Fate Deals the Cards Temperance

  Chapter 21 Everybody Wants Me Lucky Charms

  Reggie and Mary were a serious problem… My workshop was out of bounds and we couldn’t really move, if we needed to, which was more worrying. I could manage without my tools and supplies for now, but being immobile made me nervous, since I’d left a mess on the beach, not far off.

  I regretted letting that poor kid get hammered like that, but there wasn’t much to be done now but heal and keep living. Those slavers weren’t doing either anymore, so that was nice.

  Feelings and such aside, things were getting sticky, unless I wanted to abandon those two in the woods and beat feet. I felt like I owed that bunny kid something, or something… shut up! The girl was maybe ten at the most, so I was stuck, there was no way I could ditch her.

  Thera still couldn’t look at me or be near me, but she and Mary hit it off. Reggie was barely mobile, only able to stagger to the privy and baths with help from the two girls who tended him with such care.

  Sara and Beryl provided medicines and food through Thera, while I kept every-gob strictly out of my workshop and cleared the baths when they were using them and tried to stay out of the way. That meant wandering the hills at night and hiding in the house most of the day.

  Just bumbling in there, all ‘Hey I’m the cool goblin’ would be dramatic and super edgy, If I were a huge, chuuni asshole. Those two kids and Thera were fragile and surrounded by their natural enemies… including a particularly nasty looking specimen with a tendency to spit blood at awkward moments. I wasn’t anything they were going to just be super chill around, anytime soon.

  My wives and the harem at large were going to be a nightmare by themselves. Tribal goblin society was a lot to deal with… chaotic and communal, my ladies shared everything and only valued trinkets. They only kept as many as they could carry with ease and traded them with each other often. Shiny rocks, exotic feathers, colorful shells or beads were all popular; as well as small handcrafts like painted nutshells or necklaces of bones.

  Clothing was strictly optional… Many wore a loincloth or grass skirt and little else, some wore nothing at all beyond a few beads or bones. Our surplus of food freed up a lot of time for handicrafts, so we had a lot of simple jewelry going around, as clever fingers found ways to display their favored trinkets.

  If they had a vice; if I needed to point at one thing… My cheerful and charming girls loved to gamble. They were often competitive and built friendly rivalries that often became intimate relationships. So, goblin stuff.

  The bizarre nature of their chief was not going to reassure anyone. That was just a cold hard fact. I needed an icebreaker, an irresistible force to shatter the immovable wall of fear.

  Princess Sapphire and her runties were my best shot. They had teeth and fangs, but were also tiny, adorable and less threatening at first glance than a housecat. Best of all, they were smart.

  Primitive, primal, a little clueless but social and clever. Those cute little menaces would ease the introduction of the ladies, then I would just have to stay out of sight… I admit, not a master plan. An unseen, often mentioned goblin chief would be a figure of menace, not an immediate and mortal peril from their darkest nightmares.

  Goblins were born with way more thinkin’ stuff than humans and were pretty much at their full smarts by two seasons old. Boys were not allowed in any clan led by a witch, so any apprentice who came up babyful and birthed a boy would have to foster the child, or leave and return to her studies once the pup left the nest.

  In most tribes, boy gobbs were often turned out into the wild before their second year, as they became unpredictable by three and utterly wild by seven.

  In the wild they were sneaky, hungry, cowardly little thieves. Think about monkeys or raccoons with rudimentary language skills and the simplest stone tools. They were asocial, strictly solitary outside breeding season and unlikely to get up to anything more serious than stealing chickens.

  The other worlds knew very different goblin men… Mad with lust and mind broken by the touch of the abstract and eldritch void; the goblin raiders that descended on lonely villages across the cosmos were very different indeed from wild goblin men. All of which was just me prevaricating, before doing what had to be done. “Tell Thera. Today. Must be today.”

  “They will adapt, my chief. If you are too careful of precious things they will go unused and gather dust.” Sarafina muttered, as she spidered her way out to find the runties and unleash them on those poor kids in the basement.

  /

  “Mary, Reggie… When we go to bathe this morning, you will meet the Mistress. Do not be alarmed or distressed.” Thera announced when she brought breakfast down from the upstairs hatch. “The Mistress is kind and without guile. You have no cause for concern.”

  The food was strange, but good and there was plenty of it, which was a huge change from the slave pen. Mary and Reggie devoured the thin, strangely rich rice gruel, loaded with shredded meat of some kind, warm flatbread and meal-cakes, boiled eggs and a salad of herbs with fruit.

  Soon it was bathtime, another undreamt of luxury!

  The steamy baths, surrounded by bamboo and flowering plants were familiar now, after days of not exactly captivity. Though they had never been joined by anyone but Thera, before.

  “Hi, I’m Saphie, princess of this castle! These are my loyal knights!” The tiny, faintly frightening, but frankly, adorable creature said, with absolute confidence.

  Barely two feet tall and hardly more than a toddler, she led a small band of equally minor threats, some a little older, some a little younger. They all splashed and paddled in the bath, clowning and giggling together, when Mary and Reggie came out to bathe.

  “Oh, dear…” Reggie muttered, sounding nervous and confused at once.

  “Are they goblins?” Mary finally asked, deeply upset and unsure about so many things. “I really think they might be goblins”

  “We is the goblin knights!” One of the tiny terrors shouted merrily.

  “Gods and spirits above and below…” Reggie whispered desperately, his face pale.

  “Goblin children they are.” Thera declared calmly. “Their mothers and aunties are in the village around this house, a goblin village.” She paused for them to freak out a little. “You have not been harmed, nor will you be. My Mistress is the princess Sapphire, who is also your patron; thus you are my brother and sister in her service.”

  “We serve her?” Mary asked very softly, while Saphie took a flying leap from a long stalk of bamboo, vaulting herself into the pool.

  “We serve only her.” Thera confirmed gently. “No other may command us, though some may ask for help with things, from time to time. We are permitted to refuse.”

  The two sat there for a while, the big boy with the white furred bunny ears and the small, blue eyed, dark haired girl, side by side and feeling very alone in a very scary world.

  “I will be with you.” Thera cooed gently. “As will the princess and her knights.” For some inexplicable reason, that was a comforting thought.

  “Rise and dress, we must meet the women of the tribe. They are not cruel or wicked, as you will soon see, but they are… a lot.”

  /

  “It goes better than I had hoped, chief.” Sarafina muttered as we snuggled in my nest together a bit after midday, which was bedtime for me.

  “The girl is adapting well and has become very close to Thera. Your daughter will shatter her resistance and fear soon. The rabbit… he is being brave for her, but is still a rabbit among many predators.”

  I purred my appreciation and got an ear scratch as a reward… Delightful!

  “You are correct in your belief that seeing you would be… unfortunate. They remain flighty and nervous, under the surface.” She murmured in my ear.

  “Make ready… must move. Feel something coming.” I mumbled sleepily. “Is chancey, tricksy…”

  “Ah, a trickle of witch’s sight… a glimpse of what may be. Tell me more, chief.” Sara purred softly as my mind drifted between waking and dreams.

  “Is dangerous… Unpredic… Unpredi… Changes lots and lots.” Soft, warm claws stroked my hair and I drifted too far away to remember any more.

  /

  “... my cousin runs an inn by the inner baily, my lord. He can accommodate you if you are weary.”

  “I will seek my own lodgings, captain… Farewell. May your next journey bring you the rewards you have earned by your works, captain Ingersoll. Yes, the signs indicate that you shall enjoy most fully, the rewards you have earned in service to the Light…”

  Dressed in robes of dizzying cut, color and fabrics, the man swept out in a whisper and hush of rich cloth and sumptuous aromas. Jewels and gold gleamed at his hands, throat, ears, brow and nose; glittering ornaments and precious things draped every inch of the tall and striking figure.

  He swept down the gangway and into the streets of LightPort, heedless of the filth and grime that quickly befouled his hems and silken slippers. “Fare as well as you deserve, captain!”

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  The odd seer murmured in a musical and singsong voice as he vanished among the beggars and gutter trash that thronged the outer docks.

  “Odd passenger.” First mate Hegget grumbled as the man disappeared in the swarming beggars that descended on the perfumed idiot. “He’ll be naked and bleeding out in the gutter by third bell.”

  “A pox on that worm.” The captain grunted. “He paid his passage and landed ashore, now he’s fair game, nice and legal. Roust the boys were going to pluck that ripe pigeon before anyone else does. We snatch him and pull out fast!”

  /

  “Paid …with a rare jewel the likes of which I’ve never seen before! He’s a fine mark and will sell for a few more coins, once in chains!” Hegget whispered to the foredeck crew, as they stalked the idiot in princely robes through the stinking slums. Following his trail with ease, as the beggars, cut-purses and urchins swarmed all around him.

  He danced through the crowd with manic glee, careless of the filthy, reaching hands and imploring cries. His fine robes were already filthy and torn, even as he passed out iron bits and small sweets to the urchins and mendicants openhandedly. Within a few blocks, the swirling melee vanished; long before the sailors could get close, or find an opportunity to put a blade in him and bustle him away for looting…

  The fellow just vanished, as if the crowd had torn him to pieces and carried him away in their pockets. Beggars and street rats scampered by, clutching a shirt or a fine outer robe, or some small ornament frequently. A large volume of such things passed by, as if the man’s personal goods had been cracked open and pillaged by the street filth.

  “Did he have any baggage with him?” Jenkins asked, sounding confused and a little nervous, when a local goodwife ran by, wearing one of the man’s silly, multicolored robes.

  The first mate just shrugged and headed back to the ship, where the captain’s wroth awaited them.

  /

  A tall, dirty and impoverished man strolled out of the mob, dressed in ragged and filthy homespun and smiling from within his tattered hood, as he whistled a tune on his way out of town and into the trackless, goblin infested wilds of a whole new world.

  “I love a fresh new road under my feet.” He murmured to a songbird, as he cast his jeweled and gilt bone tiles onto an elaborate mandala embroidered on a fine silken cloth.

  “Ah, probability is all fucked… North, I think.” He whispered to himself as the ragged beggar drew a strange guitar from his sleeve, where it couldn’t have fit and began to strum and whistle a tune from far away and long ago.

  Bungle, in the jungle…

  Well that’s all right,

  By me…

  /

  “I sent Wheel of Fortune, brother. That world is closed to me.” The Necromancer sighed sadly. “He is not so flighty and fae as he seems. He can be relied on.”

  “I’m not certain you understand fully, how seriously I take this, Chariot!” Judgment snapped angrily. “That child must be found and returned, unharmed!”

  “You know exactly how outrageously unlikely that outcome is, brother. And call me Necro.” The gaunt, cadaverous and pale man hissed softly at his blunt, heavily muscled brother. “If any one can extract a treasure from that midden heap, it is Wheel. Trust me he can find your friend’s child, or no one can.”

  “A fool and a spendthrift… That bizarre clown is more likely to wind up in need of rescue, himself!” Judgement grumbled angrily at the undead creature and sighed.

  “Of all worlds, in all the realms, why the goblin dungeon? We couldn’t have any worse luck!”

  “On the other hand, we have finally found their goblin breeding world, at last. Now perhaps something can be done to stem that tide of vermin and filth.” Necro soothed his irritable brother. “Wheel arranged a special gift for you, before he left.”

  “A gift, from that moron?” The man in brown and dust colored clothes mumbled angrily. “Probably something silly.”

  “Oh, very silly indeed. He bought passage on the very slave trader that we both have been searching for, the one that took your friend’s child. He paid his fare with the mate of this lovely jewel.”

  The pale man offered a brightly colored, egg-shaped gem on his palm, striped in a glittering array of rainbow hues that flashed and sparkled with every shift of the light.

  “Enspelled by the Lovers to incite avarice and greed, he will not sell it at any price. With this, you will find the Light’s Breeze, wherever that vermin sails.” The pale man smiled, showing too many and too sharp teeth to be anything human and chuckled hollowly.

  “The master of the Swarm Dungeon is helpful to our cause, despite his inability to travel the realms.”

  Judgment took the small stone and nodded soberly. “I mislike these strange and outre new members, Chario… Necro. The Swarm is supposedly unable to leave his dungeon and the Hive…” He shuddered in his faded brown robes and grimaced.

  “That one is alien and distressing.” Necro agreed, nodding slowly. “But Strength and I cannot be everywhere and we need as many as can be found. Hive declines formal membership, in any case. They find us difficult to interact with as well.”

  The gaunt figure in black nodded again, as he walked toward a crypt entrance in their graveyard meeting place. “I must depart, this light pains me. Have faith, brother. Wheel of Fortune is… Well, he always gets results, even if they are seldom what we might expect.”

  The Necromancer faded from existence and Judgement’s finely honed senses, the instant he stepped into the shadow of the crypt, vanishing back to the Eternal Halls. The most disturbing and super creepy dungeon world in all the vastness of the ether, richly deserved its creepy and eldritch master.

  “Bloody chuuni.” Judgment grumbled, his eyes resting hungrily on the tiny stone that was even now guiding him to the unfortunate slaver’s ship, somewhere in the void.

  /

  Twentyfive miles north of Lightport, up the long, muddy road that hugged the coast, the tall man in ragged homespun halted his mile devouring, casual stroll. Some trick of the mist or fog made him seem to fly along as fast as a galloping horse while shuffling and half skipping in feckless delight along, strumming his odd instrument into the fog.

  “Oh, so many shades and haunts… No wonder Necro wasn’t keen to come.” He murmured at the leering spectres that emerged from the mist, gibbering and imploring his aid from beyond the veil.

  He blew a long breath at the nearest haunt, dispersing it and dozens of others in a gust of something else from his lungs. “Poor bastards.”

  A new and fresh haunt came lurching from the fog, moments later, his face and throat just absolutely wrecked, begging for bloody vengeance on whatever or whoever had done for him. Recently too.

  A fluttering scrap of cloth on a pole caught Wheel’s eye, drawing his attention from the haunt, and back to the living world.

  “No? How fortunately unfortunate!” He muttered at the sad wreckage of a slave caravan. Two dozen empty shackles and four dead slavers, including the well nibbled remains of that shade, lay on the beach, gathering blowflies and crawling with crabs. Of the slaves there was no sign, just a thoroughly looted camp and two wagons…

  As he walked, he nearly tripped on a very nice sword, scabbarded in fine shagreen leather and mounted with gold and ivory fittings. The blade was keen and still rust free, whispering that it held some minor charm or enchantment when he picked it up.

  A dagger made to match lay nearby, with a few other things, like a golden brooch bearing the sigil of some house or clan, torn roughly from a fine cloak, judging by the scrap of cloth caught in the clasp.

  Small treasures and minor valuables lay scattered around, while cloth and other things had been taken wholesale. By the carts, tools, weapons, gear and camp supplies lay similarly scattered. This was no work of slaves in revolt, they would have taken the things, as would a group of rival slavers or bandits.

  Most of the corpses were too decayed and nibbled to really tell, but at least one was slain with a single blow to the base of the skull, while he slept under a tarp.

  The covering had preserved him from the worst nibbling and crawling things and a quick seance confirmed Wheel’s suspicions.

  A goblin had slain these men and the spirits lingering on the dunes had no clue where the slaves had gone, being obsessed with their own ignominious ends. They neither knew nor cared anything of the names or origins of their slaves, or their fates; as was typical of slave traders in every realm. ‘Cardinal Hammond of Lighthome’ was the only clue he gleaned. The wrecked-face guy was indignant at not being able to make a ‘delivery’ to that ass-bag. Wheel made a note to pay Hammond a call, before escaping this dismal realm. Just because he felt like bringing some misfortune to a slave trader’s client. He’d been inactive for a few centuries after that last time…

  Now it was time to roll the dice.

  “Place your bets!” He cast a quick divination in the sand, spinning a sand-dollar shell and reading its path in the probabilities. “New shooter at the line?”

  That would need further investigation, once he’d found the kid. That was job one and his focus needed to be intense…

  “Oh well, waste not, want not.” He muttered cheerfully, as he began sifting valuables from the rubbish, starting with that brooch, sword and dagger. “Winner takes all!”

  Wheel gathered a small horde of coins and valuables from the spilled contents of the wagons and that once fine pavilion, leaving only the shackles, simple iron tools and such behind. The roll of elaborately decorated and embellished torturers tools and non-consensual sex toys he found in the tent got cast into the waves with a cry of disgust. He left the slaver’s unshriven and unhallowed, to keep haunting their miserable corpses for a while, as he attempted to divine the location of the slaves with his runestones and a pendulum of eldritch, haunted mother of pearl.

  “Northeast, how unlucky.”

  /

  The desolate, foggy road was cold, windswept and damp all the time, but by night with fires forbidden, it was an absolute misery. Men went to their bedrolls damp and woke up wet. They rode out soggy and made camp dripping. Tack became slimy, stretchy and unreliable, even the swamp rated gear that had seen them so far across the wetlands. Blankets and clothing mildewed and reeked, while holding no warmth at all.

  Their goblin slaves had long since been exhausted, the last ritual sacrifice pointing steadily to the north, four days before. They journeyed on, driven by the relentless lord Peltier and his manic moods, even as men began to ‘desert’ with frequency…

  “How disappointing; mark trooper Jones a deserter and strike his name from the rolls. His family will be shamed and punished for his cowardice.” Peltier sighed merrily from deep in his hood, heedless of the blood splashed on his boots; made more obvious as the rain began, sending a steady trickle of red down his stirrup iron. “Ride on, our heading is north-east!”

  /

  “We travel on from this place now, friends. Mistress and her kin will guide us, so have no fear.” Thera said calmly, as they finished breakfast the next morning, long before dawn. “We must go out and join the tribe for the march, prepare yourselves.”

  Obediently both young slaves fell to their knees, wrists held out for shackles and necks awaiting collars that never arrived.

  “We go un-shackled, this is the mistress’ will. My collar is enspelled and cursed, else she would have removed it long ago.” She muttered, fingering her steel linked band and its short chain leash. “I am shamed by how much my collar distresses the mistress. Come, we must depart this place.”

  Together, Mary, Reggie and Thera joined the swarm of goblin women and their children, waiting and watching eagerly for some event to occur.

  An almost carnival atmosphere took over the small crowd of around thirty or forty goblins, as they shared snacks, traded beads and trinkets and chatted carelessly around the taller beings in their midst.

  Leaves filled with crunchy, toasted nuts and ripe fruits were pressed in their hands by gleeful, naked celebrants, who danced and sprang to the surprisingly competent music played by the tiny goblin ‘knights’ on primitive instruments of bone, hide and wood. Princess Saphie led the game, whistling breathy tunes from a panflute, guiding her retainers in the dance and music with her song.

  Without obvious cause, a breathy whisper of wonder passed through the crowd, as the mist thickened for a moment and swirled, obscuring everything. When it blew away, the tall house, garden, trees and even the hotspring were gone, replaced by a wide circle of dark, black soil.

  “Wonders occur in this place. Come, we will see that house again when it is time to rest, my friends. Come, we must travel to our home wherever it sits now.” Thera whispered to the frightened pair of newcomers. “This is as the mistress wills.”

  /

  I stalked and prowled the long column of goblins from a distance, remaining hidden, which Emmie and Alba found deeply annoying and complained about all day; knowing was near and would hear them gripe about their ‘sneaking, layabout husband’ and such. It made me smile, especially since they were getting along so well. Their quartet, including Lapis and Beryl, were power players in my little tribe; operating in their separate cliques and friend groups as captains in my little army of bouncing babes, led by Sarafina the witch.

  My role was to provide the food, shelter, tools, charms and such that might be needed and to kill or drive off anything unpleasant we might encounter. I was so tired I couldn’t see straight anymore… and I was wearing those stupid goggles.

  The runties took turns, riding on my shoulders as I patrolled around the group; acting as my eyes, with highly variable results.

  “Member, tell Ghash about mud holes and bogs, Chrys…” Chrysanthemum’s name was impossible for me, and for most goblins to say. Her mother, Amirylis was obstinate that everyone use her daughter’s whole name whenever she was near, even though Ami couldn’t say it herself… but she could do this thing with her abdominal muscles that… Anyway…! I extracted myself from a sucking pit of black mud and had a roll in the grass while Chrys giggled at me.

  “There’s a nasty mud hole, right there, King-papa.” She chirped, indicating the muck I’d just escaped.

  “Little brat!” I grunted, when she stuck her tongue out at me, before climbing back on my shoulders. It was going to be a long, long day.

  /

  As late afternoon settled in, something appeared in the mist, a ragged sodden pavilion, stripped of most of its canvas and silk and two wagons, with objects strewn about, unidentifiable in the mist and windblown sand.

  “Slave caravan, my lord, four bodies I think. A few days old and scattered widely; the crabs and birds have had at them. Slave revolt, maybe.” Cormac called when he rode back from scouting the scene.

  “No, this is the work of our prey.” Peltier announced with conviction. “Make camp here. Set a tight guard and watch for goblins.”

  “Goblins, my lord?” Axelrod asked very gently.

  “Oh, yes. Goblins.” He answered very coldly. “Set my tent. I am weary.”

  /