"A stone serpent arises.
God of the volcano.
Fire devours the forest."
Aethounda Margodo, Leontide poet on the mighty stone dragon.
—
I sat by myself on the roof of the fortress. I dropped my disguise momentarily to study my aching fingers. There was blood under my claws. They were never made to support my weight. I was never made to fight, to harm and lie and sow destruction. In body and soul, I did not belong here.
Yes, I belong with the other killers. The other people driven by the hate in their hearts. I thought as I picked splinters from my fingertips. Oh or maybe the job I have done my whole life, for an empire that sees me as a tool!
"How's our bread?" A voice made me jump. I turned to see Ki'pokiki peeking out of a trapdoor. I hadn’t even noticed that one.
I looked at the brown lump in my hands. All I could really tell, honestly, was that it was different in texture from any bread I had had in Gurngamos proper. Chewy, even gummy. As for flavor…
"I can't taste anything right now. It feels like I'm chewing on tree-gum." I admitted.
"A shame. It’s the best acorn bread I’ve ever had, personally. I will be sure to have some packed for your trip tomorrow.” Why was she so nonchalant after everything she had said not half an hour ago?
“Are you here to mock me? Giving me a nice muffin to take to the grave, how generous.” I spat.
“Bah. I suppose I deserve that.” Ki’pokiki’s tail bristled for a moment, but she sighed and her fur lay flat again. “You are naive, but it wasn’t fair to yell at you. You aren’t my soldier. You aren’t even an adult.”
“Okay, I am an adult.” I grumbled, letting my own rage fade.
“Eekeekeekee! Alright, little brother.” It was nice to hear her laugh again. “Anyway, you are not going to die. I have a plan.”
Ki’pokiki revealed a tiny glass jar, little bigger than her thumb. It shone green like a little fly, but when she pulled the cork, I saw an impossibly brilliant red pigment within. She set a small brush beside it, the classic cone-tipped style preferred by scribes. The wood was rustic and scratched, but the brush itself was perfectly maintained.
“A few years ago, I learned that some elders to the south of us had invented a written version of our language. I wanted to learn it myself and bought these to practice writing with. I never got the hang of it, but do have what the Gurngamosi call a signature. A little scribble on something, and everybody knows it belongs to me.” She turned the brush over in her hands, beaming with the pride of achievement. “I am going to mark my signature on your shoulder. When you leave the fortress, go west until you find a stream. Don’t cross it, but follow it south, and you will find our real village. Show them my signature, and they will let you stay.”
"Yes! Oh please yes, do it save me!" I was fumbling with my sleeve when I realized the issue.
Squirrelfolk had a thin layer of hair over their bodies, just a little thicker and softer than that seen on humans. I on the other hand simply had some coarse bristles there, more similar to insect hairs. My illusory abilities only applied to the eyes. She would certainly feel the difference. I hesitated. Surely she would just write that off?
No, it wasn’t just that. I couldn’t just leave until I at least knew what happened to Esen and Maarken. And it wouldn't hurt to stick around with Ki'pokiki. She had been kinder than she had any reason to be, even with her lapses. And I wanted to make her smile like that more often.
"No, I can't. I want to help you here. I am not a warrior, but I am not useless either. I am a diplomat by trade. I see conflict between factions, and even conflict among the leadership. Mal'oko was trying to use me as a weapon against you. Make me look like a Gurngamosi spy and you a fool for trusting me." I pointed to the little groups eating on the net below, all divided by their original tribes. "Then there’s the many tribes that make up your people. I belong to none of them. I favor none over the other. I can be useful there too.”
“Hold on, when did you start noticing this? I didn’t take you for such a keen observer.” It was a little insulting, but she sounded genuinely impressed so I took it.
“It’s no different from what I saw in human society. Gurngamos is also made of many peoples who don’t always get along. Really, they are sometimes only held together by hatred for the rest of us.”
“Not too different from us here then, I’m afraid.” Ki’pokiki sighed. “If you’re sure you want to help me, you need to survive, first. Nobody who has been sent to retrieve the golden sword has returned.”
“Yes, that.” My ears drooped again. “Who or what is Ki’margarhara?”
Ki’pokiki sighed and took a deep breath.
“Both a who and a what. Ki’margarhara is the mightiest dragon in all the land, ancient beyond measure. Ki’keoki’ono’kiki battled him when both he and the world were young and impaled him with his golden sword, but he survived and escaped. And since then, he has only grown and grown. He is not the Chief of the Mountain. He is the mountain who is chief, stone as much as flesh and malicious to the core. Houses he devours whole. Entire villages cease to exist when he wanders by them. The Gurngamosi sent scalebreakers after him and he destroyed them and the entire fortress they came from.”
A dragon. I was glad I didn’t wear my true face, because I could feel myself going pale. The sun was already below the trees, and I could just barely now see the true home of the dragons. Behind the first twinkling stars of the night was an infinite sea of black chaos. The unformed, unshaped vestiges of the primordial world before the gods brought it to order.
It was far-separated from us, held at bay by the shining moons and stars. But on nights where the light failed, times of great eclipses and stormy nights, the chaos could leak through and in our world, form into dragons. Death, destruction, the downfall of civilization. From chaos they were born, and chaos they desired. But then I realized something.
“Wait. You said he is made of stone? Does he have a great, long neck or a short one?” I asked.
“Long, longer than a river. Why?”
“Then I have a chance. But unfortunately, I’m going to have to speak to Mal’oko.”
—
It was fully night now, the only light in the fortress that which trickled in through the slit windows. Even my wide eyes could barely see, but Ki’pokiki let me hold her tail as she led me back to the priest’s room. It made my heart flutter a little.
That in itself was disconcerting to me. She wasn't a goblin. It was perverted. Not quite as bad as those who were interested in humans or ogres, to be sure. At least she was the right size, roughly speaking. And hey, nobody could fault me for wanting to think about something else right now. I took a last deep breath in the smoky stretch right before Mal’oko’s room.
“Elder. Malki’bene’ungo wishes to speak with you.” Ki’pokiki spoke from the entrance.
“And it can’t wait till the morning?” Mal’oko faced away from us, hunched over a desk, poring over some stiff parchment pages by candlelight.
“Not at all.” I managed to speak up, earning a twitch from Mal’oko’s ears. “It’s about my quest.”
“Are you giving up without even trying it? Do you know what your other option is?” Mal’oko turned and gave the rope around his neck a tug. My own lip curled in response to the mirthless grin that wrapped around his pipe.
“I do not want to back down, sir. I want to succeed, and I know how I will do it.” I tapped my chest. Red mist burst free like I had pieced my heart and swirled into a solid rose attached to my shirt. I could hear Ki’pokiki gasp, but Mal’oko’s eyes just narrowed. I couldn’t read his expression.
“I have a talent for blue magic, and I think I may be able to fool Ki’margarhara with it. However, I only know enough to cloak my own form. I will need more." I did my best to keep my voice level.
"Chief, can you leave us for a moment? This is a discussion between practitioners of the arts. It is not for your ears." He said.
"Y-yes! I'm sorry, I will wait outside!" Ki'pokiki, much to my shock, immediately bowed out of the room.
"Superstition. She doesn’t understand our science, and so she fears it. I encourage it. Keeps others from poking around in my things. Ahe-heh!" A choked laugh rattled my nerves. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Show me your real face, goblin.”
I hissed, but didn't speak.
“Don’t argue. You made it obvious just now. A talent for blue magic, but only for disguising yourself? I should have seen it sooner. Other goblins have tried the same thing, but none of them were quite so good at it.” Mal’oko leaned back on his table, looking at me like a mildly interesting sculpture he wasn’t sure he wanted to buy.
I clenched my fists, piercing my palms with my own claws. The first thing he saw of the real me was green blood trickling onto my knuckles. That little part of my unconscious mind that kept my disguise up turned off, leaving me as myself.
"I wasn’t going to argue. It was a necessary risk that you figured it out." I grumbled.
"Honestly, I'm mad I didn't before! I really must be getting old. But hey, who thought a goblin would be stupid enough to walk right into the fortress?" Mal’oko took up his gnarled staff and gestured. "Sit already. I will hear you out. Tell me why I shouldn't tell the chief who you are and give you to the gods."
"Fine. You want it put simply? If I succeed, you get dragon blood." I smiled at the face he made. "If you don't know why you would want it-"
I was sideways. On the floor, in face. I wasn’t sure why. It smelled like dirt down here, which wasn’t bad, but I didn’t exactly seek it out. I tried to get up, but my limbs didn’t do what I wanted them to do. There was a barrier between me and my body. I should have panicked, but I just felt a little confused and distant. Then suddenly, I could feel and move again and my head exploded.
“ARGH!” I grabbed my temple. Pain erupted there, bounced off the other side of my skull, and returned doubled. Mal’oko watched me whimper for a moment, a mossy smear on his staff. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt and slapped his palm down over the injury he had inflicted on me. For a moment, the pain doubled once more, but motes of white light flowed over my vision and it subsided. My scalp itched violently as the torn skin mended itself.
“You arrogant lime lapdog. What did you think was going to happen when you insulted me?” His hand moved down to wrap around my ear, yanking me into a sitting position. “Let’s make something clear. I own you now. You want me to teach you? Fine. The first lesson is to treat your master with respect.” Mal’oko gave my ear another sharp tug before standing up and walking to the entrance. “Ki’pokiki? You should return to your room. Yes, he’s fine. He will be studying with me tonight.”
There were a few mumbled exchanges I was too dizzy to fully understand before I heard Ki’pokiki’s footsteps retreating. Mal’oko returned to study his bookshelf, grabbing a few different tomes and placing them on his desk. Seeing me still sitting, he clucked his tongue.
“Malki. Stand. I am sorry, I disciplined you too harshly. But I have already healed the injury, and we only have until the morning.” Mal’oko extended a hand and reluctantly I took it. I was still reeling. My blood still stained the back of his axe-staff and now he was playing nice. I looked at his face and caught a kind smile as he opened his textbooks and pointed out passages. It turned my blood to ice.
Once, I had seen a show put on at a governor’s mansion. In the courtyard, two poles were set up and a rope tied between them. A young squirrelfolk slave had been forced to walk that rope, with stakes hammered into the ground below him. Now I walked that rope. Esen had scared me. Maarken had scared me. But their smiles were real. So I would do what goblins always did to survive. I would cower and toe the line, and no matter how false that smile was, I would cling to it for dear life.
“A shame. If you had some dragon blood already, this would be easy. It can break our usual magical limits, you know. A little bit of chaos, and you could blind a nation.” One of Mal’oko’s books had a page covered with a grand, sprawling ink drawing of a dragon.
Mountainous coils rose and fell from a black ocean, each one encrusted in infinite scales. Mighty fins rose from its back, limp and languid to the point they looked like wilting lettuce. At the front, overly large, a sinister, sneering canine head rolled up, a tongue with a dozen forks slithering through doubled rows of teeth. Empty eyes of glowing glass leered out at me.
But under those scales, my only salvation coursed. And with it, something else; power.
"I always found the elemental possibilities more interesting. Magic that can be cast no other way." I paused to gage his reaction.
“Oh yes, we aren’t wasting any on little things like illusions.” Mal’oko smiled as he grabbed some twine and tied every empty bottle and jar he had into a bandolier of glass. “I hear a drop is enough to burn down a city. You are going to fill every jar.”
I decided not to argue and simply accepted the bottles, draping them across my torso. I had no intention of risking my life more than necessary, but I would make excuses afterwards rather than complain now. My eyes managed to move from the vicious mass of flesh that was the dragon to the other book Mal’oko had open.
It was centaur-written, either from Eiselk or from before the collapse of their empire. Thankfully, it was written in Gurngamosi script. Apparently they had only put their language to writing after conquering much of what was now Gurngamos, and borrowed our alphabet for it. Unfortunately, translating and dealing with heady matters of magic at the same time quickly gave me a headache.
“Mental magic is a product of the third soul, but also the first, because it is a magic of both that which is hidden and that which is hiding it. Thus, a reinforcement of the vibrations produced by the sub-numinous circuits is mandatory for skillful casting of illusions. With frequency-specific oscillations of the third sphere, perception can be manipulated in regards to physical and metaphysical phenomena-”
“What does any of this mean…” I grumbled, burying the tip of my nose between the two pages as if I could absorb everything at once with my eyes closer to the page. My ear was yanked again to pull my head back.
“Read it again. Then you show what you’ve learned. And you read again, and you try to fool my eyes again. As my apprentice, I expect swift improvement. Let’s make you great, heh?” An axe blade glinted in my face and I winced.
This was unfortunately rather familiar. At the academy, plenty of professors were quick to use the rod whenever a student stepped out of line. But something odd happened when I thought about that.
The shaman was survivable in that context. Just another small man who wanted to shove around the few people with the bad luck to be smaller. Let him do his worst.
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