Lord Toede (10 page)

“Not him,” croaked Hopsloth. “I... sent one ... to kill ... you.” Toede blinked the filth
from his eyes. “Hopsloth?” he said. “But you're my friend.” “No friend. You live. I'm a
... mount,” croaked Hopsloth in an almost-sneer, his mouth opening between the grunting
bellows, showing a slimy line of teeth. “You die ... I'm a god.” Hopsloth gave a creaking
laugh. “Which ... would ... you ... choose?” Toede tried to scuttle backward, but his legs
did not seem to be functioning well either. “I was supposed to be a noble!” he whined,
almost as a plea. “I knight you . .. Lord Toede,” boomed Hopsloth, his tongue snaking out
and striking Toede in the chest. Before the hobgoblin could protest or even scream, the
amphidragon had pulled the highmaster fully into his gullet. Toede felt the darkness
enfold him in a single, sharp, exquisite pain as his head bent backward off his neck.
“Misbegotten ... indeed,” muttered Hopsloth, sinking slowly into his pool, seeking the
coolest, deepest spot while the fire raged over his head.

Interlude

In which we take advantage of Our Protagonist's current deceased status to check in with
those who made a wager in lands far from our own. Meanwhile (if that word has meaning in a
place of eternal torment), a pair of winged, lizardlike figures discussed Toede's
situation. They lounged comfortably on the Castellan's stairs of smoking coal, leading
downward to the crypts. The owner of said crypts sat on those steps and growled in
disapproval, and if there were betting slips in the Abyss, they would have been shredded
and discarded in front of him. His taller companion smiled broadly over a steaming gold
cup of reddish ichor.

“Not much of an experiment,” sniffed the Castellan of the Condemned after a time. “A
failure, I'll grant you that,” replied the Abbot of Misrule, draining the last of his
saint's blood. “And not even a noble failure, if you'll excuse the pun.” The tall one
motioned to the sky with the cup, as if offering the heavens a toast. “Look. She's back.”
A crimson blur streaked across the stygian blackness above them. The Castellan shrunk back
slightly against the wall, but the Abbot just squinted at the quickly moving form of the
hell-maiden. She cut through the stagnant air like a knife, leaving twin tornadoes of
black fog in her wake. Her armor still gleamed and looked newly polished, and her ebony
blade rested sheathed in her belt. “It's Judith, all right,” confirmed the Abbot, “and
she's caught her prey.” Indeed, the enforcer of justice in the Abyss carried the inert
form of a warrior in her sinewy arms. Shards of the warrior's armor fell away from his
body like strips of torn paper, revealing a blood- crossed, pulpy mass of ripped flesh.
Head dangling at an odd angle, the paladin (for it had to be he) made no move to resist
Judith's handling. “Is he dead?” ventured the Castellan. “Care to bet that he's not?”
replied the taller abishai, smiling. “How would you prove it one way or another?” said the
shorter one, warily. The Abbot of Misrule nodded aloft. “By how she disposes of the prize.
If she just dumps it, or consumes it in flight, it's dead. If she slams it into the
ground, that's a coup de grace, a killing blow.” “Another cup of saint's blood?” asked the
Castellan. “Agreed. And prepare to pay off,” warned the Abbot. “Look.” Judith swept in low
over the ground, and both abishai got a good look at her facea face locked in

intense fury. She passed within a hundred paces of them, but would not have noticed the
malingering fiends even if they had feathery wings and aureoles. Then she arced upward,
sharply, at a right angle to the ground. The Castellan groaned as the Abbot chuckled. Both
knew what was to come next. At a height of about a hundred feet, Judith flipped over and
raised the paladin's body over her head. At the apex of her upward arc, she flung him
down, overhand, onto the blasted terrain below. There was time for a long, very human
scream, then the ground shook. “Well, that was nice,” said the Abbot, tapping his now
empty goblet. “Care to make it double or nothing on how big of a crater he made?” The
Castellan's grumbling reply was below the level of even his companion's sensitive ears. He
stomped down to the crypt; the Abbot sauntered down after him. “And speaking of wagers . .
.” The taller creature grinned. “I believe we need to settle that previous one as well.
Toede could not prove his nobility, as you had hoped, so I win that as well. Just leave
your keys to the crypt on your way out. The Castellan paused from rattling his
soul-bottles and held up a taloned paw. ”Hold, now. If we don't learn anything definite
from an experiment, then we might as well call it a draw.“ ”Experiment?“ The Abbot smiled.
”And here I thought this was simply a bet.“ The Castellan ignored his companion. ”We could
make a case that, by calling the draconian's attention to himself, Toede saved hjs
companion Groag from certain death.“ The Abbot snorted rudely. ”Or that he was hoping the
draconian's fiery form would explode upon striking the cold iron door. Objection
overruled. Leave the keys by the door.“ ”He did save his companion a few other times,“
added the Castellan. ”Usually for his own self-interest. Besides, that's loyalty, not
nobility,“ replied the taller abishai, ”and is beyond the purview of this discussion. At
no point did anyone, even his erstwhile companion, recognize the slightest inherent spark
of nobility within the subject's breast. And before you mention Hopsloth, you know he was
being ironic, or as close to ironic as something like that creature can be. Indeed, if
anything, Toede further enhanced his evil reputation by this, er, second coming.“ The
Castellan frowned and moved to another case, shoving aside, in his quest for the correct
bottle, containers filled with last essences of sinners, murderers, and government
bureaucrats. ”I would be lying,“ smiled the Abbot of Misrule, ”if thex results of Toede's
failure were not pleasing to me. Yet another small metropolis spun into disorder through
the greed of a few. But you should be pleased as well.“ He motioned to the shelf, where a
new bottle, shining like ancient coins, glistened, its draconian captive howling in
eternal green flames. ”One more addition to the collec- tion.“ He smirked. The Castellan
of the Condemned just harrumphed. ”The problem...“ he began and stopped. 'The problem is
we were unclear about the initial edict. 'Live nobly' we instructed. Apparently that was
too vague for our subject. Note that he quickly transposed it from an order or directive
to a promise or assurance, that if he returned to his old sinecure, all would be set
aright and he would be granted all that he desired. He expected to be treated as a noble
soul, and as such did nothing to help make that happen.” “I sense you are trying to weasel
out of your bet,” said the Abbot. “This isn't about the bet,” lied his portly companion.
“It's about an interesting experiment. We gave flawed instructions and in turn gained
flawed results. What do mortals do when confronted with a failure?” “Retire to the local
inn and get blotto,” said the taller one. “Speaking of which, have you found that saint's
blood yet?” “No,” said the Castellan, correcting his companion's response (though not his
request, for he produced a small flask carved from a single ruby). “Humans pick themselves
up and try again.” “You're dinking of domes,” muttered the Abbot, with the stopper in his
teeth. He spat it out and repeated. “You're thinking of gnomes. Humans prefer to get
blotto after a failure, whether it's a lost battle or a dead calf.”

The Castellan would not be swayed. “Similarly,” he said, “we can assume that our mortal
agent would learn from previous experience, and, with more precise orders, demonstrate
whether nobility is possible in his hardened little heart.” “I don't think I care for
where this discussion is leading,” muttered the Abbot, leaning back against a red-hot
wall. “I'd like to run this experiment one more time,” said the Castellan. “I have no
interest in risking my earnings against some additional scheme,” interjected the taller
abishai. “Double or nothing on the bet,” said the Castellan quickly. The taller abishai
licked his lips at the prospect, and at length lifted his goblet in a toast to the smaller
creature. “Perhaps your argument has merit after all, particularly at double or nothing.
When do we start?”

In which Our Protagonist is returned again to the land of the living and is made to
realize he has a higher calling whether he likes it or not. Further, he learns that no act
of kindness is without both vested interest and inherent punishment. Toede awoke with a
queasy feeling, a sour ache in the pit of his stomach. Digestive problems, something going
down the wrong way.

No. The something going down the wrong way was him, going down the gullet of Hopsloth. Had
it all been a dream, or... ? He looked at himself, still dressed in the sturdy gray
trousers, shirt, and brocaded vest that he had battled Gildentongue in. A little
combat-scarred, but none the worse for wear. Certainly his clothes did not look like he
had taken a trip through the digestive system of a dragon-spawned abomination. The battle
with Gildentongue was not a dream, however, nor was the confrontation with Hopsloth. They
were slices of reality, carved off and sent spinning into the void. He had died, again,
Toede mused, and scowled at the thought, in the hopes it would retreat meekly from his
mind. He had died twice now, with dragons and their kin responsible for both deaths. And
something or someone had brought him back each time.

Something throbbed red and painful in his mind, and he closed his eyes to think about it.
Something that happened after he had been pulled into the maw of the holy Water Prophet,
but before waking up here. It was like catching the tattered remnants of a dream, but all
at once it came into sharp and singular focus.

He had been on some otherworldly, metaphysical plane. Those godly figures were back,
towering brutes of great power, the same who told him earlier that he was to be granted
nobility. The figures seemed displeased with his actions, particularly the wider figure
who seemed wider than the widest ocean. Their voices boomed like thunder, rattling him
from forehead to heels.

This time they had not promised anything. They had told Toede only to “live nobly,” not
that he would become a nobleman. His mission was to live in as noble a manner as possible,
said the other one, who was taller than the tallest mountain. Then he awoke, the
metaphysical door hitting his backside on the way out. Toede wondered if this was what it
was like to be a priest, with one's deity always nosing about and making damnable orders.
Also, he wondered how one was to live nobly if one was not a noble alreadyunless one acted
as a do-gooder like the Solamnic Knights and that breed? Toede assumed that people like
that were born

with silver short swords in their mouths. Toede opened his eyes. He was back on the banks
of the stream, the same stream where he had awakened earlier, beneath the same maple as
before. Spring and high summer had passed in his absence, and now the scenery was a
brilliant shade of yellow. The first leaves were drifting down in the breeze and settling
on his prostrate form. Toede squinted, looking at the brilliantly garbed tree and
wondering if it had been created specifically to bother him. Perhaps next time they would
send him back with an axe to take care of such beauteous offenses. No. He almost forgot.
Noble people did not threaten trees just because they did not care for their looks. He
reached out and patted the trunk. “Nice tree,” he said aloud, feeling immediately foolish.
For all he knew, noble-acting people felt foolish all the time. There was an excited
chittering overhead, and Toede looked up to see a squirrel, bushy-tailed and red-gray,
taunting him from an upper branch. Again, his first thought was to grab a stone and put
the little rural rodent out its misery, but he caught himself. “Hello, Master Squirrel.
Sorry to disturb you,” he said, pointing at the squirrel with two fingers, imagining them
in his mind to be a crossbow aimed at the creature's heart. The squirrel chattered for a
few more moments, then fled, obviously perplexed. Anyone who might have been able to talk
to this squirrel in the next two months would have heard a story about how the squirrel
saw a drunken hobgoblin appear out of nowhere and speak sweetly to the trees and flowers.
Fortunately for Toede's reputation, no one did query the squirrel in this manner, and
after two months the squirrel's memory had returned to more important facts, like
remembering where all its nut-caches had been stored. Toede stood, rocked on his unsteady
heels, and stumbled to the shore. He splashed water on his face. Again his stomach
rebelled. He knelt over the stream but could manage nothing more than dry heaves. Just as
well. There was no way (at least no way that Toede knew of) to vomit in a noble fashion.
Toede sat on the shore for the longest time, trying to determine his next move. He was
probably a wanted man in Flotsam by whatever government had replaced Gilden-tongue's bogus
faith. And he couldn't stay where he was. There were kender in the hills. He toyed with
the idea of retreating from it all, much like Groag, being nothing more than a servile
slave to a beneficent master. Groag seemed to have matured in the process. Adaptive,
that's what he had said. On reflection, Toede would have called it imitative. Aping the
mannerisms of his superiors. Still, it had proven a sure survival trait. Toede shook his
head. Poor Groag, nothing but smoked hobgoblin on a stick, now. Toede took stock. Whatever
had returned him to life had not thought to send any food, supplies, or weapons along with
him. A most inconvenient oversight on their part, particularly with kender stalking the
woods. The thought of kender made Toede uneasy. True, they'd taken in Groag as a slave and
tried to rehabilitate him, but Groag didn't smash a kender guard in the face and try to
drown Kronin's dippy daughter. They might not be very happy to see Toede, and after all,
he was weaponless. The lack of weapons also mitigated against an immediate return to
Flotsam. Without knowing who was running things, it would be a safe bet that the new
powers-that-be would be as unwilling to hand the throne to Toede as Gildentongue. Without
a small army backing him up, Toede was unlikely to get past the gates. In the end the
wisest choice was to put distance between himself and Flotsam and stay away from the
kender as well. Move somewhere else, somewhere near Balifor, where one's past could be
safely forgotten, or even back to Solace. Surely, no one was left alive there who might
remember him. If, in the course of his travels, he happened to encounter a band of
hobgoblins of the old-style, whom he could razzle-dazzle and convince to capture a city,
well, then, what harm would there be? It would even be a noble thing, almost, bringing his
people out of savagery and into a better world. More cheerfully, Toede started on a trail
along the creek, careful to keep his thoughts sufficiently intact to avoid any spills and
watching for the beginning of the swamp.

Move far away, that was the right idea, reflected Toede. Perhaps even enter into some holy
order or another, like the Solamnic Knights or the Tower of High Sorcery. Learn, relax,
gather one's strength, then take over some small town or hamlet in the name of goodness.
That would give him a chance to flaunt his nobility, or at least enough nobility to keep
his shadowy masters happy.

Perhaps a lordship would come in time, he mused, for humans were always singling out those
of their number who acted in a noble or selfless fashion, and providing all manner of
rewards to them. Perhaps individuals would come from miles around to listen to Toede's
wisdom and to seek his advice, for a noble being would undoubtedly be considered wise.
Lord Toede the Wise. Saint Toede the Protector. Toede, Master of All NobleSplash! Toede
had found the edge of the swamp again, in his customary fashion. Unmiring himself, he
noted that the cattails began in earnest another hundred feet away. To the left, the
rising hills led to the kender encampment not the best group of people to be around at the
moment. So Toede, finding a spot to cross the stream, turned right this time. The land was
flatter on the far side of the creek and rose only slightly to a low series of hillocks
and ridges, dotted by russet maples and divided by other small streams feeding the swamp.
A couple times Toede had to double back as the ground ahead became marshy and impassible.
The journey was harder than Toede had expected, and the exertion began to wear on him. His
thighs complained brutally. Add to that the regular complaints his empty stomach now made,
and Lord Toede was soon thinking less of a sainted position in the annals of men than of a
soft bed and hot gooseflesh suspended over a fire. Indeed, his last rest had been in the
cottage before reaching Flot- sam, and his last “meal” that foul-tasting concoction that
cured his shattered shoulder. Reflexively he touched the once-wounded shoulder. While the
flesh was still puckered in a small scar where the bolt hadWruck him, he was otherwise
uninjured. Indeed, it was the only part of his body that was not complaining of the unjust
strain being placed on it. Toede could scavenge as well as the best of his kind, but the
bogs seemed to be notably free of any edible wildlife beyond a few worms and
squidge-beetles that scurried away from overturned rocks. He considered them for a few
moments, then moved on. He recognized some raspberry bushes, but they had already turned a
grayish tan and were festooned with dead leaves. So much for previous experience coming in
handy. Finally, after the third small hillock and the third marsh directly behind it,
Toede flung himself on a relatively dry patch of ground and surrendered to exhaustion. The
squidge-beetles were starting to look good. He toyed for a moment with the idea of
starving himself to death, imagining himself appearing before the two spirits as big as
seas and mountains and (rightfully) claiming that he had done no harm to anyone during his
last sojourn on Ansa-lon, so what could be more noble than that? Toede's stomach replied
with a low whine. The hobgoblin patted it with a fleshy hand. “Beetles it is, then,” he
muttered. Then he heard another whine, one that did not come from any part of his own
pain-wracked anatomy. Toede cocked his head. It was there to his right, down the hillock's
slope, issuing from a particularly brushy-looking patch of marsh. It was a sharp
repetition of high-pitched squeals. Some sort of animal in pain. Toede's mind immediately
leaped to the thought of some giant suckling pig whose entire purpose in life was to
wander into this dismal swamp and into some dire predicament. Say, perhaps, into the jaws
of a trap laid several months ago by a forgetful kender poacher, a trap baited with pig-
attracting turnips. And now, on its last legs, said hog was crying for someone, anyone, to
put it out of its misery. Toede set off in the direction of the whining, ignoring the
reflection that if he always expected the best, he would without a doubt always be
disappointed. As it was, Toede was bound to be disappointed, first because it took a short
while to locate the source of the sound, and second by the nature of the sound itself. It
was a dog, or something that looked like a dog, mired in the bog. The poor creature was
trapped in the viscous and unavoidable draw of an oily patch of quickmud. The swamp was
full of such

patches, Toede imagined, where the water contained enough dirt and other debris to look
like solid ground, yet was slippery enough to become a mini-quagmire. The dog-thing was
trapped, its gold-yellow head and muzzle straining to remain above the water line. Mud
caked its fur up to the jawline, and Toede could see that it was in the last throes of its
struggle. The dog looked like one of the kender's mastiffs, with a few exceptions
accountable to differences in breed. The nose was more pointed, like that of a weasel. The
ears, set farther back on the head, were triangular and upright. The neck (what was
showing) was significantly muscular and hunched.

And the look in its eyes was the dumbest-dog-look Toede had ever seen, exceeding even the
stupidest of his hunting hounds. The eyes regarded Toede with a look halfway between
pleading (please get me out), unadulterated hatred (how dare you not drown with me), and
mild pleasure (did you bring any food?). Even as it regarded him, the pathetic dog-thing
ceased to struggle, and sank a half inch farther into the muck. Toede cursed. Not because
of the cruelty of fate that apparently led the animal to its near demise. And not because
Toede expected better food on the hoof. Toede cursed because the creature was about
fifteen feet out in a nearly circular pond of mud. Here was dinner, almost dead and ready
to be served up, and it was out of his reach! The mud-hole was surrounded by willows and
other bushy trees, a few of which had sufficient overhang for a normal male hobgoblin to
reach the animal. Unfortunately, Toede was much less than a normal male (in the height
department, at least) and would still be unable to reach and grasp, much less haul up, a
struggling animal. Toede wracked his brains while the dog whined at him. “I'm thinking,”
he snarled, as if the dog would immediately understand and die quietly rather than disturb
him. The dog whined again. “Simple. Got it,” said Toede. “Don't go away,” he told the dog,
“I'll be right back.” And Toede set off for higher, drier ground, returning a minute later
with two pieces of wood, one a long, misshapened pole about five feet in length, the other
a truncated club. He put the club next to the base of one of the younger willows and,
holding the pole in one stubby mitt, began to shimmy up the sapling. The willow bent as he
ascended, a little at first, then more and more until its trunk was running parallel to
the surface of the mud. Toede was prepared to abandon his plan at the first sound of the
tree cracking, but he had chosen well, for the sapling was supple enough to bend, but
strong enough to hold his weight easily. As he climbed, Toede talked to the dog in the
same manner as he talked to his own hounds when coaxing them out of their dens for another
hunt. “Okay, boy”all dogs were “boy” to Toede, unless proved otherwise by bearing
puppies“I'm going to climb up here and steady myself. Then I'm going to take the pole, and
you're going to take it with your mouth. Bite it. Then I'm going to drag you back to
shore. Okay?” Toede silently added: And then I'm going to bash your skull in before you
regain your strength. Part of his brain was already thinking of dog carcass roasting on an
open fire. Throughout all this the dog remained inert, no longer struggling and sinking.
The creature's lower muzzle was only an inch above the muddy water, and it no longer
whined, or for that matter, growled. It continued to regard Toede pathetically with its
dumb-dog looks. “Okay, I'm steady now,” said Toede, locking his legs around the bending
bole of the tree. “Now you're going to bite the stick. Bite the stick, boy. Come on, bite
it.” He whistled at the creature and clicked his tongue. It was then that the dog did a
very undoglike thing. A huge, muscular arm, its fur caked in muck, rose from the water by
the creature's head and grasped firmly on Toede's stick, pulling hard on the makeshift
pole Toede had lowered. Toede panicked and immediately dropped the pole, trying to shimmy
back down the willow sapling without unlocking his legs. But even as he dropped the pole,
the giant undoglike creature reached out and grabbed a nearby branch of the Toede-bent
willow, and slowly began hauling itself out of the water, moving hand-overhand toward the
shore.