Neither Zeh-Ahbe’ nor Rashnir had a part to act, but as the leaders, they wanted to be there to speak with people and to introduce the actors.
Through the visit today they hoped to get acquainted with the local folk and to invite people to their first presentation. They would be ready in a couple days and would present a “two-part fantastic drama.”
As the Christians closed in on the town’s edge, Zeh-Ahbe’ sniffed the air. He kept sniffing, in his human form, as they approached. He still had heightened senses compared with any other person. Some odor on the wind gave him apprehension; it was familiar in some way to him, yet he couldn’t quite seem to place what it was.
They entered the village outskirts and passed by a variety of shops and kiosks where vendors of all sorts of products and goods peddled their wares. Different kinds of people mingled around them; most of them were easy to pigeonhole by their appearances. Farmers and businessmen dressed distinctly from each other, as did all manner of other folk.
Rashnir and the others were very friendly. They greeted people in the streets and the salesmen at their booths, inviting them all to their production. One woman stopped dead in her tracks when she looked at Rashnir. The ranger locked eyes with her and his steps faltered. Something in the shared gaze spoke to him. He felt certain that she knew who he was, but he also knew that he had never seen her before this day.
His heart sank as he thought of all the different people who might want him dead. Topping the list was the Order and their bounty hunting program.
The woman stood in guarded repose, giving little away in her appearance. Dressed as an adventurer, she wore mostly tanned leather hides and furs. Her golden hair was tied back, further exposing her tanned skin and face.
Rashnir bit his lip and knew it wasn’t drawn back for beauty’s sake, but to keep her field of vision clear. By her armaments and dress, he guessed that she was perhaps involved with a mercenary group in some way. None of his observations explained why she looked at him so intently.
He immediately felt a connection with her, maybe even a sense of desire. At the back of his thoughts rang a twinge of guilt and thoughts of Kelsa. Accompanying his memory of Kelsa surged an old temptation. Rashnir’s mind recalled Absinthium coming to him in a dream—offered him the possibility of resurrecting his lost lover.
Rashnir shook the bad thoughts from his head. He’d long ago accepted the fact that Kelsa was gone forever.
He grimaced, sure that she would approach him as they drew closer. That possibility never materialized. Suddenly, Zeh-Ahbe’ planted his feet and held his arms out, halting the group’s progression.
Following his eyes, Rashnir saw the reason for the stop. Across the market, a large beast lurked in the shadows between distant buildings. The beast looked like a transformed lycanthrope and it and Zeh-Ahbe’ shared their own, knowing gaze.
Rashnir’s blood boiled as he slowly peeled Jibbin off of his shoulders. The rest of the troupe mumbled, confused as to why they had stopped. No one else had noticed the creature, and neither had any locals in the streets, luckily.
Zeh-Ahbe’ turned to Rashnir, “Stay here with the people. I must go and speak with this one.”
Rashnir inferred what his friend had really said: this was a werewolf that Zeh-Ahbe’ knew. As he watched Zeh-Ahbe’ walk away, Rashnir glanced back at the woman in the streets. She too had noticed the monstrosity in the shadows and had taken action. She slipped behind a small crowd of people and disappeared.
Moments later Rashnir watched Zeh-Ahbe’s animated conversation with the beast. It shrunk down to his human form, thankfully, and avoided any panic. The lycans continued talking for another moment and then they both returned to the group.
“Rashnir,” said Zeh-Ahbe’, “this is Sim-khaw’, leader of tribe Zaw-nawb’. I must take him somewhere private and speak with him.”
“What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, I think so. He has been looking for me and says that it is urgent.”
Sim-khaw’ bobbed his head at Zeh-Ahbe’s statement.
“I am sorry that I cannot come with you today,” he said privately, “But there may yet be hope for Sim-khaw’. But…” he trailed off, “as impossible as it is, he insists that the kil-yaw’ needs me, needs the Say-awr, to return.”
***
Under the mountains of Arnak, tyr-aPt entertained diplomatic guests sent to his domain by the other goblin kings. The guests seemed happy to be there, which was out of the ordinary for goblins. They normally viewed all others with highly paranoid suspicion.
[I, for one, am honored to be here,] the goblin consul attempted to flatter the king. [King tlaFFr will be most appreciative of the generous gift that you send to his domain.]
The three other goblin diplomats in the chamber nodded and gave their assents, each implying the same sentiment for the kings that they each represented.
The representative of King gid-Orp piped up, [What information can you give us about this plague? Our people are dying in droves and you say that you have got it all worked out. What do you know?]
[I will share everything with you that I know, ffL’iGor,] tyr-aPt replied. [We have a good idea about the origins of this horrible disease. It appears that those locations visited by some of our veterans coming off the recent conflicts have been hit the hardest.] tyr-aPt, along with his brother, had only ascended to their positions because of their skill in telling blatant lies, and this ruse had been carefully planned.
[North of here, near Driscul, goblin kind encountered these krist-chin peoples.] The goblins bobbed their snouts and latched onto the invading cult, rather than laying blame on the dark-dwellers.
Just weeks ago, the Luciferian Order indoctrinated several goblins into its ranks. grr’Shaalg had set his plan in motion, turning these wheels long ago—before the cult had revealed itself.
The goblin leaders knew the true motivation behind the recent Luciferian actions; beh’-tsah and his puppet, Absinthium, wanted the goblins for foot soldiers. Their high rate of reproduction combined with the Luciferians’ ability to manipulate the public into ignoring their unchecked growth, would provide beh’-tsah with a massive army, or perhaps a building force.
grr’Shaalg held in his possession a chemical devised by secret apothecaries. They had, of course, been properly silenced. The catalyst ingredient, though, could only be obtained by raiding Luciferian monasteries. grr’Shaalg needed a large quantity of nawchash to manufacture a large enough dose to effectively contaminate the whole goblin population—and access was far easier when they had their own thief in the larders.
In the secret storerooms of monasteries were rows upon rows of stored nawchash, shelved in ages past for some hypothetical reason. They would normally have been secured; the valuable jars were supposed to be secret and hidden in a compound where only those who had passed various tests of loyalty could enter. Over a few days' time, grr'Shaalg's insiders replaced several vials of nawchash with identical ones that were empty but had hairline fractures at the bottom. By the time any Luciferian examined their supposedly safe inventory, all suspicion would fall on an earthquake or weak glassware. None would suspect anything more than a row of leaky vessels.
With the nawchash secured, grr’Shaalg’s henchmen poisoned goblin families to make it appear that they had all gotten infected it from the same source: a watering hole that they frequented. With the test successful and those families succumbing to the disease, they moved on to poison the major water sources of the other ten kingdoms, and laid all the blame at the feet of the “toxic krist-chins.”
Truly, the magic-based disease was a terror, even though it only affected goblins. It functioned virally and could be easily passed through fluids; it contaminated the offspring of a sow automatically. The chances of an infected male’s brood also suffering the affliction were unknown as of yet but it was assumed that they were at about fifty percent.
At first, infected goblins fell ill and
felt weak. About two days later, they began to tremble uncontrollably and seep slime out of their pores and anywhere that mucus membranes existed. After two days severe shakes, victims would develop sores and boils all over their bodies, eventually bleeding to death as their innards liquefied and their blood thinned. Those were the results from a direct contamination; the diluted form, picked up from a central water supply, was expected to have the same effect but over a slower timeframe. The poisoned goblins in those nearby kingdoms should experience the same effects over the course of a few weeks, rather than a few days. That would give selected minions enough time to unwittingly travel abroad and spread the contagion.
[Multiple theories exist. If it did not come from these krist-chins, then this infection was perhaps handed down from god himself, the mighty Lucifer, as a wake-up call to our species,] tyr-aPt layered lie upon lie. [As you all know, the first outbreak occurred in my own kingdom and we can trace its origins to certain aqueducts, we don't know exactly where the junk has spread to, for all we know, all goblin-kind could be contaminated by now. We would never know; it does not have any effect on any other creature. It only harms us goblins.
[In a way, we are all lucky that it struck us first, after all, you are all familiar to some degree with my brother, grr'Shaalg. Some of you might know that he is working closely with the magicians of the Luciferian Order and so he has special access to deeper magics and knowledge of arcane things that most do not. It was he who so quickly organized our small number of ekthroic priests to concoct an antidote capable of combating this disease. We take that as a sign that we are on the right path to finding our niche within the Order's new prophecy: a new charge brought forth by the Gathering—and one that includes the creations of Lucifer.]
Several heads nodded. They all knew rumors and had been exposed to the information spies had planted about grr’Shaalg. All goblin speech is somehow laced with at least a pinch of falsehood, and so the diplomats would guess their information was somehow tainted with a tiny mistruth. That mode of thinking would blind them to the larger actuality that his entire statement was wholly false.
In fact, grr’Shaalg used his subservient Luciferian initiates to concoct both massive quantities of antidote potion as well as the poison itself. The cure was designed in such a way that it could never fully remove the root of the problem. Any goblin imbibing the antidote would need to repeatedly take a dose every two days or the disease would flare up again, worse than before. It was the perfect plan to unify his race: grr’Shaalg infected the populace and only he had the remedy, a cure that would need re-administration every few days. The loyalty of the kingdoms would become absolute.
None of the others could have believed that their goblin brethren could latch onto genuine faith in the Order's religious tenets—at least none of the high-casted could, anyhow. But, grr’Shaalg had a plan to make that idea more believable: a plan to make even Absinthium believe goblins had unified behind the Luciferian banner. It would be a long time before that ruse could be revealed for what it was.
[I anticipate that this gift of antidote vessels be well received in your home domains, I also hope that not too many of your kinsmen and wives will succumb to the disease before they get the remedy.
[My brother is working hard and pressing many servants into the new craft of brewing it to supply enough of the solution to meet the demand and keep our brethren alive. Also, be aware that we have several good leads on the culprits to blame for this. We will need unity more than ever if it turns out that our intelligence is correct. We will have revenge, friends, and we will have it together.]
***
The group Kevin led settled down a short distance from Sprazik, in the cities commons. Their group was simply too large to utilize the local inns. The land was presumably part of the city and would not likely have an owner who would contest their presence.
As they settled down and prepared for a short visit to the community, Kevin felt a strong inner urge welling up within him. In the middle of everything, he slowly sank to his knees and began to pray for his fellow Christians, Rashnir in particular. Others around him followed suit and upheld their leader in whatever burdened had called him to prayer.
***
Absinthium needed accurate information; men had proven to be unreliable as of late. Somewhere in the lines of communication, some overzealous soldiers must have only half-heard his directives after the battle of Grinden. The Jandish soldiers merely escorted their cultist enemies to the country's boundaries and then left them to their own design and patrolled the border to prevent re-entry, though the Luciferian had desired their containment.
That mishap was all in the past—now, he needed surveillance if he hoped to still stem their migratory tide. Without a competent commander to direct and manipulate events in his absence, Absinthium was at the disadvantage of local forces.
He muttered a curse and his black heart seethed hatred for the supernatural force behind the krist-chins’ power. He had to know more. Rocked back on his knees, Absinthium entered a trance and his eyes rolled back in his head. Smoke from a smoldering bowl of incense curled up and wreathed his head. In a deep bass tone, he chanted a short mantra.
As the moment of dawning seemed to come upon him, he opened his eyes and scried the smoke. Continuing to chant in a barely audible voice, every wisp of smoke and every nuance of its ebb and flow formed a picture within the archmage's mind.
Interjecting his own evil desires through the mental tapestry, Absinthium navigated the stream and flow of time. Events and occurrences interlinked, burgeoning within his brain as he sorted through the divination: things that were and are, events that could be, and occurrences that might never happen. All cluttered up his psyche. He plunged through the vision, pressing on towards the specific knowledge that he sought.
Like spotting the flickering of fireflies on a starless evening, the mage began to map out the locations of his enemies. In particular, he probed deeper, searching for Rashnir. His pride demanded that he destroy or subjugate his enemy… the latter being his preference.
As he flexed his psychic abilities through the veil of smoke, he validated what information he hoped had been correct. The numbers of the krist-chins were slightly smaller than expected, and they’d dispersed close to the Gleend and Lol borders, just as his intelligence suggested. Surprisingly, Rashnir was nowhere to be found. Something obfuscated parts of his eldritch sight.
Irked, Absinthium permeated the vision with his astral probe and pushed his considerable abilities further than he had in a long while. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his muscles tensed. He stretched beyond the limits of even a thirty-third degree Luciferian, but to no avail.
Absinthium sighed and abruptly shrank back, slumping as if he had been relieved of a heavy load. If his probes did not reveal the warrior’s location, then he must be dead.
A grin crept across his face and then fell. His hopes of Rashnir's death were not logical. His death should have been revealed in the divination. Worry creased the mage's brow; there were few with the power to shield their entire presence from the psychic plane without disrupting it dramatically. Foremost among them was the ever-present danger to his master's power: the children of the mountain.
Absinthium discarded the notion; Rashnir would never cast his lot in with Lilth and her vampires. While he had no doubt that her brood would love to harness the powers that these krist-chins demonstrated, their foreign doctrines would likely prohibit any kind of union. His master already had plans for keeping his immortal enemies at bay—and they had worked for centuries thus far.
He tapped his finger. It was odd, though, that his enemy was perfectly concealed from him. The more he stewed in the thought, the more it disturbed him.
Still, divination was never a perfect reference. In fact, under no circumstance did it ever reveal the total and complete truth. But, using knowledge and clever reasoning, a wise mage could usually discern what information he desired to know from
the ether.
Absinthium took a deep draught of water to sustain his body. He pulled a thin shoot of herbal stimulant out of a nearby jar and crushed it between his molars. It was similar in many ways to a simple green plant stem, but when crushed, an invigorating and slightly intoxicating chemical seeped out.
The arch-mage blew firmly over the incense bowl and enlivened the smoldering mass. He reclined again into his position and set his mind into the proper state. He would try again to locate his nemesis; perhaps something new would reveal itself in time.
Chapter Three
Kevin relaxed. The overwhelming burden he felt to pray seemed to lift as the evening began. Those who had joined him felt a similar wave of release wash over them.
The camp resumed their preparations and retreated to their personal tents. Kevin and his chosen accomplices would join him on the journey into Sprazik.
His friends gathered together and waited for Kevin. Rondhale, Dri'Bu, Jorge, Minstra, and a few others that had been chosen from the group waited patiently. They seemed an unlikely crew in any other circumstance, especially with Dri'Bu and Minstra's inclusion. The elf had proved himself as a great resource. He was technically not a Christian because he was not created with a soul—similar in some ways to the angels. Minstra, however, was a man of indecision, and a confused former Luciferian monk. Kevin hoped that if Minstra accompanied him and saw the power of God in action, he would eventually be moved to accept the truth for what it really was. Regardless, he was more than a charity case with nowhere else to go; he had cast his lot with the Christians and felt they owed it to Shinna, the old woman, to continue pouring into the reluctant monk who hesitated over points of dogma.
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 62
