Tobin stood on the wall, looking back down the road into the woods. They’d come all the way by road, hoping Master Lazur would assume they’d leave it and waste lots of time searching for tracks—after he’d reduced the chaos to order, caught some horses, and stitched the tack back together! A reminiscent grin lit Tobin’s face, in spite of his tension, for it had been gloriously funny. How she had laughed at it all.
He looked down at the girl as she scrambled over the rocks around the gap in the wall to set yet another careful rune. Some of the runes glowed faintly in the gray predawn and some were dark. He’d asked her why some glowed and some didn’t, and she’d snarled that she hadn’t any idea and then demanded the Otherworld stone as an “essential object,” whatever that was. Since she seemed to need it, he was glad he’d forgotten to give it back to Master Lazur—and even more glad the hiding charms would keep the priest from scrying it.
He wrapped his arms around himself to fight the chilly air, his eyes wandering over the sea of small dark forms crowded around the gap. There were thousands of goblins, of every sort he’d ever seen and a few he thought he hadn’t, but he couldn’t be sure, for they milled about in the dimness, searching for friends and loved ones.
Cogswhallop had dashed up when they first arrived and reported that all who were willing to go were here, which was the best he could do in a day and a night. Tobin was about to ask about the unwilling, but Makenna simply nodded, and the goblin dashed off again before he’d had a chance.
Tobin looked down the road again and prayed with all his heart that those who were here would be able to escape. Makenna spoke softly a word he’d never heard. She was standing in the center of the gap, reading aloud from one of the books piled at her feet. He fought down a surge of impatience. It was a new spell and she was working at a level, and with powers, she’d never used before—and any mistake would kill all who followed her. She had every reason to have taken almost two hours about it, and maybe she should have taken longer.
A small part of Tobin’s mind had been following Master Lazur’s imagined progress. It would take time to restore order and get men organized and mounted. But he’d never underestimated the priest, and now he watched the road with increasing tension, for he knew they’d be here soon. He hoped that the goblins and the girl would be gone when they came.
He wished with all his heart that he could go with them.
It had first crossed his mind when they rode away with the books, and he realized with astonishment that they’d succeeded. Until then he’d thought only of making the escape possible. Once it was possible, he had suddenly realized that they’d all be leaving. Without him.
It was ridiculous, he thought angrily, that people he’d only known a few weeks (and for most of that time as enemies!) should have a stronger grip on his heart than his own family and friends.
But as they warred, quarreled, and finally strove together, he’d caught glimpses of a girl who was neither hedgewitch nor commander, but simply herself. They weren’t even friends, not really, but he’d seen enough of this girl to know she was someone he wanted to befriend. And the goblins he simply loved. He couldn’t imagine the world without them.
He looked down again. She’d shut her eyes and was chanting now. The book had fallen to her feet. He hoped she was getting it right.
He had duties in this world, he reminded himself. The humans, his people, were about to engage in a desperate fight for their very survival. And he now understood Jeriah’s desire to change the government, for his own eyes had been opened to the need for reform. But that was the work of a lifetime, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to endure a lifetime of fighting to change a people whom he had seen perhaps too clearly.
He closed his eyes for a weary instant, blocking out the vision of a future of duty and service, of trying to reshape something he no longer cared about.
But he loved his family. He’d promised Jeriah he’d come back. Even if he couldn’t return openly, that oath still bound him.
He opened his eyes and saw mounted men with torches charging down the road. They’d be here in minutes! Wild visions of blocking the road with his body and commanding them to halt filled his mind. But they were more likely to ride right over him than to stop at his command, and his dead body would make a poor roadblock. Could he draw them away, as Makenna had when they attacked the village? He needed a horse!
He spun about and stopped, staring in frozen wonder. The ragged gap in the wall’s gray stones held a shimmering sheet of radiance. The light came, not from her, but from the air around her, and her face was joyous and serene as he had never seen it. He’d forgotten she was beautiful.
Goblins streamed toward her, a moving river of bodies, and when they entered the wall of light they vanished. They moved so much faster than humans—the crowd of thousands was more than half gone. Tobin climbed down.
From the ground, he could see into the light—there were trees beyond it, and a meadow. But they were young trees, not the dense, ancient forest of the Goblin Wood, and a mountain rose in the distance where no mountain stood in his world.
Standing there, with her people flooding past and the light shimmering around her, she looked every inch a sorceress, and also a stranger, and the thought of her as a stranger left something cut and bleeding inside him.
I can’t go with you.
Then she opened her eyes, and the mockery in them made her familiar again. “Coming, are they?”
“Uh, yes, but they won’t be here for a few minutes. You did it. And in time, too.”
“Didn’t think I could, did you?”
“You were the one who thought that.” The stream of bodies was lessening, and she reached down and began to gather up the books, stuffing them back into the scrip bag.
“What are you going to do with those books?”
“Take ’em with me, of course.”
“Of course.”
The mockery in her eyes deepened, but there was a gentleness in them, which was new to her. “He’s taken enough from me. I don’t mind robbing him. Are you coming, lordling?”
“My duty is here. My family. My people. Though I’m an outlaw now.”
She snorted. “Don’t let that worry you. Just tell them some tale about how you slew the fearsome sorceress and all her goblins. Say you made me fumble a spell or some such thing, and we all disappeared in a blast of light.”
“They’d never believe that.”
“Why not? We’ll all be gone. They’ll have to accept it, sooner or later. Master Lazur’s a practical sort, he’ll forgive you once he’s sure we’re really gone. You’ll be a hero again. If you were a priest, they’d likely make you a saint!”
I can’t go with you. My parents. Jeriah.
The last small bodies darted past her. He could see them in the meadow, laughing, cheering. The sun was rising there, too. He heard hoofbeats pounding nearer.
Makenna heard them, too; she looked at him and smiled. “Lordling…Tobin, thank you.”
In her smile he saw the loneliness of all her life to come—a life where, for all the friendship around her, she would hear no human voices, and her own humanity would slip away and be lost.
She turned and walked into the Otherworld, and the shimmering portal began to fade.
I am supposed to be the good son….
“Ah, dung,” said Tobin. He followed her.