The Goblin Gate (8 page)

The next flash of lightning showed the village off to his left—he’d been about to pass it. But Glory saw it too and increased her cautious pace, nostrils wide. Soon the dark shadow of a building loomed before him.

A toddler in a nightshirt perched on the steps, shrieking, unable to go farther without stepping into the water. Jeriah
bent and hoisted the boy onto his saddlebow.

The rest of the night passed in a mosaic of action that gave him no time for any thought beyond the needs of the moment. Soon lamps lit the windows of the flooding houses, so Jeriah could at least see where he was going as he crossed and recrossed the treacherous fields.

Adults waded through the swirling currents, as the river fought to establish its new bed. Jeriah and Glory carried children, elders, and household goods, seed grain, and livestock. Glory almost went down once, setting pans clanging, and the piglet on Jeriah’s lap squealed. But there was little danger, just the grim, wet work of saving what could be saved.

The rain had stopped without Jeriah noticing, and moonlight slid through the scattering clouds. His father and the men of the estate began to help without him noticing their arrival. He didn’t realize it was over until he found himself sitting on his exhausted horse, staring at the swamped village in the cold light of early dawn with a perfectly blank mind.

The first wave had sent a foot of water through even the highest houses. All the cellars were flooded, the food stored in them ruined. But no lives had been lost. Even the penned animals had been saved, soaked and indignant but alive. Just as Jeriah had hoped.

The water had receded from the higher ground, leaving most of the houses on an island with almost a quarter mile of shallow water between them and the shore. It would
be perfect for the goblins, but the families who had owned those homes…

When he got Tobin back, Jeriah would tell him about this. As the heir, Tobin could help him make it up to these people. In the northern woods they could have better houses than the ones they’d lost, the most fertile land. But for now…

Jeriah roused enough to listen to the comments around him. A few children sobbed. The adults were quiet, except for a group of men farther down the bank who were dragging something heavy from the water. His father came to stand beside him.

“It could have been worse.” He sounded drained, but his hand fell warmly on Jeriah’s shoulder. “Good thing you were there! No one was killed—that’s the important thing. There’s not a village on the estate that doesn’t need workers. They’ll be taken in. Right before the relocation is a bad time to lose seed, but it could have been far worse. You did well, son.”

Jeriah said nothing. He refused to tell more lies.

“M’lord.” A man from the group downriver came panting up to them. “You ought to see this.”

Jeriah’s father signaled him to follow, along with old Woder, who was their steward, and the village headman. Jeriah was, after all, the heir, responsible for the safety of the estate. He bit his lip to silence bitter laughter. Then he saw what they’d pulled from the flood and the laughter froze.

It was the gate. Most of the door had been smashed away,
only part of the heavy frame still clinging to it, but the screw and wheel were clearly visible, locked open.

He should have taken an ax and broken it—let the water pour through and drown him. It would have been cleaner than this.

“Woder,” said his father gently. “You were supposed to close the west bank gates this afternoon. Did you?”

“Aye, m’lord. I closed this gate.”

“You might have gotten confused in the storm. Not…not your fault, old friend.”

“M’lord!” the old man cried. “I closed all the gates! I know the danger, and even if I somehow forgot one, I’d never raise any gate to the top like that!”

“How else could it have happened?” a villager asked.

The lord of Rovanscourt shrugged. “We’ll probably never know. The gate was rotten—the flood alone could have brought it down. No blame will be attached to this accident.” His tone made it an order and the men around him nodded. But they looked at the elderly steward with doubt and pity in their eyes.

Woder was staring at the gate, and Jeriah saw the same doubt in his wrinkled face. He was questioning himself, wondering if he had somehow—

“I did it,” said Jeriah abruptly. Something inside him ached at the sound of his own voice, but it was a clean pain, like lancing an infected wound. “I…There was a nightstoat. It darted into a burrow in the dike. I thought I could
flood it out, so I opened the gate and ran to catch it when…when…” His voice faltered at the fury and disgust in every face. “By the time I realized the danger, the dike was collapsing—it was too late to do anything but get people out. I’m…”

The word stuck on his tongue. Irresponsible. Lightweight. His apology was worthless to men who’d lost their homes. Their anger seared him. He deserved it. More than they would ever know. Jeriah turned to face his father.

“Didn’t you remember that gate was dangerous?” His father sounded as if he were being strangled. His hands worked.

I got confused in the dark. I didn’t realize it would rise so fast. I was caught up in the hunt.
…

Jeriah gritted his teeth and said nothing.

His father drew a shuddering breath. “You’ve convinced me, Jeriah. You really don’t care about Rovanscourt. You never have. You never…Go. I…I banish you from this land.”

The men around them gasped as the ritual words were spoken. Jeriah had expected it and didn’t flinch.

“I reject you, the land rejects you, its people reject you. You will go forth, never…”

Jeriah watched his father remember that Jeriah was now his only son—the only heir. He couldn’t banish him forever.

“You will not return until I give permission.” Rage shook
his father’s voice, as he was forced to abandon the formal words. “Go home. I’ll give you a letter for that priest you’re so anxious to get back to. You’ll leave at first light.”

He spun away. Jeriah turned Glory and kicked her into a weary walk, fighting to keep his back straight under the pressure of angry eyes.

It was still early morning when Jeriah finished buckling his saddlebags and pulled his cloak over his face. He closed his bedroom door quietly—he’d managed to avoid his mother and sisters so far, and he intended to go right on doing it. He couldn’t endure any more “confessions.” He would saddle Glory, get that cursed letter from his father, and go. If he weren’t the only remaining son, he’d be leaving for good.

It was easy to avoid notice. The hall and most of the lower rooms were full of milling refugees and people who’d come to help. Children were bedded down on the floor, and food arrived from the kitchen as fast as the cooks could produce it.

Jeriah twisted through the crowd and out to the courtyard, which was even more chaotic, crowded with the goods and livestock people had saved. He sighed with relief as the stable door closed behind him, cutting off the noise. But he wasn’t alone.

Fiddle, already saddled, huffed curiously. His father finished fastening a halter on Glory before turning to look at his son. His gaze was flat, unreadable, but his voice was bleak.

“She’s too tired to ride far. You’d best take it easy today.” He tied the lead rope to Fiddle’s saddle and swung a traveling pack onto Glory’s back. “I put your letter in here.”

It would do no good to argue, not when he’d lost his father’s trust so completely.
Would he have trusted Tobin?
Jeriah pushed the ugly thought aside. “Shall I send Fiddle back when I reach the city?”

“No, keep him. You’re the heir. You should have good horses. Tobin has…”

Tobin has no need of a charger now.

The unspoken words hung in the stillness between them, raw with grief. Jeriah’s bitterness dissolved. “Father, there’s something…”

His father looked up, and Jeriah’s courage failed under the hard gaze.

“Yes?”

“Nothing.” He mounted Fiddle and rode out. There was no way to conceal his identity from the crowd now, so he shook back his hood and lifted his head.

Their hatred struck like stones. They fell silent as he passed; the horses’ hoofbeats were the only sound. Jeriah’s palms were damp when he finally rode through the gate, but his back was straight, his head high.

He waited in the brill grove for ten minutes, but the goblins didn’t come. Or if they did, they didn’t show themselves. Jeriah smiled grimly. He knew where to find them. He rode
down the bank and urged Fiddle, splashing, into the shallow, turbulent water. The price was paid. His father would never trust him again, but at least Jeriah was free to start the process of getting Tobin back.

The village had already acquired the tattered, empty feeling of a deserted place. Jeriah pulled Fiddle to a stop in the center of the square, where several houses concealed him from the shore. He was prepared to wait for hours if need be, but the goblin came around one of the buildings almost at once.

Jeriah had never seen that expression on the dour little face before—it took him several moments to identify it as happiness.

“Hero, you’ve done it! This place will serve us just fine.”

Anger snapped through him. Fiddle felt it and shifted restlessly.

“My name is Jeriah Rovan,” he told the goblin icily.

“And mine’s Cogswhallop…young hero.” The creature’s eyes glinted mockingly, but Jeriah was too startled to care.

“Cogswhallop? The sorceress’ second-in-command?”

“Tinker mentioned me, did he?”

“Yes, but he thought you’d gone with her.”

“I would have.” Some of the pleasure drained from the goblin’s face. “It didn’t work out.”

Possibilities stirred in Jeriah’s mind.

“Then you must want to get back to her. Very badly.”

“I don’t know about ‘very badly,’ but I’d like to see the
gen’ral again. Enough that if you open a gate, I’ll guide you to the soldier myself.”

“What if I need your help to get the gate cast?”

“Ah, that’s another bargain.”

“Haven’t I done enough already?”

The creature’s silence answered.

“Very well,” said Jeriah bitterly. “What else do you want?”

“You know what I want, human. Get the Decree of Bright Magic revoked, and I’ll do whatever I can to save your brother.”

“That’s impossible and you know it.”

The goblin’s face was inscrutable. “That’s all I want.”

When a true knight faced an impossible quest, he always managed. But slaying monsters and rescuing prisoners were straightforward tasks, no matter how dangerous. No one asked a knight to get a law repealed. He’d have to manage the rest of it on his own. And pray that this worked out better than the last plot he’d gotten involved in!

“You’ll tell me how to contact the Lesser Ones?”

“Aye, that you’ve earned. The man you want is Todder Yon. He’s got no magic himself, mind, but he carries messages between the Lesser Ones all through the north.”

“Todder Yon!” Fiddle shied into Glory, snorting. Ghostly snickers came from the buildings around him. “That filthy, demon-cursed…Why didn’t he tell me?”

Jeriah didn’t expect an answer, but the goblin said, “Likely
the same reason I didn’t give you my name.”

“And just what reason is that?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

There was a long silence. Only a month left before Tobin became ill. Would Jeriah have time to track down the elusive tinker? Again. “I don’t suppose you know where I can find him. Or do you need payment for that, too? All the gold in the world? My life’s blood?”

“No, I’ll see that he gets your message.”

“That’s it? I did all this, and all you’re going to do is deliver a cursed
letter
?”

“And we’ll make sure he passes it on. You gave us a place to live, so we’ll see that your message reaches the Lesser Ones. That was the bargain, and we pay our debts.”

“What about your debt to Tobin?”

“Ah, as I said, that’s between him and us. Another bargain entirely. Write up a letter. I’ll see the tinker gets it into the right hands. And then you’re paid. Agreed?”

It was the best bargain Jeriah was likely to get.

“Agreed.”

“W
HAT’S GOING ON HERE
?”

The sound of angry voices had drawn her from her tent just after dawn, and over to the site where the first of the goblins’ small houses was under construction. Or not under construction, given how much timber had to be taken out because it had warped after being pegged into place. But the goblin homeowner confronting the Stoners who’d laid the foundations was gesturing at the stonework, not the walls, and as Makenna drew nearer, she saw why. Cracks, like jagged lightning, ran through the thick stones of the small home’s foundation, leaping from one block to another.

“What in the Dark One’s name could do that? These stones were laid only a few days ago!”

“Not solid.” Harcu picked up a piece of what looked like gray granite. When he closed his fist, it crumbled like cornbread.

“We had a bargain!” Dannut, the homeowner, snarled. “And they used shoddy materials—”

“The stones were fine when we started building the walls,” another goblin protested. “They were fine yesterday.”

“Just like that flax fiber we had such hopes for,” Thadda the Weaver said grimly. “It seemed perfect for thread until you got a spindle full of it. Then it withered into a handful of cobwebs. I’m beginning to think this world’s accursed!”

Makenna suddenly remembered a conversation she hadn’t thought important at the time. “Harcu, when you first started working this stone, you told me it was ‘funny’ and ‘not right.’ What was wrong with it?”

Most humans found the Stoners’ faces unreadable. Makenna had dealt with them enough to see his baffled frustration. Stoners were the least articulate of all the goblin kindred. The Bookeries, the Charmers, the Makers, and even the scatterbrained Flichters considered them stupid, but Makenna had long since realized that a slow tongue didn’t necessarily mean slow wits. She waited patiently as the Stoner tried to fit complex knowledge into his limited vocabulary. Finally, his thick shoulders rose in a shrug. “Not solid.”

“We know it’s not solid,” said Dannut, almost dancing with fury. “That’s why it’s crumbling to bits! That’s why—”

Tobin, who had joined the group so quietly she hadn’t noticed him, laid a gentle hand on Dannut’s shoulder and the goblin stopped yelling—though his scowl made words unnecessary.

Harcu turned away.

“Wait,” Makenna said urgently. “If you can’t fulfill your bargain, the least you can do is try to tell us why.”

Not fulfilling a bargain was serious insult among goblins. Harcu stopped.

“Underwalls built. Bargain full.”

“Well, they’re not built now.” Makenna glanced at the collapsing stones. “But I don’t believe that’s your fault. You tried to tell me, didn’t you? To tell me there was something wrong with the stone.”

Harcu nodded. Makenna didn’t recognize the expression in his flat eyes.

“What was wrong with it?” she asked. “I wasn’t paying attention then, but, I promise you, I’m listening now.”

Harcu shrugged again. It was the usual response of a Stoner who couldn’t put something into words, but Makenna persisted. “Harcu, try. I think this is important. What was wrong with the stone?”

“Not solid,” Harcu repeated. “Not solid solid. Not stone solid. Not stone.”

“Well, if you knew it was shoddy materials,” said Dannut, “then you owe—”

Tobin must have suppressed him, but this time Harcu didn’t turn away. And now Makenna recognized the look in his eyes, for the same fear rose in her own heart.

“Are you telling me that it’s not that it wasn’t sound,” she said slowly, “but that it wasn’t real stone?”

Harcu nodded.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Thadda said. “Of course the stone’s real.”

“As real as the plant fiber you spun,” said Makenna. “Which made a fine strong thread for almost three days and then broke when you blew on it. As real as timber that dried straight and true, then warped into pretzels as soon as we tried to build.”

Erebus, who’d been watching curiously, spoke for the first time. “What are you saying, mistress? If this world wasn’t real, we’d all have starved by now.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Makenna admitted. “But we need to find out. And someone besides me is going to have to power the spells,” she added. “My magic still hasn’t recovered from casting the gate.”

In truth, she felt like her magic was weaker now than when she’d arrived, but that had to be nonsense.

“Thadda, you’re a strong Maker. If I laid out the runes, do you think you could feed them power?”

Makenna was already reaching for one of the buttons on her vest, but the little woman’s uneasy frown stopped her.

“Mistress, I’d be willing to try, but you’d be better asking someone else. My magic…I don’t know where it’s going, these last weeks, but it’s as feeble as an infant’s. I’d say I was overusing it, if I’d been able to do anything. Maybe someone else?”

No one volunteered. The dread on the faces around her grew.

“What?” Tobin asked. “What is it?”

Someone had to say it aloud. “All of us?” Makenna asked. “Are you telling me that the magic of everyone in this camp is gone?”

The silence that fell then felt like a drought wind blowing through her bones. One by one they turned to Tobin.

“Don’t look at me! I don’t have any magic to lose. If there’s something suppressing all your magic, we’ll find out what it is and put a stop to it.”

He tried to sound calm and confident, but Makenna thought that he’d known something was wrong before any of them. His ordinary face was thinner now, and he’d been jumping at shadows for several weeks.

If their magic was being stolen away, “something wrong” wasn’t the half of it. Magic was the only way in or out of this world, and right now “out” looked like a really good idea. Making flax rot, wood warp, even solid stone crumble—that was one thing—what could possibly reach into their own bodies and steal the magic out of blood and bone?

“What in the Dark One’s name is going on here?”