At last he came to a round door with a large latch. The latch was much the same as others he had encountered on numerous other expeditions, but for some reason this one seemed more stubborn than most. He pushed and pulled, and shook it, but it moved only a little. Finally, desperately worried that he would run out of contrasting heat as the day wore on, he stood on the hatch itself, grabbed the latch handle with both hands, and pushed with his feet.
The latch suddenly released, and the hatch fell away under him.
Mimic tumbled down through the opening, falling against a smooth, cold metal plate. The air rushed out of him. He lay there gulping for a few moments, trying painfully to regain his breath. He could still see the open hatchway above him, which was a good sign. At least he knew the way out.
He rolled over and looked around the chamber.
“Oh, no . . . books!” he moaned.
A great curving surface conformed to the arch in the slick wall. All along its surface were a number of books carefully set in square boxes in the wall. There were several that had been left out of their special little square holes. One now lay directly underneath the goblin engineer.
Mimic rolled over and picked up the book. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “at least there will be another fire tonight.”
Without thinking, he opened the cover of the book. Well, there they are, he thought, all those strange angled lines and dots. They are not even all that pretty to—
Several of the symbols flashed with a momentary, dull heat of their own.
Tick.
Mimic blinked. What was that? His ears quivered for a moment, straining for some sound. He remained completely still for several moments.
Nothing.
Mimic looked back down at the book. As he looked down on the page, the same symbols flashed again with dull heat.
Tick.
Mimic’s head turned sharply. His left ear straightened completely in his excitement.
Somehow, he had missed it. Perhaps it was the disappointment at finding books again. Perhaps it was the even coolness of the chamber itself. Whatever the reason, now he sat on the floor frozen with hope and anticipation.
There, on the end of the curving bench, was a single, intact machine.
Mimic set the book down without a thought. He moved carefully and reverently toward the machine. He tried not to make any noise, as though somehow he might frighten it into disappearing. It was a device of the gods themselves—not some broken hulk but an actual complete mechanism—and he wanted to worship it.
It was a delicate square framework, a cube about the length of one of his hands filled with intricate cogs, gears, drives, and shafts. There was a large, round plate on one side of the framework with several angle symbol markings radiating from its center. A protruding shaft in the center was attached to three extended arms. Each arm ended in a flattened arrow and pointed at strange symbols radiating away from the center. One short arm, one medium-length arm, and a third long and thin arm.
Then Mimic’s heart sank.
Several pieces of the mechanism appeared to be scattered both on the bench itself and on the floor around it. A large, coiled band of metal lay nearby that might have once been part of it, too.
So it was not complete, as he had originally thought. Dejected, Mimic turned back once more and picked up the book from the floor. Maybe there was some value in a book that glowed, he thought. He flipped open the page once more, found the symbols, which glowed as his eyes read them and . . .
Tick. Tick.
Mimic wheeled around, the book still in his hands.
The mechanism had made a sound!
Mimic was an engineer, and an engineer is above all else observant. There is little detail that manages to escape their attention. It is the changes in detail that shout to them.
The arms on the shafts had moved!
Mimic glanced down at the symbols on the page.
They glowed under his eyes.
Tick.
The long shaft moved.
Mimic looked down at the symbols, but he did not stop at the first few. As his eyes moved, more of the symbols afterward glowed, each in their turn.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He glanced up. The mechanism was indeed making the sound. The arm was moving, being rotated by the shaft in the center.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Mimic was no fool. He knew exactly what he had found the moment he found it. Here was the greatest treasure any engineer had ever discovered. Here was the sort of thing for which every goblin yearned and dreamed.
Here was something that could really get you killed.
He sat down in front of his prize. There was a lot to be done and thought through. There was a lot he had to learn.
He did not understand the meaning of the symbols before him on the pages, but they were unimportant and entirely irrelevant so far as he was concerned. All he knew was the cause and effect. So he kept looking at more and more symbols in the book and observed as each set glowed how they affected the device. He carefully noted in his mind the changes that each produced. All the while he thought and thought and thought.
He only hoped he had enough time.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
21
Up and Coming
The first engineer shrugged. The second engineer shrugged. The third engineer shrugged. There was no Mimic to smack.
Lirry was livid. “He knows it’s time to report! Sun going down already. Three days and no treasure. First day, Mimic says he’s close to treasure. Does Mimic bring treasure? No! Second day, Mimic says he’s very close to treasure. Does Mimic bring treasure out the second day? No! Today, Mimic says treasure stuck but will come out today. Does Mimic even bother to come to morale meeting? No! Who does he think I am, keeping me waiting?”
Third Engineer G’dag held up his hand, eager to please his boss. “I know! I know! I know who he thinks you are! He tells me many times!”
Lirry was so wrapped up in his outrage that he ignored the second engineer. “If he doesn’t bring me treasure tonight, we burn him with the books! There’s no room for slacker-deadbeats in the elite engineer force of Dong Mahaj-Megong! I’ll find new fourth engineer when we get back to—”
A clang echoed down out of the nose of the Titan.
Lirry’s yellow eyes narrowed as he turned toward the sound. The remaining engineers all took several careful steps back down the slope, unsure whether Lirry was going to physically explode or not.
A yelp echoed from the nostril, followed by a succession of three more quick clangs.
Mimic tumbled out of the nose head over heels. His entire body was curled around a large sack. He landed with a soft ooft in the sand.
Lirry stalked up the slope to where Mimic lay. “No one authorized a rest period, you loafing pile of pond scum . . .”
The chief engineer’s invective trailed off into silence.
The other three engineers raised their brows in surprise. Lirry’s anger might end when he choked on his own words—which was never often enough. It might end when he ran out of horrible things to say—which would take a long time. More often, it might end when Lirry got tired of talking and simply smacked the object of his displeasure.
It never ended in stunned silence.
Mimic lay with his back against the great fallen Titan. His orange shirt was more smudged than usual. His face was glistening with sweat. His sparse strands of hair were bent over nearly sideways.
There, in the sand between his legs, lay the Device.
“This . . . this is the treasure?” Lirry murmured, for a moment unsure. He reached forward, picking up the mechanism with both hands.
A cog fell out as he lifted it. It landed with a soft thud at the chief’s feet.
“This . . . this piece of junk!” Lirry’s green, mottled skin went suddenly pale with rage. “I waited for you three days for this trash!”
Mimic’s eyes flickered open as consciousness dawned once more in his mind.
Lirry screamed, his eyes wild with rage. He lifted the Device over his head with both hands. Mimic was going to get permanently smacked this time, smacked so hard that there would be no point in smacking him again. Lirry would beat in the head of the fourth engineer with his own joke of a treasure just for the pleasure it would bring to him.
Suddenly, Lirry froze, the device wavering slightly over his head.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Lirry looked up, his eyes wide with wonder.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Lugnut, G’dag, and Zoof all fell to the ground, their faces pressed into the sand in homage.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It was as though the Titans had returned.
Lirry slowly lowered the Device. He forced his fierce grasp to relax. Now he gently cradled it in his long, pointy fingers. His eyes, which flicked over every detail of it, were always drawn back to the great round plate and its moving arms.
Lirry turned around. His grin nearly split his head. He held the Device in front of him, cradled it in his arms as though it were a child more precious than any ever born to the goblin realms. He stroked it gently, then screamed shrill and long with joy.
“Look what I found!” Lirry crowed.
He staggered down the slope toward the three prone engineers. Each of them was awestruck by the magnificence of the find. Lirry was going to be rich!
“Throw some more books on the fire tonight, boys! We’re gonna celebrate big!” Lirry screeched. “We’re gonna dance in my honor, eat all the food and . . .”
Tick. Tick. Click! WHRRRrrrr . . .
The Device suddenly stopped.
Lirry’s eyes went wide. The visions and hopes of his entire life had been floating before him. Now, suddenly, they were fading. He wanted desperately to hold on to them, but with every passing moment of silence they grew dimmer.
“I can fix it,” said the small voice from just up the slope.
Lirry and the other engineers looked up.
“I can fix it,” Mimic said, picking himself up off the ground.
“You?” Lirry said, his voice squeaking with incredulity. “You can fix the mechanisms of the gods?”
“Well, maybe not all of them, but I can fix that one,” Mimic replied.
Lirry took an uncertain step toward Mimic. “Well . . . well of course you can fix! What kind of engineer would you be if you couldn’t fix!”
“Do you want me to fix it for you, Chief?” Mimic said quietly.
“Uhh . . . Well . . . yes! Yes, I want you to fix!” Lirry replied. “Unless another engineer of higher rank wishes to try and . . .”
Lugnut, G’dag, and Zoof had taken a sudden interest in dirt, plants, and the sky, in that order. None of them wanted to catch Lirry’s eye.
“As you command, Chief,” Mimic said. He stepped down the short slope and stood before the chief.
Lirry held the Device out in front of him. He would not let it go completely—would never let it go completely. Mimic glanced here and there around the Device. He considered it for a time. With a judicious nod, he then poked a thin finger into the mechanism. He closed his eyes and spoke to himself for a moment.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Lirry visibly relaxed.
“There,” Mimic said, “fixed.”
“Of course! As was your duty,” Lirry sniffed. “Now, get back inside! Find many other discoveries and treasure! Bring back and make my mission more glorious still!”
“Your wish is to be obeyed.” A slight smile played on Mimic’s thin lips as he turned and walked up the hill toward the fallen metal giant. He was just climbing up the face of the Titan once more when—
Tick. Tick. Click! WHRRRrrrr . . .
“Ah! Ah! Ah!” Lirry squealed as though physically stuck. “Mimic! Mimic! Come! Come! Come!”
Mimic turned. His face was all casual innocence.
“Fix it! Fix it! Fix it!” Lirry was leaping up and down in fear.
Mimic walked down the slope. At his approach Lirry calmed himself down long enough to hold the Device still. Once again, Mimic considered the Device—though for longer this time. Finally he touched it in two places, closed his eyes, murmured once more, and . . .
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“There you are: all better! Of course, I don’t know how long it will continue to work. I would think that the best thing to do would be to show it to as many of the goblin leaders as possible while it still functions.” Mimic nodded with a satisfied smile. Then he spoke in terms he knew Lirry could understand. “Device working: very valuable—bring much power. Device not working: just more junk. Still, you are chief, Lirry. You know best. Now, if you excuse me, Chief, I’ll get back to work.”
Mimic turned back toward the slope.
Smack!
Lirry knocked Mimic to the ground with as hard a blow as he had ever landed on the small goblin. Mimic rolled over, gazing through watery eyes back at the chief. The leader of their expedition stood over him, the Device clutched fiercely in one hand and his fist shaking at Mimic with the other.
“No one goes back inside! I say this expedition is over!”
Lugnut, G’dag, and Zoof immediately cheered and began to dance.
“The Holy Device of the Titans stays in my hands. As expedition leader it is my great discovery!” Lirry pointed his sharp, long finger down in Mimic’s face where he still lay on the ground. “And you, engineer, will never be far from me either!”
They crossed the burned-out valley directly south of the Norvald Ridge, from which they could see Rune Farval, the ruined city to the east, as they descended the slopes. A thin line of gremlins from a nation calling itself the Free Fascists were moving between the ruins and their claimed homeland at the foot of the Esvald mountain range. The shortest path to Mimic’s own homeland lay directly through the land of the Free Fascists, but no one encroached on that territory even under the direst of circumstances. The Free Fascists were on what they called an ethical crusade to one day rule the world. Unfortunately for them, they could never agree on a single set of ethics between them, so they determined that each of them, in turn, would take the post of Truth Determinate, the highest position of authority in their system. That leader would determine the current correct ethics, religion, and viewpoint for their freethinking kingdom. All viewpoints were therefore tolerated, but only in turns. Since the position of Truth Determinate changed at irregular periods—often as the result of violence—one could never enter their lands for fear of being put to death for breaking new and unpredictable laws.
For this reason, the road taken by the Expeditionary Force and their leader Lirry took them south-by-southwest toward the Boodwell Mound. There was an ancient watchtower there that could provide shelter, but more importantly, it was the field headquarters for Lirry’s immediate boss, a sniveling little goblin who was the Lower Controller of the Ninth Division of Northern Expeditionary Forces for the Ministry of Acquisition and Theft.
He was otherwise known as Philt.
Philt, when shown the Device, was so excited by the discovery that he felt compelled to claim it as his own. Knowing that Lirry would sooner part with his head than the Device, Philt determined to have Lirry executed on a charge of treason, sedition, and blasphemy. The execution might have gone through except that Lirry still would not give up his hold on the Device and the goblins set up to execute the Expeditionary Force were so astonished at the Device that they refused to do so. This left Philt in an awkward position, which was cleared up by having Lirry and all his engineers awarded a metal rod of honor instead of being executed. Philt constantly reminded Mimic and his fellow engineers of his name during the brief ceremony on the execution field so that his own superiors might remember that he had played some part in recovering the marvelous Device.
Lirry was then ordered to take his group southeast into the foothills until they came to the River Clar, which they were to follow eastward up into the Tovald Mountains.
At each outpost,
they encountered the next level in the great bureaucracy that was the kingdom of Dong Mahaj-Megong. Philt led to Klach. Klach led to Blek, who tried to steal the Device. He was running with it when it suddenly stopped working, which distracted Blek long enough for Lirry to catch up to him and beat the little goblin nearly to death. Blek’s smaller brother, who took over Blek’s job, then sent them to Milch, Blek’s superior.
Each step they took up the mountain led them closer to the great mountain fortress of the goblin king, Dong Mahaj-Megong. At each stop, their fame and honors grew. The marvelous Device was, indeed, the treasure that Lirry had sought for all his life—that every goblin had sought for all their lives.
And Mimic was beside him every step of the way with a book hidden in his sack and the face of the tall, thin man in his dreams.
FOLIO II
The Warriors
22
Whetstones
The sword rattled in Galen’s hand, sending the shiver of the metal running up the length of his arm. He stumbled backward, his feet threatening to tangle under him. The former smithy found the steel suddenly heavy and awkward in his hands, but there was no time to think about that or much of anything else except deflecting the slashing blade of the opponent in front of him.
The massive crowd of Galen’s fellow “Elect” looked down into the circle of bloodied hard-packed dirt from five separated sections of tiered benches surrounding the arena. Each of them by section would take their turn against the other four in a rotation strictly enforced by the Pir monks standing along the upper perimeter of the area’s great bowl. For now, however, they were an audience of the mad to a blood-drenched spectacle. Some wept, some cheered, some screamed, but all in their way contributed to the thunderous roar that engulfed the combatants below.
Galen did not hear them. His world had quickly shrunk to two people, himself and the man in front of him who was trying to kill him.
Galen’s section had drawn the second rotation. He could barely watch the first groups as they faced off against one another. The “Elect” of the first two groups stood facing each other with awkward swings and unsure steps. Fear filled all their eyes and none of them moved.
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