A. Hartley - Will Power

So I had a word in our guard’s shell and asked for directions to the nearest tavern. Nothing fancy, I assured him, in case he hadn’t got a good look at my britches lately, just somewhere I could get a good beer. He gave me a blank look, one of many I had been getting lately.

“You mean, an inn?” he said uncertainly.

“Spot on, mate. Good shot,” I encouraged him.

“The closest is some distance from this part of the city. Perhaps half an hour on foot.”

No problem. I had begun to feel like a trapped rat in the palace and figured the walk would do me good. I jotted down some directions on a little rectangle of parchment which the guard had for just such an eventuality. No wonder Renthrette and Garnet were so fond of this place. In Cresdon the local militia’s idea of giving directions is to turn you to face the appropriate compass point and then give you a hearty kick in the ass.

So off I went, ambling casually, in no great hurry, and content to soak up the quiet evening. It was always pretty quiet around the palace: hardly what you’d call urban . The streets felt like the neglected cloister of some vast monastery or temple: all pale stone, clean, faintly ascetic angles, and a slightly unearthly silence. I tried whistling to myself but it felt disrespectful so I gave it up. The few people who passed me, mounted or on foot, barely made eye contact with me as they went about their business or pleasure (you couldn’t tell the difference) in a demure, even stately fashion. It didn’t bode well for the tavern, I suppose, but I had to try.

The point turned out to be, as they say, moot. I had just consulted my parchment and taken a left into the closest thing to an alley I had seen thus far, when I heard soft, careful footsteps behind me. I came instinctively to a halt. A second later, so did they. I turned and looked up to the main street I had left, but saw nothing. I started to walk again, a little quicker this time. At first there was only the echo of my own feet in the tunnel-like alley, but then I heard them again, slightly out of sync with mine, following me. I began to run.

The footfalls were joined by voices, urgent, hissing whispers that bounced off the walls. I ran on and the alley descended slightly, snaking through a series of arches to the left. In front of me was a narrow flight of steps, climbing about ten feet back up to a passage that joined a main street. With panic driving me on, I was almost on the staircase before I saw the squat, heavy figure that stood in the shadows at the top. It stepped forward as I scuttered to a halt, and the evening light picked out an evil-looking figure, cowled all in black. Clasped in his hands in front of him was a huge, bladed weapon, heavy and brutal-looking.

It was a goblin, and it wasn’t alone. Another appeared out of the shadows to my left and a third came running up from behind. They were all lithe, dark, and strong.

I backed up without thinking, but they were too close. A swarthy hand took me by the arm and thrust my face against the alley wall. My hands were caught and pinned behind my back. A trickle of cold water ran into my shirt collar and I shuddered.

“I have no faith in prophecy, Mr. Hawthorne,” the big goblin on the stairs hissed into my ear in a strangely accented voice, a voice cold and hard as steel, which filled me with the sense of certain death. “Nor will you, by the time your blood has been poured from your throat.”

“Listen,” I spluttered desperately, “if it’s money you want. .”

One of those holding me laughed softly, a throaty chuckle, rich and chilling. I closed my mouth quickly as if paralyzed. Neither money nor words seemed likely to help me now.

A gloved hand passed over my mouth, pulling my head back so that my throat was exposed to the air. I heard the knife drawn by the third goblin and braced myself for the pain, the momentary warmth of blood running down my chest, the drowning, frothing gateway to darkness that would follow.

Yet, through the terror, a voice in my head, faint and indistinct, was repeating a single word: prophecy ? It grew louder and, as I saw the blade raised, a flash of bluish light on its razor edge, I spoke. “You do not need to believe in the prophecy to be part of it.”

The knife hovered in the air. I could smell my assailant’s hesitation, and pressed my advantage, fighting for calm and evenness in my voice. “Remember the words of the prophecy,” I said, improvising desperately. “And remember what happens to those who forget they are subject to destiny. Strike me down and take the inevitable consequences.”

It was a little heavy-handed, but the fact that I was still alive to say the words suggested they were having some effect. Words have a life of their own, as I’m fond of saying, and it’s best to run with that fact rather than insist on them meaning only one thing. This time I was really running with it. Sprinting away at full pelt, no less. My would-be assassin apparently thought my words meant something, though what that something could be, I had no idea. The knife paused in the air, frozen in time. Then it lowered uncertainly.

There was an angry sputtering of sharp, unfamiliar words and a hand spun me round. A dark, leathery face with narrow and malicious goblin eyes was inches from mine. This was the one who had laughed and, absurd though it seemed to be choosing between them, I liked this one least.

“You do not scare me, Outsider,” he said. “What magic will strike me down when I cut out your heart and throw it to the swine?”

“My spirit will pursue you in the form of a great, gray hound with eyes like lanterns and teeth like scimitars,” I managed, coolly.

“Really?” said the goblin. There had been a fractional pause, but the word was touched with bitter sarcasm. “We shall see,” it resolved. It held out its hand for the knife, and the other goblin-after a fractional pause-gave it.

Then the big one on the stairs spoke uncertainly in his own tongue. The knife-wielder replied angrily and perhaps threateningly, and the big goblin responded with guttural hostility. They were arguing. The one with the knife turned to him, spat, and answered in crisp, bitter sounds, thrusting me away as it did so as if to give itself more room to fight. The big goblin glared and took a step down the stairs, brandishing its great cleaver and shrugging aside its heavy black cloak. The one with the knife turned disdainfully and peered at me through its tiny, squinting eyes. The knife, gleaming along its edge slightly, hung in the air.

And then, quite suddenly, the goblin stiffened and sank into a heap. I turned, wildly looking around me, since neither of the other two had stirred. At the far end of the alley was a shadowy figure, one hand outstretched as if pointing to the fallen goblin.

There was a confused struggle behind me and the smaller of the two remaining goblins, with a bestial snarl, took a great bound down the dark passageway toward the figure. “Pale Claw,” it said, and I thought it sounded scared.

In one hand, a razor which had been concealed in its foul tunic sparkled. The other was stretched out, fingers splayed to grapple with the newcomer. I stepped back cautiously, glancing to the steps where the large, cleaver-wielding goblin was descending awkwardly. There was a startled cry from the alley and I turned just as the razor clattered to the street, the goblin slumping down after it. A slim spike of metal stuck out of its chest, small and delicate as a needle. The big goblin on the stairs had slowed uncertainly. Another moment, I thought, and it would try to flee.

“Hell’s teeth, but you cut that fine!” I exclaimed, too delighted for there to be any real criticism there.

The figure did not move, and his reply was calm, detached, and suave. “Now William,” he said, almost casually, but slow, as if savoring every word, “let us not count our chickens.”