A Spell Takes Root

by Keith Hendricks

  Their scheme assumed the king would do one of two things—punish Khyte, or grant him immunity due to his allegiance to the House of Hwarn and their professed fealty to Merculo. This was all well and good, but it ignored the character of the king, a goblin who cruelly satisfied his curiosity about offworlders and was social with his vices. Khyte had learned from Eurilda’s example that people were just as likely to opt for the irrational as the reasonable, so he felt they should account not only for reasonable alternatives, but also for any unreasonable ones that they could expect from the king’s character. As the king had invited his favored courtiers to partake in the rape, brutalization, and cannibalization of the dryad, Khyte could also end up on a sadistic dinner party menu. To Khyte, there were hence three outcomes: draconian punishment, which would not serve a political end or be in character for the king; the pardoning of Khyte’s brawling, which would keep the House of Hwarn close and be politically expedient; or his immediate capture and addition to a menagerie of offworlders, which would be in character for the king and serve the twin agendas of entertaining his cronies and adding to his collection. And it was this latter very likely possibility for which they were not prepared.

  “It won’t work,” he said to Kuilea and Eurilda, expecting that his reasoning would not be heard.

  He was right.

  “It will be okay,” said Kuilea.

  “Trust us, Khyte,” added Eurilda.

  While Khyte wanted to be able to say that he had tried to tell them, he was satisfied, as he had never planned to share this rescue. Whether it led to ransom or altruistic reward, because Khyte was led along on false pretenses by all of them—Sarin Gelf, Huiln, Kuilea, and Eurilda—he owed this victory to himself. Moreover, Eurilda’s too-easy forgiveness, Kuilea’s clingy claims of sisterhood, and Huiln’s aloofness in the face of Khyte’s probable peril—all of these were disturbing, and he would be glad to get out of their reach. It might leave him without friends for a while, but he could secure the victory and the wealth now, and secure his friends later.

  Once he lost confidence in his friends’ plan, Khyte developed his own based upon his presumption that the goblin king, curious about Khyte, would add the human to his menagerie of torture, and that he would share this pastime with his courtiers. If Khyte could avoid being bound and retain a weapon, the king would do his work for him, as he would be brought within reach of the dryad princess. If it also put him within reach of the miscreant courtiers, that was poor luck for them, as Khyte liked his odds against a handful of obese goblin elites.

  As they were now a few hundred feet from the castle, Khyte stopped in the street and waited for them to notice. The oppressive bulk of Merculo’s estate squatted downtown, abutting the Royal Garrison and the Kreonan Gasworks, which fed the gaslamps. As it was an inner-city castle, there was no grand moat or drawbridges, but there was a main concourse through which Kuilea led Khyte and Eurilda, descending terraced steps shaded by dozens of firey orange gaslamps sculpted to resemble trees. At the center was a fountain made from hammered copper petals in the shape of a glinting rose, water jetting through its metallic pistil. Everything was so painstakingly crafted that nature would have exhausted her inexhaustible supply in equalling the ribs in the leaves or the grooves in the bark, and if Merculo might have paid less to transplant a copse of trees, their naturalness, grafted to the stone city, would seem a sham compared to the manifest quality of the unreal forest.

  “What is it, Khyte?” said Kuilea. “You can change your mind.”

  Khyte was unsure if he believed this. “We’ve prepared for the best, while leaving it to the king not to choose the worst, and I’d like to live another day despite his choice. Eurilda, conceal my sword with your size-changing magics.”

  “While any visible blade would be confiscated—a sword in miniature still looks like a sharp knife or a mischief-making needle—shrinking your blade smaller might subject you to danger. If we shrunk it to a speck that would lie under your eyelid, you can imagine the unfortunate result if the spell failed due to some unforeseen injury to myself.”

  “It is the perfect hiding place,” said Khyte. “but as you say, not the most secure. Let’s not risk my eye or brain, but cake it under my fingernail with dirt.”

  Eurilda cast her eyes skyward, considering. “That might work.”

  “How would I draw my sword?”

  “Pick a word. When the word is said, the sword will drop as it enlarges, and if your wits survive the possible splitting of your fingernail, you can seize the hilt before it hits the floor. I recommend a short word, but not one so common that it might be spoken by another before you’re ready.”

  “Well, then,” said Khyte, “why don’t you smart ones think of a word not likely to be said in the presence of a goblin king?”

  “The problem,” said Kuilea, “is that words unlikely to be spoken around a king, such as dolt, idiot, and fool, may be used by the king at will.”

  “Or ‘no,’” said Eurilda, “as while no one tells the king no, I’m sure he uses that one a lot.”

  “How about ‘fail’?”asked Khyte. “The king and his retinue will be loath to use that word, if for different reasons.”

  “‘Fail’ it is,” said Eurilda, and when she stepped under the canopy of one of the brass gaslamp trees, the others followed. After looking up and down the concourse and to the adjoining streets, she held out her hand, and Khyte handed her his scabbarded sword. Khyte cupped his hands under hers as she worked the spell, so that he easily caught the miniaturized blade. Then he put the sixteenth-inch blade under his forefinger’s cuticle, and caked it in with dirt.

  The concourse funneled to the gate of Merculo’s castle, where fourteen of the hardest-looking goblins were stationed. They were armored in black iron embedded with a blacker, glossier enamel that, when looked at dead on, projected the image of a roaring beast. What made the enameled suits seem even darker and more diabolic was the stark contrast to their backdrop, for Merculo’s walls were a blinding shade of red so uniformly smooth that it seemed the stones were not painted and laid by hand, but had flowered from the soil of the Goblin World. Even the gaslamp forest at their back could not account for the uncanny crimson radiating from the goblin castle.

  “Is your king a wizard?” asked Khyte.

  “It’s only illusion caused by the light from this brass park,” scoffed Eurilda. “Must I explain the gaslamps to you again?”

  “It’s no illusion, giantess,” Kuilea said evenly, “but only gaszti.”

  “I don’t know that word,” said Khyte.

  “Some things from the grottos below glow with their own light. Animals, plants, stones, and even, rumor has it, an ancient tribe of blind goblins that died out centuries ago. Merculo commanded an underground lake to be drained so that he could harvest this gaszti stone.”

  When they approached, a grotesquely muscular goblin leveled his pike, which lowered a blue and orange banner that flapped at the top of the shaft. This one had his high rank gilded into the plates of his steel helm. “Which House bears good will to the Castle of King Merculo?” he barked, spittle flying from a mouth full of broken teeth. that indicated he was a veteran, if not of wars then of bar brawls, though the former seemed more likely, given the veneer of scars visible beneath his armor, which seemed to teeter on his popping muscles.

  “I am Kuilea of the House of Hwarn. This is Eurilda, a traveler, and I’ll take responsibility for her at Merculo’s court. And this is Khyte, also of House Hwarn, who would beg the king’s justice for a regrettable act of violence.”

  “Khyte of Hwarn?” he said, scowling. “A Hravakian in one of the great houses? Violence is what passes for manners on Hravak, one hears. I won’t take this uncouth offworlder to Merculo. Fear not; we’ll have him tried in the lesser courts, and justice will be done.”

  “Have you no orders concerning a human that consorts with giants?” continue
d Kuilea. “This is the one the king seeks.”

  “Even so, a violent offworlder with giants in his pocket should not approach our beloved monarch. After the man is sentenced, Merculo can collect him.”

  “You would prevent my brother from presenting his request for the king’s justice, which is his by right? Do as your conscience bids, and I will do likewise.”

  “Kuilea of Hwarn, I am also the scion of a great house; before you stands Vuln of the House of Rkorhnan. While I understand our privileges, I also swore an oath to protect the king against all harm, even a trifle. I am to pit my life if necessary. So if he would beg the king’s justice, you must swear on his hands and his life as if they were your own.”

  Just like that, the wheels of their plan spun as predicted; after Kuilea swore this oath, Vuln of the House of Rkorhnan carried word to the king. Some time later, Vuln waved them in through the castle’s south gate, where they waited, under guard, in a vast foyer milling with noble goblins in glittering robes. The south wall’s windows were barred with filigreed steel curled into abstract renditions of the plants and animals of the Goblin World, such as the utreboq, the kembir, and the disgusting ooiro, which the goblins held in high veneration. Khyte shuddered, a revulsion magnified by the savory smells of goblin cooking, including the delicious cheese which had its nauseating origins in the ooiro. If it was disgusting to think about, Khyte’s anxiety made him ravenous, and he forgot all about the princess and the crown in his hopes of laying his hands on the feast. When he inched towards the throng of nobles, wanting a glimpse of the banquet, the guards prodded his ribs with the butts of their halberds, and if Eurilda had not favored him with a baleful glower, he might not have quelled his raging appetite and seething wrath.

  Several minutes later, as if their escort observed some agreed-upon time or signal, the nine armored goblins marched them down the central hallway, their pike shafts thumping the floor beneath them a counterpoint to the percussion of their mailed boots.

  When the throne room’s double doors were no more than fifty feet away, their escort turned left. From there, they could not have followed a more indirect route, as they were marched past rooms arranged in an ascending magnitude of luxury, as if their main purpose was not as dwellings or functional spaces, but as showcases for the king’s opulence. While the sitting room was occupied with elderly lords dozing in rocking chairs, and lined by a dozen haughty lords painted in the bloom of youth, the tea room outranked it, for it was swelled by goblin ladies circling tea services, and ringed by portraits of King Merculo and his crowned forefathers, all holding haughty poses, especially the goblin ladies, who didn’t so much socialize as condescend to each other.

  Having passed Merculo’s library, where servile librarians wheeled whole shelves to their aristocratic patrons, next they were marched down a wide corridor where five massive pendulums swung but never collided, so perfect was their timing. The guards prodded them toward the swinging pendulums, which veered away as they approached, only to sweep through the space they had just vacated, raising the hair on the back of Khyte’s neck.

  “Is that Merculo’s clock?”

  “How should I know?” said Kuilea.

  “It’s for show,” said Eurilda. “No doubt they represent the Five Worlds.”

  Although Eurilda affected boredom, Khyte also heard the tinge of resentment that was the closest she ever came to a grudging respect. “What a monumental waste of effort. Although the scale and timing are right, any details on the surfaces are obscured by the speed.”

  Just past the pendulums was a room with nothing but maps, with one wall devoted to the surface of Nahure past and present, the flanking walls depicting Hravak, Ielnarona, Nymerea, and Alfyria, and in the center a kind of mobile comprised of dangling rocks.

  “Is that … ?”

  “A map of the oases in the Abyss?” finished Eurilda. “Why not? He’s the king. If I were a goblin king, I would have a country house on every one of those planetoids. It would certainly make a much better tour. Speaking of which, how much longer?” Although her voice raised to a half-shout, their escort did not turn their heads.

  Past the goblin king’s playing courts, where servants were stringing nets and raising hoops for kuliat, a bizarre six-sided game that Khyte did not understand, they passed an enormous indoor pool teeming with children, no doubt the offspring of the high-ranking lords summoned to Merculo’s court. The boisterous goblin boys and girls spared them not a glance as they were then ushered down a long hallway to the gleaming doors to Merculo’s throne room.They waited outside the throne room while the king’s herald, Jucona, a tall and wispily aged goblin with white braids and sideburns, learned their names, houses, and worlds. “You’ll have to start over,” the old herald said, when they stated their identities and origins faster than he could rehearse.

  “I am Kuilea, mistress of the House of Hwarn.”

  “I am Eurilda, a chieftess of Drydana, and this is my former manservant, Khyte, who by his usual grace and aplomb, as well as by presumption and insolence—the combination of which comes from his poor breeding—landed himself in one of the great houses.”

  Khyte bristled at being called a “former manservant” even in jest, and said, “I am Khyte, of the House of Hwarn, but once of the Drydanan tribe, where I had great repute and Eurilda was little known, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Kuilea of Hwarn; Eurilda a chieftess of Drydana, and of Hravak, though you deigned not to mention your world as instructed; and, Khyte of Hwarn, once of Drydana on Hravak. Forgive me, but I have already forgotten your embellishments.” When a gong rang, Jucona stepped into the chamber.

  The bronze-clad double doors opened inwards; chased with gold-leaf calligraphy, the left door read GOLDEN, and the right read MASTER. Khyte thought this monument to the king’s ego boded well for his plan, as the king was proving not only sadistic, cruel, and a crony to his many minions, but also ostentatious and easily flattered. “Your majesty,” declared Jucona, “I present Dame Kuilea of the House of Hwarn; Eurilda, a Drydanan chieftess of Hravak; and, Khyte, a former Drydanan, now of the House of Hwarn.”

  No sooner had Khyte’s introduction fell on the court’s ears that he entered to receive an unexpected welcome. The king grabbed the arms of his throne to heave his considerable bulk upright, then shouted “What’s this? I have a Hravakian cousin?” Then the goblin monarch lumbered forward, clapped his hands to Khyte’s shoulders, and embraced him.

  Khyte almost said “fail” then and there in Merculo’s unctuous grasp. As he mastered his revulsion, his eyes froze mid-shudder, as if the shock of the king’s embrace had momentarily killed him. In that moment he saw what rested on Merculo’s brow: a gold circlet, upon which perched the eight golden legs of a silver spider, inset with eight opals—the effect of which was that a shining arachnid crowned the goblin monarch. Khyte stifled a chortle at the flamboyant crown, and any joy at learning Sarin Gelf spoke true was frustrated by its ungainly elegance. How could he make off with that monstrosity, he wondered; could he snap off the golden legs without devaluing Gelf’s payment? He must make Eurilda his partner, as the giantess could shrink the crown to a thimble, to wear out of Kreona on Khyte’s thumb.

  “Dismiss these charges against my kinsman, who is in the line of succession. A charge against the crown is not only lèse majesté, but a crime against the state, and for the sake of the throne, we must dismiss it.”

  “King Merculo,” said Khyte. “Forgive my ingratitude, but I have never laid eyes on you; moreover, neither Huiln nor Kuilea of Hwarn have mentioned ties to the crown.”

  “I only just learned it, researching the royal family tree.” When Merculo beamed like Khyte’s doting grandmother, the king’s warm, throaty voice, wide paunch, and sizable bosom did little to discourage this association. As Khyte’s apprehensions faded, he admitted that if Merculo was a monster, he was a distinctly unhealthy, obese, and sedentary o
ne. Khyte would never cast such a deflated, lumpish frog as the terrible hobgoblin of his nightmares. Still, Merculo was a king, and might compel heartier, more heroic-looking subordinates to stand in as proxies to enact his villainy. When this made Khyte squirm all the more, he extracted himself from Merculo’s embrace, taking care not to indicate his revulsion.

  “Come and sit with me,” bade the king. “To answer any presentiments that I am not fair, your punishment will be to hold court with me as my council,” said the king. “You too, Kuilea of Hwarn. I want my kinsmen near today. For heavy hangs the head that wears the crown, or so the human proverb goes. Today I must render my verdict in several lamentable cases that custom and precedent demand execution for the accused. Help me shoulder the burden of this responsibility.” Taking their flabbergasted looks as reluctance, he said, “Come, your other friend, too. We shall learn of each other.”

  “You do us much honor, great Goblin King.” said Khyte. “Too much.”

  “‘Your Majesty’ is enough,” said the king, and he went on to whisper, “During dinner, we’ll dispense with titles, cousin.” Court attendants brought chairs from the gallery and seated Khyte, Kuilea, and Eurilda just behind the granite throne, the back of which was gilded with goblin script and abstruse symbols. With this much gold facing a wall, surely Merculo could pay well for whatever he wanted from Khyte.

  Sarin Gelf’s undertakings never lined up with circumstances; if Khyte had been hired to kill Merculo, he would never have found this easy opportunity behind the throne with a concealed blade and a giant sorceress. And it galled him to know that the king acted neither according to his coconspirators’ predictions nor Khyte’s equally reasonable fears. Had the king not researched his family tree, this unforeseen path would not have been possible. Though Khyte would have been spared listening to an exhausting litany of crimes, his would have been included in their number. While Merculo was much in love with the sound of his own voice, Khyte admitted it was a mellifluous instrument. The king’s pronouncements were also uniquely original, treating the defendants to a one-of-a-kind performance.