Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“There must be word from Natac,” the sage-ambassador told the two druids. “Quilene warned us to be ready for this.”

“What have you seen of him-in your Globe?” asked Miradel. “And of Tamarwind?”

“They are well,” Belynda replied, “insofar as they have survived the battle on the beaches. But the attackers were too many; the elves have fallen back through the hills. The gnomes, I am sorry to say, were not so fortunate.”

Miradel felt a rush of guilt for, in that moment of brutal honesty, the fate of the army meant much less to her than the safety of her lover. But in another instant she acknowledged the despair brought about by the dire situation. If the Deathlord’s horde was unstoppable, how much longer could Natac, or anyone else on Nayve, hope to survive?

“Druids and sages,” Cillia declared, commanding in her position in the center of the ring. Immediately the gathered throng fell silent. “Our efforts are needed in this new war, at the Swansleep River. General Natac has sent a messenger… a not-unexpected summons, to be sure. Sages, we will need you to generate the teleports. We will use the whirlpools in the garden. Druids, the hundred of you that I have spoken to about this plan: make yourselves ready for war. We depart with the first glimmer of Lighten.”

Immediately there was murmuring among the gathered druids, knowing looks between the sages. Such a mass teleport was not unprecedented, but it was a very complicated undertaking, requiring careful coordination and a great concentration of magic. Everyone had much to do, and quickly the group broke up as individuals and pairs went about their tasks.

Miradel turned to Belynda. “You knew about this plan?” said the druid. “You are helping with the teleport spell?”

“Why, yes,” replied the sage-ambassador. “We were told that it might be necessary. But you didn’t know?”

“My work is here, in the temple; there was no need to inform me,” Miradel said. She glanced at Shandira before turning back to Belynda. “But listen, I need you to do us a favor.”

“Of course.”

“You must send the two of us tonight, when the great teleport spell is cast.”

“But your place is here, isn’t it? Why do you want to go to the Swansleep River?”

“My place… I am still trying to find it,” Miradel said. “As is Shandira. But I have concluded that place is not here. We can do good work elsewhere.”

“But there are a hundred druids, all practiced in the art of water and wind magic, going to serve at the river. Why must you join them?”

“I never said I was joining them,” Miradel answered, lowering her voice and meeting the elfwoman’s eyes directly. “I want you to send us someplace else altogether.”

“Where is that?” Belynda looked a little alarmed, which didn’t surprise her old friend.

“Later,” said the druid. “I will tell you when we come here for the spell casting.”

The dwarfmaid walked the street next to the ghetto wall because it was the shortest route between her work-place, the low city fish market where she earned enough in gold coins to keep herself alive. Long ago her walk had taken her through the goblin neighborhood; often she would stop in a tavern there or pick up some cookshrooms at the bustling market. Since the wall had gone up, forty years earlier, her walk had gotten longer and more dull.

But she did it because it was her job, and dwarves were nothing if not dedicated to their labor. Now she was just in a hurry, hungry and tired, anxious to return to her home.

She would never get there.

The liquid came from above, a sloshing spill that caught her ear just in time to cause her to raise her face. The oil struck her in the eyes first, searing away her flesh with the burning strength of its heat. She opened her mouth to scream, and it poured down her throat. Before she could make any sound, she was dead. Her body was cruelly burned, her passable beauty mutilated even beyond recognition, for she had been murdered in the foulest fashion that anyone could have devised.

“T HE goblins seek to terrorize our population!” Nayfal insisted passionately, though he kept his tone low, as befitted a conversation with the king. “This latest attack is simply the most gruesome evidence of the fact that we need to act!”

King Lightbringer closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his throne, looking very old to the agitated lord. He spoke without looking at Nayfal. “They killed this poor woman by pouring hot oil over her?”

“Indeed, sire. It is clear that our people are no longer safe in the vicinity of the ghetto. We must take action-drastic action!”

“Are you sure it was goblins?”

“Who else would it be?” the marshal retorted. Then he added, “Of course, I interviewed witnesses. Several of your own guardsmen were in position to see. They even chased the wretches, though the gobs were quick to get off the wall. They vanished into the ghetto. Sire, we must strike those impudent wretches at once!”

“You are right, of course,” replied the king. At last he opened his eyes and looked at Nayfal, his expression immeasurably sad. “Do what you must,” he commanded.

The ferr’ells came out of the darkness, slinking soundlessly around a massive pillar of rock. Long and low and sleekly furry, they looked like stronger, and much larger versions of the wyslet, to which they were vaguely related. The three steeds crept toward the dwarves, round ears alert, seeking signs of danger or familiarity. For several moments tension was apparent in every aspect of their quivering whiskers, staring eyes, taut posture. But then, satisfied, the creatures relaxed and trotted quickly toward them. Even so, they snapped jaws and uttered deep-throated growls as proof of the resentment still aroused by their lifelong domestication.

“This was faster than I expected,” Konnor acknowledged. An hour earlier he had blown upon his ultrahigh-pitched whistle. The three dwarves had waited with growing anxiety, hoping that the mounts they had turned out many intervals before had remained within audible distance.

The trio wasted no time in saddling the ferr’ells, which hissed and pranced restively. Immediately Borand’s, perhaps sensing its rider’s weakness, turned and snapped toothy jaws. The dwarf whacked the whiskered snout sharply with his leathered fist. Accepting his rider’s mastery, the beast lowered its head and allowed the saddling to proceed without interruption. The dwarves slung several saddlebags and stowed their remaining food, climbing equipment, extra weapons, and flamestone. Then they mounted and started the long journey back to the city.

For a full cycle, forty intervals of sunless time that would have been two score days and nights on Nayve or Earth, they rode toward the center, toward the remembered lights of Axial. A quarter of the way into the trip they found the long-abandoned camp of a massive army, broken weapons and discarded equipment covering a plain four miles across. They explored the area, found the track leading toward Arkan Pass, and deduced that this had been the bivouac of the mighty army that had fought the Seers in that ill-fated battle fifty years before.

“This was one of their last camps,” Borand guessed, kicking through a cracked stewpot within which the remnants of food had long turned to dust. “They marched to Arkan Pass and to disaster, lost to Nightrock just as our army was lost to Axial.”

“Which makes me think that the Delver city has been abandoned for that long, or nearly so,” Aurand mused. “All those years we Seers have been cowering in the city, locking up goblins, pulling back from our ancestral food warrens-in fear of an enemy who no longer exists!”