked back at the camp. He counted twelve sleeping rolls around the clearing; the captain was standing guard now by himself. The other men must be down the slope with the horses and wagons, if they were still alive — which the goblin doubted very much.

  The kender was due. The goblin had to get there first, to look for the sword. He took the time to squint against the firelight and search the clearing for any sign of a box or crate that might contain a sword. There was only one pile of belongings and supplies, and that was on the edge of the clearing, about two-thirds of the way around to the left. He couldn't make out what was in the pile very well; the fire interfered with his night vision. His only hope was that the captain had thought the sword valuable enough to bring it into the camp to prevent its being stolen.

  The goblin carefully moved back from the light and began making his way around the camp's edge toward the left side. He tried not to think of the possibility that the elf, the minotaur, or even the kender would find the Sword of Change first. He had dreamed about the sword so much in the last two days that he couldn't imagine not having it. There was so much to gain, and he deserved it so badly. The wish would pay for a lifetime of loneliness, deprivation, and brutality. It would set him above all worries ever again.

  He still felt as if the strength spell was working. He didn't know if the plant-control potion was active or not, but he didn't care. If he could get close enough to the supplies and find that sword, he wouldn't need to entangle the soldiers with plants again; he could just take off and run with his prize. No. He changed his mind. He would use the potion's effects if it still worked. Better to snag everyone with weeds until he had time for his wish. Then it wouldn't matter anymore.

  The slope in the woods behind the supplies fell off steeply, dropping at least twenty feet straight down through the tree limbs. The goblin kept as low to the ground as he could while he moved, taking his time. Any minute now, the guard in the woods would find someone's body and set up an alarm. But the goblin couldn't afford haste. He reached the edge of the grassy cliff. It was bathed in shadows cast by the supply crates and chests, blocking the fire's light. The goblin decided to risk standing up in a crouch, and he took a much better look around the camp.

  Right then, the kender flew down out of the sky and landed in the middle of the camp, not a pike's length away from both the captain and the goblin himself.

  It happened so fast that the goblin froze in the act of taking a step, and the captain didn't even shout to wake everyone up. The kender merely landed and looked around, then waved a hand at the captain and gave him a devilish grin. The kender, his dark hair full of tangles and his scarred face smudged with dirt, came up to the captain's breastbone. The kender wore his usual filthy mix of torn clothes and animal hides, and he held a huge bag cradled in his arms: the fireball.

  "What in the Abyss!" whispered the captain. His right hand slowly edged up his back toward a dagger sheath. Keeping his face blank, he waved at the kender.

  The kender hopped into the air, did a smooth back flip, and landed on his feet again, his face alive with excitement. He nodded at the captain and made a motion of looking briefly toward the sky, as if urging the captain to try it, too.

  The captain licked his lips. His fingers were working on untying the dagger straps. "I'm… I'm afraid I can't fly like that," he said, forcing a smile. "But that was real good."

  Out of the comer of his eye, the goblin noticed an arm snake quietly out of a bedroll about ten feet behind the kender, reaching for a sword on the ground. The captain seemed to see it, too, but he kept from looking in that direction after the first glance.

  "Do you know any other tricks?" the captain asked, almost conversationally.

  "Sure!" said the kender, then looked instantly contrite. "Not supposed to talk," he mumbled apologetically. "My mistake. But here's my last trick anyway."

  The soldier in the bedroll behind the kender lifted the sword, then slowly rolled forward to get within striking d
istance. The goblin tensed. He hadn't the faintest idea what to do next.

  The kender crouched and leaped into the air. Still carrying the bag, he flew straight up into the darkness. The soldier in the bedroll flung himself forward. His sword whipped down, missing the kender completely.

  "Camp awake!" roared the captain, forgetting the dagger and pulling his long sword free instead. "To arms! Get the rocks out of your asses and get up! To arms, the gods damn you!"

  The kender was gone now, lost against the starless black of the night sky. The goblin backed farther into the undergrowth until he was on the edge of the cliff. There was nowhere to go. He kept the bulk of a tree between him and the awakening camp, and silently cursed the kender for nearly getting himself killed.

  Sleepy, frightened men tore at their bedrolls, flailed about for weapons and armor and helmets and shields. The captain, swearing at all the gods, stared up into the sky for the flying kender.

  "Sorry I missed 'im, Cap'n," said the warrior. "I had 'im right there before he took off. Was he a wizard?"

  "Had to be," said the captain tightly, still looking upward. "He flew."

  "What's going on, Captain?" one of the men shouted, his armor half-on, an axe in his hand.

  The bearded captain looked down. All his men were up now, crowding around. "You," said the captain, pointing to a red-haired man. "Get down the hill and get the priest up here; we could be having some trouble. Tell him there's a wizard loose. Take three men with you. Don't — ow, damn it!" The captain clapped his hand over his eyes, rubbed them vigorously with his fingers, and other men around the camp nearest the fire did the same. Sparks flew up from the bonfire's flames as a black, powdery rain began.

  It was the start of the fireball.

  The goblin realized his danger when the black dust came down and the men in the camp swore. He knew he should get away, but he hesitated just a moment before escaping, because he couldn't figure out where to go without being seen. That was all the time he had and it was gone.