Jonathan did his best to look pitiful and un-threatening, evidently with some success. The blade was withdrawn from his throat, and the giant woman moved around to stand before him. She lowered the point of the sword slightly—its mass must have been twice his own—and regarded him thoughtfully.
“I am Fiond,” she said, her Uellish tinged by a heavy, unfamiliar accent. “Run not, or I will you slay.”
It was not the strangest event of Jonathan’s week.
Seeing that he was shivering and weak from the cold, the perplexing giant woman sheathed her sword and set it aside, motioning for him to come close to the fire. Jonathan slumped down next to it, soaking up the welcome heat even as the spitting rain continued to wet his head and shoulders. Fiond produced a large cloak of a fine canvas material—similar to one she wore herself—and laid it over him, sheltering him from the downpour. It had a strange, oily smell to it, but kept the water out marvelously.
They sat in silence for many minutes, Fiond slowly turning the spit and Jonathan sitting as close as he dared to the flames as feeling slowly returned to his numb fingers and toes. He sneezed, and then sneezed again.
“Drink,” said the giant, handing him a flask. Jonathan sniffed carefully and took a sip, finding it to be a pleasing, sweet cordial with a hot after-taste that warmed him from the inside.
“Hey, lemmee have some!” came Devi’s high-pitched voice from the pouch. She held out a tiny mug, and he carefully poured out a single drop of the liquid, then handed the flask back to Fiond. Fiond looked sharply at the tiny person—even smaller in proportion to her own towering height—but said nothing of it.
“Take clothes off,” instructed his host. “Sit by fire. Wet and cold will you kill.”
Jonathan, finding sense in the oddly-phrased suggestion, struggled piecemeal out of his wet clothing, trying and failing to maintain a degree of modesty beneath the oversized canvas cloak. Devi giggled, but Fiond’s face remained impassive. Naked but for the cloak, he let the heat of the fire revive mind and body. Finally he felt safe enough, and warm enough, to ask a question.
“What are you?”
“I am Fiond,” she answered, poking the roasting pig on it spit.
“Yes, but ? I’ve never seen anything like you.”
She sighed. “Sir Richard named us giant-man.”
Jonathan stared at her, his mind slowly putting the pieces together.
“Sir Richard… of Enderly?”
Fiond nodded, her face etched with terrible sadness.
Miss Snipe’s terse statement of the facts of the murder bubbled up to his mind.
, she had said
He thought, too, of the changes in Merrily since Rolly’s murder.
“How did you come to be here?” he asked. “And where is Sir Richard of Enderly now?”
“I know not where is Sir Richard,” she answered, beginning to carve the flank of the roasted pig. “I followed him to here with friend. Guillam was his name. A man who traveled with Sir Richard was he. Gray people took friend since five moon. I seek friend Guillam now. Sir Richard crossed big river, and I see him not.”
Fiond’s simple, halting words were at odds with the depth of intelligence and emotion in her face. She moved, too, with the grace and purpose of a trained warrior. This was no simpleton. She watched him closely, her frigid blue eyes willing him to understand through the limits of their shared speech. He nodded slowly.
“You followed Sir Richard here with a friend, but the goblins captured your friend about five months ago. Now you’re searching for him, and lost Sir Richard.”
She handed him a large slab of roast pig on a broad metal plate. The plate also contained cooked wild carrots and potatoes, and a bunch of fresh parsley. Jonathan ate the hot food awkwardly, singing his fingers and tongue, but it warmed him and restored his strength. The sneezes had stopped.
His host said little else, and Jonathan asked no more questions. That he had been killed neither by exposure nor the enormous sword seemed so strange he couldn’t quite bring himself to challenge it. Devi nibbled at the food, giving him sidelong and inscrutable looks. He was too weary to work them out.
Fiond let him sleep in the tent that night as his clothes hung under a canvas shelter by the fire. There was a warm, oversized bedroll that smelled like her, and a huge heap of steel armor in one corner that he discovered only when he tripped over it. Devi curled up in a tiny blanket in her pouch. As they were both falling into sleep, the snarf woman asked a question.
“What’re ye gonna do now?” She asked the question like it mattered.
He opened his eyes and stared up at the darkness in the tent.
“I’m going to find Sir Richard of Enderly,” he said, his mind hazy and half-asleep, “and I’m going to kill him.”
???
The next morning, Fiond was nowhere to be seen at the camp, though her belongings were still present. Yesterday’s driving rain had slacked to a cold, light drizzle, and Jonathan gratefully retrieved his dry clothes from beneath the shelter by the fire. Looking around helplessly for his absent host, he reluctantly resolved to move on and try to reach the Gray Kingdom this morning. With a pencil and sheet of hemp paper from the sealed oilskin pouch that he kept under his coat, Jonathan wrote out a short note.
The road leading west to the Gray Kingdom was approximately where he’d left it the previous night as he fled the grayskin ambushers. Carrying Devi in the pouch and sash—and politely enduring a steady stream of her lilting curses at the cold, damp weather—he trudged stolidly along the track, keeping a careful watch on the shadows of the immense boles on either side. But no new ambush party awaited him, and when he next saw a goblin, it was a familiar and welcome figure.
“Hello Emily,” he greeted the watcher in her tree platform overlooking the border crossing. She peered at him through a pair of oversized spectacles, and then shimmied down the rope from the platform to the ground. She was short even for her diminutive race, with light gray skin and surprisingly delicate features. Emily was not a Quiet One, but rather a goblin of the rank and file that had taken with enthusiasm to the benefits of the newly-imported Uellish culture—and, in particular, to its ready supply of sandwiches and beer. Jonathan knew her from border encounters on several previous trips.
“Good morning, Jonathan Miller,” she greeted him. Her Uellish was lightly accented, but carefully precise. “You are welcome in the Gray Kingdom. And I am glad to see you. There has been trouble.”
He looked at her sharply. “What kind of trouble?”
“King Simon is gone,” she said bluntly, “and Mrs. Miller has been taken by the Old Teeth.”
Jonathan struggled to absorb that.
“Which problem ye ginna solve fairst, Jonathan?” asked Devi intently.
“The one involving my mother being taken by… who are the Old Teeth?”
Emily peered curiously at the snarf, but quickly turned her gaze back to Jonathan.
“They prefer the old ways,” she answered. “A , Mrs. Miller called them. She said it is a thing that happens to humans sometimes too. They have gone feral.”
He pondered this. “Did they hurt my mother?” he asked.
Emily shrugged. “I do not know. I heard they grabbed her from the classroom. Globclaw himself was there. He told them what to do.”
“Who is Globclaw?”
Emily’s eyes narrowed. “The big boss,” she said, in a tone that dripped with disgust. “When King Simon was here, Globclaw bowed to his face and whispered bad things behind his back. He took some of us who still thought and spoke in the old goblin ways, and moved them to the caves of the Bloody Teeth tribe. They had been empty, since King Simon brought us together. When he left… Globclaw stopped whispering. He played King Simon’s drums, and stole his crown, and made some of us think he was the new King. He took those who believed him off into the old Bloody Teeth caves. They are there now. And so is Mrs. Miller.”
Jonathan shook his head in confusion. “Wait. King Simon ? Where did he go, and when is he coming back?”
The look of disgust on Emily’s face transformed into one of deep sorrow.
“I do not know the answer to either question, Jonathan. One day he was gone. It was on the fourteenth of September when I heard. I think he left the day before.”
“Then who’s in charge?” asked Jonathan, struggling with growing shock. “Who’s teaching and leading the music and organizing the coal mining… and making sure people don’t eat each other?”
She looked around cautiously, as if a hostile listener might be lurking among the huge trees.
“No one does those things,” she said softly. “The Quiet Ones have tried to keep the peace, and keep us all working together. They make food and give out beer and lead the singing. But they are not King Simon, and others do not follow them so easily. They are quiet. No one plays the drums like he did.”
Jonathan thought about that.
“We need to find The Gizzard,” he concluded. “He was always loyal to Simon, but never quite civilized either.” He looked down at Devi and smiled confidently. “The Gizzard will help us get everything sorted out.”
“He’s with the Old Teeth,” Emily informed him ruefully.
Jonathan took a deep breath.
“Shit,” he concluded.
???
Jonathan walked to the small enclave of the Gray Kingdom set aside for Snugg coal wagons, and found that here, at least, business continued as normal. The drivers, their wagons parked and waiting while teams of goblin laborers loaded them with sacks of coal from the mines below, shrugged nonchalantly when Jonathan questioned them about the goings-on in the settlement. The grayskins were always wild, they said. They were savages, after all. If output was down, it just went to show that they couldn’t be expected to operate the mines properly. One burly, mustached driver went so far as to predict—apparently forgetting who he was talking to—that Snugg would take over the whole operation by the spring. Jonathan corrected him firmly.
“We will not,” he said, “be taking over anything. This land belongs to the people who live on it. Keep talking like that, and I’ll make a note of it in your record.”
The man only smirked. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’d be pleased. When your boss realizes it’s the only way to get what she needs, I’d like her to know I thought of it first.”
Irked, Jonathan stalked away toward the large construction site at the edge of the settlement, pretending to scribble something on the papers in his oilskin pouch.
“I reckon it’ll come ta tha’,” remarked Devi from her pouch. “‘Tis the same ol’ story o’er an’ o’er. Thems as got bigger muscle an’ bigger swords talks nice ‘til ‘t’ain’t convenient-like; an’ then talkin’ turns ta’ . Same ‘ere as in the valley.”
“What do you know about the valley?” asked Jonathan. “You haven’t been around. Snugg’s treated the snarfs honorably.”
“Ain’t I been aroun’?” she asked. “Maybe ye ought ta’ go see fer yerself whether them Snuggs is behavin’ ‘onorable-like. An’ maybe—while y’er doin’ tha’—ask yerself what Fiond’s friends’re like ta’ do when come down this a-way.”
“How do you know there’s any more like her coming this-a-way?” he countered skeptically. “Maybe she’s one of a kind.”
“Ye recall what she said when ye asked what she was? I do. She said—an’ I quote—‘Sir Richard named giant-men.’ Emphasis mine, Mr. Miller., as in mar than one. And if mar than two ‘er three o’ that Fiond show up in one place, ye’ll become real well acquainted wi’ ‘ow snarfs an’ goblins feel.”
He thought of the towering giant-woman from the night before. Of particular salience was her ten-foot sword of thick steel, and the pile of massive steel armor in the tent where he’d spent the night.
“I expect,” he conceded, “that more than two or three of Fiond in one place would make everything around them extremely complicated.”
At the edge of the settlement was a wide clearing in the forest. It was larger than three foot-ball pitches in each direction. Towers of wooden scaffolding ringed the edge of the clearing, and the skeleton of some enormous, pill-shaped structure could be seen within. The scaffolding and emerging structure buzzed with the activity of goblins.
Even here, though, the discord in the community was evident. Among the busy workers were small knots of dissidents. They looked inward, speaking only with each other, but casting angry and suspicious glares at their industrious fellows nearby. The malcontents wore large, flamboyant, decorated hats, in the tradition of their people. The workers, by contrast, wore only simple caps, or went with their heads entirely bare.
Sometimes a shouting match would break out between the two groups. The working goblins would soon draw away, urged by one or two of their overseers on the job site. These last were well-dressed, never shouted, and watched everything around them carefully, and quietly.
They were Quiet Ones.
He made his way over to one of them slowly, giving himself time to be seen and recognized. It was Arthur, who seemed to be in charge of the mysterious construction site. Arthur wore a miniature business suit of light gray, a small cravat, and a rather strange round cap in the shape of a half a pumpkin, painted white. And this, Jonathan saw as he drew closer, was exactly what it was.
Arthur looked up at him and smiled in recognition. “Good morning, Mr. Miller,” he said with genuine warmth, doffing his white pumpkin-helmet. “What a delightful surprise. I hope you weren’t molested on the way in.”
Jonathan returned the smile. “Are you going to tell me yet what you’re building here?”
The well-dressed goblin winked and shook his head.
Though Jonathan had previously been a regular visitor to the Gray Kingdom, neither Arthur nor Simon nor any other goblin had explained the purpose of the enormous construction site. Indeed, Jonathan fostered an amused suspicion that the entire thing was intended simply to keep large numbers of marginally-civilized goblins busy and distracted.
“I’m afraid I just a bit molested,” he explained to Arthur. “A small group attacked me on the road last night, and it was only by very good luck that I wasn’t killed. Do you know anything about that?”
Arthur’s face became instantly grave, and he lowered his voice. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Miller,” he said contritely. “This disease has been spreading through the more atavistic members of our community. I strongly suspect that you encountered goblins from the Old Teeth; that’s what they call themselves. They’re a gang of… tribals… that has moved off into cave homes to the west. With Simon gone, their numbers are growing.”
Jonathan nodded. “I heard about that from Emily, at the border crossing. Is it true that The Gizzard is with them?”
Arthur nodded shortly, but said nothing.
“And my mother, Alice?”
The goblin nodded again. “They took her from her dwelling here six days ago, on the fifth of October. She was just starting one her longer visits. I believe she meant to stay for three weeks. The Gizzard left at the same time, and he was seen with Globclaw later that day.”
“Has anyone tried to get her back?” he inquired, his heart dropping in his chest. Six days was an eternity among feral goblins, who tended to an indiscriminate view of what—or who—constituted supper.
Arthur’s face emoted deep sorrow, and he closed his eyes briefly. “I regret, Mr. Miller,” he said, “that with Simon gone, none of us commands the respect or loyalty of enough warriors to move against them. It’s all we can do to keep our people busy, fed, and out of trouble.”
Jonathan nodded. “I understand, Arthur,” he replied, as kindly as he could manage. “It would be far worse here without you.” He squared his shoulders, looking up at the nearest pillar of scaffolding and the rib taking shape within it.
“I’ll just have to get her back myself,” he announced conclusively.
“Yer a dead man,” came Devi’s muffled voice from the vicinity of his chest.
???
Jonathan heard the Old Teeth before he saw them, and smelled them even before that.
The smell began with the faint hint of decay and acrid smoke, growing into a stench that combined a sickly floral rot, the eye-watering odor of massed excretion, and the foul reek of green Juju-jug, harvested too soon and not properly dried.
“Tha,” remarked Devi quietly, “is th’ sweet smell o’ supper. An ye, me frien’, are the main course.”
“I’m not getting eaten today,” he hissed back irritably.
“I’ll be sure ta mention that ta the chef,” she smirked back, “as ‘ees carvin’ up yer behin.’ Yer rump’ll make a fine roast.”
He heard the sound, next. There was a low thumping in the distant reaches of the forest, at the lowest register of his hearing. It was unhurried, stubborn. As he drew closer to the sound, it became louder, more defined, and other, complementary beats grew around it. There was a grinding, thrusting syncopation to the slow beat that was both fascinating and horrifying. From time to time a snatch of high-pitched, leering vocalization could be heard above the grinding thrust of the bass percussion.
He laid a finger to his lips, glaring at his miniature tormentor in her pouch at his chest, and crept forward toward the low ridge over the cave entrance to the old Bloody Teeth caverns.
Jonathan recalled a day, more than two years ago now, when he and his mother had crept over this same ridge, looking down at this same cave mouth across a stream choked with the limp gray bodies of scores of goblins, slaughtered in one of their endless back-and-forth raids. He had, at the time, not yet recovered from the blow to his head in the Green Wood, and his vision had been swimming and shifting. The man Brutus had shown himself in the distance, leading him to another cave entrance. Jonathan had, consequently, not gone in this front way. But he knew this was how the old Big Giant Huge Bloody Teeth of Doom to Clumsy Big-People and All Their Stupid Dogs came and went from their home. It was that way until Simon had come along and taught them a different way.
Now the caves were occupied again.
He could see two of the Old Teeth outside the cave entrance, across the shallow stream. They were gnawing hunks of raw flesh from the bone of some large creature; a deer, perhaps, or a mule. They bickered angrily amongst each other in their own tongue, which Jonathan could not understand. A third goblin staggered out of the cave mouth as he watched, squatted over the stream, and noisily defecated into it. Jonathan saw—and smelled—abundant evidence that this was a common practice among the cave’s new inhabitants.
He swallowed, rising slowly to his feet. His mother was in those caves. He would simply have to walk in and make the best of it. Some of the ferals would speak Uellish, at least, and perhaps he could intimidate the others. He found a large stick at hand and hefted it manfully.
“You’re going to get eaten, Jonathan Miller,” said a voice near at hand—and it was not Devi’s voice. It was deeper, louder, and had an odd, slightly demented lilt to it. His head snapped in the direction from which the voice had come, and he saw, sitting at the foot of a nearby tree, that its owner was a lone grayskin. The little person wore rank, uncured pelts, a perverse smile, and a hat accoutered with bones, knives, gems, and the bedraggled remains of a taxidermized squirrel.
“The Gizzard?” asked Jonathan incredulously, recognizing his visitor. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Well, perhaps I’ll be the one to eat you,” replied the little creature. “I haven’t had man-flesh in half a lifetime. And you’re looking a bit plump around the midsection. Just a little off the middle?”
“Why does everyone think I’m his next meal?” exclaimed Jonathan angrily. “No! No, you may not eat me, not you and not any of the rest of your people down there. The next person that says he’s going to eat me is getting this stick straight up his—”
“Calm down! Calm down!” protested The Gizzard, rolling with laughter beneath his tree. “No one’s eating you yet, Jonathan Miller. I’ll wait until you’ve died from your own stupidity first. Save the stick for a bigger, badder monster than me!”
Jonathan sat down again on the forest floor, snorting petulantly.
“Then what are you doing, popping out of the woods here? Were you lying in wait all this time, hoping someone would show up so you could make a comedic entrance?”
“No,” replied The Gizzard, shaking his head. “Actually, I followed you. You make enough noise for three giant men.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Jonathan looked at him sharply. “Giant-men? You know about them too?”
Now The Gizzard looked confused. “Big people,” he explained. “Large talking animals with two legs. Uellishmen. You, Jonathan, are as loud as three of them.”
He nodded sagely. “Of course. You think we’re giants. Makes as much sense as actual giants.” Then he shook his head and focused again. “The Gizzard. Is my mother in there?”
The Gizzard’s face grew grave. “She is, Jonathan. She is a captive of Globclaw.”
“Then she’s alive?” His heart leapt. He hadn’t really dared to grapple with the possibility that she might not be, and found to his relief that he might not have to.
“For now,” said the little goblin. The rhythmic thumping of drums in the distance continued its ominous underscore. “Globclaw has been trying to get her to teach the Old Teeth how to make things. But the only goblins he could persuade to follow him were the most stupid and gullible. They’re too stupid to learn what he wants her to teach them. I think he may get fed up with her, and she may get fed into him.”
Jonathan cocked his head to one side curiously. “Your Uellish has gotten better,” he observed.
The Gizzard gave a broad smile. “Ha ha! You noticed! Alice made my Uellish better—so I will help you go and get her.”
There was a long silence, as Jonathan stared in shock at The Gizzard, and The Gizzard nodded his head slowly, eyes closed in deep satisfaction. Then a tiny guffaw came from the pouch at Jonathan’s chest. The Gizzard peered up curiously at the source of the noise, then rose up on his tip toes to peer into the pouch.
“Devi?” he said. “You’re less rotten than I thought you’d be.”
Devi’s tiny lance lashed out of the pouch and smacked The Gizzard across his broad, gray nose.
“Watch how ye address a lady, ye gray imbecile,” she growled. “No amount of rhymin’ an’ wordplay’ll save ye if ye give offense ta’ me honor.”
Jonathan shook his head, trying to clear away the distractions.
“I need to get my mother out of there,” he declared, rising to his feet and picking up the stick. “The Gizzard, I don’t know whose side you’re on, or why—but if you want to help, I could sure use it. And I’m going in there now.”
The Gizzard rose to his feet as well, and winked at Jonathan.
“I came here looking for Simon,” said the little goblin. “I thought maybe they’d caught him. I was wrong. But I know the caves. If you go in, I can help you. That stick won’t keep the Old Teeth away from you if they decide to make you into lunch.”
The little goblin’s eyes twinkled again.
“But I,” he said, “have a cunning plan.”
???
Ten minutes later, Jonathan walked into the caves of the Old Teeth, his hands bound with hemp rope and a small sack over his head. The cloth of the sack was of a coarse weave, which he could see through with little difficulty. His hands clenched the ends of the fake knot in the rope.
It was also not the strangest event of Jonathan’s week.
“This,” he muttered to The Gizzard, who led him by a rope around the neck, “is the oldest, laziest, most predictable plan in any story, anywhere. And I’ve read an awful lot of them.”
“Lucky for you then,” said The Gizzard, “that nobody in these caves can read even one. Watch your head,” he added, just after Jonathan smacked his head into a low stone overhang. The Gizzard picked up a smoldering torch that someone had left on the ground and held it up, helpfully illuminating the hazard after the fact.
Cursing sulphurously, Jonathan crouched down, shuffling awkwardly after the light and foul stench of the torch.
As they moved deeper into the caves, Jonathan felt as if he’d stepped back in time—though only by two years. Crude fires smoldered under the half-cured carcasses of forest animals, scattered haphazardly around the roughly-hewn caves. Trash and feces littered the floors of packed dirt or stone, and ugly, vulgar scrawls covered the walls in places. The goblins they encountered had slack jaws and vacant stares, though the glitter of natural cunning could still be seen lurking in the eyes of some. They occasionally stepped over groups of inhabitants rutting or fighting on the cave floor, as others looked on approvingly. Jonathan found that he was generally ignored.
“Are there other human captives here?” he asked quietly. “They don’t look surprised to see me.”
“A few,” The Gizzard confirmed. “Alice is nearby, and there’s another man that they’ve had in here since the early summer, I think.”
“I wonder if that’s Fiond’s friend,” Jonathan speculated. Then he worked through the timeline in his head. “So this group has been split off for so long?” he continued in surprise. “I thought King Simon only left a few weeks ago.”
“There were always troublemakers who didn’t want to follow Simon’s way,” said The Gizzard. “When he was still around, it was only a few, and they hid out in these caves. But since he left, Globclaw got bold, and talked more into joining him. If Simon doesn’t come back, and Globclaw keeps talking, he’ll be King of the Goblins soon enough.”
As they walked, the heavy thumping sound that Jonathan had heard earlier, and which had been growing steadily in intensity, suddenly bloomed into an immediate presence. A cavern opened up to his left, revealing, by smoky and flickering torchlight, a large group of grayskins gathered around a crude elevated platform. On it, a small figure wearing Cyrus’s old prop crown beat madly on the drums as the crowd chanted. Jonathan remembered fondly King Simon’s impassioned percussion, but this playing was different. The beat had a leering, mocking character that left him feeling slightly debased. It provoked, however, an equally excited reaction from its audience.
They crept past the opening, deeper into the claustrophobic, stony blackness.
The caves here were unworked, apparently of entirely natural origin. Some galleries were large, and others small. The connecting tunnels showed signs of being carved by the passage of water over millennia. By the dim light of The Gizzard’s torch, despite the rough cloth of the face covering, Jonathan could see glittering black veins of undisturbed coal running through many of the walls.
“Has Simon not had people working the coal here?” he asked curiously.
“No,” answered The Gizzard. “The coal in the other caves is plenty, and even all the goblins working together for the last year hasn’t used it up. We were going to move on to these caves when we made more babies.”
Another flickering light suddenly caught Jonathan’s eye through the weave of the head covering. At the same time, The Gizzard stopped suddenly, causing Jonathan to nearly trip over him.
“The man-jails are ahead,” whispered The Gizzard in the darkness. “Globclaw keeps his big-people prisoners here in little holes. Alice is in one of them. There are usually four guards.”
“What’s the plan now?” asked Jonathan, keeping his voice low.
“You go in and kill the guards,” replied The Gizzard with a self-satisfied nod.
“You said your plan was cunning,” pointed out Jonathan. “That’s not cunning; it’s the opposite of cunning. It’s stupid.”
The Gizzard looked up at Jonathan as if he were an imbecile. “But you’re larger than they are,” he pointed out, as one might to a dull child. “And you have the magic.”
“What?” hissed Jonathan. “Magic isn’t a thing. And even if it weren’t not a thing, I don’t have any.”
The Gizzard shook his head confidently. “You the magic, Jonathan. Two years ago, when you and Alice came to rescue Cyrus Stoat and Merrily Hunter, you killed more than forty goblins with a stick, in the dark, in a flat open cave. You have a stick now, and it’s dark, and we’re in a cave. There are only four goblins up there. Go and do the killing magic. I will watch.”
Jonathan groaned softly. “It’s not like that!” he protested. “I don’t even remember what happened that night! I’d hit my head, and I could barely stand up!”
“I was there,” said The Gizzard. “I saw. You did the magic. You can do it again. I believe in you!” Then, to Jonathan’s horror, and before he could react, the little grayskin turned, took a deep breath, and shouted loudly in the goblin tongue. His imprecation went on for some time, and was answered by harsh, outraged shouts from up ahead.
“I told them,” he explained in cheerful Uellish, amid the rising din of goblin voices that was rapidly approaching in proximity, “that if they don’t come out with their hands up, the god of murder will go to them and rearrange their faces. That’s you, Jonathan Miller. You are the god of murder. Go do god-things.”
“Ye want me help?” asked Devi from inside her pouch. “Or kin yer divinity handle this one on yer own?”
Jonathan ripped off the hood that covered his face, dropped the false bindings on his wrists, and fished the stout cudgel out of his pants.
“Help,” he said firmly. “Help, or we’re all dead.”
“I’ll help,” said The Gizzard. “Come down here. I have something to give you.”
Jonathan, nervous but obedient, went down on one knee in front of The Gizzard. Perhaps he had a better weapon than a stick—or at least a larger stick. The angry voices of approaching guards were nearly on top of them.
“Do the magic,” instructed The Gizzard firmly. And then, before Jonathan could react, the goblin snatched the cudgel and laid a sound stroke on the side of Jonathan’s head.
Lights spun in his eyes, and he felt himself falling.
“,” he muttered in the fey tongue as consciousness left him. And then: “”
???
When Jonathan came to his senses, he found that consciousness was nearly as confusing as unconsciousness. There was a cacophony of shouting and screaming around him; how near, he couldn’t quite tell. He was being partly carried, partly dragged along the floor by some unknown person. The only light source was a bobbing yellow glow that seemed to come from behind them both. This light illuminated a dim vista of ugly limestone and granite.
“Did The Gizzard kill me?” he inquired of the person who was half-dragging him. “Is this Hell?”
“No,” said the sharp voice of a woman. “It’s not Hell, but it will be soon.”
It was the voice of his mother. Jonathan cried out in recognition, just as she dropped him on the hard stone at their feet.
“You’re alive! Ouch.”
Alice Miller, visible by the light of the torch she held, was dirty and scratched—but otherwise uninjured. She had even taken a moment to tie back her iron gray hair and rub some of the smudged dirt off her face.
“As alive as you are, for now,” she confirmed. “But that’s likely to come to a sudden and nasty end in a minute or two if you don’t get to your feet and walk on your own. I can’t carry you around, any more than I can still nurse you.”
After a moment of wincing pain, Jonathan staggered to his feet. His vision swam and spun, and the side of his head throbbed from where it had been struck by the cudgel.
“Where are Devi and The Gizzard?” he asked, suddenly remembering his other companions.
“They stayed behind,” explained Alice. “After you killed the first eight—”
“Wait, what?” exclaimed Jonathan, interrupting his mother. “I killed someone?” She glared him into silence.
“After you killed the first eight, and rolled back the stone from my hole, another group boiled out from somewhere. One of them knocked your feet out from under you, and I dragged you out.”
The shouting and screaming drew closer, and Jonathan staggered uncertainly toward it. The facts at hand seemed to swim in a mushy gruel of confusion and uncertainty. He’d killed eight goblins? With a stick? He could remember none of it.
“Wrong way, son,” chided his mother. “You want to run away from the sounds of killing, not toward it.”
“But my friends are there!” he said.
“They’re there,” Alice replied emphatically, “so
can be here. They’ll catch up, or they’ll die. Let’s go. I know the way.”
Jonathan shook his head in confusion.
“How do you know the way?” he asked. “We haven’t been in these caves since we came here two years ago to get Merrily and Cyrus.”
“I’ve come and gone,” she said. “I’ve been coming to these caves for months to try to bring the atavists back around. That’s why they took me; they know me.” She snorted derisively. “They seem to think I can teach them to conjure beer and sandwiches out of thin air, or do it myself. You need civilization for those things, Jonathan. Why does no one seem to understand that? Without law and order, there can be no beer.”
It seemed a fair point, and Jonathan was in no mental state to argue with his mother. He allowed himself to be led in the direction she was travelling. Soon the sounds of fighting and screaming behind him died down, and padding footsteps caught up with them. He turned quickly, raising his fists in a hapless attempt at self-defense; but it was only The Gizzard. The little goblin was grinning like a madman and carried—with peculiar gentleness, in both hands—the small, feminine form of Devi. The snarf was covered in blood, gore, and scraps of flesh. On the end of her tiny lance there was a single eyeball.
“Is any of that yours?” asked Alice.
“Nay,” answered the snarf with a self-satisfied smirk. “All theirs. The ones I didn’ kill, ran off. But I reckon they’ll be back soon enough; I ‘eard more o’ their voices comin’ up fast. I brought ye an eyeball, Jonathan. The Gizzard ‘ere insisted we bring this wee offerin’ ta’ the god o’ mairder. Ye want it?”
Jonathan shook his head, retching slightly. This was the strangest event of his week.
“Fair enough. I told ye,” she continued, addressing The Gizzard, “he ain’t nay god, and he willnay take it! Go on then.”
The Gizzard’s smile broadened, and he plucked the eyeball from the end of her lance, popping it in his mouth.
“Ye always preten’ to make sacrifices ta the gods,” observed Devi, “so’s the priests kin’ munch on th’ good bits once the gods turn it down.”
“Let’s get one thing completely straight here,” said Jonathan. “I’m not any kind of god of any—”
He was interrupted by a burst of screaming goblin voices from shockingly nearby.
“We can discuss your morbid transfiguration later,” said Alice firmly, taking his elbow. “Now, out.”
???
That night, Jonathan, Alice, The Gizzard, and Devi shared a simple meal in the Gray Kingdom with Arthur, the chief engineer at the goblins’ mysterious construction site. They sat in King Simon’s old audience chamber—though in truth its appearance was more like a classroom. Colorful paintings and charts lined the walls, depicting Uellish letters, musical symbols, and mathematical formulae. Several chalkboards were laid against the walls as well, and the seats were arranged, before the crude platform, in broad concentric rings, as in a school classroom.
Once, there had been a homemade drum set on the platform, on which Simon had beat out the rhythm that called his people to a new way of life. Now it was empty.
Two older female goblins brought the group a rich chicken soup and a sandwich each, with cold mugs of a nutty ale. Then they withdrew quietly.
“Some things,” said Arthur, looking at the departing servers, “change slowly. It’s difficult to persuade the older females to think of themselves as more than servants and toys for the males. The younger generation is learning more quickly; people like Emily, who you met at the border crossing. Simon was always quick to encourage females like her to take on more responsibility. And we set an example, when we can.”
“I wish we could bring more of your people to Green Bridge,” said Jonathan ruefully. “Seeing the respect people have for Queen Anne would be good for them. As it is, the climate right now is… not so good. Ever since Rolland Gorp was murdered, the goblins who were living in Green Bridge have been in hiding. Obilly Smallhat is the main suspect, and he’s fled back here.”
Arthur nodded. “Yes. He’s been living with us Quiet Ones. He’s waiting for someone to come to him here—someone from Green Bridge. I don’t know who, or when this person will arrive.”
Jonathan thought for a moment.
“Cyrus Stoat,” he concluded. “It has to be. Veridia said she’d set Cyrus to solve Rolly’s murder because he’d stumble into the truth of why Rolly was killed. If that’s right, then however Obilly knows that someone’s coming, that someone is practically guaranteed to be Cyrus Stoat.”
They ate their soup slowly, sipping at the hot, rich, salty broth. When they were finished, the two goblin matrons returned to take away the dishes, bringing forth another round of ales at the same time.
“Is there anything that can be done,” asked Jonathan, “about the coal output? The people at Snugg are beginning to get antsy about it.”
Arthur looked at him gravely, care written into his squat face, bulbous eyes, and wrinkled gray skin. Jonathan realized he must be rather old, for a short-lived goblin.
“Is Snugg going to come and take away the Gray Kingdom?” he asked.
“No!” replied Jonathan hastily. “Why do you think that?”
Arthur shrugged. “I hear the caravan drivers talk,” he said. “They say we can’t operate the mines because we’re too… uncivilized.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“It’s not entirely. Our people are fragile, Mr. Miller. They could break. And they are lost without a strong leader. Simon led them, in the way that they need. But we Quiet Ones are not like Simon. None of us is made to lead. If he doesn’t come back, then this whole place will just… disintegrate. Indeed, by the time he does return, it may be too late—if the Snugg people come and drive us out.”
Jonathan thumped his hand against the table in exasperation. “They just need to know you better,” he said. “That’s all. They need to see how valuable your people are, if they’re given time to develop and become more like…”
He trailed off lamely.
“More like you?” said Arthur with a smile. “Don’t be afraid to say it, Mr. Miller. The alternative is what you saw in the caves of the Old Teeth. But I agree that it would be helpful if the Snuggs were motivated to not seize our land from us right away, just because coal output is down. Could they be appeased for some time, until we can find Simon?”
Jonathan thought about that, working through an idea in his mind. It was flimsy and speculative, but there was something there.
The Gizzard interrupted his thoughts angrily. “That’s the whole trouble! Our problems get bigger every day Simon is gone, not littler. I searched for him all over; up trees, down holes, in the river. I even went to Green Bridge when he first went away, and looked in all the little places a goblin might hide. No one has seen him since—since—” He struggled to express himself, breaking down into a string of imprecations in the goblin tongue.
“The thirteenth of September,” supplied Arthur gently. He turned to Jonathan with a smile. “Some of the natives struggle with the idea of a calendar.”
“Man-thought is like twisting your brain into a pretzel,” snapped The Gizzard. “A delicious, salty pretzel, like one I got on the street in Green Bridge. I gave a big-woman money, and she gave me a pretzel and more money back. She was a fool, but the pretzel was better than rutting two females at once. What were we talking about?”
“What you need,” said Jonathan firmly, “is a quest.”
“A what?” asked The Gizzard dubiously.
“A quest,” said Jonathan. “To find the lost king. You can be like a knight errant, journeying throughout the realm in pursuit of justice and right, defeating villains, slaying dragons… Well. Probably without the dragons. But the point is, you go on a holy quest, and if you’re pure of heart and diligent in your questing, then you’re rewarded by finding the object of your quest.”
“Jonathan,” said Alice, “these people have a hard time with irony.”
But The Gizzard’s eyes had already lit up with a fired imagination.
“I,” he declared, “will go on a holy knight errand.”
“Knight errant,” said Jonathan. “A knight errant goes on a quest. An errand is… well, I suppose it’s confusing, isn’t it. But your heart’s in the right place, The Gizzard. You must go on a quest to find King Simon. Someone has to, right? Why not you?”
The Gizzard looked up at him in something approaching awe. Soup dripped down his chin, and Jonathan saw that his headgear had now had a recently-deceased rat bolted to the front of it, projecting forward like the bowsprit of some deranged vessel.
“I am a knight errand,” he said, “and I am going on a holy quest.”
This, Jonathan concluded, was the strangest event of his week.
“Well, this’s just bound ta’ end fantastically, ain’t it,” remarked Devi dryly. She was lounging over the edge of her ale mug, dipping her face into a clear patch in the froth to lap up the amber liquid beneath. “Sendin’ one lone gobbo out inta th’ world to look fer another gobbo who don’t want ta’ be found. Definitely won’t end in mairder an’ cannibalism. Next the gobbos’ll be workin’ fer the Snuggies, buildin’ their great metal road an’ bein’ fed in leftover ‘uman bits.”
“Is it cannibalism if a goblin eats a human?” asked Jonathan curiously. “I genuinely don’t know.”
“It is,” replied Arthur with conviction. “Where we came from, the law didn’t care what race you were, as long as you could think and talk. All the different kinds of people were treated the same. Same rights, same responsibilities, same laws. And one of them was you couldn’t eat each other.”
There was a long pause at the table, as Devi slurped at her beer and the rest of them thought about this.
“Where exactly,” asked Alice finally, “did you say you came from?”
Arthur’s face grew mournful.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
???
The following day was the twelfth of October. Jonathan’s small, leather-bound appointment book told him so with indefatigable stubbornness.
He spent the morning with his mother, making sure her hurts were tended to and she was on her way to recovery from her ordeal. But Alice Miller was made of stern stuff, and by the afternoon she was back in King Simon’s classroom, teaching twenty wide-eyed goblin children to read and count in the Uellish fashion. She waved off his ministrations, dismissing the Old Teeth as if they were misguided children.
That same afternoon, Jonathan found his way to Obilly Smallhat. The fugitive goblin mathematician was tucked away in a small, newly-constructed cabin at the edge of the large construction site. It was decorated with miniature versions of furniture that might otherwise be found in the home of a well-off craftsman or trader in Green Bridge. There was even a potted plant. The goblin himself wore a white shirt, coat, and hose, patterned after the current male fashion in Green Bridge.
He politely rose as Jonathan entered, looking at his visitor with curiosity, and then offered Jonathan a very small stool. Jonathan instead sat cross-legged on the floor.
“My name is Jonathan Miller,” he began.
“I know who you are, Mr. Miller” answered Smallhat sadly, seating himself on the stool. “I’ve seen you with Rolly and his other friends.”
Jonathan nodded. “I’ve come to ask you if you’ll go back to Green Bridge with Cyrus Stoat when he comes here.”
“How do you know Cyrus Stoat is coming here?” asked Smallhat, with a slight twinkle in his eyes.
“Stoat is obnoxious—not incompetent,” replied Jonathan with a sharp laugh. “You’re the prime suspect in a murder that he’s been charged to solve. He’ll come, and he’ll ask you to come back.”
“I didn’t kill Rolly,” said Smallhat firmly. “If I go back, they will blame me, but I did
kill him. I don’t know who did—but whoever it was, there was a reason. Big-people have reasons for everything they do; not like goblins. Goblins kill for fun, or because we’re bored. Not big-people. Not the man who killed Rolly.”
Jonathan thought for a moment. This had to be handled delicately.
“Why do you think he was killed?” he said finally.
“I think,” answered Smallhat, “that it was because of what he and Professor Pie discovered in their sums; or else, perhaps, his work with Professor Tentimes and her new star. But I think it’s more likely because of Professor Pie. I don’t think Pie himself did it, Mr. Miller. But both Rolly and the professor were frightened of something, at the end. Nobody’s afraid of a new star, even if it doesn’t move right.”
“Then you have to go back to give testimony,” said Jonathan, “and prove you’re innocent. Right now, it looks like you’re running away because you did it.”
The goblin sighed heavily. “Will it make a difference if I go back?” he asked. “Will the Billies even listen to me? Will a judge?”
“They will,” assured Jonathan, pouring into his words all the faith he could muster. “At least, I think they will. And even if it doesn’t come out right for you, at least you’ll be showing the people of Green Bridge that goblins can respect the law too, and can be trusted to follow it.”
He stood up.
“I expect you will do the right thing, Mr. Smallhat,” he said.
???
The next day, the thirteenth of October, Cyrus Stoat duly arrived in the Gray Kingdom. Jonathan found him concluding his interview with Obilly Smallhat—who had evidently followed Jonathan’s advice, and would travel back to Green Bridge to give his testimony. Alice Miller was present, but Devi had disappeared someplace. Perhaps she was burrowed deep in his backpack.
“Good evening, Professor,” Jonathan said blandly as he walked in. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” This was a bald lie, and his mother glared at him, but Jonathan kept his face neutral. Cyrus looked up from his notes, turning away from Smallhat and Alice.
“Jonathan. Well. This is a surprise. What are doing here?”
Jonathan shrugged lightly. “I came to see if I could encourage these fine people to start sending my employers some more coal. Shipments have been off.”
Cyrus shook his head in disgust. “This from someone who swung across the Grand Ballroom at the Palace Naridium on a chandelier with me and Mari Snort. You’ve become a bureaucrat, Jonathan Miller. I expected better of you.”
Jonathan flushed, but answered smoothly. “Trade makes their lives better as well as ours, Professor. Coal goes to Hog Hurst and on to Green Bridge, and coin comes here in return. Coin goes to Green Bridge and back comes food, beer, clothing, tools, books, and ideas. With every shipment that arrives in the Gray Kingdom, these goblins live better, cleaner, longer, and more peaceful lives.”
Cyrus glared at him suspiciously. “Did you memorize that from a sheet of paper, Miller?”
Jonathan felt his flush deepen. “Well... yes. It took a while. But look, it’s true! I believe it. I always wanted to be a merchant when I was growing up, and this is just the place where a merchant can make a difference.”
Cyrus gave Alice a look of exasperation, but she simply smiled serenely.
“Come on, Professor,” said Jonathan, clapping a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I’ll find you a place to sleep. I’m riding back to Hog Hurst tomorrow, and you’re welcome to come along.”
???
The following evening, Jonathan sat again with Rufus Snugg in his office, and outlined a proposal to use goblins as labor on the new rail line to Devi Valley. Devi, whose sarcastic remark yesterday had inspired the idea, remained scarce to be found.
“Jonathan,” the red-haired magnate remarked as Jonathan concluded his proposal, “I like you. You’re an ambitious young man, and you’ve done good work for me. I enjoy your company, and I flatter myself that you remind me of me, just a few years ago. I’d gladly ride into battle with you, from a very safe distance, with overwhelming numerical and technological superiority. But this is the most outlandish proposal anyone has put before me since Cyrus Stoat asked us to pay for him to adventure around the pre-Imperial ruin sites beyond the frontiers of northern Uelland. Goblins working on the rail line? Alongside men? They’ll be killing each other within a week, or eating each other, or worse.”
“That bet on Cyrus Stoat worked out well for you,” pointed out Jonathan.
Rufus wrinkled his lips into a playful scowl. “Just because one absurd gamble paid off, Jonathan, does not mean that a second one will do the same. In fact, if you consider the chances of
things happening, the combined individual absurdity of either outcome magnifies the odds against them both coming to pass.”
Jonathan shook his head in mild confusion.
“I got started with the company running the gambling books in Pour Vaille,” Rufus explained. “Now look, Jonathan. I know you’re trying to help your friends. That’s fair. Nepotism is a cornerstone of good business—but only if the friends and family you’re shoehorning into a job are
as well as trustworthy. What makes you think a bunch of little gray savages are fit to work on a highly technical engineering project?”
“Three reasons,” said Jonathan.
“Excellent,” responded Rufus, cutting him off before he could enumerate them. “I like threes. There’s a delightful symmetry. You can’t divide it by anything. Go on.”
“First,” said Jonathan, “they barely sleep.”
“Noted,” answered Rufus, nodding approvingly. “Every industrial robber baron dreams of a workforce that can work twenty-three hour shifts.”
“Second,” continued Jonathan, “they learn very fast. My mother’s been teaching them Uellish, mathematics, and history for the last year. The youngsters barely have an accent, and can do long division in their heads. Even the middle-aged groups are able to communicate fairly well.”
“Hmmm,” mused Rufus, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. “You don’t want workers to be
smart. It leads to all sorts of labor problems.”
“And third,” concluded Jonathan, “they are absolutely obsessed with food.”
Rufus raised a red eyebrow.
“You were on a roll, Jonathan!” he protested. “Why ruin your streak?”
“Because,” Jonathan replied, “it means they are also obsessively loyal to whoever . Keep up a steady supply of beer and sandwiches to the work crews, and you won’t have the slightest worry about labor problems.”
Rufus sprang to his feet.
“I’m inspired, my friend!” he said excitedly, clapping Jonathan on the back. “Bring me one hundred of these wonder-workers, and we’ll try them out on the rail line. But not the best hundred—I want those back in the coal mines. And Jonathan, there’s one other thing you should know.”
Jonathan rose to his feet as well. “What’s that?”
“You’ll be coming with us.”
His eyes widened. “What? Where?”
“To Devi Valley, of course. I’m going to bring the first group of goblins to work on the river crossing and the ridge traverse. You’ll come with us to keep them in line and get them acclimated to our way of doing things. My rail line, my rules, Jonathan—if you want to give your little gray friends a chance to prove themselves, I need you to oversee it personally. I’ll make the arrangements with Veridia... from a very safe distance.”
“But my wife—” he began.
“Oh, you’ll get breaks, Jonathan. I’m not a slave driver. You can go back to Green Bridge from time to time; maybe even for longer periods, if things work well. It’ll all be arranged. I’ll give you a deputy to run things here in Hog Hurst. Alright? Of course it is. Now go and pack. I want you to go back to the Gray Kingdom tomorrow and gather up the first cohort. We’ll leave in three days. Beautiful number, three.”
Jonathan, feeling dazed at this turn of events, wandered back to the public house. There he found Cyrus, already deep in his cups at a table, with his detached wooden leg propped up against one of the chairs. Obilly Smallhat was with him, quietly enjoying a soup and ale that might well be one of his last as a free creature. The three ate their supper together, reminiscing on old times and old friends. And then, quite suddenly, they were joined by one of the latter.
“Cyrus Stoat!” came a voice from the door. Cyrus turned awkwardly in his chair and looked back, as did Jonathan. The man who had spoken was clean-shaven, with broad shoulders. He had a pleasing, if rather long, face. He wore the uniform of a post-rider, right down to the cap, and he carried a leather satchel at his side adorned with the brass plaque of the Merchants’ Post.
“Rider!” roared Cyrus merrily. “Michael Rider! Come in and join us! I was just telling Mr. Smallhat how I rescued you from certain death and consumption by his compatriots when I--”
“Cyrus,” interrupted the post rider, walking closer and lowering his voice. “You’re a father. Miss Snipe gave birth on the tenth of October. Congratulations, professor.”
Cyrus froze, and gaped. A small trickle of beer flowed out of the corner of his mouth.
“What is it? I mean, which is it?” he asked, in a daze.
“A healthy baby boy, I understand,” replied Rider. “She’s named him Marius. And, uh, she sent me with a message. You can read it if you want, but it boils down to this: ‘Get back here right now or I’ll send assassins after you.’ I’m to take you myself; I brought a spare horse. We can leave immediately.”
Cyrus looked at Jonathan.
“If it were me, I’d be on the horse already,” Jonathan remarked.
Cyrus bolted for the door.