Lord Toede (9 page)

In which Our Protagonist returns home, discovers the nature of what has been sleeping in
his bed, and lays his trap. As a bonus to the devoted reader, we are treated to a glimpse
inside Gildentongue's head before his final battle. “What do you know about auraks?” said
Toede to Groag, once they had been left alone in the manor's front hall.

Toede had instructed the two guards to stand watch outside the front door until
Gildentongue's return. The windows were shuttered, and light was entirely lacking. This
did not bother the hobgoblins, as the red shadows made everything visible to their
sensitive eyes. The more visually limited humans were uncomfortable, however, expecting
some monster to leap out at any moment. The guards gladly retreated to their newly
assigned posts.

Maison Toede was a lumpish brute of a building. With its imposing walls, it was more apt
to be mistaken for a stone giant's mausoleum than a viable structure for the living. The
central building was two stories high, with stubby wings to the right and left of the main
hall. To the right was the treasury (once inside, Toede noted that Gilden-tongue at least
had the good sense to put a new lock on the heavy brass door). To the left were the
kitchen and the servants' quarters. Opposite the entrance were the great

iron-shod doors that led to the audience room. On either side of the doors, a pair of
staircases wound up to a balcony and an upper hallway. Private rooms were located on the
upper levels, and in its heyday the building had been alive with hobgoblin feasts, revels
and mayhem. Such was not the case in the warm, fetid darkness of the present
administration. Gildentongue had definitely let the place go downhill. Groag looked
around, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark, thinking about Toede's question. “I
know auraks are ugly creatures,” he said at last. “Aye,” said Toede. “Heads of dragons,
bodies of men, souls of fiends. Short tails and long claws. Skin the color of ancient
coins. And Gildentongue's among the ugliest of the lot. See if you can find some torches
in this tomb.” Toede took the two satchels (finally) from Groag and scaled the right-hand
stairs two at a time, talking as he did so. “We'd best hurry. I think Gildentongue will be
running back as soon as he gets the message.” “He can't fly?” asked Groag, shouting up
from the first floor. The acoustics were perfect in the hall, such that Groag's voice
seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was a very good building for long
pronouncements and speeches, which was one reason Toede had requisitioned it in the first
place. “Thank the Dark Lady, no,” replied Toede. “Auraks can run pretty fast and pop
around a bit, vanish from one place and appear in another. They can render themselves
invisible to human sight and change their shape. They can throw fireballs off from their
hands, or at least something that looks like fireballs. They spit acid, use magic, and are
unaffected by most spells. And they can control minds, but you probably figured that out
from his effect on that parade-goer this afternoon. So don't look him in the eyes, okay?”
As he spoke, Toede reached the top of the landing directly above the iron doors to his old
audience room. He unslung and opened both packs, holding his breath as the\ black dust
wafted up from one. Most of the paper containers of the dust had been broken open, but
Toede made sure the rest were ruptured as well.

Then he turned to the other satchel, the one that clinked solidly with glass. It was
filled with a rack of light wood, and each slot in the rack was filled with a small glass
bottle. Toede set the rack upright in its satchel, and unstop-pered about half the vials.
A rich, musky odor surrounded him as he did so.

“I heard the highlords make draconians out of good dragon eggs,” shouted Groag,
accompanied by the back-beat of cabinets being opened and closed. “Kender lies and
propaganda,” replied Toede. “Discount that. It's not as if we don't have enough to be
concerned about.”

“Fireballs, acid, magic, mind control. Right,” shouted Groag. “Anything else I should
worry about?” “Don't stand too close to him when he dies. They really get mad when they're
killed.” “Good joke,” Groag replied. “Hey, I found some torches and a lit brazier in the
kitchen.” “Not joking,” said Toede quietly, finishing his preparations. Louder, he
shouted, “Put the torches in the main hall and the audience room. I want him to know where
I am, so he doesn't go wandering about.” There was silence down below. “Groag?”

“I think you better come down here,” said Groag in a voice cracking with fear. Toede
descended the staircase, though not before loading the crossbow with one of the special
bolts he kept, floating in an ichorous, oily substance, in the separate box. He was
careful enough to don gloves before loading the weapon. But downstairs, instead of a
battle, he found Groag, torch in hand, standing in front of the open iron doors leading to
the main audience chamber. “What's so bloody ...” Toede walked up and stopped next to him.
Bloody was the correct term. The entire room had become a charnel house, filled with torn
and dismembered bodies. Some had been reduced to a few gnawed bones, others were bags of
dripping flesh, and there were a few semi-whole corpses, missing only some minor portion
of anatomy. The stench was enough to send anyone but a hobgoblin reeling. “Can't say I
care for his decorator,” muttered Toede. “It sure explains why the guards are afraid of
him,” said Groag quietly. “And why there seem to be few servants in evidence,” added
Toede. “Living ones at least. Let's see what other changes Gildentongue's made.” Toede
took a torch and entered, stepping as gingerly as possible over the fresher-looking
corpses. There were a large number of humans, but also kender, elves, and not a few
hobgoblins. Toede could guess the fate of his loyal supporters and now understood why the
populace seemed so supportive of Gildentongue. Just the rumor of such a place would
inspire either fearful praise or revolution. “It looks like a battlefield,” said Groag.
“Battlefields are seldom this bountiful,” replied Toede. “Hi-ho. This is different.” He
stood over a wide, square hole punched into the flagstone floor. It was about fifteen feet
square and opened into darkness. There was the slosh of water below. “It's the chute to
Hopsloth's lair,” said Toede, who then canted his head and let his voice go chirpy.
“Hoppppp-sloth! You there, boy?” He clicked his tongue a few times. Something dark and
malodorous broke the water like a dead kraken bobbing in an ebony sea. Twin orbs opened,
throwing back the torchlight like accesses to the very Abyss. “Miss me, Hopsloth?” asked
Toede. The response was a deep, enthusiastic belch. “We'll be ri-ight back after we deal
with that na-asty old Gildentongue, okay, Hopsey?” There was another slosh of water, and
the twin fires closed. Groag looked at his lord and said, “Hopsey?” Toede cleared his
throat. “Well, it's obvious the aurak's been treating him poorly. Probably just takes him
out for show. And smell this place.” Groag nodded at the hole. “Gildentongue ... he bored
the chute in the floor to dispose of.. .”he waved at the carnage in the abattoir around
them“... all this?” Toede shook his head. "Does 'all this' look disposed of to you? Auraks
like to kill things. You saw it this afternoon. It's one of those personal habits that
endears them to the dragon highlords. They just

aren't all that hot on cleaning up after they're done playing with their food. Poor
Hopsloth. Trapped down there, a religious icon, with all this food up here." He sighed and
tossed what may have been a leg down into the water. There was a splash of impact and the
larger splash of something submerging beneath the surface.

“See that. Starving,” noted Toede. “But Gildentongue didn't bore the hole as much as
remove the trapdoors that I had already installed. It was a great trick for retainers who
met my disfavor.” He did not notice Groag's pained reaction. “You call them into a private
audience, throw the lever, and catch the look on their faces as the floor drops out
beneath them.”

Groag, the favor-currying retainer, looked around. “I guess if s too late to recommend we
go someplace else for the rest of our lives.” Toede grabbed his companion by the
shoulders. “You have nothing to fear, Groag,” he lied calmly. “Gildentongue will be after
me first, and that's the way we both want it. All you have to do is hide up on the
balcony. When I shout 'now' you throw the first satchel. When I shout 'again' you throw
the one with glass in it. Got that?”

Groag nodded his head. 'Then you run,“ said Toede. If his plan didn't work, it would be
better to have two hobgoblins running around the city as opposed to one. Not that Groag
would live that long, but his dead body might throw off the search for Toede's live one.
Groag nodded again. ”Right. Now what?“ ”We get a mirror from the upstairs hall. Then we
throw the dead bolt on the front door. And we wait.“ Gildentongue returned from the Lower
City alone, as he could make better time on his own than with a retinue of mewling humans.
The captain would make a sufficiently tasty meal, he decided, for dragging him out at ten
bells for the wild goose chase to the Jetties. Now it was nearly midnight. The messenger,
the soldier from the north, he would die first, then the captain. No, the toadying innkeep
of the Jetties, the messenger, and then the captain. Or all three at once, he thought,
smiling, as he waved his way past the guards at the Rock Gate. The guards saluted and
stepped aside, as it was obvious even to them that Lord Gildentongue was not in the best
of moods. Indeed, steam seemed to puff from the creature's dragon-like muzzle, and
energies already were radiating from his balled fists. It had to be Toede, Gildentongue
realized. No one else would care to imitate the old highmaster. And since most of his old
court was now part of Gildentongue's ”collection“ there were few left who knew the city
well enough to get around. The old wart probably had a secret passage burrowed into the
Rock for just this purpose. The Jetties was just a diversion. Only Toede would have the
stones to commandeer his own manor house and send for Gildentongue to meet him there. ”Old
friend,“ indeed. If Toede was in the manor house, the outside chance existed that the
hobgoblin would enlist Hopsloth as an ally. Gildentongue had never liked the amphidragon
much, though it had obvious uses. Perhaps it was time to add a few poisonous spices to the
beast's next meal. It wasn't as if anyone needed to see the smelly frog-dragon anymore in
order to venerate ”the Water Prophet." Probably be better for the faith if the faithful
had to use their imaginations a little more. There were a pair of guards at the front door
of the manor, who quickly and quietly melted away on his approach. The shutters were
closed, but he could see that someone had lit torches or lamps within. He pulled on the
double doors, one handle tightly gripped in each hand. The doors pulled a half inch
forward, then stopped. Gildentongue could see the dead bolt in place. Someone. Toede. He
had been assured the little beast was dead, but somehow, like an unlucky coin, he had
resurfaced. Gildentongue considered ripping open the doors with raw strength, but held
himself in check. Such rages were typical, and there was no point in destroying his own
lair. There were subtler ways. Gildentongue wrapped himself in his cloak and muttered a
few words, moving quickly from here on one side of the door to there on the other side. He
did it within the course of a single breath and poised ready for attack in the main
hallway.

He looked around. Torches had been lit in the hall, casting scarlet shadows on the
bloodstained floor. He nosed the air for a momentno, no alien magics were present nothing
illusionary or invisible at work here, either. The iron doors to his private room were
ajar. Fewer lights there, a pair of braziers set before the chute down to Hopsloth's
muck-pit. On the far side of the pit the old throne still stood on a low dais, and
standing on the seat of that throne...

... Toede, looking quite contented with himself. “Come on in,” shouted the squat little
creature. “Mind the chute. And thanks for keeping my place warm.” Gildentongue snarled as
Toede's words echoed through the hall. The idea of gripping Toede's face like an overripe
melon, driving his thumb-claws into the tatters of the hobgoblin's eye sockets, appealed
to him. But all things have their time and place, and first he would have to trick and
trap his prey. Gildentongue wrapped himself in his cloak and muttered a few more words,
moving quickly from here by the doorway to there on the other side of the pit, directly in
front of the dais. He did it within the course of a single breath, and upon emerging on
the other side, immediately lashed out, driving his clawed talon into Toede's heart.

In which the battle is joined between Our Protagonist and his hated foe, a final
resolution of sorts is reached, a final revelation of sorts is made, and a final meal, of
sorts, is served. Or rather, Gildentongue drove his taloned claw into the space where
Toede should have been, had the hobgoblin truly been standing on the throne. Instead,
Gildentongue drove his hand into the hallway mirror Toede and Groag had positioned on the
seat.

The glass surface of the mirror spider-webbed and shattered, raining shards of glass in
all directions. The mirror's metal backing ruptured under his claws, and three of his
talons pierced the steel entirely. Gildentongue cursed and tried to shake the metal from
his hand. Small wounds laced across his scaled skin, but they were minor scratches that
welled with blood and would swiftly heal. There was a low, mocking whistle behind him.
Toede stepped out of his hiding place among the dead bodies, crossbow tucked under his
arm. Toede looked as if he were one of the landed gentry out shooting coneys. Tilting the
mirror on the throne, to create the illusion of his presence there, was an old trick, more
suitable for a traveling show than anything else, but it had proved effective. Toede
laughed as Gildentongue attempted to disengage himself from the shards of the mirror. This
infuriated the draconian further, such that steam was leaking upward from each nostril.
Toede raised the crossbow and ... Gildentongue disappeared with the soft popping of a soap
bubble. Toede hesitated for a second. Had Gildentongue magically moved, or... The frame of
the mirror, still on the throne, moved slightly, as if an unseen hand was trying to
extricate itself. Which was exactly what was happening. Toede aimed at the wobbling frame
and shot. Gildentongue reappeared as the arrow struck him and bounced off his scaly hide.
It was Gildentongue's turn to laugh. “Arrows, little goblin? You'll need better to pierce
my skin.” He reached down to pick up the arrow, noticing that it ended in a broad-headed,
inverted cone, with the wide end striking first. A fowling arrow, used by hunters to knock
down birds relatively

unharmed. The head was smeared with some gummy substance that had left a mark the size of
a steelpiece on his chest. Without thinking, Gildentongue touched it. It felt like resin.
“Not arrows alone,” came the shout from beyond the iron doors, where Toede had now
retreated. “I took the liberty to coat them with a very potent contact poison. Should work
even through your hide. Especially if you have any cuts ...” The voice broke up in mocking
laughter.

Gildentongue looked at his clawed hand, radiating with a fine tracery of blood from the
broken mirror. He felt the room close in on him, then shook off the effect. Suggestion was
as deadly as reality when it came to combat. Tell a warrior he is poisoned, and he acts as
such. Mentally Gildentongue cataloged the poisons in the house and figured there would be
more than enough time to seek the proper healing magics.

More than enough time, once he had twisted Toede's head from his shoulders and given it to
the city's lamp-urchins to use as a kick-ball. Still, Gildentongue felt woozy and resolved
to take no more chances. He wrapped himself in his cloak and muttered a few words, moving
from there, near the throne, back to here on the near side of the pit, by the doorway. He
hesitated and stepped slowly into view.

And stepped back quickly as a bolt winged through the opening, clattering behind him in
the darkness. Gildentongue stepped forward again, but by the time he had entered the main
hall, Toede already had another bolt drawn. The broad head of the fowling arrow dripped
with some ichorous, spongy substance. The draconian held up his hands. 'Talk?“ he
suggested, smiling, his sharp teeth glowing scarlet in the flickering torchlight. Toede
kept the bolt leveled on Gildentongue's chest, about fifteen feet away. ”So talk.“ 'To
what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Gildentongue asked smoothly. The back of his
mind was curling like a snake, ready to strike. “This is my house, and you have taken my
position,” said Toede. “What else needs to be said?” “Is that all this is,” queried the
draconian, “a question of hierarchy? Why, my friend, I was just holding the seat for you.
A regency, as it were. Check the records, you'll see. I never thought you truly dead.” The
back of the dra-conian's brain reached out to the hobgoblin, whispering hypnotically. “I'm
a friend. Put down the weapon and let me come closer.” “I was dead,” said Toede, looking
the draconian full in the face. “But I'm back to ... to ...” His voice seemed to lose some
of its coherence as the effects of Gildentongue's mental abilities began to infiltrate his
brain. 'To be made a nobleman,“ he said, shaking off the sudden drowsiness. ”Then let me
help,“ said the draconian, taking one step ahead, then another, into the center of the
room, closer to the little highmaster. Gildentongue could feel the energies tingling
through his palms. He would blast the flesh from this creature's body and make a chair of
the bones. ”I can put a good word in, set things up with the highlords. We can finalize
that brevet promotion. First thing in the morning.“ The crossbow began to dip, and
Gildentongue took another half-step forward. Toede shook his head like a drunkard, trying
to shake off the bees that seemed to have lodged in the back of his head. ”Not in the
morning,“ he slurred. ”Now." Whether the command was intentional, accidental, or some part
of Toede's subconscious straining to escape Gildentongue's mental control, it worked.
Groag had been watching the entire proceedings from above with the interest of a youth
watching a snake hypnotize a bird, but when Toede said 'now' his companion reacted
immediately, as he had been ordered. Groag shoved the first parcel, the dusty one, off the
balcony, onto the draconian below. It fell like a gray comet, a tail of black dust
streaming behind it. The draconian was not hit by it, for it landed at his feet and
erupted in a huge ball of small granules that danced in the air and stuck to living flesh.
It was a burning, acrid cloud of strong spice, pepper to be exact. Gildentongue was
trapped in a huge cloud of the harsh, abrasive grindings. The draconian sneezed, if the
act of trying to expel one's own lungs out one's nostrils could be considered mere
sneezing. He waved at the pepper cloud and doubled over in pain as the dust caught in his
eyes and nostrils.

Toede was far enough away to avoid the bulk of the explosion, but his eyes began watering
as well, bringing him briskly back to the real world. Cursing himself for letting his
guard down, Toede fired a shot at the weaving lizard-man form. At this range hitting
anything was easy, and Toede caught the draconian in the face with the fowling arrow.
There were two arrows left in the case, and Toede retreated to the right, edging up the
grand staircase. As the cloud began to subside, Toede could see that Gildentongue was
already gathering his wits about him. Lights pulsed and danced on the creature's
fingertips, and Abyss-born eyes now regarded him. “You die now,” Gildentongue gagged.
Toede looked directly above Gildentongue's head and shouted, “Again!”

Groag threw the second package, the one with the vials, off the balcony. Gildentongue spun
and shouted, “Not again!” He probably meant to say, “You'll not catch me by the same trick
twice,” but there was only so much time between when a satchel is tossed and when it
strikes the ground. In that brief time Gildentongue managed to lash out with balls of
greenish energy from each palm, an attack originally intended for Lord Toede but easily
pressed into service to handle a falling package of noxious spices. Except there were no
spices in the second package, but rather bottles of oil. Fine lamp oil. The satchel caught
fire, and the oil streaming out from behind it formed a red tail to match the black one of
the pepper comet. The entire parcel hit slightly behind and to the right of the draconian,
but as with the pepper, accuracy was not a major concern. Upon impact, the remaining vials
ruptured, and burning oil splattered in all directions. Most of the oil fell on the dirty,
bloodstained stones of the hallway and did little damage. A wave of flaming oil engulfed
the gagging, poisoned draconian, and was much more effective. Gildentongue shouted
something in a tongue that Toede did not recognize, but that the hobgoblin assumed was a
curse. The draconian dropped to his knees, attempting to roll the fires out, but instead
succeeded only in picking up more oil to feed the flames and pepper to be rubbed into his
wounds. Toede vaulted up the stairs to the balcony, where Groag was enjoying the
proceedings. “It's almost beautiful,” said Groag, watching the aurak's agony. “Beautiful
like a dagger in the dark,” said Toede, grabbing his companion. “Now we have to get out of
here before...” Groag was transfixed. “Ooooh, the fires are turning green now.” Toede shot
a look at the first floor and saw that the red flames had subsided and were replaced by
ones shot with green, like a coppersmith's hearth. Toede cursed loudly and said, “That
means Gildentongue just died.” Groag smiled. “So he's dead.” Toede nodded. “So now he's
really steamed. Groag looked down and saw that the burning form of Gildentongue was rising
from the ground in a parody of its former self. Its head had already been charred to a
blackened skull, wrapped in pale tongues of green fire. The beast began shambling up the
right-hand stairs, leaving a blackened scorch mark in its passing. It croaked a single
word from its useless throat: ”Toede.“ It ascended swiftly. Toede grabbed Groag by the
collar and dragged him down the opposite stairs. Or halfway down, since the fabric of the
collar tore loose and the pair of them tumbled the rest of the way to the floor. The
remains of Gildentongue had reached the top step and now descended the other staircase
after them. The hallway was a smoking, scorched ruin, and small fires still flickered in
pools of oil. Toede was up and running to the double iron-shod doors of the audience room.
He reached them and began to swing them shut when he saw Groag, still at the bottom of the
steps, lying on the ground and not moving. Gilden-tongue's eldritch remains were
descending the stairs directly above the fallen hobgoblin, glowing more intensely than
before. Groag's clothes were already smoking from their proximity to the intense heat.
Toede bid a fond mental farewell to his loyal retainer. But still, he could not resist one
last taunt of his enemy. ”Gildentongue,“ shouted Toede, ”you're frying the wrong goblin!
Remember to tell your masters in

the next life how you screwed up to the very end!“ , With that he slammed the door,
sliding the metal latch home as he did so. A final glimpse told him that the draconian had
either flown or jumped over Groag's body and was charging toward the doors, aiming to
burst them by sheer force. The doors buckled five inches, and the latch cracked from the
force of the blow. The thunderous noise sounded like a bell throughout Flotsam, rousing
more than a few people from their sleep and summoning the guards who had not already been
alerted by the strange display of lights inside the manor house. Now many stood outside,
holding their symbols and wondering what manner of beast the Holy Hopsloth and his
faithful minion were battling. The guards who did know were of course attempting to book
passage on the next boat out of port. Inside the manor, the door rocked again with a
hollow boom, and the hinges on each side began to pull from the frame. At any moment,
Toede knew, the draconian would reach the end of his unliving tether and explode in a
burst of eldritch fire. And it did not look like the door would hold long enough to shield
Toede from the humongous blast. Toede looked around the abattoir of Gildentongue's lair.
Nothing presented itself as a tool, a weapon, or a way out. The windows were tightly
shuttered, and there was no egress other than... The pit that yawned at his feet.
Hopsloth's pool. Toede knew that it would be the equivalent of jumping into a giant
spittoon. The door boomed a third time, bursting off its hinges. with pieces flying to the
far corners of the room. Gilden-tongue's animated corpse strode, like a hot green bonfire,
into the audience hall, blistering the paint from the walls. Toede jumped a foot into the
air and felt the wave of heat push him backward and down into the foul blackness of
Hopsloth's lair. He was halfway to the water when Gildentongue detonated in a flash of
light, like a faulty skyrocket. Toede saw his own shadow framed against the water, then he
was slammed into the pool with the force of the explosion. The soupy, almost solid water
of Hopsloth's pool forced itself into Toede's eyes, mouth, and nostrils, and for a moment
the highmaster feared he was covered with burning oil. No, he was merely immersed in the
sludge. A great shape moved beneath him and nosed him to the surface. Gasping, Toede broke
the surface of the water, multicolored sparks dancing in front of his eyes. Above him, the
manor house was burning. The pool was lit with a red glow. Bits of bodies and other, less
pleasant material floated in the water. Toede struggled to paddle a few yards, then felt
firm earth beneath him. He pulled himself up on the shore, the air already excruciatingly
hot from the billowing flames above. Gagging for breath, Toede saw he was being watched
from the water. A great hillock of a frog, its vestigial wings hanging uselessly at its
sides, sat, its lower body submerged in the pool. The light from the flames danced over
its sickly yellow flesh, giving it a macabre appearance. ”Hopsloth,“ said Toede with a
weary smile, ”I knew you wouldn't let me drown. Let's get out of here.“ But the
amphidragon just sat there, regarding its long-lost hobgoblin master. ”Come on, you
misbegotten dragon-spawn, we have to leave before the roof caves in on us.“ Toede tried to
rise, but found that his arms no longer bent in the proper direction. He was sore, weary,
barely alive. The amphidragon remained inert, then belched out a single word. ”Why?“ Toede
shook his head. ”You talk?“ he said, wondering if the force of the aurak-blast had driven
him to delusions. ”Sometimes,“ came the belch. ”Why?“ ”I was ...“ gasped Toede. ”I was
told I would be made a noble. After I died. The first time. Gildentongue didn't agree.“
”So you . . . killed him,“ the amphidragon croaked. ”Burning ... my ... house.“ ”Our
house! And he tried to kill me!“ shouted Toede, his voice ragged from the heat. ”He sent
an assassin after me."