“We seem to have misplaced a wound,” he said.
Eurilda laughed, the polite laugh of one who seldom laughed. “I can’t take credit for that,” she said. “It’s Otoka’s homebrew enchantment, to ensure that I return to him. While it won’t keep my foot from being hacked, remove me from a collapsing building, or protect me from the ramifications of my own ill will, the enchantment removes minor obstacles from my path and, as you’ve seen, heals flesh wounds overnight. Otoka doesn’t believe in sick days.”
“That doesn’t sound fair,” said Khyte. “Should I bring your breakfast to the veranda?”
“Don’t spoil me, Khyte. I know the real you.” When she went inside without waiting for a reply, and walked not only as if she knew where she was going, but like she owned the place, Khyte sprinted ahead and took the lead. He didn’t feel like explaining to Kuilea or her brother how Eurilda knew the lay of House Hwarn.
Barging into the kitchen, Khyte took from Kuilea the serving plates bearing fried meats, roasted vegetables, and hot sweet breads, then crossed the enormous kitchen through the dining room doors. While the floured table, the pie tins filled but not covered, the half-skinned boar, the clean glasses, and the folded place settings, said both rooms were recently attended, either Huiln or his sister must have dismissed the servants. When Khyte dropped the entrees with a clatter that slopped them half onto the burgundy dining table, they filled their own plates, then fell on the food.
Breakfast looked as delicious as it smelled. Since Khyte determined not to remember the grotesque Nahurian livestock whose death donated this meal, it tasted just as delicious, but when a singularly unique and unpleasant odor underlying the delectable meat recalled the hideous carcass, he couldn’t keep his gorge from rising. When his soured stomach embellished their meal with some plaintive squeaks, he avoided Kuilea’s eyes.
Huiln, having pushed aside his plate, was reading the Kreonan House Journal, a popular news sheet set in a dozen columns of pinhead-sized font that Khyte would need a jeweler’s glass to read. Goblin eyes, superior at peering and close reading, preferred their prose on this minuscule scale, and Khyte had to depend on Huiln or Kuilea to keep him abreast of Kreonan current events.
“There’s a report of your brawl,” Huiln said. “Fortunately, Kuilea and I left when we did, for it reads ‘giant, human, and unknown acquaintances.’”
“I’m glad it’s convenient for you, but how is it fortunate for me?”
“Now they have no reason to look for you here.”
“Or the king instructed them to print and deliver that, so as to lull us into a false sense of security.”
Huiln’s shoulders sagged as he sat down his coffee and looked fearfully at Khyte. “Why would King Merculo exercise that much caution?”
“Have you met Eurilda, the giantess and sorceress? Most consider either threatening, and we have both threats in one package.”
“Get on with it,” said the giantess in question. “He hates you, you hate him, and she ... “ here she indicated Kuilea, but then her gesturing finger touched the tip of her nose, rendering Khyte uncertain, “... is indifferent to the two of you.”
“And only Lyspera’s web knows what moves you,” said Kuilea, staring holes into Eurilda. In the original goblin, this is a more horrible thing to say than it sounds translated, as it also implies the spider-god mothered the target of the slur, for “web” in goblin is slang for the loins of the goblin woman, and “move” can mean to give birth. But, as Eurilda had been speaking Nahurian since she arrived, Kuilea no doubt knew that her insult found its way.
Khyte and Huiln looked at each other, and Eurilda and Kuilea had a staring contest that looked deadlier than a duel.
“Also, do not take my brother so lightly,” said Kuilea with a charming smile that belied the rancor in her eyes.
“I was talking to Khyte,” said the giantess.
“That’s who I meant.”
As Kuilea was about to call Eurilda an ogress, a witch, or a less-flattering term that would stick harder, Khyte spoke up.
“Why are you on Nahure, Eurilda?” he asked, hoping this would distract her from Kuilea’s insolence. While magically inclined and wellstudied, Eurilda could be tricked by flattery. Her capacity for delusion was as great as her capacity for illusion, as she believed they were a couple long after he left a letter that could not be misconstrued. In her absence he had built her up into a nightmare creature; now that she was in front of him, his rightly honed fear of the giantess was dulling to mere apprehension.
The risk paid off. “When I cast the runes at week’s end,” Eurilda said, “they spoke mainly of you; as the Trindyr rune appeared twice, I swallowed my pride and came to your aid.”
“How did you know this ‘trender’ was me, or that I would be on Nahure?”
“Trindyr. It signifies either poison or forbidden fruit. Since the human rune was first out of the bag, and the Nahure rune was second, I presumed the only human I like was on the Goblin World.”
“As Khyte almost never travels to Nymerea or Ielnarona, the odds on Nahure were one in three, though it was an impressive guess for a bag of stones. But how did you know where on the Goblin World would be?” asked Kuilea.
“This is not my first trip to Nahure,” she said demurely. “Nor to this house.”
“What does she mean, Khyte?” Kuilea asked with an expression pulled into a tornado of emotions—shame, horror, and puzzlement were the armor of wind circling a core of anger.
Khyte knew then he had misjudged Eurilda. He thought she was here to win back her human pet, but instead of playing along, she alluded to the day that would reflect the worst on Khyte’s character. Eurilda was here for naught but mischief.
Khyte and Eurilda had parted ways as lovers and adventurers before his maiden voyage to Nahure, where he met and bedded Kuilea the same evening on a dismal rebound bender. In a few weeks, Khyte and Kuilea were living together in the House of Hwarn, which is to say that Khyte was living off of her charity and the largesse of the manor, when Eurilda arrived. Which is to say that the size-changing, feather-light giantess floated over the estate wall and darted through the window of Kuilea’s room when the goblin woman was not there to take advantage of Khyte’s longing for the giantess, which had begun the moment after the goblin woman had satisfied his lust, for there was a vast gulf between Eurilda and Kuilea on the scale of what a simple man considered beautiful. And Khyte, while smart enough to understand that Eurilda’s beauty was enhanced with enchantments, was simple enough not to care.
“Remember Veirana’s party? You met Eurilda there.” Khyte lied.
“I think our brother Khyte covers another misadventure.” said Huiln. “I would have remembered this woman, whether or not you introduced her honestly as a giant, as on Nahure, her height as a human is already memorable.”
Eurilda’s mouth twisted in a sarcastic moue, then flickered back to a benign smile. Khyte remembered her fond contempt for goblins: if she hated them, they were her favorite peeve, and she showed that preference with badgering, teasing, and any other bedevilment she could dignify with good manners. In that regard, she treated them less lovingly, but more respectfully, than she treated Khyte, whom she seemed to regard as a kind of runaway steer, forever seared with her personal brand.
On the night she stole into House Hwarn, they slipped out afterwards to a gaming den where, having beat all comers at kurizi, a dice-driven card game, she upped her ante to include: a spell scroll she had bought very dear for Otoka, her sword—of such fine Irutaki steel that they swore and smacked their flagons on the tables, and then Khyte, first selling him as the “most authentic human specimen she discovered while hoofing it all over Hravak.” When her dice showed forty teeth and her cards were straight claws, she crowed, and momentarily losing a grip on her illusion, her cackling jaw grew until it roared, shaded the game, and spurred the goblins to kick back from the table. Her
hand swelled larger than a melon as she swept up her winnings, scraping the heaped gold and silver across the table. She dropped it silently into a tiny pouch that neither swelled nor tightened, but kept its slack dainty shape as if it remained vacant, an Abyss in miniature. Rather like a Eurilda in microcosm, Khyte mused, for making love to the giantess was like seeding his strength and health into nothingness.
Having fled with the goblins, Khyte hadn’t seen her until yesterday. While she had only stripped away the veil that one time, Khyte knew her affectionate torments were not love, but a delight in flattering herself, of winning and owning Khyte. He knew the truth of Eurilda: She hated everything and everyone. Eurilda’s hatred was a well-rounded misanthropy that comprised racism, sexism, ageism, speciesism, and a balanced classism that burned kings and paupers under the same scornful eye. While she once said giants were the most evolved beings, she had nothing but bad things to say about them, aside from Otoka the Wise, of whom she spoke in such reverential terms that it escaped love and became impassioned veneration, kindling jealousy in Khyte before he knew her better.
Her disdain went unvoiced now. Such open scorn might have entangled her in unnecessary conflict, and would have definitely snipped through any attempts to wrap Huiln and Kuilea around her finger.
“No,” lied Eurilda with a cold smile, “Khyte speaks true, and it is no small insult that you forget me. As to why I am here, I had come to Nahure to save Khyte from himself and to renew our acquaintance. And whether you consider me friend, enemy, or competitor”—here she looked at Kuilea—“is entirely up to you, but those are the facts.”
“I will let the facts rest,” said Huiln, “if you tell me about these runes. Since you are right that we are about to risk life and limb, I would hear the rest of your forecast.”
“Of course I’m right. The runes reveal or omit, but never lie.”
“So Khyte was revealed, and Kuilea and I were omitted, is that how you would put it? Did the runes also school you in the art of truth?” snickered the goblin.
“Nahure was the second rune.”
“That signified the Goblin World?”
“It is your world. As you live here, there’s little reason to repeat the rune twice, unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you’re a significant player in the prediction. But as you said, we’ll let that rest,” said Eurilda. “But tell me what you are about.”
“Why don’t we take turn revealing our tiles?” said the goblin. “I’ll start. We must pass into a stone egg and remove the gold without cracking the shell.”
“Urgh. Riddle games?” groaned Eurilda. “You have a hereditary advantage on that battlefield.”
“Are giants not fabled for their wits?” This was a two-faced answer, as tales tell of both blockheaded and cagey, sorcerous giants. Huiln’s phrasing was aptly coined so as to suggest both responses to Eurilda.
“Very well,” she said. “After the human tile—Ravakra—and the Nahure tile was the Huekra tile, which signifies falcon, eagle, or Baugn, to which I attributed Khyte’s travel to Nahure. In the interest of time, I’ll play my second tile, Uileqro, which signifies a seed or a hidden meaning, as that matches with your first riddle.”
“Many thanks,” said Huiln. “The seed puts forth roots, only to have them pruned by a crown’s cruel points.”
“This is too easy,” said Eurilda.
“That’s the point,” admitted Huiln. “We’re sharing information and getting to know the way each of us thinks.”
“I don’t understand goblins,” said Eurilda. “Before you eat, do you wash your hands and then solve riddles, too?”
“Goblins have shared intelligence with riddles and codes for millennia. Our deepest mystics put riddles to verse.”
“Intelligence.” Eurilda snorted. “The last one that I remember was the Lyspera tile.”
“Which signifies the spider-god of the same name,” said Khyte.
“Huiln is better acquainted with her than that,” said Kuilea.
“There’s no reason to go into that.” he said.
“My brother thought he was a priest for a year.”
“I was never a priest,” said Huiln, “though the Lysperans kindly allowed me to sit in on their ecclesiastical training when I considered the calling.”
“Why do you call her ‘spider-god,’” said Khyte, “when you call her sisters ‘goddesses’?”
“Who cares?” said Eurilda. “Fate, destiny, cause and effect, consequences, and yes, spiders and the spider-god, are signified by the Lyspera rune.”
“I’m not sure if your portent makes me apprehensive or merely curious.”
“Trust in your guide, Khyte. Tiles are only half of a portent; a skilled reader fills in the plot.”
“Then you’re the enigma I must solve,” said Huiln. Khyte recognized that Huiln entertained designs on Eurilda, as the goblin never said anything with a double meaning without intending both.
“As you say,” she said with an arrogant nod that indicated Huiln’s lofty designs shot over the giantess’s vain head. To Eurilda, it was right that a goblin should struggle to understand her, and she took him at face value.
Unless … they really were flirting, thought Khyte. “Huiln, Kuilea—enough of these games. Just tell her our plan. If she arrived today, she isn’t an agent of the king.”
“I’ve been here three days,” said Eurilda.
“Not helping,” said Khyte through his teeth.
“I’m satisfied that she serves her own agenda,” said Huiln.
“Yes, tell her.” Kuilea’s glare at Khyte contradicted her cheerful tone.
“Huiln, tell her,” said Khyte. “It’s your idea.”
“Someone tell me,” Eurilda sighed.
“Since no one else can muster a plan or the backbone to speak frankly to a giant,” said Huiln, “I’m happy to tell her.” Khyte blanched. If Huiln showed their hand, Eurilda would know they had no plan—just a vague intention to throw themselves at goblin swords.
“Trindyr twice usually means emphasis, but now I see that your cause is doubly cursed, both by poisonous intent and the forbidden fruit of a dryad princess. Euvoni ni parema bela; scontil deian skastil.”
“Ooh. I know that one,” said Huiln with a smile. “Charity kills more than greed.”
“That is one way to put it,” she said frostily. “But in the original giant, it is much more poetic. A closer meaning would be ‘Goodwill embraces doom; greed saves at least one.’”
“Don’t you want to know how I know that?” asked Huiln with a smug smile.
“Not particularly,” said Eurilda. “You can’t impress me when you’ve proved yourself a bonehead with this idiotic plan.”
“But I haven’t told you our plan,” said Huiln.
“Did I say plan? I lied. There is no plan,” said Eurilda. “If your blank faces and gaping mouths weren’t noise enough, your stupidity was screamed by my tiles. Do you deny it?”
Huiln cleared his throat. “Your tiles were apt, at least by the stamp of your interpretation. Except for the Lyspera tile. Unless you’ve guessed its significance?”
“Not until I heard your intentions. Now, it can mean only one thing—the catacombs.”
“We are a mining and stoneworking people, and in the last few hundred years, half of our kings were patiently assassinated by tunnelers. Hence, the king’s castle was built on stone and does not have catacombs or dungeons. There are a few basement rooms where they’re needed, cut into the foundation itself, and below them there is at least twenty feet of stone.”
“King Merculo might have built on stone for those reasons, and you may not believe there is anything under it. But the catacombs stretch under all Kreona. All Nahure, for that matter.”
“Because one from an island on the Monster World would know better than
two born to this city.”
“You’re saying I’m disadvantaged?” she snorted.
“Only on Nahure. No offense.”
“Much taken,” Eurilda said. “While you have the empirical advantage of being born here, observations can lead just as easily to superstition as to good reasoning, and the sciences develop by progressing past your provincial assumptions.”
“Don’t play the part of the enlightened outsider. Giants believe the Five Worlds were vomited from the true reality—the lost lunch of a god.”
“That’s a crude way of putting it, but yes. My superstitious brothers believe the Five Worlds were the most monstrous of all possible worlds, and they were expelled from a perfect creation. The scientific thesis counters that our expulsion was random, without malice or purpose.”
“Monstrous. Of course people from Nymerea think all worlds are Monster Worlds,” sighed Huiln.
“If we’re giving credence to nonsense now, maybe the Five Worlds are just the spider’s baubles, strung on a web, like the playground rhyme,” said Kuilea.
“What?” asked Khyte and Eurilda, nearly at the same time.
Rolling her eyes, Kuilea recited:
The spider saw unending string,
and stole five children, singing.
She took them in her web, a ring
of dark gems, a crown for a king.
In seeing the worlds on her string,
she awakened the All-Thing,
and the anger of the string.
“Once again,” said Eurilda. “but slower, while I write it down.” When Kuilea did as requested with reluctant grace, Khyte remembered why he was attracted to her.
Eurilda continued, “I think that’s a fragment of a lost piece of scripture, The Bane of the All-Thing. Legend says that the holy text preceded the Five Worlds.”
“Why does this matter?” asked Huiln.
“I’m now certain there are catacombs under Kreona.”
“Because of a schoolyard rhyme?”
“Even on the Goblin World, the truth was preserved in myth—that a prior reality is embedded in the Five Worlds, like flies in amber.”
A Spell Takes Root Page 6
