Will McDermott - The Moons of Mirrodin

“I’m sorry,” said Glissa. “I didn’t mean to run you out of your home.”

“Slobad has no home,” said the goblin, shrugging. “Crazy elf shouldn’t worry about Slobad. Worry about saving leg, huh? Let Slobad worry about Slobad.”

“My name is Glissa,” she said. “If you help me, Slobad, I’ll give you a home in the Tangle far away from the levelers.”

“Hmmph,” said Slobad. “Big talk from crazy, one-legged elf. Sleep now. We leave before the second sun rises.”

“Sun?” asked Glissa.

“You know,” said Slobad, “round things in the sky. Four of them. They come up. They go down. Make world bright; make world dark.” The goblin waved his arms in a funny pattern around his head. “You can’t tell me you don’t know suns, huh?”

“We call them ‘moons,’ ” said Glissa. “It’s an ancient word for heavenly bodies that circle around the world. I know what a sun is. I’ve seen them in my … dreams. Suns are much brighter and hotter, I think.”

“Suns give light and heat, huh?” said Slobad. “That’s right. That’s what goblins know about suns. We have four suns. No moons. Just suns.”

“Okay,” said Glissa, not wanting to argue. “They’re suns. Now can I go to sleep?”

Slobad nodded, so Glissa lay back on the furs and closed her eyes. She had no choice but to trust the odd, fast-talking goblin. She needed rest, and she would need his help to get out of here. Even so, she pretended to sleep for some time, just in case Slobad tried to attack.

After a while, Glissa did sleep and dreamed of the levelers attacking her in the Tangle. She was surrounded and they were advancing, their blades spinning in front of them. She could see the bodies of her parents in a heap nearby. Her mother’s hand and ring were nowhere to be seen, and Lyese’s long hair had been sliced off, leaving a bloody scar across the top of her head. Tears welled up in Glissa’s eyes, and she rubbed her arm across her face to wipe them away.

Now the levelers changed into flying beasts that buzzed around her head. She swatted at them with her sword, but they kept coming. She could hear laughing and looked over to see a robed figure where her dead parents had been just moments before. The laughing changed to screams, and Glissa saw that the figure held Kane off the ground by his neck. Kane was screaming. Glissa shouted, then saw green tendrils of energy erupt from her hands, snaking up her arms.

Glissa started awake in a cold sweat. Was that a dream or a flare? she wondered. How could it have been a flare? The events she had dreamed had never happened to her, as far as she knew. Who was that robed figure? He had been in the Tangle the night her parents died. Was he the master of the levelers? Glissa sat up and looked down at her hands but saw no green energy surrounding them.

“You’re awake, huh?” said Slobad, who was sitting at the table, eating. “Good. Can you walk? We leave soon, but Slobad can’t carry you home. Too big. No good, huh?”

Glissa looked at her leg. The swelling was almost gone, but the ankle still ached. She untied the leather bandage and saw that the copper around the wounds looked odd. It was green, but that was just molder-the process that gave Tangle trees their green coloring. All copper looked that way if not polished regularly. No, the metal itself seemed to have bubbled up around the wounds. As Glissa removed the leather strap, some of the metal flaked off, and pus oozed from the wounds again.

The elf wiped her ankle clean, wincing at the pain, then replaced the bandage. She pushed herself up and tested the ankle. It held her weight, and she could endure the pain. “I can walk,” she said.

Slobad came over and poked at the bandage with his clawed hand.

“Ow! What did you do that for?”

“You can’t walk long on that leg,” said Slobad. “I saw, huh? The metal is corroding. Infection spreading. You’ll never make it to the Tangle, huh? Too far. You need healer soon. We go to leonin.”

“Leonin?” asked Glissa. “Who is that? Is he far away?”

“Stupid elf,” said Slobad. “Do you know nothing about the world outside Tangle? The leonin are your neighbors, huh? Their tribes live in the Glimmervoid. Not far. Slobad lives on edge of Glimmervoid. It’ll take two or three rotations to walk to leonin city. We find a healer there.”

The little goblin went to his workbench and began putting tools and some of the larger scraps of metal into his pouch. “We go soon. You eat, huh?”

“Two or three rotations?” asked Glissa as she hobbled over to the table. It looked as if it might fall to pieces at any moment, but it held her weight when she leaned against it. “You call that ‘not far’? And how do you know they’ll help me? We should just go back to the Tangle. How far can it be?”

Slobad shook his head. “Stupid, crazy elf,” he muttered. Tangle is twice that far, huh? Take at least six, maybe eight rotations to get you home from here, especially with that bad leg. We have to cut leg off after four rotations, at most. If that’s what you want, we’ll go to Tangle.”

“There’s no healer closer?” asked Glissa. On the table she saw the carcasses of two small animals. They each had four tiny legs, a wiry tail, and patches of gray fur mixed with metal plates on their backs. “What about the goblins? They must be close, right?”

Slobad was searching for something on the workbench. Glissa couldn’t tell what any of the tools were for. She sliced off some meat with Slobad’s knife and ate what she could while she waited for his response. The goblin didn’t seem to understand the art of conversation. He often answered his own questions without waiting for a response, and now he seemed to be ignoring her questions. The meat was pungent and stringy, but Glissa was famished. She cut off more meat and soon finished both animals.

“Goblins have no healers who can deal with that leg, huh?” said Slobad. The goblin had finished packing his bag and now tossed a fur over his shoulders and tied it around his neck with several strips of leather. “Elf magic only heals wounds. You said so yourself. Goblin magic hardly even do that. Elves and leonin only decent healers. You choose, huh?”

“Fine,” said Glissa. Once again she had no choice but to trust this creature who lived by himself within the den of the world’s most dangerous … constructs. Why was he helping her? How did he know so much about the world? It seemed that people who spent all their time in little rooms knew a lot more than she did about Mirrodin. Perhaps Slobad could be useful, but she needed to know more about him and his motives.

“We’ll go see the leonin healers.”

Slobad nodded. He tossed Glissa a sword sheath. “Here, take this. I found it in blades of leveler. Maybe you can use it better than its previous owner, huh?”

Glissa grabbed the sheath. There was no belt, so she took the goblin’s knife, cut a long strip of leather, and tied the sheath around her waist. Several more strips fastened her boot back onto her leg.

“Ready.”

* * * * *

Slobad revealed another secret opening in the wall and led Glissa through a square, metal tunnel. Slobad could walk, but the elf had to either crawl or hunch over inside the tunnel. It twisted back and forth, and they passed many side tunnels as they walked. It seemed to Glissa like she crawled for an eternity. Slobad often turned left or right at intersections but never slowed his pace. Glissa knew she could never find her way back to Slobad’s room. She had to keep following the goblin. Finally she saw light up ahead, and they emerged from the small tunnel into a larger cave.

“This way,” said Slobad as he moved toward the light streaming in through the cave entrance.