by Shona Husk
“How long?” She gazed up at him. The gold in her eyes shimmered.
“Not long.” The darkness was breathing down the back of his neck, so close he could feel the tips of its jagged teeth. So he looked forward, only to be blinded by the bright star that now blotted his familiar darkness. If he reached for the star, he would burn or fall. “I can’t take you with me to the Shadowlands. It’s too risky.”
His home was besieged. His universe was imploding and all he could do was watch the shock waves spread, hurting everyone they touched. Chaos everywhere he looked.
She pressed her lips together. If he were a man, she wouldn’t have hesitated to place her mouth to his. If he were a man, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her on the bed.
“Eliza…” Roan leaned in. His lips touched her hair, not her skin, not like this. Not in this gray, ugly body. He inhaled her scent. Fresh, female, flowers. All things he missed in the Shadowlands. Would they haunt him in death?
“I will go back to sleep. We can be together.” She fisted both her hands around his.
Her grip crushed his swollen knuckles. He knew what she was asking. He should refuse to meet her in the Summerland, but he couldn’t. He wanted to spend every last second he could eke out of his soul with her as a man, not a goblin.
“You have a life.” One he couldn’t be part of. “You cannot live in a dream, waiting for me.”
She spoke in a whisper, begging him to stay. “Please. Don’t leave, yet. I know…I understand what you have to do. I just…I’m not ready to say good-bye.”
Roan wrapped his arm around her. The cold of his metal heart spread, taking over all space in his chest. “Neither am I.” The truth didn’t set him free. It caught in his throat like a burr. “I will come tonight.”
To keep his promise, there would be no more use of magic for anything other than moving between realms. An instinct he would have to fight or wear the black diamond ring that weighed down his pocket waiting to be used.
He kissed the top of her head and let the shadows swallow him. Cutting out his heart would have been less painful. It didn’t beat. It served no purpose except to remind him of what he wasn’t, and what he would never be again.
A man.
Roan’s sigh filled the glittering cavern. He felt every one of his one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one years as he sat on an iron-bound chest filled with Spanish gold. He had thought he’d get one more birthday, but now he wouldn’t even be able to last the couple of weeks to Dai’s. Around him the rock rumbled as it gave into the greedy hands of the attacking Hoard. They would break in and steal his gold. And he should give a damn, yet all he could think about was the queen he’d left in the Fixed Realm.
In his fingers he worked a dread, rolling the clump of hair. He’d spent many hours creating and then maintaining the headful of bead-dressed snakes. He’d always had time to waste. His fingers smoothed over a bead. Gold. The geometric pattern carved into its surface once had offered comfort. A reminder of the hard won control. A reward for disobedience. A show of wealth.
Worthless.
His life amounted to a pile of gold that no one would ever see. Gold was nothing but a shiny yellow metal. Too soft to be a weapon. Too cheap to purchase a soul.
The rock walls were coated in its sickly sheen. But in here Eliza had glistened, her skin had been damp with sweat, and the gold in her hazel eyes was brighter than any coin he had claimed. He sighed. If he’d never taken her as queen, death would have been a welcome reprieve and not a cowardly escape.
“Where’s your queen?” Dai leaned in the hole in the wall. His gaze roamed over the piles of coins and death masks of leaders long dead. Their memory was cast in gold like they could buy immortality with a shell that bore their likeness.
He watched as his brother became mesmerized, his eyes changing from blue to yellow. The curse finally showed its strength in the one he had thought immune. And it had moved quickly once it had caught him, dragging Dai into its viselike grip. The black diamond didn’t return what had already been lost. It only slowed the gradual digestion of the soul. Of all the men who’d passed, watching his brother fade was the hardest.
Roan stood. “I can’t bring her if I can’t guarantee her return.”
They needed to leave this place before Dai lost his battle. He wasn’t sure he had the fight left to kill his brother. Dai was all that remained of his family, his people, his kingdom.
He put his arm around Dai’s shoulders and drew his brother from the cavern. Dai followed without fight. His eyes returned to blue away from the golden lure. Magic tingled in the ends of Roan’s fingers and ran cool in his blood. He could seal the cavern to prevent Dai from staring at the gold, but he would pay a pointless price and they would both fade.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t lie with her again.” Dai shrugged off Roan’s arm.
Roan shook his head. He wished he could believe his brother’s words, but they were too close to goblin for them to be real. “No you’re not. How long until you would have challenged me and tried to take her?”
Dai rubbed his hand over his chin. “Sooner rather than later. You’ve fought this battle for centuries. But I am falling fast. Without the diamond I would be gone already.”
“The curse took us all differently.” Some never got to feel the lust for gold. Fane had taken his own life. His spirit crushed by the harshness of the Shadowlands and the starvation rations of bony animals and bark from stunted trees. In desperation they’d killed a goblin. But none of them had been able to eat what they would become. Learning to enter the Fixed Realm at will through nightmares had saved them for a worse fate. Hope that they may succeed and be free.
“How goes our defense?” Roan said as he stepped over the rubble left over from his temper tantrum.
“It should hold until we are dead.”
Then the Hoard would have the run of the caves. His home. His chamber where he had brought Eliza. His bed. Roan pushed aside the bitter thoughts. There was nothing he could do. In his mind this moment hadn’t been flavored with bitterness and regrets. He’d had years to make peace with death, yet he couldn’t bring himself to face the end.
In the dining room, the four swords hung on the wall. Roan pulled them down. The sword they’d hung for Meryn was a stand-in. If he was still alive, he’d be running with the Hoard and his sword would still be in use. Roan allowed himself a grim smile. The sword had never been Meryn’s favorite weapon. He laid each blade on the table so they could dine together again.
“How long are we going to tread the edge?” Dai ran his fingers along the edge of metal.
“Are you so keen to die?” Before Eliza it had been him ready for the bullet, only holding on to give Dai more time. Dai had always had hope. The man on the other side of the table was a sad copy of the man his brother had been. Even when taken by Rome for educating he had remained true to the Decangli, encouraging the rebellion at every turn despite the risk. Now the curse had finally broken him.
“Are you so driven by desire you will risk becoming Hoard? Will you honor the pact?” Dai lifted Fane’s sword so the tip rested against the flesh beneath his chin. His blue eyes darkened. “Or should I take care of myself?”
Roan looked away. He didn’t want to see his brother’s blood on the table. “Stay your hand. I will. But not today. Enough blood has been shed.” Roan laid his sword on the table. “Let us dine with the ghosts today. Tonight I will see Eliza in the Summerland. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”
Dai let the sword bang into the table. “If you return to find me gray and one with the Hoard don’t let me live like that.”
Doubt and a decaying lack of trust strung between them as fine as the silk spun by spiders and twice as strong. Bound together until the end tore through and burned all ties that made them human. Roan placed his hand over his frozen heart. “You have my word. You have always had my word.”
But did he have the time to see Eliza when his castle was crumbling and his soul was d
isintegrating?
Dai’s fingers circled the hilt of his sword. He nodded. “Then let’s save the last meal until we are truly dead. Let the ghosts come to show us the way to the Hall of the Gods.”
“And until then?” There were hours to fill until Eliza would sleep. Here they would be rationed out like grains of rice to a starving man desperate for sustenance. He’d hoped to pass his final day with his brother, but his brother was fading away.
“Until then I have things to do. Distractions to find. Gold to hoard.”
“Don’t make light of the shadows nipping at your heels.”
“I speak the truth. I have centuries to make up for. So while you plot your death in fine detail, I will go out. Just make sure you include me.” Dai smiled and for a moment the old humor was back in his eyes. “Maybe Gob could light the pyre and send us off.”
Roan picked up his sword and slid it home. Gob wouldn’t do anything that didn’t benefit Gob. Burning the dead served no purpose when goblins had no spirit to send off.
“Happy looting. Keep your eyes out for a book on curse breaking.”
“Unless it is made of gold, I have no longing for books. My head is full, and my heart is empty.” Dai became a darkened outline, then he was gone. Finding a nightmare and sliding away into the Fixed Realm.
Roan stared at the empty table. They had never all sat at this table. But the memories of his men had always been welcome. Today they crowded around, leaving no room for the living.
Through the rock walls he heard the howls of the Hoard as they worked their way through the rock he had sealed the entrance with. He would have to add more or they would break in. He looked at his hands and sighed. He would have to do it without magic. One rock at a time the way any man would.
His anger hadn’t been wasted. If he hadn’t torn the walls up, he wouldn’t have anything to block the entrance with. At the moment any extra distance between him and the Hoard was a good thing.
When his hands ached and his skin was rough, Roan stopped. He admired his drystone wall, and while he knew it would be broken down more easily than solid rock, it was a start. His back ached and for a moment he felt almost human. It had been a long time since he hadn’t used magic for everything. He flexed his fingers. A smile spread on his lips. He was at the end of a dead end road, and yet he hadn’t been this human in centuries.
He climbed up to the ledge to check on what was happening outside. The number of Hoard goblins had been swelling as word got around. As they gathered, fights broke out. Now it was a pitched battle with each faction fighting for digging rights. They would dig until defeated and another mob would move in. Their own greed was slowing them down. Out of habit, Roan checked the sky for the druid’s crow.
It was empty.
He turned away not wanting to watch the battle and deaths. Inside he walked back down the tunnel, winding deeper into the rock. On his way he dropped into the Fixed Realm, and back, without breaking his stride. Somewhere, someone was always having a nightmare and it was enough that he could flit through to anywhere he wanted. It hadn’t always been so easy. It hadn’t gotten easier because he’d gotten better. It had gotten easier as his soul had shrunk and the Shadowlands had become part of him. Once his soul was gone he’d be like Gob. Soulless and trapped, existing only for gold. In his hands were two plates of steak and fries. Someone would be waiting for their orders a little longer.
Gob stared at the wall unaware of the attempts of his brethren to break into the caves. His eyes were bright with the same luminescence as a glow-stick, and he had as little substance between his long pointed ears. Roan placed one plate at the edge of the bars. The goblin went from comatose to beast in less than a second. His long fingers scooped meat and carrots, pouring them into his wide mouth like he wouldn’t eat again.
He wouldn’t.
Roan picked up his knife and fork. While Gob slurped and chewed like a pig digging through slop, Roan ate without tasting. He’d hoped to find something within each goblin they’d caught that resembled humanity, or at least remembered it. Never had he found such a creature. He wasn’t vain enough to think he could be the first.
Gob picked up his plate and licked it clean through the bars. Then he did something unexpected. He slid the plate into the cell.
Roan swallowed and placed his cutlery down. “Why do you want the plate?”
“Him likes the plate. Has gold.” Gob’s hand caressed the edge of the plate.
Like Roan’s, it had a thin line of gold around the rim. He’d failed to notice something that should have brought a little joy to the meal.
“Did you like your meal?”
“Gold on the plate.” Gob licked the plate again like he was trying to remove the gold foil with his tongue.
Was Gob less human than all the others, or was Roan less goblin for knowing Eliza? Not that it mattered. Gob and he would share the same fate. While the previous goblins had either been killed or had killed each other, Gob was trapped under the mountain. Without magic Roan couldn’t open the rock or the bars. Because Gob was goblin he couldn’t exit via the Fixed Realm. Goblins could only pass through during the winter solstice. Locked in the cell, Gob had missed the Wild Ride.
Roan pulled a coin out of his pocket. It flashed yellow in the candlelight—bright enough to draw Gob’s eye from the plate. Roan flicked it onto the floor. It spun a foot away from the bars. Gob lunged for the treasure. Roan drew his sword, willing Gob to see the trap and pull back. Gob flung his body onto the point of the blade to reach the coin.
The goblin never looked up, even as Roan twisted the sword, his yellow eyes remained fixed on the coin. His fingers scrabbled on the floor while his body died. Roan remained still, unable to move. The sword became heavy with the weight of death. When the numbness receded Roan pulled the bloodied blade free. Black grease smeared the surface. Goblin blood. He wiped the blade on his black camo and sheathed it. Then he placed the coin in Gob’s hand, closing the gray fingers over the metal.
“It wasn’t even gold,” Roan murmured, careful not to wake the newly dead.
A golden-colored alloy had been all it took to drive Gob into a frenzy worth dying for. Roan closed the goblin’s eyes so he wouldn’t have to stare at his rock prison while he waited for the Shadowlands to reclaim his body.
Hopelessness rode Roan’s back like a demon. Whipping and shrieking to drive him on and over the edge of the abyss. The last of the Decangli would have to light their own pyre and then find the courage to climb aboard.
An aberration of history, a glitch in the nightmare, a fairy tale best forgotten. Only Eliza would carry his memory forward. How long would she hold on to something more fragile than a dream conceived at dawn?
***
Without the goblins, the bedroom was lighter and emptier, like the air had been sucked out by the vacuum of Roan’s departure. Eliza crumpled onto the bed and wrapped herself in the quilt. She’d helped kill a man for no good reason. The murder had chewed up the night and spat out the morning, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. Roan was still on the verge of fading, and she couldn’t let him go to find peace in the ever-open arms of death.
She was convinced she could love the gray-skinned monster that stalked the shadows of her room. But could she really welcome him into her arms, knowing his heart would never beat for her? Without a soul, was he really Roan or just another goblin? She didn’t have the guts to find out or the cruel streak to demand he fade and test the theory. Every goblin she’d seen had been killed by Roan, and that should’ve been enough of a warning.
From the bedside table she picked up the half-read book, Goblins: Myth or Truth? She pulled out her bookmark and continued reading, needing to understand, to absorb, that a goblin was less than a gray and twisted human. She was looking for anything that would make separation easier. She wanted to read of the evil that goblins brought to the world. The folk tales that warned children of being greedy in case the goblins claimed them as their own. As a child she’d always l
eft a coin in the garden on winter solstice so the goblins would be too distracted to look inside. And she slept with a light on to keep the shadows at bay.
One small section referred to a group of warriors who were cursed and forced to answer all summons. Their crimes were not their own. Her lips twisted. That wasn’t a random passage. She flicked to the bibliography. What is a goblin? A small unpublished volume of work by an unnamed author that presented an alternative to recorded history. It had been found during library renovations at Oxford. Had Dai written a defense for the actions they’d been compelled to take? The rest of the page was dedicated to warnings about summoning the Goblin King; he didn’t always obey and the summoner would often find themselves tricked out of gold.
Eliza read through a few more pages of historical accounts of misdeeds and solstice mayhem that made no mention of queens, or the eating of humans, or any act of goblin kindness. But each new revelation failed to squash her hope. Roan was still human. He still had a chance.
An ink sketch drew her attention. Taken out of a retired harlot’s diary it was a picture of a goblin wearing the dress of the day, long coat and breeches, so he looked the part of a rich man. But the head had a hooked nose and the eyes were too large. His long, curled ears were covered by shoulder-length dreadlocks, decorated in beads. Eliza kicked off the covers, suddenly too hot. Roan.
The whore claimed to have been at his service and had been made rich for her efforts. She made no mention of being in the Shadowlands, or of seeing Roan as a man. But her tales of goblin sex had titillated and horrified the town. She’d been burned at the stake in an attempt to drive out the demons that possessed her. Eliza’s stomach turned. She slammed the book closed. She didn’t want to read about her lover’s previous flings or how much he had paid. He must have been so terribly lonely in the Shadowlands.
Her legs cramped as she unfolded them and moved for the first time in hours. She stretched, readying herself for the sprint downstairs to turn off the alarm. She couldn’t bring herself to enter the room where she and Steve had slept. Not yet. Her racing footsteps were muffled by the carpet. The alarm started its countdown. The steady beeps warned of the impending screech. She was going to have to get the security system rewired. This was not a good way to start the day.
