Authors: Hilari Bell
“I told you, they’re not inclined to trust any human these
days—including me! I’ll give you as fair an exchange for your information as I can, but I make no promises as to what the goblins will do! In fact, I doubt you’ll ever see a sign of them.”
It wasn’t much, but it was more than Jeriah had now and the story cost him nothing. Not even time, for it would be at least another day before he could ride.
“I can only tell you what happened from my point of view,” Jeriah warned him. “And there’s plenty I don’t know! The first I heard of the sorceress was when Tobin was sent into the north, several months ago, to help Master Lazur capture her and destroy her goblin army.”
“Getting rid of a sorceress and a whole goblin army seems quite a task for one lone knight and a priest! If you don’t tell me the truth, the whole deal’s off.”
“It is true! Tobin wasn’t supposed to get rid of them by himself. His part was to allow the goblins to capture him, so their camp could be located. Master Lazur brought a whole village of settlers, and several troops of the church’s guard, into the wood to actually capture the sorceress and wipe out her army. I came north with them.”
“So your brother, he got himself captured and then betrayed them?” The tinker’s face had hardened.
“She was delaying the relocation,” said Jeriah firmly. “And since the barbarians just captured over half the Southlands, no one can deny that Master Lazur is right about that! Tobin was a hero! At least he should have been. It went perfectly,
all according to plan, but then he went crazy! We had captured the sorceress, holding her in charmed iron so the goblins couldn’t free her, but Tobin sneaked into camp and got her out. And I don’t understand that at all! He acted like he knew what he was doing, but the goblins bespelled me to get them into Master Lazur’s tent. Could the sorceress have bespelled Tobin as well?”
“I doubt it,” the tinker said dryly. “Spells that can compel a person against their conscious will are difficult to cast, and very hard to maintain for more than a few minutes. Even for a hedgewitch, Makenna didn’t have much magical ability. It’s more likely that your brother found destroying ‘the goblin army’ more than he’d bargained for.”
“I saw hundreds, maybe thousands, going into the Otherworld,” said Jeriah defensively. “So I don’t think Master Lazur put much of a dent in their numbers.”
“I heard she’d cast a gate.” The tinker’s voice was soft with wonder. “I thought it had to be a tale. Are you sure…?”
“There was a big shimmery patch of light across the road,” Jeriah told him. “And when people stepped into it, they vanished. Master Lazur said it was a gate to the Otherworld. And I don’t think he was lying.”
“But the legends say that only the saints themselves have the power to do that!”
“Master Lazur told me she drained magic out of the great wall,” Jeriah told him. “A power sink, he called it.”
A smile lit the tinker’s face. “How fitting. That wall was
originally built and charmed, all those centuries ago, to keep the goblins behind it. It was the church’s first attempt to rid the Realm of them. You’d think they’d learn, wouldn’t you?”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Jeriah. “It’s now—”
“Seeing as how you want to talk to some goblins, I’d say it matters a lot!”
“I don’t
want
to talk to them,” Jeriah corrected him. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Seems to me,” Todder said slowly, “that your brother went of his own will. And finding him once you get to the Otherworld is the least of your worries. Or at least the last. How—”
“I’ll take care of the rest of it,” Jeriah interrupted. “But I need your help if I’m going to find the goblins in time. Can’t you just take me to the ones who knew her best? For Tobin’s sake?”
He was begging now, but he didn’t care.
“You’re not thinking, lad. By your own account, the goblins who knew her best went with her.”
“Surely some of them were left behind!”
“That might be, particularly if they left in as big a rush as you said. And some may not have wanted to go—they’re independent little creatures. Makenna’s the only person I’ve ever heard of who’s organized and led them.”
Seeing the respect in Todder’s face, it occurred to Jeriah that the tinker might not be quite as helpful as he sounded. He obviously cared about the sorceress. Why should he trust
Jeriah, after all? He took a deep breath and forced himself to let it out slowly.
“If you worked with her, you must have known her goblin allies pretty well.”
“Not really. In fact, the only goblin I saw more than once was Cogswhallop, who was her second-in-command. The only thing they needed me for was to deal with other humans, to sell things for them”—he gestured at Fiddle—“and buy the things they couldn’t make.”
“So how did you contact them?”
“That was easy. All you had to do was pass the wall and they’d contact you. But your Master Lazur went and changed that. The Goblin Wood is probably the worst place in the Realm to look for goblins right now.”
“Then how can I contact them?” Jeriah demanded. “Much less find one who knew the sorceress?”
Todder shook his head. “I can’t make you any promises about the first part, but if you can talk to one of them, you can send word to the rest. The lass could get news from any corner of the Realm if the goblins knew it, and the Hierarch’s messages traveled slower than hers. As for how to contact them, my best suggestion is to use the traditional method.”
“What’s that?” Jeriah asked.
“You put out a bowl of milk.”
“That’s it?” Jeriah stared. “That’s your best suggestion?”
The tinker’s face was grave, but his eyes twinkled. “The
good news is that it doesn’t matter where you try it—there are goblins everywhere.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry about your brother, but that’s all the advice I have to offer. I warned you it wouldn’t be much.” The humor had vanished from the tinker’s face. And he’d made no promises. Jeriah was on his own. But at least there were goblins elsewhere in the Realm, and if he could contact them anywhere…
“Then I might as well go…home. Oh, Gods.”
Todder Yon was too kind to laugh.
T
OBIN WAS CROSSING THE MEADOW
to report to Makenna when he met Firka coming up the path. The goblin woman carried two human-size mugs of tea.
“She’s not stopped for a minute, much less a bite, since breakfast.” Firka sighed. “But you might as well drink yours. And don’t go telling me how busy you are, because I don’t care!”
“Give me her mug,” Tobin said. “I’ll get her to drink it.”
It had delighted him, over the past week, watching the subtle way the goblins took care of Makenna—and she needed it!
They hadn’t been in the Otherworld for a full day when she’d announced that if this place was habitable, she was going to find a way to open some gates and invite every goblin in the Realm in to join them. A whole empty world for the goblins’ sanctuary.
It gave the grieving goblins hope, for many of them had left parents, siblings, and close friends behind. It comforted
Tobin too—and he knew how precarious that promise was. He had watched her creep out of the lean-to they shared to read Master Lazur’s spell books by moonlight.
She was too busy to read them during the day.
The goblin Makers who were laying out the new village sat with her now. The plan for the new village had been marked on a large stretch of smooth sand, since they had no paper to spare. Thadda, the best of the goblin Weavers, was waiting for the planning session to end, her apron full of some new plant fluff.
Tobin came up behind Makenna and looked over her shoulder at the drawing. It would be a big village, with plenty of room to grow. Someday it might grow into a goblin city, but for now…
“Just the houses we need,” Makenna was saying. “We’ll sit through at least one winter, make sure they’re not too severe, before we bring others in, so guest shelters can wait. The Greeners say they can get two harvests in before the cold comes, so shelter and food storage are the first priorities. I only want to make sure we’re laying things out with the future in mind, so that we won’t find ourselves tearing houses down in order to build mills next year.”
“Then I think we’re ready to start,” the Maker told her, rising to his feet. “I’ll give Master Tobin his turn now.” He nodded politely and departed.
Makenna looked up at Tobin. “You’re finally back? You’ll have to wait a bit, for Thadda’s…”
Thadda had noticed the tea mugs in Tobin’s hands and disappeared some time ago.
“She’s been waiting to talk to me for half a hour!” Makenna started to her feet to go look for the Weaver.
Tobin handed her a mug and sat down on a rock beside the village map. “She won’t come back till you’ve finished, so you might as well drink it. They’re right, you know. You work too hard.”
“I’m not working hard enough.” But she sat down and sipped the tea. “We’re all assuming that the seasons in this world are like the ones we’re used to, but what if instead of having all summer before us, we find winter sets in next month?”
“Then working yourself into the ground won’t have done any good, because the crops are growing as fast as the Greeners can make them. And if the seasons are the same length as back home…working yourself into the ground still won’t have done any good. I was raised on a country estate. You can’t rush the ripening of crops. Or much of anything, really.”
She cast him an amused glance. “I was raised in a war, where rushing a march can get you to the perfect site in time to ambush your enemy. And win because of it.”
“Not if your enemy is winter, and it’s your harvest doing the marching.”
She’d leaned back against the rock behind her and was sipping her tea. Relaxed, for once. Thadda would be proud of him.
“You took longer than I expected, checking out that bog,” she said. “Did you find something?”
“No danger of any kind,” Tobin told her. “And the Greeners found a root that tastes almost like a potato. We’ve all been eating them, and none of us have died yet, so you can add one more item to the things-we-can-eat list.”
“I hope it tastes better than some of the others,” Makenna said. “Nothing dangerous?”
“Not a thing,” Tobin repeated.
“If there was, if some swamp monster rose out of the muck and gnawed on your bones, it would be your own fault, anyway. You’re the one who insisted on coming along.”
“All my fault,” Tobin agreed, and suppressed a smile when she scowled at him.
She had stopped asking why he’d come through the gate, but she kept throwing out those hinting jabs.
Tobin wasn’t sure she’d ever figure it out, and he enjoyed keeping her guessing. She was a bit too compulsive in her desire to know everything, to control every aspect of this new world. It made her a great general—but his job was to keep her human, as well.
He hid another smile and sipped his tea.
H
OME
.
I
T WAS LATE AFTERNOON
when Jeriah pulled Glory to a stop at the top of the hill, gazing over the patchwork of scattered trees and greening fields that nestled in the curve of the Abo River. On a rise several miles to the south stood the mellow stone square that was Rovan Manor. Tobin, the heir, had loved this view, even in winter. Even in the early spring, when the fields showed nothing but mud. Even in the rain, he’d sit here. The memory held more amusement than grief. Jeriah refused to think of his brother as dead, or going to die; Tobin was merely missing, in need of rescue.
It was going to be ghastly, letting his family think Tobin was truly gone. But if he told them his plans, first his father would forbid him to risk it. “You’re my only living son. You have no right to take that chance.” Then Tami would insist on going with him, and Senna would criticize his tactics. Jeriah’s lips twitched—maybe that was why the knights of legend always worked alone. Only his mother could be counted on for practical advice.
He lifted the reins, and Glory started down the hill, scenting her barn and the journey’s end.
Jeriah was riding into one of the scattered groves when the sound of cantering hoofbeats reached his ears. His hand went to the knife Todder had traded him. Jeriah had encountered several bands of refugees in the ten days it had taken him to get home. Ten days, pushing the horses as hard as he dared. Over a quarter of Tobin’s two months was gone—but he couldn’t return to Master Lazur until he got his father’s permission. The ragged refugees he’d met hadn’t delayed him, but Jeriah had learned the hard way that he might not always be so lucky.
It was only his father who rode around the bend.
Only his father?
Considering the news he carried, Jeriah would rather have faced bandits.
“Jeriah, what brings—” Then his father recognized Fiddle, and his open expression hardened. His horse’s legs were muddy, and his boots even muddier. He must have been out in the fields and seen Jeriah lingering on the hilltop.
The old man rode up and pulled his horse to a stop. The lines around his mouth looked as if they’d been carved with a chisel. His eyes traveled from Fiddle to his second son’s face. “Dead?”
“Well…ah…he’s gone. No, I don’t mean—”
“Don’t dance with it. Is he dead?” That clipped voice had always reduced Jeriah to incoherence.
“It’s not that simple.” As clearly as he could, Jeriah
explained how Tobin had followed the sorceress, and what Master Lazur had told him about the Otherworld. The lines in his father’s face grew deeper, but he showed no other sign of grief. Jeriah was beginning to wonder if the old man was made of stone—Tobin was his favorite—when he saw that his father’s hands, tight on the reins, were shaking. His voice dried up and stopped.
“Perhaps it’s for the best.” His father’s voice roughened and he cleared his throat before he continued. “He was a traitor. Now that can be forgotten—at least by some. Will you break the news to your mother and sisters? Or would you rather I do it?”
Jeriah would a thousand times rather have had his father do this, but…“I saw what happened. They’ll want to hear it. I think I have to. For Tobin’s sake.”
He owed his family that much, at least.
Air rushed into his father’s lungs—had he dreaded that task as much as Jeriah did?
“In that case…there are things I still need to do today. Will you need me for this?”
Jeriah stared. It might be easier for him to lie to his mother and sisters without his father looking on, but…
“Don’t you want to be there? I mean, isn’t it your…?”
Responsibility.
“Necessary work doesn’t stop, even for death.” The words were hard, but the trembling in his father’s hands had spread to his voice.
Jeriah couldn’t remember his father shirking any responsibility, no matter how painful. Seeing him try to avoid this one told Jeriah exactly how much the news of Tobin’s death had hurt.
He couldn’t do this to his family. The price of this lie was too high.
“Father, there’s—”
“Work.” The old man’s face started to twist, the stone shattering. He spun his horse and cantered off.
“—something I have to tell you,” Jeriah finished, gazing at the empty road.
When he’d last come home—was it only a few months ago?—he’d planned to tell his father the truth, send him to get Tobin out of trouble, and then flee for his life. Had he met his father on the road that day, it would probably have happened just like that. Instead, Jeriah had seen his mother first.
His mouth tightened as he remembered waking in the locked attic, dizzy, disoriented, his mouth thick with the metallic taste of the drug she’d put in his tea. He remembered his fury and alarm when the girls told him, through the crack beneath the door where they pushed in bread, cheese, and nearly empty waterskins, that his mother intended that Tobin would continue to take Jeriah’s place, and his punishment. “Because the courts let heirs off much more lightly. You know that.”
It was true, but the thought of Tobin paying for his
mistakes was intolerable. Jeriah had twisted the hinge off a trunk and filed away the wood around the latch till he could break down the door, but it had taken days.
By the time he’d reached the city, he’d been too late to do anything except pick Tobin up, in the field where the guard had dumped his unconscious body, and clean and treat his lacerated back.
Jeriah’s hands clenched on the reins, then loosened as he remembered Tobin trying not to laugh when Jeriah told him how Mother had drugged his tea. He’d made Jeriah promise to get the drugs away from her, and that wouldn’t be easy.
Jeriah wanted to tell their father the whole story, but Tobin begged him not to. A priest Mother knew had offered Tobin a chance to redeem himself, to win back his rank and honor. All he had to do was lead Master Lazur to the lair of a sorceress.
…I’m not a hero. I’ll be careful, and I’ll come back. I promise…
But Tobin hadn’t been careful, and he was going to need help getting back. Jeriah’s father would never allow his only remaining heir to go adventuring in the Otherworld. If Jeriah didn’t lie to his family, Tobin would die, so he had to lie, no matter how much it hurt. Anything to bring Tobin home.
Once Tobin was back, none of it would matter. He would tell his father the whole truth as soon as his brother was safe.
He rode into the courtyard, wincing at the curiosity and alarm on the faces of the grooms who took the riderless
Fiddle. It wasn’t only because Tobin was the heir; the servants loved him for his own sake.
Jeriah climbed the worn stairs, dread slowing his steps. The huge doors opened before he reached them and Tamilee catapulted into his arms, all knobby elbows and flying ginger hair.
“Jeriah, Jeriah, how long can you stay? Is Tobin with you? Did you beat the barbarian goblins?” Ten-year-old Tami had a hard time keeping his mother’s complex schemes straight.
Sennahra had followed Tami into the hall, her serious face lit with a smile that almost made her pretty, but it began to fade the moment she saw Jeriah’s expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tami looked at him more closely then, her thin body tensing. “Is something wrong?”
Freckles stood out against Senna’s suddenly pale skin. “Tobin?”
Jeriah knew that even as she asked, she was waiting for him to deny it. Willing him to deny it, her fear growing as the silence stretched.
He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t….
If he didn’t, Tobin would die. For real.
“I’m so sorry,” Jeriah whispered. “So sorry. Tobin…he’s gone.”
His mother knew the moment she saw his face. Senna had taken them all up to the solarium. His mother sat on a bench
between two tall windows, a basket of thread in her lap, and Jeriah saw her expression change even before Tamilee burst through the door and threw herself into her mother’s arms, sobbing with childish abandon.
“Tobin.” His mother was so pale, Jeriah feared she might faint, and for the first time in his memory she said nothing more, only stroking Tami’s hair as Jeriah repeated the same story he’d told his father. It was no easier the second time, and he wondered how many times he’d have to repeat it.
Their grief waked his own, constricting his throat till his voice husked into silence.
Tami was the one who broke it. “Will it hurt? When Tobin gets sick?”
Jeriah flinched. “No,” he said firmly. This was one lie he had no trouble telling. “He’ll just get tired, then he’ll fall asleep.”
Would the life-draining effect of the Otherworld hurt his brother? Jeriah had no idea, but from what the priest had said, it didn’t begin immediately, and he intended to get Tobin out long before he fell ill, so it wouldn’t matter.
“He won’t be hurt. I promise.”
His mother’s face was wet with tears, but her voice hardly quavered as she finally spoke. “Senna, dear one, will you take care of Tami for a while? Can you manage?”
Sennahra’s swollen eyes sharpened. She knew that note in her mother’s voice as well as Jeriah did, but she pulled Tami gently from her mother’s arms and led her toward the door
without protest. Senna been born between Tobin and Jeriah, but she sometimes seemed older than both her brothers.
Jeriah took a deep breath and turned to face his mother. She was going to be harder to lie to than Tamilee. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he should lie to her—sometimes his mother had ideas. Her eyes were as red as Senna’s now, but not even weeping diminished her dark loveliness.
“Mother, I’m sorry.”
“
You’re
sorry.” She pulled out a kerchief and blew her nose. “I don’t know what you have to be sorry for since it was
my
scheme from the beginning. I meant for him to redeem himself, not get lost, but since he has, we shall simply have to get him back! He’s not dead now, and he won’t be for over a month, so we’ve plenty of time. And I don’t know why I’m crying in this absurd way. I
never
cry, unless I can use it to get something I want.”
Jeriah began to laugh, and she wiped her face firmly and put the kerchief away.
“I knew I could count on you,” Jeriah told her. “You never give up.”
“Well, I should think so. Giving up would get me nothing but a dead son. And”—her voice quivered—“I couldn’t bear to have
him
dead, any more than I could let
you
die. Why don’t we follow him into this…this Otherworld and bring him back?”
“There are problems with that.” His mother paid close attention as Jeriah repeated everything Master Lazur had
told him about the Otherworld. She was calm but her face was still pale, so he made her a cup of tea. And one for himself—Jeriah had resolved to never let her make tea for him again. He didn’t tell her his plans; she might come up with a better idea on her own. And she, of all his family, knew how to lie. She was silent for a time when he finished.
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” she said thoughtfully. “Clearly, the first thing we need is magical help, not only to open this gate thing, but also to find Tobin once you get in.”
“Yes, I’d realized that. I don’t suppose you know anyone who can work that kind of magic.”
“Of course, dear one, and so do you. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it, for Timeon admitted he was an expert on gates.”
“Tim—”
“Timeon Lazur.” She smiled, the first time she’d done so since Jeriah came in. “I’ve known him for years. He was an ambitious young priest when I was lady’s maid to the Hierarch’s mother.”
This was one notion Jeriah had to dispel. “Master Lazur won’t help. He wants to keep the sorceress and the goblins in the Otherworld. He won’t open a gate, or permit anyone else to do it. He wouldn’t even tell me where he’s stored the spell notes that could keep Tobin alive.”
“Then he’ll have to change his mind. I’ll take care of that—all you need to do is be ready to go after Tobin when I’ve set it up. In fact, I’ll write to Timeon right now. If he’s
going to be stubborn, this may take some time, and we don’t have much to spare.”
“You’re not listening. He won’t—”
“He told
you
he wouldn’t. But Timeon Lazur can always be persuaded…or pressured, if need be.” She paused on the way to her writing desk and patted his shoulder. “You just have to know his weakness.”
“What weakness?” Jeriah asked nervously. Confiding in his mother had seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago, but now…
“You know the answer to that already, dear one,” his mother said. “What’s the one thing Timeon cares about more than anything else in the world?”
Jeriah’s alarm grew. “The relocation. But how can you use that—”
She rose and went to her desk, picking up a quill. “You can leave that to me. Although it may take some…Hmm. Never mind. I’ll manage.”
Jeriah shivered. His mother had always preferred to keep her schemes to herself—some were even good schemes. She was beautiful, clever, and ruthless. But Master Lazur was more clever, much more ruthless, and beauty didn’t matter to him.
On the other hand, matching wits with his mother might keep the priest from noticing what Jeriah was up to.
Thank the Bright Gods he hadn’t told her about his plans.
“Very well. I’m glad you can persuade him—I had no idea who I could find to open a gate for me.”
“Don’t worry.” She was already writing. “I can handle Timeon.”
Jeriah doubted it. “That’s settled then. But what are we going to tell Father?”
The quick pen paused. “We’d better not tell him anything. He’s a very good man, but sometimes, in matters like this, it doesn’t work out well if one is
too
good. Besides, I’m afraid he might not entirely understand the situation.”
“He never does,” said Jeriah wearily.
“Well, dear one, it’s a little unreasonable to expect him to understand, when you consider that you and I and Tobin have all been lying to him from the very
start
.”
She returned to her letter, and Jeriah went to his own room. He asked one of the maids to send up a meal, claiming he wanted to go to bed early since he was tired from the long ride. He was tired, but he wanted to make contact with the goblins as soon as he could.