Jeff Grubb: Lord Toede

"And I remember the dragon," added Toede.

"And the dragon breathed on you and boiled the fat from your bones!" finished Groag.

"Ah," said Toede, standing. He began to pace the small hut, the leg shackles causing him to clank in the process. By the entrance, he turned and pointed at Groag like an accuser in court. "Ah. Here's where our remembrances diverge. You saw what?"

"The fat being boiled off your bones," repeated Groag, more timidly.

"The fat," said Toede.

"Yes." Groag nodded.

"Being boiled," Toede continued.

"Uh," said Groag, "huh."

"From my bones?" finished Toede.

Groag shrugged. The way Toede put it, it did sound a little foolish.

"You're sure it was my fat being boiled?" said Toede sharply.

/"Well, it was wearing your armor," said Groag defensively. "The fat, I mean."

"And from that you assumed I was dead," snarled Toede.

"Well," said Groag, pursing his forehead and lips, "I think it was a fairly, uh, logical assumption."

Toede stared at his fellow prisoner in stony silence.

"Did I mention you left your armor behind, too?" added Groag.

Toede dismissed the argument with a wave of his hand. "Here's what must have happened. I must have been knocked aside by one of our guards. Loyal, brave hobgoblins they were. At least, one of them was."

'They had all fled by that time," said Groag quietly.

"And it was that lone courageous guard that suffered the brunt of the blast, giving his life to save me," continued the highmaster.

"There was only you left," said Groag.

"Then you fled the scene without confirming it was I with the fatless bones, eh? Until I came to and found you here," Toede finished with a clanking flourish and smile. He did not expect applause, but it would have been appreciated.

"Then, milord, where have you been for the past six months?" asked Groag sheepishly.

The smile on Toede's face cracked and dissolved. "Six… months?"

"It has been six months since the hunt when you d- when someone or something that I and everyone else thought was you died," said Groag, eyes wide. "It was autumn's twilight, then, and now it is spring dawning."

Toede sat down with a clank of chains. "One mystery resolved," he muttered, "and another rises to take its place. Amnesia? Some kind of magical effect? I don't think that we're going to find the answers here. Six months, indeed. Well, then, what have you been doing for six months?"

He stressed the 'you' to accent that everything Groag said was probably preposterous.

Groag looked miserable as he was brought back to the here and now. "Well, after you, er, somebody died, I ran like the rest, and carried the news of, er, your death back to Flotsam."

"Except I'm not dead," muttered Toede, though more quietly than before. He hastened to add, "I assume there was a massive outpouring of grief."

"The festiv… ah, mourning ceremonies lasted several days," said Groag. Toede nodded, while his companion took a deep breath and continued.

'Then the kender started putting stories out about how they tricked you into getting yourself killed. They were mostly true." At this Toede shot him an icy glare, so Groag quickly added, "As truthful as kender ever are, of course, with their half-statements and innuendo and rumor and everything." Toede motioned Groag to continue. "I had had my fill of these tales, and at one point went after the kender spreading the lies, Talorin, Kronin's friend. Chased him into the forest, and, ah, got lost for my trouble. Couldn't find my way back and nearly starved before Talorin and another kender, Taywin, Kronin's daughter, rescued… er, captured me."

"Groag," said Toede, shaking his head, "you were ever the most hapless of my retainers. You could get lost in a water closet."

Groag ignored his fellow prisoner and continued. "I pleaded to be released, but they hauled me here to their camp, and I have been their most abysmal prisoner ever since." Groag held up his chains and shook them for emphasis.

Toede had an image of Groag begging for mercy, pulling every stunt, promising every devotion, and plucking every heartstring to save his hide. Yes, Groag would gladly grovel-he had done it before.

"Have they… tortured you?" asked the highmaster hesitantly, thinking of his own favorite amusements and wondering if the kender matched up.

"Worse," sighed Groag. "Were they merely to torture me, I would respond with good hobgoblin stoicism."

At least for the first five seconds, thought Toede, but said nothing.

Groag continued. "No, they were far, far worse. They tried to… tried to…" His face twisted as he attempted to spit out the words. "Rehabilitate me!"

"No!" Toede tried to look shocked.

"Yes!" Tears began to pool at the corners of Groag's eyes. "They keep talking to me about how it's not my fault that I was born into a misshapened shell with the manners of a bloodthirsty wolf and things like that. And that I should aspire to be better than I am."

"Meaning 'more like them' I suppose," sniffed Toede.

Groag went on. "And they don't really yell at me, but they do explain things real loud when I'm wrong. And they say how disappointed they are when I do something bad."

"You mean, like twisting the heads off one of their young?" suggested Toede, with a smile at the thought.

"Er, more like forgetting to turn the goose and letting it burn," said Groag quietly. "I feel horrible to disappoint them. Sorry."

Toede just shook his head.

"And every now and then Kronin's daughter comes by and we go…" His voice sank below audible levels.

"Yes?" prompted Toede.

"We go…"

"Yes?"

"Berry picking!" sobbed Groag, clutching his misshapened head in his hand. "And… and… she reads poetry!"

Toede mouthed the words "berry picking," and walked softly over to his sobbing companion. He placed a firm foot on Groag's shoulder and shoved him, hard, backward. Groag went flailing in a flurry of chains.

"Berry picking! Poetry! Burning geese!" shouted Toede. "You're a sad excuse for an evil humanoid, Groag! Think about it! Any other member of your tribe would have opened his veins by now in embarrassment, or tried to tunnel out of this predicament with his teeth if need be. 1^ anything, you're even softer now than you were when you were in my court! Well, I'm not going to follow your example. I'm going to get out of here one way or another."

Muttering, Toede stalked back to the opposite side of the hut, which he already thought of, in the first day of incarceration, as "his" side. Trapped in a small hovel with a spineless fool who thinks I'm dead, he thought angrily. Was dead. Yet if I was dead, why am I now alive?

The icy block of blackened memory remained. The heat of the dragon's breath blistered his skin, Toede remembered that. And the shadows of the ghostly god-figures surfaced briefly, promising great things.

Toede shuddered. He glared at Groag, pulled himself back up to his seat, focused all his anger on the other hobgoblin. When it became clear that Groag was not going to burst into flame or otherwise disappear, Toede reopened the conversation, saying, "And…?"

"And what?" said Groag softly.

"And did they commission a monument to me after I… after it seemed like I died? In Flotsam, I mean." The corners of Toede's mind tried the idea of death on for size, even if it was an uncomfortable fit.

"Ah, not exactly," said Groag.

"A statue perhaps? Something modest and dignified?"

"No, not a statue…" said Groag.

"A plaque, perhaps, commemorating my long and just rule?"

"I'm afraid not." Groag shrugged.

Toede felt the anger building again. "Anything at all to mark my… passing?"

"Well, a proclamation…" began Groag.

"Ah, well, that's something," said Toede, softening a moment. "A memorial holiday in my honor, then."