Chapter 2: Chapter Two: The Goblin World
After several days hurtling through the Abyss, with a few more stops at oases where Khyte kept himself fed and watered, the young barbarian was not only exhausted, but enervated. Khyte's hands and legs had started to shake when he realized that Nahure's outline had expanded to occlude most of the forward space, and, thinking that he would soon need his strength for the descent down Mt. Irutak, ate the remainder of his packed food.
From the Abyss, you could see that Nahure was not only an old, wrinkled, planet, but the goblins had wounded it for centuries with non-stop mining and strip farming. Since the goblins as a race feared both wide open spaces and heights, they lived in massive city sprawls of tightly-packed single story dwellings that punched stone stitches into its surface. As there were only a few heights unaltered by the goblins' piercing, hollowing, and leveling, and it was unlikely that the Nahurians would name a mountain or two as Baugn conservatories, one day the world-beasts would balk at alighting on that uglified shrunken head of a world, and they would be completely dependent on the Alfyrian Ladders to travel in The Five Worlds. Which meant that the goblins would be dependent on the good will of the insane few that were willing to cross the Abyss with the vertiginous elven devices, that tore and tortured not only the space between worlds, but the travelers' perception of it, so that there were almost as many elves and men as height-fearing goblins that eschewed their use.
A few emaciated rocky spires still stood, the tallest of which was Mt. Irutak, named after the triple-dugged goblin deity. In ancient days the mountain had three pinnacles; two of those had been pulverized for copper and iron, but the middle one was volcanic, and too dangerous to mine, although on the day that magma churn spews gold from Irutak, the inventive goblins will find a way to harvest it and Irutak will be flat-chested. Irutak was not only a third as majestic as it used to be, but the mountain had been sheared by so many mining detonations that there remained only two rocky spurs acceptable to the Baugn, and as they were extremely meager, this made disembarking, already difficult due to Baugn preferring the slenderest and barest of promontories, a precarious endeavor.
"Thank you," said Khyte, patting the Baugn's black furred flank.
When Khyte saw a climber a few hundred feet below his ledge, his curiosity was piqued. While the Alfyrian Ladders made the journey through the Abyss slightly easier, traveling to the Five Worlds by the tried and true method of propitiating the Baugn—which required climbing a mountain, a show of fearlessness toward the world-beasts, a long journey through the void, and descending another peak—was not for the faint of spirit or the weak of limb. Consequently, there were only a few dozen Baugn riders per world, and Khyte liked to think that he either knew or had heard of all of them, and he hoped this one was a friend.
Nahure was ugly, but from his ledge on Irutak, the monotony of the goblin world's surface, pitted with sprawling cities, was calming after being stretched through the Abyss by days at Baugn speed. He knew from past experience that his destination, the goblin city of Kreona, would no longer appear so calm when he was in it, as it was agitated by constant tumult; also, the air in goblin cities caused unease, as there were few trees to freshen the air. Khyte enjoyed the vista for a few moments before planning a descent that the young barbarian, shaky with hunger, was in no hurry to begin.
"Speak of the devil," Khyte said, when he recognized the climber. "I was just thinking of you." The broad-chested, thick-armed goblin had a long brown, braided, waist-length beard, and a shaved scalp which accentuated the oiled gold hue of his pate.
Goblins range from olive green to golden ocher, and their hair, most commonly a sunset auburn, varies from dark green to red gold. They average a head shorter than humans, but are just as broad, and as they are a martial race, fixated on weapons, their arms tend to be better developed. The goblin physiognomy is a mesmerizing juxtaposition of a most noble brow—so high that it looks about to crumble in an avalanche—poised over a perpetual moue that makes them look haughty when they are happy and scornful when they are pleased. On Khyte's first visit to Nahure, he learned to weigh his words, because the goblins' unreadable snarls seemed to be smoking cauldrons, condemning his every action. This turned out to be true, though he learned it wasn't his words that provoked them so much as heathen actions transgressive of an unending list of spiteful cultural mores that expected him not to do as he wished.
And yet, despite his unfortunate inability to read the goblin mouth, which seemed paralyzed to him between hostility and an ambiguous indifference, Khyte found the goblin women beautiful, with their golden or silver eyes, and the nobility of their mien somehow mask-like to him, like a prop used by a fabulously wealthy courtesan. And there was a time that a goblin woman captured his fancy—if only it had been a different goblin, he rued, watching her brother clamber up to his ledge. His friendship with Huiln had survived Khyte's courting of Kuilea, but he had to admit that things had been strained. In fact, this ledge, less comfortable than a balcony, but with nearly as much space for them to stand, was a good symbol of their strained friendship, and they stood there for a moment before they clasped hands.
"I know that look, Khyte" said Huiln. "I see it when blades are drawn and fists fly. If you were thinking of me, I hope they were friendly thoughts."
"Don't take this the wrong way," said Khyte. "But I hate Nahure. I love your cauldron-cooked food and goblin beer, and if there were no goblins, I would count my friends on one hand. But you destroy your own world. Why do you live like this?"
"I don't," protested Huiln. "Like you, I've lived more days on the other worlds than on my own. Only my family keeps me here for any duration; this time, it was five weeks. Though I love my family, when I call them my anchor, I mean that they're an onerous burden that weigh my spirits. Though I should know by now not to expect much from my kinsmen, my last homecoming was a cautionary tale."
"Huiln," said Khyte. "I was only speaking rhetorically."
Huiln ignored him. "After escorting me home from Mt. Irutak, my cousin Schwitzi asked for investment funds; before I walked through the door, my sister Zchelska asked me to speak to Lord Ielnural, her manager at the BCB; and after I entered, my wives and children cared not to discuss my six month adventure, but only what I brought them. By the end of the evening, my entire family had asked for money or a favor. As a rich goblin with a family dating from old Kreona, I prefer requests for money to requests for aid, as I prefer making a donation to being obligated to a fool. However, when the only pleasure people take in your company is your ability to get things done, you want to do those things elsewhere, for those that better know how to counterfeit gratitude and a good welcome. So why travel so far beneath your contempt?" 'To travel beneath contempt' was a goblin idiom that had no music in Khyte's native Drydanan, but the mistranslation neatly expressed how Khyte felt, as The Goblin World was beneath his contempt. Not the whole of it, but the half he liked couldn't redeem the bitter taste of the air.
"I have nothing to add, as you may have exhausted the subject. Though I was expecting this conversation, you're taking all of the good lines."
"No, you're my understudy, because I was born to this. I'm only getting started."
"I understand," Khyte said, though his tone was not at all patient. "You wore out your welcome the day of your arrival, but only because their welcome mat was paper thin."
"While it would be lovely if I could blame them in full, it isn't so cut and dried. If all of us are happier in my leave-taking than in my arrival, what does that say about me?"
Khyte said, "I'm also more at home in other lands than at my own doorstep, and when I am home, my neighbors won't talk to me, and might not even look at me. Maybe I remind them of honest living that doesn't involve banditry or horse-thieving."
"Oh? You're not adding to the trinket collection of a certain rotund, oily-tongued, merchant?" As Khyte scowled, he continued, "my sister charmed one of your competitors for this prize, I believe."
"Man or elf?"
"Neither Hravakian nor Alfyrian, and most decidedly not male."
"Out with it!"
"I don't mind sharing what I know, Khyte," said Huiln. "But I should warn you: when I said competitor, I meant for the fee, not Kuilea's affections. She won't take anyone back."
"Don't take this the wrong way, Huiln. It isn't Kuilea the goblin that I hate; it's Kuilea the jackass that rubs me the wrong way."
Huiln laughed. "Unfortunate phrasing, but I don't deny it's an accurate portrait of my sister."
"How's this for truth? I'd sooner take a mule to bed. I won't make that mistake again."
"Though it's metaphor, not truth, Khyte, it still hurts. We could have been brothers, you know."
"Your high hopes may have been altar bound, but our thoughts never strayed from much lower. About waist high. For me. For Kuilea..."
Huiln said, "forget I said anything."
"Stop being coy about this offworlder, then. If not elf, human, or goblin, it's likely a dryad. Unless..." The thought filled Khyte with horror. "...not a giantess?"
"No," said Huiln, with a reassuring tone. "Though I'm surprised to see you scared of anything, even a giant."
"I'm not scared of any giants," said Khyte, "I said giantess, and only one in particular."
"Don't fear—she's a dryad. Though you could call her a giant, as she's a big hulking brute, bearing a long spear with a curved blade, and resinous redwood armor that's slatted over her, making her look less like a warrior than a shed. I don't know why she's here," admitted the goblin, "but I did hear a rumor."
"What rumor?"
"A rumor that would discredit goblins, vile though we are."
"Those that despise strangers think themselves worse."
"I should have never taught you Nahurian," said Huiln.
"It's apt," said Khyte.
"Yes, it is," agreed Huiln, "though you've butchered your translation, as think is intended not as passive, but active. Leonora meant not that despisers have a low opinion of themselves, but in hating another their self-loathing manifests."
"Not the elves. Those hypocrites believe themselves our betters. Why are you changing the subject?"
"Why are you? I see no elves," said Huiln. "To be blunt, Khyte, I shudder to tell you. The rumors concern the dryad Princess Inglefras."
"Who is she? The king's wife? Concubine? Prisoner? Nanny? General?"
"Prisoner is closest to the truth, though her cell is a greenhouse. And the rumor goes that they enjoy her in the way you'd expect of the wicked and the perverse, but they're also eating her."
"This is no rumor, it's a prank," said Khyte. "Are you really taken in by this lie? If the goblin king put the dryad princess on the menu, not only would she no longer be a prisoner, unless you count goblin guts as a cage, but Nahure and Ielnarona would be at war."
"Dryads regrow their tenderest bits. So long as they do not eat her in whole, the king and his court may indulge their carnal and cannibal depravities, then schedule another evening of horrors and leave her in the hothouse to grow back. Kreona's ghoulish gossips are only too happy to provide commentary on the taste of Princess Inglefras, saying that her flayed skin smacks of cinnamon, her eyes are more intoxicating than any wine or brandy, and her finger shoots are as delicate as asparagus in coconut oil. I've heard the story of her plight so often that I believe most goblins prefer tales of torment to music or theater."
"This is true?"
"It is."
"If it weren't for you, brother, I'd say every goblin should die."
"The rumors say more. Merculo uses her to leverage favors from Ielnarona, so that his estate is replete with tributes of the dryads' exotic beverages and foodstuffs."
"Shouldn't her torment have provoked a rescue, rather than your departure?"
"I was heading for Hravak to enlist your aid."
"Huiln, though you're high-minded on a world of belly-crawlers, you mistake me for a good man."
"Then let us profit from her distress. Though the goblins won't entertain ransom demands, the dryads may pay a reward. If not, we could do the ransoming."
"After we rescue her, you mean."
"Should we not benefit from our own good deed?"
"Look around you, Huiln. If good lives in the Five Worlds, it does not dwell in Nahure. You were The Goblin Trinity's last attempt to sculpt something good, and while there's a little charity in your clay, there's no altruism."
"Today I am neither good nor evil," said Huilm, "but moved by pity, that what befalls this dryad goads me, so that I must free her even if there is no profit in it, or I will ever be a detestable creature, hating none in the Five Worlds more than myself."
Khyte said, "You almost persuade me. It's a wonder she is in captivity, if there is even one other goblin like yourself."
Huiln's eyes welled. "You know her only hope lies in two mercenaries standing on Mt. Irutak."
"Huiln," said Khyte, "pardon me for saying so—and forgive me for being skeptical of goblin tears—but you seem invested in this—as in monetarily. Why should we risk our lives or waste our efforts when at this very moment her people plot an escape?"
"To dryads, family, people, race and species are the same word: hyurlohta. And if I've read correctly, Ielnaronans reproduce and raise offspring in common." Huiln continued, "Moreover, after cramming all there is on dryads at the Grand Goblin Library, I can tell you that the creature suffering in Merculo's cell is only a sprig, not the whole dryad. A rescue seems doubtful for one without family, nation, or even personhood."
"Saying she is a princess in part seems needlessly cruel, Huiln You already said she grows back," said Khyte. "Won't that make her whole?"
"You misunderstand. What we think are dryads are only like a seed fallen from the real dryad, and just like many trees' seeds have wings or burrs or armor shells or other devices to ensure that they take root, these seeds walk, climb, jump, talk, ride, and even swim to propagate the will of their vessel. So while you might call the Tree-Women dryads, they are not the whole dryad, and their Tree-Mothers are the true Ielnaronans."
"I don't mean to change the subject," said Khyte, who had pretended to pay attention, "but we've been standing on this ledge for a good while, and though you've eaten your meals on time the last few days, I ate my last pondira this morning after three days in the Abyss."
"Here's my dilemma," said the goblin. "Should I fly to Hravak or Alfyria looking for other swords, or will you join me? If you're coming, breakfast is on me. Also, as the whole point of my leaving was to recruit you, you've spared me a trip, and you can have any of this." At this, Huiln opened his pack to reveal fire-hardened clay pots, from which Khyte feasted, one at a time: a still-warm soup smelling of cabbage, onion, garlic, bacon, and pungent cheese; a syrupy-sauced gamy meat redolent of sweet wine and wild goat; and dried figs, dates, raisins, and cherries. Khyte first drank from the lip of the soup pot like a mug, and said, around sips, "Though I like free breakfast, you might ask that dryad warrior you mentioned to put her face where it doesn't belong."
"I didn't like the look of her. For all I know, she sold the princess to Merculo to remove a political enemy or simply for the money. I don't know everything about dryads, and don't want to get killed by thinking I know everything about dryads. But I know you, Khyte, and we've been to The Beast World and back."
Khyte sighed, "How about this? Help me with Merculo's crown, and I'll help you with the dryad's rescue."
"I can hardly believe it," said Huiln.
"While you've been talking, I've been listening. Call me persuaded. Also, once we've stolen this princess from under King Merculo's nose, I don't like anyone else's chances to take the crown or the scepter. The guards will be so thick after her escape that his highness will keep those treasures on deposit for me."
Khyte and Huiln were long-practiced at descending Irutak's precarious West Flank; while not the steepest nor the shallowest grade, it was the most stable of the mountain's walls, a mix of hard granite, quartz, and an onerously hard metal the goblins considered unmineable, and that had so far been spared a single mining blast. In Goblin folklore, Irutak had fallen from the sky, and Khyte tended to believe such tales; whether Irutak was a fallen rock or not made no difference to how he lived or died, but if he accepted a myth literally, and acted upon it creatively, that belief, and others like it, could enrich him or prepare him for later events. Which is not to say that Khyte thought his hodge-podge belief system was better than a less informed one, as his older sister, by prudent plodding, was richer, had a vast property, many sons and daughters, and even a first grandchild; however, if Khyte's mind took after hers, his feet would never have stood on Nahure, Alfyria, Ielnarona, or Nymerea, and though he was always contemptuous of the soil upon which he stood, his soul, that thirsted for roaming, would have festered.
While Irutak's West Flank was extremely dense and best scaled by hand, on a few softer sections they rappelled down 50 yards at at time, recycling their rope as they did so. When they were less than 200 yards from the mountain's base, and nearing a well-worn ledge that both had used as a stage of many passages up and down Irutak, they were astonished to see that the ledge had been shorn, and shards of rock cluttered the slopes.
"Khyte," grunted Huiln, "that ledge was there this morning."
"I think I know the cause," said Khyte, but a looming shadow, stretching from what appeared to be a stone spur, announced itself by breaking from the mountain and raising its massive fist. It was what the goblins called a wire giant, whose hirsute body was armored by sharp, bamboo-hard, hairs, so that if you brushed up against them, you might lose fingers or your nose, and their shaggy fists hit like morning stars. Khyte and Huiln slid down as the fist cracked above their heads, and Huiln's rope went slack when the wire giant's bristling knuckle-hairs shredded the hemp. As the goblin fell, Khyte grabbed him by the beard, and swung his screaming friend back onto Irutak.
The giant raised its other fist to crush Khyte, but with both hands in the air, the unbalanced monster slid a few dozen yards until it found footing, roared, and bounded back up the cliff like a bear. Then it shrieked, and shrieked again, and slid back down. Arrows sprouted in its furred feet, then hands, and it loped away, mewling and dragging bloody stripes across Irutak as it fled.
"Huiln, use my rope."
"No, brother, I'll follow."
"I'm the better climber. You go first."
Huiln rappelled down until he reached the shorn edge of the former cliff. There remained a small foothold jutting out, wide enough for the goblin to rest one foot while holding the rope.
When Huiln started climbing by hand to the next ledge, Khyte rappelled down to Huiln's former foothold.
As Huiln inched down, Khyte found that though only one foot fit on the foothold, he could fit both boots' heels there, so he did so and leaned against the rock.
There was no need to ask Huiln for the arrows' source, as Khyte already knew from their distinctive, barbed fletching that it was Kuilea, Huiln's sister and Khyte's one-time lover, with the laminated recurve bow that she called, half-jokingly, Nut-Puncher. Kuilea was not only a deadly shot, she was also a better swordsman and rider than her brother, and he was only a more seasoned traveler because he gave in to the traveler's madness, which was unthinkable to Kuilea, who was cozily ensconced in both her inborn fears and the creature comforts of House Hwarn, their ancestral manor.
If they journeyed together to Mt. Irutak, and Kuilea lurked at the base undisclosed by her brother, there was only one explanation: Huiln lied, in whole or in part, with the most important omissions being that the two siblings knew Khyte was coming to Nahure, and Sarin Gelf was likely in on it. While there could be countless reasons for their evasion, the fact of the deception was disheartening, though he blamed himself the most for believing the merchant. And the young barbarian decided that his efforts would not go unpaid, even if he exacted the payment himself.
Not for the first time, Khyte lamented silently that because he was a large, muscular man, prone to thinking creatively rather than prudently or analytically, others underestimated him, despite his many achievements. As being underestimated tended to make life easier, and only the most uncommon friendships did not have a pecking order in which people silently rated their traits compared with their friends. it was easier not to disillusion the snobbish prejudice that strength of body and mind could not co-exist. If Huiln thought, "Khyte is a demon with a sword, and can lift hundreds of pounds over his head....but at least I am smarter than him," and Khyte disillusioned him, the goblin would feel he had nothing to contribute, and Khyte would be without a friend. Khyte understood the humiliation of being a weaker partner, as his third adventuring companion—after Frellyx and Huiln—was the young barbarian's superior in many ways, including the physical, which was humbling to a warrior whose fame rested on strength and prowess. Just as it would have galled the goblin to be less intelligent than Khyte, so it galled the young barbarian to be weaker than her, and they parted ways.
Because Huiln would expect Khyte to recognize Kuilea by her archery, or from the handicraft of the arrows, when they reached the ground, Khyte asked, "was that Kuilea?" Khyte doubted the goblin would read into him, as he was accustomed to being thought experienced and perceptive, but without the sense to infer underlying facts. The strong are often taken at face value.
"I don't think so," replied Huiln. "Kuilea!" he called out, and there was no response. On the ground, the light of the Abyss was not as bright, as the sprawling goblin cities emanated a fine haze even at the foothills of the mountains. When a shrill wind set him shivering, Khyte, covered with sweat and goosebumps, forgot his hunger.
Khyte unslung his backpack, stooped to get his red wool cloak, and wrapped it about him. Huiln unfolded a hemp sweater from his pack, and pulled it over his head.
"Khyte," said the goblin. "start walking. If we don't keep our muscles warm, we won't get to Kreona's outskirts today."
"Here I am." Kuilea had walked up behind them without either noticing, not due to stealth or woodcraft, but simply because they were tired, hungry, and hearing only their adrenaline-fired hearts after their run-in with the wire giant.
"Kuilea?" said Huiln, sounding less surprised than annoyed, which Khyte took as confirmation. "What are you doing...here?"
"I'm keeping an eye on my younger brother," said the tanned gobliness, whose skin was more olive-hued than her brother. "And, as it turns out, an old friend. Or are you? How did we leave it? It's been so long, and I have so many friends."
"I get it. You're saying I'm forgettable."
"No, Khyte. You're not forgettable, but unmemorable. Though memorable things can be forgotten, the unmemorable were never committed to memory. Unmemorable is much more unflattering than forgettable."
"What a relief that you still know my name. And thank you for your help."
"You're welcome. And if you want to apologize, I won't count it against you."
"If I'm unmemorable, I have nothing for which to apologize."
While there was again the uncomfortable sense that Khyte had misjudged a faithful friend, her missteps were equally loud. Even if Huiln and Kuilea's intentions were good, if they deceived Khyte to gain his involvement, they believed he did not have it in him to rescue an innocent. Moreover, they trusted Sarin Gelf, to whom coin and soul were flip sides, more than him. It should be easy to slip into the role they imagined for him, the role of a hard and calloused adventurer that preferred bright coin to right action. He had played that part for both of them before, just as he had played the part of Kuilea's boyfriend when he had parted ways with...did the wicked become so because they slipped into the roles that others cast for them? Was it evil to mirror others' preconceptions? Were not the bad intentions of others the original sin in this case? This line of reasoning could have whittled Khyte down to nothing were it not for the fact that he chose that moment to examine the unworldly dagger that he stole from Sarin Gelf. Again he noticed how the preternatural polish of the blade reflected nothing but its own surface. Though he should see himself and Mt. Irutak in the blade, it was clean of everything except its own mirrored sheen and captured illumination.
Khyte's epiphany freed him from the Gordian knot of narcissism: like the dagger, he would let nothing stick, nothing except light. As corruption was a game with many losers and no victors, he would entertain it only as a strategy to bewilder his opponents.
Khyte had trod this path several times, so that by now he tuned out most of the sights: a stone quarry, where goblins tore free granite; a derelict mine, with empty and cracked wooden boxes labeled tsacharen (explosives) as if the workers were dried up and blown away—or blown up and swept away with the dust; a stream with windmills grinding irinalc, the goblin grain cultivated for bread and beer, and to thicken the soups, stews, and gravies that goblins cook in their pots; and, The Last Wild Wood, a way station bar that tabled its patrons at the vast stumps of the last ancient trees of the Drenmach Forest, the old goblin woods that were now gone and only figured in tales and rhymes.
They were greeted by the aroma of goblin pots a half-mile before they entered the gates, for goblins are foodies that find excuses for eating at every time of the day, and there is always something stewing in Kreona. Cavernous goblin pots roasted vegetables; broiled, sauced, and glazed meats; steamed rice and potatoes; simmered soups and stews; and, boiled the dumplings that were later turned on a spit to make the brown, flaky, crust of goblins' twice-cooked bread. The goblin capitol was rife with restaurant culture, as cooking was not a skill that they held in common, but passed down in craft apprenticeships (save for noble houses, in which each heirloom recipe was jealously guarded). Restaurants were second to residences in number and variety, and they had not stepped fifty feet into the outskirts before they stumbled into the heady bouquet of a fondue emanating from a large brick building with front and back patios, and a sign reading The Copper Croc that had the much too cute design of a copper-colored crocodile poking its head out of a soup crock.
Nahurian towns become cities by having a distinctive cuisine that swallows up the local passion for food, and Kreona's preeminent gourmet entree was undoubtedly the fondue, with nearly a hundred fondue establishments within its gates. That this one sat so near the gates did not bode well, Huiln argued, although he had a full stomach, and Khyte did not. However, all three knew that a restaurant on the outskirts would be owned either by an untested entrepreneur; an incompetent that failed in Kreona's higher rent districts; an eccentric that liked his clientele to travel a long way, and no doubt to wait in line and at table for an underwhelming spread; or, a bumpkin that preferred the more rustic setting. Rather than arguing against these very good points, Khyte walked in and sat at one of many ominously empty tables.
When Khyte was joined by Huiln and Kuilea, they were each served a bowl of pungent dip that did not look like a fondue or smell anything like milk, cream, or cheese. Redolent of cinnamon, apples, and pears, it made the young barbarian's mouth water, and he fell upon it using the thick slabs of crusty bread provided as spoons. The waiter then returned with four clay cups and a copper-plated flagon that was chilled to the touch, and it rattled as Khyte poured ice and a cold goblin grog into their cups. When Khyte downed his portion, refilled his cup, then quaffed that too, the waiter doubled back with another full flagon.
"Dessert first," said Khyte, after wolfing down two fruit-smothered planks of bread. "Forget what I said, Huiln—I love Nahure!" Khyte's face felt hot and he wiped sweat from his brow and stubble.
"It's not dessert," said Huiln. "You've forgotten more than your manners. Chupore, the first bowl, is always sweet."
"Explain why I get free food when I haven't asked for any. On my world, if I haven't asked for it, it's a gift. Could I walk out the door?"
"We'd never do that, but yes," answered Huiln. "Chupore is gratis."
"Yes," agreed Kuilea, "though you'd take away a reputation as an ill mannered skinflint."
"Order anything," said Khyte. "I'm paying."
At that moment, the waiter dropped off a steaming onion-legume fondue in smaller copper pots. Huiln shrugged weakly, pinched a baguette, ripped it in two, and dunked. Kuilea gave her brother the stink-eye, then snapped up her own bread.
"My brother knows better," she said. "you're a visitor, and the three sister deities will strike us dead if you pay for anything today."
Khyte nodded, and ordered the cheapest thing on the menu that would fill his stomach: a fondue of cheese, potato, and red wine; Huiln ordered a fondue of cheese and white bean; and Kuilea ordered the three cheese fondue with sage and cranberries.
Khyte said, "Why three sister deities? That's thirty divine fingers to stick in your business. And in mine." He then gulped down another cup of the icy goblin grog. Was it his fourth or fifth, he wondered. He had stopped keeping track, as the waiter kept bringing flagons, and if Khyte didn't think to pour the cups himself, Kuilea and Huiln were quick to pour as well.
"Actually," said Huiln, "it's a hundred and ninety."
"That's..." started Khyte. "...63 and a third fingers apiece? Do they all have a different number of fingers? Don't your gods look like goblins?"
"Culanora does, except she has four arms, and nine fingers on each hand. The great spider, Lyspera, has none. Irutak has one hundred and fifty-four fingers, as she has eleven tentacles: the first has nine fingers, the second ten, and so forth."
"Brother had religious aspirations, before he took his upward yearning and applied it to escaping our overbearing trinity and traveling The Five Worlds. Not to mention his part-time work, piling money sky high for the Bankers' Capital Building."
"Don't talk that way about the Three," said Huiln with what looked like sincere pious fear.
"Why? I've talked that way my whole life, so if I'm on their hit list, I should be dead a hundred times over."
"Your brain is dead a hundred times over." Khyte laughed loudly, and when Kuilea scowled, rather than stopping his loud laughter, he hammed it up, smacking the table, then wheezed out, "all goblins are brain dead."
This bit of theater got the attention of everyone in the restaurant, and six goblins at the next table stood up: half with hands on hips, and the other half remembering to keep a hold of their flagons. As the goblin idiom goes, loose beer has legs, and if you turn your back, it will be on another table.
One said, "that didn't sound right."
Another said, "I'd say all humans stink like pigs, if that wasn't unfair to pigs."
Huiln, usually a peace broker, was silent. He leaned back in his chair as if inviting them to beat Khyte, and as if he wouldn't do anything to stop it.
A waiter pushed a cart with copper pots, bowls, plates, and extra baguettes to their table, where he parked it with care, so as not to run over toes. When the waiter lifted the first entree over the table with thick potholder gloves, he at last took stock of what was happening, and froze mid-way. When Khyte grabbed the waiter's collar and heaved him over the table, scalding fondue clung to one of the surrounding goblin's shirt and trousers, and the impact of the waiter's chest on the table rim tipped Huiln's leaning chair to pitch back onto the floor and splinter under him.
The fondued goblin screamed when his friends poured their drinks on him, as the beer spread the burn before it diluted the fondue. The victim pushed them aside, stripped his steaming shirt from a chest scored with red welts, and took off his pants with even less modesty, as his nether parts were even more soup-ravaged. When Khyte snickered, the others pinned him against a latticed window, which rattled in its jambs.
Kuilea said, "Khyte's homecomings are never easy." The goblin concept of home was more charitable, and affected how goblins thought of family life. Similar to ancient cultures that considered unrelated men and women sharing a roof—even for one night—married, similarly, one night in a goblin house made it your home too. You would think goblins would be loath to invite strangers home, but this belief did not affect their hospitality, as they considered it easier to trust one who was obligated. Indeed, it was customary for business contracts to be signed after one contractee had joined the other goblin's house in this fashion. Moreover, Goblin patriarchs, their hands not tied by nepotism and primogeniture to bestow the labors of their long life on a litter of unworthy curs, were free to leave their estates to those not related by blood, so long as they were in the same House.
Huiln looked away from her, then at Khyte. "You're a horrible house guest," he said. "And for a brother, you're bottom of the barrel."
"You tell me three years after the fact?" Khyte laughed, and one of the goblins punched him in the mouth, spattering blood on the table. When another drew a knife from his cloak, Khyte stooped, yanking his grapplers down with him, as if to pull away from the brandished blade, but then stood up, flexing his mighty thews, and threw the goblins back. One flew against the knife point, and his piteous shriek sent another sprinting. Of the two able-bodied goblins that remained, one with watering eyes and shaking hands was disarmed when the stiffening clench of his friend's dead shoulderblades dragged the dagger to the ground with the corpse, and the other staggered into the arms of a chair, so that he seemed a spectator to the brawl.
Unbelievably, and with consummate panache, he faced the couple at his table, who were too elderly to run from the fracas, and he started talking animatedly, as if always one of their party. While Kuilea and Huiln were indignant at Khyte's speciesist remark, and Khyte was steamed at his so-called friends' loyalty, all laughed at the goblin's chutzpah.
Common decency would consider it ghoulish and graceless to laugh at another's cowardice, especially standing over one that was burned, another that was stabbed, and a table full of uneaten food, and it was Huiln, a modest and sentimental goblin at heart, that regained his composure first, though being a goblin, it was the next realization that moved him the most. "Khyte, you fool," he said, "we've only eaten our first course."
"Right," Khyte said, uncovered the bowls on the cart, then sat down with his entree. The strain of brawling and the explosion of scent—pungent cheese, thyme, caraway—from the unlidded, savory fondue combined to make his knees weak.
As Khyte was an adept food shoveler, he managed several mouthfuls before Huiln shouted, "Idiot! Get up, before the guards come!"
Deliriously empty after three days in The Abyss, Khyte was bone-weary, starved, and as thirsty as a drunk. He was going to have this meal, and damn the consequences. He donned his demi-gauntlets, seized the sides of the pot with his mailed palms, and drank the hot fondue. While he swallowed it too fast to savor it, and it tore the inside of his mouth to torment him later, the liquid meal was so dizzyingly satisfying that he had no regrets. He set down the heavy bowl with a clamor, then chased it with a slug of wine. Parched as he was, even his water cup was as intoxicating as brandy, which was present in abundance. He alternated wine, water, and brandy as fast as he could, not looking up from the table, and seizing Kuilea and Huiln's cups as well. Though he heard the silence in the inn, a near stillness in which his lip-smacking and slurping resounded, and the only other sound he noticed was rain drumming on the roof, he turned to the cart and took Kuilea's meal in hand for his next course.
Aside from Khyte, who was all mouth, hands, and elbows, shoveling in food and drink, the only movement was steam curling to the ceiling from the last lidded bowl on the cart. The elderly couple, the toughs, the wait staff, and even Kuilea and Huiln had all exited. That said, the restaurant wasn't entirely empty: he could hear commotion behind the kitchen doors, and one table had not vacated. Realizing that there was yet one witness to his abominable behavior, Khyte turned to the other diner, prepared to offer some self-deprecating wit, when the tiny pang of his remorse was engulfed by the alarm of recognition. Not that he knew the cloaked woman's cowled face, nor did he recognize her by her stature, as her true figure was disguised, and every time he met her, she had different dimensions; and, he did not know her by her womanly attributes, either, though they had once been lovers, for she always affected mannish dress. What he did recognize was the hilt of her sword, a baneful weapon that she had forged from a shard of Irtuak and a blade the goblins knew well, telling tales of the bearer's adventures, as with her a piece of Nahure ventured into the Five Worlds.
Long moments dragged, and Khyte, who had formerly fallen into his food with gusto and noise, had become silent, thinking that the only time he had fallen harder than today was when he fell for Eurilda. Though Khyte often remonstrated himself for the way he ended it, it was neither regret nor shame, but fear that subdued him, and panic vanquished hunger as well. As Khyte had left this unspeakably dangerous person in no small manner of distress, she undoubtedly thought him a cad.
"What have you done, Khyte?" Eurilda asked. "Don't tell me. I saw everything. Actually, you helped me find a line for a verse I'm writing. While 'heartless beast that wounds without effort or thought' is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Khyte the Drydanan, it is an apt description, don't you think?"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone