The Grimjinx Rebellion (11 page)

17

Oberax

“Confession may be good for the soul, but passing the blame is good for the purse.”

—par-Goblin proverb

S
eers see possible futures,
Aubrin had told me.

Apparently, none of these possible futures involved me working side by side with the Dowager again at Redvalor Castle like I wanted. Those days seemed like a dream, unlikely to come again.

Aubrin had also said that if you acted to stop one possible future, you could accidentally bring about an altogether worse one. That thought made me afraid to do anything. With my luck, I'd put on my shoes in the morning and make a volcano erupt.

But the longer we stayed in hiding, the clearer it became. Being afraid of making a worse future meant you never did anything to make a
better
future.

I started every day by telling myself, “I do
not
believe in destiny. I make my own future.”

The hope being, of course, that if I said it enough, I'd start to believe it.

“Fifteen minutes.”

Slime seeped through my trouser legs as I knelt at the edge of the swamp. The mist that rose off the filthy water took on the scarlet glow of sundown. I dipped my sieve into the mire, scraped the pond's bottom, and pulled it out again. Silt drained through the tiny holes, leaving a handful of rocks that shimmered in the dim light.

“I told you the swamp would be a great place to find glowstones,” I said, chucking the rocks into Tree Bag with the others we'd collected.

“Fourteen minutes.”

I was starting to regret giving Callie my fob watch to keep an eye on the time. She did it a little too well. My ninth cousin, Sillrick Grimjinx, always said, “The fewer the minutes, the greater the inspiration.” Well, I had
plenty
of inspiration. I'd have traded six buckets of it for just a few more minutes.

I jumped to my feet and grabbed Tree Bag. Callie pocketed my watch and eyed the sack warily.

“Will it be enough?” she asked.

“It'll have to be,” I said. “We're almost out of time. Come on.”

We sloshed our way through the morass and took off. Clouds choked the night sky, hiding both moons somewhere beyond the treetops. As wide as a house and endlessly tall, the everember trees provided the only light to guide us on. Beneath their mottled bark, the trunks radiated a pale orange glow like a dying fire.

“Thirteen minutes,” Callie announced as we raced forward.

“You don't even have the watch out anymore,” I said.

“I was guessing.”

Ahead, we could hear commotion—people rushing about, shouting orders back and forth. A bell, deep and hollow, sounded ten times.

“Ten minutes,” I muttered.

As the trees cleared, torchlight led us to the outskirts of Slagbog. We slowed as we passed the mud huts of the par-Goblin village. A motley assortment of par-Goblins, humans, and Aviards scurried about. Some lugged huge barrels down the tiny village's single long street. Others pushed carts filled with root vegetables toward the center of the town. Nearly everyone in the village—all fifty of us—was busy. A typical scene for the end of the month.

Callie and I headed straight for the town square. There, a massive cauldron hung over a roiling fire. Standing over the cauldron, a hooded figure used a wooden plank to stir the pot's bubbling, viscous contents. I peeked over the cauldron's edge.

“Six months in hiding,” I muttered softly with a smile, “and your cooking hasn't improved.”

The figure drew back her hood and I got the nastiest look ever from the Dowager. She wore a black wig, its long strands woven into a braid. Fake sagpox pustules dotted her face, an important part of her disguise. It kept most people from getting too close and realizing her true identity.

“Six months in hiding,” the Dowager retorted, “and I've yet to see you cook!”

Nearby, Aubrin climbed onto a wooden scaffold next to the cauldron. Her once-long red hair had been cut short, disguising her as a boy. Fake scars crisscrossed her face, making her hardly recognizable. She leaned over the pot and added a bucket of chopped herbs to the mixture within.

“Everything okay, Jinxface?” I asked.

“I'm fine,” Aubrin said cheerily. “Farkada is the one
making a stir
.” She pointed to the Dowager.

Callie and I groaned. We were on the run, in mortal danger every second of our lives, and my sister was still making bad jokes.

The Dowager
humph
ed
at her fake name. When we first went into hiding and chose false identities, the Dowager thought she was being clever by picking the name Farkada. She thought it meant “wisdom” in ancient par-Goblin. She was so proud, we didn't have the heart to tell her that it meant “ancient.” By the time she found out the truth, too many people knew her as Farkada and we couldn't change it.

The bell sounded five times. “Zoc,” I cursed, grabbing a fistful of glowstones from Tree Bag. Then I shouted, “I need that mortar. And a pestle. Now!”

“Tyrius!”

My neck muscles tensed as I heard my false name bellowed by a painfully familiar voice. I turned to find a pudgy, short par-Goblin marching toward me. Her green-gray skin glistened with sweat. The white hair that shot from her long, slender ears practically covered the sides of her head like a rug.

“Oberax!” I said. “Madam Mayor. Good to see you. Have you trimmed your nose hairs? They're looking very—”

Oberax growled. “Where is your father?
He's
supposed to prepare the tribute.”

“Da is . . . elsewhere at the moment.”

The par-Goblin's lip twitched like a stickworm. “You don't mean he's—”

“Afraid so,” I said.

Oberax gurgled. For a moment, I worried she was choking on her own anger.

“Now? He's doing it
now
?”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Everything's under control.”

She shook off my arm. “Under control? We're one cask short.” She pointed to the scaffold. Three wheelbarrows filled with vegetables sat atop the wooden platform. Nine wooden casks as tall as me sat next to the wheelbarrows, a dull orange glow emanating from under the lids.

“The tribute is to include
ten
casks of everember sap,” Oberax said, reminding me of something I already knew too well.

“Yes, but we've been draining the forest dry of sap for months,” I said. “We came up a mite shy this time.”

“If we don't have ten casks—”

“You'll have the last cask,” I said, “as soon as I get a mortar and pestle.”

A slim par-Goblin hobbled over and handed me the equipment. Aubrin dumped the glowstones into the mortar. With the pestle, I broke the rocks apart, grinding them to dust. The powder twinkled with a soft light that grew brighter the harder I pressed.

Oberax groaned as she understood what I was doing. “You wouldn't. You can't!”

“The Palatinate will never know one cask is fake,” I said. “They'll think it was a bad batch from a sick tree.”

At least, that's what I'd hoped when I'd concocted the plan an hour earlier. I continued grinding and looked confident. As my great-great-aunt Turrina Grimjinx always said, “Fake or real, the currency of confidence spends the same.” If that was true, I was
rich
.

Aubrin poured the glowstone dust into the cauldron. Inside, the sap from a regular mokka tree burbled and fizzed. As the dust mixed in, the sap started to pulsate with an orange radiance. As the bell sounded twice, we had our fake everember sap.

“Ready to go,” I said. A group of burly men transferred the sap into a tenth cask.

I'd just saved the village by completing the tribute, but Oberax looked unimpressed. “If this doesn't work, we're finished,” she said.

“Oberax,” I said with a smile, “trust me. This has never not worked.”

The par-Goblin grumbled and strode over to the scaffold where the men were placing the tenth cask with the others. Aubrin jumped down from her chair and poked me.

“But, Jaxter,” she whispered, “we've never tried this before.”

“Exactly,” I said. “This has never not worked.”

The bell rang out with a single, lonely sound. Oberax cupped her hands around her mouth. “It's time!” she shouted.

The village's sparse population lined the square. Aubrin squeezed my arm and looked up at me pleadingly.

“Jaxter . . . ,” she whispered. In the past six months since Vesta had fallen and we'd all met up in Slagbog, we'd made it through several inspections. And each time, Aubrin got nervous.

“It's okay, Jinxface,” I said.

The Dowager took Aubrin and Callie by the hand and moved near the abandoned cheese shop. Those three pretended to be a family to throw off suspicion. I checked to make sure my false nose was in place and pulled a tattered cap down over my hair, long since dyed blond.

A hush fell over the village. The fire beneath the cauldron crackled and snapped. The only two things I could feel were the cool night breeze and my heart pounding like it wanted out of my chest.

The air above burst open. A ring of blue light appeared. Two cowled mages descended, landing softly near the scaffold. A moment later, three magravores flew from the circle. These days, mages never traveled without magical creatures for protection. Winged lizards twice the size of my da, magravores feasted on liars, according to par-Dwarf legend. If that was true, Slagbog was on the menu.

One mage stepped forward and threw back his cowl. Xerrus. After all the inspections he'd done in Slagbog, it was pure, dumb luck that he hadn't recognized us. Yet.

“Is the tribute ready?” Xerrus's voice boomed.

Once the Palatinate had asserted their control, anyone who'd professed loyalty to the High Laird had been imprisoned. Castellans and magistrates alike had been deposed in favor of the five mage-thanes who ruled their respective Provinces. The Lordcourt replaced yearly taxes with monthly tributes of food, money, and anything else they desired.

Xerrus served as mage-thane of Jarron Province. Since assuming the job, he'd gotten a reputation for his cruelty. A
well-earned
reputation.

Arms behind his back, Xerrus walked slowly down the street, inspecting each and every person. Everyone lowered their eyes obediently as he passed.

“For a par-Goblin village,” Xerrus shouted, “you don't have many par-Goblins. I find this strange, Oberax.”

The mayoress sneered at Xerrus. “After we give you our food, we barely have enough to live on. Half my people left for the town-states, thinking they'd find more to eat. Slagbog would have died if we hadn't taken in refugees.”

What she said was true. When the Palatinate began seizing land and assets, many people had found themselves homeless. They wandered the Provinces, seeking charity. But few were allowed to settle in Slagbog. We were
very
selective about who lived here.

As Xerrus approached, I let my eyes drift to the ground. I waited for him to pass. Instead, he stopped right in front of me, grabbed my chin, and forced me to look up.

My throat clenched. He'd finally recognized me.

“Boy,” he said gruffly, “your hands are glowing.”

I looked down. My palms, covered in a light coat of glowstone dust, pulsed with light. I almost collapsed with relief.

“You know,” I said, wiping my hands on my trousers, “I think you're right. Let me take care of that.”

Xerrus snatched my hand and pulled it so close to his face I could feel his hot breath on my palm. He leaned in, inspecting the dust.

I stammered, trying to come up with a good explanation. Oberax leaped from the scaffold and stomped toward Xerrus, arms swinging at her sides.

“You're working us to death,” Oberax shouted. “In trying to collect the sap, this boy fell into a cask and nearly drowned. It's a wonder he's not glowing all over. What does it even matter? You've got your tribute. Now leave us be.”