Tobo was there to
help when I wakened my old friend Goblin, who had become the
unwilling vessel of the Khadidas.
It was not that difficult once Tobo’s controlling spells
had been cancelled. Tobo shook Goblin while I stood by. And once
the little shit began to stir Tobo stood by while I nagged.
The little man’s eyelids snapped open. The eyes behind
them were not the eyes of the hedge wizard Goblin. I was looking
straight into large chips of the darkness. Those eyes seemed to
want to suck me in.
The mouth of the Khadidas opened, preparing to vent some infamy
or blasphemy. I interposed One-Eye’s ragged old hat between
Kina’s slave and myself. The effect was electric. The Goblin
body convulsed as though I had whacked it with a hot poker. I
slapped the hat down on its head.
“Lift,” I told Tobo, who had placed himself at the
head of Goblin’s cot, out of the Khadidas’s field of
vision. I held the hat in place while Tobo raised Goblin into a
sitting position. “It works. Better than I hoped.”
“Better than I thought it would, for sure.”
“One-Eye always did underplay it when he did something
right.” The wicked light had left Goblin’s eyes. Now he
just looked empty. Not even a thousand-yard stare, there. More like
nobody at home at all.
“Do the spear.”
I did the spear. But, man, was I reluctant to trust the wisdom
of a dead man when it came to putting that potent a tool into the
hands of a devil.
I stood it up in front of Goblin, its butt between his heels. I
wrapped his hands around the black shaft. Then I shoved
One-Eye’s filthy felt relic down onto his head even more
solidly. Then I gripped his hands hard, squeezing them onto the
silver-and-black wood.
Life began to enter his eyes.
I told Tobo, “Not as dramatic as watching a baby being
born but dramatic enough.” Even a dummy like me did not need
a map to see that we were conjuring up the real Goblin.
A Goblin in pain so deep I was aware immediately that only Lady
could begin to understand.
I settled myself on a stool. Tobo eased Goblin onto a chair with
an upright back, then planted himself on the edge of the cot.
Goblin kept turning from one of us to the other, tears streaming
but unable to speak, however hard he tried. He reached out to Tobo
in a silent plea for contact.
“Careful of that hat,” I said. “I’m
already thinking about nailing it to his head.” And thinking
about how wonderful a friend One-Eye had been, too. Because he had
foreseen some possibility like this and had invested his final
years in making a rescue feasible.
I choked up for a moment, thinking I never had a friend who
would go that far for me. Then I recalled that Sleepy had spent
fifteen years working to exhume the Captured. And now, barely five
years later, all those people but Lady and I were gone. Belly up.
Up in smoke. Finished.
Soldiers live.
Not once had Sleepy ever behaved like she believed that she had
wasted her life. But I am sure she had thought it sometimes.
Regarding some individuals.
I said, “You ought to keep at least one hand on the spear,
Goblin.” We had done nothing to rid him of the Khadidas. The
monster had been pushed back into the pit where it had lain till it
had sprung forward to seize control, but now behind feeble
barriers. The monster was much stronger than Goblin. We would have
to work hard to keep it suppressed.
“What’re we going to do with you?” I asked.
And felt a twinge of guilt. Because I had plans for him already.
Plans that might change the world.
“What do you think, Goblin? You going to help us help you
hang on?”
Goblin was getting some muscle control back. He managed a weak,
“Yeah,” as he nodded his head, too.
“I’m going to leave everything in the hands of you
two gentlemen,” Suvrin said. He nodded politely to Goblin.
“I scarcely knew this man. And then mainly from the
perspective of being the butt of practical jokes he and One-Eye
played. Meaning I might not be disinterested even if I tried. What
is that stuff around the bottom of that thing on his
head?”
“Glue. That thing is a hat. You must’ve seen One-Eye
wearing it. The old fart rigged it up with some spells, planning
for something like what did happen.”
“You told me.”
“All right. The glue is because we don’t want the
hat to come off. Ever. If we could come up with a way that would
leave him free to feed himself and scratch his butt we’d glue
his hands to One-Eye’s spear, too.”
There is something about becoming Captain that takes the humor
out of a man. It had gotten to Suvrin already. He never cracked a
smile. He asked, “You gotten any useful information out of
him? Not yet? When?”
“I don’t know. He’s coming around. Really.
Remember, in practical terms he’s been dead for six years.
He’s having trouble figuring out how to use his body again.
Especially his tongue. Meanwhile, the Khadidas is still inside of
him trying to take over again.”
“And Lady?”
I was more concerned about my wife than I was about Goblin. She
was acting strange. It did not seem like I knew her anymore. I had
resurrected all my earlier worries about her connection with Kina.
Kina was the master manipulator and planner. Kina schemed schemes
ages long and many layers deep.
But Kina was slow. Very slow. Which was why she favored plots
that required years to ripen. She could not handle swiftly changing
fortunes.
“Lady is a puzzle right now,” I confessed.
“But a benign one.”
Goblin made a gurgling sound. The Khadidas was working hard to
keep him from talking.
Suvrin asked, “Do you know anything about the leading men
of Taglios?”
“Not the current crop. Except for types. My advice would
just be, don’t ever turn your back on any of them. You could
talk to Runmust Singh. If he survived the latest fighting.” I
had a feeling he might have been with Sleepy in that ambush.
“Or you could just ask Aridatha to loan you a couple of
advisors.”
Suvrin seemed unusually amenable to consulting for a Captain of
the Company.
He told me, “We need to resume our lessons. So I can study
the Annals.”
I responded, “We need some peace for that. Maybe a few
years. We could build a new Company while we’re at
it.”
Goblin gurgled again and nodded.
The little creature was like a puppy in some ways.
I told Suvrin, “I need to talk to Goblin a while.”
Once our hesitant new commander stepped out, I said, “We need
to work out ways around the Khadidas’s
interference.”
Nod.
“And that’s how we’ll do it, I guess. Unless
it can control more than your speech.” I peered at the little
man. He did not respond. I realized that I had not posed a yes or
no question. “Can it do that?”
No.
“All right, then. The most critical question of all. Is
the Khadidas in direct contact with Kina?”
No. And yes. And a shrug. So we proceeded to play a game of a
thousand questions during which I seemed to go the wrong direction,
no matter where I went, making him gurgle in frustration. His best
efforts to speak seldom produced more than one recognizable
syllable.
Eventually, despite my density, I got it. The Khadidas could
communicate with the Goddess only when it was in control of the
Goblin flesh. It could not do so when it was not in control.
That made sense. Some. Though I had been cautioned to remember
that the Goblin I was interviewing was actually a ghost that had
not been able to leave when its body died and had been reanimated
by the breath of the Goddess.
“That is exciting news, Goblin. Look, I have a
plan.” Difficult as it was, I dredged a form of it up from
its hidden place deep down inside me, hoping the Goddess had no way
of listening in. My plan depended entirely on my understanding of
the Goblin I had known for so long, hoping he had not altered
drastically during the past two decades. A man might change a lot
in that much time—if he had to spend part of it dead and enslaved
by the Mother of Deceivers.
On the surface Goblin seemed to like my plan, as I presented it.
Seemed willing to participate. Even seemed enthusiastic about
plunging One-Eye’s spear into the blackest of hearts.
I told him, “I don’t want to waste one minute I
don’t have to. You understand?”
Nod. Even a gurgled, “Yes!” With enthusiasm. With
outright eagerness.
“I’ll be back soon.” I felt almost bad, not
telling a dead man all of the truth.
Tobo was there to
help when I wakened my old friend Goblin, who had become the
unwilling vessel of the Khadidas.
It was not that difficult once Tobo’s controlling spells
had been cancelled. Tobo shook Goblin while I stood by. And once
the little shit began to stir Tobo stood by while I nagged.
The little man’s eyelids snapped open. The eyes behind
them were not the eyes of the hedge wizard Goblin. I was looking
straight into large chips of the darkness. Those eyes seemed to
want to suck me in.
The mouth of the Khadidas opened, preparing to vent some infamy
or blasphemy. I interposed One-Eye’s ragged old hat between
Kina’s slave and myself. The effect was electric. The Goblin
body convulsed as though I had whacked it with a hot poker. I
slapped the hat down on its head.
“Lift,” I told Tobo, who had placed himself at the
head of Goblin’s cot, out of the Khadidas’s field of
vision. I held the hat in place while Tobo raised Goblin into a
sitting position. “It works. Better than I hoped.”
“Better than I thought it would, for sure.”
“One-Eye always did underplay it when he did something
right.” The wicked light had left Goblin’s eyes. Now he
just looked empty. Not even a thousand-yard stare, there. More like
nobody at home at all.
“Do the spear.”
I did the spear. But, man, was I reluctant to trust the wisdom
of a dead man when it came to putting that potent a tool into the
hands of a devil.
I stood it up in front of Goblin, its butt between his heels. I
wrapped his hands around the black shaft. Then I shoved
One-Eye’s filthy felt relic down onto his head even more
solidly. Then I gripped his hands hard, squeezing them onto the
silver-and-black wood.
Life began to enter his eyes.
I told Tobo, “Not as dramatic as watching a baby being
born but dramatic enough.” Even a dummy like me did not need
a map to see that we were conjuring up the real Goblin.
A Goblin in pain so deep I was aware immediately that only Lady
could begin to understand.
I settled myself on a stool. Tobo eased Goblin onto a chair with
an upright back, then planted himself on the edge of the cot.
Goblin kept turning from one of us to the other, tears streaming
but unable to speak, however hard he tried. He reached out to Tobo
in a silent plea for contact.
“Careful of that hat,” I said. “I’m
already thinking about nailing it to his head.” And thinking
about how wonderful a friend One-Eye had been, too. Because he had
foreseen some possibility like this and had invested his final
years in making a rescue feasible.
I choked up for a moment, thinking I never had a friend who
would go that far for me. Then I recalled that Sleepy had spent
fifteen years working to exhume the Captured. And now, barely five
years later, all those people but Lady and I were gone. Belly up.
Up in smoke. Finished.
Soldiers live.
Not once had Sleepy ever behaved like she believed that she had
wasted her life. But I am sure she had thought it sometimes.
Regarding some individuals.
I said, “You ought to keep at least one hand on the spear,
Goblin.” We had done nothing to rid him of the Khadidas. The
monster had been pushed back into the pit where it had lain till it
had sprung forward to seize control, but now behind feeble
barriers. The monster was much stronger than Goblin. We would have
to work hard to keep it suppressed.
“What’re we going to do with you?” I asked.
And felt a twinge of guilt. Because I had plans for him already.
Plans that might change the world.
“What do you think, Goblin? You going to help us help you
hang on?”
Goblin was getting some muscle control back. He managed a weak,
“Yeah,” as he nodded his head, too.
“I’m going to leave everything in the hands of you
two gentlemen,” Suvrin said. He nodded politely to Goblin.
“I scarcely knew this man. And then mainly from the
perspective of being the butt of practical jokes he and One-Eye
played. Meaning I might not be disinterested even if I tried. What
is that stuff around the bottom of that thing on his
head?”
“Glue. That thing is a hat. You must’ve seen One-Eye
wearing it. The old fart rigged it up with some spells, planning
for something like what did happen.”
“You told me.”
“All right. The glue is because we don’t want the
hat to come off. Ever. If we could come up with a way that would
leave him free to feed himself and scratch his butt we’d glue
his hands to One-Eye’s spear, too.”
There is something about becoming Captain that takes the humor
out of a man. It had gotten to Suvrin already. He never cracked a
smile. He asked, “You gotten any useful information out of
him? Not yet? When?”
“I don’t know. He’s coming around. Really.
Remember, in practical terms he’s been dead for six years.
He’s having trouble figuring out how to use his body again.
Especially his tongue. Meanwhile, the Khadidas is still inside of
him trying to take over again.”
“And Lady?”
I was more concerned about my wife than I was about Goblin. She
was acting strange. It did not seem like I knew her anymore. I had
resurrected all my earlier worries about her connection with Kina.
Kina was the master manipulator and planner. Kina schemed schemes
ages long and many layers deep.
But Kina was slow. Very slow. Which was why she favored plots
that required years to ripen. She could not handle swiftly changing
fortunes.
“Lady is a puzzle right now,” I confessed.
“But a benign one.”
Goblin made a gurgling sound. The Khadidas was working hard to
keep him from talking.
Suvrin asked, “Do you know anything about the leading men
of Taglios?”
“Not the current crop. Except for types. My advice would
just be, don’t ever turn your back on any of them. You could
talk to Runmust Singh. If he survived the latest fighting.” I
had a feeling he might have been with Sleepy in that ambush.
“Or you could just ask Aridatha to loan you a couple of
advisors.”
Suvrin seemed unusually amenable to consulting for a Captain of
the Company.
He told me, “We need to resume our lessons. So I can study
the Annals.”
I responded, “We need some peace for that. Maybe a few
years. We could build a new Company while we’re at
it.”
Goblin gurgled again and nodded.
The little creature was like a puppy in some ways.
I told Suvrin, “I need to talk to Goblin a while.”
Once our hesitant new commander stepped out, I said, “We need
to work out ways around the Khadidas’s
interference.”
Nod.
“And that’s how we’ll do it, I guess. Unless
it can control more than your speech.” I peered at the little
man. He did not respond. I realized that I had not posed a yes or
no question. “Can it do that?”
No.
“All right, then. The most critical question of all. Is
the Khadidas in direct contact with Kina?”
No. And yes. And a shrug. So we proceeded to play a game of a
thousand questions during which I seemed to go the wrong direction,
no matter where I went, making him gurgle in frustration. His best
efforts to speak seldom produced more than one recognizable
syllable.
Eventually, despite my density, I got it. The Khadidas could
communicate with the Goddess only when it was in control of the
Goblin flesh. It could not do so when it was not in control.
That made sense. Some. Though I had been cautioned to remember
that the Goblin I was interviewing was actually a ghost that had
not been able to leave when its body died and had been reanimated
by the breath of the Goddess.
“That is exciting news, Goblin. Look, I have a
plan.” Difficult as it was, I dredged a form of it up from
its hidden place deep down inside me, hoping the Goddess had no way
of listening in. My plan depended entirely on my understanding of
the Goblin I had known for so long, hoping he had not altered
drastically during the past two decades. A man might change a lot
in that much time—if he had to spend part of it dead and enslaved
by the Mother of Deceivers.
On the surface Goblin seemed to like my plan, as I presented it.
Seemed willing to participate. Even seemed enthusiastic about
plunging One-Eye’s spear into the blackest of hearts.
I told him, “I don’t want to waste one minute I
don’t have to. You understand?”
Nod. Even a gurgled, “Yes!” With enthusiasm. With
outright eagerness.
“I’ll be back soon.” I felt almost bad, not
telling a dead man all of the truth.