Forging the Half-Goblin Sorcerer

by J. Craig Argyle

  “You speak plainly, Lord Sorcerer. Let me also be to the point. My king feels greatly humiliated by what the sorcerer Krage did to him twenty years ago. He seeks some measure of revenge.”

  “Yes, well Krage isn’t here to answer for his deeds,” says Farg.

  “Krage is not here, but his son is. I think the son would serve nicely in Krage’s absence.”

  Trak doesn’t know what Lord Ran is talking about, but Farg does. “You propose a hard bargain. What guarantee of safety do you offer the son?”

  “I could promise you whatever you want to hear, but in the end the decision is King Red’s. For what it is worth, I believe Red will treat the son fairly and seek to exchange the son for his queen, but I can give no guarantee.”

  “We will retire to the castle to consider your offer.” As Trak follows Farg back through the castle gate, he recalls that Krage claimed the old goblin as his mother. Trak muses; did Krage have his whole family with him on the island? His son can’t be Baelock, they are too near the same age; it must be someone I have never met.”

  When Farg and Trak sit down in the banquet hall, Farg turns to Trak and says, “I wish I had Krage and my father here to help us make this decision, but since they are not, it is up to you and me. As much as I would like to free my father, I think Krage would never forgive me if I turned you over to King Red. I don’t see any choice but to stay held up in this castle and hope that the King Giforing sends help. Can you suggest another course of action?”

  “What are you talking about?” utters Trak, flummoxed. “Why are you talking about turning me over to Lord Ran?”

  “Why? You heard what Lord Ran wants, and I’m asking you for your analysis,” Farg answers impatiently. Then it hit him, Gobshite! Chicken doesn’t know! “What has Krage told you about your parents?”

  “Nothing,” replies the cross-breed perplexed by the change in subject. “I only know what Baelock told me. My parents were killed in the last war.”

  Farg knows that it is Krage’s place, and not his, to tell Trak the truth, but Krage isn’t here. “Listen Chicken, I am sorry you have to hear it from me, but I have a decision to make and I need your help. Your father is Krage and your mother is Meriem, King Red’s queen. You will be the 60th Thaumaturgist of the Septantrak.” There, he said it. He carried the secret ever since his father, Duke Amin, had divulged the information on the night before he left to escort Krage to the capital. He remembered how hard it was for him to believe that it was Trak and not Krage who was the prize that needed protecting at all costs. He was, after all, the next Thaumaturgist and the legal heir to King Red’s kingdom.

  Trak doesn’t take the news well. At first he thinks it a prank, some sick joke that Farg is playing. “It makes no sense. If I am Krage’s son, why was I treated like an orphan and raised by Baelock? Why did Krage totally ignored me my entire life?”

  “Surely, you have heard the story of how Krage ran off with King Red’s queen and left the king so angry and humiliated that he started a war to get her back. The nobles in the capital turned against Krage for the pain and suffering his foolish action caused the kingdom. Only the king stood by him; he was, after all, the Thaumaturgist.” Trak is perhaps the only individual in two kingdoms that has not heard the story.

  “Krage left the capital for your safety, not his. He thought he could hide you on this island and prepare you to take his place. He brought Baelock with him to raise you and give you a skill. He brought his own mother here to teach you and give you the affection he could not. He arranged for you to work in the broch so you could learn what you needed to rise above these rustic surroundings. He was aware the fewer who knew the secret of your parentage, the better your chance of survival.”

  The truth is a bitterly hard for Trak. It pains him to imagine how different his childhood could have been, how much emotionally richer it should have been. On one level he understood the need for secrecy, but to keep the truth, even from him, is unacceptable. Trak thinks, why hasn’t Krage told me the truth? Does he think I am so unreliable that I can’t be trusted? The only explanation is that Krage is mainly interested in protecting himself.

  “How stupid I have been. Why didn’t I see the truth when others could easily see it?” Trak laments in silence. He remembers Grenab who helped him in the Western Pass and realizes that Grenab recognized him immediately and that is why he befriended him. Humock, the captain of the city guard knew. Even King Giforing knew. Lord Lizardthroat guessed the truth and sent henchmen to kill him. Alrik and the temple workers knew. Even Lord Ran, a human and a total stranger, recognized him on sight.” Trak thought himself clever, but the proof was overwhelming he was a fool and the only one deceived by Krage’s deception. “How could a father do this to his son?”

  The choice of returning to Neu Ardonbrae to be laughed at by all those who had deceived him is intolerable. Trak doesn’t want to live in the capital where he will be treated as an object of curiosity. He looks at Farg and says, “I’m ready to go with Lord Ran.”

  ***

  Farg sends word to Ran that they have an agreement and invites Lord Ran to the castle to collect the men barricaded in the broch. He is surprised when Ran comes alone. There is obvious surprise in Baron Teiber’s voice when Lord Ran calls to him and says to come out. After he convinces the baron that it is no trap, it takes the baron’s men several moments to clear the exit of the debris. As the men walk out carrying their weapons, Duke Amin hobbles freely into the courtyard accompanied by his officers. “How did you manage to convince Lord Ran to exchange prisoners?” the duke asks his son.

  “I gave him something he wanted,” Farg replies. When the duke hears the details, he is uncertain if Farg has acted wisely. Farg assures the duke that Trak has, after all, volunteered and even seems eager to go. By the time the baron sails on the next tide, Duke Amin is comfortable with Trak’s decision and is preoccupied with repairs to his castle and dock.

  As Trak boards the warship, he understands he acted hastily, but he remains committed to his decision. He is not particularly angry with his grandmother or Baelock; both were under orders from Krage to maintain the deception. He regrets, once again, not saying good-bye to his grandmother. He would like to say, “Thank you, Grandmother, for the happy moments we shared.” He wants to ask her where her ancestors sleep so he can find them if he doesn’t survive his captivity.

  Trak’s frustration is all directed at Krage. His resentment grows the more he considers the matter. “Krage should have told me the truth before he put me in situations where more than once I was almost killed.” He is glad to be leaving the goblin kingdom. “Except for Baelock and his grandmother, no one in the goblin kingdom cares if I leave; few will even know I’ve gone.” He doesn’t know what the future holds. It is unlikely that King Red will warmly welcome him. He doesn’t know if he will even be alive in a few days, but he knows he isn’t coming back to the goblin kingdom. They can find themselves a new 60th Thaumaturgist.

  Chapter 14

  Rich or poor, you will become like me.

  Words inscribed on a tombstone

  City of Neu Ardonbrae

  The voice in her head said “Use the key.” Did the voice mean the key hidden with the map in the sarcophagus? What good will that do her? There is no keyhole in the door she needs to open. Or is there? Could a keyhole be hidden in the frame that supports the door or even in the wall? In the dark she runs her hand along the heavy wooden frame. Her fingers find a hole. It could be a keyhole, she thinks. Using the blue glow emitting from her fingertips, she locates the sarcophagus and retrieves the key. To her amazement, when she inserts the key in the hidden hole, she feels it engage a tumbler and release the lock. She is free of the catacombs.

  Myrel is puzzled by what has happened. A voice spoke to her. Some one helped her? Someone placed the map and key in the sarcophagus before she entered the catacombs nearly a fortnight ago. How could they know she would find the hidden objects? Had her instructors placed them in the sarcophag
us as a part of her test?

  She decides not to jump to conclusions. When she guesses it is past midnight, she emerges from the catacombs and travels through the empty corridors to a kitchen where she gathers enough food, water and lamp oil to last a week. Before dawn, she is back in the catacombs sitting against the locked door. She lights her clock-lamp and waits to see what will happen. About noon each day she knocks on the door and asks to be released. On the fourth day an instructor finally responds. The cleric seems surprised to find Myrel calmly smiling. Had they expected to find me half starved or crazed with fear? Myrel wonders.

  When Myrel is released from the catacombs, she is given the morning to enjoy a leisurely bath, a change of clothes and a hot meal. Her instructors don’t ask about her experience, and Myrel doesn’t offer any details or ask any questions. In the afternoon at a quiet table in the library, she opens a book and pretends to be taking notes as she reproduces from memory the map in the sarcophagus. She hides it behind a heavy bookcase.

  ***

  In the late afternoon, Myrel is escorted in to an office and offered a chair. The instructors begin briefing her on her next test. The cross-breed notices two lamps on a table—the first is her clock-lamp and the other is the lamp she borrowed from her father’s apartment. Perhaps the lamps were removed to return the catacombs to their original configuration, but Myrel worries a suspicious person would question how her father’s lamp found its way into the catacombs. Myrel has no idea how much of her activities of the last two weeks have been observed by her instructors. They offer no explanation for why they left her in the dark to starve. Myrel keeps her questions about the map and key to herself.

  “Charity,” begins one of the instructors, “is important in the work of the temple, and every Initiate must embrace it. You are assigned to work in the city’s prisons. You will be given a room in which to sleep. During the day, you will administer to the needs of the prisoners. You may ask the prison warden for anything you might need or for answers to questions you may have. Let me warn you, your life is about to change in ways you can’t imagine. The emotional and physical stresses you will endure will be extreme. You will work with both good and evil people. You will learn to serve both those you love and those you detest. Your trial ends when you demonstrate that you care for others. Be cautious, occasionally this trial ends tragically; some have even died. If you want to back out, you must say so now.”

  To Myrel this sounds like a meaningful experience—more than just sitting around in the catacombs. Her opinion of the Initiate’s Trial elevates a notch. This is an experience with real consequences. She replies to the instructor, “Everything in life has been handed to me. I must learn to rely on myself. Surely, this experience is what I need.”

  An instructor escorts her to the prison. It is Myrel’s first trip into the city. Her head swings back and forth as she tries to take in everything—shops bustling with noisy customers, smells coming from bakeries and steaming off the filth in the street, craftsmen pushing carts, vendors hocking their wares, soldiers pushing their way through the crowd. Myrel sucks in the sights, trying to fill the vacuum left by her cloistered temple existence. She stares and the people on the street stare back, gawking at the tall, female cross-breed.

  The trip is over too soon. Myrel find herself descending a staircase into the underground prison. She is handed over to the warden, Taat Coinchewer. He, too, stares at Myrel, but not out of curiosity. There is no mistaking his lust as his left eye wanders over Myrel. A greasy, grey patch covers his right eye. After introductions, he hands Myrel a sack that he refers to as her “kit.” It contains a blanket, a grey burlap robe, lamp, washbasin, a wooden bowl, and a spoon. “Ye give this back when ye leave,” he mumbles through curled lips.

  The instructor leaves without a word. Myrel follows the warden down a corridor lined with heavy, wooden doors. Each door has a small window through which Myrel can glimpse a pallet and a bucket for night soil. Myrel thinks she is passing prison cells until the warden opens a door and says, “This one is yours.”

  Myrel enters and peruses the place where she will sleep. Her bed consists of two wooden planks and a dirty bag stuffed with straw. The warden appears ready to leave; Myrel stops him with a question. “From whom do I learn my duties?”

  The warden snorts contemptuously, “Talk to the female in the next room. I’ll check on ye from time to time.”

  The female sitting on the stone floor in the next cell doesn’t stir when Myrel enters. “My name is Myrel. Are you from the temple?” When the girl turns her head, Myrel recognizes Alexia, an older girl whom Myrel remembers from school. “Alexia, I am glad to see you. What kind of place is this?”

  “It is an unrelenting nightmare,” responds Alexia. Myrel listens silently while the girl relates her story. She came to the prison two months ago. “When I arrived, I was terrified. I never imagined that such a place could exist. The inmates are so brutish. Many are too sick to care for themselves. I go to their cells, take away their night soil, wash their bodies, and change their straw. Sometimes, I spoon-feed them. Despite my efforts; they die. The healthy survive anyway they can. They have no chance of ever being released, so they build a world for themselves here in the prison. They travel in packs and fight with rival packs. They bribe the guards and smuggle in contraband. The brutes lust for what they can’t have. Always stay in the common areas. Never be alone with a brute.”

  Myrel asks, “Why are you still here? You must have done enough by now to pass your trial.”

  “Don’t believe what the instructors tell you. The true purpose of this trial is to break your spirit. You stay here until you are broken.”

  Myrel feels trapped. “What can I do?”

  “I’ll say it again, “There are two kinds of inmates in this prison, the sick and the brutish. If you stay here, you will become one or the other.” Alexia gradually shakes off the depressed state in which Myrel found her. She stands up and instructs Myrel to follow. She guides Myrel through two locked and guarded gates to the prison mess and explains the kitchen routine. In the kitchen, inmates are chopping neeps for the evening meal. “Be especially nice to the kitchen workers; they are your best link to the outside,” Alexia explains.

  When they enter the common room, a pack of inmates begin catcalling and making obscene gestures toward Alexia. One suggests that his member is injured, and he needs Alexia to rub cream on it. At Myrel, they only sneer and made unflattering remarks about her cross-breed features. Myrel surmises these are the brutes Alexia talks about. The sick are in the hospital cell. Alexia enters and collects five eating bowls from the inmates who lay on the stone floor. In the kitchen, she fills each and carries them back to their owners. Alexia spoon-feeds one decrepit goblin that is too sick to sit up. Myrel helps another who says his name is Grenab.

  Grenab is weak but alert. Someone accused him of desertion and threw him in prison. He has been there for six months. He expected a trial that never came. For the last three weeks, he has been in the sick area. He thought he had cholera and expected to die, but to his surprise he was already getting better. Myrel learns that there are no medicines in the sick cell. It is just a place that separates the dying from the living.

  Myrel’s bed is worse than the platform in the catacombs. Both are rock hard, but Myrel’s prison bed is also bug-ridden. She prefers to sleep sitting on the stone floor wrapped in a blanket. From Alexia, she learns the prison routines and which inmates to avoid. A few regard her presence as a kindness not to abuse. She passes most days listening to inmates tell their stories. She enjoys listening to Grenab the most. He had been in the Royal Guard and tells stories of battles and palace intrigue. He told Myrel the story of the Battle at Dragon’s Belly. He didn’t sound like someone who would desert, so she asked him to relate how he came to be accused.

  “Being a king is dangerous business. Someone is always trying to take your job,” began Grenab. “King Giforing trusts me, and one day ‘e sent me on a special mission. ‘e
told me to join the secret police. My job was to spy on the police while they spied on everyone else. After a couple of months, I was assigned to a squad that was sent to the Western Pass to intercept the Thaumaturgist, who is a political enemy of Lord Lizardthroat, the commander of the Secret Police. Everyone wanted to collect the reward Melkerei offered for ‘is capture. We were watching the pass, expecting the cleric to turn up, when a young cross-breed soldier whom we had never seen before walked into camp. ‘e told my captain that he knew where the Thaumaturgist and his soldiers were camped and would lead us to them. ‘e said we could take them by surprise, kill the soldiers and capture the cleric for the reward. There was something about the soldier that didn’t seem right. ‘e was too educated and well spoken to be a common soldier. I was right, when the Secret Police attacked the camp where the cleric was supposed to be sleeping, the youth hung back and I stayed with ‘im. It was a setup. Lord Lizardthroat’s police were ambushed and all but me were killed. When I was taken to the leader, I recognized the Thaumaturgist. I knew ‘im from many years ago when ‘e used to accompany the king. ‘e recognized me and told me to go back to Lizardthroat and tell him that a sorcerer had killed all ‘is men. I never made it. I was arrested by a patrol that found me on the road. They thought I was a deserter. They locked me up, and I’ve been ‘ere ever since.”

  “Oh no,” Myrel exclaimed to herself when she connected Grenab’s story to the one she had hear from her friend Tinga. She realized that Trak was the “sorcerer” who tricked a squad of Blue Daggers. She realized she misjudged the likeable cross-breed and lost her chance to form a friendship.

  Myrel thought it best not to disclose to Grenab her kinship to the Thaumaturgist, but if she got word to her father, he could arrange to have Grenab released. But how? She was told not to leave the prison until the instructors came to fetch her. She discussed the situation with Alexia who pointed out that their sleeping cells are located outside of the prison’s principle security gates. Between their rooms and the front door there was only a guard and one gate. They could try and slip past the guard or just wait until one of them is returned to the temple. That could be a long time. Grenab claimed the temple worker before Alexia stayed in the prison over a year. She left only when they carried her out in a coffin.